Tommy Glover's Sketch of Heaven (21 page)

Off I went into Sheepcote with my briefcase and my new red-print dirndl skirt, not sure if I was a grown-up transformed into an eight-year-old, or an eight-year-old pretending to be a grown-up.

And this time I felt like a giant. There were familiar hedges and fences which used to block out the world, but which I could now see over; five bar gates I could lean on if I wanted, without having to climb up them; and drystone walls no higher than my waist.

I hadn't smelt hedgerows like these for eleven years. They were doing that great unfurling thing that used to send me … I was still feeling nauseous, all choked up somehow. I had thought I knew the story of my evacuation, thought I'd packed it away carefully in a sealed container to be brought out exactly as I'd left it whenever I chose. But I hadn't bargained on being older. It didn't occur to me how much more of it there would be than when I left it, and how it would shed new light on itself, just in the telling of it.

I went to Tugwell's – the only shop left in the village, apart from the post office – and the door pinged as I opened it. I had completely forgotten how it did that. Mr Tugwell was not behind the counter, and I was glad. I felt awkward – like an impostor, almost – as I bought a banana from a sullen-faced girl at the till. I didn't want to reveal myself just yet. Even buying a banana from the store that never once saw a banana when I was there, seemed a treacherous thing to do. I felt I ought to be sharing it out amongst the inhabitants: cutting it up into a thousand slices.

The road through Sheepcote was tarmacked now and, although still quiet, it took me by surprise, with cars hurtling round the bends every now and then. I found the five bar gate I was looking for and climbed it. I made my way through the familiar field paths, choked by the beauty of the cowslip field, the fragrant yellow clusters nodding in the breeze and yellowing the whole pasture land. I climbed through sheep fields and across stiles until I could see it up ahead. The stile on the horizon beyond which lay our spot: the buttercup field, the oak tree and our valley.

I began to grow fearful, as I approached, that it would all be changed. I was panting with the climb, but unsure if it was fear or exhaustion or excitement that made my pulse race as I swung my leg over the last boundary.

A fresh flood of smells swept over me as a breeze hit me full in the face, and there it all was: the oak tree and the woods behind, littered with wood anemones – the sneaky smell fox – and wood sorrel. And over the ridge of the path was the valley, the lush, vast, rambling valley of my memories: leafy, green, unfurled to spring, waiting indifferently for me to feast my eyes upon it, as if not a second had passed since the last time I pounded its grass with my fists.

I must've stopped breathing, because the next thing I was gasping, and I had the galloping feeling I'd had as a child when I first saw this place, and I could see myself twirling and running, feel the cardboard racing over the grass. I remembered the studied gaze while being sketched, the plans that were made here, the dreams that were hatched, the promises …

A little lap of wind seemed to curl about my neck briefly, and I could feel his hand on my shoulder. I turned my head and I could see him, towering above me, eyes fixed on the horizon and his future projects, a furrow of determination between his brows. This very smell of warm metallic earth after rain hurtled through me as if it belonged to him. I could see his hair flopping about in the breeze and his stubby pencil tucked behind his ear. And I would've put my arm around his waist, and leant my head into him, had I not made him vanish eleven years before by opening my mouth at the wrong time.

He had told me a secret, and I had betrayed him. If only I had kept my mouth shut, he would've had no need to run from Fairly, and he might've been here now, on this beloved stretch of land, living peacefully and tending his sheep.

I had lived with these thoughts for years, but they had become such familiar companions that the sheer force of them in this place took me by surprise. I was punch drunk on guilt, gasping for air again.

I lay down on the grass and tried to breathe, and let the warm spring-excited earth nurse me back to a sort of calm.

As I climbed the lane to Weaver's Cottage I reached the exact spot where we had met Miss Lavish, and I remembered how Aunty Joyce had flipped over the label on my coat to read my name – and then only because someone else wanted to know it. I was all but shaking at the memory of that heartless welcome, as if the very ground under my feet was feeding it all back to me. But when I stepped out of the spot I saw her only as a happy woman, transformed by guilt and grief, and I continued up the lane.

