The Silk Factory (26 page)

Beulah peeped out, saw that the scullery was empty, slipped out and quickly pulled the door shut fast behind her, as she’d been schooled. A whiff of the horrible smell of sooty burnt meat hung in the air and she prayed it would not travel and bring curious noses.

Outside, she forced herself to walk, not run, although she was longing to. In the open expanse of yard, under the harsh light, she felt horribly exposed, as if the windows behind her were rows of unblinking eyes and the master standing at any one of them. There was tightness in her chest so that it was hard to catch her breath. She sought the shadow of the pigsty wall and squatted down, sitting back on her heels for a moment and trying to calm herself. She glanced back over her shoulder, furtively, to check that no one had emerged. The windows stared blankly back. As she turned, she saw with horror that an end of white cloth trailed from the basket and hastily tucked it in, looking quickly away from the bundle inside.

Her mind raced. There was only one place she could think of to hide the little body so that it would not be found. She set off once again, entering the rows of mulberry trees at the same point from which she’d emerged earlier in the day, as if picking up her work exactly where she had left off. Once within the cover of the trees she ducked under their low branches, making a beeline for the back of the plantation. She paused within the margin of the trees and peeped cautiously through the newly planted saplings to the latest line of holes dug by the workmen, where the last of the new saplings lay on the ground in a row, their root balls wrapped in wet sacking. The diggings were deserted; a spade stood upright in the earth and a shovel lay propped against a tree where the men had downed tools for their afternoon break. Beulah drew forward to the very edge and looked around for any clue to their whereabouts, wondering if they had withdrawn into the shade of the orchard to smoke a pipe, but there was no sign and she concluded that they had gone to the well for water or to Mrs Gundy, who would sometimes spare them some small beer. Unsure how long it would be before their return, she hurried forward to the first hole in the line, the next to be filled, and knelt down upon the spoil heap, the basket by her side. The hole was wide, to give plenty of room for roots to grow. Deep and straight-sided, flat spade marks sliced through the dry, sandy topsoil and the darker damp soil beneath.

She glanced all around and then stayed still for a moment, listening. The only sounds were the fluting song of a blackbird calling for its mate and the rustle of hedge sparrows flitting here and there. Quickly, she picked up the bundle. She could feel the pliable solidity of the infant’s body within the slippery folds of the cloth. She thought that she should say a prayer but shock had numbed her mind and no words would come. Holding it in the crook of her arm, she lay flat on her stomach at the edge of the hole so that she could reach, and lowered it down into the bottom of the pit. The white cloth that had covered its crown slipped away and the head, lolling sideways, was exposed. Beulah stared at the baby’s tiny, perfect ear, the whorl inside, its curled edge and delicate lobe. Its skin was pale and waxy, the veins beneath giving it a blueish tinge. With a whimper, she pulled the material over to cover it, only to reveal instead its tiny hand and wrist.

The first spade of earth that she scraped from the spoil heap fell upon the white cloth and trickled away down the sides of the humped shape; the second began to cover it. In the distance, Beulah heard shouts and laughter, male voices, and desperately dragged the unwieldy spade through the spoil heap, scraping earth into the hole until there was a thin covering of soil and stones and all of the white had disappeared. Only the little hand remained uncovered.

As she looked down, there was a movement, a shifting beneath the soil. The baby’s fingers, which had been open and loose, curled as she had seen them do when Effie touched its palm. She gasped and bent closer. A pebble, dislodged by her change of position, fell from the side of the hole, a trickle of sandy soil following it. She peered in, listening for the faintest sound. The movement … it could have been just the crumbly soil settling; it must have been … mustn’t it?

Nearby, the chattering noise of the blackbird’s alarm call rang out and she panicked. Desperately, she scrabbled more earth over with her hands. The voices were getting nearer, the men making their way along the path beside the mulberry trees. She hesitated, wringing the cloth of her apron between her hands, scraped more earth into the hole, and then, overwhelmed by fear, grabbed up the basket and ran for the trees. She ducked under the branches, hiding in their green shadow. Glancing back she saw that she had thrown the spade down in her haste, forgetting to return it to its upright position in the ground. Hardly breathing, she watched as a man and two boys, in their rough smocks and breeches, returned carrying pails of water to moisten the newly planted saplings. The boys’ hair was wet, their smocks darkened with splashes of water and they carried on their banter, pushing and jostling each other to try to make the water spill while the older man laughed at them. They picked up their tools without heeding.

