The Runaway (11 page)

It was February 1961, the month in which her daughter would be celebrating her first birthday, when she looked after Menna’s boys for the final week, although she promised to help on occasional Saturday mornings. Jake and Keith would be starting school and nursery respectively after the Easter holiday and the youngest, Patrick, would be able to fit in with his parents’ activities as they worked on the new
business they were setting up, selling gifts by post. Faith knew she would miss them but thankful that Saturday mornings would continue for a while.

Fortunately, having decided to return to teaching, she was offered a vacancy in the school that Jake would attend, and at the beginning of the summer term she began teaching the fascinating class of
first-timers
.

She didn’t meet the pupils’ mothers immediately, although some stopped by and introduced themselves. Most of the mothers had met the teacher at the beginning of the school year in September and the change of teacher didn’t warrant much involvement. The children were settled and would soon become accustomed to the new face. She took a long time calling and marking the register on those first few days, looking at each child and beginning to memorize their names.

The school wasn’t far from Jean and Roland’s house and she walked both ways each day. On Friday when her first week was completed she was surprised to see Ian waiting for her among the chattering mothers. He led her to the car and drove her to a café, where he ordered tea and toasted teacakes and found them a table near the window.

‘Mam tells me you’re thinking of setting up a nursery for three-and four-year-olds,’ he said. ‘Don’t forget, I can supply all the paper, pencils and the rest.’

‘Special price?’ she asked teasingly.

‘Special price for a special lady.’

‘It won’t be for some time. The money Mrs Thomas left was a wonderful start, though. Building up a few shillings at a time seemed impossible but with a bank balance like that I feel encouraged.’

‘Meanwhile you’re happy at school?’

‘Very much so. The experience will help too. My job will be partly to prepare them for lessons, to widen their knowledge in an
interesting
way and open their minds to new things.’

‘What else?’

‘Social development.’

‘It sounds fascinating.’ He covered her hand with his own. ‘What a wonderful mother you’ll make one day.’

The words so innocently spoken ruined her mood and she quickly left, refusing his offer of a lift, insisting she preferred to walk. Ian let her go, remembering that her bags and books were in his car which
gave him an excuse to call on her later, when she had calmed down from whatever had so suddenly upset her.

Motherhood? Was that the reason for her sudden distress? Being brought up without a family of her own might still be a painful memory. He tried to imagine a world without his family, nothing to anchor him where he belonged. Affection for Faith grew and he wanted to be her anchor, someone on whom she could completely rely. Then her nickname came into his mind and his dream shattered. He looked at the corner for a last glimpse, hope and happiness flowing out of him, disappearing with the last of her shadow. The runaway. She would leave him too; it was clearly what she did
whenever
she met trouble. She would leave him just as Tessa had.

Faith walked for a long time, upset, aware of the mess she had made of her life. She considered the usual solution. Should she walk away now, before she was so deeply involved that the pain would be
intolerable
?

Approaching the house on Saturday morning, where Menna stood looking curiously up and down the street, she shook away the tempting thought. Standing her ground was the only way she would ever find happiness – but did she have the strength?

She increased her pace and waved cheerily to Menna. Then she saw the van. Matt had found her. He was the reason Menna was looking for her. Just in time she realized that Menna’s gestures were not a greeting but an urgent signal for her to go round the back.

‘I didn’t know who he was,’ Menna explained later, ‘but there was something I didn’t like about his questions. And he seemed to be simmering with anger. I don’t want to pry but Roland and I guessed there was something you were afraid of, so I phoned Winnie and she warned me not to tell him where to find you.’

Faith thanked her and promised that one day she would explain. One day, if she really intended to stay, the whole sordid story would have to be told.

F
aith couldn’t sleep. She had to tell her friends the truth, painful as it would be. When Jean came down breakfast was laid and the kettle humming ready to make the tea. When they had eaten, Jean asked her what was wrong, ‘Do you want to leave? I’ll quite understand if you have found somewhere more convenient.’

