11 The Teashop on the Corner (31 page)
‘I’ve given Harvey some letters to read that I wrote after he’d left me. And I’m frightened. So very frightened.’
‘What are you frightened of?’ asked Carla, gently.
‘That I’ll disgust him. That he’ll realise I’m not the woman he thought I was.’ Molly could not wipe her tears away fast enough. ‘There’s so much I
should have told him. I locked it away and it festered and damaged everything. It damaged my whole life.
He
damaged my whole life.’
*
Harvey opened the second letter.
Oh my darling, I miss you so much. The pain is ripping me apart. If I could see inside myself, I know there would be a hole in my heart that will never mend. I cannot
sleep, I cannot eat. My mind torments me with visions of what you are doing now with her. I see you laughing, I see myself pushed to the back of your brain, out of sight, out of mind. I have
forgotten how to smile. I jump out of my skin when anyone comes to the door but it is never you. Or when the phone rings, or when the postman stops at my door. I want to see you so much but I
would die if I saw you with her. I know I would not survive the sight.
He shook his head. Guilt filled him that he had hurt her so much. He didn’t even think she cared that he had gone. He had imagined her in Margaret’s house, the both
of them huffing: ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish.’ He had no doubt that Margaret had warned her about him: an ex-jailbird wasn’t going to be good enough for her sister, even though
he had been toeing the straight and narrow path since being released ten years before he had ever met her. Molly Jones was a lady and she deserved more than he could ever have given her. God
hadn’t bestowed upon him a brain like Bernard Brandywine that brought in a salary huge enough to build Molly the house
he
should have provided her with. But he could give her all the
love she would ever need. If only she had taken it from him.
He opened another letter.
A postcard arrived from you last week. All you had written were the words ‘wish you were here.’ Did you know what it would do to me to hear from you? Did you
not realise I would rip myself apart looking for a hidden message? Why are you writing to me when you are with another woman? Are you really missing me? I cannot tell you what it did to me to
receive it. I had begun to accept that it was the end and you tore me apart all over again with those four words. It was cruel to give me hope. I felt drunk on it when I heard from you, filled
with light which slowly faded over the next days when nothing followed. You plunged me into a sickening darkness worse than you did when you first left. I would kill you if I saw you
again.
He remembered writing that postcard on the morning he walked out on Joyce. He had been on the way to the bus station and the jolly postcard with the little boy riding the donkey
on it had caught his eye. Molly didn’t love him enough to forgive him. It wasn’t fair of him to ever compromise her dignity to ask her to.
Wish you were here
summed it up perfectly. He wished with all his heart that she were. But as soon as it left his hand at the post box, he knew he shouldn’t have sent it, because
she would be confused by it. He learned from that that he was a selfish bastard, self-serving, scarily impulsive. If that didn’t tell him she deserved better, nothing would. He folded up the
letter and picked up the next.
*
‘My sister has the nicest husband you could possibly wish for,’ smiled Molly through her tears. ‘Bernard has been a knight in shining armour to me as well as
her. He built me a house in their grounds to live in after my first marriage broke down. He gave me the deeds, it’s all mine, my security. He met Margaret at a dance when we were sixteen and
he was nineteen. I think we both fell in love with him on the spot, but it was Margaret who caught his eye. She was always much more sure of herself than I was, feistier, fun. I was quiet and
skinny and always in the shadows. I couldn’t have him, so I looked for someone like him and I thought I found him in Edwin. He was tall and broad and dark-haired and came from a rich family,
like Bernard did.’ Molly quickly held her hands up in protest. ‘Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t his money that attracted me, it was his refined manner, his confidence. Just
like Bernard. He swept me off my feet. Things moved too fast. I was very innocent. I didn’t know if what I was feeling was right or wrong. I supposed it was love.’
*
I didn’t tell you the whole truth about so many things and I wish I had because I know it would have made a difference. I once said to you in an argument that you
were just like Edwin, can you remember? You weren’t. You were nothing like him. I never told you what he was really like. I thought you would think I was a stupid girl for the mistakes I
made. And you were so worldly. I wanted you to think I was wiser than I was too. I am now, but it’s too late.
