Apple Blossom Time (22 page)

There were trunks and trunks of books, musty and spotted, some nibbled by mice, smelling, somehow, quite dead. They were so dull – sermons, bound minutes of meetings of the Wiltshire Archaeological Society, self-published adventures of various ancestors, with titles like
With Rod and Gun in Hindustan
and
Tales of a Simple Soldier.

‘It’s so sad.’ Pansy sat cross-legged on the floor, looking not much older than twelve. She had cobwebs in her hair, like a Victorian lace cap, but I didn’t like to mention it in case it scared her. ‘All these people have gone and this is all that’s left.’

‘That’s normal,’ I answered.

‘Yes, but what’s left is so dull. I don’t mind dying and I don’t mind people looking through my things after I’m dead, but I absolutely hate the idea of people saying that I must have been so terribly boring.’

‘Oh girls, look at this. These aren’t boring,’ shrieked Vee. She held up a pair of enormous white cotton drawers. ‘I take it all back. They weren’t tiny at all. D’you think these belonged to the little lady over there when she got a bit bigger?’

The drawers would have wrapped twice round Vee in her early state of pregnancy. We lifted out cotton chemises and red flannel petticoats and corsets with removable floral covers and quilted petticoats with stiffened hems padded with horsehair. Underneath were nightgowns and négligés, indecently filmy, and bed wraps with swansdown collars and Kashmir shawls, fine enough to pass through a wedding ring. There were dozens of linen handkerchiefs with an elaborate initial ‘S’ in one corner. There were stockings with embroidered clocks. Everything was beautifully preserved in a trunk lined with cedar wood and with all its seams made airtight with lead. Everything was new.

‘It’s a trousseau,’ whispered Vee. ‘And it’s never been used. But they’re all so enormous.’

‘Even big girls get married.’

‘But she didn’t, did she? Oh, dear … Poor thing…’ Vee’s easy, ready tears slipped down her cheeks.

‘Let’s put them back,’ suggested Pansy. ‘I feel embarrassed. It’s like being a peeping Tom.’

Sobered, we folded the garments back into the trunk and shut it carefully.

‘There’s no point in rummaging further,’ I said. ‘It’s all rubbish – well, most of it, anyway. I’ll tell Grandmother that it couldn’t possibly be cleared, but if we keep some buckets of sand and some beaters up here, it should be all right. I can’t believe there’s any real danger.’

‘The children will be awake and howling to get out of bed by now, anyway. We ought to go downstairs,’ agreed Pansy. ‘And I’ve got the Mothers’ Union coming to discuss servicemen’s wives’ morals at four o’clock – boring old busybodies. What a cheek! I’d like to see them bring up a family on twenty-five bob a week. They look at me and then at Jonathan and they purse their tight little mouths, as though they’re choking on the words. I hope they don’t expect any tea, because there isn’t any.’

‘Let’s just have a last look over here,’ Vee suggested. ‘It doesn’t look as old as the rest.’

She hauled out another trunk, a tin one, black japanned, very battered, but clearly more modern, and opened it before I had time to protest. On top was a uniform.

‘It’s not that old,’ she said, holding up the tunic. A captain’s service dress – three pips on the shoulder, not the cuff, so belonging to the second half of the Great War, and the collar dogs missing – and underneath lay a pair of riding breeches, paler in colour, buff not khaki. There was tissue paper between each fold and a strong smell of mothballs. ‘D’you know whose it is, Laura?’

‘No. No idea. Let’s go downstairs.’

I didn’t know, but I had made a sudden and unwelcome guess.

‘I recognize this ribbon,’ said Vee, pointing at a white-purple-white scrap above the left breast pocket. ‘It’s the MC. And it has a little silver rose on it. That represents a bar, doesn’t it? He was a brave man, whoever he was.’

‘Vee – I said, let’s go,’ I snapped and turned my face away from the startled looks of my two friends.

All these years, I had wanted to know, and now – now I wanted her to shut the trunk again.

*   *   *

It was like a magnet, drawing me to the attic. I understood how Pandora must have felt. She could no more have ignored that box than she could have flown and then – and then we all know what happened.

