The Dissent of Annie Lang E-Book

Ros Franey

• Herausgeber: Muswell Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Impulsive, brave and lovable, Annie Lang is a truly memorable heroine

Das E-Book The Dissent of Annie Lang wird angeboten von Muswell Press und wurde mit folgenden Begriffen kategorisiert:

Leseprobe

THE DISSENT OF ANNIE LANG

Ros Franey

CONTENTS

TITLE PAGEPROLOGUE 1932PART ONE 1926PART TWO 1926 and 1932PART THREE 1932ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSA NOTE ON THE AUTHORCOPYRIGHT

PROLOGUE

1932

My story starts and ends at railway stations, though of course I can’t know this yet as I clamber off the boat train at Victoria that warm May afternoon. Through the clang of shunting, whistles, the shouts of porters and the sharp smell of coal from the tenders, it’s suddenly a tremendous relief to catch sight of Beatrice. She is standing in a pool of yellow light shining through the sooty glass roof, her grey eyes scanning the throng from behind new circular horn-rimmed spectacles, a slight frown breaking into a smile as she sees me a moment after I see her.

‘Annie! Phew! What a crush. I thought I’d missed you!’ Her gloved hands catch mine for a moment, and then she grabs my suitcase and joins the queue jostling for the barrier. ‘Goodness, girl, what on earth have you got in here?’

I laugh and take her arm. She’s wearing a white dress with blue roses and a little blue-grey bolero, smart grey shoes, grey-blue gloves that match her eyes and a dove-grey leather bag.

‘Gosh, Beatrice, you look so … elegant!’

We’re standing at one of the bus stops in front of the station. Beatrice smiles shyly and raises a critical hand to her hair, which has been cut in a bob, held at the back with a bow. I’ve barely seen her since she took up her job in London. People say she’s not a beauty – though, to me, she’s my beautiful sister – but there’s no doubt about it: Beatrice has style. I feel a scruff in comparison, with my plaid cotton dress, its starched white collar probably coated in smuts from the journey, my creased summer coat, sensible brogues and tangled hair from sitting on deck for most of the crossing. Beatrice surveys me, taking all this in, and says nothing.

Later, after supper at her digs in Bloomsbury, I tell her a bit about France and my ten months studying in Bordeaux, holding on to it fiercely to stop it slipping away. Beatrice is ironing a blouse for next morning and I tease her about the care she takes with her wardrobe. She says seriously, ‘The secret is to buy well, Annie – quality, not quantity.’ She is a secretary to two of the ministers at the G-Pom. ‘It’s all right for you; you’re a student,’ she adds wistfully.

‘When will you start your training, Bea?’ I ask her. I don’t want her to feel I’m putting on airs because of going to the university. Beatrice’s dream is to be a missionary.

She avoids my gaze. ‘I don’t know yet. I’ll have to see. It depends.’

‘On what?’

She concentrates on the ruffles of her blouse, pressing the iron against each one with precision. ‘Oh, you know … on my vocation, I suppose.’

‘Oh … I see.’ This is a part of her life into which I can never enquire. ‘I thought you … I mean, well, you’ve got a vocation, haven’t you? You’ve always had it!’

‘I don’t know, Annie. It’s more complicated than I used to think. You have to be called,’ she explains gently. ‘It’s not up to you.’

‘Oh,’ I say, very much hoping no one will call me.

There’s a short silence. She finishes the blouse and stands the iron on a trivet to cool. ‘But, listen, that’s enough about me. What have you heard from home?’

‘Oh, you know. Nothing much.’ I’m still thinking about Beatrice and how annoying it must be to have to hang around waiting for God. I turn my mind to her question. ‘Nothing’s happening at home, is it? Daddy’s worshipful whatsit of the lodge by now, I suppose. Golly, I hope that doesn’t mean I’ll get dragged off to ladies’ evenings!’ I pull a face in mock horror. ‘I say, d’you suppose Mother has to go? I can’t see it, can you? Imagine – she’d have the Bagshaws singing “The Old Rugged Cross” within half an hour!’

We both smile uneasily.

‘Anything to report on that front?’ I ask after a moment.

‘On Mother? No. But Annie—’ Beatrice has folded up the ironing board. She comes to sit down. ‘They haven’t mentioned Fred?’

I throw myself on the slippery counterpane of her bed, levering off my shoes without untying the laces. ‘Fred? What about him?’

‘He’s not been well.’

I stare at her. ‘How d’you mean?’

Beatrice sighs. ‘Oh dear. Listen, before we talk about it, let me make you some cocoa.’

I shake my head. ‘I want to know about Fred. What’s the matter with him? Is it serious?’

‘Quite serious, but it’s not’ – she looks at me meaningfully – ‘physical.’

‘You mean it’s like last time?’

Beatrice nods. ‘But worse. “Nervous exhaustion”, they say.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Mapperley.’

‘In, or as an outpatient?’

‘He’s in there, Annie. He’s been there a few weeks.’

‘And they never told me!’

We look at each other as I take this in. The hospital is a great brick lunatic asylum from my childhood; girls at school who lived nearby called it The Building. They’d threaten to lock you up in it if you did something stupid. If you walked past, it was like ambulances: you had to hold your collar until you saw a dog. And now our brother is inside. ‘What about his work?’ Daddy had found Fred a job as an insurance clerk through one of his Masonic chums.

‘Well, he couldn’t cope,’ says Beatrice. ‘You know? Couldn’t concentrate. Found it hard to be there on time. Forgot things…’ She tails off. It’s not the first time this has happened: he dropped out of college two years ago, but he could never talk about it at home; couldn’t explain to any of us what was wrong.

