Perfect Daughter

by Amanda Prowse

  Pete took the photo and studied the image. ‘Dungarees! Nice!’

  ‘I loved them. I wore them all the time. And please note the stripey socks, which were a carefully thought-out accessory.’

  ‘Your dad looks so young,’ Pete observed.

  ‘He was fifty-four, so quite old to have a nine-year-old, at least among my friends.’ Jacks nodded as she rummaged through the pile. ‘Look at this!’ She held up a piece of card with two tiny milk teeth sellotaped to it. ‘These were the first ones I lost. Mum must have got them back from the tooth fairy!’

  ‘She must have!’ Pete laughed.

  A yellowing piece of paper caught her eye. She removed it from between the coach tickets, a memento from her parents’ trip to France and a birthday card Ida had received from her sister, whose pink glitter stuck to her fingers. Jacks unfolded the single sheet and instantly recognised her mother’s beautiful penmanship.

  ‘I’d forgotten what lovely writing she had.’ She turned the page to show Pete, then started to read it.

  Pete watched as her face crumpled and her mouth twisted.

  ‘Oh, Pete!’ Jacks placed her palm on her chest and handed the sheet to her husband. ‘Oh God! I don’t know what to think.’

  Pete read the letter addressed to his father-in-law out loud.

  ‘In response, Don, I watched you with Jackie tonight and my heart sank. She thinks the world of her dad and yet you calmly lie and tell her you’ve been working, when I know you were with Joan. Mr Wievelmore told me he saw you again. The pleasure he takes in keeping me informed makes everything even harder, but I understand, she is his wife and he really doesn’t know what to do either. That makes two of us. Your lies are making me ill, making me angry and making my home feel like a prison. I love you. All I’ve ever done is love you, and Jackie made us complete. I thought we would have been enough. To find out you and Joan have been carrying on all that time, behind my back, even through my pregnancy, is more than I can bear. My heart is broken, but I will try, I will try to carry on for the sake of our little girl. Please give her up. Tell me what I can do to make you give her up. I can’t share you. I won’t. Ida.’

  Pete glanced up at his wife, who looked horrified.

  She shook her head. ‘I can’t believe it.’

  Pete reread the detail. ‘Who’s Joan Wievelmore?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve never heard the name before. Do you think it’s true?’

  Pete nodded. ‘I do, Jacks. I don’t know why she’d keep the letter all these years if it wasn’t. And it certainly sounds true.’ He scanned the words again. ‘It says “in response” – do you think your dad might have written to her?’

  Jacks grabbed the pile and sifted through the sheets and envelopes, sorting though postcards and photographs until she found it. The envelope was blank and unstuck. She pulled out the two sheets and flattened them with her palm against her thigh before lifting them towards the light and reading out loud. She wanted Pete to hear it too.

  ‘I have thought long and hard, Ida. Living with a secret is a very hard thing to do. I agree that Jackie should not be lied to; she’s my daughter and as far as I am concerned deserves to be given the facts. Joan and I fell in love. It was simple, it happened. She made me happy. She makes me happy. I cannot give her up. I simply ask that you let me go, then there will be no more lies. I sometimes think my punishment for having fallen in love is the way you refuse to release me, wanting me to spend my days apart from her, with you reminding me of my many failings. It’s a hard lesson for me to learn and a rotten way for us both to live. Surely you can see that you would benefit from the freedom too? You are a wonderful woman, Ida, and I want you to be free to go and live your own life in your own way, so I can do the same. I stay for Jackie. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be elsewhere. I do. I love you too, in my own way, but as we know, that’s not always enough, is it? Whoever said life was easy? Don.’

  Jacks slumped on the bed and shook her head. ‘He wanted to leave us. I can’t believe it. Not my dad!’

  Pete lay next to her. ‘It was a long, long time ago and nothing to do with you. Your dad loved you very much, you know that.’

  ‘These must have been the letters Mum wanted to find, the ones she was waiting for, the ones she kept asking about. Do you remember, she said once that I mustn’t read her letter. She shouted it. “You mustn’t! Don’t do it!” And then when she went AWOL at Ange and Ivor’s, she said she was looking for something we’d stored there. This is what she was looking for.’ Jacks fanned the papers against her palm. ‘She wanted to keep this from me. Oh, Mum!’

