Echoes of the Past

by Maggie Ford

  The mothers began to leave, one by one, Miss Sellers tending to frown upon those who insisted on remaining. She turned now to Helen.

  “Are you intending to stay, Mrs Lett?”

  Helen came to herself, realising herself guilty of daydreaming again. “I’m just going,” she responded and let herself out through the glass swing doors of the hall, pausing momentarily to gaze back.

  The groups had formed properly, the last stragglers hurrying to their places. The piano had struck up, its tinny notes echoing from high ceilings and bare walls. One wall supported climbing apparatus, the one opposite was dissected by a stage littered with unused chairs and stage paraphernalia with dusty crimson curtains drawn haphazardly to each side. The far wall had two small doors and high windows while the scuffed floor was marked out in white lines for indoor football, handball and such sports. The wall through whose glass doors Helen gazed was ranged with chairs and wooden boxes of sports gear. The very air emanating through the ill-fitting doors smelled of sweaty sports shirts as well as dust and floor polish.

  Continuing to watch, unnoticed by Miss Sellers, Helen surveyed her daughters. To her eyes they stood out proudly from the rest: the tiny, fairylike tots; the chubby eight-year-olds; the gawky teenagers with budding breasts and skinny limbs yet to develop but full of promise. As were her girls.

  The groups comprised all sorts, some attentive, some aggressive, with their eyes on the main goal, others apathetic, there only to please doting parents, torn between clock-watching and avoiding their tutor’s gaze, dreading being picked out whilst others clamoured to be. All of them expected to be cajoled and bullied into difficult steps and impossible stances, their tears of frustration ignored, good results praised. But Helen could rest content that her girls always came through with flying colours, eager to be back for the next lesson, endlessly practicing in their bedrooms.

  They were natural performers, Gina the quicksilver one, Angel methodical, afflicted by her hearing yet still the one who led. Together they complemented one another rather than clashed.

  Helen turned away, making her way back to her car. On the way home she applied her thoughts to her daughters, loving them equally if differently. Gina she adored for her vivacity, her energy, even her mercurial temper, but secretly Angel was the one she always felt a need to defend, her defective hearing making her seem vulnerable, her pretty face with its intent expression endearing her to all who spoke to her, her lovely grey eyes taking them in. Angel maintained that she could hear perfectly well, but she’d never known what perfect hearing was and relied on following a speaker’s lips.

  Despite her impairment she was at one with the rhythm as it surged through her body, quite accustomed to what others might hear as distorted music. She was gifted, as was Gina: they were as well matched as though they’d been twins – the perfect pair. How wonderful it would be if one day they put their dancing and their promising voices to good use. She could see them in a few years making a successful career out of all they were learning. Angel and Gina Lett. Was the call of the stage in them as it was in Hugh? But she didn’t want to think of Hugh. At this moment she felt happy and his name wasn’t going to spoil it.

  Helen arrived home to the phone ringing in the hall. She took it before Muriel or Mrs Cotterell could get there, calling out, ‘All right!’ to them and seeing them retrace their steps. Maybe it was Edwin. She could tell him how well the girls were doing today.

  The voice in her ear said, “Helen?”

  “Yes.” Not Edwin. Already her heart seemed to miss a beat.

  “Hugh,” the voice confirmed.

  Helen strove to quiet a now racing heart. He had phoned her up after all this time. Perhaps a message from Edwin. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. Just thought I’d give you a tinkle, see how you are.”

  “Hugh, you gave me a fright. I thought something had happened at the restaurant. What do you want?”

  “I’ve just told you, I just wanted to see how you are.”

  Anger took the place of alarm. “Thanks, but I’m fine!” Seething, she slammed down the receiver.

  After all this time, how dare he? All she heard of him these days was the snippets of information Edwin passed on to her, mostly to do with work matters, though he would sometimes comment disparagingly on Hugh’s unsteadiness after a night out or his non-appearance when most needed. She would listen with a growing sickness in the pit of her stomach while presenting a bland face to whatever tale Edwin had to relate.

