Pearl must have dozed off too, for she woke to find Jack standing over her, his shadow blocking the sun.
‘What time is it?’ she asked, disorientated for a moment.
‘I’ve only been gone ten minutes,’ he laughed quietly. ‘Joy forgot her spade. Come back with me; I want to talk.’ Pearl glanced over to see that Gloria was asleep. She sat up and squinted at the crowded beach.
‘Where’s Joy?’ she asked.
‘Sitting watching Punch,’ Jack assured her, pointing over towards the pier arches. ‘I told her I was coming for the spade.’ He reached down and grabbed her hand, trying to pull her up. ‘Haway, Pearl, we need to talk,’ he said urgently. ‘You’re not enjoying this any more than I am, are you?’
Pearl felt her heart beating rapidly at his touch. ‘Not here, Jack. We can’t talk here,’ she whispered nervously.
‘It’s driving me crackers having you around and not being able to...’ He broke off, giving her a desperate look.
‘Please don’t say something you’ll regret later,’ Pearl urged, glancing anxiously at her sleeping sister once again.
‘I won’t regret it; I don’t regret what happened the other night,’ Jack whispered recklessly, trying to pull her nearer. ‘I don’t think you minded either. Tell me you feel the same!’
Pearl knew that if she kept on looking into his fierce green eyes she would weaken and confess her love for him. But that would cause untold havoc and she could not do that to Gloria and the children.
‘No, I don’t,’ she forced herself to say. ‘I don’t feel anything for you. The other night meant nothing − I just enjoyed the dancing, that’s all.’
She saw the wounded look in his eyes and the hardening of his mouth in disappointment. But he did not leave go of her and Pearl feared he did not believe her words.
At that moment, Gloria opened her eyes and saw them. She stared at her husband gripping her sister, Pearl half-raised off the sand. They looked at her guiltily. For a long moment she said nothing. Jack tried to explain.
‘Joy wants Pearl to make a sand castle with her,’ he gabbled. ‘I’ve come back for the spade − and Auntie Pearl.’
It suddenly occurred to Pearl that he might have deliberately left the spade in order to have an excuse to come back for her. Please don’t let that be true! she thought. But seeing Gloria’s distrustful look, she wondered if such suspicions were racing through her sister’s mind.
‘Where is she?’ Gloria demanded, looking round. ‘Where’s Joy?’
‘Over there at the Punch and Judy show,’ Jack repeated, a defensive edge to his voice. ‘She knows not to wander off.’
In an instant, Gloria was on her feet. ‘She doesn’t know anything of the sort! She’s still a baby. Jack, how could you leave her alone in this crowd?’ She flung an accusing look at Pearl too.
Pearl felt suddenly ashamed that she had only given Joy a glancing thought these past minutes. She had taken Jack’s word for it that the small girl would be safe, but only because she could think of little else but herself and Jack.
‘Sorry, Gloria…’ she began, but her sister’s glare silenced her. Without a glance at the other two children, Gloria hurried off into the crowd, hopping in bare feet along the sand, weaving in and out of deckchairs and legs and playing children.
Pearl and Jack exchanged guilty looks, and then Pearl said, ‘I’ll keep an eye on the babies, you go with her.’ Jack sprang after Gloria without another word.
It seemed an eternity waiting by the pram and the ruffled towels. Pearl smoked one of Gloria’s cigarettes, even though she disliked the taste. Ten minutes passed, then twenty, but no one returned. They could easily have walked to the Punch and Judy show and back again several times, but neither parent appeared to reassure her. Colin woke up and was instantly wanting to explore. He threw a tantrum when Pearl tried to restrain him and she kept him distracted with Joy’s forgotten spade.
‘Wait till Mammy gets back,’ Pearl said, pulling him back yet again. Colin burst into tears.
‘Mammy! Mammy!’ he wailed. This woke Joanne, who began to struggle to be out of the pram too.
Finally Jack came pushing his way back to their picnic spot. Pearl only had to take one look at his ashen face to know Joy was missing.
‘I thought she might have found her way back here,’ he gasped. ‘Has she? Have you seen the bairn?’
Pearl shook her head. Behind them the tide was fast approaching and people were beginning to pack up and head on to the promenade. The donkeys were being led away.
‘She wasn’t where you left her?’ Pearl whispered in fright. Jack shook his head, his face haggard.
