The Scarlet Sisters Read online

  Clara suddenly felt very calm, as if Dr Pincus was telling her something she’d known all along. She nodded. The newspapers had been full of news of ‘The Crippler’ sweeping the country. Only a week before she had overheard a couple of mothers talking about a child who had died of polio a few miles down the road in Bourne End. It had been her first thought when Charlie buckled over.

  For hundreds of years children had been catching polio, but only a small number went on to develop the more severe forms that led to either being crippled, or death; but, by 1910, better sanitation and hygiene had left the population vulnerable in a new way to this old disease. Polio is passed through contact with infected faeces. Children used to be exposed to the polio virus when they were babies and still had some immunity inherited from their mothers. Now, because people washed their hands and there was an effective sewage system, there was a generation who had far less immunity. Polio thrived in hot weather, so the balmy summer of 1910 proved the perfect incubation ground for a major outbreak of the disease.

  Charlie was taken away in a horse-drawn ambulance to the local hospital. Clara was not allowed to go with him. As she watched the ambulance rattle down the road and turn the corner out of sight, she felt disconnected, unreal. She was determined not to lose control in front of the neighbours, so ignored the seemingly friendly shouts of enquiry from across the street, nodded a greeting, and went indoors. It was when she caught sight of the abandoned bedding that she collapsed on the sofa, holding the blankets that still smelt of Charlie close to her face and crying visceral sobs.

  In those days, hospitals were places you rarely came back from.

  In the corner, unnoticed, Alice and Grace held each other and watched in horror.

  For the next two weeks Charlie Junior fought for his life in the little isolation ward in Wycombe cottage hospital. The doctors performed a lumbar puncture on his spine, and found that Charlie did indeed have polio. As the virus attacked his spinal cord and the command centre that controlled his lungs, Charlie struggled to breathe. Alone in a dark ward one night, Charlie hovered on the threshold between life and death … but when the nurse came round in the early morning, she found that the fever had broken – the signal that the virus had run its course in his body. Charlie was going to live.

  Now the issue was going to be the damage that it had left behind.

  Just over a month later Alice and Grace were skipping in the street outside their house in Station Road. Alice had no choice but to brave the wrath of the Dossett Dragon because her mother had given her strict instructions to keep watch for the ambulance that was bringing her brother back home. It was turning out to be just another strange day in a very strange month for the girls.

  At the start, there had been more food at mealtimes and more time to eat it, without the constant distraction of their brother pinching stuff from their plates, kicking them under the table, generally being a pain, and, as far as the girls could see, getting away with murder. They also got more sleep without Charlie wriggling in the bed they shared.

  But then the novelty had worn off. They had started fighting with each other over the bed blankets, which ended in the usual kicking, hair pulling and insults (spoken in hisses, because if they woke their mother, she’d come in and clobber them).

  ‘Do you miss him?’ Grace asked her sister one night.

  ‘Suppose so. Wobbleface …’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Gracie tried to do an impersonation of Charlie’s frown and trembling bottom lip when he was just about to cry.

  ‘Ahhh. Bless ’im. He’s only little,’ Alice said, stroking Grace’s head.

  After years of practice, she had pretty much perfected her impression of her mother. The girls started to snigger and this turned into uncontrollable laughter and then they had to stuff the blanket in their mouths to keep quiet. Fits of giggles were endemic and infectious, and the Swain sisters were infamous for them.

  Once they’d got themselves back under control, Grace piped up, ‘Suppose there’s going to be lots of wobbleface now.’

  ‘Oh, Grace! Don’t, that’s horrible! We don’t know that.’

  ‘Well, it don’t look too clever, does it?’

  ‘Hmm.’

  As usual, no one had told them anything, so all they knew was what they’d managed to learn from bits of conversations – and the scene in their backyard the day before, when they’d found their father hard at work, making what looked like a small coffin.

  ‘Crikey, is that for Charlie?’ Grace had said, peering out of the window.