  Almost immediately the phone rang again. She snatched it up, her heart racing now, breathing as though she were suffocating.

  “Hugh, leave me alone,” she cried. “All this time and you think you can telephone me out of the blue as and when you feel like it?”

  “I’m sorry,” came the voice. “I’ve tried to stay away. I know you didn’t want me pestering you and I’ve tried to respect that. It’s not been easy for me, darling. But I can’t take it any more.” So bloody dramatic – ever the actor.

  “So what is it, Hugh?” She was shaking. “Has some girlfriend let you down and you thought I’d come handy to soothe your broken heart? Is that it, Hugh?”

  “No, that’s not it. I’ve thought of no one but you all this time. God help me, Helen, I’ve tried to keep away, but it’s so hard.”

  “And you’ve not looked at another girl in all that time?”

  There was a pause. “I’m not made of stone, Helen.”

  “No, I guess you’re not.” There was a fluttering inside her, that old longing. This time she must not give way. “I’m sorry, Hugh, but it’s over. It was over the minute we made love. I don’t want to go back to that.”

  “Don’t say that, darling.” His tone had grown seductive in her ear. “I’ve thought of no one but you, all this time, my love. It’s nearly killed me. How I’ve managed to hold off for so long, God only knows. I have to come and see you, Helen. Please.”

  “No.”

  “You love me, Helen. You must do, the way you let me make love to you. I know you were appalled, but not at me, at the fact that you’re married to my cousin. But you’ve not loved him, not in that way, for years. I could see that in the way you rose up to me, so full of hunger. Helen, I have to come and see you. This thing has to be thrashed out. I want you to divorce him. Yours hasn’t been a real marriage for years. I know that. We can get married. I can support you now and—”

  “For Christ’s sake, Hugh!” She burst through the tirade at last. “Don’t you ever give up?”

  “Not with you, my love. I’ll pursue you to the ends of the earth – to my life’s end.”

  “Stop it, Hugh! No more. It’s over. I don’t even want to think about it. I want you to leave me alone.”

  “I can’t do that, darling. I love you.”

  “You’re going to have to stop loving me.”

  She doubted he’d ever loved her. He’d merely used her, and she’d been the fool who’d succumbed to it. But he could be so charming. His touch, the mere sound of his voice, was enough to melt her like warmed jelly.

  With an effort Helen pulled herself together. Making each word slow and positive, she said, “Get this through your head, Hugh. I don’t love you. Now there’s an end to it.”

  “There’ll never be an end to it, Helen.” His own voice too had grown hard, assertive, almost menacing. His next words frightened her. “I don’t know how I’ve managed all this while to keep what we did to myself. I’ve had to stop myself time and time again from confessing to Edwin. Only knowing how wonderful it was when we made love, and how you responded so willingly, kept me from saying anything. I’ve honoured our secret, Helen, but I don’t know how much longer I can contain myself. It haunts me that one day I might let Edwin know how much I love you and tell him about the way you showed me how much you loved me.”

  “That’s not true!” she burst out. “I don’t – not at all.”

  “But you wanted me. You made that plain enough that day. And
by the sound of it, you still do. I could ask Edwin if he’d give you a divorce, and—”

  “No! No!” she found herself yelling in panic down the telephone. “Hugh, you mustn’t say anything to him. Promise me you won’t.”

  “Darling,” came the reply. “I don’t see how I can stop myself. I need you and I know you need me. I’m coming over. We can go somewhere quiet, where no one knows us, and we can talk about it, and then—”

  “No!” she shouted again, slamming the phone down a second time.

  This time she waited, fear gripping her. He obviously intended to blackmail her into submission. But the phone remained silent. He was already on his way. If she didn’t give in to him he’d go straight to Edwin.

  Mrs Cotterell’s voice right behind her made her jump. “Is everything all right, Mrs Lett? Is there some bad news?”

