by Ruth Hay
“Thank you for calling back, Zoe. I really wanted to get your advice before tomorrow. You see, Corinne is in a pickle, or a bind, or whatever people say nowadays. She has made great progress with her Carla problem. In fact she and Arthur may have solved the problem with a clever bit of detective work. Anyway, I won’t take up too much of your valuable time. Corinne can tell you all about it. What I need to ask you is……………..” Zoe heard the intake of breath. “Is it at all possible for you to find Carla a place to stay in London? She has no money and wants to start at the bottom rung of a ladder she hopes will lead to work in the entertainment business. She’s keen all right but no one knows if she has the talent yet. This is her one chance to try what she has always longed to do. Corinne described it to me as a last ditch attempt to save her daughter from a wasted life. That may be a bit dramatic but you can see it’s a dire situation.”
“Hold on Aunt Val! I get the picture. I have Corinne’s contact information. I’ll call her right away and tell her to send Carla to me. I am living in this barn of a place and I really need the company. She’s welcome to stay with me until I move to a new location and I can put her in touch with people who can help her get started.”
The frantic pace of Valerie Westwood’s first speech now slowed down to regular conversation. There might have been a catch in her voice but Zoe did not ask why.
“An answer to prayer!” she murmured. “I know you will set Carla straight. From what Corinne told me, she is also planning some major changes in her life and I am going to be looking for new accommodations as well. What a lot is going on these days!”
“I hope you realize much, if not all, of these major changes are because of your idea to gather us together for a holiday in the Lake District. I, for one, will never be able to thank you enough Aunt Valerie.”
“You are already thanking me more than you know, my dear.”
“Now, don’t worry. I will call Corinne with the good news. Take care. We’ll talk again soon.”
The phone went down and Zoe suddenly had a reason to leave the office and head for home. Tonight would be the last time she could be alone in the loft. She welcomed the thought of the company of a young girl who she knew she could help. In many ways Carla was following the same path she had taken when she fled from her home in Glasgow to the big city after her mother’s death. She had been trying to get as far as possible from the site of her family’s disintegration and, from what she had heard, Carla was also seeking freedom and a fresh start in the huge metropolis that was London. One big difference between them was that Zoe had run away with money from the sale of her home and a solicitor who kept an eye on her progress. It was time to pay it forward
Zoe was conscious that she had some serious homework to do before Carla arrived. That homework was better done in solitude with a large glass of red by her side.
Reflections on my early years with my father for Dr. Wesley Philips:
I decided to write this down for you, Wesley. I will attempt to be as honest as possible and, once written, I cannot retract my statements. I promise not to revise them.
I suppose, in all fairness, my childhood was a fortunate one. My mother was teaching at the nearby college in Glasgow and my father was the typical male of the time, busy at work and often home late.
I must not speculate about what he might have been doing on those late nights. Hindsight casts into shadow what may have been innocent events.
It was my father who took over the task of reading bedtime stories with me whenever he was home early enough. I remember looking forward to this routine. It was not that my mother was an inadequate storyteller, far from it, but he had a different preference than she did when it came to story selections.
It was because of him I heard adventure tales perhaps more suited to boys than girls. I travelled the globe with Robert Louis Stevenson and Sir Walter Scott and Rudyard Kipling’s tales were deep in my imagination. He told me of Scottish history through exciting incidents involving brave men and women.
I have to admit, my father’s influence on my later life was immense. I think I took on the characteristics of those brave and bold adventurers and it gave me a courage I might not have had otherwise.
I knew nothing of his secret life outside our home. His relationship with my mother was normal home life to me. I never heard or saw anything to give me a moment’s discomfort. There were no incidents of raised voices in the night or sudden unexplained departures.
I know now that my mother was somewhat deceptive in her dealings with him. For instance I learned that she had concealed her pregnancy from him to avoid having to withdraw from her position at the Teachers College, despite my arrival being much desired. She also employed two students to care for me when she was detained for meetings or activities related to her work and kept this secret from him.
I cannot judge if this is significant or not. Perhaps it just demonstrates how little a child actually knows about her parents’ relationship.
In summary, I have been saying that I could not fault my father during my early years. Even when I was heavily involved in school, he was there as a supportive background figure, together with my mother.
In thinking about this, I just now recalled a party at our house when I must have been about ten years old. It was a Hogmanay celebration (that’s New Year’s to you, Wesley). Of course, I was not invited to the actual event, but as an only child I was adept at spying on the grownups. I soon grew weary of the smell of smoke and alcohol wafting up the stairs to my hiding place and there seemed to be an inordinate amount of raucous singing of songs I did not recognize.
