Laura had cleaned the scullery thoroughly, after wrapping Christmas presents and writing last-minute cards, and now she prepared sandwiches and cut cake for her mother.
Anne looked exhausted when she came in and John was fuming. ‘I knew it,’ he told Laura. ‘The shop was like a madhouse and the so-called manageress off sick. Very convenient for her and muggins here run off her feet.’
‘I was swept off my feet when Dad came in,’ Anne said, smiling wearily. ‘He came in like a whirlwind.’
‘Just as well,’ Laura said severely. She poured tea for her mother and urged her to eat but she seemed too tired. Perhaps Dad was right to try to block this job, Laura thought uneasily, but then she decided that her mother must make her own decisions.
Gerry came home a little later and handed a parcel to Laura. ‘From Phil Casey,’ he said. ‘We all went back to the Taylors and went down to the cellar. You should have heard us! All our yesterdays as though we were all ninety. Mrs Taylor was asking about you, Mum.’
‘I haven’t seen her since we got so busy in the shop,’ Anne said. ‘But I’ll be back to normal soon.’ Anne and Mrs Taylor had become friendly after the meetings about Rilla and often spent an afternoon together to talk over a cup of tea.
‘That’s another thing you’re missing with this damned job,’ John said.
Julie had come in and urged Laura to open her parcel. Inside was a porcelain bottle with a dispenser containing Chanel No. 5 hand lotion. There was a card with it and Laura picked it up. ‘Many thanks for your help with the presents. Love, Phil,’ she read, then read it aloud, omitting the word love.
‘I met him in town one day and helped him to choose presents for his parents,’ she explained, annoyed to feel herself blushing.
‘What did you choose?’ asked Julie.
‘Blue Grass scent for his mother and we were able to buy a case of soap and talc and stuff very cheaply with the scent and a cigar case for his father.’
‘And did he know you liked Chanel No. 5 or was it just an inspired guess?’ asked Julie.
‘I told him,’ said Laura. ‘He asked my favourite and I told him about you bringing it home from Lourdes, Gerry, and Uncle Mick giving it to me for birthdays. I never thought of him doing anything like this or I’d never have said it.’
‘He’s a cracking fellow,’ Gerry said. ‘A real good skin. We seem to meet him everywhere we go lately. He was at that gig I did in Bootle and at the Ormskirk one.’
‘With Peter and Gail?’ Laura asked.
‘No, on his own or with another mate. Margaret likes him. He’s so quiet but you can always have a good laugh with him. We were with all the crowd tonight though.’
The conversation turned to other matters and soon Laura said goodnight and went up to bed, carrying her gift. She put the porcelain dispenser on her dressing table and sat looking at it and thinking of Phil.
What if it had been Phil who had been invited for Boxing Day? Would he have gone off doing his own thing and trying to further his career, leaving her alone among all the couples in the family? She was sure he would not. He’d want to be with me and do whatever made me happy, she thought, but perhaps Nick was trying to do something that would ultimately benefit both of them. She remembered the conversation about leaving Liverpool to improve career prospects. Even Mary had picked up the implication that she was involved in Nick’s plans, as she had shown at lunchtime. Yet marriage had never been mentioned between herself and Nick. It’s too soon anyway she thought, yet everyone, including Nick, regarded them as a steady couple. Nick had certainly assumed that if he left Liverpool she would be with him as his wife although nothing had formally been said.
I don’t want him to ask me, she thought in sudden panic. I’m not sure what I want to do, then she comforted herself with the thought that Nick had only recently met her family and she had never met his. But she remembered her Aunt Sarah saying to her mother, ‘And that’s the first time you’ve met Nick after all these months?’ and her mother’s laughing reply, ‘Oh, you know Laura, never does the conventional thing.’ So that was no help.
Laura picked up the dispenser and squeezed some lotion on to her hand, thinking of Phil as she did so. He was another reason for her indecision but perhaps she was reading too much into a gift sent out of good manners. With a gesture of impatience, she switched off the light and slipped into bed.
