Hellbent: Ces Waters & Me by Margaret Wentworth

Author:Margaret Wentworth [Wentworth, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography, True Crime
ISBN: 9781925281187
Publisher: Kerr Publishing
Published: 2015-10-13T16:00:00+00:00

23 Where’s Mummy?

Mothering Sunday n. Brit., the fourth Sunday in Lent, when mothers traditionally receive presents from their children.

Also called: Mother’s Day.

Collins Concise Dictionary

Gloria would often go to the laundrette, then on to her mother’s place. I found out, much later, she’d leave her clothes with an employee of the laundrette, meet her lover and they’d go to a club. Her secret affair went on for months. Gloria knew I was having hot sex with Christine. She showed no emotion about it. There was a lot of that sort of thing going on in London at the time.

One night I had finished a lesson with Christine and invited her home for a cup of tea. Gloria was putting the children to bed and when done, asked if she could borrow the car. ‘OK,’ I said, ‘but don’t be too long.’ I had to drive Christine home. About an hour and a half later I went to check the street and found a bulky envelope dropped through the letter slot, with car keys and a message ‘I have gone. Don’t try to follow me.’ I wandered in a daze, trying to contemplate the finality of it. I checked the bedroom wardrobe—empty, confirming my worst fears. Christine came in, asked what I’d do. For a few moments I was too upset to answer. Hatred, sadness, betrayal and confusion took over. My life had been turned upside down.

She left the car, so I visited all Gloria’s relatives but they didn’t know where she was, or said they didn’t. It wouldn’t have been hard for Gloria to ‘disappear’. I figured she’d hide out under a false name, false background, put on airs and graces, but be full of shame at deserting four small children. Tracey was five, Troy 22 months—how could they be expected to understand? Troy constantly cried for his mum. Gloria had stolen a ring and half sovereign which both once belonged to my mum, and khaki dress knives with coloured beads on the scabbards—probably for the boyfriend she was knocking. I was overwhelmed by sadness and impotence at first, but my heart turned to anger and revenge in time.

I scattered some clothes she left and her driver’s licence on Hampstead Heath one night. The newspapers wouldn’t be interested if I told them my wife had run away, but a disappearance with a whiff of foul play? That’s different. Two weeks later the police phoned: `Did you know a Gloria Pearl Waters?’ Yep! ‘Why would she leave her clothing on Hampstead Heath?’ How would I know? She disappeared two weeks ago. Hook, line and sinker—they thought she’d been croaked. The homicide squad turned my place inside out within a few hours. A detective, looking at a photo of Gloria, wrinkled his brow, positive he’d seen her face twice before. Then the penny dropped: not so long ago, in the club she and her lover frequented on launderette nights, and way back, in a Finsbury Park hotel that had the reputation of being a knock shop, 15, and in bed with a married man.

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