The Long Way Home: A moving saga of lost family

by Whitmee, Jeanne

  She telephoned Mrs Greg at Petals to let her know that she was on the mend and would soon be fit enough to come back to work. But to her dismay she was told that her job was no longer available. The business hadn’t been doing too well and Mrs Greg had decided to sell up and retire. Immediately she saw the danger of the trap that beckoned. After the miserable discomfort of the past months it was good to be comfortable again, and although Mavis hardly let her do anything for James, Sally had grown to love her small son more as each day passed. It would be all too easy to give up and stay. And the longer she stayed, the harder it would to be leave. But after only one month of having James in the house she could already see that Mavis and Ken had become reconciled to the idea of her living away from home. In fact, she had the distinct impression that they were looking forward to having James all to themselves. He had taken Sally’s place in their lives. He had become the child whose loss they had been mourning ever since she’d grown up and away from them.

  Aunt Jean came to visit one Sunday afternoon, soon after Sally and James came home. She admired the baby, bringing him a present of a teddybear and leaning admiringly over the cot to coo at him. But she was unable to conceal her curiosity as to the identity of his father. All afternoon she dropped little hints into the conversation, which all three Paynes studiously ignored. Later, alone with Sally in the kitchen as they shared the washing-up after tea, she broached the subject more directly.

  ‘Jason wanted to come with me today, but I told him to wait until I’d asked if you wanted to see him first.’

  ‘Whatever for?’ Sally laughed. ‘Jason doesn’t have to ask if it’s all right to come and see me. We’ve been friends for as long as I can remember.’

  ‘Mmm, exactly.’ Jean dried a plate thoughtfully. ‘Sally — there’s something I have to know. I didn’t like to ask Jason outright because he’s very loyal and I might not have got the truth from him, but was — is …’

  ‘Is the baby his?’ Sally finished the question for her. ‘You can put your mind at rest, Auntie Jean. Jason isn’t Jamie’s father.’

  Jean couldn’t hide her relief, ‘I hope you don’t think I’m prying, dear, only, I mean — you know what he’s like. If he thought he had a child — and he did ask you to marry him before you went away. When I heard about the baby it seemed obvious — well, I mean, you were sort of engaged, weren’t you?’ She looked expectantly at Sally, the unasked question in her eyes.

  ‘Jason knew about the baby and he offered me marriage as a way out,’ Sally said. ‘You’re right. He is very loyal, which was why I couldn’t let him do it.’

  Jean looked relieved. ‘It was very brave of you to go away like you did,’ she said. ‘Jason was quite upset at the time but he never let on, you know. He never said anything about you being pregnant.’ She paused, avoiding Sally’s eyes. ‘As a matter of fact, he’s met this girl now — Paula. I think things are getting to be quite serious between them. She’s a lovely girl and I know she thinks the world of him. She told me so.’ She glanced at Sally out of the corners of her eyes. ‘I — um — wouldn’t like anything to spoil things for them.’

  Sally got the message. ‘It won’t, Auntie Jean. Not if I can help it. I hope they’ll be very happy,’ she said. ‘All I want for myself, apart from knowing that James is well looked after, is to get on with my life again.’ She smiled as she tipped out the washing-up water and wiped the draining board. ‘But tell Jason I’d love to see him — and meet his girlfriend — any time he likes.’

  ‘So the baby’s real father — you’re not planning to …?’

  Sally gritted her teeth as she took the damp teatowel from Jean’s hand and hung it up to dry. ‘No, I’m, not,’ she said. ‘Shall we join the others now?’

  The following week she began scanning the Situations Vacant column in the local papers for a job, but there didn’t seem to be anything at all in the floristry line. The little house with its neatly ordered rooms and immaculate garden was beginning to feel claustrophobic. Even the presence of a young baby didn’t seem to have disrupted it much. Grateful as she was to Mavis and Ken for making it possible for her to keep James, she grew more certain as the days passed that she had to get away and make a life for herself. Apart from anything else, the Paynes were not young. By the time James reached his teens they would be too elderly to be expected to cope with him. She must begin now to prepare for that time; to make a home and start saving for the day when she must take over James’s upbringing herself.

