The Little Runaways. Cathy Sharp
and moved everyone out as the fire spread. The powers that be had rehoused her here after the end of the war and she was gradually turning her little bungalow into a home.
She took the letter into the warm kitchen. These prefabs were not popular with everyone, because outside they looked a bit soulless, but the fortunate tenants loved them. The kitchens had modern electric fittings and hers had a nice closed-in stove that she could cook on and kept a steady temperature; the rooms were also warmed by coal fires and a copper boiler heated the water and provided a bath whenever she needed one. Nan thought she’d landed in heaven the first day she moved in. God knew, her life had never been easy, but at least here she was warm and comfortable and she only had herself to worry about … Well, that wasn’t strictly true, of course. She worried about Maisie in that place – but she was a fool to let herself think about things that distressed her. It was her daughter’s choice and Nan had to accept it, as Beatrice had told her when it all happened.
‘The girl has a right to her own life, Nan,’ her friend had said as they talked over a cup of tea. ‘We’ve both suffered tragedy, and you know as well as I do that we just have to get over it. You have a home and you have a decent job – and if Maisie is happy where she is …’
‘I know it has to be her decision after what happened to her,’ Nan agreed. ‘I don’t want to force anything on her, but I wish she would talk to me – she won’t even see me, Beatrice. She blames me for what he did …’
‘She’s wrong to blame you, Nan. It wasn’t your fault. After you lost your Sam and the boy – you had no choice but to take in lodgers.’
Nan felt a choking sensation in her throat. She’d been lost in her grief after her husband and her son, Archie, had both died of the typhoid fever. Maisie had been just a child of twelve then, and perhaps she’d neglected her – she must have done something wrong or Maisie wouldn’t have turned against her, because Nan couldn’t have known what that filthy brute had on his mind.
If she’d known she would have taken the meat cleaver to him!
Tears stung her eyes as she looked at the writing on the envelope. She didn’t recognise it, although it had come from that village down there in Cornwall. It hadn’t been written by her daughter, she knew that much.
Tearing the envelope open, she saw that her last letter to Maisie had once again been returned unopened. Slumping down at the kitchen table, Nan bent her head and wept. How could Maisie do this to her time and again? She was supposed to have devoted her life to God and was bent on becoming a nun and yet she didn’t care about the pain she inflicted on her own mother.
There was a brief note of regret from the Mother Superior and that was all. Sister Mary, as she was called these days, did not wish to receive letters from her mother just yet, but she would be informed if there should be a change …
Angry with her daughter and with herself for caring, Nan threw the letters into the fire. She looked at the precious photos in the frames she’d bought as and when she could afford them; they took up a whole shelf of the old oak dresser she’d purchased when she came to live here. There was only one of Maisie – after it all happened, looking pale and withdrawn, so different from the happy, pretty child she’d been when her father and adored brother were still alive.
Maisie had been Archie’s twin, and the change in her had started after he died, because she’d kept asking why she was alive and her twin was dead of the typhoid. Nan hadn’t been able to answer that, any more than she could explain what had happened between them – why she’d drifted away from her daughter, why she hadn’t seen what was happening, hadn’t realised what that filthy beast had on his mind.
No, she wasn’t going to let her thoughts drift in that direction. It was madness to dwell on whether she’d been at fault, as Maisie had claimed that day when she’d told her mother she was retiring to a convent to give her life to God.
‘You must have known what he was,’ Maisie had said calmly in a voice of ice. ‘How could you not have seen what was happening – the way he looked at me …?’
‘I was too busy, too tired.’ Nan had tried to explain that she had thought her lodger wanted to get her into bed rather than her twelve-year-old daughter. Yet she knew that however many times she apologised, however many times she begged Maisie to forgive her, she could never take away the horror of her daughter’s suffering at the hands of that beast.
Maisie had run away and it had taken months of searching before Nan found her living rough. She’d never known what had happened in those intervening days and weeks, because her daughter refused to speak for years. All the doctors she’d taken her to had been baffled, expounding all kinds of theories, but they’d all been wrong. Maisie had simply refused to speak until she was ready – until she’d made up her mind to leave her home for good.
It was all Nan’s fault, because she hadn’t looked after the girl; she hadn’t noticed what was happening under her nose, and for that she was to be punished for the rest of her life, it seemed.
Nan’s throat swelled with emotion, choking her, but she fought down the anger and the self-pity, refusing to give way.
She couldn’t let the past haunt her because Maisie had returned her letter again, and she wouldn’t, Nan decided. She’d been so happy while Sam lived but these past seven years had been nothing but grief – or they would have been had it not been for the friendship she’d formed with Beatrice.
Beatrice had suffered enough herself, though she never spoke of it to anyone, as far as Nan knew. Her secret remained locked inside her, and she had never revealed the whole of it even to Nan. Their friendship was strong and they’d grown closer over the years, especially since Beatrice had joined the staff at St Saviour’s. They’d met when Beatrice was ill in the Infirmary years before and Nan had been one of the cleaners on the ward. That was before Beatrice had decided to become a nun and take up nursing. Nan remembered taking her cups of tea and sitting on the edge of her bed talking to her until one of the nurses asked her what she was doing. Even then she hadn’t talked about what had made her so ill or why she’d decided to enter a convent, though Nan knew it was a personal tragedy that had brought her so low.
Sighing, Nan took out a clean handkerchief and wiped her eyes and then blew her nose. This wouldn’t buy the baby a new coat! The old saying made her smile, reminding her of her grandmother and happier times. They’d been really poor in those days, but everyone seemed more content, at least that was the way she remembered things. It was ridiculous to feel sorry for herself when there were so many worse off than she was; so many war widows and orphans. Nan was lucky to have this new home, a job at St Saviour’s that she loved and several good friends – a reluctant smile touched her lips as she thought of one of her newer friends. She liked Angela a great deal, and she had something to ask her …
Getting up, Nan pulled on her rather shabby grey coat, set a little blue felt cloche on her head and picked up her gloves and handbag. She must be getting back to St Saviour’s, because she knew that two of the kitchen staff were down with sore throats again, and Cook would be shorthanded. Besides her own work with the children, she would have to lend a hand with the fetching and carrying. Not that she minded what she did, and she had a scheme that might give her something to think about and stop her fretting about Maisie.
Going out into the morning air, she discovered it was colder again, a light dusting of snow on the ground, and she pulled her coat collar up around her throat. The weather had been bitter ever since the turn of the year, the coldest winter Nan could recall, and the snow had caused endless problems in many parts of the country. It was never quite as bad in London, because the traffic soon cleared much of the slush and ice away, but they’d had another power cut the previous evening. Nan was fortunate to have the stove, which kept her warm. She’d bought in a good store of coke and coal before Christmas, but she knew that some people were running short, especially those who could only afford to buy in small amounts. The last thing Nan wanted was to get ill again. She’d had a touch of flu late last year and she didn’t want another chill just yet.
Her bus was drawing up as she reached the stop and the conductor