  ‘Holy Mother of Jesus!’ Alice had crossed herself enthusiastically. She’d come under the influence of a nun who’d started teaching at their local school. The ritual and performance of high church appealed to her sense of drama, although most things to do with church were very much frowned upon in the Swain house.

  ‘I didn’t know he was gonna die. Do you have to make your own?’

  ‘No, look, it ain’t a coffin, you juggins. It’s got metal levers and straps and things. Coffins don’t have nuffin’ else inside.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Jamie up the road took me in to see his nan.’

  ‘Ooh, Alice, you didn’t tell me.’

  ‘No, and you still ain’t heard it, right?’

  ‘What she look like?’

  ‘Like the cat that got the cream.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, you know how miserable she was? Wasn’t she lying there with a grin fit for the Cheshire cat ’imself.’

  ‘No! Alice Swain, you’re pulling my leg.’

  ‘No, I’m not. Ask Jamie. No, actually, don’t ask Jamie. If you do, you’ll get one in the eye from me, because it’s a secret. Now shut up. What’s he doing?’

  ‘Why don’t you ask him?’

  Alice looked around at her sister in amazement. ‘You jolly well go and ask him!’

  ‘You’re the eldest.’

  ‘Yeah, and I’m old enough not to be that stupid.’

  ‘If you don’t, I’ll tell Mum about you kissing Archie Beard.’

  At which Alice grabbed her sister’s long chestnut ringlets and gave them a good hard yank.

  Grace squealed and their dad looked up and shouted, ‘What’s going on in there?’ and the girls ran.

  Part of the reason they were free to snoop on their dad was that the girls had been left to their own devices pretty much all month. Most of the time their mother was busy in Darn It!, trying to earn as much money as possible to pay Charlie’s hefty hospital bills. When she was home, she was very preoccupied. On the one hand this was good because she didn’t notice Grace stealing biscuits from the tin, but on the other it was bad because the slightest noise or light squabbling between the sisters would bring out their mother’s wooden spoon. Whenever the sisters thought their mother was in a bad mood they would mimic a couple of horns on their forehead and mouth ‘Blue’, which was their code for their mother having ‘a fit of the blue devils’. They had done this just about every day since Charlie had been taken to hospital.

  Meanwhile their dad had become more elusive too. There was a certain day when Alice was sent to get Charlie Senior from the brewery because he was late for lunch. She waited outside the big iron brewery gates sniffing the familiar smell of hops coming from the chimneys and peering, on tiptoe, trying to spot her father’s familiar red hair. In the end she plucked up courage to tug the sleeve of one of Charlie Senior’s mates. ‘Excuse me, Mr Waters, have you seen me dad?’

  ‘Hello, Alice. Yes, I think he’s down the pub.’

  ‘Oh, right … thanks.’

  Alice was a bit perplexed. She was used to having to retrieve her dad occasionally from the Two Brewers for tea, but she’d never known him go down there before his lunch. Well, maybe on a Sunday, but never during the working week.

  She went home and told her mum, and saw the frown on Clara’s face deepen, and then her mum took her dad’s plate off the table and scraped the food back into the po
t with special rigour.

  So the Swain sisters didn’t know quite what to expect when the clip-clop of the horses’ hooves finally heralded the ambulance’s arrival.

  Charlie was lifted into the house on a stretcher. He looked like their brother except the moonface they used to tease him about had gone. He’d sort of shrunk. Suddenly shy, the girls couldn’t say anything and watched as Charlie was carried past, staring back at them, his eyes haunted and hollow.

  He was taken into the front room and Clara shut the door firmly behind her so they couldn’t see what was going on. The ambulance men left and then, five minutes later, their mother came out and shut the door firmly behind her again and leaned against it, just to make sure. ‘Now, listen, girls. You are not to go in there, right? And you are not to talk to no one about Charlie. He’s our business and no one else’s. If anyone asks, you say he’s still in hospital. Got it?’