The following day there was a note on her desk asking her to report to the Personnel Director’s office at ten thirty. Her first thought was has there been a complaint about my work? And the second that her conscience was clear and she would not accept blame for anyone else’s mistakes.
She went to the office with her chin in the air prepared to do battle but the Personnel Director received her politely and asked her to sit down.
He explained that changes would be made in the New Year. The growth in exports meant more documentation so they had decided to form a separate small office for it. ‘We consider you reliable and conscientious, Miss Redmond,’ he said, ‘and very efficient so we have decided to offer you the position of Documentation Manager. You will have your own office and a staff of two and your salary will be increased by five hundred pounds per year, to be reviewed annually. Do you accept?’
Laura was too excited to work for the rest of the day and reflected that she would lose the job before she started if she went on like this. The rest of the staff were pleased for her, with only one or two exceptions, and suggested celebrating with a drink after work.
She explained that Nick was coming to her home early but arranged that the following day, Friday, they would have the celebration. It was Christmas Eve when they only worked until twelve o’clock.
The family were delighted with Laura’s news and her father produced a bottle of sparkling wine to drink to her success. ‘Do you keep a stock of wine for these occasions?’ Laura asked, her face flushed with excitement and happiness.
‘Well, you know what you used to say in the Guides, “Be prepared,”’ John said laughing. ‘I think I’ll have to get a case in for all the celebrations that are coming up.’
Laura phoned Rosa to tell her the good news then handed the phone to her mother to talk to Sarah and ran upstairs to prepare for Nick’s coming.
She wondered how he would react to the news about her promotion but she felt too happy to care. She was still bitterly hurt about his Christmas plans and although she tried to dismiss memories of the Sunday at the Brooke Hotel they often returned. She had been shocked by his comments about his family and about working-class men.
He sounded like a cynical snob, she thought, but he can be so different. I wish I could just forget things as though they’d never happened the way he can, although even that might be a sort of arrogance. He was satisfied so she must be. I’ll have to have it out with him, she decided as she rapidly wound her hair onto Carmen rollers and made up her face. But not tonight she thought with a sudden uprush of happiness. Tonight I’m going to enjoy myself.
When Nick arrived he seemed pleased by her news but less excited than her family had been, although he congratulated her warmly. ‘You look lovely tonight, Laura,’ he murmured as he kissed her.
He had brought Christmas presents of a huge box of chocolates for her mother, a gaily wrapped box of fondants for Julie, a box of cigars for her father and aftershave for Gerry.
The family’s presents for him were beneath the tree and Julie fetched them. ‘Don’t open them until Christmas Day,’ she told him.
‘He’ll be halfway up a mountain on Christmas Day,’ Laura said dryly. ‘Better open them now, Nick.’
‘I’m already wearing my mother’s Christmas present,’ he said, indicating his new leather jacket.
So you recognise Christmas enough to give gifts to each other she was about to say but she curbed her tongue and a little later she and Nick went into the back sitting room.
It was warm and comfortable, lit only by a shaded table lamp and the lights of the Christmas tree, and
they sat close together on the sofa. ‘I was relieved to hear you joke about my Christmas plans,’ Nick said. ‘I wish now I wasn’t going away but I just accepted on impulse. I’m sorry now.’
Laura’s feelings had been softened by the euphoria of her promotion and also by two glasses of wine and she leaned her head on his shoulder. ‘Never mind,’ she said softly. ‘We’ll enjoy New Year together.’
Nick held her close and kissed her tenderly. ‘I love you,’ he whispered, kissing her mouth and her throat and her eyes, as she clung to him. There was a sound in the hall and Laura pulled quickly away but it was only Peter arriving for Julie. The mood had been broken and Laura stood up and put on a record, Simon and Garfunkel singing ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’, which Nick had brought.
Nick took a small parcel from his pocket. ‘I didn’t know what to get you, Lol. I hope you like this,’ he said. Laura opened the jeweller’s box to find a filigree bracelet set with garnets. ‘It’s lovely, Nick,’ she exclaimed in genuine delight.
