Rock a Bye Baby

by Mia Dolan

  He shook his head again. ‘Sorry, love. I don’t know. Truly I don’t.’

  ‘Did she go off with somebody?’

  He seemed to think about this for a moment, his eyes narrowing as he passed the palm of his hand over his chin.

  To Marcie it seemed like an hour before he answered, though it was only minutes.

  ‘I can’t see it myself. There had to be something, but … hey … what do I know?’

  Then came the most terrible question of all, the one that had been haunting her so vigorously of late.

  ‘Did my father kill her? Is she buried beneath the shed?’

  His look was penetrating. His jaw moved from side to side as though he were chewing something.

  ‘Look. There’s something else I want to talk to you about. Steph’s buggered off. I can give you and the kid a home. Me and Steph were never married so I’m free to do what I like. Marry me and we’re a family. What do you say?’

  Her jaw dropped. This was the man who had got her drunk and then raped her. Before she could answer, he voiced the main advantage, the one she could not easily ignore.

  ‘Joanna wouldn’t have to go for adoption.’

  ‘She doesn’t have to! I could raise her by myself.’ All the advice she’d received had told her such a thing wouldn’t be wise, but deep down a small niggle kept telling her otherwise.

  His eyes fixed on hers as he shook his head slowly. ‘You’d be an unmarried mother. Nobody would want to give you a job. Nobody would want to rent you a flat.’

  ‘I could go home – back to Sheerness.’

  ‘And embarrass your family? I don’t know your gran that well, but I do know she’s old school. You get married before you sleep together and not the other way round. And as for your dad—’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘He’s fine.’

  Sensing he was on a winning streak, Alan carried on with a list of reasons why she should marry him.

  ‘The gossips would still have field day,’ she pointed out.

  ‘But not for long. Girls who get into trouble are forgiven once they’ve got a ring on their finger and a husband at their side. Think about it.’

  She did think about it and realised he was right. Girls who got into trouble and gave birth to bastards were never allowed to forget the fact. If they married, even after the event, the past was put behind them.

  Marcie looked down into her baby’s sweet face. Joanna yawned and clenched her fists – as though she wants to take on the world, Marcie thought. Getting involved with the man who had attacked her was the last thing she wanted to do. The whole thought of Alan touching her again made her feel ill. And yet, even in the few days she had known her baby daughter, she knew there wasn’t a thing she wouldn’t do in order to keep her safe – and close. Was she willing to sacrifice her own happiness for the sake of Joanna? Of course she was.

  The thing is I want to be there when she does take on the world, she thought. I want to see her take her first steps and go out on her first date. ‘I want to watch her growing up,’ she said at last, voicing her feelings.

  Alan spread his hands and shrugged. ‘There you are then.’

  A sudden thought came to her. ‘They’re signing the papers today; or rather Miss Turnbull is signing on my behalf.’

  Alan got to his feet. ‘Is she now? They like their paperwork, don’t they. I had to give them your dad’s name and my address before they even let me in the door. Well, we’d better go and sort things out then, hadn’t we.’

  Miss Turnbull was not amused. She met them just inside the front door. Alan wasted no time telling her exactly what was going to happen. He turned to Marcie. ‘Give me the baby and get your things.’

  Miss Turnbull’s face turned from slightly pink to deep puce as Marcie handed Joanna over to Alan and dashed for the stairs.

  Up in the small room she’d shared with Sally and Allegra, she threw everything into her old battered case. Before dashing back downstairs she paused to consider more fully what she was doing. Alan had taken advantage of her when she’d been at her most vulnerable. She wouldn’t be doing what she was doing at all except for one thing – or rather one person. Joanna

  She dashed back downstairs.

  ‘But everything is arranged!’

  Miss Turnbull sounded as though she were fit to burst. Her angry voice had set Joanna crying.

  ‘Then UNARRANGE them,’ Alan said.

  He handed the baby back to Marcie.