  The girls nodded solemnly at their mother. But like Eve with the apple, how long can children resist the forbidden fruit, especially when they have a brother behind a closed door, who they haven’t seen for a month and who shows no sign of ever coming out? Often the girls paused on their way through the hall and listened at the door. Sometimes it was silent but sometimes they could hear Charlie crying. Once or twice they heard him shouting for his mum, which sent Clara scurrying into the room. Meals went in and out. Mainly soup or things cut up small. A chamber pot also came in and out a few times a day.

  One day, Alice suddenly realised she had not seen her father go into the room since Charlie had come back. In fact, he had hardly been in the house at all.

  The Two Brewers seemed to be his new home.

  A few days later, their mother was out and Alice and Grace were listening at the door of the front room again.

  Alice pinched Grace’s arm. ‘Come on, I’ll go in if you come too.’

  ‘Lordy, do you think we should?’

  ‘No. But it’s the best chance we’re going to get.’

  ‘She’s not gonna come back, is she?’

  ‘No, not for ages.’

  ‘Go on then!’ Grace pushed her big sister and they both giggled.

  ‘Stop it, Gracie. Now be quiet.’

  Alice grabbed her sister’s hand, slowly turned the handle with her other hand, and then pushed gingerly at the door. It opened a crack and Alice stuck her head round.

  She couldn’t help taking a sharp intake of breath, and Charlie looked up, straining to catch sight of her.

  ‘What is it? Let me see,’ Grace whispered, tugging on her sister’s sleeve.

  But all Alice could do was stare. She could now see what the coffin was for. It was on the table in the middle of the room, and Charlie was lying inside, all strapped up, with leather buckles around his waist and chest and a complicated system of metal levers and splints attached to his legs.

  Grace pushed Alice into the room, stuck her head round the door, and broke the spell with a loud exclamation of, ‘Crikey, Charlie, what’s goin’ on?’

  ‘Alice? Gracie?’

  ‘Yes, Charlie.’

  Grace walked straight in and over to Charlie in his box. Without thinking, she leant over and kissed his forehead. ‘Oh, no, Charlie! What are they doing to you?’ And she took his hand, which was strapped down, and immediately huge tears started rolling down her cheeks. Alice now found the courage to come over to the other side of the box and take Charlie’s other hand and kiss his forehead and before she knew it she was crying too, and then Charlie started crying and suddenly they were all sobbing and talking over the top of each other.

  ‘Charlie, you poor, poor thing!’

  ‘Oh, Charlie, this is awful!’

  ‘Let me get you out. Surely Mum don’t want you in here?’

  Charlie, buried in a river of the girls’ hair and tears as they leant over his face, struggling to speak in between sobs, said: ‘I can’t get out. It’s me legs. I can’t walk no more.’

  At which a fresh round of wailing broke out from Alice.

  Grace stopped stroking his forehead and moved down to the far end of Charlie’s box. She gently prodded his legs. They were there, but a bit shrivelled.

  ‘Can you feel this?’

  ‘No. Can’t feel nuffin’.’

  Grace pulled a face at her sister and started examining the splints and levers that encased both his legs with interest.

  ‘So, what’s this for then?’

  ‘It’s to keep me legs growing, ’cos they won’t do it by themselves no more.’

  ‘Crikey!’

  ‘If they keep growing then surely they’re gonna work again?

  ‘Don’t fink so.’

  ‘Come on, Charlie. Where’s ya spirit? Dad’ll get them working again. He can fix anything.’

  ‘Don’t think engines are quite the same thing as human beings, Gracie,’ Alice said, then stopped as she saw Charlie starting to cry again.

  They both started patting him and kissing him.

  ‘I’ve got to stay in this box for ever. It’s like I’m dead.’

  ‘Ohhh, Charlie, no, you won’t! You’ll get out one day,’ the girls chorused together.

  Then Alice spoke up: ‘Look, Mum says we’re not allowed in here. But we’ll find a way to come and see you every day, won’t we, Grace?’

  ‘Yes, we will. And we’ll bring you things.’

  ‘And we’ll tell you what’s going on.’

  ‘It’ll be fun.’

  ‘We won’t forget about you.’

