Father Unknown

by Lesley Pearse

  She had sobbed as she looked at it, hating Daisy for forcing her to leave it. The whole flat had been a sanctuary, every piece of furniture, every ornament, picture, utensil and cushion chosen by her alone. She’d been happy there for the first time in her life, with no memories of the past, no voices telling her she was no good. She was reborn as the person she’d always wanted to be. Then Daisy came along, like a living ghost of Ellen, and ruined everything.

  She could remember locking the front door as she left, and carrying the last two cases down the stairs. It was dusk then, and she hoped none of her neighbours would see her drive out.

  If she could recall some things so well, why hadn’t she turned off the M4 into the airport? Where was she going now?

  The blue signs on the motorway were very familiar with place-names like Reading and Swindon that had once meant she was getting closer to Ellen with every mile. Yet Ellen had let her down in the end too.

  All at once an old memory of the last time she made this same journey began coming back to her. She tried to suppress it, and the events which led up to it, but she couldn’t.

  It was a hot sultry evening in the summer of ‘78 and she was at a party somewhere in West London, close to the river. She had just finished filming, six weeks of tacky soft porn for the German market. She was on a natural high that night, for she’d made enough money to get a better place to live, take a holiday and have some fun. She had already had a lot to drink when a man offered her a line of coke. It was good, and she danced, chatted and laughed, having the time of her life.

  Much later, the man came back to her and said he was off with his friend to score, and if she wanted some too, she could go with them. She had wanted more coke, but she had no money on her. The man said that was no problem, they could stop off at her place to get some, and once they’d scored she could get a taxi back to the party as they were going on somewhere else.

  They gave her another couple of lines as they drove to her place in Shepherd’s Bush. She remembered them teasing her as they got out of the car, saying she must have fallen on hard times to live in such a dump. She told them it was only temporary, and that she’d just had a big payout. It was true too, she had nearly a thousand pounds up in that hideous room.

  Then suddenly everything turned nasty. As soon as the men were in her room, one of them punched her and demanded to know where her money was. She tried telling them she had been lying and that all she had was about thirty pounds, but it did no good. While one of them held her down with a knife at her throat, the other ransacked the room until he found the money.

  They packed up everything she had of value, her jewellery, leather and fur coats, even her stereo. Then they raped her in turn, laughing as they did it. They punched her to the floor and the bigger one pissed all over her as she lay there crying, then they left.

  Ellen was the only person she could run to.

  The sun was coming up as she drove out of London, crying with the pains of her injuries, stinking of those evil men. They had taken every penny she had, even her cheque-book and bank card. Everything she had left in the world was thrown in the back of the car, but she even had to leave her last valuable, her wristwatch, in a garage in exchange for petrol.

  Josie could see Ellen now in her mind’s eye, as she opened her front door. She looked innocent and clean in one of those white cotton nightdresses with ruffles, her bare arms and legs a deep golden-brown.

  Yet that time there was no welcoming hug, no concerned words that Josie had a black eye. Ellen just took one look at her sister and turned away, her lips pursed in disgust.

  ‘You can come in and have a bath, I’ll even let you stay for the rest of the weekend while you tell me your latest sordid story. Then you can go,’ she threw over her shoulder.

  Ellen didn’t relent even after hearing every last thing the men did to Josie. ‘I’ve had it with your hard-luck stories, you bring it all on yourself,’ she said, her eyes as cold as a February morning. ‘I’ve helped you hundreds of times, but all you do is shit on me. This time you’re on your own.’

  Josie had no choice but to go down to Cornwall. There was nowhere else to go. But it was much worse than on any previous occasion, for this time she knew with utter certainty there weren’t going to be any more breaks for her. She was twenty-nine, her body wasn’t so firm anymore, tiny lines were appearing round her eyes. She really was washed up.

  Getting a job in an office in Truro appeased her parents a little. But hardly a day passed without Violet whispering that she should find an older man with money, seduce him and get him to marry her, just as she’d done with Albert. Josie wanted to scream at her that she was a filthy old cow, that sex disgusted her, and so did she, her mother. But she had to pretend to agree with her, just for some peace.

