That'll Be the Day (2007) (26 page)

Lynda bit back a protest and watched in horror as, one by one, he did the same with the rest of the eggs until he’d cracked and dropped the entire dozen.

‘See how clumsy I am? Just a helpless male. Now you’re going to have to find time to go out and buy some fresh so’s you can make my brekkers. I’d like scrambled eggs on toast this morning, if you please, so buy some fresh bread while you’re at it. This heel of crust isn’t fit for the mice to eat.’

No, Lynda thought, but it would certainly suit a rat like you. But she said nothing. She went out and bought the bread and another dozen eggs and did exactly as she was told. What other choice did she have?

It was all too evident that she was slipping more and more under Ewan’s control and instinct warned her that she could end up like poor Judy, all pathetic and downtrodden, yet she felt helpless to protest.

No one could accuse Ewan Hemley of being the clean and tidy sort yet he would make her polish the linoleum every single day, then walk all over it in his filthy boots and make her do it again. The windows too had to be washed daily instead of their usual once a week wipe, and the doorstep scrubbed and rubbed with donkey stone. Then she had to clean out the fire grate and fill all the coal buckets, sweep and clean and polish. Ewan was pitiless, constantly thinking up other chores for her to do, or making her repeat the ones she’d already done.

By the time Lynda got round to helping her mother to wash and dress, she’d be shaking with nerves and close to exhaustion before even the day had begun. Yet she learned to grit her teeth and bear these humiliations in silence, carrying out his every bidding without complaint. How was it possible for her to do otherwise?

Much as she might wish to resist Ewan’s bullying there seemed no alternative but to do his every bidding, otherwise he would take his ill temper out on Betty. A risk she dare not take.

Lynda hadn’t the first idea how to cope: how to protect her mother, how to find her brother, how to keep the flower stall going on her own, and most important of all how to manoeuvre Ewan Hemley out of their lives. Her situation seemed impossible and her sense of insecurity worse than ever.

And as if all that wasn’t enough to worry about, she was missing Terry badly. Once it had seemed as if her dream of finding a man to love was coming true but how could she risk taking up with him again until she’d resolved the problem of Ewan?

It didn’t help that she saw Terry regularly around the market, so near and yet so far. She longed to run up to him, to throw herself into his arms and tell him that she was wrong, that she couldn’t live without him. But always she managed to restrain herself at the last moment, to lift her chin high and walk away.

 
Yet sitting at home every night was far too depressing. At least Ewan was usually out at the pub but Lynda felt far too young to bury herself in her parents’ misery.

Even Betty saw that. ‘You don’t have to stop in for me.’

‘I don’t like to leave you.’

‘Nay, I’ll be fine here by the fire with Queenie and me
Woman’s Weekly
. And
Dick Barton’s
on in a minute. Go on, you get out and enjoy yourself, chuck.’

‘All right, I’ll just pop out for an hour or so, see how Jude is getting on.’

‘Give the lass my love and tell her to take good care of them babbies.’

‘I will.’

Lynda went round to see Judy and the two girls spent the evening offering pathetic words of comfort to each other.

‘Have you been to see a solicitor?’

‘Not yet.’

‘You should.’

‘And you should go out more,’ Judy told her. ‘Sitting at home brooding over Terry isn’t going to help. Why did you finish with him, anyway? I thought you and he were, you know, like that?’ She wound two fingers together and smiled.

Lynda shrugged her shoulders and fussed with her auburn curls while carefully avoiding her friend’s penetrating gaze. ‘Oh, you know me. Can’t be satisfied for more than five minutes with a bloke. Who knows, a Tab Hunter lookalike might come strolling over the horizon any minute. I wouldn’t want to miss that, now would I?’

But Judy did have a point. Lynda was desperate for some fun in her life, something to make her feel alive again.