I was about to retire to the quiet of my bedroom when I heard something strange. It was a bumping noise that seemed to be coming from the cupboard under the stairs beneath me where the Hoover and mops were stored. My imagination was full of stories where inanimate objects sprang into life when not observed by humans, so I waited and watched to see what would happen. The noises continued and then there was a human sound; a sigh or gasp, I thought. This was even more interesting to me. I huddled down so as not to be discovered and watched the hallway beneath me.
Eventually, the door opened and a woman emerged, pulling her party dress down into position around her waist. She was a friend of my parents’ but not someone whose name I knew. I was speculating on why she would want to be in a tiny cupboard missing all the party fun when she scuttled off quickly.
I was bored by then and feeling sleepy so I stood up and turned around to go to bed.
I almost missed the sight of my father emerging from the same cupboard.
I did not know how to process this information at the time, Wesley. In fact I never really thought about it again, until now. I suppose it was a submerged memory, or whatever you psychologists call it.
Seen in the light of adult experience, and especially in the light of what happened later, I have to consider that my father could have been a serial adulterer and this was why my mother reached the end of her endurance with his behaviour and took the exit path that she did. It certainly makes me more sympathetic to her dilemma, knowing that it was not a sudden impulse.
As for my father; I put him out of my mind completely the day she died. I have no wish to see him ever again. He has made no attempt to see me or to explain his behaviour. I doubt he could do so even if he tried.
I understand the purpose of this exercise, Wesley. The subject is forgiveness. The question remaining is this. Is it possible for me to forgive my father without actually confronting him?
I think I read somewhere that forgiveness is not for the offender but rather for the offended party.
If that is so, I would be helping myself by forgiving my father.
Perhaps, by remembering the good moments with my father, I can find the strength to let go of the disappointment and anger I have unconsciously held against him all this time.
It could be that his actions propelled me to be the independent, driven woman I am today. You might say m
y success began because of his failure as a father.
I will give this further thought and hope to have reached a conclusion before our next meeting.
Sincerely,
Zoe Morton.
She pressed the ‘send’ button and sat back, trying to examine how she now felt. Was there a feeling of relief?
She concluded that it might just be fatigue. It had been a long day and tomorrow would bring more decisions and possibly, a roommate. With that thought, she drained her glass and headed off to bed.
Mission accomplished.
Most of the time, it was locked away in an isolated part of his brain. Most of the time.
Once in a while something trivial would start a chain of thought and the locked part spilled over into his mundane life. He was adept at forcing the memories back into their chamber and locking the door firmly against their escape, but it grew harder each time.
Today had been one of the difficult days.
The trigger would have been invisible to anyone other than him. It was nothing more than a voice;
a soft voice with just the touch of a Scottish burr. There was nothing unusual in the accent in Aberdeen, where people from all over the world were drawn for good work opportunities in the oil business. He heard them all in his investment business and paid no special attention other than to wonder if the voice’s owner had sufficient funds to make him a decent profit.
But this voice brought back memories. The woman was young and he had overheard her talking to two little boys about how to behave in the office while their dad talked to the nice man.
On second thoughts, it wasn’t so much the voice that did it. It was more the gentle tone as she spoke.
It was the same tone Grace had used when Zoe was small.
And there he was back in the middle of the nightmare. The last time he had seen Zoe, a teenaged girl wavering back and forth between anguish and towering rage. At first he had no idea what she was mad about. She was babbling; out of control, and he made to gather her into his arms for comfort. That was when he knew instinctively that his life had changed forever.
His Zoe, his daughter, his lovely girl pushed him away with such force that he hit the wall behind him with an impact that knocked a picture off its rail. The sound of the shattering glass stopped the girl momentarily but it was as if nothing had registered. Then the questions began. All the why, what, when, where, questions that were incomprehensible to him until he began to put the cues together to form the impossible conclusion. Something dreadful had happened to his wife.
He felt the blood drain from his face and he staggered back again, this time voluntarily, to keep from falling down. No! No! No! Denial was all his mind would produce.
The reality was worse than he had imagined.
Not a car accident.
Not a heart attack.
Not a dire disease.
Dead.
Zoe had thrust a crumpled note into his face. It was a tear-stained mess but it soon became clear what it was about. Grace was gone. Grace was gone by choice. Grace accused him of infidelity and she could no longer bear to live with the knowledge.
He was struck dumb with shock until Zoe grabbed the note back and shredded it into a thousand tiny pieces which she then threw at his head like confetti raining down around him in accusation.
He managed to croak the word “Where?”
She turned abruptly and led him into the bedroom. Grace lay as if asleep. His first impulse was to reach out and touch her cheek.
“Don’t! DO NOT touch her ever again. I want you to see what you have done.”
His frantic gaze ranged around the room and settled on the bottles of pills by the bedside table.
“Now I want you to leave this house and never come back again.”
