by Nancy Revell
When Maisie had declared herself Pearl’s daughter, Pearl had been forced to relive a part of her life that had been so very painful for her. It had been so painful that she had tried ever since to erase that day twenty-eight years ago when she had handed Maisie over to Evelina, the midwife at the Salvation Army’s hostel for unmarried mothers. But being reunited with the daughter she had given up had ended up being the best thing that had ever happened to her. Pearl had revelled in telling Maisie all about her father – how theirs had been a young love, which had ended when he’d left to travel back to his homeland without knowing that she was carrying their child.
Perhaps spurred on by Maisie’s chatter about her da and how she had thought about trying to find him, Isabelle’s childish determination to know the truth about her own father had been rekindled. Isabelle and her sister might be chalk and cheese, but they shared one trait – they were both stubborn as hell, and when they wanted something, they wouldn’t stop until they got it.
Maisie had realised that it was highly unlikely she would ever get to meet the man who had sired her – unless she was prepared to travel halfway round the world.
Isabelle’s da, however, was another matter entirely.
And worst of all, he was not living on the other side of the world, but much closer to home.
With a sinking heart, Pearl realised that this was not going to be some passing fancy of Isabelle’s, and the questions about her da were not going to go away. Pearl was going to have to deal with this, whether she wanted to or not. She just needed more time to think and to work out a plausible lie – one that her daughter would believe.
Either that or she was simply going to have to tell her the awful truth.
When sleep finally came to Pearl it did not bring her any kind of repose. Far from it. Instead she was flung back into the dark depths of a nightmare in which she often found herself entombed and which had haunted her for almost twenty-eight years. The horror it forced upon her had never abated or lessened over the many years it had come back to torment her.
And like tonight, it always began the same way – with an impenetrable darkness, a bottomless, inky blackness that slowly became infused with the faint odour of a sickly-sweet perfume mixed with a foul-smelling sweat that became stronger and more overpowering.
And then came the fear. A fear that, once let out of the starting blocks, raced through her unconscious body, alerting every part of her to the danger that had snuck up on her so quietly, so surreptitiously. Forcing her eyes open, Pearl strained to see what it was – but there was nothing there.
Just the inky blackness.
The smell.
And the fear.
Until she sensed a presence nearby. Another being. She knew there was a face in the darkness, but try as she might, she could not see it. Every nerve in her body told her that the being was not good. It was the opposite of goodness. It was greed. Powerful greed. A greed that was determined to be satisfied. Dark, unnatural and perverted.
A moment’s deathly silence followed until suddenly Pearl felt a dead weight on top of her. A fleshy, panting, human mass that seemed to be crushing the life out of her.
And then came the pain. The terrible, unbearable pain – along with the slow, almost gentle squeeze around her neck, increasing in pressure, trapping the breath inside her, depriving her of air.
Desperate for oxygen, her body started to thrash around. But it was all in vain.
The pain and the choking continued.
Her head screamed, enough to wake the dead, but silent to the living.
No one could hear her.
Just as she thought that her body could not take any more, and believing that she would surely die, Pearl woke from her nightmare, as she always did, heaving for air, her hand around her throat – lathered from head to toe in sweat.
Chapter Seven
Park Avenue, Roker, Sunderland
‘I know what you did, Mother.’ Helen lit one of her Pall Malls and wandered over to the drinks cabinet in the lounge. She started making two gin and tonics. One for her mother and one for herself.
‘What do you mean, darling? You know what I did? Honestly, you sound like you’re accusing your poor old mama here of some dreadful crime.’
Miriam wandered over and took her drink from her daughter.
‘I heard you, Mum. Heard every word that was said.’ Helen blew out smoke and tapped her cigarette in the heavy crystal ashtray she had taken from the top of the sideboard.
‘Really, Helen, you’re talking in riddles. What are you going on about?’ Miriam took a sip of her drink. She had a good idea what Helen had ‘heard’ and she was cursing inwardly. She’d thought Helen had been at work that day. Clearly not.
‘Mum, I know you’re getting on a bit,’ Helen smiled as she spoke, knowing that her age was her mother’s Achilles heel, ‘but you must remember what you said. Here. In this very room. Last Wednesday?’
Miriam took another sip of her drink, forcing back the resentment and annoyance she felt towards her beautiful – and young – daughter.
‘You know,’ Helen continued, walking over to the fire and putting her drink on the black marble mantelpiece. ‘When Jack and Gloria were here, and you were all having a rather interesting tête-à-tête?’
‘You’re going to have to learn how to mix a decent G and T, my dear,’ Miriam said, stalling for time and going back over to the cabinet to add more gin to her glass tumbler. Returning to the leather Chesterfield by the fire, Miriam sat down. She was glad she’d told Mrs Westley to put some more coal on the fire. This looked like it was going to be a long conversation.
‘Come and sit down, dear.’ Miriam patted the cushion next to her.
‘I’m fine standing, Mother,’ Helen said, her voice sounding strained. ‘I’m not staying long anyway. I’m going out this evening.’
Miriam’s face brightened. This was what she needed – her daughter out of an evening. Not moping around the house, and more importantly, not putting any kind of spanner in the works.
