Chapter 33

Chapter Thirty-Three

Every Good Woman ought to pursue a partner of equal or greater breeding and education. This is the person with whom you will spend your life, raise your children. They must have the means to take care of you, else you will be destined for a life of strife and financial worry.

Matilda Beam’s Good Bride Guide, 1956

I can’t sleep.

Every time I start to doze off, I think of Leo and my heart lurches and wakes me up. And when it’s not that bringing me out of sleep, it’s Peach turning over in the bed and lobbing me in the face with her arm.

With a sigh, I climb out from beneath the duvet and pace around my room, halting when I feel a sharp prick in my toe.

‘Ow!’ I hiss, grabbing my foot and hopping up and down. I pick the offending shard out of my foot. It’s a tiny piece of porcelain from when Jamie’s nephew Charlie knocked over Felicity.

I gape at the rest of the dolls. Mum’s dolls. I wonder if this sad aching I have inside is the feeling Mum had all the time? Is this what drove her over the edge?

I check the time on my iPhone. Two a.m.

Pulling on my dressing gown, I creep out onto the upstairs landing and peek up at the attic door, spotting a little rope cord dangling from it. Reaching on tiptoes, I pull the cord down as slowly as possible and unfold the wooden ladder super quietly.

As I step onto the first rung of the ladder, it gives a massive creak. I freeze. If Grandma catches me sneaking up here after she told me not to, she’ll have a right paddy, and tonight has already been quite craptastic enough, thank you.

When, thirty seconds later, it becomes clear that Grandma didn’t hear the creak and I’m safe, I carefully climb the rest of the way into the attic and close the hatch softly behind me. I sneeze instantly. Urgh, it’s so dusty up here, I can smell it!

Feeling along the wall for the light switch, I find it and flip it on. The attic is illuminated by the glow of a bright, bare bulb dangling from the rafters. I shake my head as I see boxes and toys and papers and old trophies and books and more boxes. Attic is empty my arse. Grandma was totally lying. I pluck a trophy from where it’s balancing on top of an open cardboard box and look at the inscription.

Kensington Young Ballet Competition. Winner Rose Beam.

And then I pick up an old school blazer with a label sewn into the collar.

Property of Rose Beam, Class 4 Blue.

Woah. This is all Mum’s stuff! No wonder I never saw any around the house – it’s all crammed in here!

Opening odd boxes, I rifle through them eagerly. There are school reports, a signed theatre programme from Romeo and Juliet, old shoes, tape cassettes, half-used bottles of perfume and a few disco flyers for a club called the Blue Canary.

Then I spot − half covered by a turquoise stripy duvet cover − a large black trunk nestled in the darkest corner of the attic. I traipse over, muffling another sneeze as I dislodge a couple of teddy bears which proceed to fall off the top of a cardboard box and bop me on the head. Sitting down cross-legged in front of the trunk, I yank off the duvet cover, bunch it up and chuck it over to the other side of the attic. Then I slowly lift open the lid of the trunk.

Inside, there are envelopes and folders, old magazines and letters. Then I notice, buried beneath all the paper, a small pile of brightly-coloured patterned notebooks.

Frowning, I grab the notebook on top of the stack and open it up.

The first page is scrawled with large, looping script in the kind of thick blue ink that can only come from a fountain pen. I recognize the handwriting in an instant.

It’s Mum’s handwriting.

Rose Beam’s Diary

My hands start to shake.

Rose Beam’s Diary

9th July 1985

I can’t write properly, my hands are shaking so much. Dammit. I need to breathe but I can’t catch my breath.

I’ve just been downstairs as Mum was calling me. She was sitting in the drawing room with Dad, and they both looked so serious. I thought they were going to tell me that someone had died. Before I could ask who, Dad told me to sit down. Then he said that I wouldn’t be seeing Thom any more. At first I laughed because I thought he was doing one of his stupid jokes, but then Mum started crying and completely wigging out and I knew that they were serious. Dad told me that he’d had one of his friends look into Thomas Truman’s background and he’d found out that Thom is a known gambler with a string of debts who was obviously using me for our money. I told Dad how ridiculous he was being because I know all about Thom’s card playing, but that he loved me and that it was real, true love. Thom paid me back every penny of the money I lent to him and I told them so.

And then Dad told me the worst thing anyone has ever said in my life. He told me that last night he went to see Thom at his house and offered him twenty thousand pounds to leave London and never see me again. According to Dad, Thom took it without a second thought. I don’t believe it. I can’t believe it. Dad said they hadn’t spent all this time, effort and money to bring me up well, only for me to marry a layabout who was after the family money, that something scandalous like this would ruin the family’s hard-earned reputation. Mum dashed over to hold me, but I pushed her away. How has she let this happen? She just sat by Dad’s side, agreeing with everything he said like she always bloody does.