‘I always thought it was that stupid school,’ I say. ‘He was never quite himself after they sent him away.’

Beatrice shakes her head. ‘Whatever it is, he’s poorly. They’re saying complete rest is the only thing that will help. There’s some new electric treatment in America, I’ve heard, but it hasn’t come here yet.’

‘Can I see him?’

‘They’re a bit funny about visiting. They think it may upset him more…’

‘Is that what she says? Well, I’m going to see him!’

Beatrice throws me a warning look. ‘Just watch it, will you? You know what you’re like!’

‘Why didn’t they tell me, Bea?’

‘They won’t have wanted to worry you, Annie, when you were so far from home.’

*

But as the train pulls north out of St Pancras next day, I feel further from home than ever. I think about Fred and the world I’m going back to, and realise, of course, that the story doesn’t start here at all. It began long ago, and what I can’t recall I can read – because I wrote it down when I was twelve.

Part One

1926

ONE

These are the secrets of Annie Rose Lang, in which I write the history of my hidden thoughts and all the things I can’t say to anyone, not even Beatrice, except I do say some things to her. I am twelve and a half, the daughter of Harry Lang, manager of Roebuck’s Biscuits and some other things, and of Agnes Mary Lang my beloved mother, not of Agnes Ada Lang who is my mother now.

I can see from our photograph album that Our Own Mother and Daddy had a wonderful wedding with trails of flowers and cousins in white. Beatrice says they are in the garden of the big house at Mapperley Top where Grandfather still lives. Grandfather is there looking not too religious for once, and beside him Auntie Grace in a hat like a cake towers over my little parents, Daddy very handsome and twinkly, Mother looking alarmed. And that’s all I know about that, because of course Beatrice wasn’t there either, so she can’t tell me.

The first thing I have to recount is what happened to my mother Agnes Mary when I was six years old, and this is difficult because I remember only a few things. Sometimes it is hard to know what I actually recall and what Beatrice and the others have told me since. I would prefer not to write anything I don’t know for myself, but there are a few things I learnt, or thought, later. This can’t be helped, for they need to be put down as well.

One of my earliest own memories is where it all started. Faster than Fairies, Faster than Witches, Bridges and Houses, Hedges and Ditches. We were reading The Child’s Garden of Verses at bedtime. On that particular night instead of Mother coming to read to me, Maisie came. I remember thinking it odd because Maisie should have gone home. I asked, Maisie, where is Mother? And she answered very quickly that she would read to me tonight and where had we got to? It’s poems, I said. You don’t get to anywhere with poems, you just read them. This was rude, but I didn’t want to read ‘From a Railway Carriage’ with Maisie because Mother was more fun. And Charging Along Like Troops in A Battle, All Through the Meadows of Horses and Cattle … Mother used to pretend the bed was the railway carriage and bounce as she read it, and I would laugh out loud. Maisie took up the book and leafed through it like someone who is not used to looking at poems.

‘Here’s one,’ she said: ‘“To Mother”.’ I waited. Maisie sat very still. She didn’t bounce on the bed. She jammed her knees together, I could see the shape of them under her pinny, and read it in a sort of flat-reading voice, almost like in the Mission. I won’t copy it out here because it makes me cry.

‘Where is Mother?’ I asked again, when she had finished.

‘Go to sleep now,’ she said. ‘Mother’s lying down.’

‘Where’s Beatrice? Where is Fred?’

‘Beatrice is in her room.’

‘Where’s Daddy?’

‘Hush,’ said Maisie. She put her scaly palm on my forehead. ‘It will all be better in the morning, duckie.’ After a few minutes in which I shut my eyes and pretended to be asleep, she left the room, leaving the door ajar as Mother would have told her to. This was a good sign.

As soon as her feet had gone downstairs I jumped out of bed and crept to the place where the gaslight fell across the corner of my room from the open door. In our rooms we had electricity but in those days the landing and the hall light was still gas that hissed a bit with a greenish smell. There was a funny sound about the house, like a doom, but no people. I tiptoed back for Little Sid, who goes everywhere with me, and then out along the corridor to see my sister Beatrice. She was lying on her bed, reading, winding her long hair in her fingers like French knitting.

‘Annie, you’re supposed to be asleep!’

‘Mother didn’t say goodnight,’ I announced.

‘You’ve got to be a good girl tonight.’

‘I want Mother to come and do “From a Railway Carriage”.’

‘She can’t,’ Beatrice said. ‘Maisie’s stayed late instead.’

‘Maisie can’t do poems.’

‘Daddy says Mother’s a bit poorly. If you go back to bed she’ll be better in the morning.’

‘Little Sid doesn’t want to go back to bed. He wants to stay here with you.’

‘He’ll go if you go with him. Here—’ She jumped off her own bed and took my hand.

‘Can we go and see Mother?’

‘Mother’s very tired. She’s sleeping.’ Beatrice and I and Little Sid crept back along the corridor. ‘Mind that bit,’ Beatrice whispered as we got to the creaky board, as if I didn’t know. A door opened downstairs and we heard Daddy’s voice. He was speaking to Maisie. We held our breath but the door closed again and we heard Maisie down in the hall. Beatrice hurried me back into my own room and tucked me up in bed.

‘Night, night Sleepyhead,’ she murmured. It was what Mother used to say. ‘Have you said your prayers?’

‘Sort of. No.’

‘Well say them in bed. Say them for Mother.’

‘Why?’ I demanded.

‘No reason. Just to be on the safe side. I’ve said mine.’ Beatrice has always been better at prayers than me. She left the room then.