  ‘Look,’ said Miss Turnbull, waving the adoption papers in front of his face. ‘These have been long and laboriously filled in, and they’re in triplicate. Think carefully about what you’re doing.’

  ‘I know damn well that paper can be ripped to bits if need be.’

  Miss Turnbull’s tight little mouth turned tighter. ‘The child was born a bastard!’

  Before Miss Turnbull could say another word, he snatched the papers from her hand, ripped them into pieces and threw them up into the air.

  ‘Sod your forms! Sod your arrangements, and sod you!’ He turned to Marcie. ‘Come on. Let’s go home.’

  Sally and Allegra had got wind that something was up and were waiting for her by the front door.

  ‘We heard the good news,’ said Sally.

  ‘One more goodbye,’ said Allegra giving her a kiss. ‘You’re very lucky to have a dad like yours.’

  Marcie didn’t bother to correct her. Neither did Alan.

  ‘Everything to your liking, madam?’ asked Alan.

  He kept whistling and humming. She sensed his spirits were soaring. Why hadn’t she seen how he felt about her?

  It doesn’t matter now, she said to herself. You’re doing this for Joanna.

  She had no other option but to marry Alan. Hadn’t her father said he would throw her out if she ever brought such trouble home? He’d only come round when he thought she was going to marry Johnnie. Only by marrying someone else would she be respectable. All the same, it would be nice to have some time at home before the wedding.

  On the journey home he told her in more detail about Steph leaving, reiterating that they’d never got round to getting hitched. They also discussed the options available to them regarding getting married and where they should live. Marcie found this the most difficult to contemplate, yet Alan enthused about the options.

  ‘You could move into the bungalow, or we could buy something you like better. The choice is yours.’

  Yes. The choice was hers, but one she was hesitant to make.

  Moving in with Alan straight away was an option he preferred but she wasn’t quite so sure about. After all they weren’t married. She finally came to a conclusion.

  ‘I’ll stay with my grandmother at first until we’re married.’

  He laughed at that. ‘Keeping up appearances, are we?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘That’s fine by me. It’ll take a couple of weeks to sort matters out. And we’ll have a party – a bloody wedding reception. You just see if we don’t.’

  Another more pressing question lay heavy in her mind. Again she broached the subject he’d been loath to answer earlier.

  ‘Is my mother buried beneath the shed?’

  She fancied the car swerved a little – not much but just enough to make her realise that the question unnerved him.

  ‘No. Of course not.’

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Rosa Brooks eyed her son. He was sitting in his armchair and chewing his thumb.

  ‘Stop doing that. You did that as a little boy when I accused you of doing something wrong.’

  He looked up at her uncomprehending. ‘What?’

  ‘You are chewing your thumb. You always did that when you were a little boy.’

  Exasperated by her presence, he folded his hands in his lap and fixed his eyes on a cracked tile in the beige-coloured grate which was plain but modern. It shouldn’t be cracked, he reasoned.

  Rosa sipped at her tea. Babs wasn’t in but at least Antonio knew how t
o make a cup of tea.

  ‘You buried something in my garden. Do not deny it. I know what I know.’

  She saw that her words had taken him unawares. He stared round eyed at this woman who everybody believed could see things they could not. Nobody could have told her, so how could she know?

  Suddenly he covered his face with his hands, shook his head and shouted, ‘I don’t know! I don’t know! I don’t bloody know!’

  He said it with such great vehemence that she truly believed him. Anyway, she had not brought her son up to lie.

  Sighing, Rosa put down her cup and got to her feet. ‘I am sorry, Antonio, as I do not wish to do this, but feel I have no choice. Though Shalt Not Kill, says the Bible. I have to make sure that such a great sin has not been done beneath my roof!’

  ‘Mother! You can’t!’

  She eyed him contemplatively. Never had she questioned his methods of making money, and never would she have shopped him to the police. But this was different.

  ‘I have to.’

  Antonio Brooks was well known to the police, so it didn’t take them long to send a digging team along to the cottage.

  Rosa Brooks stood watching, her sense of doing right for once outweighing her love for her son. A detective asked her where Antonio was.

