Unlike Archie Cooper.
When Gracie had told him the same news all those years ago, he hadn’t even stayed until the end of the evening before hot-footing it out of Southend and her life.
It was because this was her second pregnancy that Gracie had known for sure she was expecting but she couldn’t admit to that, she had to pretend that it was all new to her; the same as, engulfed in guilt, she had pretended to Sean that it was her first time on their wedding night.
‘Let’s go out and celebrate,’ Sean said now. ‘We could go down to the Castle. The lounge bar is nice there, very suitable for a respectable expectant mother.’
‘I don’t want to celebrate just yet, Sean. Can we wait until the test results come back and confirm it? I know the doctor has said it but I’d like to be completely sure. Just in case.’
‘I don’t have to wait for test results to tell me what I can see in your eyes. Mam always says you can tell just by looking into a woman’s eyes and I can see it in yours, you’re alight with happiness.’
As Sean looked at her so happily Gracie felt her guilty fear rise back up to the surface. She felt guilty because she hadn’t told her husband her secret and she also felt guilty about the joy she was feeling at her pregnancy.
It was all so bittersweet and she was confused.
With hindsight Gracie knew she should have told him about her previous baby when they became engaged, and taken her chances on his reaction, but she’d left it too late. The moment to tell him had passed and now the secret had to be kept forever. But it was hard.
From the moment Sean had proposed to her, Gracie had been focused on conceiving a baby. She had thought about it constantly to the point of obsession but as her craving had increased, so had her feelings of guilt over her firstborn. She desperately wanted a baby with Sean but she couldn’t help thinking that it would be a betrayal of the little boy she had given up, the little boy who was exactly the same age as Maggie.
At the time of his birth she hadn’t wanted to give him a name, knowing that whoever adopted him would name him themselves but the nuns had insisted she had to have one to register the birth. So while she was still in the hospital with him she had chosen the name Joseph McCabe on the spur of the moment; after his father, Archie Joseph Cooper, the father he would also never know. The man who had disappeared faster than a frightened rabbit.
Joseph McCabe. Mother: Gracie McCabe, spinster. Father: Unknown.
Gracie had neither a copy of the certificate of birth nor a photograph of her baby. She had nothing other than the picture in her head of him as he was when she kissed him goodbye, just before walking out of the hospital when he was but a week old and leaving him there to be adopted by strangers.
She had gone back to the Palace hotel where she had worked before and managed to persuade the housekeeper to give her a live-in job. It was a basic role and it was hard manual work, but Gracie got on with it without a murmur because it meant she had somewhere to live, and she didn’t have to go back to the family home. She got on with her job and her life as if nothing had happened.
In the following years she had successfully blocked the whole traumatic time from her mind and, apart from on relevant dates, it had become something she just didn’t think about.
But once she had married Sean it suddenly became all she could think about. While she desperately wanted a baby, the thought of the child she had, in her eyes, abandoned and betrayed played on her mind constantly.
The moment the doctor confirmed that she was indeed pregnant was one of mixed emotions for Gracie but she tried to brush all feelings of guilt aside and decided to prepare a special meal for Sean that night.
‘Have you told Ruby yet?’ Sean asked suddenly.
‘Of course not, I wouldn’t tell anyone before I told you. But if it’s okay with you I’ll tell her tomorrow when I go to work.’
‘Then maybe we could all go out together to celebrate. Maybe Ruby and Johnnie will be next to have one. Once they’re wed, of course.’ Sean paused. ‘When’s that going to happen?’
‘I think they have to wait a suitable time. Even though Johnnie and Sadie were separated they were still married, and the finger of blame for her doing herself in is still pointing firmly at him and Ruby. And of course he blames himself, which is daft,’ Gracie said.
‘Understandable,’ Sean replied. ‘I mean, Johnnie was a married man having an affair; some would say he drove his wife to commit suicide, some would say they are both to blame for the poor woman’s passing …’ Sean shrugged his shoulders expressively, making Gracie feel defensive towards her friends.