  Helen tried to pull herself together. “No, no trouble.”

  “Only, the way you were talking, I thought it might be your poor father taking a sudden bad turn.”

  “No, he’s fine now.” Helen managed to control her voice. “He’s well recovered from the winter.” An idea came to her. “But there is something. I have to go to see him this evening. The girls are still at dancing classes. I was wondering if you could…”

  “Pick them up?” Mrs Cotterell finished for her, her smile motherly and understanding. “Of course. No trouble. My Muriel could go in her car. No trouble at all.”

  “Thank you so much,” breathed Helen in deep gratitude. “I’ll be back around eight, if you could…”

  “Stay with them? Of course. I’ve no one to rush home to, and I wasn’t going out tonight. My weekly social’s on Wednesdays.”

  “Thank you,” Helen breathed again and, giving the woman no time to chatter on, turned and hurried out of the house, making for her car.

  She mustn’t be here when Hugh arrived. Getting advice, help, had become a matter of urgency and the only person she felt she could trust was her father. Having to admit to him that she had been unfaithful to Edwin was more than she could bear, but there was no one else to turn to and now, with blackmail staring her in the face, she had to swallow her pride and ask for his help.

  An hour later, having driven against the commuter traffic coming out of London that in 1966 was beginning to reach alarming proportions, Helen sat in her father’s flat, he with a blanket over his knees for all the warming fire and hot cup of tea he’d made on her arrival.

  “Dad.” She leaned forward, gripping her teacup. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  It had taken ages to get around to what she had come here to say – the hardest thing she had ever needed to do in her life.

  “What I have to tell you has been gnawing away at me for months. I can’t tell anyone but you. I certainly can’t tell Edwin. But I’ve got to tell someone.”

  His loving smile expressed willingness to help her with any problem she might have, she who so seldom piled her troubles on anyone. He had taught her well, using a maxim of his own – “If you want a helping hand, look no further than the end of your own arm.”

  “Fire away,” he said now.

  Helen took a deep breath “I don’t know if you’ve realised but Edwin and I haven’t had a proper marital relationship for almost a year. We have separate bedrooms now. He says he doesn’t want to disturb me when he comes home late after the restaurant and that he’s too tired and I can’t bring myself to go into his room disturbing him. We’ve just got into a habit, I suppose.”

  Her father had begun to frown, and now she had to force herself to plough on. “But last autumn I did something terrible. At least, I allowed something to happen.”

  He was looking at her intently, almost as though he guessed what she was going to say. What would his reaction really be? Would he be appalled, saddened? Would he understand? There was no other way to lighten the burden. Having embarked on it there was no going back. She found herself telling her story to a blank face, finally ending with some desperation, “I had no idea it was going to happen. Afterwards I was so ashamed.”

  There was such a strange look in his eyes that Helen, who was about to add that it had been eating into her all this time, stopped to stare at him.

  “Dad, I know I did something wrong, but don’t look at me like that, please.”

  She saw him wince as though he had been struck.

  * * *

  There was a tightness in William’s chest that didn’t come from his bronchial affliction. His heart seemed to be beating in his ears with a thumping roar.

  “My God, Helen!” he burst out.

  Her face had gone white with apprehension. Words burst from her lips in a torrent.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Dad, but it wasn’t like that. It was just that once, not even an affair. I was so lonely. I felt ignored. Edwin thinks of nothing but that restaurant. I’m sure he loves me but he never shows it. He never tells me he does. We’ve not led a proper married life for years, and when Hugh came that day with his loving words and his—”

  “That has nothing to do with it, girl!” he burst through her tirade.

  William fought with his conscience. It was he who was wrong, not her, not her marriage, threatening to go sour from neglect, not some brief and illicit moment of adultery. He had been too much of a coward to speak the truth long, long ago and all this was his fault.

  He knew his face was working, causing Helen to stare at him in alarm. He strove to compose himself. How could he have been such a fool to think that the truth could be concealed forever?

