Missing the Moment

by Missing the Moment (retail) (epub)

  “Lovely.” This time Harriet found it impossible to smile. She turned away and went into the kitchen, followed quickly by Rhoda.

  “Well done. Joe.” Brian stepped over, kissed his sister-in-law and shook Joe’s hand. Jack was next and soon the room was filled with wedding talk. Harriet came out of the kitchen, eyes reddened by tears.

  Joe and Charlotte stayed about an hour and by that time it was apparent that Peter was still far from well. His face was puffy and hot; he looked very tired, and he admitted to some lower back pain and a headache.

  Joe pointed this out to Harriet, who had not spoken a word to him since his arrival.

  “Peter is all right,” she insisted.

  “I do feel ready for my bed,” Peter admitted, and Jack stood up to drive him home.

  “We’ll go as well,” Charlotte said.

  “But you haven’t looked at the new lounge suite,” Rhoda wailed.

  Charlotte ignored her and she and Joe left with some relief. The forced gaiety, the undercurrent of her mother’s disapproval, had spoilt the evening.

  “It should have been a wonderful evening,” Charlotte said sadly. “I’m so sorry, Joe.”

  “At least it’s over, my pretty. And we both knew that however we spread the news it wouldn’t have been cheerfully received. Not by the Dragon at least. Your Uncle Peter seemed genuinely pleased.”

  “It should have been a celebration, but Mam spoilt it as I knew she would.”

  “I’ll make it up to you, I promise.” Joe grinned at her then. “Tomorrow we’re going out for the day. Our own engagement party it’ll be. I’ve booked us seats on a trip to Clifton Zoo.”

  “I’ll have to ask Mam—”

  “No you don’t! We’ll sneak off early in the morning without telling her where we’re going. Knowing she disapproves has got to be part of the fun. Like two naughty kids mitching from school we’ll be. Now, what say you get a cup of tea made; I have to talk to your uncle before he goes to bed, about business.”

  “Business, today? Just got ourselves officially engaged we have and you want to talk business? Joe Llewellyn, I’m surprised at you.” She smiled at him then and added, “Wait till I’m there, mind, I don’t want to miss anything!”

  “Just got officially engaged and you want to listen to business talk?” he teased. “No, my pretty, make us a nice cup of tea and I’ll tell you all about it later.”

  What Joe said was serious, but he had a feeling that Peter was hardly aware of his words. The man seemed vague, lost in other thoughts, yet uneasy, looking at him intently as if trying to concentrate at times, and staring into space like a sleepwalker at others.

  “There’s money missing from the firm’s accounts, Mr Russell,” Joe began. “A lot of money I suspect. There’s a charge for twelve pounds I noticed first, for materials that are being ordered for a second time. The stock cupboards and stock lists show no sign of the first lot arriving. You’ve been charged for stuff you haven’t received.”

  “Twelve pounds you say?” Peter’s voice was low and Joe could hardly hear him. He thought it must be because the man was shocked. He said nothing for a while, his eyes were restless as if he were trying to gather his thoughts. “It’s a simple mix-up, Joe,” he said at last. “Nothing more than that. It will be in the reckoning further down the column, cancelled and allowed for.”

  “I looked and it isn’t.”

  “Still, twelve pounds, it isn’t that terrible,” Peter said, his voice still strained. “An oversight. That’ll be it. Ring the suppliers, perhaps they are late delivering.”

  “I have and they aren’t.” Joe spoke slowly, allowing for the man to take it all in. “The trouble is, Mr Russell, that’s only one instant. I kept the books overnight and found several. What I found in a few hours amounts to almost two hundred pounds.”

  Joe looked at Peter, as there seemed to be no response to his words. Peter was sweating and Joe noticed suddenly how swollen the man’s face had become recently. Flushed now, it was more apparent. “Are you all right?” he asked. Alarm grew as Peter groaned, held his head. The man was obviously very ill.

  “Charlotte! Come quick. I’ll phone for the doctor, you wait with your uncle.”

