‘I don’t know, Mrs Marsden, but I’d certainly like to know more about Jennifer.’
‘Of course,’ said Barbara. ‘Of course. I’m sorry. Of course I should have told someone before now.’ Her throat was dry, she realised. She wasn’t used to making long speeches to her visitors. She coughed. ‘PC Hurran, would you mind pouring me some water?’
He nodded to the female PC, who lifted the sinuous carafe by the bedside and handed a glass to Barbara. PC Hurran, meanwhile, settled himself in the deep cushions of the velvet armchair, and took out an electronic notepad.
‘So …’ he looked expectantly at her, ‘… tell me about it.’
June 1970
Neil
He’d been a nervous groom. It wasn’t a question of cold feet – he’d wanted to marry Barbara within a fortnight of meeting her. No, it had been the wedding itself that made Neil nervous. He felt like a dancing bear in a circus, or a turkey at Christmas. He couldn’t wait for it to be over, for the wedding and all that went with it to be done with, and for him and Barbara finally to be heading off together, husband and wife.
A touch on his shoulder made him jump. He hadn’t noticed his mum slip round the bedroom door. Now, Beryl was standing on her tiptoes to peer over his shoulder and into the little rectangle of the mirror.
‘You look lovely, Neil. I’m right proud of you.’
‘Thanks, Mum.’
‘So’s your father. You know that, don’t you?’
Neil sighed. ‘If he is, he does a grand job of keeping it to himself.’
Ten minutes later the family were walking together up the lane that led to the church, Frank Marsden’s medals clanking against his chest as he reminisced about his own wedding. For once, Neil was pleased that his father was chuntering on – he could just say ‘hmm’ occasionally. His sister Vicky, as bridesmaid, was with Barbara. In her place, kicking his heels and failing to make small talk with Beryl was Alan Crookshank, Neil’s best man.
Neil glanced at his watch. In an hour they’d be married. In four hours or so the worst of the public humiliation would be over. This time tomorrow … He felt himself blush.
‘And you’re sure that you know what to do, lad?’
The change in his father’s tone caught Neil’s attention; the familiar lecturing voice had suddenly become hushed and gruff, but he no idea what the lead-up to the question had been.
‘In the church, you mean …’
‘No.’ Frank had put on a little spurt of pace, and he glanced behind him before continuing in hushed tones. ‘Tonight. With Barbara.’
Bloody hell. This was not a conversation Neil wanted to be having at all. ‘S’awright, Dad,’ he blurted out.
Frank nodded. ‘Good lad.’
Neil was convinced that Alan Crookshank was killing himself with silent laughter a few steps behind.
*
They spent their honeymoon in a hotel on Loch Lomond. Friends had suggested Spain or even North Africa, but Barbara had been firm that she didn’t want to go abroad.
It turned out that a dodgy tummy wasn’t the only thing she didn’t want to risk on honeymoon. Neil discovered that there had been a trip to the GP a few weeks before the wedding and a small dial-pack dispenser had appeared in their shared toilet bag. His face had flushed when he saw it, almost as red as that walk to the church with his dad.
He had picked up the pack with a trembling hand, and turned back into the bedroom, holding them out to her. ‘Did you ask the doctor for these?’
‘What do you think? I didn’t buy them on the street, Neil.’
‘But, weren’t you …’ He faltered.
‘Mortified?’ she’d prompted, as she smoothed the felt of her good hat and reached up to put it safely on top of the wardrobe.
‘Well, shy?’
‘No. I’m a married woman, Neil. And it’s 1970, not the Middle Ages.’ She flashed a smile towards the doorway of the en suite, where he still stood, awkwardly, holding the edge of the pill pack. ‘Hurry up, Neil, or we’ll miss breakfast.’
Despite his hesitation over the pill, those nights on the shores of the loch would stick in Neil’s memory as some of the best times of his life. The pair of them had spent three years not doing it; Neil had been brought up to believe that good girls didn’t. In their early days he’d cajoled her a bit for the sake of good form, but in truth he desperately wanted Barbara to turn out to be a good girl. Something told him that if he pushed too hard he might get what he had asked for and regret it.
