by Kitty Neale
At last there was a knock on the door and Maude’s concern was replaced with anger.
‘You silly girl,’ she snapped as she opened the door to Helen, ‘what time do you call this? You should have had Johnnie back here over an hour ago!’
‘I … I’m so sorry, Mrs Jenkins,’ Helen stuttered. ‘I took Johnnie to the park and lost track of time. It won’t happen again.’
‘Too right it won’t,’ Maude screeched, ‘I don’t think this is going to work out. It might be best if you just stay away from the boy. You know my Harry would go mad if he knew about you taking him out and now you turn up late, worrying the life out of me. It just won’t do!’
Helen paled. ‘Please, Mrs Jenkins, I love having him and Elsie and Ted love to see him. It would really upset them if you put a stop to it, what with Glenda being away.’
‘Well, it ain’t my fault their daughter’s a tart!’ Maude yelled, shaking her fist, and seeing Helen flinch she remembered hearing gossip that Harry had once gone for her, knocking her to the floor. She had chosen not to believe it at the time, but seeing Helen’s fear softened her anger. ‘All right. I’ll give you one more chance, but if you’re ever late back again, that’ll be it!’
‘Oh, thank you, Mrs Jenkins. I promise not to do it again.’
Maude took Johnnie indoors and lifted him out of his pushchair. That’s blinking strange, she thought as she noticed bits of black grit on his blankets. It looks like he’s been near the railway but Helen said she took him over to the park. Very peculiar indeed!
Bloody Betty Howard and her gossiping. Harry wasn’t really in the mood for her tittle-tattle, and didn’t want to fork out to buy her one of her fancy drinks, yet maybe, just maybe, if she did have something useful to tell him it might be worth it. And let’s face it, he thought, if anyone is going to know anything about what goes on around here, it’ll be Betty Howard.
Harry paid the landlord for the drinks and joined Betty in a dim booth where he found her moving up very close to him.
‘Thanks, Harry,’ she purred and looked over the top of her glass as she sipped her drink.
Though Harry hadn’t been bothered about seeing women since Glenda had left, he could still read the signs and got the distinct impression that Betty wanted a little more than to just impart a bit of gossip. The trouble was, Betty was known to be the local bike and he cringed at the thought of who might have been there before him. Still, even so, if she was willing … Harry felt a stirring in his groin. He did still have his needs, after all.
‘So come on then, Betty, what’s this all about?’ he asked, dropping the aggression and smiling as he placed his hand on her knee.
‘Well, you know me, I ain’t one for telling tales, but you’ll never guess who I saw leaving the train station.’
‘I’ve no idea, Betty, who?’
‘Helen, that’s who,’ Betty answered as she pushed her thigh up against Harry’s.
‘So what? What makes you think I’d find that interesting?’ Harry asked, wondering where this conversation was going.
‘As I said, she was leaving the station, Harry, and she was pushing your son in a pram. Now I don’t know about you, but I found myself wondering where she’d been with him.’
Harry quickly removed his hand from Betty’s knee and knocked back his pint. Johnnie was supposed to be with his mother, so what on earth was Helen doing with him? A thought occurred to him. Could she have been to meet Glenda? What was his mother playing at? Questions whizzed through his mind and he stood up angrily. Without saying goodbye to Betty, Harry left the booth and rushed out the door, keen to get to his mum’s house for some urgently needed answers.
He let himself in and found his parents in the front room, with Johnnie quietly playing on a blanket in front of the fire.
‘Hello, son,’ said Maude. She looked up, apparently pleased to see him.
He could feel his patience teetering and didn’t bother to greet his parents properly, choosing instead to get straight to the point.
‘What’s all this I’ve been hearing about Helen taking my boy out? Somewhere on a train, too? I want to know everything, now!’
Maude looked flabbergasted. ‘I don’t know what you mean, son,’ she answered.
‘Don’t try to deny it. Betty Howard said she saw Helen coming out the station with Johnnie in his pram. Is she lying to me then?’
