Chapter 40 Stephanie
Stephanie
Present day
I was completely stumped. Totally bamboozled. Nothing made sense.
‘What does this mean?’ I said to Mr Yin, Joyce and Val, who all looked as blank as I felt. ‘Is this Helen Byrne the same person as our Helen? Or is it a coincidence?’
‘No such thing as coincidence,’ Val said. ‘I thought she was a bit young and sprightly to be living here in Tall Trees.’
‘She is eighty, Valerie,’ Joyce pointed out. ‘I saw her date of birth on her library card. She was born in 1941, same as me.’
‘But why would she come and live here?’
‘I can’t see any reason for her to lie about needing care,’ Mr Yin said reasonably. ‘This must be a coincidence. Helen is not an uncommon name.’
‘Nor is Byrne, really,’ Joyce said.
Val scoffed. ‘This is not a coincidence. You’re all deluding yourselves.’ She folded her arms crossly.
‘Right,’ I said, standing up. ‘There’s only one way to find out for sure. I’m going to ask her what’s going on. Just me,’ I added as the others all stood up too – more slowly but with just as much determination.
‘Really?’ Joyce was disappointed.
‘I want her to open up, not make her clam up by going in mob-handed,’ I said. ‘She’s done nothing wrong.’
‘So you think,’ said Val.
‘Stay here and I’ll come back as soon as I’ve spoken to her.’
‘If you’re not back in thirty minutes, we’re coming to get you,’ Joyce said.
‘She’s not dangerous.’
‘Isn’t she?’ Val looked mulish and I couldn’t help laughing as I made my way down the hall to Helen’s room.
I knocked but I didn’t bother to wait for an answer, I just opened the door and went inside. Helen was sitting in her armchair, Elsie’s book on her lap. She looked up with a start as I went in and shut the book with a thud. She looked guilty, I thought. Guilty and upset.
‘Did you take the book from the staffroom?’ I said, remembering how I’d stashed it in there for safekeeping.
Helen looked cross. ‘Yes, I did.’ She stared straight at me. ‘So what?’
‘Were you going to return it?’
‘No.’ She was defiant, but I didn’t know why.
‘Are you Harry Yates’s daughter?’
She breathed in sharply as though she’d not been expecting the question. Then she nodded. ‘Harry was my dad.’
‘So what do you want with Elsie’s book?’
‘I want to destroy it.’
Shocked, I lunged towards her intending to grab the book, but she predicted what I was going to do and pulled it away from me.
‘Stop it,’ she said. ‘Or I’ll pull my alarm cord and Blessing will come.’
‘You can’t destroy the book – it’s a piece of history. Why would you want to do something like that?’
She gave me a little sad smile. ‘Because it was the last thing my mother asked me to do before she died. She made me promise.’
‘Who’s your mother?’ I asked, though really I already knew.
‘Her name was Elsie Watson. Though of course she became Yates when she and my father got married.’
‘But you’re Helen Byrne? Are you married?’
‘I was for a while. I kept the name, ditched the husband.’
I sat down in the armchair next to her with a heavy sigh. ‘I think you’d better tell me everything.’
Helen nodded. ‘I think you know most of it.’
‘At the moment I feel like I know nothing. Can you start from the beginning?’
Helen got up and went to her bookshelf where she found a photograph album. She came back and opened it on her lap at a faded black-and-white photograph. I recognised the woman immediately as Elsie. She was holding a baby wearing a knitted cap and she looked happy.
‘That’s Elsie,’ I said. ‘Your mum. She was so young.’
‘She was only in her early twenties when I was born,’ Helen said.
She flipped the pages and opened the album at the back, showing me a photograph of a small, elderly woman – Elsie again.
She was sitting on a chair, wearing a party hat and she was surrounded by people, all smiling.
I spotted Helen in the picture, standing just behind her mother, her hand on her shoulder.
‘This was at her ninety-fifth birthday,’ Helen said, her eyes shining. ‘She lived to be ninety-seven.’
‘Crikey.’ I looked at her. ‘You’ve got good genes. I thought you were too sprightly to be at Tall Trees.’
Helen gave me a little sideways glance but she didn’t argue.
‘My mother lived in Dublin for more than seventy years, but she always considered herself to be a Londoner and she kept up with news from home. She loved the internet. She used to read the South London Echo online. She was better with technology than I am.’
I chuckled and Helen went on. ‘A couple of months before she died, she got very distressed about something she’d read.
She was babbling, making no sense. I was really worried about her – I thought she’d had a stroke or a funny turn.
I stayed with her that night and she had bad dreams that made her cry out in her sleep. And in the morning she told me why.’
‘Why?’ I breathed, leaning forward.
Helen rubbed her forehead. ‘When my mother was nursing she had a best friend called Nelly. That’s who I’m named after, in fact. Nelly was badly injured in an air raid and she died during the Blitz.’
‘That’s so sad.’
‘My mother moved to Ireland in 1941. She’d lost Nelly and she’d lost her brother and she was expecting me – I’d always assumed that she just wanted to get away from the bombing and the memories.
She always said she’d come to see Nelly’s family and deliver a final message from her friend and then she liked it in Dublin so much that she stayed there. ’
‘But there was something else?’ I said, thinking about the scribbled messages in the back of the book.
‘There was. My mother told me she’d read online that when they’d been digging out the basement of this hospital, they’d found a book full of messages written during the Blitz. She was shaking when she told me. Terrified.’
‘Because she knew that the book proved that she’d done something wrong,’ I said, suddenly putting it all together. ‘She’d killed Nelly. A mercy killing.’
