Return to Southend 2

 Return to Southend

By Janet Baldey

It was after I got back from the hospital that I decided the time was right. Strange that when the grim reaper is breathing down your neck, your thoughts return to the place you were born. Maybe in some, it’s just an urge to reminisce but I have another reason and if I don’t go now, I never will and that would be like denying the past, akin to spitting on my parents’ graves.  From deep inside the dark recesses of my mind a thought occurs, a tired old cliché now but still powerful - a murderer always returns to the scene of his crime.

So next day, I bought a return ticket and walking back home, I thought about my parents. They weren’t bad people, they did their best, they were just the product of their age. Hardworking, repressed and terrified of what the neighbours would say.  It must have been hard on them having a son like me.

Sandridge was a tiny village, not more than a smudge on the map and I never really understood its purpose. It had a village shop, a post office and a slaughterhouse all lining a narrow road that ran from St Albans to Harpenden.  After that nothing much, the houses were mostly council, apart from a few small cottages, there was a tiny village school and an overgrown recreation park, known as ‘The Rec” and that was about all really.  Strange, that whenever I think about Sandridge it seems to be raining, but then it was in the dim and dreary fifties.  

 I know I never thought much of the village when I was young but I only really remember my teenage years and teenagers are well known for being anti.  I expect the place has been gentrified now.  Ex-council houses are worth a gold mine and I do remember ours had plenty of space, not like the boxes they call ‘new-builds’ these days.  Now, I’ve got the bit between my teeth now and my mind is ranging further, memories are crawling out of the shadows and pictures are forming. Suddenly, it’s there! So real, I feel I can touch it.  The church - St Leonards. I’d honestly forgotten it, almost as if I’d blocked it from my mind. The place where my childhood ended and trust trampled into the dust.  I flick a switch and think of happier things, my cat and bread pudding.  I’ll have some of that tonight, I feel the need for comfort food.

A few days later, as I sit in the train slicing its way towards London, the underground and all points beyond, I’m nervous and the old saying ‘never go back’ is tolling deep inside me.  But I know I have to. Having opened the box, I have to expiate my sin, although it wasn’t really my fault. Even as I think these words, I know I’m deluding myself. I could have done more.

Trains go so fast these days; outside its windows the flat Essex countryside is a blur and in no time, we are pulling into Fenchurch Street.  Even so, we’re edging towards Christmas and it’ll be dark before I reach St Albans. I’ll spend the night there and catch the bus to Sandridge the next morning.  The green, round-shouldered 321 it used to be and I wonder if it still runs.  If not, I’ll get a taxi. I’ve got plenty of money now and little time to spend it.

I was right about the gentrification, St Albans is posh now although it never used to be.  But I don’t care. I’m tired and can think only of food and a comfortable bed.  Not wanting to walk anymore I plump for a hotel slap bang in the middle of the city, within sight of the Cathedral. The White Hart, an old coaching inn, is full of ghosts and even as I’m led up a creaking and narrow staircase, I pass through a room with a minstrel’s gallery peopled by skeletons.

Ghosts or not, I sleep well and breakfast even better and in no time at all I’m at the ‘bus stop.  I remember it well and apart from the bus no longer being green and round-shouldered, but angular and flashy with chrome, nothing else seems to have changed. It’s when I get off the bus and start to walk through the village that I feel my spirits drop and I’m a scared kid again who can’t stop washing his hands.  Even though, there’s no-one around, I feel the need to look over my shoulder and almost scurry down the road to the lane where I used to live. Except that it isn’t a lane any more, but a four-lane highway with a roundabout where the village shop used to be.

 As I thought, the council houses are now privately owned with an abundance of acne-like extensions.  Their front gardens have been expensively paved over and are littered with cars.  Freshly waxed and polished the sun bounces off them until I fear a migraine.

