Two Women (59 page)

‘A large brandy wouldn’t go amiss. I’m about to blow my best friend’s world wide open. I need something inside me for that.’

Intrigued, Geraldine made them both a drink and when settled looked at Roselle and raised her glass.

‘Come on then, out with it. Before you change your mind and waste my time.’ Roselle laughed gently. This woman had sussed her out already. ‘I only saw you at short notice because of Colin Jackson. So don’t disappoint me now.’

Geraldine watched as Roselle slammed back the brandy in one swallow.

‘I needed that. All right, the truth. This is purely confidential, isn’t it?’

Geraldine nodded.

‘Of course.’

‘Barry Dalston, believe it or not, was my lover. That’s how Susan and I became friends as strange as it might sound. I know from Susan that he raped their eldest daughter Wendy. That was what drove Susan to murder him. The girl was given herpes by her own father, isn’t that sick? Susan has never told anyone so Wendy can live without everyone knowing what happened to her at the hands of her own father.’

Geraldine was shocked to the core.

‘You were his lover and his wife’s friend, and she killed him because he raped their daughter - am I getting this right? I thought that Wendy wasn’t even there that night.’

Roselle nodded.

‘That’s what everyone thinks. So what are you going to do about it?’

‘Get us both another drink, I think.’

Roselle grinned.

‘You do that and I’ll start at the very beginning, shall I? You’ll understand the situation much better then.’

Geraldine shook her head sadly.

‘I hope so, but it sounds as if my understanding it will be the least of our problems.’

 

June sat in the visiting room looking every bit the unconcerned mother.

Susan smiled at her.

‘Hello, Mum. How are you?’

She looked at her daughter and sighed, lighting a cigarette to hide her embarrassment.

‘I thought I’d be the last person you’d want to see?’

Susan still smiled and that smile was making June more uncomfortable by the second.

‘You are my mum.’

June shrugged dismissively.

‘I hardly need reminding of that, do I?’

‘Why did you come then?’

She shrugged again.

‘I wish I fucking hadn’t bothered to be honest. I suppose I just wanted to see how you were for meself like. As you said, I am your mum.’

Susan looked strange to her. She was much thinner and had a glow about her that June had never seen before.

‘Well, you obviously like the life inside. It suits you, if you don’t mind me saying. You look really well.’

It was the closest June would get to being motherly and Susan was grateful for it.

‘You look great, I like your coat.’

The full-length leather was June’s pride and joy.

‘Well, you’ve got to make the effort, ain’t you?’

She lit another cigarette from the butt of the previous one.

‘Must have cost a few quid?’

June looked at her spitefully.

‘It did. I bought it from the money I got from the papers, Sue. So now you know.’

Susan closed her eyes in distress.

‘I don’t want to argue, Mum, what’s done is done. I wanted to ask you a favour.’

June blew the smoke out of her lips in a belligerent fashion.

‘I thought it would be something like that. Well, if you want me to take on your four fucking kids, you can think again. I don’t want them.’

Susan closed her eyes and willed herself to be calm.

‘I don’t want that, Mum. I wouldn’t want my father near those children and you know why, don’t you? I want to ask you if you’ll try and talk our Debbie into having them for a while.’

June did laugh now.

‘You are joking? With that Irish ponce of an old man of hers? He sees you as letting down the family, girl. Thinks you’re scum. Poor Debbie has had to put up with all sorts over you.’

‘No, she hasn’t, Mum. Stop exaggerating all the time. She had hag with him from day one. He even had a baby by someone else.’

June sniffed.

‘That Carol’s a slag. Apparently her own mother and father are disowning her. Should have brought her up better, shouldn’t they?’

Susan shook her head in disbelief.

‘You know what? You really amaze me, Mother. You’ve had more men than a fucking dock dolly and yet you have the neck to sit there and slag that girl off. Your husband was after his own child and you never did a thing about it, did you? I’m in here because of you and him. You talk about bringing up kids after what you did to me and Debs . . .’

