by Syd Moore
I shouldn’t have worried. The Google results were inconclusive, churning up the address of the pub named after her with beer ratings, a TV presenter, a number of Facebook sites and a caterer. With time to spare I tried a new search and entered ‘Witches of Essex’ into the subject bar. This yielded a legion of websites.
A salsa CD played softly in the background. The fast-paced beats and joyful trumpet accompaniment couldn’t have been more inappropriate as I surfed through the first website. It was my intention to look for Sarah, or failing that, locate where Leigh witches had been hanged. I thought it might be a good starting point.
There were three Leigh witches listed: Joan Allen in 1547, Alice Soles in 1622 and Joan Rowle in 1645. No mention of Sarah Grey but the list of other poor souls who had been sacrificed because people thought they were witches was both deeply disturbing and distracting.
Witchcraft, it seemed, had been commonplace and treated without severity. Often the punishments came in the form of a fine or a mild telling off. That was until the mid-sixteenth century, when just in Essex, hundreds of names of women (and some men and children) started appearing. As the accusations increased the punishments grew increasingly inhumane, climaxing in 1645 with the emergence of the notorious Mathew Hopkins, the self-styled Witchfinder General. I flicked through to his pages and read with increasing horror the methods he used to extract his confessions. Torture, being illegal at that time, meant Hopkins had to be lateral in his approach. The witch pricker was a small dagger with a retractable blade. This was thrust into the accused. With the blade full out it would stab into their flesh so they would bleed. However, Hopkins asserted that witches concealed on their bodies a ‘Devil’s Mark’ where Satan and his imps sucked the witch’s blood. The Devil’s Mark was diabolical and therefore insensitive to pain. It could be as insignificant as a birthmark or even a flea bite. If the accused didn’t bleed or cry out in pain when stabbed in that area it would be deemed the ‘Devil’s Mark’, and therefore evidence of their guilt. Hopkins’ witch prickers had secret compartments in the handle into which the blade would retract at the flick of a switch, when the witch hunters believed they had found the mark. Onlookers and witnesses would marvel as the blade, which had appeared to penetrate the flesh, elicited no reaction from the victim and then no blood. This awful one-sided trickery, I went on to read, was all the more despicable as these ‘marks’ were often located in the ‘privvy parts’. In August 1646, John Stearne, Hopkins’ second in command, sent eighteen witches to the scaffold at Bury St Edmunds. His only comment on their execution was that they all were found to have ‘teats or dugs which their imps used to suck’. These were located in the labia majora and were no more than a bruised or inflamed clitoris.
If the poor women still maintained their innocence after this ordeal, they would then be ‘walked’, that is, sleep-deprived, and marched up and down by two men until they broke. At this point they seemed to have made up lurid, fantastical confessions, which often implicated others.
But Hopkins didn’t act alone. He was borne along by a society afflicted by failed crops, a mini-ice age, poverty and civil war. Folk needed someone to blame and, let’s face it, the Devil has never shown up at his trials. Instead women old, young, hook-nosed or attractive, disabled, mostly poor or those who existed without the protection of men or status, took the fall.
It was a numbing discovery. I have to admit, my notions of witchcraft had been firmly forged from Meg and Mog, Halloween fun, fairy tales and soft toys on broomsticks. The realization of what this camouflaged forced me to take a breather. I went into the garden to smoke a cigarette, feeling guilty and repulsed by what I had discovered.
Hadn’t I read a report in the paper recently that said people were still at a loss to explain the hysteria of the witch hunts? Hadn’t they researched it? Being forced to strip in front of ‘a dozen of the ablest men in the parish’ who would bear witness as you were pricked all over by a blade, then sleep-deprived for two or three days after must surely have had the toughest of women admitting to anything just to end the ordeal.
It was a no-brainer. The witch hunts weren’t about hysteria. They were about sex and death and control and power. Again.
At least these days we were more alert.
The salsa tune stopped. I went inside and put on the radio in time to catch a chat show host introducing the subject of the evening: Can women ever be responsible for rape?
