Harry, Thelma, and Harry

That afternoon after I had made some phone calls I went to the hospital to collect Thelma. I had a little chat with the nurse I'd been liasing with all week before Thelma knew I was there. After a little prompting she let on that a man had been visiting Thelma after I left every afternoon. She thought something was odd because he never brought anything with him for Thelma. Most folks bring something with them even if it is only get-well card.

No, I thought our Frank Williams wouldn't want to leave any evidence that I could get curious about. Frank Williams' sort are pretty cute when they are on the prowl. But if he thought he was going to get away with what I suspected he was planning, he had another think coming.

That evening when we arrived home Thelma was surprised that the children weren't at the door to meet us. As she hobbled in on her crutches she asked me where they were.

"I've sent them to my folks for a few days, I thought it would give you a chance to get yourself sorted out."

"Oh, that wasn't necessary." Thelma said, as she settled herself on the sofa on the lounge. "I would have preferred it if they were here."

"But I think it was, Thelma. There's a lot of things we've got to get sorted in the next couple of days. I don't want the girls getting upset unnecessarily."

"What things?" Thelma asked as Sara came into the room carrying a tray with tea and coffee on. "Oh, Sara, you're still here; you needn't of stayed. I'm sure I can look after myself and the children. I can stand on my ankle now that it's in plaster."

"I'm not here for you, Thelma. I'm here for my brother!" Sara said with real venom on her voice

Thelma's face suddenly lost all its colour, and she looked at me. "What's this all about?"

"Well, that's the question I was going to ask you, Thelma. What the hell is going on between you and that twisted arsehole, Frank Williams?"

Thelma looked from me to Sara and then back at me again. It looked to me like for a moment she was lost for words. Then she obviously made her mind up.

"Well, I suppose you've found out then, haven't you? I suppose you had to sometime. I'm sorry but I've fallen in love with someone else. I didn't want to tell you yet, but I'm going to divorce you and then I'm going to marry Frank."

"Just like that?" I asked.

"Yes, I've been trying to think of a way to tell you for weeks now. I didn't want to hurt you more than necessary."

Sara went to say something, but the sound of movement behind her stopped her.

"That's all I needed to hear, I can get the ball rolling now -- I'll be in touch." A disembodied female voice said from out in the hall. Then we heard the front door close. I smiled at Sara and then turned back to Thelma.

"Sounds very considerate of you, if it wasn't a lie. You got Frankie boy to try to set me up didn't you? What was the plan? I get seduced by one of his hooker friends and, hey, presto, you divorce me? I suppose you thought that then I'd have to pay you maintenance, wouldn't I? What a sweet little wife I used to have. Well, hard bloody luck, baby, I didn't fall into your little trap.

"I'll give you the idea was good. You wanted to leave me with my good job and live with an unemployed arsehole, and you were planning that I'd support you in your new life."

"I don't know what you're talking about. What set-up?"

"Well, if you don't know, you had better ask your weirdo boyfriend. Now this is how things are going to go. You've got the weekend to get all your shit out of my house. My solicitor is working up the paperwork for the divorce already, he says it will be ready for you to sign on Monday."

"You can't do that. It's you who should leave the house. I will need it for the children."

"Oh, no, you don't, sweetheart. You and your weirdo boyfriend are not getting within a hundred yards of my children. I'll let you visit them providing either a social worker or I are present. Oh, yeah, it's the social services who are going to get that order before a judge tonight."

"What are you on about? They can't do that."

"Oh but they can sweetheart. You know I have always thought that social workers were a pain in the bloody arse. But once they found out that it was Frank Williams you were planning on shacking up with and had been exposing our children to, hey, they've been extremely co-operative. You are not going to be allowed near them any more and I think the police will be wanting to talk to you as well."

"I don't understand. Why would the police want to talk to me?"

"Oh, you stupid bitch!" Sara butted in; she was determined to have her say. So I let her rant on. "What did you think Williams was doing hanging around outside that bloody school. The man's a bloody paedophile with a record a mile long. He wasn't after you, you silly little cow! He wanted your daughters."

