The Twisted Way

by Jean Hill

  ‘Mrs Osman,’ or the name of the latest nanny, John’s father would shout out in the days before John was banished to boarding school, when he was tired of the boy in the evening, which was more often than not. ‘Time this lad went to bed,’ and John would often find himself sent to the nursery or to his bedroom on the floor below, out of the way, at six o’clock so that his father could work on his business papers in peace. Jack Lacey was relieved to get rid of both the nanny and the child when John went to school. He convinced himself the boy was well cared for physically but apart from that he had no interest in him. What more could the little brat want? He had done his duty.

  When Jack died suddenly of heart failure in his fifties John could not grieve. He tried to cry but could not and felt guilty. John had never really known him. He was his father, his features and genes declared that, but his cold and undemonstrative attitude had left John with no deep affection or feelings akin to love for the man; it was as though he was in some ways already dead and never a significant part of his life.

  ‘What is the matter with me that I cannot grieve for my own father?’ he asked himself many times when a feeling of guilt threatened to overcome him.

  He trailed behind his coffin when he was buried but the funeral service was meaningless.

  ‘My father,’ he had said when urged to do so during the service, ‘Jack Lacey, a good man ... he always took care of me. An astute businessman ...’ What was he saying? He stumbled on in an attempt to deliver the eulogy that was expected of him. Numb and detached, he endured the burial in the local churchyard and the funeral lunch afterwards where he was joined by his father’s business colleagues and associates, large strong tough men with sly fox-like faces who were anxious to keep on the right side of him, just in case he stepped into his father’s shoes and became their boss or business associate. They need not have worried. John had no interest in his father’s business ventures and sold them as soon as he could. He was an academic, that was his world, he was not a businessman and in no sense considered himself to be a wheeler or a dealer. Lacking confidence, he feared that he would be crushed like an ant underfoot in the business world so it was fortunate that he wanted to teach after completing a university course and obtaining a first class honours degree. He was thrifty which was a trait he had inherited from his father, and invested his father’s fortune with care in what he considered were safe options. Unlike his father and many of his associates he was not a risk taker. He had studied and learned more about investing on the stock market and safe savings accounts than he ever admitted to his father and was more sensible than many when investing in the 1930s. Jack had, however been smart enough to avoid huge losses during the Wall Street crash and, unlike some who were not so astute, survived with most of his fortune intact. Several of his business associates became bankrupt after making a number of bad decisions but the majority had followed Jack’s lead. They did not have the same faith in his son and would have been surprised to discover what a shrewd young man he had developed into.

  John did not crave flashy cars or fast women, a small economical Ford car suited him. He was content. He had a theory that if one looked affluent, greedy and unscrupulous people would attempt to take advantage and he would have difficulty in coping, being soft and gentle at heart. Whether they would succeed was a different matter. With greater confidence in his own abilities he would have dealt with them with ease. His father had been fond of pontificating in a scathing tone when he spoke about his son, ‘That boy will be eaten alive by the sharks if he enters the business world,’ but John’s gentle appearance disguised a firm resolve his father failed to recognize. ‘He was born that way,’ his father said many times, ‘just a wimp, how on earth could I have spawned a child like that! He is far too shy and introverted to ever be a successful businessman.’

  The fact that he did not help the boy to socialise or understand how to interact with other people did not occur to him. He thought it was not his fault that his son was so shy. He had done his best. ‘I have provided the little brat with good nannies and plenty of pocket money,’ he never tired of telling his friends. ‘Useless though. He will never amount to much.’

  The real problem, John was intelligent enough to understand, was that he, John, was alive and well and his mother had died and left his father with a child he did not want to complicate his life. Jack was an entrepreneur and a child was something his wife should have been able to look after. A man with his brilliant business aptitude should not have been burdened with a small boy.

