I wanted to laugh out loud and say, “You speak for yourself! Nothing has ever dropped into my lap. I’ve worked very hard for what I’ve got.” But what did he know about it? I’d told him virtually nothing about myself. Instead, I muttered, almost inaudibly, “Marriage may not be the answer, James. It sounds to me like you’re going through some sort of crisis.”
“Oh, God, Millie!” He pulled me into his arms, so tightly I could hardly breathe. “Then help me through, darling. I’ve been going out of my mind over the last week.”
Only a week, I thought wryly. It was only during the past two or three years that I’d vaguely begun to feel an acceptable member of the human race. I put my arms around his neck and laid my head on his shoulder, not sure what to say. A dredger, barely lit, was moving silently down the river. The music from the nightclub was a muted throb. A memory returned, as it so often did, of one of the worst beatings. Mam had been out, working evenings to make ends meet. I didn’t hear him come in. I heard nothing until the slithering footsteps sounded on the stairs and my body froze with fear. I was reading in bed with a torch! I was six and had only just learned to read. The teacher was amazed at how quickly I’d taken to it, but books offered undreamed-of pleasures, as well as escape from grim reality. I read in the lavatory, at break-times, and in the canteen. I had no idea why my father should detest the idea of ray reading. It was as if he couldn’t stand his children, or his wife, getting enjoyment from something, being happy.
So I’d been ordered not to read in bed. At the sound of the footsteps, I fumbled frantically with the torch, but it wouldn’t go off. My hands were clammy with terror and I dropped it on the floor. The book followed. Two little thuds that sounded like thunderclaps in the quiet house.
“I thought I told yer not ter read in bed.” His voice was low and quiet, full of menace. The words travelled the years, as if they’d been spoken only a few minutes ago.
“I’m sorry, Dad.” I quaked with fright. I could feel my insides tearing apart, the way the ground erupts in an earthquake.
“I’ll give yer summat to be sorry for. Gerrout!”
But I was still frozen, terrified, under the covers. I couldn’t move. He pulled them back, roughly dragged me on to the floor, and began to undo the buckle of his wide leather belt. “Kneel down,” he ordered. “Kneel down against the bed and pull yer nightie up.”
“I didn’t mean it, Dad. I won’t read again, I promise,” I wailed. This was before I vowed never to let him see me cry. In her bed on the other side of the room, our Trudy stirred. “Whassa matter?”
“Get back ter sleep,” our father snarled.
With my face buried in the bedclothes, I began to whimper. “I won’t do it again, Dad, honest.”
“Yer can bet yer life on that, yer little bitch! Bend over further.”
My arms tightened around James’s neck as I remembered and felt the blows rain down on my bare bottom for the millionth time. The hard leather cut into my soft, childish flesh and I felt blood trickle down my legs. I heard my screams of pain, my pleas for mercy. “I won’t read again, Dad, I promise.”
I never did, not for a long time. The teacher was mystified as to why words no longer meant anything to her best pupil. “It must have been a flash in the pan,” she said.
Perhaps it was Trudy, sobbing hysterically, that made him stop or perhaps he was exhausted. I was never sure.
My face was still pressed against the bed, when I heard him going downstairs, the most welcome sound on earth.
“Thank you, God!” I breathed.
I broke free of James’s arms and began to walk along the sands. My heart was beating rapidly and my legs were shaking. The tide rippled in over my shoes, but I didn’t notice.
James caught up and grabbed my arm. “Darling, what’s wrong? What did you just say? Thank you, God, for what?”
“Nothing.” I hadn’t realised I’d spoken aloud.
“You’re trembling. How can it be nothing?” He regarded me sadly. “Why are you keeping things from me?”
“Because there are things I don’t want you to know.”
“If we’re to be married, we should know everything about each other.”
I put my hands over my ears to shut him—everything—out, I shouted, “Who said we’re to be married? I didn’t.
When you brought the subject up last Sunday I said I’d sooner talk about it some other time. I didn’t mean a few days later.”
“Darling, your feet are getting soaked.” Before I knew what was happening, he’d picked me up in his arms and carried me back to where the sand was dry. He crouched down beside me and started to take off my wet shoes.
“We’re a mixed-up pair, Millie,” he said.
“You were perfectly well adjusted when we met. If you’re mixed up now, it must be my fault.”
He stroked my hair. “That’s probably true. You’re driving me nuts, Millie Cameron.”
