by M K Jones
“It’s probably just coincidence. The woman caused a stir. There was some thought that she had,” he coughed in embarrassment, “an illness.”
“What do you mean, constable? What illness?” It was Ruthie who asked sharply.
“There was some concern that she might have been…” his voice was a whisper, “a leper, ma’am. Well, good day to you both.”
As the constable left, William returned and handed Ruth a cup of water. She signalled for him to sit beside her. From the hall she could hear the murmur of voices for a minute before her mother closed the door and returned.
“Thank God,” she said as she came into the parlour. “As soon as John is home he will know what do to next.”
“We’ll keep searching, of course! What else is there to do? She cannot be far. She’s waiting for us to find her. We can’t let her down.” Ruth’s voice had risen and William glanced anxiously from Mammy to Granny.
“Of course, we won’t let her down,” Ruthie replied. “Now, William, go and see if Walter and Maud are behaving.” He obediently left the room. “Now, what are you thinking, girl? This is good news. John will be home tomorrow evening. I know you’ve been worrying yourself that he might not find her. But keep faith.”
Ruth smiled weakly at her mother. “I will never lose faith, Mam. Yes, my worry increases daily. And now I think that I need to know, whatever the outcome.”
Ruthie nodded. “John will be tired and in need of a good meal when he gets home tomorrow evening. You need to rest and look after the children. William can go to school this afternoon and tomorrow morning. John will want that. Gwen and I will take care of the kitchen and dairy.” She stood up, satisfied with her arrangements and went to the kitchen, leaving Ruth alone.
She felt helpless. After an initial refusal to accept what her mother suggested, she realised that there was nothing further she could do. She spent the rest of Friday and Saturday, as normally as she could manage, her head full of plans and fears.
* * *
John arrived home just before midnight on Saturday. Ruth welcomed him in, took his coat and travelling bag and put them in the hallway then led him to the kitchen for supper. Ruthie was waiting there. She greeted John then quietly excused herself. As he ate, Ruth waited for him to speak, but he said nothing, head down concentrating on his food.
“John, what have you to tell me,” she began after five minutes of silence. He didn’t reply.
“John,” but she got no further.
“Please, Ruth, not tonight. We can speak tomorrow.” He stood abruptly and left, leaving her astonished and bewildered. Having heard footsteps on the stairs, Ruthie, who had been waiting in the parlour, joined her daughter.
“Well?”
“Nothing! He will say nothing. He is tired and wants to wait until tomorrow.”
“It has been a difficult few days for him, girl. Think about it.”
“And how has it been for me, Mam?” she shouted. “Am I to be left in ignorance, not worth speaking to?”
“You are upset, I understand. But what could he tell you? Do you want to hear about the other child? He has travelled so far to look at a dead child, not knowing if it was his, then travelled again. What is there to tell?”
“I want to talk about what we do next.”
“Yes, but not today. John will have plans. He’ll tell you tomorrow.”
Ruth said angrily,“So he’ll make plans.But what of mine?”
“Leave it to your husband. Men know best.”
Ruth stormed out and up to her bedroom. John was already asleep.
The following morning they dressed, and left for chapel in silence. News had spread about the body in Weston-super-Mare and as they approached friends and villagers pressed around John for news, leaving Ruth on the outside with the children, so she couldn’t hear what was said. Conversation ceased when Robert Pugh opened the chapel door.
Ruth thought that Pugh must say something this time, but again he ignored their plight. However, he had news that shocked the entire congregation.
“It is with regret that I inform you that I shall be leaving Garth Hill with immediate effect. I shall be taking up a ministry in Herefordshire. In England.” His supercilious smile caused shuffling in seats, but what he told them next brought a smile to many faces.
“Mr Robinson will be returning this week. He will resume his position as your minister here in Garth Hill.” His smile faded as he saw the general reaction. He was going to speak again, but thought better of it.
At the end of the service small groups gathered outside the chapel, quietly discussing the news. It was clear that the return of Richard Robinson was being greeted with relief by most. But a small group of elders stood around Charles Morris, shaking their heads. Eira Probert and Bessie Morris also stood apart. Ruth couldn’t help nodding a gracious smile in their direction.
She was anxious to get home so that she and John could speak. So she took the children and whispered to him that they would go ahead and wait for him. He nodded curtly.
Back at the farm, Ruth fed the children, then sent them back to Sunday school, and she and her mother waited for John. Two hours passed, the children came back from the chapel, but John had still not returned.
“Where’s Dada?” asked Walter.
“I believe he has been held up at chapel. I expect he’s talking to the men there.”
“No, he isn’t,” William replied. “As we walked there after lunch I saw him heading to the fields. I think he was going to speak to Ifor.”
During the evening, Ruthie attended to their reading and prayers as Ruth paced the house and waited for John’s return. Her ankles and feet were swelling, making walking painful, so she sat instead in the parlour, staring into space. When the children went to bed, she briefly visited them then returned to her chair.
At midnight, she heard footsteps cross the yard, and someone enter the back door. She waited in the parlour. After a moment John looked in, surprised to see her there. The hostility between them was tangible.
