by Maggie Ford
There was not one mention of Helen. To Edwin, sensitive to the slightest nuance, that omission in itself spoke volumes. Not once had Helen ever mentioned Hugh, either, not even when Edwin tentatively referred to where he had ended up.
“Seems he’s given up the acting lark,” he said, forcing cheerfulness. “Opened up a cafe in Rome. I expect he still gambles, though now he’s married an Italian girl he might have given that up.”
It seemed best to give up on any further news as Helen, her face a mask, sat staring at virtually nothing, picking sparingly at their Sunday dinner. She had hardly eaten all summer. She was thin as a rake these days. It seemed she only came alive when the girls were about. She would laugh and chat with them, but the moment they went off somewhere, the old haunted look of a betrayed soul returned, sometimes frightening him, though he should have grown used to it by now.
A few minutes later he was startled by hearing her speak, something she hardly ever did without first being addressed and then only when forced into a reply.
“The dance school is putting on a show next Easter,” she said now. “They wanted it at Christmas but it’s coming up so quickly they won’t do it justice. They want to do a really big show so it’ll have to be Easter.”
“That’s nice.” He made himself look attentive. There was still hope. He was about to say more, to encourage her to make normal conversation, but she seemed not to need his assistance.
“They’ve said they want Angel and Gina both to take lead dance parts as they’re doing so well, and to do a solo spot as well. Their tutor said that as they both have good voices she was thinking of a song and dance duo, something modem, perhaps from one of the West End shows. She’s going to combine the show with the annual prize-giving and Angel and Gina’s special spot will be included as part of their exam. That’s good, don’t you think?”
Edwin couldn’t recall her speaking at such length since Hugh’s departure. For a moment he wondered if it would be an appropriate moment to bring up her seeing her stepfather, maybe suggest that he come here for Christmas or they go to see him? But then perhaps not. Best not to ruin this unexpected and heart-raising moment. He’d wait until nearer Christmas. Now wasn’t the time to pull her down with talk of William, not when she was showing this first sign of a return to normal. Better he bide his time until a more appropriate moment cropped up.
It did, one morning two weeks before Christmas, in the form of a phone call. He still hadn’t spoken to her about asking William here, though since it looked as though the man was beginning another bout of bronchitis, rather early this winter, Edwin wondered if it would be best for them to go and see him for a short visit so as not to tax him too much – that was if he could get Helen to comply. It was going to be hard, but if he could persuade her, perhaps the sight of William’s plight might melt her bitter heart.
Edwin, about to leave for London, answered the phone. He intended coming home again early that evening; he was afraid to leave Helen alone for too long these days. But with Christmas coming up it was getting difficult.
Not that it was busy in the same way as it had once been. Things had changed, times had changed, and not for the better to his mind. Today he no longer went to work with the light-hearted anticipation of talking to those regulars he’d once known. Today Letts was showing signs of becoming out of date, as it had when Uncle Henry had died, before he’d taken it over, modernising and pulling it up by its boot straps.
Once again it was falling by the wayside, subtly, the change at first not being noticed. Swinging London with its brash vitality, its skinny, mini-skirted girls and pink-trousered, long-haired young men, its raucous guitar music and even more raucous behaviour from groups like the Rolling Stones, was putting places like Letts at risk. His own daughters had their bedroom walls plastered with pictures of them and other groups – the Kinks, Pink Floyd, the Beatles – and played all their records over and over again.
Today, instead of going out to dinner, nice people stayed in to watch TV and entertain at home, while the children of the Swinging Sixties, with hip, pot, the pill and “Freedom”, roamed London, high on drugs and music. Even the Stones, up in court on drug charges, were still feted as idols.
On occasion a group of better-off hippies whose parents would have frequented Letts in earlier times would invade the restaurant looking for a laugh. So long as they behaved and spent good money he couldn’t refuse them entry, even if his regulars were disturbed by their presence. Fortunately they didn’t come around too often, but Edwin was at his wits’ end about how to attract his old customers yet keep up with the times. He refused to stoop to hiring rock groups, even the more famous ones; Letts would stick to their sedate four-piece band. With this on his mind, he picked up the phone.
