April 2005 – Helen's Holiday
The Tangled Web is a story spanning several years and is based on the complicated lives of Sara and Sam, lovers who are brother and sister, and those they live with. Set in the English Midlands, the tale is told through a series of interlocking short stories. Although designed to be read in sequence, I have tried to make each chapter stand as a complete and satisfying story in itself.
This Chapter is long – I hope not too long – but no matter how I tried, I couldn't do justice to Helen's story in fewer words.
I hope you have the patience to read it through to the end. I think you'll like it.
*****
"….And we expect to be on the ground in Toronto at 18.25." The blond, slightly camp steward announced in an impossibly correct English accent.
Helen pressed the small silver button in the arm of her window seat and stared out of the small round window. The wide, comfortable business class seat reclined smoothly, its base lifting to support her legs and feet. She sipped the chilled Buck's Fizz and tried to relax as the bright white clouds sped past her. She was on her way.
Her children, Sara and Sam with their her two grandchildren had all come to the airport to see her off, not fully understanding the importance to them and their future of Helen's mission in Canada.
Sara and Sam, her beloved but incestuous children, were now living as a couple with their own two children in a beautiful cottage in a small picturesque village in the north of Britain, far away from anyone who knew them. They were deliriously happy – more so because their mother knew about and approved of their forbidden relationship.
But Helen knew this could only be one step on a long road to security and that they would soon have to emigrate and start a completely new life together. This visit to Canada, to their Uncle Steven who had lived there for over 25 years, was a vital step on the way.
Helen hoped so badly that she would be successful. She hoped – no, she believed – that Steven would understand and help them. She had good reasons to believe this.
To her right, a tall, well dressed, middle aged businessman was tapping away at the keyboard of his small, expensive laptop computer. She watched his surprisingly nimble fingers as they dextrously tapped out a long document which he periodically paused to read.
He noticed her watching and smiled at her. His eyes were bright and warm and ….interested! He was actually interested! Helen smiled back.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be nosy." She said apologetically.
"That's alright. There's not much else to do on these flights, is there?" The man responded warmly. "I'm William – Will, by the way."
"Helen." She replied and they shook hands slightly awkwardly over the console between them.
"Are you on business?" Will asked, observing Helen's smart travelling clothes. "I have to make this trip every month."
"I'm visiting my brother in Toronto. We've not seen much of each other for a long time." Helen replied, enjoying the novel experience of a handsome man chatting with her.
"Alone?" He asked, observing her wedding ring.
"My husband died last year." Helen said without self pity.
"Oh! I'm sorry." Will said, embarrassed.
"No! Don't be." Helen quickly responded. "We had a wonderful life together."
And as the flight progressed, she found herself talking freely about her late husband, her children and grandchildren (but not the real truth, of course) and about her excitement at visiting a country she knew so little about.
Will was an excellent listener. He told Helen truthfully that he could barely believe she was old enough to have grandchildren, which made her blush. Was he flirting with her? It had been so long that Helen couldn't be sure. Will himself was a lawyer based in London. He was married, on the whole happily, but there were always tensions; partly as a result of his spending so long away from home. Helen thought how very lucky she had been in her own choice of husband.
The time passed easily until, after the meal had been served and Helen had enjoyed two glasses of rich red wine, the cabin lights were lowered and the movies began. Will put on his headphones and concentrated on the small, bright screen in front of him.
But Helen couldn't concentrate on the movie and soon gave up trying to watch. She turned her headphones to relaxing classical music and tried to sleep. But it was no good. After so many years she was going to see her brother Steven again! She had spoken to him briefly at the funeral, but there had been no opportunity for them to get to know each other again and he had had to return to Canada after only two days.
Helen had initially wondered if he had deliberately avoided her, the memories of their early life and love too painful for him. But when she had telephoned him at Christmas, the week after breaking the news to her children that she knew all about their incestuous relationship, there was no mistaking the joy in his voice at the prospect of seeing her again.
But it had been so long! How would they feel? Did he now regret all they had done? Had she ruined his life? Would he be prepared to help Sara and Sam?
Helen closed her eyes and dozed, her head full of powerful emotions.
Born during the war years, Helen and her brother Steven had known little of the actual fighting and almost nothing of their father, an RAF airman who had been killed fighting the Germans. Helen had been born in 1942, barely a year after her brother. Part of a single parent family, they had grown up through the long post-war years of rationing without a father, their mother being too busy providing for her young family even to consider allowing a new man in her life. She worked in a factory all day, and looked after Helen and Steven all the rest of her waking hours, which were long and arduous.
The two children understood how difficult things were and tried hard to make life easier for their mother. With her long hours away from home, they had grown closer and closer together; they had cooked for each other, washed each other's clothes, cleaned the house together and as a result had found only little time to see friends outside of school.
Inside school, the hard working pair had been academically bright and had both passed their eleven-plus examinations with sufficient ease to secure places in the local single sex grammar schools. This, of course, provided them with even fewer opportunities to meet the opposite sex and they grew up inexperienced and naïve, even for that innocent era.
Physically, they were both healthy and strong, as so many ration-raised children were. Steven became tall and athletic with jet black hair; Helen was shorter and slimmer with long curly locks. Inevitably they began to attract the attention of the boys and girls around them, but all the time were fiercely close and loyal to each other.
Their mother continued to work hard and after some years acquired a boyfriend, the foreman in the factory in which she still worked. Their 'courting' took their mother out of the house for many evenings as well as the working days and Steven and Helen were left to help each other both with their schoolwork and with the myriad of emotional problems that beset teenagers worldwide.
One night in the spring of 1960, Steven was awakened around midnight by a soft but frantic knocking at his bedroom door. He quickly jumped out of bed in his pyjama bottoms and opened the door to see his sister, now eighteen and beautiful, standing in her nightgown shivering. Her eyes were tearstained. Steven pulled her into his room and shut the door. Helen sat on the edge of his bed and he put his arm around her.
"What's the matter, Helen?" He asked. "Come on, tell me! What's wrong?"
"It's Mum…..she's …..I don't know. She sounds like she's in a lot of pain and the door's locked. I can't get in to see her!"
"Come on! Show me!" Steven had said and together they crept down the short corridor towards their mother's room at the front of the house.
