Secrets

  ‘Is there anything you’d like me to do while you and Daddy are gone?’ she asked. She knew there wasn’t to be any kind of tea afterwards, as neither her mother nor father had any relatives coming. But Adele thought it possible they might bring back a few neighbours.

  A slap across her face startled more than hurt her. ‘What did I say?’ she asked in puzzlement.

  ‘You don’t bloody well care, do you?’ Rose shouted. ‘You little bitch!’

  ‘I do care. I loved her just as much as you,’ Adele retorted indignantly, and began to cry.

  ‘No one loved her like I did.’ Her mother pushed her face right up to Adele’s and her eyes were as icy as the weather outside. ‘No one! I wish to God it was you who was killed. You’ve been a thorn in my side since the moment you were born.’

  Adele could only think her mother must have gone mad to say such a terrible thing. Yet however scared she felt, she couldn’t let it pass without fighting back. ‘So why have me then?’ she retorted.

  ‘God knows I tried hard enough to get rid of you,’ her mother snarled, her lips curling back like a dog’s about to bite. ‘I should’ve left you on someone’s doorstep.’

  The door burst open and Jim came in. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

  ‘Just a few home truths,’ Rose said as she flounced out of the room. Jim followed her.

  Adele sat on her bed in deep shock for quite some time. She wanted to believe that her mother was just suffering from some kind of sickness through losing Pamela, and that she hadn’t really meant it. Yet people didn’t say things like that, even when they were hurting themselves, not unless it was true.

  Adele was still sitting like a statue when she heard her parents leave for the funeral. They didn’t say goodbye, just left without a word as if she was nothing. Adele’s room was at the back of the house, so she couldn’t see the street. She waited until they’d gone down the stairs, then went into her parents’ bedroom, pulled the closed curtains back just a crack and saw the hearse waiting down below.

  No one in Charlton Street had a car, so when one stopped in the street it was quite an event, and all the boys rushed to look at it. Adults would discuss who it might belong to and the purpose of the visit.

  Hearses, however, created a different kind of reaction, and today’s was typical. The neighbours who were going to the funeral were gathered in a little group, looking almost unrecognizable in tidy black clothes.

  Further down the street women watched from their doorsteps. Men passing by took off their hats. Any children not at school had either been taken indoors or if still outside were being made to stand still in respect.

  While it was reassuring to think her sister was afforded the same degree of respect as an adult, it was unbearable for Adele to think of Pamela lying inside the shiny coffin. She had been such a show-off, so chatty and lively. There was hardly a house in the street that she hadn’t been into at some time – she was nosy, funny and so lovable that even the crustiest of old people were charmed by her.

  Yet there weren’t very many flowers. The neighbours had got together to buy a wreath, Adele had seen it when it was brought round earlier. It was only a small one because no one had much money to spare, and as in January flowers were hard to come by, it was mainly evergreens. The one from the teachers at Pamela’s school was bigger, like a yellow cushion, and there was a very nice bouquet from Mrs Belling, the piano teacher.

  The wreath from Mum and Dad was small too, but at least it had pink roses. It was very pretty and Adele felt Pamela would have approved.

  As she watched, she saw her parents move to stand behind the hearse, and Mr and Mrs Patterson from the ground-floor flat beckoned to the other neighbours to fall in behind them.

  Then the hearse slowly pulled away and crept on up the street to the church, everyone walking behind it with their heads held down.

  Now there was nothing more to see, Adele could only think again of the nasty things said earlier, and she began to cry again. Had her mother really thought of leaving her on a doorstep? Surely all mothers loved their babies?

  Two months later, in March, Adele trudged wearily home from school. Every single day since Pamela died had been misery, but today when they played netball, Miss Swift, her teacher, had asked her in front of the whole class how she got the marks on the backs of her legs.

  Adele had said the first thing that came into her head, that she didn’t know. Miss Swift said that was ridiculous, but her knowing look suggested she knew exactly how the marks were made.

