Meet Me at the Pier Head (4 page)

‘You’d need a ladder to reach my neck, short person. Now, hush.’

Richard Bellamy continued to berate the headmistress of the Abbey College. ‘Do you know who I am?’ he bellowed. ‘My girls are special. They’re precious; Portia in
particular is singularly gifted. I asked you to employ her in your school, close to home, so that I might keep an eye on her. She could well have appeared in the West End, or even Stratford, and
you’ve let her slip through your fingers.’

Delia shook her head to rid herself of dark thoughts on the benefits of euthanasia. If Pa were a horse . . .

‘Where’s she gone?’ he roared. ‘You have no idea? Has anyone applied to you for a reference? Confidential? You are not obliged to disclose? Not obliged . . .? You are an
idiot, madam. If anyone in my sphere asks about a good school for girls, I shall tell him or her to steer no daughters in your direction. You clearly have no sense of duty.’

Delia and Juliet jumped when he slammed down the receiver and strode out of the study, its weighty door crashing in his wake. The trouble with Pa was that he never knew when to give up. Ma, on
the other hand, appeared not to be sure when to start, but that was just one of the side-effects of her increasingly close relationship with gin. Living with Pa had driven a beautiful and talented
woman to drink.

Richard Bellamy’s career continued to stagger on. He blustered about on stage and screen under the direction of the few who remained impressed by his family name. The Dynasty was all that
mattered; his daughters should follow in the footsteps of their predecessors, should fly the Bellamy/Duncan flag with pride.

‘I think he’s finally flipped,’ Delia mumbled. ‘I’m worried about Tia.’

‘Why?’ Juliet asked.

‘Well, he wrecked my drums, so what will he do to her, his star, his favourite? I’m afraid he might lock her up or have her followed. She shouldn’t come home. When is she
supposed to be back? Didn’t she say something about getting here in time for dinner? We have to help her, Jules. She really wants to go back to Liverpool, because she got the job she
wanted.’

‘How can we be of use?’

‘Er . . . we can dash through the gardens to the gate and stop her before she reaches the home stretch. After that, we’ll just have to make it up as we go.’

‘We can’t book her in to stay at the Punch Bowl. Word would get out in minutes.’

‘She’ll have to sleep in the stables. If it was good enough for Jesus, it’ll have to be good enough for her. Oh, Jules, why couldn’t we have a normal family with an
ordinary life?’

Juliet giggled. ‘Tia and I are trying to break free by getting a career, but you’re playing right into his hands with your skiffling. Mind, Tia inherited his quick temper, so heaven
knows how she’ll react when we tell her Pa’s on the warpath.’

Delia wasn’t listening properly. ‘I can’t skiffle; he’s wrecked my drums.’

‘Buy more.’

‘I shall.’

They crawled out of the hole into one of the many corridors that wound their way round Bartle Hall. It was a warren of a house, its older parts erected in the fifteenth century, the rest added
on randomly for a further three or four hundred years. Pa had inherited the place, and his three daughters had enjoyed a wonderful childhood within its walls. Hide and seek had been brilliant, as
had dressing up in Ma’s clothes, shoes and makeup.

But the girls were grown now. Fiercely close to and protective of each other, they were almost a secret society. Portia, the eldest, had nominated them the Blyton Three in deference to the
author whose works they had devoured hungrily in their formative years. Portia was on her way home, and her younger siblings fled the house and raced through the shrubbery until they reached the
gates. They sat on the stump of an oak felled by lightning, each fighting for breath, each determined to save the firstborn sister. Almost automatically, they held hands.

Inside the house, an angry Richard stood over his wife. She was spread out on a chaise longue, an empty glass lying on her chest. Isadora Duncan, she had been, sharing her name with a dancer who
had died tragically in a freak accident. ‘God took the wrong one,’ he murmured. ‘I should buy you a long silk scarf and send you out in Portia’s sports car, see if we can
recreate the other Isadora’s final performance.’

He sat on a wicker chair, staring at the woman he had married, the wife who had failed to produce a son. She was snoring again, mouth slackened, hair like a rats’ nest, clothing stained
and creased. No wonder his girls were wild; they’d had no female parent to guide and advise them. In the early days, she’d often been away at work, but now she was planning to drink
herself to death. She was doing this with malice aforethought, knowing that her husband would be blamed for her long act of suicide.

