His expression was haunted his face suddenly lined and suddenly old-looking, and his eyes were hooded, looking at something I couldn’t see.
“Her little girl, Cherie, her name was, but mum called her Sherry-baby, after that old Frankie Valli song, she was only a baby, just a few months old. She was totally unharmed. Her shit bag father had dropped out of sight by then; obviously he wanted nothing to do with bringing her up, and she was taken in by her married half-sister, her father’s daughter from his first marriage.”
Daddy sighed, running his fingertip gently around the picture of the two little girls.
“I don’t know what happened to her; after mum died we lost touch with Sherry’s sister. I hadn’t started university yet when Rosa went off with Sid, she was still in her teens, just gone seventeen, she left with him one day and next thing I know she’s married, or so mum claimed, and she had Cherie pretty much right way, and then she was killed, and that’s all I know. Sherry would be two, maybe three years older than Jamie, if I’ve got it right.”
He knuckled his eyes, trying to pretend he was yawning, but I know Daddy too well, so I didn’t say anything.
“Barbara, I don’t know where she is. She married a man called Brian Davis, and they moved to Coventry I think, after that, I don’t know. I haven’t heard from her in over twenty-five years, not since before Jamie was born. I don’t know where she is, what she’s doing, if she’s even still alive… ”
Daddy’s lip was quivering, so I closed the album. I could tell I was raking-up old hurts here. He didn’t need this, not from me, but now I was more than intrigued. I never knew daddy had family other than Jamie and me, he’d never mentioned anyone, never talked about his parents, never gave a clue in all my years that he had lost his sister, maybe both of them.
The news that he’d had two sisters at all was bombshell enough for me.
Daddy took the album from me and opened it, flicking through the pictures until he came to an 8 x 10 glossy on its own page.
“This is Barbara, sweetheart…”
She was beautiful, a real looker, I could definitely see some of my grandparents, and quite a lot of Jamie, especially the cheekbones and her expression, but a lovely teenage girl in her own right. She had styled, sculpted, softly flicked back light golden-brown hair, like daddy and Jamie, and large, expressive, dove-grey eyes, just like her mother, full lips and a sweet, open, friendly smile.
Daddy flicked through a few more pages and there was another 8×10, this time of a pretty, elfin girl probably no more than thirteen or fourteen, with very pale skin and glossy, jet black hair cut in a typical 80’s dramatic style, what they used to call a “wedge”, very short on one side and at the back, with a long, sweeping fringe across her face and over one eye, just like one of the New Romantic girls on the covers of The Human League albums Daddy had in his record collection.
She had those intensely blue Morrison eyes my grandfather, daddy, Jamie, and I all shared, and a wide, cheeky grin.
“This is Rosa, Nugget. I think she was the most determined out of all of us, whatever she wanted, she went for it. She was fun, though, and a real sweetheart, one of the nicest, gentlest people you’d ever meet, and I miss her so much… ”
Daddy slid the picture out of the clear plastic sleeve so I could look more closely at it. I turned it over, and in the bottom right-hand corner in ballpoint pen was written “Rosalie Jean Morrison 14 Aug 1989”. Scribbled across the back was “Happy Birthday Jamesie, I’m broke so you get this! Luv you Bruv! Rosa.”
“She was thirteen when she gave me that…” said daddy, his voice quiet but I heard the quaver in it, saw the sad, angry look in his eyes.
“What happened, daddy, and why don’t I know about her?” I asked, genuinely puzzled. Daddy looked really angry for a second, the anger rippling across his face for just a fleeting instant before his normal, composed expression reappeared.
“She met a real scumbag, his name was Sid Young. Good old Sid was nearly the same age as my dad, with a grown, married daughter he’d walked out on years before. I tried to tell Rosie, she didn’t want to know, Sid had changed, he loved her, love transcends any barrier, the heart wants what the heart wants, blah, blah, blah, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, rubbish he’d filled her head with.”
Daddy looked furious, his eyes narrowed with anger at the memory, and his knuckles were white.
“Dad was absolutely furious, mum was horrified and disgusted. I remember the one time Rosie brought him to the house, dad literally threw him out the door with a size 10 boot imprinted on his creepy old arse, he made threats, dad took after him with a cricket bat, he took off like an Olympic runner, and that was the last we ever saw of that disgusting old cradle-snatcher.”
He sighed.