Faith looked at her sadly. ‘No, I’m very happy here but after I tell you my story you might prefer to find someone more deserving of your kindness. I had a child, you see and for reasons I can’t explain, I had her adopted.’ Jean listened in silence until Faith had finished.

‘Can you tell me why?’

Faith shook her head. ‘I’ve told no one. Perhaps one day I’ll be ready to explain, but sufficient for you to know that I’m a woman who abandoned her daughter and after living a childhood like mine, not belonging anywhere, it’s impossible to justify without telling the full story and that’s something I can’t do. I’m sorry.’

Jean said little but she hugged the tearful Faith and said, ‘Please stay with us. Knowing you, I feel sure your reasons were good ones. Now, what about another cup of tea? This one’s gone cold.’

Faith had arranged to look after Menna’s and Geoff’s children for the day and after talking to Winnie and explaining that she intended to tell them about Matt, they went together.

‘I’m sorry,’ she began, when they had been invited in and Geoff had joined them, ‘but I don’t think I can look after your children again. I don’t want to be the cause of bringing that man into your house and I don’t think he’ll give up now he’s found me.’

‘What are you afraid of?’ Geoff asked. ‘We don’t want to pry, your life is your own, but surely we can find a way round this?’

‘We don’t want you to stop being our friend,’ Menna added. ‘We
all love having you here. We trusted you with our children, surely that shows we’re your friends?’

‘My ex-fiancé has found me and he’s an angry man. I can’t risk him coming here and causing trouble so I’m moving away. The runaway,’ she added tearfully. ‘That’s what they call me and that’s what I am. Any trouble and instead of facing it I move on.’

Geoff quietly but firmly asked for a full explanation. ‘We’re your friends and so are Winnie and Paul. We can sort this out if you can trust us.’

Faith hesitated. Could she risk telling them? Maybe the story would spread, become distorted, making her into the villain and Matt the cruelly treated victim. But surely it was better that they should have her version first. They waited in silence, waiting for her to speak and after prolonged soul-searching she handed them the notes she had copied from the old newspapers. She watched for their reaction, her heart racing with the fear of their telling her they were no longer her friends. They were the first people she had told.

Matt Hewitt had appeared in court charged with the rape of a fourteen-year-old girl, Ethel Holland, who gave birth to a child nine months after the attack. The charge of rape was dropped under pressure from Matt’s defence despite the girl’s distress and injuries but he had spent a term in prison for sexual misconduct with a minor.

‘The dates are all there, you can see the papers in the library. When I read them I knew I had to leave him. Some say people can change, but do they? He could deny it, claim he was innocent, that the attack was made by someone else, but a fourteen-year-old girl? Giving birth? How could she not have been believed?’

Geoff asked if she’d agree to him talking to the police. ‘There are ways of preventing him from bothering you,’ he said.

‘No. Please. I don’t want the police involved.’ They were certain to find out about her own shame. She couldn’t tell them about the baby she had abandoned. She needed their sympathy and she would surely lose it if they learned of that. Once the police were involved everyone would know. The story would be exaggerated and slanted by different tellers depending on their opinion of her and of Matt. She would be criticized for abandoning her child. For most that would be far worse than an ancient story about a girl who was probably partly to blame anyway – dropping the charge of rape and the sentencing
showed that to be the opinion of the court. Rape was still a difficult charge to bring, even with a child as young as Ethel Holland.

Winnie had been silent but she cried as she read the story of the fourteen-year-old suffering such distress.

‘So this is why you walked away from your daughter?’ she said as they walked home.

‘I believed she stood a better chance of growing up without a temper if she lived with a family far way from Matt.’

‘Because she was Matt’s child?’

‘No, I told you. Matt wasn’t her father.’ Faith lied.

‘The part of this that saddens me most is that you couldn’t tell me,’ Winnie said quietly.

‘You’re my friend and after this you might not have been.’

