The Unforgotten

by Laura Powell

  ‘No, I meant I have some information for you,’ she begins, just as the saloon doors to the lavatory swing open.

  A figure strides out and approaches the table. His head is tilted down so she can’t see his face, but she recognises him instantly and she is chilled with fear. She runs out of the Lamb and Flagg all the way home. As she flies into the hall, she bumps into Mother.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ Mother calls after her, following her upstairs.

  ‘Nowhere.’

  ‘There’s no such place as nowhere.’

  ‘I saw Inspector Napier,’ says Betty, softening and turning to face her. ‘He says he’s one bit of evidence short of arresting Mr Forbes.’

  Mother nods but her face pales.

  ‘It’s all right,’ says Betty gently. ‘I know you loved him. But you’ve always got me.’

  The next morning, Betty can’t pull herself from bed. Mother shakes her awake at eleven.

  ‘We’re going to Spoole,’ she says. ‘No arguing. You need new stockings.’

  ‘I don’t want to go anywhere. Has the postman been?’

  ‘You’re coming and that’s final. Make sure you look decent in case we see George. There’s still time.’

  ‘But is there a letter for me?’ she says.

  Mother gives her a confused look and shakes her head. Her lipstick is red and she is wearing an orange wool skirt that makes her look like a film star. Her eyes are bright; maybe too bright.

  They don’t talk on the bus to Spoole. Betty stares out of the window, trying to think about Mary but there isn’t room for another worry. They head to the greengrocer’s first and Mother makes a show of picking out the fattest runner beans, while Betty keeps her eyes on the street in case he jumps out.

  At the fishmonger’s, Mother talks in a loud voice to a slippery silver fish that she calls Mr Mackerel. It makes the elderly fishmonger laugh. When they have paid for their kippers and mackerel, Mother leans across the counter and presses a kiss onto his face, while Betty stands guard at the door. She ignores the round of red lipstick on the fishmonger’s lips as she mumbles goodbye.

  ‘Oh, Richard went to the darkrooms so I gave him your camera to develop,’ says Mother when they are out on the street. ‘Your pictures are in a packet on the dresser.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ cries Betty.

  Two elderly ladies with shopping bags stop to look at her.

  Mother only raises her pencilled eyebrows and does a funny eye roll.

  Mother seems to drag out every last second in Spoole, while Betty pictures Gallagher standing before the camera, his lips in a straight line and the St Ives wind tousling his curls. She wants to see the photograph now, this second, but Mother is squinting over her new horn-rimmed glasses at a dozen pairs of stockings. She rubs each of the fabrics between her fingers before she decides on a pair for herself and a second pair for Betty.

  They start walking back towards the bus stop finally, but Mother changes her mind and dives into another shop to try on the dress in the window. It is made of cerise satin with a tight bodice and a ring of rhinestones around the waist. Mother doesn’t even ask the price.

  The shop is too small, too hot, the carpet dusty. There is a small velvet armchair in the corner that she sits on while Mother wriggles into the dress behind a moth-nibbled curtain. Through a gap at the curtain edge, Betty catches a glimpse of Mother’s bony back. She is about to turn away her eyes when she notices an angry scar cutting down from Mother’s right shoulder to her left hip. Betty stares at it, horrified and nervous somehow, until Mother pulls up the bodice and the scar disappears again. Only then does Betty realise that Mother is talking to herself in the faintest of voices.

  ‘He’d like it,’ she seems to be saying. ‘Yes, he’d love it. No good on our farm though. A farmer’s wife in satin?’

  She lets out a soft laugh.

  Betty looks at Mother carefully as they wait for the bus home.

  ‘What happened to your back?’

  Mother says nothing, as if she hasn’t heard. The bus draws up and they file on.

  ‘Your back, Mother? Did someone hurt you?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  Betty clings onto the packet of new tights in her lap all the way home, while Mother chatters to Mrs Thompson as though the scar isn’t there and Gallagher hasn’t left and Miss Hollinghurst and the other girls are still breathing.

