Living a Lie (3 page)

“Are you frightened of me?”

“You hit her.”

Leaning towards her, he clenched his fist and held it in front of her face.

“Oh? And you think I’m going to hit you, is that it?”

“Aunt Mildred said you wouldn’t dare.” Her dark gaze was unflinching. All she could think of was her mother and what he had done to her. He laughed out loud at her boldness.

“Oh? Did she now?” When Kitty continued to look at him with accusing eyes, the laughter died and his face crumpled. For a while there was an awkward silence while he studied that small perfectly shaped face with its full mouth and those dark magnificent eyes; they were sad now, but he knew the sadness could not last. He knew there would come a day when those same eyes would turn any man inside out.

Confused and humbled by her silence, he told her in a small voice, “One day, you’re going to be a real beauty.”

“I want to go now.” She didn’t like the way he was looking at her.

“Go where, eh?” Enraged, he roared like a man demented, “I’ll say when you can go!” Reaching out, he grabbed her to him, pressing her to his body until she could hardly breathe.

“Your mother was a beauty too oh, not dark like you and me … a china doll she was, with eyes blue as the sky and hair like a summer’s day.”

Terrified, Kitty fought to free herself, but she was held too close.

She couldn’t cry out because her face was squashed to his breast and his arms were like steel bands round her shoulders. He rocked her backwards and forwards, his tears rolling on to her face.

“I loved her, you know,” he was saying.

“Whatever else I did, she knew I loved her.”

Suddenly he thrust her away. Gasping, Kitty struggled to break his grip on her shoulders but he held her fast, his face twisted with loathing as he shook her hard.

“You were there when she went under that train. Why couldn’t it have been you instead of her, eh?” Tears were flowing down his face and his sobs were terrible to hear.

“You could have stopped her! Why didn’t you?”

Kitty was sobbing, too.

“I didn’t know!” she called.

“Please, Daddy, I didn’t know.”

With a fierce blow, he sent her crashing across the room.

“IT SHOULD

HAVE BEEN YOU!

” Stumbling across to the drinks’ cabinet, he took out a bottle of whisky and turned to her again. But she was gone, and all he could hear was the front door closing behind her.

“Good riddance,” he snarled, then took the top off the bottle and drank until he almost choked.

“Doesn’t matter to me if you never come back,” he muttered to himself, and settled down to drain the bottle dry.

Linda Jenkins was a kind soul. When Kitty arrived at her door, afraid and confused, her heart went out to her.

“Stay here for a while,” she insisted.

“As soon as Mr. Jenkins comes home, he’ll have a quiet word with your father.”

A large woman with wild red hair and small brown eyes, she prided herself on being able to handle every little crisis. But this was different. A man had lost his wife and a child had seen her own mother leap to her death; had nearly gone with her too by all accounts.

“You’re not to worry,” she reassured Kitty.

It took only a few minutes to brew a pot of tea and pour it out. When that was drunk and Kitty was more composed, Linda urged tactfully, “Sarah’s gone to the shop. I forgot to tell her I needed an uncut loaf… if you go now, you can catch her on the way back. Go on.”

Ushering Kitty to the door she told her, “It’ll be all right, you’ll see.” But she couldn’t be certain. Bob Marsh was known for his bad temper. He wouldn’t take kindly to others poking their noses into his business, and that was a fact.

Once she had seen Kitty safely down the road, Linda returned to her chores. There was the evening meal to get and a pile of washing to fetch in.

“Rain forecast,” she muttered, rushing about and falling over the dog as she fled outside.

“Bloody weather.”

The Jenkinses lived only a few hundred yards from Kitty’s home. Ron Jenkins earned his living as a mechanic at one of Bob Marsh’s two garages. The Marshes’ house took pride of place in Woburn Sands High Street, while the Jenkinses lived across the road in a terrace of older, more modest dwellings.

Linda Jenkins ran a happy household. There was herself and her husband Ron, fifteen-year-old Harry, twelve-year- old Sarah, two cats named Bill and Ben, a budgie with one leg, and a spaniel named Jasper a mad creature who spent his days chasing cats and his nights howling to get out so he could cock his leg up the clothes’ line.

