by Anne Bennett
‘God, Janet, I’m so sorry,’ Ruth whispered. ‘I wouldn’t have done that to you for anything.’
‘I know, don’t worry. It will be all over by tomorrow,’ Janet said. ‘At least it’s out in the open this way.’
Ruth wondered how Janet stood such rows, but she didn’t even seem particularly upset. Janet knew her father. Tomorrow, sobered up and lectured by his wife and in-laws, he would be ashamed and apologetic. In the dark of the bedroom she smiled. She could almost feel sorry for him, and she fell asleep dreaming of Ben Hayman.
TWELVE
Janet was right. The day following the party, a repentant and hung-over Bert apologised to his daughter, and she was able to tell him all about Ben and what he intended to do with his life. ‘He wanted to come and see you properly and ask to go out with me,’ she assured her parents. ‘It was just he had such a short time here and I thought … well, I thought if you said no, I wouldn’t be able to work on you to make you change your mind in time.’
Bert chuckled. ‘You’ve got us sussed out right enough,’ he said. ‘And you’re a sensible girl, and Ben is after all from a good home. I’m sorry I made such a fuss. It isn’t that I don’t trust you.’
‘I know, I know,’ Janet assured him. ‘He’ll be pleased you know, he wanted me to tell you. Can I ask him over when his term is finished?’
‘You can, certainly. I’d like to meet the boy my girl is going out with.’
‘Is that who the letters were from?’ Betty asked, and Janet blushed and admitted that it was.
‘Write and tell him he’s welcome,’ Betty said. ‘I’m sure he’s a fine young man.’
‘Oh, I will, I will,’ Janet said, her eyes shining.
The day he arrived home Janet was ecstatic, and Ruth was generous enough not to resent her friend’s happiness. In fact the only person really unhappy about the situation was Leah Hayman.
It was still a whole week before Ruth and Janet’s term ended, and Ben borrowed the car from his father and drove to the school to surprise them both. As he dropped Ruth at their garden gate later, he was spotted driving off with Janet by his eagle-eyed grandmother from her vantage point at the window. She pounced on Ruth as she came through the door. ‘Was that the Travers girl in the car with your brother?’
Ruth was taken aback. Her grandmother was usually resting at this time and she could only surmise that Leah must have been suspicious of Ben when he said he was going to collect Ruth from school. She knew, too, that it was pointless lying; she wasn’t very good at it, for one thing, and for another, her grandmother knew full well who it was in the car. ‘Yes, Ben picked us both up.’
‘I’m aware of that,’ the old lady snapped. ‘He wasn’t in the house five minutes before he was hightailing over to his father’s office for the loan of the car. If he went to fetch you,’ she continued, ‘why didn’t he come in with you? If he had to pick up the Travers girl at all, he should have dropped her off first.’
‘Her name is Janet, Grandmother,’ Ruth said testily, ‘and she lives further from the school than we do, and … and I asked them to drop me first, I have things to do.’
She was lying and Leah Hayman knew it. Now why should that be? ‘Is there something going on between your brother and that common girl?’ she demanded.
Only inherent good manners prevented Ruth from yelling at her grandmother, but she spoke sharply. ‘Of course not, and she’s not common. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have homework.’ And she pushed past the astonished old woman and fled up the stairs.
But she knew her grandmother hadn’t believed her, and she was waiting for Ben to warn him when he returned to the house. She told him about the conversation she’d had with the old woman, and Ben raised his eyes to the ceiling.
‘She’ll have Dad on my back, you’ll see,’ he said.
However, Joseph Hayman refused to speak to Ben about the matter. ‘Mother, he’s twenty years old,’ he’d objected when Leah approached him with her suspicions.
‘So you refuse to do anything about it?’
‘I refuse to meddle in his life.’
‘This girl will destroy him,’ Leah Hayman said.
‘Don’t be so melodramatic, Mother,’ Joseph said irritably. ‘What do you want me to do, draw up a list of suitable girls I approve of?’
Old Mrs Hayman looked at her son out of narrowed eyes. In her day that was exactly what a father did. Sons were expected to do as they were told, and what’s more they generally did.
