Victory for the Shipyard Girls

by Nancy Revell

  After about another hundred yards Pearl slowed her pace, checked that there was no traffic and hurried across the road.

  She had been trying to avoid this moment for months now. But Isabelle was always strong-willed, as a child and as an adult. If she’d been honest with herself, Pearl had known she was on borrowed time from the moment Isabelle had mentioned her da not long after Maisie had come careering into their lives. Now, finally, the time had come.

  She couldn’t stall any longer. It was time to tell her daughter the truth.

  The only dilemma in her mind was whether or not she should tell her the whole truth.

  Bel followed her ma, but was surprised when she started walking down the long stretch of road called Glen Path. She hurried to catch up.

  ‘Where’re we going, Ma?’ Bel felt a little perplexed. Maisie had told her that she had knocked on all the doors along this street and everyone had been definite that they had not ever employed a young girl called Pearl. Most of them, Maisie had told her, still had the same staff they’d taken on before the First War.

  ‘I know,’ Pearl said, ‘you’re thinking to yourself that Maisie knocked on all these doors and there was nothing doing.’

  Bel looked at Pearl, who had stopped shortly after they had crossed over the road and started walking round the bend that stretched the quarter of a mile or so to the Queen Alexandra Road.

  ‘Well, she lied,’ Pearl said, scrabbling around in her handbag for her cigarettes and lighter. She looked at Bel and saw outrage and disappointment on her face.

  ‘But dinnit be getting all irate now,’ Pearl continued. ‘I asked her to.’

  Pearl took a cigarette out. She looked up and made eye contact with her daughter.

  ‘I wanted to be the one to tell you. No one else,’ she said.

  Bel’s mind was now all over the place. So, Maisie had lied. Her sister had been in cahoots with her ma all along.

  As if reading her daughter’s mind, Pearl told her: ‘So, don’t go sounding off at Maisie when you see her next! She was only doing what she thought best for you.’ She lit her cigarette and blew out a thick stream of smoke.

  Bel heard something different in her ma’s voice, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. She looked at her as Pearl snapped her handbag shut and flung it over her shoulder, causing it to bash against her gas mask. The fading light had given her an almost ghostly look, exacerbated by the cigarette smoke curling around her. She looked even more gaunt and worn than she did normally.

  ‘Are you all right, Ma?’ Bel asked.

  Pearl ignored her daughter and they both walked another hundred yards in a taut silence.

  When they were halfway along the road, Pearl’s pace slowed. She took one last puff of her cigarette before tossing the butt to the ground.

  Bel looked around her, taking in her surroundings. Lining the street on both sides were two parallel rows of trees, all standing straight and tall like sentinels awaiting the arrival of their king or queen. Behind them on one side, beyond the wall, there was a wealth of trees, all different types, shapes and sizes, standing still and quiet – the natural arboretum that made up Backhouse Park.

  Even though the sun was only just starting to drop, it seemed as though Bel and her ma had become separated from the light, enclosed in the shadow of the centurion trees – and there was now a chill in the air. Any kind of expectant feelings, any butterflies that had been fluttering around in her stomach, had died. For the first time since she had started down this road in search of her da, Bel felt a little afraid of what she might find out. Perhaps she shouldn’t have harangued her ma so?

  ‘We don’t have to do this, you know?’ Bel’s growing ambivalence was clear as day.

  ‘Eee, Isabelle, yer a funny one,’ Pearl said, but her tone lacked its usual bite. ‘You’ve been mithering me no end about yer da,’ she said, lighting up another cigarette. ‘Well, for once in my life I’m going to do something you’ve asked me to do.’ Again the tone was almost gentle, verging on self-recriminatory.

  ‘Yer see this house here?’ Pearl said, waving her cigarette at the house directly opposite them on the other side of the street. They both stared at the wide gravel driveway that led to the palatial Queen Anne-style red-brick house – its bright red front door bordered by two stone pillars. Pearl’s heart was thumping. She had lain awake last night and gone over and over in her head the best way to tell Bel the truth, but there didn’t seem to be any ‘best way’. Before she had finally fallen into an exhausted slumber in the early hours, she had resolved to simply bring her daughter here – to this place she had not been to since that terrible night – hoping that once she was there she would find the right words.

