by Maggie Ford
‘What you talking about?’
‘When I’m feeding Beth. He’s done it a couple of times. I don’t like it.’
‘Like what?’
All this hedging had to be put aside. Pam took a deep breath, lowered her eyes. ‘I mean … today, when I was feeding Beth, your mum and dad came in, and your dad came straight over and kissed Beth on the top of her head – while I was feeding her. I mean, I had all my nipple on show and he came straight over and did that. I felt his moustache touch my skin, he was that close. And he did the same thing last week as well, him and your mum walking in when I was feeding and him kissing the baby like that. It’s not nice, not decent, and I don’t like it. I feel so … I felt …’
She couldn’t go on, her face growing hot and her mouth dry at the recollection of a man other than her husband so close to her naked breast. It was all too horrible. She felt she would never get over the horrid sensation of her father-in-law taking liberties, which was how she saw it, no matter what anyone, even George, said.
He said it now, just as she would have predicted if she’d been a clairvoyant. ‘Don’t be silly, Pam. Dad is family. You’re part of our family.’
‘Not that much part of it,’ she snapped back, her sense of outrage rising afresh to conquer embarrassment. ‘My dad would never dream of doing something like that. He’s got more decency. It was indecent, darling. I felt it was indecent. And my feelings must count for something.’
George’s face had grown angry. ‘You’re just being silly.’
‘No I’m not.’ She was angry too, now. Furious. ‘You’re telling me you condone that sort of thing – a man … I don’t care if he is my father-in-law, he’s still a man – a man almost laying his face against my bare breast on the pretext of kissing my baby, and me feeding her at the time? And you think I’m just being silly? I felt as if he was taking advantage of me. I felt just as if I was being molested.’ That was what she’d been trying to say. But George was looking at her aghast, not at what his father was alleged to have done but that she, his wife, was accusing him of something he wouldn’t accept.
‘That’s a bloody awful thing to say,’ he said quietly, coming to his feet. ‘I can’t believe you, saying things like that about Dad. He didn’t mean nothing by it and he’d be shocked to think you’ve got yourself in a state over something entirely innocent. I don’t want to talk about this any more. I’m going to bed.’
‘And I’m locking the door every time after I so much as set foot on that landing from now on,’ she yelled after him, beside herself that he had not even raised his voice while she had resorted to yelling, but he took no notice, undressed himself in silence and got into bed.
But her raised voice had disturbed Beth and for the first time in weeks she sat awake pacifying her while George lay with his back to her and not once asking if she was all right with Beth or wanted help of any sort.
There was only one person Pam felt she could confide in – Mum.
Peggy came to see her daughter on Wednesday afternoon, as she always did. There was no visiting at the hospital on Wednesday afternoons, when the doctors did their rounds, so it was a good day to see Pam. She found her with eyes puffy and cheeks mottled as she opened the door to her light tap.
‘Good Lord, Pam!’ Peggy got quickly out of her coat and came back to take her by the arms and look into her face. ‘What’s the matter? You look as if you’ve been crying for days.’
‘I have.’ Pam was on the verge of fresh tears. ‘We’ve had a row.’
‘You and George?’
‘He’s not spoken to me for two days. It wasn’t so much a row, not shouting. Well, I shouted. He didn’t even raise his voice. Just went to bed and hasn’t said a thing to me since. Apart from asking if I’d done his sandwiches, things like that. Apart from that he’s just ignoring me.’
Peggy sat her daughter down. ‘I’ll put the kettle on, make us some tea. I brought a packet of tea and some milk.’ She fished in the shopping bag she’d brought. ‘And a bit of bacon.’
It was on her mind to say that she had never considered George to be a sulky man, but that would have been putting in her oar, and Pam was upset enough. It was one thing for man and wife to row, but woe betide anyone else who put him down. It was best to keep quiet about what she thought of George and his conduct.
‘Do you want to tell me about it?’ she asked as the kettle began to heat up on the slow little oil stove.
