The Teashop on the Corner

by Milly Johnson

  ‘And your baby?’ asked Carla gently.

  ‘Not even Bernard could get him back for me. Edwin was very well connected, shall we say. His father had been a mill-owner, a very powerful man, and a mason. Edwin threatened to have me sectioned. He knew I wasn’t in any fit state to pass any psychological testing. Plus he had his loyal mother to back up any story he made up. The court agreed that my son should be brought up by his grandmother and his father and that I should have supervised visitation rights. My boy was as good as lost to me. It was a constant battle to have Edwin hand him over when he should. He hoped I would give our son up totally and get out of their lives, but I clung on. And I could never tell my son that the father he worshipped was a brute, not that he would have believed me anyway. Edwin loved his son, indulged him, would have died for him, would have killed for him. Instead, I have to live with my son thinking that I was a weak woman who ran away and left him and lost him as a just consequence.’

  ‘I think you’re being very hard on yourself,’ said Leni. ‘I’m sure as he grew up, your son realised all was not as cut and dried as his father had presented it.’

  ‘Edwin died when our son was twenty. Thelma survived him by three years, becoming more poisonous with every day. Only once did my son ever put his arms around me and that was on the day when Harvey left me. I saw a precious glimpse into a world that day where my son truly loved and cared for me. I treasure that day because I never saw it again. You’re so lucky, Leni, having a daughter who loves you and misses you.’

  ‘I’ll get some more tissues for you,’ said Leni, standing quickly before Molly saw her eyes mist over.

  Chapter 70

  When I met you, I thought all my Christmases had landed at once. You were everything Edwin wasn’t: funny, caring, gentle. I wish I hadn’t told Margaret about you once being in prison. I only wanted to impress her with how much of a strong character you were, coming from a rough background and yet having the ability to change. Of course, it made her wary that I was getting myself into another mess. She thought you’d lead me into bad ways. Bernard was very fond of you from the off. In his profession he had seen many people change paths, for the better and the worse.

  I was so happy with you. I tried to make you happy too, but I couldn’t. Oh my love, I wish you were here with me now. I want you to understand that it wasn’t you to blame, it was me. I made you leave, my darling. It was all my fault.

  Harvey pinched the tears out of the inner corners of his eyes. So much pain and regret suffused Molly’s words. He should have known that there was something that ran deep inside her that changed her as soon as he crossed a barrier. She would let him cuddle her and kiss her, but he felt her resistance in his arms when his tongue traced her lip or his hands began to stroke her. When he tried to love her like a husband, she stiffened like a corpse. He felt as if he were violating his own wife. His own sweet Molly so gentle and smiling and affectionate out of bed, so icy within it. Then the frost began to follow Molly from their bedroom. She grew as cold during the day as she was in the night. He began to understand. She hadn’t told him how much of a pig Edwin Beardsall was. She must have been frightened that all men were the same if her only experience of sleeping with someone was that. She must have believed that all men had two sides, a seducing angel and a brutal devil and she was bracing herself against his dark side manifesting itself. He should have guessed there was something wrong. He should have made her talk to him. They could have gone to a doctor. If he’d known she loved him but couldn’t show him, he would have waited.

  He opened another letter which dropped from his hands as his eyes cleared the first sentence.

  My pen is trembling in my hand as I write this, my love.

  He picked it up and as he scanned the body of the letter he closed his eyes against her words.

  ‘Oh no, Molly. My poor love.’

  Chapter 71

  ‘However much I loved Harvey, and I did and I still do, I couldn’t bear him to touch me . . . like that.’

  ‘It’s to be understood, dear Molly,’ sighed Leni. ‘You went through so much in your first marriage. It was bound to scar you.’ Her hand was gripping Molly’s as much as Molly’s was holding on to hers.

  Molly gave a single cough of humourless laughter. Then she dropped her head and her shoulders shook with tears.

