The Juniper Tree

THE JUNIPER TREE

My mother she killed me,

My father he ate me,

My sister, little Marlinchen,

Gathered together my bones,

Tied them in a silken handkerchief,

Laid them beneath the juniper tree,

Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird I am.

1

QUITE soon after I left Richmond station I turned into a quiet street where the snow was almost undisturbed and, climbing higher, I came to a road that appeared to be deserted. Then I noticed a beautiful fair woman standing in the courtyard outside her house like a statue, standing there so still. As I drew nearer I saw that her hands were moving. She was paring an apple out there in the snow and as I passed, looking at her out of the sides of my eyes, the knife slipped, and suddenly there was blood on the snow. She turned and went into her house before I could offer to help. I didn’t like to knock on her door. It was a very private-looking one, painted bottle-green and with heavy brass fittings. Facing the wrought-iron gate was a carved bear with sad stone eyes and snow on its back. It appeared to be late Victorian sculpture but the house was much older, Georgian most likely. I thought I saw a dim figure pass by one of the windows and I hurriedly turned away and walked further up the hill towards the park gates, forgetting that I’d come to Richmond in search of work, not to walk in the snowy park among the deer.

I spent over an hour there. It was a long time since I’d walked in clean snow and smelt its delicate northern smell, a smell so faint it is impossible to describe. Children were tobogganing and sliding down a small hill near the gates. Some had real toboggans and others large trays or pieces of wood. The children were shouting and yelling happily and several dogs were joining in and there was a great holiday feeling although it was a Monday morning in the middle of winter. I noticed a greyhound shivering although it wore a coat, and holding its lead was the beautiful statuesque woman I had already seen that morning. She was intently watching the children rejoicing in the snow, and because of the holiday atmosphere I was brave enough to approach her, even forgetting to turn the scarred side of my face away as I spoke to her. I asked after her injured hand, which was covered by a brightly coloured mitten. She smiled and said the cut wasn’t serious in spite of the blood; it was a very clean cut. From the way she spoke I could tell she was foreign, perhaps German. A small boy came running up to us and slipped his bare hand into her warm mittened one for a moment as if to collect its warmth, then ran after his friends. I asked her if he was her son, he had the same colouring, but she said, No, I like to watch the children playing but have none of my own, and the happiness left her face and I knew I’d said something wrong. She may have had a child and he had died. We parted and I hurried towards the park entrance and the interview I was so late for.

As soon as I saw the shop I knew I wouldn’t be happy working there. It was the cleanest antique shop I’d ever seen, indeed there was a feather duster in its owner’s hand and she was flicking away at a glass-topped display table. About half of the gleaming furniture was reproduction and the rest well-cared-for antique, quite valuable. The china and glass were in very good condition too, but mostly not to my taste, Dresden figures and Crown Derby dinner services. Miss Murray, the owner, laid down the feather duster and as she came towards me I saw that she was a humpback with a Spanish black shawl carefully arranged around her shoulders and half covering her crisp white blouse. She was very neatly dressed and her tiny feet were enclosed in high-heeled pointed shoes. I felt that she was a perfectionist as a kind of disguise to hide her back, which was not really very noticeable. I told her that I was not a customer and we had already talked to each other on the telephone.

Yes, yes, of course I remember. You telephoned in answer to my advertisement, she said nervously, peering at my face. Miss Bella Winter, that was your name, and you said you wouldn’t be able to work on Saturdays because of your child. Well, I’ve been thinking, Miss Winter. It wouldn’t do at all, just a five-day week. Saturday is a very busy day for me, and her eyes darted away from my scarred face, then flashed back. It was obvious she didn’t want any more deformities in her clean little shop.

Tears came to my eyes as I backed away from her and made for the door. It wasn’t only her reaction to my scar, but my feet were wet and cold and I suddenly felt weak with hunger. Miss Murray, carefully arranging her shawl, darted in front of me and stood as if guarding the door. Don’t go, Miss Winter, she said urgently. You look so cold and I’m sure you would like a cup of coffee. I’m just about to make one. And your shoes. Take them off and dry them by the fire; but remember to put them on again if a customer comes. Now, I was thinking. I have this friend who has a little shop the other side of the river, nothing like this I’m afraid. She wants someone to look after the shop while she runs a stall in some antique market. Would you care to work in Twickenham? It’s not Richmond, of course.

Within a week I was living and working in Twickenham. My two-year-old daughter Marline, but usually called Tommy, spent her days in a small municipal nursery just across the Green, where seagulls circled and dedicated people exercised their dogs in all weathers. Saturdays were no problem either because Tommy stayed in the shop with me, quietly playing with the contents of a box marked Everything in this box twenty pence. Behind the shop there was a large kitchen-dining-room with an antique dresser covered in china which was for sale. Everything in the house was for sale except our beds and a few oddments we brought with us. Upstairs there were two quite attractive rooms, but neglected and shabby. There was a wash-place, no bathroom but plenty of hot water. It was far the best home I’d lived in since Tommy was born.

