Gracie (21 page)

Her parents stepped forward in unison and stared through the window at the baby, and as they did, Gracie noticed that her father put his arm around his wife’s shoulder. She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen anything remotely affectionate between them.

‘She is so tiny … is she going to be alright?’ her father asked.

‘I hope so, but it’s still early days. She was distressed when she was born – hardly surprising as she spent weeks beside her dead brother …’

Dot McCabe made a strange sound, and Gracie was shocked to see tears rolling down her cheeks.

‘Don’t do that,’ Gracie said. ‘I wasn’t trying to upset you, I wasn’t. It’s just a fact.’

‘I’ve got to get back to the hotel now so I’ll leave you to it,’ Ruby said tactfully. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow evening …’

‘You don’t have to go …’ Gracie said.

‘Yes, I do.’ Ruby looked at Fred and Dot McCabe. ‘Nice to see you again. You should come to the hotel sometime; we’d love to see you.’

‘We might just do that,’ Fred McCabe smiled. ‘We’ve got a lot to thank you for, Ruby. Without you, I dread to think what might have happened to Gracie and the baby.’

With a quick wave Ruby disappeared out of sight, leaving Gracie and her parents standing around awkwardly.

‘She said
we
, are you going back there?’ Dot McCabe asked.

‘I think so. At least I’ll be able to have the baby at work with me, I have to earn a living …’

Her mother still looked at the floor. ‘You and the baby could come home to us. We’ve got plenty of room.’

Gracie smiled but didn’t answer. She was actually lost for words.

Gracie had agreed with Ruby that Johnnie would go round and tell her parents about the baby. Initially she’d baulked at the idea but Ruby had been persuasive, telling her that they should know and that Johnnie Riordan was the most neutral person to do it.

They hadn’t been to visit while Fay was in the special unit and Gracie was recovering from her surgery but they had kept in touch with Ruby by telephone. Fred McCabe would walk to the phone box most days and ring the hotel to ask for an update, and Ruby would pass on any messages.

‘Have you seen Jennifer?’ Gracie suddenly asked. ‘I was just wondering if Sean knew he had a daughter. Are they still together?’

‘We’ve not seen hide nor hair of either of them since the night Jennifer flew in, packed a small bag and went straight out almost immediately. She didn’t mention Sean and we didn’t know at that point – it was Jeannie who told us exactly what she’d done. I’m so sorry …’ Fred started to say but his wife quickly interrupted him.

‘No,’ Dot put a hand on her husband’s arm and looked at her daughter. ‘Gracie,
I’m
sorry. It was all my fault. I didn’t know Jennifer was in the house when I was talking to your father after you’d been to visit, when you asked us not to tell Sean. I didn’t know she was listening or what she’d do, but it was my fault.’

Dot looked again at the baby. ‘I always knew Jennifer had a streak of madness in her but this is wrong.
So
wrong …’

Gracie didn’t know what to say. She looked closely and saw tears in her mother’s eyes for the first time. Gracie had never seen her mother cry before.

‘Oh, it wasn’t your fault, it was mine. I know that now,’ Gracie said. ‘I should have been honest with him and then Jennifer wouldn’t have been able to do what she did. My fault. But I’ll still smash her face in when I see her – selfish jealous bitch, messing with people’s lives for the fun of it.’

‘Gracie!’ Fred McCabe said sharply, but with a slight grin.

Gracie forced a smile. ‘Sorry but it’s true. Thanks for coming anyway.’

‘We’ve had our differences, we all have. Let’s hope we can have an end to it.’ Fred McCabe said gently. ‘Things like this make other things seem unimportant.’

Dot folded her arms defensively and for a moment Gracie thought she was going back on the attack but she didn’t, she simply sighed and slumped down into herself. Gracie saw how old and haggard her mother looked and she felt another surge of pity for her.

‘An end to it would be nice,’ Gracie said. ‘It would be nice if we could be more of a family again, just don’t expect me to forgive and forget about Jennifer.’

‘I don’t think any of us will be able to forgive Jennifer for what she did’, Dot said sadly looking at the baby on the other side of the glass, ‘but maybe this little mite will be the one to heal some of the wounds.’

Gracie and Ruby were rushing around the hotel, changing beds, dusting and vacuuming the rooms and landings and scrubbing the bathrooms. They were trying to get everything done because there was about to be an influx of short-notice guests.

