‘Not the glamour puss she used to be,’ Stuart smiled wryly. ‘But she’s found some resources to keep herself sane in there and indeed she wrote to me after my visit and told me the whole story of her real childhood.’
‘Will you tell it to me?’
Once again a lump came up in his throat. It was astounding to him that this slight woman in her late seventies, who had had her happy life torn apart when she lost both her elder daughter and her beloved husband, still had the capacity to care about others.
‘I can read it to you,’ he said, reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket.
Lena looked at the wad of paper in his hand. ‘I’ll just put the flowers into a vase first,’ she said. ‘Would you like a top-up of your drink, or a cup of tea? I can make one, I’ve got my own kettle here.’
‘Tea would be good,’ Stuart said. ‘Drinking whisky in the afternoon is great if you’ve got nothing on later, but I’ve got to meet someone this evening.’
He watched as Lena bustled about finding a large vase and scissors to trim the flower stems and filling up her kettle, her movements swift and economic. He didn’t think she ought to be in this place surrounded by people waiting for death. She belonged the way she always used to, the matriarch at the very centre of not just her family, but all those other friends and friends of friends who gathered at Duke’s Avenue. He remembered how she would encourage people to talk as she hastily prepared a vast dish of shepherd’s pie or sausages and mash, how she always seemed to know exactly who had a problem they needed to share, or an issue they were troubled with.
By rights she should have had grandchildren running around her feet. She should be cosseted now by all those she’d helped so much with her ability to listen, her lack of bias or snobbery. And she should still have Frank by her side.
Life certainly wasn’t fair.
Once the flowers were arranged and placed on the table, Lena made the tea and came back to sit down opposite Stuart.
‘Right, let’s have it,’ she said in her typically direct manner.
It took Stuart some time to read Laura’s letter. There were five pages with small, neat writing on both sides of the paper, not one crossing-out or spelling mistake, and she’d told the story so vividly he could almost smell the damp and mould in the basement of Thornfield Road. As he finished he looked at Lena for her response. She was staring at her hands on her lap and a tear trickled down her cheek.
‘I suspected some of it,’ she said quietly. ‘Her Aunt Mabel never sounded real, more like a character invented by Agatha Christie. I thought that if she had really been that way Laura would have had better diction, and more sophisticated tastes. I noted too how wary she was of men, and how quickly and efficiently she did household chores, which isn’t usual for young girls from the kind of genteel background she described. But I didn’t ever probe because she had such a huge need to be liked and accepted. I was probably guilty of adding more detail to her fiction too. Etiquette, tales about my relatives, the finer points of middle-classdom – I’m sure you know the kind of things I mean.’
Stuart nodded. ‘She genuinely loved you and Frank though. She used to talk about you such a lot when we first met. You had clearly been a tremendous influence on her. And she didn’t exaggerate any of that, for the first time I came to Duke’s Avenue with Jackie, it was, and you were, exactly how she’d described.’
‘We loved her,’ Lena said simply. ‘She was easy to love. Frank once said she was like Judy, a stray dog we took in when the children were tiny. We saw her up at Alexandra Park and stroked her, and she followed us home. We didn’t want a dog, but Judy seemed to know that and made herself as inconspicuous as possible until we’d come round to her being there. Laura was the same, she would wash up, do my ironing, put Belle and Toby to bed, she tidied Jackie’s room, all without us really noticing. When she came to live here for a while after she and Jackie returned from a summer job in a holiday camp, she never encroached on any of our space, she made life easier and more ordered for me and all of us.’
She paused for a moment as if gathering herself. ‘How can anyone feel betrayed that she lied? She was just fifteen when she left home, and she wanted something better than she’d been born to. A weaker person would have tried to gain sympathy for herself, but instead she rubbed it all out and began again. I actually think that is courageous. Don’t you?’
‘Yes, when you put it like that,’ Stuart said. ‘But what do you think changed her from the sweet and eager-to-please stray?’ he asked.