‘That’s not really fair, Sean. It wasn’t like that at all. They weren’t having an affair – well, not in the way you make it sound. But anyway the outcome was that she never meant to actually kill herself, it was Sadie being dramatic as always. She thought someone would find her in time. She’d done it before, only this time no one did get there in time …’ Gracie said sadly as she thought of the vibrant but damaged young woman Johnnie Riordan had been married to, the mother of his two small children.
‘Ah well. They’re both still young, and what with Johnnie already having kids, Ruby’s going to have her hands full when they all have to live together. The kids will resent Ruby, that’s for sure,’ Sean said, decisively.
‘They’re too young for that and they’re still living with his sister even though Johnnie spends less time there now he’s living down here half the time. But I suppose it’ll all come out in the wash eventually, those two were made for each other … Like us, eh?’ Gracie smiled affectionately at her husband, trying to change the subject.
‘And he’s a lucky man,’ Sean ignored her comment and continued on his thread. ‘I mean, how lucky that his girlfriend could give him a job and somewhere to live. Worth its weight in gold that is. Half the time with his sister looking after them all, and the other in the hotel, carefree and rent-free.’
She recognised the familiar hint of envy in Sean’s voice as he spoke about Johnnie and as usual, it bothered her. He mentioned it so often that she knew it niggled away at him that Johnnie had now been given a role in the Thamesview Hotel, even if it was as general dogsbody and occasional chauffeur to the guests alongside Henry.
Because she worked there herself, Gracie knew Johnnie worked really hard whenever he could, for very little pay, just to help Ruby with the running of the hotel. Almost everything he did earn went to his sister for the children. But Sean only saw favouritism and it seemed to rankle with him that Johnnie had sole access to the bedsit in the annexe at the back of the hotel, even though he had declined Ruby’s offer for he and Gracie to live there.
Sometimes it rankled with her that Sean also had delusions and expectations over his mother’s role in the business. No matter how many times she explained her position, that she was just an employee, they both seemed to be looking for a way to stake a claim on the ownership of Thamesview.
‘So it’s okay if I tell Ruby tomorrow?’ said Gracie, hoping to move the conversation on from how lucky Johnnie was, and back to their baby. ‘I’ll only tell her if you don’t mind. Do you want to tell your mother first?’
‘Of course it’s okay. We’ll tell your parents and I’ll write to the family in Ireland first thing in the morning. I’m sure me Mam will want to come and visit us just as soon as she can.’
Gracie forced an enthusiastic smile. ‘I’m sure she will.’
‘It’s a good job that we have two bedrooms, eh? And when the baby’s born she can stay as long as she likes to get to know her new grandchild. She helped my sisters out no end when they had theirs. We’re lucky I have such a wonderful family, don’t you think?’ Sean leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms and smiled smugly.
Feeling mildly irritated, but not wanting to comment on his observations, Gracie stood up and started to clear the table. ‘I’ll just go and get the pudding. I’ve made your favourite apple crumble especially.’
‘Is there custard?’ Sean asked with a grin. ‘Made the way my mam makes it?’ Gracie wasn’t quite sure if he was making a joke or not but either way she pretended not to have heard. She silently gathered up the crockery, piled everything onto a tray and took it through to the kitchen. Dumping it all on the draining board she took a deep breath. The last thing she wanted on that important day was to argue with him about either Ruby and the Thamesview or her mother-in-law.
She had spent so long fantasising about the moment she would be able to give her husband the news they both wanted that she was determined nothing was going to spoil it for her.
A baby. She was going to have a baby and this time no one was going to take it away from her.
The next day Gracie woke up and felt sick. It was an overwhelming feeling of nausea and she wasn’t sure whether it was because she was pregnant or because she was suddenly feeling negative about the whole thing, but it took all her energy to drag herself out of bed and get dressed. Usually she jumped up and went off to work full of enthusiasm, but that morning she found it a struggle and for the first time she was late for work at the Thamesview.
It was also compounded because it was more of a journey for her now that she and Sean lived in central Southend. Where previously she had just walked down the stairs to work, now it was either a long walk or a bus ride depending on the weather and the time she had to be there.
‘Morning, Rubes … I know I’m late, I missed the bus. I’m really sorry, but if you’ve got five minutes to spare I’d like a chat in private. Can we go into the office?’