The antique shop was called Mary Meadows Antiques after its owner and was the kind of shop that passers-by often stopped to look in. The early Victorian windows were a pretty shape and the jumble of treasures displayed were more carefully arranged than they appeared to be and there were usually one or two bargains to attract people into the shop. The price of nearly everything for sale was clearly marked. Every morning I slightly changed the window and on Saturday I’d display the things that Mary Meadows hadn’t sold in the antique market. I’d worked in several antique shops before but Mary’s was the one that appealed to me most, partly because I had more responsibility and Mary was so easy to work with. It was almost as if the shop belonged to me because she only came round about twice a week unless she had something to deliver. She travelled about a lot in her long grey van, picking up this or that at country sales. Quite often she sold things to other dealers before they even appeared in the shop or antique market.

To begin with I never did any buying but combed through the stuff that was brought to the shop by customers and dealers, and if anything seemed suitable made an appointment for Mary to see it. Some of the customers, particularly old ladies, were rather a trial with their reproduction brass objects which they assured me had been in their family for years, brass-handled hearth brushes with very little brush, umbrella handles, odd hand-painted china cups, small watercolours, usually of flowers or landscapes, useless bits of embroidery and ugly brooches without pins. I tried to be patient with the people who displayed these objects which they thought so valuable, because sometimes they returned with a really good print or engraving (Sorry, it’s only a print), pretty lustre jugs and mugs and occasionally something almost valuable. I was glad we didn’t go in for art nouveau or art deco because neither of us cared for it and it wouldn’t have suited the shop. Mary did occasionally buy it to sell to other dealers but not for display.

Mary was small, with curly black hair nearly as curly as Tommy’s. Her teeth were small and pointed rather as an animal’s, indeed she resembled an animal with her delicate boned face with its merry expression, perhaps a squirrel. She was a darter, darting into the shop with her arms filled with parcels, often wrapped in newspaper. She would pour out a few half-finished sentences, laugh, wave to an acquaintance passing the window, rush to the door and with the handle in her little paw-like hand, she would give last minute instructions: Think it has a haircrack; reduce the price if you have to. Richard should call, or is he Roger? You know, the man with the huge ears. And the accountant! I’d forgotten him. Oh, and the Bristol glass walking sticks, and she’d be gone.

On Mondays the shop was supposed to be closed, but if anyone came knocking at the door I let them in and sometimes did a little business. Otherwise I amused myself by painting the living-room-kitchen white and putting a golden carpet on the floor. A cheap carpet made from remnants sewn together and supposed to be washable. I made curtains on an Edwardian sewing-machine all decorated in mother-of-pearl I found in the shop, then sold it for twenty-five pounds although it only had one tubby little bobbin which had to be constantly re-wound with cotton.

Sundays were more or less devoted to Tommy. It was the only day I could give her my full attention. We found a small park tucked away in the back streets, where we could feed the ducks in the stream and roll a large multi-coloured ball down the grassy slopes. At home we’d eat a large lunch, look at silly programmes on television and play with a large Noah’s ark I’d bought in a sale. There were dolls too and books; she loved books but the ark was her favourite toy.

When I was a child, just before my father left us, he gave me a large doll. She had rather an ugly face and stiff hair you couldn’t brush, but I loved her. I held her in my arms all night and rubbed her plain face with cold cream. One hand was burnt away, black and brown and horrible. Sometimes I thought my mother had had something to do with it. One night I couldn’t find her and lay crying and empty armed in bed, but the next morning there she was, sitting in my chair at the breakfast table. I rushed to put my arms around her but it was a wooden box I was holding, with only her legs, arms and head coming out. The square shoulders were very broad and frightening. I threw her to the ground, then, screaming, tried to hold her in my arms again, splinters scratching me from the rough wood. Besides fright I felt a fearful anger, alternately kicking the poor doll, then touching her with careful hands. Eventually my mother had enough of the joke and the doll was banished to the kitchen cupboard. Sometimes I would open the door and look at this Frankenstein monster of a doll with its burnt arm, sitting all square amongst the preserving jars, and weep.

I have few happy memories of my mother. She seemed to blame me for my father’s disappearance. After he left us he used to take me out sometimes. There were jaunts on the river to a great palace, most likely Hampton Court, cinemas and ice-cream far better than any I have eaten since. We went to the sea for the day and a lovely woman came too. She came from another land, but spoke English and afterwards I thought she might have been an American. Then much later I heard that she was a Canadian and that she had died before my father was free to marry her. I always remember that outing, particularly because I never saw my father again. After a day with him mother always asked so many questions. If she didn’t like my answers, she would slap my hands until I cried—not that she hurt me physically, the hurt was mental.

