Saturday 16 January 2021

The Voices in the Garden: Part 4

 The May morning after learning of her mother’s death, Esther woke and found their one-eared cat, Bakewell on her bed. He was a shaggy black and white stray they’d taken in; a wily old tomcat, battle-scarred and ragged but very much loved by everyone. Esther stroked him under his chin and he rolled on his back rakishly, purring like a tractor. Esther thought about last night’s knock on the door, the conversation in her brother’s room, her father’s flailing vulnerability. She felt a darkness creep over her, like ink spilling on a clear white page. What would she say to Miss Finch now? 

She got out of bed, picking up Bakewell and burrowing her face in his warm fur. He smelt of the night, of scurrying creatures and the richness of the earth. 

‘I hope you’ve been a good boy, Bakewell. No more mice.’

The cat was a prolific hunter. Her father called him ‘Baby Herod’, although Esther didn’t really understand why. It was something about slaughter and innocents from a story in the Bible. She snickered to herself as she remembered the time Bakewell had left a dead mouse in each of her father’s work shoes. 

‘I mean, one would have been bad enough!’ he had cried. ‘I really wasn’t expecting the second one. These socks are ruined and I’ve only had them since 1955.’

‘He’s just paying his way. He’s thanking us for giving him a home.’ Esther laughed. 

Standing on the landing, with Bakewell squirming in her arms, Esther could hear voices downstairs. A woman’s voice and her father’s. She noticed both doors were closed to her brother’s rooms. She stood in the doorway of her father’s room. The bed was neatly and crisply made. The chrysanthemum patterned curtains, sewn by her mother, were open. Sunlight glimmered in the room, dappled by the heart-shaped leaves of lilac tree outside the window. The window was open too and the room was heady with the sugary perfume of the blooms. All was bright and fresh. All was ordered and neat: except for the wardrobe. Her father had neglected to close its door. Esther could see her parents’ clothes hanging like limp ghosts: the greys and blacks of her father’s work suits, and next to them, the earthy, September-hued dresses lovingly made by her mother. Her mother had diminished even further now. The cruel, black-caped magician had had his wicked way. She had shrunk and shrunk and shrunk and now had quite disappeared altogether. All that remained were the wraiths of her dresses stirring sadly in the spring breeze.

In the kitchen, her father stood slumped with his hands on the sink. He was not dressed for work, Esther noticed. At the stove, Aunt Rose was stirring a pan of spitting porridge. Aunt Rose always reminded Esther of the ladies in her mother’s Good Housekeeping magazines: she was always glossy, always elegant, always appropriate. She was an illusion of polished perfection. While her mother had been ill, Aunt Rose had taken to visiting to help with housework and cooking. On these days, she would coquettishly knot a silk scarf over her hair in preparation for the exhausting hours of selfless drudgery spent at her brother’s house. As far as Esther could see, Aunt Rose rarely did anything more taxing than wafting a limp duster over the coffee table or half-heartedly straightening a cushion. Most of her time was spent tutting disapprovingly at her mother’s housekeeping arrangements or narrowing her gimlet eyes at Esther’s scuffed knees and unbrushed hair.

‘Well, Esther, that’s everything ship-shape for now. They say I’ll get my reward in heaven,’ she would simper as she elegantly slipped into her fur trimmed coat. Heavenly rewards were all very well and good, but truthfully Aunt Rose was more interested in payment in a much more worldly, narcissistic currency. On her way home through the colliery streets she would gleefully stop and gossip with all who passed. 

‘I’ve been to Bill’s. . . Yes, dear me it is a tragic situation, simply tragic but I do what I can. . . I’m absolutely exhausted. The house is in such a state, well you can imagine, can’t you? I’m just breaking my heart over those poor children, simply breaking my heart.’

Esther’s heart sank to see Aunt Rose in the kitchen that morning in May, her coral-slicked mouth pursed meanly as she stirred the porridge, her frilly pink apron (brought from home for the occasion) knotted tightly to show her tiny waist. 

Aunt Rose was a tiger in a twin set. 

‘Oh, my angel, Esther! Come here and give me a hug. My goodness, put that filthy cat outside first! He’s always crawling with fleas.’

