‘What about whether she ever had a baby? I can’t believe she would have spoken with such sadness if her pregnancy was all just a fantasy. Can we check at the registry office?’
‘Good plan. I can pop down on Monday, if you like?’
‘That’d be great, to confirm it either way.’ A few weeks ago I’d have hesitated, fearing he might still be after a newspaper story. Now I could see that he was as curious about the mystery as I was, and just as keen to discover the truth. ‘It would prove her point about making the quilt for the lost child, and why she stitched that verse into it. I can’t think why else she would have done that.’
‘What was the name of her friend, again?’ he asked.
‘Margaret?’
‘No, the one who rescued her.’
‘Nora Kowalski? Why?’
‘It might be worth checking the register of voters for Bethnal Green. It’s not a very common name.’
I paused for a long moment, trying to remember what Maria had said about Nora’s son and grandson. Ben glanced at me curiously, frowning a little. Then he sighed loudly and shook his head, abruptly slapped down the lid of the laptop and rested his hands on the lid, palms upwards.
‘What’s the problem?’ I said, laughing at his petulant expression. It was seriously endearing.
‘How long is it going to take you to get it?’ he burst out, suddenly. ‘I am
not
doing this for the bloody newspaper. I am doing it because I like you. Isn’t that enough? Or am I getting too involved? Would you rather I just backed off?’
‘No, it’s not that at all.’ I nearly laughed again but stopped myself at the last minute. He’d got completely the wrong end of the stick. ‘It’s just that …’
‘You
still
don’t trust me.’
‘No, Ben. It’s the very opposite,’ I managed to gabble, before allowing instinct to take over. I leaned forward, put my hand to the back of his head and pulled his face towards mine. I caught a look of surprise in his eyes, but he didn’t resist.
In the morning I panicked. What
could
I have been thinking? This man, who I barely knew, was dozing peacefully beside me with a childlike smile on his face. Still, the sex hadn’t been bad at all, I remembered hazily, considering he’d apologised several times for being out of practice.
We ate a bachelor’s breakfast of white sliced toast, cheap jam and instant coffee, making slightly stilted conversation while skirting around the fact that we’d ended up in bed together. I started to clear the table, taking the dishes to the sink.
‘Do you have to leave?’ He hugged me from behind.
‘I have to go some time,’ I said, enjoying the comforting warmth of his body in spite of myself. ‘We’ve both got lives to get on with, my mother to visit, your son to see, football to watch, whatever.’ In the window I could see our reflections, his large frame dwarfing my own, hair falling forward as he bent down to rest his cheek on the top of my head.
‘Before you go, let me take you to see what’s left of Helena Hall?’ he asked. ‘It won’t take too long and I think you’ll find it interesting. It’s just down the road from here.’
After ten minutes’ walking we emerged abruptly from the soulless maze of new-build houses into an area of greenery: unkempt parkland studded with mature pines, oaks and spreading copper beeches that had obviously once been planted as part of a large estate.
Passing between high red-brick gate posts and the ruins of what must have been the gate-keeper’s lodge, we followed the unmarked tarmac road as it wound between shrubberies of laurel and rhododendron, past several handsome Edwardian houses set in their own gardens, and one particularly impressive building that, Ben said, had been the medical superintendent’s residence. No wonder Maria had been impressed with the fact that Nora had talked to him, the person she referred to as ‘a kind of God’.
Although the houses were obviously still inhabited and reasonably well maintained, their surroundings were shabby with neglect. A small wooden hut with peeling white paint must have been a cricket pavilion, and the swathe of overgrown grassland in front once a perfectly-manicured pitch. Nearby, broken down chain-link fences surrounded ancient tennis courts, with the remains of their nets hanging limply between rotting posts like ancient cobwebs, reminding me of the ‘airing courts’ in which Maria had felt like a caged animal. Each turn of the road revealed another relic of what had once been a thriving community, now abandoned to nature.
As we turned the corner, our route was abruptly blocked by an enormous, shiny metal fence, three metres high and topped with ferocious-looking spikes, reaching out on either side as far as the eye could see. In front of us was a gate plastered with fierce instructions: DANGER, NO ENTRY; WARNING, 24-HOUR CCTV IN OPERATION; KEEP OUT.
