BY PHILIP LOWE

My dearest wife has written her own memories in a book and has inspired me to write my own. I feel a little cautious in sharing my own memories of relationships and journeys. As long as everything I have experienced has brought me here, it is excusable.

I pray that our children do not experience the doubt, duplicity, and pain that I had.

I do not wish to deny the work my father must have effected, yet I believe, as my own future has taught me, he could have behaved differently—not only towards me.

My early teenage years became ripe picking fields. As I grew, my opinions changed.

At times, I recalled memories I thought were lost. Some were too uncomfortable. I have been able to reflect many times on motives and aspirations, yet it seems there has always been a different hand directing my path.

I do not know how my wife has relieved her life and her own difficulties. She must be so much stronger than me. Reader, I love her.

The Pen

After my brother was born, my parents let me roam free. I do not remember any warnings, prohibitions, or denials at that time. Because of my size, I was welcomed by the kitchen staff—the kitchen where I found warmth and food when I wanted it.

When in the kitchen, I would secrete myself in a brick pen next to the fire. My hiding place was this small room—almost a cupboard—behind a door to the right of the fire as you looked at it. There was also a cupboard to the left, but it was full of metal tableware and kitchen implements hanging by, I think, nails.

The top of the door to my pen matched the line extending from the fireplace. Somebody had added what looked like a drainage pipe for a chimney that grated the outside. When I first used this place, it was daytime, so I wanted to see if outside could be seen through the pipe; I removed the lid at the end only for a moment, and a fearsome whistling could be heard, so I quickly replaced the stopper. Shortly afterwards, the door was opened by a member of the staff, I assume wondering what the noise was. The door opened inwards, so I was able to hide between the door and the wall. Subsequently, I wondered how the rain was kept away—I assumed that cuts were made to the pipe outside.

I looked forward to the big celebrations and how they were celebrated. Regrettably, I could only see events through a gap in the panels that made up the door. Later, I saw a knot in the wood which may have been reached—and looked through—if I stood on several logs which made me taller.

At big events, more staff were employed. If we were entertaining important guests, they would be busy. Sunday was always a special day, but not for any religious reason.

My father would often use the day for inviting friends to dine,so more staff were needed. I remember one Sunday especially: I knew we would have a French visit. My parents ensured I had some phrases of welcome memorized.

His name was René Laënnec, and he arrived in what looked like a faceful of rouge, powders, and beauty patches. He was accompanied by an older woman with alarming black hair, which belied her wrinkles and aged face. With clothes of yellow and gold—what an extraordinary sight. I imagine my parents did not know what to say to them. The house at which they had arrived looked rather dull, comparatively.

The female saw me, cowering as I was behind my parents, and began to smile at me with hideous yellow teeth. My father was about to bid them welcome when a terrifyingly loud clatter of metal objects hit the ground; it was like the male of the pair had stolen and was trying to smuggle the metals—yet they both erupted with loud and incongruous laughter.

It transcended that he was something of an inventor. I do not know why he had to carry all of that metal, or indeed why they had to visit.

He searched his pockets and brought out some lengths of wood (why he had to search in his pockets so dramatically—like a magician—I do not know); later my father explained to my mother that he was experimenting on a device that could more effectively listen to one’s heart. I thought this a rather pointless exercise as funnels—and ears- already existed that could listen to the heart. Little could be achieved with them anyway, as they laughed furiously whenever a member of the dining staff approached them.

I never heard another thing about that bizarre couple.

Christmas was always a big concern here. Sometimes people would sing or recite speeches or prayers. One Christmas, I think most of the kitchen staff were present. I had witnessed several men—from the stables, I think—take to the front. I was expecting a dreadful caterwauling. How wrong I was. They sang with a lovely, forceful soundà. They sang in wonderful unison:

Personent hodie

Voces perulae

Laudantes iucunde

Qui nobis est natus

Summo deo datus

Et de vir vir vir

Et de vir vir vir

Et de virgineo ventre procreatus

Beautiful words; I had heard this before, but not their next verse, which ended with: “…. ideo gloria in excelsis deo!”

And so I always associated the kitchen with happiness.

It was during this season that I think I noticed that people recognised the pen as my place. I heard them say, “The young master’s place,” and once, “His hidey-hole.” It may have been close to my birthday when a block of wood was placed outside the door. The wood looked like it made a face, and someone had painted upon it a moustache that looked like my father’s.

One occasion, though, was quite the opposite. Occasionally, there would be a scene acted out. This, however, was the wrong time of day for that.

A woman—I assume she was an important figure in the kitchen—who used to smile at me was the main speaker here.

Her name was Diana, her surname something Germanic, but the staff always referred to her as Mrs D.