  Setting fire to the farmhouse was an idea Josie had toyed with and even joked with Violet about in the past. It had seemed a good way to force her father’s hand to sell his land, but nothing more. Land prices had leapt up during the early Seventies, and her parents could retire comfortably to a house in Falmouth with the proceeds.

  If she hadn’t found a copy of Albert’s will, she would never have seriously considered it. The will was tucked into a box-file beneath his work-bench at the back of the shed where he kept his tractor. Josie had only gone there looking for a screwdriver to try to mend her hair-dryer. She dropped the tool accidentally, and as she was picking it up, she saw a box of old magazines tucked beneath the bench. Thinking they were ones with her in them, she had pulled it out, but as she lifted the magazines, she saw the file hidden beneath them.

  Most of the papers were very, very old, relating to Albert’s father and even his grandfather. But there among them was the will, and when she discovered Ellen was to inherit everything, that she and her mother would get nothing, she felt suddenly murderous towards her father. Coming so soon after his refusal to lend her two hundred pounds as a deposit on a cottage she’d found in Truro, and countless other slights and humiliations, it was the last straw. The cottage was a real bargain at only two thousand pounds. She knew by the way house prices were rising that even without improving it, it would be worth double that in a couple of years. She had even got an offer of a mortgage for it.

  Albert refused point-blank, even though she knew he had the money. ‘You want a cottage, then work for it,’ he said, looking her up and down scornfully. ‘Or sell yourself, that’s what you’ve done before, in’t it?’

  As she stood there in the shed, the will in her hands, all at once she began to erupt with anger and hatred. She had always known he preferred Ellen to her, she’d accepted that along with his sarcasm and lack of interest and praise. Yet she’d somehow always imagined that the farm would go to both of them.

  From that day on in late August, every sharp word, black look or angry retort added fuel to the fire burning inside her. When Ellen came down for a holiday in early September she noted how Albert always smiled whenever she came into the room. He would be enthralled by her boring stories about her crippled kids. She saw him hug her spontaneously, and remembered he hadn’t kissed or hugged her since she was fourteen.

  Yet Violet was every bit as bad. Ellen could buy her a cardigan in a charity shop, and she went around beaming all day. Josie had bought her a lovely Shetland wool one the previous winter, but she never wore it, saying it itched.

  Ellen got thanks for helping around the house, yet when Josie washed up, she was taken to task for leaving a smear on a plate or a stain in a cup. Ellen’s opinion counted with Violet, it was ‘Ellen said this, Ellen said that’, as if she was some kind of oracle who could never be wrong about anything. But then, she’d only changed her tune so she’d get more out of Ellen.

  As a young girl Josie had been able to balance Albert’s indifference to her with the affection she got from Violet. But there was no affection any more, Ellen got it all. Albert, Violet and Ellen were family, bound together by shared interest in the farm. Josie was an embarrassment, a dis
grace. They would be happy if she disappeared, never to return.

  The planning of the fire was intensely satisfying. In her lunch-break at work Josie would make lists of potential problems and ideas, and work on a timetable. On the drive to and from work she would happily think of the fortune that would come to her afterwards, and tell herself that if Albert had just given her that deposit, it wouldn’t be necessary.

  She planned it for Albert’s sixtieth birthday because she knew Ellen would jump at the chance of a surprise party. The weather was often bad in October with storms and high winds. Yet the leaves on the trees wouldn’t have begun to drop, so the fire would remain hidden until it was too late to put it out.

  Josie came out of her reverie as she approached the turn-off for Bristol, all at once aware that the city now held nothing for her but memories of that time after the fire when she’d come back here.

  The memories were disagreeable ones of living in fear of the police coming to arrest her. They called again and again at first, questioning her about every detail of her parents’ and her sister’s lives. But her portrayal of a woman torn apart by grief must have convinced them she had no hand in the fire.