  Now that she was here, though, she doubted the wisdom of this plan.

  ‘I came here when I got back from London, right after I’d had Maisie,’ Pearl began. Her tone was faltering, unsure.

  ‘I didn’t want to go back and live with my ma and da, so I went looking for a live-in job, ’n I got one here.’ Pearl tried to keep her voice light, but it was a struggle. She could feel the darkness of that time start to press down on her.

  Bel looked at her ma and knew not to interrupt; that the time had come for her to find out who her father was.

  ‘I think the mistress of the house was a bit touched in the head.’ Pearl was suddenly hit by a vision of Henrietta all dolled up, dressed up in some outrageous outfit, flitting around the house as if she was onstage.

  ‘She called me the “little match girl” when she first saw me. I didn’t have any idea what she was talking about to be honest … Course, I know now. I’ve even read the story to LuLu …’

  Bel looked at her ma, who now seemed a million miles away. She was looking straight ahead at the house.

  ‘She meant no harm though.’

  Pearl stopped speaking, as if unsure what to say next.

  Bel noticed her ma was shaking.

  ‘Do they still live there now?’ Bel asked, looking at the house and thinking that it looked well-kempt, lived-in.

  Pearl wrapped her flimsy summer coat around her skinny frame. For a second she considered lying and telling Isabelle, No, they moved out years ago. She could even embellish the truth and tell her that the master of the house had some top-notch job overseas, and that the family had moved to go and join him in some far-flung country. But Pearl knew Isabelle would see through her deceit.

  ‘I believe the master of the house still lives there … I’m not sure what happened to Henrietta …’ Pearl’s mind was starting to wander again. She had never heard anything about her dying, but then again that wasn’t so unusual. She had lived a good part of her life down south. Her old mate Sandra was about the only person she had kept in touch with and she wouldn’t have thought to have told her if she had. Why would she? No one knew of her connection to the family.

  ‘So, there was the master and the mad wife – I’m guessing they had children?’ Bel prodded.

  Pearl looked at her daughter – her delicate features, her pretty face and pale skin – and saw Charles’s face. Bringing Isabelle up would have been so much easier if she hadn’t looked quite so much like him.

  ‘Aye, they did,’ Pearl said. She could feel her mouth going dry. ‘Two girls. But they didn’t really live there. They were at some posh school abroad. They only came back home every now and again.’

  ‘So, Ma,’ Bel asked, nudging her mother in the direction she needed to go, ‘were you courting anyone while you worked there?’

  Pearl looked at her daughter and realised that she had no idea what her mother was going to tell her. She wasn’t as streetwise as Maisie.

  ‘Nah, Isabelle,’ Pearl said, taking a step backwards so that her back was touching the uneven brick wall. ‘I wasn’t with anyone at that time.’

  Bel was looking at her ma, her mind spinning with questions.

  ‘So, what was the name of the master of the house, Ma?’ Bel kept her voice soft.

  Pearl hesitated.
She had never said his name aloud after that night. Ever. After a silence that felt like an age, Pearl gave her daughter the answer to her question.

  ‘Charles.’

  She said the name, but as she did so she felt her throat close up. Even now she could still feel the squeeze of his hands around her neck.

  Bel was looking intently at her mother as she spoke and thought she caught her flinch. She stepped forward and gently touched her mother’s arm.

  ‘Ma, is Charles my father? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?’

  ‘Aye,’ Pearl said. She looked down at the cigarette that was smouldering between her fingers and then back up at her daughter.

  ‘Aye,’ she repeated. ‘It was Charles.’

  There was a moment’s silence.

  Bel stood still, taking in her mother’s confession.

  A few moments passed.