‘I don’t know about her lying, but I think she must have been mistaken. Johnnie’s been here with me all day.’
‘So Helen hasn’t been here?’
‘Of course not. Do you think I’d be stupid enough to let her have Johnnie? I mean, given the chance she could hand him over to Glenda – I wouldn’t risk that.’
Harry took a seat in the armchair and sighed deeply. He could feel the anger ebbing away from him. ‘That Betty Howard’s a stupid bitch. This is typical of her, though, thinks she sees something then can’t wait to spread it about. For a while there, Mum, I’ve got to be honest, until you put me straight I thought you’d gone soft in the head or something.’
Maude laughed, ‘I’ll be a long time dead and buried before my head goes soft, son, don’t you worry about that.’
Harry leaned down and picked up Johnnie. That wife of his still had the power to evoke such strong emotions in him. He stroked his son’s back, allowing his thoughts to move back to Betty Howard. He thought of her thigh pressing up against his in the pub. Daft bitch or not, he found he couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to have her in his bed.
Chapter 13
Maude had sighed with relief when Harry had left last night to go back to the Castle. She hated having to lie to her son, and tossed and turned half the night, angry with Helen. The grit she had found in Johnnie’s pram now made sense – Helen had been on a train with him. Why had she lied about it, and, more importantly, where had she been and who had she seen?
She had her suspicions, but surely if Helen had taken Johnnie to see his mother, Glenda would have kept him. It didn’t make sense and she was determined to get to the bottom of it, one way or another. As Helen worked in the mornings, Maude waited until after lunch to go see her.
It had been a long time since she had been down this street, but not much had changed. The houses looked a little scruffier and the steps and windows weren’t as clean as they used to be, but it was little wonder, thought Maude, considering the austere times people were having. With a stern face, she knocked on Helen’s door and was glad to see the girl looked scared stiff when she saw her.
‘Mrs Jenkins, I wasn’t expecting you. What can I do for you?’ Helen asked, her face ashen.
‘You, my girl, have got some explaining to do!’
Helen, with obvious reluctance, opened the door wider. ‘You’d better come in,’ she said nervously. Maude took Johnnie out of his pram to carry him inside, and Helen pointed to a chair for her to sit on. ‘My parents are upstairs having a nap, so please, would you mind keeping your voice down?’
‘That depends on you,’ Maude said as she sat down, Johnnie perched on her lap. ‘Now then, my girl, I ain’t here for niceties so I’ll get straight to the point. I know you’ve been up to something with Johnnie. So come on, spit it out and don’t bother spinning me a yarn.’
Helen’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped. Her mouth opened and closed, but no sound emerged.
‘It’s no good looking like a fish out of bleedin’ water. Just tell me what you’ve been up to.’
‘I–I don’t know what you mean,’ Helen gasped at last, looking close to tears.
‘Look, I know you lied about taking Johnnie to the park yesterday. You took him on a train, and I think I can guess why.’
‘I–I can’t tell you.’
‘Yes, you can. I want the truth, though if my suspicions are right, I certainly won’t be telling Harry about it.’
Helen looked somewhat relieved, but she was still biting her bottom lip. ‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Jenkins, but you’re right, I did lie to you. I
think you’ve guessed that I took Johnnie to see his mum, but it was for the first time. I should have told you, but I didn’t think you’d allow it so I had to do it behind your back.’
‘You know where Glenda is then?’ asked Maude.
‘No, she won’t say. We met at a train station in the country and she travelled there by train too.’
‘Did she try to take the boy from you?’ Maude questioned.
‘No, no, she didn’t. She just wanted to see him and made it quite clear she had no intention of taking him. She gave me her word and she kept it.’
Maude sat quietly for a moment as another lightbulb seemed to flick on inside her head. ‘So this meeting at this train station wasn’t a coincidence, it was well thought out and planned. How did you arrange it? Has she written to you?’
Helen’s bottom lip started quivering again and Maude could see that Helen knew exactly where this line of questioning was leading.
‘Yes, she has sent me a few letters,’ Helen answered uneasily.
