by Ellis Major
She shrugged. “Yes, although it was obvious what was happening to her, at least to my mother and me anyway. Rowena never gave up hope though. I’m convinced she genuinely believed the hold her father had over her mother could be broken. She thought she could persuade Edith to leave that awful man and live her own life.” Mary closed her eyes and shuddered, artistically, as she spoke. “It wasn’t to be, though, in the end.”
“Don’t know that much about him. Bit unpleasant isn’t he, from the odd hint you’ve dropped? Mad, bad and dangerous to know?” Charlie recalled Mary’s occasional oblique references to Rowena’s father.
“Dear me, yes, but without Byron’s redeeming qualities. You really don’t want to hear! I have never burdened you with it Charlie, but he is rotten to the core!” Mary’s tone was forceful, her lips compressed and thin, a frown creasing her brow. “I only had the misfortune to meet him a couple of times and I found him quite repulsive! He used to arrogantly assume that women would find him irresistible. If they failed to succumb to his charms, then there was something wrong with them! He used to be quite open about it, trying to chat one up in that horrible slimy way. Poor Edith would just sit there, as if he was discussing the weather with you! It was despicable of him!”
“That’s pretty low,” Charlie agreed firmly. “Can’t stand it personally.”
“He had some sort of hold over her. It is the strangest thing, Charlie. You’ve heard of Svengali haven’t you?”
Charlie nodded hopefully. The name rang a vague bell. He was a magician wasn’t he?
“It was like that poor Trilby in the novel. He could just control her with his willpower, but he never released Edith, ever. If I recall correctly, Trilby was only ever hypnotised so she could sing. Edith’s husband gloried in his constant power over her, I’m certain of it. I think it was part of what made him a man, even when her spirit was broken and she began to fade away. I think he’s evil, Charlie, I really do. I don’t think you ever met Edith but Rowena takes after her mother for sure. My mother has photos of Edith when she was younger and she was every bit as stunning as Rowena. But if you spend your life being a drudge, more or less stop eating and live on cigarettes, well, you end up like Edith. You have the bone structure but not much else.”
Charlie took Mary’s hand in his and pressed it. “And they never found out anything at this new hospital they sent her to then?”
Edith Hepple had been moved from the hospital in Norwich, the one nearest to the family home in Norfolk. She had been sent to a specialist London teaching hospital in the hope that they could diagnose her ailment. Upon hearing of Edith’s transfer, given the long relationship between Mary, her mother and Edith Hepple, Mary had insisted that Edith’s daughter, Rowena, came to stay with her in Fitzroy Square.
Mary shook her head in answer to Charlie’s question. “Not a thing. They hadn’t a clue. But what do you expect? How do you diagnose a broken heart, Charlie? Doctors don’t have a test for that, do they? They wanted to fill her up with all kinds of anti-depressant drugs but she wouldn’t have it, of course. No, once her spirit was gone we could see, well, my mother and I, anyway, that her body would give up eventually, whatever sort of hold he had over her.”
“Awful,” Charlie muttered. “Just fading away like that. Almost starving herself to death.”
Mary now squeezed Charlie’s hand before letting it go and clasping both her hands together in her lap. “She’s free of him now, at least. It really is fair to say that she’s at rest, the poor thing.”
Charlie sighed, along with Mary. “Leaving Rowena to sort out the mess. Where is he now, her father?”
Mary sniffed in disgust. “Out in Norfolk. His mind is starting to go, Rowena suspects, unless that’s another act! You could never tell with him; I doubt if he’s ever told the truth in his entire life. He’ll no doubt show up at the funeral, but as for helping out in any way, forget it! He’ll probably be annoyed that Edith’s out of his grasp.”
Charlie shook his head sadly. “What a business. I suppose having a father like that is enough to put you off men for life. No wonder Rowena’s a bit prickly.”
Mary’s very straight back stiffened a fraction more. “Well, quite Charlie, but it has to be said that the attitude of the rest of your sex hardly helps. What do you expect from the poor girl if every man just wants to get into bed with her? You can hardly expect her to be overly enamoured of the species, now can you?”
