Gracie sat down heavily. ‘Not a good idea but thanks Jeannie, I’m glad you’re here. It’s all a bit strange, isn’t it?’
‘Pardon? Oh go on, say that again, just once more’, Jeanette rubbed the back of her hand across her brow feigning shock. ‘Oh my good God, did you really just say that?’
Both sisters laughed but it was uncomfortable laughter because they both knew there was something very wrong about Sean’s completely irrational eruption over something so minor.
Gracie was noticeably bewildered but Jeanette was inwardly seething; she knew that it had something to do with her twin sister being there earlier and she could guess what had gone on. Jennifer had played games with her sister’s boyfriends in the past but Jeannie hadn’t expected this, not with Gracie and Sean being married and expecting a baby.
She hoped she was wrong because that would be too sinister, even for Jennifer.
‘Come with me, Sean,’ Jennifer McCabe begged, ‘please come and talk to Mum and Dad. They’ll tell you it’s all true. I want you to know what she’s like and if they tell you, you’ll have to believe them …’
‘We have to stop this. I’ve told you, can’t be doing this anymore. Please Jennifer, please go away. I don’t know what I was doing messing around with you.’
‘But when you know that what I’m saying is true you’ll be able to leave her with a clear conscience. Please?’
Because his guilty conscience was driving him to distraction Sean had tried his best to distance himself from her but she wasn’t having any of it. Jennifer was nothing if not determined and he was increasingly weak when it came to her. After he had lost his temper so dramatically when Gracie had so nearly caught him out Sean was quite rightly jumpy whenever Jennifer was around but she was having none of it. He was also well aware of Jeanette’s watchful eye on him whenever she was around. As the weeks went on he became increasingly guilty but he couldn’t seem to do anything about it.
Sean Donnelly was losing control of the situation.
‘No, Jennifer, I can’t do it. I don’t want to do it – I have a baby to think of. If it wasn’t for the baby …’
‘But we
can
be together, it’s possible,’ she continued, her words tumbling out. ‘If you’ll just listen to me about Gracie, no one will blame you for leaving her when they know why you had to.’
‘Now stop this. I’m not leaving Gracie and that’s a fact. I’m not. She’s having our baby in a few weeks, can you imagine the scandal? I’d lose everything, my family would disown me …’
‘But you’d have me …’
Jennifer had been hanging around outside the Palace hotel, waiting for Sean to finish work and although he tried to disentangle himself from her, she kept grabbing his arm and pulling him, trying to get him to stop and talk to her, to listen to her telling him about his wife.
‘Just come with me,’ Jennifer pleaded. ‘Let me prove it to you. Let Mum tell you. Your precious Gracie had a baby years ago. She had to go to St Angela’s and it was adopted, she’s been lying to you all these years …’
Sean stopped in his tracks.
‘St Angela’s? What do you mean, St Angela’s? I thought that was …’ he paused mid-sentence. ‘Isn’t that where the wayward girls go?’
‘It
is
! I heard Mum and Dad talking about it. Before you and Gracie got married, she went to see them, to tell them not to say anything to you. Seems it was some squaddie she picked up on the seafront and she ended up with a bastard bun in the oven.’ Jennifer dropped her chin and fluttered her eyes, feigning sadness. ‘Sean, I’m sorry, I didn’t want to tell you like this but I love you. I couldn’t let the lie continue …’
Sean was confused. He didn’t want to believe a word Jennifer was saying because he knew she was trying to get him away from Gracie, but there was something about her insistence that unsettled him, especially as he remembered that Gracie hadn’t wanted him to meet her family in the first place. He tried to think but couldn’t, because Jennifer was going on and on at him.
‘You’re lying …’
‘And she’s been seeing him since you’ve been married, someone else told me,’ Jennifer continued, the spiteful lies pouring out of her mouth. ‘That Ruby, her friend from the hotel where she works, knows all about it. You ask her – she even let them use a room there. I mean, when you think about it, it probably isn’t your baby she’s carrying, it’s his …’
‘Stop it now! I don’t want you saying things like that about my wife – who’s also your own sister, for pity’s sake. Look at me, Jennifer, I don’t believe you.’
