Blue Moon (31 page)

Ruby held her breath, but then her mother’s head came back up and she looked Ruby in the eye.

‘Rex Quinn. Your father.’

CHAPTER 26

Percy waited nervously in the foyer of the BUF area HQ. People were bustling in and out of the front door, and up and down the staircase facing the road. Barney was a long time coming and Percy was uncomfortable being left with his own thoughts. The white-hot anger he’d felt the night before when he’d walked out of the house had cooled a little, but as he rehearsed over and over again in his head what his mother had told him, it didn’t take much to revive it. All those years he’d been struggling to please Nelson, and wondering what he could do to gain his father’s respect, when all the time he was … He couldn’t even bear to think the word.

It should have made him feel better, knowing that he wasn’t Nelson’s son. He’d never liked the man, but strangely enough the revelation that he was someone else’s child had had exactly the opposite effect. He suddenly felt out of kilter, the odd man out, alone … And he didn’t like it. He was angry with his mother for keeping it from him. She should never have kept a thing like that secret. He was also angry because the woman
he’d idolized as the perfect mother had given herself to someone before she was married. She was no more than a common tart. He leapt to his feet and stared sightlessly out of the window. How many others had there been? Had she stayed faithful to Nelson? Everything started going round and round his head again, until it felt fit to burst.

‘Percy!’ Barney’s welcoming voice brought him back to the here and now.

Percy turned on his heel and smiled at his old pal, who was coming down the stairs with a clipboard tucked under his arm. He looked so smart in his BUF uniform. Every square inch of him was black: black shirt, black jodhpurs, shiny black calf-length boots, and his thick, dark hair slicked down on his head.

As he came towards him, Barney held out his right hand. ‘Good to see you again. Have you thought about what I said?’

‘That’s why I’m here,’ said Percy, taking his hand.

‘Good news, I hope,’ replied Barney, shaking his hand vigorously.

‘Yes,’ said Percy, ‘but with one stipulation.’

‘Oh?’ Barney gave him a quizzical look. He wasn’t used to people making demands, especially not this early on in the proceedings.

‘I’ll be a recruiting officer,’ said Percy, ‘but I want to do it as far away from Worthing as possible.’

‘Oh, dear,’ said Barney. ‘Woman trouble?’

‘Something like that,’ said Percy, ‘but it’s all sorted now.’

Barney’s face broke into a wide smile. ‘Good man,’ he said, giving Percy a hearty slap across the back.

‘Ruby,’ said Bea that morning, ‘I know it’s your day off, but would you do something for me?’

‘What is it, Mum?’

Ruby had just taken May to her school in Sussex Road and was planning to do some things around the house to help out. Her mother was still weak, but refused to rest altogether. She was sitting in the Windsor chair with arms, which Nelson had always used, knitting a pullover for Percy. Having blanked out the fact that he had said he wasn’t coming back, Bea had decided it would be cold at night on the boat and he didn’t have many warm things.

‘I promised Mabel I’d keep going over to Heene to see her nephew,’ said Bea. ‘She’s been really worried about him, but being laid up like this, I can’t really go.’

Ruby leaned over and kissed her mother’s cheek. They had always been close, but Bea’s revelation the night before had made their relationship even closer and they’d talked late into the night. When her mother had first told Ruby that she wasn’t Nelson’s child, but that her father was called Rex Quinn, Ruby had been completely stunned and rendered absolutely speechless. It was some time before she’d spoken.

‘Nelson wasn’t my father?’ she repeated.

Bea shook her head.

Ruby closed her eyes, took a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘Oh.’

‘Ruby?’ her mother said anxiously. ‘I’m so sorry. I should have told you before. I’ve let you down. I’ve let you down badly.’

‘Oh no, Mum,’ cried Ruby. ‘You haven’t let anyone down. It’s such a relief.’

Bea frowned. ‘You’re not angry?’

Ruby shook her head. ‘Did Nelson know I wasn’t his?’

Bea nodded.

‘That explains a lot,’ said Ruby.

‘I’m sorry,’ Bea repeated.

Ruby got up from her chair and put her arms around her mother again. They were both crying as they hugged each other.

‘I thought you’d be really angry,’ said Bea.

‘I knew he hated me,’ said Ruby, stepping back to wipe her eyes, ‘and now I know why. After the way he treated us all, why did you stay with him, Mum?’

