by Jessie Keane
‘What do you mean?’ asked Vanessa.
And Ju had told her everything. About Cornelius’s close connection to Tito Danieri – a gangster, for God’s sake – and about the beautiful dark-haired boy he had been seen hanging around with in a club.
‘He was all over him, apparently,’ gushed Ju excitedly.
Someone had taken a photograph, and it was rumoured that Tito’s heavies had smashed the camera. Smashed the photographer up, too.
‘Come on,Vanessa, I want to know,’ said Cornelius roughly, his smooth veneer slipping, just a bit.
‘I told you. No one who would pass it on to anyone, except to me. And you know I won’t, either. But you should be more careful, Cornelius.’
‘Look, that’s enough of all that nonsense,’ he said, turning away from her. ‘The main thing is, is Daisy going to be all right?’
‘She is. No thanks to you. I don’t know whether she injected herself or someone else did it for her, but that was an overdose of heroin in her system. It could have been fatal.’
Cornelius looked aghast. ‘Do you seriously think she’d do that to herself?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t feel I know her. I don’t know what she’s capable of. All I know . . .’ Vanessa choked on tears now. ‘All I know is that she’s beyond me. I’ve tried so hard with her. But she’s wild.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Ask Julianna. Ask your sister. Daisy’s out of control, she has been for a long time.’ Now Vanessa broke down and started to sob, long, tearing exhausted gasps that shook her skinny frame.
‘Darling – don’t . . .’ Cornelius pulled her in close to him, held her.
‘I don’t know what to do with her any more,’ cried Vanessa.
Cornelius made soothing noises, but he wondered bitterly how Vanessa could have allowed this mess with Daisy to escalate to this level. It could ruin him. Didn’t she realize that? Much more of this, and there would be Talk. He couldn’t have that. He could see that he was going to have to take this situation in hand.
112
1972
Daisy couldn’t remember very much about that disastrous New Year’s Eve party. She only knew that she’d been miserable. She’d tried to jolly herself up with a lot of drink and a pill or two. Then she had found herself up in the bedroom and someone . . . she couldn’t remember who . . . had said, try this, and had tied up her arm with a plastic thing that hurt a lot. Then the sting of the needle. After that, nothing.
Expecting to be given a very hard time by the folks – she knew she deserved it – Daisy was surprised when she was allowed to recuperate at Brayfield without so much as a mention of her appalling behaviour. Pa was, as always, mostly absent. Vanessa was, also as always, mostly in the garden. Daisy was left alone.
At first she just stayed in bed. Then, when she was able to get up, she wandered around the big house, pale and shivery, feeling the horrible skin-crawling after-effects of the drugs. For a long while she couldn’t sleep properly for vivid, terrifying nightmares, and she didn’t eat very well either.
But slowly, surely, her body mended itself, although her mood remained black. Her life was a mess. Now her home, the one she had poured so much love and attention into, was a mess, too; one sunny day, when she felt strong enough, she walked down to the gatehouse and opened the door and went in.
She just stood there in the hall, looking at the chaos that no one had yet thought to do anything about. Tears were pouring down her face. She didn’t feel she had the strength or even the will to sort this out. A car passed by on the drive, but she took no notice.
What’s going to happen to me? she wondered bleakly.
She could feel her entire being spinning out of control. The folks had even talked about a psychiatrist, professional help. Maybe they were right, maybe she was just crazy. Her mind groped around for logic but couldn’t find any. She thought of Kit, how upset she’d been when he rejected her yet again. She wondered if he’d tried to see her. She could have died that night. And would he even have cared? She was just ‘that fruit loop Daisy’ to him, mad and sweet, but not his type.
She had never been denied anything in her life; but she couldn’t have Kit. She could see that so clearly now. So she was going to leave him alone. Why keep punishing herself by trying to summon up feelings that weren’t there?
Her mind made up, she took a deep breath and dried her tears. She left the gatehouse, locked the door, and walked back up the drive to the house.
