Duplicity (24 page)

‘No, sir, I’ll be glad of the challenge.’

‘That’s what I like to hear. The only other thing which needs to be tackled is - I see that you are not quite eighteen, so what will your parents say about you leaving home so young?’

About to assure him that his parents would not object, Roddy decided to tell the truth. ‘I don’t suppose my mother’ll be very happy about it, but at eighteen I won’t be a minor any more. I’m able to look after myself .’

‘Lodgings will be arranged for you. Apparently, there is a very decent widow woman who has looked after several of their younger employees. No one has ever complained about her, and she has never complained about any of our staff.’

He rubbed his forefinger reflectively against his nose. ‘It would probably be best if you ask your mother to come to see me, so that I can set her mind at ease about your welfare.’

‘Yes, sir. She could come in Dad’s car with my sister and me in the morning.’ It dawned on the boy that the man may not start work so early, so he added, apologetically, ‘If that would suit you?’

Mr Petersen laughed heartily at this. ‘You think that I start work in the middle of the day? No, my boy, a sluggard gets nowhere in this world. I keep the same hours as all the staff - with, perhaps, a little leeway where lunch is concerned. I do, however, make up for any time lost by working late on many occasions. I do not take advantage of my position.’

‘I’m s-sorry, I didn’t m-mean …’ Roddy stuttered, acutely embarrassed by his
faux pas.

‘No, I am well aware of that. It was a natural assumption to make. Well, you had better get back to work, and I will expect to see your mother tomorrow morning, so that I may set the transfer in motion.’

Once again, the boy’s mind was not on his work that day, but he got through without making any further gaffes, and he decided to keep his excitement to himself until he went home and the whole family was together.

It had been Roselle’s day for playing hostess at the Coffee Morning. The Mothers’ Club met fortnightly, organised some two years ago by three other mothers in the street. They took it in turn to supply the venue and the refreshments, and used the rest of their two hours together by knitting and sewing articles to despatch in boxes to various charities at home and abroad. Brian had not been very keen on the idea at first, saying that it was only a way of gathering gossip, but she had stuck to her guns. Of course, a lot of gossiping did take place while their fingers were busy, but nothing really out of place - none of them had malicious tongues, just a healthy interest in what was going on in the village, with events in the rest of the world coming a trailing second.

That afternoon had produced two unexpected pregnancies, with much discussion on looking out infants’ clothes and other items that were offered to the women concerned, both nearing forty and having passed on years ago all the baby clothes they had had for their older children. As she prepared supper for her own brood, Roselle recalled Laura’s and Cheryl’s differing reactions and hoped that she wouldn’t fall victim to the ‘Baby Boom’. She had had enough bringing up twins, and now that they were more or less grown up, she didn’t want to be lumbered again. That was exactly Laura’s attitude, but Cheryl, with only one child, a boy of seven, was delighted to be expecting another.

‘I can hardly believe it,’ she had crowed. ‘I love the smell of babies, the talcum power, the fresh nappies …’

‘The
shitty
nappies,’ Laura had corrected, to nods of agreement, ‘and sick all over your T-shirts and jeans.’

Cheryl had shaken her head in pity at this outlook. ‘The thrill of tiny fingers gripping yours, and the look of love in the tiny eyes.’

‘Ah, yes,’ Judy had sneered, ‘but don’t forget the months you can’t get into any decent clothes, and folk smirk when they see you in the street with your belly sticking a mile out in front of you. I used to get really embarrassed by that. What about you, Roselle? What was it like having two at once? Your stomach must have been ginormous.’

Knowing that her husband would be angry if she admitted that she couldn’t even remember giving birth to the twins, she said, ‘It was awful. I was like the side of a house, and waddled about like a misshapen duck.’ She had read about, and seen several programmes on television about twins, their births, their similarities, their differences, and this was what had intrigued her about the mothers.

