Wife And Mother Forever Read online

  ‘Justin, what’s the matter? It’s not just about Mark’s mother, is it?’

  ‘No,’ he said hoarsely.

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘I can’t-so many things-there’s no help for it now.’

  ‘There’s help for everything, if you’ve got someone who really wants to help you,’ she said. ‘But how can I, if I don’t understand?’

  ‘How can you understand, when I don’t understand it myself?’ he whispered. ‘I want to ask why-I’ve always wanted that-but there’s nobody to ask.’

  She couldn’t bear his agony. Without thinking about it, she leaned down and laid her lips tenderly over his.

  ‘It’s going to be all right,’ she whispered. ‘I’m going to make it all right.’

  She had no idea what she meant, or what she could do to help him. But the details didn’t matter. What mattered was easing his pain in any way she could. So she kissed him again and again until she felt him begin to relax in her arms.

  It was unlike the other kiss in every way but one, and that was the slow burning inside her. But whereas that first excitement had been entwined with anger, this one was a part of pity and sorrow. She wanted him to find oblivion in her, lose himself in her completely, if that could give him a respite from suffering.

  So she offered herself to him without reservation, waiting for the moment when his own desire rose and he reached out, taking over the kiss, turning her so that he was above her on the bed.

  He checked himself for a moment, as though the earlier memory had come back to him. Seeing his doubt, she began to unbutton his shirt while her smile told him enough to ease the dread in his face. Then he was opening her pyjama top and laying his face against her warm skin.

  He stayed like that for so long that she wondered if this was all he wanted, but then she felt his hands move on her with increasing urgency and she knew that they both wanted the same thing. And they wanted it now.

  They made love quickly, as if trying to discover something they badly needed to know. And when they’d found the answer they made love again, but slowly this time, relishing the newly discovered treasure.

  Afterwards there was peace, clinging to each other for safety in this new world, while the moonlight limned their nakedness.

  She kissed him. ‘Can you talk about it now?’ she whispered.

  ‘I’m not sure. I’ve never tried before.’

  ‘Maybe that’s the trouble. Talk to me, Justin, for both our sakes.’

  ‘I don’t know where to begin.’

  ‘Start with your mother.’

  ‘Which one?’

  The answer startled her. She rose up on one elbow and looked down on him. After a moment he started to speak, hesitantly.

  ‘For the first seven years of my life, I was like any other child. I had a home, two parents who loved me, or seemed to. Then the woman I thought of as my mother became pregnant.

  ‘Almost overnight she lost interest in me. I found out why almost by chance. I overheard her talking to her sister, saying, ‘It’ll be wonderful to have a child of my own’. That was how I learned that she wasn’t really my mother.’

  ‘Dear God!’ Evie said softly. ‘Did you tell her what you’d heard?’

  ‘No, I kept it to myself for months, pretending it wasn’t true. But the pretence wore thin, especially when the baby was born, a boy.

  ‘I was jealous. I started to have tantrums. So they called social services and said that I was “out of control” and I must go into care. After that I couldn’t pretend any longer. I’d been adopted as second best, because they thought they couldn’t have children. Now they didn’t need me.’

  She stared at him, too shocked to speak.

  ‘I don’t remember much about that day,’ he said. ‘I know I screamed at my parents not to send me away. I begged and pleaded but it was no use. They didn’t want me.’

  ‘Wait, stop,’ she begged, covering her eyes as though, by this means, she could blot out the terrible story. ‘I can’t take this in. Surely they must have had some love for you?’

  ‘You don’t understand. I was a substitute. If they’d never had one of their own I suppose they’d have made do with me, but now I was surplus to requirements. It took me years to see that, of course. All I knew at the time was that it was my own fault for being wicked.’

  ‘How could anyone be so cruel as to put that burden on a child?’ she burst out furiously. ‘It’s unspeakable. I suppose that’s what they wanted to believe so that they didn’t have to feel guilty about what they were really doing.’

