Secrets My Mother Kept (34 page)

Well my dear, I must close now, hoping to be able to see you on Monday and wishing you the very best of luck and good wishes

Thomas

There was also a little card from a bouquet of flowers which was sent at the same time saying:

Very much looking forward to seeing you on Monday quite well

Thomas

‘That’s strange,’ I commented. ‘That letter and card are dated a week before I was born. Mum would have been heavily pregnant. Surely he wouldn’t have expected her to go away with him?’

Colin rubbed his head: ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well she wouldn’t have been up to it I wouldn’t have thought, would you? Unless he didn’t know . . .’

This was not as easy or straightforward as I had hoped it was going to be. It was like trying to complete a jigsaw without having the picture to follow.

‘But you could have been premature,’ Colin suggested. ‘She was an older mum after all and she had already had eight children.’

‘Yes, I suppose that could account for why she was so unwell.’ I shook my head, trying to clear my muddled thoughts. ‘It’s all so odd. These letters have been in that cupboard for a very long time by the look of them. It was just chance that Josie and I happened to find them . . .’ Then it struck me like a blow. It hadn’t been chance. Mum had wanted to show them to me before she had died. It was like a sudden bolt of lightning. How many times had Mum asked me to help her sort out that cupboard? Four? Five? Maybe more. Were these letters the real focus of her obsession? I knew the answer instinctively. Of course! Mum had known she was dying, and she had wanted to tell me about Thomas before it was too late.

‘But you don’t know any of this for sure,’ Colin tried to reason with me.

‘I know,’ I said, ‘but it’s all starting to make sense. The pieces are falling into place.’ Then a terrible realisation hit me, and I laid my head on the table and cried, hot angry tears of frustration.

I had denied Mum that last chance to unburden herself, to tell me about the man who was mine and Margaret’s father, whoever he was. And so I had missed my chance again. How could I hope to understand the messages hidden in these few hastily written lines? Too late again, too late . . .

55

Trying to Make Sense

Colin had tried to persuade me to leave the rest of the letters until the morning, but I couldn’t. I greedily sucked the words from the pages, not just once, but several times. Reading and re-reading, until Thomas’s words swam around my head. I had even begun to answer the letters, trying to guess what was in the replies that Mum had clearly sent. ‘I’m going mad,’ I thought, ‘I need to stop.’ But it was out of my control now. By the time the children woke up in the morning I hadn’t even been to bed. Colin came downstairs and looked at me.

‘You look awful,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you try to get some sleep now, and I’ll take the kids out?’

‘No!’ I almost shouted, ‘I’m going over to Margaret’s. She needs to see these too.’

By the time I arrived Margaret was already up and about. Her children were also early risers, and so they had eaten breakfast and were upstairs playing.

‘Well,’ she said as soon as I got there, ‘what’s all this about?’

I pulled the letters from a folder I had carefully filed them in.

‘Josie and I found these in Mum’s cupboard yesterday when we were clearing it out, but I don’t think it was an accident. I think I was meant to find them.’

‘Meant by who?’ Margaret asked puzzled, obviously surprised.

‘Mum,’ I stated flatly.

It was only just starting to get light, even though it was nearly nine, as we sat to read the letters together. I hated those long dark winter mornings and evenings. They seemed to cast an air of depression and a loss of hope. There was still a slight smell of hot buttered toast floating from the kitchen, and I suddenly felt ravenous, and realised that I hadn’t eaten since yesterday lunchtime.

‘Can I make myself some toast while you carry on reading?’ I asked, knowing that I could probably recite the contents of each and every one of
Thomas’s letters by heart.

Margaret nodded without looking up. She was being drawn in just as I had been.

‘The last letter talks about a holiday,’ she said finally. ‘What holiday was that?’ ‘Listen . . .’ she started to read aloud,

Friday 1st July ‘
,
55

My dear Kathleen,

I am sending you a cheque as promised for
£
5.

I do so hope you will have a very lovely time away and enjoy a nice rest. I also hope the weather will keep nice and fine for you my dear. I will look forward to having a letter from you so that I receive it in good time to meet you.

With my every good wish for a very nice holiday

Lots of luck

Thomas

‘That was written about six months before I was born,’ she said, chewing her lip, ‘and that’s the last one, right?’

‘Yes, there are no more after that. Well, none that we know of.’

‘But why?’ she continued, ‘he was obviously expecting to meet her either on the holiday itself or when she got back, so why do the letters stop so abruptly?’

‘I think that we need to talk to Pat and Josie,’ I said firmly, ‘It’s time we got some proper answers.’

Pat and Josie had come to visit me most Saturdays since Mum had died. They enjoyed the children’s company and in the better weather Josie would bring her watercolours to paint in the garden. The next Saturday they were due to come over, I made sure that Margaret would be at my house so we could tackle them together.

It was almost March and the garden was starting to stir into life. The snowdrops had almost finished, and the bluebells hadn’t yet arrived, but daffodils were bursting into life all over the place. Their sunny yellow heads made me feel more optimistic somehow, and I was determined that I would find out just what my sisters really knew about that time 35 years before. Pat was fourteen and Josie twelve when I was born, and they would have been eighteen months older than that when Margaret arrived. They hadn’t been young children, they must have seen things, heard things. They must remember something.

I heard Pat’s car draw up in the driveway. ‘Aunty Pat’s here,’ Sam shouted, galloping out to meet her, as usual excited at the prospect of seeing his favourite Aunty. When he was about six he had come home after a weekend at Mum’s and announced ‘Mummy, it’s not that I don’t love you and Daddy, but I think I would have a better life if I lived at Aunty Pat’s house.’