I turned it off and suppressed an urge to vomit. That was enough for now.
With a feeling of dread growing in my stomach I retired.
‘What do I do now, Josh?’ I asked silently.
There was no reply.
Chapter Ten
I’d forgotten that this weekend was the annual Leigh folk festival. Margaret and Keith hadn’t. They were keen to get out into the library gardens, where a number of bands were due to perform.
I wasn’t fussed about folk music but it was nice to sit on a blanket under a tree with a picnic. Margaret had packed some champagne in her basket so we toasted the summer. Alfie suckered Granddad Keith into pushing him endlessly on the swings in the playground, leaving Margaret and I to settle down and watch a young woman singing a ballad about her dead love, a sailor lost at sea. This, it seemed, was the perfect cue for Margaret to ask me how I was doing.
She was a kind woman, in her late sixties, with peppery blonde hair. When the breeze fluttered the leaves and the dappled sunshine shone across her face, Josh’s eyes twinkled back, surrounded by deep laughter lines. Sometimes it disconcerted me. That day it was reassuring.
Margaret had taken her son’s death very hard. Although his elder sister, Elaine, and her three kids lived close to the family home in Suffolk, I gathered from Josh when we first got together, that she was a bit of a daddy’s girl. Fate had cruelly inflicted Keith’s small eyes, stiff manner and portly build on his daughter whilst Josh inherited his mother’s nimble figure, innate grace and huge bright eyes the colour of forget-me-nots. Like most parents Margaret and Keith did as much as they could to hide their preferences but Josh told me that both he and Elaine always knew. And like most children to whom this happens he unconsciously navigated towards Margaret’s passion for music and books while Elaine followed Keith into the navy.
She meant well but there was something cloying, almost desperate, in Margaret’s enquiring tone when she addressed me. At times I wondered if she wanted me to throw myself at her feet and weep so that she could feel she was still needed. Though I suspect she just wanted to keep the connection between us – there was much of Josh in Alfie – we could all see that. Margaret could never have countenanced a separation from him. It would be like losing her son all over again. But I had no wish to do this and she knew that.
We’d spent a lot of time together after Josh’s death. Margaret was a huge support, especially with Alfie: he was a year and four months, restless and disturbed by Daddy’s sudden absence. When Grandma came to stay she cooked and cleaned and played and talked and wept and for a while, as I was barely capable of speech let alone running a household, made herself utterly indispensable. Keith used to pop in from time to time but he had his own private way of dealing with grief and I think seeing us made it too raw.
I knew all this and yet, whenever the ‘How are you?’ question popped up the impulse to scoot a zillion miles away faster than the speed of light was virtually irresistible. I didn’t want to be the sum total of my tragedy. It had been difficult, but I was getting over it and both Alfie and I needed to move on. I didn’t want to talk grief and I didn’t want to talk healing. And the last thing I wanted to tell Margaret about was all the weird things that were happening to me. Despite the eyelid thing and the paranormal intervention I was still a fit parent. I just wouldn’t sound like one if I told her.
No, I didn’t want to talk about how I was.
‘I’m fine thanks, Margaret.’ It sounded sincere.
She returned with her customary rejoinder. ‘I mean, how are you real
ly?’
I shot her what I hoped was a bright open smile. ‘Really, I’m fine. We’re both fine.’
It seemed to work. ‘I can’t believe how big Alfie’s got.’ She clasped her hands under her knee and rocked to the music. ‘It seems absurd that he’s going to start school in September.’
I agreed: he seemed to have just suddenly grown up.
‘Another milestone,’ she said, and looked at me. I smiled but we were both thinking ‘Without Josh’.
God I missed him. I let myself have a micro-second of panic then shut it down.
Above us the tree swayed and a dazzling shard of sunlight caught Margaret in the eyes. Her pale-blue eyes glittered with energy and compassion. ‘It’ll be all right,’ she said, her voice suddenly rich and low. And for a moment I could have sworn it was Josh.
The girl finished singing and Margaret swivelled her eyes to the stage. ‘Beautiful voice,’ she said, her voice modulating back into her light jaunty pitch.
