‘Leave her alone.’
‘Jackie, please stop interrupting. Kindly hold the line, Mrs Shine. Mrs Hay?’
‘Yes?’
‘Apropos your daughter – a situation has arisen. I’ve explained my commitment to your good self, and Mrs Shine wishes me to give her the same undertaking. My point is, mothers, I cannot decide which daughter to have first. Mrs Hay, shall I have your daughter first, after all, or would you rather I kept my commitment to you and have her second?’
Shirley starting barking as Jackie screamed, ‘Stop torturing my mother, HOCKLER!’
I hung up immediately.
This was the first error I referred to earlier. Had Shirley barked loud enough to drown out my name? Had the police been recording the conversations? Would they analyse the call through enhancing equipment?
Mine was not an Irish name. And few Hocklers lived in Ireland. Would the authorities be at my door before the night was out? You can see why I found the episode distressing.
Complacency, you see. Complacency can be a devil.
LUCILLE
Gemma’s letter came. The night I was due to move into the holiday cottage I arrived home from working late to collect my things and found it on the mat. I wouldn’t be seeing her for a week, so I took it to the Top Towers Hotel, went up to her room and knocked on the door.
Things weren’t well between me and Gemma. I didn’t like what she was doing. She didn’t want me there.
When she called out, ‘Who is it?’ and I said, ‘It’s me,’ her voice dropped. ‘Lu?’
‘Yes.’ She opened the door with her back to me. I’d embarrassed her by coming.
I’d always been like a big sister to Gemma, you see. When she left the home it was me she came to. I had her room all ready. She was happy at first, but being so tiny and all, she always felt inadequate. Then she got a job in a bar. She said the owner was the most honest man she’d ever met. There was nothing false about him; he lived his life according to his rules, and it impressed her. He didn’t judge people. Things started to go well for her when she met him.
Then she began staying out a lot, going to clubs and spending the night with a couple of mates in their flat. I’d be at work when she’d get in the following morning. A change of clothes and she’d be away again. We were very close, but, you know, people move on, form new relationships. Gemma could be very secretive about her new friends – insecurity I’d always put it down to, as if introducing them to me would make her less the centre of attraction.
Only that wasn’t it this time.
She’d begun spending a lot more money than she was earning and when I asked her about it she told me she’d quit her job and was working for a man called Ted Lyle.
When I said it must be some job, ‘It’s in the town’ was all I could get out of her.
‘Where in the town?’ was met with ‘It’s none of your business.’
‘Gemma,’ I said, ‘what’s going on? What’s wrong with me asking you where you work?’
And then it all came out.
She told me they’d set her up in the hotel and that her old boss was being very good about the whole thing. He had this way of making her feel positive about herself, saying that she should capitalise on her strong points and not feel that she was doing anything wrong.
I’d misread him. I’d thought he would have been against what she was doing. A couple of other girls from a home had got drawn in by the easy money too. Things changed between us after that. I was now seen as the ‘disapproving’ big sister. I suppose I was. Oh, she didn’t think I was a prude or anything like that – if girls want to work hotels, that’s up to them – just that I was angry at what she had allowed herself to become when she could have been so much more.
If this had been anywhere but that hotel room she’d have been a bundle of nerves at getting that letter, and I’d have sat beside her while she opened it, willing it to be the news she was hoping for. But I knew she wanted me to leave in case some client turned up and embarrassed her even more in front of me. She was feeling uneasy and wanted me to go and, once the letter was read, she knew I would.
Dear Gemma,
I’m sorry for taking so long to reply to your letter. But as much as I wish things were different, they are what they are, and to welcome you back into my life at this time would not be possible. My family are unaware of my past and, for their sake, I have to decline your request for us to meet. I do hope you understand and do not judge me harshly.
I wish you all the best in life.
Angela Reading
It was a terrible letter for any mother to have written. Even the style was cold and dispassionate. ‘I have to decline your request.’ It had all the indifference of a bank manager turning down a loan application. All I could do was kneel down and put my arms around her and tell her how sorry I was. She was beyond devastated.
Gemma suffered from migraines. The rejection brought one on. Her left eye had almost closed over. A lie down in her own bedroom – without the distractions of that place – with the curtains drawn sometimes helped. Light made it worse. But she said she couldn’t face going home and wanted to go for a drink. We would go to a nice quiet bar in the country and have a talk. I decided she should