The others laughed at this, and the conversation moved on, but now her visitors had gone she tried to remember at least a tiny something, but no matter how hard she tried, nothing would come to her. Could their birth have been the trauma responsible? She shook her head at her stupidity; her memory only went back to when they were almost a year old. That was when it had happened, that terrible event that had robbed her of all the memories she should be able to treasure - the highs and lows of the first few months of her babies’ lives. Well, she wasn’t going to take Brian’s refusals any more. She would make him tell her everything this very night, even if it took until tomorrow morning. She had let him bully her into acceptance of something she couldn’t possibly accept until she found out every last detail of it. Her mind made up, she checked the progress of the steak pie she had put into the oven almost an hour ago and, satisfied that it would not be overcooked, she poured herself a small glass of sherry to give her added strength. The gang shouldn’t be home for half an hour yet, so she might even have a second one.

They were ten minutes later than usual - ‘Another snarl-up on the A90,’ Brian moaned - and Roselle was kept busy dishing up and making sure that they all had enough. She could see that Roddy seemed to be a bit excited about something, but her own mind was churning with the dread of what she meant to do when she and her husband went to bed. She did not mean to say anything in front of the twins. They knew nothing of what had happened.

Mother and daughter were gathering the dirty dessert plates when Roddy said, rather hesitantly, ‘Sit down, you two. I’ve something to tell you.’

Dilly clapped her hands. ‘Oh good, you’ve got a promotion?’

‘Not exactly, but I think it
is
good news. I’m being sent to Liverpool, to be in the finance department of the office there. I’ll have to serve a kind of apprenticeship, I suppose, but—’

‘Liverpool?’ His mother was horrified. ‘They can’t send a young boy like you away from home like that. Brian, you’ll have to tell them.’

To hide his relief, her husband pulled a face. ‘If they think he’s fit for this job …’

‘Oh, you! He can’t be fit for a job like that at his age.’

‘Mum,’ Roddy said, quietly. ‘Mr Petersen wants to speak to you, and I said you’d come to Aberdeen with us tomorrow morning. He’ll tell you all about it.’

‘You see?’ Brian said, triumphantly. ‘They’ll make sure he’ll be all right.’

Her son’s news devastated her, however, so her own planned confrontation with her husband went completely out of her head. All she could think of was poor Roddy, torn out of the bosom of his family and having to fend for himself in an alien world. He had no idea of the kind of people he could meet, the rogues, the velvet-tongued villains, the predators who might … Oh, it was too horrible even to think about.

‘There’s no need to worry, Ros.’ It seemed her husband knew how worried she was. ‘He’s got his head screwed on the right way.’

‘He’s still just a kid.’ She couldn’t chance admitting what she had been thinking. He would only laugh at her.

‘He has to learn to stand on his own two feet, dear. We all had to.’

It would have been an ideal opening for her to remind him of her ignorance of her own early life, to demand that he told her everything, but she couldn’t face any more revelations at this moment. She was about to lose the son she loved; her family was soon to be halved.

Brian slid his arms round her. ‘Stop worrying, darling. He’s looking forward to it, and his boss must think he’s capable enough, otherwise he wouldn’t have suggested it.

Besides, he’s not going to the other side of the world. He’ll be able to have weekends at home sometimes.’

‘I suppose so.’ About to point out that Roddy wouldn’t be able to afford the fare from Liverpool very often, she decided to make sure that he always had enough money to come home. She accepted her husband’s kiss, and was glad that he turned away to sleep. He didn’t understand how she felt and if she kept on about it, he’d soon get annoyed. Men were all the same, and she didn’t suppose that this Mr Petersen would be any different when she saw him in the morning. He’d likely regard her as a neurotic mother who was scared of letting her son off her apron strings.

Neither Roselle nor Brian noticed that Dilly had fallen silent since Roddy had dropped his bombshell - which is how the girl considered his news. She couldn’t speak, he had wounded her to her very core. It was as if she had been turned to stone; only her heart was still beating, beating out a series of agonising pains in a fluctuating rhythm that threatened to overcome her altogether.

It was not until she was in bed, having had no chance for any discussion with him, that she could think about it. How could he do this to her, when they had only lately discovered their love for each other? They both knew that nothing could come of it, of course, although it had crossed her mind several times during the previous few weeks that they could run away together, go to a place where no one knew that they were actually twins - she’d have been willing to go anywhere in the world with him - and live happily ever after. Why couldn’t Roddy have thought of that? Why was he taking the coward’s way out?

