Again the three women sniggered. After three port and lemons each everything was suddenly funny.
‘Are they still there? I can’t believe it, how the mighty have fallen. I can’t believe Jennifer has sunk so low. She must be off her head … they both must be,’ Jeanette said with a laugh but Gracie knew that regardless of everything that had happened, she was sad at the loss of the twin sister she had shared her life with for so long.
‘In a strange way I suppose I hope they’ll be happy together. Preferably not round here, though …’
This time when they laughed, Gracie’s laughter wasn’t quite so loud.
For the first time since Sean had thrown her out she had started to feel settled. She had got into a routine with work and Fay, and her life was calm. Sean had been back to see Fay just the once and although he had been less confrontational, Gracie could tell he just didn’t want to be there. She knew instinctively that he wouldn’t be part of Fay’s life and it saddened her but she accepted it.
She just hoped that her mother-in-law would accept it also.
Gracie remained resolutely out of sight as Rosaleen Donnelly, Sean’s mother, and her friend Yolande Hall arrived at the reception desk of the Thamesview Hotel. They were both dressed from top-to toe in dark clothing, each had one small suitcase and a handbag, and both looked as mournful as if they were about to attend a funeral, serious-faced and straight-backed.
Johnnie had collected them from the station in town and was busy trying to charm them as they waited for Ruby to check them in at the desk but it made her smile to see that he was fighting a losing battle. They were both looking ahead and she could see they were resolutely determined to ignore him, despite his best efforts.
As they stood side by side in silence, looking uneasy and uncomfortable, Gracie continued to watch surreptitiously from behind the sliding glass windows of the hatch between the outer and inner reception area. The area that was out of sight was small and airless with just enough space for two chairs and a tiny table which wobbled and was covered in stains and burns from cigarettes that had fallen from the small Bakelite ashtray. The room was mostly used as somewhere to sit and have a drink and a cigarette when the reception desk was quiet, but because of the small hatch, it also served as a useful spot to secretly watch what was going on.
Rosaleen was a buxom woman who was tidy and well-turned out, despite the long journey she’d just endured, but her clothes and shoes told a story of hardship and make do and mend. Her friend was small and wiry and equally neat and tidy, but her clothes were noticeably newer and classier. Rosaleen was standing perfectly still, but Yolande Hall was moving from foot to foot impatiently. It was obvious neither woman wanted to be there, cap in hand at Ruby Blakeley’s hotel, but Gracie could see the situation would be harder for her mother-in-law to bear. Gracie didn’t like Yolande at all; she had found her mean-spirited and spiteful, but she respected her for supporting her friend Rosaleen in her hour of need.
Without moving a muscle, Gracie stayed put behind the glass, watching and waiting for Ruby to do her bit. When she’d discussed their arrival with Ruby they had decided that the women would be given time to rest and then they would be offered tea in the lounge at a time when no other guests were around, so that Gracie would join them there.
Over and over again Gracie had told herself that Rosaleen Donnelly’s opinion wasn’t important now she and Sean were no longer together, but still she was nervous of the initial face-to-face and the inevitable inquisition. She felt so defensive of her fragile daughter and she didn’t want anyone maligning her.
Fay was growing and thriving, and Gracie was even more besotted than ever. The tiny girl was wide-eyed, dark-haired and contented. She took her bottle happily, slept well and rarely cried nowadays; she was perfect.
Gracie knew that it was the perfection that worried everyone but it didn’t worry her. She saw her contentedness as a sign that Fay was cosseted to the point that she didn’t need to cry and she interpreted her baby’s wide-eyed observation as a sign that she was intellectually sound. She didn’t want to hear that there might be something wrong with her daughter until it was proven beyond all doubt so she had pushed it to the back of her mind and carried on doing what she was doing.
She hadn’t seen or heard from Sean since his second fleeting visit and although Gracie was sad about it, she was able to be pragmatic. She knew that, thanks to Ruby, she was in a position to provide for her baby without Sean, but she was sad for Fay that her father didn’t want to know her.
In the quiet of the night she often thought about her own gentle father who, unlike her mother, had always loved all his daughters without favouritism. He had been away during the war but never spoke a word about it once he came back, he just went back to work and it was as if he had never been gone.
She had wanted a father like that for her children, for Fay, but it wasn’t to be. Gracie now accepted that Sean wasn’t the one. She had made the wrong choice.
