‘Oh,’ said Daphne cautiously, ‘and what was that?’
Janet decided to grab the bull by the horns and said, ‘Are you my mother?’
‘What?’ Daphne, startled by the question, but pretty sure her mother would not have told Janet about her parentage, managed to inject laughing incredulity into her voice. ‘What on earth gave you that crazy idea?’
‘Well, are you?’ demanded Janet, her eyes never leaving Daphne’s face.
‘No, of course not! Where did you get that from?’
Janet evaded the question. ‘I was going to ask Mum, but with her being so ill, I thought it was better to come and talk to you.’
‘Well, I’m glad you didn’t suggest such a thing to Mum,’ Daphne said. ‘She’d have been devastated. And,’ she went on, ‘I hope you didn’t say anything to Dad, either. Whatever made you think such a thing?’
Daphne’s fierce protestations were beginning to convince Janet that the fears she’d tried to set aside had been justified after all. Birth certificates couldn’t be wrong, she’d known that really; so, she was indeed like Marion and her father was unknown. Why did Daphne keep denying it? Janet wanted to know more and decided not to mention the birth certificate yet.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘it was something someone said at school.’
‘Who said? What?’
‘Rhoda’s gran told Rhoda.’
‘Told her what?’
‘Told her I was your daughter, not Mum’s.’
‘Well, I don’t know who Rhoda’s gran is,’ growled Daphne, ‘but she’s lying, lying in her teeth.’ She reached out and took Janet’s hand. ‘Don’t think about it any more,’ she said. ‘It’s all a pack of lies. I’m glad you came to me and didn’t worry Mum and Dad with any of this.’
Janet looked her firmly in the face and said, ‘Does Felix know?’
At that moment the sitting-room door opened and Felix came in. Overhearing this last remark, he said, ‘Does Felix know what?’
‘That Daphne ain’t my sister. She’s my mum!’
Daphne fought to control the impulse to slap Janet hard across the mouth as Felix, startled, said, ‘What? What did you say?’
‘Janet’s got some bee in her bonnet,’ said Daphne quickly. ‘Something about being my daughter. Some girl at school’s been spreading lies and of course she’s upset.’ She forced a smile to her lips and said, ‘I’m just thankful that she came to me and didn’t worry our parents with such rubbish.’
‘Janet, Daphne’s right,’ Felix said gently. ‘We haven’t been able to have children... because Daphne can’t. She has something wrong inside and can’t have a baby. So, you see, it’s just an unkind rumour someone is spreading about you.’
‘You’re wrong,’ said Janet. ‘She can have a baby, she had me!’ Red-faced, she was almost in tears. She flung herself out of the room and up the stairs, returning moments later with the birth certificate in her hand. She thrust it at Felix. ‘There,’ she said. ‘This was in Mum’s papers’ box. I found it when I was looking for your address.’
Daphne jumped to her feet and made a grab for the document, but Felix twisted away and unfolded it. He scanned its details and then read it again, his face paling beneath its summer tan. Without a word he handed it back to Janet and walked out of the room.
Daphne snatched it from her, crumpling it into a ball and throwing it across the room. ‘You stupid little cow!’ she snarled. ‘You’ve ruined everything!’
‘No,’ cried Janet. ‘You ruined everything. Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘It was Mum’s idea. There was no reason for anyone to know. It was to protect you, you silly little bitch. So that you wouldn’t be a bastard!’
‘Nothing to do with you, then?’ snapped Janet. She was not stupid or silly and she had a great deal of both her mother and her grandmother in her. ‘Not your fault that you got pregnant sleeping around with soldiers.’
‘He was a sailor, actually,’ snapped Daphne, ‘and it only happened once.’
‘So all my life has been a lie, right from the moment I was born.’ In that moment, Janet shrugged off her childhood and looked at her mother with adult eyes. ‘If you’d admitted it when I asked you just now, treated me like a grown-up, you could have explained and Felix need never have known.’ She walked across the room and retrieved the crumpled birth certificate, smoothing it between her fingers, folding it carefully and putting it in her pocket. She stalked to the door before turning to Daphne and saying, ‘You say I ruined everything? No. It ain’t my fault “Mummy”, it’s yours!’
