Before the Poison

19

Extract from the journal of Grace Elizabeth Fox (ed. Louise King), February, 1942. Pompong Island

Sunday, 15th February, 1942 The one thing that Robinson Crusoe did not have to contend with on his island was the presence of a few hundred other starving, thirsty souls. There have already been several unpleasant skirmishes, and what little order there is appears soon likely to break down as individual needs overcome the needs of the group. The Malayan police officers who survived the shipwreck are doing the best they can to keep order, and one of them has a revolver, which he has already fired into the air, but we cannot go on like this for very long. Surely someone will discover where we are and rescue us before the Japanese return in force and kill us all?

Monday, 16th February, 1942 At least someone knows we are here now! This morning, a small boat came from a neighbouring island and brought us fruit and water. Things have become a little more organised. There are quite a few sisters here, and with the help of some of the men, we have built some makeshift beds and put together a small hospital, roofed with palm leaves for shade. We have also drawn up a duty rota. There is talk of escape to Sumatra, where we can possibly find a British ship to take us home, but it still seems a very long way away. First, someone must let the Dutch authorities know that we are here, and that we are still alive, and all the time the Japanese must be getting closer to conquering the whole South China Sea. The heat and humidity are quite debilitating, and during the sunlight hours we spend as much time in the shade as possible. Now the sun is setting in the ocean, it is a beautiful sight in bands of vermilion, purple, gold and burnt orange. I remember how I loved the way the twilight lingers in Singapore, the soft balmy evening air. It was my favourite time of day, and I liked to sit outside on the veranda with my Singapore Sling, if I could, listening to the cicadas as the glow of the light slowly faded to darkness and the stars came out. Under other circumstances, people might regard this place as an island paradise.

Tuesday, 17th February, 1942 We are rescued! Last night, under cover of darkness, a small cargo ship called the Tanjong Pinang came to rescue us. They already had some survivors picked up from another island, but the captain said they could take all our walking wounded, along with as many women and children and sisters as they had room for. The off-duty sisters were the lucky ones, and those who were on duty were to stay behind with the seriously wounded until more ships came. Brenda and I were both off duty, and while it was sad to leave our patients and our friends on the island, we knew that they would be all right, and this seemed to be the fairest way of organising things. It was very difficult moving the patients on to the Tanjong Pinang in complete darkness, though the moonlight did help. With rafts, small boats and pulleys, we managed to get them all on board before dawn and sailed off while it was still dark. I think, in all, there must be about two hundred of us. Brenda and I waved farewell to Pompong as we set sail towards Java, and freedom!

December 2010

I realised that Christmas was fast approaching, and my guests would be arriving soon. I still had presents to buy. The rest was done – tree, lights, tinsel, decorations, turkey – and I was expecting a large delivery of champagne and fine wines within the next couple of days. But there remained the dreaded Christmas shopping. The weather forecast predicted a major snowstorm within the next twenty-four hours, so taking advantage of the first clear day since I’d driven to see Louise in Staithes, I decided to head for York and get it over and done with.

The roads were busy with other people who had the same idea, and I hit a long line of traffic at the approach to the York ring road. I still hadn’t heard from Louise since my visit, I thought, as I edged forward inch by inch, and I wondered whether she had even had the time or inclination to do the background digging she had offered to do. I knew that she was moving to Cambridge and starting a new job, so life would be busy for her. There was no sense in pushing her. She would call in her own good time. I could hardly go to Cambridge and chase her up. Maybe I would send an email, though, if I didn’t hear from her before my guests arrived. I was anxious to know whether I was right about Grace’s illegitimate child, and there wouldn’t be much time to busy myself with such things during the holiday season. I made it to the Park ’n’ Ride at last and caught the bendy bus just before it pulled out.

If I had thought the roads were busy, the streets of York were even more so. It was only a Tuesday, but the Christmas shoppers were out in force. The whole city centre was strung with lights and drenched in seasonal atmosphere. Here and there a Salvation Army band collected money, a Santa Claus rung his bell and ho-ho-hoed, or choirs of singers dressed in Victorian garb collected for various other charities. After a short while, I began to realise there was nowhere you could stand in the whole city centre and not hear Christmas music.

Every time I go to York, I make a point of visiting the Minster, not because I’m religious, but because it’s a beautiful building. I have done the full guided tour once, but it’s not the crypt, the sacristy, the Rose Window or the carvings of the kings of England that draw me back time after time, magnificent as they all are, but a very simple little thing that hardly anybody ever notices.

It is hard to spot, way up on the ceiling above the nave, but if you look hard enough, you can just make out the soles of two feet. That is how the Ascension would appear to someone from below, of course, so that is how the artist painted it, Christ’s feet disappearing into the sky. Something about it tickled my fancy, so I always went to see it.

As good fortune would have it, today the choir was practising for a Christmas concert, so I stayed and listened to ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ and ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’. The harmonies in that vast Gothic space of stone and shadows were exquisite. Goethe spoke of architecture as ‘frozen music’, and I think I know what he meant. It was with an even lighter heart that I lit a candle for Laura, out of pure superstition, just because I was there and I was thinking of her, then I went back out to face the throng.