  ‘Yes, I worked that out in the end, too. But at the time I believed what I was told.’

  ‘Where did they take you?’

  ‘To what is laughingly known as a “home”, which means an institution. At first I thought my mother would come and visit me. I used to stand at the window, watching the entrance. I knew she’d come. But weeks went by and there was no sign of them. Even then I didn’t face it, not until one of the other boys jeered, “You’re wasting yer time. Yer Mum dumped yer”.

  ‘Of course, then I knew, because in my heart I’d always known. The only way I could cope was to fight him. He was bigger than me, but I won because I hated him, not only because of what he’d said, but because his mother was taking him home the next day.

  ‘The home wasn’t a bad place. They meant well and they did their best. There was no affection because the staff turnover was so high, but I couldn’t have dealt with that anyway. I’d learned enough not to want to get close to people, so I don’t know what I’d have done if anyone had tried to get close to me. Something violent, probably.’

  She shook her head in instinctive denial. At one time she might have mistaken him for a violent man, but now she sensed differently.

  ‘I left when I was sixteen,’ he resumed, ‘and on the last day-’

  He stopped, and a shudder went through him.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked softly.

  He didn’t answer at first. Then he said, ‘Give me a minute.’

  He rose and walked to the window. She stared at his broad back, wondering how she could ever have thought his size and strength alarming. All she could see now was that he was racked with misery. She went to stand beside him, turning him towards her, and had to fight back tears at what she saw.

  He was actually shaking. Something was devastating him, and for a moment she thought he would be unable to speak of it.

  At last he said, ‘When I left they had to tell me the whole truth about myself. That was when I learned that my birth mother had given me away almost as soon as I was born.’

  Evie stared at him, slowly shaking her head in speechless horror.

  His laugh was harsh and bitter.

  ‘You’ll hardly believe this, but I was left on the orphanage doorstep like some Victorian foundling. If your mother does that, she can’t be traced, you see. She’s got rid of you completely.

  ‘That was all they knew. I turned up one evening out of the blue. Apparently a doctor said I was about a week old. They did some research into the babies that had been born recently in that area, but none of them was me.’

  ‘You mean your birth wasn’t even registered?’

  ‘Not by my mother. The orphanage registered me, of course.’

  ‘It’s awful,’ she whispered. ‘All this time, not knowing who you really are.’

  ‘But I do know who I am,’ he said with bitter irony. ‘I’m the son two mothers didn’t want. What could be clearer than that?’

  ‘I used to wonder why you were so angry and suspicious all the time,’ she said. ‘Now I wonder how you’ve managed to keep your head together.’

  ‘I’m not sure I have. For a long time I was crazy. I didn’t behave well, either in the home or after I’d left it. I drank too much, brawled, got into trouble with the police, served some time in jail. That brought me back into contact with my adoptive parents.’

  ‘They came to help you?’ she asked, longing for som
e redeeming moment in this dreadful story.

  ‘No, they sent a lawyer to say they’d get me a good defence on condition that I stopped using their name. They had an unusual name, Strassne, and since I still bore it people were beginning to associate this young low-life with them.’

  ‘So that was when you became Justin Dane?’ she asked. She would have liked to say something more violent, but was controlling herself with a huge effort.

  ‘No, I became John Davis. My one-time “parents” insisted on doing it by deed poll, so that it was official and they’d never have to acknowledge me again. Then they paid for a very expensive defence, and John Davis was acquitted. They didn’t even attend the trial.’

  ‘So what happened to John Davis?’

  ‘He didn’t survive the day. I changed my name to Leo Holman. Not by deed poll. I just took off and gave my name as Leo wherever I went.’

  ‘Don’t you need some paperwork to get things like passports and bank accounts?’