Pam shook her head, but minutes later was pouring out her heart to her mother. Peggy listened in silence until Pam fell quiet except to sniffle and swallow and clear her throat of choked-up tears. She was appalled by what Pam had said. And to think George couldn’t see what was in that dirty mind of Dick Bryant’s. Didn’t Mrs Bryant see what her husband was about? She felt like going to the Bryants and confronting them about it, but that wouldn’t have done Pam any good.
The kettle began to steam and she went and set out two cups.
‘Men,’ she said, busying herself putting tea into the pot and milk into the cups. ‘They never see beyond their noses. Maybe George wasn’t upset at you, but at his dad. Sort of felt guilty for him. He was probably angry with himself because he knew who he should blame but couldn’t say so because it was his dad. Maybe that’s why he’s being quiet, why he didn’t shout back at you. Because he can’t admit that his dad did wrong. After all, he is his dad. He must love him.’
‘And I’m his wife. He should love me more. He should have taken my side as his wife. He was the only one I could tell and he acted like that.’
Pouring the tea, Peggy came over and handed one to Pam. ‘I’m glad you told me. As I said, men don’t understand. Pam, you’ve always got me. I’m sorry about that business earlier this year and I should have understood, being your mum. I’m ashamed of myself.’
In a rush of impulse Pam put her cup down on the floor and went to her mother who only just had time to put her own cup down before Pam flung herself into her arms, sobbing.
‘Oh, Mum, don’t ever be ashamed of yourself. That’s all in the past and we’re friends again. I’m glad we’re friends. You’re the only friend I’ve got.’ The words poured out through the weeping while Peggy held her, rocking her gently.
‘You’ve got your family. You’ve got Connie and Josie and Danny, and you’ve got me.’
‘But I haven’t got Dad.’
‘He’ll come round in time.’
Pam was firm. ‘He won’t never forgive me. He’ll never get over that business of him and George’s dad. Though now I can see why. But I’m married to his son, and I love George. But I’ve lost my own dad through all this. I hate the Bryants. Oh, Mum, I feel so unhappy and confused.’
Peggy sat cuddling her daughter to her, unhappy for having no words of comfort to give her save that it would work itself out given time. There came to mind that most useless of all maxims that time healed all wounds. Of course time would solve this row between Pam and her husband. As for the rest, she didn’t know. Time heals all wounds? She didn’t believe that for a second as she sat with her arms about the kneeling girl, trying to be a comfort to her. Trying to be a comfort was the hardest of all achievements. How much of a comfort was she really to Pam, except that she was holding her close?
Her mind went back, as it did so often, even after all these years, to the loss of her youngest son. Time would never heal that wound. She had needed comfort then, but had not received any, not really. Friends and relatives had come to sympathise, felt deeply for her at the time, but all the while they had silently thanked God it wasn’t their loss. They had wrapped their arms around her, said how dreadful it was for her and asked what could they do for her, had even cried for her. They had talked among themselves about how awful it was and how badly they felt, but at the end of the day they had gone away and carried on with their own lives and she’d been left with her loss that no one could assuage, not even Dan.
Comfort was more to do with firmness. At that thought Peggy put her da
ughter from her, held her at arm’s length. ‘Now, no more of this. You’ve got to pull yourself together, love. It’s not the end of the world and there are far worse things can happen. So don’t say any more about it to George. And don’t let him come home and see you crying. Brighten yourself up. Put on a bit of make-up, cook him a really nice dinner, give him a kiss on the cheek, and make sure his dad doesn’t have any more opportunities to get near you while you’re feeding Beth. It could be George was feeling a bit embarrassed, even ashamed, and the only way he had of fighting it was to act the way he did. If the truth’s known he probably feels as bad about it as you, but he won’t say so. That’d be putting himself down, and men can’t abide being put down, not by anything.’
No, men couldn’t, came the thought, her mind racing to Dan.
But his downfall was a different kettle of fish which she must face for the rest of their lives together.