‘Bakewell’s here for his breakfast,’ Esther replied stubbornly, but the wayward cat was in no mood to be used as an aunt-repelling shield and he wiggled out of her arms and shot out the back door.

‘There now, he’s gone. Come here sweetheart,’ Rose smiled, stretching out her arms theatrically.

‘Your porridge is burning,’ Esther said flatly. 

She crossed the room to stand next to her father at the sink, and tentatively leaned against him, her cheek brushing the warmth of his rumpled flannel shirt. For a few delicious seconds, he rested his hand on the top of her head. They stood sadly together in the soft, sunlit silence, broken and voiceless in grief. Suddenly, the moment passed. He was gone, briskly leaving the room. ‘I’m going to wake the lads. They’ll be late for school at this rate,’ he said, his voice cool and toneless.

Esther was astonished. ‘We’re going to school?’ she repeated? ‘Today?’ But her father was already striding up the stairs and did not answer. 

Aunt Rose was ladling sticky grey porridge into bowls. 

‘We never have porridge,’ Esther thought bitterly. ‘Where’s she even got porridge from? She can’t even get that right.’

            Rose set the bowls neatly on place mats set out on the kitchen table. Place mats? At breakfast time? And napkins too? Esther seethed. It was an insult. 

‘Now you come and sit down. I need to talk to you, Esther. Just us girls.’ Aunt Rose sat at the table and pulled a chair out for Esther, tapping it with a frosted pink nail.

Esther sat, crossing her arms mutinously. ‘We have crumpets with butter and honey for breakfast. We don’t like porridge. We NEVER have porridge.’

‘I know you’re going to be heartbroken. Your mother was a simply wonderful lady, so beautiful, . . . . naturally beautiful.’

Esther stared straight ahead at the clock on the wall. She focused intently on the minute hand, trying to catch its tiny incremental movements. ‘Sometimes we have bacon and eggs,’ 

‘You need to be very brave and very good. It is what Winnie would have wanted.’ 

How dare she even say her mother’s name! Esther concentrated on the minute hand of the clock, clenching her hands under the table, her nails digging into her palms so forcefully she was sure they would bleed. She tried to distil the bubbling, surging fury inside her into a black force strong enough to stop time, to turn back time. She pictured the clock hand magically winding back, back to the safety of yesterday. It was useless. With an amiable click, the minute hand moved forward. It was half past seven exactly. 

Esther boldly looked at Aunt Rose ‘Why are there stupid napkins on the table? It’s not Christmas,’ 

Aunt Rose grasped Esther’s hands in her own. ‘I don’t want you running wild, acting like a little hoodlum. Soon you’ll be a young lady. I think we need to start acting that way, don’t we?’

Esther had to make this conversation stop. She had to. She was a catapult being pulled tauter and tauter. She gently pulled her hands away from Aunt Rose and smiled her stickiest, syrupiest smile. She genteelly smoothed a napkin on her knee, picked up her spoon and dipped it into the porridge. 

Aunt Rose smiled approvingly. ‘I knew you’d understand, Esther. Winnie always said you were a clever girl.’

Esther nodded graciously, accepting the compliment. She lifted the spoon to her mouth, glancing at it as she did so. 

‘Ugh!’ she screamed loudly, scrunching up her face in violent disgust. She gagged forcefully and flung the spoon down. She observed, with immense satisfaction, that some greasy grey sludge had splattered on Aunt Rose’s cream cashmere cardigan. 

‘This porridge has BLACK bits in it. This porridge has LUMPS in it. This porridge looks EXACTLY like the hairballs Bakewell coughs up.’ Esther stood up defiantly. ‘WE have crumpets and honey for breakfast. WE have bacon and eggs. We don’t have VOMITROCIOUS HAIRBALL PORRIDGE!’ And with as much shaky dignity as she could muster, she swept out of the room.

Left alone in the kitchen, Aunty Rose sighed piously, glided to the sink and dabbed her cardigan with a damp dish cloth. She’d feigned wounded disapproval in front of Esther of course, but she was surreptitiously storing away another 24-carat nugget of calumny to share with her audience of captivated neighbours. 

‘My goodness, the girl Esther can be such a little hellion. You won’t believe how she spoke to me today! I was only there to help, you know. I’d made breakfast. I’d the set table beautifully for them all (believe me, I don’t think that had been done for quite some time.) I mean, I’m devastated too. That’s what people don’t see. I am simply devastated.’

