[Sins of the Father 01.0] Touchstone

by Andy Conway

‘Er… No. I’m… Uh, sorry about him, sir. I’m afraid the gin was a bit too strong for him. He’ll be normal in an hour.’

  The Sergeant looked her up and down. There was something about her that was definitely not the usual type he had to deal with. She was well spoken and well dressed and her voice was unusual and betrayed an intelligence that wasn’t common to the gin houses of Balsall Heath.

  ‘He may well be, madam,’ he said. ‘But he’s staying in here for the night. You can stay too if you like?’

  ‘No. That’s fine, thank you. I’m sorry.’

  She walked out as fast as she could, looking at her feet all the way until she was outside. She stood there, stranded, wondering what to do. It was hopeless. She set off walking, not thinking about where she was going. She would have to go back home, to the present, and leave him. They would release him in the morning and he could make his own way back. But she felt bad leaving him there. What if he somehow couldn’t get back to the present? What if he were trapped there forever? She thought about it and came to the conclusion that her staying here would be no help to him at all: it wouldn’t change whether he could return home or not, and if the touchstone was going to change somehow and prevent them getting back, she would be as trapped here as him, so she’d better just try to go home as quickly as possible. As she walked, she dug her hands in her pocket and felt the wad of family photographs in there. She looked up and realised she was taking the long route back to St Mary’s. Her feet had decided to take her via Anderton Park Road.

  She found the house and took out the photograph of Mary Lewis posing there with a baby in her arms. A photograph that would be taken some time next year. She looked up from the photo at the former family home. Nan was right. A house this big, back then, back now, meant they had money. Lots of money. She stared at the house for a while. The street was quiet and no one passed by. She was about to carry on walking up the hill to head for St Mary’s when someone emerged from a side entrance and walked towards her. It was a young woman, pulling on a jacket over her maid’s uniform. She slowed when she saw Rachel standing there and hovered uncertainly. Rachel stuffed the photos into her pocket.

  ‘Hello,’ said the girl. ‘Are you calling on Mr Harper?’

  She recognised her now. It was Mary Lewis, quite clearly. But why was she in a maid’s uniform?

  ‘Er, no,’ Rachel stammered. ‘I was… I used to live in this house and I was just passing by and…’

  ‘You used to live here?’

  ‘Well, no. My family did.’

  Mary wasn’t sure what to do. She frowned with suspicion and Rachel recognised the same knitting of the brow from the photo.

  ‘Ah,’ said Mary Lewis.

  ‘Harper, you say?’

  ‘That’s right. Mr and Mrs Harper. They’ve been here ten years.’

  ‘Not Lewis?’

  ‘Lewis? That’s my name. I’m Mary Lewis.’

  ‘You don’t own this house then?’

  ‘Me? Own it?’ she said, almost laughing.

  ‘But that doesn’t… Did you have a baby this year?’

  Mary looked horrified and her hand went to her belly.

  ‘How do you… Look, who are you?’

  Rachel now realised everything: her grandmother’s delusions, her great-great-grandmother’s lies. She backed away.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she stammered. ‘It’s not this house at all. I’m in the wrong place.’

  She marched away and broke into a run, not seeing Mary stare after her, scared, and glance back at the house to see if anyone had witnessed it.

  — 23 —

  Rachel walked back to St Mary’s churchyard in a daze, hardly seeing anything around her. If she had stopped to think about it she might have wondered how she’d so quickly become immune to the newness of it all; walking through the village only a few hours earlier full of wonder at how different paving stones, street signs and lampposts were, and now walking ten minutes through gaslit streets as if she’d seen them all her life and didn’t need to see them anymore.

  She didn’t notice the elegant townhouses along Wake Green Road, or that the mock Tudor row of dwellings along the upper part of St Mary’s Row were still there, and she turned into the churchyard through the upper entrance, hardly noticing the railings that cordoned the path off from the jumble of gravestones, most of which were no longer there in her own time, or had become paving stones. She walked through almost pitch blackness down the path to the rear of the church and to the touchstone, absent-mindedly placing her palm to the correct spot, feeling the flush of heat, her ears pop as the industrial white noise of 2011 rushed into her head. She found her carrier bag under the bush, fished her long coat out and took off her hat, leaving Danny’s bag where it was.

