by Linda Green
‘Hello, Olive, you’ve got a visitor,’ said Dawn. ‘Nicola, Betty’s granddaughter. She came to see you before.’
Olive looked at me blankly, I wasn’t sure if she remembered at all. ‘Is Betty here?’ she said. ‘There’s some nice shortbread in the biscuit barrel.’
‘No. Betty’s not here.’
‘Is John here, then? They’ve saved a wafer for him.’
I turned to Dawn, who gave me a little smile. ‘Call me if you need me,’ she whispered, and left the room.
‘John couldn’t make it today,’ I said, sitting down on the bed.
‘Is he playing out? I told him to make sure he got back for his tea.’
I sighed, unsure how to respond and whether I might be better off not saying any more. I had to tell her, though. It wasn’t fair to deny her the truth, whether she could understand it or not.
‘I’m afraid John won’t be coming to visit for a long while,’ I said. ‘The police have found out, you see. Found out what he did to my mother, Irene.’
For a second, I thought there was a flicker of something on her face but it was gone before I could work out what it was.
‘When we were chatting before,’ I continued, ‘you were telling me about the fairy statues in Betty’s garden.’
‘Oh, aye, pretty little things they were.’
‘I didn’t know you had one in your garden too.’
Olive looked at me for a moment, then the frown on her face cleared. ‘Yes, I’ve had it years. Not as long as Betty’s had hers, of course, but still a fair while.’
‘Who gave it to you, Olive?’
‘Would you like one, love? Betty’ll get you one. She got that one for me.’
‘So Betty gave it to you?’
‘Yes, so it would match hers.’
I nodded slowly. I was frightened to go on but I knew I had to. ‘Why did you need it, Olive? What was buried underneath it?’
I caught it this time. Her look of horror. She did understand and she knew exactly what I was talking about.
‘It were just a garden ornament, same as hers.’
‘Except it wasn’t, was it, Olive? There was a baby buried underneath it, my mother Irene’s baby. And your son John’s.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘John had nothing to do with it. He was always a good boy.’
She was scared, I could see that. Scared of what would happen to John, or maybe scared of what he would do to her, if she told me the truth.
‘John can’t do anything to you now, Olive. The police have arrested him. He’s going to be charged and he’ll be appearing in court tomorrow. They know he raped my mother but we need to know what happened to their baby.’
‘Nurse,’ she called.
‘Please, Olive. Betty took her secret to the grave but you’ve still got time to tell me yours.’
She pressed the buzzer next to the bed. Dawn hurried in. ‘I don’t know this woman,’ she said. ‘I want her to go.’
I gave Dawn a shrug and stood up. ‘I’m sorry to have upset you, Olive,’ I said. ‘I just thought you should know.’
I headed out of the door. Dawn shut it firmly behind us.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I hope I haven’t upset her too much.’
‘We’ll keep a close eye on her. I think it will hit her hard, mind, John not coming any more. It’s such a shame for her to have lost her son. To have no one there for her at the end of her life.’
‘Look,’ I said, taking out a scrap of paper and a pen from my bag. ‘I’m aware John was the only person who visited her. If she changes her mind and would like me to visit again, here’s my number. I’d be only too happy to help.’
Dawn took it. I walked back down the corridor, aware I was leaving behind any hope I had of getting to the truth.
*
Mum knew as soon as she opened the door and saw me standing there. ‘It was my baby, wasn’t it?’ she whispered.
I stepped inside, closing the door behind me. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, giving her a hug. ‘The police said his DNA matched too. They’re charging him with rape and indecent assault, and with criminal damage and threatening behaviour to me. He’s appearing in court tomorrow. You haven’t got to go but he is claiming it was consensual, so I’m afraid there will be a trial.’
Mum shook her head. ‘He’s going to drag my name through the mud,’ she said. ‘Like he always threatened to.’
‘No. The media aren’t allowed to identify you. It’s him who will be on the stand, not you. The police say he won’t be given bail. You don’t need to worry about him. He can’t get to you. He can’t hurt you any more.’
Mum’s face was ashen. ‘Did he say he killed my baby?’ she asked.
I took a deep breath. ‘He told them he didn’t do it. Said he knew nothing about it. The detective I spoke to said he was adamant about that.’
Mum broke down, sobbing. ‘I need to know,’ she said. ‘I need to know who killed my baby.’
I took her arm and led her through to the front room. I lowered her onto the sofa and sat with her awhile before I went to make a cup of tea.
I was in the kitchen when my phone rang. A number I didn’t recognise.
‘Hello,’ I said.
‘Nicola, it’s Dawn from the home. It’s Olive. She’s asking to see Irene.’
Not a day went by when I didn’t think of her. Where she was, how she was doing, who she called Mummy. The house echoed with her absence, yet it was a silent echo. I slept in the room where she was both brutally created and cruelly snatched from me. It was like being in a prison cell for victims, where your assailant comes to laugh at you and poke a stick through the bars.
