Secrets

by Lesley Pearse

  While Adele began chopping at one of the trees with the axe, Rose gathered up all the smaller branches and twigs around the area, filling the pram in no time.

  ‘Haven’t we got enough now?’ she asked as Adele continued to hack at the tree. She had already cut three big logs, and stripped off her coat and cardigan because she was so hot with the effort. Sweat poured down her face and she had wet patches all over the bodice of her dress.

  ‘That stove takes a lot of wood,’ Adele said, pausing to wipe her forehead. ‘You’ll need to come down here every day and chop off a bit more.’

  ‘I can’t do that,’ Rose said in horror. ‘I doubt if I can even lift the axe.’ As the words came out of her mouth she knew she should have merely nodded agreement. Adele was giving her the coldest look, as though she thought her weak and pathetic.

  ‘I’ll try of course,’ Rose said hurriedly. ‘But I daresay there’s a man around here somewhere to chop it up for me.’

  Adele picked up the axe again and holding it in both hands, she gave a kind of mirthless chuckle. ‘You haven’t changed a scrap, have you?’ she said. ‘Always expecting a man to do things for you. I don’t suppose you’ve ever done a hard day’s work in your life, have you?’

  ‘I’ve always taken care of myself,’ Rose replied, but her voice shook because she sensed this was the start of the showdown she’d half expected. ‘At least since Jim abandoned me.’

  ‘Oh really?’ Adele’s eyebrows shot up into inverted Vs of disbelief. ‘And you somehow earned enough to buy a house?’

  ‘Yes. Well, at least the deposit,’ Rose retorted, and began to walk away because she was scared.

  ‘Liar!’ Adele shouted, and came after her, grabbing her arm. ‘I can guess where you got that money. It was Myles Bailey, wasn’t it? You blackmailed him!’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Rose insisted defensively. ‘Who’s Myles Bailey?’

  The crack across her face came so swiftly she didn’t even see Adele’s hand move. She staggered back, tripping on a fallen branch, and fell flat on her back. Adele stood over her and glowered down at her, the axe dangling from her left hand.

  ‘You miserable, treacherous bitch,’ she hissed at her. ‘You are so stupid too, did you think he wouldn’t tell me? He’s a nasty piece of work too, but at least he had enough decency in him to try and protect his son! You, you’re disgusting, you not only lacked the moral fibre to come and tell me yourself why I couldn’t marry Michael, but you used it as a way to extort money.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Rose insisted wildly, knowing Adele couldn’t have proof of that. ‘I didn’t take money. I only went to him because I couldn’t come back into your life and tell you myself.’

  ‘I’m grown-up now,’ Adele snarled at her. ‘I can look back at all the nasty things you did and said to me objectively, and work out why it was. I’ve probably spent more time thinking about you in one week than you’ve thought of me in twenty years. You treated me worse than a stray cat! You blamed me for Pamela’s death, you allowed me to think your drinking was my fault, even my birth was something bad I did to you.

  ‘After all that you can’t fool me about anything. You’re just a whore, a liar and a complete failure as a human being.’

  Rose was astounded by the ferocity in Adele’s voice, and she couldn’t believe that anyone with so much venom stored inside them could have calmly controlled it for two days, waiting for the right opportunity to spit it out.

  She lay petrified on the grass, her eyes on the axe in Adele’s hand. She was sure she was going to attack her with it.

  ‘I’m sorry, Adele,’ she whimpered. ‘I was sick, I had a mental illness, you know I did. Ask your gran. She knows.’

  ‘I shan’t be asking Granny anything,’ Adele said, her eyes burning and voice rasping with emotion. ‘She’s had more than enough grief over you already. Wasn’t it enough to break her heart? Did you have to come back and ruin my life and Michael’s too?’

  ‘I never meant to hurt Mother, I was young and silly,’ Rose sobbed out. ‘I didn’t want to hurt you and Michael either, but I had to do something. If you’d married him and had children they might have been imbeciles.’

