The Long Way Home: A moving saga of lost family

by Whitmee, Jeanne

  ‘This is it,’ she told herself. ‘I’ve done it at last. For better or worse, I’ve broken free.’ She caught sight of her reflection in the mirror and grinned back at it defiantly. ‘And I won’t come back,’ she promised.

  Chapter 8

  Once she had settled down at college Sally found she enjoyed it immensely. She had already had some experience, working with Mrs Jessop at Floral World on Saturdays, but it was only when the course got under way that she could see just how little she really knew about the art of floristry. Not that she would have admitted this fact to her parents.

  In the first months she learned how to wire flowers and how to ‘moss’ and ‘de-thorn’, how to make up simple flower arrangements and bouquets for different occasions. Later she learned more about the horticultural side of the business; how to grow and care for different flowers and plants; which ones could be revived after wilting and how to do this. She learned how to plant and maintain window boxes for hotels and civic buildings; which plants to use for minimum care and greatest effect. The course included early morning ‘outside’ visits to flower markets to learn the skills of buying and packing for transportation. Late night visits to parks and public buildings were made, to learn the maintenance of street displays, beds and hanging baskets, which had to be cared for when there were few people and the least possible traffic about.

  Later in the course business studies would be covered. Sally looked forward to learning about the different ways in which a florist might work, and how to run her own business.

  In the meantime she was learning to be a young adult as well as a florist and businesswoman. She was learning how to mix with her contemporaries on an equal footing in a way she never had at school. During her first days at college she made friends with Sharon Smith. Sharon was the eldest of five children. Her father worked in an engineering factory and her mother was an office cleaner. Sharon and Sally shared a wish to shake off the shackles of home and parents, but for different reasons. In Sharon’s case overcrowding was the problem.

  ‘If I moved out it’d mean less work for Mum for a start,’ she told Sally one day as they shared their lunchtime sandwiches in the college grounds, ‘I have to share a room with Liz and Kelly. Ours is a council house and we’ve only got three bedrooms. The boys have the other one. We’re always rowing these days. Liz is only fourteen but she’s getting to be a right little bitch. She’s always taking my things without asking. I can’t wait to have a room all to myself, Sal.’

  Sally nodded. ‘I’d like to get a place of my own too.’

  Sharon looked at her in surprise. ‘You would? Leave your lovely home? You must be mad. If I had a bedroom like yours and a mum who could cook like yours does. I’d be happy to stay put.’

  ‘You don’t know what they’re like,’ Sally said. ‘They want to know every little move I make. “Where are you going? Who with? When will you be home?” It gets me down.’ She looked sideways at her friend. ‘They’re not my real parents, you know.’

  Sharon looked at her with new interest. ‘No kidding,’ she said, her mouth half full of cheese sandwich. ‘You’re adopted, you mean?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Sally gazed into space. ‘Sometimes I wonder what kind of life I’d have had if I’d gone to different parents.’

  ‘You want to thank God you didn’t get mine,’ Sharon said with a laugh. ‘Not that they ever needed to adopt babies. Mum always says she’s only got to fold Dad’s pyjamas to get pregnant.’ She finished her lunch and scattered the crumbs to the waiting birds. ‘Ever thought of trying to find your real mum?’ she asked casually. ‘You’re allowed to now, you know. Once you’re eighteen.’

  Sally looked at her, aghast. ‘One mother is more than enough for me, thank you,’ she said. ‘All my life she’s seemed scared to let me out of her sight, and it just gets worse. I love her, of course,’ she added awkwardly. ‘But sometimes I feel almost desperate to get away from her. No, I need another mother like I need a hole in the head.’

  Sally had taken Sharon home to a meal once. Ken and Mavis had been welcoming and polite to the girl, but afterwards Mavis had expressed her disapproval to Sally in no uncertain terms.

  ‘Couldn’t you find a nicer class of girl to chum up with than Sharon?’ she asked as they washed up together. ‘After all, there must be dozens of nice, well brought up girls at the college — even if they’re taking different courses.’

  ‘Like typing and shorthand, you mean?’ Sally asked pointedly.

  Mavis bridled at the sharp tone of her daughter’s voice. ‘No need to be sarcastic, Sally,’ she said. ‘I’m only giving you my opinion. Daddy and I have lived in the world longer than you, you know. You must allow us to advise you.’