The next day she sauntered around the market and let drop the hint that she was fancy free again, and was instantly asked for a date by Kevin Ramsay. The day after that she accepted an invitation from one of the Bertalone boys, and so it went on. Every night a different man. It wasn’t that Lynda particularly liked any of them, or was even enjoying herself, but she would laugh at their jokes, smile and sparkle and give every impression of having a good time even when she wasn’t.

Knowing smiles were exchanged among her neighbours, heads shaken and lips pursed. Lynda was back to her bad old ways of man hunting, of shallow pretence and teasing flirtations, except that this time there was absolutely no hanky-panky of any sort. Her heart was still with Terry.

And then just when she thought things couldn’t possible get any worse, one night, with her mother asleep in the bed downstairs, Ewan came to her room.

Lynda was horrified. She’d been reading in bed when he’d walked in, and she instinctively shrank away from him as he approached. He’d never behaved towards her as a real father should and now, whenever he came near, she went all cold and shaky inside.

‘You’re a right bonny lass,’ he said, sitting on the edge of the bed. ‘But then you always were,’ and he began to stroke her hair, tracing his fingers over each cheek, her nose, each eyelid, as if exploring her face in painstaking detail.

Then he let his gaze travel downwards over the rise and fall of her breast and Lynda stifled a shiver of disquiet. This couldn’t be right. Was this what loving fathers did? She was wearing her only baby-doll nightdress and felt oddly exposed beneath his gaze. She drew the sheet closer to her chin. He was staring at her in a fixed sort of way, a strange glitter in his eye as he grazed a hand over the swell of her breast and stomach, causing her to jerk with shock.

‘Hey, what are you doing?’

In answer to her startled question he pressed one tobacco stained thumb against her mouth as if ordering her to remain silent. Then his other hand suddenly whipped back the sheet and grasped her breast, iron hard against the softness of warm flesh through the nylon. Ignoring her distressed whimpers he fondled and massaged at his leisure, first one and then the other. His other hand was firmly clasped against her mouth now, the nicotine stench of it making her gag and a sick crawling fear curdled in her stomach as a single tear rolled down her cheek.

He did nothing more. He didn’t touch her private parts, or interfere with her in any other way. He just smiled at her then got up and left.

After he’d gone Lynda leaped from the bed to crouch shivering in the corner of her room for what seemed like hours, crying softly to herself and far too afraid even to return to her bed. Her dreams and hopes for a loving relationship with her father had been utterly destroyed. Not only that but she felt invaded, as if her sanctuary, the only safe place she had left in the world, had been taken rudely from her.
 

His message was clear. There was no escape from him anywhere, not even in her own bed. Ewan Hemley could do with her as he willed, any time he chose.

Chapter Twenty-Six

‘Women are still considered to be the dependants of men, I’m afraid, so far as the law is concerned,’ the young solicitor blithely informed Judy. ‘And maintenance is not automatic. We may be fortunate and make him pay up, although I have to say that would be unusual as most husbands manage to wriggle out of it. In my experience it can be a constant battle getting them to keep up regular payments year after year. But should he marry again and have another family any money paid to you, his first wife, would be reduced.’

‘That isn’t fair!’ Judy heard her own voice sounding very like Ruth’s and hated herself for it. ‘What I mean is, they are his children too, surely he is equally responsible for them?’

‘Do you have an income of any sort?’ the solicitor enquired in that tired voice which indicated he’d been through this conversation more times than he cared to recall. ‘You can apply for legal aid, of course, to pay my bill you understand, but they will conduct a means test to ascertain how much your contribution will be. You can pay monthly, of course.’

Judy was horrified. She’d not even thought that far. Striving to remain calm, she said, ‘I’ve very little in the way of savings and only a small income from my stall where I sell my pictures. But the profit I make after I’ve paid for canvasses and paint is just enough to get by. Unfortunately, in a fit of rage, my husband destroyed all my pictures because I refused to give it up. He’s very controlling. So I don’t even have anything to sell at the moment.’

‘Hmm, well his unreasonable behaviour might help your case somewhat, assuming it can be proved as such. Were the children well cared for while you were working? No accidents, illnesses, problems?’

