I
picked up the letter again and stroked it gently with my fingers. When I had first read it just for a few moments, I had wondered if I could still keep my secret, for it was Kathy, my second child, who had written.
‘But you deserve the truth,’ I thought. ‘You have the right to know about your sister, and if you have found me then maybe she will as well. If we meet, the truth must be told.’
That day I talked to my grown-up daughter as if she was sitting next to me on the couch.
‘I will not be able to tell you that your father was a boy who disappeared to London, will I?’ I said to the empty space. ‘You will want his name, where he lived and who he worked for here because you will want to trace him also, won’t you? Nor will I be able to say that I don’t know who your sister’s father was. You simply would not believe me, and anyhow would I want to tell that story to my daughters?’ And again I thought of the lie that I had told at thirteen; the lie that had so many repercussions.
As I thought of it my eyes were drawn to the silver-framed photograph on the mantelpiece. It was of my husband and me, taken just a few months earlier. We had been on holiday for a four-day break in the Lake District to celebrate our wedding anniversary.
My husband had arranged it all as a surprise. Then once the arrangements had been made, with a beaming smile he had shown me our tickets for a coach trip plus a four-star hotel. Someone on the same trip had taken the photograph for us, and on my return home I had had it framed.
He, with his height of six foot four, was always so aware that he dwarfed my tiny five-foot frame. His arm was placed lightly around my shoulders, while I looked up at him with a smile wide with love, trust and happiness. As I stared at the photograph and remembered that happy time, another face superimposed itself over my adult one: a face with the soft features of pre-pubescent childhood, one whose eyes looked helplessly back at me. And I saw clearly the child I had once been, a frightened, lonely one – two ingredients that had turned me into a vulnerable child. I shuddered and returned to happier thoughts.
My mind swirled back then to the night when I had met my husband, Bob, the man who had finally made me feel safe.
Since I had returned to work there had been a flood of girls moving down from London to work in the factories. If they had heard any of the stories about me they never mentioned it. Their minds were far too occupied by the latest outfits they wanted to buy and which dancehall was likely to have the best ‘talent’, as they put it there. A group of them had persuaded me to join their table at the firm’s annual dance.
‘Come on, Marianne,’ said Bev, when she saw me about to refuse. ‘Time you started mixing again. Tell you what: I’ll make you a new outfit. Got some fab fabric, and made up it will turn a few heads all right.’
With Bev’s sewing machine out on the table and yards of pale material spread out, it was almost like old times. Bev cut and pinned, intent on her work. The radio was playing the latest tune and she hummed along although her lips were pursed tightly together holding the spare pins between them. I watched her transform the crisp cotton into something stylish for me to wear.
‘Time you had something new and pretty,’ she said as she cut out and stitched a square-necked dress that had a tight bodice and a full skirt.
A minibus collected us that evening. It was already half full with girls who were intent on a good night out and were dressed in the newest fashions. As I climbed into it I was suddenly grateful for Bev’s input, for I felt my dress looked as good as anyone’s there, and suddenly I felt more relaxed. I sat back in my seat and breathed in the atmosphere. The air was heady with a host of different perfumes and, as we got there, there was the ‘psst’ sound of last-minute hair lacquer being sprayed onto back-combed hairstyles. We were normally a noisy bunch, but with the heightened anticipation of a good night out the noise levels were immense as the girls laughed, cackled and shouted backwards and forwards to each other in light-hearted banter.
As soon as the minibus drew up at its destination our group climbed swiftly out and, clutching our handbags, sauntered through the double doors of the hotel where the function was being held.
A waiter placed a brightly coloured drink in my hand as soon as I arrived and, as I sipped it appreciatively, I found my nervousness decrease.
Following everyone across the foyer, we came into the ballroom where there were long tables laid out for a dinner. At the far end of the room was a large dance floor and a stage where, once we had eaten, a band would play.
It was after the last mouthful of food had been swallowed that one of the new girls leant across the table. ‘Hey, Marianne,’ she said, ‘did you know they’ve put our names down for the “Princess of the Firm” competition?’
My eyes grew large at that and I looked down the table to where Bev was sitting.
‘Don’t blame me,’ she said laughingly. ‘It’s the blokes who put your name up – nothing to do with me!’
Another drink was passed my way, and I gulped it down nervously. The thought of walking around that dance floor, with everyone’s eyes on me, had the effect of making me want to run to the nearest exit and make a dash for it. I also knew that was not an option. The other eleven girls who had been chosen to take part formed a line, and one grabbed my hand and pulled me up with them.
‘Come on, love,’ said a pretty blonde girl, ‘it’s just a bit of fun,’ and I watched as she walked the circuit swaying her hips to thunderous applause. Then it was my turn, I walked round that dance floor as fast as I could, hoping my cheeks had not turned that tell-tale pink, and to my utter surprise there were more cheers and claps, this time for me.
