‘I’ll see them tomorrow night when they’ve got the ring,’ Laura said and Anne looked at Julie and seemed to give a sigh of relief but Laura noticed nothing.
The next day she told Mary about Margaret and Gerry’s engagement but said nothing about Rosa’s baby, although all day she wondered whether Rosa had been able to tell her parents the previous night. She cut the usual Friday night drinks with her colleagues and hurried home, but though her Aunt Sarah and Uncle Joe called to congratulate Gerry and Margaret, they said nothing about Rosa.
Greatly to her mother’s relief, Laura had told her that she was going out with Nick on Saturday night so it was not necessary to consider Laura’s feelings when Margaret’s engagement ring was handed round. She had chosen a solitaire diamond ring.
‘I’d like a solitaire for mine, wouldn’t you?’ Julie said as she took the ring from her finger and passed it to Laura to try on. Laura slipped the ring on her finger then took it off and handed it to Margaret.
‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘Everybody seems to choose them now.’
There was a stunned silence then everyone spoke at once. Laura cringed inwardly. I’ve done it again, she thought, but she had only spoken the truth. The numerous engaged girls in the office had almost all chosen solitaire diamonds for their rings.
Margaret did not seem offended. ‘Strange how fashions change, isn’t it?’ she said calmly. ‘My gran had five stones, a half hoop of diamonds, but Mum’s is three diamonds on a twist like yours, Mrs Redmond.’
‘And mine,’ Sarah said and the moment passed.
‘I just hope you have as happy a marriage as Sarah and I have had,’ Anne smiled at Margaret.
‘Yes indeed, and I’m sure you will, love,’ Sarah said. ‘You and Gerry are so well-suited and you’ve both been brought up in happy homes so you’ll be able to create your own.’
Laura listened in amazement. Were they trying to pretend to Margaret or did her aunt and her mother really delude themselves that her mother’s marriage had been happy? Surely her mother didn’t really believe it and her aunt, she knew, was not blind to her brother’s faults. In fact, she had often told him about them. I give up, Laura thought. I’ll never understand their generation.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Laura had arranged to meet Nick at the station and she felt a leap of pleasure as the train drew in and she saw his tall figure waiting for her. She wore a mini skirt in a pale stone-coloured leather, and matching boots in soft leather to above her knees, and a fur jacket.
‘You look fantastic, Laura,’ Nick exclaimed as he rushed to meet her.
‘Best rabbit,’ she shrugged, glancing down disparagingly at her jacket, although she had dressed very carefully for the date.
At first conversation between them was stilted but neither of them mentioned the quarrel and soon they were joking together and exchanging news. Both were careful to avoid anything controversial so it was a happy and harmonious evening. They enjoyed the film and linked arms and held hands throughout.
When they went to the bar in the interval, Nick told Laura that he had forgotten his house key. He could only see her on to the train and then he’d have to go straight home to be sure of getting in. And the following day he had to go home to Ormskirk as it was his mother’s birthday but could he see Laura at lunchtime for a drink?
‘At the Elephant, you mean?’ Laura said, knowing that he usually went there on Sunday lunchtimes.
‘No, not in Woolton,’ he said hurriedly. ‘I thought somewhere near you in Crosby.’
‘Yes, all right. There are a few good watering holes near us, the Royal or the Blundellsands Hotel, and lots of others. You can get a bus to Ormskirk from Crosby as well,’ Laura agreed cheerfully.
The only hint of discord between them came as they left the cinema to walk to the station. As they strolled along, Laura talked about Gerry’s burst tyre and how Phil Casey had helped him.
‘They came in like drowned rats,’ she laughed, ‘their hair plastered to their heads by the rain and their hands filthy. Mum had to dry Phil’s coat by the fire while they got cleaned up and had some supper.’
‘I didn’t know Phil Casey was so well in with your family,’ Nick commented jealously. ‘It sounds as though he’s really got his feet under the table in your house. Just shows. You can’t trust these quiet ones.’
‘What do you mean?’ snapped Laura. ‘It’s the first time he’s been. Gerry was damn glad of his help, especially on such a night.’