She would pause momentarily, dabbing her eyes with her embroidered hanky, benevolently allowing time for empathetic titters and nods. ‘Of course, I understand why Esther is lashing out. She is in pain. One must make allowances. One must be charitable.’

As Esther climbed the stairs, she congratulated herself for her retort about Bakewell’s hairballs, it was genius, she thought. Simply genius. 

Aunt Rose though, as ever, was about to have the last word, devastating it its barbed cruelty.

‘Anyway, Esther dear, I think we’d better steer clear of crumpets and honey and bacon and eggs from now on. Us girls have to watch what we eat,’ she called with icy cordiality. ‘Your poor mother always battled with her weight, you know.’ 

Matthew walked Esther to school that morning. Their house was on the edge of the oldest part of the village where cottages and allotments gave way to wind-blasted fields. Their street, which was comprised of neat suburban semis and tasteful bungalows with generous gardens, felt oddly misplaced. There was nothing unusual about it except its location; one lonely street on the road out of the village, cut adrift. It had a desolate feel, as if the planners had the intention to build a whole community of comfortably appointed homes there, but lost heart after building Burnside Lane.

Matthew strode ahead of Esther, his army-green school bag swinging from side to with the momentum of his lanky stride. He was a tall, thin boy. His whole body seemed permanently tensed, imbued with a resentment and fury that could explode at any moment. He and Esther rarely spoke. He rarely spoke at all. This morning neither could find any words to say. 

They were walking uphill, past blossoming allotments to their right and small white-washed cottages to their left. At the top of the hill stood a solemn, grey Norman church. Its graveyard was lush with whispering oaks and elms, but they gave little shelter. The biting wind from the North Sea had eroded the tottering grave stones, giving them the hollowed appearance of cinder toffee. From the church, looking east, the colliery spread out below; a maze of narrow terraced streets. The colliery was a claustrophobic clutter of modest, grey-roofed, red brick ‘two up, two downs’ and dark, twisting ginnels. Pale smoke drifted spectre-like from chimney pots giving the view a blurry, soft focus effect. The bleak, industrial architecture of the pit, its metal towers and wheels and monstrous slag heaps loomed where the land gave way to the sea. 

Esther and Matthew approached the school gate, the silence throbbing between them. 

‘There’s no one there,’ Esther said, panic rising in her throat. The school yard was completely deserted: no children, no teachers, no cars.

‘Aye, well, it’s not even 8 o’clock yet, man,’ her brother replied, turning to head off towards the village green where he’d get a bus to his secondary school in the next town. 

‘Are you going? Have I got to wait on my own?’ she asked, her voice quivering.

Matthew stopped. She saw his shoulders rise and fall as he sighed. He turned back to face her. Esther tried desperately to stop the tears from falling. She hated seeming weak. With an uncharacteristic tenderness and grace, he knelt in front of her and put his hands on her shoulders. He was so close she could see the flashes of amber in his eyes and smell the toothpaste on his breath. She wondered that she had never been so close to him before. 

‘Listen, it’s OK. Go and sit on the steps. The teachers will be here soon. I don’t think he realised what the time was when he sent us out. He’s got stuff to do today, you know, for her. Anyway, I’ve got to go.’

It was more words that he had ever spoke to her. The use of pronouns was typical of Matthew; names seemed too awkward and intimate to him, so Dad was always ‘he’ or ‘him’ and mum was always ‘she’ or ‘her’. Esther understood clearly then that he wastelling the truth, he did haveto go. He hadto go before people arrived with their questions and good-wishes. 

Her brother stood up and ran hand through his wayward hair (which was far too long, according to Aunty Rose, who claimed it made him look like some sort of low-grade beatnik.) He looked up the street, embarrassed, a cornered animal desperate to escape. Benevolently, she released him. 

‘It’s OK. I’ve got a book in my bag. I’ll go and read.’

He nodded, relieved.

‘Good lass. See you tonight, you,’ and with that he tramped off, head down, moving with the clumsy inelegance of adolescence. Esther watched him till he disappeared past the church and then nervously went through the school gate.

