Forgotten Child

by Kitty Neale

  As though the wind was taken out of her sails, Edna said, ‘The poor cow. She had no idea.’

  Edward sat beside Jennifer now and quietly said, ‘Please, darling, let us help. Talk to us.’

  As though a dam had burst, she blurted, ‘I…I can’t believe it, Daddy. The police said that Marcos was involved in a robbery…that he died while trying to escape apprehension.’

  ‘What! No, that’s impossible,’ Delia cried.

  Edna snorted. ‘You don’t know the ’arf of it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I felt sorry for Jenny, and yes I can call her that now, not Mrs Cane. I knew she was being made a mug of, wanted to tell her, but Marcos warned me to keep me mouth shut.’

  ‘Tell her what?’

  ‘Look, when the other one turns up, and I doubt it’ll be long before she arrives, Jenny’s gonna find out anyway,’ Edna said, moving to lay a hand on Jennifer’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, I…I just needed to let off steam, but I shouldn’t have come. It ain’t your fault and I know that. I feel sorry for you, I really do. You don’t deserve this, but brace yourself, ’cos there’s worse to come.’

  With that, Edna walked out of the room and Delia hurried after her. They reached the front door and Delia asked, ‘What did you mean about worse to come?’

  Edna pushed the gate release and opened the front door to step outside before she answered, ‘Your girl’s had enough for now and I’m saying no more. She’s gonna need you though so, like I told her, brace yourself.’

  ‘Wait,’ Delia called, but ignoring her, the woman hurried away.

  Delia closed the door, her stomach churning. She felt sick. Marcos involved in a robbery! Oh God, what if it was in the newspapers? Since rushing to look after Jennifer they hadn’t seen one, but if it was in the press everyone would know! But it had to be a mistake. Marcos wasn’t a thief! He was a cultured, charming man. Yes, yes, that was it, obviously a case of mistaken identity, and that was what she’d tell everyone.

  Of course there’d be a retraction in the newspapers too, Delia thought, feeling slightly better as she returned to the kitchen. Her son-in-law involved in a robbery! It was absolutely ridiculous.

  Jenny couldn’t bear to talk about it any more and wandered into the drawing room. Unlike her mother, she’d accepted that the man she loved, the man she thought she knew, was involved in a robbery. Her mind twisted and turned, sure that for some reason Marcos had been driven to do it, and the only thing that made any sense was an urgent need for money. Something must have gone dreadfully wrong with his businesses, it had to be that. Perhaps fearing that he wouldn’t be able to support her and the baby, Marcos had been driven to take such desperate measures.

  Oh, Marcos, Marcos, if only he had told her. She would have said that she didn’t care about money, only him, but it was too late. He was gone now, their baby too. She felt so lost, bereft, empty inside.

  The telephone rang, but Jenny ignored it. She heard her father’s voice and then he came into the drawing room. ‘That was Robin, ringing to see how you are. He said he’ll drive down to see you on Saturday.’

  Jenny dashed the tears from her eyes. ‘I’d rather he didn’t.’

  ‘He’s your brother and he’s worried about you.’

  ‘I…I’m all right.’

  ‘No, you’re not. Look at you, you’ve been crying again.’

  ‘I…I can’t help it.’

  ‘Of course you can’t. You’ve been through hell this last couple of days.’

  ‘Edward, who was that on the telephone?’ asked Delia, entering the room.

  ‘Robin, and he’s driving down on Saturday.’

  ‘That’s nice. Did you tell him that we’re staying here?’

  ‘Er…no…I wasn’t sure where we’d be by then.’

  ‘You can go home. I’ll be all right,’ Jenny said.

  ‘No, Jenny, we don’t want to leave you on your own yet. It’s too soon.’

  ‘Daddy, I’ll be fine by Saturday.’

  ‘Jennifer, I hate to say this,’ Delia said, ‘but there are so many things to do, to arrange, the…the funeral, and of course we have to ensure that the press print a retraction.’

  ‘I can handle all that, Delia.’ Edward said.

  ‘Yes, yes, but we have to think about Jennifer’s financial position.’

  ‘I doubt she’ll have any concerns there. I’m sure Marcos will have left her well provided.’