I lay in bed and curled my toes into my nightie to warm them up and clutched Little Sid very tightly. I don’t know what prayers I said, probably God Bless Mother and God Bless Daddy and God Bless Nana and God Bless Beatrice and Fred and Maisie and Little Sid and then at the end God Bless Mother again, to make sure he jolly well did.

I hoped it would all be better in the morning, but it wasn’t. For a start, Daddy didn’t go to his office down in the town, very peculiar. Maisie seemed to be creeping up and downstairs a lot with pans of something and towels and medicine that smelt dismal in a cup. Dr Martin was away, so another doctor came. I remember his big overcoat and his bulging shoulders as I watched through the banisters. It was the holidays and we didn’t know what to do. Beatrice played the piano, Scenes of Childhood and Für Elise, then she tried to teach me Halma, one of the games in the box on the bookshelves in the drawing room. I just remember everything being jumpy and not concentrating. No one took any notice of us and I had the butterflies in my tummy. Fred came in – although he was younger than Beatrice, he was a boy and always out. Maisie said we should put on our coats and go into the Oaks with Nana, but although she was only two in those days Nana knew something was up and hung back with her tail between her legs. Fred had to drag her by the collar up to the reservoir. Beatrice and I did skipping and Fred got bored and wandered off again with Nana.

This went on for several days, until Sunday. Sunday in our house is different because of the Mission and we all have to go. You have to go at least three times, morning and evening and Sunday School, which is Bible Story in the afternoons. But Mother said I was too little and I only had to go twice. When we are older and baptised with the total immersion, we shall have to take the pledge, as in the foreswearing of alcohol, and go to the Mission even more. It is important to go to the Mission because it was founded by our grandfather, William Eames, who is the Pastor there, and so we have to set an example. It is known as the Golgotha Mission, after the Crucifixion. The other people who go there have to name their children after us because of Pastor Eames being our grandfather. Well, maybe they don’t have to, but a lot of them do it anyway and there are all these Freds and Beatrices and Annies running round in the Sunday School class. I hate it. Why can’t they think up names for themselves? Anyway, on this particular Sunday a whole lot of prayers were said for the sick and Our Dear Sister Agnes Lang and it was awful afterwards when everyone came up to us and wanted to take us by the hand and look pityingly at us, as if she was dead or something, which they couldn’t have known she was going to die. I hung on to Beatrice with one hand and kept the other clutched around Little Sid in my pocket, so I didn’t have a hand free and they couldn’t touch me. I was glad Auntie Vera wasn’t there to see me: she is very fierce with people who put their hands in their pockets, especially in the Mission.

Once (though this was later) I forgot my gloves when Auntie Vera was visiting and spent the whole service in an agony of not knowing whether it was worse to keep your hands in your pockets, or to reveal to the entire congregation you had no gloves on. In the end I tucked my hands under The Hymnal, on the grounds that if she caught me with my hands in my pockets she would discover, on making me remove them, that I was committing not one sin but two. I tried to walk out at the end with my fingers concealed in the folds of my coat, but she spotted me anyway. In Auntie Vera’s view not wearing gloves is as dreadful as not wearing knickers, especially in church. I had to learn a whole chunk of Isaiah: And in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne … But that was lucky because I had learnt it in school the previous term, though I didn’t let on. Oh, I must record that I have never, ever forgotten to wear knickers at the Mission.

On this occasion I was wearing gloves, because on most Sundays it is too cold in there not to. Of course it’s rude to shake people’s hands with your gloves on so I would have had to take them off and feel all that sympathy coming at me through the skin of the congregation. And Auntie Vera wasn’t there to see me, so I stuffed my left hand in my pocket and my right hand into Beatrice’s left. Beatrice is four years older than me and always knows what to say. I wanted to run away but I couldn’t because I’m afraid of Grandfather Pastor Eames who is very fond of going on about the Wrath of God, and giving you even bigger chunks of the Bible to learn, and I still am scared even now when I’m twelve and so much older. I don’t like Sundays, but that Sunday was the second worst I can remember.

That night it was the end of the holidays. I was supposed to be starting at Mundella in the juniors but no one had made any preparations. Daddy said Beatrice should take me, but Maisie told him I couldn’t go if I didn’t have a uniform or pencils and Daddy didn’t argue. There were things that Mother had to do, but how could she? Mother was lying in the high twin bed in the big front bedroom and I don’t remember anything more about that. I stayed at home and the house became very quiet. Little Sid and I took to spending a lot of time in the breakfast room with Nana when Fred and Beatrice were at school.

One day, when Maisie was out and Daddy doing other things, I sneaked in to the bedroom when Mother was alone. It didn’t seem the right thing to bounce on the bed, so I stood as close to her as I could and recited softly, ‘… All of the sights of the hill and the plain Fly as Thick as Driving Rain; And ever again in the Wink of an Eye, Painted stations whistle by.’

I waited. She seemed to be very far away from me, on a distant journey of her own. But she stirred a bit and opened her eyes. They were deep in her face, much deeper than usual, but they were smiling. She whispered, ‘Here is a cart run away in the road Lumping along with man and load; And here is a mill and there is a river. Each a glimpse and gone for ever.’

‘Oh Mama,’ I said. It was my special name for her. But she had closed her eyes again and actually I was glad because my chin was wobbling and I couldn’t stop it. I wanted to take her hand but her hands were under the bedclothes in the tall bed, so I stretched out on tiptoe and could just reach her nose. I think she smiled. Then Maisie walked in and I was told to leave.