A playground on a school day is not meant to be empty. Although the trees that surrounded the little school and its neat, square yard were blooming with new leaves, the day held touches of winter in its breath. The wind was rising. Tree tops churned and thundered like a ship at sea. The scene felt desolate. Eerie. 

The small church school for village children was built with rough grey stone. It contained three classrooms and a hall with a polished wooden floor shone like amber in the morning sun. In front of the school, nestled against the church wall, rose four overgrown mounds, each the size of a small garage. These were the old air raid shelters. The shelters were strictly out of bounds to children and were damp and deathly with nettles and brambles. On the brightest, sunniest of days the shelters were dark and shadowy, situated under the murmurous canopy of trees. For the pupils at the school, the shelters were both magical and terrifying. They had become folkloric: the setting for many spine-chilling sagas and harrowing dares. Children would huddle together to debate how to get inside one of the shelters. The entrances were invisible now, concealed behind the jungle of undergrowth and thorns. Some of the older boys boasted that they had spent the night in one of the shelters, but no one truly believed them.

One myth persisted about the old air raid shelters. It was said, some years ago two little girls managed to find their way inside, to shelter from a thunderstorm. Alice Moore said the girls were trying to get home from Brownies, which made the story hideously plausible, as Brownies was held in the church hall every Thursday night. Access to the church hall was through a leafy cut that ran parallel to the shelters, everyone knew that. Alice said when the girls’ parents came searching for the them with torches, they found a Brownie’s promise badge outside one of the shelters. Its door appeared to have been forced open, but the girls were nowhere to be seen. Alice swore (on the bible) that she knew this to be correct as her aunty worked in the ice cream parlour with the one of the girl’s mothers.

Stephen Greenbank, on the other hand, said Alice’s version of the story was untrue. He knew for a fact that the girls’ bodies were found in the shelter and that they were naked and covered in blood. He accepted, magnanimously, that Alice was correct about the badge alerting parents to the crime scene, but hypothesised that the parents had to be drawn to the shelter by something else (a lost Brownie badge being almost impossible to spot on a stormy night in the overgrown wildness of the shelters). 

Esther, who adored animals and was desperate for a pet dog, suggested that if one of the girls had a dog (possibly a greyhound she speculated) it could have led the families and police to the murder site. This addition to the tale was accepted enthusiastically by everyone, as it allowed for further narrative developments in which the loyal and lovelorn hound, refusing to leave his mistress’s grave, pines away and dies. 

‘I suppose when it thunders, the ghostly hound will come back to look for his mistresses. I bet we’ll be able to hear him howling,’ Esther added knowledgably. 

Of course, whenever a storm broke out, a delectable titter of excitement and dread would circulate round the classrooms of the school. Eyes would widen, lips would quiver and girls would grasp each other’s hands tightly. 

‘I hear the hound,’ someone would inevitably whisper. 

‘Nothing to worry about, boys and girls.’ Miss Finch would say brightly as the thunder boomed. ‘God is having his coal delivered today, that is all.’ 

It seemed an appropriately pragmatic metaphor for colliery children. Odd that it never seemed to comfort them, thought Miss Finch, who was oblivious to the legend of the ghostly greyhound. 

On the morning after her mother’s death, Esther eyed darkness of the shelters suspiciously as she passed. She tried not to think about the legend of the missing girls and the ghostly greyhound. She resented her father for sending her to school that day. It seemed cruel, thoughtless. She did not know how she would find the words to tell her friends or teachers what had happened to her mother.

Esther settled on the steps leading to the entrance. She’d lied to her brother. She didn’t have a book with her at all. She wished she had. Her Nancy Drew was still on her bedside table. She sat and watched as the day began to unfold itself around her, slowly and unsteadily at first, like an old dog standing up after a long nap. First, the road began to hum with passing cars and the occasional bus. From the houses opposite the school, an old lady came out in slippers and a dressing gown to sweep her front step. A man in a suit wheeled out a bicycle and wobbled off towards the village green. To her left, a woman was struggling to hang washing on a line as the bold wind whipped and snapped at the sheets and pillowcases. It was incredible to Esther: the abundant life teeming around her, the beautiful, humdrum life full of buses and chores and bicycles. Esther’s world ended last night, yet here the world continued, robust and dispassionate. She struggled to understand and order her thoughts; they were as nebulous as smoke. The language to articulate them had simply not been invented. What she did feel was that the surge of ordinary activity around her was obscene. Obscene, but also miraculous. It seemed to promise that one morning soon, Esther would be an ordinary girl again doing ordinary things. That her mother, who started shrinking months ago, would eventually shrink to the tiniest black dot and then disappear completely, as if she had never existed. Esther closed her eyes to try to blot out such treacherous thoughts.

