Rainn and Grandfather Clocks Secret

 28 Oct 2021

 

Rainn and the Grandfather Clock’s Secret 

 

In times past, when asked: What are you doing here? 

Where were you before?  My voice would make no sound

I would have to tell how dust gathers a storm. 

How, ceaseless is a desert night on bare skin

And what left children alone and weeping.

 

Looking back now with clear eyes

Beyond the gossamer of late autumn.  

I observe an ocean adrift.  A small boat, fractured shell. 

And I, Rainn; Rainn, the child, the young woman, overwhelmed

 

Things split apart.  And, there comes a time when things cleave together.

A time when, Ink- filled, a trickster transforms the empty page. 

Perhaps  the lost child, among many of the forsaken, begins to materialise

 

I don’t start at the beginning but with these three things:

 

Buzzing through the cracks in long and forgotten windows, a June day in 1962 

The sudden rush of a raven- haired girl called Rain, with tinsel in her eyes

And a Grandfather clock with an irregular beat and chime. Outside of time. 

 

The news had come, as if facts being ticked off.  Yet for Rainn they jumped out like a surprised jack in the box. Your Father coming’.. you’re going  home ..Saturday..’’ Rainn felt her heart almost leapt out of her body. She felt an impulse to yell, but she pulled herself in. She had learned this restraint over the 10 years in this homeless place. Well-practiced was she, in holding things in; numbing down feelings. clamping down her sound, hiding her clenched fist, or a scowl behind often vacant eyes. Now her excitement was palpable, to the nun who had spoken. Rainn thought she detected a faint smile on the nun’s lips. ‘That nun’ as she and the girls referred to her, who had control over their body, mind and all.  ‘That nun’, it came to her in a flash, of whom she knew nothing, Nothing at all. Except when you saw her coming, you became as  stiff as her starched collar and hood. Rainn often praying, “In the name of the father.. protect me”

 

Now three days later, Rainn, dashed down the beaten Victorian staircase. Three steps at a time.  The door had finally been flung wide open forever.  She was, leaving this place of shadows. Breezing in, long- forbidden stirrings among the shadows- air to her lungs, water into her parched throat and light sparkling in Rainn’s eyes.  Flowing in would come laughter, the warmth of her Father’s, rough hands, the scent of his tobacco and cologne. Excitement, palpable in tingling sensations, she only felt when her father had come on visits.

 

As she reached the bottom step she stopped abruptly, beside the Grandfather Clock. There she lingered. Her hand lightly stroked the old mahogany watchman, she had lovingly polished over the years. There, Rainn fell into one of her day dreams. As she stood beside the old man,.  She remembered him and images came to her mind… For his presence, singlehandedly made her life more bearable over the years. He had cushioned the steely sharp edges here. Especially after Kathy had gone. And Rainn smiled, on remembering her fright on first hearing his chime, as she climbed the stair case of the East wing. And how he used his chime to protect her. This redwood had been her secret companion and protector as well as a silent witness. Rainn vowed she’d never forget her Grandfather

 

It was almost 10 years ago in the summer of 1952. Grandfather clock witnessed  the girl’s arrival: he had heard sounds that had splintered the air around him: heard the clop -clopping of the Sister's shoes, accompanied by a dragging sound along the corridor. There piercing, inconsolable cries echoed throughout the corridor. Just as the tiny girl, with Sr. Eugenius, appeared in full view, the girl buckled and collapsing.  The girl in crisp cotton dress and startled hair, fell to the floor in the space between his feet and the bottom of the stair case. 

 

For over a century, the old man had resided in this gothic mansion of grey, granite stone. Here on the east wing he stood, at the spacious juncture; an inner porch, between two dimly lit hallways. Only receiving light when the door to the right was open onto a row of windows in the corridor beyond. The corridors to the left lay mostly in shadow. Sometimes his pendulum swung, his tick constant. Other times his hands, even when wound up, his hands remained still and he, silent  

 

The truth was Grandfathers ticker struggled to keep going these days. Most ignored him as furniture, heedless to what he was clocking up. No one noticed his hands were made of gold, nor did they comprehend the magnificence of his inner workings. Nobody knew then, a slave -owner, turned abolitionist, had once owned him. No, his story was lost in time. Indeed, he had gone beyond time and space. A steady presence for Rainn, who herself was often lost  

 

This red wood- heavy weight  also occupied the spot just opposite the iron-railed, Victorian stair case. A stair -way dented and scuffed by thousands of children’s feet since 1862.  He had clocked  one million hours of booming voices, commanding children to “Be quiet”, Stay in line, “No galivanting”, to anyone appearing lively. He witnessed the girls, move to commands of a metal gong, whose bellowing dong sounded like it came from the bowels of this site. The children shuffling feet bore the sound of those oblivious to momentum. He had witness her spark her clenched fist and most of all when alone with him her voice - singing out from the depth of her soul......

