I was still a young child when I suddenly discovered an important secret about an adult; the revelation was both exciting and awesome. It represented power, but also responsibility, for with the desire to boast of my knowledge, came the realization that I risked the whirlwind of reprisal when the taboos of age and hypocrisy were exposed.

    I had uncovered an important secret, and the implications were so enormous that I locked myself in the outside toilet. I had meant to sit there for a few minutes to review the possibilities, but the wind moved the wooden catch on the door and I was trapped for two hours.

    "What do you use this dirty place for?" my Welsh Grandma demanded when she released me. Her eyes checked the whitewashed walls to make sure I had not been writing rude words. "We don’t use this one any more. You use the inside one, see?"

    I looked at her carefully. Should I tell her my secret, or just ask a few innocent questions?

    "Now you get off to your Uncle Vernon’s, he needs some help with the apple picking. You stop hiding in the toilet, only dirty boys do that."

    The moment had passed and I kept silent.

    My Grandma was a strong woman: short, stocky, with grey, thoughtful eyes. I often felt that she knew more about me than I considered proper. Whenever I had the chance to go to a visiting fun fair, or race snails with my cousin Roy, she would always have a letter for me to write or a list of spellings to learn. When I wished to play checkers with Grandpa, she would suggest Lexicon. She seemed to know when I wanted to "waste time" as she put it;  there was always a job to do or an errand to run that would occupy most of the morning.

    "The devil finds work for idle hands," she would say. I would mutter that I never had the chance to meet him.

    She believed in regular baths, hair washing in the kitchen sink, never locking doors, and church on Sundays. On the last point, she made a concession that I could go with Grandpa to the Hope Chapel instead of church, but only providing I brushed my hair and made my Grandpa proud of me. Anything was better than the moral interrogation of Grandma’s female cabal.

    My grandparents were kind, but strict. There was order, tradition and uneventful habit. It was possible to predict, almost to the minute, the movements of each day. They were both strictly  teetotal. Grandma would often point out the picture of an old man in tattered clothes raising a bottle to his lips, with the fainter outline of a young, handsome, and well-dressed youth in the background.

    "See what happens when you drink," she would say pointing forcibly at the old man. "Never touch strong drink boy, and never go near a public house now."

    One time, I had been foolish enough to ask why, and had been treated to a seemingly unending list of close relatives who had been destroyed or ruined by the demon drink. "Never let me hear of you drinking, or you will end up a dirty old man like your Uncle Harold." I was impressed.

    Sunday was the day of sublime predictability. The call at eight, into my best suit, a walk with Grandpa to collect the Sunday Express, then back for a cooked breakfast. At the end of the meal, Grandpa would announce to his empty teacup: "I must count the money in the shop. I don’t want to be disturbed." Then, after consulting his pocket watch in a distracted way, he would disappear downstairs to his large drapers shop, and lock the door.

    The house was enormous, and I would position myself in one of the bay windows over the shop, and watch the stirrings in the street below. I always hoped that a beautiful girl would glide along and wave to me, but the most excitement I observed was the Jones’ dog peeing on Mr. Bevan’s milk bottles. After an hour Grandma would appear. "Tell your Grandpa it’s time for chapel, and make sure you have something for collection." I was supposed to give some of my pocket money, but I usually managed to forget, and Grandpa would contribute for me.

    I made my way down the wide staircase to the dark corridor which connected the shop to the front and back entrances; I hammered loudly on the old oak door. The stuffed heads of a stag and a Cape buffalo frowned down, and I always expected some hideous creature to burst out from the cellars behind me. Grandpa would emerge with much rattling of keys and would hand me a bag of sweets. "Have a peppermint. ‘Make you grow big and strong." He was always very cheerful after counting his money.

    We then walked up the main street to the Hope Chapel where Grandpa checked in the motley congregation of fifteen, roared out the hymns -- more ancient than modern -- and snored in a defiant manner throughout the sermon. On the way back, we chewed more peppermints.

