***
It was the autumn before Millie felt strong enough to face the journey to Tyneside in search of information about her father. By then she was back at the hotel, working as hard as ever but still troubled with sleeplessness over Dan and how her life had unravelled so quickly after Helen’s revelations. He should have told her the truth at the beginning, Millie raged in the dark hours of the night, alone in the bed she had once shared with him. How could he have been so selfish? But as the weeks wore on, she began to question whether she had been partly to blame. Was it not she who had yearned to be respectably married above all else? Had she not pushed him into marriage against her mother’s better judgement? Thinking back, Millie had to admit that Dan had shown a certain reluctance in the face of her eagerness. She had assumed it was just his bachelor cautiousness at settling down. But had it been guilt or a fear of not wanting to own up to the mistake he had made as a young soldier newly released from the army? Helen had said Dan had written asking for a divorce, but had been refused.
But he still should have told her! Millie railed as she tossed in her bed. Many times during these tortured moments she wondered if she would have waited for him to divorce had she known about his first doomed marriage, or would she have got over him and married someone else? He never gave her the choice, she concluded bitterly.
Teresa was horrified by Millie’s desire to waste precious time and money on a fruitless search for Ellis. ‘He’ll be long dead,’ she snapped, ‘and it’s disloyal to me! Your place is here, looking after your boys. Besides, it’s not safe, there’s still a chance of bombing over the Tyne.’
But Millie could not settle for thinking about her father. ‘I want to know the truth,’ she insisted.
Her chance came when a message arrived from Gordon Armstrong that his ship was docked on the Tyne and he wished to see his daughters. Ava and Millie argued over who would take them, and Grant said that whoever did, he was going to accompany them. In the end they all went on a crowded train and the girls were briefly reunited with their father at Aunt Rachael’s house near the docks. Millie took a trolley bus and travelled the mile uptown to Paradise Parade, Ava insisting that Grant accompany her.
Millie had not been back since they had lived there, and the street looked drab, the doors flaking with paint and the railings removed for the war effort. She found herself shaking as she walked past her old flat and saw that the same ivory blind hung in the sitting-room window. She slipped an arm through Grant’s for comfort and he did not pull away. Without a word they hurried on, avoiding the shops and the Fairishes’ hairdressing business, skirting down a side lane into Cedar Crescent. She knocked nervously at Mrs Hodges’ door, half expecting some stranger to answer. But to her delight, the old midwife herself opened it. Mrs Hodges peered short-sightedly for a moment and then threw wide her arms.
‘Why, hinny! Haway in!’ the old woman cried, flushing with pleasure. Millie fell into her plump, welcoming arms and burst into tears, overwhelmed by sudden memories of living in the cosy flat in the neighbouring street with Edith and Dan in those happy days.
After a pot of tea, with a sprinkle of precious rationed sugar and a slice of indigestible cake made from powdered egg, Millie broached the reason for her return and her quest to find any trace of her father. Mrs Hodges paused in thought for a minute.
‘My memory’s not what it used to be, but yes, there was a man came looking for you after you left,’ she nodded. ‘He was very down on his luck, shabby clothes, and he had the look of someone with consumption. Can’t imagine he’d still be alive, hinny, I’m sorry to say.’
‘Did he give his name or tell you anything about himself?’ Millie persisted.
The old neighbour shook her head. ‘Eeh, hinny, I divn’t remember.’
Grant suggested, ‘Did he say where he was living, perhaps?’
Her eyes suddenly lit with the spark of a memory. ‘Aye, he did say his address. Now what was it . . . ? It was somewhere near the Quayside – he’d been labouring on the new bridge.’
‘The Tyne Bridge?’ Millie asked.
‘Aye, that was it.’ Mrs Hodges pulled herself to her feet and disappeared out of the parlour for a minute. Millie and Grant exchanged hopeful looks. When she came back she was leafing through an old notebook. ‘I’ve kept diaries and notes for years about the births I’ve attended,’ she muttered. ‘Ah! This might be it. October the fifteenth 1928. A Mr Mercer called.’ Millie gasped at the name. ‘He was staying at Mrs Hardy’s, All Saints’ Buildings on the Quayside,’ Mrs Hodges continued. ‘I don’t know if it still exists, but he must’ve wanted me to tell you in case you ever came back.’ The old woman looked at Millie with shining eyes. ‘I always hoped you would.’
