The Runaway Read online

  ‘The dates are all there, you can see the papers in the library. When I read them I knew I had to leave him. Some say people can change, but do they? He could deny it, claim he was innocent, that the attack was made by someone else, but a fourteen-year-old girl? Giving birth? How could she not have been believed?’

  Geoff asked if she’d agree to him talking to the police. ‘There are ways of preventing him from bothering you,’ he said.

  ‘No. Please. I don’t want the police involved.’ They were certain to find out about her own shame. She couldn’t tell them about the baby she had abandoned. She needed their sympathy and she would surely lose it if they learned of that. Once the police were involved everyone would know. The story would be exaggerated and slanted by different tellers depending on their opinion of her and of Matt. She would be criticized for abandoning her child. For most that would be far worse than an ancient story about a girl who was probably partly to blame anyway – dropping the charge of rape and the sentencing showed that to be the opinion of the court. Rape was still a difficult charge to bring, even with a child as young as Ethel Holland.

  Winnie had been silent but she cried as she read the story of the fourteen-year-old suffering such distress.

  ‘So this is why you walked away from your daughter?’ she said as they walked home.

  ‘I believed she stood a better chance of growing up without a temper if she lived with a family far way from Matt.’

  ‘Because she was Matt’s child?’

  ‘No, I told you. Matt wasn’t her father.’ Faith lied.

  ‘The part of this that saddens me most is that you couldn’t tell me,’ Winnie said quietly.

  ‘You’re my friend and after this you might not have been.’

  ‘Why ever not? You aren’t to blame in any of this. I know how hard it must have been to walk away from your daughter and I know the reason was love for the little scrap.’

  For several days after Matt’s visit Faith was expecting him to appear at any moment. She walked to school with her head down, dreading to hear Matt calling her name. She hurried home each day and didn’t feel safe until she was in her room. Jean was always there and she would bring up a tray and stay for a few minutes to ask about her day with the children. The conversations never included Matt or her lost child.

  Grief and distress always strengthened the dream of finding her sister. ‘If only I could find Joy,’ she said one morning during breakfast. ‘I can’t help wondering whether my mother found Joy and didn’t search for me. Perhaps she simply didn’t want me.’

  ‘What a lot of old lol! Didn’t you tell me you’d moved several times? Things were confused during and after the war. Houses and even whole streets were demolished and people moved on. Evacuees were sent from one family to another, records were destroyed during bombing raids. It’s hardly surprising that people were lost amid it all.’

  ‘I was given the surname of my foster-parents at one stage and it was months before the error was found and rectified.’

  ‘Well, there you are then. That incident alone must have caused chaos.’

  ‘But it’s still hard to understand why I wasn’t found.’

  ‘These confusions could easily explain why your mother didn’t find you, it wasn’t that she didn’t search. After all, mothers don’t abandon their babies, do they?’

  That hurt. Abandoning her child was exactly what she had done, so how could she complain if her mother had done the same?

  ‘Oh, Faith, I’m sorry! I understand why you made that difficult decision, really I do.’

  Swallowing her guilt, Faith murmured, ‘Thanks Jean. I know you’re trying to help.’

  Matt kicked patterns in the sawdust on the floor of his workshop and listened without real interest as a customer considered the purchase of a garden ornament. She eventually settled for a heron, one of Matt’s own favourites and, because he didn’t like the customer’s superior manner he added two pounds to the price. The woman paid without demure and he promised delivery later that day.

  When she had gone he abandoned work for the day and spent the time getting in touch with the various organizations that had promised to help him. The child was not registered as his and Faith had been thorough in her arrangements regarding adoption. Angry and frustrated, he told several people how she had lied and deprived him of his child before abandoning her. The story of Faith walking away from her newly born child spread fast. The facts were embroidered and weighted against her with every telling and soon everyone knew. Disliked though he was, most felt sympathy for Matt and a few began to treat him with a hesitant friendliness.