Filled with righteous indignation, he walked into his own dressing room. He usually slept here, as her snoring kept him awake. It occurred to him that he might move further away, perhaps to the
other side of the house where Isadora could no longer disturb him. But with many rooms closed off due to the lack of servants, Bartle Hall was fast becoming a shell.

‘My father would have hated to see the decline of this place,’ he grumbled.

Cursing quietly under his breath, he dressed for dinner.

Meanwhile, Delia and Juliet waited for their sister. Juliet, smallest and youngest of the three, was blonde, pretty and, although quieter, almost as confident as Tia. Delia was different. Thin
and quite ordinary, she shone when excited and had quite a few fans in the music business. Music was the love of her life, because it allowed her to be her own individual self. She considered
herself unattractive, and had decided to do something unusual with her existence, so she had taken lessons and learned to drum. ‘I think we all have to get out permanently, Jules. Nanny will
look after Ma, and Pa will carry on acting till he drops dead or stops getting work.’

Juliet agreed. ‘I’ll nurse in Canterbury. Will you return to London?’

‘Yes. But first we have to save Tia. I’ve still got the group’s van, so I’ll follow her up to Liverpool with her stuff – that car of hers barely takes two
suitcases. First of all, we must hide her. What about Rose Cottage? I know it’s been empty for a while and the roof leaks a bit, but she can manage in there for a couple of days. We’ll
smuggle out the camp bed and some linen, take food for her, and pack all her clothes and so forth in the van. Oh, and we’ll need to hide the MG.’

They chattered on about the planned adventure, each making a mental list of Tia’s belongings. Juliet, the quiet one, allowed Delia to gabble on. When push came to shove, Delia made all the
noise while Juliet became the organizer. But Tia was their rock, and both would miss her. She was beautiful, kind, clever, witty and here. The open-topped bright red MG slewed to a halt, and both
Tia’s sisters and best friends jumped up to greet her.

Juliet reached the car first. ‘Tia! Tia, go along the back lane to Rose Cottage. I’ll sit on the rear shelf of your mad car and Delia can go in the passenger seat.’ She climbed
in. ‘Come on, Delia. If we’re late for dinner, he’ll throw another fit .’

Tia closed her gaping mouth. ‘What’s going on? What have I missed?’

‘Father’s flipped,’ Juliet replied. ‘He phoned the college and told Miss Monk that he should have been kept informed of your escape plan.’

‘God, it’s like bloody Roedean all over again. Does he know about Liverpool?’

‘No,’ the younger sisters answered in unison. Delia carried on. ‘I got back from London yesterday. I forgot to lock the back door of the van, and he pulled out my drums and
smashed them with an axe. Then Jules got quizzed about midwifery and why did she want to do it. The point is, you’re his only hope. He’s always doted on you. Tia, he’s lost his
grip on reality. Ma’s in a bad way, too, and that’s his fault, I’m sure.’

Juliet intervened. ‘Never mind all that for now. Rose Cottage. Hide the car up the side. We’ll get what you need, and Delia will follow you to Liverpool with your things. If I can
get time off, I may come, too. The Blyton Three go to Liverpool, eh? Good title.’ She tried to get comfortable in the not-really-a-seat behind Tia.

Delia sat in the front next to the driver. ‘This is going to be a bumpy ride in more ways than one. Put your foot down, Tia. Jules and I will run back home in time for dinner, and
we’ll see you later.’

Little more was said. As soon as she reached the cottage, Tia was suddenly alone, because her siblings fled immediately to report for duty to the despot who was their father. She stood in a
garden that had once been pretty; it was now wild and covered in rose bushes gone crazy, suckers everywhere, more thorns than blooms. This little house had been Ma’s retreat whenever
she’d needed to get away from Pa. Nanny Reynolds had always accompanied her, but Ma’s newer escape came in a bottle, and both women remained at the Hall because Isadora’s main
occupation was sleeping.

Inside, Tia sat among neglected remains of her mother’s past – books on the shelves, shawls draped artistically across seats and tables, photographs of a young Isadora Bellamy
playing Portia, Cordelia and Juliet. Across the chimney breast were oil paintings of her children, each named after one of the heroines hung over the dresser. Her crochet work sat on a low trolley
whose bottom shelf supported a sketch pad and pots of water-colour paint.

This was the last of Ma. This was a eulogy, a gravestone, a heartbreaking memorial for a destroyed, lonely and desperately unhappy woman. Tia’s anger bubbled to the surface. ‘He has
to be stopped,’ she said aloud.

