Lonely Teardrops (2008) (41 page)

‘Can’t remember?’ Eileen screamed as she pummelled at his chest with her clenched fists. Joyce grabbed hold of her, anxious to calm the woman, and there was an undignified tussle between the pair of them as Eileen fought to reach Stan, sharp talons outstretched, eager to claw his eyes out for this apparent defection.

Joyce shouted at her, although words were having little effect. ‘Stop this, Eileen. Stop it at once! Stan is going, this very minute, to register the birth, naming ourselves, as a married couple, as the baby’s parents. Your name won’t even appear on the birth certificate. You will have no rights over her whatsoever.’

Eileen stopped crying upon the instant to stare at Joyce wide eyed with horror, and then she let out a high, piercing wail before putting her hands to her head and falling to her knees in fresh hysterics.

Even Joyce began to panic and, turning to Stan, ordered him to leave. ‘Quickly! For heaven’s sake go now! Get the child’s birth registered and leave this to me. I’ll give her something to calm her down, and make her sleep. Go on.
Go
!’

Stan didn’t hang around to argue. Enjoying a bit of fun with the woman was one thing, dealing with an hysterical female quite another matter entirely.

As he hurried out of the house, Eileen scrambled to her feet and ran after him, continuing to sob and rail, to scream and rage, but Joyce caught her at the door before she could escape. Once Stan had left, she gave her erstwhile friend a violent shake then slapped her sharply across the face, stunning her at last into silence.

‘Now listen to me, you little
whore
! Stan is
my
husband, understand? And this baby is
his
child. You are just some two-bit tart he happened to pick up and play with for a while. He’s a sailor, fighting a war. I don’t suppose you were the first girl in port he’s taken to his bed, and I very much doubt you’ll be the last, but that’s
my
problem. You should be deeply grateful that I didn’t chuck you out on the streets the first time you set your grubby little toes over my threshold.

‘I remember only too well that you and I used to be good friends, once upon a time. But then you invited me to that flipping party, one of your so-called mates raped me and my life was left in ruins, as you are only too aware. Your solution to this disaster was to steal my husband. So yes, Eileen dear, now
I
am going to steal your child, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do to stop me. I’ll swear in any court of law that she’s mine, that I was the one who gave birth.’

‘You’ll never get away with it,’ Eileen hissed. ‘They could examine you, prove you hadn’t given birth recently.’

‘Ah, but I have. I had a miscarriage just a few months ago if you recall. So how could they tell? And why would they even need to check? What makes better sense if I decided, having suffered those recent disappointments, that I take special care with this pregnancy and stay in bed throughout. You never saw a doctor, did you?’

Eileen shook her head, her expression dazed and bewildered. ‘You said not to. You didn’t want a scandal.’

‘Quite, nor are we going to have one now.’

‘But Rose was present at the birth. She’ll say what really happened.’

‘She’ll keep her mouth shut, if I tell her to do so. No one will question it, I do assure you. I shall take myself to bed now, to welcome visitors for my lying in, and
you
won’t even be here. We’ll see you’re well provided for, find you a room to rent somewhere, and give you a sum of money to tide you over. You can go and mess up some other woman’s life for all I care, but you’ll leave my husband alone. Got that? So don’t bother to try anything. The word of some jealous tart, who seduced my foolish husband and then complained when he abandoned her, isn’t going to be believed by anyone. They’d see you as a woman spurned, simply out for revenge.

‘And I would be very angry indeed if you did that, because it would ruin my good name, something I won’t tolerate at any price.’

‘I can’t stay here,’ Harriet railed, as the endless monotony continued day after day. ‘I won’t be locked up in my own bedroom for weeks or months on end. It’s ridiculous, impossible, totally unfair. I won’t put up with it.’

‘So what do you intend to do about it?’ Grant smirked, unmoved by her panic.

Harriet was making her feelings known as once more her half-brother presented her with breakfast on a tray. She’d quite lost track of time but she must have been locked up for over a week now, ten days or more? They went through this same routine every morning, the well guarded trip to the bathroom, the breakfast accompanied by the usual taunting and caustic remarks. Then the sound of the key in the lock as she’d be left alone for several more long and lonely hours.

