The Deserving Mistress

‘But he did,’ March said heavily.

April swallowed hard. ‘Yes, he did. I couldn’t believe it at first.’ She shook her head. ‘The company had toured as far as Manchester when I received a letter from a solicitor, accusing me of unreasonable behaviour for deserting my husband, and three children all under the age of five. I telephoned James immediately, of course, but he refused to speak to me, said that any communications between the two of us in future would be made through his lawyer.’

This was all news to May, but, despite her own anger towards April and her deep love for her father, she could actually believe that he was capable of doing what April said he had; May’s love for him hadn’t made her blind to the fact that James Calendar had been a hard, uncompromising man.

April’s hands were gripped together so tightly now that her knuckles showed white. ‘Your father received full custody of the three of you at the divorce, by claiming I was an unfit mother who had deserted her children in favour of an acting career, bringing in the fact that I was now of no particular fixed abode, with a career that was at best nefarious. I was given limited access, to be agreed with your father.’ The tears began to fall again. ‘He never agreed. We went back to court several times, but your father always had so many reasons why it wasn’t practical for me to have the three of you to even stay with me, one of you had a cold and he wouldn’t allow the other two to come without you, or the four of you had something else planned for the day I suggested. None of it was helped by the fact that I couldn’t find any more work after the play had finished its run, that I was having to stay in a run-down boarding house. By the time I was in a position to have you with me, three years had passed. James assured me that none of you even remembered me,’ she added achingly.

Oh, they had remembered their mother all right. All of them had, May now realised dazedly.

Max was right, nothing was ever completely black or white; there were always several shades of grey in between…

‘I never stopped loving James,’ their mother told them huskily. ‘A part of me always continued to hope—but it wasn’t to be.’ She sighed softly. ‘The whole situation went too far. There was no common ground on which we could agree, let alone come to terms over, least of all our children.’ She grimaced. ‘So I left England. Went to America to start again. And the rest, as they say, is history.’ She looked down at her hands.

‘Not quite.’ May spoke up at last, more moved than she would ever have believed possible by what she had just heard. She wasn’t sure she would have survived as composed and charming as April undoubtedly was if she had found herself in the same position. ‘You didn’t just move to America and forget about all of us—’

‘Of course not.’ April looked deeply shocked at the suggestion. ‘Never a day went by when I didn’t think about you, wonder what you looked like now, long to be there to share in your laughter, to dry your tears whenever you were hurt or upset. But it was all too difficult, because of the situation between your father and me, and so I—’

‘You sent him money to help bring us up,’ May put in softly, nodding confirmation of this fact to January and March as they gave her a surprised look; they didn’t remember any luxurious influxes of money during their childhood, either. ‘Dad never touched a penny of it,’ she told them. ‘I discovered it all sitting in a bank account after he died.’

‘But—’

‘How could he—?’

‘Please don’t blame your father,’ April cut in on January’s and March’s protests. ‘He—he did what he thought was for the best.’

May looked at her. ‘You can still say that, after what he did to you, as well as to us?’

‘I told you, I loved him. Always,’ April added emotionally. ‘I didn’t know he had died until after—after the funeral, must have cried for a week once I learnt of his death. You don’t have to be with someone in order to continue loving them,’ she added simply.

‘But afterwards.’ March frowned. ‘Why didn’t you come to see us then?’

April gave the ghost of a smile. ‘I thought I had.’

It all suddenly became crystal-clear to May; April’s obvious friendship with David, his offer to her of a part in his film, the fact that April was to be the star of that film…

She looked at April with tear-wet eyes now. ‘Did David know that it was your own daughter that you had asked him to come and watch act?’

April gave May a tearful smile at her astuteness. ‘Not until I told him last night, no,’ she acknowledged. ‘He was as dumbfounded as everyone else has been!’

‘But you were the one who sent him to Yorkshire to watch me in the pantomime, weren’t you?’ May realised emotionally.

It all made such sense now, David ‘happening’ to be in the audience that night, the fact that he had sought her out to offer the film role, his persistence since then, April’s own appearance for added pressure.

‘David’s sister lives in the area—’

‘I know that,’ May dismissed impatiently. ‘But it was still you who asked him to come and watch me act, wasn’t it?’

April gave her a concerned look. ‘He wouldn’t have offered you the part if he hadn’t thought you were good enough—’

‘I know that,’ May assured her gently, her smile encouraging now. ‘How did you know about my acting in the amateur dramatic society?’

April swallowed hard. ‘I made a few enquiries about you all after your father died. I came to watch you one evening before talking to David. I—don’t be cross, May,’ she added pleadingly at May’s start of surprise. ‘Don’t you understand, I had to finally see at least one of you?’

‘Even if we didn’t see you?’ May frowned.

‘Even then.’ April nodded sadly.

May shook her head, standing up. ‘I’m not in the least cross,’ she assured huskily, moving to stand close to where April sat. ‘I can’t even begin to imagine what it must have been like for you all these years…!’ she murmured emotionally. ‘To know, and yet never to feel you had the right to—oh, Mum,’ she choked tearfully as she bent down to hug the woman who was still her mother.