Millie stood up and hugged her. ‘I never was brave enough,’ she confessed, ‘there were too many memories of our Edith . . .’
‘I know, hinny,’ Mrs Hodges sympathised, holding her tightly. ‘I missed the bairn too. I was that upset when I heard.’ She patted Millie’s back. ‘See, I still keep that photograph you gave me of you all together.’
Millie pulled away, blinking back the tears that blurred her vision. There on the mantelpiece was the studio picture of her and Dan with Edith between them, sitting still just long enough for the photographer to capture her quizzical look and enchanting smile. She had always loved that photograph as being the epitome of their happily married days. How different things might have been had Edith lived, Millie thought painfully. Then, looking closer at Dan’s lopsided smile, she was struck by the thought that even if their daughter had lived, the seeds of destruction of their marriage had already been sown. He had always been someone else’s husband, someone else’s father, she thought bitterly. At that moment an anger filled her, boiling up inside as dangerous as hot oil. She resolved that when she returned to Ashborough she would write to Dan and tell him just what she thought of his betrayal! She would not take him back even if that was what he wanted, she determined, and no amount of pleading would change her mind.
They took their leave of Mrs Hodges and promised to keep in touch.
‘I hope you find out something about your father,’ she told Millie with a parting kiss. ‘You take care of yourself and that family of yours. Tell Mr Nixon I was asking after him.’
Millie nodded, turning away quickly, not wanting to talk about Dan.
As they made their way back down Paradise Parade to catch a tram, Millie said forlornly, ‘We haven’t time to go looking round the Quayside now; we might miss the train back to Ashborough.’
‘We have if we’re quick,’ Grant replied. ‘You’ll only fret if you don’t go looking now – wonder what you might have found.’
Millie smiled at his strong, compassionate face. ‘You’ve been that good to me,’ she said quietly, slipping her arm through his. ‘I sometimes wonder ...’
‘What?’ Grant asked her, his dark eyes scanning her face.
‘Oh, nothing,’ Millie said, flushing. She could not say what was in her mind, that maybe they had both married the wrong people. There appeared to be no love between Grant and Ava, but they had stuck together through bad times and maybe they were resigned to the life they led.
‘Haway,’ Grant encouraged, ‘let’s run for that tram into town.’
***
In Newcastle, they walked down the steep streets from the tram stand to the bustling alleys of the Quayside. After asking around, they found All Saints’ Buildings tucked beneath the graceful eighteenth-century church which gave it its name. It was an old tenement block of lodging rooms which had never been grand but was now reduced to little more than a dossing house. Millie looked in dismay at the badly lit, ill-smelling stairwell as they searched in the gloom for Mrs Hardy’s rooms.
The door was answered by an elderly man with a waft of burnt toast. There was a wireless on in the background. When Millie asked for Mrs Hardy, the man grunted that she was not in, but that he was her husband.
‘Don’t know when she’ll be back
,’ he said. ‘If it’s a room you’re wanting, we’re full to bursting.’
‘No, I’m trying to find someone – one of her lodgers,’ Millie persisted. ‘Perhaps you know him, Mr Ellis Mercer?’
The man sucked in lips over toothless gums as he thought. ‘Mercer?’ He shook his head. ‘There’s no one here of that name.’
Grant, seeing the look of disappointment on Millie’s face, asked, ‘Maybe not now, but this man lived here over ten years ago. He’s a pitman from Craston.’
‘Up the coast?’ the old man asked.
‘Aye,’ Millie said, her hopes sparking once more. ‘He’s a tall man, but walks with a limp.’
‘There was a man from up that way a long time back,’ the man answered. ‘Can’t recall his name, mind. Aye, he was one of the men working on the bridge back in the twenties. We had a few of them staying here. Could have called him Mercer – he certainly had a gammy leg.’