‘I think they’ve made their point,’ I said.
‘Kids were getting in and setting fires,’ Ben explained. ‘Wait till you see this.’
Pushing through the undergrowth, we emerged into a clearing where it was possible to see, through the metal uprights of the fence, an expanse of grass that must have been a wide lawn, and a weedy gravel driveway leading to an enormous building. It really was a mansion, in red brick with white painted pillars around a high doorway at the top of grand entrance steps. Above the entrance loomed a tall, square clock tower.
‘That’s the front entrance to the hospital,’ Ben said.
‘It’s just how Maria described it! I can see why she thought she’d arrived at a stately home. It must have been beautiful, once.’
Stretching away on either side were long three-storey buildings of the same red brick, with rows of sash windows on each floor. ‘Those were the wards?’
Ben nodded. Every window was bounded by close-packed upright metal bars. The thought that Maria and my beloved Granny had once been incarcerated behind those bars made me shiver.
He put his arm around my shoulder. ‘Doesn’t seem quite so idyllic from here, does it?’
‘Poor things,’ I whispered. ‘Locked away in all this beautiful parkland, and all because they didn’t conform.’
‘I’m sure most of them were genuinely ill, and needed to be protected from harming themselves or others. But I’m glad it’s now closed, and all the brutal treatments with it.’
‘What’s going to happen to the place?’
‘They’re still wrangling over planning agreements, but it’ll probably become yet another estate of little boxes like Burton Close.’
‘And, after a while, no one will remember what happened here.’
‘There was a real community of people who worked here and they’ve spent the last couple of decades getting all nostalgic about it and chewing my ear off to help them campaign to stop it being demolished,’ Ben said. ‘But I think knocking it down is probably for the best. It will close that chapter for good.’
We stood there a few moments longer, in the cold silence of the woods. No birds sang, no leaves rustled, I couldn’t even hear the sound of traffic from the distant A12. Despite the grand architecture and beautiful grounds I couldn’t help seeing it as the prison in which Maria had spent the best decades of her life.
‘Let’s go, Ben.’ I took his arm. ‘This place is depressing me.’
Back at Burton Close he made sandwiches and more coffee while I checked my phone.
‘Ohmigod!’ I whooped, punching the air and dancing around the kitchen. ‘It’s a text from Justin, the designer.’ I read it out loud:
Please call asap. Have a buyer interested in your designs. Justin.
‘I told you they were something special,’ Ben said, grinning broadly and catching me mid-jig for a hug. ‘I’ve got a good eye for these things.’
But initial euphoria was turning to panic. ‘What if I get a commission from this? How am I going to get them made up?’
‘You’ll need a bloody good upholsterer who can interpret what you want,’ he said. ‘Do you know any?’
‘I thought I might do it myself.’ My training was at least fifteen years ago, and I hadn’t attempted anything since.
‘Where would you work, though?’
Good question. The flat was entirely unsuitable. I hadn’t thought this one through carefully enough. ‘I might have to rent a workshop.’
‘What about using your mum’s place? The garage would make the perfect workshop. All it needs is a few more windows and some heating.’
‘It’s no good, you know I’ve got to sell it. How else am I going to pay for Mum’s care home?’
‘You could sell the flat instead,’ he said mildly, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world.
‘Are you crazy? That’s not going to happen! All my friends are in London, my contacts, my job …’ I checked myself. ‘Well, you know what I mean. I need to find out what Justin wants first. It might come to nothing, in the end.’
‘It was just a thought.’ He made a mock-chastened face, sweet and rather sexy and, for a moment, I was tempted all over again.
‘I really have to go, to visit Mum before it gets too late,’ I said, giving him a hug. ‘Thanks for everything.’
Perhaps getting together with Ben was meant to be, a sign of good things to come because, after that, my day turned out better and better.
Mum told me straight out that she liked ‘this hotel’ and had already talked to the matron about extending her stay. As I left Holmfield, I found myself skipping across the car park as though a boulder had been lifted from my shoulders. I would worry about the cost later. Matron had given me details of a financial adviser who could suggest ways of releasing capital from the cottage.
Then, when I got home and called Justin, it turned out that not one, but two, significant clients were interested in my designs. ‘How soon can you get me some sample pieces?’ he asked. ‘Nothing too elaborate, say a chair and a footstool?’