  Newl Grove is crowded when they turn the corner. Even from the bus stop, she can see a group of men standing outside Hotel Eden. One of them is beating at the door. Mother’s face is gripped with terror. She drops her bags on the street and runs ahead, her heels slipping off and clattering on the pavement. Betty stoops to pick up the bags and struggles after Mother.

  Inspector Napier emerges from the bunch of men. He says something in Mother’s ear and she glowers back at Betty. Reggie says something else and Mother’s face softens but only slightly. She unlocks the door to Hotel Eden and the reporters push their way inside, so only Inspector Napier and Mother are left out in the street by the time Betty reaches them.

  ‘You wanted to speak to me?’ says Inspector Napier to Betty.

  ‘He says you wanted to tell him something,’ snaps Mother, a razor edge to her voice. ‘And that you went inside the Lamb and Flagg last night.’

  Something crashes inside the hotel and a door slams.

  ‘What happened?’ says Betty. ‘What are they all doing?’

  ‘So? What did you want to say to the inspector?’ says Mother, her voice still icy.

  ‘But has something bad happened? Is Mary all right?’

  ‘No, it’s all good news. We’ve finally charged Forbes,’ says Napier. ‘One of his knives turned up in the woods this morning.’

  ‘He’s locked up?’ she says in a small voice.

  ‘He’s being moved to custody in Plymouth as we speak. It’s all over.’

  Mother is still looking at Betty’s face.

  ‘So?’ she says. ‘What did you want to say?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘Your mother’s right to be worried,’ says Napier kindly. ‘A public house isn’t the place for a nice young lady.’

  ‘I just wanted to find out how the investigation was going,’ says Betty quietly.

  She can still picture that rope mark seared into his neck; it is thick and jagged and reddish purple. Forbes has burrowed into her mind too. He wears that grubby vest and kneels on the doorstep outside his shop, sobbing and stammering, but she bites down on her tongue to stop herself from saying more.

  ‘So it really is over?’ says Mother.

  Betty carries the packet of photographs upstairs to her bedroom. Feet trample about downstairs and coins clink as the men settle their bills and leave Hotel Eden for Plymouth, where Inspector Napier says Mr Forbes will be held until his trial. Betty tries to block them all out. It will be all right; they will soon realise he is innocent. Forbes will be released long before a trial can start and all will be well.

  Her fingers brush the paper packet. She should wait until no one else is about in case she is disturbed, but her fingers are already at the seal. There is a tearing sound and then her hand is rifling through, scattering photographs onto the floor until there he is.

  She has sliced off his right ear and he doesn’t smile, but his eyes bore into the camera as though he can see through to its core, and out the other side to the photographer herself. His gaze is so penetrating, she looks away from it and traces her fingers over the paper, over his curls, over his jaw and over his suit, all starched and mushroom coloured.

  But when she looks at his eyes again, anger sets in. Why haven’t you replied to my letter, she wants to know. Why did you leave me? Why have you abandoned Mr Forbes too? What sort of man are you?

  The bedroom door smashes open after midnight and Mother staggers in, a bottle of gin in one hand, and a half drunk brandy in the other.

  ‘Finally, those sweaty, little good-for-nothings ha
ve gone,’ she shrieks. ‘Did they leave a tip? Did they heck. Tight fisted, arrogant swines,’ and she mutters something under her breath.

  She tips back her head and swigs gin, brandy, gin again. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. The gin bottle falls to the carpet and the drink sloshes out.

  ‘Have a swig,’ she says, holding out the other bottle to Betty.

  Betty shakes her head. She kneels and scoops up the gin, blotting the spillage with her handkerchief.

  ‘Have some. You’re your mother’s daughter aren’t you? You love me, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says, tearfully.

  ‘Then drink. We’re having a party, aren’t we?’

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘So you don’t love me?’

  ‘Please, Mother.’

  ‘You don’t, do you? You don’t know what I do for you.’

  ‘I don’t like you like this. Stop it. Please.’

  ‘Drink!’

  And Mother grabs her hand, scratching her with her long fingernails. She pushes the gin into Betty’s hand and closes her fingers around it.

