The Roots of the Tree Read online

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Suzie, ‘but maybe if we knew who he was we might be able to answer that question. The letters are all signed ‘Ted’, which is obviously usually short for Edward, but that is not really much help.’ Suzie reached into the bundle of letters. ‘But there is one other thing. Aunt Emily, there’s a photograph, which is probably of him, unless it’s Uncle Freddie or Uncle Joe.’ Suzie handed the grainy old image to Emily. ‘Do you recognise him?’

  Emily studied the picture. ‘It’s definitely not Freddie or Joe,’ said Emily. ‘Sorry, I don’t recognise him, but as I said to you before, I never met Elsie’s mysterious boyfriend and I was also very young at the time.’

  Marie helped herself to more pizza. ‘Can I have a look?’ she asked, reaching across to take the photo from Elsie. She studied it for a moment. ‘Handsome,’ she said. ‘Look at that smile – it’s just like Daniel.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re not just seeing what you want to see, love?’ asked Jack. ‘You were always the romantic.’

  David peered over Marie’s shoulder and frowned slightly. ‘No, I see what she means,’ he said. ‘There’s definitely a resemblance. Just a moment.’ He crossed to the kitchen dresser and scanned the photographs in their frames displayed on the shelves. Selecting one, he passed it to Jack. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Daniel would have been about three.’ Jack looked at the photograph. It showed Suzie grappling with a clearly fidgeting Daniel. She was giggling and he was looking up at her with a broad and mischievous grin on his face. It was the same smile.

  Suzie broke the silence. ‘There is something else,’ she said. ‘I called the central registrar to ask about Mum’s birth certificate.’ She directed her gaze towards Annie. ‘I didn’t get the chance to tell you about this earlier,’ she said, remembering her mother in the kitchen that morning, struggling to control the tears that were threatening to overwhelm her. ‘When you register the birth of a child, if the mother is not married the name of the father cannot be put on the birth certificate unless he is there and agrees. I understand that is still the same today. However, the certificate can be amended if the father turns up at some point in the future and claims the child as his. In those days, with no means of confirming paternity and with bigger problems to worry about, a claim of paternity, especially if he was by then married to the mother, would not have been challenged. It would not have been difficult to have the birth certificate “corrected”.’

  ‘That’s preposterous!’ exclaimed Jack. ‘He could have been any kind of monster.’

  ‘But he wasn’t,’ said Suzie, quietly but firmly. ‘Let’s remember that he was actually a very kind man who, we have every reason to believe, made Grandma very happy and was a lovely father to Mum and an equally lovely grandad to us and great grandfather to Daniel. Does it matter that biologically he was none of those? I cannot think of him as a monster.’

  ‘Why did the letters end?’ asked Emily.

  ‘The last letter was dated February 1942,’ replied Suzie. ‘It was sent from Singapore. I confess that my history was not up to making the connection, but I’m told that Singapore fell in February 1942. We surrendered to the Japanese and any survivors would have become prisoners of war. After that, at the moment, we just don’t know.’

  Throughout all of this, Annie had sat silently, her pizza uneaten on the plate beside her. At Suzie’s last words, she pushed herself out of her chair, slammed her glass down on the table and stumbled towards the bathroom, letting the door close noisily behind her. Suzie stared after her, feeling helpless.

  ‘What did I say?’ she wondered.

  ‘Stay there.’ Emily got to her feet, a voice of authority suddenly in a room where no one seemed to know what to do or say next. ‘She’s like a sister to me. I hate to see her so upset. Let me talk to her.’

  As Emily left the room, Jack turned back to Suzie. ‘What are you proposing to do?’ he asked.

  ‘I want to see if I can find out who he is and what happened to him.’ Suzie surprised herself with the clarity of her reply. ‘I’ve spoken to Tom at work and he’s happy for me to go into the office over the weekend and look through the archives. Apparently, we have records and old copies of the newspaper going back for decades. I might be able to find something that will give us a lead.’