The boys began digging at the end of the row. The man took up the next sapling to plant it and Beulah felt sure he would notice that the spoil heap was spread wide or see her smaller footprints among his own. He slit open the sacking and removed it, teased out the roots and placed the sapling in the hole. As he began to shovel earth in, Beulah had to close her eyes: the weight of it on those tiny bones, the air crushed out of its lungs, its little face against the stony earth … Every slice of the spade and slide and drop of the soil into the hole was a torment that made her scrunch her eyes tighter. Still, behind her closed eyelids, she saw the tiny fingers close and the spasm of movement that could have been the earth settling or could have been the small body curling against the weight pattering down on it: a near dead creature shuddering to consciousness as blows rained down. Oh, what had she done! She saw pale shiny roots, like long fingers, growing and grasping, pushing their way down and through … She opened her eyes to find the workman beating the earth down with the flat of his spade. It was too late.

Thump! Thump! Thump!
The dull sound of tamping and packing the earth followed her as she crept away; it echoed in her head even as her flight took pace, pushing her way through the branches, heedless of scratches and breaking twigs, wanting only to get back to Effie and be comforted. It was still there –
Thump! Thump! Thump!
– as she broke from the cover of the trees and ran with her empty basket bumping at her knees straight across the open yard and headlong into the scullery, where she came face-to-face with the master.

‘And where are you going in such haste?’ he said, catching hold of her arm above the elbow. He glanced at her apron, smeared with dirt, and at the empty basket. ‘What’s afoot?’ he demanded.

Beulah kept her head down, her eyes level with the brass buttons and watch chain on his waistcoat. In his hand was the whip he carried; he tapped its polished, cherrywood handle against his thigh. ‘Nothing, master,’ she muttered. She pulled against his grip. ‘I need to be about my business feeding the worms.’

‘We’ll go together,’ he said. ‘I was just about to pay my visit.’ Moving his grip from her arm to the back of her neck, he pushed her in front of him.

The door to the cellar stood ajar. ‘What’s this?’ the master said, his temper rising. ‘How many times have I impressed on you the need to keep the room secure at
all times
? Where is Alice?’ And he racketed her down the steps so fast that her feet barely touched the ground.

Alice and Effie were gone. Beulah’s stomach turned over in fear. The scissors and string lay on the floor beside the stove. The bloody sacks had been stuffed inside it and had stifled the fire; the door hung open, revealing that it was out. The room was already noticeably cooler and without the masking smell of warm herbs the place smelt like a butcher’s shop: a mixture of the iron tang of blood and under it a smell like rotten meat. And it was quiet. The noise of the worms feeding, like thousands of raindrops falling on leaves, all day, all night, had all but stopped.

‘What the blazes …?’ He pulled her with him to the worm beds.

In place of the usual mat of green, the worms squirmed on bare boards, scattered only with tiny scraps of leaves. The living worms, a roiling mass of oyster-grey, clambered over a sticky blackened mess of dead ones, from which the foul smell rose.

Fowler gave a roar of indignation. He moved quickly along the beds checking each one; in each the same pattern was repeated. He yanked Beulah by the arm and pushed her back against the wall beside the stove, jarring her shoulder blades and thumping her head. She slid to the ground and cowered there, shrinking back. Her hands travelled behind her over the flaking brick floor, fingers spread, feeling for the metallic scrape of the scissors. He stood over her, breathing heavily, his face livid, eyes narrowed in fury. As he turned the whip around to use not the rope but the butt end, Beulah opened her mouth to scream and Fowler bent and clamped his hand over it.

On Christmas Day, which fell on a Sunday, Rosie drove over to Holly Court to visit May. She had refused Tally’s invitation to join them, not wanting to impose on their family Christmas, but the morning had seemed endless and she was glad of the distraction and the chance of some company. The house had seemed horribly quiet since she’d passed the kids over to Josh and being alone only gave her the chance to brood on the bitterness of their meeting.