Judy swallowed on a sudden fit of nervousness. ‘No-o. . . ‘

‘You sound doubtful. It’s best if you tell me everything, Mrs Beckett. It wouldn’t be wise to hold back at this stage.’

‘Well, Tom was once bullied on his way home from school. I was delayed by a customer for only a few moments but it made me late picking him up. He should have waited for me at the school gate but . . .’

He made a note on his legal pad. ‘I think we won’t pursue the line of your husband’s unreasonable behaviour. Best not to risk it, in the circumstances. It could very easily back-fire on us. But I’m afraid you will have to find yourself a job, Mrs Beckett.’ His tone was brisk now, almost dismissive.

‘I’m not qualified for anything. I’ve always been a housewife.’

‘Then you’ll have to acquire some new skills.’ He smiled at her with a weary patience. ‘You do realise that by leaving your husband you not only lose the roof over your head but also any hope of a share in his state pension. You’ll have to make your own contributions from now on. I would strongly advise you to consider carefully whether this is the right course of action for you to take. Has he ever been violent towards you?’

‘No.’

‘Kept you short of money?’

‘No.’

‘So the grounds would be strictly that of adultery? Do you have proof of this third party? Does he admit to being the guilty party?’

Judy was forced to admit that she did not know the identity of the latest ‘other woman’. ‘There have been so many.’

‘Ah, and you were aware of their existence, were you?’

‘Oh, yes, he made no secret of the fact.’

The young solicitor shook his head in sadness. ‘The court may view that as complicity, that you’d accepted your husband’s straying as part of your marriage, which would make it extremely difficult for his adultery to be considered as grounds now. There are many judges who would see that as collusion. Have you ever taken a lover yourself?’

‘No!’ Judy was affronted by the very suggestion.

‘Excellent! If you were ever tempted you have to appreciate that you would run the risk of being classed as an unfit mother.’

‘So
he
is allowed to stray, but not me?’

A shrug of the shoulders. ‘Strictly speaking that’s not what I said, Mrs Beckett but, in effect, yes you’re right. If you have tolerated his infidelity in the past that most definitely weakens your case, and your own would not be tolerated by a judge at all. I assume the marital home was in his name?’ the solicitor went on, while Judy was still gasping over that one.

She agreed that it was. There was a cold feeling growing inside and it frightened her. Somehow Judy had imagined that once she’d plucked up the courage to actually leave Sam, all her troubles would be over. But it seemed they were only just beginning.

‘If your husband isn’t willing to provide evidence of his guilt, in other words if it is not an undefended action, then I have to advise you that your case is not a strong one and divorce could be denied. He could, of course, sue for custody of the children, particularly if you have no means of providing for them. The judge will wish to see evidence that you can fully support them, so that must be your first priority. You need secure employment, a decent home for them other than a one-roomed bedsit overlooking the fish market where you are all sleeping in one bed, I’m afraid. Come and see me again when you have all of that in place.’

He stood up, thereby terminating the interview, and Judy did likewise although her head was still buzzing with questions. Just as she was leaving the young solicitor said, ‘Oh, just one more thing. It’s always best if access can be amicably agreed between the parties. Otherwise, things can get very nasty.’

‘Access?’

‘To the children. You need to agree with your husband times when they can visit him, or he can take them out.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Judy rapidly thought this through, panic growing inside her. ‘But what if he should decide not to return them?’

‘Do you think that likely?’

‘As a weapon against me, yes, I do. What security do I have that he’ll keep to any hours or rules I might set?’

The lawyer was already pressing the bell to call in his next client, having satisfied himself that he’d offered all the advice he could for this one. ‘I’m sure you are worrying unnecessarily, Mrs Beckett. Talk to your husband. It’s important to keep lines of communication open. The division of the marital spoils, and provision for the children are much better resolved before you go to court. As I said, come back and see me once you are in a position to pursue the case from a position of strength.’