  ‘Is that wise?’ asked Marie. ‘Think about it. What might you find? It’s all incredibly romantic and mysterious, but Grandma and Grandad had a good life together. Should we try to ruin that? Why can’t we remember and honour them for that and so what if she had a bit of a fling before she met him? They had their reasons for acting the way they did and what right do we have to go digging into the past and questioning why they acted that way?’

  ‘Because Mum needs to know,’ replied Suzie. ‘She’s already told me she wants to know the truth, that she feels as though she’s been lied to all her life and betrayed. I’m worried about her. I wish she had never looked so closely at that marriage certificate then we would never have had to face this. But she did and now I think we have to find out what we can.’ Suzie’s index finger was twirling strands of her hair round and round as she tried to find the right words to express how she felt. ‘It’s a bit like, I don’t know, Howard Carter discovering Tutankhamun’s tomb and then walking away from it without finding out what was inside.’

  ‘Some would say he would have been better advised to do just that,’ Jack pointed out.

  ‘I know,’ replied Suzie. ‘But would he ever have been satisfied?’

  Annie and Emily appeared at the door.Annie had composed herself, although her eyes lacked their usual sparkle and her face was flushed. She spoke in a low tone, but with a brittle edge to her voice that Jack immediately recognised as an advance warning that she was struggling to control her temper. ‘I know that if we find anything it might not make me feel any better, but I don’t think it can make me feel any worse than I already do. I want to shout at them. I want to ask them how they think it feels to find out that you are not who you thought you were and what’s more, you have no idea who you are at all. I want to ask them what on earth they thought they were doing and what gave them the right to mess with my life. But I can’t. All I can do… All we can do, is find out what really happened because then I might be able to understand why they did what they did and why “he” – Ted, whoever he really is – didn’t figure at all in my life until now.’

  The silence in the room was broken by Marie. ‘When are you planning to attack the archives then?’ she asked Suzie. ‘I’ll join you.’

  8

  A Painful Vigil

  May 1946, Lower Chaddington, England

  Edward Johnson picked a sunny spot on the riverside with a good view of the small wooden footbridge that led to the village past the playground. It was here that he spread out his picnic rug and unpacked his fishing rod and tackle. The woods behind were full of bluebells and cowslips and he could hear a woodpecker drumming away at the bark of a tree nearby. Fine white clouds raced each other across the sky, driven by the gusts of wind that were causing ripples to form on the surface of the water and small waves to lap at the riverbank.

  Edward was not a keen fisherman, but the pretence gave him the perfect opportunity to be there without attracting any unwanted attention. What could be more normal than an angler lazily passing the time of day by the river, waiting for a bite?

  Edward knew their routine. He knew that when ‘he’ was on the night shift they would come out to the park to enjoy the late afternoon sunshine before teatime signalled time to get ready to go to work for him and home to eat for her. He settled down to wait.

  It was not long before he heard voices as a father and daughter approached along the path. They came into view, but from where he was sitting he could only see the backs of their heads. He was patient, though, as he knew they would return the same way.

  The father was tall, easily 6 foot, with thick, tousled, mousy hair. The girl was dainty, with blonde curls and a light spring to her step. The girl was ch
atting gaily as she almost skipped along beside her older companion in order to keep up with his long stride. They were clearly happy in each other’s company as they crossed the bridge and entered the playground.

  Edward felt his heart lurch as he watched while ‘he’ pushed her on the swing, pretended her weight would balance his on the seesaw, which frequently resulted in him falling off, and spun her on the roundabout. Another father with a little boy entered the playground from a small gate on the other side.The two fathers acknowledged each other and exchanged a few words as the children played a game of tag, chasing each other, ducking under the swings and clambering over the climbing frame. Eventually, ‘he’ called to the girl and she ran towards him, waving at her playmate. They made their way back to the footbridge, stopping to pick up some twigs on the way for a game of Poohsticks. The girl won and the two of them headed for home. Neither gave a thought to the thin and gaunt-looking fisherman sprawled on a picnic blanket on the riverbank.

