The Would-Begetter

by Maggie Makepeace

  On her way out of the kitchen she noticed an envelope on the hall table, and went to investigate. It was in fact two envelopes. One had got caught under the unclosed flap of the other, and had become stuck there. Jess separated them out and saw that the outer one was for Caroline, but the inner one was addressed, also in Hector’s writing, to Zillah Brakespear! Jess carried them both in to Caroline with the two mugs of hot chocolate.

  ‘If he thinks he can buy me off…!’ Caroline began, taking out the cheque. ‘I’ve a good mind to tear it up!’ Then she looked at it and hesitated.

  ‘Is it for a lot?’ Jess asked.

  ‘It’s pretty generous, yes.’ Caroline admitted.

  ‘Don’t do anything rash,’ Jess suggested. ‘Wait until tomorrow, eh?’ Then she produced the other envelope. ‘I expect this is a cheque too. It got stuck to yours. I suppose Hector can’t have noticed.’

  ‘Zillah Brakespear,’ Caroline read. ‘Why don’t we open it and see how much he’s paying her!’

  ‘Oh well…’ Jess demurred, but Caroline had already torn the envelope, and was taking out Zillah’s cheque.

  ‘That’s interesting,’ she said. ‘It’s for an awful lot less.’

  ‘He probably pays monthly,’ Jess said. ‘I wonder if she’s missed it yet.’

  ‘Oh he can always write her another one.’

  ‘I’ve got a better idea,’ Jess said. ‘I could take it over to her when I’m down there next weekend, dealing with my flat. Hector’s told me where she lives and I’d like to see her again, and maybe even meet the ghastly Florian!’

  ‘If I wasn’t so desperate to get myself a job, I’d come too,’ Caroline said, ‘but I daren’t stop looking. Everything’s such a mess! What am I going to do, Jess? How am I ever going to get Hannah back? I tell you something – first thing tomorrow, I really am going to phone the police!

  The next morning Caroline did just that. She looks terrible, Jess thought, watching her, and feeling for her friend. I doubt if she’s slept at all. She doesn’t seem to be having much luck with the police either.

  Finally, after an increasingly acrimonious conversation in which Caroline was reduced to shouting down the phone, she crashed the receiver down and rested her forehead on the tips of her fingers.

  ‘No joy,’ Jess said. It wasn’t a question.

  ‘They say it’s a domestic problem,’ Caroline said, ‘and is therefore outside their remit. Can you believe that? The moment I told them Hannah was with her father, they completely lost interest. So what the hell do we do now?’

  ‘I suppose you could try talking to her on the phone again?’

  ‘You don’t know Hannah like I do. Once she’s decided to do something, she can be so stubborn. Even when she’s made the most ghastly mistake, she’d die rather than admit as much to me. She can’t bear to be in the wrong.’

  ‘Well, maybe we should leave it as it is for a while?’ Jess suggested. ‘It’s school holidays, so it’s not crucial, and I’m sure Hector won’t let her come to any harm.’

  ‘I don’t seem to have much choice in the matter,’ Caroline said bitterly. ‘God! Children – who’d have them!’

  ‘It’s funny,’ Jess said, ‘but now we know Hannah’s safe, I’m starting to feel most sorry for Wendy in all this. Imagine what it must be like for her.’

  ‘Yes, in spite of everything, she made Hannah some supper last night,’ Caroline said, agreeing. ‘You’re right. That was pretty heroic. You can’t blame someone for having been born, but I’m willing to bet that in those circumstances, most of us would have!’

  ‘So you needn’t worry any more, OK?’ Jess said comfortingly. ‘Hannah’s perfectly all right for the time being.’

  Even so, it was a long week. Jess had a lot of work on. Caroline was at last called to a couple of interviews. They compared notes each evening.

  ‘Today’s inquisition went well,’ Caroline said. ‘I almost dare to hope…’

  ‘When will you hear?’

  ‘They’re seeing more candidates early next week in Edinburgh, so I’m having to contain my impatience. Oh by the way, I got through to Hannah on the phone this afternoon.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She says she’s fine. It sounds as though Wendy isn’t holding up too well though. Hannah says she’s been spending a lot of time in bed, and when she does appear, she’s quite obviously been crying. Apparently she’s had to go to her doctor for sleeping pills.’

