by Juliet West
How can I ever explain it to them? How can I say goodbye without saying goodbye? I close my eyes and think of Auntie Bea.
‘I had an auntie once, who died when I was a little girl. Auntie Beatrice was her name. Granddad White’s sister. When she died, people said bad things about her, but I know she weren’t bad. Sometimes people die because that is the best thing. They still love the people around them. They always go on loving them.’
‘From heaven?’ asks Alice.
‘From heaven, yes.’ Or wherever they are.
I reach in my apron pocket and take out the twist of tissue paper. Inside there are two enamel buttons, each one painted with a miniature cat. ‘These are special buttons, from Auntie Bea’s favourite dress. Alice, you have this one.’ She takes it as if it were a precious jewel, traces her finger over the Siamese’s green ribbon. ‘And, Teddy, you can have the sleepy tabby.’ Teddy smiles and rubs the button against his cheek.
‘It’s getting late now, children. I’m ever so tired. I think tomorrow we’ll have a lie-in. Don’t come into the bedroom, will you? Let me have a long sleep.’
‘What about school?’ says Alice.
‘Well . . . . one day off won’t harm.’
They give a little cheer and it rips my heart.
I kiss Alice and Teddy and tuck them in, top to toe on the palliasse. My beautiful children.
In the kitchen, I leave out a small pot of jam I queued two hours to buy, plus four slices of bread under a tea towel. I write out a note in printed letters: Do not come into Mummy’s room. If I am still sleeping, call on Mrs Tendler across the landing. Love from your mummy xxxx
I stare down at the note and add another line: xxxxxxx These kisses are from Daniel and Baby Lizzie.
There is a rushing in my ears, the sound of water crashing, pressing down. I can cheat the water. I will not fall. Daniel is waiting for me in the bedroom. One small drink and I’ll always be his. We shall be free.
Part Four
Leman Street Police Station
20th day of July 1918
Police Report
Police Constable Michael Chambers
I beg to report that at 10 a.m. on the morning of 18th July I was sent to number 12 Union Buildings, Adler Street, Whitechapel.
The door was opened by Alice Loxwood, age six years, and her younger brother, Edward Loxwood, age four years. The latter was crying. When questioned as to the whereabouts of their mother, Alice replied that she was still sleeping. I entered the kitchen of the flat and asked the children where their mother was sleeping. They pointed to a set of double doors and said that she was in the front bedroom. I attempted to open the doors, but found they were locked.
A note in the kitchen, apparently from the children’s mother, suggested that they should call on a neighbour, Mrs Tendler. I knocked on Mrs Tendler’s door at number 10 Union Buildings and asked whether she would take charge of the children. She said that she would.
I re-entered number 12 and forced open the locked bedroom door. I entered the bedroom and found a woman and her female child, age two months, lying dead upon the bed. The woman was lying upon her back, dressed in chemise and nightdress, being covered, with the exception of her face, with a sheet, double blanket and bed quilt. The infant, with the exception of shoes and socks, was fully dressed and was lying on her face tightly wrapped in a double blanket, with a linen handkerchief tied loosely round her neck, one end of which was in her mouth. She was also covered over with the sheet and bed quilt, a pillow lying on the top. Both bodies were discoloured and they appeared to have been dead some hours.
On a table, I found six addressed and sealed envelopes, one of them having stamps affixed. Upon opening them, I found jewellery in two and letters in all, the contents of which go to show that the deceased and the prisoner Daniel Blake had agreed to take their own lives and die together the previous night.
I also saw a cup and a glass on the table, the cup containing what appeared to be paste, the glass bearing signs of having contained crystals. On the mantelpiece was a small bottle, the cork stopper removed. I then communicated with Leman Street Station. Dr Clarkwell, divisional surgeon, attended, shortly afterwards followed by Chief Inspector Aherne.
Later that day I went to 15 Sabbarton Street, Canning Town, an address that was written on two of the envelopes, apparently in the handwriting of the deceased. I informed the deceased’s mother, Mrs Susan White, and the sister of the deceased, Mrs Jennifer Danks, of the events that had occurred. I asked if they would be able to care for the deceased’s two children. They said that they would.
I returned to 12 Union Buildings to collect the children’s clothes and keepsakes. The children travelled by police motor car with me to 15 Sabbarton Street, where they were welcomed by their grandmother and aunt.
I then arranged for a telegram to be sent to the husband of the deceased, Private George Loxwood, a soldier in the London Regiment, currently serving in France.
The Times
23rd July 1918
SOLDIER’S HOME-COMING.
Wife And Her Baby Found Dead.
An inquest was opened at Stepney yesterday on the bodies of Hannah Louise Loxwood, wife of a soldier, and her baby daughter, formerly living at Union Buildings, Adler Street, Whitechapel, where the woman and her child were found on Thursday. In the room was a cup which had contained oxalic acid, and tied round the baby’s neck was a handkerchief, its head being wrapped in a blanket.