She let her mind slip to an imaginary scenario, where she was a happy housewife, cooking and cleaning for the man who had vowed to love her for ever, having his babies and watching them grow up.

Her thoughts came to an abrupt halt, a searing stop that shook her. Was it true, as she had heard or read somewhere, that children made by close relatives would be born insane? If not altogether mad, they would probably be born malformed in some way. No, no! That couldn’t be true! It couldn’t!

Her heart had almost stopped at the very idea, so she pushed it away vehemently. She and Roddy would have been different. Their children would have been perfect in every way - healthy, wealthy and wise, as the old saying went. But the old beliefs refused to go away. It was against the law for brothers and sisters to marry, and, presumably, it was far worse if they were twins, born from the same seed.

Roddy was right to leave, to put all temptation behind them, and she’d have to steel herself to abide by his decision. But how she wished that it had been different.

The whole family had been dreading this day, the day of Roddy’s departure. Roselle’s fears had been a little allayed by what his boss had told her, but she knew that she was still going to be extremely upset. She just hoped that she’d be able to hide her fears from her son. He would be putting on a brave face, no doubt, but his mother’s anxiety could undermine him.

As it happened, she was the most composed of them all. She had her feelings well under control, while Brian’s eyes filled with moisture as Roddy, biting his lip to keep back his tears, closed the carriage door, and Dilly was sobbing loudly. Saying goodbye like this was a harrowing experience, even knowing that it was not for ever. The three sad figures stood waving until the train was out of sight, and it was Roselle who shepherded them off the platform. The journey home was made more or less in silence, with only Dilly saying, as they left the city behind, ‘He’ll be all right, Mum, won’t he?’

‘Of course he will.’ Her mother’s confident reply soothed the girl, who leaned back in the back seat and closed her eyes, while the woman fought back the tears that were threatening to break through at last. She had to keep calm. If she let down her defences for a single moment, she would be lost.

She had been assured by Mr Petersen that her son would be well looked after, that the woman who would be his landlady had proved her worth over and over with his young employees, but this, instead of helping Roselle, had raised a new fear in her: would this Mrs O’Shaughnessy turn into a surrogate mother, take over the role that should be hers, Roselle’s, alone?

No matter how much she scolded herself for this thought, she couldn’t shake it off.

‘Today’s the twins’ eighteenth birthday.’

His wife’s remark took Frank Milne by surprise. He had believed that she had forgotten about the Lewis family ages ago, or if not entirely forgotten, had surely given up on worrying about them. ‘So they’ve reached the age of majority,’ he remarked.

A frown crossed her face. ‘What d’you mean by that?’

‘Nothing, I was only saying. I hadn’t forgotten how old they are.’

A little mollified, she gave a sigh. ‘I just wish I knew if they stayed on at school to take higher education. I think they’d both have been clever enough.’

‘Aye, I agree there. They were bright wee things, the pair of them.’

‘They were that, but they knew their own minds, even at that age, especially Roddy, and I can see him wanting to leave school, to earn some money.’

‘He’ll get on, whatever he’s doing.’

After a brief silence, Helen said, reflectively, ‘I can’t understand why Roselle never wrote. I thought she liked us, and she must have known we’d want to hear about the twins.’

‘You used to think it was Brian’s fault. You thought he didn’t want her to keep in touch.’

‘A girl can change her mind, can’t she?’

Her husband wasn’t convinced. ‘So you’ve stopped blaming him, then?’

‘I don’t know what to think, and that’s a fact. Mind you, I hope she would write to me if she ever needed help. She has nobody else to turn to, as far as I know.’

‘She’s likely made a lot of friends wherever they are. She was a friendly soul.’

His wife nodded her agreement, and then changed the subject abruptly. ‘Well, do you want to watch the football or not?’

Deciding to be diplomatic, and aware that Helen preferred
The Bill,
Frank shook his head. It was better than telling a deliberate lie.