Daphne heard her stamping up the stairs and then the slam of her bedroom door. Stupid child! Stupid, stupid child! She paced the room, her mind working furiously. How was she going to placate Felix now? He would know she had lied to him from the start, that she hadn’t been a virgin on their wedding night. He would probably guess that she had actively been avoiding conceiving a child, even though she knew it was his dearest wish. What was he going to say? What was he going to do? She needed to get away. She needed Jane. She’d go to Jane. But Jane wasn’t at the flat, she was staying with her parents. Daphne went out into the hall. The house was silent. She crept up the stairs and saw lines of light showing beneath the doors of both the blue spare room and Felix’s old room. The door to their bedroom, Felix’s and hers, stood open and the room was in darkness. She walked quietly along the landing, went in, shut the door and locked it behind her.
Janet lay in bed in the blue room. She had been unprepared for the extreme reaction her revelations had provoked. She was sorry for Felix. He’d been kind to her and she liked him. He’d been so chillingly angry when he’d looked at the birth certificate, it was clear that Daphne had never told him that she’d had a child. And Daphne? Daphne was raging! What on earth was going to happen in the morning?
Exhausted, Janet closed her eyes. It had been a long day and despite the turmoil of her emotions, she finally drifted into an uneasy sleep.
Felix did not sleep. He too lay on his bed, his mind churning with what he’d learned that evening and the wider implications. Janet was Daphne’s daughter, that much was clear, and it meant that the whole of his life with Daphne was founded on a lie. She had pretended to be a virgin, refusing to sleep with him until they were married. A lie, the first lie. When he’d met her, he wouldn’t have been surprised to discover she’d had some sexual experience; the way some girls behaved had altered during the war. He wouldn’t have blamed her for it. Maybe he could have come to accept that she already had a child if she had told him, if she’d been honest and perhaps explained the circumstances. But she’d lied, she had lied because she wanted him to marry her. Not for love, he could see that now, but for what marriage to him would bring. He’d loved her, but she’d used him. She had lied about not being able to have children. He had believed her, but Janet was the living proof of that lie.
Felix’s anger was cold. The hot flashes of anger that had erupted occasionally during their marriage were nothing to the ice-cold anger that gripped him now. Their whole marriage was founded on lies.
Daphne spent the night gathering her things together. She would pack her bags and go with Jane when she returned to Bristol in the evening; leave Felix to stew in his own juice, and as for that stupid girl, Janet, well, she could take herself back to London and good riddance.
‘I’m leaving,’ she told Felix next morning. ‘I’ll go and stay with Jane for a while. She’ll put me up until I decide what I’m going to do. I’ll go with her when she goes back to Bristol this evening.’
‘Suit yourself,’ replied Felix. ‘What about Janet?’
‘What about her? Send her back to London, I should.’
Daphne had tried to ring Jane at Charing Farmhouse, but there was no reply and she realised that the Shepherds must have gone to church. She glanced at her watch and seeing that the service would soon be over, she decided to walk up the lane in the hope of being able to snatch a quick word with Jane; put her in the picture. When sh
e reached the church, she found the congregation already spilling out onto the village green. Jane was standing with her parents as they chatted with the Masterses. Edging forward, Daphne heard them talking about the German airman who’d turned up in the village. She caught Jane’s eye, but Jane merely smiled and with the faintest shake of her head indicated that she couldn’t talk just now. Daphne, who certainly didn’t want to explain what had happened last night to anyone else, nodded and having mouthed ‘the quarry’, she moved away again. She would meet Jane as planned in the afternoon and tell her what had happened then.
She didn’t go back to the manor until she saw Felix and Janet leaving the house and heading towards Eden Lodge. Was he really taking Janet there for lunch? She’d give anything to see old Ma Bellinger’s face when they were introduced. She’d lay money on the fact that Felix would introduce her as Daphne’s sister, and how would snobby Marjorie deal with Felix’s cockney teenage sister-in-law?
She brought the cases she’d packed down to the front hall and left them ready to put into Jane’s car when she collected her later. She put some buttered bread, a hard-boiled egg and an apple into a basket for her lunch, picked up the picnic rug and set off to meet Jane. She’d be early, but she didn’t mind that and she was determined to be away from the manor when Felix got home again.