  After boarding school John went to Oxford University where he met Pamela, a quiet studious girl who wore her thick horn-rimmed glasses with flair. The lenses made her fine blue eyes look larger than they actually were and her eyes were her main asset. She loved to look like a bookworm. Her unruly thick mousy hair was cut short in a fashionable bob with an uneven fringe she had a habit of flipping back carelessly in the middle of a conversation. It hung down her forehead like a curtain, stopping just short of the top of her eyes and her short straight nose.

  Pamela was too plump for her short stature, and lack of exercise and a head more often than not hovering over a book during her early years had not done her any favours. She was described by a friend as ‘cuddly’ and her cheap poorly cut tweedy clothes and uninteresting flat laced shoes emphasised her dumpy shape. She didn’t at that time see any reason to waste money on expensive clothes she didn’t need.

  Pamela made the first advances. ‘John Lacey,’ she said, sidling up to him one day after a lecture, ‘can you help me with my assignment? I really am stuck and would appreciate it.’ She moved towards him and placed a small chubby hand over one of his. He jumped away as though stung by a bee. The warmth of her touch lingered for a few moments, strange and unfamiliar. It was an unusual experience for him to be touched in such an intimate way by any other human being. She moved her hand slowly up his arm.

  ‘Come and have a coffee with me in my digs,’ she wheedled and he found himself agreeing. The warmth of her soft and neatly manicured hand crept through his thin shirt. Feelings for the opposite sex that he did not fully understand and had until that moment denied, flooded through his body.

  She was akin to a magnet he could not resist and she pursued him with determination in an effort to win his affection. She stirred feelings within him that he had never been fully aware that he possessed, except perhaps in the odd dream. She longed to get married but had not attracted many boyfriends; her dumpy and studious looks disguised the passionate and loving woman that lurked behind the shapeless clothes and hid her curvaceous body. John, though pitifully inexperienced with the opposite sex, knew he was lucky. He worshipped her; indeed he had never got to know any other girl very well so comparison was not relevant. Pamela gave him the affection he had craved all his young life. She had obtained a scholarship to allow her to attend Oxford and her background was very different from John’s, money always being in short supply, but in his eyes that made her more desirable. She did not appear to be interested in the demon money which was God to his unfeeling father and that for him was a big plus. John was convinced that she had what he considered to be good principles and appreciated the affection and good companionship she offered him. All that glitters is not gold, he told himself, and he soon appreciated that Pam, under the dull exterior, was pure gold, and he eventually plucked up enough courage to ask her to marry him after they had completed their teaching training courses together in Bristol. They got engaged following a reluctant blessing from her parents, who thought John was a skinflint or perhaps really did not have enough money to keep their beloved daughter in reasonable comfort, though they would have been agreeably surprised, indeed amazed, if they had discovered the extent of his fortune. They never did.

  ‘No fuss,’ Pam had said. ‘I don’t want a flashy engagement ring or a white wedding, complete waste of money,’ a sentiment that pleased the introverted John. They purchased a modest secondhand solitaire diamond engagement ring
from a small backstreet shop. A blue imitation silk suit, flat black patent court shoes and a small spray of yellow carnations were her choice when they got married in the local register office.

  ‘Lovely ring, darling John,’ Pam had said. ‘Reasonable too.’ ‘Cheapskate,’ her mother muttered under her breath when she set eyes on the ubiquitous ring. ‘What is the matter with the man? It looks worn and jaded.’

  ‘It’s antique, Mummy,’ Pam had said with pride when she showed it to her parents.

  ‘I should jolly well think it is,’ her mother responded with sarcasm and struggled to swallow her irritation in order to spare her daughter’s feelings.

  ‘Darling Pammy,’ John had called her; in his eyes she was perfect. Love and affection were, at long last, his to enjoy.

  ‘Darling,’ she would reply and fuss around him. She was warm and loving and that was an ingredient of which he had been starved for a very long time. He could not receive enough of her attentions.

  Pam’s parents were disappointed that they were not able to invite all their relatives to the wedding. A couple of college friends who were witnesses and Pam’s mother and father were the only guests.

