Born Bad

by Josephine Cox

  ‘So, who was he, this man you loved so much?’

  ‘His name was Harry Blake. He lived down our street in Fisher’s Hill, and he was my first real sweetheart. He was kind and thoughtful. Good-looking too!’ She smiled, a wistful, beautiful smile. ‘He was every girl’s dream, and he chose me.’

  Her voice broke with emotion. ‘Out of all the girls he could have had, Harry chose me. We were so happy. We planned our lives together, and never a day went by when we didn’t see each other. He was my man and I was his darling, and we were so much in love!’

  For a moment she was quiet, remembering how it was, then in a soft voice she went on, ‘Like two fools, we thought nothing could ever go wrong in our perfect little world.’

  ‘But it did go wrong – is that what you’re saying?’ Pauline had seen the joy in Judy’s face whenever she spoke Harry’s name. She had also seen the pain, and what looked to her, like real fear.

  Judy took her time in answering. For a while she lost herself in those blissful days when she and Harry were impossibly young and in love; when every sky was blue and every day was another wonderful adventure together.

  ‘Judy?’ Pauline quietly called her. ‘Are you all right?’

  Judy looked up. ‘You asked me once if I had lost touch with my family.’

  ‘I remember.’ Pauline had never heard Judy talk of her parents or siblings. ‘You said you had no family and I left it at that, but I must admit, I’ve always wondered.’

  ‘I did have a family, once upon a time,’ Judy enlightened her now. ‘I had a mother and father and an older sister.’

  Pauline was delighted that Judy was talking of things she had never discussed before. ‘What happened to them?’ she asked. Maybe the demons that haunted her, had to do with her family.

  ‘They threw me out when I was fourteen.’

  ‘What?’

  Judy nodded. ‘It didn’t really matter, not then. Nothing did,’ she said in a low voice.

  ‘Did you ever see them again?’

  Judy gave no answer.

  ‘Did they ever try to find you?’

  Judy shook her head.

  ‘So, you don’t know where they are now?’ Pauline was baffled.

  ‘I don’t want to know!’

  Shocked by Judy’s hostility towards her family, Pauline asked gently, ‘If you want to find them, I can help if you like.’

  ‘NO!’ Looking Pauline in the eye, Judy told her in a thick, harsh voice, ‘I never want to see them again … any of them, as long as I live! They didn’t want me then, and I don’t want them now! They didn’t look after me. They didn’t care about me. To tell you the truth, I don’t care whether they’re alive or dead.’

  ‘Don’t upset yourself, pet.’ Worried that Judy was growing agitated, Pauline assured her, ‘It’s all right if you don’t want to see them ever again. Forget them. You have a new family now.’

  Judy clenched her fists. ‘Phil Saunders is not my family. He’s bad … just like the others. I hate him! I hate him!’

  ‘Hey!’ Reaching out, Pauline took hold of her hand. ‘I wasn’t talking about Phil. I meant me, and Alan. We’ll always be here for you, come what may. We love you like our own daughter.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Judy apologised. ‘I’ve never really seen Phil as my family, but I can’t blame him for the way he is. He knows I was never in love with him and he also knows that it was always Harry I wanted. He was going to be my family, then when he left, Phil just took over, and I was so desperate, I didn’t really care.’

  She dropped her gaze to the table and went on in a small voice: ‘Phil knows I don’t love him in that way. That’s why he’s so aggressive; why he follows my every move. He’s afraid that Harry will come back and take me away.’

  Pauline was horrified. ‘Judy! You can’t stay with a man just because you feel sorry for him. You can’t throw your life away like that.’

  Judy shrugged. ‘I owe Phil a lot,’ she told Pauline tonelessly. ‘After Harry went, I fell apart.’ Her voice became almost inaudible, as though she was talking to herself. ‘I didn’t know which way to turn, but then Phil rescued me, and now I have no choice but to stay with him.’

  She gave Pauline a sad smile. ‘Isn’t it strange how nothing ever works out right?’

  Pauline needed to understand. ‘I can see how much you loved Harry,’ she murmured. ‘So what happened to drive you apart?’