‘So you must have a return address for her then?’
‘No, Maude – sorry, I mean Mrs Jenkins! I don’t write back. Glenda said in her last letter that she would be at the station and would wait to see if I turned up.’
‘Don’t take me for a fool,’ Maude raised her voice, ‘she knew exactly what day you had Johnnie and the only way she could have known that is if you told her! You’ve been straight with me so far; don’t ruin it with more lies now.’
Helen hung her head. ‘OK, yes, I have written back to her, but I don’t know her address. I send the letters to a church and she collects them from there. Please, please don’t make me say any more. Glenda is my best friend and I’m not prepared to give you the information for Harry to find her and hurt her.’
Maude had known that Helen would protect her friend from Harry, but what Helen didn’t know was that Maude would do the same. She had seen the rage in Harry on Christmas Day and how easily he could flip. Maude was convinced that no good would come of Harry finding his wife. He had made it quite clear what he would do to her if he did, and Maude knew they weren’t empty threats. As much as she hated what Glenda had done to her son, she had to protect him from going to jail. Harry was out of control and if he found out where Glenda and Frank were, Maude was convinced it would result in Harry doing time for murder.
‘Look, love,’ Maude said calmly, ‘I don’t want my Harry finding out where they are any more than you do. I just hope that Glenda doesn’t think she can take Johnnie. Harry’s bad enough now, but if that happened it would send him over the edge and somehow he’d find them.’
‘Glenda knows that. As much as it’s breaking her heart, she doesn’t hope to get Johnnie back. She just wants to see him, but from what she’s told me money is tight and she’ll find it hard to afford the train fare. She’s asked me if we can just meet occasionally, perhaps every few months.’
Maude couldn’t believe the audacity of the girl.
‘I’m not having that, Helen. It’s too risky. Harry was round last night asking about you having Johnnie and taking him on a train.’
‘No, oh, no,’ Helen gasped, her eyes rounding in fear.
‘That bloody gossiping bitch Betty Howard saw you and told him, but you can calm down. I denied it all and he believed me.’
Helen visibly slumped with relief. ‘Thank goodness.’
‘We were lucky this time, but Helen, I don’t trust you now. I can’t let you have Johnnie again.’
‘Mrs Jenkins,’ Helen begged, ‘Glenda is his mother and you should have seen them together. It isn’t right to stop her seeing him. Not only that, if you don’t agree to it she might get desperate and try to snatch him back.’
Maude’s first reaction was to say no, but then she paused in thought. What Helen said made sense. If Glenda had access to Johnnie, if only three or four times a year, she might be happy to leave him with Harry. Whereas to deny her access might well push her into coming back for the child. She sighed.
‘You might have a point, though I ain’t happy about it. Still, I suppose at the end of the day, like you say, she is his mother and I know what that feels like. I couldn’t begin to imagine the pain it would have caused me if I couldn’t have seen my boys growing up. But then –’ she paused, her face hardening again ‘– I wouldn’t have left their father and run off with another man – not without taking my kids with me.’
Helen was quick to respond. ‘I don’t think Glenda thought she had any other option. She had to run for her life. She thought Harry was out to kill her.’
Maude said nothing. She knew Helen was right in what she had said. If Glenda had stayed for the sake of Johnnie, the child would have been motherless now. Harry would have seen to that.
Chapter 14
It was a sunny July day, but Glenda wasn’t interested in the weather as she screamed in agony.
‘ARRRGGGHHH! I can’t take this any more!’
‘Come on, Glenda, there’s not much more to do now, the baby’s head is crowning,’ the stand-in midwife Flo reassured her as she looked between Glenda’s spread legs.
Glenda didn’t know the woman very well but was grateful for her coming so quickly. When her labour had started earlier than expected, Frank had gone into a blind panic. To calm him, Glenda had sent him to fetch Flo to help. She was Frank’s boss’s wife and had always been so accommodating and friendly to her and Frank, but she hoped that this wasn’t asking too much of the woman.
