‘He’ll have to face them now,’ said Joe. ‘When is the baby due exactly?’
‘About a month, I think,’ said Terry. ‘I’ll let you know as soon as it happens.’
Terry and Eileen and Martin all planned to leave the following day so they said goodbye to their relatives that evening.
‘At least Rilla’s affairs have taken our minds off our loss for a few hours,’ Terry said as Sarah and Joe left.
‘And put things in perspective,’ Sarah said. ‘Death makes everything else seem so trivial, doesn’t it? Nothing else is worth worrying about.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
Laura had made no arrangements to go out either with Nick or Mary from the time of her father’s warning until Maureen’s death and for several days after the funeral. It was only when Anne and John arranged to visit Helen and Tony, and her mother urged her to go out, that Laura made a date with Nick.
She had explained to Mary during their lunchtime meetings that her mother had not asked her to stay with her. ‘It isn’t that she needs me because my father is at home more now and there’s always either Julie or Gerry or one of my other relations there but I want to be with her. And I’m not in the mood for going out anyway.’
Mary had understood and said Laura should do whatever she wanted. She would know when she was ready to go out again but Nick grumbled several times when he phoned and she refused to go out.
She arranged to meet him in town and go for a drink with him and when they first met he was sympathetic but severely practical. ‘I know you were upset but be reasonable, Laura,’ he said. ‘There was no cure possible so it could only mean more and more disablement and pain for your aunt as time passed. An early death was the best solution.’
‘I know that,’ Laura said angrily. ‘But it doesn’t stop us from grieving for her. My mother’s heartbroken.’
‘But for selfish reasons,’ Nick said. ‘You’re thinking of yourselves, not your aunt.’
The fact that he was right made Laura even more angry and she said furiously, ‘I suppose you think I’m making too much fuss.’
‘It’s a bit excessive, I think,’ Nick admitted. ‘After all, she’s not a member of your immediate family is she?’
‘She was my mother’s sister and in our family that is close,’ Laura said angrily. ‘I don’t know what your family’s like but everyone matters in ours. When my grandma died it was the worst thing that had ever happened to me. She was my great-grandmother really and I go to see my nana and grandad every Tuesday after work. I love them.’
‘Of course we hear this in psychology lectures that children often relate better to an older relative than to their own parents,’ Nick said pompously.
Laura glared at him. ‘Don’t talk to me about bloody psychology,’ she hissed. ‘I’m talking about ordinary family feelings. About people caring about each other.’
‘I wouldn’t call that ordinary family feelings,’ Nick said. ‘It all sounds a bit extreme to me. A bit unhealthy.’
They were sitting at a small table near the window in the bar and Laura turned away from him. If I say anything I’ll say too much, she thought. I don’t want to make a show of myself, but she longed to scream at Nick and scratch his face.
He spoke to her several times but she kept her shoulder obstinately turned against him so he stood up and went to the bar.
He realised that he had offended her and meant to give her time to cool down but she could see him in a facing mirror chatting to the barman and laughing at something the man said. That was enough for Laura and she picked up her coat and handbag and left.
As soon as Nick realised she had gone, he left the bar and rushed after her but she ran through the side streets to the station. Nick was close behind her but a train was in and Laura stepped on to it just before the doors closed.
Nick came dashing down the platform and Laura could see his angry face through the train window as she was borne away but she was unrepentant. I’ve had enough, she told herself. I don’t care if I never see him again.
Shortly after she left the station at Blundellsands she met her cousin David and he greeted her cheerfully. ‘Hi. I’ve just been to your house to say goodbye because I go back to Cambridge tomorrow but only Julie was in. She didn’t think you’d be back until late.’
‘I didn’t intend to be,’ she said. ‘But I couldn’t stand that big-head any longer.’ She had talked at length to David about Nick and Anne had also spoken approvingly about him so David was surprised.
‘I thought he was OK,’ he said. ‘What happened?’
