“So how did it go?”
Jenna hung her coat
over the hook on the back of the workroom door, and turned to greet her
employer. Andrew was sitting at his
desk, which was covered with sheaves of untidy papers, invoices, bills and
photographs of craft work, cradling a mug of coffee. He smiled at her. “Did you find what you were looking for, in
Bury?”
“Yes, eventually,
but it took me a long time.” She had
spent the previous day there, as she’d planned, and had managed to forget most
of her doubts and fears about her father in the utterly absorbing pursuit of
her female ancestors. “I was trying to
find the marriage of Maria Merielina – she’s my four greats grandmother.”
“And did you?”
“Yes, but only
after about five hours of hunting. I was
sure she must have been married in Bury, and she was certainly there with her
husband and children in the 1851 census, but I looked through all the Bury
registers about three times and couldn’t find her. So then I was a bit stuck but the archivist
suggested I look again at the census records, because they usually give you a
place of birth, which I should have remembered.
And bingo – she was born in a little village called Lackford, not far
from Bury. So then I had a look in those
registers, and there she was, not only her birth but her marriage too.” Jenna grinned back, feeling very pleased with
herself. “I already knew her husband
was a doctor called William Tydeman, and she married him in Lackford, in 1836. So now I know her maiden name – it was Rogers,
and she was the rector’s daughter. He
was the Reverend Thomas Rogers. So then
I researched him, and found that his wife was called ... “
She paused for
dramatic effect, and Andrew obligingly provided the answer. “Merielina?”
“You guessed
it. The magnificently named Merielina
Leheup – I don’t think she’ll be too hard to track down, somehow. But by that time I’d been squinting at old
books and records pretty much all day, and I was beginning to think I might die
if I didn’t have a cup of tea and a slice of cake, so I left it there and went
and had a mooch round the town. Lovely,
isn’t it?”
“Well, I think so,
but it made Crap Towns a few years ago.
Smug and boring seemed to be the verdict.”
“But very
pretty. And some gorgeous shops, not to
mention some really good tea-rooms. The
lemon drizzle cake was to die for.”
“Talking of which,”
said Andrew, with a sly smile, “I’ve been baking.” He indicated a tin perched precariously on
the corner of his desk. “Not lemon
drizzle, but Dutch apple. You’ll need a
plate, it self-destructs.”
They had twenty
minutes before the shop was due to open, time for coffee and cake – indeed, as
Andrew pointed out, he always had
time for coffee and cake. Gathering the
crumbs together between her fingers for a last delicious nibble, Jenna thought
back to her time in the Bury yesterday, and the question she had put to the
archivist, once they’d tracked down Merielina Leheup. Rather nervously, she’d asked her how accurate
genealogical websites were.
“As accurate as the
data that’s entered into them,” the archivist told her. She was a plump woman in her fifties, with
greying hair and glasses, friendly and approachable. “Which is, I’m afraid to say, not a hundred
per cent. Human error is always a
factor. Are you thinking of a particular
site?”
Jenna told her the
name, and the archivist nodded. “That
one’s not at all bad, but there are still mistakes. As you can imagine, I help a lot of family
researchers, and I’ve come across births not recorded, place names spelled
wrong, names wrong, dates out by a couple of years. The one you’ve mentioned is pretty good on
the whole, but only last month I had a woman looking for her grandfather who
found that his place of birth had been transcribed wrongly from the 1911
census, which was why she’d taken so long to find him – he had a very common
name. Once we’d tracked him down, all
the other information turned out to be accurate, but she’d wasted a lot of
time. Have you got a particular issue?”
“I’m looking for a
relative – I’m fairly sure he died around 1980, but I can’t find any mention of
his death, even though the website has records going right up to 2007.”
“Well, it’s
perfectly possible that for some reason his details have been left off, or
they’ve got his name wrong – are you sure about the date?”
“I think so.” Jenna didn’t feel inclined to reveal that the
relative was in fact her father: it was all too close and important to confide
such personal details to a stranger, however pleasant and helpful she was.
