Lonely Teardrops (2008) (37 page)

Following the humiliation of the little scene back at the hotel, she’d simply grabbed her coat and run out into the night. Harriet could see that it had been a very foolish thing to do. She hadn’t even remembered to pack her things, or pick up her purse. So here she was with no money, no bed for the night, and nowhere to go.

She was also pregnant with Vinny’s child, and he hadn’t moved a muscle to prevent her frantic departure. There clearly wasn’t going to be any Register Office wedding, so being lost seemed of small concern by comparison.

Harriet had never felt so low in all her life. There didn’t seem to be any way forward, no future she could bear to contemplate. When Nan had made that blunt announcement on the day of her lovely dad’s funeral, her security had vanished forever. She’d felt then as if she were hanging over a cliff. Now she’d fallen into a raging sea that had tossed her about as if she were no more than a piece of flotsam, and Harriet knew she didn’t have the energy, or the will-power, to climb out of it.

Where was the point? Her father was dead. The mother she’d accepted and loved all her life despite Joyce’s inability to show any affection, was not, in fact, her mother at all. Steve, the boy she’d loved with all her heart, had turned from her when she’d needed him most. And now she’d lost Vinny.

It came to Harriet then, in a moment of unexpected clarity, that her relationship with Vinny had been pure fantasy, a bit of fun, yes, as she’d first claimed it to be, but nothing more. She’d run away with him out of desperation, fallen in love with an image that she had created, and not with the real Vinny Turner at all. Perhaps her naivety had been brought about by a desperation to prove something to herself: that she was still attractive, or that someone at least wanted her.

But it had all been a complete fantasy. Vinny didn’t love her at all, except in Harriet’s own imagination. All Vinny loved was himself, and the dratted grass he smoked. Nobody, in fact, loved her. Not a single soul, save for Nan, cared if she even lived or died. And she couldn’t for shame face her lovely grandmother. She’d lost everything that mattered, even her own self respect.

Harriet walked on, dazed with pain, found the dock gates quite by accident, but they were locked fast. How had she got in? She couldn’t remember. She didn’t even know if the hotel was nearby or miles away, and she hadn’t the first idea how to retrace her steps. Moments later, she found herself walking over a bridge. She paused to look down into the smoothly flowing black water beneath, visible only by the light of a thin sliver of moon. She stared into its velvety blackness and longed to sink into it, ached for oblivion to put an end to this pain that was tearing the heart out of her.

What a mess she’d made of her life. When Joyce had thrown her out, she should have done something sensible with the twenty-five pounds she’d given her. She should have got herself a proper job. The money would have paid for respectable lodgings for several weeks. Instead, she’d wasted it all on fish and chips and beer for that stupid rock group who spent money without any thought for the future.

She should be thinking of her own future now. Hers and the baby’s. But she didn’t seem to have one. She was nearly five months pregnant yet wasn’t fit to be a mother. And how could she bring it up on her own with no home, no job, no father, and no one to help her? Oblivion, that was what she craved. An end to this pain. Dry eyed, Harriet began to climb on to the parapet of the bridge.

‘Nay, Joyce love, it’s not that easy,’ Joe informed Joyce with a sad shake of his head when she put this point to him over her usual rum and coke later that evening. ‘I can’t just abandon the biscuit business we’ve built up together over the years. It would be difficult to separate which bit was hers, and which mine, if you catch my drift?’

‘It seems perfectly obvious to me. You keep the biscuit stall and leave Irma her cake making business.’

‘Nay, it’s not that simple. She needs me to drive the van, for deliveries. And I need her to do the accounts.’

Joyce silently ground her teeth then tucked her arm into his, smiling winningly up at him. ‘You could always sell the lot to those developers. I could sell them my property too. Then you and I could take off into the wide blue yonder, go somewhere new, do something entirely different. We could start afresh, just the two of us. Maybe Australia, or Canada. Plenty of people are emigrating in search of a better life. Why don’t we join them?’
 