  Jenny couldn’t listen to any more. She stood up, swaying for a moment, then fled the room.

  ‘Jennifer, wait…’

  ‘Leave her, Delia. She isn’t ready for any of this yet.’

  ‘It’s got to be faced.’

  Jenny didn’t hear any more and back in the bedroom, she flung herself across the bed, clutching Marcos’s pillow. She could smell him, the dressing he used on his hair, the thought of never seeing him again unbearable.

  Why had he been driven to attempt a robbery? Not only that, Edna had said there was more to face. Jenny sobbed. She didn’t care. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be that bad, nothing in comparison to losing Marcos.

  At last, exhausted after getting hardly any rest the previous night, Jenny fell asleep. She had no idea that soon she would wish she had never woken up.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  On Monday morning Tina was reading the newspaper yet again. She looked up, scowling. ‘I knew he was dodgy, tried to warn Jenny, but she wouldn’t have it.’

  ‘Like I said, you could have knocked me down with a feather when I was sent to his place in Wimbledon. I had no idea until then that she was the bird Steve had talked about.’

  ‘I’m not surprised she was in a right old state.’

  Yes, Jenny had been, Paul thought, but she had just lost her meal ticket so it wasn’t surprising. Steve had said that Jenny was an innocent in all this, but Paul had his doubts. Nobody could be that innocent, especially as he doubted Marcos Cane had been able to hide his true colours. He’d been a nasty piece of work – violent, making his money by intimidation and having a nice turnover in auto theft. There’d been other robberies too, ones he’d got away with, and CID had been trying to nail him for years.

  ‘I ain’t seen her for ages,’ Tina said, ‘not since we split up, but I feel sorry for her now.’

  ‘I hope you’re not thinking of going to see her? You could be tarred by association and it wouldn’t look too good if it got back to my DI,’ Paul warned. Not only that, he didn’t want Tina mixing with Jenny’s type, women who’d put up with anything for a man’s money. Tina wasn’t like that, she was honest through and through, and he was happy to think that in just five months she’d be his wife.

  ‘Keep your hair on,’ Tina said as she pushed the newspaper to one side. ‘We’ve gone our separate ways now and I’m not in favour of going backwards. I don’t want reminders of my past, and that’s what Jenny would be. Look to the future, that’s what I say, and mine is with you.’

  ‘It certainly is,’ Paul said, smiling with relief.

  Tina reached out behind her to grab a holdall and unzipped it. ‘I’d best get off to me stall, but before I go, what do you think of these samples? I’m thinking of adding them to my range.’

  ‘Sorry, sweetheart, I know nothing about beads and things.’

  ‘The other stuff I got from that warehouse sold well.’

  ‘I don’t know how you stick it on that stall all day.’

  ‘As long as you wrap up warm it’s all right.’

  ‘Once we’re married you can give it up.’

  ‘I’m not sure I want to. I enjoy it.’

  ‘You’ll have to when a baby comes along.’ ‘

  You’re jumping the gun. We ain’t married yet, and anyway, I can always stick the pram next to my stall.’

  ‘You must be kidding,’ Paul protested.

  ‘Yeah, course I am, silly,’ she said, dropping onto his lap and demanding, ‘now give me a kiss.’

  ‘Yes, your ladyship,’ h
e said, happy to obey. Tina had agreed to get married in the summer, and he couldn’t wait. From day one he’d known she was the girl for him, and after losing her once he wanted to make sure it didn’t happen again.

  It was the commotion that woke Jenny that same morning, shouting, a loud raucous voice drowning out her mother’s. She threw back the blankets and went to the top of the stairs to see a big, blousy woman in the hall yelling, ‘Where is she?’

  ‘I don’t know who you mean.’

  ‘That bitch! I want her out of my house!’

  ‘This isn’t your house!’ Delia protested.

  ‘Yes it is, lady, and you can bugger off too. Now get out of my way!’

  Jenny saw the woman shove her mother aside and quickly went downstairs. ‘Don’t do that!’ she shouted as she neared the last step. ‘Leave my mother alone!’

  The woman’s eyes were like slits, narrowed in fury. ‘You! Yeah, it must be you!’

