And Harriet wanted to empty her bladder.
Irritated that Grant yet again late in allowing her to visit the bathroom, Harriet hammered on the door loud enough to bring the entire street running. Although not, apparently, loud enough to bring her half-brother, or to disturb Joyce. Harriet experienced a terrible sensation of being trapped. She was locked in this room without anyone knowing where she was, and her stepmother held the key. It could have been some soppy fairy tale had it not been so deadly serious.
And then she saw the note. Someone had pushed it under the door. She picked it up with a sudden spurt of hope when she saw the familiar scrawl of handwriting. It was from Vinny.
Oh, my goodness. Had he come looking for her? Was he missing her already? She felt touched that Vinny should care enough about her to take the trouble to come back to Champion Street and deliver this letter by hand. But then it occurred to Harriet that Shelley had probably been the one to pop it through the letter box, and not Vinny at all. She sighed with regret. If only he’d turned out to be reliable and supportive, instead of wild and selfish.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a tap on the door. ‘Are you all right, love?’
Harriet ran to press herself against it. ‘Nan, thank heavens. I’ve missed you so much. Can you let me out?’
‘Sorry, love, I don’t have a key. Are you all right?’ The old woman sounded anxious, and slightly out of breath, as if climbing the stairs had taxed her energy.
‘How long is she going to keep me here?’
‘I wish I knew, love, and before you ask, no, I’ve no idea where the key is but I mean to get my hands on one just as soon as I can. We’ll have you out of there in two shakes of a lamb’s tail then. Grant must have it. I’ll appeal to his better nature and persuade him to lend it to me.’
Harriet’s heart plummeted, knowing Nan had little hope of success as Grant didn’t have a better nature. ‘Please do,’ was all she said, not wanting her grandmother to realise how upset she was.
‘Eeh, love, what a pickle we’re in.’
‘Was it you who brought up Vinny’s letter?’
‘Aye, and I didn’t let on to Joyce, so you’re quite safe. I come upstairs last night on me hands and knees while they were all abed. You’d have laughed if you’d seen me. I must’ve looked a right tuckle with me nightie tucked up around me waist showing all me bloomers.’
Harriet couldn’t help but laugh. Her Nan was a real case. What would she do without her? ‘He says he’s been promised a recording contract and wants me to go to London with him.’
‘Will you go?’
Harriet shook her head, even though her grandmother couldn’t see her through the bedroom door. ‘I’m pleased for him. Maybe he’ll get himself together now he has the chance to be a real success. But it’s over between us as far as I’m concerned. I was stupid to get involved with him in the first place.‘
‘I hope you mean that.’
‘I do.’
‘I’m relieved to hear it. He’s trouble is that one.’
Harriet neither agreed nor disagreed with her grandmother’s opinion of Vinny. She looked down at the letter in her hand. ‘I’ll write and wish him luck. Will you see that he gets it?’
‘Aye, course I will, somehow.’ Letters, Rose thought, weren’t they the bane of her life?
Her grandmother came often after that first time, whenever Joyce was occupied with her customers in the salon, or out with Joe Southworth. Harriet would hear her fetch a chair from the neighbouring bedroom she used to occupy, the creak of the cane seat as she sat herself on it. Then Harriet would slide down to the floor, resting her back against the varnished wood panels of the door so that they could talk.
Today, she wrapped her arms about her knees and asked the one question that haunted her. ‘Tell me about my mother. Who is she? I know nothing about her, and my head is teeming with questions.’
Silence, followed by a heavy sigh. When Rose spoke again, her voice was tense and barely above a whisper. ‘If I tell, you’re not to mention this conversation to Joyce, not a word, you understand?’
‘I won’t, I swear it.’
‘She’d have me roasted on a platter if she knew I’d been interfering again, spilling the beans, as it were.’
‘I won’t say a word, but you haven’t told me anything yet,’ Harriet reminded her, desperate for information.
The whisper was barely audible through the thick wooden panels, nevertheless Harriet heard every word, clear as a bell. ‘She was a friend of your mother’s, of Joyce’s, I mean. Best friends. Joyce and Stan weren’t getting on as they should, for whatever reason.’
