Three Letters (48 page)

For what seemed an age, the two women stood there, close to the window, but far enough away that Steve could neither see them nor hear them.

Opening the letter box, he called out, ‘Hello!’ When there was no reply, he called again, ‘Hello?’

‘It’s no good. I’ll have to get rid of him. I’ll not say anything, and I won’t let him in,’ the landlady promised
Ruth. ‘You have my word on it.’ She gave Ruth a gentle push. ‘Get upstairs … go on, hurry.’

On soft footsteps, Ruth went up to her room, while Marilyn opened the front door.

‘What the devil d’you think you’re playing at?’ she demanded. ‘It’s just as well my boarders are out and about, or you’d have frightened the life outta them. What is it? What d’you want?’

With a shock, she recognised the
man who had brought Ruth home that awful night of the attack. ‘Oh … it’s you … you’re the one who brought her home, aren’t you?’ Now she didn’t know what to think.

If he really was the same man who had made Ruth with child some nine years ago, and if he was also the man who had brought her here that night, why didn’t either of them recognise the other?

Huddled on the landing, Ruth was shocked
by the older woman’s words. Filled with shame, she did not want to believe that this was really the man who brought her home that night. At the time, hurt and ashamed, she was in no fit state to worry about who was helping her.

Now, though, having watched him from the window and listened to his voice, all her doubt as to his identity was gone.

It was him.
Casey’s real father was really here.
Standing just a short distance from her.

Her shame was tenfold. What would he have thought of her, looking the way she had, all dirty and dishevelled, being dragged away by those men like a piece of meat for the taking?

Going softly from the landing to her bedroom, she huddled on the bed, devastated. After all this time he was here and her guilt was crippling.

Since leaving Casey behind, she
had lost all respect for herself. These had been dark days, but Marilyn had pulled her through. Now, looking back on her life as a mother, she had come to believe that Casey was better off without her.

She hoped that the man outside would never know that the woman he slept with that one night was also the down-and-out woman he recently rescued. Back then, when they met up she was younger, without
responsibility, she had been footloose and carefree, just out for a bit of fun; but from that fateful, wonderful night, her whole life had been changed for ever.

The stranger didn’t love her – why would he? She was just one of many girls who threw themselves at him. Nor did he want to know when Connie took him the letter telling him that she was pregnant with his child, and that she needed to
meet with him.

When Connie had got back and told her he was angry and that he wanted nothing to do with her, Ruth had not forgotten the devastation she felt.

As she had recently confessed to Marilyn, if it hadn’t been for him abandoning her and the child, she would never have been so bitter. And she would never have fooled Tom into raising the boy he believed was his.

Sometimes, life was so
cruel, it created cruelty in others. And once you were set along a certain path, it seemed there was no way back.

It was only since gaining Marilyn’s friendship, and being able to confide in her, that Ruth had come to realise how wicked she had been to Tom, and Casey.

Seeing Casey’s father again had shaken her deeply. It had also made her realise how much she still loved him.

She heard his
voice, and her heart ached for what might have been.

‘I’ve been in the area concluding some important business, but I’m away home soon,’ he was telling Marilyn. ‘I thought I’d just call by before I go, to see if the young woman is all right after her ordeal.’

‘Yes, like I said, she’s fine now, thanks to you.’

‘Can I see her, d’you think?’

Marilyn had to think quickly. ‘Oh, but she’s not here
any more. In fact, she’s gone back home … to be with her relatives.’

Steve was confused. ‘I thought she was your daughter … or a relative, at least?’

‘No. She was no relative; just a friend.’

‘And the woman I saw coming into your house just now, that wasn’t her?’

‘No. She’s my cleaner … late, as usual. Busy little thing, she is. Got three kids and an old relative who runs her ragged.’

Steve
apologised. ‘Only, I had an idea she might be someone I met about nine years ago.’ He gave a rueful smile. ‘She was the one that got away, as they say.’ He felt he could confide in this woman. ‘We had one night together, and then she was gone. I’ve not see her from that day to this, and I don’t suppose I’ll ever see her again.’

