The Forgotten Woman: A gripping, emotional rollercoaster read you’ll devour in one sitting

by Angela Marsons

  Fran made no move as her mother left her to rest for a few days before Mr Thomas drove up to collect her.

  ‘We’ll talk about school when you get back,’ Alicia said as she closed the door behind her.

  Fran stared at the wooden door. Fuck school, who cared? She wouldn’t go back to school. Who could even think about school? She’d lost everything. She’d lost her hope, love, future, everything and her mother was concerned about school.

  Maria waited for the sound of the car to disappear completely. ‘Here, drink this,’ she offered, her voice a couple of degrees above freezing.

  Fran took the glass and sipped, guessing it was brandy. She drank it greedily and welcomed the rush to her head. At nine o’clock Maria said goodnight for the first time since she’d arrived and mounted the timber steps.

  Fran struggled to the kitchen and found what she was looking for: the brandy. She drank from the bottle, standing in the kitchen, her bare feet oblivious to the cold stone tiles. The pain had to stop. If it didn’t, she would die from it. The liquid burned her throat and made her choke but the bottle remained glued to her mouth. She felt the moisture on her cheeks; she didn’t know if it was the brandy, saliva or tears and she didn’t care.

  Her son was gone. Jamie was dead, and now, so was she.

  The day she returned from Scotland Fran cleared out her room. The stuffed toys were placed in disposal bags and her early drawings, sketches and paintings ripped into shreds. Her books were categorised into childhood and adulthood. Only one book caused her to pause: Bleak House. She turned it over and flicked through the pages. A creased photograph fell on to her lap. For a moment she studied it and recalled the day she’d found it. She still had no idea who the woman was and if she was completely honest, she didn’t care. She placed the photograph and the book back on the second shelf beside Madame Bovary. The childhood books were put into the bin.

  She removed the flowery quilt cover from the bed together with the scarf that had draped fashionably over her lamp, giving the room a warm glow. Her walls were stripped of anything not connected with academic achievements and her drawers emptied of items she no longer needed.

  She instructed Mrs Thomas that she wanted everything white: new sheets, pillow slips, everything. She also informed her mother that she wished her room to be painted white. The existing pastel shades prompted emotional responses, reflections, hopes and dreams. White demanded nothing.

  Fran watched as the occupants of the house went calmly about their business as though nothing had changed. But everything had changed. Everything was gone, but for them everything remained the same. The familiar crunching of BMWs, Mercedes and Bentleys on the gravel drive, the dinner parties, the featureless cotton napkins, the conversations about law, the subscriptions to the ‘fashionable’ charities, the choice of which always seemed to be set by her mother. And Fran’s exclusion from the whole thing.

  One night, in an effort to learn anything about her mother, Fran sat in the hallway just outside the partially closed double doors listening to her parents’ laughter. They gave wonderful parties, everyone said so, and she enjoyed the gaiety that met her ears. It was like listening to another woman. It wasn’t the mother that ate occasionally at that table with her discussing exams, achievements, targets and goals. It wasn’t the wife that dined there with her husband speaking seriously but animatedly of loopholes in the law and case studies. It was a third Alicia that was light, amusing, even entertaining. That was until her tone became uncompromisingly harsh as she loudly berated Mr Thomas for not turning the wine bottle as he poured, spilling a drop of red wine on the antique tablecloth.

  Realising that the mother she knew so well was there, but thinly veiled, Fran shook her head and sought Mrs Thomas in the kitchen.

  ‘About time, child. I was thinking I might have to throw this casserole away.’

  ‘I’m not hungry, thank you, Mrs Thomas. I’ll just sit here a while.’

  Mr Thomas entered the kitchen with cheeks the colour of the wine he was holding. ‘That damned woman—’

  Fran realised he hadn’t seen her sitting there. The colour in his cheeks deepened as he noticed her.

  ‘I know, Mrs Forbes-Grant is horrible, isn’t she?’ said Fran, easing his discomfort.