‘Where’s Frank? I need Frank,’ Glenda cried, sweat dripping from her brow.
‘He’s outside, looking like he’s having kittens himself, pacing up and down on that shingle. All your blinking screaming is probably frightening the life out of the poor fella. Now stop worrying about where Frank is and concentrate on your breathing!’ Flo ordered. She wasn’t a midwife but had delivered plenty of babies, her daughter’s too, so her confident manner calmed Glenda.
‘Thank you for coming round, Flo. I don’t think I would have managed on my own,’ said Glenda, panting the words in between contractions.
‘You would have. We women have been giving birth since the beginning of time and as long as everything is straightforward, there’s nothing to it. And anyhow, the way Frank was hammering and shouting at my door, I thought someone was dying!’
‘He panicked.’
‘It was a relief to find out it’s just another baby on the way.’ Flo smiled warmly at Glenda. ‘Now come on, one more push. That’s it, go on, nearly there.’
Glenda felt like her insides were being ripped out of her. Even though she’d done this before, she had forgotten how excruciating it was. She sat up on her haunches and looked down to where her baby’s head had just come into the world, but panic suddenly gripped her. ‘NO,’ she bawled, ‘my baby, my baby, it’s not breathing!’
‘And neither would you if you had that gripped round your neck.’ Flo almost laughed. ‘So stop being silly and get on with it, one more push and … there you go!’
There was a moment of silence as both women waited for the first cry of the newborn baby girl, then with gusto she howled and waved her tiny arms, her little legs kicking.
The door of the carriage flew open and Frank rushed in, almost falling over himself in his haste.
‘Frank Myers, you shouldn’t be in here yet!’ Flo said as she busied herself with the baby.
Frank didn’t reply but stared wide eyed as Flo finished what she was doing and wrapped the baby in a blanket and handed her to Glenda. She gazed at her newborn daughter, tears of emotion filling her eyes before she looked up at Frank.
‘It’s a girl,’ she said. ‘Say hello to your daughter.’
Glenda held the baby towards Frank and watched as the sweetest smile spread across his face. ‘You clever girl,’ he whispered to Glenda as he gently kissed her wet forehead.
Flo was busy cleaning up, but Glenda saw a tear trickle down the woman’s face. She’s got a bigger heart than she lets on, thought Glenda, and she
thanked her again for her help.
‘Make sure you get plenty of rest now, and Frank, don’t worry about coming into work for a couple of days. Stay here and look after these two,’ said Flo. ‘Don’t worry, you won’t lose any pay. I’ll square it with my Tommy. We’ll call it a little welcome present from us for the new baby.’
‘I don’t know what to say. Thank you, Flo, that’s really good of you, and be sure to pass on my gratitude to Tommy too. You’re smashing bosses, you really are!’
Flo looked a bit embarrassed, and blustered, ‘Yeah, well, have you thought of a name for the baby yet?’
Glenda squeezed Frank’s hand. She could hear his voice breaking and knew he was becoming emotional. ‘We agreed that if I had a boy, Frank would choose the name, but as she’s a girl, it’s down to me.’ Glenda looked down at her precious baby. ‘I think Polly really suits her. My little Polly perfect!’
‘Polly …’ Frank stroked his daughter’s cheek. ‘Hello, my gorgeous girl. I’m your daddy.’
Glenda closed her eyes for a moment, exhausted, her emotions a mixture of sadness and exhilaration. She almost had the perfect little family; the man she loved and her baby girl, but her happiness wouldn’t be complete until she was reunited with her son.
‘Get off me, woman,’ Harry groaned at Betty as he turned away from her in his bed.
‘But it’s Sunday morning, we ain’t got work today, so how about we spend the day in bed and have a little fun?’ Betty hummed as she stroked her finger up and down Harry’s arm.
‘I can’t, I’ve got things to do. I’m going to my mum’s place for dinner and I want to spend some time with Johnnie.’
‘It’s not fair,’ Betty sulked, ‘you hardly spend any time with me at the weekends, and I had a special surprise lined up for you today.’
