Cruel Tide

by Ruth Sutton

  ‘Did you promise Mummy something?’ said Judith to the boy who turned round to look at her. He shook his head. ‘Are you sure?’ she said.

  ‘What about sitting quietly at the table?’ said his mother. ‘This is a place for grown-ups, like this lady, and they don’t want to listen to whiny children.’

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Judith. ‘And if I sit at your table, you can sit nicely with us can’t you?’

  ‘Yes, please join us,’ said the mother. The boy climbed up on the chair without another word and picked up the long spoon to finish the ice cream that was turning to liquid in the bottom of a tall fluted glass.

  ‘Thank you, Tommy,’ said his mother, winking at Judith over his head. ‘Say hello to the lady.’

  ‘What’s your name?’ Tommy said to Judith, licking the pink foam from round his mouth.

  ‘Judith.’

  ‘Do you live here?’

  ‘In Bruciani’s?’ She laughed. ‘No, but my boss thinks I do.’

  ‘I’m Elspeth, by the way,’ said the young woman. ‘Thanks for this. I was just about to give up and take him home.’

  And so the conversation had flowed, covering Judith’s work, and the boy’s school, and the weather, the usual things. Elspeth invited Judith back to their little house in Roose for a cup of tea, and an hour or two later Judith’s ingrained habit of fact-finding had established that they’d lived in Roose since January, and before that they’d lived with Elspeth’s parents for two years. She had a part-time job in the same primary school as Tommy, which was really handy, and they’d had come into town to buy Tommy some new trousers for school because he was growing so fast. ‘He’s tall, like his father,’ said Elspeth. Judith waited for more. ‘But it’s just the two of us here, isn’t it Tommy? And Gran and Grandad in Chorley.’

  Judith had to wait until the Sunday afternoon when they all went for a walk together on the beach at Walney to hear the rest of the story about Tommy’s tall father. The first surprise was that Elspeth, like Judith, had been a student at Liverpool University, but they hadn’t overlapped; Judith had gone by the time Elspeth arrived fresh from school in 1962. Judith did not mention her reason for leaving, saying only that she’d been pushed into going to university by her mother and had never felt comfortable there, which wasn’t far from the truth.

  They walked along side by side, and stopped to watch Tommy playing tag with the incoming tide.

  ‘Are you wondering about Tommy’s father like everyone else does?’ said Elspeth.

  Judith smiled. ‘Is it that obvious? Sorry. It’s my job, you know. Nosey.’

  Elspeth took a deep breath. ‘OK, here’s the potted version. I met Ralph during freshers’ week, a few days after I’d left home. I was straight out of school, and he was on one of the stands, very confident, a real charmer. He was only there to get poor saps like me to sign up, but he made me feel good, and I fell for him, right there. Never met anyone like him before. He asked me to go for a drink, and then said he would show me round the hall of residence where he lived. It was full of boys, of course, all joking around and having a good time. I thought it was wonderful.’

  ‘Something happened, didn’t it?’ said Judith. ‘I know where this story’s going.’

  ‘It’s as old as the hills, I know,’ said Elspeth. ‘He took me to his room, locked the door, – for privacy, he said – and that was that. Just that once, and again at the weekend, and then he decided I was too quiet and it wouldn’t work, and he dumped me. I’d only been at university a week and my life changed, just like that. Found out I was pregnant a couple of months later. I went to the doctor on campus to ask about contraception and she told me I was eight weeks gone. I couldn’t believe it.’

  Tommy ran up to them. ‘I fell over, Mam,’ he said pointing to his scuffed knee.

  ‘Mummy,’ said Elspeth. ‘I fell over, Mummy. Let’s see.’ She peered at the knee, and rubbed it gently. ‘You’ll live,’ she said. ‘Off you go.’ He scampered away again, down the pebble bank towards the waves.

  ‘You’re very good with him,’ said Judith.

  ‘It just comes I suppose. You remember what your parents said to you. Sometimes you sound like your own mother. It’s frightening.’

  ‘What did your parents say, about you being pregnant?’

  ‘I didn’t tell them for a while. First thing was to tell Ralph, and he freaked out. I was shocked actually. He was almost hysterical about what his parents would say. Said his father would never allow it.’

