A week later Jack and I lay in terror on our mattress on the hall floor listening while Elsie, up in our room with Auntie Rose and the district nurse, gave me another lesson on the facts of life. No excuse for me to disbelieve any longer what went where or to puzzle how a whole baby came out of there. We crept fearfully into the kitchen and there was Uncle Jack with a glass in his hand. ‘Hello, boy, too much of a racket to sleep, is it? She always was a noisy girl. Now’s her chance.’
‘Is Elsie all right?’ I asked.
‘Right as rain. Here, have a sip of this. Drink to the baby’s health. Say “Good health and long life to you.” ’
Jack tried a sip and had to run outside to spit it out.
‘Don’t waste it,’ Uncle Jack called after him.
I was concerned. ‘Is it a boy or a girl?’
‘A boy. Black as pitch.’ Uncle Jack smiled but without his former twinkle. That, so much a part of him, was gone. It was like an amputation. He contemplated some inner thought, then came back to me. ‘Well, sort of greyish really, but same difference. Pretty little thing. I’ll have to learn some Negro spirituals to teach him for the Silver Voice competition, eh? They’re good singers, those darkies. That Paul Robeson, he made that film with us, didn’t he:
Proud Valley
. He sang with the South Wales miners in the Depression. Great bass voice.’ He laughed gently. ‘Difficult to think of that little scrap up there singing bass. Still.’
The whole thing was beyond me. ‘Is he black – I mean, grey – all over?’
‘Just about. He’ll do a lot for Rose, being yere.’ His good humour faded into bitterness. ‘The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away – as the bloody minister would say.’
A few days later on Doublebois station we boarded the Cornish Riviera for Paddington. I was ten and a half when my ‘other childhood’ ended, Jack was nearly fifteen. We had fewer people to see us off than poor Teddy Camberwell, but there were enough: Elsie with her baby and Auntie Rose and Uncle Jack.
Oh, Auntie Rose and Uncle Jack! Ten shillings a week per vackie was the official allowance, and in return they had given themselves without stint. Was there ever such a bargain? Yes, they were about to give Elsie the same, for nothing. They were without guile and without self-interest: ‘The salt of the earth’ is the saying. And if ever the earth needed salting Auntie Rose and Uncle Jack were there to do it.
Amid the huffing and puffing of the engine and the stationmaster we said our farewells.
‘Give my respects to your mam and dad. Write soon. Oh, we’ll miss you, boys,’ Auntie Rose repeated.
‘Bye, Terry. See you in London one day,’ said Elsie. She held up her baby’s tiny hand with its pink palm. ‘Say goodbye, Louis. Bye-bye. Say bye-bye.’
‘Bye, Elsie. Bye, Louis.’
Doors were slammed, flags waved, a whistle blew.
‘Goodbye, Auntie Rose, Uncle Jack,’ we shouted.
‘Goodbye, boys. Look after your – you be—’ He choked, stopped, tried to grin at us and failed miserably. Unheeded tears ran down his cheeks.
Auntie Rose cut in. ‘Oh, now don’t cry, Jack, for God’s sake. You’ll start me off.’ And she started to cry.
The train moved forward.
‘Remember what I said, boys,’ called Uncle Jack over the noise His voice sounded urgent; he seemed suddenly afraid that we wouldn’t have his distillation of what a hard life had taught him. ‘Two things: it’s not fair and don’t ever trust ’em. Your leaders. Never. You never know what they’ll do. And whatever it is, it won’t be for you.’
We hung out of the window, waving furiously, and the train went past Railway Cottages above us, where neighbours were waving at the wire fence. We began to round the curve in the line so that we could only just see the platform on which Auntie Rose and Uncle Jack were standing, still waving back: last sight of our own Rock of Ages and her bloody-minded bantam.
The train took us over the Lostwithiel road, past Dobwalls, over the Moorswater Viaduct. It stopped at Liskeard, Menheniot, St Germans, Saltash, rumbled over Brunel's great bridge – presumably moving it another foot one way or the other – and we were in Plymouth, England, and on our way back to our half-forgotten home.
Uncle Jack and Auntie Rose. Auntie Rose and Uncle Jack. Aunt and uncle. Not father and mother but not distant either, just in-between relatives. In fact, of course, they weren’t even that; they were our foster-mother and -father, not relatives at all. But even now, sixty-six years later, I still cannot say their names without a full heart and a lump of gratitude in my throat.
A
cknowledgements
First, to my long-suffering, under-thanked, invaluable, wonderful secretary of nearly thirty years, Rae Amzallag.
To Jacky Fairclough and Mary Flanigan, granddaughters of Auntie Rose and Uncle Jack.
Wendy Barbery (née Tamblyn) of Treburgie Farm, Dobwalls.
Beth Plummer, widow of Ken, of Dobwalls.
John and Ann Roberts of Falmouth, Cornwall.
For reading early drafts: Barbara Kerr, Dominic Frisby, Eliot Watkins, Jennifer Thorne, John Hine, Sir Nigel Sweeney QC, Peter Smith LLB, Piers Croke.
Alexandra Pringle, Anna Simpson, Anya Rosenberg and all at Bloomsbury.
Lavinia Trevor and Nick Quinn, my literary agents.
My brother, Jack and his wife, Joan.