An Episode of Remnants.

Episode Content Warnings

Please bear in mind that this work has content some listeners may find distressing, including themes of war, violence, and grief. This episode contains:

Children growing up in poverty/unstable housing

Implications of violence against sex workers

Allusions to pregnancy loss

Implications of sexual violence against a teenager

References to a child who has passed away

Infidelity

Mentions of bombs and descriptions of buildings after bombings

Mention of non-consensual sex. Non-graphic description of incident, with reference to injuries.

Possible suicide. Not explicit. Happens ‘off-screen’ and is referred to in passing.

Violent death.

Transcript

APPRENTICE
Sir?

QUIET WHOOSH

SIR
Ah. So you have forgiven me.

APPRENTICE
For what?

SIR
Whatever insulted you last time we spoke.

APPRENTICE
I wasn’t insulted, sir. It was just. A lot to process.

SIR
Indeed.

APPRENTICE
I have a question.

SIR
Go on?

APPRENTICE
Why me?

SIR
What do you mean?

APPRENTICE
Why am I here?

SIR
You are my apprentice, you are here to read remnants and pass judgements. That is your purpose here.

APPRENTICE
Yeah, I get that. But why is it me?

SIR
Hmm. I see the nuance you are attempting to distill. It is a question of your individual qualification for the role.

APPRENTICE
If you like.

SIR
What are you, apprentice?

APPRENTICE
How do you mean, sir?

SIR
I mean it as I ask it. What are you?

APPRENTICE
Uh. Well. I. I don’t rightly know, sir. I. I’m here.

SIR
You are here, in the First and Last Place. And you are my apprentice.

APPRENTICE
And what are you?

SIR
The one who to whom you are apprenticed.

APPRENTICE
Right. And what is it that you’re teaching me, exactly?

SIR
An intriguing question.

APPRENTICE
What is it, then?

SIR
As I said. Intriguing.

APPRENTICE
Do you not know, then?

SIR
I am not a thing that knows.

APPRENTICE
What things do you do then, if not knowing?

SIR
Processing.

APPRENTICE
What?

SIR
Remnants.

APPRENTICE
Isn’t that my job?

SIR
It is your… purpose.

APPRENTICE
So why do you need my help.

SIR
Ah. Help. Is that what you are offering?

APPRENTICE
I wasn’t offering anything, I was asking a question.

SIR
Yes, you were.

APPRENTICE
Do you ever answer things straightforwardly?!

SIR
Frequently, if you only had adequate context.

APPRENTICE
If I’m your apprentice and you’re meant to teach me it seems like applying adequate context is well within the remit of things I should expect from you.

SIR
Ha. Your sense of humour has improved.

APPRENTICE
That wasn’t a joke.

SIR
And yet I am amused.

APPRENTICE
I don’t understand why it’s me.

SIR
Is there a particular reason it ought not to be?

APPRENTICE
Yes! I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. Or. Who I am?

SIR
Who you are is my apprentice. And what you do is read the remnants. You process them. You pass a judgement.

APPRENTICE
We’re going round in circles.

SIR
We have not moved at all.

APPRENTICE
Isn’t that basically the same thing? You are going to drive me mad.

SIR
That’s easily rectified.

APPRENTICE
I’m not sure I like the sound of that.

SIR
Nor do I.

APPRENTICE
Well. Should we do some work then?

SIR
You are eager to read again?

APPRENTICE
I’m not sure I’d go that far. But you said that the best way to understand this is to do it, so let’s do it.

SIR
Very good. Let me see.

REVERBERANT HUM. A SMALL METAL CHAIN FALLS AND LANDS.

SIR
That will do, I think.

APPRENTICE
Right. So I just. I pick it up and if I look long enough, I’ll see it?

SIR
I believe so.

APPRENTICE
And it’s. It’s reading, it’s coming through me. So when I’m feeling it all, when it’s coming through me, what’s happening?

SIR
That is processing. You must process them. As one might process grief. And then you make your judgement.

APPRENTICE
Uh, okay? And it’s mine to make?

SIR
If you will.

APPRENTICE
Is there a right or wrong judgement?

SIR
Intriguing. Right or wrong in what sense?

APPRENTICE
Correct or incorrect. Is it a test I can fail?

SIR
The judgements are yours and yours alone to make.

APPRENTICE
So it really doesn’t matter what I choose?