‘Why ever not? You aren’t to blame in any of this. I know how hard it must have been to walk away from your daughter and I know the reason was love for the little scrap.’

For several days after Matt’s visit Faith was expecting him to appear at any moment. She walked to school with her head down, dreading to hear Matt calling her name. She hurried home each day and didn’t feel safe until she was in her room. Jean was always there and she would bring up a tray and stay for a few minutes to ask about her day with the children. The conversations never included Matt or her lost child.

Grief and distress always strengthened the dream of finding her sister. ‘If only I could find Joy,’ she said one morning during
breakfast
. ‘I can’t help wondering whether my mother found Joy and didn’t search for me. Perhaps she simply didn’t want me.’

‘What a lot of old
lol
! Didn’t you tell me you’d moved several times? Things were confused during and after the war. Houses and even whole streets were demolished and people moved on. Evacuees were sent from one family to another, records were destroyed during bombing raids. It’s hardly surprising that people were lost amid it all.’

‘I was given the surname of my foster-parents at one stage and it was months before the error was found and rectified.’

‘Well, there you are then. That incident alone must have caused chaos.’

‘But it’s still hard to understand why I wasn’t found.’

‘These confusions could easily explain why your mother didn’t
find you, it wasn’t that she didn’t search. After all, mothers don’t abandon their babies, do they?’

That hurt. Abandoning her child was exactly what she had done, so how could she complain if her mother had done the same?

‘Oh, Faith, I’m sorry! I understand why you made that difficult decision, really I do.’

Swallowing her guilt, Faith murmured, ‘Thanks Jean. I know you’re trying to help.’

Matt kicked patterns in the sawdust on the floor of his workshop and listened without real interest as a customer considered the purchase of a garden ornament. She eventually settled for a heron, one of Matt’s own favourites and, because he didn’t like the customer’s
superior
manner he added two pounds to the price. The woman paid without demure and he promised delivery later that day.

When she had gone he abandoned work for the day and spent the time getting in touch with the various organizations that had
promised
to help him. The child was not registered as his and Faith had been thorough in her arrangements regarding adoption. Angry and frustrated, he told several people how she had lied and deprived him of his child before abandoning her. The story of Faith walking away from her newly born child spread fast. The facts were embroidered and weighted against her with every telling and soon everyone knew. Disliked though he was, most felt sympathy for Matt and a few began to treat him with a hesitant friendliness.

Jean and Roland heard the rumours and said little apart from initial sympathy but Faith could see they were embarrassed. Winnie tried to offer her full support but, not knowing the child was Matt’s, even she found her friend’s behaviour hard to understand.

Faith apologized to the Painters for not telling the truth and gave them the same explanation as she had given Winnie for wanting her child to live without Matt in her life. Even to herself the story sounded weak. Abandoning a child when she could have walked away from Matt and taken her daughter with her? Without giving them the full story how could they understand? Paul was the only one to agree with her action.

‘You were right to keep your little girl away from him,’ he said. ‘I believe we are what we are born with but influences in our
environment 
decided what we do with what we inherit. She would have learned only bad things from Matt.’

Faith thanked him for his words of comfort.

Every day was a nightmare for Faith. Child protection officers and social workers appeared with polite but determined questions and they were followed by the police who came in answer to Matt’s
accusations
that she had stolen his baby. Many concerned people wanted to know the truth and more and more disbelieved her story, insisting that she was a heartless woman who didn’t want the trouble of bringing up her child. Faith gave them all an edited version to which she rigidly adhered throughout every attempt to persuade her to admit the child was Matt’s.

Matt’s mother came and pleaded tearfully for her to let Matt have his baby but Faith was adamant. ‘She was nothing to do with Matt. The baby’s father went away and Matt must have known that,’ she insisted. She had to continue her lies.

Thank goodness she had refused to marry Matt and thank
goodness
too that she had delayed moving into his home and his bed. It was those two facts that saved her. The baby, whom she tried not to think of as Dorothy but as ‘the child’ was born fairly soon after she went to live with Matt and his mother. Her insistence that the child was the result of a previous affair had to be accepted.