Gracie smiled as Ruby looked sideways at her and smirked. ‘Can I make a guess?’
‘A guess about what?’
‘Well, I don’t think you’re going to tell me you want to change your day off. That wouldn’t turn your face white as a sheet …’
The two women walked side by side to the hotel office on the ground floor that looked out over the seafront promenade. It was a small room that had been created originally from a corner of the lobby but the wide sash window made it light and airy despite the fact that it was filled with shelves of folders, files and papers that went back many years.
It was the only room in the property that hadn’t been decorated or at least changed since Leonora Wheaton had died and bequeathed the well-established but rather faded hotel to Ruby Blakeley, the young woman that she had taken under her wing and nurtured as if she were her own. The room was so much a part of the woman that Ruby had grown to love that she had left it exactly as it was, in Leonora’s memory.
Gracie moved some papers off the wobbly old dining chairs and they both sat down, Ruby behind the battered old-fashioned desk which took up half of the room, and Gracie on the chair alongside.
‘Go on then, tell me …’ Ruby said, smiling.
‘I’m expecting! Me and Sean are having a baby. It’s due in about six months, the doctor reckons.’
‘I knew it! Oh, that’s such good news. I’m so happy for you, Gracie Grace. I bet Sean’s pleased, isn’t he?’
‘Yes, he is and so am I, but …’
Gracie could barely get the words out before she dissolved into floods of tears.
‘Gracie! Whatever’s wrong?’ Ruby jumped up again and put her arms around her friend. ‘I thought this is what you wanted, what you
both
wanted?’
‘It is, it
is
,’ she sobbed. ‘It’s everything I ever wanted ever since … you know … but somehow it’s not how I expected it to be …’ Gracie paused and looked around, even though the office door was closed. ‘I feel horribly sick and I also feel so horribly guilty, as if I’m betraying the other little one I gave away.’
‘Oh, come on, Gracie – you don’t really believe that, do you? You’ve always had such a sensible view about what happened. You know you didn’t just give him away, you’ve always known that; you didn’t have any choice, same as I didn’t have any choice. The decisions were made and we just had to get on with it …’
‘I know it sounds mad,’ Gracie gulped in a big breath of air, ‘but I had a nightmare last night that I had my baby and they took it away. It was crying and I was running after them but my legs wouldn’t work and then it was gone …’
‘Oh, Gracie. You never did anything wrong so there’s nothing to be punished for, even if that was how it worked. Which it isn’t. If you know what I mean.’ Ruby smiled reassuringly. ‘I’m not saying this right, am I? But you know what I mean …’
Gracie sniffed and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
‘Deep down I know you’re right, but in the middle of the night I can’t stop thinking about him. I keep turning it over in my head and I wonder where he is, what he’s doing. Even if he’s still alive. I mean, I wouldn’t even know that, would I? He could be dead, he could be in Australia. I should never have let them do that, take my baby away …’
‘Don’t think like that!’ Ruby interrupted quickly as she went over to her friend and sat beside her. ‘We all make mistakes and that’s all there is to it. And we had no choice really, either of us, that’s how it was. Now, you stay right there and I’ll go and ask Johnnie to make us both a nice strong cup of coffee. If that doesn’t make you feel better nothing will. Coffee and fruit cake are coming up shortly to celebrate your good news. I’m really jealous of you, but in the nicest way!’
Gracie Donnelly smiled appreciatively at her friend, who always had the knack of making everything seem okay.
As Ruby pulled the door behind her, her smile faded and she blinked hard as she walked quickly to the kitchen, her head down. She had left the room as quickly as she could because she didn’t want to spoil Gracie’s moment and she certainly didn’t want anyone else to see her looking teary-eyed.
She was naturally delighted for her friend but the conversation about her lost baby had revived the memories of her own ordeal. Like Gracie, she had tried hard to tuck it all away in a separate compartment of her mind and on the whole she succeeded, but every so often something happened and it popped up unexpectedly to torment her. Gracie’s pregnancy announcement was one of those times.
It was inevitable and she had been waiting for her friend to announce that she was expecting a baby, but Ruby had still been unprepared to feel as if she’d been punched in the stomach.