The atmosphere in the lobby changed when Ruby appeared, apologising profusely.
‘Mrs Donnelly, Mrs Hall, welcome to the Thamesview Hotel. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here to greet you but the laundryman arrived early and I had to go through the list …’ Ruby looked from one to the other, her professional smile plastered on. ‘I hope you had a good journey? The weather’s been good so I hope the Irish Sea didn’t cause too much sickness – I’ve heard it can be a cruel sea at any time of the year.’
‘The journey was just fine,’ Rosaleen said. ‘If you could show us to our room and tell Gracie that we’re here …’
‘We thought you would like to have a rest after your journey …’
‘No, I want to see Gracie as soon as possible. I can’t be worrying about this any longer. I want to hear from her what’s been going on these past few months.’
‘If you could fill in this card I’ll go and find her but she may have gone to the shops. We’re very short-handed here and we all have to do what needs doing.’
Ruby continued to smile and she then turned away and winked at the glass window, knowing Gracie was watching.
As Gracie looked at her mother-in-law so her feeling of dread started to fade. Although she was trying to hide it, Rosaleen Donnelly looked sad and lonely standing there with just a friend to support her.
Gracie didn’t wait any longer. She took a deep breath and walked through to greet them as professionally as Ruby and Johnnie had done.
‘Good day to you Mrs Donnelly, Mrs Hall. Johnnie here will show you to your room and I’ll be waiting for you in the lounge …’ Gracie smiled politely and shook hands with them both.
‘Hello Gracie,’ Rosaleen and Yolande said in unison.
‘This way, ladies,’ Johnnie smiled as he headed to the stairs. ‘Let me carry your bags …’
A few minutes later Rosaleen Donnelly was back downstairs and walking through to the residents lounge to meet Gracie for the first time since the wedding, with Ruby just a step behind, carrying a large tray carefully laid with tea and an assortment of biscuits and cakes.
‘Please have a seat,’ Gracie said as she indicated an armchair. She waited for the woman to sit down before sitting in a nearby armchair that was neither too close to be uncomfortable nor too far from the woman to be rude. She wasn’t trying to cause discomfort, she simply needed a little space between them to feel emotionally safe.
Ruby laid the tray down and then quickly left the room, leaving them to it.
Gracie poured the tea, offered her mother-in-law a cake and then sat back and waited.
‘This is very difficult for me, Gracie …’ Rosaleen said after a few minutes’ awkward silence. ‘I don’t want to be here with you after what you did to my son but I want to see my granddaughter, Sean’s first-born, and to pay respects to my only grandson, God bless his soul. Poor little thing.’
Gracie chose to ignore the barbed comments. ‘Does Sean know you’re here?’
‘Not yet. We’re going to visit him this evening. I have his new address.’
Gracie wanted to smile. She could just imagine her turning up at the dilapidated house and finding Sean living in drunken squalor with his sister-in-law.
‘Mrs Donnelly, there are so many things you need to know. I don’t want to criticise Sean but there are two sides to the story …’
Rosaleen held her hand up as if she was stopping traffic.
‘Please don’t try and blame my son, Gracie. You gave birth to an illegitimate baby and didn’t tell him. You married my son under false pretences and that invalidates the marriage in anyone’s eyes. Now, just let me see my grandchild. We don’t need to be having a conversation.’
Gracie stood up. ‘I suppose that’s true in a way so if you’re not interested in my side, I’ll just go and get Fay …’
She went through to the kitchen first. ‘That woman will drive me to drink before the end of the week! I was going to warn her for her own sake about Sean and Jennifer and their hovel but now I’ve decided she can lump it. Imagine her and Yolande on the doorstep …’
Gracie and Ruby both laughed as Ruby handed Fay to her mother and then Gracie paused for a moment, flexed her shoulders and took a deep breath. ‘Into the lion’s den, we go. I don’t want to do this but I suppose I have to.’
‘You don’t have to do it but you’ll do it because you’re a very nice person … Good luck!’ Ruby said.
Gracie held her precious baby close and reluctantly went back to the lounge, where Rosaleen Donnelly was still sitting in exactly the same position, wearing the same expression.
‘This is Fay, your granddaughter …’ she carefully handed her sleepy daughter out for Rosaleen to take.
