We Are Family Read online

  Emily winked at Rachel and she had to hide her smile. Emily’s tactics to soften her mother with relentless enthusiasm were finally working. She’d been on a consistent campaign recently to gain her approval. She’d visited the shop regularly with little gifts, never missing an opportunity to allude to the similarities between Mrs Vale and herself, rather than their differences.

  Personally, Rachel couldn’t think of two people more opposite. But Emily was playing a smart game, peppering her conversation with polite, respectful compliments which Rachel’s mother had accepted before realising she’d been buttered up. The result was that Laurel Vale had recently changed her tune about her beloved son’s girlfriend, at least to the point of acknowledging her existence.

  ‘I’ll take it this once, just to help you out, but no more gifts,’ her mother warned, but there was a smile playing in her eyes.

  ‘I’m so grateful,’ Emily said, as Mrs Vale put the tin on her lap and wheeled out of the shop and into the hallway, to put the tin in the kitchen.

  ‘You’re getting there,’ Rachel said, moving back along the counter, so that she faced Emily.

  Emily looked after Rachel’s mother. ‘I’ll get the old bat to like me yet!’ She said it almost to herself. ‘Oh Lord! Listen to me. I didn’t mean . . . she’s your mother . . .’

  Rachel giggled. It was so refreshing that Emily was so normal, that she always said what she was thinking.

  ‘Don’t you dare tell your brother I said that,’ Emily warned, but she was smiling.

  ‘I won’t. He’s not here by the way.’

  ‘I know. I came to see you.’

  ‘Me?’ Rachel asked, feeling flattered, but at that moment, two kids came in, the bell clattering loudly, and Emily moved away as Rachel served them. They both wanted liquorice and were squabbling over their money as they stretched up towards the counter. Usually, Rachel would have indulged them, maybe given them a sweet as a treat, behind her mother’s back, but today she was in no mood. She wanted them gone, so that she could talk to Emily alone.

  When the bell had clanged as the door shut behind them, Emily came back to the counter.

  ‘So?’ Rachel asked.

  Emily stepped in closer and seemed to take a deep breath before she spoke. ‘Oh, Rachel, this is so difficult.’ Her voice barely more than an urgent whisper.

  ‘What is?’ asked Rachel, alarmed. She couldn’t imagine Emily ever finding anything difficult.

  ‘The thing is . . . you’re going to have to tell Bill about you and Tony.’

  Rachel felt her cheeks burn with embarrassment and shock. This was the last thing she’d been expecting to hear. She glanced nervously towards the door, but Emily seemed to sense her fear. She reached out and touched Rachel’s hand. Her nails were painted bright red.

  ‘You can’t keep it a secret from Bill any longer. And I don’t want to tell him. But I’ll have to –’

  Rachel’s head snapped up and she stared into Emily’s gentle eyes. ‘Please don’t! Oh, Emily –’

  ‘It’s getting difficult. With Bill, I mean. I’m not lying to him, but I’m not exactly telling the truth, either. He deserves to know. I hate being with him and knowing he’s being deceived. You’re the only one who can tell him.’

  ‘You know I can’t. He’d go mad if I do.’

  ‘Bill’s changed. Trust me. He might go a little mad, but not as mad as you might think. He’s your brother. It’s not as if he’s never going to speak to you again.’

  Emily smiled but Rachel didn’t return it. She felt abandoned. She’d thought that Emily understood about her and Tony, but now she saw that Emily’s allegiances had changed without her noticing. Bill had claimed her for himself and Emily wasn’t on Rachel and Tony’s side any more.

  Rachel shrank away. Emily didn’t know Bill as she did. Emily saw the kind, romantic Bill, the Bill who was trying to impress her all the time. The Bill who mooned around her as if she were a goddess. Emily didn’t know what her brother was really like. She didn’t realise that if he found out about Rachel and Tony and their plans for their future, he’d do everything in his power to make sure they would never happen.

  Emily sighed. ‘I know it seems difficult, but think about what I’ve said, for me, that’s all I’m asking. Now I’ve got to go.’

