by Nancy Revell
As if reading her thoughts, Maisie mused, ‘So, do you think this Evelina woman’s still alive?’
As the train gained speed, Pearl thought for a moment.
‘God knows,’ she said, her mind still loitering in her distant past. ‘She must have only been about your age when I knew her, although she seemed older to me then.’
‘Let’s see,’ Maisie said, doing the maths in her head, ‘that would make her now in her mid-fifties, so there’s a good chance she’s still about.’
Pearl stared out the window that was being lashed with wind and rain as they left behind the town’s red-brick houses and smoking chimneys. She would never have thought in a million years that she would do this trip with the daughter she had given up. Her Maisie. The child she had never expected to see again in her life. The baby girl she had never stopped loving. The daughter who had broken her heart as a baby and then again as an adult, but had ended up bringing her a joy she had not known existed.
‘Well, if this Evelina’s popped her clogs, it’ll still be good to have a look at where I was born,’ Maisie said.
Maisie had listened to her ma as she had told her a little about Ivy House, and the women there who had been so kind and caring towards her. She had come to realise that her mother had done the best she could for her, given the dire circumstances she was in. And that those running the unmarried mothers’ refuge had believed they were doing the right thing in having her adopted out. They weren’t to know what would happen in the future. No one could have.
As she had grown up, Maisie had so wanted someone to blame for the life she’d had foisted upon her, but now she knew that sometimes there was no one to blame. Sometimes it was just bloody bad luck. That was just life. Her life. And she was going to continue to do what she had always done – as she had done all of her twenty-eight years – she was going to turn her luck around. Make what was bad into something good. And if she couldn’t make it good, then at least something that would work in her favour.
‘Aye, it will,’ Pearl agreed, looking out the window. The thought of going back to London and to Ivy House, and perhaps even seeing Evelina again, was more than a little unnerving, but she would deal with that when she was there.
Pearl had to laugh at the irony that she had spent the whole of her life running away from her past but now here she was actually running – or rather travelling – full pelt back to it. Still, she would rather be here now, facing up to it, than lying in some morgue, or worse still, on the bottom of the North Sea. She couldn’t believe she had been so stupid as to go off on a bender. She could barely remember a thing after she had left the Tatham that night, and she had no idea what had possessed her to go for a midnight stroll down Hendon beach. Well, that was the booze for you. Beer in, wits out.
As Pearl looked at Maisie staring out of the window as the train steamed through the lush, green landscape towards Durham, she knew that there was more to this trip than met the eye. Maisie might have been able to fool everyone else with her sweetness and light declarations that she wanted to spend time with her old ma so that they could really get to know each other, but not Pearl.
No, this trip down to the Big Smoke for Maisie was not just about revisiting the place of her birth, and spending time with her long-lost ma – there was something else going on. Pearl was no one’s fool. She had sensed her daughter’s anxiety when she had come round the house the very morning after they’d been to the Grand to have a drink and sort out Bel and Joe’s honeymoon suite. Maisie had tried to paste over her nervousness, but Pearl had been lied to and conned too many times in her life not to know when someone was not being honest with her.
When Maisie had suggested this trip to London – and that she would pay for it – Pearl knew, for sure, that, for some reason, Maisie needed to disappear for a short while.
At some point during their journey she would ask Maisie the real reason why they were heading down south. And why they’d had to leave so quickly. Whatever it was, it was unlikely Pearl would be shocked. Perhaps now would be a good time for Maisie to be open about the kind of work she had done in her life – and was possibly still doing – work that had enabled her to afford such swanky clothes, a honeymoon suite in a top hotel, and an expensive trip to the capital.
Whatever she had done in her life, Pearl would not judge, just as she hoped she too would not be judged for her many wrongdoings.
And whatever the problem was that had caused Maisie to leave town in such haste, they would deal with it. Together.
‘Oh, my goodness!’ Bel’s words were snatched away by the violent winds now whipping up.
‘Mammy!’ Lucille screamed out as her tatty toy rabbit went somersaulting down the street as soon as they stepped out of the train station’s main entrance.
‘You hold on to Lucille, I’ll get the rabbit,’ Bel shouted across to Joe while chasing her daughter’s beloved toy as it tried to make its escape and careered down Station Street.
As Bel ran, the bottom of her coat flailing in the air as the wind swirled around her, the thought ran through her mind to let the rabbit win; it was dropping to pieces, and looked more like a rag than a rabbit. She knew that Maisie would. The look on her face every time Lucille had it in her grip said all there was to be said: the toy had seen far better days and was not far off disgusting.
Still, Bel thought, lunging down to grab it before it went into the gutter – that was the difference between the two of them. As she grabbed the toy, now dripping wet, having rolled in at least half a dozen puddles during its desperate fight for freedom, she sometimes wished she had a little bit more of her sister’s ruthlessness about her.
As she hurried back, Joe, having given up on speech as they seemed to be walking in some kind of natural wind tunnel, pointed in the direction of Fawcett Street as the best route to the church. From the state of her husband and her daughter, Bel thought that by the time the three of them tipped up at the church they’d all look like they had come to beg alms and not see little Hope baptised.
