Lightning Strikes

by Virginia Andrews

  She stared at me suspiciously, as suspiciously as someone who knew there was more.

  “Are you really pregnant?”

  She nodded.

  “Are you going to marry the man?” I asked.

  “What man?”

  “The man who made you pregnant. Is he going to do the right thing, take care of you and your baby?”

  Or would the baby end up like me, I wondered, lost and alone, forever looking for a home. I hoped Mary Margaret’s lover was a responsible person.

  She looked at me as if the idea was fantastic, not only the idea of a man taking care of her, but that a man had made her pregnant. Maybe she thought hers was an immaculate conception.

  “You were with a man, weren’t you? It wasn’t more than one, was it? You know who the father is, don’t you?” I asked all my questions in rapid fire, each one being born out of another fear.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said.

  “What about the baby? Are you going to go through with it and have the baby?”

  “I’ve got to,” she said.

  “What? Why?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. Please, go away.”

  “Why do you have to have it? Is it because of your religious beliefs?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Then what is it?”

  “He’s making me have it.”

  “Who?”

  “Please, leave me alone,” she said and started to cry again. She turned her head from me and I put my hand on her shoulder.

  “Maybe I can help you,” I said.

  She looked back at me, with her small fists grinding the tears from her eyes.

  “How can you help me? You’re just an orphan girl from America. You can hardly help yourself. They sent you here because no one wanted you there.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Please, just leave me be. I can’t get into any more trouble.”

  “It’s not all your fault, Mary Margaret,” I said. She shook her head and turned away again. “You shouldn’t be thrown out on the street. They have no right to be so uppity. They’re not so pure and good back there.”

  She kept her head turned away, her eyes down.

  “I know what you’ve been doing in the cottage,” I said softly.

  This time her head whipped around so fast, I thought it might snap off her neck.

  “What?”

  “I saw you and Mr. Endfield through the window one night.”

  She shook her head, trying to deny it.

  “I saw you dressed as a little girl and I saw and heard how he pretended you were his daughter.”

  “You mustn’t tell anyone,” she gasped, her hand on her throat.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t. He’s changed the cottage and he had me go there to pretend to be his daughter, too, only grown up.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “He has?”

  “Yes. So you see, he has no right to fire you and condemn you. He has plenty to hide and be ashamed of himself. You’ve got to stand up to him, not that working for the Endfields is any picnic,” I added. She kept shaking her head. “You shouldn’t be made to leave now anyway. You’re not showing at all, as far as I can tell, and even when you do. . .”

  “No, I can never go back there,” she blurted. “Please.”

  “Why not?”

  “Now here’s a cup of tea for you both,” her mother said, coming through the doorway. She held out the cups and saucers.

  “Mum, I said no,” Mary Margaret told her. Her mother stood there, arms extended.

  I went to her quickly and took the cups.

  “Thank you,” I said and handed one to Mary Margaret. “Drink it. You’ll feel better after a cup of tea.”

  She almost smiled.

  “You sound like an English girl now,” she said.

  “It’s catching.”

  She nodded and took a deep bream. Then she looked up at her mother who still stood there looking concerned.

  “Go sit by your radio, Mum. Stop worrying about me,” Mary Margaret told her mother. “I’ll be all right. I swear.”

  “Okay, dearie,” her mother said with a smile. “Call me if you need anything.”

  “What does she think is wrong with you?” I asked as soon as she was gone from me room.

  “She thinks I just have a bad time of me month.”

  “What are you going to do, Mary Margaret?” I asked her. She sipped her tea and men shook her head.

  “It’ll be fine now,” she said. “There’s nothing to do.”

  “Why will it be fine? You’ve got a mother who’s legally blind, you don’t have a job and you’re pregnant and not married; from the way you’re talking, me man, whoever he is, won’t be doing much to help you,” I catalogued.

  “He will,” she said. After a moment she sipped her tea and men added, “He wants the baby, too.”