“Even so, I should
widen the search – look at everything from 1970 to 1990, under as many
different variations of his name that you can think of. Is there a possibility that he died abroad?”
“No, I’m sure it was
in the UK.”
“Then try other
websites. They all have different
transcribers and different methods, you may just have been unlucky. Or Google him. The records will be out there somewhere, and
you just have to track them down.” She
had smiled at Jenna encouragingly.
“Remember, new information is being added to these sites all the
time. If the details aren’t there now,
they might well be a few months down the line.”
Another researcher
had come up to the desk with a query, so Jenna thanked the archivist and
retreated, feeling at once heartened – mistakes, it seemed, were perfectly
possible – and downcast, because whatever it might mean for her family, for her
relationship with her mother and her love for her grandmother, a small spark of
hope had been lit inside her, that her father might after all be alive.
Her thoughts were
interrupted by a knock on the shop door.
Andrew jumped up, nearly sending his plate across the desk. “Oh, Christ, I’d forgotten she was coming
today.” He brushed any lingering crumbs
from his jumper and ran his fingers through what was left of his hair.
“Who?” Jenna asked,
stacking her plate neatly on top of his and carrying them to the small sink in
the corner of the workroom.
“The photographer
woman. Claire. You bought one of her pictures – driftwood,
wasn’t it? She’s bringing a new batch of
prints.” He hurried across
the shop to the outside door and opened it to admit a tall, dark-haired woman
that Jenna recognised from the photograph on her website. “Hello, Claire, how are you?”
“Fine, thanks.” She was wearing a thick, rather shabby brown
coat and carrying an A3 portfolio, tied with red ribbon. “Though I could do with better weather. These overcast miserable days are bugger all
use for photography.” Her eye fell on Jenna,
standing in the doorway to the workroom, and she looked enquiringly at Andrew.
He obliged. “Claire, this is Jenna Johnson, who’s my
temporary assistant while Mel is out of action.”
The other woman
smiled, and held out her hand. “Hi, I’m
Claire Stephens.” She looked at Jenna
again, and added, “Sorry, do I know you?
Your name seems familiar ...”
“That’s because I
emailed you on your website a week or so back, asking for details of your
photography courses.”
“Yes, now I
remember. And I said there was an
all-day one on Saturday in a couple of weeks time. Can you make that? There are still some spaces.”
Jenna shook her
head apologetically. “No, sorry, I’ll be
working here for a while yet, until Mel comes back.”
“And you can’t
spare her, Andrew? Shame on you!”
“Jenna’s already
asked me, and she knows it’s not really possible. Saturday is our busiest day. But Mel should be back in mid-March, so if
you’ve got a course then ...”
“Yes, there’s
another Saturday one the week before Easter, and then after Easter I’m starting
an evening class, every Tuesday for six weeks, seven till nine. By then there should be plenty of
daylight. Still interested?” she added,
turning back to Jenna.
“Of course. I’ve never done photography properly – just
taken quick snapshots. But I was given a
nice digital SLR, and I’d love to learn how to get the most out of it.”
“Digital – oh
dear,” said Andrew, shaking his head.
“Claire’s not too keen on digital.”
“Oh, don’t talk
rubbish, you old queen,” said Claire with cheerful affection: they were
evidently very old and good friends.
“Digital’s great. I just happen
to like doing old-fashioned developing, and I think it’s a very rewarding skill,
but for sheer convenience and ease of use you can’t beat the modern high-tech
cameras. After all – “ she patted the
portfolio lovingly – “quite a few of these were taken on a state-of-the-art
Canon. Would you like to have a look,
Jenna?”
“Love to. I bought one of your photos – it was what
drew me in here in the first place.
Andrew had a display of them in the window.”
“Good to hear he’s
doing his job properly,” said Claire.
She untied the portfolio and spread the contents out over the
counter. “What do you think?”
“Wow. They’re really beautiful,” said Jenna,
wishing she had a better vocabulary: the words seemed inadequate to describe
the photographs in front of her. Most
were in colour, but there were some landscapes in black and white, quite grainy
in texture, emphasising the winter bleakness of the Suffolk coast and the
implacable power of the sea. “I love
these. They’re very ... relentless, somehow.”