 

Recovering Breathe.

Somewhere in the night sky a star implodes and explodes in silence. At that very moment a girl, aged four, hurtles downwards, tumbling, falling and falling, plunging deeper into darkness. 

She is somewhere now, dimly grey to her eyes, as if everything has turned to ash.  Yet in the silence there is breath. 

She can hear the sound of her heart pounding and a sharp ache clawing at her chest.  The  atmosphere is thick with feeling. Trembling, she looks around, crying out Mama, Daddy. Her eyes search frantically, trying to see through the dusty haze, the swirling mass” Mama! Daddy, Daddy! “ “I want to go home”.

Wailing, pierces the air, but only the sound of her terror, echoes out of the stunned silence.  Alone.  She can see neither person, nor warm flesh, blood or bone, no wall or floor nothing previously known. Its’ as if she tumbled beyond the edge of the world into a timeless  zone. 

Except, from the corner of her eye, a movement, a vague shape of  something there. A person perhaps. Someone, bulky in black and there’s a hint of gleaming white, in this mysterious, monochrome site.

  She hears a distorted voice as her hand is suddenly and firmly clutched.  Held up now, she is being pulled quickly along and through a long passage way. Still weeping and wailing. Along another corridor and yet another and another, she is taken, until  led up a stair case. Eventually, with her hand still clutched tight by the stranger,  they  enter the doorway of a room, coming to a full stop . 

Through the blur of the child’s  teary eyes, all at once, under bright lights, a large group of ragamuffins appear, all dressed the same in drab, uniform clothes. All staring in her direction, 

Startled, they  sit frozen in  a pin drop silence.  The spell broken almost instantly, as the child begins to wail her persistent plea, her inconsolable grief spills, over -filling this chamber.   She, starts to back away towards the door. As the stranger  coaxes and pulls her back and in to her side, the child’s head flops, rolling over to one side, she feels herself again, falling deeper into the dark. 

Meanwhile, witnessing this scene, the ragamuffins , all girls from 5 – 14  years are caught up and captives, in this agonising spot.  They watch passively, the small girl with wild, black hair and coal -black eyes, swollen in a heart shaped face.  Some of the girls sit stock still, perhaps in shock, some  shift nervously, wide eyed and uncertain, others look on uncomprehending, others seem curious as if wondering what will happen next.  While yet others, have eyes cast down. Perhaps wishing for a safety net, feeling ‘something’ inside, they’d, long pushed underground.  As they watch this girl now slumping down, her legs giving way. 

In that moment, two hands reach out lifting the child on to her feet. She’s being held by a much taller girl.  11year old, Kathy with short mousey, brown hair in a middle parting, is  also holding the child in her gaze. Looking straight into the pools of these grief -stricken eyes her own are dark brown, doleful yet kind.  She speaks quietly as she squats down, gently wiping the child’s face with her hanky, before following the instructions: “Take the girl upstairs to the bed near my cell, to ‘calm her down’ before taking her into the dining room at supper time”.

Later that evening  in the clothing cupboard room, Kathy recounts the scene  to her friend. How the  child had leaned in to her, gripping her hand, as they climbed the stairs to the  dormitory.

