Forgive Me

by Lesley Pearse

  ‘You aren’t kidding! It followed me everywhere. Mam didn’t help things neither, what with her drinking and carrying on. She’s a bad ’un.’

  Eva had every sympathy for the girl. But having come so far to see her, she had expected to receive a little warmth, not hostility – after all, she wasn’t the one to blame for anything.

  ‘I’ve had some very bad times too since Flora died,’ Eva said in an attempt to make Freya see she wasn’t the only one who had suffered. ‘The man I always thought was my dad tried to burn my house down with me in it, because I found out about all this. His children, the people I thought were my brother and sister, hate me too because of it. But what I’m trying to say, Freya, is I know you’ve had it tough ever since your birth, and I had a cushy childhood compared with you. But we’ve both got to move on now.’

  ‘Easy for you to say.’ Freya looked Eva up and down in contempt. ‘You’re posh. You’ve got nice clothes, pretty hair and somewhere to live. I’ve got nothing. Even my clothes are all gone, and they weren’t much to start with. Mam sent me to stay with that witch Ena, even though she knew what it was like there. Ena wanted me to have sex with old dirty truckers. She hit me when I refused! She asked what I had to be so stuck up about. Said that my mam would do it with anyone for just a tot of whiskey. She threw me out then, and I had nowhere to go.’

  Freya’s voice was gradually becoming shriller with anger. The old lady in the next bed and her younger visitor were both turning their heads to see what was going on.

  ‘Do you know what it’s like to sleep on the ground in a place that don’t even have a roof?’ Freya went on. Her eyes were flashing, and red angry spots were appearing on her white face. ‘Do you know what it’s like to not be able to have a bath? To sleep in your clothes because it’s so cold, and be so hungry that you hang around picnic places hoping someone will leave some food behind? You were the lucky one that got taken away by someone that wanted a bairn. All I’ve ever known was people sneering at me.’

  Eva was shocked at the angry tirade. She was embarrassed that people were looking at them, and her instinct was to rush out of the ward and get the first train back to London. But she knew, if she did that, it would just prove to Freya that no one in the world cared whether she lived or died.

  ‘Don’t take it out on me, Freya,’ she said sternly. ‘I didn’t have to come all this way, remember. I came because I thought it was the right thing to do, because we are sisters. I know you’ve had a bad time, and I am sorry about that, but don’t think I’m so soft that I’ll take you being rude to me.’

  Freya looked quite shocked.

  ‘Right, I’m leaving now. I’ve got to find somewhere to stay tonight. I’ll be back tomorrow to see you again, before I go home. And I hope by then you can be polite.’

  Eva walked away and didn’t look back, but as she got to the ward door the sister stopped her. She was a big woman with a very red face. ‘How was Freya with you? I can see you are related, you are so much alike.’

  Eva guessed that the sister knew about the Carling family history and perhaps even suspected Eva was the stolen baby. But Eva felt far too despondent to admit that.

  ‘Yes, we are related, but I’ve never met her before today,’ Eva said. ‘I don’t know that I did the right thing coming here. She’s so angry, and I might have just made her feel worse.’

  The ward sister put her hand on Eva’s shoulder. ‘That poor girl has been dragged up. God only knows what terrible times she’s lived through. She doesn’t feel she can moan or complain to any of us – I dare say she’s afraid, if she did, we’d discharge her. But you arriving with gifts probably made her think that she could unburden herself. She’s only a child still, and one that has had precious little love and care.’

  ‘I know that.’ Eva felt she just might burst into tears herself. ‘I just don’t know what to say, or what to do to make her feel better. She seems to resent me.’

  ‘I’m sure she doesn’t really. From what I’ve seen of her, she’s grateful for just the tiniest bit of kindness. But I’ll have a word with her later, tell her that you only wanted to help her. And please come back tomorrow. Don’t worry about visiting hours, morning or afternoon will be fine with me, I know you’ve come a long way.’

  Eva looked at the nurse’s kindly face and felt a bit ashamed. ‘If I buy her some clothes and bring them in, will she see that as me being a do-gooder and throw them back in my face?’

