Honour Thy Father

by Honour Thy Father (retail) (epub)

  ‘Good Lord, Gerry, you sound like Dad,’ Laura exclaimed. ‘Maybe you should be down there with him tub thumping.’

  ‘No. I agree with him and I’ll vote Labour,’ Gerry said seriously, ‘but I don’t want to get involved in local politics.’ He tapped a pile of books on the sideboard. ‘This is how I’ll repay Dad, by getting my head together and making a good teacher.’

  ‘You’re very serious all of a sudden. Is this the influence of a good woman,’ she mocked.

  Gerry smiled and said quietly, ‘No. I realise what I’ve put Dad through and how good he’s been to me and I want to repay him. I’ve been a disappointment to him up to now.’

  ‘I don’t know where you get that idea,’ Laura said. ‘He was made up when you were playing in the groups, bragging about you to everyone.’

  ‘In the early days with the Merrymen perhaps,’ Gerry said. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I don’t regret anything I’ve done for my own sake, I’ve had a bloody good time and made some fantastic mates, but I know I’ve caused Dad a lot of worry in the last few years, yet he’s always stuck by me. I was very flip when I talked about the advantages of living at home, but believe me, Lol, I was damn lucky Dad welcomed me back after the way I’d treated him.’

  ‘And what about Mum?’ Laura demanded. ‘You keep going on about Dad but Mum was the one who worried about you and looked after you, especially that first time with the drugs.’

  ‘Mum too,’ Gerry agreed. ‘But you don’t know the half of what Dad has done for me.’

  ‘I know how Mum has worried about you and nursed you but you seem to take all that for granted,’ Laura said indignantly. ‘I suppose you’re like Dad and think that’s all she’s good for.’

  ‘Don’t talk through the back of your neck,’ Gerry advised her. ‘I’m talking about Dad travelling miles to see me and then finding me stoned and being bawled out and humiliated by me but still leaving me money and trying to keep in touch. Not once but over and over again.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were back on the drugs,’ Laura said.

  ‘We all were. It was the only way to keep going,’ Gerry said. ‘The last time Dad came wasn’t long before the accident and the way I treated him, I couldn’t have blamed him if he’d washed his hands of me completely after that.’

  ‘Do you think Mum would have let him?’ Laura demanded.

  Gerry shrugged. ‘I suppose not but it was for her sake that Dad came that time. He told me she was worried but I was mad because I thought he showed me up with the lads and I said some unforgivable things to him.’

  ‘They evidently weren’t. Unforgivable,’ Laura commented dryly.

  ‘Anyone but Dad would have said I’d got what I deserved in that crash and refused to get involved,’ Gerry said. ‘Dad didn’t – or Mum,’ he added hastily as he saw Laura’s face. ‘I realise now what I put them through and I’m going to make a success as a teacher for his sake. To try to repay Dad for his faith in me.’ He sounded so earnest that Laura looked at him in amazement and began to laugh.

  ‘Must be the knock on the head,’ she said flippantly. ‘Where’s the scatterbrain we know and love?’

  Gerry grinned but said no more and Laura went into the garden feeling disturbed and uncertain. This new Gerry was so different to her happy-go-lucky brother that she felt she had lost a companion, especially as he now had such warm feelings for their father. John had always doted on Gerry but on Gerry’s part there had never been any deep feelings; he had sailed through life on good terms with everyone and a dear friend to Laura. They could always have a laugh and a joke together.

  The father that Gerry had talked about had not fitted her image of John as a selfish, domineering father and a bullying husband. I know what he is and I know how he’s treated Mum, she thought stubbornly. It’s Gerry who has got hold of the wrong end of the stick, probably because of the drugs, yet she still felt troubled.

  She stood for a while letting the peace of the garden soothe her as it always did until she heard her mother’s voice and went back into the house.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Laura had not seen Rosa since Moira’s wedding but after leaving Mary one lunchtime, she came face to face with her cousin who was with two other girls.

  ‘Rosa, you look filthy,’ Laura exclaimed but Rosa and her friends only laughed.