‘Look, Mother,’ Joseph said placatingly, ‘if he is going out with Janet Travers, where’s the harm? You can’t stand the girl, but the rest of us like her well enough, and she’s been Ruth’s very good friend for five years. As well as that, she’s little more than a child …’
‘She’s seventeen!’ the old lady snapped. ‘The same as Ruth. I was married at seventeen.’
‘Janet won’t be,’ Joseph said, ‘nor Ruth either. Both of them have things they want to do with their lives before they think about marrying. Girls are looking for careers these days.’
Leah Hayman gave a sniff. She had no time for modern girls. What Ruth should be doing was courting a nice young Jewish boy. They should visit a shatchan – a matchmaker – to go into the boy’s prospects and lineage. That was how it had been done in the past. In fact, girls did not go out on their own at all before marriage.
She’d been horrified when a strange lout called Robbie Palmer had called to take Ruth to the pictures, and her parents had let her go. Naomi had even suggested it was not Leah’s affair. She and Joseph had met the boy and he’d seemed nice enough. They could find no reason why Ruth should not go out with him. The old lady had been furious.
Naomi insisted Joseph hold firm and not let his mother interfere so much in their children’s lives. She blamed Leah for Aaron deciding to leave home and live in a flat. He seldom even visited any more.
‘I couldn’t live there again, Mom!’ he’d said when Naomi pleaded with him to return. ‘I couldn’t have Grandmother asking where I was going every minute and who with and what time I’d be in. I couldn’t stand her judging my friends and looking down on my girlfriends.’ He’d shaken his head, kissed Naomi’s cheek and said: ‘Sorry, Mom, I need my independence.’
Naomi had gone home saddened, determined to allow her younger children more freedom. ‘Your mother is living in the past,’ she’d complained to Joseph. ‘We can’t let her drive our children away like this.’
Joseph agreed with his wife. Though he’d been brought up to respect his mother, he knew Naomi had a point. His mother, he realised, had been allowed to dictate to the family. Aaron had coped with it by moving out; he didn’t want the same thing to happen to Ben or Ruth. So he didn’t take his son to task for dating Janet, and he allowed Ruth to see the boy Robbie Palmer.
‘We need to trust our children,’ Naomi said. ‘We’ve brought them up to know right from wrong. We must let them grow up in the modern world.’
Ben and Ruth knew nothing of their parents’ decision. They’d not noticed the slight shift away from their grandmother’s domination in their lives. Ben had been absent from home for weeks at a time, and Ruth had been distracted by her exams. That night Ben waited for the lecture that did not come. Dinner just touched on general topics, and much to Ben’s relief, his grandmother had chosen to eat in her own room, as she did on occasions.
Later he explained his confusion to Janet.
‘Maybe she didn’t tell your dad,’ Janet said.
Ben shook his head. ‘She doesn’t work like that.’
‘What could your dad do about it?’
‘Talk to me, basically,’ Ben said. ‘Discuss it man to man. But nothing happened. Even over dinner the subject wasn’t mentioned. Only later, when I came downstairs changed, did Mother ask me if I was going out. When I said yes, she told me to have a good time.’
‘So it’s all plain sailing for us then,’ Janet said. ‘Everyone likes everyone.’
‘Well, maybe not
everyone,’ Ben said, ‘but I’m glad your father finds me acceptable.’
Bert had been pleasantly surprised by Ben’s charm and good manners. He hadn’t really come to terms yet with the fact that the daughter he thought of as a schoolgirl had seemingly turned overnight into a desirable and beautiful young woman. He knew that one day soon, another man would be more important to his Janet than he was, and that took some getting used to for a father. Yet he had to concede that young Ruth’s brother was a likeable lad. ‘And our Janet seems fond of him, and that’s what matters when all’s said and done.’
So he’d shaken hands with Ben and told him to take good care of his daughter and not be too late back. Behind Ben, Janet, who’d been holding her breath, hoping that this meeting between Ben and her father would go all right, breathed easily again. She kissed her father’s cheek in gratitude for his understanding and gave him a swift hug. ‘Go on, lass,’ he said, ‘and enjoy yourself,’ and his voice was gruff.