At that point I ran out of the room and out of the house. I got the Tube to Thom’s house. John answered. As soon as he saw me, his face crumpled. And then he gave me a note. From Thom. I tried to open the envelope but my hands were shaking so much that John had to do it for me. The note wasn’t even worth being in an envelope. It simply said, ‘I’m sorry.’

I asked John where Thom had gone and he claims to have no idea. How could I have been such a fucking idiot.

Rose Beam’s Diary

10th July 1985

I went to the theatre to see if anyone knew where Thom had gone. Apparently he phoned in his resignation last week, and everyone is very upset that he’s let them down. They don’t know the half of it.

Rose Beam’s Diary

12th July 1985

I’ve been in my bedroom for two whole days and only now have I stopped crying. I think I’m physically all out of tears. Mum keeps knocking on the door, trying to bring me food and warmed milk, and each time I tell her to fuck off. I’ve never used bad language in front of my parents before. But now I don’t care. They mean nothing to me. I want to tell her what she’s done. I want to tell her that I’m pregnant, that I’m having Thom’s baby and that she’s ruined everything. But she doesn’t even deserve to know. Dad doesn’t deserve to know. They are toxic and old-fashioned and cruel . . . And Thom . . . I’ve made such a fool of myself.

I need to get out of here. I have three thousand pounds in my bank account. I’ll leave tomorrow. I’m finished here. They will never know my child. Never.

Rose Beam’s Diary

15th July 1985

This will be my last entry. I’m going to throw this diary away. I’m going to throw all of them away . . . I want nothing to remind me of this life. I’m done and I won’t ever come back. See ya.

Rose x

I spend over two hours looking through Mum’s diaries, hardly able to believe what I’m reading. This is how Mum’s heart broke? This man, my father, used her and left.

The words blur in front of me as I take in what happened. The only thing Mum ever told me was that my dad left us before I was born. Does he even know I exist? And Grandma. Her and Granddad Jack paid this Thom money to leave Mum. Because of their snobbishness. Because of the Beams’ reputation. It’s horrible. A wave of pity engulfs me. No wonder Mum didn’t trust people, no wonder she was so bitter and depressed. The people she trusted and loved most in the world did one over on her.

My heart hammers rapidly as I place the last of the diaries carefully back in the trunk. Coming up here was a bad idea. What did I expect to find? Why did I choose to look now, after all the drama that’s happened tonight? Jesus, my life is just one bad fucking decision after the other.

I feel so angry. Angry at myself. Angry at Grandma. Now it makes sense why she’s been so cagey. Of course she doesn’t want me to know that it wasn’t just a man who broke Mum’s heart. It was her. Her and Jack. That’s what she was talking about when she said she was ‘redeeming herself’. She thought that by taking me in she could make it all better.

Adrenalin courses through my body, making me feel like I’m about to explode. And there I was thinking that Grandma might actually be OK. Feeling pleased that she was proud of me.

I fiddle absently with the cuff of my dressing gown and watch as the dust particles glisten in the light, flying all around me, never seeming to reach the floor. I think of my mum. Of growing up around somebody who never wanted to hug, never wanted to talk about love, cried so much, stayed indoors all the time. I think of sitting on the floor of the library when Pam called to tell me that Mum couldn’t even find it in her to face life any more.

Grandma lied to me. Big time.

* * *

On the way back down from the attic, I’m not quite so careful as on the way up, and I hit not just one creak, but three. Grandma dashes out of her bedroom, her silver hair a wild halo, a look of fright on her pale, wrinkled face. When she realizes it’s only me rather than a burglar, her taut face relaxes.

‘Oh, Jessica, you gave me a terrible fright! Goodness, how was the ball? Did you have a wonderful time?’ Then she realizes where I’ve just been. ‘Wait . . . what are you doing up there? I told you not—’

‘You lied to me,’ I cut in, stepping off the bottom rung of the ladder, my voice shaking. ‘You let me think that you had nothing to do with why she was so unhappy. But it was all your fault. Yours and Jack’s.’

Grandma sways slightly. ‘That’s not wha—’

‘I’ve just read her diaries! She was in love, properly in love, found her − her soulmate, and because you didn’t think he was up to your standards, your precious Beam fucking standards, you paid him to leave her. And she never ever got over it.’

‘Good grief, ‘Grandma whispers, her bottom lip starting to tremble. ‘I was going to tell you.’

‘Oh really?’

‘Yes. I was going to explain everything. When the project was over.’

‘Ah, yes, your precious project. Well, congratulations! Leo Frost said he loved me, so, you know, hip, hip, hoorah. Only he found out what we’d been up to, how we’d been lying to him, and he’s devastated. I should never have trusted you.’

Grandma wrings her hands together. ‘After she left, Thomas came back.’

I blink. ‘What?’

