Father Unknown

by Lesley Pearse

  ‘Get something out to wear,’ she insisted, pointing to the wardrobe. ‘And put some makeup on, then we’ll go down the King’s Road.’

  Ellen wasn’t sure she had the courage to wear the dress Josie eventually selected for her. It was pale lemon with cut-away shoulders, and so short it barely covered her bottom, but she was pretty certain her sister wouldn’t be seen dead with anyone looking dowdy, so she said nothing. She made no comment either when Josie insisted she did her makeup for her. She never normally wore anything more than lipstick and mascara, and she thought the dark eyeliner was too much. But she was in London now after all.

  It turned out to be the most wonderful day Ellen had ever spent. All down the King’s Road there were boutiques that sold amazing clothes, all too expensive for Ellen to buy anything, but it was fun just to look at them and try a few things on.

  They went into coffee bars and watched other people walking by, and they all amazed Ellen too. All the girls wore minis, as short as the one Josie had insisted she wore, and there were no beehive hairstyles here like in Bristol. Everyone had sleek, bouncy, loose styles, short like Cilia Black’s, or long and flowing. The men were very different too. Few went in for the Mod style Ellen was used to – very short hair, heavy boots and jeans, or sharply tailored suits and winkle-pickers. Here the men wore their hair longer, influenced strongly by the Beatles, and their clothes were more individual – coloured shirts, and jeans so tight Ellen wondered how they could sit down. She and Josie attracted a great deal of attention, and several times Josie was recognized as Jojo the model.

  ‘I expect I could have the pick of any man walking along here,’ Josie said at one point in the afternoon as they stopped for another coffee at a place with tables outside in the sun.

  ‘I’m sure you could.’ Ellen smiled, a little embarrassed at her sister’s high opinion of herself. She had plenty of admiring glances herself, and she was enjoying it, in fact for the first time since Catherine was born she felt she would actually like to have a boyfriend. ‘So why don’t you pick someone then? Go on, I dare you!’

  ‘I can’t, because I’m in love with Mark,’ Josie replied, and for the first time during the day she looked uncertain.

  ‘So he’s your boyfriend then?’ Ellen wanted to meet and get to like this man she’d heard so much about, but so far she had only formed the opinion there was something fishy about him.

  ‘Not exactly,’ Josie said, and her eyes dropped. ‘Well, not in the way you mean, kissing and stuff. He does everything for me, manages me, gets me work and takes the pictures. But that’s all.’

  This came as a bit of a relief to Ellen. She had made it her business to find out about Mark back in Bristol, and she knew he was in his mid-thirties and divorced. There was a great deal to admire about his work; she’d managed to find a book at the library with some of his award-winning photographs in it. But she was still waiting for an explanation as to how he really got involved with her sister, and why.

  ‘Tell me everything that happened after you left the farm,’ she suggested.

  Josie told her a great deal, about the awful room she’d had, waitressing, and then how she got into working at the fake photographic studio. Then she explained how Mark came to her rescue.

  ‘He said he was going to make me a big star,’ she said with a toss of her head, making her corkscrew curls tumble about her face. ‘We’re getting there too, I’m in great demand already’

  ‘So how much money are you making?’ Ellen asked. She wanted to let Josie know how much she had hurt their parents and berate her for not letting her know where she was earlier, but she didn’t want to start playing big sister just yet.

  Josie shrugged. ‘I only get pocket money now, Mark sees to the rent and everything for me.’

  Ellen knew nothing whatsoever about what models earned, but she reckoned it had to be quite a bit. She didn’t like the sound of this at all, and said so.

  ‘Don’t try and make out you know everything,’ Josie snapped at her. ‘Mark isn’t pocketing the money if that’s what you are thinking. It takes a long time for it to come in. Besides, he gave me twenty-five pounds yesterday so I could treat you to meals and stuff.’

  Ellen didn’t want to upset Josie so she said nothing. But later, when they went to a hamburger place, it occurred to her while Josie was crowing about how plain most other models were when you saw them without makeup, that her sister still hadn’t asked her anything about when she had her baby.

