Highly Unsuitable Girl

by Carolyn McCrae

  “I always wear it.” She twisted it around her finger self-consciously.

  “If you want me to I will tell you about your family. There will be things you regret knowing and they will be impossible to forget, however hard you try.”

  Friday 8th March 2002

  It’s very late and I’m very tired.

  Vincent has just left. His son Kenneth picked him up as we had had far too much to drink for him to drive. Vincent is not my father he is my uncle (my mother’s brother) but he is also my half-brother (my father’s son). That makes Kenneth both my half-nephew (my half-brother’s son) and my cousin (my mother’s brother’s son).

  Vincent told me so much, describing things in a detail I can’t write down. I wish I’d taped our conversation. For the record then: Albert and Elizabeth Cave were married in the autumn of 1932. Albert was a lot older than Elizabeth, probably into his 30s whilst Elizabeth was still in her teens. At Easter 1933 they had a son, Vincent. E must have been pregnant when she married. Unmarried conceptions seem to run in the family – up to me that is. V believes that she would have done anything other than marry A if she had had a choice. In 1934 E had a daughter, Melanie. E had had a difficult time with V and had nearly died with M so the doctor said she must have no more children or it would kill her. There was no contraception, not for people of their class anyway, so she would have had to stop being a wife to A. But A couldn’t forego his pleasures (V’s phrase) so he brought girls back to the house and did what he had to do quite openly. They lived in a poor area near the docks and what men and women did together was part of life. There was no privacy, houses were small and many parents shared bedrooms, even beds, with their children, even when they slept in separate rooms walls were thin. Children knew what their parents did, Elizabeth knew what her husband was doing and so did Vincent and Melanie. It was just part of life.

  V said the war had just started (he’d have been 5) when his father started interfering with him (again V’s phrase). Mum would have been a little older, maybe 7 or 8, when her father started doing things to her. Perhaps he couldn’t get it any other way but with V and M.

  I stopped V at this point in the story and asked why his mum didn’t put a stop to it. He said she wasn’t there. He didn’t know whether she had died in one of the air raids or had left or why she had disappeared, she just wasn’t there. I said she must have died because surely she wouldn’t have left without her children. Perhaps he killed her when he was drunk V said matter-of-factly, as if it was quite a normal thing to think.

  V knew what his father was doing was wrong but he had no way of stopping it. A’s job in the shipyard meant he stayed at home when others went to war and V thought that made him feel inadequate. I said if he’d been in his 30s when he married E he might have been old enough to have been in the First War and perhaps something had happened there to make him who he was. V stared at me as if I was mad making excuses for his Dad.

  V said whenever he tried to stop A getting at Mel he was beaten. After a bit she told him not to bother, she’d put up with it rather than see her brother knocked about. So M started sleeping in the same bed as her father and V had to listen to what was going on or go out and leave them to it.

  I told V Mum had never told me anything about her parents or her childhood, now I understood why. I wish she’d talked to me, perhaps then we could have known each other better. I wondered if she had ever tried to talk and I’d ignored her, or argued or not heard the words she had spoken.

  At the end of the war Mum’s monthlies had started so she moved out of her Dad’s bed. There was a succession of husbandless women looking for a home and whilst they were around A left his daughter alone, but when he lost his job he had no money to treat other women and V knew whatever he tried to do to protect his sister, it was inevitable he would go back to her. He raped her on her 15th birthday.

  She didn’t tell her brother until she could hide her condition no longer. V said he hit his father until he no longer felt any anger. He stole the rent money and left. He had had no choice, he said, but he had always felt guilty. ‘I thought I’d killed him. If he survived he’d have made me leave. I couldn’t have stayed. I couldn’t have looked after her. Not her and a babe.’

  V went to Liverpool, jumped a ship and ended up in Barbados. He wrote to his sister, she wrote to him. Their father died. Was it his beating that had killed him? He didn’t know. Mel said she didn’t care if it was. But he couldn’t go back to England, just in case. He had to find a way of getting what money he could to Mel. He wasn’t earning much but he saved and then he bought the ring. He sent it to her so she could sell it and use the money. He seemed angry when I told him she had never even opened the box.

