Brenda had one of those sleepless episodes again in the night. She was drained from fighting her emotions and begging the ‘demons’ to leave her alone so she could sleep. She was surely getting to her breaking point. It was over two years since she had lost her husband, and it had not be easy at all for her.
She went to see Maureen the next morning to confide in her about her nightmares. ‘Sometimes I feel like killing myself, but I think of the children and stop. These night episodes are not stopping!’
Maureen felt sorry for her and patted her shoulders gently. ‘Have you tried taking a hot chocolate drink before going to bed? It does help and can keep you relaxed for the night,’ she advised.
‘I have tried everything, Maureen, and it’s still the same,’ she said.
‘Go and see a doctor. They may prescribe some sleeping pills for you,’ said Maureen.
‘Won’t they think I am going mental? I am scared they may put me into an asylum. I surely don’t want that.’ Brenda sighed and continued, ‘I saw a man looking at me on my way to you this morning. I have seen him give that look several times.’
‘Don’t even go there, Brenda! This is not the right time for you to go into a relationship. Concentrate on your children for now. You are not ready, my dear. Look at me. I never thought I would raise Jack without Ian, but where is he? He left without a word—and I haven’t heard from him!’
‘Trust me, you are better off without a man. I am allergic to men,’ Brenda said bitterly.
While Brenda was with Maureen, Maria and Jonathan played ‘knock down ginger’ on Aunty Jane next door. Jane knew about the two and their little jokes. She came out looking for who had knocked her door. She smiled and said, ‘If I see you, I will give you the sweets I hold in my hands.’
As she was about to go back into the house, Jonathan emerged and said, ‘Give it to me then.’
‘Ah, I’ve caught ya, so it’s you!’ Maria also came out of hiding, and they all laughed. Jane gave them the sweets.
‘Thank you, Aunty Jane,’ they said and left.
At home, Maria told her mum she wanted a skirt. She argued that the ones she had were old and worn. Brenda thought they were fine, but Maria would not stop pestering.
‘All right then, we’ll go to town to get something decent tomorrow,’ she said.
‘I would like Emilia to come with us, Mother,’ Maria said.
‘If that’s what you want, ask her,’ Brenda said carelessly. She had saved some money and thought she could afford some decent clothes for her girl.
‘We will go to Marks and Spencer’s,’ Maria said excitedly.
‘No, sweetheart, there is a shop I know in town, they have nice clothes too,’ Brenda said, trying to reason with Maria.
‘Mother, Emilia always gets her clothes from Marks and Spencer. I want that type of clothes,’ Maria said.
‘No, we will be going to Bobbie’s Clothing. No arguments!’ Brenda insisted.
That evening Emilia came round to play cards with them. Brenda curiously asked Emilia where she had bought her skirt, and she answered that she got the skirt Maria wanted from Marks and Spencer and offered to go with her to get it. Brenda was not happy because it seemed Emilia was taking her place. However, she gave Maria money to go with Emilia to get what she wanted.
At the shop, Emilia picked out miniskirts for Maria, along with tights like those she wore to school.
Brenda was furious about the choice. One would have thought that the teachers would have said something about Emilia’s skirts, but it was the fashion going on. She told Maria, ‘You are not wearing that, sweetheart, not in this house. I am sorry, not here!’ She went to town the following day to get two new skirts for her girl.
In the meantime Tyler was unhappy with Emilia’s hidden crime, he had kept it quiet for more than a year and had decided never to tell Aunty Maureen about what he saw. It will kill her. She will get over Ian’s disappearance even though it means Maureen now has another child to look after on her own.
The relationship between Emilia and Tyler went downhill with time. Tyler ignored her and would not help her do her homework.
When Tyler broke up with Amanda, he started to blackmail Emilia. He asked her to bring girls from her class to his flat. He threatened to share Emilia’s secret with Maureen if she didn’t do as he asked. The girls were underage, but he didn’t care. If his cousin could have a secret affair with her mother’s boyfriend, then the girls in her class who were her age would be old enough.
Emilia agreed to anything Tyler asked her to do. She told her mother that she was going to see Tyler after school because she needed help with her homework. ‘I think I should tell you, Mother, so you don’t panic when I stay too long after school.’
‘Do not stay too long for tea,’ Maureen replied.
At school Emilia arranged with Martha, one of the girls in her class, to go and see her cousin, Tyler. She convinced her that Tyler would help them with their maths homework. She had told Martha how generous Tyler was, and her friend became excited.
‘He always has short breads and bars of chocolate in the cupboard. I will ask him to give us some. Anyway, tell your mother you will be going with a friend to do your maths homework,’ Emilia cautioned.
Martha fell for the bait.
When they left school, Martha and Emilia went to Tyler’s flat. Emilia was right, thought Martha. Tyler was a gentleman and treated them well. Then, preying on her innocence, he asked her to visit him for more of his generosity the next day. She thought he could be trusted and felt at ease with him.
The following day she went alone to his flat. She came out never again to be the person she had been. She was thirteen at her first experience of having sex with a man. It was very uncomfortable but she did not resist; she just lay there until it was finished.
Tyler cautioned her not to mention what had happened between them to anyone, even to her mother or to Emilia. He gave her money to buy what she wanted and a box of chocolates. He told her that she was always welcome at his flat.
Emilia continued to recruit from her class and managed to get three girls on her list: Martha, Diane, and Dora. Tyler was now obsessed with the young girls, and it was easy to get them. He managed to make them keep their mouths shut, so that had worked out as well.