  “Then why doesn’t he just marry you?” I asked. She looked down at her cup. “He’s married already, right?” She nodded. “Where did you meet him?”

  “In his home,” she said.

  “In his home? A married man invited you to his house and you went?”

  “I had to go,” she said.

  “Had to go? Why?”

  “What are you saying?”

  She looked up at me. Her eyes told it all. I was the one who started to shake her head now. Now I was the one looking to deny the truth even when it slapped me in the face.

  “Please, just go and forget about it. Please.”

  “It’s Mr. Endfield,” I said, the weight on my chest making it almost impossible to get the words out. “He’s the father of your child, isn’t he?”

  “Just go,” she pleaded, putting the cup of tea on the nightstand. “Please, don’t make any trouble for me.”

  ‘Trouble has already been made for you,” I said. “I don’t understand. He had you dress as his little girl. Surely when you were pretending to be her, he wouldn’t. . . he couldn’t. . .”

  “I wasn’t only dressed as his little girl,” she said, the tears streaming down her cheeks and dropping from her chin now. “He had other things for me to wear, things them dancers in those clubs wear,” she confessed.

  “This is terrible. Who else knows?”

  “Nobody,” she said.

  “Boggs,” I said sharply. “He has to know. That was why he was always out there standing guard, wasn’t it? Boggs knows it all, too, doesn’t he? He knows you’re pregnant. Doesn’t he?”

  She nodded.

  “They both ought to be put in the Tower of London,” I muttered. “The next time that man even dares look hatefully at me, I’ll. . .”

  “You can’t say anything to him,” she moaned through her sobs. “Please, Rain, please. Go. Don’t let him know you were here. Don’t tell him anything.”

  “What can he do? I’ll leave if I have to and he can’t do any more to you. You can go to the police and turn them both in as perverts,” I said. I was almost ready to tell her who Richard Endfield was to me, but I was afraid that might frighten her even more. “You should, in fact. If you want, I’ll go with you.”

  She shook her head.

  “No, please.”

  “Why not? Boggs is an ogre; he’s a monster in a suit and tie. He’s no better than Mr. Endfield He’s. . .”

  I heard the apartment door open. Mary Margaret gasped and pressed her palms to her chest. She whimpered like a little mouse. I turned toward the doorway. The steps were heavy, familiar. A moment later he was standing there, his eyes blazing at the sight of me.

  It was Boggs himself.

  “What are you doing ’ere, eh?”

  “I came to visit her,” I said defiantly. “More to the point, what are you doing here?” I shot back. Slowly, I stood up to face him. “We’ll call the police.”

  He smiled coldly and shook his head.

  “Call me coppers on me? Ha! Lotta good that would do y
a. This ’ere’s my home,” he said and lifted his heavy arm to point at Mary Margaret. “And that there’s my daughter.”

  It was as if the floor had gone out from under me. A numb, cold feeling ran down the side of my face and my body to my toes. It took all the strength I had to keep myself straight and firm. If I was ever to be an actress, this was it.

  Years in the projects taught me that sometimes it was better to go right on the offensive and not let your opponent know how afraid you were. It would surprise him or her and surprise was often the best and only weapon.

  “She’s your daughter and you let all this happen to her? What kind of a father are you?”

  “Better than the one you ’ave,” he said.

  I winced, but stood my ground.

  ‘I’d rather have no father at ail than a father like you, a father who let a man do this to his daughter, who stood by and not only watched but protected the man.”

  “You don’t know nothin’ about it,” he said, now wincing himself a bit. I had at least wounded him. I could see from the way he glanced at Mary Margaret.

  “What is there to know? You let her be part of some sick fantasy. What’s going to become of her now?”

