Daisy Chains

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  Into the pause following this story, Sylvia asked softly, “I don’t want to be awkward. But you seem to know a lot about where he went and how he felt over the past years, even though you hate him and didn’t go near him.”

  Tracy stared back into Sylvia’s intrusive gaze. Then she put her head down and shrugged. “OK, yes, it’s true.” She looked around. There were four pairs of eyes glued to her reactions. She sniffed, then laughed. “Who was it said, ‘If you keep telling the truth you’ll get caught out sooner or later.’? And I think it’s a proper saying in the Middle East – ‘The truth is a special and valuable thing. You can’t just give it away to everyone.’”

  “And the truth is?” said Harry with a studied smile.

  “He wrote to me when he met Joyce. A private message thing on my Facebook. I never gave him my address. But he kept sending messages for a little while. I answered once. Only once. Then he stopped after he got that disgusting shed. Some of the messages were just plain crazy. You know he’s mad, don’t you?”

  “Not so mad he couldn’t carry on a good job driving a luxury coach all over England and some of Europe,” Darcey pointed out. “And arrange a fairly complicated prison escape.”

  “Do you,” Rita asked, “still have those messages on a computer somewhere?”

  “I don’t have a laptop or a computer or anything,” Tracy said with another shrug. “Only the phone. I suppose you could find old stuff on that, but I’ve never used it for anything except business.”

  Sylvia leaned back. “Would you find this cottage, do you think?”

  “Oh, I doubt it.” Tracy was collecting empty mugs. “He didn’t ever give me exact directions. I doubt he ever wanted me to find him.”

  “I think,” said Sylvia, I should buy you a nice laptop, and invite you down to Little-Woppington-on-Torr for a week or so. Do you fancy a boring holiday?”

  “The dream of my life,” grinned Tracy.

  “You won’t want to lose this nice new flat,” Harry said. “But we’ll find you a nice place to stay for a week or two. Motel? B&B? Air B&B? Hotel? Above the pub?”

  “That’s the one,” she sat up at once. “Bloody perfect. Not too far from your place, and a new number for this phone so I don’t get the creeps phoning in the middle of the night.”

  “We’ve got a couple of really cosy pubs nearby,” Harry told her. “And we can chat over dinner. All five of us.” He raised both eyebrows at Darcey and Rita who were sitting patiently sipping the tea neither was enjoying.

  Everyone nodded politely. “That’s it then,” said Sylvia, reaching for her scarf and gloves. I shall phone for a reservation as soon as we get back to the hotel. Will you drive up with us tomorrow?”

  “Or come with us?” suggested Morrison. “Not that we’re fighting for your company, and I’m no better a driver than Harry. But we can go through a few formalities on the way.”

  Sylvia awoke with a bruise on her arm. She stared at it with surprise. “I suppose you elbowed me in the night to stop me snoring.”

  He grinned and lightly kissed the little bruise. “I don’t remember it if I did. Having a bad dream I expect. So let’s order breakfast in the room and get ready for a long drive home.”

  “Tracy’s cosy tavern is booked. And they said the sun was actually smiling.”

  “We’ll arrive too late to see it.”

  She had planned it for days. Beneath the barbed wire, the matted ivy and the steel spikes, there was a low gap in the fence. A stray dog had been digging perhaps, a rabbit or even a badger. Foxes were good at getting in and getting out. A soon as she had seen it, she had known what she had to do.

  It was the middle of a chilly night and she wore only a kid’ s threadbare nighty with her only cardigan over it. Everyone else was in bed and she held her breath frantically, hoping they’d stay there. Flinging herself to the moss riddled grass, she began the escape. At just thirteen she had little practise at anything except whoring, but she’d dreamed of escape often enough.

