The Wendy House

3. Bordello Blues

Dane kisses her on the cheek, pulls on his t-shirt and leaves. Joely sits on the edge of the bed, the insides of her thighs aching, and a biley sickness growing in her throat. He'd called it lovemaking. He said it was the perfect way to show each other how much they cared. Why then, Joely asks herself, did it feel so cheap? After eighteen and a half years of being a virgin, she'd imagined the act itself to be something tender and beautiful - not a rough, eager fuck that was over in less than five minutes and left traces of blood and other stuff on her sheets. Suddenly desperate for a shower, she goes into the bathroom. Stepping under the hot spray, she feels a little better. She stands there until her skin is soft and pink, feeling the water run down her face like scalding tears. She misses her father even more passionately than ever. Drying herself and getting dressed, she decides to go and see her mother at work. Donna, no matter how absorbed she is in her own grief, is the only one that Joely thinks can make it all better.

---

Hours later, Donna lets herself into the house with a heavy heart. Her client that evening had been gentile and sweet, something that she'd become unaccustomed to. He'd commented on her dark hair and eyes, she'd told him that her mother was Italian. He'd said "ah, bellissima" and they'd both smiled. Joely is sat in the living room, and stands up when she sees Donna come in.

"Hello," she forces a smile. "I thought you were seeing Dane tonight?"

"Change of plan," Joely says. Something isn't right. "Where've you been?"

"At work, silly."

"No you haven't."

"I think you'll find I have," Donna laughs nervously.

"I know you haven't been taking extra shifts in the restaurant."

"What?"

"I went there tonight. You weren't there. Your boss said they hadn't been able to give you any overtime, you've just been working your normal hours."

"Why did you come to the restaurant? I said you should only ever come to my work if it's an emergency."

"And it was, Mum. But what do you care, right?"

"Don't be like that, sweetness..."

"I wish you wouldn't call me that. Why start acting like the loving mother all of a sudden."

Donna is so taken aback by this that it takes her a minute to respond.

"Jo, what on earth is up with you? You can tell me."

"I wanted to tell you, Mum, that's the whole point. I went to find you because you were the only one I wanted to talk to. But you weren't at work like you said. The manager said you hadn't had a shift since last week. So where have you been the past three nights?"

"I..." Donna tries to think fast, but panic was making her feel ill. "I managed to get some work in a hotel, just a few hours a week..."

"I bet," Joely sneers. "Working hotels."

"Beg your pardon?"

"I bumped into someone as I was leaving the restaurant. She said I looked very familiar, so I told her that my mother works there and people are always saying how much we look alike. And she goes 'oh yes, Donna, of course. Haven't seen her since I gave her that advice, how's she doing?' What advice did she give you, Mum?"

Donna can't speak. She tries, but the words stick in her throat.

"This woman, Marina, she looked to me like a tart. Not being judgmental or anything, but she really did. And I got to thinking, what kind of advice would she have given me mother..."

Oh, God. She knows.

"Tell me it isn't true, Mum. Please, I'm begging you. Tell me I've got it all wrong."

Lie to her, Donna. Sell her a bundle of beautiful lies so that she won't hate you forever.

"There have been too many lies between us," she says. "I'm so sorry, baby, but it's the truth." Joely's eyes in that instant break her heart. "You don't understand how hard it's been," she blurts out, desperate to defend herself. "Money's been so thin on the ground since... They were going to take the house, we would have been homeless!"

"There are other ways of making money, Mum! You could have done anything but that! What, do you get some kind of vile thrill out of doing it?" Her face reddens and contorts as she fights back the tears. "How could you? How could you do this to Dad?"

"Joel, please don't bring your father into this, I don't think I can..."

"What? You can't bear to think about Dad, your husband, because you know how disgusted he would be with you?" Donna slaps her daughter and instantly regrets it. Joely stands there, stung, and when she next speaks it is in a low voice barely above a whisper.

"Dane hurt me. When we... When we did it. I went to the restaurant because I needed you to give me a hug and tell me everything was going to be alright. I was so ashamed! All those years you told me not to lose my virginity unless I was absolutely sure... God, I felt like I'd let you down. I felt like I'd let Dad down. I went to the restaurant because I was ashamed and I needed my mum, and you were off somewhere, doing that. For money. Tell me, Mum... do you ever feel ashamed?" She doesn't wait for an answer. She just walks away, before the tears threaten to spill over and never stop falling.

---

Joely moves out. Donna tries to speak to her, but every time she just gets a look of such coldness, such contempt... a look that she would never have thought her daughter capable of. Last Donna heard, Joely is staying with a friend from school, and she is no longer seeing Dane. The house seems emptier then ever. Evan asks her again and again why Jo has gone, when she'll be coming back, and each time he mentions her name Donna almost cries. As if losing a husband wasn't enough.

---

It's 24th February, 2007. A cool breeze sighs its way around the churchyard, somewhere in the distance a blackbird caws, and Donna McQueen stands saying goodbye to the man she lost one year ago today.

Marcus McQueen

9th May 1960 - 24th February 2006

"He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest"

Joely had chosen the W.H. Auden quote. Donna hears footsteps behind her, and as if conjured by her thoughts, there they are - Jo and Ev, her babies, dressed in the same sombre attire that they'd worn to the funeral.

"You came," Donna breathes a sigh of relief. She'd feared that they would both forget, or simply stay away because they both hated her. Evan walks over first, kisses her on the cheek, and looks down at the headstone. Donna looks at Joely and knows that she hasn't told her brother the truth. And never will.

Barely anything is resolved. Joely feels used and abused by her lover, and even worse, betrayed by her family. Evan still resists emotion of any kind, and Donna is near-crippled with guilt and grief. But she recognises now that life will go on, whether they like it or not.

She stands in a cemetery, at her husband's grave, with her children by her side. But in her mind's eye she is lying on the sofa watching daytime telly and Marcus is bringing her a cup of tea before leaving for work. It is the last time she will ever see him, exactly three hours and twenty-four minutes before she gets the phone call that will change her life forever. She takes the steaming cup from him and looks up, smiles a little, and says "have a good one". He kisses her on the forehead and picks up his keys from the coffee table. "Will do," he answers. Puts on his coat, finishes his own cuppa, kisses her on the forehead and calls out "love you" from the hallway before closing the front door behind him.

"Love you too," Donna whispers.

The End