 
‘I’ll climb out of the window and over the roof, if necessary.’
 

Grant laughed. ‘I’d like to see you try. You’d be smashed to smithereens in the back yard, which might save us all a lot of bother in the long run.’

As he set the tray down on her bedside table, Harriet made as if she were about to vomit. ‘Oh, God, I’m going to be sick.’

Harriet lurched towards him, as if she was about to throw up all over him, and Grant instinctively backed off. ‘Hey, don’t throw up over me. All right, all right, go on.’ Instinctively, he stepped out of her way to let her rush to the toilet, one hand clapped to her mouth.

But she didn’t go into the bathroom. Instead, Harriet ran to the stairs. She was almost half way down before Grant realised he’d been tricked. He rushed after her, crashing down the stairs in her wake, shouting for her to stop. Unfortunately, in her panic to escape, and encumbered by her pregnancy, Harriet lost her footing. With a cry of dismay she fell, tumbling down the last few stairs to lie unmoving at the bottom.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Harriet was lying on the old couch in the living room since Joyce had decided it would not be necessary to call out the doctor. The last thing she wanted was for Doc Mitchell to come poking his nose in where it wasn’t wanted. ‘You’ve given yourself a bit of a shake-up, but I reckon there’s no real harm done beyond this sprained ankle.’ She was wrapping the injured foot in a cold wet crepe bandage as she briskly issued these unsympathetic comments.
 

Harriet was crying, worried about her baby, but Joyce had little patience for tears.

‘Stop your snivelling, crying won’t do no good. What were you doing, letting her run down the stairs?’ she accused her son. ‘You couldn’t have been keeping a proper eye on her.’

‘She was about to puke all over me,’ Grant informed his mother in injured tones.

‘Oh, for goodness sake, give me strength. Why am I surrounded by fools and idiots? It was a trick, you moron.’

Grant looked suitably contrite, as he always did when his mother was berating him. ‘I’ll take her back upstairs then, shall I?’

‘No! I’m not going,’ Harriet cried. ‘I absolutely refuse.’ She intended to resist to her very last breath rather than spend her days incarcerated in that room. ‘Look, you and I both know this isn’t an argument about an illegitimate baby. This is about something which happened in the past, something that doesn’t even concern me, except that maybe I’m a pawn in some stupid game or other. Did you agree to keep me out of some twisted need for revenge against this girl Dad got pregnant? If so, then I refuse to be a part of it. I have the right to live my own life, not to be manipulated by you any longer. You don’t give a toss about me, or my child. You never have.’

‘I care about my reputation.’

‘True, I accept that, and I don’t want any trouble, or scandal, any more than you do. If I promise not to do a runner, to stay in the house, will you at least leave the bedroom door unlocked?’

Joyce snorted her derision at the idea. ‘How could I trust you? You’ve run away once, and could again. Besides, folk come in and out of here all the time. It’s a hairdressing salon, for God’s sake! They’d be sure to realise someone was walking around in the flat upstairs and that it’s likely to be you, even if your grandmother weren’t blabbing her mouth off all over the place.’

‘But there has to be a better way to deal with this.’

Joyce sank into the chair opposite with a weary sigh. Harriet had never seen her look so worn out, haggard almost, with bags under her eyes. ‘Such as what? There’s only one solution. This child must be adopted. On no account will I have it here.’

Harriet lifted her chin and there was a firmness in her tone. ‘I’ve already told you a thousand times that I’m keeping it. I’m not sure how I’ll manage, but I’ll work something out when the time comes. I’m sorry if my condition causes you embarrassment, but there’s nothing I can do about that but agree to stay in the house. If that doesn’t suit, don’t you have any relatives who could hide me away for the next two or three months?’

After several moments of consideration, Joyce said, ‘I could speak to Father Dimmock, ask him to recommend a Mother and Baby Home. If you won’t stay quietly here, then that seems the best solution.’

