The Foundling’s Daughter

by Ann Bennett

  ‘They’ve nearly finished taking up the old tiles in here. They’re going to raise the floor and put pale marble tiles down.’

  ‘What are you going to do with those old flagstones?’

  ‘Nothing. Terry will take them away. He’ll find a use for them somewhere I expect.’

  ‘They’re probably worth something.’

  ‘Maybe. I’ll ask Terry. He’s very good like that. If he gets anything for them he’ll knock it off my bill.’

  ‘Would you mind very much if I took them off your hands? I’d pay you of course. Do you remember I mentioned it would be good to put some tables outside in the courtyard in the summer? It’s just a concrete yard out there at the moment. These would look great instead and there seem to be loads of them.’

  ‘Of course. Yes. Take them. That’s a great idea. I should have thought of it myself. Why don’t you take some of them now? You’ve got the van, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes. But don’t you want to eat your lunch?’

  ‘I can always heat it up in the microwave.’

  ‘Whatever would chef say?’ he said and they both laugh, thinking of Gaston the French chef with his flashes of unpredictable temper.

  ‘It won’t take long to load up the flagstones. Come on. I’ll help you if you like.’

  They go outside and one by one stash the flagstones in the back of Matt’s van. Sarah fetches some cardboard boxes from the garage to pad them out so they don’t move around in transit. When they are done, she says, ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea if you like. You can drink it while I’m eating my lunch.’

  ‘Alright. Thank you. Simon can manage for a bit longer I’m sure.’

  They sit at the kitchen table and Sarah tucks into the heated-up meal; Normandy chicken with apples and thyme.

  ‘This is wonderful,’ she says between mouthfuls. ‘We used to serve this sometimes at our place, but it wasn’t nearly as good as this.’

  ‘I would have thought this dish was a bit traditional for Taste,’ says Matt, his eyes steady on hers. She feels the heat in her cheeks again. She swallows and puts down her fork. She’s never told him any details about Alex or the restaurant, preferring to keep matters vague, but it’s somehow a relief that it’s out in the open.

  ‘How did you know?’ she says.

  ‘I wasn’t sure. It’s just a couple of things you said. You mentioned that you had places in Bristol and London. That, and the snippets I’ve read in the papers.’

  She looks down at the table. She can’t think of what to say.

  ‘You must have been going through a really tough time, Sarah,’ Matt says softly.

  ‘It hasn’t been easy,’ she says, taking another mouthful as a distraction, still avoiding his gaze.

  ‘If you ever want to talk about it, I’m always there, you know.’

  She pulls a face that’s intended to be a smile, but it doesn’t feel like that. Don’t cry, Sarah, for God’s sake, she tells herself.

  ‘That’s kind of you,’ she says, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘You know I haven’t really talked to anyone about it much. Not even to my dad. He’s very ill and I don’t want to upset him. I’ve got so used to bottling it all up that I’m not sure I’d know where to start.’

  ‘Well the offer’s there. I know what it’s like to suddenly be on your own, believe me.’

  Now she forces herself to look into his eyes. She owes him that much. He’s hardly ever mentioned his wife over the weeks they’ve worked together and it must be hard for him to do that.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Matt. It must have been dreadful for you losing the person you love like that.’

  ‘It was tough at first, but I feel as though I’m beginning to turn a corner.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I’m not sure the corner is anywhere in sight for me just yet,’ she says. ‘I had an email from the solicitor this morning.’

  ‘Oh dear. Good news or bad news?’

  ‘None of it is good news really. Alex has made an offer to buy me out of the business and the house. But everything is still frozen because of this police investigation, so we can’t finalise anything. It’s all such a mess, Matt. I wish I didn’t have to think about the financial side. It gets in the way. I just want to focus on getting over what Alex did to me.’

  Matt’s eyes are on her face. They are kind, patient. She senses he’s waiting for her to go on. She opens her mouth to say more, but can’t find the words. The shame of what has happened overwhelms her, even though she knows it shouldn’t be her shame.