  She started to cry, properly cry, for the first time since Ida’s death.

  ‘I shouted at her,’ she sobbed. ‘I should never have shouted at her. I just lost my patience sometimes and I was a bit rough with her once or twice when she was in the shower. I didn’t mean it. I was just tired. So tired. And… and I scared her, took her to the Avon Gorge in the dark. I should never have done that. I wasn’t thinking straight.’ She sobbed harder, almost hysterical.

  ‘Don’t cry, love. Don’t cry. Calm down, Jacks.’ Pete held her tight. ‘You did everything for your mum. She was happy and she knew she was loved.’

  ‘Oh, Pete… Pete…’ She gulped, trying to speak through her tears. ‘I miss her, I miss her being here and I thought my dad was perfect! I did! I thought he was the most perfect man!’

  Pete thought back to the night a few months ago when he’d sat at the kitchen table and watched the hands on the clock turn so slowly he was convinced time was going backwards. ‘No one’s perfect,’ he whispered.

  ‘I thought Dad was. But the worst thing is that I hated the way Mum treated him – it made me feel angry with her, I despised her at times, but all that time she was heart-broken. Imagine her having to live like that! He had done that to her and I didn’t know!’ Jacks let her tears fall as she buried her head in the candlewick bedspread. ‘Oh, Mum! I’m so sorry. My mum! And now it’s too late. I’m so sorry!’

  Pete held her even tighter.

  ‘I can’t believe it, Pete. Why did he do that to us? Hurt her and lie to me? I can’t believe they had this secret.’

  ‘Everyone has secrets, Jacks. And you mustn’t let this change things. You adored your dad and he you. What went on between him and your mum is a whole separate thing. They were grown-ups and it’s to their credit that they kept it from you.’

  Jacks shrugged free from his grip and sat up, trying to catch her breath. ‘Since Dad died, I’ve had a little picture of him in my mind all the time. His face has just sat there, in the middle of everything I look at. But now it’s gone. It’s just disappeared.’

  Pete took her hand inside his. ‘Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe you’ll be able to see your own family a bit more clearly now.’

  ‘You mean Martha, don’t you?’ Jacks started crying again and collapsed against her husband’s chest.

  ‘Yes I do,’ he whispered. ‘And remember what we agreed, Jacks, about telling her. That time is getting close now, you know that, don’t you?’

  Jacks nodded, how could she forget? They sat together in silence, both digesting the facts of the letter and its implications. It was Jacks that spoke first. ‘I need to re-evaluate, Pete, need to get my mind straight and think about life going forward. My dad was right, I need to look forwards, look ahead and the path’ll be clear. Looking back will only get me into trouble.’ She had a sudden flashback to the day her mum died and the way Ida had gestured at her to carry on straight ahead. She smiled through her tears. ‘Even Mum was telling me to go forwards, I think, in her own way. You know, Pete, I don’t think she was always quite so out of it as we thought.’

  Pete was only half listening as he picked up an A4 envelope and flipped it open. He held the contents up to his face. ‘Jesus Christ!’

  ‘What is it?’ Jacks shrank back. ‘I don’t know if I can cope with more bad news.’

  ‘It’s not bad news, love. It’s a cert
ificate and a letter signed by your mum and her solicitor, and a note for us, from Ida.’

  Jacks took the piece of paper and swallowed as she spoke the sum aloud. ‘Thirty-five thousand pounds in Premium Bonds!’

  She read the letter through. ‘Inherited from her father… Now I come to think of it, when I was little she used to talk about Granddad being good with money. Used to irritate the hell out of Dad when she mentioned it, he thought it was made up!’

  Pete stared at her. It was some seconds before he spoke. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Oh, Pete, this must have been the treasure! I thought it was just her mind playing up, I never dreamt…’

  The two sat in silence for some minutes, until Jacks spoke. She sat up straight and coughed. ‘I’ve got an idea, Pete, but only if you agree…’

  ‘Try me.’ Pete leant back against the headboard of Ida’s bed and listened to his wife.

  32

  Thirteen Years Earlier

  Pete and Jacks stood by the side of the pond and watched as Martha put the bread bag on the ground and instead pulled her bag of Twiglets from her pocket.

