As I replaced the silver-framed photo on the table, I sighed. More than half a century spanned the images of my great-aunt, the one in Blackpool, the other outside Fritz’s Laundry, yet little seemed to have happened over the years to make her expression change.
I was turning away with the intention of getting on with what I’d come for, when I noticed a studio portrait, in sepia tones, of a woman with a baby. There was something familiar about her grim yet good-looking face. I knew nothing about babies and couldn’t tell the child’s age—it was a boy in an old-fashioned romper suit with a sailor collar—but he was adorable. I looked at the back, and read, “Elsa Cameron with Norman (Martha’s godson), on his first birthday, May, 1939”.
The baby was my father! His mother had died long before I was born.
I slammed the photo face down on the table. I was shivering again. I was about to kneel in front of the fire once more, when I saw the sherry on the sideboard, the modern one. My jangling nerves needed calming. In the cupboard underneath, where I looked for a glass, I found five more bottles of sherry, and several glasses hanging by their stems from a circular wooden stand. I filled a glass, drank the sherry, filled it again, took it over to the settee, and sank into the cushions. My head was buzzing. How could such a beautiful child grow up to become such a monster?
The sherry took effect quickly and I began to relax.
There seemed to be a sagging hole in the middle cushion of the settee into which my bottom fitted perfectly.
Perhaps it was where Flo had always sat. Outside, cars drove past occasionally and I could hear children playing in the square. People walked by, heels clicking on the pavement, only their legs visible from the knees down through the small window by the door.
I put down the empty glass and promptly fell asleep.
When I woke up it was nearly half past five. There was a throbbing between my eyes, which I supposed was the result of the sherry, though it didn’t feel particularly unpleasant. I would have given anything for a cup of tea or coffee and remembered I hadn’t seen the kitchen yet, or the bedroom.
I got to my feet, and staggered towards the door at the back of the room, where I found myself in a little dark inner hall with a tiled floor and two more doors, left and right. The left led to a tiny Spartan kitchen with a deep porcelain sink, a cooker older than Mum’s, a digitally operated microwave oven but no fridge. In the wall cupboard, behind several packets of biscuits, there was coffee and, to my relief, a jar of Coffeemate. I put a spoonful of each with water in a flowered mug and stuck it in the microwave to heat.
Whilst I was waiting, I went back to the inner hall, opened the other door, and switched on the light. The bedroom was mainly white, curtains, walls, bedspread. A pair of pink furry slippers were set neatly side by side under the bed. A large crucifix hung from the wall and there was a statue of Our Lord on the six-drawer chest, surrounded by smaller statues. The walls were covered with holy pictures: Our Lord again, Baby Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and an assortment of saints. Otherwise, the room was sparsely furnished: apart from the chest, there was only a matching wardrobe with a narrow, full-length mirror on the door, and a little cane bedside table, which held an old-fashioned alarm clock, a white-shaded lamp, and a Mills & Boon novel with an embroidered bookmark.
An old brown foolscap envelope was propped against the lamp. I picked it up and put it in the pocket of my linen jacket. It might contain Flo’s pension book, which would need to be cancelled.
I admired the wardrobe and the chest-of-drawers.
They looked like stained oak and had been polished to satin smoothness. They’d look lovely in my flat, I thought. I wouldn’t have minded the brass bedstead either. My own bedroom furniture had been bought in kits and had taken weeks to put together.
In the kitchen, the microwave beeped. I sat on the bed, which was like sitting on a cloud it felt so soft, and bounced up and down, but stopped when I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror. I saw a tall, graceful young woman who looked years younger than her age, dressed in white and pink, with long slim legs and hair that shone like silver under Auntie Flo’s bedroom light. Her wide, generous mouth was turned up slightly -she’d been childishly enjoying bouncing on the bed. At school, she had been regarded as stuck up because of her straight, slightly patrician nose, but James’s mother had said once, “What fine bone structure you have, Millie. Some women would pay a plastic surgeon a fortune for cheekbones like that.”
The young woman had forgotten to use blusher and she did look pale, as everyone had been saying, but it was the deadness in the green eyes that shocked me.
I took the coffee and a packet of custard creams into the lounge, switched on the television and watched Neighbours, then an old cowboy film on BBC2.