  The truth was that Rose had hit her with the poker the previous Saturday morning. She had picked it up as Adele was kneeling laying the fire, and struck her because she’d spilled ashes on the rug. At the time, Adele was hardly able to walk. But by Monday morning it was bearable and fortunately her gym slip was long enough to hide the weals. But she hadn’t thought about stripping off to her knickers for netball.

  Maybe if Miss Swift had asked her about the marks when Adele was on her own, she might have been able to tell the truth, but she couldn’t with all the other girls listening. Lots of them lived in Charlton Street too, and Adele didn’t want them all rushing home and telling their mothers that Rose Talbot was going crazy.

  Adele knew that was no exaggeration because her father had said it dozens of times recently. Rose hadn’t only hit her, she’d hit Jim too when she was drinking. And she was drinking all the time now, and everything was falling apart. She didn’t cook meals, buy food, clean the flat or do the washing. She was never there when Adele went home for dinner, and when she got home from school in the afternoon she was usually sleeping off the drink.

  Adele did the cleaning, and her father usually sent her for fish and chips when he got in from work. If he complained about there being no dinner, her mother would either start crying or get nasty, and quite often she’d run on out again down to the pub and Jim would have to go after her to bring her home.

  It was all so horrible. Adele had grown up with her mother’s black, silent moods – they were as much a part of her life as going to school or taking the washing to the laundry room at the public baths. But Rose was no longer silent, she screamed, shouted and swore, often threw things too, and Jim was getting just as bad.

  He had always been such a quiet man, in fact her mother’s favourite insult had been to call him feeble. But now Rose kept goading him, saying he was stupid and common, and he’d become almost as vicious as her. Just a couple of nights ago he’d lashed out at her with a flat iron.

  Adele knew very well that her father was a bit slow, he could only read the simplest of words, and he had to have things explained very carefully before he understood. But he could add up well enough, and he was getting really angry at the amount of money Rose was spending on drink. Adele had heard him telling her mother that he’d had a cut in pay because his boss hadn’t got enough building work coming in. He kept saying too that he might be thrown out of work completely, but even that threat didn’t make any difference.

  As Adele got in the front door Mrs Patterson opened her door and it was clear by the way she scowled and put her hands on her hips that she was angry.

  ‘Your mum’s been at it again,’ she blurted out. ‘I can’t stand much more of this, however sorry I am about your sister.’

  Mrs Patterson was a nice woman. She had three children of her own but she’d always made a fuss of both Adele and Pamela, and in the past she’d often had them in for tea if their mother had to go somewhere. She was a tiny, wiry woman with jet-back hair plaited round her head like a crown. Adele and Pamela used to wonder how long her hair was when she let it loose. Pamela was sure it went right down to her feet.

  ‘Been at what?’ Adele asked.

  ‘Screaming down the stairs at Ida Manning,’ Mrs Patterson rolled her eyes towards the flat upstairs. ‘Accused her of stealing a bag of groceries she left in the hall. Your mum’s never been near a grocery shop, the only shop she goes to is the off licence.’

  ‘I??
?m sorry,’ Adele said weakly. She knew Mrs Patterson must be at the end of her tether to complain to her. She was always so kind normally. But Adele didn’t dare linger talking about it as her mother would skin her alive if she caught her discussing her with the neighbours.

  ‘Sorry’s not good enough any more. That’s all I get from your dad too,’ Mrs Patterson said, wiggling a finger at Adele. ‘This house is full of kids. We don’t want no drunks shouting the odds. We’ve all tried to help her since Pamela went, but all we get is the brush-off.’

  ‘I can’t do anything,’ Adele said, and began to cry. She felt she couldn’t stand any of it any longer. She dreaded coming home.

  ‘There now, don’t cry,’ Mrs Patterson said, the previous harshness of her tone softening. She came over to Adele and patted her shoulder. ‘You’re a good girl, you don’t deserve this. But you must talk to yer dad. If he don’t put a stop to it soon, you’ll all be thrown out.’

  Adele was alone in the living room when her father came in from work later that same evening. ‘Where is she?’ he asked.