Rose paused here as if choosing her words carefully, which in fact she was. She was deliberating over whether to mention the doubt over Grant’s parentage. It was the sort of information that could be dynamite for the young lass if she let anything slip in an unguarded moment. She’d mebbe come to that later.
‘I’m sure he were a good man at heart, your pa, but he had his faults, they both did. Stan were badly damaged by the war, in his head as well as in his legs. But then the war messed up a lot of folk in this street. Anyway, Eileen, that were her name, and Stan, they had a bit of a fling like, and you were the result.’
‘I think I’d gathered that,’ Harriet said.
‘I know very little about Eileen, to be honest, but Joyce and Stan were like chalk and cheese, oil and water, at daggers drawn, like a red rag to a bull, however you like to put it, they never did get on.’
‘Don’t I know it,’ Harriet responded with feeling.
‘It were like that right from the start. The marriage might have had a chance if either of them had been prepared to offer a modicum of forgiveness to the other, but they never did, and trust was alien to them both.’
‘But why, if they loved each enough to marry?’
‘It were a bit of a rush job, because of the war, tha’ knows. Joyce did love him at first, that’s true. Then it all went wrong.’
‘But why? I don’t understand.’
Another short pause, and then, ‘You must keep your word not to let on that you know, not to anyone.’
‘I promise.’
It all came out then about the rape, of Joyce being pregnant with another man’s child, a stranger’s child, at the time of their marriage. ‘She didn’t know his name,’ Rose explained. ‘And even if he were only a drunken sailor out for a good time and not some stranger up a back street, that were no excuse for such dreadful behaviour.’
Harriet was aghast. It made her see Joyce in quite a different light. ‘What a terrible thing to happen! So Grant isn’t Stan’s son?’ Harriet too was whispering, unable to quite take this all in.
‘No, I don’t who the lad’s father was.’
‘Does Grant himself know any of this?’
‘No.’
‘And Joyce didn’t even tell Dad?’
‘Not until after they were wed. She was too afraid she might lose him. He guessed the truth though when he came home and found the babe-in-arms he’d expected to see practically walking.’
‘Oh, goodness, how awful!’ Harriet was silent for a moment, sifting through this shocking information in her mind, trying to make sense of it. ‘So that’s why Stan never really got on with Grant?’
‘I dare say. The fact that Joyce lied built up a deep resentment in him.’
‘And that’s why he had the affair, out of revenge because Grant wasn’t his son?’
‘I reckon so.’
For the first time in her life Harriet felt pity for her half-brother. He too was a pawn in this dreadful marriage, a victim of their parents’ need to punish each other for the misfortunes life had dealt them. ‘But why didn’t my mother want me? Why did Eileen let Joyce and Stan keep me when Joyce clearly resented my very existence?’
‘Nay, you’d have to ask her that.’
‘If only the dead could talk.’
‘Aye, if only they could.’
Eileen made it abund
antly clear to them both that on no account was she prepared to surrender her child to anyone, particularly not to Stan who now seemed to have become quite cool and distant towards her. ‘I won’t do it, not simply to avoid scandal and gossip, or even to see her legitimised, or whatever fancy name you might use for this so-called adoption, not at any price. Harriet is mine!’
‘And how do you propose to survive? How will you provide for her?’ Joyce gently enquired, as Stan stood silently by, apparently dumbfounded by this violent reaction to his generous offer.
‘I’ll cope somehow.’
‘You don’t even have a home to go to, a job or any money. Would your parents take you in?’
Eileen mumbled something incoherent, which obviously meant the answer was in the negative.
‘So, what would you do? Where would you go? I’ve fed and kept you throughout this pregnancy, without even charging you board and lodging beyond your ration book. I’m still feeding you, and the baby, now. How could you possibly manage? If you were found starving on the streets, or put in some mother and baby home, she’d be taken away from you anyway. Besides which, she isn’t simply your child, she’s Stan’s too, and as her father he has as much right as you to decide how she is raised.’