  “Damn you, girl. Don’t upset ’er any more than she already is. Nothing bad’s going to come of ’er. Besides, what else is there for her? She don’t have no profession, no talents. She didn’t even go far in school. Now, she’ll ’ave money for the rest of ’er life, she will. He’ll give ’er a better place to live and me wife will be with ’er. They’ll be outta this rat trap.”

  He smiled and straightened his shoulders proudly.

  “I saw to all this, yes. I knew what the guv was about and I says to myself, why not ’ave my family benefit, eh? Is your father lookin’ out for you as well?”

  He wagged his heavy right forefinger at me.

  “Don’t you go accusin’ folks a bad things. You don’t know nothin’. Now get outta here and leave ’er be.”

  “How do you know she couldn’t have a better life on her own? What right did you have to condemn her to this life?” I challenged, still holding my ground.

  “Ah, go on with ya,” he said, waving his hand at me. He looked at Mary Margaret and nodded. “She ain’t complainin’ none. Go on, ask ’er, ask ’er if she’s unhappy about it.”

  I looked at Mary Margaret. She had embraced herself and was trembling so badly, I thought she might crack a rib.

  “What do you expect her to say with you hovering over her like some monster?”

  “Monster, am I? Monster.” He lowered Ms shoulders as if he really was insulted. “We come from workin’ stock. We ‘ave no family wealth and no one’s givin’ us charity and opportunities. I’ve done the best I can for my family these years. I’ve driven the Endfields all over this city and listened to ’em talk about their teas and their fancy lunches where they waste more food than we ’ave all week. Whenever I could, I picked up what they tossed away and brought it to my family, and when there was an opportunity for Mary Margaret to ’ave steady, safe work, I made sure she got it.

  “What’cha think ’appens to girls like Mary Margaret? It’s not much different from what ’appens to poor girls where you’re from,” he said. “She mighta gotten ’erself up the spout with some good-for-nothin’ and become just another ragtag woman scrounging for her supper.

  “Now, she’s going ta ’ave a decent house and always enough to eat and clothes on her back.

  “Monster, am I? Go on, get your arse out of my ’ome and leave us be.”

  He lowered his head and turned away to go to his wife in the living room. I stood there, feeling so confused.

  “Mary Margaret,” I said softly. She shook her head. Her eyes were vacant, the eyes of someone who had already left the here and now and accepted her fate. She waved toward the door.

  “Please, just go now,” she said in a hoarse whisper and then lowered her chin to her chest.

  “Okay,” I said. “If you need me, you know where I am.” I walked out of the bedroom. Boggs was seated on the sofa, his hands clasped between his knees, his head down. His wife sat beside him staring ahead, her arm through his, holding on to him as if ha was the anchor to keep her from floating into oblivion.

  I had seen many a pathetic, sad family in the projects, people who looked like they had been struck in the head by life and were stunned forever. I had seen people without hope who dared to take out only a small moment of the day to wonder about their lives and themselves and why they were where they were. They inherently knew that if they spent too much time thinking about it, they would go mad or worse, they would do harm to themselves or others.

  I wanted to hate Boggs. He was always so cruel to me, but I wanted to hate him more for what he had permitted to happen to Mary Margaret, but I could hear Mama whispering in my ear, telling me not to judge, asking me to understand.

  “After all,” she might ask, “the sort of anger and harshness you see in Boggs, you’ve seen in many men back in me projects, haven’t you? Give him that same moment of pause you give the men struggling in the streets back home. You don’t need to forgive him as much as you need to understand him and then move on, child. Move on.”

  “Okay, Mama,” I whispered to myself. “Okay.”

  I walked out and closed the door softly behind me.

  I don’t even remember the trip back to Endfield Place. Somehow I found the tube station, rode the train and walked the streets, but all the while, my mind visited the store of memories from my childhood. Mama had done a good job of protecting each of us as long as she could. I don’t think it was until I was seven or eight mat I even had the inkling that we were living in such desperate conditions. In those days I never knew when Ken had stopped bringing in money or wasted what we had. I didn’t understand how much extra work Mama had to do to make it possible for us to enjoy at least three meals a day and have warm clothing. I never heard about rent being past due or utilities coming close to being shut off.