“Over the years, me and mine have had more than our share of troubles,” Linda muttered as she folded the dry washing.

“There have been times when I wished things could have been easier. But I know this much … I would never have swapped places with Lucinda Marsh, not in a million years I wouldn’t!” Like everyone at the top end of the street she had heard the shocking row between Kitty’s parents on that last night.

“Bob Marsh is a bad bugger deep down, and she were always too good for him, that was the pity of it.” Growing angry, she absentmindedly flung the washing in a heap. The dog ran off with a shirt and she gave chase, swearing like a trooper when she went flying over the clothes basket.

As Kitty turned the corner of the High Street she caught sight of Sarah going into the Co-op. The same age as Kitty, Sarah was slightly built, with carrot-red hair, droopy hazel eyes and a face peppered with freckles. She also had what her mother called ‘a wicked temper’.

Her moods blew hot and cold, so you never really knew where you stood with her.

Cheered by the sight of her friend. Kitty went at a run along the street, screeching to a halt when a miserable old man confronted her at the doorway.

“Get out of my way, you little sod!” he bawled, poking at her chest with his cane. The impact made her gasp. Opening the door for him, she apologised, but his answer was to push her aside. He went out, muttering all the time, “Bloody kids! Nearly knocked me arse over tip, she did.”

Sarah had seen it all.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said.

“Anyway, how did you know where I was?”

“Your mum told me.” Kitty walked alongside her.

“She says you’re to get an uncut loaf.”

Sarah was surprised.

“She already told me that.” Eyeing Kitty suspiciously, she remarked.

“You’ve been crying. It’s your dad, isn’t it?”

Reluctant to discuss it here in the shop. Kitty lowered her gaze. When she raised her dark eyes it was to glance around. Seeing there was only one other customer, and she was too far away to hear their conversation, she softly confided, “There’s been another row. Dad and Aunt Mildred.”

Sarah reached up to the top shelf and took down a tin of beans, “I know,” said Sarah, “I heard it.”

Taken aback, Kitty was curious.

“How could you hear it?” Grabbing a packet of cornflakes, Sarah told her, “I called for you. There was so much yelling I don’t expect you heard me knocking on the door.”

Shrugging, she explained, “It doesn’t matter. I just thought you might come shopping with me, that’s all.” Placing her hand on Kitty’s arm, she continued, “She’s a hypocrite.”

“Who?”

“Your Aunt Mildred.”

“How did you know it was her?”

“I saw her come out, that’s how.” Going to the cheese counter she pointed to the display.

“A pound of Red Leicester please.” Lowering her voice she told Kitty, “That old biddy doesn’t want you, does she?”

“Nobody wants me.” The truth was like a fist squeezing her young heart.

“You’re wrong. Kitty,” Sarah’s soft voice reprimanded.

7 want you, and so does Harry. “

Kitty’s eyes swam.

“I know,” she said simply “I didn’t mean that.”

Eager to put things right, she explained, “I meant my dad and Aunt Mildred.” A thought crossed her mind, “Do you think your mum and dad would let me come and live with you?”

Sarah shook her head.

“I expect Mum would, but Dad says we have to look after ourselves and not bother about others.” Shrugging her shoulders, she made a sour face.

“He’s a real misery lately.”

“Why doesn’t he like me?”

“Course he likes you!” Sarah had already gone through all the arguments with her parents.

“It’s just like I said… he’s frightened to get on the wrong side of your dad. He told our mam we shouldn’t poke our noses in where they’re not wanted, in case he gets the sack and we’re all put on the street. That’s what he said, but our mam told him he was talking through his arse.”

“I see.” But the only thing Kitty saw was that she was on her own.

“You wouldn’t really want to live with your Aunt Mildred, would you?”

If she had been asked, Kitty might have gone with her aunt that morning, but now she gave it a little more thought and her answer was resolute.

“No. I’d have to move to Bedford, and she might not let me visit you.”

“Don’t worry,” Sarah told her with the wisdom of youth, ‘you and your dad will be okay now, you’ll see. “

The lady had finished cutting and wrapping the cheese. After marking it with a big black pen she instructed kindly, “Pay for it at the till.”

A passerby watched the two girls walk away, still deep in conversation.