That first night in the hotel had been a little awkward. Barbara had been solemn before, and a little tearful afterwards, but wasn’t that what girls were supposed to be like? Up in Scotland they both relaxed into it more. Barbara still seemed to need to retreat a little, to find some hiding place within herself just as he got close to her. But when he asked her about it she claimed she was enjoying sleeping with him and couldn’t explain the shadow that seemed to creep over her.
The image of the little pack of pills kept floating into his mind, though, intruding on his contentment. Should it bother him, he wondered, that she’d not talked to him about it first? Nah, he decided. A couple of years in their own place before the kids came along didn’t seem like such a bad idea.
Neil liked the misty mountains well enough, but his favourite time was the rainy day when they drove down to Glasgow. In Lewis’s, Barbara tried on frocks and bought a kohl pencil to do her eyes like the girls on TV. Whilst she took her time in the ladies’, Neil sneaked to the cashier’s desk with a swooshy baby-doll dress in a vivid blue that had set her eyes off perfectly.
At his insistence, Barbara opened the tissue-wrapped package in the street outside.
‘My God, Neil, it’s beautiful. I only meant to try them on as a joke.’
‘Hey.’ He lifted her chin and could see the tears threatening to spill onto the kohl. ‘You deserve it, Mrs Marsden. Now, why don’t you nip back in there and put it on?’
‘Shall I?’
‘Yes! But I’ll do my waiting in the pub this time.’
Neil headed down the street to the bar he’d pointed out as Barbara disappeared back into Lewis’s. As he waited, he thought back to when they first met, on a Friday night over an ice cream float in the Bridge Café at Moreton Chase services.
Barbara and the other waitresses wore stiff new caps and the lights of the cars on the motorway streaked beneath them in the September gloom. The stretches of bypasses and relief roads were gradually linking up just as Macmillan had promised. Up to Cumbria; down to Birmingham; onwards to the future. The ice cream floats they served in the restaurant seemed more American than the dull pints of heavy that they sometimes drank in the same pubs and clubs as their weary fathers. But a little way down his float, Neil had found his teeth ached with the cold and sugar.
‘Frozen teeth?’
It had taken him a moment to register that the young waitress was talking to him, and then another to realise that she must have spotted him wincing as he sipped at the float. She wasn’t mocking though; she looked sweet, with wide brown eyes and a slight blush on her cheeks that he couldn’t help but smile at.
‘Yeah.’ He’d shrugged. ‘I should just have had a cup of tea.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that now. The heat’ll make it worse, see? I could get you a plain Coca-Cola if you like.’
Her pen had hovered efficiently over the pad, and her efforts could simply have been in aid of another order, but Neil hadn’t thought so. A canine had pressed into her pink frosted lips and it had dawned on Neil that she was nervous.
‘I’ll persevere, thanks,’ he had said. Then, taking a gamble: ‘Are you new here, love?’
She had nodded quickly. ‘I just moved here, started the job last week. Someone else let them down. It’s hard to get in here, you know! But I won’t stay for long. I’m going to be a journalist.’
She had shaken her hair back, looking even younger suddenly.
‘I can believe it,’ he’d said. ‘You’re do
ing great. And maybe I will have that Coke.’ He’d paused while she wrote carefully on her pad, then he’d taken a deep breath. ‘What time will you get off at then?’
The chatter between Brian and Alan had died away beside him. The waitress hadn’t answered immediately. Instead, her bottom lip had disappeared further behind her teeth and Neil had let himself imagine kissing the tiny pink marks off the slick enamel.
‘Not till ten,’ she’d said, tucking a wisp of dark hair back under her cap. The clock over her shoulder had said ten to nine.