  ‘I might have believed that if you’d come to me and told me the truth,’ Adele roared at her. ‘But you went to him, you saw it as a golden opportunity to make something for yourself.’

  ‘If you think that little of me, why did you get me to come and look after Mother then?’ Rose cried out.

  ‘Maybe because I wanted to get you down here and kill you.’

  To Rose’s horror Adele took her axe in both hands, lifted it up, then brought it down swiftly, stopping only a few inches from Rose’s head. ‘You tried to kill me once, or have you forgotten that? And I’d done nothing to you.’

  ‘I was sick and stricken with grief over Pamela,’ Rose yelled, frantically trying to wriggle away, for Adele was making hacking movements with the axe now, and with each one she brought it closer to Rose’s face. ‘You’ve never heard my side of it. Myles abandoned me when I was carrying you. I worshipped him and he just left me to go to the workhouse. You can’t know what I went through. Please, Adele, don’t kill me.’

  ‘How much money did you get from him?’ Adele thundered, and she moved still closer to Rose, once again bringing the axe perilously close to her face. ‘Tell me now, or you get this anyway!’

  Rose knew there was no point in continuing to deny she’d taken money from Myles, she had a feeling Adele knew everything anyway. ‘A thousand pounds,’ she bleated out. ‘But he owed that to me after what he’d done to me.’

  Adele swung the axe again. Rose screamed and covered her face with her hands, involuntarily wetting herself. The blade came so close it almost brushed her cheek, and it landed in the grass right beside her ear.

  ‘You disgust me,’ Adele said scornfully. ‘Look at you, completely terrified of the child you used to knock about! You deserve pain for what you’ve done to me, but I’ve got something more constructive in mind for you than death or disfigurement.’

  ‘I’ll do whatever you say,’ Rose whimpered. She was so scared she didn’t think she’d even be able to get up off the ground. ‘Look, I’ll sell the house, give the money to Mother.’

  ‘Do you think she would want blood money?’ Adele roared. ‘Do you think I would ever let her know just how depraved her only daughter is?’

  ‘What do you want then?’ Rose cried.

  ‘I want her to live to a ripe old age and be happy, that’s all,’ Adele replied, her voice cracking with emotion. ‘I don’t want her to have another day of anxiety. I want her to believe she and Frank brought a good, decent person into this world. Even if that isn’t true.’

  Rose could only shake with fear.

  ‘Are you prepared to give her that, whatever it takes?’ Adele hissed at her. ‘Are you?’

  Rose nodded. She knew she had no choice but to agree.

  ‘Sit up then,’ Adele barked at her. ‘And listen carefully because I’m not going to repeat it.’

  Rose sat up, and tried to wipe the tears from her face with her sleeve.

  ‘Right!’ Adele said. ‘I’m going to give you just one chance to redeem yourself and it won’t come easy.

  ‘Somehow you are going to have to turn yourself into a cross between Florence Nightingale and Pollyanna. You will lavish care on Granny, empty her commode, bath her and feed her, and look after the cottage, the garden and the animals. You will become the kind of selfless daughter she deserves.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Rose agreed desperately. ‘I promise I will.’

  ‘You’d better,’ Adele said, and smirked. ‘I know that within half an hour of me leaving you’ll be working on some scheme to get out of here and back to your drinking and low life. But don’t try it. Just one false move and I’ll know about it. And I’ll be after you. There won’t be a second chance for you, I promise you that.’

  Rose looked into her daughter’s greenish-
brown eyes and was reminded sharply of Myles. He had looked at her just the same way a short while before he left her. It was a kind of knowing look, as though he’d peered right down into her soul and hadn’t liked what he saw there.

  He must have discovered all her lies and trickery, just the way Adele had now. Perhaps it was as well Adele was more like him than her.

  ‘There are things I should tell you about your father,’ Rose started to say, for she had a sudden urge to unburden herself.

  ‘I don’t want to hear them. I dislike him as much as I do you,’ Adele snapped. ‘I’ve got this wood to get home. You compose yourself and then come in round the back of the cottage so you can wash your face before Granny sees you.’