  ‘Poor thing!’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘But Hannah’s OK, that’s good. Any hints about her eventually coming home?’

  ‘None. It’s like some ridiculous comedy routine. She won’t answer unless I call her Gwladys, Gwladys…! And she won’t discuss the future at all…’

  ‘But she’s happy? Couldn’t you pretend to yourself that she’s on holiday?’

  Caroline sighed. ‘It’s not that easy. I need to see her; talk face to face.’

  ‘So, come down to Somerset with me tomorrow.’

  ‘I can’t Jess. What if somebody phones about a job? I daren’t leave London, just in case.’

  ‘Well they’re hardly likely to do so over the weekend, are they? Come with me, Caro. Have a break yourself. You can help me with the flat and then we can walk by the sea again, and go and see Zillah in her camp, as well as going to Hector’s to sort Hannah out. Go on, spoil yourself – say you’ll come?’

  ‘Oh, what the hell,’ Caroline said, giving in. ‘Let’s do it!’

  Chapter 23

  Jess and Caroline left London very early on Saturday, driving westwards along the M4 and then south down the M5. It was a bright clear morning and still early in the year, being the week before Easter, but the lambs they saw in the fields alongside the motorway were already chunky and well past the charming stage.

  ‘There are one or two things I’ve definitely got to do,’ Jess said. ‘I wouldn’t mind popping into the Chronicle to see whoever’s there, but the most important thing is to make sure the flat is clean and fully equipped for the season. I do like to see to it myself to make sure it really is done properly.’

  ‘You should learn to delegate,’ Caroline said.

  ‘Should I?’ Jess said. ‘Why? Why is it that mastering the art of delegation is always considered to be such a virtue?’

  ‘Well…I don’t know really. I can’t say I’ve ever analysed it, but it’s clearly much more efficient. After all, no one should be indispensable.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well it’s obvious…’

  ‘Because we’ve all been brainwashed into thinking we’re just tiny cogs in the huge wheel of industry, and one cog is very much like another?’

  ‘We can’t all be rugged individualists like you, Jess!’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You sound just like Hannah used to, when she was at the “why” stage! Not that I was ever there long enough to give her proper answers.’ Caroline sighed. ‘That was certainly one hugely important thing that I delegated – the bringing up of my daughter – and look where it’s got me.’ She bit her lip.

  ‘This is only a hiccup,’ Jess said. ‘You’ll see. It’ll all work out.’

  ‘When we get there,’ Caroline said, ‘I’ll phone Hannah straight away to tell her we’re coming to see her.’

  ‘Do it now if you like,’ Jess said, indicating her mobile phone.

  ‘No… she won’t be up yet. I’ll wait until we get there.’

  When they arrived, and Caroline had taken a few deep breaths to calm herself, she did telephone Hannah, wandering round the small kitchen whilst Jess made coffee and some toast for breakfast. It sounded like an unsatisfactory conversation, but Jess could hear only half of it.

  ‘Could I speak to Hannah please?’

  ‘But this is Hector Mudgeley’s number?’

  ‘Oh for heavens sake, Gwladys then!’

  ‘Darling? How are you? Well I just thought I’d phone…’

  ‘No I’m here, in Somerset, at Jess’
s flat. We thought we’d come round…’

  ‘But Hannah…’

  ‘But Gwladys, I’m not interfering. I just…’ Caroline put the phone down slowly. ‘She hung up on me,’ she said. ‘She doesn’t want to see us. She says if we go round there today, she’ll run off! So what the hell do we do now?’

  ‘Drink this,’ Jess said, putting down a mug of coffee. ‘It’s a tricky one, isn’t it. How about getting on with the boring stuff today, and waiting until tomorrow to go to Hector’s?’

  ‘I wanted to see Hannah at once, Caroline said, ‘but I suppose you’re right.’ She took a gulp of coffee. ‘Oh dear, patience never was my forte.’

  But soon afterwards she pulled herself together and elected to begin on the housework. Jess, who had always admired her, now saw that her regard was well-deserved for although Caroline was clearly worried and upset, she was still able to discipline herself to get on with the job in hand.

  ‘Why don’t you go round to the Chronicle now?’ Caroline suggested, ‘while I make a start on this.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure?’ Jess said. ‘Great. I’ll be as quick as I can.’