  9

  Archives and a Family Feud

  2004, Barminster

  Suzie and Marie arrived at the offices of the Barminster Chronicle on Sunday morning. It was a gloomy day, with rain clouds gathering strength on the horizon like an army massing its troops in preparation for an attack. David had taken Daniel out for the day – to the cinema to see a new Scooby Doo movie followed by pizza – giving Suzie a free day to see if they could discover anything interesting in the newspaper archives.

  The offices were on the second floor of a 1920s block. They were dark and eerily quiet. Suzie was not used to going into work over a weekend. She was used to the constant buzz of a busy newspaper office full of people chasing leads, selling advertising space and the non-stop ringing of a telephone. She found the quiet unnerving and reached for the light switch, filling the office with the harsh glow of artificial light and casting shadows into the corners of the room. She then led the way along a narrow corridor to a room behind the offices.

  ‘This is the archive room,’ she said, pushing open the door to reveal a room crowded with boxes loaded onto racking units lining each wall. A row of filing cabinets stood in the centre of the room and a large table with a computer and microfiche machine stood underneath a tiny window at the far end. Suzie crossed to the window and opened the blind. The day outside was so dark that it made little impact on the gloom in the room.

  ‘What exactly are we looking for?’ asked Marie.

  ‘I’m not really sure,’ said Suzie. ‘This room contains all the newspaper archives dating back to when the Barminster Chronicle was first published in the 1920s. Only the issues from the last few years have been archived digitally and stored on the computer system. Issues from the 1970s are on the microfiche, but anything earlier than that is stored as hard copies in these boxes.’ She waved a hand to indicate the boxes stacked up from floor to ceiling on the racking units.

  ‘We could be here for some time,’ muttered Marie, her eyes scanning the rows of boxes with barely concealed dismay.

  ‘The filing cabinets contain photographs and they are filed according to the name of the business, organisation or individual featured rather than the issue in which they appear,’ continued Suzie.

  ‘The first letter was dated January 1940 and as the Barminster Chronicle has always been very much a local newspaper for the local community, I’m thinking it may have included details of local people being called up to fight. I think we should start with the issues for November and December 1939 and if I’m right in my guess, it probably won’t take us long to find any mention of Ted – if there is one to find that is. What might take some time, though, is finding the correct box to start with.’

  ‘Best get started then.’ Marie turned to the racking lining the room. From floor to ceiling, the racking was divided into four sections separated by metal supports. Each section contained boxes piled up four high. She pulled one of the top boxes from the lowest section nearest to her. A cloud of dust accompanied it, making her sneeze. A label on the top of the box advised that it contained copies from May to August 1931. Moving along to the next section, she pulled another box out. That, too, was labelled, January to April 1933.

  ‘It looks as though they’re in chronological order,’ she observed with relief. ‘We can probably locate the relevant boxes fairly easily. What’s the betting the ones we need are at the top?’

  ‘How strong are you feeling?’ laughed Suzie, as she too pulled out boxes from the racks and examined the date labels. Eventually, they located the box containing the issues from November and December 1939, second down from the very top of the rack. Suzie, balancing precariously on the top step of the ladders and at full stretch, just managed to reach the top box. Taking care not to fall, she handed the top two boxes down to Marie. After opening the box and splitting the copies between them, Suzie and Marie made room on the table and settled down to scan the contents. The rain had started to fall outside and was lashing against the small window, running down it in rivulets before spilling over the rotten sill and cascading down to ground level. The only noise in the archive room was that of the mini waterfall clashing against the metal lids of the dustbins in the alley below as Suzie and Marie started to read. The newspapers were bulky, weekly editions, with local news, national and international news, domestic tips such as making the household budget go further and some feel-good features, no doubt designed to provide some light relief from the serious business of the war. Suzie found herself fascinated with the history depicted in those fragile papers and the realisation that she herself was contributing to the archive every day that she worked for the Barminster Chronicle. Maybe sometime in the future someone else would be searching for information about some long forgotten event that she had been part of recording. For the first time she realised that the role of the newspaper went beyond reporting current events in order to keep people informed. Newspapers had another legacy, too – recording the events of today and storing all that information for the generations to follow.