  Jenny felt her knees shaking as she tried to reason with her. ‘You must have come to the wrong address. This isn’t your house. It belongs to my husband, Marcos Cane.’

  ‘Your husband, don’t make me laugh. I’m Pat Cane! His wife!’

  ‘No, no, we were married last year, in Scotland.’

  ‘Jennifer, she must be mad,’ said Delia. ‘I’ll call the police.’

  ‘Go on then, but it won’t do you any good,’ the woman spat. ‘As his wife, I know my rights. If this soppy cow married him, it was bigamous.’

  Jenny stumbled then and her mother rushed forward to support her. ‘My daughter has just suffered a miscarriage and as you can see, she’s still weak.’

  ‘What! You was having his baby! Well, well, with that tiny willy of his I didn’t think it was possible. Still, think yourself lucky you lost it. It stopped you bringing another bastard like him into the world.’

  ‘Please…please don’t…don’t say that,’ Jenny gasped.

  The fight seemed to go out of the woman at this and shaking her head, she said, ‘You poor cow.’

  It was the same thing that Edna had said, but even had she been able to brace herself, Jenny knew she could never have been prepared for this. Her knees went from under her again. The two women supported her now, but she wanted to throw one of them off. She was Marcos’s wife, not this loud-mouthed woman. Too weak to fight, Jenny was taken to the drawing room.

  ‘Bloody hell, look at this,’ Pat said as she looked around. ‘That git living like a lord while I was stuck with his mother in Battersea.’

  ‘This confirms there’s been a mistake,’ Delia said as between them they lowered Jenny onto the sofa. ‘Marcos told us that both his parents had passed away.’

  ‘His dad, yes, but his mother has always suspected that Marcos killed him.’

  Unable to speak, words frozen in her throat, Jenny shook her head. This woman, this awful woman was talking about someone else. She had to be.

  ‘Yeah, I can see you’re shocked,’ Pat continued as she flopped onto a chair.

  ‘You were not invited to sit down,’ Delia said haughtily. ‘Now please leave. I refuse to believe that my daughter’s husband was a thief, and I certainly don’t believe he was a murderer!’

  ‘Believe it, lady, ’cos it’s true.’

  ‘My son-in-law was a cultured man, a businessman, and,’ she said, lips curling with distaste, ‘he’d hardly be associated with, let alone marry, the likes of you.’

  ‘Watch your soddin’ lip, you stuck-up cow. As for Marcos being cultured, don’t make me laugh. It was all an act, good enough to pull the wool over your eyes, it seems, so take a pew too because I’m gonna put the pair of you straight.’

  Mouth gaping, Delia sat down while Pat took something out of her handbag. ‘Right then, as I said, I’m his wife, and here’s me marriage lines to prove it. Course I regret the day I met him now, and to be honest I didn’t give a shit when he told me he was going off with you. In fact…’

  ‘Wait, are you saying you’re divorced?’

  ‘No, the git knew I wouldn’t agree to that. Firstly I’m a Catholic, and secondly, I wasn’t about to take some measly one-off settlement. He paid me well to keep my mouth shut, and anyway, I knew what the bastard would do to me if I didn’t. I ain’t got to keep it shut now though, so let me tell you more about this so-called cultured man…’

  Jenny listened, wanting to scream, to shout against what she was hearing. By the time the woman had finished, she was reeling in shock. Marcos, Marcos the man she loved, had been a monster, a vicious, violent monster. She was barely aware that her mother had reared to her feet until she spoke, and Jenny cringed against her words.

  ‘My God, no wonder he didn’t want to talk about his past! It was bad enough when the newspapers reported the robbery, but now this! What if it gets out? What will people think? What will Beatrice and Penelope think? I’ll never be able to live it down, never be able to hold my head up again. How could you do this to me, Jennifer?’

  ‘I…I didn’t know.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’re that stupid. You’re just a tart, Irish trash like your mother!’ Delia yelled, then marching from the room.

  Pat opened her handbag again, pulling out a packet of cigarettes and lighting one.

  ‘Well, that wasn’t very nice,’ she said, blowing out a stream of smoke.

  Jenny hadn’t expected her mother to react like that, but it shouldn’t have surprised her. ‘She…she always put a high value on appearances and feels I’ve let her down.’

