‘You’ve probably made an educated guess about Hugh’s early background. I think you should know the real story. It’s not really mine to tell, but Hugh never talks about it … and it might help you make a few necessary decisions.’
She straightened, and narrowed her green eyes, looking off into the distance. ‘Hugh never really had a chance. He was doomed to being hurt from the moment he was born.
‘His father was an alcoholic; mean-spirited, weak in every way except the purely physical. He was a big man, and when he was drunk he was a wrecker, a destroyer. His wife, Lydia, was a quiet, shy, kindly woman … I suppose you might call her one of life’s natural victims. A dangerous combination.’
Connie told the story simply, plainly, but the very starkness emphasised the horror. The truth was infinitely crueller than the inventions of Julia’s fertile imagination. A battered child, that much she had guessed. But for the rest…
Over the years George Walton had turned his home into a living hell for his wife and child, enforcing his drunken tyranny with brutal strength. When sober he would be bitterly remorseful, begging for forgiveness, crying, pleading, promising to change. He never did, but Lydia Walton stayed with him, too passive, too cowed, or too ashamed to seek help in breaking out of the vicious circle. The family moved around a lot as George took on odd labouring jobs, never in one place long enough to arouse the suspicions of neighbours or school teachers.
‘Can you imagine what it must have been like for Hugh?’ Connie asked quietly. ‘Growing up in an atmosphere like that? Watching his mother beaten time and time again, helpless to intervene … being beaten into submission himself both physically and mentally. His father became a genius at punishments: locking him into cupboards for hours at a time, denying him meals for imagined offences, or forcing the boy to watch as he systematically destroyed everything that the child valued—books, toys, schoolwork, clothes. It got so Hugh didn’t dare show an affection for anything, in case it was used as punishment against him. And then there were the beatings themselves—belt, bottle, hot iron … whatever was to hand.’
Julia was shaken with a sickening, sobering hatred. Not only for the animal that could so torture an innocent child, but also for the gentle woman who had seen it all happen and done nothing. Why hadn’t she had the guts to protect her son? Even if she herself couldn’t leave her husband, she could have sent her son away. Instead she had turned him into a victim too.
‘One night George went too far. Lydia went into hospital with a fractured skull, broken arms and ribs. Her lung was pierced and she developed pneumonia with all sorts of complications. Not surprising, considering that both she and the boy were suffering from malnutrition along with everything else. She had no reserves to draw on, Julia. She just gave up and died. But she did tell the whole sordid story to the police. I don’t think she cared for herself … she was afraid for her son, she knew she wouldn’t be there to shield him from the brunt of his father’s frustration and anger as she had always tried to do before. I’m sure that she loved Hugh, and that she felt guilty for clinging on to him. I think she had shut out all the pain and ugliness by trying to live through her son, her only joy in a joyless world.’
Oh, Hugh, my darling, was Julia’s anguished, internal cry as Connie told her how he had finally ended up in the Marlow household, through the desperate offices of a friend in Social Welfare. It was a gamble, taken after Hugh had disrupted foster home after foster home, but it paid off. Connie had done a lot of work with disadvantaged children, for charity, as a means of occupying her time after the twins were born, and she and Hugh had seemed to ‘click’. Perhaps it was the twins themselves, smaller and more helpless even than he, that helped Hugh come to terms with a wide, bewildering world, or perhaps it was the death of his father … the final threat removed.
‘Either way, he never looked back,’ Connie remembered. ‘He developed by leaps and bounds; discovered his brain, built a sense of self-esteem, lost his fear of authority. But there’s always been something missing.’ She leaned forward earnestly, urgently. ‘He needs to learn to love and trust, as a man—emotionally, spiritually, intellectually and sexually. If he doesn’t he’ll settle on Ann or some ghastly clone and never reach his full maturity or discover his destiny as a well-rounded human being. That—or he’ll stultify in bachelorhood. I don’t want that for Hugh, he deserves so much more. He’s a fine man and I want him to find peace, real inner peace, the kind that comes with loving and being loved.’