  Her tiny growing breasts hurt as they rubbed against stones and hard frosty earth. The bottom bar of the metal fence was thick and heavy, and she was already nose deep in the gravel. Not knowing how to make herself smaller, she simply pushed harder. The wire scraped the back of her head and she felt the long rip on her back, the ruin of both cardigan and nightdress, and the trickles of blood. Blood didn’t worry her and nor did pain since she had been long accustomed, but the success of her escape was the most important thing, and she was scared stiff of failing, and being seen, heard, and caught. Silence was therefore equally important. Her sobs stuck in the back of her throat and she made no sound except the soft scrape of flesh against stone and the rip of skin on jagged edges of the wire spikes. Then once her head had pushed beyond the bottom fence and into the low bank of freedom beyond, she permitted one minute atom of hope to surge from brain to belly.

  The dark clouds hung like curtains across the stars, but half a moon slipped silver from the haze and shone its stark contrast. The rimed grass echoed the glimpses of silver. Her hands kept pulling, their grip on the weedy long grass past the fence was urgent and strong. Her shoulders wriggled through, her waist slipped beyond easily. Her arse stuck, but she clenched her buttocks and gritted her teeth. Her legs were thin enough to slide like little grass snakes, and then she was through, rolled over, and breathed deep. With her nose in the grass and her tongue thick with the muck below, she’d seen nothing of the sky. Now she could see the beauty hidden from her for so long. She could breathe fresh air.

  But it had all gone wrong after all. Someone was standing over her, feet to her ear, toes stamping impatiently, her hair caught beneath the soles of the boots. Everything had failed after all, and now there would be the punishment. With no further need for silence, Tracy had started to cry, choking on the bitter disappointment and renewed fear.

  Yet the voice Tracy heard did not come from either her mother or father. A gruffly sympathetic voice murmured, “Miss, are you alright. Let me help.”

  Tracy had looked up. It was a uniformed policeman, tall, skinny, elderly and puzzled. His hand reached out towards her. She grabbed it as if it represented a promise of pure gold. “Get me out of here,” she whispered. “I have to get away.”

  Now it was Sylvia who clutched Tracy’s hand as Harry went back to the bar to order more cider. “Oh, my dear, how terrible. And how old were you?”

  “Thirteen,” Tracy said. “And a bit simple for my age, I reckon. I mean, I never got out or met anyone. I watched telly, but I thought it was all made up. All that stuff about nice food and parties and cuddles from telly mums and dads – I just thought it was stories. I mean, I expect most of it was, but I had no idea other people lived like that.”

  “You never left the house?”

  “No. I never went to school after I was six, and Mum found the customers and brought them back to the house most of the time. They came to my bedroom.”

  Harry plonked down the drinks on the table between them. “At least your first experience of the police wasn’t bad, then.”

  “Sergeant Michaels. Michael Michaels actually. Not a name to forget and I got to know him quite well for a couple of months. They put me in care, of course, but that was pretty shitty too. Michael’s retired now, unfortunately and I’ve no idea where he lives. But he was so nice and helpful when he could be. I kept up with him for ages, and he helped me through a couple of things. Not that life got wonderful. When I turned sixteen I got work at MacDonalds, but I didn’t get enough money to live on, so I stopped work and went on the dole. Then I started back on the game. Well, obviously I never told the Social, so I kept on getting the dole too. I hated being a hooker, so I worked as little as possible. That was when I lost track of my lovely cop friend, ‘cos I knew he’d be cross about my double dipping, so I never followed up where he went to. I regretted that afterwards, but it was too bloody late for regrets. Those Johns were disgusting. Every one of them.”

  It was Rita who said,
with a flushed glance at Morrison, “Oh gracious, it must have been horrible – especially at the beginning.”

  “it was horrible from start to finish,” said Tracy, nose disappearing into the cider glass. “But no worse at the beginning ‘cos I was already used to my dad. He forced himself on me at least a hundred times as a kid, so I wasn’t exactly a frightened virgin.”

  Sylvia cringed. “How old were you when he started? And why didn’t you go to the police?”