  She waited until late that evening when they’d gone back to the flat. They had been in a pub where they’d both had three half pints of cider. That was quite enough for Ellen, but Josie had insisted on buying a flagon to take home too.

  They each had a glass sitting on the bed, and suddenly Ellen had to speak out. ‘You haven’t asked about my baby,’ she said in a small voice. ‘Have you forgotten that’s why I went to work for the Sandersons?’

  Josie gave her a blank look. ‘You really had one then?’ she said. ‘I thought when you didn’t say anything in your letters to me when I was still at home that it was a false alarm.’

  ‘I was over four months pregnant when I left, how could that be a false alarm?’

  Josie had the grace to look crestfallen then. ‘Well, I told you that it was all right to say anything in your letters because Mum wasn’t reading them.’

  ‘I didn’t dare take the risk,’ Ellen said. ‘I put the telephone number on the letters, I expected you to ring me from a call box around the time Catherine was due.’

  ‘Catherine!’ Josie looked surprised and almost ashamed. ‘It was a girl then?’

  Ellen nodded, waiting for Josie to ask some more questions, but instead she changed the subject and started talking about what kind of furniture she was going to buy once she got some big money.

  ‘I’d like a couple of those really modern big round chairs like eggs, that swivel around,’ she said. ‘They’ve got one at the model agency.’

  ‘I’d like to stick you in a swivelling chair and spin you round and round until you are sick,’ Ellen snapped. ‘Don’t you bloody well care what happened to my baby and me? Have you got any idea what it was like?’

  Josie’s eyes opened wide. ‘Well, you had it adopted, didn’t you? It’s over now.’

  ‘It will never be over,’ Ellen said fiercely. ‘She’s on my mind all the time, she probably will be forever. You could show some sympathy. She was your niece after all.’

  Josie got up from the bed and wandered off into the kitchen to fill up her glass. ‘You’ll get married before long and have another one,’ she called back through the door.

  On the coach the following evening as Ellen travelled back to Bristol, she thought about how callous Josie had been, and decided it was because she was too young to comprehend the heartbreak of giving away her own flesh and blood. She’d been so callous about her own mother too; she just didn’t care about Violet’s feelings.

  Ellen couldn’t find it in her to wish heartbreak on her sister so she’d discover what it was like. Josie thought she had the world at her feet, and Ellen fervently hoped she would find real fame and fortune.

  Chapter Fourteen

  1966

  ‘Come on, Jojo,’ Mark pulled back the bed covers and forced her to sit up, ‘get yourself together. We’ve got the Vogue shoot today.’

  ‘I’m too tired,’ Josie said, and tried to get back under the covers.

  It was mid-November, and dark still, but Josie knew it had to be seven in the morning if Mark had come to collect her.

  He yanked her up again, more roughly this time, and forced her to take the cup of coffee he’d made. ‘Drink that now and take those,’ he said, indicating a couple of bright red pills on the bedside table. ‘By the time you’ve had a bath you’ll be on top of the world.’

  Josie forced her eyelids apart; they were gummed up with a combination of glue from false eyelashes and mascara. She had meant to take her makeup off before going to bed, but she’d been t
oo drunk to bother. She reached eagerly for the pills Mark had put down, popped them into her mouth and washed them down with coffee.

  Mark stood in the doorway looking scornfully at her. ‘You look disgusting,’ he said. ‘If you don’t pull yourself together I’ll drop you and find someone else.’

  Josie was still too sleepy to make any retort, and besides, she didn’t believe he would ever drop her. She was too famous. Absolutely everyone wanted her, the fashion magazines and the big companies who wanted her to advertise their shampoos, makeup and perfume.

  But she was worried about how horrible he was being to her these days. He didn’t even seem to want to sleep with her any more. Last night he’d brought her home drunk from a press party, carried her up the stairs, then flung her down on the bed and left without even a goodnight kiss.

  He went off to run her bath, and she got gingerly out of bed and pulled on a dressing-gown. Looking in the mirror, she could see he was right. She did look disgusting. Her skin was muddy and she had dark circles under her eyes.

