Barbara Vine - The Chimney Sweeper's Boy

There must have been a point, perhaps about the time of the Great War or perhaps a bit later, when photographs stopped being brown and fawn and became black and white. It would be precisely known, that date—people would know it, but Joan didn’t. She rather liked the brown and thought it a shame it was gone forever. Then there was another point when black and white gave place to color. Of her albums, one held the brown photographs, two the black and white, and the latest one the colored. The young lady would want to see them and see if she could pick out her dad among the numerous cousins and cousins’ sons.

Joan couldn’t resist opening the first album of black-and-white photographs, the one that held her wedding pictures. She had been living in Sudbury and wanted to get married at the church of St. Gregory and St. Peter, so pretty down there by the Stour in May, with the water meadows all green and the white daisies blooming. But her mother wanted her home in Ipswich for the wedding, and she had thought she owed that to her mother. Frank had been so handsome then, the handsomest man she had ever seen. Joan felt very much like picking up the album and pressing her lips to Frank’s photographed face, but she resisted; she didn’t want to be silly.

Their first home had been in Sudbury, just two rooms in a white brick house on Melford Road, where Frank’s uncle had his greengrocery business. She’d worked in the shop herself until Peter was born, and after that, it wasn’t long before Frank was called up. They had been hard, those war years, with two babies at home and a husband in the western desert. But afterward, Frank had gone into business on his own in Ipswich, and if they had never been really prosperous, they’d done well enough and been happy. You could see that from the photo of Frank outside the shop, holding a giant marrow.

She closed the album once more and turned her mind to Miss Candless’s tea. Would she prefer Darjeeling or Earl Grey? You couldn’t have milk with Earl Grey and she hadn’t a lemon in the house, so Indian it would have to be. Did “about three” mean before three or after? Joan was a stickler for punctuality herself and would never have made an appointment for “about” anything, but she understood about Miss Candless driving here from London and perhaps getting held up in traffic jams. “About three” could mean ten past. Nevertheless, she was at the window watching by two minutes to three.

It was twenty past before the car came. Joan was nearly distraught, pacing into the dining room and back to the window, putting on the kettle and taking it off again, wondering if she’d gotten the day wrong. She even looked at the newspaper to check that it really was Saturday, and she would have phoned the J.G.’s, in case Maureen hadn’t actually said Saturday, only she had her deafness problem with the phone. Then the car came and Joan ducked in case the young lady saw her watching.

You never wanted to answer the door too quickly. People got the wrong idea about you if you did that. They thought you must be lonely or anxious. So when the bell rang, Joan counted to twenty and then slowly walked to the front door. She opened it in a casual manner.

The young lady stepped in, held out her hand, and said, “I’m Sarah Candless. How do you do? It’s very good of you to see me.”

She was a good-looking girl, with red hair and dark red painted lips. Her skin was thick and smooth like white suede. Joan had seldom seen anyone in such deep mourning, black suit, black blouse, black stockings and shoes, black macintosh draped around her shoulders. All for the dead father, of course. This made her view Sarah Candless with approval, and she ushered her into the living room, having first hung up the shiny black mac.

Getting down to business wasn’t Joan’s way. Small talk must come first, exchanges on the weather and the state of the road from London. Joan said it was cooler today than it had been; it was autumnal and one could soon expect the nights to draw in. Sarah Candless said that she supposed so. Yes, she had come on the M25 and the A12 and there were still roadworks on the approach to Colchester.

“I expect you’d like a cup of tea.”

She never drank tea. She said that very firmly and it took Joan aback. Joan had never previously met anyone who didn’t drink tea. At a loss, recalling a small jar of decaffeinated instant coffee brought by her grandson and deposited at the back of the kitchen cabinet, she asked what it was Miss Candless did drink.

“I don’t want anything. Really.”

“But you’ve come all the way from London,” said Joan.

“It’s quite all right. I don’t want anything.”

“After all those hours in a car?”

“Well, if you have any water …”

Joan couldn’t imagine what she meant. Of course she had water. All her life, at her parents’ home and after she was married, they had always been on the main water line. It did occur to her, while she was running the tap to get it really cold, that water was available from other sources; she had seen it in the supermarket at Martlesham, but she couldn’t believe any sane person would actually pay good money for a bottle of water. No, Miss Candless must simply have been speaking politely.

She took the glass in on a tray, and the Kunzle cakes and biscuits, as well. She’d have her own tea later. Miss Candless refused the cakes. Joan had guessed she would as soon as she saw her. Girls like her all suffered from an epidemic called anorexia nervosa; she had read about it in the paper.

“Perhaps we can talk about my father.”

Joan thought it a bit abrupt. The folder Miss Candless took out of her black briefcase looked very official, as did the briefcase itself, rather as if she had come from the gas company about going on the three-star contract, instead of paying a social call. But Joan nodded and sat very upright, looking expectant, her hands folded in her lap.

“I’ve brought a copy of his birth certificate.” She held it up. “His name was Gerald Francis Candless.”

Joan looked at her. She had taken her eyes off her for a moment, and perhaps she had misheard. A chill had run through her at the sound of what she had heard, or thought she had heard. Now she stared hard at Miss Candless’s glossy, full dark red lips, which were parted a little, showing teeth as white and shiny as the china plate on which the biscuits lay.

“I am sorry,” she said. “Would you say the name again, please?”

“Gerald Francis Candless.”

The red mouth formed that name, the teeth just clipping the lower lip at the pronunciation of the two r ’s. There could be no mistake. Sarah Candless said, “Have you never heard of him? He was a famous writer. A famous literary writer.”

It meant nothing. It was nonsense. Joan said tonelessly, “There’s no one in the family by that name.”

“Mrs. Thague, let me tell you a bit more. My father was born in 1926. On May the tenth. His parents were George and Kathleen Candless. It’s all here in the birth certificate. If you would just—”

Nothing like this had ever happened to Joan before. She was frightened, without knowing exactly what of. But she interrupted the girl with an explosive “No!”

“No?”

Joan clenched her hands. “No, no. I said, no!”

“What’s the matter? What have I said?”

Anger came, an unfamiliar emotion. It was a long time since Joan had done what she called “standing up to” someone, but she was going to do it now. She was not going to be mocked. Somehow, for some unknown reason, this girl had come here, to her house, to get a rise out of her, to hurt her, too, and she wouldn’t stand for it.

“You know what you’ve said. You know who George and Kathleen Candless were; they were my parents. And you know who was born on May the tenth, 1926.” Joan was almost gasping with the effort of being rude to someone. Her hands had begun to shake. But she managed to stand up. “Now, I think you’d better go.”