Father Unknown

by Lesley Pearse

  Another mistake! She didn’t phone him or call round. He was left in limbo, not knowing whether she considered him persona non grata or if she was waiting for a gesture from him.

  He loved Daisy. From the first night he met her in the wine bar, he knew she was the only girl for him. He could remember how, as he helped her pick up the contents of her handbag from the floor, she tossed back that glorious hair, and beneath it were those forget-me-not-blue eyes. If she hadn’t agreed to go out with him that night, he thought he would have prowled around that area forever, just looking for her.

  He’d never felt that way about any woman before.

  She was dizzy, but in the best possible way. She fizzed like lemonade, she made every occasion a special one. He wanted her to be his wife, the mother of his children. The only reason he didn’t ask her within just a few months of knowing her was because her mother was so ill. He wished he’d told her now how great he thought she was while she was nursing Lorna. For it was then that he saw her true strengths, capable, kind, unflustered, keeping the whole family together with her humour and warmth.

  He’d finally phoned John at his office a couple of weeks before. They had always got on well, and he wanted John’s advice as to whether Daisy would welcome a reconciliation. Before he could even broach the subject, John told him Daisy had already found and met Ellen and she was, in his words, ‘walking on air’.

  It seemed John wasn’t entirely happy though. Daisy had made no attempt to find a job, she seemed to be living from one meeting with Ellen to the next, with no thought to her own future. John was quick to say he had no doubts that Ellen was an admirable woman, for Daisy had raved about her shop, her home, her elegance and beauty. Yet at the same time he did seem concerned that Ellen might be turning Daisy’s head by giving her expensive clothes and drawing her away from her family.

  ‘You know what she can be like,’ John said at one point. ‘She’s an all-or-nothing type. Right now it’s all Ellen this and Ellen that. We don’t get a look in.’

  ‘So I haven’t got a cat in hell’s chance of getting a look in either then?’ Joel said, keeping his tone light.

  John sighed. ‘I have to just wait till it’s run its course. But there’s no reason why you should, Joel. I can’t advise you, I really don’t know what’s going on in her head any more.’

  Joel sent Daisy some flowers the day after, with a little note saying he missed her. But it drew no response, not even a phone call to thank him, so he could only conclude that she’d lost interest in him entirely.

  It was as though all the light had gone out of his life. He woke each morning feeling as if he had lead weights lying inside him. Without her there didn’t seem to be any point to anything.

  He loved Daisy, he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. And he had believed that she’d felt the same way too. He wondered what she could be thinking of, to let something so good just slip away.

  Daisy was thinking about Ellen. She had thought of little else since she found her. But on this occasion she wasn’t just hugging herself with glee that she’d turned out to have such an interesting and beautiful mother, but considering what she could do to bring them closer.

  They had met eight times now, several times at Ellen’s flat. They’d had a couple of meals out, and drinks in the wine bar near her shop. Yet even though Ellen had bought her several presents, including that lovely green sweater from her shop, Daisy felt she was still holding back.

  It didn’t matter that she said she still wasn’t ready to meet Daisy’s family, Daisy didn’t think that was really important. But it did bother her a bit that Ellen still didn’t want to talk about her past. Daisy’s conception, birth and the subsequent adoption was something she dismissed as being too sad to talk about. Daisy was burning to hear about it, and she thought they were crucial issues that needed airing. But then Ellen didn’t talk about her life in Bristol either, what her friends were like, or her work. Mostly when she spoke of the past it was only about her childhood.

  It seemed to Daisy as she listened to amusing tales about the awful clothes she and Josie had to wear, how hard her father was, and how slatternly and vicious Violet could be, that Ellen was trying to trivialize her loss. She remembered that she and the rest of her family had been like that when Toby, the dog they had before Fred, died. Had they talked about all their best memories of him, they would have got terribly upset. So they only ever spoke of the things he had destroyed, the holes he dug in the lawn, and his constant barking at nothing.

  It seemed to her that Ellen still carried a burden of guilt about Josie, though why she didn’t know. Perhaps Ellen felt she hadn’t tried hard enough to stop her downward spiral, or that she should have tried to get her sister out of London to start a new career.