 When I reach my old house it’s almost unrecognisable.  I locate the room that used to be mine and stand staring.  Beyond those blank windows, a frightened boy once thought of suicide. I still have the scars to remind me but only a few have seen them, underneath my trousers, high up on my thighs raised tissue writhes like bleached tree roots. 

I tried to tell my parents but they didn’t listen.  “What nonsense, of course you must go.  It’s very kind of the Reverend to spare you the time, and what he says is right. If you have talent, it shouldn’t be wasted.”

I’d stood and stared at my mother.  How could I tell her that it was nothing to do with talent and that I hated the way the he sat too close, the way his breath smelled of onions and most of all, the touch of his hands as he guided my fingers.  My mouth opened but it was impossible. I just couldn’t find the words.

So, on that fateful evening I’d dragged my feet along the lane to where two huge oaks guarded the entrance to the gloomy tunnel leading to the rectory. Now, how I wish I’d had the guts to say “No, I won’t go to that place. Something isn’t right but I don’t know what.” But I was twelve years old and, in those days, children did as they were told.

In the end I did find some courage but too late.  “Shove up boy,” he’d cried, his face merry, as my fingers faltered over the keys. “Let me show you how it’s done.” Pulling up an extra stool he sat down beside me and soon his thigh was pressing against mine. I tried my best to ignore it but at last something snapped. “No” I yelled and pulling away, I jumped up and rushed towards the door. He cried out something but blood was clogging my ears as I fled into the night where more treachery was waiting.  My feet skidded on a patch of ice and caught off balance, I fell flat on my back. He caught up with me but I pushed him away.  I shall always remember the sickening sound as his head struck the concrete step. I stared at his crumpled shape and saw his face, lit by moonlight and so pale, apart from the black trickle of blood curling over his forehead.  I thought my heart would burst out of my chest. I’d killed Reverend Apthorpe.  I was a murderer.

I don’t remember much after that, I remember the nightmares, they have stayed with me to this very day, and I remember the cutting.  I know, at some point, I was admitted to the local looney bin, as we used to call Hill End Hospital but details of that I can’t recall.  By the time I was discharged, my parents had moved to St Albans. “To be nearer to Gran” my mother said but I suspect she was escaping the stigma of a son with mental problems.  I never went back to Sandridge and none of us ever mentioned Reverend Apthorpe again.  Long afterwards, I wondered how much my parents had learned as I lay raving but at the time, I said nothing. I didn’t want to go to prison.

But go to prison I did ‘cos I couldn’t escape my guilt.  It weighed me down at every step, draining my confidence so that I never achieved my potential. I also never managed to find a partner, because It’s true what they say, if you can’t love yourself how can you expect anyone else to?

Without realising it, I have found my way to the church and am standing in its porch.  In for a penny, in for a pound I think to myself as I push open the door.  The air is thick with memories as I enter and I hesitate, knowing I have no business here. With a stealthy movement of my head, I glance around and that’s when I see it.  An illustrated list of incumbents, dating back centuries.  Out of habit, because I can remember doing the same when I was young, my eyes follow the names starting at the top from when records first began.  I realise that unconsciously, I’m seeking out his name and sure enough, there it is The Reverend Theodore Apthorpe 1945 to… I stop, blink, rub my eyes and start again. I’m tired, I must have skipped a line. Three times I read it and three times I see the same dates 1945 – 1975.  That can’t be right, I was twelve when the unthinkable happened and that would be in 1952.  My legs begin to shake so hard; I almost fall to the ground as I process this information.  Slowly, I realise how guilty consciences can corkscrew facts when one is young.  I’d been so certain but I’d been wrong.

On my return to Southend, I can’t work out whether I’m relieved that I’m not a murderer or whether I’m sorry he dodged the bullet.  Our species are so complicated that I guess, I’m not yet old enough to work that out.  All I know is that that a boulder has been lifted from my shoulders and the feral stink of the grim reaper has become a mere whiff.

 

Copyright Janet Baldey