Charlie nodded. “Of course, Mary my love, but she does tend to jump down my throat. I haven’t tried to get into bed with her and I’ve got the same treatment if I say anything she doesn’t like. You keep clear after a couple of sharp put-downs.”
Mary grimaced. “I know you behave yourself, Charlie, but short of anyone gay and the chronically shy, you are rather unusual in that regard. She probably thinks you’re just better at hiding what you’re after. Anyway, tonight, well, just do your best to be kind to her. No silly comments or jokes and definitely no jazz when you play. She may not even come down, of course. She’s in her room at the moment but I did encourage her to join us. I know it sounds awful to say it but it’s true; life does have to go on after all.” Mary stood up. She was a tall, slim, athletic woman with a pale, interesting face. Those unusual green eyes and the shining chestnut hair which fell in loose curls onto her shoulders all made her quite an object of interest too. Just at that moment, she had a sensible, no-nonsense feel about her.
Charlie hauled himself upright. Mary was only slightly shorter than him. “Got your message loud and clear. I’ll do my best. Does this affect our little trip to the West Coast Riviera, do you think?”
Mary shook her head. “No, Charlie, it shouldn’t. That’s not for a couple of weeks. Rowena has already sorted out the funeral. It’s to be next week – organised with commendable fortitude and efficiency this afternoon. I suspect it will be a very small affair, given Edith’s estrangement from the rest of her family. It is a shame all that; you’d think people could forgive and forget but the stories about him never seemed to stop. I suppose they didn’t want any guilt by association. Rowena wants to get out of my hair too – she’s off tomorrow. I do wonder if it’s premature. I told her to stay as long as she liked, but she said she had to face up to it sooner or later. What a prospect, life in that draughty old place with a decrepit Casanova for company! God, Charlie, it’s bloody awful!”
“I know Mary.” Charlie’s face was unusually sombre. “I was going to tell you all about Lance, a guy from school I bumped into, but that can wait for another day. You’ve got enough to worry about as it is.”
~~~
Charlie really did his best. He sat and had a chat with Rowena when she came down shortly after he’d arrived. He did not know Rowena well, but had spoken to her briefly now and again when she happened to be in town and staying with Mary. As he’d said to Mary, he always found the girl rather defensive and guarded. Although he could understand why it was, he did feel she should be able to distinguish the predators from the pals. After having been tersely criticised without having said anything to justify it, Charlie avoided getting too close in case he got snapped at again. Nonetheless, the circumstances were rather different on this occasion.
With a figure as pneumatic as hers, it had come as no surprise to Charlie when Mary had told him that Rowena had been bullied by other girls at school. It was also hardly a revelation that her figure, combined with her beauty, made her a magnet for men – their constant attentions hardly being conducive to the sunniest of dispositions, as Mary had pointed out.
It had occurred to Charlie that Rowena was the sort of girl most men would describe if asked to invent a fantasy woman. She was around 5’7’’. A natural blonde, her golden hair fell in loose curls onto her shoulders and down her back, a real thick mane, eye-catching enough on its own. She generally wore her hair swept back from her high wide brow, almost as if to show off her beautiful face. Rowena’s big cornflower blue eyes were framed by daintily arched eyebrows and set above
prominent cheekbones. Her nose had the slightest of upturns above her generous mouth and soft red lips. She rarely smiled, but when she did, her teeth were white and even. Rowena’s skin was almost completely flawless and this gave her a sheen that was almost unnatural – an artificial filmic quality. In appearance, in short, with her extraordinary physique, she was the archetypal dumb blonde. If she’d only lacked the brains to match she would probably have been a happier young woman.
She tended to dress to conceal, not that it made much difference to the lecherous male eye. That evening was no exception – she was wearing dowdy shoes with only the slightest of heels, a loose dress and a thick cardigan with a huge floppy collar.