  “You don’t get it.” Tracy stared over the top of her glass. “I was seven , two days before my eighth birthday first time, so he just sort of told me it was what dads were supposed to do. But I was already caged. I couldn’t go telling anyone. I lived in the cupboard under the stairs. Well, it wasn’t a real cupboard, but it was small enough. Had a bed and a chair. I knocked on the door when I wanted to go to the loo. When Dad wanted me, he carried me up to his bedroom and Mum went and slept next door in my sister’s old room.”

  “And your mother never did anything about it? She didn’t even complain?”

  “See,” Tracy said, leaning back with a grimace, “my mum was often worse than my dad. Apart from the fucking business, he never really did anything to me. Mum, well she was a sick bitch. Those first few times with Dad were rotten scary and hurt and all that. But afterwards, he seemed nice. I got used to it, and he was all cuddles and nice promises and all warm and safe. But Mum, well she knocked me about and locked me under the stairs. I never got sweets or presents or anything, though I reckon she was penny poor so perhaps she couldn’t help that. But she managed to afford her scotch. Dad put up the wire fence around the back yard but I don’t know if that was for me or for him. In the end I refused to call her Mum, and she threw boiling water at me. Just caught all over my feet, thank goodness. She always did have a rotten aim. My feet still have funny marks all over and my ankles are red. But she was quick enough to find me clients. They squashed in other the stairs too.”

  “We’ve discussed all this already,” Morrison said softly. “You don’t have to talk about it all again if you’d sooner not. It must hurt to describe it.”

  “Now I’ve started, it’s sort of a relief,” Tracy said, but looked back at Morrison and smiled. “I couldn’t have a gin and lemon, could I? Instead of more cider? I’m not doing anything after this except going up to bed. I reckon I could sleep for a week.”

  He bought her a double gin and lemon. “And I certainly won’t call you up early. Sleep till lunchtime.”

  “When’s lunch?”

  Rita laughed. “Make it one o’clock. One thirty if you prefer. I’ll come just before two.”

  “I thought I’d had a fairly revolting first half to my life,” Sylvia told Harry as she cuddled up tight to his side, snuggled in bed. “But it certainly wasn’t anything compared to this poor kid.”

  “I was happy as a kid,” Harry said sleepily. “It makes me feel almost ashamed.”

  With a faintly self-indulgent disappearance into past memories, Sylvia explained. “I used to think life was a boring pain. But I’m disgusted remembering my trickles of adolescent self-pity. Compared to others, I was actually lucky. But bits were rotten. My parents divorced, a common problem but always miserable for the children. During her second marriage, my mother died and that was awful at the time. Suicide, which I never quite understood and perhaps never forgave. Besides my step-father was a bit sweet but a bit of a twit and my step-brother was a nasty little creep with a pyromaniac twist. Obsessive. But no big deal, I left them and lived with my father. Then I was a complete idiot and fell for a vile little idiot who pretended arrogance but secretly altogether lacked confidence, so chased every woman who smiled at him, and crept into more beds than Ruby has cream cakes in a year. Totally all my own fault for not having the intelligence to see through him. I was bloody miserable, but big deal. Then, fantastic luck, before I had a chance to finish the divorce arrangements, he died in an accident. Wow – all his money and property came to me. What more could I ask for? I was horribly sorry to discover I couldn’t have kids myself. That was the big crying every night thing. But with that creep, it’s perhaps just as well. And it put me off falling for anyone else.” She pulled the quilt up over her ears and cuddled closer. “Until I met this gorgeous bloke Harry, and I love him to bits.”

  Harry turned, grinning very wide. “I never thought I’d meet the love of my life in my seventies either. Thank the Lord. I never liked being alone, but I thought it inevitable. So, gorgeous girl, I can’t believe my luck. I’m happier than I’ve ever been now.”

  “Even searching for murderers? And hearing all about their sickening crimes?’

  Harry buried his head between her breasts, disappearing entirely beneath the quilt. “It’s like paying life back for the luck I’ve been given. I have to do something decent, not just wallow in happiness.” He looked up, nose to her chin. “Besides, it’s interesting, and I think we’re not too bad at it.”

  “I think we’re pathetic,” snuffled Sylvia. “I remember what my father did and what he managed. He got promotions and medals. We’d never even be worthy of a thank you.”