  It was years since Caroline had dusted anything. As she went round the flat she felt rather like a child playing at being grown up, and the thought entertained her. Jess, as promised, was soon back.

  ‘Hoovering is quite fun for a change, isn’t it,’ Caroline remarked to her, as she pounded up and down the carpet in the living room.

  ‘Fun? It’s the thing I most loathe doing!’

  ‘How was the Chronicle?’

  ‘Oh fine. Nigel was there on weekend duty. It was lovely to see him, but strange to be back in that atmosphere again. The new building even smells like the old one now. Some sad news though; Nige says last month’s best unused headline was: Nightmare Mother-in-law Drives Wife into Arms of Vicar. It sounds right up Barry’s street; the sort of story he most loves to write, but for one thing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s his wife, Jackie, who’s run off! So Barry’s been left to bring up the four children on his own, and the horrible irony is that his awful old mother, who was the cause of all the bother, died the week after Jackie left! Poor Barry. Life always seems to shit on him from a great height. He’s having to work part-time and is even thinking of giving up his job altogether and living on social security.’

  ‘That’s dreadful.’

  ‘I know. Certainly makes you think. Now, what’s next?’

  They went out and bought some more plates and mugs, and collected current leaflets from the Tourist Office. They took blankets to the launderette, and replaced three light bulbs. They bought a plunger to unblock the lavatory, and had two extra keys cut. And then they went for a long walk by the sea to unwind, and to work up an appetite for supper.

  The tide was in, and the sun glinted on the incoming waves as they spread their line of foam on the sand in a brief fizz of white with each gentle approach. The two friends walked there, where the sand was damp and firm underfoot, and they stared out over the Bristol Channel at the pair of islands, one steep and one flat, which today were blue-sharp in outline. The smell of the sea lingered in their nostrils, and the cool breeze lifted their hair and waved it around their faces. Herring gulls hung overhead, trumpeting. Behind them, nearer to the pier, the first families of the season sat, wrapped in anoraks and eating ice creams, but the beach ahead was empty and inviting.

  ‘Race you to that washed-up oil drum!’ Jess challenged, beginning to run.

  ‘Cheat!’ Caroline cried, starting after her.

  ‘What d’you fancy – Chinese, Indian or Italian?’ Jess asked breathlessly as they got there together, and stopped to admire the view.

  ‘Indian,’ Caroline said at once. ‘I could murder a biryani. D’you know, Jess, if I wasn’t so worried about Hannah, this could be the best weekend I’ve had in years!’

  Caroline woke next morning puzzled as to where she was, and for a split second before she remembered about Hannah, she felt gloriously free. Then, guiltily, she decided that whatever Hannah/Gwladys said, she couldn’t put it off any longer. She must attempt to see her at once.

  At breakfast she began to get cold feet again and Jess, alert to this possibility, suggested they might first go over towards Glastonbury, find Zillah’s camp and give her the cheque.

  ‘And then,’ she promised, ‘we’ll go and sort out Hector and Co.’

  It took about an hour to reach Zillah, but Caroline was happy to sit back and be driven, able to look at the view and to notice with pleasure a single heron on guard beside one of the many drainage ditches.

  ‘I wonder why they’re called that?’ she said to Jess, as she commented on it in passing. ‘The ditches, I mean – spelt r-h-y-n-e-s but pronounced ‘reens’. She was looking forward to meeting Zillah, and intrigued to discover what Hector’s other teenage bastard would be like. But in this last, she was to be disappointed. Florian was not there.

  ‘He’s never here,’ Zillah explained. ‘Even if he had a ball and chain attached to both ankles, he’d find some way of disappearing.’

  She had seemed pleased to see Jess after the initial blankness of pre-recognition, and Caroline was relieved about this, because her first impressions of the camp were unequivocally negative. As they arrived it had come on to rain, a sudden April shower which transformed the ground in the centre of the camp, in moments, into a mudbath. Zillah hadn’t seemed to notice the state of their shoes as she welcomed them inside, and Caroline, having looked about her at first for somewhere to wipe her feet, realised pretty soon that it was her own unsuitable ensemble that needed protecting from Zillah’s caravan, rather than the other way around.

  ‘Would you like to try some of this,’ Zillah offered, producing a half-full bottle and three tumblers. ‘Dandelion wine.’

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ counselled an earnest child in glasses, from a bunk high on the wall. ‘Tastes like cough mixture!’

