A Complicated Woman

by Sheelagh Kelly

  Daniel seemed half amused at their shock. ‘Oh, nowhere so good as this! No, we’ve only been here a couple o’ days.’ He asked them to sit down then told them briefly of the eviction.

  Perched on the edge of the battered chair, Bright was horrified. ‘We had no idea! Dorothy never mentioned – we telephoned her to get your address, you see, because Clive wasn’t in.’

  ‘Yer would’ve been sent on a wild goose chase anyway. Clive’s only got our old address.’ In the tense interval he started to become concerned. Oriel was still not home. ‘Said yer didn’t have time to say much to her – what exactly did you say?’

  Nat looked guilty then. So too did Bright. ‘We were so angry,’ she said. ‘How could she leave her children, Daniel?’

  His pleasant expression became hard. ‘And how could I leave mine? That’s what yer wanna know, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s a fair question to put to the man who’s taken our daughter from her family,’ said Nat. ‘I mean, we don’t know what your intentions are. You might leave her tomorrow for all we know.’

  ‘And what about Melinda?’ asked Bright.

  Daniel contained his anger by scratching furiously at his neck. ‘I’ll tell you something now – not that I feel the need to! It’s just for Oriel’s sake. I’ve never touched another woman while I’ve been married to Melinda. Never. I must admit I’ve enjoyed looking at a few, but to me if a man really loves his wife those things remain in his head and if they don’t then he doesn’t really love her. I know blokes who think it’s perfectly okay to have other women on the side just so long as they’re taking home the bread-and-butter and their wives don’t find out. Well, I’m not one of ’em. They can argue till they’re blue in the face that a quick how’s-yer-father isn’t a betrayal but to me it is. So if yer think that’s all it is between me and Oriel yer can forget it. I’ve loved her for years, and I will till the day I die.’

  He rubbed his head, which was throbbing. Mrs Prince was embarrassed but that would not stop him. They had obviously upset Oriel by what they had said and now he would demand they listen to him. ‘I’m not shrugging off any blame. I have betrayed Melinda and I won’t give any excuses because I don’t care how people want to judge me. Until they’ve been through the same situation they don’t know how they’d react – I never foresaw this happening to me in a million years. I love my kids, it ripped my guts out seeing them cry when I left. But I had to be with Oriel. I know I’m a terrible father. I don’t need you or anybody else to scream that at me to make it sink in, but I reckon I just wasn’t born to be good and noble and responsible as my accusers seem to be. I don’t know what you people think it was like to make that decision. D’yer imagine I just waved ’em merrily goodbye?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Bright’s voice was soft.

  ‘And you’re hardly the best judge,’ Daniel accused Nat. ‘Oriel told me you two never met till she was an adult so you should know exactly what I’m talking about. I hate meself for doing it and Oriel feels the same but we couldn’t live without each other. We just couldn’t. Everybody’s different, it isn’t right for people to judge. It’s just not bloody right. Okay, I could’ve stayed till they were grown up – in theory at least – so could Oriel, but would the kids’ve been any more well-disposed towards us knowing that we were only staying for their sakes? It’d be as if we were blaming them for being born. Whatever happens I’m still their father – and Oriel only took hers back to Clive because he made it so bloody awkward for her to get at her own money and provide a nice home for them. She thought she was being selfish making ’em live in a place like this.’

  Bright exchanged a harassed look with her husband. ‘He didn’t tell us that.’

  ‘No, and I bet he didn’t tell you she travelled fifteen miles a day back and forth to collect them from school, nearly killing herself in the process, until he stopped her! Soon as her house is sold and everything’s sorted out we’re having them to live with us. It’s just this divorce business dragging on and on. I’ve got a job now, I’m working hard to make it happen. It’s gonna be all right.’ His anger suddenly turned to anxiety. ‘Something’s wrong. Oriel should be here.’ He racked his throbbing brain for where she might be.

  Nat sighed and looked at his wife, then his eye caught the empty whisky bottle that Daniel had put aside on discovering his cremated dinner. ‘Somebody’s been knocking it back.’

  ‘Well, it’s not me!’

  ‘I didn’t say it was.’