‘You all right?’ Joe shouted across as they reached the end of the town’s main shopping street and turned into Borough Road.
‘Yes,’ Bel hollered back. Lucille was between them, holding both of their hands, her little rabbit stuffed securely in her coat pocket.
As they battled their way towards the east end, Bel thought once again about her sister and her ma, and, like this wretched weather, what a truly turbulent week it had been.
Maisie had told her yesterday the little she had gleaned from Pearl about the young sailor boy who had put her in the family way – and Maisie had said to Bel that she was determined to find out if he was still alive and, if so, track him down. Knowing Maisie, Bel thought, she would succeed.
All the talk of long-lost mothers – and fathers – had made Bel wonder afresh about who her own da was. Pearl had said he was dead, but Bel knew she was lying.
Perhaps when Maisie and Pearl came back from their impromptu trip down to the capital, Bel could start trying to find out the truth about her own parentage.
As Bel, Joe and Lucille leant forward against the force of the wind and struggled along the Hendon Road, Joe spotted two uniformed police officers and a plain-clothes copper on the opposite side of the street to them, hurrying in the same direction. The three men did not have a little girl to slow them down, though, and it wasn’t long before they disappeared from view.
Five minutes later, Bel, Joe and Lucille were within sight of the church. The rain was starting to come down heavily now and they caught sight of George’s red MG pulling up outside St Ignatius’s. Rosie and Lily hurried from the car straight into the church. They were followed by George, holding on to his hat with one hand and his ivory walking stick with the other.
‘I’m not jealous …’ Bel shouted across to Joe, her hands now red raw and clutching the lapels of her coat around her neck, ‘… really, I’m not!’
‘Just think of tonight and that lovely three course meal –’ Joe
shouted back with a smile on his face as they finally reached their destination, ‘– and that gorgeous suite!’
Bel felt a shot of nervous excitement at the thought of her evening at the Grand with her new husband.
It would be the honeymoon they’d never got to have.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Mowbray Road, Sunderland
DS Miller was striding forward, head down so as to fight his way through the wind and rain. His two special constables were struggling to keep up and had fallen a few yards behind him. Pulling his pocket watch out of his waistcoat, he squinted through a blur of harsh drizzle to see the time. It was nearly a quarter to ten. He was cutting it fine. A short sharp shock of adrenaline coursed through him.
Should I be doing this? Is it the right thing to be doing?
He had lain awake last night undecided, his mind chopping and changing, like this damned weather.
Well, he was committed now. He had made his decision. And he had to stick to it.
Now he just had to get to the church in time. Or rather, before time. He had found out from the vicar that the christening was being slotted in at ten o’clock. It was imperative he got there before it started. There was no way he wanted the ceremony spoilt for Gloria. The woman had had enough to contend with, by all accounts. He had heard through one of the other officers with the Dock Police the news that Jack had survived his ship being bombed – but at a cost. The poor man had lost his memory – and with it his chance of love.
Not unlike himself. Only he hadn’t the peace of not knowing.
As he turned the corner from Mowbray Road on to Suffolk Street his heart started to thump loudly in his chest. He could just make out a figure; recognised the distinctive gait. He broke into a jog, desperate to get to his collar before his two fellow officers. He needed to say a few words before slapping on the handcuffs.
DS Miller pounded the pavement. His breathing was heavy. He saw the outline of the church and panicked. He needed to do this now. Anyone waiting outside the church or arriving would see – and that was the last thing he wanted.
The person ahead of him was walking fast.
Determined.
DS Miller stepped up his pace. For the briefest of seconds he looked up to the skies and saw the dark clouds above him, and heard the first deep rumble of thunder, followed by a distant flash of lightning.
He lurched forward and grabbed the shoulder of his potential captive.
‘What the bloody hell are you doing?’
Vinnie’s words were spat out. Spittle mixed with droplets of rain flew out of his mouth, his face pure vitriol. Malevolence oozing from every pore in his body.
Seeing the undisguised desire for violence, DS Miller knew he had made the right decision. When Rosie had mentioned the christening during their last meeting, he’d been in no doubt that Vinnie would hear about it – any kind of gossip concerning a married woman, who’d had a baby late in life, and had chucked her husband out, was guaranteed to do the rounds at the speed of light. And Vinnie, being the kind of man he was, would be seething mad that he’d not been invited. That he had been left out. Made to look a fool.
‘Sir –’ he had to shout so as to be heard through the wind and rain, ‘Detective Sergeant Miller.’ He pulled out his badge as proof of identity and held it up close in front of Vinnie’s face.
‘I have to ask you where you are going and exactly what your intentions are?’ He purposely made his voice sound official and unfriendly; his tone was also more than a little antagonistic.
Vinnie glared at him, his eyes bloodshot and wild.
DS Miller hadn’t expected him to be so irate – so puffed up and stuffed full of violence. Thank God he had got to him before he reached the church. The man was clearly beyond any rational behaviour.
The decision, as a copper, to get involved in a domestic had been right.
‘It’s none of your business, mate! Now sod off!’ Vinnie shouted, squaring up to DS Miller, his hands clenched tight.