‘Ambition, bad influences and more hard knocks,’ Lena said. ‘When she and Jackie moved on to doing promotion work, the girls they worked with and the businessmen they met gave them the idea that wealth was the thing to strive for. In a way I was proud that they became a pair of go-getters, but I was worried about their increasing cynicism and avarice.’
‘The sixties kind of encouraged that attitude.’ Stuart shrugged. ‘I know most people only remember the peace and love bit, but it was also a time for grabbing what you wanted.’
‘I thought Laura would make it all by herself, she certainly had the hunger and the determination, and she had a good business head, but instead she tried to take a short cut to it by marrying Gregory Brannigan,’ Lena stated and looked at Stuart as if she expected him to contradict her.
‘I hardly know anything about Greg,’ Stuart replied. ‘When I first met Laura she said she left him because there was another woman, and that she didn’t want to talk about it. She did tell me odd things later, that he was the owner of a toy company and that she worked for him. But mostly the lack of information about him made me afraid she still had feelings for him.’
‘Nothing could be further from the truth,’ Lena said stoutly. ‘She hated him come the end, and she was very afraid of him. I only met him a few times but I could see that he was a very forceful, controlling man. In my opinion if it hadn’t been for Jackie meeting up with Roger again, I don’t think Laura would have even gone out with him for very long, much less married him.’
She smiled at Stuart’s puzzled expression. ‘You do know that Roger was Jackie’s first real boyfriend, but they’d split up years before?’
‘Yes. Laura told me that.’
‘Well, she and Jackie were having the time of their lives until Roger came back on the scene and broke it up by asking Jackie to marry him. He had a down on Laura for some reason and suddenly she was left right out in the cold, lonely and rudderless. Greg seized the opportunity, whisking Laura off for weekends, dinner in smart places, and the next thing she was engaged to him. Both Jackie and I warned her that he was far too controlling, but I don’t think she could see beyond his house in Chelsea, the toy company and the fact that he came out of the top drawer. She married him, then Barney came along in 1970. Jackie and I thought we were wrong about Greg then – outwardly he seemed the ideal husband – but Laura was doing what she’s so often done since, covering things up. In fact I believe she was going through hell with him.’
Stuart frowned, remembering that when Laura walked out on him, he had become convinced that he and Greg had a great deal in common, for they’d both been kicked in the teeth by her.
He’d asked Jackie about him once, but she’d just passed him off as a ‘perve’. As that could have meant anything from a man touching up other women at parties to liking to dress up in Laura’s clothes, he let the subject drop. But he had been shocked when years later, just after Barney’s death, Jackie told him in a letter how she’d telephoned Greg’s parents to tell them what had happened, and to get an address or telephone number for their son. She said they’d almost bitten her head off, asking why she saw fit to tell them, as Barney was nothing to them, or Greg.
Stuart had known Gregory had never paid maintenance for his son and had never attempted to contact Laura so he could see him, but he found it unbelievable that anyone could be so callous about the death of a child.
‘What sort of hell did he put her through, Lena?’ S
tuart asked.
She grimaced. ‘It’s not for me to say and anyway I only know the edited version. Ask her. If she could write all that about her childhood, I’m sure it would do her good to get him off her chest too.’
‘I want to try and find grounds for an appeal against her conviction,’ Stuart admitted. ‘You’d better keep that to yourself for now, until I’m sure I’ve got something to base it on. I’m meeting an old friend tonight for dinner, he’s a lawyer and I hope he’ll help me. Can you think of anyone else who might give me a different slant on what I already know?’
‘What about her sister?’ Lena suggested. ‘One of the nurses here showed me a newspaper cutting once. It was already well out of date, for I hadn’t been up to reading it at the time, but it was the story Laura’s mother had sold to the press. Talk about Judas and the thirty pieces of silver! She really sold her daughter down the river! But there was a small piece added on, a brief interview with Laura’s sister, it would be the older one, Meggie. She didn’t actually deny what her mother had said, but she said something about there being two sides to every story. Obviously the paper didn’t enlarge on it as they wanted Laura to look as evil as possible. Maybe if you got in touch with the paper you could find out where she lives. I think it was the News of the World.’