The strange doctor came again. He was upstairs a long time, and Maisie with him. I saw Daddy out in the yard. He seemed to be looking at the flower tubs with great attention. I saw the doctor go out and speak to him before he left the house. They both had their heads bent as if the doctor was interested in the flowers, too. Sometime after that, I was passing the open door of the sitting room and I heard Daddy crying, the only time before or since. Now this is a terrible thing for a little girl to hear in her own father. He was crying in big sobs and my whole world went head over heels and broke. Each a glimpse and gone for ever. I ran into the breakfast room and threw myself down beside Nana’s basket. I remember the rolled-thick bristly hair at the back of her neck as I hugged her desperately, and her dear, smelly breath and her worried nose. I wished Beatrice would come home, and then she did – early – and that was worse. God Bless Mother and God Bless Daddy and God Please, Please, Please don’t let her die.

But He did. That was where it all went wrong. And Grandfather and the whole Mission droned on about it being God’s Will and God in his Mercy and Wisdom Gathering Agnes His Child unto Himself. Whenever they spoke like this I did not know what to think. I would watch Daddy look at his toes and say ‘hmm’. I don’t know what he meant by this ‘hmm’, but as I grew up, I wondered. As I have got older I think more and more, what is Merciful or Wise about God gathering Mother, for goodness sake, when He has all His other children in the whole world who He can Gather and do whatsoever else unto them He wisheth? How unthinkably selfish to help Himself to our mother when she’s the only one we’ve got. Then Beatrice told me that someone let on Mother had died of a stupid thing that no one’s meant to die of. I asked whether, if Dr Martin had been there, he might have cured her and stopped God doing it, at which Beatrice’s eyes went as round as saucers and she said that was blasphemy and I must wash out my mouth. Of course, if God wanted to gather Mother He would have seen to it that Dr Martin wasn’t around. He’s clever like that and all-seeing, so He thinks of everything. His will be done. Hmm.

And so began life after Mother. Whenever I open the photograph album all the after-Mother pictures fall out because there is no one to stick them in any longer, so I always start at the beginning where everything is neatly in its place, secured by the thick black photo-corners that taste funny and curl up when you lick the back. First there is the drawing of Grandfather’s mill, four storeys high with a flag flying above the roof that says ‘Eames Eureka Flour’. Around the bottom of the building there are tiny horses and drays and outbuildings and men bustling about in top hats and frock coats; and floating in the sky there is a second picture entitled ‘London Office’. I have a miniature rolling pin, china with wooden handles and ‘Eames Eureka Flour’ in blue writing, but that is the only thing left. Fred says Grandfather gave all his money to the Lord when he built the Golgotha Mission and he doesn’t own the factory any longer. Fred says our Grandfather went bankrupt, but honourably, on account of saving the souls of all the little Beatrices and Annies: Pastor Eames is also a Freemason and much revered in the city and we must hold our heads high. Some boys and girls have tea with their grandfathers on Sundays, but of course ours was always busy, and at Christmas and Easter, too. So it may have been to do with that, or it may have been what Fred said later: our grandfather thought children were a nuisance. Whatever the reason, we didn’t see much of him outside the Mission. To me, he was always Grandfather Pastor Eames in his pulpit.

All the same, I’m glad he didn’t lose so much of his money that he had to give up the house at Mapperley Top. There is a photograph of my grandmother (whom I do not remember) and a maid in a long white apron and a frilled cap, and my mother and Auntie Vera as young women standing at the front door with their dog who was called Major. I know every inch of the picture of the beautiful wedding party in their garden, but there is another photo I love even more: it must have been taken much earlier. Mother is sitting in the same garden between her sisters Grace and Frances, whom we call Auntie Francie. (Auntie Vera isn’t there, I’m pleased to say.) They are all very young, just girls, Mother not much older than Beatrice is now, and the person taking the photograph must have told a joke because she has just exploded in giggles. In all her other photos Mother looks serious or startled, but in this one she is herself: thick curly hair falling around her shoulders, the long full sleeves of her blouse more stylish than those of her sisters, and a big grin. That is how I like to remember her.

Sometimes I ask where Mother used to keep those photo-corners so that I can stick the new pictures in, but the others have all got more important things on their minds. The first picture to fall out is of Daddy with the three of us in the yard at Corporation Oaks, which is where we live. I am very close to him, holding his hand. Beatrice is sitting on the kitchen stool which proves it was a proper, posed family photograph because the kitchen stool is never normally allowed out in the yard. Beatrice has one leg crossed over the other and her hands folded on her knee like a grown-up. Fred is standing slightly apart from us. I think he is trying to look as if it’s all the same to him if his mother is alive or dead. Next in the pile is the photo of me in my Chinese costume. I look very sweet and am clasping my hands together in the way I’ve been told Chinese mandarins do. The costume is, of course, a present from Auntie Francie, who isn’t in the wedding photos because of being a missionary. She lives in China now and goes around on a bicycle unbinding the feet of the women and making sure they are Saved. She lives in Shansi Province in a place called Tai Yuan-Fu. She’s always been there, even before I was born. Every Christmas she sends presents to England, and our house, Grandfather’s house, Auntie Vera’s and Auntie Grace’s are all full of vases and jugs and plates and teapots and incense burners and silk dressing gowns and embroidered slippers and bendy teaspoons with a funny taste – all sent by Auntie Francie. Beatrice says she wants to be a missionary when she grows up and go to China with the God’s Purpose Overseas Mission which we call the G-Pom, but Beatrice is anxious just going to Mablethorpe for the Summer holidays so I don’t expect she’ll get to Tai Yuan-Fu. I’d like to go to China, but I don’t want to be a missionary so I can’t.