It wasn’t only my bedroom: he had contaminated the whole house. I couldn’t pick up the post from the mat because I knew he had touched it. I couldn’t put the kettle on without hearing him whistling. I couldn’t look out of the window for fear I would see him walking up the path.
The day he moved was the only bright spot in a sea of darkness. I listened to the van taking their things away, removing them from the house next door. Although I couldn’t help wishing I could remove him so easily from ours.
And with every day that passed, I missed my daughter more. The fact that no one spoke of her again did not mean she had no presence. She was present in the silences at family mealtimes, the looks Mum and Dad exchanged, the laughter we never shared. The shadow she cast over the house was immense.
And if my parents had thought that getting rid of her would be the best thing for me, they couldn’t have been more wrong. Without the determination to better myself so I could give her a good life, I lost all interest in learning. Without a daughter I wanted to be proud of me, I left school at the earliest opportunity without any exams and got a dead-end job in a shop. Without a reason for looking after myself and getting up in the mornings, I fell into depression.
It was not better for me to have her ripped away. I didn’t forget what had happened to me simply because the result of that abuse had been removed from me. Instead I relived it every day as I went about my mundane, empty life, and every night as I lay in bed unable to sleep. Worrying about her, hoping she was living a better life than she would have had with me and hoping that when she grew up, whoever had given her a home would tell her the truth and she would come looking for me. If she didn’t hate me too much for what I had done to her, that was.
Until then, I would continue to live in this prison that was home, surrounded by the sound of him, the smell of him and the taste of him in my mouth. It was punishment for my sin. For the shame I had brought on my family. For although nobody ever spoke of what had happened, an invisible film of shame coated me and the house. You could take the baby from the girl, but you could never take away the shame of what she had done.
23
We drove up to Heptonstall in silence. Mum had be
en adamant that she would come. She needed answers, I understood that. What worried me was whether she could cope with what she heard.
Dawn greeted us at the door. She led us down the corridor and stopped outside Irene’s room.
‘Do you want me to stay with you?’ she asked.
‘No, thanks,’ I replied. ‘I’ll call if I need you, though.’
I opened the door and went in, Mum a few hesitant steps behind me. Olive was still sitting in the chair, as if she hadn’t moved. She was squinting at Mum behind me. I turned and beckoned. Mum stepped forward and held out her hand. Olive grasped it – grasped it as if she would never let go.
‘She were a pretty little thing,’ Olive said.
‘Who was?’ I asked.
‘The baby.’
‘You saw my baby?’ Mum asked, sitting down heavily on the bed.
‘Betty asked me if I knew of anyone, see, after her Irene got herself in trouble.’
Mum turned to me, frowning. I shook my head, aware we needed to let her go on.
‘I said my niece Jennifer would have it. She and her husband had been trying for years, poor mite. That’s why she brought it to me after she were born. As soon as I looked at it, I knew.
‘Even though it were a little girl, it were spitting image of our John. You never forget what your first-born looks like.’
‘So did you say anything?’ I asked. ‘To Betty, I mean.’
‘No. I think she knew too, mind. Just summat in the way she looked at me.’
We were interrupted by one of the care workers coming in to ask Olive if she’d like a drink.
‘Cup of tea would be nice, lovey.’
The woman turned to ask if Mum and I wanted one. ‘No thanks,’ I said. I waited till she’d gone before prompting Olive to continue. ‘So what happened to the baby?’
‘Whose baby?’
Mum looked at me again, the hope fading from her face.
‘Irene’s,’ I replied. ‘You were telling me about Irene and John’s baby.’
‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘Terrible business.’
‘What was, Olive?’
‘Harold were laid off from work. The factory gave a dozen of them their cards and sent them home at lunchtime. And I were sitting there, holding the baby, rocking it back and forth when he came in. I told him. I said it were our John’s baby and he’d got Irene into trouble. He flew into a right rage. Said it were nowt to do with us and I were to get rid of it straight away, take it back to Betty’s and let her deal with it.
‘You didn’t argue with Harold when he were in a mood like that. And he’d been in pub for a couple of swift halves on the way home. I handed the baby to him while I went to get my coat and shoes. Only when I came back into front room, the baby were just lying there on the settee. It had stopped breathing. Harold said he hadn’t done owt but I could see the cushion behind her had been put back in a different place.’
I shut my eyes, wishing I could remove the image that was now in my head but knowing it would be there forever. I reached out to clasp Mum’s hand. It was clammy and trembling.
‘What did you do, Olive?’
‘I panicked. Didn’t know what to do. Our John were going to be home soon and I didn’t want him to see it and get upset. So we buried it at bottom of garden. Harold dug the hole and I put it in there. Still wrapped up in her blanket, she were. Me own grandchild. Only one I ever had, as it turned out.’
Olive broke off as she started to cry. Beautiful, clear tears glistening down the paper-thin skin of her cheeks. I reached out my other hand and took hers. And I sat there, holding hands with the two women who had once held my half-sister.
‘Why didn’t you tell my mum?’ I asked eventually.
Olive frowned.