Ruby had taken her uncle’s advice and advertised the hotel in a new women’s magazine, and straight away a group of young war widows had contacted them and booked all the rooms and three meals a day. It was a fantastic coup for Ruby and the hotel but it meant a lot of extra work for everyone because the women were holidaying for a week.

Jeanette had been helping out and was upstairs in the flat babysitting for baby Fay and Johnnie Riordan was doing all the shifting and lifting and things that involved a bit of muscle.

‘We really have to impress this group and then they might recommend us. We need the business so badly after the lull we’ve just had,’ Ruby said as they made yet another bed.

‘It was a brilliant idea to advertise, we’d got into the habit of relying on the old guests but they’re slowly dying off!’ Ruby pulled a face. ‘Thoughtless of them, eh?’

‘You are so bad …’ Gracie laughed.

‘Well, it’s true. We need to get some younger guests in. Did I tell you about the new idea we’re turning over?’

‘No, go on …’

At that moment, Mrs Madison the cook came huffing and puffing up the stairs to the first floor where Gracie and Ruby were piling up the linen from the bed changes. The woman was well over sixty, overweight and struggling desperately with painful arthritis and swollen joints, but she was reliable and Ruby knew she needed the wages, so the workings of the kitchen were organised to make it easy for her.

‘There’s someone downstairs for you. A visitor … in the lobby,’ she said, leaning hard on the door handle as she tried to catch her breath.

‘Oh hell! I’m not expecting anyone, Mrs M. Can you deal with it? We’re running round like a couple of blue-arsed flies up here to get ready in time for the group,’ Ruby said, as she dragged a linen bag along the landing for Johnnie to collect and take downstairs.

‘Not for you, dear, for Gracie. He wants to see Gracie …’ she puffed the words out.

Gracie frowned. ‘I’m not expecting anyone either.’

‘I’m sorry, dear, but it’s your so-called husband. He wants to speak to you urgently, he said. Not my place to tell him to sling his hook – unless you tell me to, that is?’ the woman said with a nod of her head in the direction of the stairs.

‘Sean? Downstairs?’ Gracie’s jaw dropped as she absorbed exactly what Mrs Madison was saying.

‘That’s what I said. Shall I send him packing? Just say the word, dearie. I’ll happily boot him up the arse for you, little toe-rag that he is …’

‘No, it’s okay,’ Gracie said quietly. ‘Tell him I’ll be down shortly. Thank you, Mrs Madison.’

As Mrs Madison left the room so Gracie stared at her friend.

‘Well, that’s a bit of a bolt. Bugger it, Rubes, what am I going to do? I don’t want a scene anywhere but especially not here.’

‘It’s up to you. I think all of us would happily send him packing. Maybe he wants to see Fay? Maybe Jennifer’s been in touch with your Mum and Dad and she’s told him?’

‘Well, he’s not seeing her, not just like that after not a peep from him for all this time,’ Gracie said sharply, ‘and anyway, he said he wasn’t the father, so why would he want to?’

‘You don’t have to tell me!’ exclaimed Ruby. ‘If you want, I’ll send Johnnie to get shot of him, but if you want to see him then I’ll go up and tell Jeanette to stay put with Fay. Can’t have your baby sister ripping his head off his shoulders in the lobby, can we?’ Ruby grinned as she gave Gracie a reassuring hug.

‘I don’t know if he knows what happened. No one’s heard from Jennifer so maybe he doesn’t know. I’ll just have to see how it goes …’ Gracie said nervously.

‘Well, if you want me, just shout. I’ll be straight down once I’ve got the gun …’

Gracie went down the stairs slowly, each step making her more nervous, but when she was nearly at the bottom she sped up and tried to look calm and business-like.

So much had happened in the year since they had got married and especially since the day that Sean had thrown her out of the flat. Gracie had got herself back together with the help of both Ruby and Jeanette, and her prime focus now was Fay, her precious daughter who she loved more than she could ever have imagined. It was Fay who made up for everything that had gone before in her life. Everything.

Her daughter was still tiny and needed extra care to avoid catching any chills and fevers or childhood illnesses but with three mothers around to help protect and care for her, she was thriving and happy. Gracie wasn’t going to let anyone jeopardise that – especially not Sean, the father who had denied her even before she was born.