  She practised Ellen’s handwriting and signature constantly, burning the evidence afterwards. She tried on every last thing in her wardrobe, tied her hair back, and even let her eyebrows grow naturally until she felt she was a replica of her sister.

  Even after all this time she could still hear that doorbell ringing, the shouted pleas from Ellen’s friends through the letter-box to open the door. Sometimes she would just stand by the window long enough to convince the caller she was alive and well. She took the phone off the hook for long periods, and never answered it when it rang.

  The callers gradually faded away, but still she stayed indoors watching television, sleeping and drinking. She typed a letter of resignation to the school, then lived on sickness benefit once no further wages were paid into Ellen’s bank account.

  She spoke to no one on the telephone except Mr Briggs the solicitor. She would drive to the other side of town to buy food, she didn’t dare go to the local supermarket for fear of running into anyone Ellen knew. She hated every moment of the long, long months in that flat. It was frightening, boring and lonely. But every day that passed without the police calling, or Ellen’s bank refusing to cash a cheque because her signature didn’t match the one on their records was another day nearer to her goal.

  Rain splattered down on the windscreen just as she saw the sign to Bristol, and for a moment she wavered, tempted by a place she knew, yet knowing it held nothing for her. She drove on.

  The intersection for the M5 north to Birmingham, south to Exeter, and the M4 on to Wales came up too quickly for her to decide which direction she wanted to head in. She was in the inside lane which would take her to Exeter, and it was too late to signal and pull out as the traffic was suddenly heavier.

  She didn’t care. All she hoped for was a service station so she could get a cup of coffee and some more cigarettes.

  A sign to Clifton brought back a long-forgotten memory of Ellen. Josie had come down to Bristol to spend the weekend with her. It must have been ‘69, because Josie remembered it was at the height of her fame when people stopped her in the streets to get her autograph.

  Ellen had insisted on showing her the sights of Bristol. It was a hot, sunny day and she was wearing a long white cheesecloth dress, with a beaded band round her forehead. She looked very cool and pretty – hippie clothes suited her. Josie on the other hand, was sweltering in a black leather maxi-skirt and waistcoat, and she’d been grumpy with Ellen all day.

  They went to see the Suspension Bridge, then sat on the Downs to eat an ice-cream. There were families having picnics all around them and a long-haired, bare-chested boy in brightly patterned loons was playing a guitar.

  ‘Isn’t Clifton lovely?’ Ellen said, looking around her joyfully. ‘I’d love to live here.’

  ‘Well, get a decent job and you’d be able to afford to,’ Josie snapped at her.

  ‘I wouldn’t leave the children for all the money in the world,’ Ellen replied.

  ‘You left your own kid,’ Josie threw back at her.

  For a moment Ellen said nothing, but her eyes filled with tears. ‘Why do you say such nasty things?’ she said eventually. ‘You know perfectly well that I had to give Catherine up. Have you got any idea how painful it was?’

  Josie felt her face blushing, even though it happened so long ago. Why did she have to be so hurtful? Ellen’s gentle way was so much nicer. She never picked on people’s weaknesses, and she always looked for the best in them too. That was one of the things Josie found hardest to imitate once she became Ellen. Yet once she had managed to master it she found it made her happier, and before long she could sometimes see the world as Ellen did.

  ‘But she had to die too,’ Josie said aloud. ‘It wouldn’t have worked otherwise. You had no choice.’

  The rain was growing heavier and heavier, and she was forced to slow down. It had rained like this the night she drove back from Cornwall to Bristol in Ellen’s car. It didn’t start until she was nearly at Exeter, but she recalled panicking that if it was just as heavy back home, it might have put the fire out.

  *

  Yet there was no rain in Cornwall that night. She couldn’t have picked better weather for her plan, for it was not only dry but very windy. Josie had given her father a bottle of whisky for his birthday, but even though he’d had several glasses by eight in the evening, he was as silent and brooding as usual.