Sensing that the two special constables had caught up, DS Miller shouted over his shoulder, ‘Leave this to me,’ before turning back to Vinnie.
‘I think it is very much my business, mate,’ he bellowed back, ‘especially if you are about to become the cause of an affray or – worse still – an assault.’
Vinnie was seething. His anger reaching boiling point. ‘Affray? … Assault? …’ he practically screamed. ‘More like bloody murder when I get my hands on that bitch!’
It was exactly what DS Miller needed to hear. He stepped forward.
‘Vinnie Armstrong, I am arresting you––’
The words were barely out of his mouth when Vinnie snarled, ‘Like hell you are!’ He then pulled his right arm back and threw all his weight behind a punch aimed at DS Miller’s face.
His knuckles glanced the side of the detective’s head but it didn’t prevent DS Miller from doing a quick sidestep and grabbing the arm Vinnie had tried to clobber him with. He wrenched it up his back.
‘Argh!’ Vinnie screamed out.
‘Not so easy trying to deck a bloke, is it, Vinnie?’ DS Miller was leaning heavily on him from behind, forcing Vinnie to bend forward to ease the pain shooting through his shoulder and down his arm. His muscles felt like they were slowly being torn apart.
‘But then again you wouldn’t know, would you?’ DS Miller spat the words into Vinnie’s ear. ‘Much easier bashing a woman, isn’t it?’
As DS Miller’s words filtered through the excruciating pain coursing down his right arm, for a brief moment Vinnie thought he recognised the voice. It sounded familiar.
‘Get the cuffs on him!’ DS Miller ordered the two specials, who had been waiting, braced for action while being buffeted by strong whirlwinds and lashing rain.
The two uniforms jumped to it, positioning themselves on either side of Vinnie, who was now hurling obscenities.
‘Right, let’s get this one back to the station,’ DS Miller said, allowing the two officers and a caterwauling Vinnie to march on ahead.
Another clap of thunder sounded, this one louder and nearer, followed more or less immediately by a slash of lightning that pierced the sky. DS Miller could see Vinnie kicking off, but his efforts to escape were fruitless. He had to admit to himself that he was glad the DI had given him Jenkins and Hargreaves; the energy seemed to have drained out of him, and tiredness from not sleeping the night before was starting to make itself felt. He hurried along the street that was, unsurprisingly, empty due to the foul weather.
People have got more sense, he thought, but as he turned up Mowbray Road he spotted two exceptions: two lone men. A tall old man with dripping wet hair hurrying along the street with a middle-aged man with slicked-back dark hair and wearing a grey suit and waistcoat. DS Miller wondered if perhaps they were heading for the christening. If they were, they were pushing it to make it there on time.
After a few more minutes, DS Miller found himself striding along Grange Terrace and, as he always did whenever he came along this particular road, he sought out the tenement where he had first met Rosie almost exactly a year ago. He had thought her intriguing that day. Now he knew why.
Last night he had thought long and hard. He had mentally walked through all the possibilities of what he could, and what he should do, and he had realised that it didn’t matter what the law stipulated, it made no difference – he could not become Rosie’s jailer.
He could not ruin her life. He could not do that to her.
Nor could he do that to himself – for he would have to live with his conscience.
Last night, as he’d lain awake staring at the walls, listening to the turbulence outside his home, as well as that inside his very soul, he had replayed Rosie’s words in his head – her words of love. For that is what they amounted to. She had declared her love for him.
Even though those words were harshly delivered, and were even uttered with a degree of bitterness, she had still said them. And moreover, he knew she meant the
m.
She had loved him.
He had been right. The deep, intuitive feelings that had caused him such confusion when she had rejected him he now knew were true.
Of course, now he knew she’d had no choice but to rebuff him – if she had given free rein to the love she’d felt for him, she would have been risking her life, her livelihood, and at least a few years behind bars. His choice, however, the decision he had to make since he’d found out the truth about the woman he had fallen for – well, that was less clear-cut.
The choice he had to make was between the law of the land – and love.
Love or the law?
He had argued with himself that Rosie was not hurting anyone; the women who worked at Lily’s did so of their own volition.
And he had to admit that he himself had bent the rules many times over the years in his dealings with the likes of Vinnie.
Was it really justice for Rosie to be arrested?
He knew she was a good person. Did she really deserve it?
The law might dictate that she did – but his heart said she did not.
As DS Miller looked ahead of him he saw that the battle had been won between Vinnie and the two constables; Vinnie’s body was now limp and compliant.
Sometimes, he mused, life seemed to be one battle after another. And he knew from experience that there was wisdom in knowing when to fight – and when to give up.
He had tried everything to keep his wife alive, but he had been forced to surrender. He could not beat the disease that was ravaging her.
But with Rosie it was different.
He felt there was still hope. That their love might somehow survive.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Suffolk Street, Sunderland
Arthur was bent double, heaving for breath, both hands placed on his knees as the thunder rumbled above them and the lightning clashed across the distant skies. Gunmetal grey clouds stretched across the sky like distorted bullets.