The Twisted Way (10 page)

‘I can’t stay here any longer John. I’m becoming too fond of you and it isn’t professional or fair. I’m foolish, and I’m sorry …’ Tears welled up in her eyes and her breath caught in her throat. She emitted a loud sob. ‘I enjoy my job here with you and can’t imagine living anywhere else but it’s the only way forward.’

John was shaken, his normally confident voice deserted him and his cheeks became flushed. He stretched out a hand and gripped a chair in order to steady himself, then he opened his mouth to speak but could only produce a hoarse whisper.

‘Don’t leave me Janet. I need you.’ ‘Need is not enough,’ she responded with inordinate swiftness. Her usual placid features became puckered and twisted in an attempt not to break down. She moved away from him. Her heart thudded and thumped with rapid strokes in her chest and her breath deteriorated into short gasps.

‘Don’t go, Janet. There must be a way. James has left you and the letter you received indicated that he died in Cape Town. He was not right for you anyway. File for a divorce or a petition to have him declared dead as soon as you can. I love you Janet. I want to marry you one day when you’re free, that is if you will have me. We can wait, it will be worth it.’

He surprised himself with his offer of marriage but he now knew without any doubt that was what he wanted. He was a fool to deny himself the physical comfort and joy Janet could bring him and he longed for that, though he had tried to convince himself that he did not. His greatest fear was that she would want children and he didn’t think he could cope with the idea of Janet having a child and perhaps losing it. He knew it was stupid and something that may never happen. He told himself that perhaps he could overcome his fear in time but the memory of Pam and her unborn child still haunted him.

Janet was overwhelmed and moved towards John. He placed his arms firmly around her waist and pulled her to him. They kissed.

‘I can’t wait for years, John; I want to be with you now, to share our lives.’

‘Hush, Janet. We can continue our shared social life, and sleep together. It’s the fifties and things are more relaxed now. There are still a few old-fashioned strait-laced people in the village but the younger generation are seeking freedom from old Victorian constraints. We’ll have to be discreet but we can manage that.’

He undid her plait and stroked her dark hair with tender fingers. He touched the intriguing dimple on her face and ran his hands enthusiastically over her body, something that he had longed to do for so long, and was fired with feverish desire to possess her, urged on by the warm response he was receiving.

Thus began the regular routine of finishing their day’s work in either Primrose House or John’s home. More often than not they would go to Primrose House where Janet would cook them supper and they would spend an hour or two indulging in passionate sex in the large spare bedroom at the top of the house. Janet would make up the double bed ready for them with her best lavender-scented sheets. Her daily help did not go into that room; she assumed as it was kept locked it was only used for storage. It became their retreat until the day when Janet’s petition to have James declared dead became reality. After all, even in the days when sex outside marriage was still frowned upon by the older generation, and some of the younger strait-laced parents of their pupils, they had the excuse that they had work they needed to do together. They would lie entwined, naked and sated with their lovemaking, and plan their future.

Seven years after James departed from Enderly Janet and John were married in Everton Registry Office. James had been officially declared dead. It was common knowledge in the school, despite their efforts to keep their personal life secret, that they were lovers. Janet was popular with the staff and John, in spite of his aloof manner, was an admired and respected headmaster. Everybody wished them well.

Life for Janet was wonderful. She had made a few silly mistakes with her relationships in the past but this was not one of them. John had told her that he was not keen to have children but she hoped that he would change his mind. She longed for a baby but John’s happiness was the most important thing.

Felicity’s mother Anne Anderson was younger than her brother James. She was an insidious individual as a child 
but blossomed into an attractive teenager. She wasn’t very 
academic but when she was just fourteen she obtained a job as a trainee typist in a local accountant’s office near her home in South London.

‘It’s boring work,’ Anne complained bitterly to her parents. ‘The money’s not half bad though. One pound ten bob a week for typing a few letters and hanging about doing a bit of filing. I can’t complain, I suppose.’ She gave a pound to her father every pay day for her keep and enjoyed spending the rest on herself. It was pure luxury.