The summer belonged to Janet and Ben. Although Janet was working at the department store some days, every other free minute was spent with Ben. She loved him so much she ached. For the first time the family did not have her almost undivided attention. Ben didn’t seem to know how to react to the children, and certainly didn’t want to share Janet with them. Sally would have got over her initial resentment of him quicker if he hadn’t occupied all of Janet’s time, and her mouth was constantly drooping with disappointment.
To be fair, Janet hated to be away from Ben too. She longed for him to be near; she longed also for his hands on her body, for their lovemaking went further than kissing as the summer progressed. In fact sometimes when Ben pulled away, she had to bite her lip to stop herself crying out for him to go on. Now and again she was reminded of her aunt’s warning words, but Breda could never have felt like this, she told herself. She never could have felt desire so intense it demanded to be satisfied.
She took Ben to meet Claire and Richard after he asked repeatedly for an introduction. There was no need to ask if she and Richard were an item, it had become obvious, and Claire had begun divorce proceedings against David, though no one seemed to know where he was. Janet didn’t know anything about divorce, it was not recognised in the Catholic church, but Claire said she could divorce him on desertion, and Janet guessed that pretty soon there would be a marriage announced between Richard Carter and Claire, and was pleased for them.
She was also pleased that Claire was now working at Ferndale. ‘I’d have hated to work with Chloe,’ she said, ‘it’s bad enough that she has Richard, but if I worked there too it might encourage a dependency on me that I don’t want.’
Chloe certainly was a different girl, far more confident than she had been, but just as happy, and Janet wondered if that was down to her home life as much as the work done at Oakhurst, for Claire was more contented in her relationship with Richard, and her mother Mary was delighted because Chloe had a pseudo-father figure who really cared about her.
Both Claire and Richard had been pleased to meet Ben and even more pleased when they learned of his interest in their field of mental health. In fact they monopolised Ben so much, Janet felt rather pushed out and resentful. She spent most of her time playing with Chloe, for though Ben seemed interested in learning about mental health and the strides being made, he did not interact with her at all. She remembered his reticence with Sally and the twins and it bothered her a little, but she told herself he just wasn’t used to children. She was unable and unwilling to see a fault in the man she loved.
As they made their way home from Claire’s, Ben talked about Richard enthusiastically and non-stop. ‘He’s so knowledgeable,’ he said, ‘and he said he’ll open Oakhurst up on my next day over here, so I can look round.’
Janet felt a bit put out. She’d been involved with Claire for years and with Chloe since she was a baby, and yet neither Richard nor Claire had offered to open the unit for her. ‘I’m sure that’s the field I want to specialise in,’ Ben said, and added, ‘Would you like to be married to a doctor specialising in brain-injured children, Janet?’
‘Married?’ Janet was hardly able to believe she’d heard right.
‘I know you’re only young yet,’ Ben said, ‘but I love you and I just want to know if you feel the same.’
‘I’d marry you tomorrow.’ Janet couldn’t believe she’d said that. What about the reluctance to marry she’d felt as a child? Marriage was like slavery, she’d said that to Claire, yet now that she loved someone, she wanted it for herself. Then she remembered Ruth. ‘But I’m not Jewish,’ she said.
‘I’d noticed,’ Ben said. They were nearly at Janet’s gate and Ben suddenly pulled her close in a shop doorway that they were passing. His kisses were urgent and Janet’s whole body was tingling.
‘No, stop!’ she protested, but reluctantly. ‘Ben, we’ve got to discuss this. Ruth told me how it is.’
‘Told you what, exactly?’
‘You know, about your Aunt Rachel and how she was going to marry out and how awful it was.’
‘That,’ said Ben, ‘was years ago. I’m not like timid Aunt Rachel who married the awful Moishe to please my grandmother.’
‘But I don’t want to alienate you from your family.’
‘You won’t,’ Ben insisted. ‘Look, Janet, if I loved a Jewish girl I’d be willing to marry her, but I happen to love one Janet Travers and I want her to be my wife and be by my side always.’
‘Are you sure?’