I first saw her in an anteroom to the kitchen; she was talking to a man about meat orders and carrying a bunch of green grapes. She could see I was intrigued by them and offered me some. She picked a few from the bunch and gave them to me. I copied her eating them, but the others continued their conversation. I was overwhelmed by how lovely they were. A rare treat for me—I had only seen bunches once before as a man (unsuccessfully) tried to interest my father in vines and wines.

Each time I saw her after that, she remembered the grapes and would offer me more grapes or something similar. Yet usually grapes. Delicious.

In the kitchen and in front of those assembled, I noticed that she had a large gap between her front teeth. The smiles towards me cannot have been heartfelt.

She said, “Let this be a lesson. This is what will happen to anyone who lets fly or spills anything recklessly like this one…” Saying this, she grabbed a nearby girl who was crying already and looked terrified. She pushed her victim so she was almost half turned; then she began to smack her backside with what looked like a spatula. I lost count of the number of times she hit her. Her yells grew fainter and fainter as she was hit. Then she crumpled to the floor as the older, larger woman regained her breath.

She grinned a fearsome grin. “Understand?” Then she walked out as the silence she had created in the room was slowly broken, and friends of the girl picked her unconscious body up. I felt glad that nobody seemed to have noticed or remembered me.

The violent gap-toothed woman was on the staff just for a few months more. I do not know why she left. I imagine the staff was glad to see her leave.

I do not like to think—or remember—the punishments I’ve felt at the hands of my father. I do not recall punishment, stripes, or encounters from anyone else.

When I was very small, I was enamoured by a model of our planet, a globe that resided in our library. I think when I first saw it, I was following a servant who was wandering around cleaning, and was chosen to be my nurse. As she polished, I began to lift myself, finding that the globe would spin, I laughed and spun it repeatedly. The globe must have whistled or squeaked as I recall my father’s footsteps approaching quickly. Next, obviously heralded by the spinning globe, he wildly smacked me.

I do not remember the pain, just the sound of footsteps. The sound of his smack could have belonged to anyone.

No wonder I flinched at his presence and have avoided being alone with him for as far as I can remember.

Another Christmas arrived, and a German lady joined the kitchen staff. She was adept at playing our piano, so we would sing carols at the piano just after dinner. Unusually, my father did not object. We would have a log with a few lit candles at either end, and that was the extent of our decoration.

The staff noted—not to my parents—that “good Queen Charlotte” introduced a tree into the Queen’s Lodge which became popular around the country, so the staff said. The popularity of her tree was not mirrored where I grew up.

As I grew, I did not use my pen as much. However, a space was still maintained for me. They would still add to the woodpile in my pen weekly, leaving a little room for me.

I joined two of the kitchen staff at their table one morning after my break. One handed me some fresh bread that was still warm. Delicious—but I was careful not to eat too much and fill myself before lunch.

Their conversation turned towards work.

“Did you hear what happened with Mrs. D?”

“No. What? I had almost forgotten about her.”

“Well, she was married, but obviously they did not see eye to eye.”

“I never saw eye to eye with her either.”

“In any event, she had a beau.”

“A beau? I never imagined her like that.”

“Well, well. He unexpectedly turned up one mealtime. He was about to eat a slice of meat, and she told him, ‘I wouldn’t eat that if I were you.’ He asked her why not and grew suspicious. She then attacked him with cutlery, a fork, I hear.”

“Who told you this?”

“One of his friends. He escaped but immediately informed his local constabulary, and fortunately for him, someone acted. So a few of his friends helped the constable arrest Mrs. D.

“Her beau died from where she attacked him with a fork in his neck. The husband survived a few years longer than she did. Obviously, she was not that adept at poisoning with arsenic.”

It made me feel sick to the stomach, imagining all the grapes I had eaten from her.

I ran outside and almost vomited.

She was the first to teach me this lesson: when you meet people, you do not always see the full picture. She must have at least told this man she loved him.

Why should my parents—especially my father—treat me so badly? It is enough to make you think that God is not there I spoke to a priest about illness, especially in babies and he told me that this is the “problem of pain and suffering,” although he did not seem that concerned himself.

Should not the church offer help to young people? The church seemed too stern, too unapproachable. How lonely I felt.

This all felt beyond the scope of the church. I had nobody to talk to about all this. So I talked to myself. And God.

At such a young age, it is a comfort to know that God—that anyone—is on your side. My father certainly was not on mine. And my mother, at least at this time, could not be bothered.

I prayed that my young brother Pierre did not receive similar treatment. Then again, I have prayed before for my protection and a change in personality. So it makes one wonder about the power of prayer.

When I recited Our Father in church, I knew which Father I was addressing.