SIR
I didn’t say that.

APPRENTICE
So which is it?! Does what I pick matter or not?!

SIR
It matters. But it is not correct or incorrect.

APPRENTICE
Okay. Right. Okay.

SIR
Will you read the remnant now?

APPRENTICE
Yes. Yes I will. Um. Let’s see. It’s necklace. I think it’s gold? Yeah. And this stone, is it glass? No I think it’s a— emerald.

THE APPRENTICE GASPS.

WHOOSH. THE SOUND OF A CITY AT NIGHT.

Annie has not long set her little sister down when mama comes in and wakes her again. Sally squawks and squirms on the little bed the three of them share. Mama scoops her up and cradles her close, ‘hush now,’ she whispers. ‘You’ll wake Annie.’

Annie, exhausted, lies still on the mattress, keeping her eyes squeezed shut. Sally is three months old now and when mama is here, she sleeps through the night.

Since she started going to work again two weeks ago Annie has discovered Sally very much does not sleep through the night when its just the two of them. She’s too hungry, Annie thinks. Annie gives her milk in the little bottles mama leaves on the counter top, but she’s bad at drinking from them. She wants mama’s breast, screams for it.

Annie can barely lift Sally. She’s a skinny baby, but long, and she wriggles. Annie has always been small for her age, mama always comments on it, so do the people on the street. They call her Little Annie. She does her best to get Sally into her lap when she cries and rocks her side to side.

‘Shh, shh,’ she says, petting the tightly coiled dark brown curls on Sally’s warm little head. She has big brown eyes, deep and pensive, and she likes to stare. When she’s not screaming so loud her face turns the colour of beetroot, she’s staring at Annie with big eyes.

‘Mustn’t wake Little Annie,’ mama coos to Sally. ‘She’s such a busy girl, she needs her sleep.’

Annie curls up a little more tightly on the mattress, burying her face in the blankets.

WHOOSH. THE SOUND OF DISTANT VOICES.

Annie straightens Sally’s school dress. ‘Does it look silly?’ she asks, tugging at the hem. The dress is much too big for her, and Annie has hemmed and darted it so that it can be let out to fit her as she grows.

‘You look very smart,’ says Annie.

Sally tries to smile, but it’s wobbly at the edges. ‘Can’t you come with me?’

‘No, pet,’ says Annie. She smoothes Sally’s dark curls. ‘I go to different school, down the road. You know that.’

Sally sniffles. ‘Will you be here when I get home?’

‘Not right away. I’m cleaning Mr and Mrs Pocket’s place two streets over, then I’m going to the market. Mama might be here.’

Sally sniffles some more. ‘Mama said she’d be here now,’ says Sally, scrubbing at her eyes.

‘I know, I know!’ says Annie. She folds her sister into her arms. ‘She’ll be back. She’s just held up at work, you know how it gets.’

Sally clings to Annie very tightly. ‘Please be quick cleaning Mr & Mrs Pocket’s, okay?’

Annie chuckles. ‘Alright.’

Annie walks Sally to the gate of the schoolhouse and waves her off. She finds herself wishing she were five years older, old enough to get a proper job, old enough that she could make sure she was home for Sally when she got home from school.

For a split second, she’s angry at her mama, but she swallows that down.

Mama works hard. She didn’t have chance to go to school herself, not properly. She didn’t come to this country by choice. It’s a miracle she managed to get as far as she did.

Annie knows people sniff and look down on her because she works at the cat house but she puts in her time and earns her wages just the same as anyone else, it’s all her mama’s ever known.

When she thinks about the things people say about her, it makes Annie feel like she could breathe fire, it makes her so mad.

Annie goes to school, tries her best, and then runs straight over to the Pockets’ place. Mrs Pocket is sitting in the front window, smoothing her hands over her domed belly. She says the same as she has said to Annie every day the last few weeks. ‘Any day, now,’ she says. ‘I can feel it. Any day now.’

Annie laughs. She gets to cleaning. She starts, as she always does, with sweeping the bedroom floors. She chases the dust down the stairs, polishing the bannister, dusting the picture frames in the hall. She finishes up in the kitchen. She she sticks her head into the sitting room again, Mrs Pocket has fallen asleep in her chair, her book face down on the rise of her stomach.

Annie is careful to close the door quietly when she lets herself out.