‘What happened to him?’ Millie asked breathlessly. ‘How long did he stay here? Do you know where he went?’
‘I can’t rightly remember,’ Mr Hardy said. ‘I was working on the keelboats at the time, wasn’t around much. It’s the missus you’ll have to ask.’
Millie could barely hide her frustration. ‘But we have to go back to Ashborough tonight and I don’t know when I’ll be able to come back. Did she not keep any records? Can’t you remember anything else?’
Mr Hardy glowered at her. ‘As I said, you’ll have to ask Mrs Hardy. The lodgers are her concern.’ He began to shut the door.
Grant wedged his foot in the door frame. ‘Just a minute. Mrs Nixon is trying to find out what happened to her father. She hasn’t seen him for twenty years. Can she leave her address, and if Mrs Hardy remembers anything about Ellis Mercer she can write and tell her?’
The old man grunted in agreement and Grant pulled out a stub of pencil and wrote Millie’s name and the hotel address on the back of his tram ticket. He pushed it through the gap and Mr Hardy grabbed it, then closed the door on them. Grant steered Millie down the stairs and out into the October gloom.
‘He’ll not give me name to his wife,’ Millie said angrily.
‘You never know. Anyway, you can write to her yourself now you’ve got something to go on.’
Millie turned and gave him a bleak look. ‘I hope it wasn’t me dad. I hate to think of him living in such a place – with people who didn’t care about him and can’t even remember his name any more!’
Grant held her by the shoulders. ‘You wanted to know, Millie, didn’t you? You should’ve been prepared for this. What sort of life do you think an out-of-work pitman with a damaged leg is going to find?’ he demanded.
She shook him off and began to walk quickly back up the hill towards Central Station, where they had agreed to meet Ava and the girls. She did not speak to him about the visit again, but as they travelled home with the chattering children, Millie had to admit that Grant was right. She had been hoping for some fairytale ending, where she discovered her father and plucked him from a desolate life of old age and poverty. He would be eternally grateful, of course, and be reconciled with her mother at last.
But that was just foolishness, she told herself harshly. All she had discovered was that her father may have lived in a dingy lodging house while he carried out some menial task for the bridge-builders, separated from family and the relative prosperity of his past.
That night, filled with disappointment and bitterness about their fruitless search, Millie vented her fury in a letter to Dan.
‘I will never forgive you for betraying me and the bairns or for the shame you have brought on this family. You’ll not set foot inside this house again. I don’t wish you any harm out in Egypt, but you might as well go crawling back to your first wife when you come home. Your Helen wants to see you at least. I can’t tell you how hurt I am that you tried to go back to them after our Edith died. You‘ve wronged us all too much this time, Dan. I could never take you back.’
Millie posted it the next day while still in a fury, and made her mother burn his unopened letters. A month later a further letter came from Dan but she steeled herself to throw this on the fire too before reading it. Albert saw her doing this and asked in amazement, ‘W-wasn’t that from me dad?’ When Millie did not answer, he asked, ‘W-what did he say? Is he coming back on leave soon?’
Millie faced him and answered, ‘He’s not coming back here when the war’s over. He’s got another family.’
Albert looked as shocked as if she had slapped him, and Millie felt anger surge at the absent Dan for having brought about such misery for them all. Robert looked up from his homework anxiously. ‘Do you mean that lass Helen?’
‘Aye,’ Millie said, her throat tight. She could feel herself begin to shake.
‘B-but she can’t take our dad off us!’ Albert cried. ‘That’s not fair!’
Ava interfered. ‘She can and she has done. He was her father first.’
‘Ava!’ Grant warned, stormy-faced.
‘Well, it’s true!’ Ava lashed out. ‘There’s been too much covering up and pretending going on for my liking.’ She gave Millie a hostile look.
‘They don’t need to know any more,’ Millie said in a panic, regretting her outburst at once. ‘Not at their age.’
‘They’ve a right to know.’ Ava warmed to the argument, scenting trouble. ‘They’ve a right to know what sort of man their father is – one who marries a lass when he’s already married to someone else.’
‘Shut up!’ Teresa said, rising to her feet and dropping her knitting.