  ‘Look, I’d prefer not to talk about it at the moment,’ she says, trying to keep her voice from cracking. She takes a sip of tea, her hand unsteady.

  ‘Well, as I said, anytime you need a friendly ear.’ His eyes linger on hers for another moment. Then he gets up. ‘I’d best be getting back I suppose.’

  Sarah jumps up from the table, feeling somehow that she’s said the wrong thing. She doesn’t want him to leave just yet, with the conversation unfinished, unresolved. How can she avoid him leaving so soon? She has an idea.

  ‘Hey, would you like the rest of the flagstones while you’re here?’ she asks as he reaches the back door.

  ‘Terry was going to finish taking them up on Monday, but it would be easy to lift them ourselves. He left his crowbar in the corner. We might as well do it now so you can take them all at once. There are only a few left and it would be good to get rid of them.’

  Matt stops and turns.

  ‘Why not? If you don’t mind, that is.’

  Sarah smiles, a strange sense of relief stealing over her.

  They go out into the conservatory and Matt takes Terry’s crowbar that’s leaning in a corner. He prises the first two flagstones up from the floor. The ancient cement holding them in place crumbles to dust. He leans them up against the door. There’s one flagstone left. The one that serves as a step. It’s hollowed out from a century of feet stepping in and out of the door. It’s already slightly out of place and chipped at the edges. There are no remnants of concrete left around the edges of this one.

  ‘You can leave that one if you don’t want it,’ says Sarah. ‘It doesn’t look to be in very good condition. Terry can take it up on Monday and take it to the tip.’

  ‘It’s OK. I’ll do it now. I might as well finish it and save him the job.’

  The flagstone sits alone on the rubbly surface. Matt slides the crowbar under it and prises it up. Then he bends down to lift it, and drags it forward. As he does so the flagstone scrapes the surface of the sand below, making a hollow sound.

  ‘What was that?’ Sarah bends forward, frowning.

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  Matt lays the flagstone aside and scrapes at the rubbly floor with the crowbar. The sand and earth are soft and he has soon cleared away a small hole.

  ‘It looks wooden,’ says Sarah, a chill running through her. ‘Wait there a minute. I’ll go and get my shovel.’

  She hurries to the coach house and fetches it. It’s the one she used to bury the dead wood pigeon. She has a fleeting memory of that morning, the dread that had descended on her when she’d entered the room above the coach house, the shock of the pigeon flying at her and thumping the door beside her. She’s not been able to face going back into that room since that day, despite Terry repeatedly asking her what she’s going to do with the coach house.

  She hands the shovel to Matt and he clears the sand away quickly and efficiently. They don’t speak while he works, neither do they look at each other. After a few minutes, he has cleared a big enough patch to reveal what looks like the lid of a black painted box about an inch under the surface. He slides the shovel down one side of the box and prises it upwards, grunting with effort. Finally, after much agitating and pulling, the box begins to come upwards towards the surface. Sarah looks on transfixed.

  There’s a metal handle on the top of the lid, covered in black soil. She puts her fingers around it and pulls
. Matt is still lifting with the spade. Between them they ease the box to the surface. Finally, they heave it out and lay it on the floor.

  ‘What do you think it is?’ says Sarah, her heart giving a sickening beat.

  ‘It looks like an old tool box.’ Matt bends down and dusts the surface with his hand, revealing tarnished gold initials E.J.B. They exchange a glance.

  The lid is locked down with a rusty padlock caked with soil.

  ‘Shall I try to prise it open?’

  She nods. Matt puts the tip of the crowbar in the crack between the lid and the box. He puts his foot on the top of the box and pushes the crowbar down. With a splintering sound the rusting padlock comes adrift, with its plate and screws, and drops on the ground. Matt lifts the lid. Sarah peers in. Inside the box is what looks like a bundle of rags, yellowed with age, streaked with brown stains. She looks at Matt. His face is drained of colour.

  ‘Shall I get it out?’

  Again she nods wordlessly, and watches him lift the rags from the box and lay them on the ground. He kneels in front of it and stares at her, and their eyes meet in mutual horror. Then she watches him pull the sheet apart, unwrap whatever is inside.

