The Whiskerly Sisters (4 page)

Interrupted by a gentle cough from her ever prompt grandfather, Fresna made her careful way downstairs to the front room to where he was waiting to accompany her to the church; his back to the unlit fire as usual. As Fresna entered the room, the taciturn man looked up at her and smiled his slow, gentle smile, his eyes glowing with unshed tears.

“You look a picture, my lovely,” he told her, his voice slightly trembling with the emotion of the occasion.

Despite the shock of the unplanned pregnancy and the dismay of having their only granddaughter in the family way before her time, her grandparents had steadfastly stood by Fresna, saying little and doing as much as they could to make this day wonderful for her.

At quarter to two on the dot, Johnny Pony reined his pony outside the little cottage. He had transformed his wooden cart, usually reserved for carrying less splendid cargo, so that it was now gaudily decked with cream organza, sprigs of honeysuckle and scarlet, plastic gardenia. Granddad helped Fresna into the back and, after spending a few moments chatting to Johnny about the cricket, he climbed in beside her and took her outstretched hand. They smiled at each other.

Grandma and Evie had already left in Uncle Earle’s Morris Minor about fifteen minutes earlier so that the organist would know the bride would soon be on her way. The neighbours were out in force, smiling and waving at the pair, wishing Fresna well and secretly thankful it wasn’t one of their kids starting married life on the wrong side of the blanket.

It was only a short ride up the hill to the church to where Fresna knew Alex would be impatiently waiting to take her as his wife. The beautiful bride could not contain her happiness and so, beaming and waving at the early summer shoppers in the small village high street, the little cortege made its way towards the church.

When the little group arrived at the gates of the little church, Fresna was surprised to see Evie still talking to the organist in the churchyard. The vicar and her grandmother both stood in front of the oak doors, talking animatedly together. The vicar was patting grandma’s hand. Evie walked across to the bridal carriage and whispered something to Johnny Pony, who immediately clicked his teeth and stirred his old cob into action. To Fresna’s dismay he took them for a slow amble back through the high street before, once again, climbing the hill towards the church. It was a beautiful afternoon for a carriage ride, but although Fresna was enjoying all the attention, she would have much preferred to be walking down the aisle towards Alex and her future. She couldn’t help wishing he could have been on time for this, their most important day.

Back at the church, it seemed Alex was running very late so back around the circuit, the little bridal group rode. By this time, Fresna was becoming alarmed and, as they stopped in front of the church for the third time, she tried to get down from the cart, but granddad forbade her, announcing sternly that he would go and find out what was going on. She was to stay put. Johnny Pony would look after her. Granddad was firm and Fresna knew better than to protest. Still, she found it difficult to sit patiently in the cart whilst the butterflies of anxiety fluttered around the pit of her stomach.

She did not need to wait long before granddad was back at her side, followed by her unsmiling grandma and a rather anxious looking vicar. Evie was at the back of the little group, giving her arm to a wobbling, heavily pregnant stranger.

“The bugger ain’t turned up sweetheart,” granddad said flatly. “And here be the reason.” He gestured towards the swollen stranger. “This be his wife and she’s come across town to let you know he won’t be coming, not now, not ever. That’s the way of it, my lovely. There’ll be no wedding today. Best we take you home and get you out of that getup.”

Fresna froze. She felt light headed. She couldn’t take it in. There must be some mistake. Alex? Not coming? No wedding? Impossible! And what on earth had this strange woman to do with it? His wife? Did granddad call her his wife? That can’t be. Anyway she’s pregnant too… pregnant TOO? Thoughts tumbled out of her like buttons from a box and she found she could barely grasp them. The world was spinning out of control. She tried to stand, but found she couldn’t and somehow the bottom of the cart was rising to meet her.

When she woke up, it was dark. She was lying on her bed with a cold compress over her forehead and with her grandmother sitting beside her, quietly shelling peas. For a moment, Fresna had difficulty remembering the events of the day. Why was she lying in a darkened room with a wet flannel on her head? She lay back against the pillows staring at the ceiling, puzzled. Something was wrong, but she couldn’t for the life of her think what it might be.