    On Sunday evenings he produced his stamp album, full of first sets from countries that no longer existed: Fiume, Latvia and Abyssinia. The names seemed mysterious, and conjured up visions of wild men and lost civilizations. Grandpa had hundreds of Victorian stamps, and I turned the pages with fascinated reverence as Penny Blacks and Reds were spread out before me. One particular evening, Grandma broke the spell: "Time for bed now boy. Say goodnight to your Grandpa." Unwillingly, I moved from the table.

    "We’ll look at the stamps again tomorrow." Grandpa muttered and closed the album.

    I climbed the long staircase up to the linoleum-covered landing. My room had two pictures: one of a woman in flowing robes embracing a large rock surrounded by a raging sea; the caption read: "Only to Thy Rock I Cling". The other was of a single rose, with the message: "God Hates the Drunkard". I lay in bed searching the pictures for any new feature; there was none. I counted the squares on the linoleum and, as I drifted into sleep, I vowed that I would spend the whole of the next day examining the stamp album.

    At first light, I crept down to the silent breakfast room. It was cold and shadowy, and there was no sign of the album. In the kitchen, I could hear my Grandma washing her hair in the sink next to the pantry. She would use only rain water, which she collected in a butt in the garden. She had done this ever since childhood. It was similar to the way she scrubbed herself with seaweed when we went to the beach, always oblivious to the stares of the summer visitors. Grandma did not change with fashion: she still wore the revealing, clinging, woolen bathing costume of thirty years before, and kept milk in jugs in the pantry, even though my uncle had bought her a refrigerator.

    "Have you seen Grandpa’s stamp album?" I asked her.

    "He locks it away; it’s valuable see," she said as she maneuvered me towards the sink. "I’ll wash your hair now before breakfast." My protests were loud but in vain.

    Later, when Grandpa appeared for breakfast, I resembled the color of a clean pink lobster, my skin raw with rubbing. He seemed preoccupied, and a dew drop formed at the end of his nose. I rested my chin on my hands and watched to see if it would fall in his tea.

    "Percy! Wipe your nose, man, for shame," Grandma said. I felt cheated as his handkerchief removed the pendulous drip.

    "Grandpa, can I look at your stamp album?"

    "Tonight, boy. You can see it tonight." Without a glance in my direction he left the room.

    Later that morning, I returned from an errand to see Grandpa standing at the open door, chatting to an old man with huge ears and a walking stick. I slipped past them into the empty shop. Long, polished mahogany counters and high stools marked the perimeters of the customers’ area; behind these were glass-fronted drawers, rolls of materials, and racks of clothes. My uncle was contemplating a crossword; my aunt was rearranging one of the window displays, and Gwyneth, the trainee salesgirl, was biting her nails in a dreamy, love-sick way. Nobody noticed me.

    I sauntered round the corner to Grandpa’s inner sanctum: a small office that said "Private" on the door. Nobody was allowed in this small square room. Not even Grandma ventured in. The door was kept locked, "Because the safe is in there see," Grandpa had explained.

    No one could observe me. I turned the handle and the door opened. My heart was thudding like an express train, and my mouth was an Abyssinian desert, but I was determined to find the album. I darted quickly inside, closing the door softly behind me. On the leather-topped desk was a pile of books and papers. I searched the cluttered shelves, noticing the old photographs on the wall, and the faded certificates for life-saving and dog shows. There was no sign of the album.

    I sat down cautiously on the padded revolving chair, praying that the stamps were not locked in the safe. Pushing back my damp hair, with sweat on my brow, I stared at the two rows of drawers. They were closed, except for a large one on the right hand side which was slightly askew. To explore a closed drawer seemed a terrible crime, but to delve into one that was already open was permissible. Quickly, I pulled the drawer out, but there was no album. I was so disappointed; I almost failed to see what was there.

    My Grandma’s words beat in my brain like a loud drum. I stared in disbelief. It was like looking at a bomb, or finding a cow pat on the breakfast table; I did not know what to do about it. I was looking at a half-empty bottle of Scotch Whisky.

    Replacing the drawer, I fled to the outside toilet.

 ONE FOR SORROW, TWO FOR JOY

The old man in the adjoining cottage was a widower. He reminded Tom of a large rogue elephant: he had enormous ears, leathery hands and seemed indestructible. 