  By the time she’d had her bath and washed her hair, she felt better, for the speed was beginning to work. She put on clean underwear, jeans and a sweater. There was no need to put on makeup or arrange her hair, they’d do that at the shoot.

  ‘If you’d just give me a few days’ rest, I wouldn’t need pills to wake me up and more to send me to sleep,’ she said wistfully, as she gave her hair a rough rub with the towel. ‘Let me go down to Ellen’s for a few days?’

  Mark was lounging in her one and only chair, watching her contemptuously. He did that all the time now; Josie felt sometimes that he hated her. Yet she couldn’t quite see why; the maroon leather jacket and snakeskin boots he was wearing were evidence of how much money he was making from her.

  ‘Are you stupid? You work when it comes in. Right now it’s still coming in thick and fast, but it won’t for ever. You can rest then.’

  Josie’s eyes prickled with tears. There were times when she wished she’d never met him. Sometimes she even wished she’d never left Cornwall. It was exciting to see her face on big hoardings, in every magazine and newspaper, and to be recognized on the street, but it wasn’t any fun being bullied and forced to dance like a puppet on a string, day after day.

  It had been like this for over two years, and what had she got to show for it? She was a seventeen-year-old star, but she was still in the same old flat with no furniture and a wardrobe stuffed with clothes that she rarely got the chance to show off. And her parents had disowned her.

  If it weren’t for Ellen she’d have no one at all. Mark only said he loved her when he wanted her to do something for him.

  ‘Leave your hair, it will dry in the car,’ he said impatiently. ‘Put on some shoes, for God’s sake! Do I have to tell you everything?’

  The shoot that day was in a mansion out in Hertfordshire. There was a time when Josie had been interested enough to ask who lived in these places, when she wanted to look around and marvel at her surroundings. But she no longer cared about any of that. It was just a job, the place a backdrop, she might as well be back at Beetle’s studio – at least she wasn’t harangued all day there: ‘Move this way. Put your head back. Arms up. Arms down. To the side. Shake your hair.’

  As they drove out of London Josie stared listlessly out of the window at the steel-grey sky. She was trapped, and she didn’t know how to escape. She had read in a magazine that she was reputed to be one of the highest-paid models in the world, but precious little money came her way. Mark said she shouldn’t believe all she read, and that after deducting her rent and expenses there wasn’t much left. She didn’t believe him, but there wasn’t anyone else she could ask about it, Mark saw to that. He never left her side when there were press about, all interviews were directed by him. She didn’t go anywhere without his say-so, and even though he left her alone most nights in her flat, she couldn’t go out without him finding out. She was too well known.

  He owned her, body and soul, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  Her mother’s face came into her mind, and tears welled in her eyes as she remembered their last parting. Mark had been right in saying that a mother like Violet would only bring her down, but why did he force her to get rid of her in such a cruel way?

  Last February Josie had had flu. She was so ill she could barely get out of bed to use the toilet. When Ellen unexpectedly telephoned from a call box and said it was half-term and she was down in Cornwall, Josie felt pangs of homesickness, and said she’d give anything to see her mother.

  Josie hadn’t for one moment thought Violet would react to that message. She had after all been instructed by Albert that she was to have nothing more to do with her daughter. Josie certainly didn’t expect her to get on the next train to come and see her. Violet had only ever been to London once in her life, and that was with Dad, when they tried to get the Mirror to tell them where Josie was. They’d been brutally turned away from the newspaper offices then and both vowed they’d never return under any circumstances.

  Yet Violet did come, despite everything, and found her way to the flat all on her own. Josie nearly died of shock when she opened the door, and she was mortified that her mother should find her in such a terrible mess. The whole flat was filthy; Josie hadn’t had time or energy to clean it for weeks. There was no clean bed linen, there were heaps of dirty clothes everywhere, and not a thing in the entire flat to eat.

  Violet just took over. She rushed out to the laundrette with all the washing, bought food, and then tucked Josie into a clean bed while she cooked a meal. Josie was happy to be her little girl again, to be cared for.