  ‘Unless you don’t love me.’

  Betty sips and splutters, her eyes watering and throat heaving.

  ‘Good girl,’ says Mother, stroking her head. ‘All over. Just you and me now, my Betty boo boo.’

  Chapter 12

  October 1956

  Betty glances one last time at Mother, asleep and dribbling over her pillow.

  ‘I’m going to see Mary in Spoole,’ she whispers; the lies slip out easily now. ‘I’ll be back tonight. Or tomorrow.’

  Mother doesn’t stir. Betty picks up her lunchbox and tiptoes out into the moonlit street.

  The railway station is six miles from St Steele. She walks quickly, blowing her white winter breath in curls and zigzag shapes to distract herself. Her feet are sore by the time she arrives at the platform and she wishes she had worn sensible shoes. But then she looks down at her red sandals and her good skirt, and she is pleased that she dressed in her Sunday best for Gallagher.

  She checks the station clock; she is far too early. As she waits, she counts her pocketful of coins, all birthday money from Mr Eden that she has saved over the years. She rubs her special half crown – the one that Gallagher touched – and she hopes it will bring good luck. There hasn’t been much of that for a long time.

  The train toots as it rolls up. Betty clambers aboard and the guard blows his whistle. She pulls down the window and leans out, holding onto the leather strap to steady herself. From this angle, she can see the steam belching up to the sky as the train slides away from St Steele, from Cornwall.

  Betty makes her way towards her seat. The train jerks and she topples into the corridor wall, smacking her lunchbox into her stomach. She winces and her eyes water, but she pushes on. There are six passengers in her carriage, all silent with their heads tilted down, except for an elderly man who is crunching loudly on a celery stalk. Sick rises up Betty’s throat again, just as it did yesterday morning when she disinfected the kitchen floor, then vomited over it. She sits very still, looking at a grubby spot on the carriage wall until the nausea subsides.

  Another hour and her stomach settles. She shells a cold boiled egg to busy her hands and nibbles on it, though it is too early for lunch. She turns to the bread with fish paste next, and is about to bite into a green apple when a man with brass buttons on his coat comes to punch her ticket. She waits for the click and is relieved when he moves on without speaking to her. Her voice might have given her away; she is certain that fifteen-year-olds aren’t allowed to travel this far unaccompanied, though Joan once said that Betty looks at least nineteen.

  When he has moved into the next carriage, Betty closes her eyes and lets herself picture Gallagher finally. She wonders how surprised he will be when he sees her and what he will say when she appears in his office; whether he will kiss her and apologise for leaving St Steele so abruptly, or take her to a tea shop first to discuss what they should do about Mr Forbes. This is a serious visit, she reminds herself, and a worm of worry edges in. He left you, says the worm, he didn’t come back for you or respond to your letter. But maybe he never received her letter; busy London postmen must lose things all the time.

  Betty tries not to think about that any more, it is dangerous to let her worries fritter about. All she knows is that, now Mr Forbes is in court, she can’t wait a minute longer. She must find a way of stopping the trial, and telling Inspector Napier who was really with Miss Hollinghurst in the woods that night, but without letting any harm come to Gallagher. And the only way of doing that is by making him agree to her plan.

  She will tell Gallagher that, finally, she understands why he ran off so abruptly that last afternoon they spent together. He must have seen Miss Hollinghurst in the woods with that man – with the real killer – and Gallagher must have assumed that they saw him too. ‘So, there’s only one solution,’ she will say.

  They will be sitting on opposite sides of the table in a London tea shop, perhaps with his hand resting on hers again. ‘We should go to Inspector Napier together and tell him who we saw with Miss Hollinghurst but we should also admit what we did together in the woods that day.’ Gallagher might look shocked at that but she will push on. ‘That way, if he saw us together, he won’t be able to use it to discredit us because Inspector Napier will already know.’

  The word ‘hanged’ has stitched itself into the seam of her brain but she won’t say it aloud, not even to repeat it back to him. ‘And no harm would come to you if, before we confessed to Inspector Napier, we got marr…’ She rearranges the words in her mind, still blushing. ‘What we did wouldn’t be a crime if I was your wife.’