I lay in bed, listening to the squeaks and scrabbles of the mice in the thatch. Double Summer Time twilight still lingered in the west. I could hear the crunch of Tom’s boots on gravel, as he came in from a last visit to the lavatory at the bottom of the garden. He banged the back door shut, banged the windows shut, stomped upstairs. He wasn’t drunk, but I wasn’t certain that he was completely sober, either. He and Mother spoke quietly for a little while, high and low tones alternating, absurdly like a ventriloquist and his dummy. Then there was silence.

Under the roof, the heat of the day was trapped, like tea under a tea cosy. I got out of bed again to push the little window back on its hinges as far as it would go. The night was no cooler than the day. The garden was full of the noises of tiny creatures killing and eating and copulating. I took off my pyjamas and leaned, naked, head and shoulders out the window. Who would see me? Who cared?

Under the roof of Ansty House, in the musty, airless heat, the trunk sat, daring me to open it, daring me to question the past.

*   *   *

First the uniform. Not a shock, now – a known, anticipated thing, but still possessing the power to hurt. If I had ever suspected its existence, I would never have expected it to be so carefully packed.

I might have thought it would be hastily shoved into a trunk, out of sight, out of mind, like its wearer. It would have had a presence, then. It would have had creases at the elbows and knees, perhaps some stains – mud, the last meal, even (why not?) blood. It would have had bulk, would have held a shape, the last shape of the man who wore it. It would have told me something.

Instead, it had been meticulously laid away. Sponged, pressed, swathed in tissue, protected by camphor, all physical evidence of its owner had been expunged.

No chance that anyone, friend or foe, would see a light up here. I pulled the shielding tissue paper from my torch to take a closer look. The sleeves were slightly frayed at the cuffs. The suede knee patches of the breeches were shiny with wear. He had been tall and slight. Apart from that, the uniform was as characterless as though it had come freshly from the tailor. The tailor’s label was still inside an inner pocket.
E J T Ansty
was written in indelible ink above an address in Dover Street.

I was like a sneak thief, like one of those villains who terrorize old ladies and escape with a sack marked
SWAG
. There was an intruder above my grandmother’s head, prying into secrets she had shielded for more than a quarter of a century, rummaging and soiling and despoiling her perfect packing. I felt unexpectedly ashamed.

Beautiful boots, shining brown as conkers, still supple within waxed paper, kept in shape by hardwood trees that were slotted like a jigsaw puzzle, with little brass loops at the top to assist in their removal. These boots had been made for long, slender calves and long, narrow feet. I ran my fingers gently down the leather, trying not to leave sweaty fingermarks on their gloss. How had my dumpy grandfather and my petite grandmother made this long-legged boy between them?

Like you,
my mother had said, long ago,
or rather, you are like him …

My father. I was getting a picture of him now.

And underneath, all the requisites of a military life: hat; gloves; cane; shirts with a Jermyn Street shirtmaker’s label, soft collared, of a colour between cream and buff. Everything was marked, like a schoolboy’s belongings.
E J T Ansty.
He was a real person.

I was sweating quite badly and my breathing seemed too haphazard to fill my lungs. I was beginning to be afraid of what I might find. I had a horror of finding something too intimate, something final.

Suddenly, there came into my mind two pictures of James: the well-dressed, well-pressed young subaltern in a Cairo nightclub; the dirty, smelly, unshaven soldier in a sheepskin waistcoat and dusty boots, driving straight out of the desert and into my arms.

I understood. These were not the clothes my father would have worn in the trenches. There, he would have been as filthy, as lice-ridden as anyone else. My grandmother had preserved the image of the soldier. She had not been able to lay hands on the man himself. I would not be shocked by anything in this trunk. He had not died in these clothes.

All the same, my hands were shaking.

And now, I seemed to have reached the bottom. There was a sheet of lining paper over a firm foundation. No, it wasn’t far enough down. The trunk was deeper than that. I moved to get into a better position. My feet crunched a scattering of mothballs, releasing a smell pungent enough to make my eyes water. There was a fitted tray that could be lifted out.

I reached in and felt paper packets in a layer over the bottom. Neat bundles, all the same size, letters tied with faded tape, dozens of them.