  An hour later, Peter was on his way to hospital with the siren urging other motorists to make way. Having been told the news by Joe, Rhoda was alarmed, concerned, but wailing most loudly at the premature ending of her party. Charlotte was comforting her mother and agreeing with her that the wedding must be delayed once again, that she couldn’t possibly leave her mother at such a time. Joe protested but was sent on his way by Harriet, who made it clear that it was he who had caused Peter to be ill.

  “Worrying him about weddings and troubles at work when he was so tired. Cruel and thoughtless that Joe Llewellyn is for sure. Haven’t I always said so? But will you listen to me? No!”

  Trying to console her distraught mother, Charlotte held back her own tears. She had hoped that in making the announcement so publicly her mother would have to accept it. She knew now that it was a hopeless dream.

  There was a time to fight and a time to submit. This was a time to submit, to accept what fate so clearly had planned for her. Her life was unfolding before her, a long, straight road caring for her mother without any deviations to find a life of her own. Acceptance was the only way. To fight it would only bring resentment and bitterness.

  She didn’t know when, or even if, she would marry Joe, but she knew it would not be on June the tenth. Not unless her mother dropped dead. She cried then, shamed at the wicked thought. Tomorrow she would go and tell Joe that the wedding was off, indefinitely.

  Chapter Six

  “What d’you mean, the wedding is off? Honestly, Charlotte, dealing with you is like coping with a petulant child!” The normally placid Joe shocked Charlotte by reacting in serious anger when she called into the shop to tell him that the wedding had to be cancelled.

  “But Joe, you don’t understand—”

  “I understand that when there’s a problem you push me away. Won’t you ever think of us as a team? A partnership? Sensible, dependable Charlotte! That’s how people see you, isn’t it? Well I think you’re simply afraid.”

  “Joe, that’s ridiculous.” She backed away from him, startled at the unexpected rage.

  “Is it? The truth is that you seek the easy way out. Rather than confront your difficulties you fall over backwards to avoid dealing with them. You’re a coward, Charlotte Russell, and you haven’t the guts to become one of a couple. You haven’t the guts to stand up for me, for us. Always on your own you’ll be, unless you change, and pretty damned quick!” He walked out of the shop, slamming the door behind him and after the shock of his explosive anger had faded, she wondered what to do.

  She’d never had anyone walk away from her in a huff before and she didn’t like the feeling. She looked around the neat, orderly shop and felt trapped. She didn’t want to be there when Joe finally returned, yet how she could leave the shop open and unattended? She sat on a chair in the small office, trembling, frightened, his words stabbing into her brain like knives. He was so unfair. She couldn’t help her mother being the way she was. How could he expect her to walk away and leave her to face her father’s return, her uncle’s illness and the possibility of a divorce?

  Two hours later she was still there, worrying about getting the dinner, but still unwilling to leave Joe’s shop unlocked. She decided that the dinner was unimportant on this occasion; Joe did come first. She felt guilty, but less so than she would have if she failed to look after Joe’s property. Mam wouldn’t die without dinner, she might even get something for herself, although that she doubted.

  She sold a few small items, demonstrated a bicycle to someone considering moving up from an old sit-up-and-beg bicycle to one with three-speed gears and drop-handlebars, and between times she sat and stared into space. There was a phone but she didn’t telephone home. What was there to say? No sympathy from her mother over having quarrelled
with Joe, that was certain!

  The door opened and Joe stood there, the anger still in his eyes and her instinct was to push past him and run out, but she didn’t.

  “Oh, Joe,” she said softly and he came towards her, his expression softening, his arms opening to enfold her.

  “Charlotte. I’m sorry. But we really do have to deal with it, together.”

  “I’ll try. Joe.”

  “At least everything is out in the open now. she knows what she has to face. The worst is over.”

  “Unless she finds out about Lillian. If she were told about Dad and Bertha—”

  “If it’s true, mind, you know what this place is for rumours. Besides, a secret kept for eighteen years isn’t likely to break now, is it?”