I relaxed against him. Perhaps marrying James wouldn’t be such a bad thing, though I’d have to think long and hard before having children. He was so comfortable to be with, so nice. But, then, no one could have been nicer than Gary, who’d bored me silly, and presumably Dad had been as nice as pie when he was courting Mum.
He was hurt when I insisted that he leave immediately after lunch next day. “I thought we’d be spending Sunday together,” he said forlornly.
But I was firm. “I’m clearing out my auntie’s flat. I told you about it, remember? This is my only free day.”
“Why can’t I go with you?” he pleaded. “I could help. I could carry stuff out to the car. Anyway, it isn’t safe for a woman on her own round there. Isn’t William Square a red-light area?”
“Don’t be silly,” I said dismissively. I couldn’t wait to get to Flo’s Hat and had no intention of taking anyone with me. Mum had telephoned on Friday night and offered to lend a hand after she’d finished in the newsagent’s shop where she worked till noon. “You could meet me off the bus in town and let me have the key—I’ll leave it with the woman upstairs. As long as I’m home before your dad, he’d never know I’d been.”
“It’s quite all right, Mum,” I assured her. “I can manage on my own.” I felt as if the flat was mine.
“Are you sure, luv? Last Sunday I got the impression you didn’t want to be bothered.”
“I don’t know where you got that idea from,” I said innocently. “I don’t mind a bit.”
After James had gone, I dressed in jeans and sweatshirt, and was brushing my hair when the phone rang. I ignored it, and heard the answering-machine click on. It was Mum. I sat on the off-white settee with a sigh and listened to the whining voice.
“Millicent, it’s Mam. Your dad and Declan are out. Are you there, luv? It’s just that I got this letter yesterday from the charity that runs our Alison’s home. They can only keep her till she’s eighteen. Next April she’ll be transferred to this adult place in Oxford. Is that far, luv? I daren’t show the letter to your dad—you know how he feels about Alison—and I can’t find the atlas anywhere . . . ”
My mother rambled on, as if the answering-machine itself was enough to talk to. I felt tears prickle my eyes as I listened. Mum loved her youngest child to distraction.
She spent any spare money saved from the housekeeping on little presents for Alison, and had never stopped pining for her lost daughter. I couldn’t bear to think how she would feel if Alison was placed out of reach of her weekly visits.
Oh, if only I could get shot of my family as easily as I’d got shot of Gary! If only I could divorce them and never see them again! By now, tears were pouring down my cheeks and I couldn’t stand my mother’s pain another second. I stumbled across the room and picked up the receiver.
“Mam!” But she had hung up. I had neither the strength nor the courage to ring back.
I breathed a sigh of relief as I closed the door of Flo’s flat behind me. It felt like coming home. There were letters on the mat. As I lit the fire I scanned through them quickly, then turned on the lamp and went into the kitchen to put the kettle on. Nothing important; circulars, a market-research survey, a reminder that the TV licence was due. I put them aside and made a cup of tea.
This time, I’d brought teabags, fresh milk and sandwiches.
Still dunking a teabag, I returned to the living room and sank into the middle of the settee.
After a few minutes, I got up and put on Flo’s record.
Listening to Bing Crosby’s soothing voice, I relaxed even more. The newspaper cuttings about the lost submarine, the Thetis, were still on the coffee table. I’d meant to ask someone about it, but the only elderly person I knew was Gran.
For almost an hour, I breathed in the peaceful atmosphere of the room, and the tension flowed from my body. I would have been quite happy to stay there for ever, but after a while I got up and began to wander round, poking in cupboards and drawers. Flo had been only superficially tidy. One sideboard drawer was full of gloves, another full of scarves, all in a mess. Another contained balls of string, a tangle of old shoelaces, an assortment of electric plugs, and a wad of money-off coupons held together with a rusty paperclip, which were years out of date.
For some reason, I found it necessary to untangle the laces, and was concentrating hard on undoing knots and trying to find pairs when there was a knock at the door. It would be Charmian I thought, and went to answer it. An elderly woman, very thin, with a huge cloud of unnatural mahogany-coloured hair and a still lovely though deeply wrinkled face, was standing outside. She wore a fake leopardskin jacket over a purple mohair jumper and black leggings, and appeared to be in the middle of a conversation with someone.