  She trudged home and slid her key into the lock and walked straight up the stairs, ignoring Olive walking out to greet her. Alone and safe in her room, she threw off her costume and put on jeans and a t-shirt and felt again a hundred years apart from that world she’d just seen and breathed and lived, and at the same time not yet a part of this world where she’d always lived. She was forever stranded between two worlds, belonging to neither.

  Later, she lay on her bed, flicking through the stack of old photos: Olive as a girl during the war posing with her parents outside the old house; Mary Lewis posing in front of the old house, not wearing her maid’s uniform, a baby in her arms; and others, through the 1950s and 60s and 70s. Her ancestors. The timeline that defined her. All of it a huge lie.

  In the morning she sat sullenly at the breakfast table, playing with her Sugar Puffs, watching Olive washing dishes, her dad rushing out of the door, a slice of jam on toast in his mouth, ruffling her hair as he breezed out, not noticing how glum she looked.

  She set off to the Central Library for a day of research, scowling as she walked past the old house that had never belonged to her family.

  — 24 —

  As Rachel gazed sadly at faded shots of distant relatives, Danny was curled up on a wooden bench in a crowded cell, shaking with the cold, a hundred years ago. Through the night he realised what the phrase chilled to the bone meant. He felt it deep in his marrow and was shaking so uncontrollably, he couldn’t sleep. The huge, whiskered Police Sergeant unlocked the cell and discharged them all with a warning and he found himself outside, blinking at the morning light, stretching himself, every joint aching.

  He was surprised to find the streets already crowded with horse drawn cabs, electric trams full of people heading for the city, barrow boys wheeling carts of merchandise to the shops. He ran up to the Parker house just as a pony trap pulled away from the kerb. Mr Parker was sat in the back, staring ahead, and Amy was at his side. She saw Danny and alarm flashed across her face as he stumbled to a halt, too late and had to watch them go. Amy stared back at him and mouthed the word ‘Tomorrow’.

  He watched the cab sail away and wondered how early in the morning her father would murder her. There was nothing he could do today. He should head back to St Mary’s and go home, prepare himself for the morning and his mission to save her, somehow get her away from him. He looked up and down the street and saw a tram sailing down from the village and had an idea. He trotted across the street with sudden certainty.

  Highgate didn’t feel as dangerous in daylight. There were no gangs of drunks hanging around outside pubs, for one. He strode up to the pharmacy and looked through the window with its display of bottles of blue and red liquid. There was no one inside but the elderly pharmacist and his assistant. He pushed the door and stepped inside, the bell announcing his arrival. They both looked up. The assistant recognised him.

  ‘Hello again, sir,’ he said.

  Danny was thrown. No one ever called him ‘sir’ and it felt strange, like being called ‘m’lord’ or ‘your honour’.

  ‘Morning,’ he said, stepping forward and addressing the older man. ‘I’d like to speak with you, if I may.’

  The assistant flushed red. His boss frowned.

>   ‘Certainly, sir,’ said the old man.

  ‘It’s, er, a delicate matter. Could I speak to you privately?’

  He glanced at the door with its brass notice marked Private.

  ‘Of course. Follow me, sir.’

  The assistant suddenly stammered. ‘I hope nothing untoward has happened with your lady friend?’

  Danny could see he was panicking, thinking the worst.

  ‘No, no, no,’ he said. ‘She’s absolutely fine. You made her much better. This is a totally different matter.’

  The assistant heaved a sigh of relief and bowed his head. The old man frowned again and walked to the door, holding it open for Danny to follow. They climbed a set of steep wooden stairs and walked into a small oak-panelled room with a mahogany desk and an examination bed to one side. The pharmacist took a seat at the desk and indicated the free chair.

  ‘Yes, sir, how may I help you?’