“Did you not think I would want to speak to you, John? Why have you kept me waiting so long?”
“I had a great deal to think about.”
“I, too.”
“I have made a decision, my dear.”
“I, too.”
His puzzled expression told her that this was not what he expected from her. He sat in his armchair facing her.
“Well, Ruth. The past few days has been difficult. Yes,” he held up a hand “for you, too. There is still so much that we don’t know. Did Alice manage to cross the Channel? For there is no sign of her this side. Did she ever reach Newport in the first place? We have come to a dead end and there is no obvious place to look.”
“Then we must double our efforts and look everywhere!”
“No, Ruth. I believe now that Alice intended to hide herself away so completely that we could not find her. Therefore,” he paused, “I have spoken to the constabulary and have told them that we will cease searching for her. We will wait until she decides to come back to us.”
Ruth stared at him, eyes wide. “I cannot believe that you still think this is wilful, John! She’s ten years old and every instinct I have tells me that she is terrified of someone not far from us, because of something she knows about Esme Ellis’s death.” She paused to take a breath. “I know my daughter, despite what she’s done. She is relying on me… us… to find her. I know she never intended to be away for this long. We must keep looking!” She began to cry and rose to pace around the room, but the pain in her feet stopped her. “And if you won’t do it, I will.” She had never shouted at him before and he seemed profoundly shocked.
“You’re barely able to walk Ruth. What are you thinking of?”
Nor had she ever disagreed so vocally with him. He had expected her to be upset about his decision, but it never occurred to him that she would refuse to accept it.
“You will remain here and look after our children and the farm. And the com
ing child. You know how ill you’ve been before. Have your forgotten little John?” He was shouting now, towering over her.
“How dare you suggest that I don’t remember. But I never knew him. He was ahead of his time and already dead. Alice was my first child. I cannot let her suffer alone. How can you ask me to do so?”
“I’ve asked the constabulary to employ the services of a detective. He will search and report back to us. In the meantime, I believe we should resume our lives and do what we can for our family.”
“No!” she screamed at him.
“I will not tolerate this insulting behaviour from you, Ruth. I have decided. No more discussion. Please go to bed. You are not looking well and you must think about your health.”
He marched out of the room and up the stairs. Ruth couldn’t bring herself to join him. She didn’t think that she could climb the stairs anyway, so she lay down on the sofa and thought about what he had said for hours, deciding that she would speak to him one more time in the morning. The idea of abandoning Alice was terrifying. And unthinkable.
Thirty Three
John rose early but Ruth was ahead of him and as soon as he entered the kitchen he stopped dead at the sight of her sitting at the table waiting for him.
“If you’re hoping to change my mind, you will not.”
She stood and walked towards him. “How can you be so uncaring, so cruel? She’s no more than a baby and out there at the mercy of everything bad in this world.”
“If she has had an accident, or worse, it would have become apparent by now. So, we must assume that she’s hiding. And therefore, she will eventually return. Now, I must look to the farm.”
He went to leave, but she put an arm out.
“I will never give up. And I will never forgive you, John!”
In his anger and frustration, he pushed her arm aside, which caught her off balance and she stumbled against the chair.
“Ruth, please, I’m so…” but before he could finish she recovered and ran ahead out of the kitchen and into the yard. John followed, but there was no sign of her. After several minutes searching the barns and outhouses, he went back into the farm and called for Ruthie.
“I’ll go to look for her. She can’t have gone far,” Ruthie offered, but John shook his head.
“No, Mrs Evans. It should be me. Which direction do you think she might have taken?”
“Towards the village, possibly? She can’t get very far because her feet are bad.”
“She’s going to do herself harm. Please look to the children and get William to school. I’ll find Ruth.” He picked up his coat and headed for Garth Hill.
An hour later he came rushing back, hands tearing through his hair. “I can’t find her anywhere. Where in God’s name can she be?”
“Ask in the cottages on the lane. Someone must have seen her!”
He left the farm and ran from cottage to cottage. At the sixth cottage, a woman said that she had been out collecting wood and had seen a woman heading up the path in the direction of the end of the mountain range where the medieval mound was. John couldn’t believe that Ruth would attempt this, but when he asked, the description was of Ruth. So, desperately, he headed up towards the summit of the mountain.
Ruth had already reached the open tranche of marshy land at the top of the mountain ridge. She could no longer feel pain in her legs and feet, nor notice that her breathing was becoming shallower and more difficult. Without her shawl, in the biting and raw wind, she was shivering violently. But this, too, she ignored. She had been driven by panic and distress, not sure where she was going but knowing that she needed a vantage point. The mountain top was the highest point around.
She reached the base of the mound and struggled up the stony steps, grasping at the boulders at each side, barely able to catch her breath when she reached the top. At last, in the perfectly clear day, she faced what she feared.