‘I know what your little scheme is,’ Eileen screamed. ‘You want to steal Harriet from me. Well, I won’t let you do that, do you hear? She’s mine! My child, not yours, and you’re not having her.’
Stan took Eileen by the shoulders, trying to calm her. ‘Look, it’s nonsense to accuse us of trying to steal her from you. We aren’t doing any such thing. You could still be involved in her upbringing, see her any time you like. You could become a favourite aunt. Wouldn’t you like that? All the fun and none of the work. Don’t get yourself into a state, Eileen. We want only to do what’s right, what’s best for the baby.’
She turned on him then like a spitting cat, making the baby cry as she still held her tightly in her arms. ‘No you don’t! You want to take her from me. Well, you’re not having her, do you hear? I’m leaving now, and taking Harriet with me. You can’t stop me!’
‘You’re upsetting the child,’ Stan quietly reminded her, taking the baby from her arms and laying her safely in her crib. Eileen’s gaze remained fixed on the infant, her fear and longing all too evident.
Joyce adopted a more placatory tone, while making sure she blocked the exit in case the woman should decide to make a run for it. ‘Now don’t be foolish, Eileen. Look outside, it’s late November. It’s cold and raining, and you have nowhere to go. Stop talking nonsense and start thinking about this child instead of yourself for a change.’
But Eileen wasn’t willing to listen to anyone, certainly not Joyce. She launched herself at Stan. ‘You said you’d marry me. You swore it. You promised me that you’d divorce her and marry me, then you and I could bring Harriet up as man and wife. You promised! Why can’t we do that?’
‘Because,’ Joyce calmly interposed,‘Stan has no grounds for divorce. I’m not the one who has enjoyed, if that’s the right word, an extra-marital affair. And for another, he’s a Catholic and believes in the sanctity of marriage. Did he fail to mention that small fact to you?’ Turning to her husband, Joyce quietly asked. ‘Did you promise her marriage?’
Stan looked uncomfortable, clearly regretting it if he ever had. ‘I may have said something of the sort, I can’t remember.’
‘Can’t remember?’ Eileen screamed as she pummelled at his chest with her clenched fists. Joyce grabbed hold of her, anxious to calm the woman, and there was an undignified tussle between the pair of them as Eileen fought to reach Stan, sharp talons outstretched, eager to claw his eyes out for this apparent defection.
Joyce shouted at her, although words were having little effect. ‘Stop this, Eileen. Stop it at once! Stan is going, this very minute, to register the birth, naming ourselves, as a married couple, as the baby’s parents. Your name won’t even appear on the birth certificate. You will have no rights over her whatsoever.’
Eileen stopped crying upon the instant to stare at Joyce wide eyed with horror, and then she let out a high, piercing wail before putting her hands to her head and falling to her knees in fresh hysterics.
Even Joyce began to panic and, turning to Stan, ordered him to leave. ‘Quickly! For heaven’s sake go now! Get the child’s birth registered and leave this to me. I’ll give her something to calm her down, and make her sleep. Go on. Go!’
Stan didn’t hang around to argue. Enjoying a bit of fun with the woman was one thing, dealing with an hysterical female quite another matter entirely.
As he hurried out of the house, Eileen scrambled to her feet and ran after him, continuing to sob and rail, to scream and rage, but Joyce caught her at the door before she could escape. Once Stan had left, she gave her erstwhile friend a violent shake then slapped her sharply across the face, stunning her at last into silence.
‘Now listen to me, you little whore! Stan is my husband, understand? And this baby is his child. You are just some two-bit tart he happened to pick up and play with for a while. He’s a sailor, fighting a war. I don’t suppose you were the first girl in port he’s taken to his bed, and I very much doubt you’ll be the last, but that’s my problem. You should be deeply grateful that I didn’t chuck you out on the streets the first time you set your grubby little toes over my threshold.
‘I remember only too well that you and I used to be good friends, once upon a time. But then you invited me to that flipping party, one of your so-called mates raped me and my life was left in ruins, as you are only too aware. Your solution to this disaster was to steal my husband. So yes, Eileen dear, now I am going to steal your child, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do to stop me. I’ll swear in any court of law that she’s mine, that I was the one who gave birth.’