‘Esther, you’re very early this morning, pet,’ Miss Finch was smiling in front of her. Miss Finch lived on the village green and walked to school every morning. She was carrying her usual macramé bag which was crammed with the class’s English books and sandwiches wrapped in brown paper. She wore a long peasant dress in cobalt blue cheesecloth and had large golden hoops in her ears that shimmered with tiny turquoise beads. Her wavy brown hair, which almost reached her waist, was braided, tied with a blue velvet ribbon in a perfect bow. She was a lovely woman, a kind woman. She taught the names of flowers and birds, she introduced her children to wonderful books and stories, she loved art and played the guitar. She was as bright and serene as the North Star and Esther worshipped her.

‘My brother dropped me off. Maybe he didn’t realise the time,’ Esther said, shrugging. She began to wonder if it was possible to simply pretend nothing had happened at all. Avoiding Miss Finch’s gaze, she methodically untied and retied her plimsolls’ laces while she prayed that the daily question about her mum would not be asked.

The silence was broken by the furious rumble of a failing exhaust. Mr Gibson’s decaying sunflower yellow Hillman Imp spluttered and clattered up the drive. Mr Gibson was the benevolent and befuddled headteacher of the tiny school. Esther and Miss Finch watched his clownish arrival. Stumbling out of his front seat, he wrestled his briefcase from the cluttered car and slammed the door. Next, he began patting and emptying the pockets of his tatty tweed jacket, an expression of benign bewilderment on his rosy face. Miss Finch supressed a smile and affectionately called, ‘They’re still in the ignition, Sir,’

‘Success!’ he cried joyfully, on discovering the keys. ‘Thank you, Miss Finch! You’re a blessed angel sent from heaven.’

The strange thing about Mr Gibson was that he looked exactly like Esther’s father. They had the same noble, if slightly threadbare appearance, like a down at heel aristocrats from some crumbling country pile. They were the same height and build, and had the same perpetually windswept white hair. They both adored walking and were often seen striding around the village or fields, dressed casually in their sagging cords, wellies and ubiquitous flat caps. They even shared the same first name, Bill. People were always getting them mixed up. Esther’s father would be stopped in the street and asked about sports days, nativities and reading books. Mr Gibson would be cornered to explain the perplexities of Coal Board payslips and pension deductions. The men were good friends. It occurred to Esther that maybe Mr Gibson had been told what had happened. She hoped that was the case. Then the responsibility of telling people would not be hers.

‘Well ladies, and so another week begins. Esther, you are most prompt today, which is wonderful, of course, but I don’t like the idea of you sitting here by yourself. Miss Finch, is there anything Esther could help you with in class?’ 

‘Of course. Why don’t you come and help me give out the maths books, Esther?’ Miss Finch held out her hand and helped Esther up. They walked through the heavy glass doors together.

‘Have a wonderful day, Esther! Send my regards to your dad. I had to explain National Insurance contributions to some blighter in the Co op on Saturday. Wouldn’t believe that I wasn’t your father! I did my best, but I fear I may have got into a terrible muddle and made the poor chap think he owes thousands! Don’t tell anyone, but maths was never my strong suit,’ he tapped his nose conspiratorially, his blue eyes twinkling. ‘Now, I’m off for a nice cup of tea and a custard cream, good day ladies,’ and with a stately bow, Mr Gibson ambled off to his office.

Esther loved her classroom. It seemed to be endlessly flooded with sunlight from huge sash windows that overlooked the school field. Along the windowsills, Miss Finch grew geraniums and marigolds in terracotta pots, making the room smell sweet and peppery. That term, the class had been studying Cezanne’s still life paintings. The walls were covered with cloudy angular pastels of apples, pears and grapes in rich, golden colours. 