“.she lay there, like a lost lamb” I stroked her mop of hair off her brow”  “There, There“ was all I could say. “Her  eyes were always searching for mine..  gradually  she stopped crying . I was fighting back my own tears, seeing those ‘eyes like a swollen river at midnight’, “her nose aw bunged up and snotty, gulping for air, hardly able tae breathe. My heart wis in mi mooth. I  reached  to the drawer of the bedside cupboard for a hanky, coaxed her to ”blow”.. Heart breaking it wiz”  I only noticed we’d been in shade, when light suddenly beamed in and was dancing leafy shadows on the wall, next to the bed.  I folded my hand, to make a bunny shadow puppet.. to distract, look! I laughed .. saw a glimmer of a smile on her lips, as she turned her head, felt something happen in me, right then”

“ I went to drawer again for her missal, show her cover .. St Theresa, holding flowers.   I don’t know why, it flashed through my mind, those few things in our bedside cupboard. I mean its normal, these are thee sole possessions we hae, in here: 

The same black rosary beads, missal and hanky in the top drawer. At the bottom

A  toothbrush, a rough towel, brown flannel, a worn and bobbled night dress, all numbered. She’s number 22 from now on.

Never, gave this a thought till now .. but I felt bad for her somehow... Maybe  cause she was aw dressed up.. her Sunday best?  Jus thought, ‘she won’t see them clothes no more ‘.. just  like us, all dress exactly the same, wae handed -down clothes.  Yer lucky if yir get something that fits yir size. 

Eventually, her chest rose and fell, as if given oxygen, like I saw in the hospital. ..fell fast asleep, still holding on to my hand.”

This incident became indelibly imprinted on Kathy’s mind. Years later, the story, ever repeated, was given meaning and myth.  

“Her utter distress, Kathy said, not long before her untimely death, “touched a raw tenderness within me,  an kind of empathy cause..(she never did finish that sentence) The child needed me and I found I was capable of giving and of loving and maybe then I too, was loved. For as her  heart was consoled, so was mine consoled and more.. I can’t explain...but I felt something strong within me, like a power. I felt lifted in that moment.  I was not alone, but warmly held.

They discovered the girl was named  Lorraine. No-one it seemed, was able to pronounce her original name. To Kathy she was Lorraine ‘the child with eyes like a swollen river’ at midnight. To others she remained a child who looked so odd, she must have fell from the sky.

Beyond Borders Short Story from Anthology: Hidden Sussex

Beyond Borders:  Hidden Sussex Anthology (amended version) August 2019

Monday 16 October 2017. As dawn breaks over Brighton, I‘m unprepared for an extraordinary event about to unfold and what it would disclose. I only know I feel unsettled by ‘something’. Radio 6 babbles on about Borders, and Brexit. It’s 14 months on from the schism of that vote.  There’s a questioning tone about ‘British-ness’ and who belongs,  reminiscent of a past, I thought, long gone.

Feeling stuck and irritated with myself, my face is a stormy tempest as I enter the kitchen for a late breakfast. 
“Must we listen to Radio 6?”  “Can’t you tidy up a bit?”
My long-suffering husband PJ bears the brunt of my munch grump.
         
Its early afternoon. As the kettle whistles and steams, I notice the sky slowly darkening. An eerie, mustard-coloured haze, spreads across the sky-scape.  Staring out from the inner sanctum of our home, everything seems in silent pause. 

Anticipating a deafening boom, followed by a deluge, we wait and wait as the darkness grows, creeping soundlessly as a black cat over our streets.

Even with the house- lights turned -up bright, we cannot dispel the dimness. Yet, not a drop of rain falls, no thunder roars. Just loud silence.  
Now, provoked, street - lamps glow on the mustard mood hovering above. 

Stillness…. My mind returns to all the things I’ve decided I will drop. 
Yet, my stomach tightens, as I fret about loss of purpose, of status, colleagues, friends. I may lose myself …

“Who will I be now?” “What am I Worth?”  A muted question It seems I’d always ask;

It started in the orphanage where I and thousands of girls should have received care. But you left with no history, no map of an ‘I’ or ‘me’, feeling as brittle as cracked glass. Kathy, a de-legitimized child and my informal guardian in the institution, took her life. While I was lucky to survive. Unlike my friend, at aged 14, I had a home and a father to which I could return.  There was something I could not name or claim, till I first heard Nina Simone sing, “I ain’t got no- I got life” she expressed the pain. 

Clocking-in at the clothing factories at aged 15, I, an ‘only’ Black woman, in nylon overall and headscarf, joined in the laugh and crack. Disguising my padded amour, covering up an unsteady gait, as if fending off an unspoken shame. 'That Darky,’ and worse, you overheard. ‘We should stick to our own kind,' they said. Then it had no name; the ghost that relentlessly defamed. The 15-year-old I, stuffed it away in a shed somewhere in her head.

