by Mia Dolan
Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Mia Dolan
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Acknowledgements
Ebury Press Fiction Footnotes
Author Interview
Copyright
About the Book
From a small town in Kent to London in the swinging sixties...
Marcie Brooks has returned to her home town with a baby and a ring on her finger. But for all her grandmother’s insistence that she’s a young widow, the truth is the only boy Marcie has ever loved tragically died before he could make good his promise to wed her. Sometimes she still feels his presence near her, which is both a comfort and an unnerving sign that she’s inherited her grandmother’s gift...
However defending herself from unwanted attention has devastating consequences – Marcie has to leave Sheppey in a hurry. The offer of a job in a smart boutique on the Kings Road in London, arranged via her father’s dodgy connections, seems to offer an ideal escape. But Marcie begins to realise that her new Sicilian bosses have other business interests that are far from legal...
About the Author
Mia Dolan is the star of ITV’s Haunted Homes and the bestselling author of The Gift, Mia’s World, Haunted Homes and, most recently, her first novel, Rock A Bye Baby. Her work spans from live shows in front of hundreds of people to helping the police. She also runs a psychic school which helps others develop their own gifts. Mia also won the paranormal celebrity edition of The Weakest Link.
She lives on the Isle of Sheppey.
Also by Mia Dolan
Rock A Bye Baby
For my daughter, Tanya Dolan, who is so much more than just a daughter.
Chapter One
1967
THE FIRST THING Marcie Brooks had noticed about Father Justin O’Flanagan was his eyes. They bulged slightly and his pale pupils were fringed with yellow like watery egg yokes. On that first meeting she’d been only eleven years old and still under the impression that only devils had yellow in their eyes. The fact that a priest owned such eyes was worrying and made her suspicious that hell and all its wickedness had infiltrated the Holy Church. From that moment on she’d tried to avoid looking at him, always hanging her head rather than facing him head on.
She knew he was coming today. Her grandmother had informed her as such and although she told herself she was a big girl now, the memory of those eyes had stayed with her.
‘There’s nothing to be afraid of. He’s just a man,’ she whispered to her baby daughter. Joanna was lying pink and sleeping, dark lashes flickering as she dreamed her innocent dreams. Looking at her Marcie was reminded of Johnnie, her baby’s father. Their love had been short lived but very sweet, cut short by an accident on the North Circular when Johnnie’s motorcycle had collided with a lorry. If he’d lived they would have married and Joanna would have had a father. As it was Marcie had been left an unmarried mother and had to return home to Sheppey to live with her grandmother. Not that Father Justin was aware of that fact; her grandmother had lied on her behalf saying that Marcie’s husband had been killed. ‘I’m sure the Holy Mother will forgive me,’ she exclaimed after crossing herself. ‘And Father Justin is not the sort to indulge in idle gossip.’
Marcie hoped she was right.
She was having this baptism done for her grandmother’s sake. Her days of churchgoing had stopped years before and the thought of going to confession in the sure knowledge that Father Justin was on the other side of the screen filled her with horror. Some day she might feel differently, but not now.
‘Just to please your great-grandmother,’ she said to the sleeping child. Marcie had been through a lot in the last year. At times since Johnnie’s death she’d even found herself questioning what sort of God would have taken her baby’s daddy away from her. ‘But we won’t say a word to Granny will we. We’ll do this just for her.’
She smiled lovingly at the baby at the same time as a pain tightened in her chest. ‘And you are like your father,’ she said, softly stroking the pretty pink cheek of the child she so loved.
Thinking of Johnnie brought other memories flooding back. One above all others she tried to block from her mind. She’d been foolish enough to trust her friend’s father as a shoulder to cry on. Her trust had turned out to be ill judged. He’d taken advantage of her naivety and inexperience. For a while she’d even feared that the child might be his – he’d certainly been convinced of it. There was no longer any doubt about that in her heart. Joanna was the spit of her father.
She’d never pressed charges against Alan Taylor, her friend’s father. It was her word against his after all. And she did have something to be grateful to Alan for – if he hadn’t come and collected her from the home for unmarried mothers, Joanna would have been given up for adoption. So far since coming back to Sheppey she’d managed to avoid him.
However, this particular meeting could not be avoided. Her grandmother, Rosa Brooks, had been born on a Mediterranean island where the Catholic Church was as necessary to life as the air itself. Following her marriage to a handsome, though slightly irresponsible, sailor in the British Royal Navy, Rosa Brooks had exchanged the Mediterranean island of Malta for the island of Sheppey. Her visits to the confessional and the mass were reduced to once a week. She’d never forced Marcie or the rest of the family to attend if they didn’t want to. Marcie didn’t want to, but special occasions could not be avoided.
‘Joanna must be baptised,’ exclaimed her grandmother.