Still in her seat the woman took Fay in her arms and laid her across her ample lap. Gracie was braced for a comment but instead Rosaleen just stared silently and without expression. Gracie sat back down herself and watched and waited. It wasn’t panning out the way she had expected.
It was several uncomfortable minutes before Gracie spoke. ‘She looks like her daddy, don’t you think? Her colouring is his.’
‘I do think she looks like him, yes …’ Rosaleen said, with a grudge in her voice. ‘He was such a beautiful baby was my Sean. So loving and easy to care for after all the daughters. I’d waited so long to have a son and then sure enough, God gave me the perfect one. Or so it seemed …’ She was still staring down at the baby on her lap.
‘None of us are perfect.’
‘No, we’re not. I’d like to take her for a walk tomorrow …’
‘You can’t take her round to Sean, I won’t allow that.’
‘He’s her father!’ Rosaleen snapped.
‘He lives in a hovel with his girlfriend – it’s filthy there …’ The words were out before she could stop them and for one moment Gracie thought that Rosaleen Donnelly was going to throw Fay across the room. Her face reddened dramatically and she stood up, clutching Fay, and hugged her fiercely, making her whimper.
‘Don’t you talk about my son like that; don’t you dare, after what you did to him! I told him to forgive you and let sleeping dogs lie, that the marriage vows are sacred, but now I see he was right. You are wicked, wicked, wicked! He deserves better.’
Gracie was not surprised at the woman’s reaction and in a way she admired her for sticking up for her son regardless, but her total denial told Gracie that she couldn’t be trusted.
Gracie stood up also. She was determined to keep the peace, especially while Rosaleen was holding Fay in her arms.
‘I don’t think I am wicked. I was wrong, but what Sean did was a million times worse.’
‘Nothing could be worse than what you did.’
‘Would you like to give Fay her bottle? Here, let me take her while you sit down then I’ll go and get it.’ As a distraction Gracie forced a smile. ‘I don’t want to fight with you, I know you don’t care for me and I don’t mind but I do want you to care about Fay. Now shall I go and get Mrs Hall so she can meet Fay also?’
Rosaleen handed Fay over and sat down again but she kept her arms folded to ensure Gracie didn’t pass her back again. ‘Yes, go and get Yolande. I want her to see the baby before I go and see Sean. But I won’t be taking Yolande with me, I have to see my son alone.’
Gracie watched the fight drain out of the woman and she felt sad for her.
Jennifer McCabe, her own sister, had destroyed so many lives in such a short space of time.
‘How did it go?’ Jeanette asked her that evening when she got home. ‘Ruby said you were so controlled, she said you didn’t even hit her!’
Gracie forced a smile. ‘I feel sorry for the woman but she is so hard to like. Still, she’s going to see Sean tomorrow, to surprise him. That’ll be funny! I almost want to tag along and see what happens … Then next week she’ll be gone and we can get back to normal.’
Gracie waved her arms in the air and wiggled her hips. ‘Think we’ll have to celebrate. We should all go to the Kursaal …’ she stopped and opened her eyes wide. ‘Bugger bugger, Ruby and I have missed our date on the roller coaster …’
‘What date’s that?’ Jeanette looked bewildered as she listened to her sister grumbling away and berating both herself and Ruby, even though Ruby was downstairs.
‘Never mind, for one year only we’ll have to change the date to next week when the dragon has flown.’
Gracie was walking through the hotel, holding Fay’s heated bottle, when she saw Henry dragging a trunk down the stairs.
‘Hey, you shouldn’t be doing that, Henry! Where’s Johnnie? That’s his job …’
‘Oh I don’t mind, it keeps me fit.’ Henry flexed his muscles and picked the trunk up by the handle on the end. ‘See? Easy, it just bounces down the stairs but don’t tell Mrs Skinner that’s how I do it!’ He looked around. ‘Now, where’s my favourite baby?’
‘She’s outside in her pram, I just came in to get this. It’s such a lovely day I thought I’d feed her under the porch.’
‘That’s right, dear – a bit of fresh air is just what a baby needs …’
Gracie put the bottle down and helped Henry get the trunk up to the desk.
‘We’ve just been to the shops up the road to pay some bills and now she’s dozed off. I might have to wake her for this,’ Gracie waved the bottle. ‘She needs all the help she can get if she’s going to catch up.’