The Rest is Silence

Book One

Chapter I – Family Life

‘Moory!’ her father said from his study as she passed, not lifting his eyes from his work.

‘Mrs Hedges tells me that you’ve put your shoes in the wrong place in the hall again.’ She stopped in the doorway, one foot on top of the other, fascinated by the scab of coloured darn in the toe as if the word ‘shoe’ had triggered a connection with ‘sock’.

‘It’s not up to Mrs Hedges to clean the shelf because you’ve put your outdoor shoes where your bag should go and your bag...’

She nodded. Then shook her head. Which was it? No, it’s not up to Mrs Hedges? Yes, it’s not? She settled on looking down again.

‘Your brothers and sister manage. What do you have to say?’

‘These aren’t my socks.’ She looked up, noticing her mother, who had not stopped reading and appeared not to be listening.

‘Hmm! Well, go and clean up the mud and we’ll say no more about it. We can’t expect Mrs Hedges to …’

Muriel turned before she had to listen again to what Mrs Hedges couldn’t be expected to do. Mrs Hedges should try a day at school if she wanted to know what expectation felt like.

She turned to her father. ‘Poppa?’

‘Hmm?’ His attention had returned to his work.

‘What are the fruits of elm trees called? Only, I asked Mrs Wimprey in Botany and she didn’t know.’

‘What’s that?’

‘We know the names of acorns, and conkers, and cones, and keys but what about elm trees?’

‘Hmm, good question, Moory. Damned if I know. But what do we do when we want to know the answer to something?’

‘Find it out for ourselves.’ She suppressed a sigh.

‘Exactly. Come on in then. Bring down the tree book for me. The Boulger. That’s it.’

The two were soon head-to-head in a book; Jeannie joining them, her hand on Jimmy’s back as she looked over his shoulder – dirty shoes and whatever might or might not be their expectations for Mrs Hedges forgotten.

(based on an entry in the diary of James Mead)

Muriel Mead, forevermore ‘missing schoolgirl Muriel Mead’, was a first. She was a first child to Jimmy and Jeannie Mead. A first grandchild to two sets of grandparents who we don’t need to trouble ourselves with here, apart from noting their disappointment at it, the baby, being female. And she was the first baby born in the Radcliffe Infirmary in 1924, arriving at 00.03 a.m. 1st January. Her birth certificate noted: father’s occupation ‘Professor of Spanish’; mother’s ‘Lecturer in Economics’; address 10, Bardwell Road, Summertown. Muriel was the first and last member of the family to be born there. A further five siblings, four boys (enough males to satisfy) and a girl followed after the family moved to Biddle’s Mill, Wedford, Oxfordshire. Muriel’s birth certificate notes that her middle names were Mary Emiline, that her father (full name James Joseph Mead) was born in Mallorca, and her mother (Jean Georgiana née Goodwin) was born in Chelsea.