As June made to rise Susan grabbed her wrist tightly.

‘You walk away and I’ll rip your fucking head off. Do you hear me, Mother?’

June sat down opposite her daughter and felt fear rush over her.

‘When I think what our lives were like with you and him, I could fucking strangle you! Barry was just like you and me father, a selfish ponce always out for himself. Like you still are.

‘Do you know what it did to my kids, you selling that load of old crap to the papers about me and him? Blaming me for it all. Implying I was an unfit mother. Though you could never actually come out and say that, could you, because it ain’t true. If you’d loved us like I love my kids we’d have been all right, me and Debs. I vowed I’d do it differently and I did. My kids had everything a kid should have. They had clothes, they were fed and they were
loved
- really loved. They still are.

‘I wanted to see you to try and put the past behind us, try and make some sense of it all, but I should have realised I was wasting my time. Go on, fuck off. You can tell all the neighbours you’ve seen your daughter the murderess. Get you a few drinks down the pub that will. You two-faced old witch!’

June was white with shock. She looked into Susan’s face and for the first time in years felt a spark of affection for her daughter. Respect even.

‘Well, if you want me to do you a favour you have a funny way of getting round me. I’ll get us a cup of tea, eh?’

She pushed the fag packet across the table.

‘Have a tailor made while you’re waiting.’

Susan watched her as she sashayed across the visiting room, hair immaculate, clothes too young and too tight.

She wished she had told her what she thought of her long ago. If nothing else it had made her feel better inside.

Much better.

Whatever happened today, at least she had seen her mother. For some reason Susan still needed her. Though why that was, she had no idea.

 

The Simpsons were due to pick up Rosie after her visit to the other children. Mrs Eappen was giving them sandwiches and cups of tea. She was worried about Wendy, the girl looked really ill.

‘Come on, Wendy, eat something, dear.’

She shook her head.

‘Honestly, I couldn’t eat a thing.’

Barry took the sandwich from her plate.

‘I can. I can eat anything, me. I have a cast iron stomach.’

It was said with pride and they all laughed.

Wendy lay back on the chair and closed her eyes. Little Rosie was falling asleep on her lap and she could smell the little girl’s freshly washed hair and her baby sweat. Little fat starfish hands held on tightly to her bra straps through her jumper. Instinctively she hugged the little girl closer to her, kissing the top of her head.

‘They won’t really let her be adopted, will they?’

Mrs Eappen shrugged.

‘I can’t say. Your mother has every right to fight it but unless one of her family comes forward soon, I’m afraid it looks inevitable.’

Wendy nodded absently.

‘It’s not fair. It’s just isn’t fair.’

Mrs Eappen held her arm gently.

‘I know, dear.’

Colin walked into the day room then, his face all smiles.

‘Hello, you lot.’

The children smiled at him, even Wendy.

‘Colin, if I was sixteen could I have custody of this lot?’

‘Maybe, it depends. You’d need a lot of help.’

Wendy shrugged.

‘Anyone would need help with Barry on board. But I’m being serious, is there any chance at all?’

Colin shrugged.

‘I could look into it for these two but Rosie would be a different kettle of fish.’

Wendy’s face fell. It was as if someone had turned off a light from within.

‘It’s Rosie I really want to see sorted out, though. I know the Simpsons are nice people but they can’t keep me mum locked away for ever and she’ll want us all when she comes home. That means Rosie as well. Surely there must be someone who can help us?’

She looked at Colin and Mrs Eappen. Neither of them could give her an answer.

‘I wanted to talk to you actually, Wendy. At some point. When you’re up to it, of course.’

Colin smiled encouragingly at the girl but she didn’t smile back.

‘What about?’ The blank look was back on her face.

‘There’s a few things I need to ask you, just things I want to get straight in my own mind.’

He looked at her earnestly and she dropped her eyes. Mrs Eappen noticed the girl’s frightened expression and wondered just what went on inside that pretty little head at times.