  At last, as a desperate last resort, she rang Hannah one afternoon when Ken was at work and Mavis was out shopping.

  ‘Can you help, Hannah? Petals is closing down and I need a job,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing here. Anyway, I can’t live with Mum and Dad for ever.’

  Hannah laughed dryly. ‘You’re hardly alone in needing a job, Sally. You and a couple of million others.’

  ‘I am a trained florist, remember. The field is pretty wide and I’m willing to take anything. If necessary I’ll take some other kind of job. I really need to get away.’

  ‘How do Mavis and Ken feel about it? Have you discussed it with them?’

  ‘No, but it was understood from the beginning that I’d work away once I’d recovered. I’m sure they’ll be quite happy for me to visit at weekends.’

  ‘Nevertheless, I feel you should pay them the compliment of talking to them about it. No more skipping off, Sally.’

  She swallowed her resentment, realising that in a way she deserved Hannah’s mistrust. ‘I’ve no intention of skipping off this time, Hannah. Everything’s changed now. I’ve done a lot of thinking over the past weeks. Mum and Dad are happy to help bring up James now while he’s little, but it can’t last for ever. I have to start building some kind of future for us both as soon as I can. Besides, grateful as I am, I don’t want him to grow up in the rarefied atmosphere that I did.’

  Hannah was surprised and impressed. All Sally’s blinkered resentment seemed to have disappeared. She’d got things into perspective at last. Motherhood seemed to have brought out a new, pragmatic side of her. ‘I can see your point,’ she conceded. ‘I don’t know of any jobs going, but if you want to come up to London and have a look round, you’re welcome to stay with me at the flat for a couple of nights.’

  ‘Thanks, Hannah, Actually I had thought of asking Leah to put me up.’

  ‘She seems to be out of town at the moment,’ Hannah said. ‘I’ve been trying to get in touch with her myself, but her landlord tells me that her adoptive grandmother died and she went home to Norfolk for the funeral. It must have come as a blow, especially on top of that awful newspaper expose about Marie. I’ve spoken to Bill Fenton but he hasn’t heard from her since either.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  ‘Sally, I take it you’ve read about Marie Evans’s husband in the papers.’

  Sally frowned. ‘Her husband? No. What about him?’

  ‘His car went over a cliff. They suspected at one point that it was suicide. The hotel chain they own has gone bankrupt, you see — which must have been her reason for asking you to postpone your visit.’

  ‘Oh, Hannah, how awful.’ Sally drew in her breath sharply. She’d been so preoccupied with her own problems that she hadn’t given a thought to other people’s. She’d taken Marie’s letter at face value, seeing her in the worst possible light. ‘And poor Leah,’ she added. ‘Is there anything I can do?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Hannah said. ‘I just thought I’d put you in the picture.’

  ‘I’ll write — to them both,’ Sally said. ‘Will you give me Marie’s address?’ She scribbled down the details that Hannah gave her, and, promising to let Hannah know when she decided to come up to London, she rang off.

  For a long time she sat staring out of the window. In the neat front garden firmly disciplined rows of spring flowers were all coming into bud in unison and a robin was chirping in the flowering cherry tree. It would soon be spring. One more spring, just like all the ones she had known in
the past. In a place like this, where everything followed an unchanging, clockwork pattern, one grew so insular, so complacent and self-centred. It was what she’d always been so afraid of. The outside world — people, with all their problems — seemed so far away and unreal. She felt ashamed — and so selfish.

  *

  ‘I’ve told you, Tel, she went home for her grandmother’s funeral. I haven’t heard a thing from her since.’ Bill sounded slightly irritable. He’d lost count of the number of times Terry had telephoned for news of Leah.

  ‘But where can she be then?’ he asked. ‘I’ve tried ringing her parents in Norfolk. They don’t know where she is either. What’s more, they don’t seem to care.’