Sally is sat in the middle of their home when Annie gets in. She talks a mile a minute about her classmates, her new friends, how she call already write out her name.

Annie laughs, ‘okay, okay!’ she says.

‘Has Mrs Pocket had her baby yet?’ says Sally

‘Not yet,’ says Annie. Annie points at a hole on Sally’s heel. ‘Hey, what happened to your socks?’

‘I’m sorry,’ says Sally. ‘There was nail on my desk, I caught it.’

‘Don’t worry,’ says Annie. ‘Would you like to learn how to mend it?’

Sally nods. She scoots close to Annie on the bed and they crowd close to the candles. ‘Okay, first things first; this is a thimble.’

WHOOSH. SOUNDS OF A STREET.

Mrs Pocket goes away for a few weeks. When she comes back, she doesn’t have a baby. She sits in the window like she used to, but she does call through to Annie when she comes in to clean anymore. She just sits there, silent.

Annie has taken to making her cups of tea before she leaves. Sometimes when she comes the next day, the tea is still there, undrunk, next to Mrs Pocket.

Annie tells her mama about it.

‘Ah,’ says mama. ‘The Pockets have been trying for a baby for a very long time. This is the furthest they’ve got.’

‘That’s sad,’ says Annie.

‘Yes, it is,’ says her mama. ‘I feel very lucky to have had you girls. Of course, it wasn’t the most convenient thing. I had to keep you secret, you know.’

‘Really?’ says Annie. It’s late, and Sally is asleep in the corner, so they’re talking in whispers over their shared cup of tea.

‘Oh, yes,’ says mama, with a laugh she muffles behind her hand. ‘I was only sixteen, then. I’d been in England four years.’

‘You must have been so scared,’ says Annie.

Mama shrugs. ‘I was. It was scary. Everything I knew was gone, all at once.’

‘Do you remember much from before?’

Mama inhales sharply. She runs a hand through Annie’s long hair. ‘Let me plait it for you?’ she says.

‘Only if you let me do yours, after,’ says Annie.

Mama smiles. ‘Alright. Sweet girl. Sit on the floor.’

Annie eagerly shifts down to sit at her mother’s feet. Mama’s fingers wind carefully through Annie’s hair, soft against her scalp. ‘Tell me,’ says Annie.

Mama hums. ‘Your hair is so different to mine, so fine, like silk thread.

‘My mama worked with silk. She was an embroiderer. She made the most beautiful dresses you have ever seen, dresses with more beads than fabric, that shimmered like crystals, that ran like water from the shoulders of the beautiful ladies that were dressed in them.

‘I remember in her workshop, there would be twelve, thirteen other women. They could sew beadwork so fast it seemed like magic to me, but it wasn’t magic, it was skill and hard work. The workshop was hot, their fingers were sweaty so they’d dip them in bowls of ground chalk so they wouldn’t slip on the bead work.

‘There were drawings of the dresses they were sewing on the walls of the embroidery room, and they were beautiful, beautiful things, and so were the women that wore them.’

‘It sounds amazing,’ says Annie.

Mama chuckles. ‘It was a hard life, but we made it work. I was the third eldest in my house, and the oldest girl. My brothers would go out to work and I was expected to stay at home and look after the little ones.’

‘Like me,’ says Annie.

‘Not quite,’ says mama. ‘I had six younger siblings, and I would help look after my aunt’s children too.’

‘Six?!’ says Annie. ‘So many!’

‘There were lots of families nearly as big as ours,’ says mama. ‘But there were a lot of us, it’s true.’

Annie yawns. She leans back against mama’s legs. She loses herself in the rhythm of her mama’s fingers in her hair, and the gentle tempo of her voice as she recalls her own childhood, and at some point, without meaning to, she drifts into sleep.

WHOOSH. CHILDREN CHATTER DISTANTLY.

The Pockets bring home a baby, and they pay Annie extra to help with the extra cleaning. Word of her hard work has spread through the East End and everyone with enough money for a cleaner is asking for her. After school, Sally has started helping Annie lug the laundry down to the bath house. Whilst the clothes wash, Annie folds the already finished loads and chats with the mothers and nannies. Sally runs out to the street to play hoops and hopscotch with the other kids.

‘You must nearly be finished with school, now,’ one of the mothers says.

‘Yes, in July,’ says Annie.