Helen looked startled. ‘That’s right.’ She turned the pages of the album again and showed me a picture of Elsie arm in arm with another young woman, whose eyes flashed with fun. ‘This was her.’
‘She looks nice.’
‘Mammy always said she was a handful,’ Helen said looking at the photo.
‘She loved her very much – that was clear from how she spoke about her. And when she went to Ireland, she didn’t mean to stay with the Malones.
But Nelly’s mammy took her in and made her part of the family. I called her Granny.’
‘So Elsie didn’t want anyone knowing what she’d done?’ I said.
‘She was so worried it would change everything. Of course, Nelly’s parents are long dead, and her siblings are all gone too now, but we’re all intertwined. I have three brothers younger than me and one of them married Nelly’s niece. Mammy thought the family would break apart if the truth came out.’
‘Poor Elsie, worrying about it all in her final days.’
‘She made me promise I’d travel to England and find the book and stop anyone finding out.’
‘So you came to Tall Trees?’
She looked sheepish. ‘It took a while to organise.’
‘You left behind your life in Ireland to fulfil your mum’s dying wish?’
A shadow crossed Helen’s face. ‘I did.’
‘You must have loved her so much.’
‘She was the best person I’ve ever met.’ Helen lifted her chin.
‘She was a wonderful nurse. An amazing mother. My father adored her. My brothers have dozens of children and grandchildren and they all loved her too. I know that if she helped Nelly die, then she did it for the right reasons. I don’t want her memory tarnished. ’
‘Do you have children? A partner?’
‘No children,’ Helen said. ‘I have a partner. Or I did.’ She sighed. ‘Her name’s Julia and we’ve been together for twenty-five years. She thought I was bonkers doing this. I’m not sure she’ll still be at home when I get back.’
On a whim I reached out and patted her hand. ‘We’ll talk her round,’ I said. A thought struck me. ‘Why did Elsie have to leave? If Nelly was dying anyway, no one would have suspected your mother had helped her along. It seems so extreme.’
‘Someone saw her.’ Helen looked like she was going to cry. ‘This chap called Jackson had a bit of a crush on her. I think nowadays he’d be called a stalker. He followed her around and he’d got himself a job at the hospital and he saw what she did.’
‘God,’ I said, putting my hand over my mouth.
‘He threatened my mother and she was scared. So she left.’
‘But he didn’t tell,’ I said. ‘Because Elsie came back when the hospital closed to see her friends.’
Helen shook her head. ‘He was the only casualty in the bomb that fell on the hospital. He survived the blast but died a few weeks later. Of course, my mother didn’t know he’d died until a few months had gone by. And by then she was hugely pregnant with me and settled in Dublin.’
‘How did she get to Ireland?’ I frowned. ‘Could you just flit about during the war? I thought it would be like lockdown?’
‘Apparently, there were a couple called the Golds who lived in the flat downstairs from my mother who helped her.’ Helen chuckled. ‘Mammy said they claimed they were just civil servants but when she needed them they sprang into action. She thought they worked in intelligence or something.’
‘Spies,’ I said, delighted. ‘Really?’
‘That’s what Mammy claimed. We’ll never know.’
‘That’s amazing.’ I sighed. ‘What a story.’
Helen ran her fingers through her hair. ‘But you see why I couldn’t let anyone see those messages? No one should know what my mother did.’
‘I think she was brave.’
‘Me too.’ She smiled. ‘But it’s just too complicated. I was going to scribble all over them, or tear them out when there was the kerfuffle in the lounge, but I got reading the notes between my parents and then you showed up.’
‘Sorry,’ I said with a grin. ‘How about if we rip the pages out now? Well, not rip – that’s a bit drastic. I could cut them out with a craft knife? We can make it neat so no one will notice unless they’re looking for it, And then Elsie’s secret will be safe but we’ll still have the other messages.’
‘Would you do that?’
‘I would. I think it’s important to keep the love notes between your parents. They’re so special.’
‘They are.’
‘Then it’s settled.’
‘I’ve not been very nice to you.’ Helen looked down at her knees. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude, but I was so worried about you finding the truth. I thought if I made things difficult for you, you’d give up.’
‘I nearly did.’
‘I’m sorry.’
I shrugged. ‘It’s okay. I understand why you did it.’
‘I saw that historian chap had given it up. I watched him move all his things out of that cupboard they’d put him in.’
‘That was my fault,’ I said, wincing. ‘I’ve got a lot of making up to do.’
Helen looked at me. ‘You and me both.’
We laughed and I thought how nice she was and how much I’d misjudged her.
‘Would your brothers or your nieces and nephews come to the unveiling of the mural?’ I asked. ‘Or Julia?’
‘I’m sure they would love to.’ She looked pleased. ‘Not sure about Julia though.’
‘Perhaps you should ask her?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s still a bit raw.’
I didn’t want to push it so I nodded.
‘Fair enough.’
‘Stephanie?’ I looked up and saw Joyce, Val and Mr Yin hovering around the doorway to Helen’s room.
‘Is everything okay?’ Val said pointedly.
Helen shot me an amused glance. ‘Everything’s fine,’ she said to the others. ‘I was just telling Stephanie about my mother.’
‘Helen’s mother was Elsie,’ I said, laughing at their shocked faces. ‘And her father was Harry.’
Joyce flung her arms out joyfully. ‘This is wonderful,’ she said. ‘They lived happily ever after.’
‘I was just about to tell Stephanie about how my parents found each other again,’ Helen said. ‘Do you want to hear the story?’
‘Of course we do.’ Mr Yin looked excited. ‘Shall I put the kettle on?’