It was just the two of them. Mary was off in the kitchen somewhere. Unlike Charlie, she had yet to lose a parent, or anyone close to her for that matter, and one has to make sure that the canapés are under control whatever else may have taken place during the day. She hoped a quiet chat with Charlie might do Rowena some good. Given both Charlie’s parents were dead he might be able to offer some empathy and comfort.
When Rowena said hello to him and sat down beside him, the first thing Charlie noticed was that she adopted the same pose as Mary, straight backed, her hands clasped together in her lap. She was fingering a handkerchief but stuffed it in her cardigan pocket when she saw Charlie’s eyes on it.
“I don’t think I should need it,” she told him with a slight, apologetic grimace. Her voice was low pitched, soft and very attractive. “I think I’ve done all my crying.”
“Rowena, there’s no shame in grief,” Charlie told her gently. “I did plenty of crying when they told me about my parents and I wasn’t even all that close to them, you know, being away at school.”
She glanced at him. “Mary was saying you lost them both at the same time.”
He shrugged. “It was a few years ago, when I was sixteen. It was a helicopter crash. Some bit snapped on one of the rotors and that was that. They were very good to me at the school, for once. They even put me in my own room until the end of term. Some of the bullying eased off too. It was never as bad again, after that.”
“God, Charlie, I should think not - both parents just like that, no warning. That must have been terrible!” She was staring at him with genuine concern.
“It was a pretty miserable time,” he agreed. “But here I am. Life goes on - that old cliché we all use.”
She nodded faintly. “I feel strange, right now,” she told him, softly. “I just feel dazed and numb. When they called me this morning from the hospital they did their best to be tactful. They said that I needed to get over there straight away. I knew, of course. It was obvious that she’d died, not just taken a turn for the worse. I could tell from her voice, the nurse.”
“Nobody likes to actually say it, do they?” Charlie recalled how his headmaster had beaten around the bush when breaking the news to him. “They just hope you work it out if they waffle on for a bit and look grave. It’s as if they think you’ll be annoyed with them for not getting you there when it happens, especially hospitals.”
She nodded again. “Yes, that’s it; they don’t like to say it out loud. Well, anyway, I got there. I was ok. I was calm. I somehow knew it was going to happen, even though you never give up hope until it’s all over. But it had happened in the end, and I went to say goodbye. I was alright with the nurses, I was in control, you know. It wasn’t too bad up until then. And then they left me alone with her just lying there grey and dead and I just went, Charlie, I just went. I tried not to. I took great gulps to try and stop myself but I couldn’t.”
Charlie followed his instincts. He put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed her gently. He prayed it was appropriate and that he didn’t annoy her. He wanted to comfort her but was it the right thing to do with a girl like her? She raised no objection, at least.
“It’s ok,” he said. “That’s how it’s supposed to work. It’s good to be brave but you have to let go sometimes and just let it out.”
Rowena turned her head, momentarily suspicious. She could see immediately the sympathy on his face. Having looked him in the eye she made no effort to remove his arm, but he still worried at what she might think. He let it drop and shifted away from her fractionally. He was so relieved that his instinctive reaction had not been misinterpreted... Just imagine, it, try and comfort a girl and run the risk she slaps your face and accuses you of sexual assault the day her mother dies. He swallowed hard. God it was so awkward with someone so touchy.
She stared down at her lap. “I looked down at her and I was just overwhelmed by this huge sadness. Charlie, it was a jolt. It was so strong it was almost physical. And it was more for her than me. She was gone and it was all over. There was nothing she could do to change anything now. She couldn’t make anything better or alter anything ever again. That was it, done and finished. It was all over. It was so intense this feeling of utter misery and anguish. So much of her life had been so wretched and it just seemed such an awful, awful waste. It had all been so completely and utterly futile! I just cried my eyes out for about half an hour. Did you feel like that, Charlie? You know what I mean don’t you? The finality of it.”
Her voice was so intense, her emotions so raw, that Charlie started to feel his eyes welling up. He pulled out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes.
“Oh, Charlie.” She looked guilty “Of course you do. This brings it all back. I shouldn’t have gone on to you like that.”
