Forgive Me (49 page)

At a charity shop she found a small black
suitcase with wheels for just £2 and packed everything into it.

Finally, she just needed to buy some shoes.
She chose trainers, after noticing that was the only thing anyone of Freya’s age
was wearing, and bought size four – that was what she wore, and the chances were her
sister had the same size feet.

Then, pulling the suitcase along behind her
with her own bag over the handles, she walked to the hospital.

It was scary that she’d written out
cheques for nearly £200. The money she’d got from her mother was nearly all gone
now, and she had to find the payments for the £1,000 loan she’d got for the
central heating and new bathroom. She had no money coming in, but the bank did know
about the fire now. She supposed they’d let her be overdrawn until the insurance
for the house paid out.

Besides, Freya’s need was greater than
hers – and she knew what it was like to lose all her clothes.

Freya was sitting up in bed reading a
magazine. She was still wearing a hospital nightgown, but she’d washed her hair
and it was fluffed out around her face making her look a great deal prettier.

‘I’m sorry I was nasty
yesterday,’ she blurted out, looking embarrassed.

‘That’s OK,’ Eva said.
‘It must have given you quite a shock, me turning up out of the blue.’

‘Yes. And you look so nice and you
speak so posh,’ she said. ‘People like you don’t usually speak to me,
so I said stuff that was just in my head.’

‘You are going to look nice soon
too,’ Eva said. ‘I’ve bought you some new clothes and packed them all
in this case so nothing gets lost. Would you like to see them?’

Freya’s face tightened. ‘You
didn’t have to do that,’ she said.

Eva realized that Freya didn’t like to
be thought of as a charity case, so she tucked the suitcase beneath the bed. ‘No,
I didn’t have to, but I wanted to. I’ll leave them for you to look at later.
I hope they are the right size, but the receipts are in the case. You can change them,
if they’re wrong.’

The start of the visit wasn’t much
better than the one on the previous day. Eva was at a loss what to say to the girl. When
she said anything about her own life, she felt she sounded smug. And yet when she asked
Freya any questions, the girl’s face tightened again as if she thought Eva was
prying.

‘Will you tell me about our
mother?’ she asked after a somewhat stilted conversation about the television
programmes they liked.

‘What’s to tell? Mam never stood a
chance – her mam was a drunk, and so was her da. And one minute they were skelping her
backside and the next sending her off to chaff.’

Eva didn’t understand; she had to ask
what those words meant. ‘Skelping’ meant slapping and ‘chaff’
meant stealing, Freya told her.

‘They took Mam’s other bairns
away cos she didn’t care for them right. But then when she met our da, I think she
settled down a bit – well, she always said she did. But then when you was stolen, she
went right off the rails again. Da loved her, you know. He used to say, “Freya, I
wish I could walk away from her, but I can’t, she’s only got to flash those
lovely eyes at me and I forgive her.”’

‘Did she look after you properly when
you were a baby?’

‘Well, me da said she tried. He was
staying with her then, that’s why they never took me away from her too. But when I
was about four she met some new bloke and she was up and off with her old tricks and
chucked Da out. He did his best for me, the only one that ever did. See, everyone but Da
thought she’d killed you. He always stuck up for her. I know she weren’t a
good mam, but with everyone whispering about her all the time, that got her down and
she’d turn to the drink.’

Freya had painted an even uglier picture
than Eva had imagined. But she was touched that Freya seemed to understand why their
mother was like she was.

‘Did she ever tell you how she felt
about losing me?’ Eva so much wanted to hear that Sue Carling had normal maternal
feelings.

‘She was always goin’ on about
folk believing she’d killed you. Every time she got drunk she’d bring that
up. “As if I could do that,” she’d say. But she knew she were a bad
mam. She said she couldn’t help it cos no one had ever taught her
how to be a good one. She used to talk about how she thought your life was.
She’d show me pictures in magazines of rich people’s houses and say she knew
you lived somewhere like that. I think that’s the way she made it alright in her
head, like she gave you away to a nice woman with lots of money. Was your mam
nice?’