  ‘I’m so frightened, Leni. I’m scared stiff of facing that I’ve wasted so many years. I buried something away that refused to die, that has shifted and turned in its grave instead and laughs at my idiotic attempts to ignore it and forget it. Today Harvey will know and he will understand so many things and have some peace in his heart for himself, but he will also hate me. I let everyone think the end of my marriage was completely down to him. It was wrong of me. I have never forgiven myself for it. He couldn’t possibly have healed me. I was damaged beyond repair.’

  ‘No one is, Molly,’ said Carla.

  ‘I was,’ came the weary reply.

  ‘You can have help. Even after all this time, you know. There are people specially trained in helping victims of domestic abuse.’

  Molly shook her head slowly. ‘I’m afraid by the time I met Edwin, the damage was already done.’

  *

  Oh my darling, Harvey.

  This is the last letter I shall write to you and the hardest. I am glad you will never read it because it will change the way you think about me forever. I love you so much and I always will but I cannot show it. When a root is spoiled, the flower cannot grow straight. I hope you can forgive me for not telling you. All you wanted was my love and I had it in abundance for you and yet there will always be an impenetrable fence between us.

  Harvey’s hands were shaking as he held the letter. Not that, not that, not that.

  *

  ‘I was always a daddy’s girl,’ smiled Molly. ‘Margaret was a total tomboy, but I liked to sit with Father watching him. He made models of planes. He was very good at it.

  ‘I was about twelve when it started,’ said Molly, looking Leni, then Carla, straight in the eyes. ‘Mother was out shopping and Margaret was playing on her bike in the park. Daddy and I were alone in the house. He was disgusted with himself, I know. But it didn’t stop him doing it again.’

  ‘No,’ said Carla. ‘Oh Molly, no.’

  Molly’s hand was squeezing Leni’s hard as if she was afraid she would fall if she let go.

  ‘All the clichés followed: that I was his special girl. That we must not ever say anything to Mummy because she wouldn’t understand and would be very angry with me. And if I ever told anyone else I would be sent away to a home for naughty girls and would never see Margaret again.’

  Her eyes were dry now, hard and dark like stones.

  ‘It was as if there were two people inhabiting his body: my daddy who was smiley and funny and the man who . . . did . . . those dirty things. Just after my fourteenth birthday I saw him staring at Margaret in the way he stared at me when . . . when he wanted . . . I panicked and I ran to my mother for help. I was so scared for my sister that I told her what Daddy did to me and she slapped me and screamed at me that I was evil and if I ever said anything like that again they would put me in a children’s home. I had no doubt from the look on her face that she would, because she was angry, just as Daddy said she would be. And I couldn’t risk Margaret being left alone with Daddy.’

  Molly hadn’t smoked for forty years but she wished she could have a cigarette now and feel the smoke hit the back of her throat, absorb the nicotine hit.

  ‘And so our lives continued. He left Margaret alone because he had me. I was a much safer bet to be yielding than my wilder, confident sister. Whilst I was compliant, Margaret was safe and she and I were in no danger of being parted. That is what he made me believe. And then when we were sixteen we sneaked out to a dance and Margaret met Bernard Brandywine, dragged along there by his friends. Oh, he was such a looker. Tall and broad, with thick black hair, and he treated her like a princess. Daddy, of course, w
as furious when he found out that a man was “sniffing around his daughter”. He barred her from seeing him, but Margaret being Margaret used to climb out of the window and run off to meet Bernard.

  ‘Then one day Daddy caught her and he beat her – and me for trying to stop him. When Bernard hadn’t seen Margaret for a few days, he and his father and mother came around to the house to make sure she was all right. They felt something was very wrong and forced their way in; Bernard and his mother came up the stairs and as soon as they saw the state we were in they helped us pack a suitcase each. Mr Brandywine was having a huge altercation in the front room with my parents whilst we gathered together as much of our stuff as we could. My parents stood back as we walked out with the Brandywines and I’ll never forget the look on my mother’s face: pure hatred. Those wonderful people took us into their beautiful home and the rest, as they say, is history. I loved them so much. Margaret and I started our lives again.’