‘Good for you, darling. Some nice young man taking you out?’
‘It doesn’t matter where I’m going, Mum. Or with whom. I want to talk to you about what you did.’ Helen was inwardly fuming. She had held back all of her anger and grief these past five days, but it was no good, she had to have it out with her mother.
Miriam looked at her daughter, not sure how to tackle the situation. What she did know, though, was that it was imperative she kept Helen onside – and well away from her father.
‘Helen, darling, you’re going to have to explain to me just what it is you think I did?’ Miriam needed Helen to tell her exactly how much or how little she knew.
‘I know you’ve basically blackmailed Gloria into keeping silent about her affair with Dad.’ Helen took a drag of her cigarette. ‘And about Hope.’ It still pained her to say the baby’s name. The name of her father’s daughter. The name of her sister.
Miriam took another sip of her drink to quell the fury that rose up in her whenever she even thought about her husband’s bastard. If it had just been an affair it would have been so much easier to deal with. But when Helen had told her Jack had been stupid enough to get Gloria pregnant, she knew that this problem wasn’t just going to disappear.
The bastard baby had changed everything.
‘I know,’ Helen continued, ‘that you got him moved to Scotland. That it was all a ruse for you to get shot of Dad.’
‘Ah,’ Miriam said, ‘well, my dear, what I “did”, as you keep putting it so aggressively, was actually solve a rather huge problem, and one that wouldn’t just affect me – but you as well.’ Miriam was trying to keep her voice gentle. She needed her daughter to believe that she had acted in her best interests – that it was really Helen she had been concerned about.
‘Like you say, darling, I am getting on a bit. I’ve had my life.’ Miriam sounded sincere but didn’t mean a word she had just uttered. She put down her drink and stood up. Str
aightening her skirt, she carefully stepped across the thick Persian rug in her peep-toe shoes towards her daughter. Helen automatically took a step back. Her mother rarely came this near to her.
‘What I did, Helen, I did for you.’ Miriam took her daughter’s hands in her own and squeezed them gently. ‘That terrible day you came back here, crying your eyes out after seeing your father with that woman at the hospital. That day that will be forever etched in my mind, when you told me that your father had had a baby with that woman …’ Miriam paused as if to compose herself. ‘That night, after we had chatted down here in this very room, I went up to my room and lay awake all night and cried.’
Miriam, of course, had not shed a tear; nor had she lain awake all night, thanks to her sleeping pills. She had, however, spent much of the evening working out what to do.
‘All that crying and heartache,’ Miriam tried to force tears into her eyes, ‘was not for myself.’ She looked her daughter straight in the eyes and could see that she had succeeded in bringing the hurt of that day to the fore. ‘It was for you,’ Miriam said, both hands clutching those of her daughter. ‘For all the degradation you were going to have to endure when it came out that your father was having an affair with one of your workers – and not even some pretty little office worker, but some haggard, middle-aged woman welder.’
Helen automatically tried to pull her hands away but her mother had a tight grip. She didn’t know why but whenever her mother demeaned Gloria something inside of her fought against it. It irked her. She couldn’t help it. Perhaps it was because she had seen Gloria beaten like a dog by her mad ex, or because the image of her bloodied face as she’d looked up at her to thank her for helping would never leave her.
‘I kept thinking of how you would be the laughing stock of the whole of Thompson’s. But most of all,’ Miriam let go of her daughter’s hand and touched the soft, young skin on her face, ‘I cried because your father has committed the worst sin possible. He has had another baby. A daughter with another woman.’
Miriam knew this was what had really hurt Helen more than anything. More than the affair with Gloria, more than the indignity she might suffer if it came out and became fodder for the gossipmongers. The real dagger in her daughter’s heart had been plunged deep when she had realised that her father had a new daughter. Helen had always been the centre of her father’s world. Miriam knew that if it hadn’t been for Helen – the daughter he adored so much – Jack would have probably walked away from their marriage years ago. He thought the world of Helen. Just as Helen did him. Or rather just as she used to. Now Miriam just needed to cement her daughter’s rejection of her dear papa. Remind her that she had been forsaken, cast aside for this new baby.
She needed Helen to believe that Jack loved his new family more than he did her.
Miriam knew that was the only way she would keep her daughter on her side. The only thing that would stop Helen going to Scotland to see Jack. The only way she could keep this rather precarious stack of cards she had built upright.
‘So, you see, my darling …’ Miriam stepped away from her daughter and sat back down on the sofa as though she was defeated, a martyr, exhausted and tired, ‘… I did what I did for you. For your future.’
Miriam watched her daughter as she walked back to the cabinet to retrieve the drink she had barely touched. She knew the words her daughter uttered next would tell her if she had succeeded in doing what she knew she had to do.
‘Oh, Mum …’ Helen’s voice had lost its accusatory tone. She was a child again, needing her mother’s love and care. ‘Why did all this have to happen? Every morning I wake up and I wish I could just put the clock back. Turn back time. Make everything the way it was before. But I can’t, can I?’ Tears were now falling down Helen’s cheeks.
Miriam knew this was the cue for her to do what a normal mother would and go comfort her daughter. She stood up and walked over to Helen.