  ‘I’m sorry, old son, I can’t help you. I don’t understand why she didn’t come straight back after the funeral or why she hasn’t been in touch. She was interested in trying to get a mortgage on the restaurant round the corner. We were thinking of going into partnership.’

  ‘Then where the hell is she? Bloody hell, Bill, anything could have happened to her. Doesn’t anybody give a damn?’

  ‘I reckon she’s old enough to take care of herself,’ Bill said tersely. ‘I think she’s proved that. But I do know one thing. She was pretty fed up about the article in the Recorder.’

  ‘I can imagine. It was one of the reasons I rang her.’

  ‘So what made you do it, Tel? I thought you were a friend of hers. Christ knows I’m a hardened enough old hack, but even I wouldn’t pull a stroke like that on a mate — however tempting it might have been.’

  There was a stunned silence at the other end of the line. ‘Me? My God, you don’t think that I … Are you out of your head? Bill, let’s get this straight. Are you telling me that Leah thinks I wrote it?’

  Terry’s raised voice crackled down the line, vibrating against Bill’s eardrum. Wincing, he said, ‘Come off it, Tel, who else could have written the story? Who else knew enough to do it?’

  ‘God knows. Anyone who wanted to take the trouble to research it, I suppose. It didn’t have to be me and you bloody well know it. Even you could have written that article if you’d put your mind to it.’

  Bill laughed shortly at the back-handed compliment. ‘Thanks, pal.’

  ‘All I do know is that it wasn’t me,’ Terry went on. ‘Christ, what do you think I am, Bill? What’s worse, what does Leah think I am? Surely she knows me better than that?’

  ‘To be honest, I don’t think the poor kid knows what to think. There’s this business about her real mother’s husband driving over a cliff and the hotels going bust. That hit the tabloids right after the other story, right on top of her grandmother dying too. My guess is that she’s either gone down to Dorset to see if she can help, or she’s taken off somewhere to get away from the lot of us. And I can’t say I blame her, frankly.’

  There was a pause at the other end of the line then Terry said, ‘Of course. Why didn’t I think of it before?’

  ‘Think of what?’

  ‘Nothing. Look, I’ll be in touch. If you do hear anything give me a ring, eh? And I’ll do the same for you. Right?’

  ‘Right.’ But the word scarcely had time to leave Bill’s lips before Terry had rung off.

  *

  The wind that came off the North Sea was icy and relentless. It whipped the grey-green water of the saltings into angry peaks, and in the little harbour wavelets dashed themselves against the wall and tossed the moored fishing boats about like corks. Unequipped for the weather, Leah had borrowed a bulky fisherknit sweater from Dick and wore it with her jeans, topped with the waxed jacket he wore when he went fishing. Both came past her knees, but they kept her snug and warm as she walked out to the point, her hair streaming and her cheeks whipped pink by the wind.

  Cleybourn had been just what she needed and she was beginning to feel better for her stay; stronger and almost ready to go back and face the new beginning she was determined to make for herself. She would buy a restaurant; not Bella’s but another, somewhere away from London, in a completely new place where the new Leah could start again. Maybe she would take a holiday first. Perhaps go to Italy and visit the Andrettis. Anna had left her mother’s address and begged Leah to keep in touch. Now that she had money there were any number of options open to her. Secretly she believed that if she engrossed herself in work she would be able to put Terry out of her mind.

  Forgetting was proving more difficult than she had thought. Out here, with only the wind and the seabirds for company, it was possible to look at the future as a viable proposition. It was at night, lying in the bare little room at The Mermaid with the sound of the sea crashing against the harbour wall, that her mind became tortured by doubts and thoughts of the past. Waiting for sleep she would find herself thinking of Terry, remembering things they had said and done together, wondering how it was that she hadn’t realised long ago that she loved him. Lying in the darkness she was forced to come face to face with herself. It was like looking into a magic mirror which reflected not only her face but her faults — her darker side; all the things she disliked about herself and which she’d refused to acknowledge. If she had been used and betrayed it was little more than she deserved, for she had been guilty of using people too — on the assumption that what she hadn’t been given, she would take. What had happened to her was no more than what Granny Dobson would have called her ‘just deserts’. But it hurt unbearably that it was Terry who had dealt her the final blow that forced her to face it. She thought of the days they had spent together just after Christmas and winced at the memory of her own vulnerability, laid bare for him to see. She’d even asked him to marry her.