It was stated that last Thursday morning a man had thrown himself in front of a moving train at Aldgate East Station. The man had a marvellous escape. He was conscious when picked up and gave the name of Daniel Blake. He told the police that they would find the dead body of Hannah Louise Loxwood at Adler Street, adding that he had been living with her, and, as she had had a child of which he was the father, and had heard that her husband was coming home on leave, they decided to take poison.
Private George Alfred Loxwood, of the London Regiment, the husband, said he and the woman were married in 1912, and there were two children. His wife and he had been thoroughly happy, and when he went away, they parted on the best of terms. He had been to Salonika and Egypt, and latterly in France, and had not seen his wife for two years, but her letters had been affectionate.
The following letter in the dead woman’s hand-writing was read:-
Dear Husband – Just a few lines hoping you will forgive me for what I have done, but I cannot help it, as I have loved this man and he has loved me from the first time I met him, and as we cannot have one another, we are going to die together. Whatever a man does he gets out of it, where a woman has to suffer all her life for one wrong. I hope you will see the children looked after for me. I do not want to live without this man. From your wife Hannah.
The inquest was adjourned.
Metropolitan Police
Reference 3/257B
13th day of September 1918
I beg to report that on the eleventh of this month the prisoner Daniel Blake was arraigned before Justice Darling at the Central Criminal Court indicted with the wilful murder of Hannah Louise Loxwood and her female child, further with attempting to commit suicide, the prosecution being conducted by Sir Daniel McMann, the prisoner being represented by Mr Lecount.
The prisoner was tried for the murder of the woman, found guilty and sentenced to death.
42
Pentonville Prison, February 1919
Ludston is sleeping at last. Daniel listens to his vile breathing, the grunts and the mutters and the occasional dull scrape of toenail against coarse bedding. The bedsprings shift in the bunk above as Ludston turns onto his side. A small mercy. He is quieter on his side.
Daniel opens the Arnold collection at the ribboned page. He cannot see the words. Candles are confiscated after lights-out and there is no window in the cell. No moonlight. He traces a finger along the right-hand page, feels the delicate impress of black ink on smooth paper. The words echo through his mind:
Ah love!
Let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Let us be true to one another. He had tried to be true to Hannah. He had held her as she lay, curled in pain. He held her tightly because there was nothing gentle about her death. She clawed at him. There are scars on his chest. And yet she never screamed out. The children slept soundly.
They had planned to take the poison together, but at the last moment she said she would like to go first. Stay with me until the end.
Afterwards he washed her and dressed her in clean nightclothes. He laid her on the bed and kissed her beautiful face. She looked calm.
It was his turn. He stared at the cup on the table. It had taken a long time for her agony to end. Twenty minutes, was it, half an hour? They had thought it would be seconds.
He picked up the cup. No one would be there to hold him, to lay him out, to clean up the vomit and the rest of it. The door was locked, but what if he screamed, if the children managed to open the door and found him writhing? He returned the cup to the table, sat on the bed and held Hannah’s hand. The warmth had drained from her fingers, and her skin was slack. Was Lizzie cold too, under all those blankets? He looked at the small, pitiful mound under the bed quilt, next to Hannah’s body. Little Lizzie. Dear Christ, could this be real? Oh, it was real. The horror of it smashed at his guts, his bowels. He vomited into the slop bucket.
He stood facing the window, rocking on his feet, swallowing down nausea. Is this what his life amounted to? He had striven for so much more. He thought of his mother and the love she wasn’t able to give, the father he had never known. Esther and her distant moods, the children, so happy now with his sister. Only one woman had loved him purely, a love so pure she would rather die than lose him.
He must be true to Hannah.
It was dawn now. Morning sun speared through the lace curtains. Carts would be trundling to the haymarket outside Aldgate East. The underground trains would be running. He dressed quickly. They had left all their money next to the letters. He counted out enough change for a single fare.
Ludston calls out in his sleep. ‘Stickfor now fire’, some such gibberish.
He is allowed one visitor per fortnight, and one letter a week. Lady Tolland comes regularly. Each time she brings him a book and each time he is suitably grateful.
Ellen writes with all the news. Sam and Maddie are getting on grand, no need to worry. They have a new puppy, a brown spaniel called Treacle. Her last letter was longer than usual:
I’ve been chatting with a friend, Mrs Green. She has family in Canning Town. It’s hard to know whether you will want this news, but I hope it might bring you some comfort. By all accounts Alice Loxwood is a bright little spark, ten out of ten in all her spellings, and she won the prize for art. Their uncle is demobbed, and the aunt is expecting another baby. Alice tells everyone she hopes it’s a girl.
He should be dead. He should have jumped two seconds sooner. A woman had sauntered onto the platform, distracting him, breaking his nerve. For a moment he’d thought it was Sonia, the same skinny body and too-big feet.
He might be dead, had it not been for Lady Tolland and her wretched petition. Two thousand two hundred signatures. The world and his wife had made up their minds. The home secretary was convinced. Even the king agreed. Daniel Blake should not hang.
Penal servitude for life.
He shuts the book and closes his eyes.
Some nights he dreams of her, and when he wakes, he can still conjure her face. He can see her beautiful skin, white as apple flesh.
On these nights he feels lucky.