  Rose watched in stunned silence as Adele calmly went back to the wood-laden pram, slung the logs on the top and the axe in the side, then pushed it to the gate as if nothing had happened.

  Rose got up, fumbled in her pocket for a cigarette, then slumped on the remains of the fallen tree, dragging deeply on the cigarette to try to banish her shakes.

  Adele was wrong in thinking she had never thought about her all these years. She had. But she had never reproached herself for treating her badly. Even when Honour had taken her to task for being a bad mother, she hadn’t really appreciated that she might have damaged Adele.

  But she could see she had now. Coming face to face with such rage and hatred had stripped away all those defences she’d built around herself for so many years. She couldn’t make any excuses for herself, she was what Adele had said – a liar, a whore and a cheat.

  She began to cry, the sobs coming up from somewhere deep within her, bringing with them disgust at herself. She’d always used people, not consciously maybe, but now she thought about it she had always homed in on those who had something to give. Had she ever acted out of kindness, generosity or selflessness?

  While she had often felt regret for deception, heartlessness, greed and manipulating people, she’d always found some way of justifying herself.

  Rose covered her face with her hands, all at once so desperately ashamed of herself that she wished she could die and never have to face Adele or Honour again.

  She stayed outside until dusk came, for she couldn’t stop crying and it was a river of regret. She understood now what the old proverb ‘As you sow, so shall you reap’ really meant. How could she expect love, kindness or understanding when she’d never given any herself?

  It was so tempting just to run from here, find a pub and drink herself into oblivion. That was what she usually did in a crisis. But this time she wouldn’t. She would do exactly as Adele instructed. It would probably never be enough, not for her mother or her daughter. But she had to try.

  A fortnight later Honour was sitting in her chair by the stove looking at her plaster-cast leg propped up on the stool in front of her. It was grubby now, the result of Towzer bounding in from outside and shaking his muddy coat near her. The grey sock pulled over her foot needed darning, revealing one purple-tinged toe, and her leg itched under the plaster. She was sick and tired of being unable to move around freely, bored to the point of desperation at being indoors, but she knew that she should count her blessings.

  She was very lucky to be alive, and she should be glad all her other injuries had healed so quickly. Even the wound on her head was almost better, and within a few days she had been able to dispense with the dressing.

  Rose was out in the scullery plucking a chicken, and every now and then she would sneeze as the feathers got up her nose. Each time it happened Honour couldn’t help but smile.

  Rose was not equipped for the country life. Her hands were too soft for rough work, she had no stamina and she was squeamish. If she had her way they’d be eating fish and chips every night, she’d buy bread and would probably choose to work in a munitions factory and pay someone else to look after her mother. But remarkably, she hadn’t complained once since Adele left.

  Honour knew the two of them had had some kind of fight before Adele went back to London, and that Rose had come off worst. They did their best to conceal it, but she sensed it by her daughter’s cowed silence. Rose had listened attentively while Adele gave her instructions about Honour’s medicine, how often her dressings needed changing and how to tell if there was any infection. She had meekly agreed to go up to the telephone box each week at an arranged time to ring Adele at the hospital with a report on how Honour was.

  It was most surprising that Rose didn’t snap at Adele when she harped on about keeping buckets of water filled, sand available, and the stirrup pump handy in case of incendiary bombs. After all, Rose had seen the aftermath of bombing, and read all the Government instructions on putting out fires.

  But she had behaved as if she were just a servant, afraid to bite back with even a touch of sarcasm. And that, as Honour remembered, was very uncharacteristic, for Rose had always been feisty and sure of herself.

  It was even more uncharacteristic for her to get up at six, rake the ashes in the stove and relight it, then bring Honour a cup of tea an hour later and ask if she was ready to use the commode.

  Honour fully expected that such dutiful behaviour would fizzle out in a few days, but it hadn’t. She fed the rabbits and chickens, she collected wood, did the washing and cooking. She was a surprisingly good cook too. It seemed she’d learned a few tricks of the trade while working in the restaurant, for the soup she made was much tastier than anything Honour could make. And she was very gentle when she changed dressings and helped Honour wash and dress herself.