‘You’ll never get away with it,’ Eileen hissed. ‘They could examine you, prove you hadn’t given birth recently.’
‘Ah, but I have. I had a miscarriage just a few months ago if you recall. So how could they tell? And why would they even need to check? What makes better sense if I decided, having suffered those recent disappointments, that I take special care with this pregnancy and stay in bed throughout. You never saw a doctor, did you?’
Eileen shook her head, her expression dazed and bewildered. ‘You said not to. You didn’t want a scandal.’
‘Quite, nor are we going to have one now.’
‘But Rose was present at the birth. She’ll say what really happened.’
‘She’ll keep her mouth shut, if I tell her to do so. No one will question it, I do assure you. I shall take myself to bed now, to welcome visitors for my lying in, and you won’t even be here. We’ll see you’re well provided for, find you a room to rent somewhere, and give you a sum of money to tide you over. You can go and mess up some other woman’s life for all I care, but you’ll leave my husband alone. Got that? So don’t bother to try anything. The word of some jealous tart, who seduced my foolish husband and then complained when he abandoned her, isn’t going to be believed by anyone. They’d see you as a woman spurned, simply out for revenge.
‘And I would be very angry indeed if you did that, because it would ruin my good name, something I won’t tolerate at any price.’
‘I can’t stay here,’ Harriet railed, as the endless monotony continued day after day. ‘I won’t be locked up in my own bedroom for weeks or months on end. It’s ridiculous, impossible, totally unfair. I won’t put up with it.’
‘So what do you intend to do about it?’ Grant smirked, unmoved by her panic.
Harriet was making her feelings known as once more her half-brother presented her with breakfast on a tray. She’d quite lost track of time but she must have been locked up for over a week now, ten days or more? They went through this same routine every morning, the well guarded trip to the bathroom, the breakfast accompanied by the usual taunting and caustic remarks. Then the sound of the key in the lock as she’d be left alone for several more
long and lonely hours.
‘I’ll climb out of the window and over the roof, if necessary.’
Grant laughed. ‘I’d like to see you try. You’d be smashed to smithereens in the back yard, which might save us all a lot of bother in the long run.’
As he set the tray down on her bedside table, Harriet made as if she were about to vomit. ‘Oh, God, I’m going to be sick.’
Harriet lurched towards him, as if she was about to throw up all over him, and Grant instinctively backed off. ‘Hey, don’t throw up over me. All right, all right, go on.’ Instinctively, he stepped out of her way to let her rush to the toilet, one hand clapped to her mouth.
But she didn’t go into the bathroom. Instead, Harriet ran to the stairs. She was almost half way down before Grant realised he’d been tricked. He rushed after her, crashing down the stairs in her wake, shouting for her to stop. Unfortunately, in her panic to escape, and encumbered by her pregnancy, Harriet lost her footing. With a cry of dismay she fell, tumbling down the last few stairs to lie unmoving at the bottom.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Harriet was lying on the old couch in the living room since Joyce had decided it would not be necessary to call out the doctor. The last thing she wanted was for Doc Mitchell to come poking his nose in where it wasn’t wanted. ‘You’ve given yourself a bit of a shake-up, but I reckon there’s no real harm done beyond this sprained ankle.’ She was wrapping the injured foot in a cold wet crepe bandage as she briskly issued these unsympathetic comments.
Harriet was crying, worried about her baby, but Joyce had little patience for tears.
‘Stop your snivelling, crying won’t do no good. What were you doing, letting her run down the stairs?’ she accused her son. ‘You couldn’t have been keeping a proper eye on her.’
‘She was about to puke all over me,’ Grant informed his mother in injured tones.
‘Oh, for goodness sake, give me strength. Why am I surrounded by fools and idiots? It was a trick, you moron.’
Grant looked suitably contrite, as he always did when his mother was berating him. ‘I’ll take her back upstairs then, shall I?’
Lonely Teardrops (2008) Page 30