“Wait! You can’t mean that. You need help. I need to explain this. There will be things to do now. You can’t tackle this alone, Zoe.”
“But I am alone.”
The cold sound of her anger struck him to the core. This was not his carefree daughter; the good student, the sports star, the ‘Most Likely to Succeed’ in her Year Book.
“Leave now. If you don’t go I will inform everyone we know, and your business associates, what you have done. I intend to save my mother’s reputation from scandal. I will do this somehow but you can never be a part of my life again.”
“But, Zoe, you have to listen to me.”
“No. You are as dead to me as my poor, darling mother lying on this bed. Go now!”
There was no other choice. He had left their home and fled to a city hotel where he laid low and watched the papers for an obituary announcement. When it came, it stated simply that Grace Morton had died unexpectedly from a sudden heart failure. Cremation had already taken place and a small consecration service would be held later to allow friends and family to attend. No flowers please.
He had called his home number dozens of times without success. Whoever was assisting Zoe in these arrangements must have been told not to answer the phone.
After a few days, the number was changed and registered as unlisted.
He never saw, or spoke to, Zoe again.
In time, legal papers arrived at his place of business. He signed an agreement to sell the house. His belongings were moved to a storage facility and the key was sent to him.
After this he decided to leave his job. The questions were becoming too awkward to answer and he needed to get away from the sights and sounds that reminded him daily of his loss.
Zoe never knew that he was also in mourning. A mourning he could share with no one.
“Excuse me! Did you catch what I said, Mr. Morton? Michael?”
“Sorry! I was distracted for a moment. How much did you want to invest this year?”
“Well, as you can see, I have a young family. I need something secure to build up my portfolio. There’s no telling how long this oil and gas boom will last and I have sons to house and clothe. Let’s go conservative for the time being.”
“An excellent decision! I think I have just the investment you are looking for. Family security is always the most important consideration.”
The standard chatter continued. It was on a loop in his mind. He would end the day with colleagues in a nearby bar and drink himself into a space where he could no longer hear the memories.
It was how he coped most days.
Of course he followed his daughter’s career with great interest. It was not difficult to find out about her success. There were articles in business magazines and profiles in fashion journals and newspaper photos at social occasions. He had even invested in her Excelsior Company and enjoyed good returns. She had grown into a beautiful, self-assured woman. The painful part was how much like him she was with that dark hair and fine features. He had a photo album devoted to her.
As he pored over her image he longed to tell her the truth face to face. Sadly, it was a truth that would be as painful as the lies she now believed. She had overcome so much in her life, how could he subject her to more anguish? It was inconceivable.
It would never happen.
Six.
Thursday.
Carla Carstairs was far beyond happy. She had left happy behind hours ago when the train pulled out of the station in Birmingham and she had waved goodbye to her old life, represented by the three figures on the platform.
Her husband Brad: she had never loved him as much as she did when he let her go. It was proof he wanted the very best for her even if he didn’t understand why she was not content to just be his wife.
Her Dad Arthur: dear, sweet man who had built a bridge between her mother and her and kept Brad in the picture so she would have a place to return to if she needed it.
Her Mum Corinne: it was an understatement to say they were often at odds with each other, but with this one amazing opportunity her Mum had wiped out years of argument and crossed purposes.
As the train zoomed along the tracks she could hardly constrain herself from sing
ing out “I am going to London, to London, to London!” in time to the pulse of the engines. She needed to do something to expel some of her excitement or she feared she might explode.
What would the people in the carriage think if she did burst into song or jump up and dance down the corridor? Who cared? Nothing would stop her now. She was free of the restrictions of her teenage years and the two years of her unfortunate marriage.
She was going to London to live with a company CEO and get help and advice. This was her big chance to show her stuff and she was going to work harder than she had ever worked in school or in the miserable dress shop.
Her feet beat a tattoo on the carpeted floor beneath her seat. Soon! Soon! Soon!
Bradley Newbigging remained seated on the platform bench long after the train to London had departed and his wife’s parents had gone off home, hand in hand.
He was glad for their happiness at Carla’s exit. God alone knew how much trouble she had caused them since she moved into her old room. They deserved some peace at home especially since Art was still limping along with a stick and had no prospects of earning a full wage for a while, if ever.
He was glad for them, all right, but that did not make it easier to accept what had happened to him.
His wife had just left him.
His wife, who would not even use his name, had left him. She had the nerve to tell him Newbigging would not look good up in lights!
His wife had no time frame for returning north and no interest in talking about it.
His wife had run out on him, their flat, her job and their future. What was worse was she did not give a damn about any of it.
Sure, he had made noises about always being here when she came home again. He had read something about letting people go free and if they belong with you, they will fly home. Or was that about pigeons?