*
‘I didn’t know anything about men, courting, relationships,’ said Molly. ‘Margaret was so happy, so content and I wanted to be like her. On our third
date, I let Edwin . . .’ She didn’t say the words, but she didn’t need to, the others understood.
‘I wanted him to. I wanted to feel normal. But I didn’t. He was clumsy, rough. I thought the problem was me. I fell pregnant straightaway and there was no question in his mind that
we shouldn’t be married. I thought I’d grow to love him, that everything would be all right, that I’d grow to enjoy . . .
it.
’
‘Oh Molly.’ Leni reached into her pocket for a tissue as Molly’s hankie was saturated.
‘I know, I’m a stupid woman. I never spoke about it. Not even to Margaret. Whatever happened in our marriage was supposed to stay in our marriage and Edwin was . . . was not a man
you disobeyed. Plus I had little Graham to think about. I had to make my marriage work. I didn’t want him to grow up with a broken family. But Edwin was so brutal.’
‘You must have been in hell.’ Leni’s lovely face was so full of genuine concern that Molly could hardly bear to look at her.
‘How can you not think that I am the most ridiculous woman in the world for staying with him?’ she asked.
‘Because sometimes our perspective gets lost without us realising it,’ replied Leni. ‘Time and distance help us find it again.’
*
I don’t think my son ever loved me. Even as a baby he wouldn’t take comfort from me. He wouldn’t breast-feed, he wouldn’t settle
in my arms. It was as if he didn’t recognise me as his mother and mistook his grandmother Thelma for her. I don’t know if he picked up on my being a constant nervous wreck but he
resisted my attempts to cuddle him whereas he would hold out his arms to his grandmother.
Edwin was frustrated with me. I screamed out one night for help and Thelma rushed into the bedroom only to tell me that I would wake the baby. I didn’t see how
distorted my life had become until many years later. It was as if they were a sealed family unit, Thelma, her son and grandson and I was an unwanted outsider. It broke my heart that my child
wasn’t bonding with me.
Everyone thought I was so lucky having a husband who didn’t want me to go out to work. I expect they imagined me being a lady of leisure. I didn’t set foot
outside the house for a month once. It would have been more but Bernard and Margaret forced their way into the house, worried about me. I laughed off their concern, but they weren’t
fooled.
The things Edwin called me were worse than what he did to me physically. One particular horrible night I knew I had to get out. Edwin was asleep and the baby was in the
cot in his grandmother’s room. I wish now I had grabbed him and raced out, but I was terrified Thelma would wake up and shout for Edwin. I have always felt shame that I left my son, even
though I knew he was idolised and secure and I intended to fight for him when I was safe. I was his mother but I left him.
*
‘But you couldn’t do anything else. You would have done it, if you could have,’ said Leni.
‘I have told myself that so many times over the years and I’ve never believed it once,’ replied Molly. ‘I should have unlocked the door, opened it ready and grabbed my
baby. I wish I could tell you how many times I’ve replayed that scene with a different ending.’ She coughed and Leni rushed to get her a glass of water.
‘I ran to Bernard and Margaret. I said I’d left Edwin but I never told them the whole story why, although I supposed they guessed most of it. I was so conditioned into not saying
anything. You see it on the news, don’t you? These poor girls who have the chance to escape a kidnapper and they don’t because they’re brainwashed into a perverse sense of
loyalty.’
‘And your baby?’ asked Carla gently.
‘Not even Bernard could get him back for me. Edwin was very well connected, shall we say. His father had been a mill-owner, a very powerful man, and a mason. Edwin threatened to have me
sectioned. He knew I wasn’t in any fit state to pass any psychological testing. Plus he had his loyal mother to back up any story he made up. The court agreed that my son should be brought up
by his grandmother and his father and that I should have supervised visitation rights. My boy was as good as lost to me. It was a constant battle to have Edwin hand him over when he should. He
hoped I would give our son up totally and get out of their lives, but I clung on. And I could never tell my son that the father he worshipped was a brute, not that he would have believed me anyway.