  ‘Martha, darling, the bread is for the birdies and the Twiglets are for your lunch!’

  ‘But I don’t like Twiglets, so I’m swapping!’ she stated matter-of-factly.

  Jacks turned to her husband and leant on his arm, laughing. Pete patted her hand. ‘She is so like her mum.’

  ‘Yes, she is.’ Jacks shook her head, picturing herself at five years old.

  The gaggle of birds gathered around Martha’s feet. She squealed and jumped backwards. ‘Daddy! I don’t like them!’ She ran back to the protection of her parents, burying her head in her mum’s lap.

  ‘Oh, Martha, they won’t hurt you. You were doing a great job of feeding the ducks – good job you were on hand to give them some lunch.’

  ‘They’re not ducks, they’re geese.’

  Pete nodded, looking again at the cluster of birds. ‘Yes, of course they are. Silly me!’

  Martha stared at her dad. ‘You can tell the difference because ducks have pretty babies and geese have ugly babies.’

  ‘Ah, yes, you’re right. Now you come to mention it, there’s a very famous story about an ugly duckling who is in fact no such thing. He grows up to discover he is actually a beautiful swan. D’you know that one?’

  ‘No.’ Martha screwed up her nose.

  ‘Was I an ugly baby or a pretty baby?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, you were the most beautiful baby in the whole wide world! The most amazing baby Weston General has ever seen! In fact they are going to put a little blue plaque on the wall saying, Martha Davies was born here!’ Pete answered truthfully.

  ‘Are they really?’ Martha took this quite literally.

  ‘Absolutely.’ Pete nodded.

  ‘Don’t you fib to me, Daddy!’ Martha waggled her finger at him, learning this action from when she had been similarly reprimanded.

  ‘I never would. Would you like me to tell you the story about the ugly duckling?’ he asked, bending down towards his daughter.

  Martha considered his offer. ‘No,’ she replied and she ran back to the path for another lap around the pond.

  Jacks roared with laughter. ‘Well, that told you, Dad!’

  Pete placed his wife’s arm through his. ‘Must be losing my touch.’

  ‘Doubt that, you old charmer.’ She sighed.

  ‘Do you remember when we used to come here courting? We’d park the bikes and lie on the grass, looking up at the sky?’

  Jacks smiled. ‘I do. And you used to give me a load of old baloney about how you nearly got the big call from the premier league! You could charm the birds out of the trees.’

  ‘I only wanted to charm you.’ He came to a standstill.

  ‘Well, it worked. You got me.’ She looked up, watching Martha on the path.

  ‘Yep, I was punching above my weight on that day.’ Pete bent forward and kissed his wife.

  Jacks leant back and let herself be kissed. She felt her spirits lift; he still had the power to make that happen.

  ‘I love you, Jacks.’

  She nodded. ‘And I love you too. And that’s enough, isn’t it? You don’t need no fancy football lifestyle?’

  ‘It’s enough today.’ He smiled. ‘It really is.’

  ‘She’s right, though, Pete…’ Jacks let this trail.

  ‘Who is?’

  ‘Martha. We shouldn’t lie to her, ever. We need to be straight about everything.’ She looked at the floor, avoiding his gaze. Pete sighed loudly. ‘I know, but the idea of it. It kills me.’ He spoke through gritted teeth.

  Jacks heard the catch in his throat and nestled against his chest. ‘I think we should tell her when she’s older. Old enough to make sense of it all.’

  ‘When will she be old enough, Jacks?’ he said, his perplexed tone genuine.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe when she becomes a mum?’ she suggested.

  It was a few seconds before Pete answered, as the two stood watching their little girl, jumping on the water’s edge, chatting to the ducks as she dropped bread and Twiglets into their greedy beaks. ‘Okay. We’ll tell her when she becomes a mum, that’s only fair, isn’t it?’

  Jacks hugged him tight. ‘It is, my love.’

  33

  The summer had come and gone, but it still felt strange to Jacks to be able to walk at her leisure along the Marine Parade without a wheelchair to push. Weston-super-Mare had as ever put on one hell of a show for the holidaymakers, but now September had arrived the place felt like a hall the day after a party. Everyone was taking stock, cleaning up and preparing for things to get back to normal after all the excitement. Jacks looked out over the pier and smiled; her hometown had never looked lovelier.