She sat in a wooden rocker and began to weep. Richard Bellamy had crushed his wife slowly, mercilessly, and his oldest daughter lingered now among Ma’s remains. ‘I can’t stay,
Ma,’ she sobbed. ‘And I can’t take you with me, because you’re too ill.’ It was like abandoning a child, a helpless foundling dumped on a cold and unforgiving
doorstep.

Tia dried her eyes. ‘The quality of mercy . . . droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven,’ she said, misquoting her namesake. Portia would not have sat here weeping; Portia would
have made a fabulous speech on behalf of the threatened or afflicted. ‘Pa’s had his pound of flesh many times over,’ she muttered grimly. ‘I’m going in. Let’s
hope there’s no carving knife on the table.’

She dried her eyes and dabbed at her nose. A few minutes were needed while she composed herself, as she was about to face Julius Caesar, Henry V, Richard III, Hamlet and the fool who lived in
Bartle Hall together. ‘Your line of the dynasty is about to fade away, you bumbling, smug, self-satisfied braggart. My mother was beautiful and talented.’ Tia would take the
photographs, the portraits and Ma’s framed watercolours to Liverpool – as long as Delia and Juliet agreed, of course.

Anger sustained her while she reversed onto Rose Cottage’s dry, rutted approach road. Quickly, she drove up the main driveway to the Tudor frontage of her childhood home. Let him try.
Just try to keep me here, you washed-up wreck of a man. I may even involve the police. I am my own self and I belong only to me. I cannot and will not be bullied by you, Bellamy. You will not
trap me no matter how hard you try. You have no real power. Without my mother’s financial support, you would be deader than the dodo.

She marched into the dining room like a guard changing duty at Buckingham Palace, spine straight, head held high, chest out, arms swinging. For a few beats of time, she reacted internally to the
unexpected presence at table of her mother, but she did not pause, as she refused to allow her anger to dissipate.

Richard rose to his feet. ‘Portia, darling! Where on earth have you been?’

She stopped well within his reach. ‘Father,’ she snapped.

He frowned. The word ‘father’ meant business. Even so, he bent forward to accept a kiss from her, but she stepped aside. ‘What’s the problem?’ he asked.

‘You are,’ she replied smartly. ‘You destroyed Ma’s life, and your daughters have all suffered because of your periodic attempts at rigid control. It stops now. None of
us wants to act. Delia is a good drummer and Juliet’s going to remain a nurse. As for me – well, the further away from you, the better.’ She looked at her mother. ‘None of
this is your fault, Ma.’

Isadora blinked and raised her glass. ‘To my happy marriage,’ she slurred. ‘Which lasted for two years at the most.’ Staring directly at her husband, she nodded.
‘You, sir, are a bloody awful actor, the butt of so many jokes in the business, a terrible husband, a bad father and a total ass.’

‘How dare you?’ he roared.

She giggled. ‘Because I’m nearly dead, thanks to you.’ She grinned and winked at her eldest daughter. ‘Girls, you have many, many half-brothers and sisters all over the
place.’ She waved a hand, spilling most of her wine on the tablecloth. ‘He rutted. He was a total rutter.’ After taking a few seconds to alter her focus, she spoke to her two
seated offspring. ‘Get away as fast as you can, girls. Nanny Reynolds will look after me.’ A loud hiccup interrupted the flow. ‘I have more money than he does,
so—’

‘You’re a drunken hag,’ he proclaimed, his tone ominously quiet.

‘A rich drunken hag,’ she replied. ‘And not a penny piece will come your way. It will all go to my daughters.’ She beamed at the rest of the company. ‘Do eat,
children. I know it’s difficult with a tyrant in the room, but be comforted. You never had to share a room with him. His feet stink, and he farts frequently.’ She belched loudly, and
everyone but the master smiled or giggled.

‘You are a disgrace,’ yelled the master of the house. ‘You have no control over your drinking, and you have turned our daughters against me.’ He glared at his wife before
storming out of the room. He would deal with his family later.

Tia sat and dug into the food; having driven almost non-stop for most of the day, she was starving.

Isadora grinned broadly. ‘It hasn’t been terribly easy, girls. But it seems to be working quite well, wouldn’t you say?’

All three froze in their seats. ‘Ma?’ they chorused.

Her grin rearranged itself into a sweet smile. ‘Try to be quiet. I know I’ve gone rather a long way with the act, but it was the simplest way.’