  Jean and Roland heard the rumours and said little apart from initial sympathy but Faith could see they were embarrassed. Winnie tried to offer her full support but, not knowing the child was Matt’s, even she found her friend’s behaviour hard to understand.

  Faith apologized to the Painters for not telling the truth and gave them the same explanation as she had given Winnie for wanting her child to live without Matt in her life. Even to herself the story sounded weak. Abandoning a child when she could have walked away from Matt and taken her daughter with her? Without giving them the full story how could they understand? Paul was the only one to agree with her action.

  ‘You were right to keep your little girl away from him,’ he said. ‘I believe we are what we are born with but influences in our environment decided what we do with what we inherit. She would have learned only bad things from Matt.’

  Faith thanked him for his words of comfort.

  Every day was a nightmare for Faith. Child protection officers and social workers appeared with polite but determined questions and they were followed by the police who came in answer to Matt’s accusations that she had stolen his baby. Many concerned people wanted to know the truth and more and more disbelieved her story, insisting that she was a heartless woman who didn’t want the trouble of bringing up her child. Faith gave them all an edited version to which she rigidly adhered throughout every attempt to persuade her to admit the child was Matt’s.

  Matt’s mother came and pleaded tearfully for her to let Matt have his baby but Faith was adamant. ‘She was nothing to do with Matt. The baby’s father went away and Matt must have known that,’ she insisted. She had to continue her lies.

  Thank goodness she had refused to marry Matt and thank goodness too that she had delayed moving into his home and his bed. It was those two facts that saved her. The baby, whom she tried not to think of as Dorothy but as ‘the child’ was born fairly soon after she went to live with Matt and his mother. Her insistence that the child was the result of a previous affair had to be accepted.

  The local paper carried the story, making a headline of how local teacher, Miss Faith Pryor walked away from her newly born, illegitimate child and this was seen by enough people who knew her for it to reach the desk of her headmistress. Faith was summoned to the headmistress’s office where the woman sat at her desk over which was spread copies of the local newspapers.

  The stern-faced headmistress waved a hand over the various accounts and asked, ‘Is this true?’

  ‘More or less.’ Faith tried to keep her voice from quavering.

  The interview that followed was distressing and resulted in her being asked to leave.

  ‘To have a child out of wedlock, then to abandon her is not a suitable background for a woman who teaches small children,’ she was told. The Easter Parade in 1961 would be the end of her teaching career.

  As always, her instinct was to move, start again somewhere far away from the scene of her disgrace, reviving her nickname of the runaway. Winnie and Paul persuaded her to stay.

  ‘You can’t outrun stories like yours,’ Paul said wisely, ‘but you can outlive them. Next week there’ll be someone else’s story to talk about and although yours will be revived from time to time, the immediacy will be gone. You’ll be old news.’

  ‘Give it a chance,’ Winnie pleaded. ‘Stay with Jean or here, with us. You wo
n’t find it difficult to get work even though it won’t be what you’d choose to do. Give yourself time to decide what you really want to do with your life.’

  They didn’t ask any more questions about the baby but listened sympathetically when Faith needed to talk about the distress of parting with her and Faith was grateful for their friendship.

  Ian arrived one day and she knew the time had come to trust her friends with the truth. ‘I need to talk to you about this stuff in the papers,’ she said.

  ‘Good,’ was his almost casual response. ‘We can walk in Porthkerry Park, it’s quiet there. Was it Nick’s child?’ he encouraged when the silence stretched out. ‘Did he leave you once he was told about the baby?’

  ‘The child was Matt’s. But please,’ she begged, ‘please don’t tell anyone. I’ve told no one else that particular truth. Not even Winnie and Paul.’

  ‘Winnie’s your friend. You should have trusted her.’

  ‘After lying to the authorities including the police? I dare not.’

