Runaways

by Carolyn McCrae

  A week later Maureen was able to report some degree of success.

  “Funnily enough one of Kathleen’s colleagues knew your friend’s daughter, she taught her. So she’s happy to visit.” How much Maureen guessed of his interest David could not know, even if she guessed the true level of his concern he knew he could rely on her discretion.

  Just before Christmas 1940 Maureen reported that Alicia was being visited by a gentleman. “There’s a Captain Arnold Donaldson who appears to be in regular attendance.”

  She did not tell David that she knew Arnold Donaldson and that he had been her sister’s lover for several years but he discovered that soon enough for himself. He found out a great deal more about Arnold and his family background and he did not like what he discovered. Arnold Donaldson’s father, a businessman who was doing very well out of the war, kept several mistresses himself, one of whom was Kathleen’s mother and David had every reason to believe that Kathleen and Arnold were more closely related than either of them seemed to think. David was unhappy that Alicia was getting involved with this man. He could do nothing as reports came in of the time they spent together and, as 1941 progressed, their engagement was announced.

  David felt that both of Alicia’s fathers had brought her disaster. Bert had made no amends for causing her accident but, feeling responsible for introducing Alicia to this most unsuitable husband, David made plans to protect his daughter.

  Elizabeth had not been well through the winter and had spent most of the last weeks of her pregnancy in bed. Both David and Max were away frequently and she was left alone apart from regular visits from Maureen. At first she had been happy to go out to shop, and would talk quietly to the other women in the queues. Those who she met learned that she was a widow, that her baby was due in March or April and that she was looked after by her brother. She never mentioned that she had a new husband. To her Jimmy was her husband and always would be. She still wore Jimmy’s ring, having removed the one Max had put on her finger within hours of the wedding.

  As the weeks had progressed she had convinced herself her baby would be a son. She would call him James and he would grow up in a peaceful world. She would tell him from the earliest time possible that his real father was a brave and wonderful man who had died in the war to make his world better. She would tell him that his father had known that he existed and had loved him. James would always know that Max was not his father and would be suitably grateful to him, his legal guardian, but would never love him as he would love the memory of his true father.

  Elizabeth knew what to expect when the time came. She had read the booklets and she knew that she would spend several hours with short sharp pains lasting only a few seconds with perhaps 20 or 30 minutes in between. Then the pains would be stronger, last longer and become more frequent until they were almost continuous. But that was a good sign as it meant the pain would soon be over and Jimmy’s son would be born.

  To have Jimmy’s son would be worth the hours of pain.

  Max was concerned that she seemed tired when he paid her his regular Sunday afternoon visit.

  “I didn’t sleep too well last night. It is very uncomfortable you know.” She had tried not to sound annoyed at his concern. He had been very kind and had made no demands on her whatsoever. He was happy that she lived in David’s service flat and that he could only visit her on her invitation.

  “I will telephone you tomorrow to ensure all is well.”

  “Of course all is well.” She had snapped at him, instantly regretting the tone in her voice but unable to do anything to change it. “What could possibly be wrong? I’m seven months pregnant, I haven’t been able to go out for weeks because of the weather, I depend on Mrs Whatever-her-name-is to do my shopping, I have no independence, no life of my own. Everything is completely perfect.”

  “I will still call.” He had said, making allowances for her sarcasm.

  She was not sure whether the discomfort was indigestion or a touch of cramp, but then discomfort became pain. By dusk a day later she realised that the cramps were quite regular and she began to be afraid. It couldn’t possibly be the baby.

  She walked around the flat finding a notepad and pencil and began noting down the times when the pains occurred. They were still regular when it began to get light. For the second night in a row she hadn’t slept and she was very tired.

  She saw no point in calling the midwife. The pains weren’t getting any closer together and they weren’t too bad, she had plenty of time to recover in between them and she began to know when to expect them.

  She thought she had better call the midwife when, by lunchtime, nothing had changed. She was exhausted. Apart from sips of water she had had nothing to eat or drink since Max had left two days before.

  It was Maureen who insisted on calling the doctor as soon as she saw the state Elizabeth was in when she called that evening.

  The doctor left after only a cursory examination. “False alarm my dear, often happens with the first. It is your first isn’t it?” The pains will die away, you have a few more weeks to go.”

  “Will you stay with me? Elizabeth asked Maureen. “I don’t want to be alone. He’s wrong you know. This isn’t a false alarm. I’m not an imbecile.”

  Maureen stayed with her through the afternoon which they spent watching the clock, filling up the notepad with times and symptoms as they watched the snow falling. The pains didn’t get any worse, but neither did they go away.

  “My baby’s going to die isn’t he?” Elizabeth had said with resignation. Maureen helped her get into bed and tried to reassure her. “I’m going to call the midwife. Perhaps she will be more sympathetic.”

  The midwife tried to sound more reassuring than she felt. “No deary, of course your baby won’t die. It’s just taking a little longer than normal. Only to be expected what with your age and it being your first.”