There seem to be quite a few family portraits in the two or three years after Mother died, which is odd because I can’t find any photos of us all when she was alive. Maybe they didn’t feel the need for them when everything was still all right; perhaps Daddy thought that with Mother not around any more he ought to get the family together and make sure we all knew the rest of us were still there. Daddy is not very tall but you don’t know that when he’s sitting down. He has a cheerful face, lots of dark hair and a walrus moustache. The thing you notice most in all the photos of him is his wide blue eyes which are very smiley. I am on his knee, my hair tied with a big ribbon. In one photo I’m wearing the velvet party frock I loved so much, with its scalloped lace collar. The dress was royal blue, though of course you can’t tell that from the photo; nor can you see that Little Sid is sitting in the gathered pocket – but I know he’s there. The collar was made, I believe, by Maisie’s sister who works in the Lace Market where they make the Nottingham lace that is world famous. Maisie sometimes tries to teach me how to begin with simple stitches, but it’s all I can do to manage doubles and trebles in crochet. Fred, dressed in a sailor suit, stands beside Daddy’s chair and looks serious. Beatrice, the oldest, is behind him. She has long hair and a misty look about the eyes, which some people may find fascinating, but I know comes from not wearing her spectacles; she needs them all the time now and does so hate herself in photographs. None of us looks like Mother.

After the family portraits in the jumbled pile comes the first photograph of the other Agnes.

TWO

When life began without Mother, I realised that everything and everyone I knew – Eames Eureka Flour, the Aunties, China, the Mission and Grandfather Pastor Eames – was to do with her family. I know nothing about Daddy’s family at all. I suppose that’s because he came from somewhere else, so there were no grandparents or places or cousins to grow up with from his side; the only thing was Auntie Vera saying that our father ‘had a good war’. From the way she said this, which was not quite approving, I thought perhaps he didn’t fight in it, but he did do something. Whatever it was, he never told us about it, and I suppose we never asked him. I don’t even know if Daddy was religious to begin with. If he was, I had the feeling he didn’t throw himself into it with quite as much fervour as Mother’s side of the family. (Fervour is a word Grandfather Pastor Eames is very keen on in his sermons.) I mean, Daddy had taken the pledge and came to Sunday morning services and so on, but the things he did outside work, mostly with the Mechanics’ Institute and the ’Masons, were nothing to do with the Mission. Fred said Daddy was a businessman and liked cars, and that was all we knew when I was little.

It didn’t matter, though, because Daddy was very jolly; a lot more fun than Auntie Vera and Grandfather Pastor Eames, anyway. He liked dance music and we were one of the first families I knew to get a wireless and listen to music on the BBC. Sometimes he used to dance with Beatrice and me around the armchairs in the sitting room. He was a very good dancer. If you couldn’t do the steps, he would guide you so surely that you got it right – and you could almost believe you had done it by yourself, which was thrilling. The music bubbled through him when he danced and he loved it, too, grinning from ear to ear and telling us we were ‘doing fine’. I’m too young to remember him dancing with Mother, but Beatrice said they used to go to Ladies’ Evenings at the Lodge. Mother had some beautiful dresses which still hung in the wardrobe as if she might be coming back for them: my favourite had a rich satin lining in peacock blue. Of course, after she died, there was no more dancing for a while, and later, when it was all right to dance again, things had started to change.

One of the first things to happen after Mother’s death was that Maisie spent more time at our house and Elsie arrived. Maisie called her the Scullery Maid. Elsie slept in the little attic bedroom above Fred’s room and got up early to light the fires. We don’t have fires in our bedrooms, of course, but once she had done the stove Elsie would wake us, so we were able to go downstairs to a warm kitchen. I can still hear her sing-song voice calling up the stairs,

‘Come and ‘ave yer break-fast, duckie.’

I hated porridge, but if she had time and the fire was glowing and not flaming she would make me toast on the toasting fork with the Chinese monkey at the end of the handle, another present from Auntie Francie. This she spread with dripping from the big green enamel bowl, the same one we have now but not as chipped. The toast and dripping was a secret; Maisie would not have approved, but it was what Elsie said she had at home. We had other secrets, too. In the corner cupboard was a large clear bottle of disgusting yellow cod liver oil with a sticky cork. I was supposed to have a big spoonful every day. Each morning Elsie would go to the cupboard, take down the bottle and give me one of her looks. And I would say Oh Elsie, and screw up my face and she would hesitate a moment before putting the bottle back in the cupboard again. ‘Least said, soonest mended,’ she would tell me. I never knew what this meant. From time to time she would pour some of the bottle down the stone sink so Maisie wouldn’t suspect, and look at me, and wink, and that was that.

‘You’ve got Elsie round your little finger,’ Beatrice would say.

‘So?’

‘It’s not fair, Annie. She could get into trouble.’

‘What for?’

‘You know what for.’

‘Elsie’ll not tell.’

‘That’s worse. She’ll have to tell a lie and then she really will be in trouble.’ She meant, with God of course, not with Maisie.

I wanted to think God would understand that the lie was in a good cause, but after Our Own Mother and everything I knew God was not on my side. He would strike Elsie down very probably. This made me feel guilty, so I said nothing.

The truth was that in those days, meaning eight months after my mother’s death so they had stopped making allowances because I was a poor motherless waif and stray, people found me argumentative and were always saying things about me, such as, ‘Annie, you are growing increasingly trouble-some.’ That’s what Miss Battersby, our headmistress, said, and she was not the only one. Maisie would shake her head and mutter, ‘Too clever by half’, which I wasn’t sure was a compliment.