  ‘So, what happened, Ma?’ Bel wanted to know everything. ‘He must have been quite old if he had two girls away at school. And you were still very young – you must have only been about fifteen?’

  ‘Aye. Fifteen.’ Pearl’s shoulders had started to stoop as if the weight of remembrance was getting heavier by the second.

  Bel struggled to put the pieces together. She desperately wanted this to be some kind of tragic love story whereby the master of the house, in a loveless marriage with a woman who was a bit touched, falls for the pretty but poor scullery maid.

  ‘Were you both in love?’ Bel asked.

  Pearl’s body stiffened.

  Bel scrutinised her mother’s face.

  There was something there, but she couldn’t read it.

  Pearl looked at her daughter. Should she tell Isabelle the horrible, vile truth of her conception? How she had been created during a moment of violence. How she had come into being because a man who had been old enough to be her father had violated her in the worst way possible.

  Had nearly strangled the life out of her while creating life inside of her?

  Pearl looked at her daughter. Her beautiful, genteel daughter. And it came to her. She knew what she had to do. She had lived with this her whole life. She had suffered because of one man’s perversions – but she was damned if she was going to let his poison spread to her daughter and infect her with his darkness.

  ‘I was young, Isabelle. And dinnit forget,’ Pearl started her untruth, ‘those were different times.’ The words came easier now she knew what she had to do, but still she was aware that what came out of her mouth next had to be convincing. Had to sound genuine. Truthful. Her daughter wasn’t easily fooled.

  ‘He was the master of the house. I was the young skivvy he took a liking to.’ Pearl drew hard on her fag and forced the words out alongside a thick grey billow of smoke. ‘And I took a liking to him.’ Pearl took one last drag of her cigarette as though wanting to scorch the words from her throat. ‘I was young and stupid, without the brains I should have been born with. He was rich … handsome.’ Pearl tossed her fag butt to the ground and crushed it into the pavement.

  ‘It was a very brief affair.’ She had to push the words out. How it hurt to say them. But she knew the truth would damage her daughter so much more. ‘Just the once.’

  She looked at Bel and could see that she was taking in every word, and most of all, believing everything she was saying.

  Listening to her ma’s words, a strange relief had come over Bel. The feeling of fear and dread that had crept up on her earlier had now gone.

  She had been the result of a love affair – a love affair of sorts – although one that clearly had been doomed from the start.

  ‘So, what happened?’ Bel was now entranced. So much so that she did not see a shiny black Jaguar turning into Glen Path from the main road. Pearl, however, had spotted the car and turned slightly so that if the passengers in the car did spot them, all they could see would be the backs of two women standing having a gossip.

  ‘I felt so guilty.’ Pearl looked her daughter straight in the eye, wanting – needing – to keep her attention. ‘He was a married man, dinnit forget. And I had always liked Henrietta, even if she was a few slices short.’ Pearl was now starting to speak faster as the car approached. ‘So, I just packed my bags and left one night and never went back.’ Panic was now coursing through Pearl’s body and she felt herself shake even more.

  The car was slowing down!

  ‘It wasn’t until a good while later I realised I was pregnant with you,’ she continued.

  The car was now turning into the driveway, its wheels crunching on the gravel.

  Bel turned to see the flash of red brake lights as the car slowly came to a halt outside the stone steps that led to the front door.

  Pearl desperately wanted another fag but didn’t dare move. The shaking was getting worse now. She hadn’t banked on this. Why hadn’t she thought this through more carefully? She had heard the old man hardly went out these days. That he was always coming down with some ailment or other that kept him housebound.

  Don’t be stupid, it’s probably just visitors. She tried to calm herself.

  ‘Come on, Isabelle.’ She took hold of her daughter’s arm and pulled her gently.

  Bel’s face swung round to look at her mother.

  ‘Is this him? Is this Charles?’ Her face was flushed with excitement. At last, she was going to see her father. She might even get to meet him.

  ‘It’s probably just house guests,’ Pearl said. She tugged her daughter’s arm again but she didn’t move. Bel had no intention of going anywhere.