The pretty blonde-haired girl won the first prize and I was runner-up. I felt my cheeks turning salmon pink with embarrassment when the ribbon was hung round my neck to even more applause.
Boys came up and asked me to dance and as the band started up I danced with some of the men from work whom I knew.
It was not until the evening was nearly at its end that I noticed a couple of blokes, older than the boys in our group, sitting at a table just watching the dancing. Something really strange happened – a little voice in my head said, ‘Ask him to dance.’ I did not need the voice to tell me which one of the two it meant – the dark-haired one looked like Simon Templar, the actor who played the lead in the television series
The Saint
.
‘No way,’ I said to that voice, but it persisted. It was then that I felt as though someone else, a daring adventurous girl I did not know, had taken over my body. For the next thing I knew I was standing in front of them, smiling at the dark-haired one and hearing the words, ‘Would you like to dance?’ coming out of my mouth.
‘You’ve got a lovely smile,’ he said. Then I saw him whisper something to his friend and felt my face go red with embarrassment. I later found out that what he said to his mate was, ‘Watch her face when I stand up.’
He looked up at me then and smiled. ‘OK, come on then, let’s dance,’ and as he uncurled himself off the chair I realized I was not much higher than his waist.
‘I think you’ll have to stand on my toes if all else fails,’ he said, and I looked up to find him grinning down at me.
I told him my name and he told me his – Bob.
He asked me how old I was.
‘Seventeen,’ I replied, and he admitted that he was eight years older.
He took me home that night, and the next day, Sunday afternoon, we went for a drive. I can’t remember where we went, but I remember that we just talked and talked, and we got on so well that I felt as though I had known him for ever.
Bev and Phil had been there when he called for me and I knew they were giving him the once over, as they were still very protective of me.
‘I’ll need to make you some more clothes. You’ll need a few changes,’ she said with a grin when I got back for tea that first Sunday, ‘if you’re going to keep going out regularly, that is.’
Whilst we washed up after tea Bev told me she and Phil thought how nice he was. But neither Bev nor I voiced the one worry that that was never far from my mind.
Sooner or later I was going to have to tell Bob about Kathy and I dreaded the thought; it was the only cloud hanging over those early weeks. What would he feel like when he found out about the baby? Every time I saw him my resolve to come clean simply crumbled. I was just so happy being with him that I was terrified of spoiling things. I knew he liked me and he treated me like a delicate flower. What would he say? What would he do?
In the end I swallowed a gin and tonic down in one gulp as we sat in the pub he had driven me to. Before he had even put his pint down on the table I told him that I wanted to talk to him in the car. As a look of concern crossed his face, I explained that I had something I had to tell him.
I had decided to stick to the same story I had given Bev, about the boyfriend who had gone to work in London.
‘I know,’ Bob said when I had finally summoned up the strength to blurt it all out.
‘I’ve known since the second time I took you out. Blokes talk, you know, Marianne.’
He had also known that I would tell him when I was ready, and he had been waiting patiently for this time to come. He took my tiny hand in his large paw-like one. As he cradled it, he looked into my eyes and talked. Everyone was allowed one mistake. He knew enough about me to know he wanted to marry me. He wanted to look after me. He knew a bit of how my parents had acted when they found out I was pregnant, and he told me that he would never let anyone hurt me again. He said that it was a good thing that the man who had made me pregnant had left town, because if he lived here and if he found out who he was, he just might kill him. After all, I had been under age, hadn’t I? An underage and naïve virgin that had been taken advantage of, was how Bob saw me.
But that day the word I heard louder than any of the other words that tumbled from his mouth was ‘marry’.
‘Marry?’ I repeated, perhaps a bit hesitantly for his liking.
‘Well, Marianne, maybe I was being a bit big-headed there, but I thought you felt a little for me,’ he responded.
I could only stutter out the word ‘Yes’. What I meant was, yes I did, and yes, I wanted to marry him.
He wanted me to meet his parents – they would love me, he assured me.
Then he said something I did not want to hear.
He wanted to meet mine.
I went home that night, floating on air. But when I was in bed with the covers pulled up under my chin I heard his words again: ‘one mistake’.
That was the beginning of me deciding that the ‘one mistake’ was all he was ever going to hear about.
I
knew Bob had heard about my father’s bouts of drinking and his temper, but what I was desperately concerned about was what he would think of the home I had come from.
I went to see my mother for the first time since I had been thrown out of the house, carefully choosing a time that my father would be at work.
She told me that she had heard on the grapevine that I was seeing someone and that she was glad for me. I don’t know were she got her information from but it was most probably my father. He drank in the same pubs as some of the factory workers.
I told her that Bob knew about Kathy and yet that hadn’t stopped him from proposing. I explained that now he wanted to meet them.
‘And the other one,’ my mother asked. ‘Does he know about her, your first baby?’
I shook my head.
‘Please, Mum,’ I pleaded, ‘don’t ask me to tell him about that.’