  ‘Look at this,’ she suddenly said.

  Marie peered over her shoulder and looked at the advert Suzie was pointing at. The Royal Norfolk Regiment was advertising for new recruits, inviting young men to ‘do their duty for King and country’ by joining the regiment.

  ‘I had no idea the army advertised for people like this. I thought they just conscripted everyone anyway.’

  For a while the two sisters sifted through the newspapers in silence then Marie said, ‘I think I’ve found something,’ sounding excited. ‘Have you got that photo that Mum found?’

  Suzie fished in her handbag and pulled out the precious photograph, carefully wrapped in a cardboard sleeve designed to hold CDs sent through the post. She handed it to Marie who gingerly eased it from the sleeve and held it up against the article she had been studying. The headline read ‘Local boys head for 53rd street’ and the picture showed four young men in their early twenties in uniform, smiling at the camera as though they had not a care in the world. Marie pointed at the man second from the right. ‘I think that is him,’ she said.

  It was Suzie’s turn to peer over Marie’s shoulder. ‘The caption says his name is Edward Johnson of Upper Chaddington,’ she said. ‘Edward – Ted. It’s difficult to tell from the quality of the pictures and their age, but it looks to be the same man. I think you’re right.’

  Together they read the article, which detailed Edward Johnson, Sid Bishop, Terence Porter and Albert Cunningham leaving the area to join the 6th Battalion of the Norfolk Regiment. Suzie remembered the name of Sid Bishop from the letters. That figured, she thought, as his family were from near Barminster as well.

  ‘Should we carry on looking through the rest of these copies just to be sure?’ suggested Marie.

  ‘I think so,’ replied Suzie.

  The two sisters spent another hour looking through the selected newspapers but found no further information that appeared to be of interest. Opting to take the paper containing the article with them, they replaced
the rest in the box and put it back in its place on the racking. Suzie felt sure that Tom wouldn’t mind when she explained to him on Monday morning and in any case, she would bring it back after she had shown the rest of the family.

  Checking her watch as she locked the office doors behind her, Suzie saw that it was already 3.00 p.m. ‘I’m starving,’ she said. ‘How are you for time? Shall we go to Mum’s, grab some food there and tell her what we’ve found?’

  ‘Good idea,’ agreed Marie.

  Whilst Suzie and Marie were busy at the newspaper offices, Annie, after another restless night, was trying to impose order on the chaos of her emotions by forcing herself to think rationally. Hating the rain, Marmaduke was fretful, rubbing around her ankles, seeking attention as she sat nursing a cup of strong coffee at the kitchen table. Annie had always found Sunday mornings soothing. Today, the house was still and silent around her, the only noise that of the kitchen clock, steadily and rhythmically keeping up its tick-tock, ticktock as though everything was normal.

  She needed to think. It was the way she always dealt with problems, but analysing how she felt at the moment was proving difficult. She was still grieving for the man she had always believed to be her father, but now anger – and quite justifiable anger in Annie’s view – was clouding his memory. At the same time she felt a great sadness for the unknown man who was her biological father. The only logical explanation to the way in which the letters had stopped so abruptly was that he had lost his life in Singapore and she would never have the opportunity to get to know him.

  Would she have been different as a person if she had grown up as somebody else’s child? She had always been so close to Frank. His thoughts and opinions had to have moulded her throughout her childhood and influenced the development of her personality. If that strong influence had come from someone else, how would she have been different?