There was a large dark-blue car that she didn’t recognize parked in front of the house when she got there. She went indoors and heard voices and laughter in the drawing room. The door to the drawing room was ajar. She didn’t want to see anyone so she closed the front door as softly as she could and crept across the hall to the stairs.
‘Daisy!’
Damn.
She turned, pasting a wan smile on her face. Vanessa was standing there, flushed, in the open doorway, not wearing her usual uniform of jeans, blouse, jumper and Barbour but a floral-sprigged cotton sundress with a pale primrose cardigan. She had a smear of lipstick on her mouth, even a touch of mascara on her lashes.
So what’s the occasion? wondered Daisy, her spirits sinking even further. She didn’t want to make empty conversation. She wanted to go up to her room and never come back out again.
‘We have visitors, Daisy, come on,’ said Vanessa.
Daisy crossed the hall with all the enthusiasm of a prisoner going to execution. They stepped into the room and she saw to her surprise that Pa was there, holding court with his broad back to the fire, his thick mop of white hair aglow, an arm propped casually on the mantelpiece. Filling the room, as he always did, with his huge presence. There were three other people in the room: a ruddy-faced older man and a thin woman she didn’t recognize, and . . .
‘Simon?’ she blurted out.
He turned towards her, drink in hand. He’d gained a little weight, she saw, but he was still essentially the same: red-haired, short, densely muscular, brutishly attractive with twinkling hazel eyes; the same Simon Collins who had taken her virginity at the Dorchester.
‘You do remember Simon, don’t you?’ said Cornelius, leaving the fire to walk over to the younger man – dwarfing him, and placing an arm about Simon’s chunky shoulders.
Oh gawd – didn’t Aunt Ju call him the Dwarf . . .?
‘Yes, of course,’ mumbled Daisy as Simon Collins was brought towards her by her father.
Simon kissed her politely on both cheeks.
‘And these are Simon’s parents,’ said Vanessa. ‘Sir Bradley and Lady Collins.’
Daisy was trawling her memory for details. Hadn’t Aunt Ju said that Simon’s father owned a building company? Hadn’t she said the family were ‘trade’, but very respectable? Yes, she had. They owned gravel pits: aggregates. That was it.
And hadn’t the last time she’d seen Simon been a disaster, with him looking embarrassed and announcing that the girl walking with him down Regent Street was his fiancée Clarissa, one of Lord Breamore’s daughters?
She glanced at his left hand as he turned and accepted a drink from her father.
No ring.
But then, Simon was so macho that he probably wouldn’t agree to wear one.
‘You’re looking beautiful,’ said Simon, staring at her in a way she found discomforting.
‘Thank you,’ she said. She knew she didn’t look beautiful. She was scruffily dressed in an old jacket, jeans and sandals, and she was still looking – and feeling – washed-out from her brush with her own mortality.
What on earth’s all this about?
She sent a querying look to her mother, but Vanessa was deep in conversation now with Lady Collins. She glanced at Pa, but he was making Sir Bradley laugh. She was marooned on an island of awkwardness, with Simon her only companion.
‘It’s been years,’ said Simon.
‘Yes,’ said Daisy.
‘Too long,’ he said.
> Daisy stared at him curiously. ‘The last time I saw you, you introduced me to your fiancé.’
‘Ah. Well, yes. Clarissa.’
‘How is she?’
‘Haven’t a clue,’ said Simon with a shrug. ‘That fell through.’
‘And before that,’ said Daisy, ‘the Dorchester. My deb’s dance.’
Simon’s eyes locked with hers. ‘Quite a night.’
‘You took my virginity.’
‘I know. I enjoyed it, too.’ He lowered his voice even further. His eyes caressed her face. ‘You were fantastically hot, for a virgin.’
‘I was drunk out of my skull.’
He was still very attractive, she had to admit that. And in flats, like she was wearing now, he didn’t seem so short.
‘Thought you might be married by now,’ he said, sipping champagne. ‘All sprogged up.’
Daisy shook her head. A brief vision of Kit floated through her brain, but she booted it straight out. Kit was gone, the past. Now, she had to somehow find a future.