  She watches through the window as the green fades to grey, and the trees and bushes and bits of blue sky become chimneys and brick towers and low-hung pillows of smog. The sickness returns then, and she runs to the lavatory to vomit. Back in the carriage, she focuses on the horizon to steady herself. It is a clever plan, she thinks with a blush, as she replays it again in her mind.

  The train pulls up at Paddington eventually. Betty freezes when she sees the platform. She has never seen so many people in one space. There are one hundred of them at least, all seeming to know exactly where they are rushing. She would like to hide in the lavatory until the train slides safely back to Cornwall, but then she thinks of Miss Hollinghurst and Mr Forbes.

  ‘Safe journey,’ says the guard, opening the door and Betty steps into the crush.

  Paddington Railway Station looks bigger than St Steele itself. Betty stares up at the glass ceiling arches flecked with pigeons. The noise is deafening; a din of horns and voices. Betty tries to catch the eye of a kind-looking lady wearing a pea green hat.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she calls after her. ‘Could you point me in the right direction please?’

  But the lady hurries off, her two tiny corgis scuttling behind her. Betty turns to a girl of her own age.

  ‘Can you help me?’ she tries, but the girl soldiers past.

  A tornado of strangers circles around her. Betty is about to sit on the floor, to hide her head in her hands and wish herself back to St Steele, when a man nods at her. He wears a white apron and carries a tray piled with floury buns.

  ‘Ham baps,’ he shouts. ‘Get your ham baps here.’

  ‘I’m lost,’ says Betty, trying not to look at the fleshy pink meat lopping out of the buns in case her queasiness returns.

  ‘Where’re you after, sweetheart?’ he says and holds out a bun. ‘You know you want one. Made them myself, I did.’

  Betty hands him a coin and takes one, trying not to smell or look at it. She asks for directions to Fleet Street.

  ‘You’ll want the tube, my love,’ he says.

  ‘But if I were to walk?’ she replies, too ashamed to ask what the tube is.

  He looks down at her shoes, the raspberry-coloured slingbacks that Gallagher buckled for her once.

  ‘Walking’ll take
you a good few hours, m’darling. And I wouldn’t fancy your chances of finding it on those pretty little trotters.’

  ‘But if I did walk?’

  ‘You’ll want to come out of the station through that door over there, and keep going ’til you reach the big old park. Can’t miss that, you can’t,’ he begins.

  Betty repeats the place names in her head until he finishes and disappears into the crowd shouting ‘ham baps’ again. She scribbles what she remembers on an old sweet paper from her pocket and begins walking, dropping the bap into a bin.

  The walk is long and her sandals pinch. She absorbs the streets, astonished that so many rushing bodies and taxi cabs and buildings can fit into them. On Oxford Street, she pauses to catch her breath and admire a flower stall. A woman wearing a long camel coat walks away carrying an armful of yellow roses. Betty thinks of Mother, spread like a starfish over the bedcovers, and how she would brighten if she saw a vase of roses. But then a blister bulbs its way onto her heel and her mood sours again.

  Betty asks a policeman for directions and he points her towards steps that lead down to a dark tunnel filled with hot, fast bodies. A guard helps her buy a ticket and shows her to the correct platform where she finds a dirty-looking underground train. The seats are taken so Betty holds onto a metal post and tries to weave her body in time with the carriage, the way she did when she rode ponies years ago with Mother and a strange man who stayed at the hotel for months, not letting Mother out of his sight, then disappeared one day as suddenly as he had appeared.

  The carriage snakes through tunnels, swerving at peculiar angles, and the lights flicker. The train stops and she bashes into a post. No one notices. She would hate to live in London and always feel this topsy-turvy. She is glad when she comes up above the surface and gulps the sooty air again. This must be how coal miners feel every afternoon.

  She stops for more directions; she passes a pub filled with lots of men puffing pipes and wearing identical suits; a fresh blister appears; she walks past three more pubs; and finally she is there. The Daily Telegraph.