Anyone Who Had a Heart (5 page)

A pregnant silence followed before her father asked whether Alan Taylor was still following her around.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Marcie. The truth was
that
she wasn’t really sure. She’d sometimes had a feeling she was being followed, but couldn’t believe that Alan was so stupid as to upset her father further. They’d been good mates, but Alan’s behaviour had soured their friendship. Her father had threatened to punch his lights out and worse – and he would. She didn’t want that to happen and her father end up in prison again, but if Alan did keep on, it could happen.

Alan frightened her.

Certain that he was Joanna’s father, he’d asked her to marry him. Although responsible for stopping the adoption of Joanna and bringing her back from the home for unmarried mothers, the fact remained that he had raped her in the first place.

She had worried at first whether it was possible Joanna was his daughter, but one look at the child, especially now she was growing, and it was obvious who her father was. She had Johnnie’s eyes and the half-smile that lifted one side of her mouth. Oh yes, she was relieved to know that she was Johnnie’s alright.

Her father looked around him at the flat marshes and the glow of a ship’s light in the distance. He shook his head. ‘You can do better than this, Marcie. You can do better than that shop. Sheppey is too small for somebody as clever as you. London! That’s where it’s all happening.’

His daughter’s trips to London had been sporadic, short and not necessarily very happy.

‘This is my home,’ she said stubbornly.

‘It’s all happening in London. It’s the fashion capital of the world. That’s what I was told recently.’

Marcie began to giggle. ‘What do you know about fashion, Dad?’

It was true. Her father’s dress sense was pretty basic, consisting of jeans and a leather jacket. As far as women were concerned, he liked short skirts but the clothes didn’t really matter. It was the body inside the trappings that appealed to him. He told her all this as he drove along.

For her part she took advantage of his chattiness, explaining how she felt. ‘I like fashion, but I’m not sure about moving away from Sheerness. There’s Joanna to think of. And Gran.’

When he looked at her, she held her head on one side and smiled.

The sight of her seemed to do something to him, the same reaction as an electric shock might have done. Looking stunned, he turned his gaze back to the road ahead. For a while he said nothing and then, ‘Your mother liked fashion. She could sew too.’

Marcie jerked her head to stare at him. It was the first time
ever
that he’d mentioned her mother unbidden and in such a regretful manner. It left her with a funny
feeling
flickering inside – like a trapped butterfly beating its wings against a window pane.

If she hadn’t been so taken by surprise, she might have urged him to explain things further. Her throat had turned dry, perhaps because she wanted to ask so much and the words tumbled over each other in the effort to come out of her mouth. At last all she managed to say was, ‘I didn’t know that.’

She’d taken too long to comment. She realised that by the sudden setting of his features back to the hard man he liked to project, the man he liked everyone to think he was. The moment had passed.

‘Never mind. That’s the past. This is now. Wait till I tell Babs how much you’re going to make on them frocks!’ His tone had turned sharp and snappy.

‘I’d rather you didn’t tell Babs yet,’ she blurted.

He asked her why that was.

‘I want Gran to know first. It’s Gran that brought me up. It’s Gran that looks after Joanna when I’m sewing. She deserves to be first.’

Her father kept his word and didn’t mention anything at all to his wife.

Marcie waited until her father, plus her stepmother and baby Anne, had left before telling her grandmother just how successful she’d been.

‘Fifteen pounds! Isn’t that wonderful? And she wants me to make more.’

Her grandmother agreed with her that it was indeed wonderful and said that when she next went to mass she’d light a candle to the saint who took care of seamstresses.

‘A letter has come for you.’

The letter had been placed on the dark oak table of her old treadle sewing machine. It was white and looked quite expensive. She studied the postmark. London W1. The handwriting was rounded, vaguely familiar and written with a blue fountain pen. Whoever it was from, this was personal.

Joanna began crying just as she was about to open it. Marcie picked her up from her pushchair, the same one they’d used for her half-sister, Annie. Babs had handed it over willingly saying she had no plans whatsoever to have any more kids. ‘I’m taking the pill and I don’t care who knows it. No more prams and pushchairs for me!’