  ‘It ain’t your fault. As I said, Marcos well and truly pulled the wool over your eyes, hers too come to that. Still, we’ve got things to sort out and we’d best get down to it. Now, I hate to say this, girl, but as his wife I’m entitled to everything.’

  ‘I…I…’

  ‘It’s no good arguing,’ Pat broke in. ‘Things might’ve been different if he’d left a will, but I know he hasn’t. The bastard wouldn’t make one, thought it’d jinx him. Huh, what a laugh…and now the last laugh’s on him.’

  Jenny hadn’t been about to argue. After losing Marcos, her baby, and then being told all this, she didn’t have an ounce of fight in her.

  ‘I was going to say that I’ll move out, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh, right, well that’s all right then,’ Pat said, then looking at Jenny intently. ‘Gawd, you look rough, but after what you’ve just heard it ain’t surprising. It’s funny though. When I came here I was spitting feathers, expecting to find a right tart, not someone like you.’

  Jenny started to stand up. ‘I’ll go and pack my things.’

  Pat’s arm came out, pushing her back down again. ‘No, love, if you’d been some old tart it might have been different. But you ain’t, and I feel sorry for you. I’ll give you a few days – shall we say Thursday?’

  ‘Th…thank you.’

  ‘Make sure you only take your own stuff, clothes and things.’

  ‘Wh…what about my car?’

  ‘Take it, I don’t want it. There’s plenty more in the garages, and hopefully mostly legit ones. Right, I’m gonna have a look round, but then I’m off. Oh yeah, and I’ll want a set of keys.’

  ‘There’s some over there, in the drawer,’ Jenny said, indicating.

  ‘Nice bit of stuff this,’ Pat said, running her hand over the wood. She took the keys, turned, avidly taking in everything else in the room, then walked out.

  Jenny slumped. Despite all she had heard, all the sickening things about Marcos, she still found it hard to equate it with the man she knew. He had been kind, loving, generous…but with that thought the position she was now in finally hit Jenny. She had to move out of this house, the one she had lived in thinking she was his wife. Marcos had lied to her, lied about everything!

  She heard the front door close and the sound of footsteps. Her mother walked into the room, her face contrite.

  ‘She’s gone, Jennifer, but I heard what she said, that you’ve got to move out by Thursday. Goodness knows what your father will say, b
ut no doubt he’ll insist you move in with us.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I won’t be doing that.’

  ‘Where will you go then?’

  ‘I don’t know, somewhere, anywhere, as long as it’s miles away from here,’ Jenny said, standing up to walk past her mother.

  ‘Well, for your father’s sake, I suggest you keep in touch this time.’

  ‘I see you haven’t included yourself in that,’ Jenny said bitterly. She couldn’t cry, she had no tears left. All she could do was pack.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  ‘Mary came from Bray, on the coast in County Wicklow,’ Edward said, thankful that a place had come to mind, ‘but with so much going on, why are you asking me where your mother was born?’

  ‘Because I want to go there.’

  ‘Go there! But why?’

  ‘Since…since all this happened I’ve had this strange feeling, as though something is calling me. And…and last night, I had this dream, saw this place, a beautiful place. Is it beautiful there, Daddy?’

  ‘There are lots of beautiful places, darling, and I’m sure it was just that, a dream. You’ve had a terrible shock, that’s all, and perhaps this is your mind’s way of coping with it.’

  ‘No, it was more than that. I’ve decided, I’m going to Ireland.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. You aren’t fully recovered yet and I insist you come home.’

  ‘No, Daddy.’

  ‘Jenny, there’s nothing in Ireland for you, nobody to look after you.’

  ‘I can take care of myself. ’

  ‘Look, I know what this is about. It’s your mother and how she reacted.’

  ‘She doesn’t care about me. All she cares about is her social standing.’

  ‘That isn’t true. Your mother realises now that she behaved badly. She wants to apologise, but you won’t take her calls.’

  ‘I will, Daddy, perhaps tomorrow.’

  ‘Jenny, you shouldn’t spend another night alone here. Come home with me now, this evening.’

  ‘I can’t leave yet. I’ve still got packing to do and I don’t have to move out yet, in fact not until Thursday morning.’