  ‘Allow what?’

  ‘Us getting married. Ralph thought we would have to get married and live in a hovel and his life would be over. “I have to be lawyer,” he kept saying. I knew then I could never marry him, not because of his dad but because he was so horrid. I just told him not to bother about his precious life and his precious father and walked away. Then it hit me what I’d done, but I couldn’t go back. So I had to tell Mum and Dad. That was pretty gruesome but they were OK in the end, after a lot of crying and upset. I think it helped that Tommy was so gorgeous when he was a baby, but we’re all dark and that hair is a bit of a giveaway. Loads of people ask about it. I just pretend I’m divorced and that shuts them up.’ Elspeth giggled suddenly. ‘I remember one thing Ralph told me. I must have been an idiot to believe this. He said he had to have sex once a week or he got spots.’

  They both laughed.

  ‘Dad said Ralph’s people had to take some responsibility to help out with the baby. He did his best, but they were all lawyers, the whole clan, and they played it really hard. Dad daren’t take them to court over it, so in the end we just got some cash for somewhere to live and some money for the baby, nothing for me. It’s not much, but it helps, until Tommy’s sixteen and then it all stops. But he should be on his way by then, or I’ll have married someone with pots of money and it won’t matter.’

  Judith was still curious. ‘So you lived at home for a while, and then moved here. Why Barrow?’

  ‘Good question! My aunty Molly lives in Ireleth, and her neighbour works in the school in Roose, and they needed a part-time teacher, which was easier for me than trying to work fulltime. And the houses were cheap, to buy, not just to rent. Things just added up, so we put the money from Ralph’s family and some from my dad down for a deposit and here we are. It’s better here. I needed to get away. We both did. And it’s an OK place to live. The sea’s so close, Morecambe Bay on one side and Walney just across the bridge. We can get on the train and be back in Chorley in no time, and Windermere in an hour or two, or up the coast to Ravenglass. Have you been up there?’

  ‘I was born in Whitehaven,’ said Judith, ‘and then we moved to St Bees.’

  ‘There you are then. You know how beautiful it is up the coast,’ said Elspeth. ‘People here complain all the time, but I’m glad we came. I’m making a life for myself, for us.’

  For a moment Judith envied her new friend with shocking intensity. What did she have in her own life? Work, a small flat that wasn’t even hers, a family she saw infrequently and when she did it was full of tension.

  ‘You’re very lucky,’ she said to Elspeth.

  ‘Lucky?’ Elspeth laughed. ‘That’s rich.’

  Over the two months since then Judith had gone to see Elspeth a few times on her way home from work. They were both busy once the school year began and the weekends filled up with chores. But Elspeth’s little house felt more of a home than Judith’s flat. It was clean and tidy, and there was always cake in the tin and real food in the pantry. Tommy was a lively boy, noisy sometimes but curious and funny and he reminded Judith of her brothers. And she hoped that some of Elspeth’s contentment would rub off on her.

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  It was nearly six when Judith parked the scooter outside Elspeth’s. Tommy opened the door and shouted over his shoulder, ‘It’s that lady!’ Elspeth emerged, wiping her hands on a towel.

  ‘It’s Judith, Tommy. You know her name.’ She looked up at Judith, smiling. ‘Come in, love. I’m jus
t serving up. Want some?’

  Judith was impressed at how Elspeth was able to provide for three without warning when she struggled to provide just for herself. She was a few years older than Elspeth but seemed much younger in some ways.

  ‘Not had rabbit in years,’ she said when their plates were empty and Tommy had been released to watch the tiny TV in the front room.

  ‘I get it in the market,’ said Elspeth. ‘No questions asked about where it came from. It’s cheap protein.’

  ‘And delicious. Thanks.’

  Judith brewed tea and they sat together in the relative peace of the back room.

  ‘You were at Liverpool for a year, weren’t you?’ Elspeth asked.

  Judith nodded.

  ‘So why did you leave? Did you fail exams or something?’