“That’s Suffolk for
you,” said Andrew. “God’s own country,
but often cruel and unforgiving.
Especially if you sail, as Jim will inform you at great length. That’s why he’s strictly a fair-weather
sailor.”
“I thought he’d
nearly been drowned trying to cross the Deben Bar in a hurricane,” said Jenna,
with a grin. “Or that’s what he was
telling everyone at New Year.”
Andrew
laughed. “He ran aground and had to be towed
off by a local fisherman. It cost him
several drinks in the Ferry Boat Inn. He
does love to, um, embroider the
boring facts with a bit of interesting colour.
These are great, Claire, and the winter ones will sell like hot cakes in
the summer, when everyone’s forgotten what the East Coast is like in February.”
“Or they’re
holidaymakers from London who’ve no idea,” said Claire drily. “Now, I haven’t had any of these framed yet,
but if you think they’ll go, I can hopefully have another batch for you at the
end of next week. My tame framer’s got
flu at the moment.”
“Those big white
frames were very popular,” Andrew said.
“But I’ve still got a couple left, hanging on the wall over there. What do you think, Jenna?”
“They’re nice,”
Jenna said, though she knew that they were three times the price of the simple
prints. She paused, searching for a way
to be tactful. “But if you’re on a
budget, or buying several, then I’m sure the unframed ones will sell well too.”
They spent a while
discussing the photographs, and Andrew plied Claire with more coffee and
cake. Jenna, looking through the images,
suddenly thought of Sammy, shaking himself over the unfortunate Marcus back in
September, and could visualise the photograph she might have taken, had she
been prepared: the black spaniel, ears flying, in a glorious shower of sunlit
drops of water.
“Do you ever take
pictures of animals?” she asked Claire.
“Occasionally. As you can see from these, it’s not really
what I do, but I have been known to shoot wildfowl or birds of prey – strictly
in the photographic sense, of course. Is
that what you’d like to do?”
“I’m not sure,”
Jenna said slowly. “I just had the
smallest germ of an idea, that’s all.”
“Well, run with
it. I’ve always thought that taking
inspiration by the scruff of the neck and shaking the living daylights out of
it was the best way forward. If you’re
passionate about something, it’ll show in your work, whether you paint or take
pictures or anything creative. Just
don’t be cutesy about it. Facebook is
far too full of photos of dear little fluffy-wuffy kitty-witties as it is.”
Jenna thought, with
a grin, of Apollo and Artemis, who were effortlessly appealing while
simultaneously channelling their inner tigers.
“Don’t worry,” she said mendaciously.
“I don’t do cute.”
“I’m glad to hear
it. I don’t either.” Claire smiled. “Are you going to tell me about your
idea? I’m bursting with curiosity.”
“Not yet,” Jenna
said. “I want to mull it over
first.” She’d need to have another look
at the camera manual, for a start. What
she’d envisaged would need a very fast shutter speed – did they even have shutter speeds on a digital SLR? Shamefully,
she couldn’t remember. Plus careful
setting up, warmer weather so that Sammy wouldn’t get a chill from being
soaking wet, and above all, sunlight, something which had been in distinctly
short supply so far this year.
Thinking creatively
was a novel experience for her, and kept her mind busy for the rest of the day,
which apart from Claire’s brief visit was rather short on incident: seven
customers, three phone calls and ninety five pounds and forty three pence in
the till. Andrew didn’t seem too
bothered when she queried the lack of visitors.
“It’s January, and blowing half a gale – to be honest, seven brave souls
through the door means it’s been quite a good day. Don’t be downhearted – every day is
different, and we struggle through somehow.
Besides, you haven’t been on the website today, have you? We’ve taken nearly two hundred pounds worth
of orders all told, most of them the Valentine flowers.”
The flowers in
question were displayed in the window this week: pretty confections of dried
rose buds and petals, arranged in heart shapes or on tiny straw hats. They were a bit twee for Jenna’s taste, but
obviously the great British public disagreed.
