The Mill House (49 page)

ago?' she asked,'I mean, is there anything recent?'

'No It's all early Eighties. Just like the other stuff. After that, nothing.'

'What about before?'

'Not that's coming up.'

She was still trying to assimilate, forcing her mind to accept the words, even as she was struggling to reject them. 'And you're not holding anything else back?' she finally said.

'No. That's it.'

'OK. Thanks for calling me back.'

'No problem. I'm just sorry it had to be anything like that. But listen, so's you know, it's normal for petty offenders, vagrant types to be pulled in when those kinds of crimes are committed, and since he was obviously down on his uppers around then, and was never charged, it's only proving he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nothing else.'

Julia attempted a smile. 'Thanks for that,' she said.

After putting the phone down she turned to the box on the table. Feeling slightly shaky, as well as oddly suspended from her emotions now, she slipped off the elastic and lifted the battered lid.

Both books were old, their hardback covers peeling, and the spines weakening, though neither was particularly thick. From glancing through them earlier, she knew that all the pages were ruled, with margins at the side, though she'd seen no annotations or jottings. Some entries were written in blue biro, others in black ink, and while a few had appeared to run for several pages, others

were little more than a paragraph or two. The dates had all been written in by hand and underlined, the first being April of 1979, the last August of 1984.

Deciding to fortify herself with a glass of wine, she went to take a bottle from the fridge, and a corkscrew from the drawer next to it. It was pitch dark outside. No glimmer of moonlight, or sighting of a star. The wind was still pelting the trees, whipping them into a frenzy of branches and leaves. The mill wheel churned the stream, oblivious to the copious downpour of rain. She considered lighting a fire up in the sitting room, but knew it was only stalling, because the heating was on and it was far from cold inside - except her hands were like ice and her blood felt chill as she tugged the cork from the bottle and filled a glass with wine.

After taking a sip, she carried the books up the staircase and settled herself down in a corner of one of the big comfy sofas, next to a table and under a lamp. Impatience was driving her to begin at the same date he'd entered in his pocket diary that he'd found out something that explained everything, but to her disappointment and, to a degree, relief, he'd written nothing on that day. There was nothing for the weeks after that either, so deciding she should start at the beginning and diligently read through, she set aside the second book, and turned to the opening entry of the first. It wasn't long, nor did it turn out to be particularly informative, merely a few lines on what had been happening at work that week, and some plans he had for the garden.

It went on in much the same vein, the occasional frustration with his boss, relief when the man was fired and surprise when he was promoted to take over the position. A celebration dinner with Alice, Pam and Julia followed, during which Alice had made him laugh by doing a splendid imitation of one of their neighbours. For several entries after that he sounded rather gloomy and fed up, the weather wasn't good and he wasn't enjoying being a manager as much as he'd hoped. Then came a prideful entry all about Julia's school report, which prompted another celebration, this time a trip to the cinema, which was her choice, to see Roman Polanski's Tess. Pam hadn't come because she hated films, and Alice hadn't wanted her to feel left out, so she'd stayed at home with her. No mention of Pam's school report, or of the row that had erupted, when they'd returned home, that Julia suddenly remembered now, though couldn't recall precisely what had caused it.

In March of 1980 he commented on his dislike of visiting George and Rene. He didn't say why exactly, just that, unlike Alice, he never felt comfortable in the house, though she obviously would, having grown up there. Later that month he wrote at some length about George's passion for the bible and how he, Douglas, resented being preached at down the phone, as though he were some recalcitrant schoolboy who needed to be swatted by hellfire and damnation to bring him back to God. Julia smiled as she read on, for he'd followed it up with how they, she and her father, would secretly laugh at God's Boy George, as

they'd dubbed him, and he'd even added the silly rhyme they'd made up about him when she was probably no older than eight. Humpity Grumpity sat on a pew; Humpity Grumpity needed a poo, at which point she used to collapse into such helpless laughter that they could never get any further. It had clearly given him a lot of pleasure to remember that all those years later, and the rhyme was having a similar effect on her now.

The following month, April of 1980, contained a delighted entry all about her first crush on a boy, and how thrilled her father was that she'd confided in him, so he'd bought a book of horoscopes to see how well she and the boy were suited, but they'd had to check out David Bowie too, because he was her real great love of the moment. He went on to write of how he felt she'd have little trouble in attracting boys, because she was clearly going to be an even greater beauty than her mother, whose looks, sadly, seemed to be marred by too many frown lines these days, and whose mouth had taken on a permanent curve of disapproval. I often wonder why Alice is so unhappy, he wrote, but my enquiries seem as unwelcome as my concern. I think I know, because for years it's been there at the back of my mind, but I never broach the subject and nor does she. I hope she never does, but I feel I have to be solicitous in asking, from time to time, if there's anything I can do to make her feel better. There never is.

Julia was frowning herself as she read the last part of the entry again. What was her mother so unhappy about, she wondered. It seemed that her father had probably known, but had chosen

neither to discuss it, nor commit it to his journal. Of course, he could be the cause of it, which might explain his reticence, but his words seemed not to display a burden of guilt, merely an unwillingness to confront an issue that might have lain dormant for years.

She turned a page and read on. More accounts of her and what she was up to, either at school, or with friends. A little about Pam and how worried he was that she seemed to be taking after her mother in the way she was shunning him. He gave no reason for why it might be happening, or what could have triggered it, until the final paragraph, when he'd written, Alice tells me I love Julia too much. She makes it sound like a failing, rather than a father's natural affection and pride in a child who is, in truth, the greatest love of my life. I quite simply adore her, and will make no apology for it. As for Pam, who Alice accuses me of loving less, I try to deny it, but I know its true. Alice says I am wicked and sinful in my neglect of her, but how can it be wrong for a father to love his own child more?

