The Little Runaways. Cathy Sharp

…’

      Angela was about to ask him what he meant when the door of the kitchen opened and her mother walked in. As she saw the lipstick smeared over her mother’s face, her hair all over the place and her crumpled dress, she started forward, hands outstretched.

      ‘Mum, what’s the matter?’

      ‘Who sh-haid anything whass the matter?’ her mother demanded in a belligerent tone. ‘Whass going on here? Let me through, I’ve got to dish-h up the dinner …’ She took a step forward, crashed into the table and then crumpled to the floor in a heap.

      Angela stared at her father and then at Mark. The looks on their faces were identical: guilty but not surprised. ‘She’s drunk. How long has this been going on – and why haven’t I been told about it?’

      ‘You were still grieving,’ Mark said. ‘I didn’t want to put more pressure on you, Angela.’

      ‘Your mother didn’t want you to know, love,’ her father said. ‘It has been happening for some months, but she controlled it in between bouts of drinking, and I didn’t guess how bad it was until a few weeks ago, when things suddenly got much worse.’

      ‘Why did no one tell me?’ Angela felt anger mixed with sympathy for him and a kind of anguish that she couldn’t name for herself. Why did Mark think she was so fragile that she couldn’t face the truth? ‘If I’d been here perhaps I could have helped her.’

      ‘She wouldn’t let you. Besides, you have your own life, Angela. This is my problem. She’s my wife and I’ll cope with it.’

      ‘Mark – surely you could have given me a hint?’ Angela looked at him in reproach as her mother stirred and promptly vomited on the floor.

      ‘I’ll clear that up,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you could get Mother to bed between you – and then we shall have dinner. I’ll put some aside for her if she feels like it later.’

      For a moment they both stared at her, and then Mark bent and lifted Phyllis in his arms. ‘I’ll carry her up and then you can look after her, Edward. I’m sorry, Angela. If I’d thought this would happen I would’ve warned you …’

      ‘Forgive me,’ her father said after Mark had left them. ‘There’s a lot more to tell you and to show you – but it will keep until Mark has gone. You shouldn’t blame him, Angela. She talked to him about it and I suppose he didn’t want to betray a confidence, though she isn’t his patient.’

      ‘Yes, I understand that,’ she said, but, left to herself to repair the damage and sort out the dinner she’d prepared so carefully before it ruined, Angela knew that she understood too well. Mark had been more concerned for her mental state than worried about giving her a hint of her mother’s failings. She had been close to despair at times during the years since her husband’s death – but surely Mark could see that she was much stronger now?

      If he couldn’t see her for the woman she was, how could he respect her? She wasn’t some fragile flower that would bend in the wind, she was a strong woman who had known devastating grief and come through it.

      Angela would rather have known the truth. She might not be able to do anything, but the last thing she wanted was to be treated as someone who couldn’t face reality. John’s death had devastated her, but the fact that her mother was an alcoholic was another matter – one that she was strong enough to accept.

       THREE

      It was early on Boxing Day but already Alice could hear the bitter quarrelling going on in her parents’ room. Did they never stop this relentless bickering? She sighed, glad that she was going to her friend Michelle’s home that day. Like her, Michelle worked at St Saviour’s, though she was a staff nurse while Alice was merely one of the carers. She didn’t think she could have stood being here all day if her mother was going to nag them the whole time. She stretched and yawned as Mavis slept on in the bed next to her. Mavis was also going out later to spend the day with her boyfriend, because she had several days off from her job at the factory.

      Alice had opted to work on Christmas Day, because it was better than being at home with her mother, who made life miserable for her family on every day of the year and saw no reason to be any different at this special time. So Alice preferred her duty to being at home with her brothers, Joseph and Saul, her sister, Mavis, her father, who would probably get drunk by lunchtime, and her nagging mother. Besides, she didn’t particularly want to sit down to a meal and be watched by Mrs Cobb’s sharp and knowing eyes. One of these days her mother was going to ask questions Alice didn’t want to answer.

      She’d missed a couple of periods and because of that she was sure that she was carrying Jack Shaw’s baby. Alice felt a shiver of fear run through her as she thought about the future. Had Jack died in the fierce fire at the boot factory, or had he somehow escaped? Billy Baggins had been there and he’d told the police that it was Arthur Baggins, his elder brother, and Jack Shaw that had broken in and blown up the safe. Someone else had set the factory on fire while they were inside, and the newspapers seemed to think it was someone with a grudge against Arthur and Jack, or the factory owners. Most people believed it must have been Jack who had died, although something inside Alice wasn’t ready to believe that.

      How could he be dead? Surely she would know if he’d died; she would feel it inside – wouldn’t she? The last time Alice had seen him, he’d dumped her outside St Saviour’s and gone racing off in his car after telling her the Lee gang was going to kill him. All she knew for certain was that he hadn’t tried to contact her since, and she couldn’t help thinking that if he’d been alive he would surely have come back for her or at least sent her a letter. Jack had known Alice believed she was having his baby.

      How could she know what he’d felt about that? Jack had pursued her, never leaving her alone, throwing off all her attempts to rebuff him, until she gave him what he wanted. Had she been a terrible fool to let him make love to her? Alice had thought she was in love with him, rejecting the offers to go out with Bob Manning, a soldier she’d met at a dance with her cousin Eric. Bob was a nice steady bloke with a good job in the Army, but he didn’t excite Alice the way Jack had – and so she’d been stupid and given herself to the wrong man. Now she was frightened, scared of what her mother would do when she discovered her daughter was pregnant.

      What could she do if her mother threw her out? Their home was only three rooms in a shared house; it smelled awful when the toilet in the yard stank and it was cramped and often damp and cold, but it was still her home. Where would she go – and how could she manage with a job and a baby? That’s if she still had a job when Sister Beatrice discovered the truth. It was unlikely the strict nun would keep her on once her condition became noticeable.

      Alice thought about the previous day at work. After all the excitement prior to Christmas Eve and the fun of carols, Father Christmas giving presents to all the children – not forgetting their carers – and the party afterwards, Sister had decreed that the day itself would be spent quietly in order to reflect on the true meaning of Christ’s birthday.

      Alice had been happy just to be in the peaceful atmosphere at the home. The children all seemed satisfied to attend church or chapel in the morning and to spend their time eating a special dinner and reading or playing one of the new board games they’d been given. She herself had been asked to do Sally the carer’s job after breakfast was over and gather the smaller children together in the playroom, where she’d read one of Mr Markham’s lovely books to them for a while, and given the others puzzles to keep them happy. It was as she was getting the children ready for tea that Nan came up to her.

      ‘Some of the older children are going for a walk before supper. Jean will be going with them to make sure they don’t get into any trouble. I want you to keep the little ones amused until it is time for their beds.’

      ‘Yes, of course,’ Alice said. She liked the head carer and often wished her mother was a bit more like Nan. ‘They’ve been good all day.’

      ‘Well,