  ‘We’d like to ask him some questions.’

  ‘At home?’

  ‘No. He wasn’t there.’

  ‘He will be back. He’ll never leave Sheppey. This is his home.’

  Seeing he was unlikely to get any information, the detective returned to where a large pile of earth grew ever larger.

  The smell of turned earth permeated the air. Rosa Brooks refused to leave the house but stood defiant at the back door as the hole grew bigger and bigger.

  The police had questioned when the chicken house had been erected. Rosa had shrugged and said it was years ago.

  The police asked questions of the neighbours. Mrs Ellis, who now had a completed nuclear fallout shelter in her garden, had enlightened them.

  ‘The old chicken house used to be over in the corner. The new one was put up in the early fifties round about the same time as the first Mrs Brooks disappeared.’

  The two women of separate generations stood slightly apart, both coldly isolated in their respective worlds.

  Two hours or more passed before she saw one of the police officers making his way towards the house. The sight of him filled her with dread. He looked down at the path as he walked. Rosa knew what that meant. He was considering most carefully what he had to say, and yet he didn’t need to say anything. She already knew, or thought she did. The puzzling thing about it was that Cyril hadn’t mentioned any restless spirit around here, and neither had she sensed the presence of one.

  Rosa had been through difficult times before – the war was bad enough, though the Isle of Sheppey hadn’t endured any bombing, the enemy preferring to fly past and bomb London. But this was different. This terrible moment was not about tragedy afflicting strangers; this was her family and in particular her son.

  She braced herself for the terrible truth. It was she who spoke first.

  ‘Is it her? Is it my daughter-in-law?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, love. It’s a dog. A big dog. Did you ever have a dog?’

  She shook her head. No. She’d never had a dog, and what was it doing there in the first place?

  The green Jaguar slid into its parking place in the gravel-filled drive. Alan had half expected Rita to be stood there waiting for him but Tony Brooks was standing there instead, hands in pockets, his dark eyes glittering beneath frowning eyebrows.

  Alan helped Marcie out of the car before going to him.

  ‘This is a surprise, Tony old mate …’

  Tony looked right past him to his daughter. ‘Is that my grandchild?’

  Marcie hugged her daughter. ‘Yes. It is.’

  ‘And the kid on the bike was the father?’

  Again she said that this was so and added, ‘He died.’

  ‘Look, I was going to tell you,’ Alan began to say.

  It happened so suddenly. Her dad lashed out. Alan went flying, flat out on the gravel, his head crashing onto a rosebush.

  Tony Brooks addressed his daughter. ‘You didn’t have to run away. I was going to sign for you. You knew that. So why did you run off like that?’

  ‘There were reasons,’ she blurted out.

  She looked down at Alan. He was still sprawled in the dirt but coming to and already rubbing his chin.

  Marcie bit her lip. The sight of a man who had once seemed so big and strong now looking small and nervous filled her with sadness. She forced herself to concentrate on the best way to handle him.

  ‘I wanted to tell you I was coming home, but there wasn’t time. Joanna was about to be adopted. Alan found me and tore up the adoption papers.’ It was never going to be easy saying the next bit, but she had to.

  ‘Alan wants to marry me and give Joanna a name and a home.’

  ‘Does he now! Well there’s generosity for you. And why would he want to do that, I wonder …?’

  Leaning down, he grabbed Alan’s arm, dragging him to his feet.

  Alan was panting. A scratch from cheekbone to jaw was weeping blood. His hair was awry, his clothes dirty.

  For the first time ever, Marcie saw Alan Taylor’s face drained of confidence.

  ‘I didn’t touch her,’ Alan babbled.

  Her father flashed a dangerous-looking smile. ‘You wouldn’t dare.’

  She didn’t contradict him.

  Tony Brooks was now holding his old mate by his shirt collar.

  ‘You’ve been playing me for a mug all these years, Alan. You told me I murdered my own wife and buried her. Now it turns out there’s only a bloody dog buried there – an Alsatian according to the coppers. Now tell me, what the fuck was that all about?’