  ‘If she does, I’d be tempted to smack her bottom!’ the sister said with a smile. ‘The trouble is, she’s got so far down she can’t see the way to climb up. New clothes will be the first rung on the ladder. And I know the social worker is looking out for a home for her right now.’

  Eva spent a restless night in a guest house she found close to the hospital. All she felt for Freya was pity; she was sad, because she had wanted to feel something more than that. But maybe Freya thought she had come to visit her like she was some exhibit in a zoo. And then she was going to walk away, having satisfied her curiosity.

  She did intend to go back again – she hadn’t come all this way to give up at the first hurdle. But what then? Even if Freya was different in the morning and they did strike up some sort of bond, she couldn’t go home afterwards and forget about her. That would be too cruel, and would confirm the girl’s opinion that no one cared about her. But it was 300 miles from London; she couldn’t keep coming up here. She needed to get back to work, and there was Phil to think of too. Neither could she suggest that Freya came to London. If she did that, she’d have to be responsible for her.

  That was what really scared her – feeling she owed Freya. But why should she feel that way?

  After a shower the next morning and a big breakfast, Eva was feeling a little more positive. She’d made a list of things Freya would need when she left hospital, including a warm coat. Buying clothes for her might be seen as patronizing, but Freya needed them desperately. And besides, it was the only concrete thing Eva could do to help.

  She packed up her overnight bag, paid her bill and then walked into the town centre to the Lanes Shopping Centre.

  It suddenly occurred to her as she was walking that Flora must have come back here at some time and taken the photograph of the row of shops where she’d snatched Eva. She couldn’t have taken the photo on the day she stole the baby – no one would do such a thing, even if they had a camera on them. Did she feel it was a necessary bit of evidence to back up what she’d done? Was it some compulsion to return to the scene of the crime? Or maybe she even hoped to discover if the hue and cry was still going on here? Eva doubted that the papers in London would have reported much on a crime that took place so far away.

  She’d learned so much about Flora in the past few months, yet there was still so much she didn’t know.

  In Chelsea Girl she first ascertained if whatever she bought could be changed if she’d got the wrong size. Finding that it could, she picked out a black quilted coat with a furry lining and some size eight jeans in a short leg length. She’d noticed a lot of girls in Carlisle were still wearing ski pants – a trend that had died a death in London. But she wasn’t going to encourage that awful fashion statement. She bought two different sweaters – one pale blue with an appliquéd satin bow on the front, and the other a leopard print in fuchsia pink and black. With a pair of plain black trousers and a couple of T-shirts, she felt she’d made up a basic wardrobe that was both practical and pretty.

  Next she went to Marks and Spencer to buy underwear. She got two bras, in different cup sizes – to be sure one fitted her properly, and then she would change the other one – and four pairs of knickers that matched the bras. Some pyjamas, slippers and a warm turquoise scarf with matching gloves, plus a card with three different-coloured scrunchies to tie her hair back, and a hair brush completed the shop.

  At a charity shop she found a small black suitcase with wheels for just £2 and packed everything into it.

  Finally, she just needed to bu
y some shoes. She chose trainers, after noticing that was the only thing anyone of Freya’s age was wearing, and bought size four – that was what she wore, and the chances were her sister had the same size feet.

  Then, pulling the suitcase along behind her with her own bag over the handles, she walked to the hospital.

  It was scary that she’d written out cheques for nearly £200. The money she’d got from her mother was nearly all gone now, and she had to find the payments for the £1,000 loan she’d got for the central heating and new bathroom. She had no money coming in, but the bank did know about the fire now. She supposed they’d let her be overdrawn until the insurance for the house paid out.

  Besides, Freya’s need was greater than hers – and she knew what it was like to lose all her clothes.

  Freya was sitting up in bed reading a magazine. She was still wearing a hospital nightgown, but she’d washed her hair and it was fluffed out around her face making her look a great deal prettier.

  ‘I’m sorry I was nasty yesterday,’ she blurted out, looking embarrassed.

