Susannah was very ill after the events of that dreadful day. The delay over an inquest and the uncertainty over police action did not help her state of mind so she came to stay with her mother and me at Millcourt.
She did not want to see her children. She didn’t want to talk of the events of that day.
Susannah and Alicia were surprisingly generous to each other. Perhaps they both realised the other’s vulnerability.
I had worried that Susannah would blame her mother, blame all her misfortunes on Alicia’s abandonment of her family.
But she didn’t.
I thought perhaps Alicia wouldn’t recognise how disturbed her daughter was.
But she did.
Alicia had one last chance to be a mother to her daughter – and she did try, increasing her drug dose to what I considered to be dangerous levels to help give her sufficient strength to support her daughter. They had some catching up to do.
So they listened to each other’s problems and answered some of the other’s questions. I believed that she had forgotten the visitors at Millcourt the night before the incident but I prayed anyway that Alicia would not mention or disclose the identity of the friend Charles had been with when they had tried to save Joe and the children.
This was not the time for Carl and Susannah to meet again.
I would sit reading, listening to music and smoking whilst they talked or rested together. I couldn’t help but reflect that these were the same rooms where Susannah had had whooping cough and Alicia had not been here to nurse her – having left for Switzerland the week before. These were the rooms where Monika had held sway. It hadn’t been that many years ago. 22 years. A lifetime in some ways but in others, especially to someone nearing 60, it seemed like no time at all.
The children stayed at their home, looked after by Monika. It was thought that they would feel less disrupted in their own bedrooms. Monika was not happy to be in the house but felt that Josie and the boys needed her, so she had reluctantly agreed.
Carl had to stay in the area, the police had said they needed him until their enquiries were completed, even though his role had been entirely peripheral. Max had insisted he stay at Sandhey and made his library available. It was unspoken by all that Carl would keep to the background, rarely go into the town and certainly not visit Millcourt.
By the end of July it was all over. Police investigations were completed, the inquest was formally adjourned and funeral held. It was the only time that Susannah left the flat that month.
As the small group stood around the grave she did not see the tall young man standing under the trees observing them. He had no intention of upsetting Susannah even more by making an appearance in her life now.
He would be patient, but he had had to see her.
“I want a birthday party.” Jack had told Monika a few days after the funeral. He was going to be four years old and wanted to have a party. “Bill had a party. I want one.” Monika did her best to put him off the idea, no one needed a party just now. “But you are a big boy now, you don’t have a birthday party every year.”
“I don’t care that Daddy’s gone away.” They had told them, but it was not really clear how much they had understood. “I don’t care that he’s not here. I want a party! I want Mummy! Mummy’s never here!”
“Oh Jack, you must be a good little boy. I’ll see what can be done.”
So a party was planned for 1st August. Jack’s 4th birthday. Susannah agreed as long as it was not held at the house that had been her home. Charles and Max offered to have it at Sandhey, Carl agreed only to make an appearance if it seemed appropriate.
There had to be a time when Carl and Susannah would meet again. Perhaps a children’s party – when there was so much going on and attention would be on the children – perhaps when they would have to behave in the face of such company – perhaps a children’s party was going to be a good time. Susannah still had not been told he was so close, she had not asked where he was. Why would she?
Food was prepared and decorations hung in the dining room at Sandhey. Lots of games were to be out in the garden. Children from Jack’s kindergarten were invited – with their parents. It is highly likely that a number of them only accepted out of curiosity, after all, the Sandhey household had been the subject of much speculation over the past weeks. In the social scene it was a prized invitation for the parents, the children were less pleased to go – Jack and Josie were not very popular.
Monika arrived with the children in good time, they were cleaned and dressed in their best party clothes. “They look wonderful!” Charles was so pleased to see Monika with the children. “They are easier to manage than you and Max.” was her response, but in truth she was ready to come home.
The guests began to arrive, unusually almost exactly at the appointed time. The garden filled with the happy cries and excited shouts of the young things. The parents were kept happy with tea, cakes and the odd glass of something to keep them comfortable.
They had told Susannah to arrive a little late – when all the guests were there.
I drove Susannah and her mother down the road towards Sandhey, turning into the driveway as I had so many times before. But this time I had such a feeling of dread. Susannah was only just strong enough for company of any sort. Alicia had taken so many pain killers to get through the day that she seemed almost unnaturally alert and talkative. And Carl was here. I couldn’t help but think that this party was a monumentally dreadful idea.
Alicia held Susannah’s hand. “Chin up old girl. They’re only children!”
“I can’t do this. I can’t go in. I don’t want to see them.”
“You must child. You must go in, be strong, show all those gossips and ghouls you have nothing to be ashamed of. You must go in and show them how much you love your children. You are my daughter, Susannah, be as much of an actor as I have been through the years. You must do this. If you don’t the rumourmongers will go even harder at you. More people than do already will think you connived with Monika to murder your husband.”
“Is that what they think?”
“Unfortunately, many do. We have shielded you from the worst things that have been said, Ted has dealt with their lawyers....”
“Whose lawyers? What’s going on? What’s going on that you haven’t been telling me?”
“Now isn’t the time to go into all that – just believe me when I say you must put on a good act for all these mothers – the only reason they’re here is to get inside information on you to report back to their friends about how you are.”
“So I’ve got to look like I love them all and am the grieving widow, the doting mother with nothing on my mind other than the good of the children?”
“Exactly.”