She finishes up the laundry and calls Sally back to help her. They lug the bags back to their respective houses, and Sally recites her petty disputes with the other street kids as they go.

Annie smiles and nods in all the right places, but in the back of her mind she’s already coming up with a plan. She’s going to get a really good job at a fancy house outside of the city. She’ll send all of her money back to Sally and mama. Mama won’t have to work at the cat house anymore and Sally can stay in school longer. She’s so smart, she’s so clever.

And Annie’s not stupid, she knows Sally will have it harder than she did. Sally’s skin is pale and her hair is auburn. Sally’s skin is dark and her hair even more wild than their mother’s. They all have mama’s smile, those slightly overlapping front teeth behind matching lips. Annie’s nose is pointed, mama’s is long and sloped, Sally’s an adorable little button.

Annie has it easier than Sally will because nobody can tell from looking at her that her mama is from India. She taught herself to posh by speaking with Mrs Pocket and all the other people she works for. She can look after Sally and mama because of that. She has to.

WHOOSH. THE HISS OF WIND THROUGH LEAVES.

The bus stops nearly two miles from the house which is Annie’s new job. She carries her little suitcase down the slightly muddy path and then she sees it.

The house is huge, set back from the road at the end of a long driveway. It’s a great, grand thing, with sloping roofs in all directions, decorative twists of iron on the edges of the slate. Most of the front is thick with ivy, the windows peering through it like faces from deep inside a forest.

In front of the large front door are two posts which look like they might have once held up a porch roof, but now stand like sentinels, supporting nothing.

Annie’s been told to use the side door, so she trails down a small gravel path down the side of the house. There are a few short steps up to a door, propped open.

A harried looking cook is butchering a chicken on a large wood table.

‘Hello,’ says Annie.

The cook glances at her. ‘You the nanny, then?’

‘Yes,’ says Annie. ‘My name is Annie.’

‘Ha. Annie the Nanny. How charming,’ says the cook. ‘My god you’re a pretty thing, aren’t you? And young, too. You look like you need a nanny yourself.’

‘I assure you I’m very capable,’ says Annie, drawing herself up as tall as she can.

The cook huffs a laugh. ‘Righty-o. Well, the Head Housekeeper, Miss Kenton, she’s up in the parlour polishing the silverware. You go introduce yourself. Leave those muddy boots at the door.’

‘Right, of course,’ says Annie. She kicks off her boots and puts them by the back doorstep.

‘Where you going?’ says the cook.

‘To the parlour,’ says Annie.

‘In your stocking feet?’ says the cook.

‘You told me to leave my boots.’

‘Aye, that I did, but you can’t be walking round with your toes to the wind, missy. Put on your work shoes.’

Annie looks at her boots again.

‘Oh, heavens,’ says the cook. ‘You don’t mean to say you intended to work in the house in those things?!’

Annie’s cheeks flush. ‘I’m sorry. Nobody said. I was given a list of the clothes I’d need to make, and—’

‘None of that,’ says the cook. She lays down her knife and wipes her bloody hands on her apron. ‘Come with me. I think Sarah left some work shoes.’

She leads Annie down a narrow hallway. ‘In there is the pantry. There’s a door at the back which goes to the wine cellar but I don’t expect you’ll be in there often, given you’ll primarily be concerned with Jonny, and he’s not old enough to drink save a whiff of brandy when he can’t sleep.’

They step into a small room filled with coats. ‘This is the mud room. You’ll come in this way when you bring the boy in from playing outside. You put his dirty clothes in that hamper, there. Miss Kenton will explain everything about the laundry, I’m hopeless at it myself. It’ll be a godsend to have another capable pair of hands to get at it. Presuming you’re a decent wash girl?’

Annie nods. ‘Oh yes.’

‘Great,’ says the cook. The cook stoops down. She opens one of the benches and rummages inside a moment, producing a pair of worn but respectably polished black pumps. ‘There you go. They might be a bit big, but you can stuff the toes with tissue if you need to.’

‘Thank you,’ says Annie. She slips into the shoes. They are indeed to big for her.

WHOOSH. WHISTLING WIND.

The little boy is very odd, but Annie supposes she ought to have expected that. Even the Pockets, who are the wealthiest people Annie cleaned for in London, were nowhere near as wealthy as Jonny’s parents. He has grown up wanting for nothing at all, except perhaps for the attention of his father, who is often away from the house because he works for the army.