  He nodded but then a frown creased his forehead and she had to tell him more. ‘Matt was forceful, difficult to refuse,’ she said. ‘I know that makes me sound weak but I was desperate to belong to a family and the temptation was too much, I ignored the warning signs. Carol, Matt’s mother, was kind and gentle and very persuasive and although I wasn’t ready for more than friendship and the occasional kiss, I was persuaded, encouraged into …’ she glanced at him and changed what she had been about to say. ‘When I told them I was expecting a child they were overjoyed. I felt important for the first time in my life, I was wanted, and cherished. I didn’t love Matt, in fact I was a little afraid of him, but the need for a family was strong. I’d almost given up on finding my sister. That hope comes and goes. I delayed sharing his home for as long as I could. I knew it wasn’t the right thing to do but I ignored the doubts and, well, I moved in. After being alone all my life, with not a single person who belonged to me, I was looking at a bleak future if I walked away from what might have been my last chance of marriage and children.’

  ‘Is that why you were with Nick? The fear of being alone.’

  ‘I’m not proud of it, but yes. I clung to him as an escape from continually running from one place to another, always alone.’

  ‘I think I understand that. You didn’t settle because all the time you hoped to be reunited with your family.’

  She stared at him. ‘You’re the first person to understand. I don’t think I understood it myself, not until you put it into words.’

  ‘And leaving the baby?’ he coaxed.

  ‘I longed to hold my daughter in my arms and I accepted that Matt would have to be a part of my life. Then, by chance I found this newspaper story and fear, for my baby, and myself, completely engulfed me.’ She took the notes from her handbag and waited while he read them. ‘I knew I had to escape but where would I go? The birth was imminent and I had very little money. So I invented the story I would tell and made all the arrangements. I gave birth then ran away. The Runaway, that’s what they call me,’ she added tearfully.

  Ian said nothing. They walked back to the car in silence and when he drove her home he kissed her gently as he left. She had the heartbreaking belief that the kiss meant goodbye.

  Winnie deserved to be told the truth and she went round and told her and Paul everything. ‘Winnie, I’m sorry I lied to you,’ she apologized.

  ‘So it really was Matt’s child?’

  ‘Yes, she was Matt’s child. There has never been anyone else. I didn’t want her brought up in that house with its threat of violence.’

  ‘But why didn’t you take the baby when you left?’ was Paul’s question.

  ‘I believed that if I denied that Matt was the father the baby would grow up free of him, that being brought up in a home far from any influence he might be would be the best chance for her.’ She looked at them and knew that they weren’t convinced.

  A week later Faith made her decision. It had been a week of watching the local children enjoying their spring holiday, groups of them in the park, noisily playing on the swings and roundabouts, some picnicking on the grass among the early flowers. Being a part of all this was what she had imagined. She heard the laughter she was unable to share and felt that her life was over.

  She had a small amount of money, enough to rent and furnish a house and, if she could take a paying guest it would give her a chance to consider what to do next.

  She had seen nothing of Ian since she had told him of her sordid past and didn’t expect to. Although he hadn’t shown it, he must have been shocked and disappointed to learn that she was capable of walking away from her child. Even with the explanation she had given he would no longer be able to trust her. After a glimpse of real happiness she was alone, as she had always been. She could not have known that he had waited outside the school each afternoon for several days before presuming she had seen him and chosen to avoid him. She was alone and it was better she faced it. That way life couldn’t throw up any more disappointments.

  She chose a house in a lane not far from the railway station in the older part of the town. Cadoxton had once been a separate village with its school and beautiful old church but now it was a part of the expanding town of Barry. The house was small but double-fronted with bay windows and although it was neglected she knew it had once been an attractive property and might be again. The main rooms were a reasonable size and a once beautiful wooden-framed sun room was at the back where it would catch the early-morning sun.

  The whole place was in dire need of attention. The paintwork was scuffed and in places what had been good-quality paper was hanging from the walls. The ceilings were dark with neglect. But the rent was low and she planned gradual improvement, looking forward to wielding a paintbrush – something she had never before attempted.

