Sins of the Father

The woman stood outside the train station, a leaflet held out in appeal, whilst a high wind fought to snatch it from her hand.

‘Please,’ she begged, ‘have you seen this little girl?’

As had so many others, the man ignored her plea, brushing her aside as he hurried past. Rain began to fall, small spatters at first, but as heavy clouds gathered it became heavier, soon soaking both her hair and clothes.

It didn’t stop the woman. Nothing would. Clasping the rest of the leaflets close to her chest, she tottered forward, thrusting one towards a young woman emerging from the station wearing a straight red skirt and pointy-toed shoes.

‘Please, have you seen this little girl?’

The woman took it, her eyes showing sympathy as she said, ‘Sorry, no.’

‘Please, look again.’

The young lady lowered her eyes to the picture, but then, needing both hands to open her umbrella, she shook her head, the picture falling onto the wet pavement. She wrestled the wind to keep the umbrella over her head, her grip tight and knuckles white as she bustled away.

The woman watched her for a moment, but then her eyes came to rest on the leaflet lying wet and forlorn on the pavement. A gasp escaped her lips. The eyes of her child seemed to gaze back at her, rain spattering the picture as though tears on her cheeks. She shivered with fear, vowing silently, Oh God, I have to find you–
I have to
.

She straightened her shoulders, desperation and determination in her stance. Another train disgorged its passengers, and as they streamed from the station she saw a tide of faces. Hand held out, she once again proffered her leaflets.

It was dark before she gave up, uncaring that she was soaked to the skin and almost dead on her feet as she trudged home.

The house felt empty, desolate, as she walked inside, the plush décor meaning nothing to her now. She was alone. They had all gone, but it didn’t matter. The only one she cared about was her daughter.

With hair dripping onto thick, red carpet and
wet tendrils clinging to her face, she wearily climbed the stairs to her bedroom, peeling off sopping clothes before throwing on a pink, quilted dressing gown. Tears now rolling down her cheeks, she flung herself onto the bed, clutching a pillow to her chest. It had been three months and she feared the police had given up, but she wouldn’t. She would die first and, if anything, death would be welcome.

It was her fault, she knew that. A sob escaped her lips. Money had become her god, but the means of procuring it had put her little girl in danger. Her stomach churned, as a wave of fear overwhelmed her. Something dreadful had happened to her child.

Why had she let money become an obsession? It had begun in childhood–and her iron will had grown from the desperation to lead a different life from the one her mother had suffered. But there was more to it than that. It was also men! Her need to make them pay–her need for revenge.

And they
had
paid, and she
had
made her fortune, but at what cost?
Oh, my baby! My baby!
The money was meaningless now. She’d burned it all, given up every last penny, but still they hadn’t found her daughter. What more do you want from me? her mind cried, eyes heavenward.

She sobbed, unable to stand the fears that plagued her. She forced her thoughts in another direction. To the past, and to where it had all begun.

Emma Chambers pulled the threadbare blanket up to her chin, only to have one of her three sisters tug it back. The attic room was freezing. In the far corner was another straw-filled mattress, this one crammed with her four brothers. One of them turned over, breaking wind loudly, whilst another, the eldest, snored sonorously.

The house stirred, awakened from its slumber. Faint sounds reached Emma’s ears: a door closing, a cough, and then the sound of creaking rungs as her father climbed the ladder. Through the piece of material slung across the attic to divide children from parents she heard her mother’s soft groan and sensed her dread.

At sixteen years old and living with little privacy, Emma had no illusions. Her father was drunk, his feet stumbling on the rungs, and that meant the scant money he may have earned as a builder’s labourer had already lined the local publican’s
pocket. The King’s Arms stood on the corner of their street in Battersea, South London, acting as a magnet for her father. It was rare that he was able to pass it without going inside.

There was more noise now, impatient curses as he finally made it through the small, square opening, his footfalls clumping across the wooden planks. Then came the sound of his boots hitting the floor as he flung them off, followed by the swish of clothing. Emma tensed, fearing for her mother, and shortly afterwards the nightly argument began.

‘Come on, woman!’

‘No, Tom.’

The sound of a slap, a sob, and then his harsh voice: ‘You’re my wife.’

‘The baby’s nearly due. Can’t you leave me in peace?’

‘Leave it out, you’ve weeks to go yet. Now come on, Myra, lift your nightdress.’

‘I don’t feel well. Can’t you do without for one night?’

‘No, I bloody well can’t.’

It started then, the grunts, the groans. Emma wanted to scream, to run round to her parents’ side of the attic and drag her father away from her mother. He was an animal, a pig, but she knew from past experience that it would only make things worse. Better to do nothing, to just pray
that it would be over quickly and that her mother would be all right.