  As Emily disappeared into the rain, Rachel felt a sense of foreboding that she couldn’t shake. But what if, just by chance, Emily was right? she wondered, as she started folding the tea towels. What if Bill had changed? What if he did understand that Tony had nothing to do with Keith? What if, through Emily, he had learnt the power to forgive at long last?

  Rachel felt a glimmer of hope, but at that moment the door to the hallway slid open and her mother was back. And that was when Rachel’s hope died. She couldn’t trust Bill. If he found out about Tony, then he’d tell their mother and she knew for certain that there would never be any understanding in this household.

  Pearl’s mother had come from a wealthy family, before marrying Dr Glaister and settling in Stepmouth. They lived in one of the Victorian town houses by the harbour and their front garden ended at the sea wall. The surgery was downstairs and was bleak and austere, with ripped posters of skeletons and medical adverts on the peeling mustard- coloured walls. Rachel was as familiar as the rest of the town with the wooden benches in the waiting room and the smell of disinfectant by the sliding surgery door with its intriguingly shadowy frosted glass.

  But upstairs, unlike the rest of the town folk, Rachel was privy to Pearl’s mother’s extravagant taste which nobody would ever guess from the dank surgery below. An old-fashioned chandelier, a family heirloom, hung from the high ceiling on the landing and everywhere there were frills and fancy decorations, with floral curtains and pelmets framing all the windows.

  Pearl’s large bedroom overlooked the harbour wall and the small estuary with its constant chugging fishing boats, but despite its proximity to the water, it always felt warm and cosy. Rachel had played in the room since she’d been a little girl and knew every one of the dolls and teddy bears that lined the wooden bookshelves.

  Later that night, as she stood behind Pearl, who was sitting at her flouncy dressing table, Rachel felt a sense of security from the familiar surroundings, which she’d failed to find in her own home recently. They were both looking at their reflections in the long mirror. Pearl was wearing a padded pale dressing gown, her hair in the new pink curlers she’d bought in her latest attempt to bring some life into her fine blonde straight hair. Rachel had pulled the curlers so tightly that Pearl’s perfect pale skin was pulled taut at her cheeks and forehead.

  ‘Emily mentioned she’s got some magazines coming from America,’ Rachel said, knowing this would impress Pearl. She’d already recounted every detail of Emily’s outfit today. ‘We might be able to order some new patterns. Well, I could ask her anyway.’

  ‘Would you? I mean, ask her for me as well?’

  Rachel nodded and turned her attention back to Pearl’s hairdo, pleased she’d found a way to ingratiate herself with her friend. She’d been feeling so guilty that she’d kept Tony a secret from Pearl all this time. And now she longed for the closeness they’d once shared. As they fell into a contented silence, Rachel plucked up her courage to consult her friend on a matter which had been plaguing her for days.

  ‘You know there’s this girl,’ Rachel began, not looking at Pearl, as she retwisted her hair at the back around the pink curler. Pearl was humming, playing with a large talcum-powder puff and Rachel didn’t look at her as she continued. ‘She comes into the shop sometimes. She’s not from here, but she must be about our age. Younger even. Anyway, she came in the other day and she looked dreadful. Someone told me she might be, you know . . . knocked up.’

  Rachel managed to inject enough horror into her voice in order to gain Pearl’s attention. Pearl looked up at Rachel in the mirror. There was a blob of white powder on Pearl’s cheek, as if a snowball had landed on her.

  ‘Pregnant?’
Pearl exclaimed. ‘And she’s our age? How terrible. She’s obviously not from around here.’

  ‘No, no. I mean, she’s not like you think. She’s from a nice family and everything. Just like us. But she’s definitely not married, or engaged. I mean, it would be awful, wouldn’t it? I wouldn’t know, would you? Assuming we’d done it, that is, which we haven’t,’ Rachel continued, quickly. ‘But assuming you had, how could you tell you were . . . pregnant . . . for sure?’

  ‘You miss your time of the month and you get sick in the mornings and stuff, Dad says.’

  ‘What would you do if it was you? Just in theory?’

  ‘Me? I’d kill myself,’ Pearl said. ‘Can you imagine what my parents would say? I’d rather die than face them.’

  Rachel smiled uneasily. She’d known Pearl’s parents all her life. She could imagine that they’d have a lot to say on the subject and none of it would be pleasant, or understanding.