  ‘I know, darling,’ Rosa drawled. ‘The poxy landlord cut off the water and electricity in our grotty flat.’ Her usually shining hair was lank and greasy and her face and feet were grubby as well as her clothes.

  Her two friends, who wore outlandish clothes and jangling bracelets, looked even dirtier and the one nearest to Laura had numerous flea bites on her arms and neck.

  Laura was distressed to see her cousin, usually so fastidious, in such a state and she said indignantly, ‘There’s no need for you to be dirty, Rosa. You know you can always go home for a bath.’

  ‘We’re starting a new fashion,’ the flea-bitten girl screeched. ‘The great unwashed,’ and they all fell about cackling with laughter. Laura looked at them with disgust.

  ‘Come home, Ros,’ she said quietly to Rosa. ‘I’ll smuggle you into our house if you don’t want to be seen till you’re clean.’

  Rosa smiled at her with affection. ‘It’s all right, Lol,’ she said. ‘We’re moving into a squat in Princes Park. The guys are fixing it up now. There’s water laid on and one of the guys can fix the electricity there. He couldn’t in the flat because the poxy landlord was always about. Come with us and see it now.’

  ‘I can’t. I’ve got to get back to the office,’ Laura said. ‘But I could come at five o’clock. What’s the address?’

  Rosa gave it and Laura left them feeling seriously worried. How could Rosa have got into that state in such a short time? She recalled her at Moira’s wedding, bandbox fresh and beautiful, chatting demurely with relations with Neil standing quietly beside her. Playing the part of the dutiful daughter, Laura thought, and suddenly she felt more cheerful. Rosa might just be playing yet another part now, the great unwashed, as that horrible girl had said. Probably making a virtue of necessity because of the conditions she was living in, thought Laura.

  She went to the address in Princes Park after buying scented soap and bath salts in George Henry Lee’s and a large fruit cake from Reece’s. Rosa saw her from a window and called her down the side of the house to a kitchen door.

  The fruit cake was immediately seized on and devoured by the six people who shared the squat, and although a piece was cut for Rosa, none was offered to Laura. Rosa put the soap and the bath salts into the large pockets of a quilted jacket she wore, winking at Laura although the others seemed too busy with the cake to notice.

  ‘Rosa, are you hungry?’ Laura whispered in dismay but Rosa laughed cheerfully.

  ‘No, this lot are always like that,’ she said. ‘Comes from communal living. Everyone wants to make sure of his share.’

  She took Laura on a tour of the house, a large, detached mansion which had evidently been unoccupied for some time. Mattresses had been laid on the floor of several of the large bare rooms and cardboard and straw stuffed into the elegant fireplaces.

  ‘Boosey says it looks like professional packers have packed the stuff, probably for storage, which is a good sign. They’ve left some kitchen stuff which is very handy, a table and a couple of chairs and some cracked dishes,’ Rosa informed her.

  Laura said nothing. She felt uneasy, feeling that the rightful owners or the police would appear at any moment, and she wondered how the squatters could be so relaxed. I hope this phase doesn’t last long with Rosa, she thought.

  Before she left she asked Rosa diffidently if she needed money but Rosa told her she had money to collect as soon as she had cleaned herself up.

  ‘Not that I’d have minded going there unwashed but there’s a stuffy elderly man at the gallery. I wouldn’t want to give him a heart attack,’ she said gaily.

  ‘It’s a good thing your mum can’t see you,’ L
aura told her bluntly. ‘You’d give her a heart attack all right.’

  Rosa suddenly looked more serious. ‘Is she all right? Mum?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes. I suppose she worries about you but she doesn’t say anything. She was proud of you at the wedding, I think. Have you seen Neil since?’

  ‘Neil?’ Rosa said in a surprised tone. ‘Oh no.’

  They rejoined the others and Laura wondered how the four girls and two men were attached, if at all. I’ll bet if they do pair off at all one of the men will be Rosa’s, Laura thought grimly as she left, and although she hasn’t seen Neil she only has to whistle and he’ll come.