‘I had to come back, because I couldn’t bear to lose Percy,’ she said brokenly. ‘He may not have liked the boy, but Nelson would never have let me take him with me. He said that if I left home, he’d take Percy to the workhouse.’

The clock on the mantelpiece struck midnight.

‘Oh, Mother …’

‘As soon as you were born,’ Bea went on, ‘he punished me. He told me I’d trapped him with one child and committed adultery to have another, and the hatred got stronger and stronger as the years went on.’

‘But what about my father?’ Ruby asked. ‘Why didn’t he come for you?’

‘I couldn’t let him,’ said Bea. ‘According to the law, Nelson was father to both you and Percy. When you were born, to protect you, I let Nelson put his name on the birth certificate. If Rex had come back for me, Nelson would never have allowed me to take you with me.’

‘Even though I wasn’t his child?’

‘He would have sent you to the workhouse.’

Ruby shivered. ‘Things must have improved when you had May?’

‘He adored May,’ Bea sighed, ‘and now that I had three children, Nelson had made sure that I stayed with him for good. I never could have supported you all alone.’

‘And Rex?’

Her mother’s eyes filled with tears again. ‘I had to send him away. Oh, Ruby, it was the hardest thing I ever did. I had to, but I couldn’t abandon you and Percy to that man.’

‘Why would someone enjoy being so cruel?’ said Ruby. ‘This was never a happy home. Oh, I know you did your best, Mum, but we were all on tenterhooks, weren’t we?’

‘During the war something began to eat away Nelson’s very soul,’ Bea said. ‘I was in the wrong, of course, but it wasn’t
just
what I did to him. There was something else, I’m sure of it.’ She looked up at Ruby and smiled. ‘You are so like your father. When I look at you, I see
his smile and,’ she touched Ruby’s face, ‘his lovely dark hair. You’d like him, Ruby. He’s a wonderful man.’

Ruby’s head was reeling. Nelson wasn’t her father. What a relief – how wonderful. How absolutely bloody wonderful!

‘Can I ask you something else?’ she said. ‘Would you be able to tell me about my real father, or is that too painful?’

Bea caressed her daughter’s cheek. ‘I’d love to talk about him.’ She smiled wistfully. ‘He was so kind and gentle. Good-looking too.’

‘Did he die in the war?’

‘Oh no,’ said Bea. ‘He’s still alive.’

Ruby frowned. ‘How do you know?’

‘Because he came to Worthing to see us,’ said Bea, stifling a huge yawn. ‘Can we talk about it a bit later, Ruby? It’s gone midnight and I’m so very tired.’

‘He came here?’ Ruby gasped.

‘Not here,’ said her mother, getting up. ‘He came to Worthing at around the time of the inquest.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I can’t talk about it any more,’ said Bea, wobbling on her feet. ‘Tomorrow.’

Reluctantly, Ruby had to let it go. Her mother was exhausted and she knew she mustn’t push her too much. The questions would have to be asked another time. Alone in her room, she had finally got round to reading Jim’s letter. He was coming home. Her eyes filled with tears. What on earth would he think about all this?

Ruby had slept fitfully, waking several times during
the night with questions still reverberating around her head. She had wanted to carry on talking to her mother about Rex this morning, but she would do the favour first. ‘Of course I’ll go and see Linton,’ she smiled now.

A couple of hours later Ruby was knocking on Linton’s door. His house, on the very edge of old Heene village, had a small front garden and a slightly larger one at the back, where he grew vegetables when his illness allowed. For a living, he made baskets. They were mostly functional ones, but until the Depression bit he’d also had a small following in the big shops, some as far away as Chichester.

Ruby had to knock firmly several times before she saw the curtain in the front room twitch. ‘It’s me, Uncle Linton,’ she called. He wasn’t a relation at all, but the old habit she’d been taught as a child – of calling all adults ‘Auntie’ and ‘Uncle’ – lingered. ‘Ruby Bateman.’

The front door opened a crack and Linton, his face grey with the effort of breathing, looked out.

‘What – do – you want?’ he said with an effort.

‘Mum’s not well, and Auntie Mabel is worried about you,’ said Ruby. ‘Can I come in?’

He stepped back and Ruby walked in. The house was spotless. Some of his canes and almost-finished work stood in a corner of the living room. It was fairly dark inside because he’d kept the curtains drawn. Linton walked back to his chair and flopped down.