  ‘I found it in the hall. Oriel can’t stand… can’t stand litter.’ Panic flickered in Daniel’s eye. He knew. He just knew. Racing from the house he stopped dead and looked up and down the darkened street, a man demented. Nat came out after him. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘We’ve got to find her!’ The tone of Daniel’s voice conveyed the seriousness of this.

  When he set off at a run both Nat and Bright pursued him through the darkness, wondering if he knew where he was going.

  They did not have far to run. Daniel saw the outline of a figure sitting on the parapet of the railway bridge and gave a strangled shout as he rushed to interrupt her. ‘Oriel!’

  ‘Don’t frighten her, she might fall!’ urged Nat still pursuing.

  The figure did not turn but merely swayed in the warm night air as the three came running towards her. Daniel reached her first, clambered up and grabbed her around the waist with one arm to prevent her falling on to the track whilst his other hand tried to prise her fingers off the sooty brickwork, but it was as if they were welded there. ‘Oriel! It’s all right! I’m here!’

  Voices came through her tortured mind. Daniel’s voice. Seeing him, relief flooded her dazed eyes but she could not let go, her fingers having gripped too long. If she let go now she would be lost.

  ‘We’ve got you, lass, you won’t fall!’ Nat had climbed up too and was trying to lift her fingers one by one but each time he managed to get one loose her grip intensified. ‘For goodness’ sake, you’re like a little limpet – just let go. What you doing up here?’

  ‘Holding God’s hand,’ murmured his daughter. ‘Can’t let go. Don’t want to jump.’

  He groaned in despair. ‘Oh Christ, she’s had a right skinful.’

  Daniel sighed and, with accusation in his voice, told him, ‘No, she’s just reached the end of her tether.’ With coaxing words he finally managed to prise her bloodless fingers from the bridge and pulled her backwards into the safety of his arms, cupping the back of her head to his chest, kissing and stroking the face that stank of whisky. ‘Oh Oriel, darlin’, sweetheart, what were yer thinking of?’ he begged her.

  ‘You didn’t come back,’ came her slurred murmur.

  He hugged her even more tightly. ‘Didn’t I say I might be late? I had to walk part o’ the way, got here as soon as I could. And why were you standing up there for? Don’t yer know the trains don’t run on Christmas Day? Aw Jeez, you silly little—’ He broke off to kiss her.

  Oriel lay against him, suddenly aware of the other concerned faces. ‘I’m sorry… I’m a rotten daughter.’

  ‘Oh, lass, why didn’t you come to us?’ asked her distraught breathless father.

  ‘She did.’ Bright sobbed and put her arms round the embracing couple. ‘I’m sorry! I’m so sorry I didn’t listen.’

  ‘A rotten mother,’ slurred Oriel.

  ‘No, no!’

  ‘Never done anything for anybody, just hurt people. My babies.’ Her mouth crumpled.

  Nat swore and frowned, trying to retain his manhood though the tears stung his eyes. ‘Oriel, don’t worry about anything else. We’ll get you out of that place and buy you a decent house so you can have the children to live with you and Daniel. Don’t worry, we’ll get them back. We’ll get them back. Away, lad,’ he said to Daniel. ‘Let’s get her home.’

  * * *

  The final hours of Christmas Night were spent in the bosom of people who loved her. Whilst Oriel drifted in and out of sleep others were discussing her future
.

  Bright recognized that it was not just the drink talking, her daughter was on the verge of mental collapse, but she refused to let her be hospitalized. ‘I’m not having her go through that. We can look after her ourselves. Daniel, she can stay with us while you’re at work.’

  He thanked her, his eyes never leaving the face on the pillow.

  ‘I suppose it’s inevitable this happened,’ she opined. ‘With her mother as mad as a bloody hatter.’

  ‘You’re not mad, lass,’ said Nat. ‘Just a bit puddled.’

  She thought of something else. ‘We can’t let Clive know or he’ll never let her have the children back.’

  Nat spoke to Daniel, keeping his voice low so as not to waken Oriel. ‘I meant what I said before about buying a place for you to live in so’s she can get the kids back. I don’t want to tread on any toes but if you feel about her as strongly as you say you do then I don’t think you’d deny her that.’