‘Yes, she was,’ Eva said.
‘She was wrong to do what she did, and she had to live with the guilt of it. But
she loved me and I loved her.’

‘Then you was bloody lucky,’
Freya said, her mouth turning down. ‘It’s like one of those kids’
storybooks where one gets brought up like a princess and the other in a slum.’

‘Not quite, Freya. My life
hasn’t been a bed of roses either.’ Eva felt she had to drive that point
home. ‘Flora committed suicide, and my stepfather, brother and sister have all
turned against me. But one thing I’ve learned is that you have to live with the
cards you’ve been dealt, and make something out of that.’

‘You tell me what I can make with my
cards,’ Freya said.

‘I don’t know you well enough
yet,’ Eva said. ‘But I’m sure there is something you are good at that
you can use. Now, will you me tell about our dad?’

Freya’s face softened then. ‘He
was that handsome, lovely thick hair and eyes like ours. He could’ve had his pick
of women really. He wasn’t too tall, but big muscles and very strong. He liked to
go walking up on the fells, he knew the names of all the birds, and he liked animals
an’ all. He used to take me up there with him. When I was little he used to carry
me on his shoulders and sing to me as we walked. That’s how I knew that old house
was there, where the police found me. I had a couple of pictures of him that I took up
there with me. Maybe when I get out of here I’ll go up and see if they are still
there.’

‘He sounds lovely,’ Eva replied.
‘I’m sorry I won’t ever get to know him. The man I thought was my
father turned out to be a real snake.’

It was only at that point that Freya began
to look interested, so Eva told her about finding Flora dead in the bath. ‘She did
it on what was my real twenty-first birthday. But now I know her whole story and how
that man was with her, I understand why she felt she couldn’t go on. He told me he
wasn’t my father just a week after she died. He couldn’t wait to get me out
of the house. I hate him now.’

‘I don’t hate our mam,’
Freya volunteered. ‘She was useless, selfish and weak, but when she weren’t
drinking and that, she could be right funny. Sister, the big lady with the red face, she
said to me last night. ‘Now look here, Freya, you can lie here and feel sorry for
yourself if you like, and nothing will change for you. But if you put on a brave face,
let the social worker find you a new home and a job, you could do well.’

Eva had to smile, as Freya had copied the
sister’s way of speaking exactly. ‘And what did you think of
that?’

‘She were right. Now I know Mam
didn’t kill you and bury you out on the fells, I can put two fingers up to all
them what said she did. I’ll be OK, I’ll get them to stick me on some
training course, or whatever. I reckon I’m more like me dad than me mam. I can
stick at things.’

‘You are a brave girl,’ Eva
said. Tears came into her eyes, because she knew she could never be that stoic.

‘Don’t you start crying over
me,’ Freya said sharply. ‘A year from now I’ll be doing alright. I can
promise you that.’

‘Is that a firm promise?’ Eva
asked. She couldn’t look after this girl – and what’s more, she realized
Freya wouldn’t want her to. To make some sort of pledge that they’d look
each other up a year from now seemed the ideal solution.

‘Yeah, OK. But you’ve got to
promise me you’ll stop harping on about the past and make a future for yourself
too. We ain’t so different, Eva, even if you do speak posh and wear nice
clothes.’

Eva wrote down her address and telephone
number, and also took out twenty pounds from her purse. ‘That’s just so
you’ve got a little something to fall back on until they arrange benefits for you.
I wish I could give you a bit more, but that’s all I’ve got. Let me know how
you get on and your address once you’re settled.’

Freya looked hard at her and smirked.
‘You’re a bit of an old woman,’ she said. ‘I don’t mean
that nasty, like, cos you’ve been right kind coming here and getting me clothes
and stuff. But I don’t need another mam. And from what you’ve told me about
your’n, you don’t neither.’

Eva put her arms around Freya then and
hugged her tightly. She was so thin, she felt like a child, and that brought more tears
to her eyes. ‘Get well soon, and be good,’ she said. ‘Old woman or
not, I’m pleased to be your sister.’

She had to break away then, hurrying down
the ward and struggling not to break down. When she got to the ward door, she glanced
back and saw Freya was already out of bed and opening the case of clothes.

