Fall From Grace (3 page)

‘My dear lady, I left Gerald Edwards behind in Glossop. To be called Dieter again and never have to go back to Gerald Edwards … well God in Himmel it feels so good!’

They embraced and held on tightly to each other. Although they’d been lovers for seventy years they hadn’t lived together since the end of the war. Despite the reality of their marriages to other people, they’d met up once a month all the way through the decades to celebrate their spiritual and romantic union. Dieter was no stranger in her house. But now as she looked at him her heart skipped like it had done on that day back in 1940 when she’d first met him. He was the love of her life and she was overwhelmed that now they could enjoy a proper reunion.

‘I can’t let you go to prison, Dieter,’ said Eleanor, ‘that would be too awful to even contemplate especially as it would all be because of that vile Pole. You must stay here until the dust settles and you become yesterday’s news.’

Dieter held Eleanor’s hands, ‘It will be like the old days.’

Eleanor smiled the way a woman does when she’s looking into the eyes of her one true love, ‘It most certainly will.’

‘My dear lady, I shall never be able to repay you. My children, they… well they have disowned me. They wondered why this… this woman was so insistent. They’re professional people. They’re not stupid. I couldn’t lie to them anymore’.

‘Do they know you’re here?’

‘Yes. And I’m afraid that made it worse.’

Eleanor caressed Dieter’s face with her hand. ‘Oh my poor, poor Dieter. We shall explain everything to them once this is all over. You’re their father. They’ll understand in time.’

‘They’ve always believed that their mother was my only true love.’

‘It will be hard for them to take, but then again, the truth often is.’

Dieter stroked the side of her face. ‘I can’t believe I’m back here with you after all these years. I knew that our love would draw the circle one day.’

‘These are dark circumstances that have brought us back together but I’m glad nevertheless. But losing you twice in one lifetime…’ her voice faltered as she fought back the tears. He always did have such a gentle touch, ‘… well that would be the end of me’.

‘And we can’t have that. I am here now and we shall never be parted again’.

*

Paul Foster picked his parents up from the bungalow at South Shore in Blackpool that they’d retired to five years earlier. As he drove them up the promenade he was amazed that some owners still advertise their ‘select’ holiday flats. What was that all about? Did people have to sit an exam before staying there or something? Then there were the hotels offering their ‘world famous English breakfasts.’ World famous English breakfasts? He shook his head and smiled.

‘We’ve had many a happy holiday in this town,’ said Paul’s father, Ed, sat alongside him at the front, ‘don’t you remember, our Paul?’

Paul’s memories of his childhood family holidays in Blackpool weren’t as happy as his father thought they were but he’d never told his father about it and now he never would.

‘Yeah, Dad,’ said Paul, smiling. ‘They were good times.’ He looked in the rear view mirror at his mother who was sitting on the back seat. She said nothing.

They carried on up the Fylde coast along Blackpool’s North Shore and by the time they got up to the town of Fleetwood at the top end of the coastal peninsula, the sky had completely cleared and the sun was high. Paul parked in one of the nose-in spaces on the esplanade from where they could see right across the vast open space of Morecambe Bay to Barrow, on the edge of Cumbria, fifty miles or so to the northwest.

‘You’ll still need the blanket over your legs despite the sun, Dad,’ said Paul, ‘there’s quite a breeze blowing out there.’

‘There always is up here,’ said Ed.

Paul took his Dad’s wheelchair out of the boot and set it up for him. He then helped him out of the passenger seat of his car. His father’s face contorted with pain as the cancer inside him fought against his every move and Paul was careful to take his time, holding his father still for a second or two to give him a breather when the pain seemed to overwhelm him. He got him into his wheelchair and carefully folded the blanket over his legs, making sure his feet were resting on the footplates. His father squeezed his hand in appreciation.

Paul’s mother stood there with a face like a wet weekend and Paul knew that she’d only get worse as the day went on, especially after she’d had a couple of glasses of wine. He wished she’d stayed at home.

There were several little cafes offering the kind of lunch they’d come up for but Paul knew his Dad liked to go into the big hotel that dominated the esplanade on the corner where the tramway to Blackpool turned towards the port. The hotel had once been the terminus for trains that would bring passengers up from London on their way to Scotland. The early days of the railways had lacked the kind of engineering that could excavate the necessary tunnels through the Lake District and so the passengers were transferred to boats to take them across the bay where they’d pick up another train to take them on to their Scottish destination.

A container ship was loading up in the port that wasn’t enormous but it was big enough to dominate the narrow stretch of water between Fleetwood and Knott End-on-Sea on the other side of the estuary. When he was a child, Paul had wanted to escape to Knott End on the little boat that crossed over the estuary to it, but when he got older he dreamed instead of running onto one of the ships and becoming a stowaway. He thought the high seas would offer him sanctuary from his mother’s hand, her fist, her fingernails breaking his skin and drawing blood, her teeth biting into him like a dog attacking an intruder. But then he learned that the ships only went as far as the Isle of Man or Northern Ireland and neither of those two places seemed far enough away.

At the front of the ground floor of the hotel was a long bar that served food. Paul wheeled his Dad in and found a table halfway down. He went up to the bar and ordered three lots of fish, chips, and mushy peas, and three glasses of the house white. When they’d finished their food they were ready for more drinks. Paul went back to the bar and ordered two more glasses of wine for his parents and an orange juice for himself.

Paul started talking to his Dad about the football. His Dad was an avid, lifelong Liverpool supporter but the team hadn’t been doing consistently well this season and his Dad blamed it on the way football seemed to be less about the game these days and more about a celebrity circus for the footballers and their high spending girlfriends.

Mary turned from the conversation she’d been having with the couple at the next table and snarled once more at Paul. ‘why the hell are you talking about football?’