I remember overhearing a conversation between Auntie Vera and Daddy one Sunday teatime. I was playing with Irene and John, my cousins, in the yard and had been sent inside to fetch the skipping rope. Passing the drawing-room door, I heard voices and immediately knew they were talking about me.

‘… out of control,’ Auntie Vera was saying. ‘No discipline.’

‘A bit of a madam,’ he answered.

I stopped and put my ear to the door-hinge in an effort to hear through the crack, but they were speaking softly and I could only pick out the odd word: ‘insubordinate’, ‘highly strung’, ‘cheeky’. Then Auntie Vera must have moved because I began to hear her voice more clearly.

‘… really can’t carry on like this, Harry. Dear Agnes would have wanted … Children need a moral structure … discipline.’

I swallowed hard. If Auntie Vera were our mother we would certainly have had that. Cousin Irene confided in Beatrice once that poor John still wet the bed like a baby, he was so frightened of her.

‘I suppose you’re … Had thought of … housekeeper,’ Daddy was saying. He sounded doubtful. His voice dropped at the end of each sentence in a hopeless-sounding way, so I couldn’t hear. But what was he talking about? We already had a housekeeper: we had Maisie!

‘… some good woman,’ Auntie Vera told him. ‘… Golgotha.’

From the Mission? This was an appalling prospect. My mind ran swiftly through a few candidates. Mrs Rancid; Hilda Barnes? I found myself shivering. Maybe Madge Grocott who taught us Bible Story at Sunday School. We must have our lives interfered with by a stranger from the Mission, and all on account of me being ‘insubordinate’. I was still reeling from the awfulness of this when the sound of Auntie’s sharp heel on the floorboards at the edge of the carpet brought me to my senses. I fled.

For weeks after that conversation I made a huge effort to behave well. I was courteous and polite, did what I was told, tried not to speak unless spoken to, wore gloves at all times and even forced myself to swallow a few spoonfuls of cod liver oil – believing that if I did lots of unpleasant but virtuous things God would stop Daddy bringing in a housekeeper. I tested this theory on Beatrice, who didn’t think much of it. ‘That’s what Catholics do,’ she said. I was secretly thrilled. Catholics were greatly disapproved of at the Mission. If Catholics did it, I thought I might be on to something.

I also kept a close watch on the grown-ups. I hung around their conversations and lurked outside doors in the hope of picking up some titbit of information. Whenever Daddy was late home in the evening I dreaded that he might be calling at the houses of Grandfather’s parishioners on the lookout for a housekeeper. I envisaged him tramping round the streets off the Woodborough Road where many of the Mission’s congregation lived; streets of flat, grimy red-brick houses strung together, with ranks of front doorsteps that got scrubbed every morning and backs with washing lines. It was not an encouraging picture: there were no trees in those streets.

But Beatrice’s response was practical. ‘He might find someone who can cook dumplings and treacle pudding,’ she said. Maisie was a wonderful cook, but she went home after lunch on Saturday and never worked Sundays. Elsie was not allowed to cook, thank goodness, apart from the porridge.

Fred said, ‘Daddy will never replace our mother.’

‘No one’s suggesting he will,’ Beatrice assured him. ‘He’s looking for a housekeeper, not a wife.’

‘But we’ve got Maisie!’ I protested.

‘Well,’ explained Beatrice. ‘Maisie started doing it because she was sort of here already. She’s not really a housekeeper.’

‘Perhaps the new one will read us stories, like Mother used to,’ I suggested hopefully.

Fred grunted. He was reading his own stories now.

‘She could test you on Horatius,’ said Beatrice. Our class was learning ‘The Keeping of the Bridge’ by Lord Macaulay. I had been reciting it all over the house.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

‘Now look what you’ve started!’ Fred groaned.

‘And, like a horse unbroken

When first he feels the rein,

The furious river struggled hard

And tossed his tawny mane—’

Fred threw the coal-glove at me. I dropped my voice to a whisper, thumping Nana’s large head in time to the rhythm as I recited:

‘… And burst the curb and bounded,

Rejoicing to be free,

And whirling down in fierce career

Battlement and plank and pier,

Rushed headlong to the sea!’

Nana beat her tail on the ground. ‘This housekeeper’d better like Nana, too,’ I added fiercely.

At the end of the verse, Fred heaved a loud sigh and went back to his book.

‘Come on, Fred,’ said Beatrice. ‘You love the tiger poem.’

‘Poetry’s for girls,’ he muttered.

‘Horatius isn’t girls’ stuff!’ I threw him a challenging glare, but all he said was, ‘Tiger’s different. Mother taught it me.’

I pushed my fingers into my chin because I suddenly wanted to cry. We ought not to need a housekeeper or Auntie Vera or any of them.

Fred jumped up. ‘Come on, Nana,’ he said harshly. ‘Let’s go out. This is dreary.’

After a few weeks, and no housekeeper in sight, I started to get bored with spying on the grown-ups. Make no mistake, I was still watchful; I knew that as long as I kept an eye on things it would be all right, but if I dropped my guard completely a housekeeper could be sneaked in under cover. To this end, whenever Daddy was later home than usual I would ask Maisie, ‘Where’s Daddy, Maisie?’

‘You always ask me that, Annie. He’s a busy man, your father.’

‘Did he say he was going to be late?’

‘He’ll be home for his tea.’

‘Has he gone to see someone?’

‘I don’t know, lovie, do I?’

‘He might have said.’

‘Why should he tell me?’

‘But Maisie, it might have a big important effect on all our lives!’

The first couple of occasions I said this, she just laughed. But when I wouldn’t leave it alone, she became uneasy, I could tell. ‘You’re a rum one, you are. What are you on about, Annie?’