“Can’t you wear a jacket or something?” she demanded angrily. There was a mumbled reply I couldn’t catch, then the woman said, “You’ll do even less business if you catch the flu.” She turned and smiled at me ruefully, revealing a set of over-large false teeth. “That bloody Fiona! She’s wearing a dress with no sleeves that barely covers her arse. She’ll perish in this weather. Hello, luv.”
No one waited for an invitation into Flo’s, it seemed: the woman bounced into the room with the vitality of a teenager, although she must have been well into her seventies, followed by a waft of expensive perfume. “I’m Bel Eddison, Flo’s friend,” she said loudly. “I know who you are—Millicent Cameron. I asked Charmian to give me a ring next time you came. She was right. You’re the spitting image of Flo, and it’s even more obvious to me ‘cos I knew her when she was a girl. It gave me quite a turn when you opened the door.’
I’d already recognised the woman from the snapshot taken in Blackpool. It felt strange shaking hands with Flo’s best friend, as if I was stepping back into the past, yet Bel was very much part of the present. “How do you do?” I murmured. “Please call me Millie.” I don’t think I had ever seen such lovely eyes before, genuine violet.
They were heavily made up, though, far too much for someone so old. The purple shadow had seeped into the crepy lids, giving the effect of cracked eggshells.
“I’m tip-top, luv. How are you?” Bel didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, she put her hands on her hips and regarded the room with exaggerated surprise. “You haven’t touched a thing,” she remarked, “I was expecting to see the place stripped bare by now.”
“I was working out a plan of action,” I said guiltily, pushing the laces back into the drawer and closing it.
“Would you like a cup of tea?” I asked, when the newcomer removed her coat and threw herself on to the settee as if she’d come to stay. The springs squeaked in protest.
“No, ta, but I wouldn’t mind a glass of Flo’s sherry,” she said. Not only did she speak loudly, but also very quickly, in a strong, melodic voice that gave no hint of her age. The and Flo sat here getting pissed on sherry more times than you’ve had hot dinners.”
Flo pissed didn’t quite fit the image I’d built up in my mind, and I said as much to Bel when I gave her a glass. I poured one for myself too.
“It was her only vice,” Bel said. “That’s if you could call sherry a vice. Otherwise she led the life of a saint. For a long while, she went on retreat once a month to some convent in Wales. What’s these?” She picked up the newspaper cuttings. “Oh, you found them.” She grimaced.
“They were by the bed. Why did she keep them?” I asked.
“Draw your own conclusions, luv. It should be obvious.”
“She was in love with someone and he died on the Thetis?” I did a quick calculation: Flo would have been nineteen at the time.
“I said, draw your own conclusions.” Bel pursed her lips. I got the impression she enjoyed being mysterious.
“I’m not confirming or denying anything. I’d be betraying Flo’s memory if I told things she kept to herself all her life.” She regarded me with her bright violet eyes. “So, you’re Kate Colquitt’s eldest girl?”
“You know my mother?” I said, surprised.
“I did once. She used to come and see Flo a long time ago, but not since she married your dad. She was a lovely girl, Kate Colquitt. How is she these days?”
“She’s okay,” I said abruptly.
Bel wriggled contentedly on the settee. Her expressive face displayed even the most fleeting emotion. “This is nice! I never thought I’d sup sherry in Flo’s again—pass us the bottle, there’s a good girl. Ta!” she said comfortably.
“I’ll top your glass up, shall I? We used to do this regular every Sunday. Sometimes Charmian joined us. It’s uncanny, what with Flo dead, but you looking so much like her. Actually,” she continued with a frown, “I’m racking me brains trying to bring to mind your husband’s name.
Was it Harry? You’d only been married a couple of years when Sally died—can you remember me at the funeral?
Sally was the only contact Flo had with your family.
When she died, Flo had no way of knowing how you were all getting on.”
“I’m sorry I don’t remember you. I looked out for Flo, wondering what she was like. She disappeared before anyone could speak to her.”
“And how’s Harry getting on?” Bel probed.
“Actually, it was Gary. We’re divorced.”
“Really!” Bel sipped her sherry, clearly interested.
“What’s your position now?” She looked all set for a long jangle. I felt less annoyed than I’d expected that the afternoon I’d anticipated having to myself had been interrupted. In fact, I wasn’t annoyed. I liked Bel: she was so cheerfully vivid and alive. I wondered if we could trade information. If I told her a few things about myself, would she provide some details about Flo?