She smiled at her daughter and received a tremulous little smile in return. ‘That’s better, love. Now, remember what I said, and I promise that come tomorrow you’ll both have got over your tiff.’
If only it was as easy as that for people like her. Tomorrow she’d go and visit Dan, in a convalescent home now, listen to his griping and his unending rage against Dick Bryant on whom he even blamed this accident as though he relished it having happened just to lay the responsibility for that too at the man’s door. It had become his only joy in life now, blaming Dick Bryant. It was no longer a feud, it was an obsession.
Chapter Twenty
On the matter of wedding arrangements, Lily was completely blinkered, her sights set on what she wanted the day she would walk down the aisle of St Clement’s and nothing else.
‘We could have it in May, darling.’
For all Danny wanted her for his wife so much it was an ache inside him, May had to be out of the question, at least the sort of wedding she had in mind – one that would ape a society wedding if she had her way – hordes of people, family and friends, three bridesmaids – ‘I can’t leave my nieces out, I promised they’d be bridesmaids when I got married’ – in pink, together with her oldest sister’s four-year-old son as pageboy in blue, the reception held in one of the big reception rooms at the Cliffs Hotel.
‘You work there,’ she’d taxed Josie. ‘Maybe you could get them to give us it a bit cheaper.’ Which had put Josie on the spot and embarrassed Danny into telling her she couldn’t go around manipulating people like that. Josie was just a part-time assistant receptionist and nothing to do with the hotel management. The result had been a stand-up row with Lily finally falling into a pouting sulk.
But it hadn’t put a stopper on her idea of a May wedding as well as a honeymoon afterwards.
‘Bournemouth would be nice,’ she mused as they ventured along a deserted spray-drenched Southend prom, the only fools in sight on a Sunday morning like this, their heads bent sideways before a buffeting late November wind.
The tide had come right up; grey wind-driven waves bashed themselves against the sea wall with a hollow booming and threw up white plumes of broken water, the wall’s curved rim deflecting them back to sea to collide with other incoming breakers in mighty bursts of foam, so that every now and again flecks of the wild spray landed on the couple’s faces to make Danny screw up his face and Lily squeal.
Hard to imagine warm summer Sundays with the water gentle, the triangles of shelly beach between the low breakwaters alive with holiday makers, what little soft sand there was before the mud began, a haven for children with buckets and spades. Now with the slap and pound of waves against the sea wall, the sea was a raging creature with the ability to drag out and drown anyone fool enough to venture the other side of the iron railing and stand on the few steps down to what beach the waves might expose. He thought momentarily of Connie’s Ben; claimed by a sea which that day had been merely choppy, but the cold had no doubt caused cramp enough to cripple even the strongest swimmer. Poor Connie – it had come out of the blue for her, one minute so happy, the next …
‘We ought to be getting back home. It’s too cold here.’
Lily tutted. ‘It was you who said we should go out for a while.’
He’d suggested a stroll along the prom to get her out of her house for a while where her horde of siblings as well as parents butted in on every word she spoke on the subject of the wedding, putting in their tuppence-worth, eyes lighting up at the thought of this splendid do she described.
He had been glad to get her out of the house but he hadn’t reckoned on the strength of the wind and now they were both cold and slightly damp. Soon Lily too was eager to get back home in the warm for all they had needed to be alone to discuss the wedding. Well, Lily wanted to discuss it. He would rather have let the subject drop, at least for the present. He had enough on his mind without that too.
‘So what would you think? About Bournemouth then?’ she pushed.
Danny stayed silent. How could he make her see the impossibility of the sort of wedding she wanted, and so near? May, of course, was all of seven months away and could still be achieved, if on a more modest scale, but much of his money was already going to keep his mother. Dad would never work again and Mum refused to take a penny off Dad’s brothers, drawing herself up to her small height and saying almost haughtily, ‘We’re not doing too bad. We’re managing.’ With winter coming on, the holiday trade long gone, money was tight anyway.