‘Could you water the plants please, Esther? The watering can should be by the sink. Then if you could give out the maths books. It’s a times table test today, I’m afraid.’

Miss Finch had opened one of the sash windows and was now writing the date on the blackboard in her elegant cursive script. Esther hung her coat and bag on her peg and started to fill the watering can. The sounds in the classroom were soothing: water whooshing into the silver can, the gentle scratch of the chalk, the flutter of the pastels in the crisp green breeze.

‘I’m going to tell you a secret, Esther. On Friday, we’re going to be baking our own bread. Isn’t that exciting? It’s Science really, but what could be better than a Science lesson that finishes with warm bread and butter? Have you made bread before?’

Esther moved to the windowsill and began feeling the dry soil in the geranium pots with her fingers. 

‘Mum makes bread sometimes,’ she said. She flushed, stumbling. ‘Mum madebread sometimes,’ she corrected. 

Miss Finch stopped writing on the board and smiled sympathetically.

‘Well, when she’s feeling better, I am sure she’ll bake bread again. It is all bit of a palaver, to be honest. Lots of waiting. In the meantime, I know I’ll have to call on you on Friday for your expertise.’

Esther looked at the date on the blackboard: Monday 10thMay 1976. She thought ahead to Friday, and for a second she forgot the lava of pain and anger that boiled and bubbled inside her.

‘It’s my birthday on Friday too!’ she cried. Over the weekend, her birthday was all she could think about and all she could talk about. That morning though, it had slipped her mind completely.

Miss Finch clapped her hands joyfully. ‘Well, that’s just perfect, Esther. You’ve got a lot to look forward to this week,’

Esther walked calmly back to the sink with the watering can and began refilling it. The geraniums were really very parched; their leaves were curling and brown. Maybe Miss Finch would allow her to water the plants every morning. It could be her special job. She would like that. Without warning the air seemed to buzz and crackle, as if full of electricity. She could hear the sweet chirruping of Miss Finch’s voice, but she could not make out the words. They seemed to be thick and furred, and they wavered as if heard through a tin can telephone. Then the classroom seemed to tilt and spin. Suddenly Esther was on the floor with the upturned can bleeding cold water into her dress. At last, the tears came. It was a relief. Such a relief.

Miss Finch rushed over, kneeled down and helped her onto a chair, ‘Esther, what on earth happened? Are you alright? Where are you hurt?’

 ‘My mum is dead,’ she replied simply. ‘My mum is dead. My mum is dead. My mum is dead.’

Esther spent the first lesson in the secretary’s office with a glass of cold milk and a couple of Mr Gibson’s beloved custard creams. When the bell rang for morning break, Miss Finch came and spoke to her gently. 

‘Esther. I hope you don’t mind but I’ve told the class about your mum. They would very much like you to join them outside for playtime, but that’s your choice. I’ve got your coat here. You can stay here if you prefer. Or you can go to read in the library.’

Esther was craving fresh air and weightlessness. She wanted to run and run until she was too tired to think about her mother. She wanted to be deafened by the noises of the playground: the kick of the football, the snap of a skipping rope, the laughter of her friends.

‘I’ll go out, thank you, Miss Finch,’

She walked quietly along the corridor. She could feel Miss Finch watching every step. She wondered if Miss Finch thought going out was disrespectful somehow, inappropriate. Would she think Esther didn’t care about her mother? She would hate Miss Finch to think of her badly. As soon as she left the school building though, she started to sprint. The wild spring wind pushed against her, filling her lungs and blowing out her yellow cagoule like a parachute. For a few wonderful seconds, she felt completely free. 

From the office window, a mug of tea in her hand, Miss Finch watched Esther race around the trees in the front playground. Her class mates, one by one, began running with her, whooping joyfully. Finally, Esther stopped and collapsed on the grass, her friends falling with her. They sat together, the girls with their arms around their wounded friend. The boys, gawky and embarrassed hugging their knees shyly. Miss Finch saw Stephen Greenbank pull a chocolate bar from his pocked and offer it to Esther. She snapped it in half to share with him. The innate kindness of children was humbling, Miss Finch thought. The newspapers were wrong, all those horror stories about the young people of the day. In her opinion, children had a boundless potential for empathy and good. Their love was as pure and true as a flower. 

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