Thelma's face was something to see; again she looked from one to the other of us.

"You're lying! Frank wouldn't do that."

"Oh, no? Where do you think he's spent the last seven years?"

"He's been working abroad, out in the Far East I think."

"More like the bloody Isle-of-White. Parkhurst prison's on there - at a stretch you could call that abroad. Anyway when the police have finished talking to him and my children, we'll find out if he's done anything to them already. But I'll warn you if that bastard touched my kids, I'll most likely kill the pair of you."

Sara had to call an ambulance then, because Thelma suddenly passed out and we couldn't wake her again.

Her father or her brother must have collected her from the hospital because I bloody well didn't. I didn't see her again, until the day we signed the paperwork for the divorce. Thelma realised there was little point in asking for custody of the children, because the social services still had the order on her saying that she had placed the girls in jeopardy.

Oh, it came to light that Thelma had left the children in Williams' care on more than one occasion whilst she was at the hairdressers and the like. But the specialists who questioned my girls told me that they were sure nothing had happened. They thought that Williams was still in what they termed as the 'grooming stage' and he was anxious not to frighten them off by moving too fast.

Williams had not committed any crime that the police could make stick. They were sure he had stolen the hired car but had not put it to its intended use when the bubble burst.

When out of curiosity I asked why they thought Williams had stolen the car, the police inspector looked at me and said, "Well, it could be, sir, you have been lucky even if you do think you've had a rough time of it. The last unfortunate woman whom Williams sweet talked into his bed, so that he could abuse her children, was a widow. Her husband was killed in an unsolved hit and run accident. Now the trouble is we can't prove what Williams was planning to use the car for, but we can speculate. From now on if he stays around here we'll be keeping a very close eye on him."

"Not too close, I hope?" I replied. The officer looked around to make sure no one else was in earshot.

"Oh, I shouldn't worry too much about that sir. Providing no one's actually killed. You'd be surprised how long it takes for the officers who'll be watching him to take a leak."

"Of course I never told you that and make sure you've got a damned good airtight alibi. There are plenty of do-gooders out there who think that Williams and people like him are just mentally ill and need sympathy. If you ask me, if he was hung, drawn and quartered, he'd be getting off easy. He's a cunning evil bugger."

"And sir, don't be too hard on your wife. Williams is an expert at manipulating people. If you could have seen him in that interview room you wouldn't believe butter would melt in his mouth. She never stood a chance from the moment he targeted her. You know it wasn't until we let her read Williams' file that she really believed what kind of pervert he was."

Looking back, it could be I'm lucky to be alive. Williams was certainly covering himself for all eventualities. But knowing what that arsehole was planning for my family I decided that I was not going to turn the other cheek. But I could afford to wait until the dust settled.

++++++++++++++

For the next couple of years everything was in a state of flux. Thelma was not allowed to visit with the children alone. This proved frustrating for the girls as well as their mother, since she couldn't take them out or anything. From what the police told me and from listening to Thelma herself I don't think she had any chance when she came up against Williams. I know she would never have stood for him abusing our girls if she knew about it. I have to think that really for my own sanity.

So after a year or so I asked the Social Services to relax the conditions on Thelma's visits with the children and they acquiesced. As the children were never taken into care I really had the last say on the matter.

Thelma told me on a couple of occasions that she would like for us to get back together. But I told her that was never going to happen. I knew that from talking to the neighbours Williams' car was parked outside some days whilst the children were at school. Nothing would convince me that Thelma and Frank Williams were having a bible reading session. Oh, I don't know, there's a lot of begetting in the bible.

I told Thelma that she should find another mug, which in the end she did do. He was quite a nice guy really, although a bit on the headstrong side. I gather he asked Thelma to marry him, but she refused until she had told him everything. From what I can gather, he listened to her story then without saying a word to her he got up and walked out.

Two weeks later Thelma ran Williams down with a car outside the local nick. She'd spotted Williams hanging around outside another nearby school. Thelma had called the police and they had taken him in for questioning. But Thelma had waited outside the police station until he'd been released again. Then she had driven her car into him as he walked along the pavement.