I looked her in the eyes then and held her gaze. ‘If he heard about that one, he would want to know who the father was, and he knows me too well to believe that at thirteen I was sleeping around so much that I wouldn’t know. And anyhow, I was only thirteen so he’d want that name all right.’
My mother dropped her gaze, sighed and simply told me to bring Bob around on Saturday afternoon.
‘Get here before your father has time to go to the pub,’ she said.
I wanted to tell Bob about the first baby. I wanted to start married life without any secrets between us, but those words ‘one mistake’ kept rebounding in my ears. Then something happened that made my mind up for me.
The man from next door appeared at Bev’s house. It was on a day that Bev and her husband were at work and I was in on my own.
When I opened the front door I saw a man who for a split second I did not recognize. He was of medium height, more skinny than slight, dressed in clothes that had seen better days – there was a shine to his jacket, a tie with a small tight knot under a frayed collar and his trousers sagged around the knees. Dark hair flecked with grey was slicked straight back, and his eyes added to his general air of seediness as they darted furtively over my shoulder and tried to see into the house. It was his smell that I recognized first: that one of petrol, hair oil and cigarettes.
‘Hello, little lady,’ he said. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me in?’
I wanted to slam the door in his face. I wanted him to disappear and I wanted him to be out of my life for ever.
Seeing my wishes clearly written on my face, he put his foot in the doorway and smirked.
‘Come on, Marianne, we don’t want the neighbours talking, do we? Not when you’re so respectable and all. So you’d better let me in, hadn’t you?’
I thought of refusing and then I thought of something else; something that might just stop him ever trying to see me again. With my mind racing I took a deep calming breath, then stepped aside.
‘What do you want?’ I asked as soon as the door was closed, but I knew. Only one thing would have brought him to my door – he wanted what he had always wanted.
But I was no longer a frightened child, was I?
‘Hear you’re getting married, Marianne. I’m pleased for you. Just thought I would come and give you my congratulations.’
His arms shot out then, trying to embrace me, and I moved quickly to avoid them.
‘What’s the matter? Haven’t you a kiss for your old special friend then? Don’t say you’ve forgotten me already?’
I cringed.
I told him I wanted him to leave the house and that Bev was due back any minute.
‘Don’t be silly, Marianne, you never were a good liar,’ was his reply. ‘I know she’s working the early morning shift and won’t be back till gone twelve.’ He looked around the hall, then strode confidently into the sitting room and sat himself down on the settee.
‘Only want a little chat,’ he said, and I looked at him nervously. His eyes were darting around the room, taking it in. ‘Nice comfortable set-up you’ve got yourself here, isn’t it?’ I didn’t answer him and just waited for him to say what he had come to say.
‘So your friend knows about you, does she? Knows about the babies you gave away?’ he asked in the same tone of voice that I remembered from my childhood. It reminded me of when he told me he was the only one who could protect me.
‘Of course she knows about Kathy,’ I snapped. ‘I was living here, wasn’t I?’
‘Wonder what story you gave her, Marianne – surely not the truth?’ he replied with another smirk. ‘By the way, that little sister of yours is growing up nice.’
I looked at him with loathing then and waves of revulsion mingled with the sudden rage I was starting to feel.
‘Bet that big chap you’re thinking of marrying doesn’t know everything about you,’ he said. ‘Bet he doesn’t know you can’t even remember when you were still a virgin.’ And as those words left his mouth he knew that they had found their mark and he gave a mocking little laugh.
‘Tell you what, Marianne, if you’re really nice to me I’ll keep quiet about the other one and how old you were.’
His hand rested on the front of his trousers and his face twisted into a predator’s leer. It was then that my temper finally swamped any fear of him that I had harboured since I was a child.
‘You’re wrong there,’ I lied, trying to sound as confident as possible. ‘My Bob knows, all right. And do you know what he said? He said it made no difference to him, that I was only a child then. Oh, you’re right, I did tell him a couple of lies. I said the first one was an older boy at school and the second was someone I had dated. And do you know what Bob said then?’
There was no answer from that seedy little man sitting on the settee. Words seemed to have deserted him, and with a feeling of something approaching triumph I answered my own question.
‘He said he didn’t want to know their names because if he did he wouldn’t be responsible for what he might do, especially to the one who got me pregnant at thirteen. So that’s the only secret between Bob and me – your name – and if you know what’s good for you it’s the one secret you’ll appreciate me keeping.’
My whole body was vibrating with rage as I spat those words out and, to my delight, I saw that every word had sunk in – he could tell by my face that he no longer had power over me. ‘Oh, and in case you think otherwise I’d better not hear you’ve got friendly with my sister either – that just might make me remember your name as well.’
He stared at me for a short while and I glared right back, my chin held high. And then, without a word, he got up and walked out. I remember leaning against the front door after he had left, fighting waves of nausea before the realization that I had won finally sunk in.
That was the last time I spoke to the man next door.