said.
‘Well. Couldn’t he go and live with her?’
‘That’s not the kind of solution I was looking for,’ Maggie said. She looked at her watch, bracelets jangling as she turned her wrist. Nothing more was said. Louisa was dragged again into sleep, and the re-treading of old fields.
F IVE
Louisa had always been good on village folklore, and was familiar with Anna Cliff long before their lives collided so significantly. Oakley, where Louisa and David grew up, was gentrified, fashionable, conservative. It was still quaintly agricultural in the 1970s and had avoided the millhouse rows of nearby villages. But in towns like Oakley, there is always a little squalor, and even people with the best intentions fall down. Anna Cliff fell in a way which became local legend.
She lived near the canal, on a patch of land which had been cleared for development, but abandoned. It was rat-infested, damp, plagued by floods, the light obstructed by huge sycamores. The developers built one house and folded, so Anna got it cheap. The Oakley locals speculated unkindly on the currency with which Anna had paid. Such rumours followed her whatever she did.
Anna’s fiancé, Henry Morgan, had gone to war and never returned, but his name was not carved into the memorial on the local park. It was said that Henry, who had been a farm labourer in Oakley, had met a woman in France and fallen in love.
By the time Louisa was old enough to recognise her, walking the bridle path through the fields, Anna Cliff had a thick ring of scarred flesh at the base of her neck. The scar stood white against her dark – almost Mediterranean – skin. Louisa’s older brothers, both living away from home, would spend Sundays telling gruesome stories about how Anna got her scar. Her colouring was unusual for the region in those times, and as a child Louisa had been struck by the dark richness of Anna’s brown eyes. Without much care for historical accuracy, people called her Anne of Cleves when they saw the scar. They said she was a gypsy, or half-Indian. Louisa’s brothers said she was a Nazi.
Over the years, villagers counted off Anna Cliff’s four children, whose fathers were various. She tried to trap one man, a married farmer, into taking paternal responsibility, but the villagers rebuked her with such force, and from so many directions, that she never tried again. People like Louisa’s parents often took guesses at the identity of the fathers. It became a dinner party joke. ‘I saw the youngest Cliff child today. A real ringer for Tom Easter, it must be said.’
In truth, the three boys and one girl all looked a lot like their mother. They ducked in and out of care, in and out of school, and if Anna was guilty only of distracted neglect, the children suffered plenty of mistreatment at the hands of their sometime classmates. Louisa was never party to such cruelty because she did not attend the state school, but she heard about it. And she heard when the children were finally taken away from their mother, to be distributed to foster parents across the Midland cities.
Richard Smedley, Louisa’s father, was a social climber. He had worked hard in his job, and on his accent. He went shooting with the right people. Richard warned his young daughter that she would end up just like the Cliff woman if she kept on with her wild behaviour. Louisa figured that most Oakley girls had been told as much. It was one of her father’s less inventive insults.
* * *
Louisa first encountered a bird of prey when she was five years old.
She lay on the back seat of the car, watching the slow swipe of the roadside lights through the dusk. Her parents sat quietly, as they always did after one of her tantrums, her father’s retaliatory rage all spent, her mother exhausted by the confrontation.
Louisa’s tantrums had the effect of temporarily suppressing her functions and needs, and she often recovered to find herself hungry or in pain. This time she
‘Well. Couldn’t he go and live with her?’
‘That’s not the kind of solution I was looking for,’ Maggie said. She looked at her watch, bracelets jangling as she turned her wrist. Nothing more was said. Louisa was dragged again into sleep, and the re-treading of old fields.
F IVE
Louisa had always been good on village folklore, and was familiar with Anna Cliff long before their lives collided so significantly. Oakley, where Louisa and David grew up, was gentrified, fashionable, conservative. It was still quaintly agricultural in the 1970s and had avoided the millhouse rows of nearby villages. But in towns like Oakley, there is always a little squalor, and even people with the best intentions fall down. Anna Cliff fell in a way which became local legend.
She lived near the canal, on a patch of land which had been cleared for development, but abandoned. It was rat-infested, damp, plagued by floods, the light obstructed by huge sycamores. The developers built one house and folded, so Anna got it cheap. The Oakley locals speculated unkindly on the currency with which Anna had paid. Such rumours followed her whatever she did.
Anna’s fiancé, Henry Morgan, had gone to war and never returned, but his name was not carved into the memorial on the local park. It was said that Henry, who had been a farm labourer in Oakley, had met a woman in France and fallen in love.
By the time Louisa was old enough to recognise her, walking the bridle path through the fields, Anna Cliff had a thick ring of scarred flesh at the base of her neck. The scar stood white against her dark – almost Mediterranean – skin. Louisa’s older brothers, both living away from home, would spend Sundays telling gruesome stories about how Anna got her scar. Her colouring was unusual for the region in those times, and as a child Louisa had been struck by the dark richness of Anna’s brown eyes. Without much care for historical accuracy, people called her Anne of Cleves when they saw the scar. They said she was a gypsy, or half-Indian. Louisa’s brothers said she was a Nazi.
Over the years, villagers counted off Anna Cliff’s four children, whose fathers were various. She tried to trap one man, a married farmer, into taking paternal responsibility, but the villagers rebuked her with such force, and from so many directions, that she never tried again. People like Louisa’s parents often took guesses at the identity of the fathers. It became a dinner party joke. ‘I saw the youngest Cliff child today. A real ringer for Tom Easter, it must be said.’
In truth, the three boys and one girl all looked a lot like their mother. They ducked in and out of care, in and out of school, and if Anna was guilty only of distracted neglect, the children suffered plenty of mistreatment at the hands of their sometime classmates. Louisa was never party to such cruelty because she did not attend the state school, but she heard about it. And she heard when the children were finally taken away from their mother, to be distributed to foster parents across the Midland cities.
Richard Smedley, Louisa’s father, was a social climber. He had worked hard in his job, and on his accent. He went shooting with the right people. Richard warned his young daughter that she would end up just like the Cliff woman if she kept on with her wild behaviour. Louisa figured that most Oakley girls had been told as much. It was one of her father’s less inventive insults.
* * *
Louisa first encountered a bird of prey when she was five years old.
She lay on the back seat of the car, watching the slow swipe of the roadside lights through the dusk. Her parents sat quietly, as they always did after one of her tantrums, her father’s retaliatory rage all spent, her mother exhausted by the confrontation.
Louisa’s tantrums had the effect of temporarily suppressing her functions and needs, and she often recovered to find herself hungry or in pain. This time she
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