Bible John's Secret Daughter by Leslie David

Author:Leslie, David [Leslie, David]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Mainstream Digital
Published: 2011-04-28T16:00:00+00:00

SEVENTEEN

SUGAR DADDY

After the disappointment of the fruitless search for Isobel, Hannah’s affair with Peter began to lose its impetus. The spark that had once fuelled such happy times began to dim; that it would burn out altogether was inevitable. However, her sadness about the failed relationship was tempered by the fact that her father’s health had begun to deteriorate.

By 1988, Malcolm was still only 62 – a comparatively young man in modern terms – but like so many other men in areas such as Lanarkshire, where he had spent his life, his health and chances of reaching old age had been destroyed by working in coal mining and steel making, industries where workers inhaled dust, filth and fumes for half of the day. She had given up her work at the Hoover plant to take care of him, and did so with love and diligence as his life drew to a close. Considering that he had deprived her of that which should have been a great comfort as the years passed, it was an extraordinary sacrifice on her part yet never once was she heard to complain. Others might have asked that he be taken into hospital, because the onset of cancer had left him with a dreadful neck injury that required daily dressing. Cripplingly short of money, she applied for a disability living allowance and was, as is customarily the case at the first try, rejected. Encouraged by friends to appeal the decision, she did.

In November 1988, Malcolm finally surrendered in hospital to lung cancer, the third most common cause of death in the UK after heart disease and pneumonia. On the day he died, Hannah walked up to his hospital bed to see the eyes she loved so much open with a startling brightness.

‘Oh, Jessie, I knew you’d come,’ he said. Hannah did not disillusion him or destroy his happiness. She had gone there to tell her father that she had received a letter informing her that the appeal for disability living allowance had been successful. But she decided the news could wait. Hours later, he died.

Like his wife and older daughter before him, his final journey was to the Daldowie crematorium. Now Hannah found herself alone and, as a result of giving up work, in dire financial straits. Something had to be done.

She began scouring the newspapers in an ever-more-frantic search for something that would provide an income. In the early days after the death of her father, she had made tentative enquiries about returning to Hoover, but in her heart of hearts she knew the prospects there were grim. From 1979, when the factory employed around 4,000 people, the ever-worsening economic recession, combined with increasing competition, had caused a series of lay-offs and pay-offs. By 1992, just 360 workers remained there to hear the news that the factory was to be shut down. There was little demand for a woman with few skills and her situation became ever more desperate.

Hannah and Malcolm had lived happily in

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