The mother, Maud, does not like Annie. She watches her like a hawk for the first three weeks, so attentive that Annie begins to wonder why they hired a nanny at all.

That is until Annie’s evening off. She is hurrying out of the house so she can get to town before the post office closes, and she glimpses Maud gingerly trying to wipe something off of Jonny’s face. It’s as though she’s afraid of him.

Annie makes it into to town and sends money and letters to mama and Sally. She buys nice paper and envelopes to send the next lot in, and walks back to the house slowly as the sun is setting.

It’s dark when she gets back to the house. She knows Christian, Jonny’s father, is back because he and Maud are shouting at each other in the dining room. Annie hovers awkwardly in the hall a moment, until the cook, Janet, grabs her by the elbow and steals her away into the kitchen.

‘What are they fighting about?’ Annie whispers.

Janet chuckles. ‘Don’t worry your pretty head about it, missy. I’d give the sir a wide berth though, if I were you.’

Annie thinks of the violent men who would beat her mama if she didn’t suck them off right, and she shivers.

‘He’s not a bad man,’ says Janet, quickly. ‘He’s just got a wandering eye, if you know what I mean.’

Annie nods.

‘Ah,’ says Janet. ‘How old are you, again?’

‘Nearly fifteen.’

Janet clucks her tongue. ‘Oh dear. Well, maybe that’s why the misses wanted you. You’re not that much older than poor little Paige would have been. Perhaps she’s hoping that’ll put him off.’

‘Paige?’ says Annie.

Janet frowns. ‘Ah. Nobody told you about Paige?’

Annie shakes her head.

‘The Bevans’ eldest child. She passed away a few years back. Terrible accident. The sir’s not been the same since, really. He adored that girl, for what little he saw of her.’

‘Oh,’ says Annie.

‘Little Jonny was only four, then. He’ll be seven in the spring, same age his sister was when she passed. Poor little lad, I wonder how it’s affected him, you know?’

‘He seems fairly robust,’ says Annie, who spent the afternoon trying to convince him not to paint himself with mud to be a proper soldier.

Janet chuckles. ‘Yes, it’s a blessing, it really is.’

WHOOSH. RAINFALL.

Guilt churns and churns in Annie’s stomach. Mama has sent a letter begging her to take Sally in at the Bevans with the war looming. How can she explain in a short letter everything she needs to explain? That the boy, Jonny, is strange and aloof? That Maud grows increasingly bitter and furious by the day, that three times she’s struck Annie across the face, once so hard that Maud’s wedding ring cut her cheek and left a scar?

There’s nothing for miles and miles, and then a tiny town, and then the sand dunes and the sea.

Annie walks Jonny out there as often as she can so he might see.

‘They have found many fossils here,’ he says. ‘They told us all about it in school.’

‘Oh really?’ says Annie. ‘I don’t know anything about fossils.’

‘That’s because you’re stupid,’ says Jonny.

‘Ah. Is that right?’ says Annie.

‘It’s what mother says. She says bright girls don’t end up as nannies.’

‘I see,’ says Annie.

Jonny drops Annie’s hand and launches himself at the sand dunes.

There is going to be a comprehensive project to get children out of London; she’s heard about it on the radio. Annie worries for any child sent to live at the Bevans’ house, but she’s at least confident that Mrs Bevans would never allow such a child to be a girl, for fear of the actions of her husband.

He’s working at a military training camp only a few hours away. It’s a great irony, really, that at a time where so many men are being sent away to war, Mr Bevans is home more than ever.

Annie fears him more than she fears his wife.

He’s good looking, in a film star kind of way. Indeed, his mother apparently was a film star. That’s what Janet says, anyway. He’s the illegitimate child of some lord or other; that’s how they have the house. Mrs Bevan is the daughter of some Dutch baron. Her brother, Floris, is set to take over the family seat. He’s on his way to London now, apparently. There’s too much risk at home.

Annie could not dream of putting Sally in line for such a threat as Mr Bevan with his sparkling smile and his smooth voice. His hands are soft, especially so for a military man. When he takes Annie’s hand or brushes her hair from her cheek it makes her catch her breath. He doesn’t love her, she knows this, and she certainly doesn’t love him. He’s three times her age, nearly. She reminds herself of this three times a day.

