Diana Norman - Taking Liberties

‘You didn’t come over to Boston when Betty died.’ It was an accusation.

No, she hadn’t. The removal of that old woman, the only constant in Philippa’s disrupted life, just as she’d been the only constant in Makepeace’s, had left a chasm which she should have acknowledged by her presence.

But suddenly she was tired of flagellating herself. ‘I was eight months pregnant,’ she said. And if it was the wrong thing to say, it was the truth and Philippa could put that in her pipe and smoke it. ‘What?’

Still mumbling, her daughter said: ‘And you might have taken me away.’

‘ Of course I’d have taken you away !’ Makepeace shrieked. ‘I’m picky. I don’t like my daughter consorting in back alleys with trollops, kind as they may be.’

‘You’re forgetting Josh,’ the girl shouted back. ‘I’m not leaving him.’

Oh, dear Lord. She hadn’t forgotten Josh but this talk with her daughter had been like a stoning – rocks thrown at her from all directions; she’d had to dodge them. There’d been so many.

‘I smuggle money to him,’ Philippa went on. ‘In the prison. We go there on Sundays, Dell and I, and we see him sometimes. We’re going to help him escape. You can escape from Millbay. Some men have done it.’

‘You think I’d leave that boy in prison?’ She’d got up now and was walking the room. ‘Leave Joshua to rot? Betty’d turn in her grave. Lord, Philippa, what do you …?’ She stopped in front of her daughter and leaned down to peer into her eyes. ‘Damn me,’ she said slowly. ‘You think I’m one of the tyrants.’

It came rushing out. ‘You’re American but you’ve never been back or sent any money to help the cause of freedom or said anything or, or anything

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