Ben’s answer was a kiss of tenderness which grew in intensity and sent thrills of excitement coursing through Janet. When he released her she groaned with desire. Ben held her close and murmured, ‘Is that answer enough? You’re marrying me, Janet, not my bloody family, remember that.’
He pulled away from their embraces aware that he was becoming very aroused by Janet’s nearness to him. He took her hand and said, ‘We’d better walk on.’
Janet was a little disappointed, but she said nothing. Anyway, Ben was talking again. ‘Our engagement must be a secret for now, Janet,’ he said. ‘When you are eighteen, I’ll buy you a ring. Of course we won’t be able to marry for years, not until I qualify.’
‘Well, I should be almost through my university course then,’ Janet said, ‘then I want to go to teacher training college for a year.’
‘You won’t need all that now, though,’ Ben said.
‘Why not?’
‘Well, you’re getting married.’
‘Don’t you agree with working women then?’
‘Of course,’ Ben said, ‘until they get married, and then their full-time job is their husband and their home. Then it’s the husband’s job to provide for his wife and family.’
‘Even if the woman wants to work?’
‘Oh, come now …’
‘Claire worked …’
‘Not after she was married.’
‘She did, till Chloe was born, and she’s working again now.’
‘But she’s not married to Richard,’ Ben explained patiently. ‘Look, Janet,’ he went on, drawing her into his arms again. ‘Let’s not quarrel. I love you. I want to marry you and care for you always. I want you to have our children and look after our home. Is that wrong? Isn’t that what you want too?’
And it was, of course, but Janet realised she wanted a career too. She had to make Ben see that, but he was kissing her again and the arguments were flying out of her head. She couldn’t discuss it now anyway, she told herself, it was late and they were both tired. They’d discuss it some other time.
But they never did. Conscious of the passage of time, Janet hated to bring up a subject on which they might disagree. For their limited time together, she wanted harmony. There was, she told herself, plenty of time anyway before they had to make decisions.
‘I don’t know how I’m going to bear it when he leaves,’ she told Breda. ‘I love him so much.’
Breda trembled for her niece, ‘Be careful, lass, and don’t rush into anything.’
>
‘We’re engaged but secretly for the moment,’ she confided to Claire. ‘Of course, it’s years till we can marry.’
‘It’s good to wait at your age,’ Claire said. ‘You have your lives in front of you after all, and you have your career to carve out too, Janet.’
‘Oh yes, of course,’ Janet said. How could she admit to Claire, who’d worked so hard to get her where she was today, that she needn’t have bothered? How could she tell her she was casting it all aside for marriage?
Yet how could she upset the man she loved? Shouldn’t his needs be more important than her own? How could she agree to marry him when they disagreed on basic issues? Yet she couldn’t envisage life without him. The dilemma disturbed her sleep, where she’d lie tossing the problems in her head, but she confided in no one.
The summer rolled relentlessly on and Janet wanted to stop the clock. It had been a particularly hot, dry summer, and as often as Ben could get the car, they went to his special place by the lake at Bodymoor Heath. Their last Sunday together, they spent the day there. They’d brought a picnic with them and sat together eating it, watching the day begin to merge into evening.
Janet had a short sun dress on. It had had a bolero top but it had got hot and she’d removed it. Through the thin material, Ben could feel her pants and the buttons of her suspenders, but no brassiere, and the thought excited him.
Steady, he told himself, and he took his hands from Janet’s body and said, ‘Shall we walk a bit?’
‘Not yet,’ Janet said. ‘I’m too full.’ She lay back and closed her eyes.
Ben got up and walked down to the lake, trying to control his feelings. He loved Janet and wanted her, but they couldn’t risk anything like that. He’d had a fair few sexual encounters with girls he’d dated, and thought little of it. With some girls it was seen as a form of payment for a good night out. They knew the score as well as he did, and he’d made sure there would be no consequences of his actions. But with Janet … This was the last time they’d meet for months and he wanted her badly, but he didn’t know how much Janet was aware of. He was her first boyfriend and so far she had stopped him doing nothing. She didn’t seem able to say no to him, but she was so young. Ben realised that he’d have to be the one to call time in this relationship.