‘I think you know more than you’re letting on,’ I grumbled.

‘Know what? What is there to know?’

‘About a certain thing, a certain person.’

She stared at me.

‘Beginning with H …’ I said darkly.

‘H? What d’you mean H? H for himself is all I know.’

This was a favourite of mine, and I forgot all about the housekeeper in an instant. ‘Oh Maisie, say it, say it!’ I begged.

‘A is for ’orses.’

‘B for mutton,’ I chimed in.

‘C for yourself,’ we chorused.

‘What’s D for?’ I asked. ‘E for brick.’

‘F for pheasant; G for police!’ We spun round. My father stood in the kitchen doorway. He laughed his big laugh and spread his arms wide.

‘There you are, you see,’ Maisie said. ‘She wasn’t half going on about you being late, Mr Lang.’

‘Were you, Annie?’

‘Not really,’ I said. I was cross because I’d been outwitted by Maisie.

‘Well, I’m here now.’ He ruffled my hair as he walked past me into the hall to hang up his hat and scarf.

I asked grumpily, ‘What’s “I” for, Maisie?’

‘I for tower.’ She went out to the scullery to get her own coat; she must have been waiting for Daddy to come home so that she could leave. All I knew about Maisie’s life was that she lived somewhere in Hyson Green with a husband she always called Mr Brown. I thought of him as Old Mr Brown, the owl in Squirrel Nutkin – Mr Brown paid no attention whatever to Nutkin. He shut his eyes obstinately and went to sleep. I imagined Maisie and Mr Brown living halfway up a tree in Hyson Green, two tubby people with kind hearts. There had been some little owls, too, but they had flown before we knew Maisie. Poor Mr Brown must have waited ages for his tea night after night since our mother died, but I never thought of that in those days, because I was only small.

Maisie came back into the breakfast room, adjusting her hat with a pin. She knew what H stood for all right; she had her crafty smile on. I felt slightly sick. ‘YZ for young shoulders,’ she said darkly and let herself out of the back door.

That Sunday, Auntie Vera came and met me from Sunday School. This was unusual; Fred and Beatrice usually waited after the big children’s class and we walked home on our own.

‘What did you do today?’ she asked.

‘Loaves and fishes.’ I kicked at a pebble.

‘Don’t scuff your boots, Annie. What hymns did you sing?’

‘“There’s a Friend for Little Children” and “Jesus Bids us Shine”.’

‘I love that one.’ She sang in her quavery voice, ‘Jesus bids us shine with a cool, clear light, Like a little candle burning in the night … something something something – how does it go?’

‘Can’t remember, Auntie.’ I didn’t want to sing stupid hymns with Auntie Vera. I wanted to go home for tea.

‘At your age you should remember all the words.’

‘Well, you can’t remember them!’

As soon as I said this I knew it was a terrible mistake. All my hard work to improve over recent weeks collapsed in an instant. ‘You in your small corner, and I in mine,’ I chanted loudly.

‘What did you say?’

‘I’m sorry, Auntie, I didn’t mean it.’ I looked up at her. I could feel the anguish tightening my face all over.

‘How dare you speak to me like that!’

‘It just sort of— I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it.’

‘Your mother is up there in Heaven and she watches over you. But when she leans down towards her little girl, what does she hear?’

I didn’t want to see my mother leaning towards me from Heaven. I looked down at my buttoned boots. We were still walking up Robin Hood Chase. The boots swam below me, left, right, left, right.

‘Well?’

‘She hears me being rude, Auntie.’

‘Are you snivelling?’

‘Yes, Auntie.’

‘Where’s your handkerchief?’

I fumbled in my pocket, extracted the handkerchief and shook it to open it out.

‘Not with your gloves on!’ snapped Auntie Vera.

I tried to remove the glove from my left hand by pulling at each finger as she had taught me – and dropped the handkerchief.

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake. Insolent and clumsy with it! Well, pick it up, girl!’

I stooped. I was crying in gulps. I was up there with Mother, leaning out of Heaven watching me make a mess of everything. Then deep inside me I suddenly heard Mother say, Lay off her, Vee, she’s only seven years old. I picked up the handkerchief, wiped my eyes and blew my nose. I looked up at Auntie Vera at last. ‘I’m sorry, Auntie,’ I said. ‘It was terribly rude. I didn’t mean it.’

She sort of made a noise like harrumpgh, as they write it in books. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it just goes to prove that you are out of control. I don’t know how your mother ever put up with you. I’m glad to say that from today, things will be different.’

I stiffened. ‘Will they?’ I asked.

‘When we get home, your father’s new housekeeper will be there to meet us. This has all taken far too long, I must say. From now on, you children will have a firm hand to guide you.’

It had happened. ‘Oh,’ I said. My feet slowed. My tears were forgotten. A firm hand.

‘Come along!’ exhorted Auntie Vera. ‘Beatrice and Fred will have met her already. There’ll be no scones left.’ We tramped on up the hill.

My first glimpse of the lady who was to be housekeeper was in our sitting room. I had taken Little Sid out of my pocket as I entered, for courage and so he could meet her too. I say ‘first glimpse’ but it wasn’t, because as soon as I saw the pointed angles of her profile, I realised I knew exactly who she was: Miss A. Higgs, as it said on the Mission noticeboard, played the harmonium at the Mission. She played ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ and ‘He who would valiant be’ and I had often wondered what it must be like to sit up there sideways to the congregation with all eyes on you and pull out the mysterious stops and buttons and dance your feet on the pedals beneath. She could make snorting noises like trumpets and wobbly sounds like ghosts. I had always thought of her as something of a magician and when I saw that it was she who was to be our housekeeper I felt a huge rush of excitement. She was a musician. I played the piano. Perhaps it would be all right, after all. Miss Higgs was seated at the table behind the silver teapot with her back to the window, as tall and grave as she sat at the keyboard. I had never seen her face close up and I could not look into it now.