  ‘That’s OK,’ Eva said. ‘It must have given you quite a shock, me turning up out of the blue.’

  ‘Yes. And you look so nice and you speak so posh,’ she said. ‘People like you don’t usually speak to me, so I said stuff that was just in my head.’

  ‘You are going to look nice soon too,’ Eva said. ‘I’ve bought you some new clothes and packed them all in this case so nothing gets lost. Would you like to see them?’

  Freya’s face tightened. ‘You didn’t have to do that,’ she said.

  Eva realized that Freya didn’t like to be thought of as a charity case, so she tucked the suitcase beneath the bed. ‘No, I didn’t have to, but I wanted to. I’ll leave them for you to look at later. I hope they are the right size, but the receipts are in the case. You can change them, if they’re wrong.’

  The start of the visit wasn’t much better than the one on the previous day. Eva was at a loss what to say to the girl. When she said anything about her own life, she felt she sounded smug. And yet when she asked Freya any questions, the girl’s face tightened again as if she thought Eva was prying.

  ‘Will you tell me about our mother?’ she asked after a somewhat stilted conversation about the television programmes they liked.

  ‘What’s to tell? Mam never stood a chance – her mam was a drunk, and so was her da. And one minute they were skelping her backside and the next sending her off to chaff.’

  Eva didn’t understand; she had to ask what those words meant. ‘Skelping’ meant slapping and ‘chaff’ meant stealing, Freya told her.

  ‘They took Mam’s other bairns away cos she didn’t care for them right. But then when she met our da, I think she settled down a bit – well, she always said she did. But then when you was stolen, she went right off the rails again. Da loved her, you know. He used to say, “Freya, I wish I could walk away from her, but I can’t, she’s only got to flash those lovely eyes at me and I forgive her.”’

  ‘Did she look after you properly when you were a baby?’

  ‘Well, me da said she tried. He was staying with her then, that’s why they never took me away from her too. But when I was about four she met some new bloke and she was up and off with her old tricks and chucked Da out. He did his best for me, the only one that ever did. See, everyone but Da thought she’d killed you. He always stuck up for her. I know she weren’t a good mam, but with everyone whispering about her all the time, that got her down and she’d turn to the drink.’

  Freya had painted an even uglier picture than Eva had imagined. But she was touched that Freya seemed to understand why their mother was like she was.

  ‘Did she ever tell you how she felt about losing me?’ Eva so much wanted to hear that Sue Carling had normal maternal feelings.

  ‘She was always goin’ on about folk believing she’d killed you. Every time she got drunk she’d bring that up. “As if I could do that,” she’d say. But she knew she were a bad mam. She said she couldn’t help it cos no one had ever taught her how to be a good one. She used to talk about how she thought your life was. She’d show me pictures in magazines of rich people’s houses and say she knew you lived somewhere like that. I think that’s the way she made it alright in her head, like she gave you away to a nice woman with lots of money. Was your mam nice?’

  ‘Yes, she was,’ Eva said. ‘She was wrong to do what she did, and she had to live with the guilt of it. But she loved me and I loved her.’

  ‘Then you was bloody lucky,’ Freya said, her mouth turning down. ‘It’s like one of those kids’ storybooks where one gets brought up like a princess and the other in a slum.’

  ‘Not quite, Freya. My life hasn’t been a bed of roses either.’ Eva felt she had to drive that point home. ‘Flora committed suicide, and my stepfather, brother and sister have all turned against me. But one thing I’ve learned is that you have to live with the cards you’ve been dealt, and make something out of that.’

  ‘You tell me what I can make with my cards,’ Freya said.

  ‘I don’t know you well enough yet,’ Eva said. ‘But I’m sure there is something you are good at that you can use. Now, will you me tell about our dad?’

  Freya’s face softened then. ‘He was that handsome, lovely thick hair and eyes like ours. He could’ve had his pick of women really. He wasn’t too tall, but big muscles and very strong. He liked to go walking up on the fells, he knew the names of all the birds, and he liked animals an’ all. He used to take me up there with him. When I was little he used to carry me on his shoulders and sing to me as we walked. That’s how I knew that old house was there, where the police found me. I had a couple of pictures of him that I took up there with me. Maybe when I get out of here I’ll go up and see if they are still there.’