  ‘I… don’t know how to say this…’

  ‘Be assured, sir, you can divulge anything here. We are utterly discreet.’

  Danny could hear the traces of another accent through his attempt at formal English. Was he foreign? He noticed the slight fray of his cuffs and remembered how worn down his heels had been as he’d followed him up the stairs.

  ‘There was a man here, last night,’ he said, trying on the official tone of a police inspector. ‘A Mr Parker. I’d like to ask you some questions about him.’

  The pharmacist glared with sudden fear. ‘Is this a police matter?’ he croaked.

  ‘Not exactly. More a private investigation.’

  The pharmacist’s lips pursed and he rose from his seat. ‘I’m afraid I can’t help you, sir. I deal with my… patients… in the strictest confidence. I have to ask you to leave now.’

  Danny felt his resolve fading. He reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a sheaf of notes. The pharmacist looked confused for a moment, then much less confused as Danny laid one of the notes on the desk.

  ‘I’m afraid I really must insist that you…’

  Danny laid another note on top of the first and the pharmacist wheezed a little.

  ‘Please, sir,’ he stammered.

  Danny put a third note down and shoved the rest back in his pocket. The pharmacist had actually started to sweat. He glanced around, as if someone in the room might be watching and witness him about to commit a crime. He stared at the money for a long time. Danny watched him, curious as to the mesmeric effect these absurdly large, crispy sheets of paper had on him. He blinked himself out of his trance and looked at Danny’s blank face and swallowed and nodded slightly and, as if being sent to fetch the cane that would be used on him, he walked stiffly across the room and took a wooden box off the shelf.

  When he brought it back to the table and placed it in front of Danny, he could see that it wasn’t a box but a case with a leather strap for a handle. The pharmacist nodded to him, urging him to open it. He flipped the box open and found that the case was divided inside into several sections, each containing a selection of tools. There was a long glass cylinder that ran the length of the case and appeared to collect at one end into a rubber teat from which ran a rubber tube that was coiled all the way and collected inside the cylinder in the opposite, open end. Measurements were engraved into the side of the glass, starting at 50 and running up to 300. There was a circular compartment that held a porcelain dish, held in place with moveable brass pegs. There was an enamel container the size of a cigarette holder, and a few bottles. One of them was a dropper and two contained liquid, labelled Hydrochloric Acid and Salvarsan.

  Danny looked up at the pharmacist, whose face seemed to say that he’d divulged some great secret. Danny shrugged. ‘What is this?’

  The pharmacist frowned and slammed the case shut with sudden annoyance.

  ‘I’ve shown you everything,’ he said. ‘I shall not write it down for you also. Now. Please. Go.’

  Danny rose and walked to the door, not sure what he’d just seen. He looked back and was surprised to see the pharmacist slumped in the chair, one hand covering his eyes, the other scraping the notes towards him.

  — 25 —

  Rachel buried herself in the Local Studies section for the day. She had always liked to do this: disappear into archives, following leads, methodically building up a picture of the past, not realising where she’d been for hours or that she’d missed lunch and was ravenous. What she found in the Central Library that morning should have shocked her, but she was trapped in a cloud of numbness and stared at it with a sense of inevitability, almost as if she’d expected to find it there. Flipping through a modern photo book titled Birmingham’s Victorian & Edwardian Criminal Underground, each page a series of mugshots from police archives, she found herself staring at Danny’s face in washed out black and white, holding up a chalk board with a few numbers and the words Daniel Pearce - No Fixed Abode - Drunkard.

  Later, as she passed the Information desk, Kath called her over.

  ‘You’re doing the project with your student friend, aren’t you?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘Is he not in today?’

  ‘No, he’s been held up. Somewhere else.’

  Kath handed her a photograph in a cellophane bag.

  ‘He asked me to search for this. I found it in the archives we have of a local portrait photographer. We don’t always have the names, but this photographer was fairly meticulous in cataloguing his subjects, so I managed to get it.’