Sean spoke so quietly he was almost whispering, scared someone would see or hear them, because they were still too close to the Palace for comfort. Standing on the pavement nearby he was all too aware Gracie still had friends at the hotel from when she worked there herself. Perversely he thought that while he could explain Jennifer away at the flat, there was no excuse for them to be arguing in public. He could easily imagine the questions if someone overheard the conversation.
Dropping her hands down to her sides Jennifer shrugged and turned away. ‘Okay. If you don’t care that she’s making a fool out of you then that’s your business but come and talk to Mum. She’ll tell you what she’s like. You’re a good man, Sean – you deserve to hear the truth.’
Sean looked straight into her eyes. ‘If that’s what you thought and if it’s true, why wait until now to tell me?’
‘I wasn’t in love with you before.’
Despite the fear of being seen or heard, Sean was suddenly relieved the confrontation was in public, because in private, when they were alone together, he simply couldn’t resist Jennifer McCabe. She did things to him that he’d never experienced before and she drove him crazy with lust.
He had tried to put an end to it but he wanted to be with her every second of every day in a way he had never wanted with Gracie. Every waking moment he found himself thinking of her and reliving their time together; he was completely besotted with his own sister-in-law, but every so often an element of doubt about her crept into his mind. He found it hard to accept that someone who seemed so demure in public could behave like an experienced whore in private but when he had asked Jennifer about her experience, the experience she had used to so successfully seduce him, she had simply laughed.
‘Don’t all girls do this with the man they love? And you’re the man I truly love so I do things with you I’ve never done with anyone else. It’s instinctive and it’s just you, Sean. I promise. Just you.’
He hadn’t been completely convinced about her sincerity or her truthfulness but he was wearing the blinkers of lust combined so nothing else truly mattered. He was besotted. Even at that moment, standing in the middle of Southend High Street, he wanted to snatch her up and drag her off to bed. For a split second he thought about going back to the hotel with her but he resisted.
‘I have to go,’ Sean said quickly. ‘Gracie’s expecting me and I don’t want to see you again. You’re lying about her. I know you’re lying.’
This time Jennifer let him go. As he cycled away, she smiled after him, her eyes bright with manic pleasure, knowing full well he would be back.
And even if he didn’t come back then she would just go and find him and reel him in. She walked round to the bus-stop plotting and planning her next move because she knew that Sean wasn’t convinced. Yet.
But she had no doubt he would be, after the coup de grâce she was intending to deliver the very next day.
Jennifer McCabe was brimming with excitement the following day when she and her mother got off the bus at the top of the High Street. As they started to walk down the street, she began her speech.
‘Mum, I’ve been thinking,’ Jennifer said, as casually as she could. ‘I want you to tell Sean about Gracie and that baby. The one she had at St Angela’s. You should tell him, you know, it’s your moral duty …’
Dot McCabe stopped in her tracks and turned to look at her daughter walking alongside her. Her expression was neutral but her hands were tightly clenched around the wicker handle of her shopping basket. Jennifer had a very slight smile playing on the edge of her mouth; she looked as if she really wanted to grin widely but was fighting it.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Dot shook her head, feigning puzzlement. ‘Now let’s get the shopping. I need to be back in time to cook your father’s meal, I have to get to the fishmonger and back while it’s still fresh. I’ve got no time for your flights of fancy, Jennifer McCabe.’
‘Come on, Mum,’ Jennifer laughed happily, ‘don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. I just want you to tell Sean the truth about Gracie and her baby, the one she had adopted.’
‘I don’t understand …’ Dot said as she started walking forward, gathering pace as she went. ‘This is madness. Your madness alone,’ she said almost to herself.
‘Oh Mum, I know all about it so you don’t need to pretend. Sean needs to know the truth about our Gracie; he should have been told, she should have told him – but she obviously hasn’t and he doesn’t believe me.’
‘Well of course he doesn’t believe you, you stupid girl, and why have you been talking nonsense to your sister’s husband?’ Dot asked incredulously as she carried on walking at a pace that had Jennifer struggling to keep up with her. By the time they reached the railway bridge both of them were breathing quite heavily.