  ‘This is Alaric,’ Zillah said. ‘Off you go now, and read in the other room, OK?’ The boy climbed down with a good grace, holding a large book in one hand. Caroline noticed with amazement that it was War and Peace, volume two.

  ‘Is that the sort of thing he always reads?’ she asked when he had gone and shut the door behind him.

  ‘Yes,’ Zillah said matter-of-factly. ‘He’s a genius. My eldest is pretty bright too. My only mistake was in letting Hector father the middle one.’

  ‘Mine too,’ Caroline said, charmed out of her usual reserve by the other woman’s unexpected candour. ‘My only one, that is.’

  ‘Really?’ Zillah looked interested. ‘Boy or girl?’

  ‘She’s a girl. Her name’s Hannah.’

  ‘Easy or difficult?’

  ‘Well just at the moment, very difficult indeed!’

  ‘There you are,’ Zillah said triumphantly. ‘Bad blood! I always said so.’

  Caroline smiled at her. She was certainly a good-looking woman – late thirties, early forties? She was living in a total hugger-mugger, even a slum, and yet she seemed completely assured and unapologetic about it. She didn’t rush round frantically trying to tidy things away, saying ‘Oh dear, you’ve caught me at a bad moment. I was just about to spring clean’ as a lesser person might have done. She didn’t even clear spaces for them to sit down, but seemed happy that they should push piles of clothes and books aside themselves for that purpose. Caroline, to her surprise, found this refreshingly admirable. Here was someone entirely comfortable in herself, who didn’t give a damn what anyone else thought. She smiled again and drank deeply of the home-made wine. It was rather sweet for her taste, but still welcome. A tortoiseshell kitten roused itself from its sleep further along her bench seat and seemed inclined to arrange itself more comfortably on her lap. Caroline edged away and fended it off, but the kitten persisted.

  ‘Push her down,’ Zillah advised. ‘Or you’ll get hairs all over yourself.’ She seemed to be waiting for them to declare their purpose.


  ‘We came to give you this,’ Jess said, handing over the cheque. ‘It got mixed up with Caroline’s one, by mistake.’

  ‘Well, thank God for that!’ Zillah exclaimed, taking it. ‘About time too! I’ve been on my beam ends this month. I’ve even tried going up to the phone box and ringing Hector’s house, but his wife always answers the damn thing so I’ve just had to put it down. I’ve been getting desperate, I can tell you!’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Jess said. ‘I’m sorry to hear…’

  ‘Florian’s in trouble again you see. There’s this huge fine to pay for his truancy from school, and no way I can cover it. And why should I? I reckon Hector should cough up. More wine?’ Caroline accepted a top up. ‘Does he pay you monthly?’ Zillah asked her.

  ‘He hasn’t paid me anything until recently. I didn’t want to be beholden.’

  ‘I’d take whatever’s going,’ Zillah advised at once. ‘He’s rich enough!’

  ‘But he’s never tried to dodge his responsibilities,’ Jess put in.

  ‘Mmmm’ Zillah said. ‘That’s a moot point. I’ve a good mind to go round there and have it out with him face to face. If I had transport I would! I’ve only held back this far out of consideration for Wendy, because she was nice to Florian years ago.’ She sipped her wine. ‘What’s she like?’

  ‘We think she’s having a bad time,’ Jess said. ‘She’s only just found out about Hannah and Florian, and it seems she’s really upset.’

  ‘Oh he’s finally told her, has he?’ Zillah said. ‘I was always amazed she didn’t guess, way back, but there you are. Funny how easily people can be conned, isn’t it? And it’s not only the Wendys of this world who fall for it! What is it about Hector, do you suppose? I’ll admit he’s sexy…’

  ‘And he has a certain obvious charm,’ Caroline said.

  ‘He’s entertaining,’ Jess said defensively. ‘And I’ve certainly not been conned by him.’ She’d gone pink.

  ‘Mmmm’ Zillah said again. ‘Perhaps you could speak to him for me then?’

  Caroline drained her glass and put it down. She was beginning to feel almost comfortable in this grotty caravan. So, I’ll be covered in dust and hairs when I leave, she thought. So what? She looked at Jess, who was smiling at the kitten as it tried to scale the curtains. She caught her eye and raised an eyebrow.