  “We’ve had a few thank yous.”

  “We don’t deserve them.”

  “Hush, my love, go to sleep and have cosy dreams. We can help Tracy, believe me. And she’ll help us find that maniac monster.” He slipped back up onto the pillows, one arm clamped firmly around Sylvia’s waist. We go around there tomorrow mid-afternoon. I like her. It’ll be an interesting day.”

  “I told you. I mean, Dad was worse. Far worse. But I didn’t know that back then. He just went off most of the time and I hardly saw him. But Mum kept me in that bloody cage and kept on and on telling me it was to keep me safe from my dad.”

  “Did she really mean it? Believe it?”

  “Yes. Well, half and half.” Tracy was in her own room upstairs over the pub, a small cosy room with a double bed and a big sofa. She was sitting on the floor, head back against the footboard. “That is, yes she thought Dad might find me and do horrible things. She said I was lucky he just fucked me, since otherwise he might have killed me instead. She didn’t seem to mind about the fucking, perhaps it was good cos it left her free of him most of the time. But she seemed to enjoy things that made me cry as a kid. She whacked me with a real whip. She said it was a sex-toy that Dad used to use on her. He never did on me. If the whip wasn’t to hand, she slapped me round the face or just knocked me over. She nearly pushed me onto the gas cooker once, and one time onto the telly, and broke it. She had to go ages without one, but I wasn’t allowed to watch it often anyway. But she clobbered me with something or other when she said I’d been naughty.”

  “It sounds as though you’d try very hard not to be naughty.” Sylvia was sitting on the bed, feet on the floor but leaning back on the pillows. “What did she class as naughty?”

  “The sins of the child,” mumbled Tracy. “Anything. Everything. Eating too quick. Asking for food. Saying I wanted to go to school with other kids.”

  “Home tutoring?” Morrison, Harry and Rita were somewhat squashed on the two seater sofa. It was Morrison asking. “Did she do the legal home tutoring stuff, or just keep you away from prying eyes?”

  “I’ve no idea. She never taught me a thing but there were three books in the house, and I used the telly and those three books and the occasional newspaper and official letter, and I taught myself to read and write. I must have read those three books a hundred times.”

  Curious, Rita asked, “What were they?”

  “The Story of ‘O’, The Infamous Secrets of Oliver Church, and the tales of Peter Rabbit.” Tracy sighed. “I really got sick of them all but there wasn’t anything else. I’ll never forget those titles. I remember half the words in the books too.”

  “And the tales of Peter Rabbit was the orthodox version?” asked Sylvia. “Seems rather an odd mix.”

  Tracy was nodding. “I was too old for it. But of course, I was too young for the others. They just seem
ed silly to me, but I knew what they were all about. Dad taught me all that stuff before I was nine. At least I taught myself to read and write. But I’ve never been any good at maths. Don’t ask me what a percentage is. I just ask for the money I want off some bloke, and I manage to count it out to make sure he’s paid fair.”

  “And why the cupboard under the stairs? It’s as bad as Harry Potter.”

  She giggled. “Yes, isn’t it. I’ve read Harry Potter now. I got them all from the library. Loads of other stuff too. And I read that tacky little book by Paul Stoker too, about my dad. It made me sick. It wasn’t true, was it?”

  “Not all of it. But most.” Morrison watched Tracy’s face as he told her. She was staring into her lap.

  “We’d better find him then.”

  Chapter Five

  Thunder.

  “He’s crazy. Who has a gun? Just shoot as soon as we see him.”

  “It’s your father who has the gun, unfortunately. I wouldn’t know how to use one, even if I had it.” Harry was plodding and staring down at his boots, trying to avoid the slushy puddles. “But the police have searched and searched and found nothing, so I doubt we’re just going to walk into him.”

  Rita was gazing up into the dark clouded sky, blinking at the vivid forked flashes of lightning. “It’s going to pour,” she said, and the clouds opened on cue. It pelted with windblown sleet and Tracy yelled.