  “And only.” Elizabeth said wearily.

  Maureen let herself out, she had to tell David the danger his sister was in.

  As it began to get dark Elizabeth dozed fitfully between the pains. “This isn’t right is it? Nothing’s happening.”.

  “I’m going to call Doctor.” She said, and Elizabeth could hear from her tone of voice as she spoke into the phone that she realised she should have called him some time before, before the snow and the raid made his journey difficult.

  Elizabeth was only vaguely aware of the doctor’s presence and what was happening to her body as the night progressed. She was aware of some of the words about her ‘husband’ ‘brother’ and she wondered why they should be involved. But the doctor had given her injections and kept asking her to lie in different positions. She just did as he said.

  Early on the Wednesday morning she was aware that the pains were more frequent and she began to feel changes in her body. The doctor and the midwife were telling her to push but she had no energy left. She barely remembered being led down the stairs into the ambulance, even less did she remember the journey in the ambulance and the hospital.

  She just remembered the pain of waking up to be told that she had a daughter.

  “It was alive and, though weak, would survive. So will I .” She told Max when he visited her the next day. “Have they let you see her?”

  “Yes, they said I have a beautiful daughter.”

  “I will learn to love her won’t I? I was so sure it was going to be a boy.”

  “You will, when you see her, you will love her.” Max was surprisingly tender as he held the baby they called Veronica.

  A little under six months later Max had answered the telephone warily, it usually meant he was to fly somewhere that night. But it wasn’t the perfectly modulated voice of David’s secretary naming a time and location, it was Elizabeth.

  “I think you need to come over.”

  He tried to analyse the tone in her voice, he couldn’t be sure whether it was tiredness or impatience. He didn’t know his wife well enough.

  “Is anything the ma
tter? Veronica?”

  “No. She’s fine. Just come over now please.”

  His flat and David’s, where Elizabeth was still living, were a little more than two streets apart so he had little time to wonder about the reason for the summons.

  “David?” Max was surprised when it wasn’t Elizabeth who answered the door.

  “Come in Max. I think we need to talk.”

  “Elizabeth?”

  “This very much concerns Elizabeth.”

  They sat down to drink tea in the gloom of a rainy day in late July. Veronica was asleep in her cot as Elizabeth poured the tea and sat down with her brother and her husband.

  “We have the perfect move for you.” David explained that a legal practice had been located which was run by two old gentlemen who found the world changing too quickly for them and who wanted to retire. The firm was being bought for Max as was a comfortable family home. David did not tell Max that a bright young clerk in the office, Ted Mottram, had been instructed to report regularly on the Fischer family.

  “Liverpool?”

  David explained the perfect situation of a legal firm in Liverpool, the nearby transit camp meaning Air Force comings and goings were common place, the safe environment on the Wirral, well away from the docks and the risk of bombs.

  He waited until Elizabeth had left the room before explaining to Max his additional responsibilities.

  “You will look after my sister and my niece as if you loved them both. You will do everything you can to make their lives comfortable and happy.”

  Max nodded his assent, it was, after all, what had been agreed.

  “You will also look to the well-being of another lady. She is shortly to move to the area and you will report to me what happens in her life and you will do your best to protect her from harm.”

  “Is someone out to harm her?”

  “They will be.”

  “Her name?”

  “Alicia, soon to be Alicia Donaldson.”

  “And her relationship to you?”

  “Of no concern of yours.”

  “That is no answer.”

  “It will have to do.”

  Veronica was eight months old when, in October 1941, the Fischer family moved into Millcourt, a large grey stone house overlooking a golf course a few miles outside Liverpool.

  Elizabeth grew to love Veronica with a possessiveness she hadn’t thought possible. As her child grew she saw James in her eyes and the colour of her hair, every milestone in her daughter’s life she longed to share with Jimmy, but they had to be faced alone. She spent many hours playing with Veronica on the beach in the shelter of the rocks, she felt calmer there, less depressed and less anxious. The sudden noise of gulls didn’t startle her as much as any sudden noise in the house did. She never could get used to the nanny, the maids and the other staff that Max thought were important to make their lives more comfortable. They seemed to spring out on her and so when she was in the house she was always jumpy, waiting to be startled. When she was on the beach telling her uncomprehending daughter stories about her father, she felt safer.

  Early in 1945 they moved to Sandhey, where her bedroom looked out over the sea to the islands in the estuary and beyond to the hills of Wales. Elizabeth was interested in nothing but her daughter, rarely leaving the house, never seen in the town. She spent any time when she wasn’t tending to Veronica’s needs doing tapestry work. Max was rarely at home. He was abroad for many weeks at a time and even when in the country he would spend 18 hours a day at his office.

  She never asked about his work, what he did or where he went when he was away. She knew enough from what David had told her not to ask questions. She was grateful to him for the life he had given her and Veronica. And for keeping his promise to leave her alone.