She kissed him warmly and gave him her present of a pair of gold cufflinks. ‘I know they don’t go with your usual rig of sweater and jeans,’ she joked, ‘but when you’re dining at the top table you can wear them.’
‘That might be sooner than you think,’ Nick said. ‘I’m going to make a success of my life, Laura. I’m determined. I made a bad start but I’ve got plenty of time.’
‘What do you mean, you made a bad start?’ Laura asked curiously.
Nick’s face was grim as he said angrily, ‘I had a lousy education. My father sent me to his old school as a weekly boarder and it was rubbish. He hadn’t realised how it had deteriorated since his day. Then just as I left school he got into business difficulties and teacher training seemed my best option but it was a mistake.’
‘I don’t see why,’ Laura said. ‘You’re doing well at Christ’s, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, but a business career would have given me a better start. By the time I realised that I was halfway through a B. of Ed. degree and it was no use changing horses midstream.’
‘But all this planning you’re doing, getting well in with the parish priest and even going walking with these fellows. I thought that was all with the idea of getting a good teaching post.’
Laura failed to keep her distaste for his scheming from her voice, and Nick said, ‘I know you don’t approve of that, Laura, but it has to be done. I’ll get the best possible teaching post but I don’t intend to spend the rest of my life teaching.’
Laura looked at him thoughtfully. ‘You’re a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde, you know, Nick,’ she said. ‘I remember almost the first time I went out with you, you’d been doing teaching practice in Kirkby and you’d enjoyed it, and now you say you don’t like teaching.’
‘I didn’t say that. I do like teaching but no one ever made a fortune teaching and that’s what I intend to do. My great-grandfather did it and he started from scratch. I’ll do the same, although I’ll have a better start. In February I’ll be twenty-one and I’ll get five thousand pounds under my grandfather’s will, and I’ll get a good degree, I know. I’ve worked damned hard.’ His face was flushed and he sat forward on the sofa, speaking rapidly and forcefully. He had never spoken so freely and with such passion before and Laura looked at him uncertainly. She stood up to change the record and Nick jumped to his feet and put his arms round her.
‘Sorry. We shouldn’t be wasting our evening talking about that,’ he said, kissing her.
‘No, go on, Nick. I’m interested. You’ve never talked about your ambitions before or about your family, for that matter. And I didn’t know you were younger than me.’
‘Very little,’ Nick said. ‘And I’ve nothing to hide about my family. It just hasn’t come up.’ He held her close and swayed to the music then he kissed her again and said exuberantly, ‘Nineteen seventy-one will be our year, Laura. We’ll be up, up and away and the world will be our oyster.’
‘And I’ll have my new job,’ Laura said firmly. ‘I’m going to make a success of that.’
She felt that Nick was going too fast for her and taking too much for granted but he only smiled. ‘Oh, your job,’ he said dismissively. ‘Don’t worry about that. We’ll be far from here and your time will be fully occupied helping me before long.’ He laughed. ‘“Being the hostess with the mostest.”’
Laura pulled away from him. ‘You’re taking a lot for granted, aren’t you? My job’s important to me. What makes you think I’ll drop everything and go off with you as your dogsbody?’ Her face was flushed with anger but Nick chose to pretend that she was joking.
‘Laura, you’re a hoot,’ he exclaimed. ‘You’ll be telling me next I have to go down on one knee and propose.’
‘Anything but!’ Laura said hastily. She was alarmed that he might think she was trying to force a marriage proposal from him and quickly changed the subject, although she wondered later if she had been manipulated as Nick boasted of manipulating others.
‘Tell me more about your family and your great-grandfather,’ she said. They sat down again and Nick slipped his arm around her and told her that his great-grandfather had opened a factory making industrial gloves. ‘The First World War made him,’ he said, ‘but he still had to work on a shoestring. The men never complained though, too glad to have a job.’ He went on to describe the conditions, unaware of Laura’s horror. ‘My grandfather took over a prosperous business in the thirties but he had endless trouble with the men. Bloody-minded. Always moaning about accidents and conditions and wages and making impossible demands and he was harassed by factory inspectors too.’