Andrew grinned at her expression.
“Yes, I know, but they’re nicely made, not too expensive, and above all different. People are looking for unusual gifts, things
that say, ‘I didn’t find these at my local pound store, I made an effort
because you’re worth it.’”
“Crying all the way
to the bank,” said Jenna wryly, thinking of Fran, though it was now obvious to
her that two hundred quid would be very small change compared to the sort of
money his song-writing was earning.
“Can’t complain,”
Andrew said, turning the light out in the workroom. “Are you going to take up photography,
then? I know Claire tends to call a
spade a bloody great shovel, but she’s an excellent teacher and really knows
her stuff.”
“Good,” Jenna said,
shrugging into her coat and wrapping her scarf warmly round her neck. “Because I’m pretty much a total beginner.”
“The bit that
sticks out is called the lens, and you point that away from you,” Andrew said
helpfully. “And when you take someone’s
picture, you’re not stealing their soul.”
“Idiot!”
“Of course. My village is missing me. Have you got everything?”
“I think so.”
“Then I’ll see you
tomorrow. Oh, and Jenna?”
“Yes?”
“I don’t think I’ve
really thanked you for stepping into the breach and helping me out. You’ve been great.”
“It’s a pleasure,”
Jenna said, meaning it wholeheartedly.
“Glad to be of service. And I’m
having a lot of fun.”
“Good, because
you’ll probably be here for at least six more weeks. Think you can stand the strain?”
“Just about. See you tomorrow!”
Strain and stress,
of course, were things entirely lacking from this job: apart from the fact that
it was only temporary, it suited Jenna very well. She was beginning to settle into a
comfortable and pleasant routine. Her Mondays
and Tuesdays were free, she worked at the shop for the rest of the week, and
gave Flora her tuition on Sunday afternoons, at the witch’s house, and at
Wisteria Cottage every Wednesday after the shop closed. From Flora’s point of view these latter sessions
had been a huge success: she had obviously planned on spending most of the hour
playing with the kittens, and it had taken all Jenna’s resolution and cunning
to ensure that she did at least do some school work. But it was lovely to have company – for Fran
of course stayed as well – and she had decided to return his hospitality and
give them a meal after the tuition had ended.
For this, her slow cooker was invaluable, and although fine dining
wasn’t exactly on the menu, Jenna had had plenty of experience feeding her
family over the past twenty-odd years and knew what would appeal to a hungry
ten-year-old.
All in all, good
life was beginning for her here in Suffolk.
She had a job, friends, new pastimes to explore, a sense of possibilities
and opportunities opening up for her.
But always, at the back of her mind, were nagging anxieties. Some of those were the inevitable
consequences of being a mother, of course: she worried about Rosie at
university – was she working hard? Making
friends and having fun? Coping OK with
the demands of independent living?
Eating properly and not drinking too much or taking too many drugs? And she worried rather more about Joe and Tom
in Australia. Were they safe? Had they avoided poisonous snakes and
spiders, murderous lunatics, crocodiles, rip currents off shore and getting
lost in the Outback? After that cryptic
text asking her about Bill Clarke, there’d been no further contact, and she
realised with alarm that she didn’t even know where they were beyond the vague
‘somewhere in Queensland’. A glance at
their blog revealed that it hadn’t been updated for several days, though this
was nothing new.
“Take it from me,
darling,” Saskia said, when Jenna rang her at the weekend. “No news is good news. I haven’t heard from my own precious petal
for over a fortnight, and she’s had the cheek to unfriend me on Facebook. Count yourself lucky yours are still
reachable.”
“Can’t you ring or
text her?”
“I could if I knew
her number, darling, but the little dear let me know via a friend that she’d
lost her phone the day after she got back to uni, and she hasn’t given me the
new one. Still, she’ll get in touch when
she wants something, whether it’s extra cash or a criminal lawyer.”
“Oh, come on, Indy’s
a good girl!”
“I shouldn’t be so
sure about that,” said Saskia darkly.