Rosa had not spoken to her for days after she said that. The reason was clear. Babs was taking the birth control pill. The Pope did not approve so Rosa did not approve and had not resumed speaking until her son, Marcie’s father and Babs’ husband, informed her they were getting too old for all that nonsense. Rosa chose to believe him. Marcie did not.

Between turning down the gas and laying the table, her grandmother glanced out of the kitchen window.

‘Is something wrong, Gran?’

Her grandmother seemed to come to, her eyes blinking as though Marcie had awoken her.

‘I thought I saw someone at the back gate.’

A pang of fear clutched at Marcie’s heart. She prayed it wasn’t Alan Taylor.

Rosa Brooks noticed her concerned expression. ‘I do not think it is anyone to worry about. It is just that Garth has not been around since Joanna’s baptism. I was hoping it was him. Did you know his mother died?’

‘No!’ Marcie was genuinely surprised, but perhaps that was because she had been so bound up in her own world. So many things were going on at the present time. She was happier than she’d been for a while because things were going in the right direction, but now she felt guilty she hadn’t known about Garth’s mother.

Her grandmother explained that following his mother’s death the landlord had thrown him out of the old flat above the hardware store. ‘No one has seen him. No one knows where he has gone.’

‘Have you heard from his mother?’ Marcie asked.

Her grandmother was famed in certain quarters as a woman with a direct line to the spirit world. On mention of Garth’s mother, her expression soured. ‘I do not wish to speak to her. She should have made better provision for her son. I worry about him.’

Garth’s mother, Edith Davies, had never had much time for him, preferring to entertain a never-ending procession of men friends. Apparently Garth was the result of a wartime liaison with a Polish flier, though that might only be hearsay. Edith had served as a land girl at a time when men in uniform were as plentiful as parsnips.

Rosa Brooks had pitied Edith in life despite her morals. Edith not providing for Garth had upset Rosa. Subsequently, in death she wanted nothing to do with her.

Joanna chuckled as Marcie sang to her and whirled her around in a haphazard waltz.

She became so busy what with feeding Joanna, getting her ready for bed then talking to her grandmother about the dress shop and the job at the hospital that it wasn’t until she was undressed and about to get into bed that she remembered the letter.

Marcie fingered the paper. In her world the height of writing pad luxury was Basildon Bond. But this paper was far superior to that. It was as thick as parchment and the return address was printed at the top of the paper – actually printed! Now how posh was that?

Before reading, her eyes swept to the signature. Allegra Montillado.

Montillado! Such an exotic name.

She read on:

Dear Marcie
,

It’s been a while since Sally and I wrote to you after you left Pilemarsh in such fairy-tale circumstances
.

I don’t know whether you realised it at the time, but you left us with such mixed feeling that day and far from dry eyes
.

We cried because we were so happy for you. Out of the three of us you were the one brave enough to keep your baby, although, of course, circumstances always dictate what you have to do in life
.

How we envied you being able to do that, so although we cried with happiness for you, we also cried for ourselves
.

The past is past; I hope you are happy and that Joanna is growing rapidly. I would love to see her
.

If you should ever be in London, do look me up. The address and telephone number are at the top of this paper. I would love to see you again and also to see Joanna
.

Much love and best wishes
,

Allegra Montillado

Marcie placed the letter back in its envelope and sat on the side of the bed. Had it really been only a year since she’d arrived at the forbidding entrance of Pilemarsh Abbey, a home for unmarried mothers?

It was on the bus travelling there that she’d met Sally and actually inside the home that she’d met Allegra. Allegra had arrived in her mother’s chauffeur-driven car. Unlike Sally, Allegra had never disclosed the identity of her child’s father. Strangely enough Sally and Marcie had respected her privacy on that score.

Her bedroom was very dark once she turned out the light. Joanna snuffling in her sleep accompanied the creaking of old beams as the cottage settled down for the night.

Rumour had it that the cottage had once been home to a carpenter working on one of Nelson’s warships. Marcie didn’t know whether it was true, but as far as she knew the old beams certainly creaked like those on a wooden ship.