Epilogue
Her friends are at a cocktail party in Knightsbridge, but Alice has decided to stay home to finish packing. The boat for New York leaves on Sunday morning. A six-month trip, her first ever sea crossing. She packs sketchbooks and magazines, a volume of American poetry, which was a gift from one of her actress clients.
Standing at the opened wardrobe, Alice runs her fingers along the clothes pressed together on the rail. She takes out the green day dress and holds it up against her body, turning to face the full-length mirror fixed to the inside of the wardrobe door.
The dress is a talisman, a reminder of her good fortune.
When she entered the drawings into the competition, she was working as a clerk in the windowless back office of a solicitors’ firm in Holborn. Of course, she heard nothing about the competition for weeks, chastised herself for indulging such fanciful dreams. Then one evening she arrived home to find a thick cream envelope standing against the button box. The judges admired Alice’s design for a stylish day dress – the puffed sleeves, the slim black belt and especially the chartreuse-green satin bow, tied voluminously at the throat and printed with silhouettes of Siamese cats. She was awarded first prize, and a commission from a London salon.
The outfit is dated now, over four years old, but she decides to pack it, for luck. She tucks a lavender bag inside each sleeve, folds the dress in tissue and places it inside the trunk.
On the dressing table is a photograph in a wooden picture frame. Nana gave it to her before Christmas, when Alice visited Sabbarton Street for Sunday tea. Nana had waited until Auntie Jen was in the scullery and Uncle Alec was in the yard fetching coal, and then she produced the frame from the bottom of her knitting bag. ‘I’ve been having a sort-out,’ she had said. ‘Thought you might like this.’
Alice studies the photograph again, as if she may discover something new this time, some clue that has eluded her these past few weeks. Her father leans against a polished mahogany pillar, his face pale and unlined, impossibly young. Her mother is cradling Alice on her lap, grasping the soft baby shoe on her tiny foot. There is amusement in her mother’s wide eyes: a look of calm pride. Why wasn’t Dad enough? wonders Alice. What did he do so wrong?
She decides not to put the photograph in the trunk. It is small enough to fit inside her handbag. She would like to keep it close.
The handbag is on her eiderdown. She opens the inside pocket, takes out Auntie Beatrice’s enamel button and closes her fingers around it. Sometimes people die because that is the best thing. Her mother loved her; she feels certain of that. But still there are questions: strands of memory, fragile as frayed silk. A little sister, crying in a soap box. Sunflowers in jam pots. A bedroom door that would not open.
One day she will find the answers.
16 Chapelhay Street
Weymouth
Dorset
2nd June 1934
Dear Alice,
Thank you very much for your letter, which my sister has forwarded on your request. It was a great surprise to hear from you, but a very pleasant surprise indeed.
I am pleased to learn that you and Teddy are in good health. It is hard to imagine Teddy as a motor mechanic: of course, he was only four years old when I last saw him. And you are a fashion artist – how interesting that sounds.
Dear Alice, I have no idea how much you know or remember of the circumstances . . . But as to the present, since my release I have been employed as a welder in a small boatyard. My lodgings are comfortable, and I like to walk the cliffs and the surrounding countryside when time allows. I have a cat, Toby, who seems to tolerate my company. As I write, he is stretched on the best armchair, curling his claws into a crocheted cushion.
With regard to the last paragraph of your letter, I do understand that you must have many questions, and I am willing to answer them if this is your definite wish. I have thought carefully about how best to respond and I must confess that I am not sure of the right course. But if you would like to meet with me, naturally I will be
very pleased to see you.
Rest assured I think of your mother every day. But this is not the time to discuss matters. If you would like to meet, then I will tell you our story.
Yours sincerely,
Daniel Blake
Acknowledgements
With thanks to:
Sophie Orme at Mantle for her warm encouragement and insightful editing.
Maria Reijt, Mantle publisher, for enjoying the poetry.
The team at Mantle and Pan Macmillan for their professionalism and expertise.
Hellie Ogden, my agent at Janklow and Nesbit, for her tremendous talent, enthusiasm and sound advice.
Alison MacLeod and the creative writing staff at Chichester University. Here be miracles.
Librarians and archivists at the Museum of London Docklands, Tower Hamlets Local History Library and the National Archive. Historian Keith Grieves at Kingston University for his detailed reading of the manuscript. Eve Hostettler at the Island History Trust for advising on Docklands history. Any inaccuracies are my own.
Writer friends, Isabel Ashdown, Elayne DeLaurian, Jane Osis and Sandra Walsh for helping to sharpen the manuscript. Thanks also to my mum, Angela West, and my sister, Alison Laurie, for valuable comments on the first draft.
Eric Williams and Phil Hollis (in memoriam) for boosting my confidence with their writerly wisdom and good humour.
Yvonne Phillips and all at Horsham Writers’ Circle for kindness, support and friendship.
Joan Ward, granddaughter of the ‘real-life’ Hannah Loxwood. Your blessing for this project is greatly appreciated.
My children Isobel, Jessica and James, for keeping me in the real world.
Finally, love and heartfelt thanks to my husband, Steve Wilson, who makes everything possible.