  She said nothing at home about seeing Rosa but she told Mary the next day. ‘You’ve got to admire her,’ Mary said. ‘She has the courage to try out her wild ideas and stick some discomfort for them. She’s a case, isn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, she is, but she’s sound, you know, Mary. I’m determined I’ll keep in touch with her now.’

  ‘I had an encounter too last night,’ Mary said. ‘I met Monica.’

  ‘Monica!’ Laura exclaimed. ‘I haven’t seen her for ages and I don’t care if I never see her again. We used to think she was just tactless but you know, Mary, when she put her foot in it, she never said anything to harm or embarrass herself only other people. Because she said poisonous things in such a dozy voice we thought she was just thick but I realise now she was vicious.’

  ‘Yes, and never more so than when she thought that Denis might be interested in another girl. Not that he was ever interested in her. She was the one who clung on like a leech, and cultivated Bert because he was Denis’s friend, or so we always thought.’

  ‘Thick and Thin,’ Laura said with a laugh. ‘Remember when Monica started going round with them and someone said they should be called Thin, Thick and Thicker?’

  ‘Yes, but wait till I tell you,’ Mary said. ‘She’s getting married!’

  ‘Married?’ Laura echoed. ‘So she caught Denis at last.’

  ‘No. She’s marrying Bert and you only had to look at her to see why. She’s about five months pregnant.’

  ‘Bert? I can’t believe it,’ Laura said.

  ‘I know. I rang Cathy Gillespie last night because she’s still friendly with that crowd and she said they were all stunned. She told me Denis was just the same, still poncing about being the ladykiller, and he’d made a few dates but Monica always managed to break it up and hung on to him everywhere they went. Bert was still like the spare part.’

  ‘Then how come they’re getting married?’ asked Laura.

  ‘Cathy said Monica suddenly started making up to Bert a few months ago and they all thought it was a laugh. Dave Snell couldn’t stand Monica because he said she nearly broke things up between him and his girlfriend, with her tactless remarks. He said he was made up for Denis that he’d got rid of her. He thought he’d have to buy Denis a packet of slug killer before he could get shut.’

  They both laughed and Laura said, ‘I see what Dave means. She reminds me of a slug. But when’s the wedding if she’s five months already?’

  ‘She said August but she didn’t mention invitations,’ said Mary. ‘I wonder if Denis will be best man.’

  ‘I pity any poor child born to that creature,’ Laura said, remembering Monica at their house-warming party.

  ‘So do I,’ Mary said. ‘I wasn’t going to repeat this. Danny told me to put it out of my head and forget it but I can’t. Do you know what she said when I told her about me and Danny? “Danny Roberts! Well, I suppose it’s not as though you’re marrying him, and anyone would do, really, to get you away from home.”’

  ‘The bitch!’ Laura said forcefully. ‘She’s only jealous, Mary, because Danny’s such a nice fellow. That creep she’s marrying must be half-witted as well as thick-skinned if he can’t see through her. Do as Danny says and forget it. In fact, why are we wasting time even talking about her on such a lovely day?’ They said no more about Monica and soon it was time to return to work.

  The day was warm and sunny but Laura worked late to build up her flexitime so that she could have a day off. Two others were also working late and one of them said he was going on the river later.

  ‘I’m looking forward to watering the garden,’ Laura said. ‘Everything is really dry.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. It was the warmest night for a hundred years last night, at least for the fourth of June,’ the man said. ‘Do you really enjoy watering?’

  ‘Yes. You can almost hear the plants drinking it in,’ Laura said and he laughed and told her that it was her motherly instincts which made her enjoy supplying what they needed.

  Laura was amazed when she arrived home to find that the front garden had been watered and she hurried round to the back garden. That, too, had been watered and she stormed into the house.

  ‘Who watered my garden?’ she demanded.

  Her mother told her that her father had done it. ‘He’s taking a night off and he did it to save you having to do it.’

  ‘To save me?’ Laura said angrily. ‘I’ve been looking forward to it. You know how I like watering.’

  Their raised voices brought her father in from the front room, demanding to know what was wrong.

  ‘You watered my garden,’ Laura said angrily.