  Violet stayed for four days and in that time they talked to each other as they never had before. Josie apologized properly for running away and not contacting her mother. Violet said she was sorry for being so nasty sometimes, and explained that it had never really been directed at Josie, it was because things were so bad with Albert.

  Mark hadn’t been round since the day Josie went down with flu, when he’d given her a box of aspirin and shot off hurriedly. He didn’t even phone. Then when he turned up five days later and found Violet there, he was livid. He sent her out on an errand, and while she was gone he told Josie to get rid of her. She had to tell her mother to clear off and never come back, or he would find a new model. He promised too that she would never find work with anyone else, he’d see to it. He wouldn’t even give her time to do it gently, it had to be done that day, on Violet’s return, and he was going to stay to check she did it.

  ‘You can’t have that old bag hanging around you,’ he said forcefully. ‘Just look at her, Jojo, she’s like a disease. And I know her sort, unless you are heavy with her she’ll always be turning up, spoiling everything.’

  Josie knew he was right. He was only voicing things she’d thought so many times in the past. She knew too that if she hadn’t been so ill, she wouldn’t have welcomed her mother’s unexpected arrival anyway.

  But knowing all that didn’t make it any easier, for the only way to get rid of Violet was to be cruel. When she returned to the flat, Josie shouted at her, called her names and told her to fuck off out of her life forever because she was an embarrassment.

  It was awful. She saw her mother sag visibly with hurt and disappointment. ‘How can you be like this to me?’ she whimpered. ‘I’m your mother, I only wanted to look after you.’

  Josie couldn’t look at her, if she had she might have weakened. Instead she turned her face away and flung Violet’s coat at her, saying that a mother who looked like her was far worse than no mother at all.

  She was so ashamed once Violet had slunk out like a whipped dog. She knew only too well that she was her mother’s whole reason for living. She was afraid for her having to make the long journey home alone in such a distraught state. She also knew when her father got to hear of what she’d done, he would never let her back in Beacon Farm.

  Even Ellen, who had never liked Violet, was deeply shocked. She hea
rd about it from Mrs Peters and was on the phone immediately asking Josie how she could be so ungrateful and wicked. Of course Josie made out she didn’t care, she said Violet had it coming to her, but she did care really, she cried over it for days on end.

  To make matters worse, Ellen felt so sorry for Violet that she began going home more often, and now it seemed they were becoming much closer. It was as though Violet had switched all the love she had once had for her real daughter to her stepdaughter.

  ‘Damn Ellen,’ Josie muttered.

  ‘What’s she done to you?’ Mark asked. He had never met Ellen on the few visits she made to London; Josie always made sure he wasn’t around. Mark made her feel so insecure that part of it was fear that he would like Ellen more than her, part was because she knew Ellen would tackle him about the money.

  ‘Oh, she’s just so bloody perfect,’ Josie sighed. ‘Flogging her guts out for those cripples. Keeping Mum and Dad happy, visiting the neighbours. Never puts a foot wrong.’

  ‘I thought you said she was a bit of a goer?’ Mark said. He was being nice again, as he always was when they had work in front of them. ‘Always in the sack with someone?’

  Josie had said that, but only because she didn’t have a better way to describe how Ellen was with men. It was bizarre that her whiter-than-white sister loved sex. Anyone would expect that someone who’d given themselves to one man and been let down would be put off it. But not Ellen – soon after she found her little flat in South Bristol she began going out with men, and went to bed with them when she wanted to.

  She talked about it quite candidly, though the subject only came up because she wanted to advise Josie to go on the pill, as she had. She said she liked men and sex, and she no longer believed in waiting for a fairy-tale romance. Josie had stayed with Ellen twice in the last year for a weekend. On both occasions she’d met the latest man in her sister’s life. While she couldn’t fancy either of them herself, she sensed something animal and earthy between them and Ellen. She even felt envious of the relaxed way Ellen was with them – she didn’t dress herself up, didn’t put on any show other than feeding them a nice dinner. There was a kind of happy glow around her, and it was obvious that both men adored her.