She then apparently drove down to the river and threw herself in, in what is assumed to have been an attempt to drown herself. I've got to say I'm not at all that sure it was. Thelma is pretty good at manipulation herself and from what I've heard there was a police car right behind her.

After at first being charged with manslaughter. The charges were later dropped. Themla's mental condition was considered so unstable, that she was unfit to plead. She was placed onto the care of the local psychiatric hospital, they soon came to the conclusion they she was not a danger to the general public and she was released after a month or so. . She had to attend the shrink every couple of weeks but that's all really. And of course the Social Services tightened up on her visiting the children again.

Well, that's how it turned out. Sara's husband Ralph started working on the oil rigs in the North Sea. So Sara and her family virtually moved in with me to help look after the girls and also handle Thelma's visits with them. Although it was getting longer between every visit by then and I hadn't spoken to her in what seemed like years.

+++++++++++

I think it was just before Helen's tenth birthday. Sara, Ralph and I were sitting in the kitchen one evening talking over the old times when we were children. Of course the subject of Sara and my summers down in Weymouth came up.

Ralph came up with the idea that we'll all go down there for a fortnight that summer. Sara jumped at the idea and before Ralph and I realised what she was doing she had invited Ginny and her family to come along as well.

We hired three caravans next to each other on the same site that we used to have our family on when we were children. The children loved it on the beach and they enjoyed it when we went about pointing out all the places where we'd played as children. We actually turned up a few local people we had known as children.

One morning I took my two girls for a walk along the cliffs. Things had changed a lot because of erosion of the mud cliff faces by the sea. It took me quite some time to track down the tree where Harry and I used to carve our initials every year. Some of them you could still make out quite clearly.

"H & H, 1959." Tracy said, "I wonder who they were and where they are now?"

"Well, one of them is standing right beside you," I answered.

"You're kidding, dad!" Tracy said. "Then who was H?"

"Oh, she was just a friend."

"What do you mean? Was she your childhood sweetheart, Dad?" Helen asked excitedly.

I wasn't prepared for what I'd let myself in for.

"I suppose in a way she was. I spent many long happy holidays down here with her when I was your age. But I'm not sure you could really call her my sweetheart. I only kissed her the once."

"Was it nice?"

I wasn't sure whether Tracy was trying to embarrass me or whether she was really interested.

"Yes, it was very nice. I would have loved to have kissed her more. But she didn't come back the following year."

"Oh, that's sad. Were you very upset?"

"Yes, I was, but if you don't mind, we'll change the subject."

The subject was changed but for the rest of the holiday wherever we went my two girls would ask whether I'd been there with Harry.

Sara and Ginny were pretty quick on the uptake and would answer Tracy before I had the chance to play things down and say I didn't remember. Cakes and things that Sara and Ginny made, developed markings on them that looked remarkable similar to H & H. I tried to show my displeasure but they would all start laughing and couldn't help but laugh as well.

When the holiday was over and we returned home; then things got even worse for me. My mother and father, at Tracy and Helen's insistence dug out all the old holiday photographs of Harry and me when we were kids and showed them to the girls.

I'll give my girls one thing. Although Harry's birthmark was very prominent in a lot of the photographs, I never did hear either of my daughter's mention or ask about it. I don't know if my sisters told them not to or not. But I never heard it mentioned.

We went to Weymouth again the following year. But this time there was just my girls and myself along with Sara and Marcy. Ralph was supposed to have been coming along but he cried off at the last minute as he said something had come up to do with his job. I was surprised that Sara took it so calmly as he was out on the rigs for so much of the time.

We managed to cram everyone into my car with the luggage on the roof for the journey down to Weymouth. The first couple of days we settled in and we were having quite a nice time of it. But on the Tuesday morning at breakfast my girls suddenly announced that they wanted to go and find the tree with the carvings on the trunk again.