Marcie couldn’t argue with that. She didn’t want her darling daughter to bear any of the sin she herself felt responsible for. Dislike for the priest faded the moment she looked down at her sleeping daughter. Her cheeks were pink and blue veins, as fine as cobwebs, showed in her eyelids. Marcie couldn’t resist gently touching the sleeping child’s fingers.
The sound of the garden gate opening heralded the priest’s arrival. Glancing out she saw him sweep up the garden path, his black robe skirting over heavy black boots, the sort that a docker might wear.
Before going downstairs, she stood in front of the mirror, checked that there was no trace of make-up on her face and that her hair was tidy. She also rehearsed her answer to the number one question he was likely to ask.
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Why have I not seen you at confession, child?
‘I went away to work in London which is where I married Johnnie, Joanna’s father.’
Her grandmother calling for her to come down was the signal for her to take her ‘wedding ring’ from the small tin box that held her less than extensive jewellery collection.
The curtain ring was a bright and brassy alternative for the real thing and at quick glance would fool anyone. Eyeing it too closely would betray what it really was, but being a mother and widowed was preferable to being a mother and unmarried.
Father Justin O’Flanagan was sitting on the settee in the front room balancing a plate on his lap and holding a cup and saucer with both hands.
The front room was rarely used so was chilly compared to the rest of the cottage known as number ten Endeavour Terrace. The old gas fire spluttered intermittently with small blue flames amongst the amber.
‘Take a seat, Marcie,’ said her grandmother indicating the armchair on the opposite side of the fireplace to her own.
Father Justin had an oblong face and a wide mouth that seemed to stretch from one side of his pallid countenance to the other. When he smiled his mouth resembled a letterbox, so straight it was and gaping as if ready to devour the morning post.
‘Ah, Marcie. I’m glad to see you, child.’ His Irish brogue grated from his throat as though he were forcing his words over a layer of gravel.
‘Good morning, Father Justin.’
She gave a curt nod of her head, which was useful seeing as it meant she could avoid looking into his yellow eyes and instead turn her attention to the teapot.
‘’Tis nice to see you, Marcie, but I was sad to hear about your husband.’
Marcie thanked him for his sympathy. Father Justin had not visited the house so much as he used to, not approving of her father’s divorce and remarriage. She wondered what he’d thought of her real mother. It crossed her mind that she could ask him what she was like, but the thought of having to take tea with him put her off. Those eyes would be boring into her. She couldn’t cope with that.
Her grandmother, perhaps sensing what was on her granddaughter’s mind, took the conversation in the right direction.
‘As you know, Marcie, Father Justin has come to discuss having Joanna baptised.’
Her grandmother’s jet-black eyes scuttled between her granddaughter and priest. Although she’d been in England some years, her obeisance to a priest and all things Catholic had never quite gone away.
Nevertheless, she said it all with some pride, almost as though no other grandchild in all the wide world had ever been so privileged.
‘Of course,’ said Marcie.
‘Your grandmother tells me your husband died in a road accident before the child was born. That’s very sad indeed.’
Seeing as she was supposed to be a poor young widow, it was easy to get away with hanging her head and not looking at him this time. She nodded accordingly. ‘That’s right, Father. He was riding his motorbike.’
‘Ah yes,’ said the priest nodding his head in understanding. ‘It would be a motorbike. Dangerous things they are!’
He took a big mouthful of cake and swigged back some tea. Seeing as both plate and cup were empty, her grandmother took them and asked if he required a refill. Of course he did! Father Justin had a big appetite and an insatiable desire for fruitcake, especially of the home-made variety that her grandmother produced.
‘Never mind, child,’ he said, leaning across and patting her hand.
She instinctively placed her right hand over her left so the ring was hidden, just in case he chanced to notice how cheap looking it was.
Father Justin sprayed crumbs as he ate his second slice of cake. Throughout the munching he outlined the ceremony in between regular repetitions of how sad it was that the father of the baby would not be there.
‘So how about the grandparents – the father’s parents I’m meaning?’ he added. ‘Was Joanna’s father of the faith?’
Marcie felt her face colouring up beneath the intensity of his eyes. It always seemed to matter so much to Catholics that everyone around them was Catholic too.
‘No,’ she said shaking her head. ‘They were not.’
‘Are you sure about that? Did you ask them? You know how it is in this day and age, Mrs Brooks,’ he said to Rosa. ‘People are reluctant to give any outer sign of their faith for fear of attracting mockery. ’Tis sad it is, but unless you ask you may never know. So think about it, Marcie,’ he said, turning his egg-yolk eyes back to Rosa Brooks’ granddaughter. ‘I’m usually right about these matters.’
In a way it was hard not to laugh and tell the smug priest to his face that on this occasion he was very, very wrong. Johnnie’s father – or adopted father as it had turned out – was a vicar; a Church of England, Protestant vicar!