  ‘You are letting us all down,’ her mother declared in a fierce high-pitched voice but her ranting fell on deaf ears. ‘The miserable buffet and wedding cake were a disgrace. We would have arranged something much better if you had let us. Uncle Bob and Auntie May will be most upset when they realise that they were not invited and they won’t be the only ones.’

  Shortly after John obtained a post in Everton Grammar School Pamela became pregnant. They purchased a rambling old cottage in need of renovation on the outskirts of Everton and looked forward eagerly to the arrival of their baby. A large garden and lawns surrounded the cottage on three sides. It was well fenced and private. ‘Ideal for children to play in, perfect,’ Pam declared.

  ‘There will be plenty of room for our family,’ John said. ‘We’ll have three or four, I expect. I’ve always wanted to be part of a large family.’

  Pamela was like a clucky hen; she bought a wicker cradle, lined it with pink and blue gingham, decorated the small spare bedroom in cream (suitable for a boy or a girl) knitted various baby garments and planned with avid enthusiasm for the future of their baby. She would stand in front of a long mirror that hung in their hall for at least half an hour almost every day gawping at her expanding shape. It was fascinating John thought, though he likened it to the swelling belly of a fish in a local pond but was sensible enough to keep that idea to himself.

  ‘I’m sure he or she will go to Oxford, John,’ she said. ‘Our child is sure to be academic just like we are.’

  She looked at him through her thick pebbled glasses and pressed her soft expanding body against him for comfort and love. John was ecstatic. Pam and the baby she was expecting were all he needed.

  ‘I wonder if it will be a boy or a girl?’ she often said to him. ‘It’s kicking, darling, feel it, the doctor told me it is a good healthy child,’ and she would press his hand to her stomach.

  ‘A fluttering, just like a tiny bird,’ he would marvel and looked forward to holding their first child in his arms. A child that would be part of him, his own flesh and blood. He would never treat it like his father had treated him. Their baby would be loved and cherished.

  Two months before the baby was due Pamela slipped on ice on an old patch of cobbles that formed a short path from the kitchen to the dustbins at the back of the cottage. Nobody could see her or hear her when she cried out for help though she called out many times as loudly as she could manage.

  ‘Somebody help me, please, somebody ... oh, help me,’ she called until her voice grew faint and weak.

  Tears trickled down her face and cramping pains determined to assail increased in strength as her womb reacted with strengthening contractions in an effort to abort the baby. Her voice became weaker as the minutes passed. She tried to cry for help but soon found it impossible to make any sound. Her mouth felt dry and her skin cold and clammy.

  ‘My baby,’ she mouthed. Have I damaged my back? Oh God, she thought. Someone help me. Her legs had begun to feel strangely numb. She tried to drag herself a few inches, holding on to the branch of an old plum tree that grew nearby. The sharp flinty stones that were interspersed in the cobbles dug into her legs, tore her fine silk stockings and inflicted deep scratches but she could hardly feel them. Dampness crept deep into her bones and she lifted her right hand to button the top of her cardigan to keep out the cold wind that licked her neck without mercy. The branches of the large trees at the bottom of the garden rustled and creaked as the wind found its way through her clothes. ‘My right arm,’ she groaned. ‘It’s difficult to move it. Have I broken it?’ The mounting shock threatened to overcome her. She could feel the warmth of what she thought was liquid creeping down her legs. Perhaps her waters had broken, or was it blood? Her hips started to shake uncontrollably as fear gripped her. How could her bones keep jogging about like that?

  ‘Pray God, stop the dreadful jerking, the awful pain!’

  She turned her head and looked at the large white snowdrops nodding their heads under the trees. Purple and yellow crocus too were evident, their buds shut firmly as though objecting to the harsh frosty weather. The daffodils and tulips had yet to burst through the cold ground. Her attention momentarily shifted towards them.

  ‘They’ll be lovely in the spring, Pam,’ she recalled John saying when they planted them together in the autumn. ‘They’ll give us pleasure for many years. They’ll form part of our future together.’

