Manchester – April 1965
Marcus wanted to come to Manchester with her, but she wouldn’t let him. This way she could still change her mind. It was cold on the train and she felt very alone. At the station she went into the buffet to get warm, and to try and steady her nerves. She pulled up the collar of her black coat, although the woman behind the counter didn’t give her a second glance. People hardly ever recognized her. Without the make-up and glamorous clothes she was just a skinny pale-faced girl.
‘So you knew Irene had the address all along,’ Marcus had said.
‘Yeah, that was why she contacted me the last time I saw her. Must have been two or three years ago. Said someone left a note at the stage door asking if she was still in touch with Mary Todd’s daughter and could she give me that name and address.’
‘But you never went?’
‘Irene begged me to. Even offered to go with me, but I wouldn’t even take the details. Didn’t want to see or hear about my mum. She dumped us, Marcus. Me and Dad. Went off with one of her fancy men, so everyone said. I reckon she heard about me getting known as a model and thought I must have money.’
That had been when the nightmares started up again. They stopped after a few months, but with Irene’s death they’d come back and with them flashes of memory. Joycie knew she had to do more than pretend there was nothing wrong.
When her dad died she didn’t let herself cry. It was nearly three years after her mum went and they were fine, just the two of them. But he killed himself, leaving her all alone and without a word from him. So she told herself she didn’t care. There was no way to make that better, but perhaps Irene was right. If she could see her mum, or find out for sure what had happened to her, maybe she could get a bit of peace.
She asked the taxi driver to drop her at the end of Trenton Road and come back in an hour. It seemed like an area where a taxi might cause a stir and anyway she could take a look at the place before deciding what to do.
The street lights were already on in a damp dusk and the pavement gleamed under her feet. Terraced houses, front steps shining with red polish, a couple of clean milk bottles on the pavement beside each one.
She stopped opposite number 44. There was a glow from somewhere at the back, but the front room was dim and the net curtains meant she couldn’t see in.
A deep breath, collar pulled tighter at her throat, asking herself what was the point of this, what was she hoping to find? But she was outside the door now and tapping on it.
A child crying, the door opening, the woman looking back into the hallway saying, ‘Watch him, Carol. Don’t let him climb on the table.’
It was her mum, unchanged in all these years, just like her memories and the dog-eared photo in her bag. Joycie’s breath stopped. But when the woman turned, brushing reddish hair away from her face, she was different. Not Mum then, but definitely related.
She breathed again, trying to remember the words she’d planned. ‘I’m Joyce Todd, Mary Todd’s daughter. Someone left this address with Irene Slade wanting me to get in contact.’
Somehow she was inside the house, the narrow hall smelling of cabbage and bacon, and then in the front room sitting on a hard sofa. The room was cold and clean; probably kept for best. A tiny boy watched her from the hall doorway, thumb stuck in his mouth, until a little girl in a dress with a torn sleeve pulled at his arm.
‘Come on, Mikey, leave the lady alone.’
The woman’s voice: ‘That’s it, Carol. Put him in the high chair and feed him his tea while I’m talking.’
Then she was back, without her apron, touching her hair. ‘I’m Mary’s sister, your auntie Susan. Mary will have told you about me.’
Joycie tried to speak, but no words came. She bought time by undoing her coat and slipping it off. She was freezing, but it seemed rude to sit there all trussed up. Then she pushed back her own hair and met the woman’s eyes. Her aunt (how strange that sounded) smoothed her skirt and gave a little cough.
‘It’s ages since I left that note. Never expected anyone to turn up.’ Her voice was like Mum’s, the northern accent just a little stronger.
‘Irene has just died and your address was with the things she left me.’ She didn’t say she’d refused to take it in the first place.
Susan was looking hard at her, a little smile quirking the corners of her mouth. ‘You know you look a lot like that model, Orchid. Did anyone ever tell you?’
Joycie could feel her face flushing. ‘I am her. Orchid’s the name I use professionally.’
‘Well blow me down. I mean, you do look like her, like her photos, your photos, but …’ Her face was pink now too.
For some reason this made Joycie feel better and she was able to laugh. ‘It’s all right. Most people are surprised at how ordinary I am. It’s really all about the make-up and the way they dress me.’
‘No, you’re a lovely looking girl. Not much like your mam, if you don’t mind me saying, but you take after your dad. He’s a handsome fella.’
‘Yes, he was.’ A movement from Susan. ‘He died a long while ago.’
‘Oh, I am sorry about that. I knew he wasn’t with Sid Sergeant any more. ’Cos Sid was on the bill that time I sent the note to Irene Slade. That’s why I went. Hoped to see Charlie. But Sid didn’t have a stooge. And I thought that was odd because Charlie told Mam he owed everything to Sid and would never leave him. You know your dad was an orphan?’ Joycie nodded. ‘Apparently Sid took him on when he’d just come out of the Dr Barnardo’s home he grew up in. Charlie said Sid was the only family he’d ever known.’
‘So it wasn’t my mum who left the address?’
‘No, it was me. I was hoping Irene might put me in touch with both of you.’
Joycie’s breath stalled for a moment before she could get the words out. ‘How long is it since you’ve seen my mum?’
Susan’s eyes were cloudy. ‘A long time. Not since before you were born.’
Something heavy seemed to drop from her throat to her stomach and Joycie knew if she tried to speak, or even to breathe, she might cry. Stupid, stupid idiot. She’d actually convinced herself she had no hopes or expectations. How wrong she had been.
‘So why didn’t you ask Irene to give your address to Mum?’
‘I did. I asked her to get it to Mary Todd or her daughter.’
That wasn’t what Irene had told Joycie. Was that because she had misread the note or because she thought Joycie was more likely to go searching if she thought it might have come from Mary herself or from someone who knew her whereabouts? If so then it had worked.
Susan was talking on and she forced herself to listen.
‘I didn’t like to send the note to Sid in case he and your dad had fallen out and that’s why they weren’t together, but I remembered Mary mentioning in her letters that she was friendly with Irene Slade.’
It was anger Joycie heard in her own voice when she was able to speak. ‘My mother left us when I was eleven years old and I haven’t seen or heard from her since.’
Susan was suddenly on her feet, one hand at her mouth, muttering something about tea. Joycie heard her talking to the children in the kitchen, her voice too low to make out the words. Then clinking crockery and a wail from the little boy. Joycie rubbed her arms. There was just one thin rug covering the brown and blue patterned lino on the floor. The fireplace was swept clean and she wondered if they ever lit it. There were no pictures