‘I was lucky not to be “sprogged up” that night. Actually, I could have been, for all you cared.’
‘I think your aunt put paid to that, interrupting us like she did.’ His hazel-flecked eyes were smiling into hers. ‘But you were so delicious. And so surprisingly big-breasted under that demure yellow dress. I love large nipples. Yours are huge. I’ve never forgotten them, they’ve haunted my dreams.’
‘Simon . . .’ Daisy could feel herself blushing. For God’s sake, her parents were in the room.
‘I wanted to bite them, to eat them,’ he went on, lowering his voice to a husky whisper. ‘As a matter of fact, I’d like to do that now. I intend to do that, the first chance I get.’
Daisy felt a hard twinge of desire then.
‘I’m very glad you’re not married yet,’ he said more softly.
‘Why’s that?’ Daisy was trying to keep her voice steady, but failing.
‘Because I want to marry you. I’ve already spoken to your father.’
Daisy glanced across at Pa. No wonder Sir Bradley looked flushed with pleasure, his face almost as red as his hair; no wonder his wife was looking like she’d won the lottery. Pa had organized this. Daisy felt herself shrivel with embarrassment as she realized that her father had spoken to her mother and Aunt Ju, and that he must know what she and Simon had done that night in the Dorchester.
‘What did he say?’ she asked faintly. She couldn’t believe this.
‘He said if you were agreeable, then he’d be very pleased to call me son-in-law.’ Simon was standing very close now. ‘Are you agreeable, Daisy?’
Daisy stared at him. He was handsome, successful, vigorous. She felt as if she were standing on a precipice. Behind her, her wild past, Kit, loneliness, confusion and despair. Ahead – Simon. And marriage. A fresh start.
‘My God. . .’ she breathed, shocked by the suddenness of events.
‘Are you?’ he murmured. ‘Because I want this, Daisy. I want to get you bedded and full of babies as soon as I can.’
It seemed an odd thing to say. Again Daisy found herself looking at Pa. Had Cornelius promised Simon and his gleeful parents’ money to take his too-troublesome daughter off his hands? And – yes – more money if she produced children quickly, and got ‘settled down’ to maternity?
She stared at her father. Oh yes. He probably had. Money was, after all, Pa’s answer to everything.
It wasn’t exactly a romantic proposal. She barely knew Simon; all she knew, right now, was that her father was paying and that Simon was keen. And being desired was a balm to her hurt and bewilderment. Simon wanted her. She liked that.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘Why not?’
‘What?’
‘I’ll marry you, Simon.’
He stared at her a moment longer. ‘You won’t regret this,’ he said, and then he turned and announced the happy news to his parents, and hers.
113
There had been only one children’s home in Fulham in the nineteen forties and fifties, and Kit had been trying to find it but failing. He had the road right, but there were blocks of council flats there now. He went to the local post office and spoke to a harassed-looking man behind the counter there.
‘In the forties and fifties, you say?’ He stared at Kit like he was crazy. ‘Who knows what happened? Come on, mate, there’s people waiting to be served here.’
Kit withdrew. He thought about going back and talking to Jennifer again, but she was so frail that he didn’t really want to bother her if he could avoid it. Instead, he went to the local paper and was shown into their archive section by a spectacled middle-aged lady who set him down and showed him how to work the microfiche.
‘Do you have the year?’ she asked.
Kit gave it to her.
She was shuffling papers, flicking page after page. ‘That was near the end of the war. It could have been bombed,’ she said.
‘Yeah, it could,’ said Kit. In which case, Ruby’s quest was over and her child was dead. He didn’t want to take her back news like that.
‘Here we are,’ said the woman, peering over the top of her glasses. ‘I’ll leave you to have a look through then, shall I?’
‘Thanks,’ said Kit.
He didn’t know what he was looking for. Some sort of news, some sort of explanation. The home had been there; now it wasn’t. He trawled through page after page of fetes and disputes, strikes and hit-and-runs, carnivals and minor riots.