We both applauded loudly.
I was proud of the way the park looked. The trees were full of ripe green leaves, criss-crossed with bunting. Handfuls of craft stalls were dotted towards the playground. Between us and the stage the lawns were strewn with picnic blankets and festival chairs, populated by a very broad range of people: semi-clad crusties sporting long, dark dreadlocks and cans of lager sat alongside old ladies in sun hats.
‘Sarah!’ A voice rang out across the lawn. Sharon waved furiously and beckoned me over to her uproarious group who were sitting about fifteen feet away. It was great to see her though the last thing I could do was desert the in-laws. I called out a greeting, jerked my head at Margaret and mouthed ‘No, you come here.’
You could tell from the sluggish reaction that she’d had a few beers. The way she stumbled over bodies to reach us and the pewter tankard in her hand was totally at odds with the smart white jeans and tasselled designer top she had on.
‘What’s with the folksy drinking equipment?’ I nodded at her tankard.
She giggled. ‘When in Rome …’ and burped. ‘Ooops, sorry,’ she said, looking in my mother-in-law’s direction.
I introduced Margaret as Alfie’s Grandma. Sharon had met my mum before so I hoped she’d infer the relationship without me having to go into details. That always put a real downer on things. She did and immediately sat down beside Margaret and bombarded her with a barrage of questions about where she lived, what she did and what she thought of Leigh, which continued long after Keith and Alfie had returned.
Whatever people said about Sharon, and she did have a few detractors, you had to admit the girl was damn gregarious. Blessed with a directness of speech that some found confrontational, her good friends appreciated her honesty, which was like a breath of fresh air. You always knew where you were with Sharon and usually it was a very fun place to be. Sure, she drank a lot and smoked too much but there was an infectious mischief beyond her eyes that reached out to people. Her long reddish hair always looked like it hadn’t been brushed for a week but in a sexy way that most could never achieve.
Martha, Corinne and I could never understand why she hadn’t been netted by some besotted broker. The girl was a charmer and sure enough, after a quarter of an hour Keith had taken his eyes off his grandson long enough to linger slyly on Sharon’s grin. He even cracked a few jokes, which had her slapping the blanket with glee, a gesture that in turn tickled Alfie. And Alfie was like Bagpuss: when he laughed, everyone laughed along too.
When she made to return to her own blanket, we felt a little deflated. ‘But,’ she said, as she got to her feet unsteadily, ‘we’re going to the Sarah Grey for a couple of beers after this, if you fancy it? It’s child-friendly till 6 p.m.’
My in-laws weren’t pub people so I quickly declined, but Margaret interrupted: ‘Go for a bit, Sarah. Keith and I can take Alfie back. Please. It’d do you good to spend a bit of time with your friends.’
I wasn’t sure where that had come from but I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. ‘Really? You don’t mind?’
Margaret nodded.
I turned to my son. His cheeks were plastered with dried ice cream. ‘What do you think, Alfie? Will you be all right if Grandma Margaret and Granddad put you to bed?’ He ignored me, too absorbed in motoring a toy car over Margaret’s shoulder and up her hair.
I shrugged and looked to Keith. He nodded and smiled up at Sharon. ‘Now, you look after her, young lady. I’ve got the measure of you.’
The cheeky minx sent him a wink and gave Margaret the thumbs up.
‘What an extraordinary young woman,’ remarked Keith, as we watched her stagger back.
‘Delightful,’ Margaret concurred. ‘Now run along, Sarah. Go and have a bit of fun.’
The festival mood extended to the pub where Sharon introduced me to her friends. They were friendly albeit slurring. I’d met one or two of them before: Jim, who commuted up to town with Sharon in the mornings. Rob propped up Leigh bars most evenings and knew everyone; a couple, Clare and Phil, were the drunkest of the lot.