‘Oh, Connie …’ Julia looked at her helplessly, aware of the tears on her cheeks, but unembarrassed by them because Connie was crying silently too. ‘I can’t force him to trust me, to accept something he doesn’t want…’
‘But he does want it,’ Connie cried. ‘That’s exactly why he’s turned you away. Don’t you see, don’t you see what I’ve been trying to tell you. Follow the twisted reasoning: everything that he ever loved was taken from him, so he dare not love again, because what he loves, past experience tells him he will lose. On top of that there’s this fear that what he doesn’t lose he himself will destroy. He’s not a fool, he’s well-read and knowledgeable… and it’s a well-publicised fact that often battered children grow up maladjusted, to become abusive parents themselves …’
Julia trembled on the verge of realisation. ‘You mean …’
‘I mean that he’s afraid history will repeat itself. He forgets that he carries his mother’s genes as well as his father’s. He’s put such effort into controlling his personality that he doesn’t realise that the control is merely reinforcing a basically gentle nature. He desperately needs that last piece of self-knowledge. As long as he thinks he’s capable of hurting those he loves, he’ll deny love. Deny himself.’
Julia shook her head, which was suddenly aching badly. ‘I don’t see … all this doesn’t mean that he loves me.’
‘No? How do you know? But you could find out. For once and for all.’ Connie clasped her hands, in a gesture of supplication. ‘He’ll be back here on Sunday night. Go and see him, Julia, please. If not for your own sake, then for his. Try and get him to see how wrong he is. We both know that he’s as gentle as a lamb. Please, Julia. And don’t be put off by his stone-face, just remember, as I do, that the more he feels the less he shows.’
‘I don’t know,’ Julia whispered, overwhelmed with misgivings. It was all right for Connie, she wasn’t the one risking yet another rejection. Julia didn’t know how many her ego could take!
‘I know it won’t be easy, darling. And that you have your pride and feelings too. But if you really love him, you’ll give it a try. Just think, if I’m right, and you succeed, you’ll have a pearl beyond price. You’ll have Hugh. And isn’t he worth more than pride?’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
HAVE HUGH. The two seductive words had lost quite a lot of their magic. Julia shivered. Not all Charley’s tinkering had succeeded in stopping up the VW’s draughts. A damp chill sank into her bones and stayed there, niggling at her concentration.
She leaned forward in the driver’s seat, as if she could urge the car faster with the momentum of her body, cursing herself for her impulsiveness. It was Connie’s last warning that had done it:
‘Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.’
Shakespeare had hit the nail on the head. Julia’s doubts were a legion and she had been afraid to give them time to join ranks. She had waited only for grim, grey dawn and a measure of sobriety before flinging a bag into the car and setting off, leaving a garbled note of explanation for Phillip. He would be furious, but at the moment that was the least of Julia’s worries.
She peered out through her misty windscreen as the little car was buffeted across the Hauraki Plains. Who said that spring had sprung? This was winter weather back with a vengeance. It had been raining steadily since she had left Auckland and it seemed as if she had been on the road for days, stiff and tense from the battle with the elements.
She should have waited for Hugh to come back to Auckland, of course, but patience wasn’t one of Julia’s strong points. Two days was two days too long. She had to know. Now. Today. So that she could start to plan the rest of her life … Virgin Islands and all!
Connie’s story haunted her. It explained so much. How smug I must have seemed to him at times, Julia thought sadly. How shallow. Mouthing platitudes about life and its meaning, so confident of the all-healing properties of love. What reason did Hugh have to trust in love? His mother’s love had been no protection for either of them. She had died for the sake of love, or misguided loyalty, or whatever strange, twisted emotion had bound her to her husband.
No, it wasn’t with soft words or sweet love that she would reach Hugh. In fact, she wasn’t quite sure how she would do it. By blind instinct probably … that was the way she worked best. The thought of Charley—and Olivia—heartened her somewhat. The shell had cracked a little, perhaps it just needed a sharp tap in the right place to fall apart completely.
She wasn’t surprised to see the AA sign in Kopu telling her that the road via Tapu was closed. She had planned on going the ‘safe’ way in any case, across the base of the peninsula and up the coast. It was further, but less hair-raising than the Tapu way.