‘You really don’t look well,’ said Ruby. ‘I think I should get the doctor.’

Surprisingly he didn’t argue.

Taking the front-door key with her, Ruby set off. The doctor, when he came, insisted that Linton should go into hospital and then left, promising to telephone from his surgery for an ambulance. Ruby went upstairs to pack a small suitcase with pyjamas and a washbag. When she came back downstairs, Linton looked even worse. She walked over to him and squeezed his hand. ‘Is there anything I can get you?’ she asked.

He indicated a drawer and, when she opened it, it was full of papers.

‘Something in here?’ she asked.

He nodded, his breathing rasping and full of effort. She hadn’t a clue what he wanted or where to start, so she pulled the whole drawer out and placed it on his lap. He sorted through the papers and settled on a buff-coloured envelope.

‘Shall I open it?’

He shook his head.

‘You want to take it with you?’

He shook his head again.

‘Shall I give it to Auntie Mabel?’

Linton shook his head for a third time and pointed at her. ‘For – you,’ he said.

‘All right,’ said Ruby, guessing it must be his last will and testament. ‘I’ll look at it when I get home.’

She hardly had time to put the drawer back, and the envelope into her bag, before the ambulance arrived.

Left on her own, Bea put down her knitting and went back upstairs. She still felt dizzy at times, but she didn’t
feel quite as exhausted as she had done when she was first taken ill. She realized now that she had been an absolute fool to cut down on food by not eating herself. The thought of what might have happened to her was a sobering one. Percy and Ruby could look after themselves, but what about May? Most likely her sister, Vinny, would have offered to take May in. She would have moved in here herself, but the house belonged to the children and, if Vinny moved in, there was no guarantee they’d ever get it back, at least not without a fight. Vinny wasn’t a wicked person, far from it, but faced with the prospect of having to go back to the two rooms that she and Lily lived in or being in this house, Bea knew that Vinny would fight tooth and nail to stay.

Percy hadn’t been back since he’d stormed out of the house, but Bea was confident that, once he’d cooled down, he would be back. She sighed. If only Rex was here. He would know what to do.

Upstairs in her bedroom, Bea pulled out her undies drawer and tipped it upside down on the bed. It wasn’t her underwear she was looking for; instead, fastened to the underside of the drawer, were some letters. The gummed strip holding them in place was yellow with age and was beginning to lose its stickiness. The letters had been there since 1917. The only contact she’d had with them was when she ran her fingers longingly under the drawer. She had dared not get them out, in case Nelson caught her reading them, but it had given her a satisfying thrill to know that she still had a secret. She knew them off by heart anyway. If he had found
them, he would have torn them to shreds and called her ugly names; but he wouldn’t have exposed her shame, for that would have reflected badly on him.

She thought back to the time when Eve Pickthall had been ‘caught in the act’, so to speak. Nelson had been the one to reintroduce ‘rough music’ outside her door. Back in the previous century, if someone in the community had done something very wrong, the locals would gather outside their door with dustbin lids and wooden sticks, and pots and pans and aluminium spoons, and make a loud noise; they would shout obscenities and keep it up for days, or at least until the object of their wrath was forced to leave town. Poor Eve had run down the street, with the mob pursuing her all the way to the railway station. God only knew where she was now; but, unable to face his neighbours for the shame, her husband had jumped off Beachy Head a few weeks later. It was this memory that kept Nelson from exposing his own wife’s infidelity.

Bea peeled the gummed tape carefully from the back of her letters. Ruby would want to know all there was to know about her father and, for the first time in years, she would be able to talk about the only man she had ever truly loved. She kissed the dear writing on the envelope and pulled out the first letter.

It was more formal than the others, because it informed her that her husband was in the hospital at Graylingwell near Chichester. At first she had panicked, for Graylingwell was known as the local asylum. Had the war driven her husband mad? The letter went on
to say that Graylingwell was now a military hospital, and Nelson had sustained a serious injury to his side. He would need to stay there for some time, but she was welcome to visit him. There followed the visiting times, and in a footnote she read:
Cpl Bateman has carried out his duties to his regiment and the country with fortitude
. It was signed:
Dr Quinn, Capt
. That note had been added by hand, and they were the first words Rex ever wrote to her.