‘I’ll try that,’ Stuart said. ‘There’s one thing more, Lena. Did you see anything of Laura after Barney died?’
‘Of course.’ Lena looked almost indignant at the implication that she might not have done. ‘She came to Duke’s Avenue and stayed for a while with Frank and me when she was going through the worst of it. It was me who arranged for her to go to my friends in Italy to work after that. You surely didn’t think we had abandoned her then?’
‘No, Lena.’ Stuart reached out and patted her hand. ‘It was just because of the circumstances of Barney’s death, I thought Laura might have distanced herself from you.’
‘She never did blame Jackie. In fact Laura said it was her fault because she had never got Barney into the habit of putting his seat belt on. They were united in grief over him. Frank and I were too – when he was born we were almost like grandparents to him. We didn’t see him very often once she moved to Scotland, but she always brought him to visit us whenever she came back to London.’
‘Did his death change Laura’s personality?’
‘She always had more sides than a fifty-pence piece,’ Lena retorted. ‘You of all people know that! The side uppermost at that time was what you’d expect, a woman racked with guilt. It looked for a time as if she’d lost her mind.’
‘There was a great deal in the press cuttings about her being a neglectful mother,’ Stuart said gently. ‘Was that true, Lena?’
Lena sighed deeply. ‘Let’s just say I saw no evidence of it when I saw them together, but then I only saw them about once a year. I know Jackie worried about Barney, so obviously something was wrong. It certainly was true that Laura went off the rails for a while, which was why Jackie had Barney with her so often. But I don’t believe it was anywhere near as bad as the press would have us believe – she certainly didn’t hit or starve him.’
‘You say she nearly lost her mind. They made quite a bit about that too in the trial. How long was she like that for?’
‘A good six months before Frank and I brought her down here to stay with us. She stayed with us for four or five months and she was very poorly. But eventually she was well enough for me to fix her up with a job in a hotel in Italy owned by friends of ours.
‘When she returned at the end of that summer, she was much quieter and more thoughtful. She never did get back that bouncy, I-know-it-all side we had all come to know so well. She was gentler and far more caring. Jackie once said that she’d give anything to see her being a real bitch again, because that way she’d feel she was genuinely getting over Barney’s death.’
‘Really!’ Stuart exclaimed. He knew Lena had always been very observant, and not one to be easily fooled.
‘Yes. So if you thought Laura might have developed a violent streak, or the desire for revenge, she certainly didn’t. She threw herself into getting that shop in Edinburgh. Do you know about that?’
‘Not until just recently. I know very little about how Laura lived after we split up. Although I was working for Jackie for the first few years, she rarely spoke about her to me, you know how loyal she was! I was working in Germany in ’81 when Barney died, and it was Roger who rang me about it. After that my contact with Jackie was erratic. I would phone her, or send postcards, usually from airports because I was moving around quite a bit. Every now and then a letter from her would eventually reach me, but she never said much about what she or anyone else was doing, they were just her usual brand of funny letters, a joy to receive, but with very little information in them. But they fizzled out altogether by ’91 and as I was in South America with new friends myself, I didn’t think anything of it.’
‘She was very busy with Brodie Farm then,’ Lena said. ‘I didn’t hear from her that much either, but she was very proud of how well Laura was doing in the shop. She said it was always really busy and Laura was in her element because she loved clothes and knew what was good. She worked at it tirelessly by all accounts. I saw Laura sometimes as she had a contact down here for ballgowns she used to hire out, and she’d come and stay with me.’
‘So how was she?’ Stuart asked, knowing Lena wouldn’t be easily fooled.
‘Well, to the rest of the world she might have looked like she was over it, but I saw the deep sadness in her. Of course any woman who’d lost a child would be the same.’