  ‘Yes, and if I’d needed those things it would have been a problem, but I wasn’t living in a world of passports and bank accounts. I worked as a handyman, strictly for cash, got into trouble again, went inside-never long sentences, just a couple of months, but every time I came out I changed my name again. I lost track of how often. What did it matter to me? I no longer had a real identity, so it didn’t matter how often I changed it.

  ‘The last time I was in prison I met a man who put me straight. His name was Bill. He was a prison visitor, but he’d done time himself so he knew what he was talking about. He saw something in me that could be put back on track, and he set himself to do it.

  ‘When I came out he was there waiting for me. He gave me a room in his own house, so that he could watch me like a hawk to see that I stayed on the straight and narrow. And he made me go to evening classes. I learned things and I found that I enjoyed having ambitions. Bit by bit I turned into a respectable citizen, the kind of man who needs paperwork.

  ‘So I changed my name one last time. I was Andrew Lester at that time and I turned into Justin Dane. I did it officially, by deed poll, and I went to work in Bill’s firm.’

  ‘How did you choose the name?’

  ‘Bill had a Great Dane I enjoyed fooling with. I forget where Justin came from. In the end he loaned me the money to start my own business. In three years I repaid him. In eight years I bought him out. Don’t misunderstand that. He was delighted. I gave him a good price, enough to retire on. I wouldn’t have done him down. I owed him, and I repaid him.

  ‘After that I just made money. It was all I knew how to do. I didn’t seem able to make relationships work.’

  ‘What about your wife? You must have loved her?’

  ‘I loved her a lot. I even told myself that she loved me, but we married because she was pregnant and I wanted a child badly. But it didn’t work out. In the end she couldn’t stand me. She said so. The only good thing to come out of it was Mark.

  ‘I thought with him, at least, I could make a success, but I haven’t. I don’t know how. I’m driving him away as I seem to drive everyone away.’

  ‘But what happened with your mothers-either of them-wasn’t your fault,’ she urged. ‘It couldn’t be.’

  ‘Maybe not, but it started me on a track I don’t know how to escape.’ He gave a soft mirthless laugh. ‘You’ll hardly believe this, but when people tell me to get lost I feel almost relieved. At least it’s familiar territory.’

  He fell silent. Evie slipped her arms about him and leaned against his body as they stood there in the window. But she too said nothing, because in the face of such a terrible story there was nothing to say.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  A FTER that they didn’t speak of it again. He had said as much as he could bear to, and Evie’s instincts told her to leave it. She must start getting to know this man again from the beginning.

  Everything she had thought true about him was now reversed. Instead of the harsh bully, manipulating her for ulterior motives, there was a forlorn child desperately wondering what he’d done wrong to be so unloved. That child would remain a part of him all his life, making him so vulnerable to slights and rejections that he could only cope by being the first to attack.

  She smiled to think how annoyed it would make him to be seen in this light. It was something she would have to keep to herself.

  They didn’t tell Mark why the atmosphere had suddenly become happier, and he never mentioned the nights he awoke to find Justin’s bed empty, and went contentedly back to sleep. His air of strain fell away and he smiled more, but, like his father, he knew how to keep his own counsel.

  One night, as they lay peacefully in bed, Justin said, ‘So what was all that about Andrew?’

  She gave a gasp of laughter.

  ‘Don’t remind me what a fool I was. I guess I wanted to believe I was in love with him, and the effort to convince myself was tying me in knots.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘You once said that no man had ever offered me lifetime commitment-’

  ‘I once said a lot of tomfool things. You shouldn’t listen to me.’

  ‘I try not to, but you’re hard to shut out when you get going,’ she said indignantly. ‘And you really annoyed me that time, talking as though I’m some Victorian wall-flower grasping at her last chance. I’d kick you if I had the energy.’

  He grinned and kissed her. ‘So what’s the real story?’

  ‘I’ve always been the one fleeing commitment. It sounded so boring. I love my life, the freedom, the variety-’

  ‘The motorbike.’