            “I’m an atheist,” he said when they first met him, “and I don’t care a sod about those bloody snobs up the road.” He laughed loudly and his eyes gleamed. “You can call me Jake. Jake Bishop. I’m the only atheist bishop in the area.” He laughed loudly at his well practiced joke, and his eyes rested on the round belly of the girl.

            “Jane,” she said, conscious of her pregnancy. “I’m pleased to meet you.”

            “Wait another month and then say if you are pleased.” He grasped her hand firmly, seemingly to hold it for a moment too long.

            “Tom,” the young man said, holding out his slim hand. It went unnoticed, and he forced an awkward smile. “We’ve signed a rental contract for this place for a year.” It seemed smaller than they had imagined it to be.

            Jake’s dark eyes gleamed.  “You might end up staying longer. You mark my words.”

***

            In the early evening, the mist hung low over the valley.  Nothing moved.  Even the birds remained hidden, except for one magpie which sat like a sentry on a low branch of the ancient apple tree.  Tom parked his motorbike and walked slowly up the steep road to the cottage, his thick, dark hair ruffled by the wind.  Behind the smoking chimney on the red tiled roof, he could see the straggle of old buildings perched above, mapping the narrow road that wound its way up the hill until it merged into the gloom of the autumnal dusk. 

            Jane waited at the open front door. Behind her, the red light of the flickering fire conjured up strange shapes that seemed to caress her ample figure. Her eyes were fixed on the leafless apple tree.  She looked tense, and her tight cotton dress was drab and shapeless.

            “Hello love, how are you feeling?” he asked, trying to sound sympathetic in spite of his weariness.

            “Bored, fat, and tired.”  She kissed him quickly and steered him into the front room.  “Now sit down.  I’ve made some tea.  Tell me everything that has happened at school today.”

            He sipped his tea, trying to recall something important, something that would be a memorable moment in a day of seething faces and restless children.  His mind stretched out down the long corridor of his ambitions.

            Jane interrupted his thoughts.  “I knew today was going to be a bad one, as soon as I saw that magpie.  It sits there all day watching me.  Checking up on me to make sure I don’t run away!”  She stared out of the window at the fading vista of bare winter fields.  “I don’t see it when the sun shines.  Only when the mist rolls in, or when it rains - when I’m imprisoned here.”

            “I often see magpies when the weather is good,” Tom said.

            “That’s the point, magpies plural.  But when the weather sets in, there is only ever one, never two.”  Jane spoke emphatically.  “One for sorrow, two for joy!”

            “Three for a girl and four for a boy.  Keep counting, it will give you some idea of what we’re going to have,” Tom smiled encouragingly.  It was hard for him to imagine her daily solitude.

            “I know you don’t take it seriously. It’s different for you. You’re out all day.  But I’m stuck here with hardly a soul to talk to. There are days when I don’t see anyone from the time you leave to the time you return.”

            He had heard it before. It would be different when they could afford a car. At least, when the baby was born they would be able to push the pram the two miles to the pub on the main road, and have the luxury of a pint in the hostelry’s garden. Until then, they were trapped in a prison of poverty, accentuated by Jane’s physical inability to walk any distance, and the limitations of his small motorbike. 

***

            The child they named Mary, was born just before Christmas. News of the birth spread quickly and neighbors, who had maintained a polite, grim, or even abstracted silence, suddenly became curiously friendly. One day, a sprightly octogenarian stopped Tom in the road and said, “That be the first child born in this hamlet for more than a hundred years.” He handed him a string of onions. “For the babe,” the old man said, and hurried away up the steep hill.

            When he told Jane she showed no surprise.  “This is a place where you come to die, not create life.”  

            “There’s not much dying going on around here,” Tom quipped. “These are the fittest group of old people I have ever met.” He picked up Mary and rocked her gently in his arms. “I still find it remarkable that Mary might be the first child to be born here for a century.” 

Jane shrugged. She found the winter days long and cold. Mary, with her large blue eyes and gurgling good humor, provided the stimulus Jane needed, but the baby was also a chain that kept her tied to the cottage until the weather improved.

            Tom had suggested trying to find a place nearer the school, but Jane had pointed out that they had signed an agreement to rent the cottage for a year. There was a penalty clause that they could not afford.