  Well that’s it. It’s no worse than I had imagined.

  I wondered why V seemed to hate me so much, every time I caught his eye he was staring at me with thinly disguised dislike. It was as he was leaving he gave me the explanation. ‘You have the look of him. You shouldn’t have come to the island.’

  Oh. I nearly forgot about the dress. I asked him if he knew anything about it. He’d sent it to her for her 21st birthday. He’d thought she would like something a glamorous. ‘Did she ever wear it?’ he asked. I said I didn’t think so. I didn’t say I had.

  She saved the document and shut down the computer. For the whole evening she had been wrapped up in the past, in her mother’s life, in Vincent’s life. Now she had to concentrate on sorting out her own.

  She was still in bed the next morning when the phone rang.

  “Hello? Fishermen Rock? Can I speak to Miriam?”

  Anya listened to the voice, so easily recognised, and she took a moment to compose herself before answering. “Hello Geoffrey, it’s me.”

  “Anya?” Of course he had no idea she was on the island.

  “Yes, darling, it’s me.”

  “Are you really here in Barbados?”

  “I am, darling.”

  “That’s brilliant. We’re in Bridgetown. We’ve just come in on a yacht from Grenada.”

  It took a few moments for Anya to understand that Geoffrey was only a few miles away. She wasn’t alone. She could talk things over with him, today.

  She tried to keep her voice light. “How long are you around?”

  “We’ve signed off the boat. We thought we’d spend a few days on the island and then fly back to UK. I’ve been away long enough, it’s time to face up to the real world now.”

  “Geoffrey, darling, you don’t know how good it is to hear your voice. I’ll come and pick you up. I can be at the harbour in less than an hour.”

  “We’ve got one or two things to do. Shall we say 11ish in the upstairs bar?”

  “I’ll be there. It’s so good to hear your voice, you don’t know how good.”

  “Are you OK Anya?”

  She realised he hadn’t called her Huggy. He will have grown up in his months travelling, he would never again be the Geoffrey she had known. Perhaps she had never really known him anyway.

  “Geoffrey?” She tried to keep her voice steady.

  “Yes?”

  “Aren’t I Huggy anymore?”

  He paused before answering. She felt his embarrassment. “Sorry, Anya seems, well, somehow, more appropriate now.”

  She wondered what he meant by ‘more appropriate now’? “That’s OK darling.”

  It didn’t matter, Geoffrey was on the island.

  She had thought many times in the years since Geoff had died how much she had loved him and how wrong she had been to have divorced him. The waste of nearly twenty years when she could have been with him was the greatest mistake in her life of many mistakes. But whenever she wished she had never left him she was faced with the fact that, had they stayed together, the children they had both loved would never have been born.

  The two hours she had to wait before she could reasonably leave for the city passed very slowly.

  She saw him before he saw her and she stole those moments to look at
him and wonder. He was taller, broader, and had filled out into his height. He was tanned, more muscled than she could have imagined. She thought he looked like so many of the other young men who made their living on the yachts around the Caribbean.

  He was 21, a man, no longer the boy who she had held and comforted and supported through the past years. She had been prepared for him to be more like his father, but she was unprepared for the lurch of pain she felt when she saw him up close. This was Geoff, her Geoff, as he had been in those early years. But then it wasn’t, this was her adopted step-son, grown up, transformed in his months away into a man so like the man his father had been.

  Anya thought of Kathleen. She realised the pain Kathleen must have felt every day as she had seen her husband in his son.

  “Geoffrey.” She made her presence known by touching his arm and gently speaking his name.

  “Hello Anya. You don’t mind do you? You sounded a bit sad on the phone but Huggy seems a little, well, wrong now.”

  “Anya’s fine.” She said, wondering at his composure.

  “Anya meet Lizzy and Lissa and that old reprobate is Joe.”