“When I think about what I got up to at that age ... Now, tell me more about this mysterious Bill
Clarke in Australia.”
Jenna was beginning
to regret mentioning it, but she knew that talking about her fears with Saskia
would go a long way towards exorcising them.
She said, “It’s possible he’s a relative, but if he is, I know nothing
about him.”
“Well, everyone’s
got a skeleton somewhere in their family tree, darling, and I don’t suppose
you’re any exception. He’s probably
descended from your great-great grandfather Clarke who was transported a couple
of hundred years ago for stealing a sheep.
You know what they say about Australians – hand-picked by the best
judges.”
Jenna wanted to
laugh, but couldn’t. Instead, she
blurted out the words that had been going round in her head all week. “I’m wondering if my father might not be dead
after all.”
She had expected a
dose of Saskia’s usual brisk common sense, and was disconcerted by her actual
response. “Shit. Holey moley, Jen, what makes you think
that?”
As she’d done with
Fran, Jenna went through her reasoning.
Saskia listened in silence, and then said, “Jesus Christ on a bike. That could open up a massive can of worms.”
“I know. Please tell me I’m making a mountain out of a
molehill.”
“Well, you could
be, but on the other hand ... I don’t suppose you’ve considered asking your
mother.”
“No.”
“I can’t say I
blame you, darling, in your position I’d feel happier about taking a running
jump off a cliff, but if there’s nothing else for it – “
“No. I don’t think our relationship would survive
it.”
“What
relationship?”
“Oh, I know she’s
demanding and needy and interfering and disapproving, but she’s the only mother
I’ve got, and Rick’s mum and dad are dead, so she’s the only grandparent the
kids have got.”
“You think.”
“I think.” Jenna sighed, determined not to give way to
any more tears. “I’ve asked Joe to get
in touch with this guy in Oz, so maybe that will clarify things. But I’m damned either way. If Dad isn’t dead after all, that means that
my mother and Nanna May were lying to me.
And if he is dead, I’ll be
grieving for him all over again.”
“Do you want me to
come over tomorrow? I’ve got nothing on,
and it’ll only take a couple of hours to get to you.”
The unwonted
sympathy in her voice was almost Jenna’s undoing. She took a deep breath and said, “It’s OK,
Sass, honestly. I’m fine.”
“You don’t sound especially fine.”
“All the same, I
am. I really, really am. I’ve got a lot more digging online to do
before I can come up with any answers.
And Bill Clarke may have them anyway.
Mum’s still on her cruise and won’t be back for at least a week, so even
if I do nerve myself to ask her outright, I won’t have the opportunity for a
while yet.”
“Well, don’t forget
to keep me posted.” Saskia assumed a
sugary American accent. “I’ll always be
here for you, honey-bunch, because I’m your dearest friend.”
Jenna couldn’t help
laughing. “Don’t be silly, I know that.”
“But I mean it,
honestly and faithfully. I’m at the end
of the phone, just give me a call. And
I’ll put Shelley in charge next weekend and come down to give you a bit of
moral support.”
“You really don’t
need – “
“Bollocks, darling,
unmitigated bollocks. I’m coming, so
don’t argue. And you can keep me up to
speed about all these hot men you’ve been seeing.”
“I haven’t been
seeing any hot men. I gave Marcus the
brush-off, remember?”
“What about the
Scottish guy?”
“Fran’s a very good
friend from back in the day, Saskia Page, and that is all. Stop trying to pair me
off. I don’t want any kind of
relationship for, oh, I don’t know, at least five years.”
“By which time,
darling, you and I will be in our fifties, a couple of dried-up menopausal old
crones.”
“You do say the
nicest things.”
“It’s true,
though.” Saskia paused, and then added,
a little too casually, “What about that bloke
at the party? Your other old friend from
uni?”
“Jon? Haven’t seen him since, but we’re friends on
Facebook now.”
“Perhaps I could
be, too.”
“You’re
incorrigible, did you know that? I’ve no
idea whether Jon’s attached or not, and anyway I wouldn’t trust him further
than I could throw him. He’s got a lot
of very dodgy form in the infidelity department.”