  “I hope not, Joe. I hope not.”

  “Remember” – the steel was back in his voice as he touched her cheeks and made her look at him – “remember, my pretty, if it does, we’ll help her but it’s something for us to cope with, to face together. Right?”

  Together. It had a lovely sound.

  * * *

  Charlotte went to the hospital frequently. On the third day of her uncle’s stay she found him improved and able to talk to her. For two days he had been semiconscious and it was with relief that she looked around the doorway and saw him propped up on his pillows and looking towards her. He waved a greeting and she ran to hug him.

  “Uncle Peter! What a relief to see you’re on the mend.”

  “I’m certainly better than yesterday. Did you come?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “What about your mother?”

  “She’s well,” she said, deliberately misunderstanding him.

  “I meant, did she come?”

  “I know you did.” She busied herself packing away the clean clothes she had brought and taking out items for washing. The speed of her actions revealed her anger. “I’ve tried to persuade her, Uncle Peter. She won’t consider it.”

  “Don’t be angry with her.”

  “Even Rhoda came in to sit with you yesterday with her patient and adoring Brian. She sat holding your hand being terribly brave, as if she were the patient and about to have surgery. But Mam went to the pictures.”

  “I’ve never told you about your mother’s childhood, have I, Charlotte? I’m sure she hasn’t told you either. It was an empty and sad one. Everyone she began to care for left her. Your grandparents lived abroad and your mother was left here. From a cruelly early age she attended a boarding school. During the holidays she came home to an empty house with only indifferent servants to look after her, and mostly they were servants who were new to her, they never stayed long. And I suspect that her parents found it cheaper to close the house and employ someone just for the holiday then close it again.”

  Charlotte said nothing, she only half listened, closing her mind to sympathy. Hadn’t it been similar with herself and Rhoda? Left with Joe’s Auntie Bessie Philpot night after night? If it had been so terrible for her mother without parents constantly near, why had she treated her own children in the same way?

  “There was no Auntie Bessie Philpot for her,” Peter added, cutting across her thoughts.

  Again Charlotte didn’t respond. She admitted to herself that Joe’s Auntie Bessie had been a loving, caring, deputy mother. How could that sort of childhood make her mother so unfeeling? How could that explain her non-appearance at the hospital to comfort Uncle Peter when he was so ill?

  “But why doesn’t she come to see how you are?” she asked finally. “I don’t see how a lonely childhood could stop her wanting to make sure you’re all right. You’ve never left her alone for a day since Dadda went away. Not even during the war. She was one of the lucky ones.”

  “She was sent to nursery school as soon as it was possible and during the holidays, stayed with a succession of friends. Many of whom didn’t really want her. She sensed this and was bewildered and sad. At seven she went to boarding school and, because they were so far away, her parents couldn’t even visit on open days. When all her friends had their families with them she stood in the background utterly alone. Imagine how she must have felt.”

  Peter closed his eyes for a few moments and Charlotte wanted him to stop talking, to stop trying to make her understand. Why should she understand a mother who allowed an unhappy childhood to ruin her own daughter’s life? She’s trying to prevent me marrying Joe simply for her own reasons, not out of concern for me, Charlotte thought. Resentment, not pity, filled her heart.

  “At term’s ending,” Peter went on, after another, longer pause. “when all the other children were being collected by their parents, swept up, kissed, hugged, she had to wait until the person who was paid to mind her turned up. Always the last. A stranger every time.”

  Charlotte saw that Peter was tired and she said nothing while he closed his eyes and rested again, dozing intermittently. Lost in her own thoughts, she began to imagine that lonely little girl and it became impossible not to feel sympathy for her. Yet it didn’t really explain her mother’s non-appearance at the hospital. She depended on Uncle Peter so much, some affection must have grown between them? Even if there was no affection, normal behaviour must deem it proper for her to pretend some? To put on an act?

