Faith Read online

  She seduced Stuart that same night on a mattress on the floor of a place that was little more than a shed, and he woke the following morning to tell her he loved her.

  Running a finger over the embossed letter heading, Laura could imagine the sophistication of the world he lived in now: king-size beds, sumptuous bathrooms, fast cars and designer clothes. She had had many reports from Jackie over the years about how successful he was, that he was head-hunted by national companies to act as their project manager all over the world. Yet according to Jackie, he’d made that climb from the Edinburgh tenement he’d been brought up in, not by sharp practice and conniving, but with his skill, hard work and total honesty, just the way he’d always claimed he would.

  How different her life might have been if she’d only believed in him!

  Holding the letter to her heart, she flopped down on to her bed, sobbing.

  Nineteen seventy-two was her ‘summer of love’, when for just a few short weeks everything was golden. No other man, before or since, had ever touched her in quite the same way, and what they had was precious and beautiful. But she had destroyed it, just as she had so often before, and after, destroyed so much that was good in her life.

  2

  Laura lay on her bed holding Stuart’s letter, the delight she’d felt initially on receiving it pushed aside by shame. It wasn’t so much that he had discovered she was in prison, but that by now he would have found out about her real family.

  He had worked for Jackie for a few years, and become involved with all her family, and although that was a long time ago, they’d retained some contact with one another. He would’ve been upset enough to hear Jackie had died of natural causes, but once he was informed that she was murdered by Laura, he would have scoured the newspaper archives to find out more.

  Every sordid detail about her was there, for the press had been like hyenas after a kill, tearing chunks off her credibility as they unearthed more and more unsavoury facts about her and her background.

  She wasn’t concerned about the stuff that she’d been involved in since they split up; he had probably heard about most of that on the grapevine long ago anyway. But what must he have felt when he discovered that she had not been orphaned as she told him? That she had in fact got two living parents and five brothers and sisters she’d airbrushed out of her life?

  She could imagine him thinking back to things she’d told him about her fictional childhood and adolescence and asking himself why she’d never told him the truth, even if she chose to lie to the rest of the world.

  Stuart’s family background was working-class too, and he’d have been quick to admit to any skeletons in the closet. Yet he’d been proud of his origins, and would never have resorted to glitzing it up to climb the social ladder.

  There were many times in the two years they were together that she almost told him the truth. She’d known he would have understood then why she lied; indeed, he would probably have loved her even more because he’d been a compassionate man who was always on the side of the underdog. The reason she resisted the temptation was because he would have made her come clean to Jackie, and nagged her into contacting her mother. She was too much of a coward to face that.

  Tears welled up in her eyes and she brushed them away impatiently. If she’d known at sixteen what future heartache she was storing up, she wouldn’t have reinvented herself. But back then it was just self-preservation, not intentional deceit.

  She was twelve when it really dawned on her that everything was stacked against her. It was October 1957, one of those glorious autumn days when you notice the leaves on the trees have changed to gold, red, russet and yellow, yet the sun is warm enough to fool you into thinking it is still summer.

  There were no trees in Thornfield Road, Shepherds Bush, where she lived. Even the narrow strips of soil in front of the decaying three- and four-storey houses that the residents liked to call their ‘front garden’ held nothing but overloaded dustbins, bicycles and junk. But that day Laura had taken herself off to Ravenscroft Park nearby and had marvelled at the festival of colour there, and wished she lived in one of the nice houses surrounding the park.

  She went there most Saturday afternoons, but normally she took her baby brother Freddy in his pram, along with her sisters, Meggie and Ivy, to give her mother a break. But that morning Laura had taken one look at the dark, damp and chaotic basement flat they lived in, and she’d had an overwhelming need to get out and be alone in peaceful surroundings.

  She was still in the park, sitting on a bench daydreaming about having a bedroom of her own, a bathroom, and never again having to wear second-hand clothes or having other girls jeering at her in school because her clothes smelled of fried food and mildew, when she suddenly became aware it was late afternoon. The sun had turned bright orange and was sinking down behind the trees, making long shadows, and all at once she was chilly in her cotton dress.

  She walked home reluctantly, aware her mother would be furious she’d stayed out all day, and as she turned the corner into Thornfield Road, she saw Janice Potts and Margaret Jones from school, sitting on the wall outside her house.

  Her stomach turned over in fright because they’d been bullying her since the start of the new term in September. She knew they had come to pick a fight with her, because, like most of the girls at the grammar school in Holland Park, they lived well away from dingy Shepherds Bush, and had no reason to pass through her street.

  Right since her first day at grammar school Laura had felt like an impostor because almost everyone else was posh and glossy. The other girls had tennis and ballet lessons, their fathers had cars and wore suits, and she was absolutely certain no one else had a second-hand uniform or took a bath in the public ones. It didn’t help that she was so skinny and plain – every time she looked in a mirror she winced at her plaited hair which never looked sleek because it was so dull and wispy.

  All through her first year there she was aware the other girls whispered about her behind her back, they hid her books and never let her join in any of their games in the playground. But since she’d moved up to the second year, it had become far worse.