“Still hot, though.”
“Well, you’re
welcome to try, but don’t blame me if it all ends in tears.”
“It never ends in tears where I’m
concerned,” said Saskia, with supreme self-confidence. “Now, how are those little furry demons
getting on? Ruling the roost, I hope?”
Since Apollo and Artemis
were currently curled snugly on her lap as she sat on the sofa, Jenna was able
to assure her that they were, indeed, masters of the household, and regaled
Saskia with the tale of how she’d inadvertently shut Artemis in the airing
cupboard, and had searched everywhere for her until she’d noticed Apollo
sitting on the floor outside, miaowing plaintively, and the muffled and
indignant response from within. By the
time they said goodnight, after another ten minutes of chat, Jenna was feeling
much more positive. She couldn’t change
what had or hadn’t happened to her father, but she needed to find the courage
to winkle out the truth, whatever it might be.
And she was beginning to realise
that she was not as cowardly as she’d always thought.
However, she did
have some less painful and contentious genealogical researches to do, and the
following morning, after a Sunday breakfast of boiled egg and soldiers that was
intentionally nostalgic, she fired up her laptop and drew up a précis of what
she’d discovered so far. She put her own
name at the top, and below it the list of her female ancestors.
Jennifer Clarke, married Rick Johnson
↓
Mother - Patricia Talbot, married Keith Clarke
↓
Grandmother - May Goodwin, died 2016, married Ray
Talbot
↓
Great-grandmother - Winifred Emily Merelina
Durrant, died 1953, married John Goodwin
↓
Great-great-grandmother – Emily Taylor, died 1919,
married James Durrant
↓
Great-great-great-grandmother – Emily Maria
Merielina Tydeman, died 1906, married Joseph Taylor
↓
Great-great-great-great-grandmother – Mary
Merielina Rogers, died 1872, married William Tydeman
↓
Great-great-great-great-great-grandmother – Merielina
Agnes Leheup, died 1816, married Rev. Thomas Rogers
Eight generations –
nine, if you included Rosie – covering two hundred years. She thought about all those women, the
clothes they wore, the children they’d borne, the men they’d loved, or not. And each one of them had cherished her casket
as she cherished it, had kept it safe, resisted the temptation to sell it even
if times got hard, and had passed it lovingly on to her daughter. Looking at their names, Jenna felt an
emotional swell of pride. Apart from her
mother and Nanna May, she knew very little of them, she had no photographs or
pictures, she had no indication of their personalities or their
appearance. But they had survived,
they’d endured hardship, bereavement, loss, they had been strong, resilient
women in times when women were belittled, disenfranchised, abused and mocked,
subject to the rule of their fathers or husbands, often powerless yet idealised
and put on ridiculous pedestals. She
didn’t need letters or diaries or descriptions to know what they’d been like:
she felt their strength deep in her heart, because it was her strength too.
As she typed the
name of Merielina Leheup into Google’s search box, her phone rang. Her mind still absorbed with her researches,
she answered it automatically, without checking the caller identity. “Hallo?”
The voice sounded very
distant, but unmistakable. “Jennifer.”
Only one person on
the planet still called her that. Surprised,
Jenna glanced at the screen to confirm it. “Mum? I
thought you weren’t back till next weekend.”
“Friday, actually. Are you free on the Saturday and Sunday?”
“Well – “
Before she had the chance
to add, “I’m working and Saskia’s supposed to be coming down,” Patricia said quickly,
“Good. I need to see you.”
“It isn’t really – “
“I need to see you.” Her mother’s voice had risen slightly higher, and
now had a shrill note that Jenna knew only too well. “I haven’t seen you since you moved to Suffolk.
Are you saying you haven’t the time?”
“No, but – “
“Good. I’ll be with you on Saturday afternoon.” There was a pause, while Jenna stared at the phone
in rising indignation, and guilt at the indignation, and then Patricia added, with
heavy significance, “I have something to tell you. Something very important, vitally important. And it can’t wait.”