Laura poured out all the comments by Nick which had annoyed her so much and told David that she had walked out on him. ‘Or run rather,’ she said. ‘He came flying down the platform just as the train moved off.’
‘So he had to run after you?’ David said thoughtfully. ‘It doesn’t sound as though he intended to hurt you.’
‘But he implied there was something wrong with us because we were so upset about Maureen,’ Laura said indignantly. ‘That’s more than tactless. He said we were extreme. Do you think we are, David?’
‘No, but then I’m family,’ he said with a grin. ‘Perhaps we’re a bit unusual in this day and age. They say family ties are loosening and the end of the seventies might mean the end of the family as a unit.’
‘Not our family,’ Laura declared. ‘Anyway, I’m not going to be lectured by him about psychology as though I was a backward child or an hysterical female. I’m finished with him.’
David tucked her arm in his and walked back with her slowly. ‘Don’t be too hasty, Laura,’ he said. ‘I think we’re all a bit on edge at present, a bit touchy. I thought Nick sounded a decent fellow. You’ve enjoyed going out with him, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, he can be good company,’ Laura admitted. ‘But he can be very opinionated too and I’m not putting up with being lectured.’
‘You know best,’ David said mildly, ‘but nobody’s perfect, you know, Lol. I think it’s a question of finding someone with the sort of faults that you can tolerate. I could never stand anyone who was mean or selfish.’
‘Nick hasn’t got those faults,’ Laura said swiftly. They had reached the gate of her house and David said he would say goodnight.
‘I’d think about Nick’s good points,’ he said. ‘Make quite sure it’s what you want before you give him the chop, Lol.’
‘I think I’ve already done that,’ Laura said but she spoke ruefully.
It was a long time before Laura slept. Her mind was too active, at one moment recalling the comments by Nick which made her angry again and determined to finish with him and at another thinking of the good times they had spent together and the good points that David had advised her to look for.
She fell asleep eventually but woke feeling unrefreshed and thinking that it was pointless for her to think whether she should finish with Nick or not. She remembered his face as she had last seen him on the station platform and felt that the matter was already decided. He would never forgive the blow to his pride.
She said nothing about the quarrel either at home or at work and as it was the day when Mary went to the hairdresser’s in her lunch hour she was unable to confide in her. Thoughts went round and round in her head and made it difficult for her to concentrate on her work and it seemed malign fate that a long document had to be prepared which kept her nearly an hour late in leaving the office.
Her father had been home and had left again but her mother and Julie chatted to her as she ate her meal. The telephone rang twice but both times her mother answered it, although Laura had jumped to her feet. ‘Eat your meal, love,’ Anne said. ‘I’ll answer it. It’ll only be more messages for Dad. It’s worse than ever now he’s on the Council. The phone hasn’t stopped tonight, has it, Julie?’
Julie agreed and when it rang a third time she went into the hall to answer it. They heard her say ‘Hi’ in a pleased tone then she stayed there talking and laughing, it seemed to Laura, for hours.
She was fuming as she drank a cup of tea and tried to answer her mother rationally when she asked about her day at the office but all the time she was wondering whether Nick was trying to phone to speak to her. Perhaps he had tried several times if the telephone had been engaged so much with messages for her father and now with Julie’s marathon conversation.
On the other hand, it was quite possible, even probable, that he did not want to speak to her ever again, she thought with one of her sudden swings of mood. I don’t care anyway, she thought defiantly, but she was relieved when Julie at last put down the phone and came back to the kitchen.
‘Peter?’ her mother said smiling at her and Julie blushed.
‘Yes, he’s sent off the application form for that post in the prep school.’
‘Where is it?’ asked Laura.
‘On the Wirral,’ said Julie. ‘He thinks he’d like teaching younger boys and if he gets a housemaster’s post I’d like it better with younger boys.’
Laura and her mother looked at each other in amazement and Julie said hastily, ‘We’re just looking ahead, of course, but this is the best time for Peter to decide.’