Julia blinked as her heart skipped a beat. She read the last line again and felt everything slipping out of kilter. Was he saying she and Pam had different fathers? Well, yes, that was exactly what he seemed to be saying, and as the meaning of it slid into her mind she thought of the way her mother had always sided with Pam; how different Pam looked to her; Pam's unwillingness to be close as sisters; her father's struggle to make Pam sit with him or even tell him about her school day. Then there was Pam's failure to care when he left; her refusal to come to the funeral; her father's

neglect of Pam in his will. So did that mean Pam knew he wasn't her father? It certainly seemed to suggest that, but why keep it a secret?

Julia lowered the book and stared across the room at the rain-spattered window. Why had no-one ever told her? It wasn't so terrible these days to have a child before marriage. Even when Pam was born, back in the mid-Sixties, illegitimacy hadn't carried anything like the kind of stigma it had a decade before - unless, of course, you had George Hope as a brother, and Julia shuddered to think of how her uncle would have viewed the disgrace his own sister was bringing upon his God-fearing family. She could see the manic gleam in his eye and the foam on his lips as he spouted his biblical damnation, shaming his sister and imploring God to visit all manner of suffering upon her for her sins. She could almost hear the Acts of Devotion he'd have forced her mother to learn by heart and recite at his will. Oh Gracious Lord Jesu Christ, I a sinner ... Trusting in thy mercy and goodness with fear and trembling... My heart and body are stained with many sins ...

The scene at the time must have been terrible, even terrifying, for her mother, he might even have thrashed her, the way he had Julia, and locked her up refusing to let her see her lover ever again. The man was probably married, or wholly unsuitable, or Catholic, but whoever Pam's father was, and whatever George had put her mother through, Julia had to concede that he'd stood by her in the end, and never once had she seen him treat Pam with anything other than the same awkward fondness with which he'd tried to treat her.

It was only then that she realised her parents had probably not been married as long as she thought. Either that, or her mother had become pregnant by someone else whilst already married to her father. It would perhaps account more easily for why her father had found it so hard to bond with Pam, if his wife had cheated on him then asked him to treat the child as his. A hole seemed to open up inside Julia as she considered her own late period and how Josh would react if confronted with the same nightmare dilemma - but she'd been under a lot of stress lately, and had never been particularly reliable in that department anyway, so she wasn't going to start scaring herself with that. Her body would undoubtedly kick back to normal any minute, and when, like now, she was attempting to deal with something else entirely.

It took very little time for her to decide that she didn't mind at all about Pam not being a full sister - if anything she was relieved, for it helped alleviate some of the guilt she'd always felt that her father had so clearly loved her more. On the other hand, a much more terrible spectre began to take shape. If Pam wasn't his daughter, might he have found it more acceptable to subject her young body to sexual abuse?

The next shock came in the entry for 18th October 1980.

I am renting a small bedsit in Edgware now. I had to take the money from George, though I hated doing it. If I hadn't I could have found myself in a lot worse trouble than I've already been in lately. I'm so full of hate and anger that I want to keep lashing out at the world around me. I don't understand why God would

do this to me? Maybe because there is no God, and this proves it.

I wrote to Julia, but they won't pass the letter on. I want to go to her school, kidnap her and run away with her, but I can't. I miss her as I'd miss a limb of my body or even my soul were it to be torn out. George has offered me very large sums of money to stay away from her. I won't touch it, but they have nothing to fear from me. I am no more desirous of her learning the truth than they are.

The police questioned me two days ago about the abduction and rape of a young boy from Ealing back in March. I wasn't even in the vicinity. My life hadn't fallen apart by then. I suspect George of giving my name to the police. It's a warning to stay away from Julia. Julia, my Julia. Life is so empty without her.

As the despair in his words seemed to lift up from the page, Julia's heart filled with the same emotion. Why were they going to such extremes to keep him away from her? What the hell had he done, except the unthinkable of course? However, that particular answer seemed less obvious than it might have done a few minutes ago. To her mind at least, his lack of concern about being questioned over such a heinous crime was giving rise to doubt now, rather than suspicion.

She continued reading, page after page of almost illegible scrawl, evidently written by a man who was drunk most of the time, enraged beyond reason and so emotionally wrung out it was hard to make sense of it all. All she could really deduce was that this journal was probably his only companion during that time.

Then finally his writing started to become

legible again. He seemed much more sober and able to wield a pen as he made sporadic comments about finding himself a job, spending hours in a library just reading, and holding onto George's cheques so that George would never know what he planned to do with them. There was an element of glee to those particular entries that intrigued her, for he seemed to be experiencing a sense of power that had been eluding him before. It could be blackmail, though clearly not in the conventional sense, because he hadn't cashed the cheques, in spite of needing the money. There was no record of him asking for payment either. So what were those entries really about? For the moment she was left guessing, as there was no more mention of George's money for a while. In fact nothing at all about George, her mother or her, until she reached the entry for 21st June 1981. It was a date that was later to remain indelibly stamped on her mind, though in itself it had no real significance - it was merely the day her father had chosen to reveal the true horror behind the events that had changed his life so completely.

It's been a whole year now since I found them together, and not a day goes by that I don't regret walking into that room. I'd long had my suspicions, but I continually ignored them, and I would sell my soul to go back to that happy state, for I know now that ignorance truly can be bliss. The truth has been the worst kind of hell to live with, because in this case it has robbed me of the most precious part of my life. Julia, my Julia. Where is she now? What is she doing? Does she wonder why I left? Does it break her heart as it breaks mine for us to be apart? No father could love