  ‘It was my fault,’ Judy confessed. ‘It was a bad thing I did. I spoiled it all.’ She took a moment to compose herself. ‘Harry left and I never saw him again.’

  ‘What bad thing was it that split you and Harry apart?’ Pauline enquired gently. ‘You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but if it helps …’

  Suddenly, Judy was out of the chair and hurrying across the room. ‘I’ve got to go!’ she said in a panic. As she went through the door, she called behind her, ‘Thank you, Pauline. Thank you for having me.’ The front door opened and closed – and Judy was gone.

  Left alone, Pauline berated herself. ‘Why didn’t you just let her talk? Why did you have to keep pushing her?’

  ‘Hmh!’ A few minutes later, Alan entered the room. ‘Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness they say.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ she snapped.

  ‘Take it easy! It’s just that I heard you chuntering away to yourself as I came down the stairs.’ He glanced about. ‘I thought you might be talking to Judy, but now I see you were talking to yourself.’

  Pauline’s eyes swam with tears. ‘Judy’s gone,’ she said.

  ‘What d’you mean, she’s gone?’ He glanced towards the door, ‘Why?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘But where’s she gone?’

  ‘Back to him, I expect.’

  Alan poured himself a cup of tea and stood across the kitchen from her. ‘Why would she do that? Especially after last night.’ He gave an audible gasp. ‘Did you see that thug with the knife, ready to slit that poor man’s throat. And I’ll tell you what …’

  He had her attention now. ‘What?’

  ‘When Judy threw herself at the bloke, I reckon she did it to stop him from being killed.’

  Like Alan, Pauline had seen that particular incident. ‘I thought that too,’ she said. ‘I knew it wasn’t like her to attack a man in such a vicious way.’

  ‘So why didn’t she stay with us a while longer? What made her go back to Saunders?’

  Pauline leaned against the sink. ‘I’m not sure, but I think it was something I said.’ She remembered the question that had sent Judy running for the door: Do you want to talk about the ‘bad thing?’ That’s what she had asked Judy, and obviously it was too difficult for her to talk about.

  ‘Pauline?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘What’s wrong with Judy? Why does she hang about with thugs and bullies like that?’

  ‘I don’t know the truth of it, but I have a suspicion.’

  ‘Oh, and what might that be?’

  In her mind, Pauline went over the entire conversation between herself and Judy, and the more she thought about it, the more she was convinced. ‘There’s more to this than meets the eye,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘I think Judy is punishing herself.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous! What has that lovely girl got to punish herself for?’

  Pauline looked up at him with a serious face. ‘You are not to repeat a word of what I say now.’

  ‘Shame on you.’ Alan was offended. ‘I’ve kept many a secret told over the bar these past years. I think I can look after our Judy’s interests, don’t you?’

  ‘I’m not sure what it is that troubles her,’ Pauline confided, ‘but something really bad must have happened a long time ago. It involves a young man called Harry, and Judy’s hatred of her family, who she says she never wants to see again, as long as she lives.’

  ‘Good grief! I didn’t even know there was a young man called Harry in her past, let alone a family.’ Alan w
as still unsure. ‘So, for some reason she didn’t want to talk about, you have a suspicion that she might be punishing herself?’ He shook his head emphatically. ‘Maybe it’s just you reading more into it than there really is?’

  ‘All I’m saying is, way back in Judy’s past something happened to turn her young world upside down.’

  The landlady was convinced it was not altogether because of Harry leaving, though that in itself had obviously been a real blow. ‘Whatever it was, Judy still thinks about it. It’s the real reason she went to Phil in the first place. It’s why she stays with him, even though she has no real feelings for him.’

  Alan was not convinced. ‘There you go again.’ He had seen it all before. ‘You’re letting your imagination run away with you, as usual.’

  He recalled the time when Pauline was convinced that the previous owner of their pub had hanged himself in the cellar; he reminded her of it now. ‘It’s like the time you claimed that the previous landlord of this pub had hanged himself in the cellar. You said how you had an unsettling feeling every time you went down there. It “stank of death” was what you said.’