She will not end up like the last nanny, which Janet has warned her about dozens of times. Sent away in shame, with Mr Bevans’ baby growing inside of her.

Annie won’t let it happen. And she will not have Sally come to stay.

WHOOSH. WHISTLING WIND.

Annie has felt dead inside for weeks. It has been weeks since she has heard from Sally, weeks since she has heard from mama. She sends them letters, but she’s not sure if they’re even getting to London anymore, not with all the bombs.

In the mornings, she takes Jonny to school. She meets him at the gates at the end of the day. She takes him to the sand dunes.

Last weekend she went to the loo and saw blood in her pants and wept with relief. As she rinsed them so they wouldn’t stain, she shuddered as the moments she spent with Mr Bevans in the library came back to her unbidden.

Each time she remembers it she feels sick. She feels like she should be able to reach through time and stop herself. Tell herself to put the book down, go to bed in her little room in the attic. To push him away when he brushed her hair back off her face as he had done so many times before. To force herself not to laugh amicably as he spoke in that low, sultry voice.

But in her memory it always goes the way it really did. She stands there, frozen, breathing fast, as he unfastens the buttons on the front of her dress and slips his hand into them. She feels the exact moment a part of her slips away, as he picked her up and lay her on the seat by the window.

She hears his shoes on the floor, walking away. She lay there, the world turning blurry, her skirts up over her chest, one stocking shoved down past her knee from where he was gripping it. She had bruises on her thighs, from his fingers.

Annie thinks, again and again, thank god. Thank go she didn’t let Sally come. Thank god. Thank god.

WHOOSH. GURGLING PIPES.

By the end of the war Jonny is off at Eton. The Bevans kept Annie on as the housekeeper, Miss Kenton, was getting old. She agrees to stay only after Mr Bevans ships out to Europe.

She takes over most of the housework. She helps Miss Maud dress in the mornings. Though she never knew how to handle him, she is bereft without her son. She speaks often of him, and of Paige. Though she can only be in her late thirties, she has an air of a much older woman. She grows more and more frail every day that passes.

Maud’s brother comes to visit, a little boy in tow. He’s a year or two younger than Jonny, with pale blonde hair and eyes like silver. He looks like his own ghost. He’s a serious little thing, nothing like Jonny, with all his father’s rudeness and brashness. He sits quietly in the corner of the parlour as Floris and Maud speak in Dutch. Annie pours them tea.

In her time at the house, Annie has picked up a fair portion of Dutch, but she can only understand a few words of their conversation. She gathers that the boy lives with his aunt, not too far away, that this aunt had sent Christian some kind of accusatory letter claiming the boy is his.

‘And the mother?’ asks Maud, exhausted.

‘That’s the real scandal,’ says Floris. ‘The Little Grenville girl.’

Maud gasps. ‘Goodness gracious!’

Floris switches back to Dutch, and Annie thinks he’s imploring Maud to do the same so they don’t disturb the boy.

It has been a long time since the boy has turned the pages of his book, though he is still staring intently at the words. Annie suspects he may know enough Dutch to be aware that he is the subject of their conversation. As she watches him, the boy looks up. His gaze is piercing and utterly empty.

After Floris is gone, Annie draws Maud a bath.

‘Help me with my necklace, won’t you, girl?’ says Maud. She slips out of her dressing gown, standing fully naked with her back to Annie.

Annie swallows. She unfastens the latch on the necklace. ‘Where shall I put it, miss?’

‘Do you like it?’ says Maud.

Annie turns it in her hand. It’s gold, with a small emerald pendant.

‘Christian got it for me after we were engaged. Do you like it?’

‘I like it well enough?’

‘You can have it then,’ says Maud.

‘Oh, ma’am, I couldn’t—’ says Annie.

‘Nonsense. Consider it compensation,’ says Maud.

‘What for?’

Maud laughs thinly. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, girl. You know what it’s for.’

Maud climbs into the bath. Annie turns to leave.

‘Wait. I need my sponge. It’s on the shelf, there. By the window.’

Annie, cheeks burning, retrieves the sponge from the shelf. She keeps her eyes averted as she hands it over to Maud.

‘Thank you,’ says Maud. ‘You know, that boy cannot be Christian’s. Every child anyone’s bourne him has been dark haired. That little thing may as well have been sculpted out of ice.