  The loneliness of which Uncle Peter spoke was of long ago. She had been married more than twenty years. Since her father’s disappearance she’d had Uncle Peter for support. Surely it was time to forget her hollow childhood? She saw Peter’s eyes reopen and she prepared to listen with exaggerated interest. It seemed important for him to tell her. Perhaps once he had, he would rest. He looked so dreadfully tired, his eyes bright and feverish.

  “Then,” he went on, as if he hadn’t paused, “when the immiment return of her mother and father promised a life filled with love, attention and security, her parents died. They caught a fever during their last weeks in Malaya and in days they were dead.”

  “She couldn’t have missed them. She didn’t know them.”

  “Their most recent letters had been full of what they would do on their return. It all sounded like a wonderful dream. Holidays together, picnics, visits to friends, everything she had imagined, and everything she had seen other children enjoying.” Again his eyes closed and she sat patiently, trying to imagine the little girl that her mother had been.

  “She had a calendar on her bedside table on which she was marking the days. With only two weeks to go they let her down, finally and irrevocably, by dying and leaving her practically peniless.”

  “But then she had Dadda and now she has you,” Charlotte insisted. “And Rhoda and me.”

  Peter seemed not to hear. “She was engaged to marry and he let her down too, abandoning her only days before the wedding. The banns were called, then he told her he was marrying someone else. She married your father on the rebound and all the years they were together she constantly reminded him he was second choice.

  “Poor Eric, he tried so hard to do everything she asked, to compensate for being the wrong man. Her guardians refused permission for her to marry your father, you know. They considered him far below her socially, even though all the money her family once had was lost in some financial swindle.” He smiled at her and went on. “They married anyway and I think were happy, for a time. At least until the disappointment of not having the large family they both wanted so much. Then your father gave her the social life she craved, for as long as he could stand it, then – well, you know what happened then.”

  “So why is she so against Joe? Didn’t she learn from her own experience of others deciding for her?”

  “Joe was – but no, that’s another story for another time. She has never lost the fear of losing those she loves. She’s afraid of losing you, I suppose.”

  “She won’t lose me if I marry Joe. In Main Street I’ll be, not Malaya! She’d only have to shout and I’d hear her!” She sighed with impatience. “Really Uncle Peter, you’d think she’d sympathize, not stand in our way, having been in
the same position with a guardian disapproving of the man she loved.” Peter seemed not to hear.

  “Your mother and father desperately wanted children. There were three babies which failed to survive before you arrived healthy and yelling your head off,” he went on, his weary eyes staring into space as if seeing again those sad events. “Losing three babies after a childhood like she had had would be enough to send many women out of their minds. The fear is constantly there. She was very anxious about you and Rhoda when you were small. If you and Rhoda weren’t home from school on the stroke of three-thirty she was in tears.”

  “I don’t remember such concern,” Charlotte whispered rebelliously.

  “When your father went away, she transferred her anxieties onto me, heaped the reasons for panic onto my shoulders,” Peter said. “It’s as if she has to have someone to worry about, someone on whom she utterly depends.”

  His voice was low now and Charlotte had to bend close to him to hear. “If I’m five minutes late home she imagines me crushed under the wheels of some enormous lorry. I let her down you see. Like all the rest. I’d promised her she could rely on me forever. I swore I’d always be strong. By getting myself injured and stuck in a wheelchair, I let her down too.”

  Charlotte sat unmoving, silently digesting her uncle’s words. She tried to see how such experiences could make it impossible to overcome fear with love, and she failed.

  As she saw it her mother had let Uncle Peter down by her reaction to his disability. Surely she could have taken over and cared for him? Surely she owed him that much?

  She wouldn’t let Joe down, whatever happened to them, and why, if childhood without attention was so damaging, why had her mother left her and Rhoda so much? Going on holidays without them, spending evening after evening entertaining and being entertained, leaving them with Joe’s Auntie Bessie Philpot? She couldn’t make sense of it.