Realising she had already said too much, Anne picked up her gla.s.s, and pretended to drain the last few drops.
Sally deliberately ignored Anne"s short burst of rage. "D"you want another drink before we go?" she asked casually.
Anne had lapsed into her own little world again.
"Anne?"
"Yes?"
"Do you fancy another drink?"
"No, thanks. I"ve had enough."
"Well then, I"m ready to leave whenever you are." For one minute, Sally had hoped that Anne might be ready to confide her troubles. Now she collected her belongings. "Let"s. .h.i.t the road, as they say."
As always, Sally"s bright humour put a smile on Anne"s face, although she was fully aware that she had come way too close to revealing the shocking truth. For the first time in all these long years, she had very nearly let her feelings get the better of her.
Yet somehow, even though she had let her guard slip for only that one brief moment, she felt better for it. She felt calmer inside.
The dark memories remained, of course, along with the firm belief that she would never be like others. She would never hold her own child in her arms, or be at the centre of a loving family.
Because of the damage he had done, a normal life was denied her. And as long as she lived, she would never forgive him.
Edward Carter was more devil than man.
At least, she had found the courage to flee from him. In the safe haven that was her aunt Ada"s house, she had tried so hard to make a life for herself. But in spite of everything, in spite of all her efforts to shut him out of her mind and her life, he had won.
A short time later, having piled their bags into the boot, Sally and Anne set off home.
"We"ve had such a lovely day, haven"t we?" Sally gave an almighty yawn.
"Yes, and wasn"t it great that the weather held out for us?"
"How are we for petrol?" Sally had a phobia about running out of fuel in the middle of nowhere.
Anne a.s.sured her that the tank was still half full.
Within minutes of starting out, Sally was fast asleep, her rhythmic snoring making Anne smile.
Glancing down at Sally"s crumpled figure and pretty face, she thanked her lucky stars to have found such a loyal friend. I hope she didn"t hear too much of what I said in the cafe toilets, she thought.
Even though she knew her friend was the soul of discretion, the idea of her having heard everything played on Anne"s mind, especially because Sally had actually asked who Edward Carter was. Somewhere deep inside, Anne desperately wanted to confide in her.
All these years she had been carrying the truth, and it was a heavy burden. Her fear that one day he might somehow find her was terrifying indeed.
As the miles flew by, Anne found herself wondering what Sally would say if she knew the truth. But dare she tell? Was it time? And could she really trust Sally that much?
As they neared Bedford, she constantly tried to push the idea of confessing to the back of her mind, but it persisted.
Eventually she headed the car down a quiet side street on the outskirts.
Having now parked the car, she gently tapped Sally on the shoulder, "Wake up, Sally."
Sally leaped up, eyes wide awake and her voice slurred. "Oh ... sorry, Anne! I must have dozed off. You should have woken me. Oh, are we home already?"
"No. We"ve still got a little way to go yet."
Feeling groggy, Sally glanced out the window, puzzled by the unfamiliar surroundings. "Where are we?"
"We"re just off the Goldington Road."
Sally gave a tired groan. "Oh, b.u.g.g.e.r it! I knew it: we"ve run out of petrol, haven"t we?"
"No, we"ve still got more than enough petrol to get us home."
"So what"s going on?" Raising both hands, Sally ruffled her flattened hair.
When Anne hesitated, Sally"s concern deepened. Now wide awake, she sensed that something was wrong. "Anne, why are we parked in a quiet side street?" she asked worriedly. "I don"t understand."
She knew instinctively that this was to do with the incident at the cafe and wanted to ask why Anne had been so upset, and who was the man she had cursed over and over. But for now, she thought it best to let things lie. It seemed enough damage had already been done. Besides, if Anne had wanted to confide in her, she would have done so by now.
"Sally ... what you said back there ..." Anne began.
"What? What did I say?"
"It was the question you asked me."
"Well, whatever it was, let"s just forget it. It"s not my business, and I don"t need to know the answer."
But Anne could not let it go now. "Sally, can I trust you ... implicitly?"
"Absolutely! Whatever you tell me won"t ever go any further, I promise."
Anne fell silent for a moment. She needed to be sure she was doing the right thing. She had always intended that Sally should never know anything of her turbulent past, but now, having come to a new decision, there was no turning back. "Sally, while you were sleeping, I was thinking," Anne told her. "And I feel I owe you an answer."
"You don"t owe me anything, Anne. Maybe we should just put it out of our minds and forget it ever happened."
"No!" Anne stopped her. "Please listen, Sally. I"ve never been able to make friends; not even when I was a little girl. You see, my mother had me when she was forty-five years old. When I was born, my parents were already set in their ways. I was not allowed to bring friends home from school, nor play out with them, nor walk to school with them. Mother took me to school and she picked me up, and once she got me home, I was very rarely allowed to go outside, though I could play in the back yard on my own. So, y"see, you"re the first real friend I ever had."