  “Helen, my child…” His voice trembled and faltered. She wasn’t his child – she was another’s. And she must be told before any more harm could be done.

  He tried to reach out for the table to put his teacup on it, but missed. Cup and saucer crashed to the floor. Helen leapt up to assist.

  “No!” He too was on his feet. “Leave it! Sit down. I need to talk to you and you must listen without interrupting to what I have to say to you. Sit down, my dear.”

  Mystified, she did as he’d asked. She was gazing up at him, her hazel eyes bewildered but full of trust. There was nothing of her father in her. William began walking about the room, desperately searching for a way to tell her his secret so that it would not slay her. After all these years of being locked away it was now too crippled to walk forth - yet walk it must. “I’ve tried to be a good father to you, Helen—”

  Half rising, she broke in, “Of course you have, Dad. I’ve never—”

  He saw her surprised face as he rounded on her angrily. “I said be quiet, Helen. Let me say what I have to.”

  He waited until she sank down again, hands gripped in apprehension in her lap. This had to be got over with as soon as possible whether he hurt her or not.

  “As I said, I’ve tried to be a good father to you, but things are not always what they seem. I was never your true father, your natural father… No, don’t interrupt!” he snapped as she again made to do so. “I married your mother when she was pregnant with you. I’d loved her for years before that. At one time we were going out together, but she married another man. That man was Geoffrey Lett, but he soon divorced her. He saw your mother as not being good enough for him. He’d fallen in love with her but she was working-class. Back in the twenties people saw class as important, and your mother held him back. He’d met someone else.”

  He stopped abruptly, hearing Helen’s intake of breath. “No, my dear,” he hurried on, his face turned away from her in fear of being confronted by the expression he might see on hers. “Geoffrey Lett wasn’t your father. They divorced long before she had you. I’d no idea how alone she was. Had I known I’d have married her. I never looked at anyone else after she chose Geoffrey Lett, blinded by his good looks and his charm, and maybe his money, though she never was a gold-digger. It was when she was on her own and ill that Henry Lett, Hugh’s father, came on the scene. He too always admired her. She was a beauty and turned both brothers’ heads. She
was in the depths of despair, forsaken by Geoffrey, when Henry came to comfort her. He was already married but that didn’t stop him taking advantage of her and she fell pregnant. He couldn’t marry her so he came to me, as a bachelor and at one time her sweetheart. He asked me to do him a great favour and I agreed. I married her and gave the baby my name. It didn’t matter that I was promoted because of it. I did it for her.”

  Letting his voice die away, there was only silence in the room. On impulse he turned. Helen was sitting in her chair like a statue, her wide eyes unfathomable, registering neither shock nor horror nor even disbelief, but staring ahead as though transfixed on some immovable object.

  “Helen,” he pleaded. “Do you understand what I am trying to say?”

  Now she moved, slowly. Not looking at him she bent to pick up her handbag from the floor beside her and stood up. He watched as she took her coat, thrown so lightly and carelessly over the back of a chair earlier, and put it on, all without looking at him.

  “Helen, I had to tell you – because of Hugh. Helen, don’t go yet.”

  But he couldn’t touch her or stop her as she went to the door and let herself out like someone sleepwalking, closing it without a word.

  Twenty

  There was no recollection whatsoever of driving home, her actions automatic while her mind remained like dry cotton wool. Yet there was a sensation there somewhere in that confused fuzz. Disbelief? Grief?

  When she finally pulled into the drive of her own home she had no idea that as she got out and made for the house the car door had been left open, the engine running, the brake off.

  A bewildered Muriel Cotterell answered the thumping on the door, started to ask if she had forgotten her key but broke off to cry, “Whatever’s the matter?” receiving no reply as Helen stumbled past her, along the hall and into the lounge to collapse in an armchair.

  Muriel followed her, frightened by the chalk-white face, by the vacantly staring eyes, by the grip of Helen’s fingers on the chair arms, her knuckles white.