‘No problem,’ I said, silently shouting ‘
yess!
’ and punching the air with excitement. ‘Can you give me till the end of the month?’
I’d have to work day and night to achieve it, but I couldn’t let this big break slip through my fingers. Life seemed suddenly so full of possibilities: I’d found my quilt-maker, had some great sex, got Mum happily settled
and
got two commissions which might just kick-start my fledgling company.
The following day, still in jubilant mood, I scoured two flea markets and, in my enthusiasm, spent a great deal more than I should have on a dilapidated spoon-back Victorian armchair with a mess of straps, horsehair and cotton wadding bulging below its seat. I also bought a footstool that was sufficiently similar in design so that, when both pieces were re-upholstered in the same fabrics, they would look like a match. Both needed so much work I would never recover my costs, but they would be my ‘showpiece’ items and, I hoped, an investment for the future.
As I lugged them up the three flights of stairs, risking the wrath of the traffic wardens gathering around my illegally-parked car, I began to see that Ben’s suggestion of using the garage at Rowan Cottage made a lot of sense. Stripping down old upholstery is a messy, dusty business for which my flat was completely unsuitable. Besides, to do the job properly I would need to invest in specialist tools, power staplers, glue guns and the rest.
I spent a fruitless few hours telephoning every professional upholsterer in North London, but none were able even to start such a project until the end of February and the quotes they suggested were completely over the top for my projected budget. Reluctantly, I concluded that there was nothing for it. I would have to do the work myself and, this time round, the flat would have to double as a workshop.
In the spare bedroom I pushed the bed aside and covered the furniture and carpet with old sheets. With everything now protected, I set to stripping the old upholstery and padding. It was satisfying to work with my hands once more, rediscovering my practical skills, seeing tangible results. I put on my favourite tracks and sang along to them loudly and unselfconsciously.
When my fingers became blistered from pulling out tacks, I made a start on the upholstery scheme, working with swatches of fabrics, paper and paint, trying to create stunning, unique patchwork designs that would wow Justin’s clients. At college I’d received my best marks for drawing. My skills were rusty but I knew they would improve with practice and, in future, I would need to learn computer-aided design. For now, I relished the process of sketching and applying paint to paper.
Next, I hauled out my long-neglected sewing machine and set to work on a few test-samples, creating collages of fabrics and bindings. It was exhilarating to see the creations that I’d had in my imagination, and had then sketched onto paper, now taking physical shape.
In the middle of the week, Ben texted,
‘Good luck with the designs xx.’
The double x was new, but being apart for a few days had left me uncertain about what I really felt for him. We’d become comfortable together and seemed to enjoy each other’s company, that was true. But he was so different from anyone I’d imagined myself ending up with.
Then he rang. ‘You
are
real then, not just a figment of my lurid imagination?’
‘Sorry Ben, I’ve been manic with this upholstery project.’
‘How’s it going?’
‘Slowly, messily.’
‘I’ve been to the register office, like you asked,’ he said, after an awkward pause. ‘I’m sorry to say that there’s no trace of any baby born at Helena Hall with the name of Romano. Nor any babies at all registered around nineteen eighteen, the time you said she was admitted. None born, none registered as having died. So we have to wonder whether the baby was also a fantasy.’
‘I don’t suppose the hospital could have disposed of it without anyone knowing?’
‘That would have been illegal, even back then, so unlikely but not impossible,’ he said. ‘But there’s good news on the other front. The Register of Voters in Bethnal Green records only three Kowalskis, and they’re all living at the same address.’
My heart leapt. This had to be Nora’s family. ‘Wow. What are their names?’
‘Just a sec.’ A flick of notebook pages. ‘Samuel, Andrew and Tracey.’
It was a moment before the obvious dawned. ‘Father and son? Nora’s son and grandson, perhaps, and the grandson’s wife? I’ll phone them this evening.’ My thoughts were sprinting ahead and I was already imagining the conversation we might have about the woman their grandmother had rescued from a mental hospital. Maria was constantly in my head, especially when working on the patchwork designs, and I often found myself asking, ‘How would she have done this? Would she have put that colour against this one?’ These people were the closest she had to family, so surely they would be able to confirm some of her story and what had happened to her?