Sally reached out to take her hand. "It doesn"t matter to me what"s in the past, because I"ll always be your friend. And I hope you will always be mine."
Anne was grateful for Sally"s loyalty, but it was now time for the truth to be told. "I need to be honest with you, Sally. There are things you don"t know about me. Bad, terrible things that I need to share with you. I"m a weak person. What happened was partly my fault. After I"ve told you, if you want to walk away from me, I won"t blame you."
"It doesn"t matter what you tell me, good or bad, I would never walk away from you."
She was intrigued by what Anne had described earlier. "You said your mother was in her mid-forties when she had you."
"That"s right, forty-five. My father was three years older."
"Crikey! So, did you have older brothers or sisters?"
"No. I was an only child, more"s the pity. Mother never mixed with anyone, and she raised me to be the same. When I was about ten years old, I was invited to a birthday party, but she refused to let me go. It seemed like a punishment to me, so I argued with her. I wanted to know why she would never let me play out with other children."
"And what did your mother say?"
"She sat me down and told me I should never have been born. She said I was an accident of nature, that I was never planned, especially at their time of life, that I wore them out and that she had nothing in common with the other mothers. She said if I went to the party she"d be expected to have the other girls back when it was my birthday, but she had no intention of doing parties. She said that Father was coming up to sixty now, and if it weren"t for me, they"d have been planning his retirement; looking for a smaller house on the coast. She said all they had to look forward to now was bringing me up, and by the time that was done, they would be too old to make any plans for themselves."
Sally was shocked. "That explains why you found it so hard to make friends when you started at Woolworths. It"s why I had to tease you out of your sh.e.l.l. I noticed at first you found it so hard to mix with other people."
"You helped me, Sally," Anne admitted. "I could never have done it without you ... and lovely Aunt Ada. She was older than my parents, but she was so kind and unselfish. She took me in when I needed someone to help me. She made me laugh. She brought me out of my sh.e.l.l, and made me believe that I was special." She gave a fond little smile. "She said I deserved a chance to shine."
Sally remembered the old woman. "I met her only a couple of times, but I really liked her. She seemed a genuine soul."
Anne"s voice broke with emotion as she confessed, "I owe her so much, and, oh, I do miss her terribly."
"I"m sure you do." Sally knew how close these two had been. "I don"t mean to pry," she ventured, "but I"ve always wondered how you came to be living with your aunt." She was already learning more about Anne in these few minutes than she had learned these past years. "Did you leave because of the things your mother said to you? Did you think your parents would be happier if you moved out of the family home as soon as you were able?"
Anne smiled wryly. "I always knew they"d be happier without me in their lives," she acknowledged sadly. "In a way I felt sorry for them. I felt as though I"d ruined their lives. But the truth wasn"t as simple as me just "moving out"."
Though she was determined that Sally should know the truth, she was finding it difficult to bare her soul. "When I was seventeen, I did something really bad. There was a terrible row. Mother threw me out. She told me she and Father never wanted to see me again ... that I was never to come back. She said, as far as they were concerned they did not have a daughter."
Sally was beginning to realise what had made Anne so very shy and private. "Whatever did you do that was so bad it made them throw you out?"
Anne fell silent for a while. In her tortured mind it was almost as though she was back there, caught up in a nightmare.
Having taken time to focus her thoughts, she explained, "It was a couple of weeks before my seventeenth birthday. Mother had found me a job in the local dressmaker"s. I was working long hours and earning decent money; half of which I gave to Mother for my board and keep. She even seemed proud that I was doing so well."
"So what happened to make it all go wrong?" Sally was intrigued.
"I should have known better. It was the day of my birthday. Irene, the dressmaker"s daughter, asked what I had planned. When I told her that my mother did not agree with parties or celebrations, she insisted that the two of us should mark my seventeeth birthday by going out somewhere." Anne gave a knowing smile. "Irene was a bit of a rebel on the quiet."
"So, did you go?"
"Yes, and that"s when I deceived my mother for the first time in my life. When Mother asked where I was going, I said I was meeting up with Irene, and that we were going to see one of Irene"s friends. When I was ready to leave, Mother gave me the once-over, to make sure I was dressed accordingly. She did not approve of make-up and stockings, and girls who flaunted themselves. She also reminded me that the house would be locked and bolted at 10 p.m. as usual, and that if I wasn"t back before then, it would be no use banging on the door, because neither she nor Father would get out of bed to let me in."
"And were you back on time?"
Anne shook her head. "Irene insisted on the two of us going out on the town. She said it wasn"t every day a girl was seventeen, and that it was cause for a special celebration." Anne laughed out loud at the memory. "By the time we left Irene"s house I was a different girl. Irene had plastered my face with make-up. My hair was curled, and as we were more or less the same size, she sorted me a strappy dress from her wardrobe. Honestly, Sally, when I walked out of there, I felt like a film star!"