  ‘All right, what’s wrong with Sharon then?’ Sally challenged.

  ‘Nothing’s wrong exactly. It’s just that she clearly hasn’t been very carefully brought up.’ She glanced at her daughter. ‘From what she was saying I gather they live on a council estate.’

  ‘So — what if they do?’

  Mavis sniffed meaningfully. ‘One only has to see her table manners and hear the way she speaks to know that little care has gone into her training.’

  ‘Sharon can hardly help the fact that her parents are working-class.’

  ‘Of course not. And there’s nothing wrong with that,’ Mavis said.

  ‘And there are five of them. It can’t be as easy as when you only have one.’

  ‘I’m not criticising,’ Mavis said patiently. ‘As long as they stick to their own kind.’ She untied her apron. ‘Of course you can be nice to Sharon. Just don’t get too friendly.’

  ‘Why not? I like her. We get on well.’

  ‘Because she comes from a different kind of background,’ Mavis said with a sigh. ‘What’s wrong with trying to find someone of your own kind? You want to go up in the world, not down.’

  Sally threw down the teatowel. ‘And how am I supposed to know what my own kind is?’ she demanded. ‘I’d be grateful if you’d tell me. Or don’t you know either?’

  ‘Don’t you dare take that tone with me, Sally.’

  Hearing raised voices, Ken came into the kitchen. ‘Now, now, what’s all this?’ he asked benignly. ‘My two best girls arguing?’

  ‘I’ve just been telling her to try and make friends among her own kind, that’s all,’ Mavis began. Ken stopped her from expanding on the subject with a frown and a slight shake of his head.

  ‘Sally — my chrysanthemum cuttings are looking a bit seedy,’ he said. ‘I’d like you to come out to the greenhouse and have a look at them, if you’ve got a minute. You did say you’d had a lecture on chrysanths last week.’

  The row was diverted and the difficult situation defused, but Sally’s resentment of her mother’s interference in her life built up a little more with each passing day.

  When at the end of the first year the college planned an end of term party and disco, Sally was determined to have the freedom to go as she pleased and not be delivered and collected by Ken. It was to this end that she travelled over to Hinkley one afternoon to ask her Aunt Jean’s advice.

  ‘If Dad insists on taking me there in the Purple Pumpkin and collecting me again at ten o’clock, I’ll kill myself,’ she said dramatically. ‘I suppose I’ll just have to tell all the others I can’t go.’

  Jean looked at her pretty niece with her halo of blonde curls and her wide blue eyes and smiled sympathetically. ‘Why don’t you invite Jason?’ she suggested. ‘He’s bought himself a little car now. Surely Mum and Dad wouldn’t mind if he took you and brought you home in that?’ She saw the girl’s hesitation and guessed at what was going through her mind. ‘It’d just be a convenient arrangement, love, not a date,’ she said. ‘Once you were there you needn’t be tied to each other. You could dance with anyone you wanted to.’

  Sally’s face brightened. ‘Do you think Jason would like to go, though?’

  Jean glanced up to see her son coming through the gate. ‘Here he
is,’ she said with a smile. ‘Why don’t you ask him?’

  *

  Much against their better judgement Ken and Mavis agreed that Sally should go to the college dance with their nephew as her escort. Jason was working now, as a trainee with a firm of estate agents, and seemed to be turning out quite respectable. But when he called for Sally wearing his best jeans and brand new leather jacket, Mavis looked him over disapprovingly. She managed to hold her tongue till the two young people had departed in Jason’s second-hand Fiesta.

  ‘He could at least have worn a suit,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I’d have thought your Jean would have made sure he got himself up nice to take Sally to a dance.’

  Ken shook his head. ‘Things are different nowadays, love.’

  ‘They were different, as you call it, when we were growing up,’ Mavis reminded him. ‘We had the permissive society then, but it didn’t mean we had to join in. And we didn’t, did we?’ She shook her head. ‘I just hope that all our careful upbringing will stand her in good stead.’

  Ken lit his pipe thoughtfully. He hoped so too, but he wouldn’t let Mavis see his concern.