“Yes?” he enquired casually.
Twenty-Two
The woman’s voice at the other end was crisp and direct. “Am I speaking to Mr Lett?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“The husband of Helen Lett?”
“That’s right.”
“Is your wife at home, Mr Lett?”
“Yes. Who wants her?”
“Mr Lett, this is St Bartholomew’s Hospital. Your wife’s father, Mr William Goodridge, was brought in to Accident and Emergency this morning, apparently having lain all night on a cold floor with a serious pulmonary condition. His cleaner found him this morning and called an ambulance. He has since suffered cardiac arrest which we have been able to stabilise to some extent, but in the circumstances we feel his daughter might like to be on hand, here at the hospital if possible.”
“It’s serious, then,” was all he could say, his mind running ahead of him.
“Could your wife travel up to the hospital this morning?”
“Yes, of course. We’ll leave straight away.”
“We will expect you as soon as possible,” came the voice, which went on to inform him of the enquiries desk’s location and then rang off.
Edwin found Helen in the kitchen speaking to Mrs Cotterell. She was beginning to be fractionally more talkative these days. He’d hoped she was at last starting to put the bad times behind her. As for him, he still couldn’t forget what she and Hugh had done behind his back. That it had been incest, if unknowingly, was oddly unimportant next to the fact that she’d deceived him, been unfaithful. Though he might forgive, for he loved her and didn’t want to lose her, he’d never forget. But the phone call had knocked everything for six. Panic consumed him. This would bring it all up again.
“Helen, I need to speak with you,” he burst into her conversation. “It’s your father.”
She turned, her hazel eyes wide with instant anger, but he hurried on, not sparing her.
“I’ve just had a phone call. From Barts Hospital. Your father was taken in early this morning. They said it was a heart attack.”
The anger faded to obduracy. “What’s it to do with me?” she grated.
Edwin was stunned. The man who’d raised her so carefully, selflessly, who had loved her like a true daughter, was dying, and this was her reaction?
“How can you ask that? He did everything for you.”
“Except be truthful with me.”
“That’s all over now. Helen, we must go to him.”
“You can. I’ll stay here. You can let me know how he is when you get back.”
How could she be so hard? He suddenly saw how deeply she must have been injured if she was unable to forgive the man she’d once loved, once called father, even now he was close to death. But if she refused to see him now, unable to forgive, and he were to die, she’d never have another moment’s peace remembering how she’d allowed him to go unforgiven. For her own sake, she must go to him now.
“Whether you like it or not you’re coming with me, Helen. That’s my last word. Go and get your things. We’re leaving.”
“No.”
She made to brush past him to escape to her bedroom, perhaps to lock herself in, but he grabbed her arm, propel
ling her from the kitchen.
“No you don’t, Helen! Mrs Cotterell, will you please call a taxi to take the girls to their school this morning,” he called over his shoulder to the woman following them out to the hall in bewildered concern.
“I always take them,” protested Helen, but he ignored her, conducting her along the hall to where their everyday outdoor clothes hung in the cloak cupboard, yanking open the door and lifting one of her coats from its hook. Luckily she was wearing shoes ready to drive the girls to their private school five miles away. The coat didn’t match the shoes, it being brown, they being blue, but that was too bad.
“Mrs Cotterell,” he ordered again. “Get Mrs Lett’s handbag from her room, will you? Whatever one is in use.”
The woman scurried upstairs as fast as her ample frame would allow, came back down seconds later with a large tan one.
“It’s what she was using yesterday,” she declared, “but it don’t go with anything.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said tersely, passing it to Helen, now too dumbfounded to argue. “Come on, let’s get going!”