‘And he’d jump at the chance of seeing you again,’ Nick said. He laughed disagreeably. ‘Seeing would be the word. He’s dumb in every sense of the word but I saw how he stared at you at the Cabaret Club.’
He was holding Laura’s arm but she snatched it away. ‘If I remember right, Phil had more to say than you at the Cabaret Club. You were the dumb one,’ she said angrily.
Nick seemed to realise that he had said too much and tried to take her hand again. ‘I did keep my mouth shut that night,’ he admitted. ‘I was trying to avoid saying the wrong thing,’ but Laura refused to be mollified.
‘Pity it didn’t last,’ she retorted. They had reached the station and as they stood arguing, the Southport train slowly moved out of the station. ‘Now look what you’ve done,’ Laura exclaimed. ‘I’ve missed my train.’
‘That settles it. I’m coming with you,’ Nick announced. ‘I’m not letting you travel home alone at this hour.’
‘Don’t be a fool,’ Laura said. ‘You won’t be able to get in your house and I’m all right. This isn’t Chicago or New York. I’m safe enough.’
‘I’m coming with you,’ Nick repeated stubbornly and declared that if his own landlord didn’t open the door he would knock up one of his friends and beg a bed. ‘It won’t be the first time I’ll have slept on someone’s floor,’ he added with a grin.
He said no more about Phil Casey and Laura decided to ignore the quarrel that had been developing.
On the train she told him that she had mentioned Chicago and New York because of a frightening story she had read a few nights earlier. It concerned a girl who had boarded an underground train in one of those cities, she was not sure which, and found three men in the compartment.
‘She thought the middle man was drunk,’ Laura said, ‘because the other two men were holding him upright and he was staring straight ahead but she felt frightened. Another man got in and pretended to know her and bundled her out at the next stop. He told her the two men were gangsters and the man in the middle was dead. If she had stayed on to the end of the line they would have killed her.’
‘And you’d still have got the train on your own,’ Nick exclaimed. ‘Honestly, Laura, sometimes you’re too independent for your own good.’
The train had reached Blundellsands station and Nick insisted on walking with Laura to her house.
‘I was going to ask you to come round one night,’ Laura said. ‘But perhaps I’d better not as you seem to think it means so much.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Well, you said Phil had his knees under the table because he came in to get dry,’ she said.
Nick laughed sheepishly. ‘I talk out of the back of my neck sometimes. The old green monster gets to me. I know I don’t really have to worry about a drip like him.’
Laura was about to make an angry retort in defence of Phil but instead she said curtly, ‘You’d better get going or you’ll miss the last train.’
‘Did you mean that about me coming here?’ Nick asked.
‘Yes, we can go to a local cinema and come back for supper or stay in and play records. See what the weather’s like.’
Nick kissed her and went off smiling confidently but his words about Phil Casey had an unexpected effect on Laura. She had liked Phil from their first meeting but until Nick showed jealousy towards him she had thought of him only as a friend. She had never had any romantic ideas about him or thought that he had about her. He was so quiet and self-effacing and had ne
ver seemed to try to single her out. Now, however, she thought of the way she had often glanced up to find him looking at her and she recalled how he had always been on hand to help her with her coat or in other ways. She found him easy to talk to and at the Cabaret Club they seemed to be getting to know each other better until Nick appeared on the scene.
She thought of the evening he had come home with Gerry and tried to remember the exact words he had used as he said goodbye to her. Something about being nice to see her at home but she had snubbed him. I should have realised how hard it was for a shy fellow like Phil to say that but all I could think of was my shabby dressing gown, she thought ruefully. Yet even that showed that I cared about what he thought.
She was surprised when she heard the clock strike two o’clock and realised that she had been thinking about Phil all the time and scarcely given a thought to Nick, except to feel indignant that he had described Phil as a drip. He’s not a drip, she thought resentfully, just a quiet type, the opposite of a self-confident loudmouth like Nick.