‘He came back four days later to return the money. He told us he was in love with Rose and realized he’d made a mistake. Your grandfather sent him away, told him that Rose had to decided to go and live with family in New York and that he must never, ever darken our doorway again. I felt horribly guilty.’

My throat aches with something, I’m not sure what it is. ‘My father came back and you never told her?’ I whisper in disbelief.

Grandma starts to sob even louder. I hate it. My first instinct is to make her feel better, but she doesn’t deserve it. Because of her snobbishness, my mother lived her whole life believing that the person she loved took money to abandon her. And he didn’t. He did love her. Maybe if she’d known, she wouldn’t have . . .

‘Jack forbade me to tell her. He was my husband. I had to listen to him.’

‘She was pregnant, for fuck’s sake!’

‘We didn’t know that until after we’d sent Thomas away. I only knew when I found Rose’s diaries in an untied trash bag behind the outside bins. By that time it was too late.’

I run my hands through my hair. I can’t believe it.

‘She lived her entire life believing a lie. It ruined her!’

‘I’m know, and I am sorry,’ Grandma cries. ‘I thought I knew what was best for my daughter. If she had only listened to my advice, she wouldn’t have got involved with such an unsavoury man in the first place. Let herself get pregnant out of wedlock.’

I shake my head. ‘You’re unbelievable,’ I spit, standing up. ‘I knew you were old-fashioned, but that’s just absurd. How can you not see how awful and judgemental that is?’

The back of my eyes sting. I need to get out of here.

‘It’s my biggest regret,’ Grandma says in a small voice. ‘The entire thing destroyed Jack. He started drinking heavily after Rose ran away, he lost control of Delightex, our entire fortune went, he became cold and distant. Her leaving with his grandchild, cutting all ties, refusing to even speak to us again . . . it shattered me, but it killed him. He had his heart attack less than two years later. Believe me, I’ve felt sorry for it every day of my life. I tracked Rose down after Jack passed. Found both of you in that tiny house in Manchester. When I got there, she screamed and lashed out at me. Said that if I loved her at all I would never contact her again. What could I do, Jessica? I didn’t know what to do. So I knocked on the door of your next-door neighbour—’

‘Nosy Mrs Farraway?’ I whisper.

‘Yes, Mrs Farraway. And I offered to pay her if she would send me monthly updates on how the two of you were faring. That’s how I found out that Rose had . . . that she had . . .’ Grandma trails off, her face crumpled with upset.

I try to swallow, but there’s a huge lump in the way.

‘If you knew she’d died then why did you never come to her funeral?’ I ask, my voice cracking slightly with anguish. ‘Why did you never try to find me?’

‘I did go to her funeral.’

‘What? You’re lying. You didn’t.’

‘I did, Jessica. I was standing right at the back, behind the other guests. I saw you there with your friend. You were . . . a little worse for wear.’

I get a flashback to Mum’s funeral. How I drank half a bottle of tequila beforehand, how Summer basically had to help me stand upright. So wasted, I didn’t even know Matilda was there.

‘Why didn’t you come and talk to me?’ I spit. ‘Things could have been so different. I was alone. I had no one.’

The tears roll down Grandma’s face, plopping off one by one onto the collar of her cream dressing gown.

‘I wanted to, Jessica. I wanted to very much. But when your mum passed, I received a letter from her solicitor instructing that I should never try to make contact with you.’

‘Well, what do you call this?’ I scream, indicating the pair of us.

‘I didn’t seek you out. You came to me. I couldn’t turn you away. You needed someone.’

‘No, you needed someone. Someone to manipulate. Someone to do your bidding and do your stupid project. Well, congratulations. It worked. I’ll write the book. Your house will be saved. Yippee for you.’

‘I don’t care about that. Maybe I did, but I don’t now. I only care about you.’

‘Someone who cared about me wouldn’t have put me in the situation I was in tonight. I feel like shit about what I’ve done. We’ve really hurt somebody.’

Grandma looks down at her shaking hands. She’s getting really distressed.

My stomach rolls and lurches horribly. ‘Look, I . . . I have to go,’ I gasp.

‘Where?’ Grandma says, horrified. ‘It’s half past four in the morning!’

‘Anywhere, just so long as it’s well away from you.’

I hurry to my room in a daze, grab my phone, and with shaking hands that keep missing the keys, dial the first number that comes to mind.

After four rings it answers.

‘Hello?’

‘Can I come stay the night?’ I ask without preamble.

‘Yes,’ is the simple, short reply. ‘Shall I pick you up?’

‘No, it’s fine. I’ll get a cab.’

I quickly call a taxi, grab my laptop, put on my trainers and race past a loudly sobbing Grandma to wait outside for the taxi to take me away from here.

I just about make it out of the building when the tears I’ve been holding in for so many years finally start to fall.