The ‘gang’ as they liked to refer to themselves, a group of her old school pals, met once a week in a local pub, some pretending they were older than they were, where they would order sherry or beer and boast about how much they could drink without feeling tipsy. Fortunately they were restricted by their lack of ready cash. A few illicit fags were also passed around. ‘We must be sociable, everybody smokes,’ was their excuse to justify the cheap Woodbines they coveted. All the film stars they watched in the small local ABC smoked and the cinema was always full of choking tobacco fumes. There were no objections or health warnings to deter them. It was the accepted norm.

‘Come on, have a puff, be sociable,’ was a favourite phrase. The outbreak of war with Germany in 1939 put an end to their innocent existence. Several of the boys who were eighteen rushed with a patriotic fervour to join the forces as soon as they could and one or two of the girls followed suit. They imagined it would be better than the dull life they endured at home. The rigid class system had kept many of them in their place for many years and this was an opportunity to break some of those unwelcome bonds. Service in big houses or working long hours as shop assistants were not things they wanted any more. Freedom, although dangerous, beckoned them and they were keen to taste it.

Anne was directed to work in a factory that made parachutes. ‘I must do my bit,’ she said but she found the work very dull. She was pleased to be able to make her underwear out of a few remnants of the silk but that was the only bonus.

‘It’s worse than office work,’ she told her father. ‘I wish I was old enough to join the forces. Another year and I will.’

‘Be thankful you are not old enough my girl,’ her father retorted. He had been a young conscript in the First World War, and was gassed before being invalided out of the army. That experience had dented any patriotic enthusiasm he once possessed. Shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War he contracted pneumonia which, because of the damage inflicted on his lungs earlier by mustard gas, ensured a swift demise. He had been an intelligent man who had attended the local county grammar school but his war-time injuries meant that he could only work part-time in a simple clerical job for most of his life and money was always in short supply.

James joined the navy as soon as he could in 1939 and Anne and their mother Jane rarely received any letters from him. He was intelligent like his father and had completed a degree course in History at London University, an achievement of which he was proud. He was going to make sure he obtained a better job than any his poor old dad had obtained.

‘I’ve been accepted for officer training,’ he told his parents with pride the last time he saw him and received the admiration and pat on the back for which he had hoped.

Anne coveted a job as a clippie on the London buses. There were plenty of vacancies now that the men had joined the forces, and, although too young, she lied about her age and was accepted for training. She had several boyfriends, one of whom was Richard Brown, a local boy she had met whilst still attending school in Putney, in South London.

On his first leave before being posted to France Richard made amorous advances towards Anne.

‘Sleep with me, Anne,’ he begged. ‘We may not get another chance – I’ll probably be killed in France like my uncles in the First World War. I don’t want to die a virgin.’

Anne considered that reasonable enough despite the warnings of her mother over the years.

‘Keep yourself for your husband, girl, nobody wants soiled goods! Dirty behaviour never pays.’

Silly old-fashioned ideas they were, Anne told herself, out of date and complete rubbish. She was jolly well going to please herself now and she did. Richard and Anne made love wherever they could when Richard was home on leave from his barracks only twenty miles away. After the death of his parents Richard lived with an elderly uncle whose greatest pleasure was to drink with his mates in the local pub, the Pig and Whistle, and they often had his uncle’s house to themselves in the evenings. German bombing raids and nights spent in uncle’s damp old Anderson shelter were not ideal but so long as they could indulge their passion they didn’t care. This arrangement came to an abrupt end when Richard was posted to France.

‘We’ll get married after the war, Anne,’ he promised. ‘I’ll keep you to that.’ She laughed and hugged him. She thought that she might marry him but was in no hurry to be tied down. She was far too young. Now, that young Canadian billeted with her father’s old aunt Gladys, he really was something. Oh well, as long as they were careful she thought she would not have any unwanted kids, and it would give her a chance to test the waters elsewhere.