  ‘My God!’

  Sarah stares at the blackened lump of decayed flesh and bones, the tiny skeletal limbs, the exposed skull the size of a rabbit’s.

  Twenty-Two

  Connie

  Connie slides out of bed and tests her feet on the floor. They are stiff but seem to be working. She stands up warily and reaches for the Zimmer frame. Matron hasn’t come back yet, but that isn’t going to stop her. She takes another gulp of water and glances at the bedside clock. Three o’clock. People will be drinking tea in the day room and watching the afternoon film on TV.

  She’s never even been to the day room, but she needs to go now. She takes a step, her head swims a little, but she takes a deep breath and ignores it. She pulls her shawl around her shoulders and glances in the bedside mirror. For a second she doesn’t recognise the face that stares back at her wreathed in wrinkles, she’s been dwelling so much in the past in her thoughts and dreams it’s a shock to see what the years have done to her. She tucks a white strand behind her ear and pinches her cheeks. Silly girl, Connie. It doesn’t matter what you look like now, she tells herself. Nobody here is much below eighty. We all look the same.

  She fizzes with anticipation as she makes her lumbering progress along the passage. It doesn’t matter that she hasn’t prepared what she’s going to say. Nor does the gap of seventy-odd years since they last spoke.

  She reaches the threshold of the day room and looks inside. There are a dozen or so people there, sitting in high-backed chairs. Some are dozing, others staring at the TV, their mouths lolling open, eyes glazed. One of the kitchen staff is wheeling a trolley round, handing out mugs of tea.

  Connie narrows her eyes and scans the room, beginning to feel foolish. He doesn’t seem to be here. Should she just turn round and go back to her room? Then her heart does a strange lurch as she spots the newcomer in the far corner. He isn’t watching the TV. He’s sitting reading a book by the light from the window.

  She sets off towards his corner, the effort making her breathe heavily. She tries to supress her nerves. She just needs to get over there and God will help her find the right words.

  She reaches his chair. He has his back to her and all she can see of him is the top of a bald head with the occasional wisp of white hair that tremble as he breathes like reeds in a breeze. She gradually manoeuvres herself around so she is standing in front of him. He’s still reading, his head bowed to the book, a bony finger tracing the words. He’s deep in concentration; she can’t see his face.

  As she watches him and waits, her whole life seems to contract into this moment. Once again she is back there, walking along the river path beside him, that day in 1940. She’s on the point of telling him the dreadful secret that has been troubling her for years. Her heart is singing because she knows she has finally found someone who will listen, someone she can trust to help her.

  She holds back though, waiting for precisely the right moment. But they walk on. He’s talking, animated, telling her an anecdote, and she doesn’t want to interrupt him.

  When he squeezes her arm and says, ‘Let’s go into the woods,’ she nods, and the words on her tongue evaporate. The moment passes. She knows now that everything turned on that moment. It was then she had her chance. She could have chosen to fly away, to release herself from her suffering, there and then, but she didn’t.

  She waits for him silently now and after a few breathless seconds he looks up. There is no longer any doubt in her mind that it’s him. She can tell too from the way his old eyes widen that he knows who she is. The years fall away.

  ‘Tommy?’

  ‘Connie?’ the book slides between his legs and drops from his lap.

  ‘They told me someone called Tommy Braithwaite was here, but I wasn’t sure it would be you,’ is all she can think of to say.

  She swallows, gripping the Zimmer frame tightly to stop her hands from shaking.

  ‘I had no idea. No one told me you were here,’ he says, smiling into her eyes.

  She stares at him, examining his face. She can still trace the shape of his square jaw beneath his pale, sagging chin, and his brown eyes are still defined by those long dark lashes. He is looking at her too, probably trying to find in her lined face some trace of the girl he once knew.

  ‘Why don’t you sit down?’ he asks at last.

  She manages to manoeuvre herself into the chair beside him.

  ‘I had a fall,’ she explains. ‘I’m not quite better yet.’ She feels the need to tell him that, to reassure him that she’s not as decrepit as she might look.