  He smiled gratefully as he left the kitchen with another bottle of wine.

  Fran no longer had anything left to talk about with Mrs Thomas. Meal times in the kitchen had been her opportunity to discuss school but she hadn’t been for over six months so that topic was out, as well as what had happened in the last six months.

  Her father’s concerned question, ‘Are you better now, dear?’ had set the precedent to be followed. It had been an illness, an interlude from which she was now expected to return unchanged and unharmed. The subject would not be discussed.

  Fran offered to clear the last few things away for Mrs Thomas, insisting she go to bed. Reluctantly the housekeeper left the kitchen. Ten minutes later Fran was in her room, clutching a bottle of white wine possessively.

  It occurred to her as she drank the last mouthful that she’d finally got what she’d always wanted: she was to complete her A-levels at home. Be careful what you wish for, she thought in a drunken haze, because you might just get it.

  ‘Hmm, not bad,’ stated Alicia, reading Fran’s exam results.

  Not bad, not bad? she thought angrily. Top marks and she’s mildly pleased. What more could I have done, achieved world peace in my free study periods?

  ‘Your father will be pleased,’ she said, pushing the paper across the coffee table to her.

  And what about you, Mother, are you pleased? she thought, angrily.

  ‘What career did you have in mind?’

  ‘Maybe something creative,’ Fran said, hopefully.

  ‘No, dear, too unstable.’

  ‘Maybe something to do with travel?’

  ‘Too common.’

  ‘Working with underprivileged children?’

  ‘Too depressing.’

  ‘Hospital work?’

  ‘Too gruesome.’

  ‘A lawyer,’ she said, resigned.

  ‘Very good idea, Frances.’

  At her mother’s insistence she applied to Oxford and Cambridge. She submitted a third application that she didn’t mention and was accepted by all three.

  ‘So, Cambridge it is,’ stated her father.

  ‘I think I’d prefer the University of Wales,’ Fran offered meekly.

  It was further away and although she knew that the geography wouldn’t solve her problems, it might help.

  A look of horror crossed her mother’s face. ‘Wales?’

  ‘Frances, your mother has always hoped that you would follow in her footsteps and receive your education at Cambridge.’

  The words from her father were unnatural. His opinion was rarely given and even more rarely asked for. Fran looked from one to the other, praying for one of them to be on her side for once. She buckled under the weight of their unanimous disapproval.

  ‘Okay, Cambridge it is,’ she conceded.

  She didn’t enjoy college life. The process of learning she thrived on but she shied away from the camaraderie and team spirit of her three roommates. She thought about her parents often though months would pass without a telephone call either way but through the blue-blood network her mother was informed that Fran was no fun at all, choosing to remain in the dorm studying every available minute. To see her face without a law book in front of it was a rare occurrence. Fran was aware of these progress reports and guessed that Alicia would not be displeased with what she was hearing.

  At the beginning of her second year Fran found a part-time job clerking for a small firm of solicitors employing no more than five staff. Her clerking included coffee-making, breakfast-fetching and just about anything that no one else wanted to do. Her colleagues thought her rather unsociable and withdrawn but she made good coffee. Fran did as she was instructed without question just as long as she received her pay pac
ket each week.

  The weekly pittance she received enabled her to move out of the dorm into a studio flat that would have given her mother palpitations. Everything was crammed into one room with no obvious border marking the end of the living room, bedroom or kitchen. A thin grey wall covering had been placed on top of a darker, bolder wallpaper so the bawdy flowers showed through. In total it was smaller than her bedroom back home, but even if the dust that lay forgotten in the corners and the old, cheap furniture offended her sense of style and taste, the solitude compensated for it.

  Gone were the in-depth discussions on hair, cosmetics and electronic tweezing appliances and her half-hearted attempts to appear interested. She no longer had to pretend. She didn’t believe in the solidarity of her peers; she believed only in reaching her target as quickly as possible. If she got lonely, she read a book.