We had all laughed over it, and things hadn’t really changed since Mum died. He still adored his Aunty Pat. She could converse with him about all his favourite things, football, cricket, tennis, in fact sports of any kind, and was also very knowledgeable.

I really didn’t want the children around while I talked to my sisters, so had arranged for them to go with Tony to the local country park for a spring picnic with Margaret’s four girls.

‘Can I see Aunty Pat first?’ Sam had pleaded when I shared the plan with him.

‘Yes, of course, she can help you pack the picnic things,’ and so he had been placated.

‘Look Aunty Pat,’ he said as soon as she opened the car door, ‘we’ve got a picnic basket ready to pack, and you can help me pack it up with stuff.’

Pat laughed at his enthusiasm, and allowed herself to be led into the kitchen saying ‘Isn’t it a bit chilly for a picnic?’

‘They’ll be fine,’ I reassured her smiling. ‘It’s not like they’ll be sitting still for long if I know them.’

Tony arrived with Margaret and the girls and Sam and Jo bundled into his car excitedly, while Margaret made her escape and came in to join Pat, Josie and me.

‘Hello Marg,’ said Josie. Margaret had always been her favourite, and I had always been Pat’s.

‘Are you staying for lunch?’ she asked.

‘I hope so!’ Margaret answered, sitting herself down on the sofa with a sigh. Neither of us got much time to ourselves without the children, so this was a rare treat, despite the serious purpose.

As soon as we had eaten, I made a cup of tea, and then produced the black folder containing the letters.

‘What’s that?’ asked Pat innocently. I looked at her and felt sad. Her hair was going grey even though she was not quite fifty, and she was quite overweight, just as Josie was, and this had the effect of making them look older than they were. When she was very young Pat had been very pretty and a keen sportswoman but had started smoking heavily in her teens, which had put an end to all that. She was such a kind person, never seeing any bad in anyone, never judging, and here I was, about to try to force her to spill all her secrets, and I felt a stab of guilt. What was it that Aunty had always said ‘I can’t tell you about your father without telling you about your mother.’ Her words rang in my ears, but I had to go on now.

‘’They’re some letters that Josie and I found in Mum’s cupboard,’ I said.

Josie’s eyes slunk away; she had recognised them.

‘What letters?’ Pat asked.

Josie cleared her throat. ‘They’re letters that Thomas sent to Mum.’

Pat was taken aback. ‘Thomas? Thomas who?’ I was surprised to see that she looked as though she didn’t have a clue who we were talking about.

‘Thomas, the man that used to be so kind to Mum,’ Josie explained.

Pat went quiet. That was always her defence. She didn’t attempt to look at them, in fact her face closed down completely, giving nothing away.

‘One of them talks about a holiday,’ I carried on, determined. ‘It’s dated July 1955. Do you remember it?’

Her face relaxed and she smiled. ‘ Oh yes of course, that was the Isle of Wight. We went there when you were still a baby, just learning to walk. I’m sure you’ve seen a photo? I’m holding your hand as you’re trying to walk along the beach.’

‘Oh I’d love to see it,’ I answered, and then continued ‘ Who went?’

‘We all did,’ Pat said. ‘Granny, Me, Josie, Mary and the twins, and Peter of course and you, but it was before Margaret was born.’

‘Oh right, and where did we stay?’

‘We were camping, Granny and us had a tent together and Mum had one on her own the other side of the campsite.’

This sounded puzzling. Why was Mum’s tent so far away? But I couldn’t ask – not yet, anyway. Even now we knew if we wanted to find things out it was best not to be too obvious.

‘So you don’t remember any Thomas?’ I asked her pointedly, and she shook her head.

‘Don’t you remember anything about when I was born?’ I asked.

‘Look Kathleen, all I remember is a man coming to visit Mum just after you had been born. She was in bed and told me to take the baby downstairs. He came in a big posh car and had a dark coat and hat. He seemed really nice and I remember he gave me 10 shillings! That was a lot of money then which is probably why I remember.’

‘And . . .?’ I prompted.

‘And nothing,’ she said, ‘I’m afraid that’s all. I don’t know if he was this Thomas, but from what Josie says I suppose he probably was.’

‘Was Mum pleased to see him?’

‘I don’t know really, I think so, I can’t remember.’

‘Please try,’ I pleaded. ‘Did he know there was a baby, did he know I existed?’

Pat didn’t look at me. She was getting more and more uncomfortable, but I wouldn’t let it go.

‘Do you think he was my dad?’ I asked outright.

There was a long silence. I could tell Margaret thought I had gone too far, but I didn’t care.

‘Kath, I don’t know who your Dad was, I really don’t. I’m sorry.’

I looked across at Margaret whose face betrayed the same disappointment as mine, because the sad thing was, I knew Pat was telling the truth.

56

The Scandal

A few years after Mum died, I had a strange conversation with my niece Sheila. She was my brother Michael’s middle daughter and was now married with two children of her own. We had often talked about Mum, and the many secrets that still lay buried, but recently she and her older sister Vicky had become more and more curious. They knew some details of course, but they were muddled about others, and wanted to try to get a clearer picture of why their dad had been put in a children’s home, and what had happened there that made him refuse to ever talk about it.

When the phone rang I was out in the garden pegging the washing on the line. Colin called from the back door. ‘It’s Sheila on the phone.’

I pegged the last towel onto the line, and bent to pick up the washing basket. It was a glorious warm day, full of the promise of the long summer holidays. ‘Tell her I’m just coming,’ I shouted across the lawn. Sam had thrown his bike down casually, and wandered off to do something else, and I almost tripped over it. ‘Damn bike,’ I muttered to myself as I hurried towards the house.

Colin thrust the phone into my hands. ‘Hi Sheila,’ I said distractedly, mentally trying to tick off the list of things I still needed to do.