‘Like wanting to form a union?’ Laura said dryly.
But Nick went on, ‘It was after the war that he really had trouble with the workmen. He had to keep the skilled men on although they were the most demanding but there was a constant turnover of unskilled. Nothing but strikes and rows and government inspectors interfering. He got fed up in the end and closed the place.’
‘Why didn’t he sell it?’ asked Laura. She was enough of her father’s daughter to think immediately of the men’s jobs.
Nick said bitterly, ‘He couldn’t get a decent price but fortunately the firm next door wanted to expand so he sold the ground profitably. That’s where my legacy came from. He died when I was three.’
Laura had moved to sit in a chair facing Nick and in the soft light she thought that, with his eyes narrowed, his beaky nose and his lips in a thin line, he looked like a bird of prey. The memories had aroused his anger again but he seemed to realise this. With an effort he laughed and said, ‘But that’s enough about the past. I just get annoyed when I think of what might have been. But I will succeed, Laura, I promise you.’
‘If you’re a good teacher, you’ll succeed in my opinion,’ she said. ‘That’s a lovely record, isn’t it?’ She stood up and turned it over but Nick was unable to leave the subject.
‘I’ll get a good teaching post but I’ll succeed in business as well. I’m thinking of buying into a record company. It’s only small at present but from little acorns, as they say.’
‘But you won’t be able to take any part in the business, will you?’ said Laura. ‘Teaching’s a full-time job. It seems to fill my Uncle Joe’s life anyway. There are so many after-school things, clubs for the kids and parents’ meetings, and at the weekend he referees school football matches or takes boys away to Colemondy. That’s apart from coaching boys who are falling behind.’
Nick snorted. ‘You can forget that. I’ll do what I’m required to do but I’ll keep plenty of time for my business interests. I won’t be teaching in a school like your uncle’s anyway.’
‘My Uncle Joe never begrudges his time to the kids,’ Laura said hotly. ‘And he’s a happy man. He takes kids on field trips and one of his old pupils is studying botany at Oxford. That’s what I call success.’
Nick came over to her and put his arms round her. ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ he said easily, ‘but we’re wasting time.�
� He glanced at his watch. ‘I’ll have to go soon. Up at five tomorrow. Picked up at five thirty to drive to the Lakes.’
‘Rather you than me,’ Laura said.
‘I wish now I wasn’t going,’ Nick repeated, ‘or that you were coming with me. What about us having a weekend away together at Easter? It’s time we had some time alone.’
Laura glanced at him wondering just what he meant but she only said quietly, ‘I’ll think about it.’
He seemed to have forgotten his anger and was loving and gentle, stroking her hair and murmuring endearments, but when his kisses became more passionate and his hands began to roam about her body Laura sat up and pushed him away.
‘Come on, Laura,’ he urged. ‘Don’t go prim on me now.’
‘No. I told you the score when we first met.’
‘But things have changed,’ Nick coaxed. ‘We’re steady now. And you’re not as narrow-minded as you make out. You’ve accepted Mary and Danny living together.’
‘That’s different,’ Laura said. ‘It doesn’t mean I’d do it. My views haven’t changed.’
‘But you’ve got to move with the times. Get with it. Every girl I know is on the pill now.’
‘I’m not and I don’t intend to be,’ Laura said stubbornly. Surprisingly, Nick laughed. ‘God, you’re a one-off. Prickly as a hedgehog and determined to have your own way, but I can wait, Laura. I know you want to as much as I do.’
‘You’ll wait a long time for me to change my mind,’ Laura warned him but he laughed again and kissed her.
‘Maybe that’s why I love you, because you’re so different. But don’t push your luck.’ He glanced again at his watch. ‘This evening hasn’t gone the way I intended at all,’ he said. ‘I wanted happy memories to take with me but we’ve done nothing but get heavy about my family and argue. And after your family tactfully leaving us alone all evening.’
‘Not for what you seem to think,’ Laura retorted. ‘It hasn’t turned out the way I expected either but I feel I know a lot more about you now.’
Honour Thy Father Page 40