Just as the film was finishing, I glimpsed through the window the majestic figure of Charmian Smith descending the concrete stairs. I kicked the boxes aside and opened the door, feeling slightly uncomfortable when she gave me a warm smile, as if we were the greatest friends.
“I’d forgotten all about you until our Minola, that’s me daughter, collected her kids and said there was a light on in Flo’s flat. Me feller’s just got home and I wondered if you’d like a bite to eat with us.” She came into the room without waiting to be asked, as if it was something she was used to doing.
“What does your daughter do?” ( was astonished to learn that Charmian was grandmother to the children I’d seen earlier.
“She’s learning to use a computer. It was when Jay, that’s me son, went to university last year, she decided it was time she used her brain.” Charmian’s brown eyes danced. “I told her she’d regret getting married at sixteen.
I said, “There’s more things to life than a husband and a family, luv,” but kids never listen, do they? I didn’t listen to me own mam when I got married at the same age.”
“I suppose not.”
“Are you married? Y’know, I don’t know your name.”
“Millie Cameron, and no, I’m not married.” I wished the woman would leave so I could get down to work. It seemed imperative suddenly that I take at least half a dozen boxes of stuff to Oxfam tomorrow. To my dismay, she sank gracefully into the armchair, her long bead earrings swinging against her gleaming neck.
“I didn’t know Flo had any relatives left after her sister Sally died,” she said, “apart from Sally’s daughter who went to live in Australia. It wasn’t until Bel gave me a number to ring after the funeral that I knew there was another sister.”
Bel, the woman in the photographs. “After the funeral?”
“That’s right, Martha Colquitt. Is she your gran?” I nodded. “I felt terrible when the poor woman burst into tears, but Bel said that was the way Flo wanted it.”
Charmian glanced sadly round the room. “I can’t get used to her not being here. I used to come and see her several times a day over the last year when she was stuck indoors with her terrible headaches.”
“That was very kind of you,” I said stiffly.
“Lord, girl, it was nothing to do with kindness. It was no more than she deserved. Flo was there for me when I needed her—she got me a job in the launderette when me kids were little. It changed me life.” She leaned against the crocheted cover and, for a moment, looked as if she might cry. Then, once again, her eyes swept the room.
“It’s like a museum, isn’t it? Such a shame everything’s got to go. People always fetched her ornaments back from their holidays.” She indicated the brass plaques on the beams. “We brought her the key and the little dog from Clacton. This was Flo’s favourite, though—and mine.” She eased herself smoothly out of the chair and switched on the lamp on top of the television.
I had already noticed the cut-out parchment lamp with its wooden base and thought it tasteless. It reminded me of a cheap Christmas card: a line of laughing children dressed as they might have been in this very square a hundred years ago, fur hats, fur muffs, lace-up boots.
“I’ll switch the main light off so you can see the effect once the bulb warms up,” Chairman said.
To my surprise, the shade slowly began to revolve. I hadn’t realised there was another behind it that turned in the opposite direction. The children passed a toyshop, a sweetshop, a church, a Christmas tree decorated with coloured lights. Shadows flitted across the ceiling of the long, low room. Hazy, almost lifesize figures passed over my head.
“Tom brought her that from Austria of all places.”
I felt almost hypnotised by the moving lamp. “Tom?”
“Flo’s friend. She loved sitting watching her lamp and listening to her record. The lamp was still on when I came down the day they found her dead in the park. Did you know she got run over?”
“My mother said.”
“They never found who did it. Oh dear!” Now Charmian did begin to cry. “I don’t half miss her. I hate the thought of her dying all alone.”
“I’m terribly sorry.” I “went over and awkwardly touched the woman’s arm. I hadn’t the faintest notion how you were supposed to comfort a stranger. Perhaps another person, someone who didn’t have dead eyes, might have taken the weeping woman in their arms, but I could no more have done that than I could have sprouted wings and flown.
Charmian sniffed and wiped her eyes. “Anyroad, I’d better go. Herbie’s waiting for his tea—which reminds me, luv, would you care to join us?”
“Thanks all the same, but I’d better not. There’s so much to do.” I gestured at the room, which was exactly the same as when I’d come six hours before.
Charmian squeezed my hand. “Perhaps next time, eh?