So around ten we set off. The three girls were full of it that morning singing and dancing around for what seemed to me to be no reason. As we got to the tree Tracy ran up to it and started shouting, "Yes, yes, he's done it. He's done it."

Then the three girls crowed around looking at the tree. When Sara and I got close, the girls moved back from the tree. Beneath the 1959 carving was another one. It read "H & H 1982." For a few moments I stared at it not really understanding what was going on. Then, from some nearby bushes, Ralph appeared; he had a couple of children who I didn't recognise with him.

"She says you'll know where to find her. She told me to tell you she's where you used to spy on the courting couples from. She would like to meet you in private."

I don't think I stopped to say anything to Ralph, I headed off at a jog, towards our old hiding place. But when I got there, there was no sign of Harry. Disappointed and confused I turned and started to walk back. I hadn't gone very far when Harry suddenly jumped out on me. An old game we used to play as children.

"Christ, Harry, you frightened bloody the life out of me," was all I could think of to say.

"Well, it makes a change from you making me jump." It got silly then as we talked to each other just like we used to do as children. When we got back to the tree, the others had gone.

Slowly with me telling Harry my life story – well, an abridged version - we made our way back to the caravan.

Harry told me that when her father had died, her mother couldn't afford to keep the caravan and had sold it. She said she had been as upset as I was that we hadn't seen each other again. As time went on, her mother remarried a very nice man, who, when Harry was in her mid teens, had paid an inordinate amount of money to have Harry's birthmark removed by a very early laser technique. It hadn't been entirely successful, but had helped her self-esteem a lot.

Then, she said something that surprised me. She told me that only one other thing had raised her self-esteem that much and that was when she had met me as a child. She said I was the only child that she had ever met who never once made a comment about that birthmark or even asked about it.

Then Harry went on to tell me that she had married a soldier and had two wonderful children with him. But unfortunately he had been killed in a training accident in 1978. Since then she had been living with her stepfather, her mother having died of a stroke some years ago. And that's where Ralph had found her. Don't ask me how he did it. Sara told me later, he had most of the guys on his oil rig that lived anywhere near the Bath area asking questions.

Eventually someone remembered the girl with the boy's name and a birthmark on her face. Ralph had gone down there and found her some weeks before the holiday but they had kept me in the dark until that morning. Sara said she really thought Helen and Tracy were going to let the cat out of the bag a couple of times.

Well, Harry and her two children stayed in the caravan with us for the rest of our holiday. No, Harry and I didn't go jumping into bed with each other. We'd had a special friendship as children and we are getting to know each other as adults. There's something there but we will have to wait and see what develops. Is there going to be a romance between us. I'm not sure, but I hope so – and I think my children hope so as well – I'll just say that the signs are good. Everyone including Harry's children tried to stay out of our way as much as they could in Weymouth, so that Harry and I could spend as much time together as possible.

At the end of the holiday Ralph and Sara took Tracy and Helen home with them, whilst I drove Harry and her two children home to Bath.

Life goes on.

++++++++++++

April 2006

Well after much dashing up and down the M4 Motorway over the following six months Harry and her two children Russell and Claire moved in with the girls and me.

We had a little uncomfortable episode shortly after the move, when Helen and Tracy took to calling Harry mum and decided that they were going to address their mother as Thelma. Harry and I tried to dissuade them from doing so by Harry not answering them when Tracy and Helen called her Mum. It didn't work because the girls had the connivance of Harry's children, Russell and Claire, who would repeat anything that Helen and Tracy said. When Harry answered them, she was also answering Helen or Tracy.

I must say that it took a little getting used to and Thelma wasn't impressed to say the least. I'm not sure what passed between Thelma and the girls but in the end she accepted things, as the girls wanted them. Harry has suggested that the girls threatened to cut themselves off from Thelma if she argued the point.

Sometimes I was quite surprised at the animosity the girls felt towards Thelma, which seemed to get stronger as they got older. Then Harry told me one day that my girls weren't stupid; as they got older they realised what had almost happened to them and exactly why those social workers and police officers had asked them all those questions that at the time had sounded so silly.