  Which sent Charlie into howls of tears again and earned Alice a kick from her sister. Alice was about to hit back when she stopped. ‘Shhhhhh!’ The sound of their mother’s footsteps could be heard coming down the pavement, heading swiftly towards the house. The girls ruffled Charlie’s hair and got out just in time.

  From then on they used to creep in and kiss Charlie like he was their pet. There was always at least an hour between coming home from school and their mother arriving home from Darn It!, which they could spend with him. They saved sweets, picked flowers and drew pictures for him. Sometimes they’d read stories from their Grimm’s fairytales book, or Alice’s favourite – compose rude rhymes. But what Charlie liked most was to hear the gossip – who had hit who, who was kissing who, who was in trouble with the Dossett Dragon that week.

  What the two sisters didn’t tell their brother was that the greatest amount of gossip was about themselves. The Swain family had come under the community spotlight because of their amazing disappearing child …

  ‘Where’s Charlie, then?’ Johnnie Best would call after Alice. And when she ignored him he’d start saying worse. ‘Lost a brother, then? What, is he a mentalist? A spaz? What you done with him? Put him in the loony bin?’

  And they’d all start laughing so that one day she was so sick of it she turned around and said, ‘He’s dead, so you may as well shut up.’

  They had all gone quiet. Alice had fled home and scrabbled in her drawer for the secret rosary the school nun had given her and there, on her knees, her shaking fingers rubbing the beads shiny, she had asked for God’s forgiveness for saying such a dreadful thing.

  ‘But, in a way, Lord, he is dead. The old Charlie is dead. But we have a new Charlie, so thank you, Lord.’

  And she had cried with her head pressed into the covers of her bed, leaving a wet patch her mother would puzzle and tut over later.

  Nor was Alice the only victim of wagging tongues.

  Clara was hurt but not surprised when the likes of Mrs Waites and Mrs Cadwallander gave her a wide berth in the street. It was like the parting of the Red Sea – no one wanted to get too close, as if she was infectious. Customers no longer lingered gossiping in the shop. Takings were down. One day she saw Mrs Brookes whisper in the ear of a lady with a young toddler who had just come into the shop, and gesture at Clara, and the lady had scooped up her little boy and hurried out.

  That night she couldn’t help but blurt out the story to her husband, but all Charlie Senior would say
was, ‘You can’t blame them. It’s like the plague, innit?’ And then he had grabbed his coat and walked out, off to the Two Brewers, as if he thought she might be infectious too.

  Left on her own, Clara stared into the kitchen fire and thought about the stories she’d heard of what rich people did with their crippled children: they were sent to special homes in the countryside hundreds of miles away and effectively hidden. Sometimes the family even pretended they had died. It sounded a bit cruel, but was it? It meant the child was looked after properly and the family could get on without the terrible shame of a child who wasn’t right. Well, it wasn’t an option for people like them – all they had was the front room.

  It was at this point that Clara suddenly had an idea of another option that was open to her, which didn’t involve money – well, not at the start anyway. If it felt like her life was unravelling, perhaps she needed something to glue it back together – to make her husband stick to his home as opposed to the side of his beer glass, to bring her family back together, to fix together the broken pieces of her heart …

  I look at the dates on the birth certificates of Charlie and Clara’s children and I am impressed: three children born exactly two years apart, starting from two years after their wedding day. And then the children stop. It’s in sharp contrast to the spacing of Clara’s own siblings, and indeed both the Swain and Crisp families generally, who seem most prolific and to have had children straight away for years, without a break, and with no heed of their financial situation.

  It seems Clara, and maybe Charlie too, had made a choice to limit their family. In this they were not so much unusual for their time, as slightly ahead. Long before the invention of the birth control pill women had found ways to prevent conception, but because sexual intercourse was such a taboo topic, it’s difficult to know exactly how or why people started to practise birth control, although it’s thought the working classes generally relied on abstinence, withdrawal or the safe period. What is known is that during the Victorian period the average size of a family was between five and six children, but this had fallen to 2.2 by the 1920s.