It’ll take you weeks to sort this lot out. I’d offer to help, but I couldn’t bear to see Flo’s lovely stuff being packed away.”
I watched her climb the steps outside. I had meant to ask when the rent was due, so that I could pay a few weeks if necessary. I hadn’t realised that dusk had fallen and it was rapidly growing dark. The streetlights were on, and it was time to draw the curtains. It was then that I noticed someone standing motionless outside. I pressed my face against the glass and peered upwards. It was a girl of about sixteen, wearing a tight red mini-dress that barely covered her behind and emphasised the curves of her slight body. There was something about her stance, the way she leaned against the railings, one foot slightly in front of the other, the way she held her cigarette, left hand supporting the right elbow, that made me guess immediately what she was. I pressed my face the other way, and saw two more girls outside the house next door.
“Oh, lord!” I felt scared. Perhaps I should let someone know where I was—James or my mother—but I couldn’t recall seeing a phone in the flat and, despite what George had said, I’d left my mobile in the office. As soon as I’d had another cup of coffee, I’d go home and come back on Sunday to start packing.
The kitchen was like a fridge. No wonder Flo didn’t have one—she didn’t need it. I returned, shivering, to the settee, my hands wrapped round a mug of coffee. It was odd, but the room seemed even more cosy and charming now I knew about the girl outside. I no longer felt scared, but safe and secure, as if there was no chance of coming to any harm inside Auntie Flo’s four walls.
I became aware of something stiff against my hip and remembered the envelope that I’d found in the bedroom.
It didn’t contain a pension book, but several newspaper cuttings, yellow and crisp with age, held together with a paper clip. They’d mainly been taken from the Liverpool Daily Post and the Echo. I looked at the top one for a date—Friday, 2 June 1939—then skimmed through the words underneath.
Thetis trapped underwater was the main headline, followed by a sub-heading. Submarine Fails to Resurface in Liverpool Bay—Admiralty Assures Relatives All Those On Board Will Be Rescued.
I turned to the next cutting dated the following day. Hope Fading For Men Trapped On “The Thetis. Stunned Relatives Wait Outside Cammell Laird Offices in Birkenhead. The news had been worse when the Echo came out that afternoon: Hope Virtually Abandoned for 99 men on Thetis, and by Sunday, All Hope Abandoned . . .
Why had Flo kept them?
On the television, the lamp swirled and the children did their Christmas shopping. I found myself waiting for a girl in a red coat and brown fur bonnet to come round.
She was waving at someone, but the someone never appeared.
Flo had sat in this very spot hundreds, no, thousands of times, watching the girl in red, listening to her record.
Curious, I went over to the record player and studied the controls. I pressed Play, and beneath the plastic lid, the arm lifted and swung across to the record.
There was crackling, then the strains of a vaguely familiar tune filled the room, silent until then except for the hiss of the gas fire. After a while, a man’s voice, also vaguely familiar, began to sing. He’d been in a film on television recently—Bing Crosby. “Dancing in the dark,” a voice like melting chocolate crooned.
What had Flo Clancy done to make her the black sheep of the family? Why had Gran refused to mention her name? Bel, Flo’s old friend, had asked Charmian Smith to ring Gran after the funeral because “that’s the way Flo wanted it”. What had happened between the sisters to make them dislike each other so much? And why had Flo kept cuttings of a submarine disaster beside her bed?
I would almost certainly never know the truth about Auntie Flo, but what did it matter? As the lamp slowly turned and dark shadows swept the ceiling of the room and the music reached a crescendo, filling every nook and corner, I took a long, deep breath and allowed myself to be sucked into the enchantment of it all. A quite unexpected thing had happened, something quite wonderful.
I had never felt so much at peace with myself before.
Flo
Flo Clancy opened her eyes, saw that the fingers on the brass alarm clock on the tallboy were pointing to half past seven, and nearly screamed. She’d be late for work! She was about to leap out of bed when she remembered it was Whit Monday and she could lie in.
Whew! She peeped over the covers at her sisters, both fast asleep in the double bed only a few feet away. Martha would have done her nut if she’d been woken early. Flo pursed her lips and blew gently at Sally who was sleeping on the outside, but Sal’s brown eyelashes merely flickered before she turned over, dead to the world.