‘One thing’s for sure; you can tell he was a Grenville. Frigid personalities, the lot of them. Except for Eliza. I was sad to hear of her passing. How strange to see the cause of it takes so much after her far nastier sister.’

Annie keeps her gaze fixed on the tiled floor. ‘If that will be all, ma’am.’

‘I’m surprised Christian never managed to put a bastard in Eliza’s belly. He kept her in a flat in London for nearly two years, you know?’

Annie shakes her head. ‘No, ma’am.’

‘Pass me a cigarette, won’t you, girl?’ says Maud.

Annie grabs one from the little table beside the bath.

Maud sits up, her breasts emerging from the water. ‘Annie. I want you to tell me if he fucks you again when he comes. I won’t be angry, I swear it. But I need you to tell me.’

Annie’s face is so hot she’s certain she must be the colour of a post van. ‘Will that be all, ma’am?’

‘Yes. And do keep the necklace. Compensation, as I say.’

WHOOSH. DISTANT VOICES.

Maud dies in the spring. They say it was an accident, that she took the wrong pills at the wrong time of day, but Annie is sure it was anything but. Jonny comes home from school for the funeral, dour faced, looking more like his father than he ever has before.

Annie does not have the courage to face London until two years after the war ends. As long as she does not go, she can keep believing that her letters have simply got lost in the post, and the reason Sally and mama haven’t replied is because they have had no reason to, and they’ve not written to her of their own accord because they’re so angry that she’s not written to them.

The state of the city is a shock. Although work is underway to repair it, windows gape empty from facades that have no homes behind them.

Mama’s little block of flats is intact, though, and there on the steps up to the door sits Mr Jones. She calls his name.

‘We ain’t got not space,’ said Mr Jones. ‘And looking at you, you wouldn’t like it round here anyway.’

‘Mr Jones, it’s Annie. Charvi’s daughter.’

Mr Jones’ eyes widened. ‘Little Annie?!’

‘The very same!’ says Annie.

‘Oh, it’s a marvel to see you, pet!’ Mr Jones groans as he stands. He gives Annie a brief embrace. ‘My, my, your ma sang your praises every time I saw her, she did,’ says Mr Jones.

Annie sits on the stairs, lets him reminisce about old times. Eventually they talk about mama and Sally. How mama disappeared after working one night when the bombs were going off, that her cat house was destroyed by the Germans. And Sally died saving the Pocket’s little boy, Edward.

Annie gets the train out of the city again, and she rides out, she weeps and weeps and weeps.

WHOOSH. QUIET AMBIENCE.

Annie stays on at the Bevans until Jonny is at Cambridge and he’s come home to ask for his mother’s ring. Annie helps him find it. He wants to propose to a girl. She knows Maud had set it aside years before with this very circumstance in mind. The ring had belonged to Maud’s mother. She’d given it to Christian to ask for Maud’s hand the firs time they’d met.

‘She told me that it was because her mother hoped it would keep your dad faithful,’ says Annie, with a little laugh.

‘God bless her for trying,’ says Jonny. ‘There’s a boy two years above me, you know. He went to Harrow. People were always confusing us, and it wasn’t until the ball at the end of last term that we actually met, and good heavens, the resemblance is uncanny.

‘And wouldn’t you know, in his rooms he has a framed picture of his mother as a young girl, hanging off the arm of who? You’ll never guess.’

‘Your father,’ says Annie.

Jonny laughs. ‘The very same.’

Jonny’s expression sours. ‘He’s off in America again, I suppose?’

‘Yes. He’ll be back in October, he says.’

Jonny’s expression is grim. ‘I suppose I shall speak to him at Christmas, then.’

Annie nods. ‘Alright.’

Jonny looks Annie up and down. ‘I do hope that…’

‘What?’ says Annie.

Jonny shakes his head. ‘I caught him with Sarah, you know. That’s why they sent her away. Because I caugth them and I was too stupid to know I was supposed to keep my mouth shut. I cost her a job, lost that little piece of my sister when she went, I…’ he shakes his head. ‘I was never kind to you, Annie. And I’m sorry. I was frightened to get too close.’

Annie wraps her arms around him. He trembles against her, at once a little boy again, not a young man about to get down on his knee for a pretty girl. Annie strokes his hair and hushes him, placing a little kiss to his crown.