  ‘She went out, about half an hour ago,’ Adele said, and began to cry again. Her mother was lying down in the bedroom when she got in from school, so she’d left her in peace for a while. Later she’d taken her in a cup of tea, and got slapped round the face when she asked what was for tea. ‘There isn’t anything to eat, but maybe she’s gone to get something,’ she added.

  Dad sighed deeply and sank down on to a chair, still with his coat on. ‘I dunno what to do any more,’ he said helplessly. ‘You don’t ’elp neither, always upsetting ’er.’

  ‘I don’t do or say anything to her,’ Adele retorted indignantly. ‘It’s all her.’

  She was so hungry she felt sick with it, and there wasn’t even a piece of bread in the cupboard. While she was well used to her father blaming her for everything, this time she wasn’t going to accept it.

  Angrily she launched into telling him what Mrs Patterson had said. ‘Can’t you do something, Dad?’ she begged him.

  She expected a clout round the ear, but to her surprise Jim just looked sorrowful. ‘She don’t take no notice of anything I say,’ he replied, shaking his head slowly. ‘It’s like I’m the cause of ’er troubles.’

  Adele was struck by the depth of hurt and sadness in his voice. He had never been like fathers in books, he didn’t rule the house, and mostly he skulked about like a lodger. He didn’t talk much, seldom showed his feelings, and Adele knew very little about him because most of the time he totally ignored her. Yet from what she knew of other fathers, Jim Talbot wasn’t a bad one. He might be rough and slow-witted, but he didn’t drink much or gamble and he went to work every day.

  But Pamela’s death, and the huge hole in the family she’d left behind, had made Adele notice her father more. She didn’t want to agree with some of the nastier things her mother said about him, even if most of them were true. It wasn’t his fault after all that he couldn’t deal with even the simplest problems. He was in fact like a big, strong child, and as such she felt a bond of sympathy with him because she knew what it was like to be constantly ridiculed.

  ‘How can you be the cause of her troubles?’ she asked.

  ‘I dunno,’ he shrugged. ‘I’ve always done whatever she wanted. But she’s deeper than the Thames. I dunno what goes on inside ’er ’ead.’

  When Rose finally came home around nine, Adele was in bed. She and her father had only a bag of chips between them for their tea, as Jim didn’t have any more money. Adele was still very hungry, and she knew her father must be too. Going to bed was a way of forgetting about it, and avoiding the fight when her mother came home.

  The expected row began the minute Rose got through the door. Jim said something about a bag of chips not being enough for a man who’d worked a ten-hour day. Then all at once they were at it, hammer and tongs, Dad f’ing and blinding and Mum sneering because he had to resort to that.

  It all washed over Adele for some time; mostly it was all stuff she’d heard dozens of times before. Rose saying that she was meant for better things than living in Euston and Jim throwing back that he did his best for her.

  Then suddenly Adele heard Jim say something which made her prick up her ears. ‘You’d have ended up in the fuckin’ workhouse if it weren’t for me.’

  Adele sat up in shocked surprise.

  ‘Why else would I have married you?’ Rose screamed back at him. ‘Do you think I would have let someone like you near me if I wasn’t desperate?’

  Adele gasped at her mother’s cruelty.

  ‘But I loved you,’ Jim replied, his voice cracking with hurt.

  ‘How can you love someone you don’t know?’ Rose retorted. ‘You never let me tell you how it was, you just wanted to own me.’

  ‘I did the right thing by you,’ Jim said indignantly, and now it sounded as if he was crying. ‘You needed a man beside you with a baby on the way.’

  ‘Call yourself a man?’ Rose snorted with derision. ‘I wouldn’t have looked twice at you if I hadn’t been pregnant, and you always knew that. Don’t make out you cared about the kid either, all you wanted was to get into bed with me.’

  There was a sharp crack and Adele knew he’d hit Rose.

  ‘You fuckin’ bitch,’ he yelled at her. ‘If it was down to you Adele would be a bastard and in some foundling home.’

  Adele was so horrified she pulled the pillow over her head so she couldn’t hear any more.