Ever since she’d emailed to let him know that she was going back to court to renegotiate the maintenance payment, things between them had gone from bad to worse. In his initial furious phone call he’d ranted at her about the things he and Tania would now have to give up: the skiing holiday they’d planned, the chance of moving up the property ladder. Did she
know
how expensive it was paying in to
two
households? Rosie, outraged that he should whinge about missing a trip to Chamonix when she had been saving every Tesco voucher towards Sam’s first school uniform, had shouted back, until, with comic timing, they had both rung off simultaneously. Since then they had barely managed to be civil to each other.

They’d met at the service station early on the morning of Christmas Eve and transferred kids and baggage between the two cars in a stony silence. When Rosie bent into the car and said to the children that their presents would be waiting for them at home on Boxing Day, Josh had broken in, ‘You mean Tuesday. They’re staying with us over Boxing Day.’ He stowed Sam’s bag in the front passenger seat and shut the door.

Rosie looked at him in disbelief. ‘Hang on a minute! That’s not what we discussed!’

‘Well, I don’t remember us discussing what I could afford as child support.
Discussion
doesn’t seem to be your strong point,’ he said.

‘Only because we never manage to do it in a civilised way. I thought it would be better doing it through solicitors. It would stop us getting steamed up,’ she said pointedly. ‘That’s what it’s there for, isn’t it – the law?’

He walked away from her and round to the driver’s side, the kids in the car between them. ‘Yeah, and possession’s nine-tenths of it. I’ll bring them back Boxing Day evening.’ She opened her mouth to remonstrate but he drowned her out. ‘It’s all arranged; the cousins will be coming round to Mum’s too and anyway I don’t want to drive on Christmas Day. I’m not missing out on having a drink.’ He opened the driver’s door.

‘But Tuesday’s too late! What about
my
Christmas? It’s all over by then!’ Rosie felt her voice rising. A family passing them, on the way to the services building, gave them a wide berth, the parents exchanging glances, the teenage children gawping.

Josh stared at her over the roof of the car. ‘You’re making an exhibition of yourself again,’ he said. ‘Have you got no self-control at all?’ He glowered at her. ‘Here. Nine thirty, Monday evening, and don’t forget this time.’ He got into the car, slammed the door and left Rosie fuming as he drove away.

Now, as she turned into the car park at the home, Rosie made a little calculation in her head: thirty-three hours to go until she got them back, thirty-three more hours to fill. She’d best keep busy and concentrate on cheering May up. She picked up May’s present and put a smile on her face.

There was no one in the office; everyone was probably tied up with preparations for the Christmas lunch, Rosie thought. Quite at home now as one of their ‘regulars’, she signed the visitors’ book in the tinsel-decked hall and went straight to find May in her favourite place in the sunroom. She plonked a smacking kiss on her cheek and wished her a Happy Christmas.

‘Is it?’ May said incredulously.

‘Yep, and I’ve brought you a present.’ She put the flat, rectangular package down gently on May’s thin knees.

May just sat and looked at it. ‘What is it?’

‘You have to open it and see.’

‘Is it chocolates?’

‘No,’ Rosie said, ‘but there are Maltesers in my bag and you can have them after you’ve had dinner, OK?’

May picked ineffectually at the sellotape until Rosie, seeing that she’d never get it undone, ran her nail underneath it so that she could unfold the paper. Inside was a beautiful white leather photo album. May passed her hand across the cover, feeling its padded smoothness.

‘You can open it up,’ Rosie said.

May turned to the first page. ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘It’s me!’ A child in a hand-knitted cardi, and with her hair in pigtails, smiled up at the camera with the gappy teeth of a seven-year-old.

Rosie nodded, smiling, and turned the next page. ‘And Helena,’ she said as they looked at a picture of May sitting in a fireside chair with her baby sister held awkwardly on her lap. They carried on turning the pages that told the life story Rosie had carefully constructed, year by year, from photos found in her mother’s albums or loose in drawers at May’s house.

May pored over them, every now and then commenting about where a picture was taken. Her responsiveness and recaptured memories made Rosie feel glad; the gift was a success. ‘I thought next time I come we could put some more pictures in,’ Rosie said, ‘maybe the ones in your bedside table here?’