  And then suddenly, it seemed, my eyes opened and all that she had kept well hidden behind her wall of smiles and songs began to slip out before me. It was as if someone, some great power, had said, From this day forward you will understand the truth—you are poor.

  Mama’s simple dream was to get that word away from me.

  Wasn’t that the same dream Boggs had for Mary Margaret?

  Mama went so far as to give me back to the people who had sold me. Someone who didn’t understand, who wasn’t there day in and day out to see her struggle and her tears and pain, might condemn her as easily as I condemned Boggs.

  Why was it so hard for me to decide what was right and what was wrong? Should I spend much of my time trying to decide, or should I embrace the laissez-faire attitude, the joie de vivre, the laughter and the wind like Catherine and Leslie and just live, just be happy, just take every day as it came and stop being such a worrier?

  Go and audition for the play. Be a success and seize the day, Rain, I told myself.

  Seize the day.

  With more energy man I had had since I left Mary Margaret’s flat, I charged up the drive toward the front door of Endfield Place. I’ll do my work and I’ll have fun, I vowed. Whether I like it or not, I’ll have fun.

  The house was quiet when I entered, of course. I expected everyone was asleep, but I did hear someone in the kitchen and I went in to see who it was. It was Leo making himself a sandwich and having a cup of tea.

  “Oh, Miss Rain,” he said smiling. “I’m glad I caught you before you went off to sleep. You had two phone calls this evening and I took me messages for you,” he said. He reached into his jacket pocket and produced a slip of paper. “The first was from a Mr. Ward.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said he wanted you to know he had told Leanna everything and he wanted you to call him me first chance you had.”

  “Oh,” I said, wondering what kind of reaction his wife had to such a revelation. Maybe he wanted me to stay
away from them now.

  “You said I had two messages?”

  “Yes, the second was from someone named Roy.”

  “Roy! Oh, that’s my. . . my friend. What did he say?”

  “He said he’d be in London tomorrow and would come by about four in the afternoon. That’s all he said,” Leo added.

  “That’s okay. That’s fine. That’s plenty,” I told him and hurried away. Those words had spread a magic shawl of comfort about my shoulders at just the right moment.

  I couldn’t wait to see him and throw my arms around him and tell him everything.

  Almost everything.

  There were things I needed to keep locked up in the vault of my own heart.

  Much later, after I had fallen asleep, I woke to the sound of Boggs’s heavy footsteps in the hallway. He had returned. His work kept him away from his family at night, I realized. Rarely would he be there to have breakfast with his wife. Rarely would he be there to hold her at night.

  What a strange life, I thought, full of so many terrible sacrifices. What did he hope would be the end? Where did he see himself years and years from now?

  I thought about the many, many nights Mama slept alone and not because Ken had to be away, but because he was either in a lockup somewhere or sleeping off a drunk someplace.

  I made one vow to myself before I fell asleep again.

  I won’t fall asleep alone after I’m married. I’d wait for the man who would tell me that without me beside him, without his being able to hold me in his arms, he wouldn’t sleep.

  That was really love.

  Or was it just another fantasy?

  Another part to play?

  “Raise the curtain, sunlight,” I whispered.

  “Bring on the day and the answers.”

  14

  Bring on the Day

  Anticipating Roy’s arrival made me nervous and fidgety all day and I was expecting trouble from Boggs because of my visiting with Mary Margaret. However, just like Great-uncle Richard, Boggs barely glanced at me or did anything to suggest what had passed between us. This was a house of snails and turtles, I decided. Everyone living and working here creeps into his or her shell; avoid, ignore and pretend were the words that made up their credo. I laughed to myself thinking about the family crest the Endfields treated with such importance. Those words should be printed on it, I thought, and it should be hung over the front door.