‘Of course, of course,’ her mother murmured but it was plain that Julie’s plans had been a shock to her.
Julie turned to Laura. ‘You haven’t forgotten the Spanish, Lol, have you?’
Laura had indeed forgotten that she had arranged to enrol for Spanish lessons at evening classes with Julie but she said quickly, ‘No, but it’s a bit late tonight, isn’t it? They’re enrolling for three nights, aren’t they?’
‘Yes, we can go tomorrow night,’ Julie said.
Their mother said placidly, ‘Tomorrow the weather might be better. Just listen to that wind.’ Neither she nor Julie commented on the fact that Laura had both nights free or asked any questions about Nick.
As the hours passed without a phone call from Nick, Laura realised how much she had secretly been expecting him to phone and apologise and how much she had wanted it to happen. Her pride prevented her from trying to call him although she made excuses to herself. It was impossible to reach him at the college and if she phoned his house she would probably get one of the other men. If Nick had told them about the quarrel she would feel humiliated, she told herself.
She went up to the bathroom and was plucking her eyebrows when the phone rang again and she threw down the tweezers and started out of the door but her mother had already picked up the phone. ‘Hello? Hello, hello,’ she kept saying and as Laura looked over the banisters she saw her mother flip over the pad by the phone and heard her say, ‘A pen, quick.’
Julie put the pen in her hand and Anne said, ‘Six o’clock this morning. Seven pounds, two ounces. Black hair.’ She was scribbling furiously then she said, ‘And both well? I’m so glad, Stephen.’
Then she wrote again. ‘Margaret Stephanie.’ She interrupted the babble from the phone to say, ‘Congratulations to you and Margaret. Your first grandchild, and to Rilla too. I’m sure the baby will bring you a lot of happiness.’ There was a little more excited speech down the phone then she said goodbye.
Laura came downstairs and her mother turned to her and Julie. ‘Did you hear that, girls? Rilla had a daughter this morning.’ She glanced at the pad in her hand. ‘Stephen was so excited I had to jot things down. He was just tumbling it all out.’
Julie looked over her shoulder. ‘Seven pounds, two ounces. Is that the baby’s weight?’
‘Yes. He said she’s got a tuft of black hair but she opened her eyes when he looked at her and he thinks she knew him. He said she didn’t just look blankly at him.’
‘He didn’t say it looked like Peter Taylor?’ Laura asked.
Her mother said impatiently, ‘Oh no. They’ve put all that nonsense behind them. They’re going to call the baby Margaret Stephanie.’ Laura was about to say more but Julie winked at her and shook her head. As they went back to the living room, Julie said in a low voice to Laura, ‘Mum’s made up. As much because the rift with the Canadians has been healed as about the baby,’ and Laura was relieved that she had said nothing to spoil her mother’s pleasure.
‘I must tell Joe and Tony,’ Anne said and immediately went to telephone but Joe’s line was engaged. ‘I spoke to Helen and she was pleased that Stephen let us know,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll walk round to see Sarah and Joe, girls, because I couldn’t get through to them.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Laura said. It was after ten o’clock and too late, she thought, for Nick to ring, yet she was relieved when Julie decided not to come with them. She would be at home to take any calls.
Laura hoped to see Rosa who was still staying at her parents’ house but she was out when they arrived there.
Sarah and Joe were pleased to hear about Rilla’s baby and Joe asked if Anne thought the Taylors should be told. ‘I don’t know,’ she said doubtfully. ‘Strictly speaking, it has nothing to do with them, does it? I don’t want them to think that we think it has.’
‘Mm, least said, soonest mended, I suppose,’ said Joe.
‘Gerry said Mr and Mrs Taylor were willing to let it drop,’ Anne told them, ‘although Gail thought Peter should sue them. The solicitor advised them that as Rilla and Stephen have apologised and Rilla has withdrawn the accusation they should let it drop. He says only the family know of it now and it’s better to keep it like that.’
‘Yes, there’d always be people who’d say there was no smoke without fire and that sort of thing,’ Joe said. ‘I think that was good advice.’