  The more Daisy mulled over things about Ellen, the more she thought that if she were to go back to Cornwall, or to have some contact with her past there, she could really put it all behind her. She didn’t dare suggest this, knowing Ellen would snap at her. But she couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  She also hadn’t dared tell Ellen that she had telephoned Mavis almost immediately after their second meeting and told her everything there was to tell. Mavis had wanted to come up to London right then and see Ellen, but Daisy had explained things and said it might spoil the relationship if she went against Ellen’s wishes.

  But now, a few weeks later, Daisy felt sure that it would be better in the long run to bring everything out in the open. Ellen did appear to have some friends in London, she did mention the odd supper or drinks parties. Yet she had no man in her life, and it looked as if she was alone for much of her spare time. She might say she liked her life the way it was, but Daisy suspected that was just bravado and she was in fact lonely.

  Mavis wanted to see Ellen so badly that she was prepared to risk possible rejection. Daisy didn’t believe for one moment that Ellen would reject her, why should she? The rift between them had only been caused by grief. Once Ellen had got over that first hurdle, maybe she’d open up fully. She might start to contact her old friends in Bristol and begin living again, rather than just putting all her energies into her shop.

  Daisy knew too that she should be putting her own house in order, whether that was moving away to work or finding a job in London. Tom and Lucy were revising for their final exams and planning a trip around the world afterwards. In one unusually generous moment Lucy had suggested Daisy came with them too. But since she found Ellen she had been preoccupied by her to the exclusion of everything else.

  Then there was Joel. She was ashamed she hadn’t thanked him for the flowers or had the grace to tell him whether it really was over, even though he still came into her mind with monotonous regularity.

  She missed a great many things about him, sometimes so much that it hurt. Love-making was one. Finding a mother was wonderful, but not quite in the same league as hot sex! Sometimes she would take out his front-door key and imagine going round to his flat when he was on night duty, to wait in his bed till he got home. Just the thought of it made her quiver.

  Then there was his sense of humour. She missed that, it seemed ages since she’d had a good laugh. She also missed that feeling of being looked after. It had always been Joel who organized taxis, booked tables in restaurants, thought up new things to do on his weekends off. She felt ashamed now that she’d told her father Joel was a control freak. He wasn’t, he was just far better at arranging things than she was.

  Yet if she did phone him and things started up again between them, wasn’t he likely to be funny about her seeing Ellen so much? And how could she fit a chef’s job in around him and Ellen? So she was doing what she always did when she couldn’t see a way forward – nothing.

  It was that knowledge that finally made her phone Mavis and hatch up a plot for her to meet Ellen. She was taking action, even if Joel, and possibly her father too, would see it as meddling in other people’s lives. Tim’s sister Harriet, Mavis’s granddaughter, lived in Finch
ley; Mavis could come up and stay with her for a long weekend, and on the Saturday afternoon Daisy would take her to see Ellen in the shop.

  ‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’ Mavis said doubtfully when Daisy put it to her. ‘Of course I want to take the bull by the horns, so to speak. But it is a bit of an intrusion.’

  ‘It was even more of one when I walked in and announced myself,’ Daisy said with utter confidence. ‘Look how well that turned out! Let’s be reckless.’

  The weather was glorious on the Friday evening in the middle of May when Mavis rang to say she’d arrived safely in Finchley. She was very excited about spending a few days in London with Harriet and seeing Daisy again, but most of all about looking up Ellen.

  ‘I’ll pick you up at twelve tomorrow,’ Daisy said. ‘We’ll have some lunch, then go to Hampstead in the afternoon.’

  ‘What are you up to?’ John said curiously at eleven on Saturday morning. He had heard Daisy go out early with Fred, then she had come home to shower and wash her hair. Just the way she was bustling around, all spruced up with a wide grin on her face, made him suspicious. ‘Have you made it up with Joel?’ he added hopefully.

  ‘No, but I might try to if things go well today.’ Her grin grew ever wider. ‘I do miss him.’