  “Hi Lizzy,” she smiled at the bronzed dark haired, dark eyed girl she guessed was Geoffrey’s girl.

  “Hi Lissa and Joe” she smiled again at the two who seemed so wrapped up in their own company they weren’t aware of anyone else.

  “Don’t mind them Anya, they’ve just met up again after over three weeks apart.” Geoff put his arm almost absent-mindedly, but with easy possession, around Lizzy’s shoulder.

  Anya thought that Lizzy looked intelligent, her eyes were sharp and looked straight back at her with something akin to defiance. She tried not to think that that was exactly the look she had thrown back at Kathleen when they had first been introduced the evening before Tim and Margaret’s engagement party.

  She wondered what their relationship was, she was rather afraid of the answer. Was this how Kathleen had felt when Geoff had taken her home that first time? No girl was ever going to be good enough for their sons. At no time in her life had Anya understood her erstwhile mother-in-law so well. It wasn’t jealousy, Anya told herself. It wasn’t fear of not being loved any more. She knew what it wasn’t but she could not find the words to describe what the feeling really was.

  “Are you coming back to Fishermen Rock?” she asked, hoping her voice didn’t betray just how much she wanted Geoffrey to say yes.

  “If that’s OK?” He replied but, with his arm around Lizzy and his eyes encompassing Joe and Lissa, Anya realised that all four would be returning with her. “We’re not really dressed for it.”

  “No worries.” Anya replied. She couldn’t tell him yet.

  “All of you are most welcome.” It was best to make the offer, appear as if it was her idea. “You must all come up to Fishermen and you must all call me Anya.”

  ‘I am going to be nice. I am not going to do a Kathleen.’ She told herself as they all walked to the pick-up.

  Geoffrey sat with her in the front while the other three sat amongst the ropes, sacks and boxes in the back. The arrangement wasn’t particularly chivalrous as Lizzy and Lissa had the least comfortable ride but, Geoffrey pointed out, it would give him some private time with his mother.

  “Not a moke this time?” He asked, perhaps beginning to feel that things were not quite as they should be.

  “No. I think you’ll find a lot of things are different.” Anya started to warn Geoff as she negotiated the narrow streets of the city out onto the airport road. “We’re not actually open for business.”

  “Not open?” She heard his disbelief.

  “No.” She couldn’t bring herself to explain everything yet. She knew she would have to soon but every second of his ignorance seemed to be precious. Once he knew she could hide no longer. Decisions would be cast in stone and actions would have to be taken.

  It took a few moments for Geoffrey to digest this information. He had thought that Anya looked tired and drawn under the tan. “I’m looking forward to seeing Miriam.” He ventured.

  “You won’t.” Anya spoke unnecessarily sharply. “She’s gone back to the UK.”

  “When’s she back?”

  “She’s not coming back. She doesn’t work for us anymore.”

  “Miriam’s gone?” The disappointment in his voice struck Anya. All the children had been fond of Miriam and, she had thought, she of them.

  “Yes. She’s left.”

  He turned towards her but hoped she would keep her eyes on the busy road ahead. “What’s going on?”

  As they passed the airport and headed into the quiet roads of the south east Anya began to talk.

  “I don’t want to worry you but I suppose you’ll have to know sooner or later. Things have changed a great deal in the world since you left on your trip, 9-11, the stock market crash. Well, without going into all the details, I’m broke.”

  “Broke?” His voice held disbelief and surprise in equal parts.

  “Broke.” She confirmed.

  “How?”

  “As with most people I suppose, spending too much, bad investments.”

  “But we’ve got money. Me and Rosie and Jim, we’ve got money we’ll sort something out.”

  “Don’t even think about it. I will not take any of your money.” She had turned to face Geoffrey to show him how serious she was and just returned her attention to the road in time to swerve violently to avoid two children walking in the road. It took them both a few moments to recover.

  “Sorry. But I’m serious Geoffrey. Your money is yours. It’s what your father wanted.”

  “But what will you do?”