His heartfelt comment had Marilyn wondering. ‘Why did you let her
go if you were that smitten?’

‘To be honest, I don’t know; except it was only afterwards that I found out how much I cared for her.’

‘And so you still care for her, after all this time … nine years or more, you say?’

‘Something like that,’ he answered quietly. ‘I loved her, then I let her go. Isn’t that a sad tale, eh? But there you are.’ He gave a sorry shrug. ‘Sometimes life just gets in
the way.’

‘It does, you’re absolutely right there.’ She should know.

‘Well, thank you for your time, and if you ever see that young woman again, tell her I was glad to be of help.’

‘I will.’

He gave a smile. ‘Well, I’d best be off. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.’

‘Cheerio then, and thank you again for what you did.’

‘No need for thanks,’ he said. ‘Any decent person would have done the
same.’

He waved as he went, muttering to himself.
I was wrong. It wasn’t her
. He felt incredibly sad.
I suppose it’s time to close that chapter in my life
.

Judging by the way she had haunted him these past years, he knew it would not be easy; if possible at all.

Marilyn went upstairs to tell Ruth he was gone. She found her lying across the bed, breaking her heart.

‘Hey! That’s enough of that,
my girl.’ Taking her by the shoulders, she sat her on the edge of the bed. ‘If you wanted to renew your relationship with him, you could have come downstairs. Though you’d have had to be sure it really was the man who left you pregnant.’

‘I’m sure. I heard him talking to you … in that same soft, warm voice I remember. I watched him walk away, and for one brief minute he turned round, and he almost
caught me looking. He didn’t see me, but I saw him. He’s older, and looking more like a businessman than the member of a singing group, but it’s him all right … Casey’s real father. I would gamble my life on it.’

‘You still have strong feelings for him, don’t you?’

‘Yes. Since that night we made love I’ve never stopped thinking about him. He was all I ever wanted. I know I should hate him for
what he did, but I don’t. However hard I try, I can’t stop wanting to be with him, but I know it will never happen.

‘When I found out I was carrying his child, Connie was the only one I told. She was so angry that she found where the group was playing next, and we planned to go and see him. I asked her to take a letter to him, and she promised to make sure he got it.

‘In the letter, I told him
how much I cared for him, and that I wanted to keep the baby. I said I was sorry not to have spent more time with him, but that I understood how busy he was. I asked that we should meet and talk about what to do.

‘Connie told me that he did read the letter, and then he got really nasty.’

Marilyn saw how upset she was getting. ‘Enough now, dear,’ she urged gently. ‘You’re only punishing yourself
all over again.’

Ruth looked up with tear-stained eyes. ‘How could he do that?’ she asked. ‘How could he turn away from me and his child, like that?’

In the light of more recent events, Marilyn herself wondered the very same. ‘I really don’t know, dear. That’s why I wondered if you were sure about the man who just left: the man who fought those bullies in the alley. To my mind, he doesn’t sound
like a man who would have deserted you way back then, when you desperately needed him. Any more than he deserted you in the alley.’

‘That’s true,’ Ruth agreed, ‘and I could be wrong about the man who came to the door just now, only there was something about him, I’m almost certain he’s Casey’s father.’

Burying her head in her arms, she began to sob, and once she started, she couldn’t stop. ‘I’m
a wicked woman,’ she confided brokenly. ‘I’ve done terrible things, and now they’re coming back to haunt me. Why could I not have loved Casey like a mother should? What happened was not his fault, but I still blamed him, then I learned to hate him.’

Turning to Marilyn, she asked, ‘What’s wrong with me? How could I have been so wicked? What made me use Tom in such a cowardly way? He didn’t deserve
it. He was a good man …’

Collapsing into the older woman’s arms, she blamed herself for Tom’s suicide, and the boy’s dislike of her. She wanted to go back, to try and put things right, but it was too late.