Emma held her hands over her ears, hating the sounds, and as one of her sisters turned over, she found herself without coverings again. Her stomach rumbled with hunger. There had been only cabbage soup for dinner, and so it wasn’t surprising when one of her brothers loudly broke wind again.

Food had preoccupied Emma’s thoughts more than anything during the past week, but the thought of her dad’s pay packet today had cheered her up. Now, though, there’d be no bread to supplement their meagre diet, and though she tried to still it, hate surged through her–hate for what her father had become.

Emma fidgeted again, trying to find comfort on the lumpy old mattress whilst wondering what had happened to the father she had known before the war. Yes, he’d been taciturn, but he’d also been loving, with an innate kindness. She could remember sitting on his knee, his affectionate cuddles, but the man who’d returned after the war, though looking the same, was a stranger–one who was short-tempered, hard and embittered.

A chink of moonlight spilled through a small hole in the roof, one that let in rain, and Emma frowned. They hadn’t always lived here. Before the war their home had been several streets away,
in a comfortable if not large house, where at least her parents had a separate bedroom. The front door had opened straight on to the pavement and she had fond memories of playing with her friends, chalking numbers on the paving slabs for games of hopscotch.

The war had changed everything. At first they’d been fine, children untouched by the distant fighting, but gradually the air raids had started to hit London, increasing in frequency until it seemed that bombs fell night and day. Many of Emma’s friends had been evacuated to the countryside but a few remained, her special friend next door, Lorraine, among them.

One morning they returned from the bomb shelter to find her friend’s house flattened, and theirs so badly damaged that it was too dangerous to go inside. All that remained of the wrecked house was the staircase, leaning from the adjoining wall, the steps now leading up to open sky. They had stood, mouths agape, too shocked at first even to cry.

It was the last time Emma saw her friend, the family going to live with Lorraine’s grandparents in another borough. Unlike us, Emma thought. Her mother’s parents had died, and her father’s now lived in a tiny one-bedroom flat, a reserved old couple that they rarely saw. There were aunts, but they had moved away from London at the start of the war. Emma recalled her mother’s
distress because they had no one to take them in. With so much property destroyed, accommodation had been hard to find, but then they’d been offered this attic flat, and, with no other option, her mother had taken it.

Still uncomfortable, Emma shifted on the mattress. Some people had profited by the war, their landlord amongst them. He’d been clever, buying up property when it was cheap, willing to take the risk that the building would remain standing. This house, and others in the street, had originally been divided into two flats, but the landlord had converted the attics to shoehorn in as many families as he could, raking in extra rent.

She knew her mother had expected to live here only as a stopgap and planned to move as soon as something better became available, but then the war ended, her father’s army pay ending with it when he was demobbed. If he’d returned the same man, they would have been all right, but now he drank heavily, lost job after job, and here they remained, the rent sometimes unpaid and on catch-up, her mother’s dream of a nicer home unfulfilled.

Emma’s stomach growled with hunger again. Huh, they’d been better off when her father was away. At least his army pay had been regular, but now…

There was a loud groan, a familiar one. Sighing with relief, Emma knew that her father had
finished. She yanked on the blanket again, snuggled closer to her sister for warmth and, knowing that her mother was now safe, she finally fell asleep.

Emma found herself the first awake. As quietly as possible, she crawled from the mattress, but as soon as she left the warmth of her sisters’ bodies her teeth began to chatter. God, it was freezing! She moved to the ladder, climbed down to the room below and, after lighting a candle, she cupped the flame as she hurried downstairs to the middle landing. There was only one toilet, shared by all three tenants in the tall, dilapidated house. Alice Moon and her husband lived on this floor, but there was no sound from their rooms. Pleased to find the smelly toilet free, Emma was soon hurrying back to the top-floor flat.

She kneeled in front of the hearth, lighting what little kindling they had, soon holding out her hands greedily to the tongues of flame that licked merrily up the chimney. For a moment she was mesmerised by the sight, but then, with an impatient shake of her head, she covered the flames with a few lumps of wood that Dick, her eldest brother, had procured from somewhere. There were nuggets of coke left, again obtained by Dick and, fearing they were stolen, Emma hastily shovelled them on top of the smouldering wood as if this small act could protect her brother. She frowned, knowing that though she
shouldn’t encourage him, unless Dick was again lucky in his gatherings there was little chance of getting more fuel.

What sort of man had their father become? What sort of man let his wife and children go hungry and cold whilst he poured ale down his throat?

When the fire was a manageable glow, Emma hung the kettle over it to boil, her mouth drooping despondently. Her mother loved a cup of tea, saying there was nothing like it to perk her up, but there was none left. As though it were her own, Emma felt her mum’s disappointment.