It was an unseasonably chilly day and although it was dry, there was a slight frost on the ground and the pavements were quite slippery. Dot McCabe was wearing her astrakhan coat, stout boots with a zip up the front and a felt hat, whereas Jennifer was shivering and slipping around in her more fashionable court shoes. Her straight black skirt and tight-fitting brown jumper did nothing to keep the chill breeze off her body, but knowing where she was going, she was dressed up to impress Sean Donnelly rather than to keep out the cold.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I thought you were helping me with the shopping, you didn’t mention anything like this on the bus …’
‘If I had told you, you wouldn’t have come, would you?’ Jennifer smiled and grabbed her mother’s arm. ‘Sean should be leaving work soon. He’s on a split shift, and we’re going to meet him. He always comes this way, up the High Street to York Road on his bicycle, then right turn. He’s a creature of habit.’
Her mother pulled away. ‘How do you know about your brother-in-law’s shifts and habits? I don’t know what’s got into you, Jennifer McCabe, but you’re acting like you’re away with the fairies again. I just don’t know where your madness comes from, it’s not from my side of the family …’
‘Of course I’m not mad, I just think it’s dishonest not to tell him.’ Jennifer shook her head and looked at her mother with a condescending expression on her face. ‘I know what went on and you have to tell Sean. He should know about the other baby. You have to tell him the truth, tell him what happened …’ Jennifer’s tone was as urgent as her eyes and smile were wide.
‘This has nothing to do with you, why are you interfering? Gracie’s expecting a baby, she’s fragile. Why in heaven’s name would you want to upset everyone with this nonsense?’
‘Oh look!’ Jennifer looked ahead and waved. ‘Here he is now …’
As Sean cycled up the High Street Jennifer jumped out in front of him.
‘Sean! Cooeee, Sean! Mum’s got something to tell you …’
Scared, he tried his best to ignore both Jennifer and his mother-in-law and started to cycle on past but she reached out and grabbed the handlebars, nearly pulling his bicycle out from underneath him.
‘Sean, come and talk to my mother, she’ll tell you all about this.’
As Jennifer held onto his bike and laughed, his mother-in-law was moving from foot to foot on the pavement and looking nervously at Sean, who was still in the road on the other side of the High Street. The cars were driving up and down in between them but that didn’t stop Jennifer trying to pull him over to where her mother was standing.
Sean and Dot had never got on but they’d never fallen out with each other either; their meetings were too few and far between to warrant anything even remotely resembling a relationship, but he had always tried to be respectful and polite on the occasions they did cross paths. Likewise she had never said anything wrong to him but she’d never said anything nice either.
‘I don’t want to be part of this nonsense, Jennifer McCabe,’ she told her daughter angrily. ‘If Sean has anything he wants to know then he should ask his wife, it’s got nothing to do with the rest of us …’
‘You see, Sean? She’s not denying it. Gracie is a slut. Your wife had someone else’s baby and never told you, and she’s been doing it since. She has …’
Dot McCabe took a few steps across the road till she was face to face with her daughter and then she slapped her hard across the face.
‘I’m ashamed of you, Jennifer, and disappointed.’ She stepped back and then turned her attention to Sean.
‘And as for you, Sean Donnelly, I don’t know what’s going on between you two but you should be ashamed of yourself. If you want to know anything, you should ask your wife, not her sister. Shameful, shameful, and Gracie being in the family way an’ all …’
Sean carefully propped his bicycle upright with the pedal on the pavement and looked at Jennifer.
‘Why did you do that?’ he asked her. ‘And in public … People are looking, anyone could see and hear you.’
‘Because you wouldn’t come with me to see Mum,’ she smiled. ‘Sean, you had to know and now you do. Now we can be together …’
Without saying another word, Sean pushed her backwards so hard she went flying across the icy pavement, just righting herself before she fell against a shop window. She was still stumbling around when Sean jumped on his bike and sped off in the direction of home.
Her mother walked back over to her.
‘Oh Jennifer, I don’t understand. I thought you’d grown out of all that jealous stuff and nonsense,’ Dot told her sadly. ‘Why did you have to make trouble like that? We promised Gracie we wouldn’t ever mention it again and now you’ve gone and told him just to upset her.’ She looked at her daughter. ‘How did you know? No one knew… . .’