May nodded.

‘And maybe the ones in the frames? Then you could put the album in your bag and have all your pictures together in one place and it would save them getting smudged or the glass getting broken and hurting your fingers.’

May turned another page. ‘Well I never, my graduation!’ She moved on through pictures of the family at Helena’s wedding and holiday shots with friends in France and then paused at a photo that had been casually snapped, rather than posed: May laughing, kneeling on a hearthrug, holding out a toy to a baby who reached for it, behind them a sofa and the legs of another woman sitting on it. ‘Look – it’s you!’ May pointed with her claw-like hand.

Rosie leant over, suddenly excited. Her baby self was dressed in a blue flower-printed dress, with smocking across the chest and a Peter Pan collar. One sock was off, revealing toes spread, like her fingers, in delight. She had chubby cheeks and arms and a cowlick of blond hair. The toy was a puppet on a wooden stick: Punch. She remembered playing with it as an older child: you pulled the stick down and Punch’s hook-nosed face and outstretched hands disappeared into a cup; pushed it up and the grinning clown popped out again.

She peered closer. On the rug beside May’s knees lay another puppet: Judy with her mobcap and red cheeks. Two toys, a matching pair. Her heart began to beat faster. ‘Do you remember when that was taken?’ she asked May gently.

May smiled. ‘It was on your first birthday. You loved that puppet.
I
got it for you,’ she said proudly.

‘And the other one? Was Judy for Lily?’

May nodded. ‘You had a cake too. You two sucked the icing and Helena and I ate the cake.’

Rosie touched the edge of the photo, where, on her mother’s lap, just out of reach of the camera, Lily must have been sitting.

May went on, ‘Helena saved a piece from each cake for Michael and kept the candles for you to see him blow them out again. That was before they moved away, of course …’ Her face fell and Rosie broke in quickly before there could be tears.

‘Let’s see what came next.’

‘Was that my car?’ May asked, looking at a picture of herself leaning against a green VW Beetle.

‘I think it must have been,’ Rosie said absently, still thinking of Lily – of the two of them together – with sticky mouths and fingers grasping their stick puppets, entranced by the game of peep-bo as their mum and aunty popped Punch and Judy up and down. Here was something she could shape into a memory. ‘Yes, yes, I’m sure it was,’ she said, seeing May’s expression, still uncertain, writing May’s memories for her too.

‘It’s nice,’ May said.

A gong sounded and May stuffed the album into her bag. ‘Supper time,’ she said.

‘Christmas lunch.’

‘Really?’ May looked pleased all over again.

Rosie walked May into the dining room. One of the male staff, dressed as Santa, sat at a keyboard playing ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ while a plump carer, wearing furry reindeer antlers on a hairband, handed out thimble-sized glasses of sherry. As Nurse Todd came bustling down the long table, seeing everyone to their seats, she spotted Rosie and noticed that the kids weren’t with her. She made her way over. ‘Are you able to join us?’ she said. ‘It’s so nice if relatives can stay. The more the merrier.’

Rosie hesitated, not wanting to be in the way.

‘To be honest, we could do with as many pairs of hands as we can get. You’d be doing us a favour if you could just keep an eye?’

‘Thanks, I’d love to,’ Rosie said. She was directed to sit between May and an old gentleman called Anthony, who tried to rise and pull out a chair for her but, overcome by his shakiness, subsided.

‘Very nice to see a young face about the place,’ he said. ‘Are you married?’

‘Um, not any more,’ Rosie said.

May nudged her sharply in the ribs. ‘He’ll propose if you don’t watch out. He asks everyone.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘He’s asked me twice this week already.’

A carer came round with a box of Christmas crackers and Rosie helped May and Anthony to pull one. Soon there was a barrage of reports as others did the same and a hubbub of chat as plastic trinkets were examined, jokes puzzled over and paper hats worn at crazy angles. Anthony’s blue paper crown slipped down over one eye and Rosie straightened it up for him. A disagreement broke out between two ladies over who should have the key ring that had fallen from a cracker; Rosie settled it by offering one of them the string of beads that had been in her own. Feeling that the event had something of the Mad Hatter’s tea party about it, Rosie began to enjoy herself a little.