"Wow! And I bet you had a good time, didn"t you?" Sally couldn"t help but smile at the idea of Anne being plastered in make-up, with her hair curled, and wearing a naughty dress. It was hard to imagine.
"This is where I did a bad thing," Anne recalled. "We really enjoyed ourselves. We met up with one of Irene"s friends. She was a few years older than me and Irene, but she was so lively, and such fun. I had never met anyone like her. We talked about going to the pictures, but then Irene had an idea, and we ended up dancing to the band at the Palais. Irene"s friend got us some drinks. I asked for a lemonade, but she told me to try one of their specialities, which I did."
"Oh, what kind of "speciality"?" Sally had her suspicions.
"I never knew, but I went with the mood, and I drank it. Then I had another. I felt a bit woozy after that, but by that time I didn"t care. For the first time ever, I was out on the town with these lively girls, and I was having fun."
She explained how, after they left the Palais, they walked the streets looking for a taxi home. "A big black taxi pulled up and we all climbed in."
In her mind she could see the driver vividly: long-boned, handsome and dark-haired, he had a smile you believed you could trust. "The driver was really friendly. He said his name was Edward Carter, and that he meant to make his mark in the world. He told us he owned the taxi firm and that every now and then, especially on a weekend, he enjoyed coming out of the office to drive a taxi himself. Apparently, his uncle had built up the firm. He had promised Edward he could buy it when he was more experienced, and Edward eventually bought him out."
"Quite the businessman, eh?" Sally thought he sounded very enterprising. "Did he get you home safely, though?"
"He took the others home first, then he drove to my house. It was gone midnight. I banged on the door, and called up to the bedroom window, but got no answer. Either my parents were fast asleep and couldn"t hear me, or Mother meant what she said and had locked me out."
"So, what did you do?"
"Well, Edward Carter refused to leave me there in the dark on my own. He asked me if there was a relative he could take me to, and when I told him there was no one, he got me back to the car. He said he could not believe they would lock me out like that."
"So, where did you go?"
"He took me to a really nice hotel. He even offered to pay my room for the night, but I wouldn"t let him. Fortunately I had enough money in my purse to cover it."
"I think I can guess what happened when you got to the hotel." Sally was worldy-wise. "I bet he insisted on escorting you safely to your room. Am I right?"
Anne blushed with shame. "When we got there, he made a play for me, and like a drunken, gullible fool, I fell for his smooth talk."
She fell silent, deeply regretting that shameful night, and the fact that it had cost her so dearly. "I can"t put all the blame on Edward Carter," she confessed. "I should have been strong enough to resist his advances."
Sally was angry. "That"s all very well, but don"t forget you were a young girl of seventeen. You"d been kicked out of house and home in the middle of the night, with little money and nowhere to go. You must have been really scared. That man took advantage of you. He was the one who should have known better, not you!"
Anne made no response to Sally"s wise words.
"So, did you ever see him again?" Sally was curious.
"Yes, I did, more"s the pity. My parents never knew, but over the next few weeks, we met up a lot. Things got serious. He began talking about getting married, but I didn"t want that. I said it was too soon. I felt I was too young to be married. But then it became clear that I didn"t have a choice."
"What do you mean? Of course you had a choice."
"No, I didn"t, because I got pregnant. Edward didn"t know and I was too afraid to tell anyone. I was two months gone, and one morning I was too sick to go to work. Mother guessed and forced the truth out of me. She went crazy!"
Anne choked back the tears. "It was awful! When Father came home she told him, and there was a huge row, shouting and screaming like I"ve never heard. They called me a s.l.u.t. They said I"d brought shame on them ... that they did not want me under their roof. They threw me out that night, with nothing but the clothes on my back and a couple of personal items. I had a small amount of money, but it wasn"t enough to carry me through."
Sally was shocked. "That was so cruel. You must have felt really frightened." She could hardly believe anyone"s parents would do such a thing.
"I remember it was pouring with rain," Anne went on. "I ran to the telephone kiosk and called Edward"s number, but there was no reply. So, I called Irene. When she told me to get a taxi and come straight over, I was so thankful."
"That was good of her, especially at that time of night."
Curiously Anne made no comment. "When I got to Irene"s house, she was watching out of the window for me. She said she knew someone who could get rid of the baby for me, but it would cost. I said no, that it wasn"t the baby"s fault, and I didn"t like the idea of doing that. She got angry, saying I was a fool for having got myself into that situation, and that she couldn"t help me, and that I"d best go before her parents found me there."
Sally was disappointed. "Hmm! So she wasn"t such a friend after all?"
"She was, but I don"t really blame her for turning me away. She urged me to go and see Edward that very night, and tell him the truth ... that he was to be a father."
"And did you?"
"Yes. I went to his house, but it was in darkness, so I took a room in a small boarding house nearby. I caught Edward at the office early the next morning, and I told him about the baby. He seemed delighted that he might have a son, who he could train up to take over from him one day. He started talking wedding plans and all that, and a short time later we were married at the registry office."