            “Things can only get better,” Tom said encouragingly. “I think you’ll find we have become accepted since Mary arrived.”  He paused, carefully watching her expression.  “The vicar stopped me on the way home; he wanted to know when we were going to have Mary baptized.  I told him we intended to arrange it when the weather improved.  He seemed very concerned about it, unusually so for him.”

            The vicar lived in the village across the valley. Apart from conducting infrequent services, he was never seen around the hamlet.  The church, a building in remarkably new condition, was situated at the top of the hill, high above the rambling old cottages.  On a clear day, there was a dramatic view down the Vale of Blackmoor, extending for twenty-seven miles, but in winter it was bleak and windswept.  The lack of a vicarage seemed odd, and one weekend Tom mentioned this to a wirey old woman who lived near by.  She was digging her garden with a remarkable exhibition of strength and vigor, as though she had discovered the elixir for eternal life. 

“Oh him don’t live ‘ere,” she answered grimly.  “Him wouldn’t live ‘ere.” She laughed in a mocking way. Tom dismissed it as just another example of the local peculiarities.

            Since Mary’s birth they had become celebrities. Local people called and left invitations to tea usually when Tom was at school. It was Jane who pointed out what a large proportion of the inhabitants of the village were women.

            One of their neighbors was a Mrs. Frazer.  She had lived by herself for many years since the death of her husband who had been a general in the Indian army. Next door to her, were two ladies called Miss Green and Miss Savage, whose main interests seemed to be gardening and each other. Across the road lived an elderly couple called the Wigleys; they had recently moved into the village, and their middle class attitudes had been the reason for Jake Bishop’s outburst.  But others called, “Just to see the baby,” and left without giving their names.

            “Weird, really weird. They just stared at her and hardly noticed I was there,” Jane said.  “It was as though they had come to worship her.”

            Tom smiled. It never happened when he was there. He did not understand Jane’s intensity. “If they worry you, don’t let them in. It was not so long ago you were complaining that nobody ever called.”

            “That was different. Anyway I don’t know that I could have prevented them.” She quickly left the room, and Tom decided not to explore her cryptic comment.

***

With the coming of spring, they walked further and began to be recognized at the local pub. “Strange place that hamlet of yours,” the landlord said one Saturday lunch time. “Did ye know that some of them older families have been there for more than two centuries?”

            “I was told that our child was the first to be born in the hamlet for over a hundred years,”  Tom said. “But that can’t be right if some of the families are that old.”

            “That’s another strange thing about that place: I don’t think there's been a birth there for a long time, certainly not as long as I’ve lived here, and that be over sixty years. When someone dies, another member of the family takes over the house. Very few places actually change hands.”

            “What else is strange then?” Jane asked.

            “Well, they destroyed a coven of witches there a hundred years ago; it'd been a well-known secret, so-to-speak..  ‘Been there for hundreds of years until a certain priest, I forgets his name, brought in the authorities to clear ‘em out.  Not long after, the church burnt down.  They said it were an accident, but we knows better.” He made a significant expression, and tapped his nose with his index finger. “The new church be only about ninety years old. What used to be the vicarage, is now owned by one of the old families.”

***

“What do you make of that?” Tom asked on the way home. It was a warm afternoon. Newly arrived swallows circled in a cloudless sky.

            “I can believe it,” Jane said. “It explains a lot of things, especially that feeling I have about the place.”

            “Maybe, but it was all a long time ago.”

            The combination of beer and sun relaxed them. Tom felt pleased with himself and whistled as he pushed the pram; the baby slept peacefully, and behind him Jane picked primroses. The lane sloped towards a narrow double bend with thick hedgerows on both sides. It was seldom used by cars and was just wide enough for the daily milk lorry.

            “Wait for me!” Jane called.

            At that moment, an old woman appeared round the corner. Her appearance was so unexpected that Tom wondered where she had come from.  

            “Mind that pram!” she yelled and shoved the pram into the side of the road and on to a small grass verge. Tom found himself falling into the ditch, surprised at the woman’s strength. 

            The next instant, an enormous tractor careered round the sharp bend. The roar of its engine exploded on the quiet lane. Jane jumped to the side as the machine swept past, without slowing down, and disappeared up the road.