The carers were finding it hard to be everywhere at once: taking plastic covers off the meals, escorting people to and from the loo and replacing dropped knives and forks. Rosie despatched her turkey breast slices, tough roasties and Bisto quickly and went to help. She served some dinners, managed to defuse an argument over who had more stuffing by finding second helpings and, when pudding came, got a conversation going at her end of the table about the thruppenny bit that always used to be hidden in it: reminiscence and a good old moan about health and safety seeming equally enjoyable.

Once lunch was over, everyone retired to the sunroom where the chairs had been arranged in a wide circle and all the tables had been removed. The keyboard was brought in and the player gave them a medley of carols and then moved into old dance numbers. Couples shuffled around the room to the music, some of the elderly ladies dancing together, which Rosie found touching. It brought home to her the sad disparity in numbers between the men and women and also reminded her somehow of childhood, primary school dancing lessons where the girls took it in turns to lead, the boys all having melted away to play football. She danced to ‘A String of Pearls’ with Anthony; he clasped her hand tight, his head nodding to a rhythm of its own as they made a jerky circuit of the room. ‘Will you marry me?’ he said as the melody ended.

‘I think it would disappoint too many other ladies,’ Rosie said as she gave him an arm so that he could lower himself into his chair.

After the dancing, they played pass-the-parcel, Rosie and the others dodging quickly around to help strip away the layers of paper, tubes of sweets rolling into laps and on to the floor and crossword books fished out and compared with competitive fervour. Then a raffle was drawn. Rosie joined in to help those without their glasses check their tickets. When May’s ticket was called, Rosie took her up to the table to choose between bath salts, a flower vase and a box of Milk Tray. ‘Well, I can’t think what you’ll choose, May,’ she said and everybody laughed as May gleefully picked up the chocolates and stowed them in her bag.

The residents were served a cup of tea from the trolley and Nurse Todd produced a bottle of sherry for the staff. As she thrust a large glass into Rosie’s hand, she said, ‘Thanks for all your help.’

Rosie, pleased, murmured, ‘Not at all.’

Nurse Todd raised her glass. ‘Another party managed without major mishap. Cheers!’ They all touched glasses and drank.

Rosie, enjoying the feeling of bonhomie, stayed on to help wash up. When she went to say goodbye to May she found her asleep with the album beside her on the table. She tiptoed away feeling that the whole visit had been worthwhile.

It was dark by the time she got home. As she stepped into the hall, she had the strange impression that someone left it: a movement, as of someone slipping quickly through the kitchen door. Heart thumping, she hesitated at the open front door, keeping her path clear for retreat. A shaft of light from a passing car travelled along the wall in the hallway and was gone. Of course, she told herself, that’s all it was, a car passing as I opened the door. Nonetheless, she stood, listening, a moment longer, the cold wind from the street rushing in around her.

She busied about putting all the lights on downstairs and then turned on the radio in the kitchen and the TV in the living room, filling the house with human voices. She changed out of her good wool dress into jeans, cosy navy sweatshirt and grey canvas deck shoes, worn soft as slippers. Having made a coffee, she settled down to watch
Dancing on Ice
but it didn’t hold her attention. She wondered what the children were doing now. It was probably bath time. She hoped it was Josh’s mum, Sandra, who was bathing them and not Tania, who Sam said always got shampoo in Cara’s eyes. Or maybe they were in their pyjamas already, curled up on the sofa, surrounded by the presents they’d probably opened at some ungodly hour. There would be a fantastic tree; Sandra had always been good at all that stuff, greenery festooning the mantelpiece above the wood burner and long red candles everywhere. She looked around at her own meagre efforts. She hadn’t been able to run to a tree; the holly she’d tucked around the picture frames seemed scant and half-hearted and the kids’ presents still sat in their plastic carrier bags, waiting to be wrapped. Above the fireplace filled with fir cones, only four cards stood on the mantelpiece: from Corinne and Luc, Tally and Rob, one that Sam had made at playschool – red card and a blobby snowman made of cotton wool – and one from Tom Marriott. That had been a surprise.