Mothers and Daughters by Leah Fleming

shore leave. We were very friendly. I didn’t know then about Auntie Susan in Burma. It was a wartime romance. It was not meant to happen like this.’ Mama’s voice faltered.
    ‘Like what? You tell me I was not meant to happen? That I am a bastard, an accident? And what has Auntie Susan got to do with this?’
    Nobody spoke for a second and then the awful knowledge flashed like a bulb before her eyes. ‘Oh, no! Not Joy as well … Was she some accident too? You both … with my father. It’s disgusting! All these years, you’ve lied to us. Joy and I are half-sisters and nobody said anything to us? Granny wouldn’t lie about all that stuff about Cedric,’ she sneered.

    ‘It was Esme who thought up the whole story to protect you both. She took us in when she could have turned her back on us,’ Mama said. ‘She didn’t want you to be pointed at in the street.’
    Connie could hardly breathe for shock and anger. To be fobbed off with a pack of lies when all the time the Winstanleys kept their grubby little secret, making up fictitious characters like out of Charles Dickens.
    ‘I don’t believe you. She lied to protect the good name of Winstanley, more like. What is my real name then?’
    ‘Konstandina Papadaki … See, you are registered here but you will need a special visa to visit another country. It’s too late for all that now. I didn’t want the school to know our business.’ Mama was not looking her in the face. ‘I’m sorry but you brought this on yourself.’
    ‘I don’t really exist, do I?’ Connie shouted. ‘Does Joy know she’s a bastard?’
    ‘No, and don’t you go blabbing your mouth off to her. She has been through a bad time. It is not our business to tell her, and Susan may never want to. She has a British passport, as does her mother,’ said Mama.
    ‘But it’s not fair. She got all that fuss when she was ill. Please let me go!’
    ‘Connie, I’m tired, my back aches, change the record. It is too late. You are half-Greek, be proud of that.’

    ‘You’re not or you’d not be so quick to let them change my name to Constance Winstanley!’
    ‘You are named after your grandmother, Constance Esme, your father’s mother. It is tradition. Joy must wait until Auntie Susan chooses to reveal her story. If she ever does.’
    ‘On her wedding day most likely … Oh, by the way, did you know your bridesmaid is your sister? It is my business if she is my half-sister. How dare you not tell me? Why have you waited so long?’ Connie cried out, wanting to run away to her room and hide.
    ‘That’s enough! Let your mother rest. This is hard for her too. She is only trying to shield you. She means for the best,’ said Dr Friedmann, and Connie turned on him.
    ‘I don’t need your opinion. You’re not my father. All this baloney about doing well at school … What, so you can show me off to pay back the Winstanleys for taking you in? “Look, we have made a clever daughter for you.”’ She was pointing her fingers at them both like daggers.
    ‘Your mother has had a bad day without all this, Connie. She’ll do what she can.’ But ears were closed to his plea.
    ‘I suppose Auntie Lee knows, and Uncle Levi, and no wonder Ivy never liked us. Does Neville know? It will be all round Grimbleton if he finds out my mother and auntie are sluts, camp followers to the British Army!’

    ‘God in heaven! Stop that at once! Don’t dare talk to your mother like that!’ Dr Friedmann yelled.
    ‘I speak as I find. She goes with soldiers and gets pregnant.’ Connie was weeping with frustration.
    ‘You have no idea how it was then, and I hope to God you never will. I was young and hungry, and the soldiers were kind and gave us food. They were lonely and we were exhausted. Freddie was handsome and charming and we went dancing and we did all the things you take for granted now. Those freedoms were bought with the blood of young men and women like him. We were fighting in the mountains at an age when