In the cold light of day she decided that she was mistaken about Phil being attracted to her. I’m not like Rosa with everyone falling for me, she thought as she examined her face in the bathroom mirror. If I’m going to get ideas about everyone Nick’s jealous of I’ll be making a right fool of myself.
Julie appeared at the bathroom door and Laura said, ‘OK, I’m finished. I’m sorry I looked in the mirror. I was awake until after two o’clock and I look a wreck.’
‘It’s that mirror,’ said Julie. ‘I avoid looking in it, especially in the morning. Spoils my confidence for the day if I do. Must be the way the light falls or something.’
‘I don’t think I’ll see much difference in any mirror,’ Laura groaned.
She and Julie went with their parents to ten o’clock Mass and saw Rosa there with her parents. Laura wondered whether she had found an opportunity to tell her parents about the baby. When they all met outside the church she looked inquiringly at Rosa but she shook her head, unnoticed by everyone else.
Sarah was saying to Anne, ‘You’re not going to Nana’s today, are you? What time are Margaret’s parents coming to you?’
‘Just for tea,’ Anne said. ‘I’d have asked all the family to meet them but Mr Norton’s an invalid so it’ll be easier for him with just us,’ and Sarah agreed.
Later, over the leisurely Sunday breakfast, Laura told her mother that she had invited Nick on Thursday night. ‘That all right?’
Anne smiled. ‘Of course. I’ll be pleased to meet him.’
It seemed like fate that Gerry said immediately, ‘Phil Casey was impressed by your hospitality, Mum. He couldn’t get over the way you welcomed him at that hour and rustled up such a nice supper.’
‘It was the least I could do,’ said Anne, ‘after he’d helped you, and on such a night. I thought he was a really nice fellow.’
‘Yes, he’s a good skin,’ Gerry agreed and went on to talk of other things, but Laura’s mind wandered back to Phil. Everyone seems to like him, she thought.
Later she walked to the station and met Nick as he came off the train at Blundellsands. The weather was bright and dry although very cold and they decided against the large hotel opposite the station and instead walked along to the Brooke Hotel.
It was crowded with young people and Laura saw several friends from the church and the Spanish class, including one who was with a young man who had been at school with Nick. He worked in a local bank and had a flat nearby, he told Nick, and Nick ordered drinks for the couple when he ordered for himself and Laura.
The volume of noise was rising as more and more people arrived but they managed to find a table for four in a quiet corner. The couple had been introduced as Tricia and Nigel and as soon as they sat down Nigel announced that they planned to marry in the following September.
‘You’ve got to plan long-term,’ Tricia said to Laura. ‘I was telling your Julie. The Blundellsands is booked two years ahead for wedding receptions. We were lucky. We got a cancellation for September.’
‘What about you, Nick?’ said Nigel, who seemed a brash young man. ‘Any sign of wedding bells for you?’ He looked at Nick but it was Laura who answered.
‘Oh no,’ she said emphatically. ‘We’ve only just met.’
‘Come off it, Laura,’ Nick protested. ‘We’ve known each other for months.’
Tricia said diplomatically, ‘It just seems a short time to Laura. Time flies when you’re enjoying yourself.’ They all laughed, even Laura though unwillingly, and Nick explained that he had not yet finished teacher training.
‘Will you settle round here when you qualify?’ Tricia asked.
‘It depends where I get a job,’ Nick said vaguely.
‘Some good schools in this area,’ Nigel said. ‘Unless you’re like Tricia’s cousin. He got a first-class honours degree, could have taken his pick of schools, but he chose to teach at some awful sink school in the East End of London. You wouldn’t do that, would you?’
‘Not likely,’ Nick said decidedly. ‘Perhaps he can afford to be an idealist. I can’t. I intend to do what’s best for Nick Clegg. Look after number one, I say.’
‘Following in the family tradition,’ Nigel said slyly. ‘How are they, anyway?’
‘All right,’ Nick answered curtly.
Laura added, ‘It’s Nick’s mother’s birthday today. He’s on his way there now to see her.’ She was anxious to correct the cynical impression she felt that Nick had given but Nigel laughed.