Joe felt a wave of panic. This was the craziest idea she’d come up with yet, and some of them had been pretty daft, like him moving in above the hair salon with Rose and Grant. But what on earth had made her dream up this daft notion? It was totally unexpected and scared the pants off him. He could see the light of excitement in her eyes, and did his best to calm her down before it all got quite out of hand.

‘Eeh, Joyce love, I don’t know about that. It’s a long way from Champion Street is Australia. Anyroad, selling the business would be letting everyone down. And what about Rose, your mam? I thought she owned the shop, not you. If so, she’d never agree.’

‘Her health is pretty shaky, and those stairs are hard on her bad leg. I could persuade her.’

‘I very much doubt it. Rose is fighting as hard as anyone to save this market, mounting a substantial battle against them developers. Even now she’s in the process of organising a special meeting between the market committee and the city council members, politicians and the like. She’s insisting if they make us close down and move out, it’s their responsibility to find us an alternative location. She’s a little demon, your mam, when she gets going. I’ve seen her make them councillors tremble. How could we fly in the face of all her efforts and just sell up, take the money and run? It would be criminal. Wicked!’

‘It would be plain common sense.’

‘And how would Irma manage? Our pension is tied up in that biscuit business. I couldn’t just abandon her. She is still me wife, after all.’

This wasn’t at all the answer Joyce had hoped for. ‘So what you’re saying is that, given the choice between the two of us, you choose Irma. Is that the way of it?’

‘There’s no need to put it quite so bluntly,’ Joe demurred, fidgeting with discomfort. ‘You and me can still - you know - be friends, like.’

‘You mean you can still come and visit my bed whenever the fancy takes you to enjoy my ‘favours’, without taking any responsibility for my respectability, my good name. Or even my happiness?’

‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that.’

‘I’m sure you wouldn’t.’ Joyce had had enough. She got unsteadily to her feet, drunk on the pain of broken dreams rather than the single rum and coke she’d enjoyed. She looked at the second one which Joe had placed before her, and she smiled at him, a bitter, hard mockery of a smile, one that had frequently brought a chill to her husband’s heart. ‘It’s your decision, Joe, one you might well live to regret,’ then she picked up the glass and upended the contents over his head. She didn’t even glance back to enjoy the uproar she created in the pub as she walked away.

The day that Shelley brought Harriet home to Champion Street, pregnant and still unmarried, was a day which would live forever in her mind. Harriet needed only to glance into her stepmother’s dark, forbidding gaze to appreciate how badly she’d transgressed. Joyce would never forgive her for bringing such shame upon the family. Harriet knew she should be filled with guilt, but she felt nothing.

Since her friend had found her climbing on to the parapet of that bridge, and had come screaming towards her in a welter of panic and self-recrimination, she’d felt numb inside. Nothing seemed quite real.

In a strange way, despite it being Shelley’s own actions which had led to that reckless act, Harriet had welcomed her intervention, experienced a strange feeling of relief as she’d gently been urged back on to solid ground. Harriet had offered no resistance, allowing her friend to quietly lead her from the bridge, answering her questions about her home address in a monotone, without thought or question.

It hadn’t seemed the moment for blame, to point out that had Shelley not attempted to muscle in upon her relationship with Vinny then she might never have run, or threatened to seek oblivion in the murky waters of the Ship Canal.

Now Harriet couldn’t believe she was back home in the salon. But neither did she feel in any position to judge whether it was the right thing for Shelley to have brought her here. She simply felt grateful she was still alive, and deeply ashamed of her own momentary weakness which had led her to do such a stupid thing. What on earth had come over her? How dare she be so selfish when she was carrying this precious child?

Harriet looked at her stepmother and wondered what would happen next. Merely the way Joyce flew to bolt the door behind her and ordered her straight upstairs said everything. The disgrace of her condition must be hushed up, hidden away from prying eyes and market gossip. Her first words made that very clear.

‘Upstairs, and don’t go anywhere the window. I’ll speak to your friend down here, then I’ll be right up.’ It sounded more like a threat than a welcome.