‘And Jackie? It must have changed her too?’
‘Oh yes.’ Lena sighed deeply. ‘She needed some kind of anaesthetic to dull the pain. Mostly she used work, often putting in a sixteen-hour day on the house and garden. But there was drink too, and occasionally men. There was someone special, mind you! I think the problem there was that he was married. Now and then she would phone me late at night when she’d been drinking and she’d cry and say she felt hopeless. But the next day she’d be fine again and she’d apologize for worrying me. I couldn’t help but worry, I just wished she’d tell me the whole story so I understood. But she would laugh it off and make out everything was fine. I used to tell myself that she had Belle nearby, and Laura in Edinburgh, but I wish now that Frank and I had gone up there more often.’
Lena sat back in her chair, and Stuart could see she was growing tired. He had so much more he wanted to ask her, but not today.
‘I ought to go now,’ he said, getting up. ‘It’s been great to find you haven’t changed, and if it’s okay, I’ll come again.’
‘Please do, Stuart.’ She smiled up at him. ‘It has been so good to talk to you. Toby will be pleased to hear you came too. He wanted to contact you while we were waiting for the trial. He went out to Brodie Farm and looked through all Jackie’s papers, but he couldn’t find an address or phone number for you.’
‘I’ve been something of a nomad,’ Stuart said. ‘But I’ll be back here for a while now, and I’ll keep in touch.’
She got up out of her chair stiffly. ‘Do what you can for Laura,’ she pleaded, putting one hand on his arm. ‘She’s lost the two people she cared about most, and I know how that feels.’
‘Well, hello, David, you old bastard!’ Stuart exclaimed when he walked into the bistro in Putney and found his old friend already there, sitting at a table. David was the same age as himself, but despite being a lawyer, he had the look of a sportsman: clear, tanned skin, muscular and very fit. ‘You look great – receding hair makes you look even more intelligent.’
David laughed and stood up. ‘Glad you’ve lost none of your incisive wit. Good to see you again.’
David already had a beer and he ordered one for Stuart. They told the waiter they’d order food later.
Stuart had met David Stoyle on the plane flying out to Columbia back in the eighties. Stuart was going as a joiner to a new site the oil company had acquir
ed in Bogotá. David was one of the company lawyers. Had they not been given seats next to each other, they would probably never have met, much less become close friends, because management and the manual workforce didn’t normally socialize.
David was from a rarefied white-collar world. He’d been to public school and university, and though not a snob or a stuffed shirt, he normally mixed with people from a similar background to himself. But stuck on a long flight side by side with someone of the same age, both a little apprehensive about the unknown quantity of their destination, they soon got talking.
By the time they got off the plane with thick heads from too much whisky, their friendship was sealed. They had discovered they shared the same passion for climbing and were both adventurers at heart. David loved rugby, sailing, cycling and running. Stuart loved football, playing the guitar and chess. Yet their different interests and backgrounds didn’t matter, and they knew that they would be searching each other out constantly in the next few months. As Stuart said at the time, ‘We’re mates now.’
Back then David had a fine head of light brown curly hair which became attractively blond-streaked in the sun. He was a good-looking man with a fine physique and bright blue eyes that won him many female admirers. Over the years Stuart had taken a mischievous delight in pointing out that his friend, who had so many great advantages over lesser mortals, was actually losing his hair. But then David took equal pleasure in teasing Stuart about his skinny legs.
‘So what’s the real reason for insisting on meeting up with me tonight?’ David asked after they’d caught up with some of their news and ordered steak. ‘I know there is one or you would have invited yourself to my house. Julia thinks you want to lure me away to the Third World but are too cowardly to do your presentation in front of her.’
Stuart laughed. Julia had been David’s girlfriend when they met; now they were married with two children, Abigail and William. David was always jetting off to some far-flung place with his work, and as Stuart was often there too, as project manager, Julia jokingly blamed him for making her a grass widow.
Faith Page 17