I continued stitching Levi’s in that internalised carousel, stitch, stitch, stitching
for 15 years, till as faded as those old blue jeans. I’d been.
So jaded by the daily humdrum of the sewing machine,
I barely noticed something growing in me.
Yet there, bulging at the seams into the fabric I’d weaved 
My secretly whispered, copious hopes and dreams.  

Until one day opportunity called: ‘Hey You!’ 
 ‘Who Me?’ I said, with a raised brow and wide eye. 

Still brittle as glass, I found myself amid and English, blue- eyed, middle class
In places where there is no room for feelings. No space for experiences to be met.
No room in the house for the unspoken white lines between us. 
Except, a tacit voice said; 

‘Something with you is wrong.’  'Fit to my norm.’ ‘Do not storm.’
‘What, I?’  I may have said, ‘This woman of African and Indian heritage, from a mining town in Scotland?’ ‘The one who is sunk and depressed by something unaddressed?’
But I was too lost and well, too compliant. It took time before I laid claim to Nina’ Simone’s; ‘Mississippi - Goddamn’ kiss-my-ass! defiance.  

Letting go of trying to let go, my tears fall as I allow myself drift, to meet this part of myself in the darkness. I think about the walls I and we put up in ourselves. What happens to our humanity when we banish our own or others’ feeling experience?  When the impacts of injustice, on all ‘vulnerable’ creatures and our earth is unaddressed

Tuesday morning unveils a glorious Red. - Indian sun.  As I step out, mist has not quite lifted and quietness still pervades the streets. Clouds part to reveal a blue window. Crimson star- shaped dahlias in a window box, flirt. I can smell the earth in the autumn air where workmen have dug a pit on part of the pavement.  My mind feels as fresh, as I wander and wonder.. 

How far I’ve come from that barren place: the first half of my life, that wore my sense of self thin, that can rear itself still, with its disrespect and internalised oppression. I’ve learnt not to put up walls to loneliness, to acknowledge the unaddressed in myself, to wake up to my own strengths and responsibilities of being a citizen; to challenge myself to make no one a migrant or stranger in my own heart to, work together with community on growing awareness in action

Letting go of who I ‘should’ be, allowing my hair be kinky and free! I step into being the writer I am; to tell the story, to make the unspoken speak, to make the invisible visible. 

Mother Earth cried out in the darkness of that Monday 16 October 2017 for robust awareness of our interdependence. To bring life affirming hope to future generations. It’s time to address more deeply: ‘What really matters and how we live what matters?’ 





1

Beyond Borders

Age 18 in Cowdenbeath

The story of my life in miniature is told in Beyond Borders and features in a new anthology 'Hidden Sussex' (2019)  - writing by Black and People of Colour in Sussex.

This story is the first published extract of a long work in progress that tracks my life from Chapel Town in Leeds to Scotland and Brighton via Oxford. I have changed the names of all involved but nevertheless, the story remains true to my experiences and events as happened.

It moves from early childhood in an institution, to low paid work in factories as a sewing machinist where women's work is deemed ‘semi- skilled’. Lonely, depressed and just 15,  this teenager was a lone black pebble among ‘chalk’ cast to the margins.  A ‘toxic gas’ leaks out everywhere she is. Daily, her blank page is filled by others with denigrating characteristics, she internalises.  

Her  life was initially shattered at the age of four as her African father and Indian mother’s marriage splintered.  Placed in a Roman Catholic Institution, her siblings disappeared and a door closed to “outsiders” and their world. Confined behind high walls with exiled ‘inmates,’ and the ‘Keepers of white beads and black book’, a  grief- stricken Lauren was bound by strict codes.  Subdued children, frequently punished, lost all rights most people take for granted. Worse for 'Lauren' (my character,) she keenly sensed something about her was ‘so off’ it could not be spoken.

Lauren will eventually become active in the Trade Union movement and is influenced by the larger social m movements around her, locally and globally. The story speaks of interwoven impacts of her class, race, gender, And of a particular religioous outfit's mistreatment of children in her experience. Adversity brings a growing aliveness awareness and resilience over a life time, in realising herself as  fully human and the creative responsibilities that entails