Sharon was a great host: throwing out conversational inroads for subjects about which she knew I’d have an opinion, asking my advice, pointing out things I had in common with her friends. I’d taken a liking to her as soon I’d met her at Martha’s barbecue two years ago. She turned up late with a very young and frightened-looking posh guy from Surrey, who only lasted a couple of months. The party was dwindling and running dry, much to Sharon’s alarm, who whipped out her phone and in a fit of what I was to learn was her customary generosity, ordered a crate of champagne from a local off-licence with whom she had a long-standing arrangement.
Needless to say when it arrived the remains of the crowd were injected with fizz and energy. We ended up putting the kids to sleep in Martha’s boys’ bedrooms and dancing into the small hours.
At some point I found myself sitting between Martha and Sharon, hovering between awe and trepidation, an emotional cocktail that left me tongue-tied and self-conscious. Martha introduced us, and Sharon, remarking that she’d heard a lot about me, threw her arms around me and gave me a kiss and a bear hug. I suspected that Martha had informed her of the circumstances of my arrival in Leigh and later I was to learn that Sharon, who had lost her mother when she was fifteen, was especially empathetic when it came to bereavement. But at that moment, what with the champers and the warmth of the greeting, I fell in love with the girl. She had this incredible ability to make everyone believe they were the centre of her world for as long as she was with them. There are not many people I can say that about.
Even that night, in the Sarah Grey, as we sat within the throng of drinkers we all felt privileged to be in her circle, you could tell. She didn’t hold court, just your attention, whenever Rob, Jim, Clare or Phil told a story their eyes would rest on Sharon longest, seeking out her laughter, approval and entertaining ripostes.
When it was my turn to get a round in I took the opportunity to ask the barman if he knew anything about the woman after whom the pub was named. He replied that she’d been a sea-witch and cursed sailors but said he didn’t have any more information. However he did promise to ask his boss. I hung around the bar but his boss told me he had nothing else to add. Although he did suggest I visit the Leigh Heritage Centre down in the Old Town, where, he had it on good authority, there was lots of information about ‘history and stuff’. I thanked him and returned to the table.
Sharon practically leapt on me. ‘What was that all about? Credit card declined?’
I squeezed in beside her. ‘I’m not that skint. Yet.’
‘If you ever need some, just let me know.’
I thanked her and said that wasn’t necessary but that I was trying to find out about Sarah Grey. That the story had sparked my interest.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘The witch. Why? I thought Grey was your married name?’
It hadn’t occurred to me that I might need an answer as to why I was making enquiries. ‘Just interested,’
I said, though this sounded flimsy. It seemed to do the trick though; Sharon was too smashed to query anything right now. ‘But I’m not making much headway. I don’t even know when she lived.’
Sharon agreed. ‘Yes, that’s difficult. Parish records are your best bet. But you’ll need a rough idea of when. Even if you find a christening date that won’t necessarily help you to pin-point her age. People used to save up for years to pay the church’s fee and they weren’t that bothered about recording births. Most used to estimate and few people could read. They didn’t keep track of time like we do.’
My eyebrows soared into my forehead. ‘How come you’re suddenly the world’s authority on this?’
She necked the rest of her pint and exchanged her empty for the one I’d just bought. ‘Family tree. My granddad started looking into it. When he died, my mum asked me to carry it on. I wasn’t bothered at first but it’s got really interesting.’
The warmth of the wine made me wrinkle my nose in disgust. ‘Found any famous ancestors then?’
Sharon pulled a face and crossed her legs. ‘Common as muck. Tillers, farmers and a couple of tradesmen. Nothing glamorous. But I’m still working on it. You never know – might stumble across a long-lost rich aunt. What have you got to go on?’
I recounted my limited research online and at the bar. She nodded and took another slurp of beer. ‘I reckon he’s right. The Heritage Centre would be a good place. Tell you what – get me a rough date and I’ll see what I can dig up.’
It was a kind offer but I didn’t want to put her out.
‘Sod off,’ she said, cheerfully, and told me she had un limited access to ancestry.co.uk and was happy to get online and have a scout. ‘It’ll be no trouble at all,’ she told me. ‘Might even keep me out of the pub for a bit. Talking of which, Rob’s out and it’s my round. Fancy another?’