  It was time. Judith badly needed to tell someone. She started right at the beginning, with the wartime death of her real father, Isaac Lowery, and how her mother Maggie and John had got together. ‘It’s all a bit rags to riches isn’t it?’ she said. ‘But John changed our lives, and he is a lovely man. His mam was special, too. I called her Jessie when it was just the two of us, not Granny like they wanted me to. She stuck up for me when I was a teenager and having rows with Mum all the time. But she got cancer and she died, about three years ago. I miss her. It was Mum’s idea to send me to a posh school and then university, but Mum wanted it more than I did. I’d had enough of exams, just wanted to get a job and earn enough money to get away from home.’

  ‘I’m the same,’ said Elspeth, ‘even though my parents seem a bit easier than yours.’

  ‘I’ve never told my parents why I left university.’

  ‘Tell me,’ said Elspeth. ‘Get it off your chest.’

  The tears came easily and Elspeth produced a large handkerchief from somewhere. ‘He was my tutor, and I never thought he could do something like that. It wasn’t just that he hurt me,’ said Judith. ‘He humiliated me, throwing me out of his office in such a mess. People stared at me in the corridor. I couldn’t go back there again.’

  ‘Why didn’t you just change course, or tell someone about what he’d done? He could be still there, doing the same thing again.’

  ‘I know, I know. I should have reported it, but what if they didn’t believe me? And Mum would have found out. I couldn’t bear it, so I just left. Told Mum I never really wanted to be there, couldn’t face another year of boredom, all that. It was tough for a while, but I found a job in a bookshop in Liverpool and enjoyed it. Interesting people, plenty to read, enough money to get myself a room. It was great for a few years and then I got bored. Dad said he would pay for journalism school in Preston and after that I got a job on the evening paper. Peanuts for wages and crappy stuff to do, but it was a start. I did three years and was getting some decent assignments when this posh kid turned up whose dad knew the editor and all of a sudden I was “surplus to requirements”. It was probably time to move on anyway, but sometimes it feels like I’ve had to start all over again in Barrow. To get a decent story I have to get past Skelly who thinks I should be at home in the kitchen, and then everything I write has to go to Cunningham.’

  ‘Is he the creepy one?’

  ‘Hattie calls him the groper. He’s harmless enough I suppose, but every time he starts on me I get the memory of what happened before. Makes me feel physically sick. Just wish it would wear off. I might have to move again, and that’s just not fair.’

  Judith blew her nose noisily. ‘Sorry about the hankie,’ she said. ‘I’ll wash it properly, promise.’

  Elspeth laughed. ‘Keep it,’ she said. ‘What’s a hankie between friends? Or drop it in the basket in the bathroom and it’ll go in my new washing machine! Sam’s buying one for me as a moving in present and I’m so excited. Pathetic isn’t it?

  Judith looked at her. ‘Sam? Who’s Sam?’

  ‘My half-brother. Didn’t I tell you about him? I thought I had.’

  ‘Give me the short version, or we’ll be here for hours.’

  ‘My mum was married before to a man from Glasgow, and had Sam, but her husband died suddenly and Mum was left on her own. My dad, the one in Chorley, was an old friend of the family and they, you know, got together and married and had me. Sam’s three years older than me. He lived with us while I was growing up but I don’t think he and my dad got on that well. Sam joined the army when he was sixteen but that didn’t work out, so he left the first chance he could and joined the police instead.’

  ‘He must like uniforms,’ said Judith.

  ‘You’d think so wouldn’t you, but now he doesn’t wear one. He’s plain-clothes, a detective. Done very well. Transferred to Barrow, lived in digs for a while and hated it, and then Mum suggested he could have my spare room. I get the money and Tommy gets a man around. Seemed like a good plan, so he’s moving in and we’ll see if it works. I haven’t seen much of him for ten years. It could be awful.’

  ‘Has he always lived on his own before?’

  ‘Ah, well that’s another story,’ said Elspeth. ‘He’s a pretty straight man, you’d know that if you met him. Nothing swinging sixties about him. He went out with one girl from school, the beautiful Christine, the childhood sweetheart, and then of course they got married, far too young. He was only twenty-one, just a young copper. We all told him it was a mistake, but he wouldn’t have it.’

  ‘What happened? Sounds like it didn’t work out.’