The same arrangement of sleeping with a boyfriend was transferred to the young Canadian, Johnny. Old Aunt Gladys was often out visiting friends or sleeping in a neighbour’s Morrison shelter, which was convenient. In fact, Anne preferred Johnny in some ways, he was better in bed, and surprisingly handsome despite his plump build. He often seemed restless and unpredictable but she dismissed his behaviour as normal for a young man away from home and faced with the horrors of war. He was killed after a few months when his plane was shot down during the Battle of Britain.

A few weeks later Anne found she was pregnant and she knew that an illegal abortion would be a risky undertaking. She didn’t want some old backstreet crone helping her out for a few pounds. There was another way.

The next time Richard came home on leave she decided to tell him about the baby. ‘Richard, I’m pregnant,’ she said. ‘It’s your baby and it must have happened last time you came home on leave. I’m sorry, but you did say we would get married one day ... it will just be earlier than we had planned.’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘We’ll get married straight away, it’s not the best of times but we don’t want too much gossip, and whatever happens we will have done the honourable thing and won’t give the local old righteous busybodies too much to talk about over their garden fences. Our baby will be born in wedlock.’

The baby, Felicity, was born a few weeks later than expected but nobody in the family was any the wiser.

‘First babies are sometimes late,’ Anne said, assuming an innocent expression, and Richard believed her.

‘Looks like her dad,’ Anne lied. ‘Just the same shaped face, she will be a pretty little girl.’

Felicity looked very much like her mother, the same odd pale flecked blue eyes and fine curly fair hair. She was a problem child but Anne was convinced that if Felicity had not been so restless she could have been a high flyer instead.

Richard became suspicious but usually kept his doubts to himself.

‘I can’t believe I’ve spawned a child like Felicity,’ he said in an unguarded moment. ‘She’s an unsettled little girl, nobody in our family is like that.’

‘Nor in mine,’ Anne retorted. ‘It’s just one of those unlucky things. Of course she’s your daughter, there was nobody else. She must be a throwback, it does happen. Maggie who lives in the next street married a white American soldier last year and her baby is black. Her husband’s family traced the baby’s genes back three generations to when a great granddad had married a coloured girl.’

Anne’s heart beat furiously and she prayed that Richard would believe her. She thought sometimes about Johnny. He too had been ‘restless’ and it occurred to her that it might be hereditary, though she had never heard or read about such a condition.

Richard did not answer, at least their son who had been born the following year must be his; he had the same shaped ears as Richard, though both children had Anne’s tapir nose and odd blue eyes. He did not trust his wife, a feeling that grew and festered within him.

Felicity continued to be a difficult child. Anne was not lenient but became exhausted in her efforts to control her. In a later decade Felicity might have been diagnosed as hyperactive and suffering from an attention deficiency disorder and she would be offered medication or counselling. The theory that her condition could be hereditary would have been considered and her family helped to discover the best way to cope with their difficult daughter. Anne did not have the benefit of accurate assessment, helpful drugs, counselling or internet information to fall back on to help her child. She felt responsible, guilty and inadequate and often drank a swig of whisky or gin when she could afford it to drown her feelings of incompetence. Felicity continued to cause her parents much grief and her younger brother Ronald had a difficult time dealing with his sister’s behaviour. He was too young to understand, indeed nobody understood her behaviour and Felicity knew it. She could not control her mood swings and erratic actions but craved reassurance, love and help.

When Felicity was six years old Anne and her mother were killed in a car crash. Felicity and her younger brother Ronald were sent to live with Richard’s Aunt Dolly in Northumberland. Janet and James were asked if they would have one or other of the children occasionally to give Aunt Dolly a break. Janet was not really keen.

‘I will have them for a week or two during the school summer holidays Richard, but we are both working and can’t have them here for long.’

A week would be more than long enough, she decided. Richard was too eager to ditch his responsibilities.