  Angrily, she tried to tell herself that all that was over — in the past; that she was putting it all behind her and beginning again. She would never see Terry again. Because of some serious flaw somewhere deep inside her, it would be better if she made no more close relationships. In the bright new future she planned she would build an impenetrable wall of defence around herself so that she could neither hurt nor be hurt. She would trust only the signed and sealed — give and take only in business matters. Emotionally, from this day on, her heart was a closed book.

  The days she spent at Cleybourn were busy and satisfying. She helped Dick in the house and pub, using all her spare time to cook enough meals to stock up his freezer. In the afternoons she walked by the sea and in the evenings she helped in the bar, enjoying the company of the locals and providing them with tasty and popular ploughman’s suppers to eat over their darts matches.

  Dick watched her wistfully. Since last summer she had changed. She’d told him a bit about herself — how she’d found her long lost mother and sister. And about the windfall inherited from her grandmother. It was bad luck, the papers getting hold of the story. He assumed at first that it was this that had upset her and caused her to be so restless. But often when she didn’t know he was looking he caught her with that sad, wistful look on her lovely young face and he wondered about the part she hadn’t told him — the thing that had hurt her so deeply. But he didn’t ask. If she was here to forget something she wouldn’t want a nosey old codger like him ferreting out her secret pain. Best let the poor lass heal in her own good time, he told himself wisely.

  One bright morning in early March, Leah found the pantry at The Mermaid almost empty. She suggested to Dick that she might drive into Sheringham to the supermarket and stock up for him. Taking his old Cortina she left Cleybourn soon after breakfast and did a month’s shopping at a superstore on the outskirts of the little seaside resort. Stowing it all in the capacious boot, she found it was still quite early so drove the rest of the way into town, intending to look at the shops and maybe have a coffee.

  Parking the car, she walked through the streets to the clifftop. When she was a child Jack and Hilary used to bring her to Sheringham sometimes for a weekend, but she’d never seen it at this time of year. In summer it was a cosy, family resort, slightly old-fashioned like the seaside towns in story books.

/>   Today the sky was grey with heavy, lowering clouds. The tide had swallowed the beach whole and white-capped waves leapt and crashed against the sea wall, throwing up plumes of spray that filled the air with salty droplets that stung her face and beaded her hair. The wind was so strong that it almost took her breath away. She looked around for somewhere to get coffee but, understandably, most of the hotels on the seafront were still closed for the winter. There was a shuttered, unwelcoming look about them, except for one which still had its ‘Vacancies’ sign hanging out. It swung wildly in the wind, creaking on chains rusted by the salt air, attracting her attention as she passed. She stopped to read it and found that ‘The Haven’ was ‘Open to non-residents for lunches, teas and morning coffee’.

  Inside she ordered coffee at the reception desk and wandered through to take a seat in the shabby little lounge with its faded carpet and sagging armchairs. The windows looked out on to the furious grey sea and deserted promenade. As she drank her coffee she looked around, amusing herself by imagining what she could do with the place if it were hers. Mentally she refurbished and redecorated it. Remembering Sally’s skills at floristry she visualised her luscious floral arrangements in each of the arched alcoves on either side of the fireplace. What fun it would be. But Sally had gone home to Leicester with her baby son, she reminded herself wistfully. It would be a long time before she was ready, or inclined to pick up the threads of her career again.

  On her way back to the car she spotted freshly caught local fish at a small fishmonger’s shop and decided to buy some for lunch. On the counter was a neat stack of newspapers. The fishmonger saw her looking at them.

  ‘Nuthin’ like newspapers to keep the moisture in,’ he told her. ‘Let’s the fish breathe too — not like your plastic rubbish. That only …’ He broke off, looking at her white face with concern. ‘’Ere — you feelin’ all right, m’dear?’