  She knew that babies grew in a woman’s stomach, and that their husbands put them there. But if Adele hadn’t been put there by Jim, it surely followed that her mother had been a prostitute!

  Adele had grown up familiar with the word ‘prostitute’, or its more commonly used version of ‘prozzie’, because there were so many around King’s Cross and Euston. Yet it wasn’t until she was about ten that she discovered exactly what they did. An older girl at school explained that they got money for letting men do the act to them that made babies. She said men were mad about making babies, but as their wives didn’t want lots and lots of them, they went to prostitutes instead.

  Adele had always been concerned as to where all the babies were kept as she never saw any of those women pushing prams. Now it seemed from what her dad had said that they went to the Foundling Home. But he had married Mum to prevent Adele going there too.

  Adele wasn’t sure whether she should consider herself lucky she escaped that fate, or not. As her mother claimed she’d spoiled her life, maybe she had liked being a prostitute?

  It seemed her parents had gone into the bedroom now, because although they were still shouting, she couldn’t make out what they were saying. But she could hear the Mannings downstairs banging on their ceiling with a broom handle because they were making so much noise.

  Then all at once there was an almighty crash from the kitchen. It sounded as though one of them had knocked all the saucepans off the shelf at once. Above it Mum was screaming at the top of her lungs.

  Instinctively Adele jumped out of bed and ran into the living room. But instead of finding Jim hitting Rose as she expected, Jim was cowering in the bedroom doorway, with blood running down his face. The saucepans were clearly Rose’s doing – they were all over the floor with some plates too, and she had the carving knife in her hand.

  Adele immediately knew that this was very different from the usual fights. She could see Jim’s fear and feel the real menace in the air. Rose was still yelling like a madwoman, quivering with rage, and she was poised to stab Jim again.

  ‘Stop it!’ Adele shouted.

  Rose wheeled round at the sound of her voice, and her face was utterly terrifying. Her eyes were almost popping out of her head, her mouth was all slack like a panting dog’s, and she was a strange purple colour.

  ‘Stop it?’ she shouted back, lifting the knife right up in her hand as if to stab anyone who came near her. ‘I haven’t even started yet.’

  ‘Someone will get the police,’ Adele pleaded fearfully.
‘We’ll get thrown out of here.’ She wondered if she dared run for the door and get out.

  ‘Do you think that bothers me?’ Rose snarled at her with bared teeth and flaring nostrils. ‘I hate this place, I hate London, and I hate both of you.’

  Adele had seen her mother angry hundreds of times, and usually it ended suddenly with her slumping down on to a chair sobbing her heart out. But she was different this time, she looked savage, almost as if she were possessed by some evil spirit. Adele was stricken with terror, instinct telling her that she was really dangerous.

  ‘You killed my Pammy,’ Rose yelled out, spitting with rage, her mouth all contorted. She lurched towards Adele in a curious ape-like manner with her shoulder hunched, the carving knife poised for a frenzied attack. ‘She was the only thing I loved and you killed her.’

  Adele was frozen with terror. Her mind said she must run, if not downstairs at least back to her bedroom, but all she could see was the glinting of the knife and her mother’s bared teeth, and she wet herself with fright.

  ‘You filthy little bitch!’ Rose shrieked, and catching hold of Adele’s hair with one hand, she raised the knife to plunge it down on her.

  ‘No, Rose!’ Jim shouted, and grabbed her wrist from behind.

  ‘Get off,’ Rose screamed, but Jim was shaking her wrist so violently that the knife was wobbling in her hand, less than an inch from Adele’s cheek, and Rose still had a firm grip of the child’s hair.

  Adele thought she was going to die any minute. She couldn’t get away, her mother’s breath was hot and rancid and her eyes were wild and rolling. She screamed out and at the same time tried to push Rose away. She felt the knife touch her cheek, then clatter to the floor.

  Jim was wrestling with Rose, desperately trying to drag her away from Adele, and as he pulled her back, a clump of Adele’s hair came out by the roots.

  ‘For fuck’s sake get out!’ Jim yelled, pinioning Rose’s arms behind her back.