And then she remembered and she was immediately overcome with a deep sense of anguish and humiliation. The vision of the heavily pregnant stranger swam before her. Her heart lurched into her mouth and she felt sick. She was so ashamed. Her eyes filled with tears, her breathing began to heave and the sobs threatened to choke her. She struggled to sit up and, as she did so, her grandmother put aside her pot of peas and placed a comforting arm about her.

“Now don’t take on so, my angel,” she murmured, patting her back gently. “That bugger’s a bad lot, but he’ll get his. Don’t waste your tears on him. You must put him out of your mind. The important thing now is that you concentrate on the bairn. Your granddad and I will do all that we can to help you. There now, don’t take on so. Time and hard work will ease the pain. That’s the way of it.” And that was all she ever said on the subject. She simply pulled her devastated granddaughter into her gentle embrace and let her cry it out.

After that first evening, Fresna was never again allowed to wallow in self-pity. She was given work in the laundry at the local hospital. In the evenings, she knitted or sewed baby garments. On Saturdays, her grandparents gave her her spends and she was allowed to go to the cinema.

In late autumn, she gave birth to a baby girl.

Of Alex, there was no sign.

To her surprise, Fresna took to motherhood like a duck to water. Despite the fact that she had her heart broken every single morning as she bent over the cot and looked into the eyes of Alex in the face of the baby girl smiling up at her, she loved her daughter with every inch of her being.

When Verity was just six weeks old, Fresna resumed her job, working part-time, at the cottage hospital laundry. Great-grandma was delighted to take care of the child in her absence, rocking and crooning to the bairn for hours at a time. Great-granddad, despite his ‘women in the kitchen’ attitude and refusal to be a modern man, felt a great sense of pride as he pushed the enormous second-hand perambulator down the little high street on a Saturday morning to get the paper. The new little family was content.

Time passed and, all too soon, the time came for Verity to go to school. Through hard work and diligence, her mother had, by this time, risen to the dizzy heights of Laundry Manager at the hospital. Every spare penny she earned was spent on the child. Fresna was determined that Verity would never go without nor suffer from the stigma of her birth. She made sure that Verity’s school uniform was immaculate, her shoes highly polished, her hair always off her face and neatly braided. In turn, Verity strove to be a credit to her mother and her grandparents. With careful budgeting on the part of the little family, Verity became the first child in the village to own both a Spirograph and a Cindy. The little family was blossoming.

Motherhood suited Fresna and, as she grew into her twenties, she was developing into a very beautiful woman; a natural strawberry blond with a lissom figure. Wherever she went heads turned and wolves whistled. Men noticed her and regularly asked her out on dates, but Fresna always refused, quietly but firmly. She simply wasn’t interested, she told them. She was preoccupied with caring for her child and, in any case, her first taste of men had been undeniably disappointing. It was obvious to her that, despite how attractive it appeared she had become, how very fetching she was told she looked, how much every red blooded male seem to desire her, the reality was that few men would be willing to take on the upbringing of someone else’s bastard.

Besides, for Fresna family came first. Her loyalty to her child and to her grandparents was absolute and, despite what had happened, she had worked hard to regain the respect of the village and she did not want to lose it. She was known to be a conscientious worker, careful to owe nothing to anyone, even refusing to let Mrs Baxter in the sweet shop give Verity a free lollipop when she went in to collect the newspaper for gramps when he began to experience the swollen and stiff joints that accompany increasing age.

Despite the adoration of both her great grandparents and her mother, Verity grew up unspoiled. An intelligent child, she passed her eleven plus with ease and settled quickly into the nearby Grammar School. For as long as she would allow them, granny accompanied her to the school bus stop every morning and gramps would be waiting there each afternoon to bring her back home. The little family was thriving.

To everyone’s surprise, shortly after her thirtieth birthday, Fresna fell in love. He was a Charge Nurse at the cottage hospital on a two-year exchange programme from the Mercy Hospital, Atlanta, Georgia. He was single, over six feet tall and immaculately groomed. Furthermore, he had impeccable manners and was clearly well educated but, in the close knit community in which Fresna had lived all her life, George’s African American ethnicity was something of a sensation. His culture, his unusual appearance and the colour of his skin became a source of endless speculation and gossip among the villagers.