  The three of them were in the kitchen, Josie washing up the supper things at the sink, her parents on either side of the fire with their full glasses in their hands. Everything was just how it always was, Violet in the same wool dress she put on at the start of each October, a tweedy shapeless thing, almost hidden by her stained apron. Her slippers were new though. They’d been bought by Ellen during her summer holiday and were red tartan with a fleecy lining, Josie remembered.

  Albert looked like a wizened old gypsy in his dirt-encrusted moleskin trousers, flannel shirt and old brown cardigan. The shirt collar was frayed, and his grey hair hung to his shoulders, looking like something that approached dreadlocks.

  Josie recalled thinking how dismal and dirty the kitchen was. She couldn’t remember when it was last given a coat of white paint, it seemed to have been that same yellowish colour since she was a child. The table was cleared, but the clutter of old newspapers, bills and farming magazines had only been moved to the dresser, where it shared space with various hand-tools, china and several bottles of pills.

  Josie heard Ellen approaching the front door, but then she’d had her ears pinned back waiting for her arrival. The door burst open, and there she was.

  ‘Happy Birthday, Dad,’ she yelled.

  She was wearing her old long brown coat and an emerald-green scarf around her neck, and was loaded down with bags. She smelled of outdoors, cold and clean.

  Albert was on his feet in a second, his wide smile making him look almost youthful again.

  ‘You remembered then?’ he said, and hugged her so tightly Josie felt almost sick to watch them.

  ‘Would I forget?’ She laughed. ‘But it was Josie’s idea. She thought your sixtieth needed a real surprise.’

  Josie supposed she ought to have been touched that Ellen gave her credit for it. But as she watched her get the birthday cake box out of one bag, another bottle of whisky and two of her own home-made wine out of another, all she could feel was resentment that she’d never once had a welcoming homecoming like this one.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d appreciate sixty candles,’ Ellen said excitedly as she opened the box to show Albert a cake decorated with a toy tractor and a few plastic animals, along with ‘Happy 60th’. ‘But I put just one on, so you can make a birthday wish.’

  She turned to Violet then, gave her a hug and a kiss, and put a present in her hands too.

  ‘It’s not brand new,�
� she said, making a little grimace. ‘But I saw it in the charity shop near me and thought it was just the job for working outside in the cold weather.’

  When Violet opened it Josie saw it was like all the presents Ellen bought, perfect for the recipient. It was a brown waterproof jacket with a thick quilted lining and a hood, sturdy enough for farm life, the right size, and not so smart Violet would feel she had to keep it for best.

  Violet cooed with pure delight. ‘Just what I needed,’ she said, smiling and showing her horrible brown teeth. ‘You are a kind, thoughtful girl, Ellen.’

  ‘I didn’t hear your car,’ Albert said. ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Further up the track,’ Ellen said. ‘I didn’t want you to hear me coming. Now, let’s have a party.’

  ‘You go and get the fire going in the parlour,’ Violet ordered Josie. ‘Put on the electric one for a while too to warm it up.’

  Josie was in the parlour for some time getting the fire going with a really good blaze. She wasn’t anxious to go back in the kitchen until Albert had grown tired of telling Ellen how pleased he was, and how lovely she looked.

  When she did go back in there, Ellen was helping Albert out of his chair and rubbing his back for him. ‘Oh, poor Daddy, you’re so stiff,’ she said in her sweet, caring way.

  Josie stuck a smile on her face and kept it there all evening, yet inside she was hating them for not loving her, for forcing her to live in this dirty, draughty old house, for being so peculiar.

  Every time she glanced down at her mother’s feet and saw the purple mottled flesh oozing over the new slippers, got a whiff of her body odour, or noticed the cast in her eye again, she knew she wouldn’t fail to carry out her plan later.

  Ellen looked incongruous with her hair loose, dressed for a party in a flouncy Laura Ashley dress in dark green needle-cord with a lacy collar and cuffs. It was mid-calf length, like something from Edwardian times, and she wore lace-up boots.