  When Elizabeth talked about her daughter he would listen conscientiously and ask what he considered to be ‘the right questions’ but he never interfered, so she was surprised when, in September 1948, he asked if Veronica had been invited to Susannah Donaldson’s birthday party.

  “Funnily enough, yes she has. I wondered why she was invited. I know Arnold Donaldson works for you but I couldn’t see why they had invited Veronica to the birthday party of a two-year-old.”

  “There is a son, Charles, who is only a little younger than Veronica and there will be other children of that age. I suppose Arnold wouldn’t want me to feel slighted.”

  “But we have nothing to do with them socially. Why would we feel slighted?”

  “He is a snob. He wants to have all the children of the better families to his child’s birthday party. He believes it will further his business and political ambitions.”

  “You are cynical.”

  “I am correct.”

  “Do you want me to accept?”

  Much would have been different if Max’s answer to that question had been ‘No’.

  But Max said ‘Yes’ and Veronica went to Susannah Donaldson’s birthday party where she caught the whooping cough that killed her.

  After Veronica died Elizabeth spent weeks lost in depression staring out of the window watching the tide coming in and going out.

  For five years she rarely left her bedroom.

  The decision to move her to a nursing home early in 1954 was not taken lightly as she was only 48 years old.

  It was four years later, three days after Charles Donaldson and Monika Heller had gone to live with Max at Sandhey, that she finally succeeded in killing herself.

  “Max?”

  David was not surprised to hear Max’s voice on the intercom of his flat. He had been expecting him since he had received the letter from Maureen Sheldon saying that not only was Elizabeth dead but the Donaldson household had split and sixteen year old Charles had left home with his nanny Monika to live under Max’s protection. Ever since he had had that letter he had been wondering how the balance of power between them would change.

  “Come up.”

  As they settled in the leather wing back chairs Edith discreetly closed the door behind her leaving them alone. She had been aware of the change in her husband’s mood over the previous few days but since he had said nothing to her she did not ask what the problem was. In the ten years they had been married she knew he would tell her if he felt she needed to know.

  “She’s dead. I’m sorry.”

  David was quiet for a few moments. He was not going to let Max know that Maureen had already told him the news.

  “It had only been a matter of time.”

  “Ever since Veronica it has only been a matter of time.”

  “We would have lost her years before if it hadn’t been for Veronica.”

  “She died the day Jimmy crashed.”

  “Would it have been better if she had?”

  They left that question hanging in the air between them.

  Max changed the atmosphere by speaking energetically, “It’s on another matter I’m calling. There have been other developments. Charles.”

  “What about Charles?”

  “Charles has left his home and run to me. And he brought Monika with him.”

  “You’ve given them both a home?”

  “There is no alternative. I have no choice.”

  “You have never had a choice.” David agreed. His tone changed to polite enquiry when he asked “How much? How much did you filter away?”

  “Enough” Max answered in the same conversational tone.

  “What precisely?”

  Max didn’t answer the question directly. “How much do you think keeping Elizabeth and Veronica cost? The firm isn’t very profitable. How do you think I have been able to keep your sister and her child in the correct manner without …”

  “… your ill-gotten gains.”

  “All right. I kept some things for myself. Didn’t you?”

  “No.”

  “But I did. I have known what it is like to have nothing. I wasn’t going to go back to that for anybody.”

  “I asked yo
u ‘how much’ but I don’t need an answer. I know something of it. I know some of the bank accounts and the names you have used, I know some of the dealers who have given you valuations on the more obscure of the paintings and jewellery you have kept. I know something of their value, something of the extent of your theft.”

  Max said nothing. He didn’t know how much David really knew and how much he was guessing.

  “We’ll make a deal.’’

  Max indicated his willingness to listen by a slight inclination of his head.

  “I will not make this formal if you use your wealth well. You will give to charity, you will assist the weaker members of society, you will only spend that money to the benefit of others.”

  “Does ‘others’ include Alicia Donaldson?”

  David nodded.

  “And her children?”

  David nodded slowly a second time.

  “Why David? Why is it necessary to help them? What are they to you?”

  “That, as I told you at the outset, is none of your business.”

  “That is still no answer.”

  “It will still have to do.”

  Max’s voice changed, his accent subtly more noticeable. “Alicia has a lovely singing voice.”

  David hoped he did not know where Max was leading.

  “She has told me she is a stranger in her family, she says her father and brothers are ‘imbeciles’. You are her father.”

  David took out a cheque book from the drawer of his desk and quickly wrote the words and numbers.

  “Take this, it is for Charles and Susannah.”

  “Your grandchildren.”

  David said nothing, he saw no point in lying.

  “It’s a lot of money.”

  “Invest it well for them.”

  “How do you manage to have so much money? There’s only one way you could have that sort of money on your salary. You accuse me of keeping back what should have been handed over but you must have been taking your cut too.” David made no move to answer but his anger was almost tangible as Max pressed home his point. “Is that all or have you kept even more back for yourself?”