I took out at random three or four of the bundles, then tried to fit everything else back into the trunk. I did my best, but it was impossible to fold and pack it all with the same accuracy. I felt vaguely ashamed of my slapdash efforts, as though I had defiled a sanctuary.

This was
my
family home. These were
my
father’s belongings. Then why did I feel guilty, as though I were a little girl doing something that would make my grandmother very angry?

She had wrapped her son in mothballs, stowed him away and closed the lid.

There had to be a reason.

Dear Mother,

Nothing much happened this week. I was given Bene ++ for Latin. Mr Cartur askd if I copid. He is a swine. Thier are lots of conkers in Mr Butler’s garden. I was beatten for being out of bed after ligts out, but it did not hurt much. Can you please send anothur cake. The chaps voted the last one ripping.

Your loving son,

Edwin

Dear Mother,

I hope you and Father are well. I am well. Not much is hapening here, but we all have to rite home on Sundays so that is what I am doing at the moment. Has Madge had her puppys yet? Father said I culd have the pick of the liter for my own. We had a run to Loader’s Wood and back after lunch. It was kiling. There is a new boy called Tom Roding. His people live in India. He is a first class drip. Everyone says so, so it must be true. I woud like a penknife for my birthday, if you please.

Your loving son,

Edwin

Dear Mother,

Thank you for the jam. Mrs Ruggles makes the best jam in the world. Everyone says so, so she oat to be jolly pleasd. We had a mental arithmatic test on Friday. It was very hard and I came second botom. Tom was bottom and erned a beating. It was jolly hard luck. He is relly quite decent. The food is pig swill. We are going to run away. Please send Ruggles to meet us at the station. I am ink monitur this week.

Your loving son,

Edwin

Dear Mother,

It is ripping being in a senior house. We do not have to get out of bed so early. The sprogs bring us tea in bed. We had a hare and hounds chase yesterday. I was the hare. I led them a pretty dance, I can tell you. They lost my trail beyond Cooper’s Farm and I was back at school with my feet up before the hounds found it again. We had toast and honey for tea. Tom was flogged yesterday for persistent untidiness. I think the Magister was very unfair, but Tom never minds a flogging. He earns one nearly every week for something or other. He is rather cut up about his mother and not going to the funeral and all that. May he come home with me at Easter? I find myself rather short at the moment. Would you please send me a postal order, for 5/-, if possible. I lent a chap some money so that he could treat his cousin to tea and he has not paid me back yet. I expect he will. Anyway, I was invited to tea too, so that is all right. His cousin is called Diana and she is not bad. Please give my regards to Father.

Your affectionate son,

Edwin

There were so many letters, all carefully arranged in date order and tied with tape. Each bundle was labelled with the year in my grandmother’s bold writing. Every Sunday, he had told her, we have to write home and here they all were, not a Sunday absent, not a week missing. The only gaps were during school holidays. If I had crept into the attic every night for the rest of the year, I should not have been able to read them all.

The boy’s voice filled my ears. He was so clear in my imagination – tall, long-legged, captain of the cross-country team, only moderately bright, but generous and immensely good humoured. A mother could be proud of a son like that. I could almost see him. He was always just there, at the corner of my eye, not quite in sight, not quite out of sight. Look – there, just turning the corner. And there, closing the door. I felt that if I turned round quickly, I would catch him before he disappeared. Yet I had never seen him.

It was a sort of haunting. I couldn’t concentrate on anything else. Whatever I was doing, I wanted to be in the attic, reading the next batch of letters.

*   *   *

‘You’re not getting better as fast as I would like,’ Mother said, with an anxious look at me. ‘Laura? Laura?’

I was sitting in the garden, shelling peas. It was a rhythmical sort of job. Pop the pod, quick check for maggots, run a thumb along the peas, watching them plop into the bowl – one, two, three, four, five, six, seven if you were lucky – chuck the pod on to an old newspaper, pick up the next pod. You could do a lot of thinking, shelling peas.

‘Sorry, Mother. I was miles away. What did you say?’

‘I said … Look, darling, are you still feeling awful? Why don’t you go and see a doctor?’

‘No need. I’m fine. Really.’

‘You haven’t seen Pansy or Vee for days. You were always together before. And your sick leave will be up in a day or so and I don’t think you’re fit to go back.’