  He laughed out loud. ‘When that regular old codger told you the cellar had been used to hang raw meat as a favour to the butcher, you felt a right fool, didn’t you, eh?’

  In spite of herself, Pauline had to smile. ‘I was right about the smell though, wasn’t I?’

  ‘So now, will you stop imagining there are monsters in Judy’s past, and get her away from the monster she’s with now!’ Quietly chuckling, Alan sauntered away, leaving Pauline in a quandary.

  She knew instinctively that there was more to Judy’s story than she’d let on. The odd thing was, Pauline could bet a pound to a penny that this ‘bad thing’ Judy talked of had little to do with the boy called Harry. When Judy had talked of Harry, her face lit up, but when she had mentioned the ‘bad thing’, Pauline got the feeling that whatever had happened all those years ago was too disturbing and cruel for Judy to cope with.

  Pauline wisely decided not to broach the subject with Judy again. Instead, she would wait for Judy to come to her.

  She was not giving up though.

  One way or another, however long it took, she would get to the bottom of whatever it was that still affected Judy so desperately.

  It was the most beautiful evening.

  Not too many miles from where Pauline was pondering on Judy’s situation, Irish Kathleen was happily chatting away in her chair in the house on Fisher’s Hill.

  ‘I had the offer of a date with the coalman,’ she was saying. ‘Oh, he’s not handsome nor is he young, but then he’s a man after all, and I haven’t had a date with a man for many a long year. I told him no though. I mean, what would I be doing with a fella? I’ve lost the habit of it, if you get my meaning.’

  She looked up from her knitting. ‘Oh, now will ye look at that!’ She glanced about the room. ‘So, where’s he gone off to this time?’ She had soon learned how restless Harry was. One minute he was here and the next he was gone, and here she was chattering to herself, like some silly old woman losing her marbles.

  Putting down her knitting, she made her way to the kitchen. ‘Harry, where the divil are ye?’

  She glanced out the window, and there he was in the moonlight. ‘Aw, Harry Boy.’ She was sad for him. ‘What is it that makes you so restless, me darlin’?’ Like a cat on hot bricks he was forever on the move; he was here, then he was there, and then he was nowhere at all!

  She remained at the window, careful not to let him see her if he suddenly turned round, but near enough so that she could keep an eye on him. ‘God bless ye, Harry Blake. Yer good woman is gone to her Maker and there is no way on God’s earth you can ever bring her back.’

  Her kind old heart went out to him. ‘I can’t help ye,’ she whispered. ‘Nobody can. Oh, but you’ll not rest … not until you come to terms with it all.’

  She watched him pace the garden, then sit on the bench, then he was walking again, and now he was leaning on the fence, looking lost and alone, his face upturned to the skies.

  She shook her head forlornly. ‘Ah, you’ll be missing your lovely wife so ye will,’ she muttered. ‘But I imagine there’ll be someone else on your mind just now; someone you loved very deeply when you were just a boy.’

  She cast her mind back. ‘I miss her too. Sure, didn’t I love that girl as though she was me very own? Soon after you went away though, Harry, it was like she disappeared off the face of the earth.’ As did her entire family, she recalled.

  Watching Harry now, she could hardly imagine what trauma he had suffered; back then when he was so young, and more recently, when his beloved wife was so tragically taken from him and young Tom.

  ‘I wonder what the future has in store for you.’ Leaning forward with a grunt, she collected her knitting. ‘Already the world has turned time and again, taking your darling wife into the past. Sure, wouldn’t it be a fine thing if the world has altogether done a complete turnabout, and the girl Judy, is destined to be your future?’

  She chuckled to herself. ‘Ah, but the Lord has a strange way of doing things, so He has.’

  She stole another glance at Harry, alone in the dark with his deepest thoughts, and thought of the boy-child upstairs soundly sleeping. ‘Harry’s son,’ she said, smiling, ‘out of Sara.’

  With much regret, Kathleen now recalled the last time she had spoken with Judy, and the secret they shared. A secret she had promised hand on heart never to divulge to a living soul. Thinking of it now, Kathleen’s heart was sore. Oh, poor Judy! Such a terrible burden for a young girl. She paused in her knitting. ‘I pray to God you took note of what I said,’ she whispered, furtively glancing again to where Harry was standing. ‘Oh, my darling girl … I hope you did the right thing in the end.’