Over the Bristol Channel, she could see the distant hills of Exmoor in Devon and to the east, the sweep of Weston-super-Mare, up the Channel to where the estuary narrowed at Gloucester. Below her was the expanse of the Welsh coast, Newport directly beneath, bending round to Cardiff, and behind her, the peaks of the Brecon Beacons.
It was a huge vista, where thousands of people were living and working. How could she possibly find one little lost girl? As she turned round and round, taking in the enormity of it, the realisation hit her, like a punch in the stomach, that it was impossible. She sank to her knees, looking up at the sky, now the colour of the lovehearts that Alice and Esme had gone to pick. She wept and howled until she had no more breath. Then she lay on her back looking up at the uninterrupted sapphire-blue sky, until her eyes slowly closed.
Thirty Four
May 2015
Still feeling weary, Maggie drove into the car park in the centre of Newport and ran across the grey concrete square to the library. Having spent too long checking emails, she was now running late, and the steady rain meant slow traffic adding to her frustration. By the time she reached the cafe she was out of breath and anxious.
The cafe was doing a brisk trade. Conversation buzzed in the queue, from which Maggie gathered that there was an exhibition of paintings by a well-known artist in the museum on the floor above. She took the last empty table in front of the full-length front window and stared out at the town square below, sipping her coffee and rehearsing what she planned to say to Zelah.
Ten minutes later, Zelah appeared, at great speed, from the direction of the reference library. Today, she was dressed all in blackcurrant, with opal pins holding her hair in place, and stilettoed purple shoes. As usual, she ignored the stares of the diners and charged straight for Maggie.
“Sorry, I was so close to getting all of this…” she waved a batch of papers in her hand, “that I thought you wouldn’t mind waiting. I told you yesterday that I’d found something significant, well, there’s more!” She was about to launch into her findings, when Maggie stopped her.
“That’s great, Zelah. But I need to tell you something first.”
Zelah stopped and frowned.
“It’s about my daughter,” Maggie explained.
“Ah. What is it?”
“I told you that the photo, this photo,” Maggie handed it to Zelah, “is not just like her, it is her face. Well, I showed it to her, and she told me that this was the girl in the cemetery at the funeral that wasn’t there. Remember? Esme Ellis’s funeral.” Maggie drew in a deep breath. “I don’t know where this is going and I don’t like it. Alice told me that she recognised the coat and boots that I found in the trunk, because the girl at the funeral was wearing them. She also thinks she recognised another girl. What the hell is going on here, Zelah? I’ve been awake half the night and I’m actually scared. This isn’t just a piece of family history research any more, it’s my daughter’s well-being!”
Maggie had become flushed and her voice had risen loud enough to attract the attention of diners, several of whom were whispering to each other.
Zelah shrugged. “OK, you’re upset, I can see that. What do you want me to say? You came to me and told me you wanted to find out about this mystery in your family. If you don’t want to carry on, say so. I’ll understand.”
Maggie’s mind raced. Did she want to carry on or not? Zelah stood up. This was the moment to decide.
“Zelah,” Maggie began, “I want you to tell me more about this theory about inherited memory. With as much detail as you’ve got. And tell me what you’ve found.”
Zelah sat down.
“I don’t have much more to tell you,” she began. You can find information on the internet, but basically, the theory is that memory is inherited genetically, the same way as physical characteristics, so it’s part of you, not learned. You inherit memories in the same way that you inherit green eyes or red hair. I don’t know how or why. Like any memory, if you don’t need it, you won’t recall it. Most of us never need these memories, so they stay dormant unless some event brings the
m to our consciousness. In your case, coming back here seems to have triggered something for you and your daughter. There’s usually a reason for it coming back. So I say, find out why. Same for your daughter. If there’s any danger, well, she has you to look out for her. And me.”
She paused for a moment. “So… can I get on with what I’ve spent hours tracking down for you?”
“Yes, there is something else. Did my Alice really see Esme Ellis’s funeral?”
Zelah took a moment to think. “I don’t know, but I don’t think so. She was looking at a memory. And yes, I know that sounds odd! And I could be wrong. Because it’s understandable that you’re connected to your great-grandmother’s memories, but I can’t work out Alice’s connection.” She paused and screwed up her face with the effort of choosing her words carefully.
“It seems to me that you and your daughter have inherited strong memories from your great-grandmother, Ruth, but in following up your research you came on that day to a particular place and time where a significant part of those memories was playing out. What was the date you saw in the graveyard?”
Maggie thought back. “It was the twelfth of May, about midday the first time. I remember because I was late picking Alice up for the dentist. We went back around two.”
“We can check the cemetery records, but I think we’ll find that both your great-grandfather and Esme Ellis were buried on the same day in May in their respective death years. I wouldn’t be surprised if the funerals took place at midday.”
“Are you saying it was no coincidence that I went to the cemetery on exactly the same day?”
“Difficult to say,” Zelah replied. “When you first told me your story you said that you felt compelled to follow this research up but you had no idea why the compulsion was so strong. Now you know.”
“I can accept that,” Maggie replied. “But it still doesn’t explain why Alice thought that people in the memory could see her. How could my Alice be a memory for them?”