‘Darling, everything’s going to be all right. But you’re right, we can’t turn the clock back. But at least by doing what I’ve done, I’ve been able to stop it going forward. No one’s ever going to find out. Everything is going to be exactly the same as before this whole abomination came to light. Nothing’s really going to change.’
Miriam put her hands on her daughter’s shoulders and squeezed them gently. It was as near to a hug as she could manage. What she really wanted to do was to give her daughter a good shake and tell her to stop snivelling and harden up. The girl was like a wet blanket. And that was another thing that was Jack’s fault.
‘I just keep thinking about the baby.’ Helen was trying not to cry, knowing what her mum thought of tears, but she couldn’t stop herself. Her mother was being so nice to her.
‘I just keep thinking,’ she repeated, ‘that I’ve got a sister.’
Miriam instantly took her hands off her daughter. She walked over to the sideboard and pulled open one of the drawers, where she found a small pile of freshly laundered and pressed handkerchiefs. She walked back over to Helen and handed her one.
‘Now, listen to me.’ Miriam tried to keep the infuriation she was feeling out of her voice. ‘That baby is not your sister. It has nothing to do with you. Nor you with it. So, just wipe that thought right out of your head.’
Miriam gently took Helen’s chin in her hand and lifted her face so that they were looking at each other.
‘Nothing. You hear me?’
Helen nodded.
‘Now, dry those tears and get yourself out on your date.’ Miriam walked over to the lounge door and opened it.
‘I’m not going on a date, Mum. When do I ever go on dates?’
Miriam looked at her daughter and realised this was true. She had courted a few boys in the past, but never for long. Perhaps that was what she needed. A bit of a distraction.
‘Well, then perhaps you should start? Where are you going tonight, if not out with some eligible young bachelor?’
‘The charity benefit at the museum. You know? The one to raise funds for the Royal?’
Miriam shuddered at the mention of the town’s main hospital on the New Durham Road. It was where Jack had been taken after he had fallen into a coma. God, she wished he’d never woken up.
‘Well,’ Miriam said, ‘if you see your grandfather there, send my apologies. Tell him I’ve got one of my heads.’
‘He didn’t look the picture of health the other week when I went to see him,’ Helen said, ‘so I’m not sure he’ll definitely be there.’
‘Oh …’ Miriam let out a rather cynical laugh ‘… the old man will be there, without a doubt. Anything to do with the hospital always gives him his fix of adulation – even if such reverence is bought with the money he keeps throwing into their coffers.’ Her face clouded over. ‘Mind you, if he keeps on chucking money at them the way he does, there’ll be nothing left for his own family.’
Helen looked at her mother. Her grandfather was one of the town’s most well-known businessmen and charitable donors. Everyone seemed to love him, apart from his own daughter, although her mother was always nice enough to the old man – to his face, anyway. And she always made sure she kept in his good books.
‘Well, go on then! Go and have some fun! Find yourself a nice, eligible young man!’ Miriam put her hand on her daughter’s back and guided her out of the room. ‘Put on that lovely dress you’ve just had made. You’ll have all the men falling over you.’
As Helen left the room and started walking up the stairs to freshen up, her mother’s voice followed her.
‘Forget all this other stuff. And just enjoy yourself!’
As Helen put on her new cream-coloured rayon dress, she tried to focus on the evening ahead and, like her mother had said, ‘have some fun’, but her mind kept pulling her back to that awful afternoon last week when she’d spotted Gloria leaving the yard in a chauffeur-driven car and, sensing something was up, had hurried home. With her ear pressed against the closed door of the living room, she had listened to
her mother and to the occasional interjections of her father and Gloria and had been proven right.
What she had heard had been shocking: Dorothy’s mother’s bigamy, Angie’s mam’s infidelity, Hannah’s aunty’s money woes – and Martha the offspring of a child killer! Only Rosie and Polly had come out of it unsullied by scandal. Her mother had put Gloria well and truly into a corner, with not even the possibility of escape.
Up until that point Helen had thought her mother a veritable genius, but then she had dropped her second bombshell, and it wasn’t just Gloria who was devastated, but Helen too. Her father was to be banished to Glasgow.
Sitting down on the small stool by her dresser, Helen reached for her make-up. Her hand trembled as she applied her ruby-coloured lipstick and her eyes started to sting with the beginning of tears. But it was the feeling of guilt that was unbearable. Guilt had continued to weigh her down this past week, for it was she – the daughter her father doted on – who had been the cause of his exile. It was she who had told her mother about Gloria and the baby.
If she hadn’t, her father would still be here.
When she had originally told her mother about the affair, Miriam had made Helen promise not to utter a word of what she knew to anyone. Especially her father. Helen knew the only way she could do that was to avoid him, which she had done for weeks, terrified that she would break down and confess that she knew about Gloria – and about the baby. So, Helen had worked all the hours possible and then forced herself to go out most nights. And it had worked. She had spent next to no time with her father and adhered to her mother’s wishes and not spilled the beans. But it had pained her dreadfully, and she knew that her father had also been confused and hurt by his daughter’s unexplained rejection of him.