  Daniel shook his head. ‘Wouldn’t deny her anything.’

  ‘Good. Can’t do anything till after Boxing Day but I reckon what with the housing market being the way it is we could have one in a week. Like me wife says, she can come and stay at our hotel – not tonight but you can bring her tomorrow. It’s a bit of a dump, we’ll get somewhere better after Christmas. Will you accept some money to keep you going while we get sorted out? Buy her a new frock or summat?’

  Daniel said he would.

  Nat dipped into his wallet and handed over most of what was in it. ‘I can get some more when t’bank opens. If you need owt don’t be afraid to ask. Most of it’ll be Oriel’s when we go, it’s more important she has benefit of it now. I can’t understand why she didn’t ask earlier if you were in such trouble. I know she’s never liked asking for help but, bloody hell, we are her parents.’

  ‘She would’ve had to tell yer why she wanted it and she couldn’t bring herself to hurt yer,’ explained Daniel, looking tenderly upon his loved one. ‘That’s been half her trouble.’

  ‘I suppose we didn’t make it any easier,’ acknowledged Bright.

  Daniel told them about her efforts to keep the children with her, but things had just got out of hand. ‘We just didn’t know it’d last this long. Looks like it’ll go on a lot longer for most poor buggers.’

  Nat raised his eyebrows at the degree of suffering he had witnessed in the city. ‘Doesn’t really hit you till it happens to your own.’

  After a thoughtful silence, he turned his head to look at Bright, whose face looked slightly yellow under this poor globe. ‘Well, I suppose we’d better be going, give this lad some peace, and we have to go over to meladdo’s and pick Vicky up tomorrow.’ Rising along with his wife, he took a look at the bed on which his daughter lay deep in sleep. ‘She must be worn out.’

  Daniel nodded, feeling overcome by weariness himself. ‘She’s had a lot to cope with.’ He left them suddenly and stooped to rummage in a carrier. ‘Here, take this with you. It’ll explain a lot more than I can. Managed to rescue it before we were evicted.’

  Bright took the wad of crumpled paper that was her daughter’s journal and began to leaf through it, sampling its contents with grim fascination before putting it under her arm to take home.

  Nat arranged for Daniel to bring Oriel to the hotel tomorrow noon, then, eyes averted, gave one last instruction. ‘When t’lass wakes up tell her… erm, we love her and that, yer know.’ He half turned as if to go. ‘And when she sees us tomorrow, she’ll have her bairns back.’

  * * *

  ‘It was a bit rash of you to promise that,’ scolded Bright as they made their way out of the grimy suburb and into the bright illuminations of the city to find a taxi. ‘You’ll only make her worse if Clive won’t wear it.’

  Nat stopped to light a cigarette, then walked on. ‘He will when I’ve finished with him.’

  ‘Oh, you’re not going to—’

  ‘No – though I’m not saying I wouldn’t like to kick his head in. What I meant was, everybody has their price.’

  Bright worried that any attempt at bribery might make Clive dig his heels in further. ‘Oh, I don’t think he’s the type that can be bought.’

  ‘Everybody can be bought – even your Pope.’

  Walking briskly at his side, his wife scoffed. ‘You’re telling me if we offered His Holiness a million pounds to kill someone he’d do it?’

  ‘No, but if I said to him, you shake my hand I’ll give you a million pounds to donate to a good cause—’

  ‘That’s not the same!’

  ‘Course it is. He’s allowing himself to be bought, and if I word my request correctly Clive can be bought as well – here y’are, there’s a taxi!’ And hailing it he escorted her back to their hotel.

  Bright did not intend to read all of her daughter’s journal that night, but once she had begun found it too enthralling to stop until she reached the end, and insisted on keeping Nat awake too by reading out certain passages. Both were moved to tears.

  After wiping her eyes and before lying down she tapped the bundle of papers, a spark of determination in her eye. ‘This deserves to be published. Once Christmas is over I’m going to take it to a newspaper office and show it to the editor – I’m sure he’ll agree to serialize it. God, the poor souls, haven’t they had a terrible time of it?’ She turned off the lamp and lay down beside her husband and was silent for a moment. Then, her sigh rent the darkness. ‘Oh, I hope we can get them back.’