‘It’s all too late,’ she cried bitterly. ‘Because of me, Tom’s dead and my own son hates me. I don’t blame them. I should be burned in Hell for what I’ve done. I should be punished, like I
punished them.’

Deeply moved by this young woman’s heartfelt plight, Marilyn cupped her two hands about Ruth’s face. ‘Look at me, child.’

She looked into Ruth’s haggard eyes, and in the gentlest voice she told her, ‘Don’t ever think you’re the only woman who has ever palmed a child off on some poor unsuspecting man. From what you told me before about Tom and the great love he had for you, I
believe he would have found it in his heart to forgive you anything.’

‘Do you really think so?’ Feeling lost, Ruth laid her head on the older woman’s shoulder. ‘Do you really think he’s forgiven me?’

‘Yes, child, I really do. After all, you gave him a son he adored. A son who brought him untold joy; of a kind he might never have known, if it hadn’t been for you.’

‘But when I told him he wasn’t
Casey’s father, I destroyed him.’

In her tortured mind, she could see the pain on Tom’s face now, and she could hardly bear it. ‘Oh, if only you’d been there. He was torn apart, and I did that to him.
Me!
I broke his heart … the only man who had ever treated me like a princess. A man who had loved me without condition. I saw the awful shock on his face, and I felt his loathing for me. It should
have been me who jumped off that bridge. I should have been the one to die. Not Tom.’

Marilyn grew fearful for her sanity. ‘Stop it now, child!’ she said sternly. ‘I know … I do know.’

‘You don’t! Nobody does, except me … and the boy. He was there. He knew that Tom could never find it in his heart to forgive me, and neither could he. But I was so out of my mind, I didn’t care.’

When the burden
of what she had done cut too deep, she sat up and, frantically running her hands through her hair, she raised her voice for the world to hear. ‘I KNEW WHAT I WAS DOING TO THEM, AND I DIDN’T EVEN CARE!’

She was in turmoil, suffering like she had never suffered before. Because now she could see herself for what she was … what she had been. ‘That good, kind man took his own life because of me …
because of what I did to him.’

‘Ssh, child … ssh now.’ The older woman held her close as Ruth’s body shuddered with sobs.

Marilyn held her until finally she grew quiet. Then she gently laid her down on the bed to sleep.

Placing a cover over her, she was able to let her own tears fall for this sorry, broken young woman. We all make mistakes, she thought, feverishly dabbing at the tears as they
tumbled down her face. Some of us more than others. In the end, though, our sins will always find us out.

At the door, she turned a moment, gazing on Ruth’s crumpled body. ‘Sometimes, when we’re in the grip of a terrible rage, we cause pain and suffering,’ she murmured. ‘It’s the saddest thing, but true. One way or another, we all have to pay the price, when that pain comes back to haunt us.’

Years ago, she too had learned the harshness of blaming others for her own ill fortunes.

She stood awhile at the door, her gaze lingering on Ruth. ‘Be strong, child,’ she told her softly. ‘For too long, you’ve locked it all away. Now that you’ve managed to inch open the door, it’s just a matter of having the courage to walk through it.’

She turned away, deeply shaken by the ordeal she had just
experienced. Taking a hanky from her pinny pocket, she dabbed at her tearful eyes, and took a deep, invigorating breath. Oh! There’s a half-bottle o’ that brandy you tucked away at Christmas. That’s what you need, my dear, she thought, a cup o’ tea warmed with a generous nip o’ brandy.

The thought of licking her tongue round that brandy brought a little smile to her face.

Steve despaired when the meeting next morning with Edward Mull brought more revelations regarding the site.

‘We’ve had a bit of a setback,’ Edward informed Steve. ‘The surveyors have discovered a network of old waterpipes running through an area that they were assured was clear. Initially, because the area is well away from where the actual buildings will be, it didn’t seem to be a threat to the
project.’