  ‘I wouldn’t be able to live here if something like that happened,’ Pearl continued, warming to the subject. ‘I mean, everyone would know, wouldn’t they? You wouldn’t be able to hide it. And my parents would be so ashamed. People would whisper about them behind their backs everywhere they went.’

  ‘Not if you got married.’

  ‘But who’s going to marry you if you’ve already got a child?’

  ‘What about the man who got you pregnant?’ Rachel asked.

  ‘Think about it. You wouldn’t be able to go to him, would you? Not once you’d got yourself in the family way. There’d be no point. No man, especially a nice one, is going to stick by a girl who’s slept with him before getting married.’

  Rachel didn’t say anything. She longed to tell Pearl about Tony and had nearly let slip on so many occasions, but she knew now why she hadn’t. Pearl wouldn’t understand. She was just the same as Anne.

  ‘There was a girl up on the base who got knocked up a few years ago,’ Pearl said, leaning her elbow on the dressing table. ‘I remember Dad took her in late one night. Don’t tell anyone, I’m not supposed to say.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘She’d tried to get rid of the baby herself.’

  ‘You can do that?’

  ‘She tried to get it out with a wire coat hanger!’

  Rachel felt sick.

  ‘She was in a terrible mess. There was blood everywhere. She bled all over our kitchen floor. I heard Dad telling Mum that this girl had said that she wanted to go to a doctor in Exeter who would get rid of it, but Dad said that those people are not real doctors, they’re quacks and they’ll kill you as soon as fix you.’

  ‘Oh,’ Rachel said. She hadn’t expected Pearl to be so forthcoming, or so full of gory details.

  ‘Imagine, though,’ Pearl continued. ‘I mean, you’d have to kill yourself, or go away for ever, wouldn’t you? Especially if you were on your own.’

  Rachel nodded mutely. She couldn’t think of anything to say. ‘But if you didn’t have any money . . .’ she said finally, ‘. . . if you didn’t know anyone apart from where you lived . . . and you had no family anywhere else?’

  Pearl picked up the magazine off the dressing table and started to flick through it. ‘Then you’d probably die of starvation, or wind up in some big city being a prostitute. Do you think I should dye my hair, Rach? What about if I was a redhead like you? Or do you think Emily’s style really will suit me?’

  That night, in Rachel’s room, the rain drummed on the skylight. It was such a rhythmic, soporific sound that Rachel would normally have been asleep in minutes, but as the night moved into dawn, she was still awake, staring at the shadow of the branch of the old oak tree moving across the ceiling of her room.

  She ached for Tony. She’d started a dozen letters to him and had torn them all up. She imagined him in his shed and worried about him being safe and dry. She imagined him on his box bed, right now, light flickering from his stove. It was all so wrong. Tony deserved so much more.

  If only there was a way of them being together. But the more she thought about her conversation with Emily earlier, the more she was convinced that the possibility of them ever being together was slipping out of her reach.

  It was like a torture, this living in secrecy. Rachel felt bound up by so many lies, she hardly dared speak to anyone with the fear of tripping herself up. Only Tony would understand, she thought. But that was what scared her the most. If she saw Tony, if she went to him, or spoke to him, then he’d be able to tell that something was wrong.

  And something was wrong. Very, very wrong. Every time she thought about the possibility of it, it was like dipping her toe in scalding water. She’d thought that talking to Pearl would help, but now she knew for sure that her symptoms could only mean one thing. And couldn’t lie to herself any longer.

  As Rachel stared at the ceiling, clutching the cold sheet and blanket around her chin, she finally admitted the truth. She was pregnant with Tony’s child. She could feel it in her bones, as if a parasite was sapping all her strength.

  Rachel cried to herself silently. What if Pearl was right? What if she had been duped by Tony? What if he had said he’d marry her so that she carried on giving herself to him? What if he’d promised himself to a dozen girls before her?

  But Tony loved her. She knew it. He’d told her. He wanted to be with her for ever, didn’t he?