“Kids! They never cease to amaze me,” she remarked when the next customer came to the counter, “Look at them two … like a pair of old women discussing the ways of the world.” She chuckled then in more serious voice explained that Kitty was the daughter of ‘that poor young woman who threw herself under the train’. She went on to add that the two girls had known each other since primary school, then, in hushed tones, revealed every snippet of conversation she had just overheard.

“The dark one seems to think nobody wants her, and the carrot top seems to think it will all come right in the end.” She shook her head.

“All I can say is… I’m glad it’s not me who has to live with Bob Marsh!”

The other woman agreed.

“Poor little bugger. Lost her mother and left with a father who wants no part of her.” As Sarah and Kitty went up the street, earnestly talking, she murmured softly, “It’s a good job she’s got a friend.”

Ron Jenkins was on edge.

“They’ve been up there long enough,” he told his wife.

“It’s time the girl went home.”

Linda looked at the wall-clock; it was quarter to nine.

“I suppose it is getting late.”

“Course it’s getting late!” Irritated, he took a great gulp of his tea then placed the mug on the table, announcing in a firm voice, “I want her out of this house. Now!”

“Surely she won’t hurt for another few minutes? They’re listening to a pop music programme.”

“Do you want Bob Marsh coming round here?”

“That’s the last thing I want.”

“Then get the girl out, that’s all I’m saying … otherwise he just might come banging on the door, demanding to know why we’re harbouring his kid.”

“All right.” Going to the door, Linda added, “Though it’s hardly likely he’ll come looking for Kitty… not when he’s already told his sister he doesn’t want her. Our Sarah heard them going at it hammer and tongs.”

“None of our business!”

“That’s what too many people say.” Before he could answer, she was up the stairs, telling Kitty, “It’s time you went home, love. Your dad will be worried about you.”

Kitty might have said he wouldn’t care if she never came home again.

Instead she thanked Mrs. Jenkins, promised Sarah she would see her tomorrow, and with a heavy heart made her way up the street. Harry was just turning the corner. His face lit up when he saw her.

“Are you coming back later?” he wanted to know. Kitty shook her head.

“I

seem to make your dad uncomfortable,” she said.

Harry was nothing like his father. While Ron Jenkins was short and round with pale eyes, Harry was tall and dark-eyed. He was also athletic and good-natured, while his father fell into the chair minutes after he’d had his tea, woke up later with a sore head and never had a good word to say about anybody.

Harry was also persistent.

“Fancy a walk?”

Kitty shook her head.

“Better not,” she answered.

“Dad’s in a foul mood.”

He studied her for a while. It hurt him to see her so unhappy.

“Kitty, I want you to know I’m here, if you ever want me.”

She was more grateful than she could say.

“I know that.”

Bob Marsh was sprawled out, his long legs dangling over the arm of the settee and his hand still clutching the empty whisky bottle. He had drunk himself into a stupor.

“Dad!” Kitty tried to wake him.

“Dad, I’m going to bed now.” Though she had too often witnessed the violence in him, she had never before seen her father like this.

She shook him, yelled at him, even put a cold wet cloth over his forehead. He stirred and murmured Lucinda’s name.

Realising she would not wake him, and subdued by the sound of her mother’s name on his lips, Kitty locked all the doors and went upstairs. Here she had a long lazy bath. Afterwards she put on a clean nightie, brushed her long black hair and slid into bed. For a long time, she couldn’t sleep. The room was dark, but through the open curtains she could see the night sky; it was incredibly beautiful, a vast expanse of black velvet streaked with starlight. She wondered if her mother was up there, watching her. The idea both excited and terrified her.

Restless now, her frantic thoughts recalled what her mother had said:

“Stay close … don’t run away.” It seemed inconceivable to Kitty that her own mother had wanted to kill her.

“Why didn’t you stay with me?”

she asked the darkness.

“We could have run away together… found somewhere to live, just the two of us.” Her words echoed in the silence. A moment passed, before she heard the sound of soft laughter;

for one leaping heartbeat she thought it was her mother laughing.

Going to the window, she saw a young couple strolling down the street arm in arm. They were meandering from side to side as he bent his head to kiss her full on the mouth. Kitty was fascinated, the sparkle in her dark eyes shaming the stars above.