‘The dutiful son, eh?’ he said. ‘That’s a new one, Nick.’
‘She’s fifty and wants a parade of family unity at the Conservative Club so the old man summoned us.’
‘Derek as well? Will he turn up?’ asked Nigel.
Nick laughed disagreeably. ‘He will if he knows I’m going. He’s got to protect his interests, although the old man has no hold over him, as he has over me. He didn’t exactly say I’d have to manage on my grant if I didn’t turn up but the hints were heavy.’
They were all laughing except Laura. She listened with dismay. This was a Nick she had never suspected but perhaps it was all a joke and she was failing to see the point.
She was glad when Nick glanced at his watch and decided that it was time to go, and she could say goodbye to Tricia and Nigel, hoping that she would never see them again. She thought that Nick would feel as she did but he seemed to have enjoyed meeting his old friend.
‘I didn’t expect to see old Nigel in this neck of the woods,’ he said. ‘We’ve been friends since we were about five but I’ve lost touch with him over the last few years.’
‘You didn’t mean that? The way you talked about your family?’ Laura asked. ‘You’ve never talked about them to me.’
He shrugged. ‘Not much to say. We don’t live in each other’s pockets. We’re reserved people, not emotional like your family seem to be.’ Laura’s head jerked round and he said hastily, ‘I don’t mean either way is better than the other, just different.’
‘But you are going to see your mother because it’s her birthday?’ Laura insisted.
Nick simply nodded but then as Laura seemed to expect him to say more he added, ‘My parents live full lives. My mother is very involved with the local Conservative Party, and my old man with business and Masonic dinners and so forth, and of course he gets hauled in for Conservative functions too. They don’t need the company of my brother or me. In fact they’d find it hard to fit us in.’ He laughed.
‘So your family are Conservatives then?’ Laura tried to imagine a meeting between them and her father.
‘Of course. Aren’t yours?’ Nick said in surprise.
‘No, my father’s a Labour councillor.’
‘Good God. That’s unusual in our class,’ Nick exclaimed.
‘What do you mean, our class?’ Laura said belligerently. ‘I’m working class and proud of it.’ Even as she spoke she knew she was simply being contrary. She held no strong views about politics and
at one time had considered joining the Conservative Party just to annoy her father, but she was irritated by Nick’s arrogance and by the side of his nature he had shown while talking to Nigel.
Nick seemed angry. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Laura,’ he snapped. ‘You’re no more working class than I am.’
‘How do you define working class then?’ Laura asked in a tone which should have warned him.
‘Uncouth, illiterate, full of grievances but without any sense of responsibility,’ he blundered on. ‘Like the men my grandfather employed. Always wanting to form a union or shorter hours, more pay, and too stupid to see they were cutting their own throats until it was too late and his business failed.’
His face was flushed and Laura could see that she had touched a nerve but they had reached the bus stop. She only said quietly, My grandfather says no one should argue about politics or religion. He says it’s only an accident of birth that forms our ideas about either so we should respect other people’s views.’
‘He’s right,’ said Nick with one of his sudden changes of mood. He put his arms round her and kissed her. ‘I’m sorry we wasted time talking about such things. Forgive me?’ The bus arrived so she nodded and smiled as he boarded the bus and was borne away but as she walked home her thoughts were not pleasant.
She was not concerned about Nick’s politics but she felt that he had sounded like an intolerant snob. Was that his real self? She would have to think deeply about this before she saw him again.
There was little time to ponder as the whole family was caught up in Anne’s preparations for their visitors, in spite of Gerry’s protests that it was all unnecessary.
Margaret’s parents were very pleasant and friendly. Mrs Norton was very like Margaret, with the same air of cheerful common sense; Mr Norton, who suffered from Parkinson’s disease, seemed very frail. Anne was pleased to see Gerry’s gentle care for him.
‘Gerry’s like a son to us,’ Mr Norton said quietly to Anne later. ‘We always wanted a son. It’s a relief to me to know that there’ll be such a good, sensible lad as Gerry to look after Margaret and her mother when I’m gone.’
Honour Thy Father Page 35