39
Felix didn’t send Janet straight back to London, as Daphne had suggested. He took her round to Eden Lodge for lunch, and having introduced her to his mother as his sister-in-law, he half-explained the situation.
‘Janet came down here to stay with us because their mother’s in hospital,’ he said, ‘but unfortunately Daphne isn’t here just now so I wondered if Janet could come to you for the night. It wouldn’t be right for her to stay with me, alone in the house.’
‘Where is Daphne?’ asked Marjorie. ‘Has she gone to London to visit her mother?’
‘No,’ Felix replied abruptly. ‘She’s left.’
‘Left? As in left for good?’
‘I assume so.’
‘I see,’ said Marjorie, even though she didn’t. She wasn’t really surprised that their marriage was in trouble, what did surprise her was the fact that Daphne had apparently walked out leaving everything, everything she’d schemed and planned for, behind. Marjorie bit her tongue and asked for no further explanation. Felix would tell her in time if he wanted to and it certainly wasn’t the time for saying ‘I told you so!’ In the meantime, she agreed that it wouldn’t be proper for Janet to stay at the manor with only Felix living there and she’d make up a bed for her at Eden Lodge.
‘I would prefer you didn’t discuss what happened last night with my mother,’ Felix had said to Janet before they set out. ‘I’m going to introduce you as Daphne’s sister. Please let’s stick with that for now.’
Janet, shaken by the passions her revelation had unleashed, had been happy to agree. She’d woken this morning wishing she’d never come, and lying in bed, wondered how quickly she could get back to the safe familiarity of the home; back to Mum and Dad. She wished she’d never found the birth certificate. Mum was her mum, and Dad was her dad, whatever that piece of paper said. She didn’t want to see Daphne, she didn’t want to see Felix, but she couldn’t stay in her bedroom for ever, so, eventually, she plucked up courage and came cautiously downstairs. She found Felix in the kitchen, drinking a cup of coffee, but, thankfully, there was no sign of Daphne. She paused on the threshold and he looked up.
‘I’m sorry,’ she began and then stopped. She had no idea what else to say.
Felix gave a bleak smile. ‘Don’t be,’ he said, ‘it would all have come out at some time. It’s not your fault.’
‘Where’s Daph?’
‘She’s gone out. I think she’s going to stay with a friend for a few days, until things blow over. Come and have some breakfast.’
‘I want to go home,’ said Janet, a quiver in her voice.
Felix looked at her pale and anxious face and smiled at her. ‘Of course you do,’ he said gently, ‘but I don’t think you can today. Tomorrow I’ll take you in to Bristol and put you on the train.’ When he’d suggested that she might like to stay the night with his mother she leaped at the idea. She didn’t want to spend a moment longer under Daphne’s roof; she never wanted to see her again.
Janet was almost as impressed with Eden Lodge as she had been with the manor: big rooms with comfortable furniture, lovely curtains and pictures on the walls. When they sat down in the dining room to a lunch of roast chicken with potatoes and vegetables she couldn’t help saying, ‘Where do you get all this food? We never have food like this.’
‘It’s because we live in the country,’ Marjorie said. ‘Most people keep hens so there are plenty of eggs and nearly everyone grows some vegetables. We’re spoiled today because one of our hens had stopped laying and so she’s providing us with meat rather than eggs.’
Janet put down her knife and fork and looked at the meat on her plate. Chicken? Could she really eat that? She’d never eaten chicken. But the aroma arising from her plate was so appetising, she picked up her cutlery again and cut off a tiny piece of the meat to taste. It was delicious and before long her plate was empty.
‘My dad’s got an allotment and Mum cooks what he grows.’ She hesitated as she thought of Mum in their small kitchen, but then went on, ‘But we don’t get nothing like this.’
After lunch Felix left Janet with Marjorie and set off to collect Dieter from the Magpie. On the way up the hill, Dieter spoke of the vicar and the dedication of the updated stone. ‘He is a very good man, I think,’ he said, puffing a little as the path got steeper. Felix paused for a moment, ostensibly to show Dieter the view but in fact to allow him time to catch his breath. They stood for a moment on a ridge and Felix pointed out the various places visible.