He’d waited, though, and it had paid off. She’d been grateful for the lift and directed him to a large Victorian villa in a part of the town he didn’t know very well. He still remembered his first sight of the hostel, how the street lamps outside made a spiky jungle of the blackberries that had taken over the garden. Inside, two windows had been lit on the upper floors, one covered with newspaper and the other partially obscured by a sweep of brightly striped cloth. Neil had seen a woman with a baby in her arms peer out at the car and then quickly turn away from the window. The light in that room had gone off and the colours of the stripes had disappeared in the darkness.
‘This is your … home?’
Barbara had nodded, and again he’d seen the flash of her teeth as they scraped her bottom lip. The pink lipstick was all gone. Her hair had flattened and she looked younger still.
‘I’d really like to take you out for a drink sometime, Barbara.’
‘I’ll have to think about it.’
‘Do you have a telephone number then?’
She’d glanced towards the house. ‘That wouldn’t really work.’
So she’d only been being polite when she said she’d think about the drink.
‘I see. Okay,’ he’d said, turning away to mask his embarrassment. He’d waited for her to open the door and get out, but instead she’d put a hand on his sleeve. Her touch had been light, but enough to make him turn.
‘You could give me yours. I’ll call you. I promise.’
Thank God she’d kept her word.
*
She finally appeared, walking with an uncharacteristic air of self-consciousness down that dour Glasgow street in the blue dress. He caught sight of her just as a flash of evening sun cut through the city skyline. She looked like a girl from a fashion plate, with the swing of the dress and the kohl drawing out her figure and sparkling eyes. Her brow was set in the slightest frown of concentration as she scanned the shopfronts, looking for the pub.
She was blind to her own beauty, he realised, completely unaware of the way she drew admiring eyes from men – and women – as she walked past. Neil’s heart could have burst with pride, and he knew that would be the way he’d always remember her. Not as the nervous bride, drowned in white and standing in front of the empty half of the church, but walking down Argyle Street in a burst of sunshine, her face breaking into a sudden, wonderful grin when she saw him wave through the window.
August 2017
Barbara
‘I gave them my name.’
Tears were seeping slowly onto her cheeks, but she ignored them. These days, her tears were sparse and lethargic, like everything else about her. She could afford to let them fall. She spoke hesitantly, coaxing out the story that had haunted the forgotten, dusty corners of her mind for decades. With every word, the past took on a form and substance she’d tried to deny it for years. Bit by bit, word by word, she was resurrecting Katy.
‘My name was Katy Clery. I went to prison when I was fourteen. They called it a secure unit. It was meant to be a children’s home, but it was prison really. I went to a real prison after, so I should know.’
PC Hurran passed her a tissue from the box that was closer to her than to him. She dabbed vaguely at her jawline.
‘They let me out at twenty and gave me a new name, a new life.’
‘You said a minute ago you gave them your name. You mean your old name? Who did you give it to?’
‘I’m telling you … Let me get there … It was with the breast cancer diagnosis. They told me … they told me genes were important. My mother died of cancer at about my age. I think it was breast cancer – I’m still not completely sure. When they asked about family history, I told them …’ She could feel some strength returning to her voice, the frustration surging into it. ‘I undid almost fifty years of being careful and I gave them the names and asked them to look up the medical records.’
‘Your mum’s records?’
‘Yes, and my sister, Sonia. I’m in touch with her – secretly. I can trust her. She had a breast cancer scare a couple of years ago.’ She paused, motioning to Hurran to hand her another tissue. ‘And then the notes started. I got the first one only a few days later, and another two before I came into hospital. They were hand-delivered to the house – just horrible. I wanted to throw them away, but I couldn’t make myself do it.’
‘It must have been very disturbing for you, Mrs Marsden.’
‘Of course.’
She let her eyelids slip down. Sleep was lurking in the corners of the room, ever-ready to embrace her worn-out body.
PC Hurran wouldn’t be able to understand how she could let herself give way to it, given the things they were talking about. Barbara wouldn’t have understood herself, a few months ago, before this illness taught her what tiredness really meant. Who would have known that tiredness could be so physical, so extreme, that even this couldn’t stand in its way? This tiredness was death’s handmaiden, numbing her to go gently. How could this young policeman be expected to understand that?