            “My God!  The bloody maniac!” Tom gasped, as he clambered out of the ditch. He was physically shaken by the event. Mary cried plaintively from the depths of the pram.

The old woman hobbled away in the direction of the tractor. Tom stared at the retreating figure; her dark clothes contrasted with the bright roadway. It was as though he was looking at scene from a long time past,  and he was aware of a strange musty smell.

“Hey! Just a minute,” he called. “I want to thank you.”

  The old woman seemed not to hear, and hurried past Jane who was running to the pram. She quickly extracted the child from the tangle of blankets. “Is she all right?” she cried, her face was white.

            “Yes, thanks to that old woman.  I don’t know how she knew the tractor was coming.  I never heard it.” He blew out his cheeks. “Who was that woman?” 

            “One of the old crones from the hamlet.  I think I recognized her.”

 “God knows where she came from.” He brushed himself down, carefully removing a  jagged bramble.

            They had been unable to see the face of the driver: the incident had happened so quickly. The shock and violence of the incident numbed them; it was difficult to grasp the enormity of the event. Silent and uneasy, they returned to their cottage.

            “You have the key, open the prison door Mr. Warder,” Jane said as she lifted the baby out of the pram. Tom did not smile at the jest.

***

            During the next few months, Mary grew and blossomed and seemed to become a focal point for the village. But slowly, Tom began to share Jane’s feeling of confinement, and under the pretext of career prospects he started to apply for teaching posts in other parts of the country.

            “I’ve been accepted for interview,” he announced one morning. There was an unexpected silence. Jane appeared agitated.

            “I thought you were in line for promotion next year. Perhaps we should wait.”

            “For goodness sake, Jane, you were the one who wanted to go. What’s changed?”

            “I can’t explain it, Tom. Perhaps it’s the way everyone expects us to stay here. I sort of feel obliged to…it’s like suddenly belonging. It would be wrong to just pack up and go.  Anyway,” she added. “I think it’s safer to stay.”

            But, with the coming of June, their feeling of imprisonment increased. Jake seemed always to be working in his garden, and they had to pass his cottage to get to the road. They rarely managed to get through the gate without running the gauntlet of his questions and advice: “Off then are you? Going far?” and the inevitable: “Make sure that child don’t get too much sun.” Then, there were the elderly women, who seemed to appear in the most unexpected places: their heads popping up over hedges and from behind trees, and there was always the movement of curtains whenever Tom and Jane walked through the hamlet. 

On the morning of his interview, Tom insisted on going, and felt a sudden freedom when he arrived at the railway station. It was a different world outside the intangible constraints of the hamlet. As he bought his ticket he decided, at that moment, that if he was offered the post he would accept it, in spite of Jane’s opposition.

***

            “It’s my life as well as yours!” she protested when he returned with news of his new job. But he was adamant, and eventually she agreed on condition that they kept it a secret. It was a condition to which Tom was only too happy to agree.

***

            “You wouldn’t be thinking of leaving would you?” Mrs. Frazer’s piercing eyes appeared,

suddenly, over the clipped privet hedge. Jane felt her hands grip the clothes line in an involuntary gesture.

            “They wouldn’t like that you know. You’re part of the hamlet now. That child of yours is an important person, you do realize that, don’t you?”

            “What makes you think that?” Jane answered, her voice betrayed her nervousness.

            “Mrs. Wigley told me. Never trust a new-comer.” Her laugh was like a death rattle.  

Jane remembered telling Mrs Wigley, in confidence. “You’re a new-comer yourself; you’re not one of them,” she said, turning to face Mrs.Frazer.

            “That’s not exactly true, my dear. When my husband died, I returned to my family home,” she paused, “which is this hamlet.” She waved a wrinkled hand at the nearby cottages. The creased face of the homely ex-matron had changed in some indefinable way. “I think you must get that husband of yours to change his mind. Yes, I think you must certainly do that.” Her face smiled, but her eyes were hard and had an unnatural depth to them.