‘I won’t be like him,’ he croaks, muffled by Annie’s shoulder.

‘No, sweetheart,’ Annie promises. ‘You are a good man.’

WHOOSH. A BOISTEROUS STREET WITH CHATTER AND CARS.

It has been fifteen years since Annie last got a letter from Sally. With no grave to visit for her or their mother, she returns back to their little corner of East London, walks the streets, so different now to how she remembers.

She walks the old route she used to run with Sally to do the laundry, through the nice bit of town. She touches the fences and low walls, the trunks of trees now three times as broad as she remembers them being.

She stops at the Pockets’ old place. The roof is still gone, the windows boarded up. It’s funny, it looks small now, after so many years at the Bevans’ manor.

She walks to the corner shop, picks up a cheap bouquet of flowers, wanders back and sets it by the gate.

‘Excuse me,’ says the voice of a young man.

Annie looks up. He’s got a mop of dark curls, glittering dark eyes, and an easy smile.

‘I’m sorry,’ says Annie. ‘Do I know you?’

The man clears his throat. ‘No, it’s just– y–you’re leaving flowers. Are you Victor’s sister?’

‘Victor?’ Annie repeats.

The man shakes his head. ‘No matter. But—’ he gasps. ‘You can’t be Little Annie?’

Annie’s jaw drops. ‘Yes, that’s me. Though it’s been an awful long time since anybody’s called me that.’

‘I’m sorry,’ says the man. ‘I– oh my god. My name is Edward. My parents used to live here!’

Annie’s stomach twists. ‘Oh my god! Edward Pocket?!’ She flings her arms around him at once. ‘I knew you as a little thing! Goodness me, you’ve grown so handsome!’

Edward laughs. ‘Thank you, miss Annie. You’re quite handsome yourself.’

Annie blushes. ‘You daft thing. Goodness me, I—’ Annie cuts herself off, remembering Mr Jones’ stories. ‘She died saving you, didn’t she?’

Edward’s smile drops.

After a few awkward exchanges, Edward fills Annie in on the details. How Sally had looked out for all the street kids during the war, how she’d taken Edward under her wing when his parents had died, that she’d saved his life when he went back into the building and part of it collapsed.

He treats her to lunch, and they spend the afternoon wandering around Regent’s Park, talking about everything that has happened since the war, how he’s apprenticed now at his father’s law firm.

‘But what can I say? It’s in my blood,’ says Edward, with a laugh.

Annie’s stomach sinks. Could it be that the Pockets never had chance to tell him before they passed away that he was adopted? Is it Annie’s place, now, to tell him? She feels suddenly apprehensive, and Edward notices.

‘Is something wrong?’ he asks.

Annie studies his handsome face. ‘No, I…’

At once, she remembers the round face of the little boy the Pockets brought home, his little nose, his mousy hair… his bright blue eyes. Something turns cold in Annie’s stomach.

‘I should probably head off for the train, that’s all.’

‘Oh. Let me pay for a cab,’ says Edward.

Annie laughs. ‘No, really. I shouldn’t!’

Edward looks hurt and confused. He blinks and shakes his head minutely. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve offended you.’

Annie’s laugh comes out too thin and high pitched. ‘Not at all! I just need to be going. I’d like the walk, clear my head, you know, lots to think about!’

‘Oh,’ says Edward. ‘Well, you be careful, won’t you?’

Annie laughs again. She gathers herself and sets off down the road, breathing deeply to try to offset the slight dizziness in her head and the fluttering of her heart.

She’s been walking for twenty minutes when she remembers she was supposed to be heading to the train station. She looks around herself. She has no idea where she is. Annie turns around, starts heading back the way she’s come. She’s just about getting her bearings, hoping she won’t run into Edward again, when she hears someone call her name.

The voice is unfamiliar, but when she turns her head to see who it belongs to, there is nothing but red.

There is searing pain on the back of her head. She cannot feel anything besides the pain, and then it peaks and twists until it’s nothing but a strand of thread.

She thinks of Sally’s little face looking up at her as she screamed because their mama wasn’t home, and then everything is black.

WHOOSH.

A MOMENT OF QUIET

APPRENTICE
Shelve.

SIR
I see. Will you elaborate?

APPRENTICE
No. I’m going for a walk.

SIR
Alone?

APPRENTICE
Please.

SIR
As you wish.

END

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