  Elspeth laughed. ‘That’s the polite version. I’d say he was happy for a year or two, maybe less, then you could tell it was going wrong. He wanted to be at home when he was off duty, she always wanted to go out. He was on late shifts, she only worked mornings. One day he came home and found her in their bed with some bloke, both naked. Sam went nuts, there was a big fight and Sam threw him out and chucked his clothes out of the window. The bloke ran off in his pants and socks! Christine had the gall to blame Sam for leaving her alone too much, but he wouldn’t leave the police and they seemed to patch it up. God knows why he didn’t throw her out as well. He obviously thought it was a one-off, never happen again, all that stuff. Then a couple of weeks later he got home from work and found the house empty.’

  ‘She’d gone?’

  ‘Empty! No Christine, and nothing else either. Everything gone. She’d taken the lot, furniture, carpets, even the light bulbs. No note. The neighbours said two blokes came with a van and just loaded everything up and drove away. Poor Sam. He called me and when I got there he was sitting on the floor in the empty sitting room, arms round his knees, rocking back and forth like a crazy person. That was ages ago now, just after I had Tommy. He’s lived like a saint ever since, as far as I can see. No girlfriend, just work and an occasional drink with his mates.’

  Something dawned on Judith.

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘He went back to his real dad’s name when he left home. Detective Constable Samuel Tognarelli! Pretty impressive isn’t it?’

  CHAPTER 4

  Judith looked around her tiny flat and was ashamed. Living alone, treating the place as somewhere to sleep and eat the occasional meal, she’d lost track of what her mother would have called normal housework, the chores that any self-respecting person would have done without thinking. Judith certainly didn’t think about it, despite the daily irritations of losing things, not having clean clothes to wear and a permanent lack of teaspoons. She knew she should reciprocate Elspeth’s regular hospitality, but dreaded the idea of anyone else seeing how she lived. On Saturday morning she decided to take herself in hand.

  She discovered that housework was good for thinking. There was something about the mindlessness of the activity that let her thoughts wander more freely. As the weekend stretched ahead of her, Judith scrubbed away with Ajax on the stained kitchen sink and wondered why she hadn’t told Elspeth about her first meeting with Sam. Maybe it was the same reason that had stopped her inviting Elspeth to the flat. Despite all her apparent confidence, Judith worried about how people would
perceive her, especially if she cared about them. She didn’t know Sam; he probably thought she was a jumped-up, pushy newshound, but who cared? The thought that Sam was close to Elspeth, whom she did know and whose respect she wanted, came as a shock to Judith. She’d had the chance to admit that she and Sam had met, and had avoided saying anything and created another unnecessary secret. It was foolish, she was foolish. Sometimes she didn’t like herself much at all.

  She rinsed the sink, took off the Marigold gloves, made herself a cup of tea and looked around. The sink was clean, but the rest of the flat was a mess. For an hour she tackled the accumulated piles of discarded stuff that lay in every room, putting things away or in big bags for the dustbin. She found things she thought she’d lost, uncovered surfaces that had been hidden for months, dusted, wiped and even polished. In the cupboards she found food she’d forgotten buying, some of which was still edible, and a late lunch consisted of cold baked beans followed by tinned fruit salad floating in evaporated milk.

  Bedsheets were changed for the first time in weeks, and the dirty ones and grubby towels festered in a bag by the door waiting for a trip to the launderette. The clean bed looked crisp and inviting and she couldn’t resist, falling immediately into a deep sleep. But it lasted only a couple of hours and she woke with a start, feeling mud closing over her head, thrashing out against a pillow that had covered her face. It took a few minutes to find her bearings, realise it was mid-afternoon not early morning, and pull herself together.

  Domestic redemption and the launderette were forgotten as she let her mind wander back to Steven Stringer and his short life. She wanted to make the most of his story, to make sure he was not forgotten. Could this be a ‘poor unwanted child’s death goes unnoticed by the world’ story, or a ‘grieving family speaks of their loss at a packed funeral service’ story? She’d have to wait and see, but she thought the editor would be pleased with either. ‘Thank you, George, for being ill,’ she said to herself, ‘and giving me this chance.’ There was still the meeting with Mikey at Montgomery House. Wednesday, she hadn’t forgotten. If and when she saw Tognarelli again she would avoid any mention of Elspeth, and leave any awkwardness till later.