***

“We could pack within hours and leave this place before they even knew we were going.” Tom spoke quickly. His face was flushed. “Tomorrow, I could borrow a car from school and we could take as much as we could fit in. I could come back later with a hired van and pick up the rest of our stuff. Once the child is out of the place, they won’t care anymore.”

            Jane agreed. Like jail-breakers, they planned their escape. Neither admitted the fear that seemed to gnaw at them. After a sleepless night, during which every sound caused alarm, Tom left early for the school. Jane remained behind closed curtains, furious with herself for behaving this way, yet unable to think of any other course of action.

            It was mid-morning when Tom appeared with the car, an old and battered Ford Popular. He parked it outside the garden gate. The road was deserted.

            “You going somewhere?” Jake’s voice boomed out from behind a clump of bushes in his garden. Tom felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck

            After a moment of indecision, Tom explained what they intended to do. Jake stared, his powerful jaw worked slowly, making no sound. Then his eyes blazed and his face reddened.

            “You’re a bloody fool! Think of your wife, damn it! You know you must stay…don’t fight it, accept it. There are some things that just have to be. You won’t be allowed to take our Mary from here, Tom. Don’t you understand that yet?”

            “Get stuffed! I’m sick of all this mumbo-jumbo. This is the twentieth century, in case you haven’t noticed.” Tom turned abruptly, suddenly afraid of the physical power of the old man. As he reached his front door, he heard Jake’s voice calling: “Don’t be a bloody fool!”

            It was only a few minutes later when they left the cottage. Jane carried the bright-eyed baby and Tom staggered under the weight of a single heavy suitcase. As they turned towards the gate, they saw the silent crowd around the car. Eyes stared at them as they walked along the path.. Tom was unable to focus on any particular face, unable to recognize anyone. Jane held the sleeping child in her arms. None in the crowd moved as Tom opened the garden gate.

He unlocked the car door, and pressed down on the handle. It opened sluggishly, as if resisting him. Everything seemed in slow motion, like a bad dream. He reached for Jane and guided her towards the car, forcing himself to move. Tom found he could only concentrate on one action at a time. Eyes, bodies, a faint aroma in the air that reminded him of the old woman in the lane. He rested the heavy case by the car, and lifted Jane’s arm, steadying her.  Jane was aware of a faint moan as she sat in the front seat. Tom heard it as he turned, eyes fixed on the driver’s door; he walked slowly round the back of the car. The sound increased as he opened the door; it began to have an angry threatening quality to it, rising and falling until they both realized, at the same moment, that it was a word. The one word, “NO!”

            Tom started the engine. Jane stared wildly around. “Stop it!” she yelled at them. “We’ve got to go! Don’t spoil it! Please!” Her voice reached screaming pitch. Suddenly, there was only her voice and the sound of the engine. The car pulled slowly away, past the silent cottages, up the lane towards the main road. The motionless crowd, dark in the bright road, watched intently. The suitcase remained by the gate.

***

            “We’ve done it!” Tom was yelling with relief. Jane wept silently as she cradled the sleeping child. She felt utterly drained.

            “It’s over Jane, it’s over,” he kept repeating. He drove round the narrow, double bends into the final uphill straight that led to the main road. As he turned the last bend, a tractor appeared. Jane had a vision of huge wheels and a mountain of straw on a high wagon. Tom understood, in a swift moment of despair, that the tractor appeared to be out of control and moving fast. “NO!” he yelled. In that split second, he realized it was the same tractor as before, and that his cry was an echo of the angry crowd behind him.

***

“Yes, Sergeant,” the police officer reported,  “both adults were killed, but the child survived. Not a scratch on her. The neighbors claim that they are the child’s Godparents and are prepared to look after her for a while, until things are sorted out.”

            “Thank you, George,” the sergeant nodded. “You can leave the rest to me.”

            After a moment, the sergeant picked up the telephone and rang a local number.  “Hello, Uncle Jake, Roper here.” He leaned back in his chair. “I’m getting the papers arranged, as we discussed, and you and Mrs Frazer will act as Godparents.  There will be no more problems.”

***

Written for Yorkshire Radio, and broadcast in three parts in May 1988.  Revised 2009.

If you have enjoyed these stories, please mention them to others. I have written many more and am looking for an agent/publisher.