  “I have no idea. I think I’m going to have to sell up here. It’ll be a wrench but I don’t see any other way. Maybe you can help when you understand something of the problem.”

  “Of course I’ll try. Your problems are my problems.”

  “That’s very gallant of you but really it isn’t true. I’ve got to sort this mess out.” Determined to lighten the mood she tapped him on the knee and changed the subject. “Now, tell me what you’ve been up to. Well a little of it anyway. I don’t want all the no doubt extremely colourful details.”

  Anya tried to sound light and teasing, but she knew she wasn’t succeeding.

  Joe and Lissa stayed only the one night. They had another boat to ferry between islands and, as soon as they realised any stay at Fishermen Rock wasn’t going to be as Geoffrey had described it, they brought their trip to St Lucia forward. “We can do it tomorrow, next week, next month it makes no difference.” Joe had explained, “And it seems you need some time with Geoff and Lizzy.” Anya thanked him for his understanding and wished them luck.

  When Geoffrey decided to drive them back to the city leaving Anya with Lizzy it had been a calculated risk on his part.

  “So you met Geoff in Mumbai?” Anya asked what she hoped was a leading question as she and Lizzy drank coffee on the terrace, as she and Miriam had done so many times.

  “It was a complete chance.” Lizzy spoke enthusiastically, in the accent Anya described to herself as ‘posh middle class with just a touch of condescension’. “We were in Mumbai, that’s Bombay, I was on my way to Goa. I was buying a railway ticket and Geoffrey was behind me in the queue. We queued for over 24 hours. That was quite quick really, I’ve heard of people waiting two or three days when it’s coming up to a holiday period, and there always seem to be holiday periods in India.” Anya tried to listen attentively but found herself wondering where all this was leading. Why had Geoffrey left them together? Wouldn’t it have been more natural for Lizzy to see her sister off when they didn’t know when they’d see each other again? “Anyway we got talking.”

  “As you do.” Anya agreed with a smile “So where did you go? Goa or where Geoffrey was heading?”

  “He wanted to go south too, he was heading for Trivandrum. Trivandrum is in Kerala near the southernmost tip of India. It’s where you catch the plane to Colombo as th
ere haven’t been any ferries since 1982 because of the civil war in Sri Lanka. He had to go through Goa, it’s about a third of the way between Mumbai and Trivandrum.” Anya wondered why a simple question had ended up with a detailed explanation of places and recent history, perhaps Lizzy was nervous about something. “So we decided to travel together and got seats in the same compartment.”

  “That was when?”

  “Last September. September 6th. I started queuing after lunch and we finally got our tickets on the 7th at tea time.”

  “You remember the date and times very precisely.”

  “Oh yes. Important ones.”

  “So what happened in Goa?” Anya regretted her question immediately. She had to assume that Geoffrey was his father’s son in more ways than one and had slept with this attractive, if talkative, young woman within a very short time of knowing her.

  “I was meeting up with Lissa and Joe in Goa so Geoffrey kind of tagged along.” ‘They were definitely sleeping together by then’ Anya thought as Lizzy continued without pause. “Lissa’s my twin sister, not identical, though a lot of people say we’re very alike. I don’t see it myself. Anyway we’d arranged to meet up months before. She’s been with Joe for years and Joe’s got this fantastic job. He ferries rich people’s yachts around the world. He’s so good at it that people even pay him to fly places to pick up boats and take them where they want them. He’s been doing it for years.”

  “He doesn’t look old enough to have been doing anything for years.”

  “He’s 30. He comes from Lymington, you know on the south coast in Hampshire.” Anya wondered why Lizzy thought that she was unable to grasp the most simple geography. She just managed to refrain from saying ‘yes, dear, I do know where Lymington is’ in what would undoubtedly have been a caustic tone reminiscent of Kathleen. She made herself continue to listen to Lizzy who she was determined to like, for Geoffrey’s sake. “Joe sailed before he would walk. He started doing this ferrying around in the Med, the Mediterranean, in his gap year and kind of never gave up. Lissa and I have known him since we were kids.”