As she neared the bottom of the stairs she looked over the banister at Sean Donnelly, the man who she had thought would be part of her future forever. She watched him for a few moments until he looked up.

‘Well, well. The wanderer returns …’ she said calmly, but coldly.

Sean Donnelly looked up at his wife and grinned sheepishly.

‘Hello, Gracie! You look nice, you’ve had your hair cut short, it suits you …’

Gracie immediately felt her blood starting to boil as she recognised his trait of turning on the charm. She hated that he seemed to think she was stupid enough to fall for it.

‘I don’t want to hear rubbish like that from you, Sean. What do you want?’

‘I want to talk with you, can we go somewhere private? This isn’t the right place, in here with others around.’

Gracie stopped on the bottom step, one hand gripping the polished round on the banister post and the other on her hip. She felt better having a conversation when she was standing taller than him.

‘I haven’t got anything to say to you. You told me what you thought of me the day you threw me out.’

‘I was wrong the way I behaved, and I’m sorry. Please Gracie, can we talk?’

Gracie thought for a moment. She wanted to turn her back and walk away but at the same time she wondered what he had to say.

‘Wrong? You think you were wrong, do you? Well, fancy that, lover-boy!’ Her emphasis on the last two words was pure sarcasm but it seemed to pass him by.

‘Please?’

‘I’m working and we’re busy. We can go into the office but you have to make it quick, I have a living to earn.’

Gracie kept her expression as neutral as she could as she spoke. She couldn’t believe that he could stand in front of her with his shoulders drooping and a hang-dog expression on his face and expect her to make small talk as if nothing had happened.

‘How have you been?’ he said to her back as she led him along to the office. ‘You look very thin …’

‘Unlike the fat lump of lard you chucked out, eh? No, don’t answer that, I’ve got no time for niceties. Just tell me what you want and then leave. I’ve not got time for you.’

Sean sat down on one of the old dining chairs that had been demoted to the office and beckoned for her to do likewise, but instead she went around the desk and perched on the window ledge, with her arms folded tightly around her.

‘I’m okay here …’

‘I won’t beat about the bush, Gracie. I’m so sorry, I was a fool. You lied to me and it upset me but I can forgive you if you forgive me. I was an idiot …’

‘
I
lied to
you
?’ She stared at him before continuing. ‘Okay I did, but about something in the past, before I even knew you. In the present you were sleeping with my sister behind my back, and in our bed …’

‘I shouldn’t have, I know, but you pushed me into it …’ He shrugged his shoulders and frowned, as if he didn’t quite understand why she was upset with him.

‘
I
made you sleep with my sister? Tit for tat?’ she interrupted him sharply. ‘Come off it, you think I believe that? You’d started with her before you knew anything about my past, my secret; she was the one who told you. She’s a spiteful bitch and you’re stupid. Neither of you know what loyalty is.’

Sean looked down at the floor. ‘You’re still my wife, it’s our anniversary …’ he mumbled.

‘No, I’m not your wife, and our anniversary is something I want to forget about. Well, legally I’m your wife but that’s all. You chucked all that away when you buggered off with my sister!’ Gracie’s self-control was slipping and her voice was getting louder. ‘Traitors, the pair of you, wrecking it for everyone! My mother’s not been out of the house, she’s so distraught. We could have had everything together …’

As she’d walked slowly down the stairs to see Sean, Gracie had promised herself she’d stay calm and not cry but it was hard. She wanted to scream and shout and beat him around the head with her fists, especially as she was aware of baby Fay upstairs. Her beautiful fragile daughter who, if life hadn’t been so cruel, would be sturdy and strong and still have her brother alongside her in her cot. Instead, he was in an tiny coffin in the local cemetery.

All she had of her son was the smallest few threads of hair that one of the midwives had given her, tucked inside a small cellophane envelope and marked ‘Baby Donnelly’.

As she blinked she wondered how much Sean knew, whether Jennifer had been in touch with her mother and father since he got back.

‘I see you’ve given birth …’ he asked.

‘Oh, top marks for bloody good observation, Sean! You’ve remembered that, have you? That I was expecting your baby?’ she clapped her hands slowly. ‘Of course I’ve given birth, I’d have thought even you could work that out …’

‘Was it a boy or a girl? Can I see it?’

‘So you don’t know? You haven’t seen anyone?’

‘I only got back to Southend yesterday. So? Boy or girl?’