  ‘So what is it, a job interview?’ He looked her up and down and thought that the new pale blue dress and little jacket she was wearing were very attractive, but hardly suitable for an interview.

  She giggled and put one finger to her nose. ‘Keep that out,’ she said. ‘Until I’m ready to tell you.’

  John was looking out of the bedroom window later, admiring the cherry trees which were in full bloom and almost forming an arch over the road, when Daisy left the house. He watched her walk down to her car; she had a bounce in her step and she looked so pretty with the sun shimmering on her curls. She had looked that way when she first met Joel and he really hoped they could make it up.

  Pleased as he was that she’d found Ellen, he was finding her preoccupation with the woman a little tedious. From the day Daisy visited the solicitors, she hadn’t been herself at all. There seemed to be something a bit furtive about it all too. Daisy hadn’t shown him the letter she got back from Ellen, just announced she’d got one a couple of weeks later, and rushed off to meet her.

  She kept saying she wanted to arrange a meal in a restaurant so he and the twins could meet her, but that hadn’t happened yet either. Was he suffering from jealousy?

  ‘This was a bit of luck,’ Daisy exclaimed when she found a parking space in Haverstock Hill, right around the corner from Heath Street. She had been worried about Mavis walking – she might be fit enough to walk some distance on the flat, but hills were different.

  ‘I love Hampstead,’ Mavis said, looking all around her. Frank and I always came here when we were in London. We’d have afternoon tea somewhere, then he’d insist on buying me a present. I bet I’ve been in Ellen’s shop before, there was a lovely handbag shop in Heath Street. Frank once bought me the most beautiful beaded evening bag in there. I hardly ever had an occasion to use it, but I loved it.’

  Daisy smiled. Mavis had been reminiscing a lot since they left Finchley, about lunch with Frank in The Spaniards, walks on the Heath, and even swimming in one of the ponds. It was clear the pair of them had remained in love until his death.

  ‘Let’s hope she hasn’t got a shopful of customers,’ Daisy said as she locked up the car, then, taking Mavis’s arm walked across the street with her. ‘If it is crowded, maybe we’d better go and have a cup of coffee or something until there’s a lull.’

  Daisy was very nervous now, suddenly aware that it was a breach of Ellen’s trust to foist Mavis on to her like this. But there was no going back, Mavis was determined to see her, and besides, Daisy was sure Ellen would be glad once the deed was done.

  ‘That is the place where we bought my bag,’ Mavis said excitedly when Daisy pointed out the swinging sign up ahead. ‘It wasn’t called “Chic Boutique” then, but I remember the bow windows.’

  ‘Just wait here while I look and see who’s inside,’ Daisy said as they approached.

  The sunshine had brought out crowds of people, but hopefully most were only window-shopping on the way to the Heath. Daisy darted forward and glanced through the window. She could see Ellen bent over the counter writing something. The shop was empty, unless of course there was someone in the changing-room.

  ‘It’s okay, no one there,’ Daisy reported back to Mavis who was leaning heavily on her walking stick, looking a little anxious now.

  As the door-bell tinkled, Ellen looked up, saw it was Daisy and smiled. ‘Hello, sweetheart,’ she said.

  Daisy stepped down into the shop, Mavis following right behind.

  ‘Look who I’ve brought to see you,’ she said.

  There was utter silence for a second or two. Ellen looked at Mavis as if she didn’t know her, and when Daisy turned to see the older lady’s reaction, she saw she had turned very pale and had her hands up to her mouth.

  ‘What is it?’ Daisy asked, thinking the surprise meeting was too much for the old lady.

  ‘That’s not Ellen,’ Mavis gasped out. ‘It’s Josie!’

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Mavis’s statement seemed to hang in the scented air of the shop. Daisy looked from her to Ellen in astonishment. Ellen looked equally astounded and shaken, her brown eyes wide and staring.

  The total silence seemed to last minutes. Daisy was unable to think of anything to say. But Ellen broke it. ‘Oh, Mavis,’ she said reprovingly, ‘of course it’s Ellen, I’ve just smartened myself up, that’s all.’