‘I love the view from up here,’ he said. ‘You can see for miles.’ He pointed across to the sea shimmering in the distance. ‘That’s the Bristol Channel and beyond that you can see the coast of Wales.’ He turned and pointed to the clump of trees further over, standing out against the clear blue of the summer sky. ‘That’s Charing Coppice, over there,’ he said. ‘That’s where you fetched up in your tree.’
Dieter followed the line of his finger, but shook his head. ‘I don’t remember,’ he said.
‘Probably a good thing,’ Felix said. ‘I wouldn’t want to remember if it was me.’
He’d already told Dieter that he’d been a fighter pilot, and Dieter had said, ‘They were all very brave, your pilots. We couldn’t beat them down.’
‘Shit scared much of the time,’ Felix said.
‘That’s what makes them brave,’ said Dieter, ‘fighting on when shit scared.’
‘I suppose it was the same for your lot,’ said Felix.
‘Yes, too many dead... on both sides.’
Now, they walked on in companionable silence and reaching the top of the hill, dropped down into a shallow valley on the other side.
‘Nearly there.’ Felix could see Dieter was struggling, but it was clear that he wasn’t going to give up.
‘Good!’ Dieter grinned at him, but his face was covered with a sheen of sweat.
Further on, the path joined an overgrown track that led towards a rocky outcrop, stark fingers of rock pointing upward, and below them the open crater of the worked-out quarry. They followed the track until it reached the edge of the rocks, where it dipped down into the hollow below. Long years of extracting stone by hand had left a semicircular gash in the hillside, now gradually being reclaimed by nature.
Felix paused again and said, ‘There’s the quarry, the plane hit the ground just by those rocks. My father was one of the first there, but it was a fireball, nothing they could do.’ The two men stood together, looking down. ‘I’ll wait here,’ Felix said, ‘if you’d like to go down on your own.’
‘No,’ said Dieter after a slight hesitation, ‘no, we go together, as friends now.’
They walked into the
quarry, its rocky walls and floor now half-covered with scrub and brambles. Dieter went ahead to where it was still possible to see the blackened stone where the aircraft had burned so fiercely. The summer sun warmed his face as he stood and remembered Leutnant Franz Herschel, Oberfähnrich Alex Braun, Oberfeldwebel Joseph Adler. He guessed there had been very few remains to be carried down to the churchyard and buried, but he knew their names, had flown with them as a team, and now those names would be carved on their headstone. If little else, their names would remain. Dieter closed his eyes.
Felix stood in silence beside him, wondering if he were praying, or fighting tears, or simply remembering his comrades. A rustling in the bushes as a bird swooped out and into the air made Felix look round. His eyes rested on a jutting piece of rock and a memory, long forgotten, returned to him and made him smile. It had been under that rock, in the hidden hollow below it, that he’d first kissed a girl. What was her name? Angela, yes, that was it, Angela someone who’d come to stay at the manor with his cousins, Clive and Chris, one summer. She’d been older than he and knew what she was doing and it had been most exciting. How old had he been? About fifteen, probably; an eternity ago.
Dieter was walking slowly round the rocky floor and when he reached a convenient chunk of stone, he sat down, pleased to give his aching legs a rest before the walk back to the village.
‘You all right?’ Felix asked, concerned.
‘Of course,’ Dieter replied. ‘I just rest a little and think of my friends.’ He turned his face to the sun and again closed his eyes. Felix wandered across to the jutting rocks and scrambled up the side until he came to the overhang. He grinned at the thought of his fifteen-year-old self, clasped in the arms of Angela, learning that when you kissed someone it was better if you opened your mouth. He leaned over the top and peered down into the hollow and found to his horror that the space was occupied. Two people, both naked, stared up at him, the horror in their eyes matching his own. As if turned to stone, neither of them moved, their pale bodies curled together as elegant and erotic as a classical sculpture. The few seconds he stared down lasted an eternity, before he jerked himself back, away from the edge of the overhang and slithering noisily down the scree, landed awkwardly beside Dieter.
The Married Girls Page 40