  Rachel slipped the photograph out of the cellophane wrapper and found herself looking at Richard Parker, a respectable Edwardian businessman, standing erect, one thumb tucked into his waistcoat pocket, a hand on the shoulder of his daughter, Amy, seated on a stool, hands on her lap, both grim faced, a fake drawing room backdrop behind them.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said and walked off.

  Kath watched her go, her polite smile fading.

  Rachel was about to leave when something occurred to her. She walked over to the Directories stack and ran her fingertip along the row of red and black Kelly’s Directories till it rested on the 1912 edition. She slid it out and opened it, smelling its musty pages, but instead of flipping to Alcester Road, she found Anderton Park Road, her finger sliding down to number 28, and the head of household listed as Mr Michael Harper. She closed the book and frowned. Her mobile phone vibrated in her pocket. She took it out and read the text message from Danny: I’m back.

  — 26 —

  She woke up and her eyes fell on her bedside clock. The first few moments of uncertainty as she slipped between two worlds. She had dreamt that her house was locked and she couldn’t find a way inside. She was banging on the windows, her dad and nan inside watching the telly, not hearing her even though she shouted.

  It was Saturday morning. She knew what she had to do. She got up and showered and put on her jeans, giving a passing glance to her Edwardian dress splayed across her bedroom floor as she rushed out. She walked across Moseley, through the village, already busy with its monthly farmers’ market, and turned left down Chantry Road to Danny’s student flat where she rang the bell. The front door opened and her heart sank to find Jessica standing there, a look of surprise on her face flitting from uncertainy to annoyance to haughtiness within a fluttering of her eyelashes.

  ‘Hi. Is Danny in?’

  Jessica’s look settled on her favourite expression when dealing with Rachel: looking at something she’d just trodden in.

  ‘He’s in his room,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve got some research for him.’ She indicated the file under her arm.

  Jessica held out her hand. ‘I’ll see he gets it.’

  Rachel gripped it more tightly under her arm. ‘I need to talk to him about it.’

  Jessica folded her arms and tried to look even more haughty, which was difficult, because she’d begun at such a high level of haughtiness there was almost nowhere else to go.

  ‘Was he at yours last night?’ />
  ‘What? No!’

  Jessica looked her up and down, mentally totting up the price of her wardrobe. Rachel sighed at the tedium of it: this stupid, boring, rich girl who knew nothing and was of no importance to anyone and not a single person in the world would miss if she were to disappear this instant. And at the same time she couldn’t stop herself visibly curling in on herself a little.

  Jessica stepped to one side and let her walk in, giving her a supercilious smile, as if she’d somehow taught her a lesson.

  ‘It’s upstairs. Second left.’

  Rachel trudged up the stairs and knocked on his door. There was no answer. She knocked again. Nothing. She heard movement inside.

  ‘Danny? It’s Rachel. Danny? I’m coming in.’

  She turned the handle and peered inside, hoping to God he wouldn’t be naked or with a girl or watching porn or anything. He was at his laptop, in pyjama bottoms and a vest, iPod earphones on. She could see it wasn’t porn, so she walked over and touched his shoulder. He jumped up, startled and whipped his earphones off.

  ‘Jess! Oh, it’s you.’

  ‘Snotty Cow let me in.’

  Her eyes fell on the wall above his desk. It was covered in documents and they were all about Amy Parker: printouts of their research, an enlargement of the photo he’d taken on his phone which he’d printed off, her face ghostly and pixellated, a photo of the house as it was now, and as it was then, which he must have taken this morning before coming back through.

  ‘Jessica?’ he said. ‘She’s all right.’

  ‘If you like snotty cows. Here’s another one for your shrine.’

  ‘It’s not a shrine,’ he grumbled. He took her file and opened it to see the portrait of Amy and her father. He gasped and then tried to cover it with a cough.

  ‘It’s a shrine,’ she said. ‘All it needs is a candle.’

  He pinched some Blu-Tack from a ball on his desk and stuck the photo on his wall with the other documents and pictures and admired it for a moment.

  ‘I’ll ask Jess if she’s got one,’ he said.