Harriet knew it was a mistake to argue yet she did so. ‘I want to see Nan.’

Instinct led her straight to her grandmother. As she entered the old woman’s bedroom at the back of the shop, Harriet was shocked and alarmed by the sight of her grandmother, looking even more frail than the last time she’d seen her. Despite her indomitable spirit, she seemed to have grown old suddenly.
 

Harriet felt shame and anguish for having neglected her for so long. And why? For what reason? Was it as a result of shame, or misplaced pride? She could see that Rose was equally shocked by her own appearance, clearly having been unaware of her condition. Even so, Harriet ran straight into her arms.

‘There, there, lass, don’t fret. You’re safe and sound now. Nan won’t let owt bad happen to you,’ and as her grandmother pressed her close against the cushion of her uncorseted breast, Harriet felt she was home at last, and let the tears come.

‘Did anyone see you arrive?’ Joyce fired the question at Harriet the moment she entered the room. Harriet shook her head.

‘Not that I’m aware of. I made sure all the customers had left the salon before we came in.’

‘Well, you showed some common sense there, at least. But if you think I’m going to allow you to set foot outside this house looking like that, you’ve got another think coming.’

Arms folded, pencilled brows almost meeting in a deep, censorious frown, small mouth drawn into a thin tight line, Joyce glared at her stepdaughter. She felt deeply disappointed and let down, furious that the girl should be so stupid as to get herself into this shameful condition. Her wanton behaviour was quite beyond belief. Joyce refused to see the situation as a youthful act of rebellion, a consequence of the long-standing war between them. She saw Harriet’s pregnancy as evidence of the girl’s wickedness, not a desperate need to find love. Didn’t this prove that she had bad blood in her veins?

Harriet found Joyce’s disapproving scrutiny unnerving, quenching any lingering remnants of rebellion, but said nothing as she sat in the shelter of her grandmother’s embrace. Nor did Joyce speak, as she restlessly paced to and fro, practically wringing her hands in anguish. After watching her stepmother take several more turns about the room, still cluttered with Joyce’s personal belongings, Harriet could stand the ominous silence no longer.

‘Look, I’ll go. I’ll not stay where I’m not wanted. I’ve no wish to cause you any further embarrassment.’

Rose protested. ‘You’ll stop here where you belong. This is still your home. It is as long as I’m alive and own the deeds to this property.’

Joyce now directed her glare towards her mother, but her mind was whirling, thinking fast, considering ways to save her own good name and respectability. Perhaps she could put Harriet in a home for wayward girls. Did they still exist, she wondered? It was a pity they didn’t have a maiden aunt in some far-flung rural backwater where the girl could wait out her time and then have the baby adopted without a soul being any the wiser. Unfortunately Joyce had no aunts, maiden or otherwise, no family but Rose, who wasn’t the slightest use. But then the answer came to her, clear and simple.

Fortunately, Irma was no longer residing in Harriet’s old room. Having achieved a satisfactory improvement in Rose’s condition, the other woman had thankfully packed her bags and moved back home, much to Joyce’s relief. And for once Joyce felt equally relieved that she had in fact failed to persuade Joe to move in, despite all her best efforts, for in the circumstances that would have been a total disaster. Discretion was now vital.

Joyce folded her arms. ‘Right, we’ll talk more about this in the morning. Meanwhile, you’d best get some sleep.’

Harriet kissed her grandmother a fond goodnight, then wearily climbed the stairs to her old attic bedroom. It felt strange, as if she were stepping back in time. She had a sudden longing to be with Vinny, to feel his arms round her, welcoming and loving.

Joyce fetched a pile of clean linen, dumped it on the bed and told Harriet to make it up. ‘You stop in here, away from prying eyes till you’re fit to be seen.’

Harriet frowned, feeling a sharp pang of concern. ‘What do you mean ‘fit to be seen’? I’m only six months gone. I can’t stay in my bedroom for three whole months!’

‘You can and you will.’