A familiar figure came cycling towards me downhill. After she'd passed me, I turned, and she too had turned, propping her bike up with one foot on the road. She was greying but very sprightly, and with lively wise eyes I recognized straight away.

“Miss Lavish!”

I ran back towards her and she looked at me smiling. A few seconds passed.

“It's not
Kitty
, is it?”

“Yes! Don't tell me – I haven't changed a bit?”

“Kitty!
Kitty
!” She held out a hand whilst keeping the other on the bicycle, and clung on to my arm. “Yes, of course you've changed. My, you're a real lady! No, I only guessed because Miss Pegler said the new student teacher had been here as an evacuee, and that narrowed it down to a few dozen! Oh,
Kitty
! You've no idea how wonderful it is to see you!”

I seemed to have broken the ice, and I felt less nervous standing on Sheepcote soil than I thought I would.

“Miss Lavish! It's so good to –”

“I'm not Miss Lavish any more, actually,” she giggled girlishly. “I'm Mrs Edwards!”

“Mrs …?”

“I married Harry … the headmaster?”

“Boss Harry! You married Boss Harry! Miss
Lavish
! You dark horse!” We giggled a bit more, and I realized how pleased I was that she had found a companion. “I'm so happy for you.”

She dismounted her bicycle in a decisive sort of way and started to walk it uphill alongside me. I pictured her taking some items from her front basket and asking jauntily, “Can I say ‘knickers' to you?” But it slipped away. She genuinely wanted to talk to me, and I noticed that she was quite a few inches shorter than me too. It felt so odd being a grown-up here.

“Two wheels, I notice.”

“Yes, the old tricycle fell apart! Now, what about you? We've all been wondering what happened to you.”

“Really? I wasn't sure whether Aunty Joyce and Uncle Jack would be pleased to see me or not …”

“Heavens! Thrilled, I should think! You've no idea how hard they've tried to find you over the years.”

“Over the
years
?”

“Yes. They tried writing to the address your mother gave them, but the letters were returned. They went up to London and hunted every Green in the telephone directory.”

“Oh – well, if we
had
a phone, it would be under Trigg.”

She came to an abrupt standstill, as if in shock. “You got married?”

“No – my mum remarried – that man, remember?”

“Oh!” It was a sigh of relief. “Well, that explains a lot. Lord, they were up in London knocking on doors – several trips they made, over a number of years.”

“Uncle Jack and Aunty Joyce?”

We were outside Weaver's Terrace.

She looked startled. “Oh Lord! You haven't spoken to them yet, have you? You don't know!”

“What? What don't I know? Are they still …? Have they had more children?”

“Oh yes, yes, they have. Three – Kitty, Tom and Patricia.” She continued to look shaken. “You'd better come inside.”

It was smaller than I remembered it, but the smell of piano and old books came hurtling through my memories as I sat in her front room sipping tea.

“What happened to that Mr Fairly?”

“You'll remember Lady Elmsleigh …”

“Yes, of course.”

“She tried very hard to get Fairly convicted, but nothing came of it. None of the boys would say anything to the police. In the end his wife left him – and his housekeeper – and he just went away, scot-free. Lord only knows where he is now, or what he's up to.”

“That must've been hard for Aunty Joyce and Uncle Jack. I remember, Tommy wouldn't even say anything about Rosemary.”

“No, that's right.”

She put down her cup of tea and looked directly at me. “You'll hear this anyway, now you're around, so it might as well be me who tells you. I just hope it doesn't upset you too much.” There was a fearful, apologetic look, and one I recognized: the harbinger of bad news. I felt a rush of panic, but it was too late to stop her.

“Tommy did something much worse. Something I think you never knew about …”

“You know the school bell's ringing, do you?” said Boss Harry, coming in from the garden and smiling fresh air around the room. He held out a round warm hand to shake, and I wondered if he knew who I was. “Go on, Kitty Green. You don't want to be late on your first day!”