‘Will you take another piece of cake, Father Justin?’
The priest, whose girth had got steadily wider over the years, had barely wolfed down the second piece and now pounced on a third.
‘Lovely cake, Mrs Brooks.’
He took her smile at face value, thinking it merely a response to his flattery rather than an intention to terminate his awkward enquiries.
Two more cups of tea were needed to wash down the cake before the good father rolled forwards in an effort to get up off his broad backside and prepare to leave.
‘Oh, Mrs Brooks. You most definitely took me into the paths of temptation,’ he said while patting his bulging midriff. ‘And a very pleasant experience it was too. That fruitcake was the best I have ever tasted.’
Rosa Brooks threw her granddaughter a look behind the priest’s broad back. ‘The fourteenth of September it is then,’ she said to him as she showed him to the door.
‘Indeed,’ he said while placing his broad-brimmed hat on his head. ‘I look forward to it.’
Marcie stood behind her grandmother and watched him leave. He hung on the open gate a while bending down to fix his bicycle clips around his ankles. By the time he’d finished that and was reaching around the hedge for his bicycle, his face was flushed.
Rosa Brooks raised her hand to bid him goodbye. Surely he was going now.
The priest stepped out onto the cracked pavement outside the cottage gate. He stood with his back to them looking this way and that, as though something was wrong, as though something had caused him alarm.
Rosa ventured halfway along the garden path looking puzzled. ‘Is something wrong, Father?’
The expression on his face was one of absolute disbelief. ‘Some snot-nosed little toerag has stolen my bike!’
Rosa Brooks made the sign of the cross over her chest. Behind her Marcie stuffed her fist into her mouth to stop herself from laughing out loud. The priest’s consternation detracted from his devilish eyes and also stopped her worrying about him finding out the truth about her unmarried state. It was a well known fact that for a Catholic, Father O’Flanagan was more than a bit touched with the fire and brimstone eulogy more common with Baptists and Methodists. He did not approve of original sin – ‘… because he hasn’t tried it himself,’ according to her father.
‘Call the police, Mrs Brooks! Call the police if you will!’ exclaimed the red-faced priest waving his arms around like an out-of-control windmill.
‘I have no phone,’ Rosa pronounced. She pointed in the direction of the red telephone box at the end of the road. ‘There is a public telephone.’
‘Pennies! I need pennies!’ Hitching up his robe, Father Justin O’Flanagan proceeded to rummage in his trouser pockets.
Marcie found herself wondering why he wore a robe when he wore trousers underneath. It must be awful on a hot day she concluded.
Out of common courtesy, her grandmother proceeded to escort the fuming priest along the pavement to the telephone box at the end of the terrace. Feeling it safe to poke her nose out, Marcie ventured to the halfway mark where her grandmother had stood. She paused briefly, and once sure that they’d reach t
he telephone she proceeded further.
Standing by the gate she looked up and down the road just as the priest had done. There was no sign of a bicycle. It could be anywhere if the kids hereabouts had anything to do with it.
Fancying she heard Joanna crying, she went back into the house and went immediately to the kitchen. No doubt Joanna wanted a bottle.
The bright sunlight momentarily blinded her so the interior of the cottage seemed even darker than usual.
First she ladled three spoonfuls of Cow and Gate powdered baby milk into a Pyrex jug. Filling the kettle from the tap beneath the kitchen window, she chanced to look out to a sunlit back garden. Sometimes she could imagine the tree that used to be there and the woman on whose lap she’d sat while she stroked her hair.
On turning off the tap she once again chanced to look out along the straight path that cut through a lawn on one side and a vegetable patch on the other. The bushes at the end of the garden had yellowish leaves. The sunlight gilded them with flame like brightness, yet it was not this that caught her eye. A dark figure moved just beyond the fence, pushed open the rickety old gate. He was pushing a bike in front of him.
‘Garth!’
Plonking the kettle down on the draining board, she darted out the back door and up the path not sure whether to be angry or amused.
‘Garth! What are you doing with that bike?’
Physically Garth had the body of a young man in his twenties. Due to an accident at birth he had the mind of an eight-year-old.
At first he looked surprised to see her, before a sunburst of merriment swept from his mouth to his eyes and all over his face.
‘Some boys were going to take it,’ he explained. ‘I wouldn’t let them. I knew it was yours because it was outside your gate.’
She took the bike from him. ‘Oh, Garth.’
‘Did I do right, Marcie? I didn’t let them take it. Did I do right?’
Garth was easily confused and likely to get upset if she told him he’d done wrong.
She smiled into the vacant blue eyes. His hair was awry and his face looked like a war zone. It was sprinkled with scraps of blood-stained tissue paper. He’d obviously been trying to shave himself and, as usual, had not made a good job of it.