After that Wendy was quiet and the day seemed strained. Mrs Eappen watched her closely. The girl was constantly on edge. But that was only natural after such a tragedy in the family.

 

June walked up Debbie’s path and threw her cigarette butt into the planter hanging by the front door. She smiled. Debbie really thought she was up market these days even with an old man who was out shagging anything with a pulse under the age of sixty-five. Little Carol couldn’t keep him to herself though she tried from what June had heard through the grapevine. She certainly seemed to do a better job than June’s daughter anyway. At least she saw him regularly by all accounts which was more than Debbie could say.

The door was opened by Debbie herself, her face blotchy and red. Her mouth turned down at the corners, giving her a childish expression that seemed out of place on her adult features.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, you miserable mare! No wonder your old man’s out and about all the time with a boatrace like that waiting for him every night!’

Debbie burst into tears once more and June, pushing past her, walked up the hallway and into the kitchen. She put the kettle on before she talked again, eyes taking in every detail of the house.

‘This place is too clean, Debs. It’s more like a fucking show house than a home.’

She opened the cupboard and took out two white mugs.

‘Is it right that little whore is pregnant again by Jamesie?’ She was spooning sugar and coffee into the mugs as she spoke. ‘If she is, you need to aim him right out this time. The shame is terrible for me and your father. It’s bad enough we have
one
daughter up for murder, now the other one has her name up as a right fucking prat. Give me Susan’s solution to the problem every time.’

Debbie sat at the little breakfast bar that had once been her pride and joy, and shut her brain off. It was the only way she could cope with her mother.

‘Stuck out here in Rainham, in the fucking sticks with loads of weirdos for neighbours. Never say a word to one another this lot.’

‘It’s only us they don’t talk to, Mum. Not since you informed Mrs Black next door that you’d give her husband one, if you had the chance.’

June shrugged.

‘Well I would. He’s a bit of all right. But her! She looks like a well-slapped arse. You should never have left the East End, either of you. At least round there you could have kept the beady on Jamesie. Ponce that he is.’ She poured water into the mugs and stirred vigorously.

‘I saw Susan today.’

June was pleased by the expression on her daughter’s face.

‘You what!’

June poured milk into the coffee and slopped it all over the worktop. For once Debbie didn’t go mad.

‘You really went to see Susan? How is she? I can’t believe she’s still talking to any of us after the last turn out with the papers.’

June ignored her.

‘She understands does Susan, always had a bit of nous, her. Anyway she wants to see you.’

She lit a fag and Debbie automatically got up and opened the back door. Jamesie hated people smoking in the house.

‘Why does she want to see me?’

June grinned, showing big yellowing teeth.

‘She wants you to have little Rosie for her until she gets out.’

‘She’s got to be joking!’

Her mother shook her head, deadly serious.

‘She ain’t. They’re going to adopt her out to this couple, the Simpsons, and Susan naturally thinks this is a bit of a piss take. So she has turned to her family for help and support.’

Debbie listened to her mother’s self-righteous tone of voice and realised June was even more unbalanced than she had previously thought.

‘It’s the least we can do for her, isn’t it? I mean, stuck in there, all on her Jack Jones. And in fairness to Susan, she was a good mother.’

The latter was said grudgingly. June looked at her daughter’s sceptical expression.

‘Even in the papers, whatever else I might have said, I always said our Susan was a good mother.’

Debbie stood up, slowly and deliberately. Her voice when she spoke was a deep growl. Her mother had finally pushed her over the edge. Every nasty remark, every vicious word, was conjured up in Debbie’s head and her depth of feeling came out in three small words.

‘Get out, Mum.’

June’s face paled.

‘You what?’

Debbie pushed her none too gently towards the door.

‘You heard. Get the fuck out of here. Piss off.’

June felt herself being propelled down the narrow hallway. Thrusting her daughter from her, she turned on her like a vixen.