Cathy Sharp - The Little Runaways

‘Your mother isn’t down,’ her father said, and sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Angela. She promised me it wouldn’t happen today but …’

‘What do you mean?’ Angela asked. ‘Is she lying on the bed?’

‘Yes …’

‘Another headache? Poor Mum. Is she coming down at all?’

‘I don’t think so. We’ll see later. We’ll eat our starter and then I’ll check if she wants to come down – or I can take her a tray up.’

‘I’ll do that. Mark, I’ll take Mum her starter up first and then we’ll eat …’

‘No, Angela,’ her father said, and touched her arm. ‘Leave it for now.’

‘Why …’ Angela looked from one to the other. ‘What do you know that I don’t? Please, tell me. I have to know.’

Her father glanced at Mark, then, ‘She’s right. I wanted to tell you before – oh, months ago, when it first started, but she begged me not to. It wasn’t so bad then, but recently it has got so much worse.’

‘Her headaches? Has she seen a doctor?’

‘Phyllis refuses all help. She will not admit there is a problem.’

‘What kind of problem? This is ridiculous. I’m not a child – I want to know what is going on. Please tell me.’

‘Mark thought you were too wrapped up in your grief and we shouldn’t worry you. And she seemed better for a while after you came home from Portsmouth …’

‘Angela …’ Mark looked at her uncomfortably. ‘You were so unhappy. I thought it might be more than you could bear …’

Angela was about to ask him what he meant when the door of the kitchen opened and her mother walked in. As she saw the lipstick smeared over her mother’s face, her hair all over the place and her crumpled dress, she started forward, hands outstretched.

‘Mum, what’s the matter?’

‘Who sh-haid anything whass the matter?’ her mother demanded in a belligerent tone. ‘Whass going on here? Let me through, I’ve got to dish-h up the dinner …’ She took a step forward, crashed into the table and then crumpled to the floor in a heap.

Angela stared at her father and then at Mark. The looks on their faces were identical: guilty but not surprised. ‘She’s drunk. How long has this been going on – and why haven’t I been told about it?’

‘You were still grieving,’ Mark said. ‘I didn’t want to put more pressure on you, Angela.’

‘Your mother didn’t want you to know, love,’ her father said. ‘It has been happening for some months, but she controlled it in between bouts of drinking, and I didn’t guess how bad it was until a few weeks ago, when things suddenly got much worse.’

‘Why did no one tell me?’ Angela felt anger mixed with sympathy for him and a kind of anguish that she couldn’t name for herself. Why did Mark think she was so fragile that she couldn’t face the truth? ‘If I’d been here perhaps I could have helped her.’

‘She wouldn’t let you. Besides, you have your own life, Angela. This is my problem. She’s my wife and I’ll cope with it.’

‘Mark – surely you could have given me a hint?’ Angela looked at him in reproach as her mother stirred and promptly vomited on the floor.

‘I’ll clear that up,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you could get Mother to bed between you – and then we shall have dinner. I’ll put some aside for her if she feels like it later.’

For a moment they both stared at her, and then Mark bent and lifted Phyllis in his arms. ‘I’ll carry her up and then you can look after her, Edward. I’m sorry, Angela. If I’d thought this would happen I would’ve warned you …’

‘Forgive me,’ her father said after Mark had left them. ‘There’s a lot more to tell you and to show you – but it will keep until Mark has gone. You shouldn’t blame him, Angela. She talked to him about it and I suppose he didn’t want to betray a confidence, though she isn’t his patient.’

‘Yes, I understand that,’ she said, but, left to herself to repair the damage and sort out the dinner she’d prepared so carefully before it ruined, Angela knew that she understood too well. Mark had been more concerned for her mental state than worried about giving her a hint of her mother’s failings. She had been close to despair at times during the years since her husband’s death – but surely Mark could see that she was much stronger now?

If he couldn’t see her for the woman she was, how could he respect her? She wasn’t some fragile flower that would bend in the wind, she was a strong woman who had known devastating grief and come through it.

Angela would rather have known the truth. She might not be able to do anything, but the last thing she wanted was to be treated as someone who couldn’t face reality. John’s death had devastated her, but the fact that her mother was an alcoholic was another matter – one that she was strong enough to accept.

It was early on Boxing Day but already Alice could hear the bitter quarrelling going on in her parents’ room. Did they never stop this relentless bickering? She sighed, glad that she was going to her friend Michelle’s home that day. Like her, Michelle worked at St Saviour’s, though she was a staff nurse while Alice was merely one of the carers. She didn’t think she could have stood being here all day if her mother was going to nag them the whole time. She stretched and yawned as Mavis slept on in the bed next to her. Mavis was also going out later to spend the day with her boyfriend, because she had several days off from her job at the factory.

Alice had opted to work on Christmas Day, because it was better than being at home with her mother, who made life miserable for her family on every day of the year and saw no reason to be any different at this special time. So Alice preferred her duty to being at home with her brothers, Joseph and Saul, her sister, Mavis, her father, who would probably get drunk by lunchtime, and her nagging mother. Besides, she didn’t particularly want to sit down to a meal and be watched by Mrs Cobb’s sharp and knowing eyes. One of these days her mother was going to ask questions Alice didn’t want to answer.

She’d missed a couple of periods and because of that she was sure that she was carrying Jack Shaw’s baby. Alice felt a shiver of fear run through her as she thought about the future. Had Jack died in the fierce fire at the boot factory, or had he somehow escaped? Billy Baggins had been there and he’d told the police that it was Arthur Baggins, his elder brother, and Jack Shaw that had broken in and blown up the safe. Someone else had set the factory on fire while they were inside, and the newspapers seemed to think it was someone with a grudge against Arthur and Jack, or the factory owners. Most people believed it must have been Jack who had died, although something inside Alice wasn’t ready to believe that.