Edwin loved his son, indulged him, would have died for him, would have killed for him. Instead, I have to live with my son thinking that I was a weak woman who ran away and left him and lost him as
a just consequence.’
‘I think you’re being very hard on yourself,’ said Leni. ‘I’m sure as he grew up, your son realised all was not as cut and dried as his father had presented
it.’
‘Edwin died when our son was twenty. Thelma survived him by three years, becoming more poisonous with every day. Only once did my son ever put his arms around me and that was on the day
when Harvey left me. I saw a precious glimpse into a world that day where my son truly loved and cared for me. I treasure that day because I never saw it again. You’re so lucky, Leni, having
a daughter who loves you and misses you.’
‘I’ll get some more tissues for you,’ said Leni, standing quickly before Molly saw her eyes mist over.
When I met you, I thought all my Christmases had landed at once. You were everything Edwin wasn’t: funny, caring, gentle. I wish I hadn’t
told Margaret about you once being in prison. I only wanted to impress her with how much of a strong character you were, coming from a rough background and yet having the ability to change. Of
course, it made her wary that I was getting myself into another mess. She thought you’d lead me into bad ways. Bernard was very fond of you from the off. In his profession he had seen
many people change paths, for the better and the worse.
I was so happy with you. I tried to make you happy too, but I couldn’t. Oh my love, I wish you were here with me now. I want you to understand that it wasn’t
you to blame, it was me. I made you leave, my darling. It was all my fault.
Harvey pinched the tears out of the inner corners of his eyes. So much pain and regret suffused Molly’s words. He should have known that there was something that ran deep
inside her that changed her as soon as he crossed a barrier. She would let him cuddle her and kiss her, but he felt her resistance in his arms when his tongue traced her lip or his hands began to
stroke her. When he tried to love her like a husband, she stiffened like a corpse. He felt as if he were violating his own wife. His own sweet Molly so gentle and smiling and affectionate out of
bed, so icy within it. Then the frost began to follow Molly from their bedroom. She grew as cold during the day as she was in the night. He began to understand. She hadn’t told him how much
of a pig Edwin Beardsall was. She must have been frightened that all men were the same if her only experience of sleeping with someone was that. She must have believed that all men had two sides, a
seducing angel and a brutal devil and she was bracing herself against his dark side manifesting itself. He should have guessed there was something wrong. He should have made her talk to him. They
could have gone to a doctor. If he’d known she loved him but couldn’t show him, he would have waited.
He opened another letter which dropped from his hands as his eyes cleared the first sentence.
My pen is trembling in my hand as I write this, my love.
He picked it up and as he scanned the body of the letter he closed his eyes against her words.
‘Oh no, Molly. My poor love.’
‘However much I loved Harvey, and I did and I still do, I couldn’t bear him to touch me . . . like that.’
‘It’s to be understood, dear Molly,’ sighed Leni. ‘You went through so much in your first marriage. It was bound to scar you.’ Her hand was gripping Molly’s
as much as Molly’s was holding on to hers.
Molly gave a single cough of humourless laughter. Then she dropped her head and her shoulders shook with tears.
‘I’m so frightened, Leni. I’m scared stiff of facing that I’ve wasted so many years. I buried something away that refused to die, that has shifted and turned in its grave
instead and laughs at my idiotic attempts to ignore it and forget it. Today Harvey will know and he will understand so many things and have some peace in his heart for himself, but he will also
hate me. I let everyone think the end of my marriage was completely down to him. It was wrong of me. I have never forgiven myself for it. He couldn’t possibly have healed me. I was damaged
beyond repair.’
‘No one is, Molly,’ said Carla.
‘I was,’ came the weary reply.
‘You can have help. Even after all this time, you know. There are people specially trained in helping victims of domestic abuse.’
