Clifton Chronicles 02 - The Sins of the Father (6 page)

It took Harry just over a month to reorganize all the books into their correct categories: first fiction, then non-fiction. During the second month, he broke them down into even smaller classifications, so that prisoners didn’t have to waste time searching for the only three books on woodwork that were on the shelves. He explained to Lloyd that when it came to non-fiction, the category was more important than the author’s name. Lloyd shrugged.

On Sunday mornings, Harry would push the library cart around the four blocks, retrieving overdue books from prisoners, some of which hadn’t been returned for more than a year. He had expected a few of the old-timers on D block to be resentful, even to take offence at the intrusion, but they all wanted to meet the man who’d got Hessler transferred to Pierpoint.

After his interview with the board, Hessler had been offered a senior post at Pierpoint, and he accepted the promotion as it was nearer his home town. While Harry never suggested he’d had anything to do with Hessler’s transfer, that wasn’t the story Quinn peddled from ear to ear until it became legend.

During his trips around the blocks in search of missing books, Harry often picked up anecdotes that he would record in his diary that evening.

The warden occasionally dropped into the library, not least because when Harry had appeared before the board, he’d described Mr Swanson’s attitude to the education of inmates as bold, imaginative and far-seeing. Harry couldn’t believe how much undeserved flattery the warden was quite happy to soak up.

After his first three months, loans were up by 14 per cent. When Harry asked the warden if he could instigate a reading class in the evenings, Swanson hesitated for a moment, but gave in when Harry repeated the words
bold, imaginative
and
far-seeing
.

Only three prisoners attended Harry’s first class, and one of them was Pat Quinn, who could already read and write. But by the end of the following month the class had grown to sixteen, even if several of them would have done almost anything to get out of their cells for an hour in the evening. But Harry managed to notch up one or two notable successes among the younger prisoners, and was continually reminded that just because you hadn’t gone to the ‘right’ school, or hadn’t gone to school at all, it didn’t mean you were stupid – or the other way round, Quinn reminded him.

Despite all the extra activity Harry had initiated, he found he was still left with time on his hands, so he set himself the task of reading two new books a week. Once he’d conquered the few American classics in the library, he turned his attention to crime, by far the most popular category with his fellow inmates, taking up seven of the library’s nineteen shelves.

Harry had always enjoyed Conan Doyle, and he was looking forward to turning his attention to his American rivals. He began with
The Bigger They Come
by Erle Stanley Gardner, before moving on to Raymond Chandler’s
The Big Sleep
. He felt a little guilty about enjoying them so much. What would Mr Holcombe think?

During the last hour before the library closed, Harry would continue to bring his diary up to date. He was taken by surprise one evening when Lloyd, having finished the paper, asked if he could read it. Harry knew that Lloyd had been a literary agent in New York on the outside, which was how he’d landed the job in the library. He sometimes dropped the names of authors he’d represented, most of whom Harry had never heard of. Lloyd only spoke about how he’d ended up in Lavenham on one occasion, watching the door to make sure no one overheard.

‘A bit of bad luck,’ Lloyd explained. ‘In good faith I invested some of my clients’ money on the Stock Exchange, and when things didn’t go quite according to plan, I was left carrying the bag.’

When Harry repeated the story to Quinn that night, he raised his eyes to the heavens.

‘More likely he spent the money on slow nags and fast dames.’

‘Then why go into such detail,’ asked Harry, ‘when he’s never mentioned the reason he’s in here to anyone else?’

‘You’re so naïve sometimes,’ said Quinn. ‘With you as the messenger, Lloyd knows there’s a far better chance of the rest of us believing his story. Just be sure you never make a deal with that man, because he’s got six fingers on each hand’ – a pickpocket’s expression that Harry recorded in his diary that night. But he didn’t take much notice of Quinn’s advice, partly because he couldn’t imagine any circumstances in which he would make a deal with Max Lloyd, other than about whose turn it was to pour the coffee when the warden dropped in.

By the end of his first year at Lavenham, Harry had filled three exercise books with his observations on prison life, and could only wonder how many more pages of this daily chronicle he’d manage before he completed his sentence.

He was surprised by how enthusiastic Lloyd was, always wanting to read the next instalment. He even suggested he might be allowed to show Harry’s work to a publisher. Harry laughed.

‘I can’t imagine anyone would be interested in my ramblings.’

‘You’d be surprised,’ said Lloyd.

EMMA BARRINGTON
1939–1941

6

‘S
EBASTIAN
A
RTHUR
C
LIFTON
,’ said Emma, handing the sleeping child to his grandmother.

Maisie beamed as she took her grandson in her arms for the first time.

‘They wouldn’t let me come and see you before I was packed off to Scotland,’ said Emma, making no attempt to hide her scorn. ‘That’s why I called you the moment I got back to Bristol.’

‘That was kind of you,’ said Maisie, as she stared intently at the little boy, trying to convince herself that Sebastian had inherited her husband’s fair hair and clear blue eyes.