  ‘I’m very sorry to hear that,’ he says.

  ‘So what brings you here?’ she ventures after an awkward silence.

  ‘Oh, my daughter found the place. She went to all the old folks’ homes in the area. She lives nearby. It means she can visit.’

  ‘Your daughter?’ Connie repeats. Despite the distance in time, the meaning behind the word hits her hard. She admonishes herself. Did she really expect that he’d have lived a hermit’s life like she had?

  ‘That’s nice,’ she forces herself to say. ‘Where have you been living?’

  ‘In South London. That’s where I ended up after the war. That’s where I stayed.’

  ‘I thought…’

  She stops herself. She mustn’t say that she thought he’d died in the war. It sounds so brutal. But what can she say? How can she ask him all the things she wants to ask him? She lapses into silence, staring out at the darkening sky, remembering that evening in 1941.

  She’d slipped out of the house after bedtime, and keeping close to the wall, out of sight of the windows, she’d walked to their usual meeting spot in the shed on the far side of the orphanage building, next to the chicken coop.

  She’d waited there, as usual, sitting on an old deckchair, in the dark, listening for the slam of the side gate, his footsteps on the path, her nerves leaping at the slightest sound. The hens shifted on their roosts in the coop, an owl hooted somewhere far away by the river. She’d waited for over an hour that night, until she was sure there was no chance of him coming. Then she’d retraced her steps, mystified, thinking about the last time he’d held her, covered her face in kisses and sworn his love. There had to be some explanation. Perhaps he was ill? Worse still, perhaps he’d had an accident?

  She’d lain awake all night fretting, imagining the worst, while Evie snored away in the next bed.

  But in the morning at breakfast, Father had looked up from the paper and said casually, ‘Oh, by the way, Tommy Braithwaite won’t be working for me any longer.’

  Shock had washed through Connie. She couldn’t look at Father, she couldn’t look at anyone. She concentrated hard on buttering her toast, spreading it again and again, back and forth, back and forth.

  Mother said, frowning, ‘Really, Ez
ra, my dear? That’s very sudden. He hasn’t mentioned that he would be leaving.’

  Father cleared his throat. ‘It was a surprise to me too. He told me yesterday. He’s decided to join up. Quite a sudden decision, in fact. Set off for London this morning. Good luck to him, I say. The army needs all the strong young men it can get to fight this evil enemy.’

  Connie couldn’t swallow the toast. Feeling faint with shock she excused herself and got up from the table. But as she hurried from the room she caught Father’s eyes upon hers, and the expression in them shocked her. They were sharp, accusing, but there was something else in them, a hint of malicious amusement.

  But what is there left to say to Tommy now? After seventy years? How can she begin to ask him why he didn’t come that night, why he left without telling her, why he never wrote to say why he’d gone, not even once.

  ‘How long have you been in Fairlawns, Connie?’ he asks, breaking into her thoughts.

  ‘Oh, not long. A couple of months. It was because of my fall.’

  ‘Oh… I see,’ he says, assessing her words. Then he says, ‘Family? Do you not have any family now?’

  She shakes her head and shifts her eyes away from his, picking at her shawl, her fingers working their way up to clasp the filigree necklace.

  ‘No… no. Not now. Evie passed away last year.’

  ‘Oh. I see.’ He nods slowly. He must know from that that I’ve never married, that I had nobody else. That after him there was nobody else, she thinks.

  She’s bursting to say, ‘You didn’t come that night. I waited for you,’ but she knows that she can’t say that. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.

  ‘Would you like some tea?’ Jenny, the amiable kitchen assistant is hovering in front of them.

  ‘Connie?’ he asks. She nods. ‘Two mugs please. Oh, and two sugars for me,’ he says.

  Two sugars! That’s how it had all started. She remembers again the cups of tea she used to take out to him in the garage when he was polishing Father’s car. She thinks again about how he would engage her in conversation. She doesn’t remember what they talked about, just that he would tease her and flatter her, and she would blush and stammer, but she wouldn’t want to leave. Jenny pushes the trolley away and they are alone again.