  On the first day back at school in September, Brenda Marsh had said she didn’t want to sit next to a ‘guttersnipe’. Someone else asked if she got her blazer from the rag-and-bone man. From then on it seemed as if the whole class was out to torment her. They left notes in her desk about her fusty smell. In the PE changing room girls would pick up her blouse or jumper between thumb and forefinger and wince, as though it had some disease on it. She even saw one girl polishing a chair that Laura had been sitting on with a handkerchief. Whispers, nudges and rude gestures went on all the time in class. In the playground and as she left school, girls would shout out cruel remarks and try to trip her up. Now the two ringleaders had discovered where she lived, and Laura was afraid.

  ‘Hey, Stinky Wilmslow! Had a wash this year yet?’ Janice yelled out.

  It was tempting to run into a neighbour’s house to ask for help, but she knew that if she did Janice and Margaret would be on to her again on Monday at school. ‘Go and boil your head,’ she called back defiantly and doggedly walked on towards them.

  ‘You still got nits?’ Margaret jeered as she got close to them.

  That jibe stung for she’d never had nits. She washed every day too, although that didn’t stop the smells from her home attaching themselves to her clothes. But there was no point in protesting, it would just give them an excuse to hurl more insults at her.

  ‘Probably – and you’ll catch them if you touch me,’ Laura responded. She had a sinking feeling that the sadistic duo were going to start hitting her, and that would mean she’d have to show them that common girls like her also learned to defend themselves from the cradle.

  As she reached them, Janice stuck out her foot to trip her up. Laura kept her nose in the air and pretended she hadn’t seen, but quick as a flash, kicked out at Janice’s other leg and made her topple over on to the paveme
nt.

  As Janice cried out in shocked surprise, Margaret jumped forward, her fingers hooked, ready to claw at Laura’s face. Laura kneed her in the stomach and Margaret reeled back, clutching herself.

  By anyone’s reckoning it was a formidable display of superior wits, speed and guile, and both girls looked suitably stunned and afraid. Laura put her hands on her hips and looked scathingly at them. ‘Have you had enough?’ she asked. ‘Or do you both want a good kicking so you can run crying home to your mummies?’

  They turned tail and fled, their short skirts fluttering up to show their white legs and navy-blue knickers. They weren’t even brave enough to call her more names from a distance.

  Laura watched them go. She felt the incident ought to have made her feel powerful and triumphant, but it had quite the reverse effect. What she wanted was for them to like her, so they could spend Saturday afternoons in Woolworth’s listening to the week’s Top Twenty and looking at the makeup. But that was never going to happen now.

  She slumped down on the wall of number 12 where she lived, suddenly, blindingly aware that it would take a great deal more than passing her eleven-plus and putting on a striped blazer to overcome the stigma of being a Wilmslow.

  She’d been so proud when she got her place at the grammar school, and she thought her older brothers were just jealous when they said she wouldn’t fit in there. Even when it was clear her brothers were right, ever the optimist, she had told herself she’d win everyone around in time.

  But she knew now she could never do that. She’d never get invited to one of the other girls’ parties, or home to tea; no one would ever want her around them. She didn’t mind that her parents had no money for the school trip to France, or for ballet lessons, but she didn’t think she could stand another four or more years at school without a single friend.

  Until now she had comforted herself when things looked blackest by the fact the teachers said she was clever. She had believed that one day she’d get to be something brilliant like a doctor, a scientist or a lawyer, and then all those who had looked down on her would be ashamed.

  But now she could see that Janice and Margaret’s prejudice against her was representative of how the whole world would see her. With a father in and out of prison, two older brothers who showed every sign of going the same way, and home a squalid hovel, she really didn’t have any chance of getting on in life.

  Turning her head slightly, Laura looked down into the basement flat and winced when she saw what Janice and Margaret would have seen. Filthy windows, net curtains yellow with age and full of holes, and the dustbins for the entire four-storey house which were kept right outside their front door wafting out a sickly, rotten smell. If they’d seen the squalor inside, they’d have been even more shocked. The shame of it flooded through her, making her feel sick.

  Dragging her feet, she went down the concrete steps to face her mother.

  ‘Where’ve you been all day?’ Mrs Wilmslow yelled as soon as Laura walked in. ‘I’ve been stuck in here with these kids fighting and the baby bawling, I ain’t even had a minute to nip out to buy some fags.’

  Laura stood in the doorway of the front room which also doubled as her parents’ bedroom, and her spirits plummeted to rock bottom. No sunshine ever made its way in here, the couch had the stuffing coming out of the arms, and the wallpaper had been up so long that any pattern it had originally had been obliterated. The air was thick with cigarette smoke and smelled as though six-month-old Freddy had a dirty nappy. He was lying on the floor, grizzling. Ivy, the three-year-old, had jam all over her face and a bare bottom. Meggie, who was five, was playing with her doll. The room was a mess, toys, used cups and plates everywhere; even the double bed hadn’t been made.