  Marcie stared wild eyed at the two men. ‘What?’

  Her father explained quickly what had been discovered beneath the hen house. He sounded embarrassed. ‘What sort of bloody fool am I?’

  ‘You thought you’d killed her?’ Marcie questioned incredulously.

  Her father spread his hands helplessly. ‘I didn’t know. I knew I’d been drinking. I feared the worst.’ He turned to Alan. ‘He made me believe the worst. Now I want to know the truth.’

  Alan hedged. ‘It’s complicated—’

  ‘Try me. I might be a bit thick, but try me.’

  Alan looked nervously around. ‘Can we go inside? The neighbours will be watching—’

  ‘And I need to change and feed the baby,’ Marcie added.

  They went into the house. Marcie listened as the two most prominent men in her life sorted out their differences.

  Alan began to explain. ‘I just needed you on board.’

  ‘To take the rap for the job.’

  ‘That’s it. But I paid you for it.’

  ‘So let’s get this straight – it’s a guard dog, right? And I killed it.’

  Alan nodded. ‘Yep, but you felt bad about it. You brought the bloody thing back with you. You buried it in the garden but were so pissed you didn’t remember doing it. I just kept you guessing so you wouldn’t step out of line and drop me in it. That’s the truth. The honest to goodness truth.’

  ‘So where’s Mary? Where’s my wife?’

  Alan shrugged. ‘I don’t know, mate. I really don’t. If I knew I’d tell you, though I’m not too sure that she really went off with someone else.’ He gave a little nervous chuckle. ‘You know me. I’ll try it on with any bird. But your Mary? No way. She wasn’t like that.’

  Marcie tucked her bosom back inside her blouse when she felt Alan’s eyes on her.

  ‘You alright, love?’ said Alan.

  She wanted to say she was not his love. Not yet at any rate.

  Her father now turned his attention to her.

  ‘So what now?’

  His thick fingers were folded in front of him. Alan asked him if he’d l
ike a whisky. He declined – a first as far as both Alan and Marcie were concerned.

  ‘Alan’s offered to give the baby a name,’ repeated Marcie.

  Her father blinked and turned to Alan.

  ‘She’s just a kid.’

  ‘And deserves a better start in life,’ snapped Alan.

  Marcie could see that the old dynamics were returning between these two. They were both dishonest, though perhaps in different ways.

  ‘I’m going round to live with Gran until things are sorted,’ said Marcie, getting to her feet.

  ‘I’ll get the car out,’ said Alan.

  Her father pushed him back down into the chair. ‘She’s my daughter. I’m taking her round home. Give me your car keys.’

  As her father loaded her belongings back into the car, Marcie decided there was something that needed to be said. ‘Alan, I’m grateful for what you’ve done, but you have to know that I don’t love you. I’m not saying I won’t marry you but I don’t think I could ever love you, not after what you did to me. And my dad. Do you understand that?’

  He nodded silently then watched her get into the car and be driven away.

  Chapter Fifty

  ‘Gran’s,’ she blurted out once they were in the car. ‘I don’t want to go to your house. I want to go home to Gran.’

  Her father didn’t push her to go home with him to Babs and the others. He didn’t press her to do anything and neither did he ask her how things had been since he’d last seen her.

  She voiced the thought that had bugged her all the way from Alan’s place to Endeavour Terrace. ‘What’s Gran going to say?’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. You know how she is. A bit old-fashioned. But I’ll stick by you, girl. You know that, don’t you?’

  Yes. Somehow she knew he was telling the truth. She’d seen his eyes light up at the sight of Joanna. The big strong man had turned into a marshmallow, but her grandmother might be more hostile. Her grandmother believed in marriage. She thought for a moment and came to a decision.

  ‘I want to go in the back way.’

  ‘OK. I’ll bring your case.’

  ‘No. Stay here.’

  He got out his side, opened the door for her and the baby and helped her out.