‘I’m just sorry that there’s been all this trouble because of our family. I think the Taylors have been very generous.’
‘And if Rilla wants to come here again I’ll be away from home,’ Laura said.
Her mother nodded. ‘Yes, and I’ll come with you.’
When they returned home Julie said she had heard the phone while she was in the bath but it had stopped ringing before she could reach it.
‘Probably yet another message for Dad,’ Anne said. ‘I think he’ll have to install a secretary.’
Laura wondered whether it could have been Nick but decided that if he intended to get in touch he would have phoned earlier. If he was ringing so late it could only be because drink had given him Dutch courage.
A letter to Laura from Terry told more about the baby and Rilla. He wrote that the baby was small but healthy and, in his opinion, remarkably ugly. Very red and wrinkled with a tuft of dark hair like an Indian, but of course he had to admire it.
‘I believe Rilla pinbrain told the nurses that its father was a famous pop star but they had been warned to ignore her fantasies. The important news is that a young man has turned up claiming to be the father. He says that he and Rilla have been meeting regularly, although she managed to conceal this from her parents and even from Joy. He is a clerk in a grocery store and apparently believes that Rilla is an heiress! They seem well matched but not much hope for the child.’
When John had returned home on the evening of Stephen’s phone call, he showed little interest, seeming far more interested in a box of leaflets he carried, which he wanted the family to distribute, but when Laura read Terry’s letter aloud he was annoyed.
‘Have as little as possible to do with them, Anne,’ he said. ‘They haven’t seen the last of their troubles with that girl but don’t get involved. I know you want to keep in touch with Stephen but let them keep Rilla’s antics in Canada. Don’t invite them here.’
Laura expected her mother to argue but she only said mildly, ‘Don’t worry. I’ve had enough,’ and seemed unperturbed.
The hours and days seemed to drag past as Laura waited to hear from Nick.
‘No word from Nick yet?’ Mary asked her over lunch. Laura shook her head and Mary went on, ‘I think you should contact him, you know. After all, you were the one who ran out on him.’
‘With good reason,’ Laura flared. ‘Anyway I don’t care. I’m well rid of such a pig-headed fellow.’
‘I thought he had a lot going for him. But you know best.’ She glanced at her watch and stood up. ‘I’ll have to fly. Doesn’t this hour go quickly?’
Laura agreed but thought that for her no hour went quickly. In spite of her defiant words to Mary, she longed to see Nick and would have snatched at the slightest move on his part to show regret for their quarrel but she felt unable to make the move herself.
The previous night she had gone with Julie to enrol for the Spanish classes and they had stayed talking to friends they met there who were enrolling for various courses. Better than sitting about waiting for the phone to ring, she told herself, but deep down she was wondering all the time whether there was a call from Nick.
As soon as they arrived home she looked hopefully at the message pad beside the phone but it was blank except for the indentations made by her mother’s excited scribbling the previous night.
Now as she returned to the office she decided that she was going to stop hoping to hear from him and forget him. If he really cared for me he would be only too anxious to make up, she thought. After all, the quarrel was his fault although I was the one who actually left.
She was expected at her grandmother’s house for the evening meal and she decided that she would stay there for the whole evening. I’ll have to be careful to keep the conversation away from Nick though, she thought; she had said nothing at home about breaking with him.
She found it was easy to do this. Over the meal the conversation was all about gardening as her grandfather had grown the Brussels sprouts and the potatoes that they were eating. Afterwards he went to his study and Laura sat close to her grandmother as they talked about Maureen.
‘I dread Christmas, Nana,’ Laura said. ‘It will be so strange without Aunt Maureen.’
Cathy sighed. ‘I know, love. It’s times like Christmas and birthdays that you feel it most, yet in a way they’re the times you feel closest to the ones who have gone.’
‘I still miss Grandma, but I know you and Grandad must miss her even more because she was always here with you.’
Honour Thy Father Page 32