Faith Page 19

  ‘I know what he did to her, she wrote the whole thing down for me to read,’ Stuart said. ‘But I didn’t know she’d had any further contact with any of you after she left the house in Barnes. I hope that on my next visit she’ll tell me about the period between then and when I met her in ’72. You see, Meggie, that period of Laura’s life is just a blank to me. Okay, I got tiny glimpses of it through Jackie once I was working for her, like them working at the holiday camp and doing promotions together. But it was only a couple of days ago that I discovered Greg Brannigan put her through hell. Laura only ever told me that she left him because he had another woman.’

  Meggie put a mug of coffee down in front of him and sat down opposite him at the table. ‘She didn’t tell you he tried to poison her?’

  Stuart’s eyes widened. ‘No!’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Meggie sighed. ‘There is just so much you should know to understand her. I hardly know where to start!’

  ‘The beginning is always a good place,’ Stuart said with a grin.

  Meggie half smiled. ‘Easily said, but you see, I’m just as guilty as Laura of hiding unpalatable parts of my past, and much as I’d like to help her, I guess I’m afraid of opening my own can of worms.’

  7

  Stuart waited as Meggie appeared to be gathering herself to tell him something. Her brow was furrowed with frown lines, and it was clear to him that she wasn’t in the habit of confiding in people.

  ‘I really thought Laura could do anything, be anyone she wanted to be,’ she blurted out, breaking the silence. ‘Ivy and I relied on her for everything when we were little. She was far more of a mother to us than June was. But you already know how it was before June married Vince, and what he did to Laura, so I think I’d better pick up from after he died.’

  ‘You are very like Laura,’ Stuart said thoughtfully. ‘Not just your looks either – you have the same intriguing quality.’

  Meggie smiled. ‘She was a very good teacher. But for now you’ve got to imagine me at fifteen – fat, slovenly, spotty and sulky.’

  ‘That’s beyond my imagination,’ Stuart said gallantly.

  ‘Bless you.’ Meggie laughed lightly, showing white, very good teeth. ‘Now, don’t sidetrack me with any more compliments or I’ll never get to tell you what happened.’

  ‘Okay, my lips are sealed,’ Stuart made a zipping gesture across his mouth.

  ‘I was a bitch when Laura turned up that day in Barnes. I think it was because she looked everything I felt I never could be. A grown-up, gorgeous, elegant woman. Half of me wanted to hug her and tell her how much I’d missed her, but the other half was full of resentment and bitterness because she’d left me.’

  ‘A typical teenager then?’ Stuart replied.

  ‘I suppose so. But anyway, Laura came in, found the house looking disgusting and of course began washing up and putting things to rights just as she always used to do. Mum was bleating on about how Vince’s sons would take the house and I was in and out of the kitchen earwigging. When I heard Laura say Vince had interfered with her and that was why she left, I was really shocked. It had never occurred to me that was the reason. I wanted to rush back into the kitchen and tell them he’d done a whole lot more than just interfere with me, and that I felt like cheering when he died. But I didn’t say a word, and when Laura left she asked me to walk to the bus stop with her.’

  Meggie could see herself walking down the road with her older sister, feeling like a fat waddling duck next to a graceful swan, but she remembered that Laura took her hand, as if she was still a little girl, and that broke the dam of her emotions and she burst into tears.

  Laura caught hold of her and hugged her tightly. ‘I never wanted to leave you, please believe me, Meggie. I just couldn’t bear Vince any more,’ she whispered into her hair. ‘I should have come back before to check that he wasn’t doing it to you too, but I was too afraid of seeing him.’

  It was such a cold, grey day, but that hug and her sister’s words made Meggie feel warmer inside. Until then she had thought she would never be able to tell anyone about what Vince did to her, much less describe how he made her feel inside. But there was something about the look on Laura’s face, the tone of her voice, that told Meggie she shared all those feelings. And so there, on a cold, windy street, she blurted it all out, how Vince had started on her when she was twelve, first just touching her suggestively, but always buying her presents and telling her she was his special girl.