‘Irene. My mum. The lady here. She never knew what had happened to her baby.’
‘No. I’ve never talked about it since, see. Well, only to Betty. She came around the next day and asked how the baby were getting on at Jennifer’s and I burst into tears. I only told her half the story, though I think she guessed the rest. She never spoke to Harold again.
‘I asked her if she wanted the body moved to her garden but she said she didn’t like to disturb her, just wanted grave marked.’
‘And that’s when she gave you the fairy statue?’ I asked.
‘That’s right. She said not to tell Irene. Said it would break her heart. That she’d rather let her live with some hope of her daughter finding her one day.’
Mum let out an anguished cry. I squeezed her hand. The hand of a fourteen-year-old girl, who had just found out what had happened to her baby. And how her mum, who had lost two of her own, clearly hadn’t wanted her to go through the same heartache.
‘And John never knew?’
‘No. Never asked owt about baby. We moved a few months afterwards. I thought it were best in the circumstances. And I were too scared to say owt. Scared of Harold and then scared of John. I knew what they were both capable of, see.’
The care worker came back with Olive’s tea and popped it on the table next to her.
I stood up, aware from Mum’s face that she needed to go.
‘Thank you for telling us, Olive,’ I said.
‘That’s all right, lovey,’ she said. ‘John will be here soon. They’ve saved a wafer for him.’
*
I sat with Mum for a long time when I got her home. She’d been silent on the drive back to Halifax. Even now, she looked like a dazed boxer who’d suffered a knock-out punch and was being counted out on the deck. I wasn’t sure if she’d even be able to get up off the canvas, let alone go ten rounds with John in court when the time came. All the years of suffering, of not knowing, and when she finally got to the truth, it was so grim as to be unbearable.
‘How could he do that?’ she said eventually. ‘Snuff out a little life like that with his big, dirty hands. She wasn’t even an hour old. She didn’t deserve to die like that.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘And I’m so sorry. It’s such a horrible thing to find out.’
‘Mum was right, though,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t have coped with knowing, not back then. At least now I have a family of my own around me. I have something to live for.’
I thought of Grandma and what she must have gone through with the loss of her own babies – whatever had happened to them. And then I thought of the woman who had taken my mother’s baby away when it was only a few minutes old and given it to the mother of the man who had raped her. It was difficult, nigh on impossible, to reconcile the two.
‘I still don’t understand how she could have taken your baby, though,’ I said. ‘Not after losing her own.’
‘People react differently to loss, I suppose. And they were scared – so many women were scared of men, even the ones they were married to. It’s like Olive said, they knew what they were capable of.’
*
I rang DI Freeman when I got home. Told him the whole story.
‘And you think she was telling the truth?’ he asked.
‘I don’t think she’s capable of lying, not now.’
‘We will need to interview her formally, but thank you, you’ve been a great help.’
‘It’s probably best if you send a woman,’ I said. ‘Preferably with some biscuits.’
I put down the phone and looked at James. ‘That’s it, then,’ I said. ‘At least we got an answer for Mum, as horrible as it was.’
‘You mean you did,’ said James.
‘I just wish I could get some answers for Grandma. Well, not for her, she knew what happened, but to clear her name, at least. I want to go back to the house again. I still think it’s my best chance of finding something.’
‘I need to pop along sometime this week too,’ he replied. ‘Start measuring up for the central heating.’
&nbs
p; I looked down at my hands and sighed.
‘What?’ asked James.
‘I don’t know any more,’ I said. ‘Whether we should move there, I mean.’
‘It’s a bit late for that. We’ve accepted the offer.’
‘It’s all the stuff about Mum and knowing what went on in that house. It feels like we’d be punishing her again by moving there. She won’t come and visit us. She can’t. It brings it all back for her.’
‘But you didn’t want to go against your grandma’s wishes.’
‘She was protecting the babies. She wanted someone to guard them. We don’t have to do that now. They’re not there.’
‘You want us to turn down the offer?’
‘I don’t know what I want. But I do know it’s not right for Mum, and I don’t think it’s right for Ruby, either. She knows too much about what happened there. I don’t want either of the girls to have to sleep in that bedroom.’
‘So what’s the alternative?’ asked James.
‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘But I’ll find one.’
‘Maybe we can drop the girls at your mum’s after school and go over together to have a proper look around. If you’re not too shattered after work, that is.’
‘I’m not going to work tomorrow,’ I said. ‘I’ve already texted Fiona.’
‘Good,’ he replied. ‘You’ve been through a hell of a lot. You need a day off.’
I shook my head. ‘I’m going to court,’ I said.
James frowned at me. ‘You’re not serious?’
‘I am. And don’t try to talk me out of it because my mind’s made up. That man has caused pain and hurt to four generations of my family. Well, now it’s my turn to see him suffer. And I’m going to sit there and stare at him, make sure he knows I’m not going to miss a moment of it.’
‘Do you want me to come with you? I can take the morning off work if it helps.’
‘No, thanks,’ I said. ‘This is something I’ve got to do on my own.’