Susannah hadn’t seen her children since she had left for Liverpool two months before and they were shy when they saw her. Monika was carrying two of them – one on each hip, the other two were holding onto her skirt, thumbs in mouth, half hiding behind her. She had gathered them up from the lawn to take them to their mother.
Josie was the first to speak, resentfully. “Where’ve you been?”
“Oh, darlings, I’ve not been well. You must forgive Mummy when she is ill. She doesn’t mean to be. It just happens.”
How could she know that that was the speech, almost word for word, Alicia had given her when she was young. “You’ve been all right with Monika haven’t you?”
“Oh yes,” said a very grown up Josie “but she’s not our Mummy.”
“No she isn’t darlings. We’ll all get back together soon.”
Fully aware that all the mothers were closely observing the reunion – though their children still rushed around oblivious – Susannah reached out to take the children from Monika with all the appearance of the loving Mother.
At that moment, doing what she had to do for the many curious eyes around her, she was truly her mother’s daughter.
He watched them from the window for an hour as they played musical bumps and pass the parcel, and musical chairs. He watched them all eat their ice cream and jelly and he still didn’t go outside.
He watched Susannah. She looked so different, yet so much the same. Her hair was different, her figure fuller, but she was undoubtedly his Susie and he loved her still. “I love you so much but how could you ever love me enough?” He longed to go out and talk to her, start up again where they had left off.
But he couldn’t.
He looked at her with her brood of children. She looked so happy to see them. He had held back for the past weeks, he had to give her time.
He knew as he looked out at her that if he stayed much longer he would have to talk to her, he couldn’t keep away from her much longer.
She still had not seen him.
She was hugging her children, and seemed completely happy. However much he needed her it seemed obvious that she did not need him.
As he watched her silently through the glass he hated what his mother and his father had done to him more than he had ever thought possible.
He could get away and no one would notice.
At the end of the party, all guests and their parents finally gone, the family sat around in the drawing room, the children with glasses of home-made lemonade and bottles of pop, the adults with something stronger. Charles asked Max “Where’s Carl?”
“I don’t know – I haven’t seen him all afternoon.”
“He was in the dining room earlier? Have you seen Carl?”
Monika had spoken the words before she realised it was Susannah she was asking.
“Carl?”
They ignored the question for a few minutes, making comments about how well the party had gone and how well behaved Josie and the boys had been, trying to cover up.
“You haven’t answered me. Carl?” There was desperation in her voice.
“Max, you’re hiding something. So are you, Charles, Monika? What’s going on?” She looked from one person to another in the room – increasingly fearful of the answer she knew was coming. “Alicia?”
“Don’t ask me darling.”
“I know you think I am, but I’m not completely stupid. You’re all hiding something – someone – from me aren’t you?”
No one responded. More drinks were poured into cups, more wine into glasses, more straws put into lemonade bottles.
“It’s Carl isn’t it. He’s been here.” There was no questioning in her voice. It was complete certainty. “Where is he? I want to see him.”
It was Monika who eventually spoke “He appears to have gone. Yes, it was Carl, he has been here and he has now, apparently, gone.”
“Carl was here? Today? Here at Sandhey? What’s he doing here? How long’s he been here?” Her voice, originally hysterically high pitched was now flat, cold.
“A few weeks.”
A gasp of disbelief from Susannah.
“He has been here since the day of the...., the day of the accident.”
Susannah looked around the room. Charles, Max, Monika – the people she most trusted in the world. Her mother who she was just beginning to think she could love. Her children, sitting unaware of what was going on watching the mute television in the corner.
“You all knew didn’t you? You all knew he was here and you didn’t tell me.” She spoke slowly, as if each word hurt. She had raised her arms – as if in supplication towards them but let them drop to her sides.
She was completely defeated.
Her legs bent and she crumpled down to the ground, sitting cross-legged, childlike, and she began to sob. She sobbed as she hadn’t been able to throughout all the pain and anguish of the past few weeks.
“He....was.....here.....and .....you.....didn’t......tell.......me.”
Alicia and I took her daughter back to Millcourt. We put her to bed, and all she did was cry. She appeared to have so much pain inside her it was best to let her get it all out of her system.
The shock of the events of the past few weeks had been almost impossible for her to deal with. The whole afternoon had been a strain – putting on an act Putting on a face to meet the faces that she meets as Alicia frequently misquoted.
She didn’t want to see her children, she didn’t want to see anyone. It was heartbreaking that Alicia wanted to care for Susannah so much but she just didn’t have the strength.
I only found out afterwards what Max had done about the children. It was obvious that Susannah could not cope with them and probably would not be able to for some time. Monika had been an angel – but enough was enough.
In the autumn of 1970 Max had bought a small terrace of houses at the bottom of Fore Street. The houses were immediately opposite the cinema that could be said to have started the whole thing. He arranged for Joe’s mother and the remaining Parrys to live in part of the terrace and for Josie, Jack, Al and Bill to live in the other part with a live in Nanny.
It was, I suppose, a buy off. With Susannah in the state she was it was entirely likely that Joe’s brothers would have tried to obtain custody of the children, and they could possibly have won. They had even talked of having her committed as ‘incompetent’ if they’d not been given access and it could all have got very nasty. They would not hear that there was another side to the story until Max bought them the houses.
Perhaps it was for the best. Perhaps they were all as mercenary and money-grabbing as Joe had been, as nothing more was heard about litigation and committals after they had moved into Fore Street.