  ‘I knew deep down it wasn’t right, but it felt good that he loved me,’ she admitted reluctantly, burying her face in her sister’s shoulder. ‘Mum never seemed to care about me, and he did help me with my homework and made a fuss of me. But then one evening when Mum had gone out somewhere he forced himself on me. I tried to fight him off but he was too strong, and he told me that if I said a word about it to anyone he’d throw us all out.

  ‘After that he did it to me every time Mum went out. I used to beg him not to but he would say that I liked it really. I felt like I was caught in some sticky kind of web that I could never get out of. I used to go out sometimes and stay out half the night wandering the streets, just to get away from him. I thought if I behaved really badly, at home and at school, Mum would realize what was wrong, but she didn’t even notice. He was doing it to me right up until just before he died, even though we found out he had had another woman all along.’

  Laura moved Meggie back from her, and her eyes were full of tears. She put her hands on her sister’s cheeks and caressed them in sympathy. ‘You must come home with me,’ she said. ‘It’s too cold to talk here.’

  That day was the first time Meggie had felt entirely safe for years. Laura’s little flat was so warm, bright and clean, and as they sat by the fire on the sofa, talking and talking, pouring out to each other all the hurts trapped inside them, Meggie felt as if all the poison inside her was draining away.

  Laura told her how she’d been bullied at school, how she’d tried to make things better at home in Shepherds Bush by stealing things they needed. She said she’d felt like some kind of freak long before Vince came on to her because no one seemed to like her. She explained how once she’d left Barnes she got the idea that if she pretended she had no family, nothing could hurt any more. So she told people her parents had been killed in a car crash.

  ‘I know it was wrong, but I got admiration instead of people looking down their noses at me, and it felt good,’ she said. ‘It never occurred to me then that I was digging myself into a hole. But I can see now that’s just what I’ve done. My flatmate Jackie doesn’t know I’ve got any brothers and sisters, and how can I tell her the truth now? It isn’t just her, it’s her whole family, they’ve been good to me, treated me like another daughter. What would they think of me if I was to tell them I’ve got a pathetic slut of a mother, a father in prison and brothers and sisters?’

  Meggie could see for herself what an awful predicament her sister was in. She had told lies about herself at school too, for much the same reasons. Like Laura, she wished more than anything that she was someone else.

  Meggie poured out how much she hated her job at the baker’s, hearing their mother go on and on about Vince, his other woman, and how they might end up destitute, yet Laura made her see that there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

  ‘I can’t have you here while Jackie’s around, but there are lots of things I can do to make your life better,’ she said. ‘I can help you to get a better job, get you special cream to make your spots go, and help you choose clothes that make you look nice. You’ll lose that weight if you feel better inside about yourself, and maybe then you could get a flat of your own, so I can come and see you there. You don’t owe anything to Mum, but you do to yourself. Vince is gone now, no one is going to do those horrible things to you again, and I’ll be around to help you.’

  ‘So that’s how it was, Stuart,’ Meggie said when she’d finished explaining. ‘We made a kind of pact. I wouldn’t turn up uninvited, and if we r
an into anyone she knew when we were together, she’d say I was her cousin.

  ‘I wasn’t happy about it, it felt like I was something shameful, but later I got a buzz out of our secret meetings. We used to meet on Saturdays whenever she wasn’t working. We’d go shopping and have some lunch, and she used to buy me clothes and bits of makeup, and she taught me stuff about getting on in London, speaking better, even about boys. I actually think it was better for me that way than having to share her with other people. I got the very best of her, she gave me confidence, ambition and so much love.’

  ‘How long did this go on for?’ Stuart asked incredulously. He couldn’t imagine how Laura had managed to keep it from Jackie when they were so close.

  ‘Right up till she went to Scotland and met you,’ Meggie said, and smiled at the surprise on his face. ‘Of course it wasn’t all sisterly love, sometimes I’d be really nasty to her when I felt low. But Laura was like a rock, she kept on phoning and arranging meetings regardless.’