  June, Laura’s mother, was only thirty-two, a small, slender woman with bottle-blonde hair, a muddy complexion and a harassed expression. She still looked very pretty when she did her face and hair, but she rarely bothered with that unless she was going down the pub. She had curlers in her hair now, so she was obviously intending to go out later, but her dress had a tomato sauce stain down the front and she had holes in the elbows of her cardigan.

  ‘Go and get your fags now then,’ Laura retorted. She was tempted to point out that her mother could have taken the little ones out for a walk and got her cigarettes then, but she bit that back.

  ‘The kids kept on asking me where you were.’ Her mother’s voice had turned to a disgruntled whine. ‘For all I knew you could have been run over.’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t,’ Laura retorted. ‘You go and get your fags, I’ll tidy up in here and change Freddy – he stinks.’

  It was an odd thing that her mother rarely asked what Laura or her older brothers did when they went out. It was as if she didn’t care other than to feel aggrieved that they hadn’t been around to do something for her. Mark was fourteen now, Paul thirteen, and without any kind of discipline they were running wild.

  ‘Peel some spuds too,’ June said, lighting up her last cigarette and dropping the empty packet on the floor. ‘We’ll have egg and chips for tea.’

  ∗

  Laura opened the window when her mother had gone, and found the reason Ivy had no knickers on was because they were wet, and lying on the floor behind the sofa.

  ‘You must use the potty,’ she rebuked her little sister, and found her a clean pair to put on. She stacked up all the dirty plates and cups and carried them out into the kitchen, only to find the sink still piled high with the breakfast things. Groaning, she put the kettle on for some hot water, then heaved all the dishes out on to the table so she could bathe Freddy.

  Mrs Crispin upstairs often said June should be ashamed of herself for being such a bad mother, that she was slovenly, lazy and a disgrace. Laura hated the woman for sticking her nose in her family’s business, but she was right.

  June Wilmslow was slovenly. She seemed unable to see dishes that needed washing, the pile of clothes in a chair that required ironing, and she would walk over things dropped on the floor rather than pick them up and put them away. As for cleaning, she would keep moaning that it needed doing, but that was as far as she got.

  Laura had been taught in domestic science that a good housewife should make a weekly timetable to fit in all the work needing to be done. Several times she’d drawn one up for her mother, along with a menu for the week so she could get the shopping all in one go to save her time. But although June agreed it was a good idea, she couldn’t stick to it. What she did with herself all day was something of a mystery, for when Laura got home from school, it was she who was invariably sent out to buy the groceries, or take the washing to the public baths.

  Bill, her father, made matters worse. He had been in and out of prison for as long as Laura could remember. Each time he came out he would get work on building sites or something for a few weeks, but he soon went back to his old ways. Most nights he was out drinking and he slept till late the following day, making it difficult for June to get a routine going. He could be generous and jolly when he was in the money, but if there wasn’t enough for him to buy a few drinks or go down the dog track, he was very grumpy and took it out on June.

  In Laura’s opinion, however, it was the overcrowded, dark, damp flat that had got her mother down most. She often said wearily that it didn’t look any better even when it was tidy and clean, and that if only they had a garden, a bathroom and an inside lavvy she’d feel like she’d won the pools.

  Laura had accompanied her to the council loads of times to try to make them give them a house. Her mother pleaded with them that it wasn’t right that Mark and Paul slept in a room where water ran down the walls, or that the three girls had to sleep in the same bed, because there was no room for another one. But her pleas were ignored.

  Laura had overheard a neighbour saying that it was because of Bill going in and out of prison all the time. She said they didn’t want ‘rough’ families living on the new estates.

  As if they had special food sensors on thei
r noses, Mark and Paul arrived home just as their mother was frying the chips. They were skinny versions of their burly father, with the same dark brown hair, sharp features and cocky manner. Laura sensed they were plotting something as they looked annoyed when June told them she wanted them to stay in that evening to look after the little ones as she was going down the pub to meet Bill.

  ‘He had a few quid when he went out to the football this afternoon,’ June said. ‘He’ll go straight to the pub afterwards and if I don’t go and join him he’ll stay out until he’s spent every penny he’s got on him.’

  Laura, Mark and Paul exchanged resigned glances. They’d all too often heard their father stumbling in dead drunk late at night, and witnessed the rows when their mother found his pockets empty in the morning. It would make no difference to the amount he spent if their mother joined him at the pub, but at least they came home drunk together, kissing and cuddling like lovebirds. That usually meant their parents were much nicer to them all the following day.

  At half past seven June left the house all dressed up in her best pink dress and her hair looking really nice, but she’d no sooner left than Mark and Paul said they were going out too.

  ‘You tell Mum and Dad and you’ll be sorry,’ Mark warned Laura, giving her a shilling and a Mars bar as a bribe.

  Laura was quite happy to go along with this; she didn’t know why her parents always insisted the boys had to babysit anyway, for they were worse than useless with the little ones and nasty to her. She warned them to be sure to get back before their parents or there’d be hell to pay, and felt glad she was to be left alone.

  Freddy fell fast asleep the minute he’d had his bottle, and Ivy and Meggie were in bed by half past eight, so Laura had the luxury of being able to lie on her parents’ bed to read with no one to interrupt her.