  The lecturers and tutors showed their pride in her. She excelled in every area and could cite at least three cases to prove an argument.

  During her final year, she and her fellow students were taken to a courtroom to plead a theoretical case. The court was real, the female judge was real and on the first day, Fran was the prosecution.

  She approached the jury and leaned on the wooden panel separating them. Her casual cream slacks and matching silk shirt, with the top button open at the collar ensured that she looked exactly as she’d intended: smart but relaxed. She looked around and sighed.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sure you’re all wishing you were somewhere else at the moment, either at work, home, on holiday. I certainly wish I was,’ she smiled.

  A few of the jurors smiled back.

  ‘I had a whole speech prepared for you today but quite frankly I threw it in the bin…’

  They watched her with interest.

  ‘After looking at you, at your attentive expressions, I questioned myself, “Who am I to treat these people like idiots and spell out the details of this case?” You’re not children. You are educated, intelligent people who can be trusted to follow the intricate details as they emerge. Also, I am not here to bore you.’

  They chuckled appreciatively.

  Fran smiled engagingly at them. ‘Please try not to see this as an infringement on your time. Quite frankly I’d rather be somewhere else at the moment too, but I hope you will realise the importance of your job here today. It is an opportunity for you to see that justice is done. Your chance to witness that the law is your friend. That it is not above you, practised only by wealthy, over-educated people, but by you, the real people. Please take pride in your task here today. I thank you for your time, ladies and gentlemen.’

  The jurors were rewarded with a friendly smile as she re-took her seat. She was one of them. The feathers had been visibly puffed and the solemn, bored demeanours replaced with proud, straight postures.

  Fran was rewarded with a sour look from the defender, who had no choice but to outline the technical aspects of the case, which gave the jury the impression he thought them stupid. Had he tried the same approach as Fran the jury would have thought him unoriginal. She sat and stared forward, feeling the vibrations of the jury’s impatience and boredom: the case was hers.

  The second day she was defence. She watched as one of her classmates, who was confident to the point of arrogance, repeated her speech from the previous day word for word. He relaxed the jury to the point of lethargy. With a smug look on his face he re-took his seat.

  Fran approached the jury, smoothing down her double-breasted jacket, bringing attention to her appearance, which contrasted with his. The top button of her shirt was fastened and her hair pulled back into a neat bun.

  ‘How dare Mr Miller treat the law as though it were a joke? By his very decision not to present any facts to you he is contradicting himself and treating you like children or imbeciles.’

  Members of the jury began to straighten in their seats. The judge sat forward with an interested smile.

  ‘I will present the facts of the case in my capacity as defence counsel with the knowledge that these details will be heard and understood with the clarity of mind that I’m sure you all possess.’

  She sent a withering glance in the general direction of the prosecutor that told the jury she thought him incapable of practising law.

  Norman Miller then presented a perfect case. She searched the papers on her desk. There had to be a flaw; it was finding it. Her client had attacked and mugged an eighty-eight-year-old woman. The prosecution’s witness was a priest so there would be no joy there. She couldn’t find one possible way to defend him, yet she knew it had to exist. That was the rule: the defence may be obscure, but it was there.

  It occurred to Fran that there was a similar case receiving high media attention at the moment: a youth, like her client, had mugged an old lady for about seven pounds.

  An idea started to form. She checked the jury papers and found what she was looking for. Her eyes perused the members of the jury and one face held her: a man with shoulder-length curly hair in his mid-thirties whose expression held a quiet confidence whenever he looked at her. She studied him at length. His expression never changed. He had a secret and she now had her defence.

  ‘The prosecution rests, Your Honour,’ said Norman Miller.

  The judge nodded, satisfied with his presentation of the case. No fireworks but competent, her expression said.

  Fran stood and approached the jury. She held no papers, no files. They were all neatly packed on the table as though she was ready to go home.

  She paced up and down before the jurors’ box.