Auntie Vera had swept into the room before me. ‘Miss Higgs,’ she announced, ‘this is Annie, the youngest.’ She said youngest with a hiss as if to nudge the new housekeeper with a you-know-the-difficult-one dig in the ribs. I dropped my eyes and was faintly aware of brown bar shoes poking out from slender ankles. I could feel the penetrating gaze on me.

‘Annie, say hello to Miss Higgs.’

‘Hello, Missiggs. This is Little Sid.’

She recoiled. ‘Errgh. What is that?’

‘Not now, Annie,’ Auntie Vera interrupted.

‘It’s Little Sid,’ I repeated. I held him out for inspection in the palm of my hand. ‘He’s a panda. From China,’ I added meaningfully, hoping she would know that China meant Auntie Francie the missionary, and win approval. ‘Well, obviously not a real-size panda. He goes everywhere in my pocket.’

‘Oh!’ She scrutinised him cautiously. ‘Does he need a good scrub? You made me jump. I thought it was a mouse.’ Miss Higgs gave a sort of breathless sigh that might have been a laugh and might not. ‘Go and wash your hands for tea, Annie.’

Auntie Vera gave me one of her looks. I left the room and went to the kitchen sink, reaching up to sit Little Sid on the mantelpiece above the range out of harm’s way. Good scrub, indeed! I returned to the sitting-room.

‘What did you learn in Sunday School today, Annie?’ asked Miss Higgs.

‘Loaves and fishes,’ I muttered.

‘Loaves and fishes, Miss Higgs,’ hissed Auntie Vera.

‘Missiggs,’ I echoed.

‘Annie, please look at me when you speak to me!’ she said.

I jerked my head up and gazed at her. The light was fading and her features were in shadow but I could make out grey eyes in a rather long, flat face, a neat, straight nose and lips in a line. I am trying hard to write what I thought about it that very first time, now it has so many layers over it that came with knowing her. But I truly think I liked her. She had the distant air of a maiden in a fairy tale, rather stately with her hair in a bun, waiting to be rescued by St George. Her hair was not dark like mine; it was brownish, between colours. But I liked her calm expression and I thought that any moment her eyes might smile at me. She looked like a person who would stick the photos into the photograph album and bring order to things.

‘And we sang “There’s a Friend for Little Children”,’ I finished, aware I had been staring at her rather rudely and hoping she would not guess what I was thinking about her face. Also because I knew from years of Auntie Vera and the rest of them that this question always came next. I waited for her to tell me to recite it, but after a few moments more of silence in which she looked at me with an expression I could not fathom, she asked, ‘Did you wash your hands?’

‘There’s a Friend for Little Children Above the Bright Blue Sky—’

‘I asked if you had washed your hands, Annie.’

‘Yes, Missiggs.’

‘Let me see.’

I held up the palms of my hands for inspection, as if I was offering her a baby bird.

‘And your nails!’

I hastily turned my hands over, dropping the bird.

‘Do you bite your nails, child?’

‘No, Missiggs.’

‘Are you sure about that?’

‘No, Missiggs. I mean, yes Missiggs.’

Beatrice had entered the room behind me. She said softly, ‘She has to keep them short for the piano, Miss Higgs.’

‘You play the piano?’

I was thinking, Like you. You play. I know who you are! We can be friends! But she made it sound like a sin. ‘I’m just learning.’ I looked up at her again. ‘I can play for you after tea, if you like.’

‘On a Sunday?’

‘I can play “Where E’er You Walk”,’ I said quickly, hoping it would sound religious. She played the harmonium on a Sunday, after all.

This seemed to go down better. ‘You’re young to be playing that,’ she said. I glowed. Beatrice passed me on her way to the sofa, giving me a reassuring touch on the arm as she went. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do next. Our new housekeeper said nothing so I edged towards Beatrice a little, hoping to escape further questions.

‘I suppose you will have milk,’ Miss Higgs said.

‘Oh tea, please,’ I answered, and immediately encountered a hard look from Auntie Vera who was standing to one side observing the inquisition.

‘You drink tea?’ The housekeeper looked shocked. ‘Does your father allow this?’

I wasn’t sure what was supposed to be wrong with drinking tea, so I bit my lip and said nothing. Beatrice came to my rescue again. ‘Mother always allowed us to drink tea if we wished,’ she said, sounding very polite so no one could accuse her of answering back. ‘Annie takes one sugar.’

‘I’m not interested in what Annie takes. Today she will take milk.’ She poured some milk into a cup and handed it to me. I took it and retreated to the sofa, the cup trembling in its saucer. I hate milk. ‘The scones have been taken away,’ said Miss Higgs. She pronounced them ‘scoans’. There was no further explanation as to who had taken them or why I was to have nothing to eat.

I plucked up courage to make an ally of Auntie Vera. ‘Would you like me to fetch you a scon, Auntie?’ I asked, unable to resist the emphasis.

‘Oh no, thank you, Annie,’ Auntie Vera replied. I looked covertly at Beatrice who shook her head imperceptibly: Don’t try it, said the look. But Miss Higgs rose to the occasion. ‘You may fetch a scone from the kitchen if you would like one, Annie,’ she said. I put the cup of milk carefully to one side. Yes, she was a princess that first day. As soon as the door shut behind me I slid down the shiny hall tiles in my Sunday shoes.