‘It’ll be easier to find her once the crowds thin out,’ Pearl attempted to reassure him.
‘I’m going for the police,’ Jack said, full of panic. ‘Gloria’s searching along by the pier.’
‘Shall I start looking along the other way?’ Pearl asked. ‘She might have wandered off to see the donkeys.’
Jack looked torn. ‘Aye − no − I don’t know! Just stay where you are in case she looks for us here.’ Then he was gone again.
Nearly an hour passed; the longest in Pearl’s life. Eventually the incoming tide chased her off the beach with the fractious infants. Seizing towels and the half-eaten picnic, she tossed them into the pram and took refuge on the promenade. She bought ice-creams for the children and sat waiting on a bench, while Colin whined about wanting to see the chimps in the zoo. Finally Jack reappeared with an hysterical Gloria. Her sister was screaming and crying, almost incoherent with panic and anger.
‘You should never have left her!’ she yelled at Jack again and again, while a policeman tried to calm her.
Pearl saw Jack’s harrowed look and knew that Gloria’s words stung him with agonising guilt.
‘We’ll keep searching until we find her,’ the constable assured them. ‘I really think you should go back to your guest house and rest. We’ll bring word as soon as we hear anything. Mr Elliot’s given us all the details we need.’
‘No! I can’t just wait around there,’ Gloria cried. ‘I’m staying here.’
‘But the other bairns…’ Jack tried to reason. She looked at him with hatred.
‘I can’t think about them! Not while Joy’s out there lost and looking for me; she’ll be so frightened!’
‘Let me take the babies back to Mrs Hugo’s,’ Pearl said gently. ‘You and Gloria can wait at the police station for news. Don’t worry about Colin and Joanne.’
She saw Jack’s eyes glint with tears as he put out a hand to touch her. ‘Ta, Pearl,’ he said hoarsely. But Gloria just gave them an accusing look, as if they had somehow contrived the terrible situation between them. Pearl hastily pushed the fretful younger children away in the pram, glancing back only once to see Gloria hurrying ahead of Jack beside the policeman.
Mrs Hugo and the other guests were full of concern when they heard of Joy’s disappearance. ‘Someone will have found her,’ the landlady said. ‘She can’t just have vanished.’ But that thought made Pearl even more anxious. What sort of person took charge of a small child and did not deliver them straight to the police? she fretted. Maybe someone had watched and waited for a restless, inquisitive child like Joy to be left unguarded for a few moments. Joy was so friendly she would talk to or go with anyone who showed her kindness or promised her treats. Pearl was plagued with monstrous thoughts and felt wretched to think how Gloria and Jack must be suffering.
After tea, she put Colin and Joanne to bed. Once they were asleep she hurried down to the police station for news. On the way, she saw that the tide was now high and the beach completely submerged. What if Joy had wandered off under the pier with her bucket and got stuck on some sand bar with the incoming tide racing around her? Pearl agonised. Arriving at the station, she found Jack and Gloria waiting tensely, smoking in silence. When Gloria saw Pearl, she stubbed out her cigarette and got up.
‘The bairns are asleep,’ Pearl reassured her. But Gloria ig
nored her.
‘I’m going out again,’ she said shrilly. ‘I can’t bear this sitting around.’ Pearl knew that what she really could not bear was to be near her or Jack.
‘I’ll come too,’ Jack said.
‘No!’ Gloria shouted. ‘I don’t want you with me.’
When she had gone, Jack broke down. ‘It’s all my fault,’ he whispered in turmoil.
‘Don’t say that,’ Pearl protested.
‘It’s true,’ he went on relentlessly. ‘I left her − on purpose,’ he said very low.
‘Stop it, Jack!’ Pearl said in alarm. ‘Of course you didn’t.’
‘I wanted an excuse to come back and fetch you,’ Jack said, his look agonised. ‘I couldn’t get you out of me head − all this week. I left my little lass on her own.’ He looked at her in desolation. ‘You know what the last thing she said to me was?’ he almost sobbed. ‘“Don’t go, Daddy, stay and watch the funny man”.’
Pearl covered his mouth with her hand. ‘Shush. She’ll turn up,’ she insisted. ‘Don’t think the worst.’ But her mouth filled with bile at the thought that she had been the reason why Jack had left Joy alone, even for such a short time. She should have discouraged his feelings for her much sooner, she accused herself. Joy must be found! she thought desperately.