  Leni wiped her wet cheek with the back of her hand. ‘And what of your parents?’

  ‘There were no police involved. I think the Brandywines thought that going to court would be too much for us. They wanted us to forget and hoped their love would undo all the damage, although they never knew the full extent of how much damage there had been. Only Margaret and Bernard knew what happened to me. I told them when we were safe with the Brandywines and Daddy would never be able to hurt Margaret or send me away from her.

  ‘We didn’t speak to our parents again. Occasionally we saw them walking through town, but they never acknowledged us. They sold the house when Margaret and I were in our twenties and they moved away. I don’t know if they’re still alive or not. Margaret says that she never thinks of them, but I do. Part of me wants to go back to those days when I was watching Daddy put together those model planes and hope that things progressed along a different path. I loved him so much.’

  Carla didn’t know what to say but wished she could give Molly some comfort. She felt numbed by what she had just heard. Her own father was strict and old-fashioned but loving as a father should be. She had never had cause to be afraid of him and couldn’t imagine what growing up would have been like if she had.

  Molly checked the delicate gold watch on her wrist. ‘I expect Harvey will have read all the letters by now. He will know everything, the whole sordid lot.’

  ‘And he will still love you, Molly,’ said Leni insistently.

  Molly reached behind for her jacket over the back of the chair.

  ‘We shall soon see, won’t we?’

  *

  Harvey couldn’t have guessed why Molly was so disgusted by sex, but now he knew and he folded up the last letter, replaced it back in the envelope, tied it in the ribbon with the others and then he had sobbed into his large hands. His poor darling girl had gone through all that and he’d never known. He wasn’t a violent man, but if Molly’s parents had been in front of him now he thought he could have killed both of them.

  He sat in the sunshine and skipped back through his memories of Molly as a beautiful woman of thirty-six, who blushed when he talked to her and how good she felt in his arms. He had honoured her and not taken her to bed until their wedding night, and there he had tasted the first sour notes of their relationship.

  He looked up to see that same beautiful woman standing in front of him now, her hair silver where it had once been golden, her shoulders slightly stooped, but she made his heart thud as much now as she had back then. He pulled himself out of the chair and walked towards her, his arms out. Molly moved into them, Harvey pushed her head into his shoulder and they stood there, silently, together, with no words spoken for there was no need of them.

  Chapter 72

  ‘I hope she’ll be okay,’ said Carla, looking at the clock on the teashop wall. She reckoned that Molly should be home by now.

  ‘I hope so too,’ replied Leni. ‘Who would have guessed that she was carrying all that around with her?’

  ‘And I thought I had skeletons in my closet,’ sighed Carla, drinking the last of her coffee. ‘Martin’s shenanigans are nothing compared to what we’ve just heard. Really puts things into perspective, doesn’t it?’

  She caught sight of Will through the window holding a broom. He’d had his share of skeletons too. Even young Ryan must have had a few, coming from the infamous O’Gowan clan. Maybe not everyone did though. Leni, for instance – she was far too smiley to have bones hiding in her closet.

  ‘How did you get on with the shop?’ asked Leni, remembering why Carla was there in Spring Square.

  ‘I’m going to take it,’ replied Carla, feeling slightly guilty about having good news to celebrate after all she had heard from Molly.

  ‘That’s great news,’ smiled Leni. ‘You’ll be my new neighbour.’

  ‘I’ll like that,’ Carla returned and meant it. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me. I need to go home and plan.’

  When she left Leni’s teashop she went over to find Will and tell him the good news. He had been delighted for her and said that he would make her a counter. Then she had rung Theresa, who had whooped down the phone and then told her off for holding back for so long before taking the plunge.