The sickly hollow feeling of my afternoon was made worse only by the kindly attention of Miss Pegler, whose inclusive questions (“Don't you think so, Miss Green?” “Ask Miss Green – she knows more about that than I do.” “Miss Green, have you anything to add?”) simply drew everyone's attention to the fact that I had turned into a peaky-looking deaf mute.

Since I had further to travel than the other student teachers, it had been agreed with my college that Miss Pegler would provide me with tea for the first week of term, so that I could catch a later bus back to Cheltenham without missing a meal. This would enable her to give me essential ‘debriefing' at the end of each day, and discuss lesson plans with me. Miss Pegler's aim was to debrief as briefly as possible the very moment the bell rang for home time, thus freeing her later to prepare tea and relax.

All I wanted to do was escape for a quiet walk, so I was grateful to Miss Pegler for her efficiency. Her assessment of my performance today was ‘excellent', after waxing lyrical about my voice projection, my presence and my ability to hold the attention of a completely unknown group of children this morning. Not surprisingly her tip for happy teaching was “praise, praise and more praise”. She snapped a completely unnecessary book shut on her lap and replaced the lid on her unused pen.

“But what if they're being naughty?”

“Oh, then you must admonish them, of course. But even the most difficult child should be praised at least twice as often as he's told off.”

I thought of some of the children I had been taught with in this very class. “But what if they don't do
anything
worthy of praise?”

“Oh, there's always
something
you can find: sitting quietly for a change, nice straight back, nice big smile, shirt tucked in … and if you don't praise them when they're getting things right, how will they ever know when they're on the right track?”

I nodded vigorously, and wondered if this accounted for my own excellent assessment, despite my slacking off into a po-faced void this afternoon. Then she did venture to ask if I'd been feeling quite myself since the dinner hour. I could see the tempting possibilities of unburdening myself to her, but the story was too long and too harrowing to relive again so soon, even if I did long for her to practise her tip and absolve me from all guilt past or present in a glorious smiling affirmation that I had done the right thing, and quite possibly deserved a star.

As we stood in the school porch I asked if I had time for a short walk before I helped her with the tea. But Miss Pegler was a woman who liked her kitchen to herself, and she shooed me away with enthusiasm.

I made my way across the village through the same lanes I had followed home as a girl. I had it in mind to visit Joyce and Jack, but my courage weakened with each step. How was it that I had managed to write only one short letter in all these years and even that not in gratitude for taking me in? I wasn't ungrateful. I could see what a minefield it had been for them to take in a stranger, a child who reminded them in size and shape of the one they had lost. I had chosen to imagine, in my childish way, that there was a time limit on gratitude, and that if I let enough time slip past the need to express it would disperse into thin air. But now I could see that the very opposite was true, and the road up to Weaver's Cottage seemed suddenly unnavigable.

Then off to the right I saw the path. It was overgrown now with nettles and cow parsley, but it was no longer forbidden. There was no one to stop me visiting Heaven House, and with a delicious defiance I headed off towards the derelict building through the stingers.

I had seen it at a distance from the road many times, but never from the front porch. Even though it had been besmirched by Fairly, something of the old magic made me quiver. Here it was, right in front of me, the house I had ogled secretly every time I walked to and from school, whose windows I had so wanted to see into, whose strange routines I had longed to decode.

It stood there before me disgraced, scorn poured all over it, but dripping instead with new-leafed Virginia creeper and budding clematis. The front door, once a handsome bottle green, was flaking and revealing an older blue beneath. It was locked, and I wandered around to the back of the house to find another way in. My lungs were filled with a fierce pungent smell that ripped apart the seams of my memories like a wild animal. It was woodland garlic. I could see its snowball florets carpeting the roots of some beeches to the side of the overgrown garden. The back door was shut but the glass had been broken, and I found it unlocked.

Inside were signs of more recent life: this year's children's comics, chipped cups, a smell of chip wrappers, writing on the wallpaper (‘Liz loves Don true NO SHE DONT'). I moved slowly up the hallway, looking in each room as I went. I gazed up at the high cornices; there were no clues as to what had happened here: the rooms were bare but for the odd bottle or chewing-gum wrapper.