It grew dark. Pearl left Jack and went back to wait at Mrs Hugo’s. Neither Jack nor Gloria came back that night. Pearl sat up, dozing and smoking in a chair, listening out for the front door. Joanne woke at six and was hungry for a bottle of milk. Soon afterwards Colin was awake and demanding his mother.
‘She’ll come soon,’ Pearl tried to comfort the perplexed little boy. ‘Let’s go and have breakfast.’
When neither parent arrived, Pearl busied herself packing their bags for the journey home. She did not know what else to do, and they were due to leave at noon. Eventually she bundled the children into the pram, unable to contain them any longer, and walked them down to the police station. The good weather had broken. The sky was a low blanket of grey cloud and the sea a choppy cauldron of foaming waves, crashing against the pier supports. It was hard to believe this was the same place as yesterday, when hot sun had roasted the beach and its hordes of holidaymakers. Today, fewer people braved the sands, though the promenade was full of trippers wrapped in coats against the threatening rain. Blackpool had an air of autumn in the brisk westerly wind.
Suddenly, deep down, Pearl had a dreadful feeling that Joy would never be found. She tried to banish it, but when she reached the station the news was grim. Searches of the beach areas had begun again at first light, but no trace of Joy had been found. The police were widening their enquiries around the town, and coastguards were out combing a wide area.
When Colin spotted his mother he scrambled out of the pram and almost fell over himself to reach her. ‘Mammy, mammy!’ he whined, stumbling at her knees and clutching on. Gloria picked him up distractedly, but his boisterous clambering wearied her quickly.
‘Come here, bonny lad,’ Jack said, picking up his son and trying to divert him. ‘Let’s go and see if the nice bobby has a biscuit for you, eh?’
Pearl glanced at Joanne sitting contentedly in the pram, sucking her hand and gazing around in curiosity with her large green eyes, so like Jack’s. She did not look remotely like her missing sister, and Gloria seemed to derive no comfort from having her younger daughter there. In fact the baby’s wide-eyed placidness seemed to irritate her mother.
‘There’s no point you hanging around here with the baby,’ Gloria said tersely. Pearl could see by her dark-ringed eyes that she was completely exhausted.
‘Why don’t you come back to Mrs Hugo’s and lie down for a bit?’ Pearl suggested. ‘You’re all done in.’
‘Do you think I could get a wink of sleep while Joy’s still out there?’ Gloria cried. ‘I’ll not sleep again till they find her.’
‘Well, come outside for some fresh air − stretch your legs,’ Pearl replied.
Gloria gave her a helpless look. ‘No, I must stay here in case any news comes in. I must be here for Joy when they find her.’
Jack returned and Pearl gave him a beseeching look. ‘What do you want me to do with the bairns? The train goes in two hours.’
‘I’m not going back without my lass,’ Gloria said, her voice rising hysterically. ‘You’ll not make me!’
Jack said gently. ‘No one’s going to make you. We’ll stay here in Blackpool till she’s found,’ he promised.
Pearl looked at Jack. ‘I should be back at work on Monday,’ she said quietly. ‘Do you want me to stay?’
Jack gave her a longing look, but shook his head. ‘No, you must go home. You’ve done all you can. I’ll look after the bairns here.’
Pearl was struck by his words. He was taking responsibility for the younger children, knowing that Gloria was incapable in her present state. She looked sadly at her broken sister, wanting to put her arms about her but knowing she would be rebuffed. In Gloria’s eyes, Pearl had betrayed her. Gloria knew that something had happened between her sister and Jack, and because of it, Joy had been left alone; lost, abducted or drowned. Gloria no longer trusted her and might never do so again.
So Pearl kissed the children briefly and said a stilted goodbye. ‘You’ll ring me if you hear…?’
Jack nodded, his look following her as she moved towards the door. But he did not come out after her or attempt to speak to her alone.
Pearl rushed back to the guest house and took a quick farewell of Mrs Hugo. She could hardly speak and her last views of Blackpool were blurred by tears. Part of her could not wait for the train to pull away from the station, while another part felt she was dying at having to leave Jack and the children to fend without her. She tried to swallow her sobs as she sat staring out of the window, handkerchief jammed against her mouth.