Even with the crowds, I had finished most of my shopping by lunchtime, just a few small presents for my guests from Molton Brown, HMV, Lakeland, Waterstone’s and one of the second-hand bookshops down Fossgate. Feeling hungry, I found a table in Plunkets on High Petergate, between the Minster and the old Roman wall, and ordered a gourmet burger with wild mushrooms and Brie, and a glass of red wine. Piped Christmas songs played, and a fire crackled in the hearth. Sometimes in York, with its narrow streets, Roman walls and ancient stone buildings, you could easily fancy yourself thrown back to Victorian times, or even earlier, medieval days. Looking out of the window fringed with fake snow, I almost expected Tiny Tim to come wobbling down the street on his crutches.

As I sat sipping my wine, basking in the glow of my visit to the Minster and a successful shopping expedition, I realised that this odd feeling I was experiencing was happiness. Simple happiness at being alive. It was something I hadn’t experienced in a long time, I realised, certainly not since Laura’s death, and it came for no special reason, and definitely not from any sense of accomplishment or achievement. After all, I hadn’t finished my piano sonata, hadn’t found out the truth about Grace Fox, hadn’t just completed the best film score I had ever written, hadn’t won another Oscar and given a brilliant acceptance speech. Nothing. I had simply walked around a crowded historic city, stood for a while listening to a choir sing in an old Minster and had a couple of sips of wine, but I felt like Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas morning, when he realises he’s still alive – the Alastair Sim version, of course. I managed to stop myself from cackling and dancing a mad jig, but that was how I felt.

After a short walk on the Roman wall, I made my way back to the bus stop. As I waited in the long queue for my bus back to the Park ’n’ Ride, I checked the emails on my iPhone. There was one from Louise, and with mounting excitement, I opened it. I was disappointed when it simply read ‘Call me’ and listed her phone number in Cambridge. The bus was coming, so I decided I would call her as soon as I got home.

‘So what you’re telling me is that there was no child, and this mysterious young soldier is just as mysterious now as he was before?’

‘I suppose that’s it, yes,’ said Louise. ‘Sorry.’

I had been so sure of it, the evasion, the ‘nervous disorder’, the visit to the distant aunt. It was so typical of its time. Grace had clearly been a romantic and headstrong girl, had committed an indiscretion, and her parents had married her off to Ernest, an older family friend, in the hopes of settling her down. ‘So Grace really did have a nervous breakdown?’

‘A minor one, yes. Of course, the term covered any number of disorders in those days. I don’t know any details. It was a miracle I found out at all, but-’

‘Yes, you said. Her aunt’s neighbour’s son is still living next door. Was he able to tell you anything else?’

‘He was only a child at the time. He just remembered being told to play quietly because there was a lady who was poorly staying next door.’

‘So he wouldn’t have been old enough to know whether she was pregnant or not?’

‘She wasn’t. I checked all the records, and there was no record of a baby born to anyone living in that house at that time. I also checked up on my grandmother’s home address in Saltburn and, just for good luck, Thomas Murray’s. Nothing.’

‘Maybe they sent her somewhere else to have the child. Maybe they didn’t register the birth under her name. Maybe-’

‘Chris,’ she said with long-suffering patience, ‘why can’t you just accept it? Grace Fox did not bear Thomas Murray’s child. There would be some record of it somewhere, and believe me, I’ve spent a lot of time combing the records. Time I should have been spending settling in at work, I might add.’

‘I’m sorry, Louise. Really. I do appreciate all you’ve done. Thanks. It’s just so… frustrating. Now I’m back to square one.’ I couldn’t hide the disappointment in my voice. All my speculations had come to nothing, my house of cards fallen before it was built. The pure happiness I had felt earlier in the day was fast becoming a distant memory.

‘Not quite,’ Louise said. ‘You know now that he wasn’t her son. Who does that leave?’

‘It could be anyone. A stranger.’

‘No. It was someone she knew. He was an acquaintance, perhaps someone she hadn’t seen in a while. Grandmother might have been many things, but she was at least discreet, no matter what some of those gossips tried to insinuate. She would not have gone walking in public in the town centre with a young man if she didn’t know him, and she certainly wouldn’t have done it if it had been anything other than an innocent acquaintance. Think about it, Chris. You’re letting your disappointment skew your better judgement.’

She was right, of course. And it wouldn’t have been the first time. ‘I know,’ I said. ‘Sorry. Thanks for everything you’ve done.’

‘Think nothing of it. I want to know the truth as much as you do. I haven’t finished with all this yet. She was my grandmother. Remember, I’ve read her journal, too, and I don’t believe a woman like her could have done what they said she did. Goodbye, Chris. Got to go now. Keep in touch.’

I hung up the phone and glanced over at the Christmas tree by the window. Louise had been out the first time I rang, so I had busied myself by decorating it instead of pacing up and down and wearing out the carpet. The lights twinkled, and the tinsel sparkled as it fluttered in the draught from the window frame. I didn’t have many ornaments, but for next year I would get the old ones out of storage in Los Angeles, if I could bear to see them again by then. Laura and I had collected them over the years on our travels, and each one held a particular memory.

I noticed that it was snowing outside and checked the time. Heather would be arriving in half an hour, and I hadn’t started on dinner yet. Still, it wouldn’t take long to throw something together. As I salted the water and put it on to boil, I wondered why I hadn’t waited until later to trim the tree. It was something Heather and I could have done together. Then I realised it was far too soon for something as intimate as that, something Laura and I had shared every year we’d been together. I always complained about fixing the tree in the stand – they never seemed to be quite adequate for the job – and she always carefully unwrapped each decoration, all our memories. What kind of person was I? I could take the woman to bed, but I couldn’t decorate a Christmas tree with her. Goddam it, I wondered, my eyes stinging, when would the bloody pain go away. I only half blamed my tears on the onions I was chopping.