Paul took a deep breath. Would she ever stop? ‘Because I like football, Mum. You know that.’

Mary laughed sardonically, ‘You like footballers more like!’ She turned back to her new friends and pointed her thumb at Paul, ‘he’s a shirt- lifter.’

‘He’s got some boyfriend in the Army you know,’ said Mary, turning back to her new friends who were now looking very uncomfortable, ‘he’s out in Afghanistan and hasn’t been heard of for weeks on end. But they’re not going to bother about bringing some bent piece home in a body bag, are they? I mean, it stands to reason. The Army’s no place for that sort and the public aren’t going to waste any sympathy.’

‘Mary, that is enough!’

‘It’s alright, Dad,’ said Paul who didn’t want his Dad getting upset, ‘it’s alright.’

It wasn’t alright. It wasn’t alright at all. Paul was going out of his mind with worry about Jake who was a Lance Corporal on tour with his unit in Southern Afghanistan. The last time Jake had rung Paul, almost four months ago, he’d told him he wouldn’t be able to ring him for a while and that he’d just have to be patient. But Paul had gone way past the stage of being patient. The worry was like a living hell. He and Jake had been seeing each other for four years and he ached for news that Jake was okay. Almost every night he had nightmares about what might have happened to him, what some evil thugs could be doing to him if they’d got hold of him. He’d been on missions before, but had never been out of contact for anything like this length of time. Paul couldn’t ring anyone, not the Army, not the MoD, because Jake wasn’t ‘out’ to his comrades. He wasn’t out to his family either and they knew nothing about his relationship with Paul.

‘You’ve heard nothing from Jake then, son?’ asked his father. He’d met Jake several times and liked the bloke. He thought he must be in the thick of it now though judging by what was on the news every night, ‘I forgot to ask before, I’m sorry.’

‘It’s okay, Dad, I understand and no, I’ve heard nothing.’

Paul swallowed hard. He wanted to burst into tears but that would give too much ammunition to his mother so he’d save that for when he got home later.

‘Thirty-five years old and still living in a two-up, two-down house because he insists on staying in a job where he helps all the scum and the dregs of society,’ his mother scorned, ‘how bloody pathetic is that?’

‘It’s not pathetic, Mum,’ said Paul who could hold his own against her but was sick of having to do so. He felt like he’d been doing it all his life, ‘and they’re not the dregs of society.’

‘Of course it’s all so different with our daughter Denise,’ Mary boasted, ‘she lives in a beautiful big house down in Berkshire. Oh yes, her husband, my son-in-law George, he’s got a top job in the city. They have a very good life.’

‘And Denise has only been to see Dad once since he got ill and that was only for a couple of hours one afternoon, during which she watched the clock the whole time.’

‘Shut your stupid mouth!’ his mother scolded.

Paul closed his eyes to quell his anger. When he opened them he saw that his father had fallen asleep but still he lowered his voice as he turned to his mother.

‘Mum, when was the last time your darling daughter even rang up to see how her father was?’

‘She’s very busy,’ said Mary, quietly.

‘Yes of course she is, Mum. She’s got nails to paint and magazines to read. Of course she’s far too busy to spend time with her dying father.’

‘George has a very important job and they can’t just drop everything to come all the way up here,’ said Mary, ‘you’re talking out of the back of your head as usual.’

‘I don’t deserve the crap I take from you, Mum’ said Paul, his emotions hardening to her. ‘I make a hundred mile roundtrip three times a week to see to Dad and to give you some support, and I do it gladly, but all you do is kick it straight back in my face and yet our Denise who never calls you and never comes anywhere near gets put on a bloody pedestal.’

‘Don’t you dare bad mouth your sister!’ she warned.

‘And what will you do if I carry on, Mum? Are we going to go back to the old days? Are you going to make me go without my tea and tell Dad when he gets home from work that I’ve already eaten? I lost count of the nights I went to bed hungry because of your cruelty. Are you going to pour boiling water over my hand until the skin starts to peel off and then tell Dad how clumsy I am? Are you going to lock me in the cupboard under the stairs for hours on end knowing how claustrophobic I get? Are you going to beat the shit out of me but only on my body so that Dad won’t see? Do you remember what you always used to say to me? You used to say that if I told Dad I’d get it all ten times worse the next day. I will never forget any of it for as long as I live.’

‘I did it for your own good.’

‘Oh yes that’s it,’ said Paul, shaking his head in absolute disgust, ‘the standard excuse used by parents who assault their children.’

‘You were always far too sensitive,’ she sneered, ‘I needed to toughen you up.’

‘Oh there goes another of the stock excuses. Keep on going down the list, Mum, I’m all ears. I’d hate to live in your world. It must be a very twisted place.’

‘You don’t know the half of it.’

‘Really? Well what I can’t work out is what made you hate me so much? What could I have done? I was only a child for God’s sake and you never did any of it to our Denise. That’s what hurts me more than the abuse itself. You singled me out and you still do and our Denise stood by laughing just like she does now.’

*

Sara Hoyland and Tim Norris had once been part of the same social gang, a group of about twenty who’d all hung out together before life had moved most of them into the settling down stage. Everybody had always expected Sara and Tim to get together as more than friends one day but then Tim met a nurse called Helen whom everybody acknowledged was gorgeous and lovely and beautiful and ‘so right’ for Tim. It had mightily pissed Sara off at the time that they all seemed to forget the feelings she had for Tim. Then, when fate gave her a reason never to forget what the rest of them seemed to have discarded, she distanced herself from them and now had a whole new set of friends. Tim had married Helen and by all accounts they were very happy. She was pleased for them. She just didn’t want her nose rubbed in it.