‘Nay,’ Rose interjected, unable to keep quiet any longer. ‘You mustn’t put her in one of them places. They’re wicked! Look what they did to young Dena Dobson, and little Trudy, and that lot were Methodists. The nuns are much worse. We must steer well clear of them.’

Joyce got to her feet, key in hand. ‘You either stay in that room, or go into a home where at least you’d have some company. Or I might just send you into a Home for Wayward Girls instead, which might never let you out. It’s what you deserve. The choice is yours. Either way, you’re not foisting that bastard child on me.’

Harriet put her head in her hands and wept.

Once his leave was over, Stan was back on board ship, bound for South Africa. They both knew that he was in for the long haul this time. Stan didn’t expect to be home for months, possibly years. But they felt strangely reconciled, closer than they had been throughout their marriage, and united in their decision to keep Harriet.

It was a better outcome than Joyce could ever have dreamed of.

After he’d gone, she wasted no time in seeing her husband’s mistress off the premises. Within days of his departure, she packed Eileen’s suitcase and pushed the girl, still weeping, out the door. Eileen did what she could to resist. She clung to the doorjamb with her fingers, desperately trying to fight off Joyce’s hands, which held her in a vicious grip. But she’d only recently given birth and Joyce was both taller and stronger than she at the best of times. Eileen lost her footing and fell sprawling in the gutter.

Joyce smirked. ‘And that’s exactly where you belong.’ Then she tossed out a brown leather suitcase and the girl’s coat. The suitcase burst open, spilling clothes everywhere. Eileen ignored it as she dragged herself to her feet, rubbing the blood from two cut knees.

Joyce was unmoved by her plight, too busy issuing yet another stern warning for her to keep her mouth shut if she knew what was good for her. ‘You should be grateful that we’re prepared to give this illegitimate child a decent home. Now go on, be off with you. You’re free as air, so take your money and go find yourself some other paramour.’

‘I’ll see you in hell before I let you keep her,’ Eileen hissed through gritted teeth.

Joyce laughed, as if she’d said something highly amusing. ‘I reckon I’ve already been to hell and back, with clogs on, thanks to you. Now I’m just fine and dandy and laughing all the way to paradise.’

‘Where’s she off to?’ Rose asked, rushing over when she spotted a plump and breathless Eileen chasing her belongings all over the cobbles. She watched in horror as she snatched them up to stuff them anyhow into a brown suitcase while Joyce tossed out yet more bags and baggage onto the pavement.

Rose was well aware of the rows that had been going on in the house over the past few days, but hadn’t paid too much attention to the details. Generally she managed to keep her nose out of it by electing instead to take refuge at the Edinburgh Castle pub with her mates. There was only so much she could take of her daughter’s temper.

Now Joyce was smiling, not out of joy but with a kind of warped triumph.

‘Eileen has decided to go and live with relatives, haven’t you dear?’

Her unfortunate friend made no reply as she pulled on her coat and began to button it with frantic fingers against a biting wind. She merely looked over at Rose with a plea for pity out of eyes puffy and swollen from copious weeping.

‘And where’s the babby?’ Rose asked her daughter. She was beginning to get an inkling of what was going on and didn’t much care for her suspicions.

‘Harriet is staying here. She belongs to Stan, don’t forget. And now to me too.’

Eileen stood frozen and forlorn on the pavement, her head in her hands, and began to sob as if her heart was breaking. ‘I never meant this to happen, Joyce. You have to believe me. Stan thought we’d just have a bit of fun to make you jealous, to make you sorry for not being honest with him about Grant. Then I fell in love. I couldn’t help it, he’s lovely is your Stan. He was so kind to me. No man has ever been so kind.’

‘I’m not interested in your sob story, just get out of my sight.’ Joyce tossed out a brown paper carrier bag full of clothes which rolled into a puddle. ‘And don’t think I’ll soften, or change my mind and take you back, because I won’t. You’ve got money in your pocket, and somewhere to stay, that’s all I’m prepared to do for you. It’s more than generous considering you’ve stolen my husband.’