  Was there a future now? That thought became uppermost in her mind as her body foisted painful spasms upon her.

  She managed with fresh resolve to cry out once again in a voice now reduced to a faint quivering whisper, tempered by the shaking that her body was enduring. Nobody answered. It was futile.

  The back door she had painted with zeal a bright deep blue shortly after they had first moved into the cottage now beckoned her. If only I could open that door and feel the warmth of my small kitchen, she thought. Tears trickled again down her cheeks. A vision of the new units they had installed recently passed through her mind. She was proud of them and had filled some of the shelves with goods that would be useful when the baby arrived. She thought too about the small white wool jackets she had recently knitted, booties and hats stowed carefully away in the small bedroom that they had equipped as a nursery.

  ‘Oh, thank heavens, the pain is going and the shaking is stopping, perhaps I will have some bones left,’ she told herself with relief. She heaved a sigh, deep and languid, and watched her breath, misty and white, float away from her. As her strength ebbed and she almost lost the struggle to keep her eyes open she instinctively placed her hands across her swollen stomach in an effort to protect her baby.

  ‘My baby ... darling ...’ she whispered. ‘I can’t feel you kicking ...’

  Their neighbours were working in Everton and an uncomfortable silence cloaked the cold damp mist that later started to form as the wind dropped. It was her only companion. Pam felt the insistent cold and dampness sink deeper into her bones and the blood from the haemorrhage trickle from her body. What could she do about it? She must be able to do something, though exactly what now eluded her. From the corners of her eyes she saw some of her rich red blood filtering along the edges of the stones where she lay, outlining them with resolute force.

  She mouthed. ‘John, oh my love, where are you?’ The bright blue door was the last thing she saw before she slipped into unconsciousness.

  John found her cold and lifeless in the pool of frozen blood when he returned from his teaching post that evening. Their baby had died within her. He never knew whether they would have had the pleasure of a son or daughter, but that no longer mattered. He did not want to know. With Pam gone and the baby gone he retreated once more into his lonely self, unloved and unwanted, a state with which he was familiar. He found the idea of having
any more children in the future abhorrent and vowed he never would. Pam had been his hope for a happy life and now that had been snatched away from him. He knew he was being illogical but a huge barrier rose up; a barrier that would be very difficult to remove.

  He called out to her in his sleep night after night, ‘Pam, my Pam, come back to me. I need you,’ and cried like a child, the kind of free-flowing tears he had never been able to shed when he was young. She had released his inhibitions and liberated his emotions but she had gone and the fear that he was destined never to have any children became entrenched in his mind, indeed he no longer wanted them.

  His health suffered and life become bleak once again for the introverted lonely John whose one taste of genuine affection had evaporated. He found concentration difficult and his work unsatisfying. The outbreak of war in 1939 became his salvation. He joined the army in 1940 and spent the war in army intelligence. He did not see much active service though he did spend six months in Egypt in connection with his duties at headquarters.

  After the war the lost and bewildered man returned to teaching. He did some supply work in junior schools and found to his surprise that he enjoyed working with younger pupils; their eagerness and candid behaviour lifted him out of his introverted shell, so that he eventually applied for the post of headmaster at Enderly Junior School, a post he obtained with unexpected ease. Experienced teachers of John’s calibre were hard to find and the Government were offering short courses to returning servicemen in the hope of filling the shortage of trained teachers. He sold his cottage, there were too many unhappy memories there, and purchased a small terraced house near the school. ‘It’s good enough for a widower like me,’ he told himself. The fact that he was a wealthy young man and could have bought something more prestigious did not even occur to him.

  ‘What a nice chap,’ his neighbours proclaimed. ‘Not at all stuffy and stuck up, probably hasn’t got much money, like us.’ He found himself, to his embarrassment, plied with home-made cakes and pies from his neighbours who were themselves still suffering from the effects of food rationing.