  ‘Yup. There was never a man who made me want to change it, but I thought, if I waited long enough, I’d meet one. And suddenly I was nearly thirty and Andrew was such a sweet guy that I-well-’

  ‘You decided he’d “do”.’

  ‘You make it sound terrible, but yes, I suppose that’s true. I was starting to feel lonely, so I decided on Andrew. But I was always forcing it, and of course he knew something was wrong.’

  ‘When you’d stood him up often enough he got the message?’ Justin said with the amiable derision of the conqueror for his defeated rival.

  ‘Well, I’m glad he did, and found someone who suits him better.’

  ‘You can’t be sure he has.’

  She gave a soft chuckle. ‘Yes, I can. Anyone would suit him better than me, and that girl sounded as though he’d made her very happy.’

  They lay in sleepy contentment for a while. She was wondering how to broach the subject on her mind. At last she murmured, ‘Have you told Mark that you bought the cottage?’

  ‘No. I wasn’t sure what to say, when you were so mad at me.’

  ‘Only because I misunderstood. I thought you were-never mind. I was wrong. I heard from the lawyer this morning. He’s paid all Uncle Joe’s debts and sent me a cheque for the balance.’

  ‘So I suppose you’re going to throw that back at me?’ His tone was deceptively light, but now she could hear the dread beneath.

  ‘Nope,’ she said cheerfully, snuggling up to him. ‘I’m going to put it in the bank and make whoopee!’

  ‘I’m glad.’

  ‘Seriously, I’ll use it to do some repairs to the cottage-that is-if it’s still mine.’

  He’d seized her into his arms before she’d finished speaking, using his mouth to incite and tease her towards what they both now wanted. But through his desire she also sensed passionate relief that she had finally accepted his offering, taking the sting out of her earlier rejection.

  It would be good to believe that the revelations had made everything right, or at least given her the key to helping him. With her he’d found a kind of happiness, but that alone could not slay the demons of dread and insecurity that were devouring him inside. The darkness was not so easily defeated.

  He still flared up about small things. His temper always died quickly, and he would apologise in a way that revealed his fear that he’d drive her away. She forgave him readily, but s
he worried about him.

  Even more troubling were the times that he controlled his inner turbulence and went away to suffer alone, returning with a bright smile and an air of strain.

  Once, when Mark had gone to bed and a chilly spell had made them light the log fire and stretch out on the old sofa before it, she asked him, ‘Justin, how long can you go on like this?’

  He shrugged. At one time it would have seemed dismissive, but now she understood his confusion.

  ‘As long as there is,’ he said. ‘What else can I do?’

  ‘The first time I saw you I thought how angry you were. As I came to know you better I realised that you were angry all the time. No matter what happens it’s always there below the surface, waiting for something to trigger it, never giving you any peace.’

  ‘I’m sorry I lost it today-’

  ‘That’s all right. You said sorry at the time, and you bought Mark that computer game to make up for it.’

  ‘Yes, and he put it on my computer and I couldn’t get to it for hours,’ he said with resignation. ‘Be fair, I didn’t lose my temper about that.’

  ‘No, you showed the patience of a saint. You even let him teach you the game and beat you.’

  He managed a faint grin. ‘I didn’t let him beat me. He beat me. And he enjoyed crowing at my expense. He’s a great kid, Evie. I even think-’

  ‘No,’ she said urgently. ‘You’re not going to change the subject. It’s you we’re talking about. You’re not happy-’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ he said, tightening his arms about her. ‘A little more of Dr Evie’s Magic Balm and I’ll be sweetness and light all the time.’

  ‘Not in a million years! Besides, I don’t think I’d like you as sweetness and light. I wouldn’t recognise you, for one thing.’ He gave a muffled laugh against her hair. ‘Besides, a magic balm only works on the outside. You need something to work on the inside.’

  ‘Evie, I’m not ill.’

  ‘You’re being devoured alive, and that’s a kind of sickness.’

  ‘You do the psycho-babble very well,’ he said lightly.