  ‘I just want to see him,’ Bel whispered, although she would have had to shout for the man getting out of the car to hear her.

  Pearl closed her eyes for a moment, wanting all of this to disappear. When she opened them again, she saw a chauffeur helping Charles out of the car. It shocked her how old and frail he had become. His blond hair was now grey. He was still thin and wiry, but his posture was bent – no longer the straight-backed horse rider.

  ‘Gosh, Ma, he looks so old.’ Bel mirrored her mother’s thoughts. Her face was no longer expectant, nor enthused with excitement.

  As Charles put one hand on the top of the car to steady himself and watched the driver walk round to open the other passenger door, Bel caught his profile. It was still light, the sun only just going down, so she had a good view. Her eyes narrowed as she inspected his face.

  ‘He looks familiar.’ She turned her head slightly towards her ma, who was still gripping her arm, all the while keeping her eyes peeled on the man who she now knew was her da.

  She knew this man. She was sure of it.

  ‘Where do I know him from?’ Bel turned, this time looking at her ma. She was shocked to see Pearl’s face was drained of colour. She was as white as a ghost. Bel glanced down at her mother’s hand, clamped on her daughter’s arm. She could feel it trembling. This was so unlike her. Her ma was never afraid of anything.

  When Bel looked back across the road she saw that there were, in fact, two other passengers getting out of the back of the Jaguar. Two women. One dark-haired, the other blonde. The older, fair-haired woman seemed to be a little unsteady on her feet, a little tipsy perhaps, and was checking her perfectly coiffured hair with a small compact, while the other, younger woman was rooting around for something in her handbag. A few seconds later she pulled out a cigarette and lit it.

  Bel let out a gasp of disbelief.

  The woman blowing out a plume of smoke into the early-evening air was none other than Helen.

  And then the penny dropped.

  Of course she knew his face! He had been photographed for the local newspaper enough. Always at some charity function or being pictured cutting a red ribbon, or receiving some award for his charitable work.

  Charles – the man who was her father – was Mr Charles Havelock.

  Bel stood there, stunned. Not quite knowing what to think.

  Her ma and Mr Havelock? A love affair?

  Bel’s mind was whirring

  S
omething didn’t feel right now she had seen him with her own eyes. He must be well into his seventies … her ma was just in her early forties … that made a thirty-five year age gap between the two, at the very least.

  They could easily have been father and daughter.

  If her ma was just fifteen when she’d had her affair, that would have made him in his early fifties.

  A fifteen-year-old girl and fifty-year-old man?

  Had it really been a love affair?

  Bel felt a shiver go down her spine.

  She looked at her ma, who seemed to have dropped into some kind of a trance as she watched Mr Havelock, his daughter Miriam and granddaughter Helen make their way into the house. Miriam’s shrill, arrogant voice shouted more orders to an elderly butler who had opened the front door and helped unburden the chauffeur of presents.

  Bel and Pearl stood and watched, statue-still, as everyone piled into the house and the bright red front door clashed shut.

  There was a few seconds’ silence before Bel spoke.

  ‘I don’t know what to say, Ma.’

  The feeling of unease and dread Bel had felt earlier had now returned in full. She watched as her mother turned to look at her and, realising she was still holding on to Bel’s arm, released her grip.

  She didn’t say anything. Instead she fished out her last fag.

  As Bel looked at her mother hunching over to light her cigarette, everything fell into place.

  A rush of nausea hit her as it dawned on her what had really happened between her ma and Charles.

  There had been no love affair.

  She knew fear in a person when she saw it and she had seen it in her mother as soon as her ma had set eyes on Mr Havelock. She had felt the tremors of terror in her ma’s body as she’d clung to her arm.

  Her ma had been raped.

  And she, Bel, was the product of that rape.

  That was why her ma had lied to her all these years.

  Her ma had been trying to protect her.

  As the pieces of the jigsaw fell into place, Bel understood why her ma had found it so hard to love her, yet so easy to love Maisie.