Gracie. Marie Maxwell
seconds, before turning away without answering. Gracie then looked at her father and sniffed loudly, a gesture full of unspoken meaning.
‘I’ll make the tea,’ her father said as he backed towards the kitchen door.
‘Oh no you don’t, Freddie, you stay right here! I can’t believe our own daughter thinks that way about us. Tell her, tell her she’s being cruel and ungrateful …’
Fred McCabe frowned and thought for a few moments before answering. Gracie could see he was stuck in the middle, where he had always hated to be, and was racking his brains for a way to keep the peace.
‘Your mother’s right, Gracie, that’s just nonsense. Why would we say anything out of place to your fiancé? To anyone for that matter? Why would we want it all out in the open now? You bring him round and we’ll all be nice as pie and twice as sweet …’ he laughed and turned to his wife. ‘We’ll welcome him and you. We want to meet him if he’s going to be our son-in-law.’
Still standing on the far side of the small sitting room, her back right up against the wall and her feet together, Gracie’s mother folded her arms tightly and protectively across her chest.
‘Providing you’re not expecting us to cough up towards the wedding. We’ve got the twins’ wedding to save for, we can’t take on any more expense; not that you’d be interested, but we’re strapped enough as it is.’
Gracie smiled slightly and shook her head; she was determined to stay calm. She had to somehow get her mother on her side, and if that meant not saying what she was thinking, then that was what she would do.
‘Of course not. Me and Sean are doing it ourselves. It’s not going to be a big knees-up wedding and reception or anything, just a quiet ceremony at St George’s and a small reception at the hotel. Ruby’s organising it as a wedding present …’
‘She would be, wouldn’t she? That Ruby has always been more important to you than your own family.’ Dot paused for a second and then suddenly opened her eyes wide and stared at her daughter closely. ‘You’re not in the family way again, are you?’
Gracie shook her head. ‘No, I’m not – and if I was then I wouldn’t tell you, not after last time. This time it’s all going to be done by the book.’
‘Oh stop it, you stupid girl!’ her mother snapped. ‘Last time you were little more than a child yourself, with no man to marry you. We did what was best for you – which is more than can be said for soldier boy, who disappeared off, never to be seen again …’
‘No Mum, you did what was best for you,’ Gracie said calmly. ‘Anything rather than have the neighbours know. That baby was my first-born, he was your grandson, your first grandchild but you gave him away to strangers …’
‘It was for the best as we saw it at the time, best for everyone, but especially for you,’ her father interrupted. ‘You can’t blame us for what we did. We thought it was right then and, if I’m honest, I still think it was right, but I think it’s also time to stop talking about it. Both of you. It can’t be changed, so there’s no point in going over it again and again.’
Gracie shrugged and looked into the middle distance. He was right. The same ground had been covered each time she and her mother had been face to face until eventually Gracie had stopped visiting and the rift had widened. But now she needed to know that all would be well when she and Sean went to see them to announce the engagement formally.
‘Okay, I’d love to put it behind us,’ Gracie said. ‘But can you just promise me you won’t mention anything in front of Sean when I bring him round? I really want this to work with him – he’s a nice young man and I want to be married and have a baby that I can keep, I really do …’
‘We won’t say anything but, be warned, secrets always come out and then it’ll end in tears.’ Her father shook his head and waved a finger at Gracie, the way he used to when she was a child. ‘Your mother and I won’t say a word – today is the last time it will ever be mentioned, but you should think about telling your young man yourself. It’s not a good idea to start your married life with secrets,’ he said wisely.
‘I can’t tell him now; I’ve left it too late. I had a chance and I let it go so now it has to be buried forever. I don’t want Sean to know I visited today.’
Fred and Dot McCabe both nodded; her father with a smile on his face and her mother with her usual frown.
‘We won’t say anything …’ Fred said. ‘Now I really must make that cuppa. I don’t know about you two but I’m parched.’
As she looked from one to the other, Gracie knew instinctively that her secret would be kept safe with her parents, even if it would be mostly for her mother’s sake.
For the first time in many years, father, mother and daughter sat down together and had a conversation that didn’t revolve around recriminations. The truce was a little uneasy between them but Gracie tried her best. She wanted to make up with them, even if she only managed a superficial relationship as her friend Ruby had done with her own family. But Gracie knew that even if she forgave, she could never really forget what had happened. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, the memory of it was as sharp and clear as if it had only just happened.
1946
‘Gracie … Why aren’t you up? You’ll be out on your ear if you’re late again …’
‘I feel sick and I’ve got belly-ache, I can’t go today …’ Gracie McCabe moaned from her bed.
‘Oh yes you can,’ Dot McCabe shouted from the other side of the door, before flinging it open so hard it crashed against the end of the bed. She turned the dim ceiling light on and went into the bedroom. ‘Now you just get out of that bed and get yourself to work. We need the money, you lazy little mare. Get up …’
When Gracie didn’t move her mother pulled the bedclothes back in one swift movement. ‘What’s going on with you girl? Get your backside up now and get going. If you miss the bus you’ll have to walk, you’re not using my bicycle again.’
‘I don’t feel well, I feel sick …’
‘That’s no excuse, get out of that bed right now and get yourself dressed.’
Jennifer and Jeanette, Gracie’s fourteen-year-old twin sisters, who had still been asleep in the double bed across the room, sat up quickly and nudged each other. Both were openly amused that it was their sister in Dot McCabe’s angry firing line instead of them.
The two girls weren’t identical twins; in fact they were not remotely alike in either appearance or temperament. Despite their mother’s best efforts to dress and treat them the same, they were really just two sisters who happened to be the same age, two sisters with nothing in common except for their birth.
Jennifer was quiet, academic and very similar in appearance to Gracie and her mother in both stature and features, whereas Jeanette was shorter, her hair naturally fair and her figure curvy, even at fourteen, with a sprinkling of freckles and a loud laugh. She was also prone to getting into trouble both at school and with the neighbours, something which Jennifer never did.
When they were young they had often bickered but always sided against everyone else, but as they’d grown older their opposing personalities had led them to grow slightly apart and have different friends and hobbies.
As they sat on the bed watching the scene in front of them, Dot McCabe suddenly realised they were there and nodded her head in their direction.
‘These two have got to get ready for school. If you’re going to be sick then get yourself into the kitchen and get a bowl.’
Gracie threw the rest of her covers off and, with her shoulders