  On that day when Judy sobbed in her arms, she had given her love and comfort, and good sound advice. Whether Judy had acted on it, Kathleen never did find out.

  So, being the wise old woman she was, and knowing she could do nothing more than she had already done, Kathleen left it all in the hands of the Master, and went quietly back to her knitting.

  Unaware that she had been watching him, Harry remained by the fence, looking up at the skies and talking with Whoever was up there listening. ‘I don’t know what to do, or where to start,’ he whispered. ‘I try so hard to put her out of my mind, but I can’t. I really can’t!’

  He shifted his gaze to the ground; thinking, remembering … and now he was talking again. ‘It all ended badly, but I still love her … so very much.’

  He gave a weary smile. ‘But then you always knew that, didn’t you, Sara … my precious love. You were the one who carried me through. The one who kept me sane all those years, and made me promise to come back here, to my roots. Now that you’re gone, it’s as if I’ve been cast adrift. I know now, how Judy must have felt. It was all wrong. We were just children. Too young, too reckless.’

  For a time he was quiet, looking up at the skies and wondering if Judy was looking at those very same stars. ‘Where is she?’ he kept saying. ‘Should I try and find her? Or should I leave her to the life she has now?’

  Another moment of solitude, and then he made his way inside.

  ‘Aw, there ye are, you rascal,’ Irish Kathleen greeted him with a wide smile. ‘Put the kettle on, will you, me darlin’? I’m that parched, me tongue is stuck to the roof of me mouth!’

  Like the canny old soul she was, Kathleen made no mention of seeing him outside.

  Harry had thought he was alone with his precious thoughts; and that was fine by her. Yes … fine and dandy, so it was.

  PART THREE

  Bedfordshire, Autumn 1956

  Strangers

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘FETCH IT, LOTTIE!’ Throwing the stick into the canal, Don sat on the bank while the stocky, white bull terrier launched herself belly-first into the murky waters. He laughed at the dog’s antics as she spun round and round, frantically
searching for the stick. ‘Look, there it is … right in front of your great big nose!’

  Catching the stick between her huge jaws, the dog swam back. Struggling out of the water and up the bank, she dropped the stick at Don’s feet, before shaking the excess water from her plump body and spraying him from head to toe.

  ‘Whoa, you gormless bugger!’ Scrambling to his feet, Don wiped himself down. ‘Are you trying to drown me or what!’

  In reply, the dog gave another almighty shake, and when Don ran for cover, she followed him at the gallop, thinking it was a game and giving a loud, excited bark.

  Laughing, Don dug into his pocket and fed Lottie a biscuit treat. ‘Well, at least we’ve stretched our legs and felt the sunshine on our backs, eh?’ He looked up at the skies, noting the fluffy white clouds beginning to move in. ‘We’ve been lucky with the weather all week, and we’ve still got a few hours of daylight yet,’ he told her. ‘Tomorrow night the family are back, so we’d best make the most of it, eh?’

  When he settled himself on the fallen tree trunk, the bitch fell against him, shifting and fidgeting until she was as close and as comfortable as she could get.

  Don didn’t mind; in fact, he welcomed her genuine affection.

  Since the day he had gone into town and witnessed for himself the way his daughter had let herself be drawn into a life of violence and debauchery, he had been more than grateful for the company of this faithful old friend.

  Cutting across the back ways to the little corner shop in Heath and Reach, he bought the basic necessities ready for the family’s return: bread, butter, cornflakes, and a good helping of ham and cheese. ‘Oh, and I’d best take a new jar of marmalade; the old one looked a bit worse for wear, so I threw it out. And I’ll need a two-pound bag of dog biscuits, please.’ He pointed to the sack spilling over with the bright colours and shapes of the biscuits that Lottie loved.

  ‘So, is that it then?’ The shopkeeper was a man of considerable proportions, with a friendly manner and a bright twinkly smile.