Upstairs was no different except that the old beds, stripped of their mattresses, were still there in rows. The sadness of the two stark dormitories caught me by surprise. For the first time I could see how it was: two rows of beds, two rows of boys. All thrown in together. No love, no praise, nothing to aim for but escape. Above each bed was a hook and an unfaded rectangle of wallpaper. I found myself suddenly grateful for the lack of clues. Pictures of long-lost mothers would have been too sentimental to bear. I went over to a large cupboard by the window and looked inside. I was still searching and not sure if I wanted to find anything. It was empty: nothing but a musty smell and old cigarette packets.

I looked out of the broken window on to the garden. It had started to rain and the dampness made me shiver. I shouldn't have come. Searching for the truth is a dangerous thing to do, unless you're prepared to live with what you find. What was it he had done that was so dreadful? I felt trapped between my fear of knowing and my desperate need to find out.

I kept thinking back to the register I had taken, and the names on it. Chudd. There had been a Chudd. I kept seeing Betty in the lane with her big breasts and her tight buttons and her bare legs. I kept seeing the look in his eyes, torn between loyalty and lust. I had only partly understood it. Then it had spelt only disloyalty; now it spelt a child in a class I was teaching. I leant on the wall by the window and closed my eyes. And in this strange ambiguous state of things I hoped it was true. For if it was not, then I had to contemplate that other possibility, and that was too dreadful to consider.

If I was going to see Miss Lavish again, if I was going to face it, then I would have to prepare myself. I looked across at the rusty bedsprings. Could it be that the reason Tommy had not given evidence against Fairly was because he too …? I screwed my eyes tight shut. It was so unthinkable I couldn't believe I had allowed the thought to pass by. It was this place, this building. I wondered how anyone could want to rehouse a
school
on such an evil site as this.

I had come back here to be close to him. There had been a choice. I could've accepted a placement in a nice quiet school in Cheltenham. I had volunteered for a rural location, hoping to be nearer. I hadn't expected to be right here. And now that I was, I could see how much my need had played a part in it. I had longed to see this place again, but without the guilt I felt every time I remembered it. I had imagined being an anonymous Miss Green, able to get close to my memories of Tommy without facing what anyone thought about me. Time had twisted my childish guilt into remorse. I had become Tommy's murderer: I had been responsible for the death of the only boy I had ever loved. For every boy I had met since had been compared to him. If there was a hint of Tommy in his voice or his look or his smell I would show a relentless, irrational interest in him. As soon as he betrayed himself by not being enough like Tommy, I lost interest. Tommy was my blueprint. I couldn't bear to hear Miss Lavish destroy him. I couldn't contemplate any damage to his memory. I shouldn't have come.

My heel stood on something and I bent down to pick it up. Right up by the skirting board a slim dark green object was wedged into the lino. It was only about three inches long. I turned it round in my fingers; a thin slice had been carved out of the green pencil for the owner's initials: ‘G'. I was about to toss it aside when I saw that it had been sharpened right up to this letter, and that there had almost certainly been another letter which had been removed with the sharpening. I stared at it, then I kissed it and pressed it close to my cheek. It was a timely reminder of everything good and tender about Tommy. I clutched it tightly in my hand and left the building as quickly as I could, before any more evil thoughts defiled my memory of him.

It had stopped raining, and the birds had begun to sing enthusiastically, restating their territory all over again. I stood for a while in the back garden of Heaven House. I spotted a fox in the bushes, but it only froze for a moment and then trotted off indifferently. A blue tit flew on to a windowsill and twittered about happily, seemingly unmoved by the demons all around. I put my hand up against the stone as if I might feel something similar. It was cool and damp. I loved this stone. It reminded me of the bruised grey film of hardboiled eggs, its golden yellow just beneath the surface. It was Cotswold stone: good stone. The clematis saw no problem with it, nor the creeper, the ivy, the tits or the house martins, the song thrushes or the sparrows. The structure was sound and there was solid yellow stone under the surface. I walked away feeling glad that it had a second chance. Perhaps it could, after all, be transformed by children.