‘No, I won’t shut up!’ she replied. ‘It’s been nothing but lies and deceit for years. Millie’s been a fool to have stuck with Dan so long. He’s been unfaithful to her, the whole town knows that! I’m not surprised what’s happened, just that it’s taken her so long to see him for the waster he is.’
Before anyone could say a word in reproach, Albert had sprung across the room towards Ava and started punching her. ‘I hate you!’ he screamed. Grant leapt to pull the boy off as Ava screamed in pain. Jack and Charity watched wide-eyed and alarmed from their crouched positions by the hearth, while Patience ducked behind Millie in fright. But Robert, now stocky at eleven, waded in, kicking Albert.
‘Leave off her!’ he shouted.
Grant heaved them apart and pinned Robert with his arms, while Millie went to grab a sobbing Albert. Robert tried to wrestle free from Grant’s hold. ‘You should stick up for Auntie Ava. She’s only telling the truth about me dad. I hate him for what he’s done. He’s never around here anyway!’
Albert wailed at him, ‘D-don’t you say anything against Dad or I’ll kill ya!’
Robert just laughed at him harshly and shoved Grant away. Ava, recovering, went to hug the boy.
‘You needn’t worry about any shame,’ she consoled her favourite. ‘At least Dan’s got nothing to do with you.’
Millie looked at her, appalled. ‘Ava, don’t say another word!’ She turned to Patience quickly. ‘Take the bairns upstairs to play, pet. Go on!’ She bustled them all out of the room, but Robert refused to move.
He looked between them, his surly face unsure. ‘What do you mean; he’s got nothing to do with me?’
Ava gave Millie a challenging look. ‘Why shouldn’t the boy know? He’s old enough now. He’s always known he was different from the others, the way you’ve favoured Albert and Jack.’
‘You don’t know what you’re saying,’ Millie warned. ‘I’ll never forgive you if you hurt him now.’
Robert demanded, ‘What should I know?’
‘That Dan and Millie aren’t your real parents,’ Ava said, undaunted by the furious looks around her. ‘They adopted you – brought you up from the Midlands. That’s why I’ve always tried to give you a bit of extra love, because I never felt you got enough from them.’
‘God forgive you!’ Millie hissed. But the ferocious look that Robert gave her made her heart stop. She put her arms out to him. His face
was ashen.
‘Is it true?’ he demanded, clenching his fists and holding himself away from her. ‘You’re not me mam?’
They stared at each other for a long moment, Millie’s heart breaking at the shattered look on his young face. She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t think you ever needed to know,’ she whispered. ‘But I’ve loved you like me own – always will do.’
His stunned expression turned to pain, and fierce tears shone in his eyes as he accused her. ‘Then I don’t belong here! I never have done, have I? It’s not just me dad who was a liar, it’s you an’ all!’
Millie felt punched by the words, but at that moment she heard her mother’s voice come clearly from behind her.
‘Oh, but you do belong here, more than any of us,’ Teresa said, her voice trembling but sharp. ‘Ava’s wrong about where you come from.’ She hobbled towards him. ‘And you’ve no right to speak ill of Millie – she took care of you when your own mother wouldn’t. She’d just lost her own daughter, but she gave you all the love she had in her sore heart.’
Robert shook as he demanded, ‘Tell me who me mam was!’
Millie held her breath while all around was tense silence.
‘I am,’ Teresa confessed, ‘and your birth left me crippled.’ Robert looked at her, speechless. ‘You might as well know the rest of it – the harm’s already been done. Your father was Joseph Moody. So Ava and Millie are your half-sisters.’
There was a horrified gasp from Ava. Robert turned to her, bewildered, but she just covered her face in her hands as if she could not bear to look at him. The boy gave out a cry of fury, like an animal in pain. He glared around at them. ‘You’re all a bunch of liars! I don’t know who to believe any more. I hate the lot of you!’
Grant put out a hand to grab him, but he bolted for the kitchen door, flung it open and dashed out into the dark.
THE TYNESIDE SAGAS: Box set of three dramatic and emotional stories: A Handful of Stars, Chasing the Dream and For Love & Glory Page 78