  ‘Course it will, love. She’s got a good head on her shoulders, our Sally. Don’t you worry.’

  *

  In the car Jason glanced at Sally’s neat skirt and sweater in amusement.

  ‘Like the outfit, Sal.’

  ‘Don’t be funny. Look, drop me off at Sharon’s, will you? It’s twenty-four Station Walk. I’ve left my gear there.’

  He groaned. ‘You’ll be all night, nattering and slapping stuff all over your face.’

  ‘No, I won’t. Then you can give Sharon a lift too — if you don’t mind.’

  He shrugged. ‘No skin off my nose. As long as you don’t keep me waiting more than ten minutes. After that I’m going and you can find your own way there. All right?’

  When they drew up outside Sharon’s house he reminded Sally that he wasn’t about to be kept waiting. ‘I mean it,’ he called after her as she hurried inside. But when Sally emerged fifteen minutes later, his mouth dropped open in surprise. She wore a skintight mini dress in shocking pink and green. The top was deeply scooped and the skirt was stretched tightly over her shapely hips. Sharon had painstakingly ‘spiralled’ her hair into gloriously wild disarray and her make-up was sexily sultry, with heavily lined and shadowed eyes and glossy pouting lips. Jason suddenly saw his cousin with new eyes. Rendered temporarily speechless, he got out and opened the door for her.

  ‘Thanks, Jase. This is Sharon,’ she said, climbing into the passenger seat.

  ‘Hi, Sharon,’ Jason said without so much as a glance towards the other girl.

  ‘Hi,’ said Sharon. ‘And pardon me while I kill myself,’ she added dryly.

  The new image seemed to have given Sally a different personality. Along with the colourful dress she seemed to have acquired confidence and a brash sophistication that was an obvious emulation of Sharon’s. At the party she was greatly in demand and once there Jason hardly saw her. She was constantly on the floor, dancing with wild abandon as the disco pounded and the lights flashed. Jason caught himself looking round the room for her all the time. He told himself that was what he was here for. He was responsible for her, here to look after her, wasn’t he? What’d they say to him if she went and got herself into some tricky situation? When she had first asked him he’d thought it a bit of a cheek. Sally was a pretty girl, but she was three years younger than him after all. Just a kid really. But now … When he lost sight of her towards the end of the evening he asked Sharon where she was.

  ‘How should I know?’ Sharon asked moodily. She was looking fed up and he could guess why. She’d got her friend up for the party, only to find all the guys flocking round and leaving her out in the cold. It must seem unfair.

  ‘I’m not her keeper,’ she told Jason tetchily. ‘And she won’t thank you for sticking your nose where it isn’t wanted either.’

  He went outside to the car park for a breath of fresh air. Drawing his cigarettes out of his pocket he slipped into the shelter of the bike sheds to light one, and it was then that he heard it — a cry of distress from behind the wall that separated the car park from the sports field. On the other side of the wall he found Sally struggling in the clutches of a boy with long dark hair. She was crying and he could see that one of the shoulder straps of her dress was torn. He threw down the cigarette and began to run towards them.

  ‘Hey! What do you think you’re doing? Leave her alone,’ he shouted.

  The boy turned an angry face in his direction. ‘Clear off. What the hell’s it got to do with you?’

  ‘She’s my sister.’ Jason squared his broad shoulders aggressively. ‘You gonna let her go or do I have to teach you a lesson?’

  The boy gave Sally a shove that sent her staggering into the wall. ‘Aw, take your bloody kid sister home then,’ he said. ‘Nothing but a little tease anyway.’ He slouched past Jason, brushing roughly against him as he passed. Jason lunged towards him and grasped him by the collar.

  ‘If I ever see you so much as look at her again. I’ll make you wish you’d never been born,’ he growled.

  The other boy snarled. ‘Oh, yeah? You and who else?’

  As Jason helped Sally to her feet he smelled alcohol on her breath. ‘How much have you had to drink?’

  She pushed him away. ‘Mind your own business, Jason Harris. Who asked you to come rushing up like a cardboard Rambo? And since when have I been your sister?’

  He stepped back, stung by her ingratitude. ‘That guy — he was attacking you. If I hadn’t come along …’

  ‘Who says he was attacking me?’ Sally made an attempt at straightening her ruined dress. ‘How do you know I didn’t like him?’