  Mavis took a step forward, tottered and her stick fell from her hand. All at once she appeared to be about to faint.

  It was Ellen who rushed forward and caught her while Daisy stood by, too stunned to move. ‘Help me take her out the back,’ Ellen ordered her. ‘It’s quite a climb up that hill and very warm in here. Quickly now.’

  Taking one arm each, they half carried Mavis through the shop and storeroom out to the little yard and sat her down on the bench. Ellen nipped back in doors and returned seconds later with a damp cloth and a glass of water.

  ‘Fancy you thinking I was Josie,’ she said tenderly as she put the cool damp cloth on Mavis’s forehead, but she smiled as if it was amusing to her. ‘Surely I don’t look that much like her? Now, what are you doing up here anyway, gallivanting around Hampstead? You’ve given me quite a turn too.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Ellen, it was all my idea,’ Daisy blurted out. ‘I thought I had to bring you together again.’

  ‘You are too impulsive for your own good,’ Ellen said tartly. ‘As it happens, I’d been thinking that I should contact Mavis again. I am very pleased to see her. But shocks like this aren’t good for anyone, let alone someone of her age. Go and make us all a cup of tea and lock the door.’

  Daisy went off feeling very ashamed of herself.

  After locking the shop door she returned to the yard while she waited for the kettle to boil. Mavis’s colour was coming back and she was looking up at Ellen as she continued to hold the damp cloth to her forehead.

  ‘Why did you shut me out of your life?’ Mavis asked in a small shaky voice.

  Daisy felt a surge of relief. Clearly Mavis was only confused earlier.

  ‘It was never anything personal,’ Ellen said in a soft, sweet voice, stroking the older woman’s head. ‘I was in such a state after the fire. I could hardly wash and dress myself, much less talk to anyone, especially you who would have brought back so many more memories.’

  ‘But just a little note would have done.’ Mavis’s lips were quivering. ‘Anything so I knew your mind was still intact.’

  Ellen looked shamefaced. ‘I never meant to hurt you,’ she said. ‘I was so caught up in my own hurt I didn’t think of anyone else.’ She put her hand on Mavis’s shoulder. ‘Then there came a time when I knew I had to step out on a new road, and that meant putting aside everything th
at went before, even you.’

  ‘Frank died five years ago,’ Mavis said reproachfully, her voice still a little quavery.

  ‘Oh Mavis, I’m so sorry.’ Ellen pressed Mavis’s two hands between her own. ‘He was such a good man, and had I known I would have sent flowers at least, but I haven’t kept contact with anyone from Cornwall.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Mavis replied, looking up at Ellen, her blue eyes watery. ‘He was eighty-eight, a good age as they say, and I’m lucky to still have my children and grandchildren around me.’

  They had a cup of tea together, but Daisy could see that Mavis still wasn’t right. She wasn’t trying to talk to Ellen, in fact her expression was vacant, and when Daisy suggested she took her home to Finchley she nodded gratefully.

  Ellen was very solicitous, she took Mavis’s telephone number in Finchley and said she’d ring her later, and perhaps the following day they could meet for lunch. Mavis did appear to rally a little then, she said that coming up to London had been more tiring than she expected, and perhaps it was time she acted her age.

  Ellen took Daisy aside before she went to get the car. ‘That was a really stupid and dangerous thing to do,’ she said curtly, and her brown eyes were dark with anger. ‘Now, just make sure you get her home safely and make her have a lie-down. And don’t you dare try to interfere in my life again. I won’t stand for it.’

  Mavis was very quiet on the way home, she appeared to be in a world of her own, and coupled with Ellen’s angry words, Daisy’s anxiety deepened by the minute. At the door of her granddaughter’s house the old lady fumbled in her handbag for the key Harriet had given her, and failed to find it, so Daisy had to dig it out for her.

  As Harriet had said earlier that she was going out, and wouldn’t be home before five, Daisy led Mavis into the house with the intention of making them both tea. As they got into the hall Mavis stumbled, almost falling right over, and Daisy saw she was still very pale and that her hands were shaking.