  Now Carla was sitting in her lounge with the Hard Times journal she had bought from the Teashop on the Corner, half resting it on Lucky’s back, who was taking up prime position on her lap. On the left-hand page she had a list of all the essential equipment she would need to set up: flowers, display vases, ribbons, wrap, raffia, gift cards, country baskets etcetera. Oh, and a phone line. She could use an ordinary cash box – there was no point in splashing out on a fancy till – but she would definitely require a credit card machine. She needed to replenish her florist’s toolbox which was essential for last-minute repairs, alterations and additions especially on bridal flowers, and she had plenty of books which would be handy for would-be customers to refer to and get an idea of style.

  On the right-hand side she had a list of ideas on how to drum up some business. She still had the orders book she had taken as a souvenir from Marlene’s shop after she’d retrieved it from a pile of paperwork to be burnt. So many of her old clients had told her to contact them when she started to trade again, promising that their custom would follow her.

  Jonty and Theresa would help get her name out there, she knew. She would set up a site on the internet; maybe the Barnsley Chronicle would run a feature on her in exchange for a bouquet. She could forget the incompetent Daily Trumpet who would no doubt get all the details wrong. And what could she call the business?

  A nasty voice hit her from left field. Who do you think you are kidding? And she thought it sounded like Martin. She had once thought about setting up a part-time bouquet delivery service from home and those were the very words he had said to her: Who do you think you are kidding? Then he told her not to be so silly and go make his tea.

  Carla felt a spike of anger as she recalled how stupid he had made her feel. Maybe if she had ignored him, she would be running a chain of florist shops now.

  Who do you think you are kidding? That voice again.

  ‘You aren’t here any more, Martin,’ said Carla to the air. ‘And I am going to do it. So there.’ She felt marvellous just for daring to say it and punched the air in triumph. Life was for the living and she was living and Martin wasn’t. So stuff him.

  Chapter 73

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘Here goes then.’ Harvey cast the bundle of letters into the lit garden incinerator. The edges began to brown and smoke and curl and they watched mesmerised as all Molly’s words of pain and confession were devoured hungrily by the orange dancing blades of fire.

  It was a warm, balmy night but Harvey noticed that Molly was shivering. He took a step closer to her and put his arm around her shoulder.

  ‘It was the right thing to do,’ he said.

  ‘I know,’ she replied.

  ‘You aren’t going to live in the past any more, are you?’ He gave her a gentle squ
eeze. ‘It can’t hurt you now, Molly. You must never look back again.’

  ‘I won’t.’ His arm felt good around her shoulder. She let herself be pressed closer to him.

  ‘I’m so glad I came back,’ said Harvey. ‘I wouldn’t have laid quiet in my grave if I hadn’t said goodbye to you. I would have done a Catherine Earnshaw and knocked at your window.’

  ‘I’ve got triple-glazing. I wouldn’t have heard you,’ sniffed Molly.

  Harvey threw back his head and laughed. Then he kissed Molly tenderly on her hair.

  ‘Let’s go in and cover ourselves with blankets and fall asleep in front of a film like the couple of old farts we are.’

  Molly nodded. That sounded good. She cast a last look into the incinerator as they passed it. The letters were totally gone, save for a few smoking black flakes in the bottom.

  Chapter 74

  Carla was in the kitchen when Will landed home. Hearing him enter she turned around and grinned.

  ‘I was just about to open a bottle of celebratory fizz if you’d like a glass. Not champagne, it’s Prosecco, which I actually prefer. And to be honest, I can’t tell the difference.’

  He smiled.

  ‘I’d love a glass.’

  That sadness in her eyes was gone today, thank goodness, and there was a shine to her that he hadn’t seen before, as if a light had been turned on inside her and illuminated all her features.

  Lucky jumped on his knee as soon as he sat at the dining table. Carla took the bottle out of the fridge and unfastened the gold wrapper at the top of it, twisted off the wire and then grimaced as she tried to twist the cork out. Two minutes later she was still twisting.