Helen said nothing the whole way to London. Whether she was chastened, angered and refusing to speak to him, or silenced by fear of what she would find at the hospital, he wasn’t allowed to discover. He tried to make some attempt at small talk, asking if she was warm enough, if she was worried and if he should have allowed her time to visit the bathroom before leaving, but his questions were met with no response. It was a long, long, silent journey.
Having negotiated the London traffic with Helen sitting like a stone beside him, Edwin was glad to reach Barts. She was still failing to respond to anything he said as, following directions from the enquiries desk, they found their way to the ward. She seemed hardly to listen as he spoke with the ward sister and the doctor and were finally conducted to the screen-surrounded bed. The nurse checking a heart monitor screen looked up and left as they entered.
The ward sister, picking up the notes at the foot of the bed to consult them, nodded. “He appears to be stable at the moment but we need to keep a close eye on him. As things stand I would advise staying here at least for tonight.”
“You do think it’s bad, then?” queried Edwin when Helen still said nothing.
The woman nodded again. “You may stay as long as you like. There is a canteen if you want tea or coffee or something to eat. But it might be best to be on hand in case of any change. We have facilities for visitors needing to stay overnight. I’ll leave you with him for a few minutes. We will come back from time to time to check on him.”
Edwin glanced at Helen. She was gazing down at the thin face, its skin parchment-like against the white pillow. A spaghetti tangle of wires and tubes surrounded the patient, linking him to drips and instruments; tiny lights on monitors blinked on and off; a transparent oxygen mask covered nose and mouth. He lay quite still. Helen’s expression was one of granite.
“Don’t you feel anything for him?” Edwin queried in awe, but when she looked up at him in reply, her eyes were arid.
“I shall never forgive him,” came the harsh whisper.
* * *
Given pillows and blankets they tried to make themselves as comfortable as possible in the room that allowed a partial view of the ward William was in.
Helen had said very little all day since that last statement at William’s bedside, merely shaking or nodding her head when Edwin enquired if she wanted a coffee or tea, something to eat or to go outside to stretch her legs.
They’d had a meal around lunchtime and another around seven, bland, uninteresting hospital food – not that either of them felt inclined to go outside to find more acceptable food. Edwin thought of his restaurant, how it was faring in his absence. He’d phoned and been told all was well. But it was Friday and busy and he’d most likely be missed by whatever regulars might be there. Perhaps, informed of the reason, they’d be concerned for the maître d’ that some of them would remember with fondness.
He had also phoned home to tell Mrs Cotterell that they’d not be home that night.
“Oh dear,” came Hilda Cotterell’s motherly tones. “I do so hope poor Mr Goodridge pulls through. I feel for poor Mrs Lett. She must be beside herself. Of course I’ll stay tonight, give an eye to the girls. A good job tomorrow’s Saturday – they don’t have to go to school. But I will get them a taxi to their dance class, there and back, as you say. They should be kept busy at a time like this. And I’ll give them yours and Mrs Lett’s love. They’ll understand; they’re both old enough to know.”
Helen had eaten without interest, as though merely to order; had walked beside him along the roads around the hospital, stretching her legs, but in silence. He had suggested going for a decent lunch at a restaurant but she had shaken her head without speaking. He wanted to urge her to bend towards her stepfather but hadn’t the courage to voice the words.
Around one thirty in the morning, while doing their best with hard chairs, blankets, thin pillows and a kindly offered cup of cocoa, they were alerted by sudden activity from the darkened ward. Medical staff bustled down the ward and there was an urgent hurrying to and from the screened area through which a light glowed eerily.
Helen started up with a look of fear on her face, and Edwin got up to enquire what was going on, but already a nurse was coming towards them.
“Would you both come with me,” she requested in a whisper and together they followed her starched progress from the side room to the ward and the glow through the screens.
The oxygen mask still covered William Goodridge’s face as they gained his bedside. His eyes were still closed and what could be seen of his nose and mouth was like a pale mask itself. The main monitor was bleeping feebly, the white line moving erratically, a doctor watching it closely. He looked up at the visitors but made no attempt to leave.