The local paper carried the story, making a headline of how local teacher, Miss Faith Pryor walked away from her newly born,
illegitimate
child and this was seen by enough people who knew her for it to reach the desk of her headmistress. Faith was summoned to the headmistress’s office where the woman sat at her desk over which was spread copies of the local newspapers.

The stern-faced headmistress waved a hand over the various accounts and asked, ‘Is this true?’

‘More or less.’ Faith tried to keep her voice from quavering.

The interview that followed was distressing and resulted in her being asked to leave.

‘To have a child out of wedlock, then to abandon her is not a suitable background for a woman who teaches small children,’ she was told. The Easter Parade in 1961 would be the end of her teaching career.

As always, her instinct was to move, start again somewhere far away from the scene of her disgrace, reviving her nickname of
the runaway
. Winnie and Paul persuaded her to stay.

‘You can’t outrun stories like yours,’ Paul said wisely, ‘but you can outlive them. Next week there’ll be someone else’s story to talk about and although yours will be revived from time to time, the immediacy will be gone. You’ll be old news.’

‘Give it a chance,’ Winnie pleaded. ‘Stay with Jean or here, with us. You won’t find it difficult to get work even though it won’t be what you’d choose to do. Give yourself time to decide what you really want to do with your life.’

They didn’t ask any more questions about the baby but listened sympathetically when Faith needed to talk about the distress of parting with her and Faith was grateful for their friendship.

Ian arrived one day and she knew the time had come to trust her friends with the truth. ‘I need to talk to you about this stuff in the papers,’ she said.

‘Good,’ was his almost casual response. ‘We can walk in Porthkerry Park, it’s quiet there. Was it Nick’s child?’ he encouraged when the silence stretched out. ‘Did he leave you once he was told about the baby?’

‘The child was Matt’s. But please,’ she begged, ‘please don’t tell anyone. I’ve told no one else that particular truth. Not even Winnie and Paul.’

‘Winnie’s your friend. You should have trusted her.’

‘After lying to the authorities including the police? I dare not.’

He nodded but then a frown creased his forehead and she had to tell him more. ‘Matt was forceful, difficult to refuse,’ she said. ‘I know that makes me sound weak but I was desperate to belong to a family and the temptation was too much, I ignored the warning signs. Carol, Matt’s mother, was kind and gentle and very
persuasive
and although I wasn’t ready for more than friendship and the occasional kiss, I was persuaded, encouraged into …’ she glanced at him and changed what she had been about to say. ‘When I told them I was expecting a child they were overjoyed. I felt important for the first time in my life, I was wanted, and cherished. I didn’t love Matt, in fact I was a little afraid of him, but the need for a family was strong. I’d almost given up on finding my sister. That hope comes and goes. I delayed sharing his home for as long as I could. I knew it wasn’t the right thing to do but I ignored the doubts and, well, I moved in. After being alone all my life, with not a single person who belonged to me, I was looking at a bleak future if I walked away
from what might have been my last chance of marriage and
children
.’

‘Is that why you were with Nick? The fear of being alone.’

‘I’m not proud of it, but yes. I clung to him as an escape from continually running from one place to another, always alone.’

‘I think I understand that. You didn’t settle because all the time you hoped to be reunited with your family.’

She stared at him. ‘You’re the first person to understand. I don’t think I understood it myself, not until you put it into words.’

‘And leaving the baby?’ he coaxed.

‘I longed to hold my daughter in my arms and I accepted that Matt would have to be a part of my life. Then, by chance I found this
newspaper
story and fear, for my baby, and myself, completely engulfed me.’ She took the notes from her handbag and waited while he read them. ‘I knew I had to escape but where would I go? The birth was imminent and I had very little money. So I invented the story I would tell and made all the arrangements. I gave birth then ran away. The Runaway, that’s what they call me,’ she added tearfully.