I would not have minded those facts alone; the house with its two staircases and extravagant gardens supplied much of what I needed as a child, and Beth tells me now the same was true for her. We would come across each other in the old sure places of sanctuary—in the cupboard under the back stairs, or in the spidery storage room in the winter. In the summer, we would find our way separately to the stables or the broken greenhouse and curse and rejoice at the same time if the other was there. Only the Quiet Garden remained mine, for it was too queer and sombre for Beth.
Despite their depravity, our parents were conservative people in the 1880’s, and in the way of Queen Victoria, they never changed their opinions about the vileness of cremation. Beth believes it was because the first enthusiasts were gifted people such as Mr Millais and Mr Trollope. We suffered through many mealtimes listening to them threaten each other with cremation when death mercifully freed each from the other.
I recall one conversation over lunch—I believe it was in 1885 when Beth was seventeen, and I, ten years of age. The Woking Crematorium had just been opened, and a Mrs P., very well known for her opinions and presence in literary circles, was cremated there. In December of that year, the body of an extra-large woman was also subjected to the same treatment, successfully.
“So then,” began our father, “it occurs to me that this cremation business is a fitting end for obnoxious women, be they vile of body or mind, or in some cases both.”
Mother blanched. “The entire business of course was started by an individual who could be regarded as a true example of the stupidity and vanity of men.” She coughed loudly and drank noisily from her water glass, “a ridiculous old Welsh man who claimed to be a Druid, if I recall correctly. Last year, wasn’t it Teddy dear, you remember, he tried to cremate the body of his infant child and was arrested for his foul behaviour.”
I cast a glance at Beth and she looked away, we shared the same goal at that moment of judging a suitable pause in the sharpening exchange so that we could beg to leave the table. But our father turned his eye upon us. “Ask your mother to pass the salt cellar, Beth,” he said. His moustaches were horridly wet.
“Mother, Father would like the saltcellar,” Beth mumbled.
“Inform him that he must obtain it for himself.”
Beth lent forward towards her plate and began to weep silently. As often occurred, I intervened. “Oh, do let me get it, it is nearest to me,” I said, as if the task would give me pleasure.
I watched my mother’s dark eyes travel across the vegetable dishes, the water glasses, the napkin rings, and up my neck until they rested on my face. “Do eat up, Annie. Otherwise what a surprise you will have at breakfast tomorrow.”
Beth fumbled for her handkerchief and buried her face in it so that our parents were not visible to her. Father began his customary tapping of the tines of his fork on the table edge as mother positioned the water jug and gravy boat around her as if building a fortress.
We were eating mutton and peas. To this day, the thought of it fills me with horror. I had devised a way of disposing of mutton and other meats as a child. I was frequently abandoned at table when Beth and my parents had left to go about their chores. At a chosen moment, with only the cook as guard, I slipped the meat into my pocket and claimed to have eaten it. Released from the table I went quickly to a spot on the edge of our land and buried the flesh, trying at the same time to push away the curious fantasies that came to me in the process.
Our parents died quite suddenly within hours of each other in 1905. In this, their last year, they had been shadows to each other about the place. They were like two deranged beings looking constantly for ways to thwart the other, their war poisonously silent. I was thirty and Beth nearing forty. We had made nothing much of our lives, for it was difficult in our circumstances to engage with the outside world. I knew Beth had a small circle of friends in those days, but of course she never did bring them back to the house. I, on the other hand, had only my books and my thoughts.
Mother died first. She dropped onto the dining room floor by the window quite suddenly and with no sound. He came in to stare at her as he often did—sometimes for half an hour without blinking. He made a small noise at the sight of her and wandered off into the garden. We found him later dead under the willow tree, his face still moist with tears. We had them cremated at West Norwood. For Father we chose a simple ceramic urn in the Greek style, for Mother a smaller, more rounded clay vessel. We stood them side by side on the dining room table and looked at them.
Beth laughed hard and for a long time, until I began to smile. “Don’t look so rueful, Annie, we are free.” We had on the table between us a small bottle of Father’s malted whiskey. As the last remnants of the spring sunlight fell on the urns, we finished the liquor. “Are we in a ghastly stupor?” Beth asked me, as we gazed at each other.
“Putting them in these awful vessels would suggest it, I suppose,” I replied.
“No, they’re very fitting, Annie. The proud one is for a man and the little bevelled one is for a woman.” She jabbed her finger at them, “A gentleman and a lady, a lady and a gentleman,” she announced with unnecessary loudness.
I reached out and moved the vessels closer together. “What on earth are we going to do with them now?”
“Put them in the attic out of harm’s way,” she whispered. “I cannot tell you, Annie, how I cherish the silence now that they have gone. I too have plans to go.”
“Did they really do some of the things I remember, Beth? Did I see them rolling down the lawn together when we were children and falling into the stream, both naked?” I recalled the scene often, the spongy flesh of my father reddening in the grip of my mother’s bony fingers as they propelled each other towards the wet edges of the stream.
Beth nodded. “It is true that the relationship between them was frenzied at the time, but later on they did not box each other around so much; their wickedness became more subtle, and I was glad you were too young to notice what they next embarked upon. They started to hide each other’s things and Father cut holes in her dresses, little discreet ones nastily placed. From time to time, she tried to damage his automobile. Then, for a while she hunted him as though she was a different person.”
“Say what, Beth?”
“She wrote menacing little letters, she would go to London and post them from there. I read a couple of them once; they were in the pocket of her outdoor cape. He knew of course. When she came back he would tell her earnestly what had happened, and what he would do to the person were he to catch them.”
“You said you have plans, what plans?”
She frowned. “Oh, not this very minute, Annie. I’ll tell you later.”
I thought about my mother’s face, porcelain white and sharp jawed. “Even so, Mama and Papa could not have lived without each other, could they?”
“Well, that is it exactly, Annie. It was as though they had cast a fairy spell upon each other. It is strange to think that love between two people could be so vile a thing for other people to witness.”
“I think we should scatter them in the garden, I believe that is a fashion now. We should get rid of these hideous things they are trapped in. Maybe they could make peace if we did so. Indeed I know the very place; there is a tree on the edge of our land.” It was an idle thought, spoken only to cast aside the gloom that had descended upon us. I reached out and took the lids off the urns. Beth stood up and peered into each of them cautiously. “Let us put them together,” I said. We were drunken I suppose—but funeral drunk with a steadiness of purpose.