“William?” Edwin whispered, bending close to the still figure. Getting no response, he felt for Helen’s arm. “Speak to him,” he ordered. “Call his name.”
She stood rigid, unmoving. Looking up at her Edwin saw her staring blank-faced at the man she had once loved so dearly.
“Did you hear me?” he asked.
Still there was no response. “Helen, did you hear me?” he asked again and, again receiving no response, his whisper came harshly, urgent and unforgiving – a taste of her own medicine.
“If you don’t, Helen, we’re finished, our marriage, everything. D’you understand? I’ve gone along with your bitterness all these months. I’ve done nothing about the way you and Hugh deceived me. But this, I draw a line at.”
He gave her arm a vicious tug. “The man is dying. Your father, the only one you’ve ever known – is dying. Your own father, my uncle, put you from him, but this man took you in, gave you the love of a real father. And you stand there and condemn him because he was fearful of breaking your heart. Even if you don’t mean it, say his name!”
Helen was staring at him, realisation of her situation dawning. Stonily she obeyed, an automaton. “William—”
“No, what you would normally call him,” prompted Edwin viciously.
“Father.”
“I said what you’d normally call him.”
She hesitated, glanced up at him, then looked back at her father.
“Dad?”
Something magical happened with the uttering of that word. Edwin saw her body bend towards the man, heard her repeat more softly, “Dad?”
And then in a kind of entreaty, “Oh, Dad. It’s Helen.” Then, with even more pleading, “Dad, don’t go. Please don’t go. I love you, Dad. Please, stay. I love you.”
In the light of the cold glow above the man’s head, Edwin saw the brief sparkle of something falling from the lowered face, the short fair hair half concealing it. The sparkle came from a tear.
He moved forward, put an arm about his wife’s shoulders as she remained bowed over her father and, looking at the bent head, saw that Helen’s cheeks were wet with tears. Under his com
forting hold, he could feel her shoulders beginning to tremble.
“He’ll be all right,” he whispered inadequately.
“He mustn’t die,” she sobbed. And again, softly, “Dad, please don’t go. I love you so much.”
The face on the pillow seemed to crease a little. The eyelids fluttered open, the mouth beneath the mask formed a faint smile, then, as quickly, the expression dwindled and the eyelids became fixed. The feeble bleat of the monitor became one single tone. All about them the staff broke out in urgent movements. Edwin and Helen were hustled away, the doctors moving in, ignoring them.
Edwin was holding Helen tightly to him, watching the silhouettes of those working to retain the last threads of life. Then all seemed to slow. One by one nurses came from behind the screen. Helen, clutching Edwin, flinched as the ward sister reached out to touch her arm.
“I’m sorry,” came the sister’s voice. “We did all we could but there is nothing more we can do. He’s gone. Do you want to see him?”
Helen turned away, pulled herself from Edwin’s grasp, away from the sympathetic eyes of the sister. He hurried down the dark ward after her, but when he reached the side room, she was already picking up her coat and handbag.
“Darling!” He was shocked. But though her voice trembled with grief she was able to speak.
“No point going back to look at him,” she said very slowly. “I saw him smile. His eyes were full of love and he knew I loved him, that there was nothing that needed forgiveness. We both knew. No point going back.”
* * *
In the large hall the babble from the audience of families and friends faded as the lights were dimmed.
There was a stir of anticipation as the music began then, as the curtains were drawn back in a series of small erratic jerks, there was a concerted intake of breath at the tableau of eight tiny tots dressed as elves and fairies in a woodland scene. One or two children were a little unsteady maybe, the hand-painted flats and wings were slightly flimsy, the cut-out shrubbery and trees not quite to scale while behind them the large, early morning sun rose somewhat unevenly, but the lighting, growing in strength with the sunrise, was perfection itself.