  She said a regretful goodbye to her pleasant room and promised to keep in touch with Jean and Roland, although she thought that unlikely; she was going to be kept busy. She gathered her few belongings and went to No 3 Railway Cottages. Had she at last found the place where she would make her home, she wondered?

  A shop in the main street provided her with the tools and paint needed for the first stage, painting the front windows and door. As she was arranging for its delivery later that day a voice called her name. She turned with dread, and was so relieved when she saw Ian and his mother in the doorway that she smiled and ran towards them. Then she stopped. They wouldn’t want to show any sign of pleasure at seeing her, not after being told the truth. Sadly she stopped and asked, ‘How are you?’

  She was surprised when Ian said, ‘Better for seeing you.’

  ‘We were sorry about the newspaper story, dear,’ Vivienne said. ‘But you shouldn’t have avoided seeing us, we’re your friends, aren’t we?’

  ‘I thought you wouldn’t want to see me now the truth is out. When you didn’t call or write I presumed …’

  ‘Presuming, now that’s dangerous,’ Ian said. ‘I don’t recommend it.’ And to her relief his smile widened.

  Her items were put in a box and he pointed to it. ‘It’s all right, I’ll take this for the lady.’ He lifted it off the counter and said, ‘Lead on, the car is outside. Open the boot, Mam, and I’ll put these instruments of torture in. Sandpaper, paint, brushes, a garden spade and fork, seems like a lot of work, where on earth are you living, a building site?’ Suddenly the project was imbued with an air of fun.

  Vivienne looked round the house with Faith as Ian unpacked the supplies. Then they all went round together as Faith explained what she intended to do. ‘A lodger or even two might be possible,’ she explained. ‘I have the permission of the landlord, especially as I’ve promised to do the necessary repairs and decoration.’

  No further reference was made to the newspaper story as they stacked the paint tins and the rest. Ian looked at the woodwork and the loose wallpaper and made a few suggestions about the necessary treatment. ‘I have a quiet week next week so, if yo
u like I’ll come and help.’

  ‘I’m told that the preparation is the most tedious part, so yes please, if you’re sure you want to. Specially as I don’t really know what I have to do apart from what the man in the shop explained.’

  The first thing Faith did when she moved in was to write to all the people who might he able to help find her sister, giving them her new address. Even though so many years had passed and the possibility of finding Joy was only a dream, she would never completely give up hope.

  During the following week Ian came whenever he was free, sometimes with Vivienne, sometimes alone, and he helped prepare and paint the front of the sad-looking house. When he wasn’t there Faith cleaned and tidied the inside and began preparing two bedrooms for prospective lodgers. She slept downstairs on a couch that had been left by a previous tenant, planning to prepare a room for herself once the arrangements for paying guests were complete. Second-hand shops provided the minimum amount of furniture she needed and even curtains, and cleaning and adjusting her finds kept her up long into the night.

  She concentrated on the house to the exclusion of everything else, although she knew the need to work and earn money could not be ignored for much longer. Apart from Ian and his mother and a few shop assistants, she saw no one. That too mustn’t continue. Changing from the Runaway to being the Hermit, was not a step in the right direction, she warned herself.

  The advertisement for a paying guest had appeared in the local paper in July and at first Faith fussed over the house as though its cleanliness was an important exam. She watched the lane for the sign of a caller but the only person she saw, apart from Ian and Vivienne, was Winnie.

  ‘Have you thought about a job, yet?’ Winnie asked, when they were settled in the shade of an apple tree in the overgrown garden.

  ‘Not really. I’ve been concentrating on getting the house clean and tidy. Working with children is what I do best but that’s no longer possible and I can’t decide what to do next. Any ideas? I’ve prepared a couple of rooms with the help of Ian and his mother and, I’ve advertised for a lodger.’