My mother was the games mistress at a local school which I attended. At first the girls teased me and called me teacher’s pet, but when they saw how she treated me the teasing ceased. As soon as I was able to cross the busy main road on my own, my mother and I travelled to school separately. It was as if we didn’t want to spend a moment more together than necessary. Strangely enough, she was remarkably generous towards me in some ways. Although her income was small I was well dressed and fed. At Christmas and on my birthday I was given handsome presents as if they were punishments. I remember a new bicycle once and on my tenth birthday there was a real leather attaché case with my initials stamped on it. No one else at school had such a case. They carried their books in bulging satchels on their backs and looked almost humped-backed as they walked.

I seldom asked school friends to my home. It was a small, impersonal, Kilburn house with stained glass let into the front door and clinkers in the garden. It was furnished with shabby hire-purchase furniture, fully paid for and now almost worn out. The sofa was made of imitation brown leather and when it was hot it stuck to our bottoms, and the dining-room chairs were the same. The general colour scheme was brown, dark green and browny-gold. The only thing that appealed to me in the house was a French gilt clock which had belonged to my mother’s French grandfather. It gently ticked away the hours on the ugly sitting-room mantelshelf. Sometimes it stopped at eight o’clock, but not often or mother would have thrown it out. There was Robinson Crusoe sitting under a palm tree and Man Friday ministering to him and there may have been a sunshade although it seems unlikely. I think it was this clock that started my interest in antiques. As I grew older I’d spend Saturday mornings searching for antique shops. Although Kilburn was not a good place for them, there were plenty not too far away and there was the Portobello Road street market, which seemed like a strange fairyland to me. I had very little money but occasionally bought Victorian children’s books and headless Staffordshire figures and, on one occasion, a plate to commemorate the birth of King Edward of which I was very proud. My mother suffered the china but later on banned books in case they had bugs in their spines.

I left school at sixteen with a few O-levels, few ambitions and few friends. Mother immediately sent me to a business college. I loathed it at the time, but the knowledge I gained there has come in very useful. My first job was in a coal office with bowls of coal displayed in the dusty window. It was called Crimony, the Coal People and I typed letters to customers reminding them to order coal before the summer ended and the price went up. There were also invoices and the telephone to answer. The women I worked with were kind but elderly and talked about their knitting machines and their retirement. Should they leave their little flats and move to the coast, Bognor perhaps, or would life in a small private hotel be more convenient? No housework, but what would they do with their time? I listened to their plans but knew it was unlikely they would ever leave their safe little homes, at least as long as their health lasted. They were fond of spring-cleaning and gave a day-to-day account of the cleaning as they did it—how the carpet was sent to the cleaners and the curtains washed, the condensation in the pantry and the surprising amount of dirt they found under the cooker and, horror of horrors, the lavatory pan had a crack. Mr. Crimony wasn’t difficult to work for although he did sometimes follow me into the basement cupboard where the old files were kept. He’d come very close so that I could hear him breathe and perhaps a dark, hairy hand would come on my shoulder, but that was all. I trained myself to be very quick at finding files, though.

I stayed with coal for six months, then to my mother’s dismay went to work in a second-hand furniture shop in Chalk Farm. It was a junk shop really, but occasionally something good appeared, so hopeful dealers came from time to time and I gradually became involved with the antique world.

In the meantime, there was my mother still at the school. Her severe black hair was slightly grey and the slang words she liked to use were a little out of date now and the girls smiled and called her old Winterbottom behind her back. Sometimes she’d have drinks in a popular pub with her fellow teachers, but they never came to the house. I don’t think anyone did.

We spoke little to each other, my mother and I. She would make remarks like, Really, Bella, you look a perfect guy in those trousers. Your bottom is too fat, so are your hips.

I’d say, Good, that’s how I like them, but I didn’t. I worried a lot about my heavy hips and legs. The top part of me was almost beautiful and still is except for one disfigurement. My black hair is still thick and glossy and falls into lovely shapes whether it is cut short or left to grow long. My eyes are very dark with a kind of glitter, at least they glitter when I see them in the mirror. My skin is fine and white, a healthy white, and my lips are red even without lipstick. I have good teeth too and a good figure now, but in those days, when I was still in my teens, I was heavy below the waist with a largish bottom, rather thick thighs which bulged a bit when I sat down and plump legs that fortunately did taper at my ankles before they reached my small feet.

If I have boasted about my appearance—and I must admit that I used to be rather vain as a girl—I’ve been punished for