  She couldn’t kill a chicken or rabbit, and Honour doubted she would ever be able to, but that didn’t matter – Jim the postman was quite happy to oblige when necessary. Yet what surprised Honour most of all was what good company Rose could be. She liked the same programmes on the wireless, and they would both laugh their heads off at ITMA. She was good at card games and had taught Honour several new ones.

  There had been many occasions when she’d been distant or looked very bored, and when she went into Rye on a message, she was gone longer than it warranted, which made Honour suspect she’d stopped off in a pub. But she was easy to be with, for she didn’t prattle on about nothing like so many women Honour knew.

  Life had settled into a pleasant routine, and although Honour felt irked by her incapacity, she had much to be grateful for, especially Rose coming back to her.

  Once or twice she had almost told her how she felt, but it was far too soon, and she still had suspicions about her. Rose was something of an enigma; she still hadn’t said anything about the years between running away from here as a girl and her time in the mental asylum. Or who Adele’s father was. There were times when Honour thought it might be due to the treatment in the asylum. But if it was, it seemed odd that she could recall all kinds of incidents from her childhood, and seemed to enjoy talking about them.

  She also asked a great many questions about Adele, especially about her time in The Firs, how she settled in here at the cottage and how and when she met Michael Bailey. Honour thought she imagined that by piecing together all the events in the years she’d been away from her child, she’d somehow gain Adele’s forgiveness.

  ‘I’ve finally finished the chicken,’ Rose said from the doorway of the scullery, making Honour start.

  ‘Well done,’ Honour said, resisting the temptation to add, ‘About time too.’ ‘Have you put all the feathers in the sack?’

  ‘Yes, Mother,’ Rose replied with the weariness of someone who had anticipated the question. ‘And swept the floor too, before you ask. Shall we have a cup of tea?’

  ‘I can make that,’ Honour said, lifting her broken leg with both hands and putting it to the floor. ‘It’s about time I had a bit of exercise. You come and sit down, you’ve done quite enough for one day.’

  Rose took off her apron before moving into the living room. Honour hauled herself out of her chair and stood on her good leg, reaching for her crutch for support.

  ‘I expect the muscles
will have wasted away by the time the plaster comes off,’ she said, moving closer to the stove to put the kettle on. ‘I just hope I’m not left with a limp for the rest of my life.’

  ‘Limping is better than hopping on one leg,’ Rose said as she sat down.

  That remark made Honour think of Frank. It was the kind of thing he used to say. She turned to look at her daughter and saw the same pensive expression he often wore.

  ‘What’s wrong, Rose?’ she asked, as she opened the cupboard where she kept the tea things.

  ‘Nothing really,’ Rose said with a shrug. ‘I was just thinking about Adele while I was plucking the chicken. I can’t imagine how she can stand to see all that blood and guts, day after day. Ordinary nursing in peacetime is one thing, but she can’t have any break from it now, can she? At her age she should be out dancing and having fun.’

  ‘The war can’t last for ever,’ Honour said, hooking two cups on her finger and putting them on the table. ‘There’ll be time for dancing again when it’s over. When we were her age we were both mothers.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Rose murmured. ‘I was expecting Pamela then.’

  Honour didn’t dare to turn and look at her daughter, for it was the first time she had mentioned Pamela since she’d been here. ‘How did you feel about having a second child?’ she asked cautiously.

  ‘I was horrified at first,’ Rose said in a small voice. ‘But Jim was so pleased, and I was kind of glad I’d made him happy. I wanted to be like other women, you know, the jolly smiling ones who dote on babies. It’s normal to be like that, isn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Honour said. ‘I can’t say I was. I wasn’t one to want to cuddle other people’s babies. I viewed them with great suspicion.’

  ‘Did you?’ Rose sounded astonished. ‘I always got the idea you wanted lots of them.’

  Honour chuckled. ‘I certainly didn’t. I liked you well enough, but I was always relieved each month when I found I hadn’t fallen again.’