What with Joanna’s snuffling plus the darkness, she could quite easily imagine that she was back at Pilemarsh Abbey, waiting for somebody to come along and snatch her child away.

Drifting into sleep also meant drifting between the past and the present. Old fears threatened to come back and haunt her. Unable to fall asleep properly, she drew back the curtains. There was no moon, but enough light from street lamps to keep her thoughts fixed in the present and to drive the dreams away.

The past was dead. There was a lot happening in
her
life and she had bright hopes for the future. Everything would be wonderful.

Outside the salt-laden breeze rustled the tough grass and the brittle leaves still hanging on the hedgerows from last autumn. A cat slunk around the rubbish put out for next day’s collection and yowled on meeting another cat halfway round. A quick scrap and then both went their own way.

The shadow of a man fell over where they had been fighting, keeping close against the hedge surrounding the small front garden. The figure loitered as though half expecting the front door to open and Marcie to invite them in. Once it was obvious that this was not going to happen, the figure slunk away like a fox in the night.

RITA FROWNED AT
her father. He was drinking heavily, a freshly opened bottle of whisky already half empty, and it was making her angry.

‘Why don’t you fill the bath up with that stuff, get in it and drown your bloody self?’ Her tone was scathing.

‘Oi!’ he said, pointing an accusing though shaky finger at her. ‘Less of that lip. And no bad language. I won’t have that bloody swearing in my house!’

Rita rolled her eyes heavenwards. The fact that he’d been swearing himself seemed to roll over his head.

Despite the fact that she appeared selfish in her demands on her father, deep down she loved him – not altogether affectionately but in a possessive way. After all, without him she couldn’t have the nice things he always bought her. The thought of not being able to buy whatever she wanted sent a shiver down her back. It wouldn’t be long before he would be the one making demands on her! He was getting older, wasn’t he?

‘Dad! Pull yourself together.’ She put her arms
around
him, steeling herself as she breathed in the smell of strong spirits and stale aftershave. He wasn’t taking care of himself like he used to do. More’s the pity, she thought with a grimace.

‘It’s all her fault,’ he exclaimed between mannish blubbering.

Rita presumed he was referring to her stepmother, who’d shot off with a rent collector from Shoreham.

‘That cow, Steph. I’ll scratch her eyes out if I ever run into her.’

‘Not Steph! Her! Marcie. It’s my kid, Rita. It’s my kid!’

Rita froze. She could hardly believe what she was hearing.

‘You? You and Marcie?’

‘Yeah. Marcie.’

His words scorched into Rita’s brain like a red-hot branding iron. Marcie Brooks with her high and mighty ways …! To think that they’d once been close friends. Rita scowled on recalling Marcie’s usual air of condemnation when she’d gone off with a bloke for the night. She’d never admitted it, but Marcie had made her feel a right slut. And who was Marcie to point the finger? After all, Marcie was the one who’d ‘copped out’ and got lumbered with a kid. Marcie Brooks not Rita Taylor! Rita Taylor knew how to take care of herself. She’d started taking birth control pills at the earliest opportunity.

Rita was smug with self-righteousness at being so clever as to prevent getting pregnant. She felt no guilt at the fact that she’d sold Marcie aspirins disguised as birth pills. It had started out as a cruel joke and a way of getting back at Marcie for being so prim and proper. And pretty. There was always that. Marcie was very pretty.

She’d been quite amused – but far from surprised given what she’d done – to hear that her one-time best friend had got pregnant. But that was before her father had confessed to having an affair with Marcie. An affair! She tried not to think of her old dad with a girl the same age as she was. It was disgusting really. Far more important to Rita were the implications as far as she was concerned. Her dad’s affection for first Marcie and now her daughter meant that she was no longer the apple of her father’s eye. She had rivals!

MARCIE’S FIRST DAY
at the hospital consisted of hemming sheets on an industrial electric sewing machine. Although making nurses uniforms was not as exciting as designing and making something fashionable, they were more challenging than hemming bed sheets.