March 1992

Eva came out of Holland Park tube station
deep in gloomy thoughts. Not only had she had an awful row this morning with Phil, but
it was the 29th of March, the first anniversary of the day Flora died. She’d been
having flashbacks about it all day. She wondered whether Sophie and Ben were thinking
about it too, and what their reactions had been to the copies of Flora’s statement
she’d sent them a couple of weeks ago.

But the way she felt today was not just a
one-off mood, brought about by the row or the anniversary. Since Christmas she’d
felt herself gradually sinking deeper into a black hole of depression, and she
couldn’t find a way of climbing out of it.

She had tried to pull herself together,
asked herself a thousand times what she had to be depressed about. She wasn’t
broke, homeless, sick or hungry. She had people who cared about her, and Phil would
probably lay down his life for her. But telling herself these things didn’t make
her feel any better. She might be able to function adequately on a day-to-day basis –
indeed, at work no one even realized there was anything wrong. But she knew there was,
and she was scared it would escalate into something much worse.

Looking back she could see it was the fire
that started the ball rolling. What with the revelations from Flora, and the police
unable to prove it was Andrew, she was left feeling shaky.

On top of that, after returning from her trip
to Carlisle last autumn she had been left with anxiety about Freya. She had waited in
vain for a phone call or letter from her, telling her where she was and what she was
doing, but there was nothing. As she had no idea how to contact Freya, all she could do
was just wait and hope she would surface again.

Phil was not all that sympathetic; he took
the line that it was probably for the best. He felt that Freya was too damaged to value
a relationship with the sister who she possibly felt had ruined her own life. Although
that might be the case, Eva still couldn’t help feeling hurt and disappointed.

Fortunately Horace, the owner of Serendipity
– the shop she’d just started working at before the fire – rang her around the
same time to say her job was still open for her if she wanted to come back. She had
accepted gratefully; aside from desperately needing to earn some money, she needed
something to divert her.

It felt good to be back at work, and it
lifted her spirits to be part of a friendly team. There was exciting new stock coming in
daily for Christmas, and each day the shop became busier, leaving her little time for
dwelling on unresolved problems.

Soon after starting back at Serendipity she
also got the go-ahead from the insurance company to renovate the house in Pottery Lane.
Phil took over as project manager, getting Patrick’s architect friend to draw up
plans, and took on builders he knew to do the work.

All through November and December she and
Phil saw far less of each other: she was working more hours in the run-up to Christmas,
Phil had his own work, and in the evenings and weekends he helped out at Pottery
Lane.

She had sent off a copy of the statement to
Gregor, and
he’d rung her as soon as he’d read it. Like
Patrick he had found it very upsetting, especially the revelation that Flora had been
pregnant by him and had later miscarried without ever telling him.

‘I would’ve made sure she had
the best of care,’ he said, his voice breaking. ‘Maybe she would still have
lost the baby, but at least I would’ve been there to comfort her.’

Eva didn’t really know what to say; to
bring up that Flora had withdrawn into herself when she lost Patrick’s baby too,
seemed like rubbing salt in the wound.

‘If only I hadn’t gone off after
the Christmas party,’ he admitted. ‘If I’d stayed, she might have told
me about it. And even if she hadn’t, I might have realized something was badly
wrong and got her some help. I can’t bear to think she spent the rest of her life
being blackmailed into subservience. I know taking you was wrong, but she didn’t
deserve such a terrible punishment.’

Eva felt very sorry for Gregor, yet at the
same time she began to feel resentment that Gregor and Patrick seemed to be centring on
their part in the story and forgetting about what it had done to her. When she brought
this up with Phil one night it caused their first real row.

‘How can you even think that?’
he said. ‘Both of them really care about you, they would gladly have accepted you
as their daughter, and they both feel for you. Of course they talk about their part in
it, that’s just human nature.’

‘Don’t take that line with
me,’ she said angrily. ‘I was only trying to explain how I felt. I’ve
lost my entire family through this, but it couldn’t be helped that Flora
miscarried.’