she’d struggled on.
Some days had been so bad for her mother that Mallon would not consider going to school and leaving her on her own. The first year after her father’s death had passed with Mallon taking more and more time off school. Her studies had suffered and, having been at the top of her year, her grades had fallen; but she’d had higher priorities.
Her father had been dead two years when her mother had met Ambrose Jenkins. He was the antithesis of Mallon’s father: loud where her father had been quiet, boastful where her father had been modest, work-shy where her father had been industrious. But, at first, he’d seemed able to cheer her mother, and for that Mallon forgave Ambrose Jenkins a lot. She’d found she could not like him, but had tried her hardest to be fair, recognising that because she had thought so much of her father she could not expect any other man to measure up.
So when, within weeks of meeting him, her mother told her that she and Ambrose were going to be married, Mallon had kissed and hugged her mother and pretended to be pleased. Ambrose had had a twenty-seven-year-old son, Lee. Mallon had found him obnoxiously repellent. But, for her mother’s sake, she’d smiled through the wedding and accepted that Ambrose would be moving into their home.
What Mallon had not expected was that Lee Jenkins would move in too. By then she was a blossoming fifteen-year-old, but, instead of being proud of her beautiful blonde hair and curvy burgeoning figure, Mallon had been more prone to hide her shape under baggy sweaters and to scrape her hair back in a rubber band. For never a day had seemed to go by without her stepbrother making a pass at her.
To say anything about it to her mother, after the most unhappy time she had endured, was something Mallon had found she just could not do. Though she had to admit that she’d come close that day Lee Jenkins came into her room just as she had finished dressing.
‘Get out!’ she screamed at him—a minute earlier and he would have caught her minus her blouse!
‘Don’t be like that,’ he said in what he thought was his sexy voice, but which she found revolting, and, instead of leaving her room, he came further into it and, grabbing a hold of her, tried to kiss her.
She bit him—his language was colourful, but she cared not. Once he let her go and she was free of him, she wasn’t hanging about.
She was badly shaken, and wanted to confide in her mother. But, somehow, protective of her still, Mallon could not tell her. Instead she took to propping a chair under the knob of her bedroom door at all times whenever she was in there on her own.
Then, horror of horrors, her mother had been married for only a year when her stepfather cast his lascivious glance on Mallon. At first she couldn’t believe what her eyes and instincts were telling her. That was until the day he cornered her in the drawing room and, his eyes on her breasts, remarked, ‘Little Mallon, you’re not so little any more, I see.’ Coming closer, his slack mouth all but slobbering, he demanded, ‘Got a kiss for your stepdaddy?’
She was revolted, and told him truthfully, ‘I’m going to be sick!’
She was sick, and later sat on her bed and cried, because she knew now, more than ever, that she could not tell her mother. Her parent would be destroyed.
Mallon sorely wanted to leave home. It wasn’t home any more anyway. But money, which she had never had to particularly think of before, had been tight for some while. She knew that her father had left them well provided for, but only a few days ago her mother had suggested she might like to take a Saturday job, and Mallon had asked if they were having some temporary financial problem. Her mother had replied, ‘I’m afraid it isn’t temporary, Mallon, it’s permanent,’ and had looked so dreadfully unhappy Mallon had been unable to bear it.
She knew without having to ask where all the money had gone. Ambrose Jenkins had been spending freely, too freely, the money her father had invested. Incredibly, there was little of it remaining.
Lee Jenkins was as work-shy as his father, and had to be a constant drain on what resources her mother had remaining. Determined not to be a drain on those resources herself, Mallon left school and got herself a job.
As jobs went it wasn’t much: a clerical assistant in a large and busy office. But, for her age, it didn’t pay too badly. Though it wasn’t sufficient to pay rent as well as keep her should she attempt the enormous step she wished to take and leave home.
The following two years dragged miserably by, and when she saw how badly her mother’s marriage was faring, Mallon was glad she had not left home. Her mother started to realise what a dreadful mistake she had made in marrying Ambrose Jenkins, but did not seem to have the strength to do anything about his by then quite blatant philandering ways. Mallon knew her mother was suffering. But, feeling powerless to do anything about it, Mallon wanted to be there to support her when she finally did cry Enough!
While Mallon was doing everything she could to cold-shoulder both father and son without her mother being aware—which would only make her even more wretched—it was not her stepfather’s habit of staying out nights and weekends, and coming home only to be fed and laundered, that brought things to a head. But money.
Both the Jenkins men were out that Wednesday when Mallon came home from work and found her mother in tears. ‘Oh, darling!’ Mallon cried, going over to her. ‘What’s the matter?’
Plenty, she learned in the next five minutes. Ambrose and her mother were splitting up, but that, it seemed, was not the reason for her mother’s despair. But, as she explained, because she had foolishly listened to Ambrose Jenkins eighteen months ago when as near penury as made no difference, he had told her of a business venture that would almost immediately earn them double. It would, however, mean a quite substantial investment.
Evelyn Jenkins was not used to working with money, she had never needed to. But, aware that something needed to be done to get them solvent once more, she had been persuaded to borrow, using their lovely home as collateral.
It had all ended in tears. The upshot being that now, eighteen months later, the business venture had folded. With no more money forthcoming, Ambrose was leaving, and even the house no longer belonged to her mother. ‘We’ve got to leave here,’ her mother wept. ‘This lovely house your father bought for us!’
Oddly then, though maybe because having reached rock bottom the only way was up, and perhaps aided by thinking of her gentleman former husband, Evelyn Jenkins seemed to gather some strength. Mallon could only guess at the inner torment her parent must have been through before she had confided in her. But the next morning, before Mallon could say she intended to take the day off work and start to look for somewhere to rent, her mother was telling her how she intended to contact a firm of lawyers that day to see if there was anything to be done.
Mallon hurried home that night to hear that John Frost, the head of the firm her father had always used, and who knew the family, had initially dealt personally with her mother. After a detailed check of all the paperwork he had passed the opinion that she had been criminally advised, had put a doubt on the fact that the money had been invested anywhere but in Ambrose Jenkins pocket, and had concluded that Evelyn Jenkins had a case for suing him.
Since, however, that man appeared to not have any money, there seemed no point whatsoever in taking that route. ‘I think I would rather divorce him,’ she decided. Mallon could only applaud her decision.
There followed months and months of upset. Ambrose wanted to behave like a single man, but didn’t want to be divorced, apparently, and so was as obstructive as he knew how to be; which was considerably.
Although divorce was not John Frost’s speciality, and he had handed the case over to someone whose subject it was, John Frost was always there to smile and encourage when her mother went to his offices to pursue the matter of the protracted proceedings.
Mallon and her mother moved into a tiny flat, the rent of which took quite a chunk out of Mallon’s salary. She was not complaining—it was a joy not to have to live under the same roof as the Jenkins duo. A joy not to have to continually be on her guard against the loose-moralled, lascivious pair.
Her