He still hadn’t told Lily about the arrangements for when Dad came home. Dad kept saying he’d be back in time for Christmas even though that depended on what the hospital said. Danny himself dreaded the homecoming, his dad reduced to being helped about, a man who’d always told others what to do being himself told.
In hospital he was a bad patient, and Danny felt sure that when he finally came home he would plague Mum’s life out of her from dawn till dusk and probably half the night. Danny worried for Mum. He had to be there, for her sake. No one else would be – Connie, still strange and withdrawn, was forever up at St Clement’s these days; Josie, all for her fun and that Arthur she was going out with, spent her time dreaming and jotting the signature Josephine Monk on bits of paper which stated plainly what was in her mind. Neither girl would be able to support Mum, stand up to Dad and his dominating nature which would become more pronounced with him in a wheelchair. And he was a heavy man, too heavy for Mum to pull around. The hospital had told them he’d never walk again. His weight on Mum’s shoulders, his cussedness and newly acquired irascibility would wear her down. She needed another man in the house.
His heart like a ton weight inside him, Danny knew that under these circumstances there’d be no question of him and Lily thinking of a house; he had to try to pay the rent and keep Mum, and when he wasn’t working, be round there helping her with Dad. It wouldn’t be fair on Lily, and in time – he could see it happening – she’d start to complain and their marriage would falter and have to be shored up with promises to divide himself into even smaller pieces to please her. Divide himself and what money he brought in. It would be easier and far cheaper to live at home after they were married. Connie and Josie would sleep in one room, Mum in his small room at the back because Dad would have to be downstairs in the back room, so he and Lily could have the big front bedroom. They’d cope, he was sure of it. But he couldn’t tell that to Lily yet, still dreaming of her own home and her fine wedding.
‘We might make it around July,’ he said cautiously. ‘Give me longer to save up.’ He saw her smile, nodding agreement, satisfied with that, and, temporarily relieved, he put the rest of his bad news aside for the moment
Connie knelt for a final private prayer before leaving for home, the coarse fibres of the hassock prickling her knees through the thick stockings she wore against the cold fog through which she had felt her way uphill to Sunday morning service.
She tried to pray for Ben’s soul. Instead her thoughts seemed more filled by the fog outside, hoping that it might have abated a little with the coming of December
rather than getting thicker – more like November really. Perhaps by now it would have cleared a little, enabling her to go back downhill with more confidence than she’d come up. Perhaps later the sun would break through, watery and pale, enough to cheer her up. Foggy days made her spirits, never far from plummeting even in bright sunshine and balmy days, plummet even further. She longed for spring. But spring would be ever nearer the anniversary of Ben’s drowning and she felt she needed to hold back next spring, as if by some physical force, which was foolish, but with her eyes tightly closed it seemed she might even be capable of doing so. Like a dream …
Bending her head deeper into her hands, she pushed away thoughts of the weather and supernatural deeds, and tried to conjure up Ben’s face behind her closed eyes. It would not come. What came was a blurred image of a photo they’d taken somewhere, her face still far clearer than his. Why couldn’t she see him when she loved him so? But he would not come.
There were times when she wished she could be a spiritualist and bring him to her with ease. There had been times when she had almost gone to a meeting of that sort to see if he would come to her, but her religious beliefs, grown so powerful these past months, prevented any dabbling in the occult, as spiritualism seemed to her. There was a hereafter. There was heaven and hell. Heaven, if not up among the clouds, a notion this enlightened age of science seemed to be dispelling, was somewhere. That she did believe, because a pure soul like Ben’s could not just lie rotting in the ground of the East London Cemetery. It had to be rejoicing somewhere beautiful as it deserved to. And hell? Hell was here, on earth, a testing ground. It couldn’t be anywhere below because this planet was as solid as any of those in the solar system …
Connie lifted her head in alarm. What was she thinking of? When she should be praying for Ben, her head was full of stupid thoughts of planets. She opened her eyes to find the church almost emptied and a black-clad figure standing not far away looking at her.