Even after the seaside town had disappeared from sight. Pearl’s mind was branded with images of the lively Joy. She saw her awestruck face raised in delight at the cascading lights of the laburnum trees along the illuminated carriageway. She remembered their trip to the waxworks and the grasp of her small hand tightening as she asked in excitement, ‘Are those pirates real, Auntie Pearl?’
But most vivid of all was the sight of Joy hopping along the sand, hand in hand with Jack, turning with a broad smile to wave at them one last time…
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Pearl could hardly bear the emptiness of the flat those first few days back on Tyneside. She was thankful to get back to work and busy herself in her job. Yet, strangely, she could not bring herself to tell anyone about the trauma of the holiday or that her niece was still missing. She bottled up her anxiety and talked to no one about it.
When Jack did not ring her, she called Mrs Hugo for news of the family.
‘Sorry, chuck, nothing to tell,’ the landlady said unhappily. ‘There’ve been no sightings and nothing found…’ Her voice trailed away, and Pearl could picture the grim watching of the tides to see if any body or clothing had been washed up. ‘But that means it’s not definite she got taken out to sea. So there’s still hope, isn’t there?’
‘Aye,’ Pearl gulped, unconvinced. ‘How − how’s me sister?’ she asked cautiously.
Mrs Hugo sighed. ‘Not good, I’m sorry to say. Thin as a rake − won’t eat enough to keep a mouse fed. Spends the days out looking and the nights sitting up smoking, waiting.’
Pearl gripped the receiver tighter and swallowed hard. ‘And the children?’
Mrs Hugo’s voice brightened. ‘They’re being very good, bless them. Mr Elliot takes them out for a walk every day − keeps them occupied. He’s a good father to them. I think they help take his mind off it all. They’re out now − sorry you can’t speak to them. But you’ll ring back?’
Pearl felt her throat tighten. ‘Just tell them I rang and was asking after them.’ She was glad Jack was out, for she did not think she could speak to him without breaking down.
All through that week, and th
e next, Pearl went around in a twilight world of waiting and existing from day to day. She knew that by the end of the second week, Jack would have to come to some decision, for he was due to join his ship in a few days’ time. But whenever she rang the guest house, he was never there.
Then, abruptly, without warning, two weeks after Pearl had returned home, Jack and Gloria arrived back with the two infants. Pearl got home from work to find them in the flat. Colin beetled over to greet her with one of his lunging hugs and Joanne beamed at her in recognition and threw her arms about in excitement.
Jack looked at her warily. ‘Gloria’s lying down. The doctor’s been and said she must have complete rest. I’m not going back to sea till she’s on the mend,’ he said in a dull, tired voice.
Pearl stood rooted to the floor, staring at him. ‘You never rang,’ she quavered. ‘Does that mean…?’
Jack’s eyes looked empty of emotion. ‘Nothing,’ he said in desolation. ‘They don’t expect to find her now − not alive. Most probably a strong current pulled her right out to sea…’
Pearl groaned in horror and moved towards him, flinging out her arms to comfort him. He looked so bowed and beaten. ‘I’m that sorry!’ she cried. But he did not respond to her embrace and held himself stiffly, not pushing her away, but not wanting her to touch him. She knew then that everything had changed between them in the two weeks apart. The way he spoke and looked at her − or rather, did not look at her − told her that his feelings for her had died along with his beloved daughter. She knew that the memory of his desire for her would always be tainted by that terrible afternoon on the beach and the endless, bitter searching for Joy. By loving Pearl, he had betrayed not only Gloria but, unintentionally, Joy. Pearl knew such thoughts were unfair, but she could do nothing to dispel them. She felt just as guilty.
Guilt seemed to hang over the whole flat during those next gloomy days. Pearl saw it eating into Jack like a disease. She felt it following her like a ghost when she went into Gloria’s room to bring her something to eat. Her sister took the food meekly. She was strangely vacuous, all her energy spent. Her anger towards Jack and Pearl seemed to have vanished too, which just made Pearl feel more shamed. What Pearl only realised gradually was that Gloria had turned the blame inwards on herself.
THE TYNESIDE SAGAS: Box set of three dramatic and emotional stories: A Handful of Stars, Chasing the Dream and For Love & Glory Page 114