  ‘If you did, you had a funny way of showing it. Just look at you. You’re not going to tell me you like being roughed up like that? Anyway, you were protesting loudly enough for the whole college to hear.’

  Suddenly she burst into tears and began to beat her fists against his chest.

  ‘Oooh — I hate you. I hate everyone. First it’s Dad, following me around and spoiling everything. Now you. You’re all as bad. Families!’ She stamped her feet angrily. ‘Who needs them?’ The tears streamed down her cheeks, making dark mascara rivulets on her pale cheeks. Her shoulders heaved with a mixture of shock and anger. ‘W-why don’t you b-bugger off and leave me alone?’ she sobbed.

  ‘Okay, if you’re going to swear at me you can get on with it.’ Jason turned proudly and walked a few steps, then he halted, looking round at the pathetic tattered figure leaning against the wall. Walking back, he took off his leather jacket and slipped it round her shoulders. ‘Come on, kid, better let me take you home now. The car’s not far away. No one’ll see you.’

  In the car Sally seemed to crumple. Leaning against his shoulder, she sniffed into her handkerchief.

  ‘I feel such a fool, Jase,’ she mumbled.

  He slipped his arm around her shoulders. ‘Forget it. It’s not worth upsetting yourself over.’

  ‘I just wanted to live a bit,’ she said, blowing her nose hard. ‘To find out what it was like to go out by myself — without Mum and Dad breathing down my neck.’ She looked up at him with brimming blue eyes. ‘I expect you think I’m a silly kid who shouldn’t be allowed out?’

  Jason looked down at his cousin and wondered how he could possibly have given her that idea. He’d always thought her pretty, but now she was beautiful — even like this with her make-up running and her hair tangled. Looking up at him so trustingly, she brought out all his protective instincts. Suddenly he wanted to kill tigers for her, preferably with his bare hands. Bending his head to hers, he kissed her gently and experimentally.

  ‘I don’t think that at all, Sal,’ he whispered, his lips brushing her damp cheek. ‘I think you’re gorgeous. I always have.’

  Chapter 9

  Ralph was as good as his word. Within months of his marriage to Marie he had persuaded David to buy
another hotel, this time further south at Great Yarmouth. Two years later they opened another in Clacton-on-Sea, and by the time their fifth anniversary came round the Evans chain consisted of three hotels and had reached as far south as Hastings.

  Everything had moved much too fast as far as David was concerned. He was very much aware of the vast amounts of money being laid out and the debts Ralph was taking on. The precarious knife edge on which the business’s finances were balanced terrified him. He was constantly afraid that they would fail and lose all they had worked for. He was worried about Marie too. She seemed under a strain, working all the hours God sent and looking thinner and more stressed week by week. But he had to admit that Ralph certainly made things hum. It was he who made all the fact-finding trips. He had a talent for finding rundown properties going at knock-down prices and getting them even cheaper. It was Ralph who negotiated with owners and agents and talked them into selling, arguing that a quick sale was money in the bank, even at the price he was willing to pay.

  After completion Marie took over. It was her job to move in and plan the decor and furnishings; to supervise all the work and engage new staff. Then later, once they opened, it was Marie who stayed on with the newly appointed manager for the first few months, ironing out any teething problems as they arose.

  David stayed on in Cromer, enjoying his semi-retirement in the top floor flat at ‘The Marina’, though sometimes he felt guilty about letting his son and daughter-in-law do all the work. He was lonely at times too, though Ralph frequently visited him — more frequently sometimes than he might have wished. Ralph had a disconcerting habit of bringing up the subject of money — broadly hinting that he was dissatisfied with his salaried position as business manager and that he would be respected more if Evans Hotels were to be made over completely to him. David had already suggested forming a company in which the three of them would have equal shares, but Ralph wasn’t keen on the idea, insisting that he should have sole charge of the business himself. But David held out, reluctant to relinquish the reins himself, and as Ralph refused to accept compromise there was deadlock between them. David’s stubbornness on the matter irked Ralph intensely but he kept his patience firmly under control. He could wait, he told himself. He’d make his father see sense in the end. And if all else failed — well, he couldn’t live for ever, could he? And Ralph was his only living relative.