  ‘He sounds lovely,’ Eva replied. ‘I’m sorry I won’t ever get to know him. The man I thought was my father turned out to be a real snake.’

  It was only at that point that Freya began to look interested, so Eva told her about finding Flora dead in the bath. ‘She did it on what was my real twenty-first birthday. But now I know her whole story and how that man was with her, I understand why she felt she couldn’t go on. He told me he wasn’t my father just a week after she died. He couldn’t wait to get me out of the house. I hate him now.’

  ‘I don’t hate our mam,’ Freya volunteered. ‘She was useless, selfish and weak, but when she weren’t drinking and that, she could be right funny. Sister, the big lady with the red face, she said to me last night. ‘Now look here, Freya, you can lie here and feel sorry for yourself if you like, and nothing will change for you. But if you put on a brave face, let the social worker find you a new home and a job, you could do well.’

  Eva had to smile, as Freya had copied the sister’s way of speaking exactly. ‘And what did you think of that?’

  ‘She were right. Now I know Mam didn’t kill you and bury you out on the fells, I can put two fingers up to all them what said she did. I’ll be OK, I’ll get them to stick me on some training course, or whatever. I reckon I’m more like me dad than me mam. I can stick at things.’

  ‘You are a brave girl,’ Eva said. Tears came into her eyes, because she knew she could never be that stoic.

  ‘Don’t you start crying over me,’ Freya said sharply. ‘A year from now I’ll be doing alright. I can promise you that.’

  ‘Is that a firm promise?’ Eva asked. She couldn’t look after this girl – and what’s more, she realized Freya wouldn’t want her to. To make some sort of pledge that they’d look each other up a year from now seemed the ideal solution.

  ‘Yeah, OK. But you’ve got to promise me you’ll stop harping on about the past and make a future for yourself too. We ain’t so different, Eva, even if you do speak posh and wear nice clothes.’

  Eva wrote down her address and telephone number, and also took out twenty pounds from her purse. ‘That’s just so you’ve got a little something to fall back on until they a
rrange benefits for you. I wish I could give you a bit more, but that’s all I’ve got. Let me know how you get on and your address once you’re settled.’

  Freya looked hard at her and smirked. ‘You’re a bit of an old woman,’ she said. ‘I don’t mean that nasty, like, cos you’ve been right kind coming here and getting me clothes and stuff. But I don’t need another mam. And from what you’ve told me about your’n, you don’t neither.’

  Eva put her arms around Freya then and hugged her tightly. She was so thin, she felt like a child, and that brought more tears to her eyes. ‘Get well soon, and be good,’ she said. ‘Old woman or not, I’m pleased to be your sister.’

  She had to break away then, hurrying down the ward and struggling not to break down. When she got to the ward door, she glanced back and saw Freya was already out of bed and opening the case of clothes.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  March 1992

  Eva came out of Holland Park tube station deep in gloomy thoughts. Not only had she had an awful row this morning with Phil, but it was the 29th of March, the first anniversary of the day Flora died. She’d been having flashbacks about it all day. She wondered whether Sophie and Ben were thinking about it too, and what their reactions had been to the copies of Flora’s statement she’d sent them a couple of weeks ago.

  But the way she felt today was not just a one-off mood, brought about by the row or the anniversary. Since Christmas she’d felt herself gradually sinking deeper into a black hole of depression, and she couldn’t find a way of climbing out of it.

  She had tried to pull herself together, asked herself a thousand times what she had to be depressed about. She wasn’t broke, homeless, sick or hungry. She had people who cared about her, and Phil would probably lay down his life for her. But telling herself these things didn’t make her feel any better. She might be able to function adequately on a day-to-day basis – indeed, at work no one even realized there was anything wrong. But she knew there was, and she was scared it would escalate into something much worse.