He coughed. ‘Helen told us there had been an incident in the General. She was concerned that the threats might have turned into action, and that the author of these notes might have been responsible?’
Barbara opened her eyes with some effort.
‘I didn’t tell her about the notes initially – my family were worried enough with all of this – but she found one.’ Barbara felt a flicker of pride for her clever girl, refusing to be fobbed off. She loved Helen, in her own way. She hoped that Helen would be able to see things from her point of view.
‘So, this “Jennifer” was connected to the crime you went to gaol for? You’ll have to tell me about that. And also about why you kept this from your husband and daughter when it was clear it was getting dangerous. Why did you let the senior medics at the General think it was some sort of accident?’
‘Well, that was what the doctors wanted to think.’ Her speech was slowing now, and slurred. She could hear the faults in the cadence well enough but could do nothing to fix it. ‘Of course I will tell you. I’ll do whatever I can to help Barney. But you have to understand.’ She paused, unsure for a moment what she was trying to say. It was all such an effort now. ‘You have to understand I’m very tired.’
Through her sinking eyelids, she saw PC Hurran nodding, earnestly. And then sleep took her.
Helen
Twenty-eight hours. It would be his bedtime soon. The second one without her. If only they could bring him home before bed.
Operation Denim had taken over their lives. Veena, or rather DS Sawhney, was officially appointed as their family liaison officer and they were – briefly – introduced to the senior investigating officer, one DI Nelson. He had a faint Caribbean accent and weary, bloodshot eyes. The street and the house buzzed with officers. Helen sat in the middle, useless and terrified. She hadn’t slept; she had barely eaten. Time had lost all meaning except as a way to keep track of the growing number of hours that her boy had been missing.
Darren had called in to the police just before seven a.m. and spoken to her as soon as they’d finished the call. His phone had been out of battery. He’d been staying with ‘a friend’. He had no idea what had happened to Barney and was frantic with worry. He would set off to drive back from London as soon as he could. Helen crumpled after the call. The thought that Barney had gone with Darren had been the last straw of hope she’d been clinging to. Yes, it would have been appalli
ng, but so much better than the alternatives. Whatever else she thought about Darren, she knew he would never hurt either of the children.
She spent the day drifting around the house like a spectre, weeping over Alys – however hard she tried not to – folding and smelling Barney’s clothes, obsessively checking her phone even though Veena was downstairs and any news would most likely come through her.
When they asked her to come and sit in the living room, her heart raced giddily and she was forced to pause, holding the headboard of Barney’s bed for a second or two to steady herself before she felt able to make her way down the stairs. Neil was already sitting on one sofa, opposite Veena on the other, and he patted the cushion, hurrying her to take her own place. Of course she was desperate for any news, but at the same time her fear held her back, dulling her movements as if she was wading through treacle. She sat heavily, blinking up at Veena and waiting to hear something, anything, about her boy.
‘We have some news, but not about Barney directly.’ She stressed the ‘not’ and looked at them in turn, checking they’d taken it in. Helen exhaled deeply. ‘About your mother,’ Veena continued.
‘What’s happened?’ Neil gasped and groped for Helen’s hand.
‘Two police officers have visited her this afternoon. Basically, she told them that she’s been living under a false identity. She underwent gene testing at the hospital and there’s a chance this could have compromised her, that persons from her past could have been alerted to her new identity.’
Veena seemed to be reading from a script. Helen couldn’t take it in. She was so exhausted that thinking hurt. She could barely form the questions in her own mind, never mind work out what to ask Veena.
‘So, as I said, Barbara Kipling is a pseudonym.’ Veena rattled on briskly, as if that would keep the wholesale unravelling of Barbara’s life – and theirs – somehow on track. ‘She was born as Katherine Clery – known as Katy. She was gaoled at fourteen. When she was released, she was given the chance to change her identity.’
If They Knew Page 15