  ‘Terrible business. Hard to believe that anyone could cause an old lady such pain and suffering for no more than seven pounds.’

  The jurors were all nodding in agreement.

  ‘In fact there’s a case in the media at the moment about this same thing. Are you aware of it?’

  They all nodded.

  ‘May I approach one of the jurors, Your Honour?’ asked Fran, with respect.

  The judge’s eyebrows lifted a little but she motioned to proceed.

  She stopped and turned to juror number four. ‘Mr Hunter, am I correct in thinking that you know a little more about that particular case?’

  The judge leant forward as the juror blushed slightly. All attention turned towards him.

  ‘I… er… umm…’

  ‘Would I be correct in assuming that you in fact live on the same street as the old lady who was mugged?’

  ‘I… d… don’t…’

  ‘And of course your involvement in this trial would be totally unbiased, wouldn’t it, Mr Hunter?’ she asked sarcastically.

  She turned to the bench. ‘Motion for a mistrial, Your Honour.’

  The judge nodded towards her. ‘Motion accepted.’

  Her parents’ house felt different when she returned after finishing university. Still as threatening but not quite as confining. She wondered if that was because she wasn’t staying.

  ‘Well done, Frances. No less than we expected,’ were the congratulatory words from her parents followed by two swift handshakes. She felt more like a colleague than a daughter.

  Before dinner she took the opportunity to inspect her bedroom, imagining it unchanged in her three-year absence. Meetings with her parents had been conducted in Cambridge. Normally a lunch or dinner appointment when one of them was in the area. These occasions had always been stilted and uncomfortable and Fran had been glad when they were over.

  The door handle turned easily within her grip. There was no squeak of tired hinges as the door opened before her. In fact there were no door squeaks anywhere in the house. ‘No squeaks allowed’, thought Fran, imagining a sign on the front door.

  The quiet smile froze on her face as she entered. White walls had been covered with wallpaper the colour of melted honey. Two brown leather chairs sat before a brand-new fireplace. A caramel-coloured Persian rug lay in the centre of the room beneath a glass coffee table. To the right of each chair stood side tables that hous
ed identical reading lamps.

  Fran backed out of the room shaking her head. Be reasonable, she told the hurt that was building inside, you’re twenty years of age, they knew you’d never come back home to live. She agreed with this reasonable voice inside her head. But why didn’t they tell me? her emotional voice screamed.

  Slowly she walked back downstairs wondering where her constant was. Everyone had a constant, she was sure. Something on which you could always rely. Just one thing that remained the same even when everything else in your life was changing.

  ‘My room…’ she managed as she sat at the dining table.

  ‘Oh yes, dear, your father wanted a reading room and we just didn’t know where else it could be. We knew you wouldn’t need it any longer. Your things are in the chests in the attic. Mr Thomas will get you anything you want to take back with you.’

  In chests in the attic, Fran thought angrily. Am I dead? It was a six-bedroom house. Was there really no other room that was suitable?

  As if reading her mind her mother said, ‘The light and view in that room is perfect.’

  Fran merely nodded. What was the point? There were two sitting rooms on the ground floor and they each had a study. The reading room must have been imperative.

  ‘So, Frances, have you decided what side you’re batting for?’ asked her father.

  ‘I’d like to try prosecuting for a while. My tutor said—’

  ‘Do you really think so?’ asked Alicia, making no attempt to hide her disappointment as she idly pushed a sliver of carrot to the side of her plate.

  ‘I enjoy the challenge of making a case instead of just defending. Making a case is creative and intriguing, like painting a picture…’ Fran caught the tolerant smile that passed between them ‘…and I really think I can do some good,’ she finished lamely.

  Alicia placed her knife and fork soundlessly onto her plate. ‘It’s hard, thankless work, long hours, low pay and you don’t get to pick and choose your clients. You’ll be assigned any old riff-raff cases. You’ll spend all your time in a dingy office in some horrible council building.’