  ‘What are you making a fuss about now?’ John said irritably. ‘If it wasn’t done you’d be moaning that everything was left to you.’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t. I never complain about doing anything in my garden and I enjoy watering.’

  ‘So do I and it’s my garden if it comes to that,’ John said. ‘I’ve let you have a free hand out there but you haven’t got a monopoly, you know.’

  Anne could see that Laura was near to tears and also on the brink of saying something she would afterwards regret. Before she could tell John to keep his garden and do all the work himself, Anne said quickly, ‘We all enjoy sitting in the garden although we don’t do any of the work. You have a flair for it, Laura. Must be inherited from your father, John, or maybe from your grandfather. He had an allotment and grew lots of vegetables, didn’t he?’

  Her lengthy speech gave Laura and John time to cool down a little and John said stiffly, ‘I did it very thoroughly. Thought I’d better before they start banning the use of hosepipes.’

  ‘That’ll be the next thing, I suppose,’ Laura said gruffly, ‘A couple of fine days and it’s panic stations.’

  John returned to the other room and Laura ate her meal quickly.

  Her pride would not allow her to go into the garden so she told her mother that she intended to go for a run in her car.

  ‘That’s good,’ said Anne. ‘A pity to waste such a lovely evening. Will you pick up Mary?’

  ‘No. She’s out with Danny.’

  ‘And Claire’s not visiting next door,’ Anne said. ‘It’s a pity Rosa’s moved away. She’d be company for you.’

  ‘I don’t need company,’ Laura said curtly, taking her car keys and going out to drive to the esplanade in Waterloo. She parked near the gardens which lay close to the river and walked through them, her head bent and her hands in her pockets.

  The scent of the flowers in the gardens was wafted by the warm breeze off the river and the wide sky was filled with the rosy afterglow of the sunset. The evening star had appeared in a sky of delicate translucent green but Laura strode on, oblivious of the beauty around her.

  She knew that her mother had not intended to hurt her but her words had made her realise how lonely she was. Other people were strolling round the gardens but all were in couples or small groups. Only she was alone and she thought with nostalgia of her teenage years when she had been one of a crowd of friends. Now everyone seemed to have paired off or moved away and she thought that if they had been real friends she would have stayed in touch with them. She probably had few friends but many acquaintances even then, just as she did now.

  She liked the people in the office, and they went out together usually on Friday nights for dr
inks after work, but most of them were married or settled with steady partners. Her nights out had occurred less and less often.

  Only the previous week her mother had urged her to spend less time in the garden and to go out and enjoy herself. ‘And don’t depend on Mary so much, love. Make other friends like yourself. Go out more with Claire from next door.’

  I know what she was really saying, Laura thought. She meant I should go out with someone who was unattached so I’d have more chance of tapping off. Mary’s settled with Danny and not interested in anyone else so we are like a pair of old married women when we go out but I enjoy Mary’s company so I don’t mind.

  And Claire! I could have told Mum that Claire isn’t so keen on going out with me. I cramp her style. Laura recalled the last time that she and Claire had driven to Southport to a club. They had danced with two young men who had afterwards bought drinks for them in the bar. Claire was delighted with them but Laura had told her that she considered the one who attached himself to her pushy and uncouth and Claire’s young man a flashy poser.

  This was when she and Claire had visited the Ladies and they had come as near as possible to quarrelling. ‘Do you have to be so rude to every fellow we meet?’ Claire said. ‘You won’t wait to see how things go. Just condemn them right away.’

  ‘I don’t need time to see through these two,’ Laura retorted. ‘Boris and Jason! They couldn’t even give their real names and saying that they were airline pilots! Must think we’re soft.’

  ‘It’s all part of the game,’ Claire protested. ‘But that’s the trouble with you, Laura, you won’t go along with anything. You want everything black and white.’

  ‘If you mean I won’t tell lies,’ Laura began but Claire interrupted her.

  ‘It’s not telling lies. It’s just technique. Knowing when to encourage a fellow and when to play hard to get. You only know about choking them off.’ She laughed as she said it but Laura knew that she meant what she said.