  She breathed in the sea air and thought about how much had changed in the couple of months since Ida’s passing. The day of the funeral had been a day of revelations and new beginnings. She remembered how, after finding her mum’s ‘treasure’ that evening, she’d desperately tried to make things normal. While Pete had tucked Jonty into bed, she’d filled the kettle and made four cups of tea. She chortled to herself, recalling how, when she’d pushed open the lounge door with her foot, bringing in the tea, Martha had quickly pulled her legs off Gideon’s lap at the sight of her and sat up straight, and Gideon had smoothed his hair, reminding her that they were both still kids.

  Jacks handed out the mugs and took a seat in one of the empty chairs. ‘Your dad’ll be down in a minute. We need to have a family chat.’

  Gideon stood up and hovered awkwardly. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then, Mrs Davies. I hope you’re feeling okay. I thought today went well – I mean, funerals are never nice, but it was the best it could be.’

  ‘Sit down, Gideon, you’re family now. And for God’s sake, call me Jacks.’

  Gideon sat. Martha gave him a quizzical look; she was as much in the dark as he was.

  Pete came in and grabbed his tea from the tray. ‘So…’ He took a sip of his drink. ‘It’s been quite a day.’ He smiled at his wife. ‘Jacks and I have been talking and we want to get things straight. Don’t we?’

  Jacks nodded. I really do. Life is too short – I’ve learnt that. I wasn’t the perfect daughter, but I can be a great mum and a bloody brilliant grandma.

  ‘Thing is, Gideon, this is not what we planned for our daughter.’

  ‘I know, I know, but—’

  ‘Let me finish.’ Pete cut him off mid sentence. ‘But you’re a decent lad.’

  ‘He really is, Dad.’ Martha grabbed Gideon’s spare hand and held it tight.

  ‘We are trusting you with the most precious thing we have. I have loved that girl since she took her first breath and I shall love her until my last.’ Pete was visibly choked.

  Jacks swallowed the tears that gathered at the back of her throat. You are her dad, Pete, and you always will be.

  ‘I won’t let you down.’ Gideon sat straight-backed and spoke sincere
ly.

  Pete looked at his wife, who gave an almost imperceptible nod. ‘A little bird tells me you have plans to open your own garage, doing modifications and stuff.’

  ‘Yes!’ Gideon’s face lit up with equal measures of surprise and enthusiasm. ‘I know I can make a go of it. I’ve done the business plan, it’s flawless.’

  ‘We even found a premises.’ Martha looked at her parents. ‘Gideon went to the bank and everything. We can’t do it now, but we will do it one day, won’t we?’ She looked at her man.

  He nodded. ‘We will.’

  ‘Why can’t you do it now?’ Pete asked.

  Gideon shrugged. ‘We need a big deposit – silly money, really. So I have to earn more first and then see where we are.’

  ‘There’s a way we can get you started, Gideon.’ Jacks spoke directly to him.

  ‘What?’ He looked from Jacks to Martha and back again.

  ‘Pete and I are going to give you some money to get your new business off the ground, to give you and Martha the right start.’

  Gideon stared at her, dumbstruck.

  ‘We want you to show Pete your business plan, let him get it checked over, and if it’s as sound as you think it is, he’ll go back to the bank with you. There’s equity in this house and we have some money. And if it all works out, who knows…?’ She smiled.

  ‘But… but… How? Mum? I… I don’t…’ Martha couldn’t speak through the tears that stopped the words in her throat.

  Gideon stood and walked over to Pete. He reached out and shook his hand. ‘I don’t know how I can ever thank you. I don’t. No one has ever helped me out, never. And you’re doing this?’

  ‘You don’t have to thank us, just look after our little girl.’ Pete held his eye.

  ‘I will. I promise. I love her.’ Gideon beamed.

  Jacks stood and walked over to the sofa, sitting down in the spot vacated by Gideon. Martha threw her arms around her mum’s neck. ‘Thank you, Mum. I don’t understand how, but thank you! I love you. I really do.’