“Mum said he married her, but I had my doubts about that, I believed then and I do now that it was just a title of convenience because mum didn’t want to call it what it really was; that scummy old shit wasn’t going to tie himself down with a pregnant teenager. When he got what he wanted, up and off he went, just like he’d done before.”
Daddy looked grim.
“Last time I saw Rosa alive was the year I left for university, she was seventeen, going on eighteen and heavily pregnant. I’d deferred for a year, so I was nearly twenty by then. Good old Sid left her soon after Cherie was born, I mean days after, how low is that, but no real surprises there, leopards changing their spots and all that.
Rosa and the baby were staying with Sid’s daughter after Sid ran out on her; she wasn’t even eighteen yet, younger than Sid’s daughter, which had to be weird for both of them. Cherie was about four months old when Rosa was killed at that bus-stop. Sid never showed up for the funeral, and we never heard from him again; no doubt he went on to do the same thing again.”
He sighed heavily.
“I left for uni, even though I didn’t want to, but mum and dad persuaded me to go, they’d deal with Brian and Sid, but Mum passed away just a few weeks later, heart attack out of the blue, and dad followed soon after, they called it a “Widow-Maker” while I was still trying to arrange bereavement time-off and study leave to help him get through Mum’s passing. I don’t think he even knew what hit him, which is sort of a blessing, I suppose. They said it was due to a congenital heart defect, but Barbie and I knew better. Losing his baby-girl and then mum was the last straw, he just gave up, and it was just Barbara and me.”
He paused, looking into the distance at something only he could see, but then shook his head and carried on.
“Some time earlier, Barbara had met Brian Davis, if that was really his name, and he was still hanging around after dad passed away; I overheard Barbie call him “Robert” a few times, and that set my senses twitching, because he really didn’t like that. I never liked him, everything about him seemed off. Even Buster, my old black Lab couldn’t stand him. He used to growl at him non-stop, and the look that bloke always gave Buster, like he’d kill him if I wasn’t there, then call it an accident.
He frowned vaguely, his eyes far away.
“I couldn’t stay, I’d already deferred once, if I didn’t take up my place I’d lose it, so I went. I met Laura the year I graduated, and the way he’d ogle her whenever she’d come home with me told me everything I needed to know about him. Barbara was planning to go to uni when she took up with him, she’d already trained as a kindergarten teaching assistant, and she wanted to get a formal teaching qualification, but she dropped out and married that bloke instead, and that was it.”
He stopped to grin wryly.
“Barbara loved him, though, and I didn’t get that at all. She had such good instincts about people, that’s probably what made her such a good TA, and would have made her a top-notch teacher. She used to teach the five and six year-olds at Ravenstone Primary school down in Balham, and she loved it.”
He looked angrily at her picture, before patting it vaguely and turning the page.
“She should have taken it further, but she gave it up for him because he didn’t want her working. With all her smarts, she never once clocked that guy for what he really was. They got married, I gave her away, and honestly, it felt like the worst, biggest mistake I’d ever made.”
He passed his hand over his face, and I could see his hand trembling. I squeezed his arm, and he smiled at me, before continuing.
“I wanted to jump up when the registrar asked if anyone had any just cause to stop it, I wanted to shout out that he was a dirt bag and she was making a huge mistake, I felt like I was handing my little sister over to a conniving, evil monster, and he was going to hurt her.”
His expression was harsh, angry, obviously he was still feeling it, even after so long.
“I can’t explain it, I just got a continuous bad vibe from him, and I hated him. He had this permanent smirk on his face, like he’d put one over on all of us, like he was so smart and we were all so stupid. I hated him just for that. I wanted to smash him in the face with a claw-hammer and wipe that creepy smirk off permanently and stake his body out so I could kick his arse every day as I walked past his corpse; he gave me the major creeps, but not Barbara, she never saw it… ”
He trailed off, staring off in to the distance, squinting, like he was trying to remember something.
“Y’know, I don’t even know if Barbara had kids or not; after they left I got a couple of Christmas cards that said nothing, and then nothing more; letters I sent were marked “returned to sender” or “not known at this address.” I took my eyes off my baby sisters and they just dropped completely off the radar… ”
I hugged him, and left him to his memories. I needed to think about this. For one thing, Jamie needed to know that literally half our family was missing, and I also thought perhaps Mummy might know something, something she and Daddy might have talked about, or she, Daddy, and Jamie’s mother.