And suddenly, there it was:
Tragedy Strikes at Children’s Home
Three fire brigades were in action on Thursday night when an electrical fault resulted in the deaths of all twenty-eight children residing at the Manor Park home. Two staff also perished in the blaze, which was brought under control in the early hours of Friday morning.
‘Fuck,’ Kit breathed, feeling sick to his stomach.
‘Have you found anything?’ asked the woman, bustling over.
‘Yeah.’ More than I wanted.
He switched off the microfiche and stood up. ‘Thanks for your help,’ he said, and left the room, left the building.
All those kids! Poor little bastards, they hadn’t stood a chance. He walked back to his car, and got in. Drove over to Michael’s place, and told him what he’d found.
‘There were no survivors?’ asked Michael, lighting a cigarette.
‘Not among the kids. Maybe some of the staff got out, but it didn’t say.’
‘That was the only home, the only one the kid could have been taken to?’
‘Yeah, boss. I’m sorry.’
‘He’s dead then.’
‘For sure.’
‘This is going to break her heart.’
‘I know.’ Kit shrugged his shoulders. ‘But look, at least now she’ll know. We’ll be able to find a grave site, I should think, if she wants that.’
‘Yeah. Maybe.’
‘At least she’ll be able to close the book on this. Let it go at last.’
‘Yeah.’ Michael’s eyes were sad. He wished he didn’t have to break this news to Ruby, but he had to. ‘There’s that, at least.’
He told her after dinner that night. Ruby took it on the chin, the way she took everything. But later that night, in bed, he heard her crying into her pillow, trying to muffle the sound, trying not to disturb him.
‘Hey,’ he said, pulling her close. ‘Hey, come on.’ He thought of Kit’s words to him earlier in the day. ‘At least you know now. We could find a grave, maybe.’
‘No! I couldn’t stand that.’
‘I had to tell you. I knew it would hurt, but isn’t it better to know?’
‘No. It isn’t,’ sobbed Ruby. ‘Before, I could hope, couldn’t I? Now, I can’t. Now I know it’s a dead end. That I’m never going to see him again.’
He couldn’t argue with that, she was speaking the absolute truth. He just held her, until she cried herself to sleep.
Ruby was inconsolable.
Her dream of finding her nameless child was over.
This was the end.
114
1974
‘I suppose twins run in your family?’ asked Simon.
Daisy lay back in the private hospital bed, exhausted but happy, fascinated as she stared at these two tiny babies her husband was now cradling in his arms.
‘No, they don’t,’ she said. ‘I thought the twin thing must have come from yours.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said, beaming with pride as he cradled his two boys. ‘They’re perfect.’
Daisy lay back and watched him. Simon had been as good as his word; within a year of him and his parents calling at Brayfield, he had married her; and she’d been impregnated on their honeymoon in the Seychelles. Pregnancy had mellowed her a little. She’d been too frightened to drink in case it harmed the babies, and for the first time in her life she took care of her body, nurturing it with good food and gentle exercise.
Now, here was the result. Two healthy children, with their father’s red hair and dark-blue eyes that she suspected would soon turn to hazel. Simon’s genes seemed to have overpowered hers. Just like Simon’s will so often did.
‘What shall we call them?’ he asked, glowing with paternal pride.
‘We’ve already chosen the names,’ said Daisy, yawning. Or you have.
‘Matthew and Luke,’ said Simon. ‘Like the Bible.’
‘More visitors,’ said the nurse, popping her head round the door.
It was her mother and father, coming in with flowers and chocolates.
‘You are such a clever girl,’ said Cornelius to Daisy, taking one of the babies from his son-in-law with extreme care. He grinned at Simon.
And you’re going to give Simon a handsome pay-off for this, thought Daisy.
But she couldn’t feel too annoyed. She was too sleepy, for one thing. The birth had been difficult, and in the end she had been rushed down for a caesarean as the babies were beginning to get distressed. Her stitches hurt. Her breasts were sore. She felt like she’d been picked up by a whirlwind, spun around, then slammed back onto the earth.