For George and Fresna, however, it was love at first sight. They were soul mates. They were inseparable. They became everything to each other. He gave her bright, golden daffodils. She gave him homemade scones.

In their very quiet way, her grandparents were delighted for Fresna. The teenage Verity seemed outwardly unaffected by the love affair, but was secretly thrilled to see her mother so happy.

George sought a permanent nursing post and applied for UK residency. The happy couple looked for a way to be together and, after much discussion, George and Fresna moved into a little flat of their own close to the hospital where they both worked. Naturally Verity came with them, but the three of them made sure to pop in on Gramps and Granny several times a week. Thus began a very happy, very fulfilling chapter of Fresna’s life. George continued to fill her life with sunshine and flowers; she filled his with warmth and beauty. Her only disappointment, and it really was such a tiny disappointment given all she already had, was that she never fell pregnant. How Fresna would have loved to have given George a son, to have given Verity a brother. But it was not to be.

During the summer that saw Fresna and George celebrate five years together, Gramps died suddenly. A heart attack took him quickly away after supper just as he sat down to watch the evening news and the football results. Just over a week later, he was buried in the graveyard of the village in which he had lived all his life; in the grounds of the church where Fresna was to have been married seemingly a lifetime ago. Without exception, the villagers turned out to say their goodbyes to this well respected yet taciturn man. His wife, stoical in grief, but unable to cope without her lifelong companion, succumbed to the flu that very winter and was lovingly buried, under an avalanche of flowers, beside the only man she had ever loved.

The rocks upon which Fresna had built her life had suddenly begun to crumble beneath her. She was inconsolable. She felt vulnerable and scared, but throughout it all, George stood steadfastly by her side, supporting her, comforting her, holding her. Whatever would she have done without George? He had become her salvation.

Six months to the day that they buried her grandmother in the little churchyard on the hill, driving back from a medical conference in Bristol, George’s Cavalier was hit head on by a speeding lorry driver rushing to catch the afternoon ferry to Rosslare. George died instantly. Amongst the wreckage, on what should have been the seat beside him, they found a bunch of bright, golden daffodils.

There was not enough grief in the whole wide world to satisfy Fresna.

Almost overnight it seemed a bomb had been dropped onto her life, without warning, leaving in its wake denial, devastation and an enormous crater in the centre of Fresna’s world. How Fresna hauled herself through the empty, hollow days immediately following the accident was remarkable. Her reason for doing so was, of course, Verity.

For Verity’s sake, she had to cope with her allconsuming grief. For Verity’s sake, she had to get out of bed each morning when she would really rather have turned to face the wall to stare at nothing. For Verity’s sake, she had to leave the comfort of her little flat each morning and try to get through her working day. For Verity’s sake, she had to go on living.

It was the last thing she wanted to do. It was the only thing she could do.

And, as the days turned to weeks and the weeks turned to months and the months turned to years, Fresna began to rally, to pick herself up from the debris of her shattered life, shakily at first, like a dazed survivor trapped within the rubble of a collapsed building staggers blinking towards the sunlight, confused, uncertain, not comprehending why this one had lived yet that one had died. Fresna was truly grateful for the support and assistance of her shocked and distressed neighbours and friends, who simply wanted to help her and yet puzzled by their ability to get on with the ordinariness of life, to go about their daily business and remain calm in the midst of such overwhelming tragedy.

Fresna tried hard to pull herself together; to bring herself back to the person she had been before the tragedy, but the wounds were deep and such injuries do not mend without trace. Something deep inside Fresna had died, something within had been altered irrevocably; something soft and giving had become hard and unyielding. Behind the facade of Fresna’s warm smile and approachable manner, there now lay a cold, impenetrable core. Overwhelmed with grief and abandoned by her irreplaceable partner and much beloved grandparents, she wrapped up her heart and hid it deep within the fortified walls of her castle where she knew it could not be reached, then she raised the drawbridge, locked herself in the keep and threw away the key.