  But no matter how much she held on to the image of Tony holding her in his arms, she knew that everything had changed. What if she told him about the baby and he hated her for it? After all, he wouldn’t want a baby now, would he? At his age . . . he had his future waiting for him. He was young, with prospects. And if he found out about the baby, he’d realise his future had been robbed from him, too.

  You’d have to kill yourself, wouldn’t you? That’s what Pearl had said. Rachel felt the cold terror of her dilemma, as she sat up in bed and reached for the chamber pot by the side of her bed. It must be dawn, she thought, knowing only too well that once the nausea started, it wouldn’t stop.

  It was then that she heard the tell-tale creak of the door downstairs and knew that Bill had finally come home. Rachel whimpered to herself. She knew that just below her Bill was trying to creep into bed without waking up their mother, after having spent the night with Emily. She could imagine the dreamy look on his face and hated him for it.

  It wasn’t fair, she thought, as she was silently sick into the chamber pot. Why was it fine for Bill to skulk about at all hours of the night, when she knew perfectly well what he’d been up to with Emily, and yet Rachel was trapped here all alone?

  An hour later, Rachel had found no peace. She crept down the stairs to empty the chamber pot in the outside lavatory before either Bill or her mother got the faintest whiff of her vomit. She dipped her finger in the pot of white toothpaste powder and put it in her mouth, so that it coated her tongue. She almost gagged again, but she had to hide the rancid stench of her breath before she faced her family at breakfast.

  Bill was up first, whistling as he shaved in the kitchen, his braces hanging down beside his trousers as he stood by the sink. He didn’t seem the least bit tired, given the fact that she knew he’d only had a few hours’ sleep.

  Rachel, on the other hand, felt more weary than ever, as she cooked bacon and eggs on the stove and tried not to gag. As they sat down to eat breakfast together, she could feel her mother and Bill exchanging worried glances.

  ‘Are you OK, Rachel?’ Bill asked. ‘You’re looking very pale.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she told him. She didn’t dare look up. Instead, she forced in another mouthful of fried bread. ‘Are you going to tune that thing to the weather forecast?’ she asked, nodding to the radio. ‘The rain is definitely getting worse.’

  Her diversion tactic seemed to work. Still, she could barely bring herself to acknowledge Bill, as he left, agreeing listlessly to another shift in the shop. Now that she’d passed her exams, he expected her to work more rather than less. It wasn’t fair, but she had no energy to
argue.

  When her mother followed him into the hallway, Rachel seized her moment, leaping from her seat and racing silently to the sink in the kitchen, where she threw up her breakfast.

  Quickly, she ran the tap, watching the evidence drain away as the tap clunked and coughed and the water spurted out in an angry gush. As Rachel pushed the food chunks down the plughole, a small groan escaped her.

  ‘Rachel?’

  Leaning on the sink, Rachel turned to see her mother silhouetted in the doorway between the kitchen and the parlour. She watched her close the door quietly and then, to Rachel’s dismay, she lifted the large key chain from around her waist and turned the lock.

  ‘What are you doing, Mum?’

  ‘You’ve been sick, haven’t you?’ Her mother wheeled herself down the ramp into the kitchen. Rachel shrank back against the sink away from her.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me.’

  Rachel looked at her feet, fighting the nausea, fighting the fear she felt at her mother’s tone.

  ‘I’ve been watching you,’ her mother said.

  Rachel turned her back on her mother and pretended to do the washing-up. But then, as her mother spoke again, she froze.

  ‘I know, Rachel.’

  ‘Know what?’ Rachel could barely speak, as she leant on the edge of the sink.

  ‘I know what’s wrong with you.’

  Rachel could feel her eyes filling up with tears. No, she told herself. She couldn’t cry. Not in front of her mother. If she cried, then she’d know for sure. And yet the childish part of her was too strong. She needed her mother to understand. She needed a hug. She needed to be told that everything was going to be all right.

  ‘Look at me!’ her mother snapped. Rachel could feel herself starting to shake. ‘Look at me!’

  Rachel thought that she managed to conceal most things from her mother, but she knew instinctively that this time she’d failed. Her secret was out. As she turned round, her mother gasped. Even if she’d had the energy to, she knew that there was no point in pretending any longer.

  ‘It’s not how you think,’ Rachel whimpered.