Emilia had run out of resources. She could not get the girls to accompany her to her cousin any more, but Tyler wouldn’t accept that. He threatened to disclose Emilia’s secret to her mother, and because the last thing she would like to see was her mother hurt, she could not live with that prospect, so whatever the case, she must supply Tyler with girls. Then she remembered: Maria was four years her junior, but she had to take her chance. She asked her if she had had her period. Maria laughed and said she hadn’t.
‘Do you know what menstruation is?’ Emilia asked.
‘Yes, it is the blood girls see monthly when they become teenagers,’ Maria replied innocently, ‘and I have not seen mine yet.’
Maria told her mother that Emilia was asking if she had seen her period, and Brenda became alarmed. She began to think that Emilia was up to no good. She advised Maria to inform her as soon as she did see blood and educated her girl on the implications of having periods and why she should take the subject seriously.
Brenda found it unpleasant to tell Maureen about her concerns, as Maureen was also going through a hard time herself. She decided instead to educate Emilia about female reproduction.
But that wasn’t Emilia’s problem; it was the constant blackmail by her own cousin, Tyler Staples. She was frightened of him, scared to tell him that she could not continue to get him girls. She knew it was not right; she could be in trouble if the school authorities found out that she had been luring the girls. It was shameful, but she had no way of escaping her predicament. So for now she was monitoring Maria, grooming her for her cousin.
When Maria finally got her period, she told her mum. For her part, Brenda was glad that her daughter trusted her and told her. She gave her vital tips for hygiene. The subject was not mentioned in detail at school, so it was a good thing that Maria knew what to do and also knew that she could get pregnant if she had sex. Her mother told her to be sensible.
Emilia felt pressured, as Tyler was on her case to get him someone. She had told him that none of the girls wanted to come with her, so she had got no one. ‘Go and get them yourself; I am done,’ she had told him in anger.
‘Of course there is someone. What about your little friend?’ he scoffed.
‘Her mother will kill me if she finds out. Besides, she is too young to be dragged into this,’ she said, near to tears.
‘I am joking, but my word still stands. I will tell your mother why Ian went without a goodbye,’ he said and left her.
Though it had been some time since Ian left, Maureen could not understand why her partner had vanished without a word. She asked Emilia if she had done anything to upset him. Emilia said she personally hadn’t said anything or done anything, as far as she knew, but recalled that he said people were after him for not paying some money he owed them. ‘He did not say more than that.’
‘That is strange. He never mentioned that to me, and we were partners. Why didn’t he tell me?’ Maureen asked angrily.
‘I said he ought to tell you, but he said he could handle it.
‘A few days before he left, two strange men came round while you were out to get food. He was not happy to see them, and he took them to the garden. I could hear them arguing loudly, and he left with them. He told me not to tell you and that he was sorting it out,’ Emilia said defensively.
‘You still should have told me. Poor thing, he may be frightened wherever he is. Why didn’t I notice? It’s all my fault that he’s gone. He was trying to pay for the family and got himself into debt.’ She looked at Emilia, tears spilling from her eyes. ‘You should have told me, Emilia, you should have.’
‘I am sorry, Mother,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think he was in serious trouble, and he seemed to be in control until those two men came.’
‘Why didn’t he leave a letter or something? I haven’t heard from him for three months, and none of his friends have seen or heard from him. What could have happened to my soul mate,’ she said, sobbing.
When it happened, Maureen had reported to the police when Ian failed to come home for a couple of days. He worked in the garage as a car mechanic, and she imagined it was one of those days when there were too many cars to attend to, but when he did not turn up the following day, she got alarmed. She had gone to the police several times for news about him, but there wasn’t any.
Maureen narrated what Emilia had told her about Ian to Tyler. He listened with disgust; he knew that was not what happened. He said soberly, ‘Aunty Maureen, forget that loser. He was no good for you in the first place, the person I am worried about is you and the new baby, but trust me, you are a thousand times better off without him. He was a waste of space and a fuckin’ loser!’
It was not easy to forget him as she was mother to his baby. She was going through a difficult time. Why did he confide in Emilia, and not me? Emilia is too young to understand such issues. What was he hiding from me? I don’t understand. I may have been horrible to him; I don’t know. Oh God, what is wrong with me? She grew agitated and paced about the room.
Suddenly she stood still. ‘Oh, my water is broken!’ she said, sounding very frightened.
‘Aunty Maureen, sit here, I am going to get the ambulance now!’ instructed Tyler. The ambulance arrived as she started to get contractions
Maureen gave birth to a nine-pound baby boy and called him Jack. Her mental state went downhill, and she was later diagnosed with depression over her missing partner but was deemed fit to look after her children, so she had Jack and Emilia with her. The only people who knew about Ian’s disappearance were Emilia and Tyler, but they did not want to disclose it because of the shame and embarrassment it would bring to the family. On the other hand, not knowing why Ian left was destroying Maureen; she might even end up in a mental home.
At Catholic school, the three girls who were sent to Tyler had been talking about him. They told how generous and loving he was. The three girls, each unaware than anyone else had slept with Tyler, began to realize that the others had had the same experience they had. They began to fight against each other, arguing with little provocation. Their classmates grew suspicious and would not accompany Emilia to her cousin’s flat.
The class teacher intervened in a heated argument between two of the girls, Martha and Naomi. She asked why they were constantly arguing and soon grasped the source of their hatred for each other: Tyler was in the middle of it all. The teacher was shocked that at such a young age they were fighting over a man. She became very alarmed and decided to get to the bottom of it all.
She also observed that Emilia, one of the promising students in the class, had her grades going down. She did not concentrate in class and was just interested in her looks and what she wore. She was not the bubbly and outgoing girl she had been; she was distant and unhappy. The teacher smelt a rat.