  ‘Did you stay living in Barnes?’

  Meggie shook her head. ‘Heavens no! I left even before the house was sold!’

  ‘What happened there?’

  ‘The court decided that Vince’s sons should get his business, and the other assets were to be divided three ways between them and June. She got several thousand pounds.’

  ‘So she didn’t have to go back to live in a hovel?’

  ‘If she’d listened to Laura’s advice she could have been on easy street for the rest of her life – she had more than enough to buy a little house of her own. And her widow’s pension. But being Mum, she wouldn’t listen. She farted around in one rented place, then another, and frittered the money away. I already had a room of my own in Islington, and when Ivy was fifteen she came to live with me. Freddy joined the Navy as soon as he left school. We didn’t exactly cut ourselves off from Mum, but we distanced ourselves. None of us could stand her constant moaning, her slutty ways. And there were always new men coming into her life, so we let her get on with it.’

  ‘And you did very well for yourself to end up owning a lovely house like this one,’ Stuart said. What work do you do?’

  ‘I buy and sell properties,’ she said with a degree of pride. ‘I might never have met Jackie, but I guess Laura told me enough about her to inspire me. Ivy’s in it with me too. She’s happily married now with two sons and she lives in Bromley, but we have a little office upstairs and she comes over two days a week and deals with the paperwork and the books. I do the buying, selling and organize any renovations.’

  ‘You’ve clearly got a real talent for it,’ he said, looking around appreciatively at the pine kitchen units, realizing they were custom-built, not flat-packed from MFI. ‘It’s a wonder our paths didn’t cross before. I used to work on Jackie’s houses and some were around here.’

  ‘I wasn’t here then, I was in Islington. Ivy and I were renting a little terraced house when the owner died and the relatives put it up for sale. No one wanted it with sitting tenants and the price kept going down. Laura said I ought to buy it, in fact she gave me the deposit. Ivy and I did it up, then the property boom happened in ’72. I sold it, and with the proceeds bought two others. And so on, and so on.’

  ‘Clever girl,’ Stuart exclaimed. He thought it was incredible that with so much stacked against her Meggie had managed to do so well. ‘And there’s me who has watched countless others make their pile while I helped them with my skills, but never had the sense to jump on the bandwagon myself!’

  ‘From what Laura told me about you, you were never materialistic.’

  Stuart sighed. ‘Maybe if I had been we might have stayed together,’ he said. ‘She wanted money, smart clothes and all the trappings, that’s what went wrong. I was just a head in the clouds type, satisfied with very little. But tell me about her husband. You said earlier he tried to poison her.’

  Meggie got up and went over to the French door that led into the garden and opened it. ‘Let’s have some lunch out here,’ she said. ‘It’s too nice to stay inside.’

  Stuart joined her at the door, about to ask why she was stalling about the poison, but as he saw the garden he was distracted.

  From the end of the patio area close to the house, which was full of tubs of flowers, a narrow red brick path snaked its way through a series of rose-covered arches giving only glimpses of lawn, flower beds and trees beyond. It gave the impression it was enormously long, but that was probably an optical illusion. ‘Good God, Meggie, it’s beautiful!’ he exclaimed. ‘Is it all your own work?’

  She blushed and nodded. ‘Yes. And if I’m going to have to tell you about Gregory Brannigan I’d like to be relaxed for it. I’ll make us some sandwiches and open a bottle of wine.’

  ‘Can I do something to help?’

  ‘No, just go and have a look round out there. Down the bottom there’s a little summer house and I could do with your expert opinion as to whether it’s worth repairing or if it’s gone too far for that.’

  Stuart wandered down the garden, Lucy the dog following him. He stopped every now and then to admire the dramatic combinations of colour Meggie had used in her planting. Orange with purple, bright pink and dark blue, then blue with yellow. Meggie had been a surprise in so many different ways, but this was perhaps the greatest of them all.

  He was still very intrigued by her. She had told him so much, yet in fact had revealed little about herself. Had she ever been married? Was there a man in her life, and why wasn’t she at the trial if she cared so much for Laura? She also hadn’t said she thought her sister was innocent!