Emma sat at the kitchen table, smiled and sipped her tea: Earl Grey, how typical of Maisie to remember. And cucumber and salmon sandwiches, Harry’s favourite, which must have emptied her ration book. As she looked around the room, her eyes settled on the mantelpiece, where she spotted a sepia photograph of a private soldier from the first war. How Emma wished she could see the shade of his hair, hidden under the helmet, or even the colour of his eyes. Were they blue, like Harry’s, or brown, like hers? Arthur Clifton cut a dashing figure in his army uniform. The square jaw and the determined looked showed Emma that he’d been proud to serve his country. Her gaze moved on to a more recent photo of Harry singing in the St Bede’s school choir, just before his voice broke, and next to that, propped against the wall, was an envelope displaying Harry’s unmistakable hand. She assumed it was the last letter he had written to his mother before he died. She wondered if Maisie would allow her to read it. She stood up and walked across to the mantelpiece, and was surprised to find that the envelope hadn’t been opened.

‘I was so sorry to hear you had to leave Oxford,’ Maisie ventured, when she saw Emma staring at the envelope.

‘Given the choice of continuing with my degree or having Harry’s child, there was no contest,’ said Emma, her eyes still fixed on the letter.

‘And Sir Walter tells me that your brother Giles joined the Wessex regiment, but has sadly been—’

‘I see you had a letter from Harry,’ interrupted Emma, unable to contain herself.

‘No, it’s not from Harry,’ said Maisie. ‘It’s from a Lieutenant Thomas Bradshaw who served with him on the SS
Devonian
.’

‘What does Lieutenant Bradshaw have to say?’ asked Emma, aware that the envelope hadn’t been opened.

‘I’ve no idea,’ said Maisie. ‘A Dr Wallace delivered it to me, and said it was a letter of condolence. I didn’t feel I needed any more reminders of Harry’s death, so I never opened it.’

‘But isn’t it possible that it might throw some light on what happened on the
Devonian
?’

‘I doubt it,’ Maisie replied, ‘after all, they’d only known each other for a few days.’

‘Would you like me to read the letter to you, Mrs Clifton?’ Emma asked, aware that Maisie might be embarrassed by having to admit she couldn’t read.

‘No, thank you, my dear,’ Maisie replied. ‘After all, it’s not going to bring Harry back, is it?’

‘I agree,’ said Emma, ‘but perhaps you would allow me to read it for my own peace of mind,’ she said.

‘With the Germans targeting the docks at night,’ said Maisie, ‘I hope Barrington’s hasn’t been too badly affected.’

‘We’ve escaped a direct hit,’ said Emma, reluctantly accepting that she wasn’t going to be allowed to read the letter. ‘Mind you, I doubt even the Germans would dare to drop a bomb on Gramps.’

Maisie laughed, and for a moment Emma considered snatching the envelope from the mantelpiece and ripping it open before Maisie could stop her. But Harry would never have approved of that. If Maisie were to leave the room, even for a moment, Emma would use the steaming kettle to unseal the envelope, check the signature and make sure it was back in its place before she returned.

But it was almost as if Maisie could read her thoughts, because she remained by the mantelpiece and didn’t budge.

‘Gramps tells me congratulations are in order,’ said Emma, still refusing to give up.

Maisie blushed, and began to chat about her new appointment at the Grand Hotel. Emma’s eyes remained on the envelope. She carefully checked the M, the C, the S, the H and the L in the address, knowing that she would have to keep the image of those letters in her mind’s eye, like a photograph, until she returned to the Manor House. When Maisie handed little Sebastian back to her, explaining that sadly she had to get back to work, Emma reluctantly stood up, but not before she had given the envelope one last look.

On the way back to the Manor House, Emma tried to keep the image of the handwriting in her mind, thankful that Sebastian had fallen into a deep sleep. As soon as the car came to a halt on the gravel outside the front steps, Hudson opened the back door to allow Emma to get out and carry her son into the house. She took him straight up to the nursery, where Nanny Barrington was waiting for them. To Nanny’s surprise, Emma kissed him on the forehead and left without a word.

Once she was in her own room, Emma unlocked the centre drawer of her writing desk and pulled out a stack of letters that Harry had written to her over the years.

The first thing she checked was the capital H of Harry’s signature, so plain and bold, just like the H in Still House Lane on Maisie’s unopened envelope. This gave her confidence to carry on with the quest. She next searched for a capital C, and eventually found one on a Christmas card, with the bonus of the capital M of Merry: the same M and the same C as Mrs Clifton on the envelope. Harry must surely be alive, she kept repeating out loud. Finding a Bristol was easy, but England was more difficult, until she came across a letter he’d written to her from Italy when they were both still at school. It took her over an hour to neatly cut out the thirty-nine letters and two numbers, before she was able to reproduce the address on the envelope.

Mrs M. Clifton

27 Still House Lane

Bristol

England

Emma collapsed exhausted on to her bed. She had no idea who Thomas Bradshaw was, but one thing was certain: the unopened letter propped on Maisie’s mantelpiece had been written by Harry, and for some reason, best known to himself, he didn’t want her to know he was still alive. She wondered if he would have thought differently had he known she was pregnant with his child, before he set off on that fateful voyage.

Emma was desperate to share the news that Harry might not be dead with her mother, Gramps, Grace and of course Maisie, but she realized she would have to remain silent until she had more conclusive proof than an unopened letter. A plan began to form in her mind.

Emma didn’t go down for dinner that evening, but remained in her room and continued to try to fathom out why Harry would want everyone except his mother to believe he’d died that night.