  * * *

  The next morning when his in-laws came round to collect Vicky, Clive bowed to his father-in-law’s request that they have a private chat, and listened without interruption to what Nat had to say, before making his reply.

  ‘So let me get this right – you’re offering to let me keep this house in return for giving up my children?’

  ‘I’m not asking you to give them up, just to let them live with their mother. She won’t stop you from seeing them.’

  ‘Oh, that’s very generous of her. What makes you think I wouldn’t be allowed to keep this house anyway? It was Oriel who deserted me and the children. I should think any judge would frown on that – not to mention her adultery.’

  ‘That was something else I wanted to discuss.’ Fighting the urge to smack Clive’s face for his snide remarks, Nat remained calm. ‘Have you thought seriously what having to admit adultery would do to Oriel? How it would make her look to the rest of the world?’

  ‘Oh, don’t tell me!’ laughed his son-in-law. ‘You want me to take the blame.’

  ‘Well, you have got a woman living here and I doubt she just irons your shirts.’ Nat tried to be amiable. ‘Come on, Clive, it’s nowt to a bloke—’

  ‘Why should I care about her feelings? She didn’t care about mine.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s true but never mind – what about your kids? Don’t you care that people are going to point at them and say their mother committed adultery?’

  Clive scoffed. ‘Even if I took the blame it wouldn’t alter that fact!’

  ‘Nay, it wouldn’t.’ Nat offered no defence, but looked his opponent directly in the eye.

  Clive stared back. ‘You’ve never liked me, have you?’

  ‘Nothing personal, I just didn’t think you were right for her. That being said, I think you’re a good father—’

  ‘And you’d know?’

  ‘I know you want what’s best for ’em. They haven’t seen their mam for a while. Apart from any other arrangement we might come to I’d like to take them to see her today.’

  Clive prevaricated. ‘Oh, I don’t know about that, I was going to—’

  ‘It’s not much to ask. It is Christmas, lass is missing ’em.’

  ‘And that’s my fault?’

  ‘Aw, look, stop pissing me about, Clive!’ Nat couldn’t keep up the niceties. ‘I haven’t got time. Let’s get this sorted out. You can have the house and five hund—’

  ‘You’ll let me have my own house?’ There came ridicule.

&n
bsp; ‘Five hundred!’

  ‘You’re not buying my kids!’

  ‘I’m not asking to buy ’em! I’m paying you to stand up in court and spare their mother, and I want them to be happy!’

  ‘They are happy! They like Jean.’

  ‘Ask ’em then! Let’s have ’em in here and ask ’em who they want to live with. If they say they want to live with you and see their mother at weekends I’ll abide by that.’ But I hope to God they don’t, thought Nat, for I can’t let Oriel down. Not again.

  Clive maintained his determined stance for a moment, then went to the door and called the children in.

  * * *

  When Oriel had awoken she thought it had all been a terrible nightmare, until Daniel had taken her in his arms and related gently what had happened. Even now, being driven in a taxi to her parents’ hotel she could not credit last night’s scene with reality. Her head still felt crammed with cottonwool, her thoughts befuddled even by the simplest of acts such as fastening a row of buttons on her dress, which Daniel had had to do for her. It was not simply the after-effects of the whisky. She was very, very sick.

  But she would get better now. Blessed with Daniel and the knowledge that her parents had forgiven her and still loved her, she would get better.

  Seated on the back seat of the taxi beside her, Daniel gripped her fingers, kneading them, delivering solace. So fragile, she looked, so lost – never had he loved her more than this moment, wanted to cry at the sight of her. He had not passed on the entirety of Nat’s message. Oriel had no inkling that she was going to the hotel to meet not just her parents but her children as well. For if he had told her and Nat had been unsuccessful… God knew what it would do to her.

  Trying to cheer her, he related what had happened when he had arrived to deliver the gifts to his own children – Norm’s comical look of horror at being discovered with Melinda. Oriel tried to match his grin, but soon her anxious mind had drifted somewhere else.