Charlie smiled at her. “I’m a volunteer, here, remember. It doesn’t hurt to have it brought back to me every now and then. It reminds me of them. But Rowena, don’t say her life was futile. You’re alive, and your brother. You wouldn’t be here but for her.”
She nodded then gave him the faintest of smiles. “I suppose. Did you see your parents after, you know..?”
“No, there was a fire. It wasn’t really…”
Her hand had flown to her mouth. “Oh God, what a stupid, tactless…”
“Rowena,” Charlie told her firmly. It was a Charlie that was at odds with his normal rather drawling self. “How were you to know? I never told Mary. She’s so sensitive it would upset her. They were killed on impact, so I was told anyway. They didn’t suffer when the fire started.”
“Even so…”
“I said my goodbyes at the funeral. I don’t regret not seeing them. I don’t think I would have wanted to, even if it wasn’t for the fire.”
She sighed. “The funeral. I was dreading that, from the moment they called, but you know Charlie, after I stopped crying my eyes out and tidied myself up, I felt calmer, as if my grief lasted half an hour and I’m over it, just one great spasm of it and done with. I’m numb as I said and sad, of course, but that horrible sense of pity has gone. I’m not so worried about the funeral any longer. I said goodbye this morning. I’m hardly looking forward to it but I feel quite calm about the prospect, for now at least.”
“It’s a funny thing, grief,” Charlie mused. “You can never tell how it will affect you. Some people never seem to get over it. Others bounce right back, like you seem to be doing.”
She nodded, thoughtfully. “When you’re young you know you’re going to die but you never think you will,” she said. “I think it all has to do with age. I can sit here and say how fleeting life is and how it will be over so quickly and how futile it can be, but already that sick feeling is fading. It must be the ancient survival instinct, kicking me to get on, because I’m young, I’ve got to mate, pass my genes on. I suppose we’re little better than animals after all, aren’t we.” She turned her sad eyes on Charlie.
“We are, but we’re not. The part that makes us more than just animals means that we don’t forget,” Charlie told her. “You still grieve although it fades. And the busier you are the more quickly it fades, or the less time you have to think about it until it has faded. I’m not sure which it is. They kept me busy at school, anyway, and I think that helped.”
She gave a tiny snort. “I’ll be k
ept busy Charlie. That’s for certain.”
“But you’ll be coming up to see Mary and her mum every so often won’t you, have a trip around the shops, catch up, and stay a few days?”
“I doubt it,” she said. “I know for certain that money is going to be tight, especially now Mum’s gone. And how can I leave my father? I can chat to Mary on the phone or write. The cost of the fare would pay for a lot of stamps. I’d like to e-mail but we don’t have a PC. Mary may come out and see me now and again, keep me company and help in the garden a bit.”
“Shame, though, cutting yourself off from London.”
She stiffened, almost but not quite, imperceptibly. “Charlie there is life outside this great metropolis you know.”
Charlie had detected the beginnings of that defensive prickliness and didn’t argue the point – he didn’t want his motives questioned and to trigger some massive bollocking. He was doing his best to be sympathetic, after all. He really couldn’t see how the middle of Norfolk could compare with the middle of London, but best, he thought, if he kept his mouth shut.
“Of course, Rowena,” he agreed. “I’m being a boring city boy.”
Mary, he concluded, must have ESP because, at that precise moment, she stuck her head noiselessly around the door. Charlie caught her eye and gave her an almost imperceptible nod. Mary pushed to door open and the creak startled Rowena from the thought she was lost in.
She looked up at Mary, then Charlie. She smiled sadly straight into Charlie’s eyes, her whole face, though, suffused with a soft gratitude, quite unlike her normal expression.
“Thank you for listening, Charlie,” she said sweetly, touching his arm so delicately it was electrifying. “It was very kind of you.”
That was all the reward Charlie needed. He was dazzled. “Any time Rowena,” he mumbled gruffly. “I hope I helped a bit.”
“Yes,” she told him, gently. “It did. I could feel you understood. Hi Mary. Charlie and I have been having a mope.”