  The summer house was a bit ramshackle, but he could see why Meggie was reluctant to pull it down. There were creepers almost covering it, and on the little veranda part outside was a wicker chair with fat cushions. It looked as if it was a favourite place to sit as there was a book on the table beside it. He picked it up and smiled to see it was Lorna Doone, a book he remembered Laura had loved.

  He poked at the roofing felt, prodded the wood shingles on the walls, and shook the veranda rails. Looking inside, he found only one place water was coming in through, and the floor was sound.

  ‘Your garden does you credit, it’s astounding,’ he said as he returned to the kitchen to find Meggie loading a tray with sandwiches, glasses and a bottle of white wine. ‘As for the summer house, that only really needs a few shingles to be nailed in, and refelting. I could do it for you if you’ve got some tools and could get the felt.’

  ‘I’ve got tools and the felt. I got it ages ago when it began to leak at the back. But I can’t let you do it.’

  Stuart gave a shrug. ‘Why not? You’re Laura’s sister and you’ve let me into your house and shared your past with me. I think mending your little roof is the least I can do in return.’

  To his astonishment her face began to crumple. ‘I’m her sister but I didn’t lift a finger to help at her trial,’ she sobbed. ‘I didn’t even go to give her some kind of support. I haven’t written to her, I haven’t done anything for her. All because I was afraid for myself.’

  Stuart did what he always did when women cried. He went over to her and enfolded her in his arms. ‘There, there,’ he said, rocking with her. ‘Laura would understand, she wouldn’t have wanted you to be caught up in the publicity circus.’

  Meggie sobbed for some minutes. Stuart continued to hold her, murmuring little platitudes about how difficult it was for people to know what to do when something so serious happens.

  Her sobs gradually abated and she wriggled out of his arms and took a step backwards away from him. Her face was wet with tears but there was a hunted look in her eyes.

  ‘I haven’t told you the whole truth about me, Stuart. All this time I’ve been thinking I didn’t need to, that it’s all in the past and it’s nothing to do with the present. But that isn’t so. It is relevant. Both Laura and I were damaged by Vince. It made us do things other normal women would never do. We have problems with relationships, it left us with a hardn
ess, something nasty at the core of us.’

  Stuart shrugged. ‘I’m sure it did, Meggie. I know when Laura told me about Vince I understood a great many things about her that had puzzled me before. But I didn’t come here today to interrogate you. I only wanted a different perspective on your shared childhood.’

  ‘I was a prostitute,’ she shouted at him.

  Stuart was astounded. It was the last thing he expected to hear, especially thrown at him so suddenly. He didn’t know how to respond, so he said nothing.

  ‘Have you taken it in?’ she snapped at him. ‘That was the reason I stayed away from the trial because I was afraid it would be exposed. I stopped Ivy from going too because she didn’t know what I did. I said we were better out of it.’

  ‘If you think I’m going to throw my hands up in horror, you are mistaken,’ he said gently. ‘I’ve already seen how bleak your childhood was, I can see from this house what you aspired to. To get from one to the other took a monumental will, and in my mind there are far worse ways you could have done it.’

  ‘But I can’t forgive myself for it,’ she retorted. ‘I can find excuses, that I was very young, I had no qualifications for a good job, that I had Ivy to take care of too. But I’m so ashamed that while I was lecturing Ivy about not letting boys use her, making her go to night school to learn shorthand and typing, I was flitting off every night and taking money from seedy men who couldn’t get a woman any other way.’

  Stuart made no comment, just waited for her to resume where she left off.

  ‘Ivy and Laura believed I was the assistant manager in a smart West End night club.’ She gave an anguished kind of giggle. ‘I was often there all right, but the only thing I managed was peeling my clothes off later in a hotel room. Okay, so I stopped it as soon as I sold the first house and bought the other two, I’ve worked my fingers to the bone ever since, yet however long ago it was, however lovely I make this house and the garden, I feel I’m tainted and don’t deserve all this.’