The Girl From Barefoot House

by Maureen Lee

  It was Aunt Ivy who saved the day. She stood and clapped her hands. ‘How about a little walk to the sweetshop?’ she cried. ‘You two an’ all, Peter and Colette. Colette, you take Gillian’s hand, she’s only a little ‘un. Peter, you can keep an eye on the others. Come on. We won’t be long,’ she sang gaily.

  They left. Ben stayed with his head buried in his mother’s breast. Josie couldn’t tell if he was crying. It seemed ages before he looked up. His dead eyes searched for Josie, and he said in a cracked voice, ‘I’m sorry if I’ve spoiled the party.’

  ‘You haven’t —’ Josie began, but Lily interrupted.

  ‘That bloody Imelda – what’s she done now?’

  ‘Shush, luv,’ Mrs Kavanagh chided.

  ‘I will not shush. She’s ruining our Ben’s life. Did you see the faces of them kids? They look set for a nervous breakdown.’

  ‘Lily, girl, please shush.’

  ‘No, Ma. Why don’t you leave her?’ Lily demanded angrily of her brother. ‘Why put up with it all this while?’

  Ben sat on the deckchair Aunt Ivy had vacated. ‘I can’t leave Imelda, she’s sick.’

  ‘No she’s not, she’s evil,’ Lily said flatly.

  ‘Lily!’

  ‘Be quiet, Ma. Anyone with an ounce of spunk would have left years ago. I wouldn’t have stood it for a minute, me.’

  Josie went to put the kettle on, but could still hear the argument raging on her lawn. She hoped the neighbours weren’t listening.

  ‘I can’t walk out and leave the children, Lil,’ Ben was saying. ‘I can’t just take them away either. Imelda’s their mother. Believe it or not, they love her. Peter’s old enough to guess there’s something wrong. He used to be frightened, but now he gets protective when she has one of her rages.’

  ‘Rages! Huh!’ Lily said contemptuously. ‘How did you manage to escape today? Did she write you a pass or something? What time have you got to be back?’

  ‘She took another overdose last night,’ Ben said wearily. ‘She’s in hospital again. I know I should be with her, but I had the children to think of. She’ll sleep all day, and I’ll fetch her home tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh, no, son!’ Mrs Kavanagh’s voice quivered like an old woman’s.

  Lily was unimpressed. ‘She never takes enough to finish herself off, does she? Next time she decides to kill herself, I hope she lets me know first, and I’ll encourage her to take a fatal dose. Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say.’

  ‘Have a heart, Lil. The doctors say it’s a cry for help.’

  ‘I’m all heart, Ben,’ Lily said virtuously, ‘but where Imelda’s concerned, it’s made of iron.’

  There were footsteps down the side of the house and Francie O’Leary appeared. Josie dragged him into the kitchen. ‘Don’t interrupt. It’s a family row.’

  ‘Is that Ben?’ Francie said, aghast. ‘Jaysus, he looks about eighty. He’s only thirty-four, same as me. I wrote to him, years ago, but never got an answer. What’s happened to the party? Where are the kids?’

  ‘Gone to the shops with Auntie Ivy.’ She closed the door to shut out the row. Lily had started to shriek. ‘As you can see, there’s been an upset. What are you doing here, anyroad? I wouldn’t have thought a children’s party was your scene.’

  Francie gloomily stuffed his hands in his pockets. ‘Anything’s my scene these days, Jose. The house seems like a morgue since me mam died. I feel so lonely, I’m thinking of getting married.’ He grinned. ‘Who should I ask?’

  She grinned back, knowing he was only joking and glad he was there to lighten the mood of the day which had suddenly turned so tragic. ‘I don’t know, Francie. As long as it’s not me, because I’d turn you down.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of asking you and spoiling a perfect friendship!’ he said in a shocked voice.

  ‘Mind you, you’d be a good catch, especially since your printing business has taken off.’ He now employed six people. She looked at him appraisingly. He was still attractive in a lean, pinched way, and his black outfit – leather jacket, polo-necked sweater, flared trousers, boots – gave him an appealingly sinister air. Since the Beatles had taken Liverpool and the whole world by storm a few years ago, and long hair had become fashionable, Francie had acquired a dashing ponytail.

  ‘You’re the first girl I ever fancied.’ He leered at her and winked. ‘I mean, really fancied. I used to be dead envious of Ben.’ He went over to the window. Ben was staring at the grass, his arms folded, his long face inscrutable. Mrs Kavanagh was crying, Lily shouting and waving her arms. ‘The way things change, eh!’ Francie said softly. ‘I feel dead sorry for him now.’

  The party turned out a success after all. Aunt Ivy came back, having bought the children each a present. ‘We found a toy shop,’ she smiled. ‘I thought it might cheer them two up.’ She nodded at Peter and Colette. Peter was earnestly studying a travel chess set, and Colette was nursing a fluffy dog, more suitable for a child half her age. They looked almost happy. ‘Before you say anything about the money, Alf would only have cadged it off me for the horses. It’s better spent this way.’

  Josie had never appreciated Aunt Ivy so much before. She felt sufficiently moved to bestow a kiss on the yellow cheek. ‘Ta. I don’t know what I’d have done without you today.’

  The drama in the garden seemed to be over, though Lily was in a mood for the rest of the afternoon. Josie brought a chair from upstairs and the stool from the bathroom to accommodate the extra guests, and the children sat down to tea. Ben brought his mother inside for a welcome cup of tea, and was astonished to find his old friend Francie skulking in the kitchen.

  ‘It’s good to see you, mate.’ They shook hands and punched each others’ shoulders, and Josie was touched to see the lines of strain on Ben’s face melt away. He looked almost like the Ben she used to know.

  At six o’clock the mothers of Dinah’s two school-friends came to collect them, and Aunt Ivy supposed she’d better get back to Alf. Neil arrived, and Lily offered her mother a lift home.

  ‘Ben can take me,’ Mrs Kavanagh said. ‘You’re coming back to ours, aren’t you, son?’

  ‘I thought me and Ben could go for a drink later,’ Francie said quickly.

  ‘Would you mind having the children, Ma?’

  ‘Of course not, son. I hardly ever see them nowadays.’ Mrs Kavanagh seemed drained after the trauma of the day. She patted Ben’s arm. ‘You have a nice time, now.’

  ‘I’ll take you home, then come back. I wonder where I left the car?’ Ben looked slightly harassed.

  ‘Don’t worry, I can squeeze everyone in. It’s only a minute to our house. I’ll drop Lily and the girls off, then take your mam and the kids home.’ Neil Baxter’s earnest, good-natured face glowed with a willingness to help. ‘Are you ready, love?’

  Lily’s eyes flickered from Josie to Francie to Ben, as if she resented leaving them behind. Gillian pulled at her skirt. ‘Want beddy-byes, Mummy,’ she whined. Lily turned on her heel and left the room without a word.

  Dinah thanked her guests nicely for the presents, and Josie went to the door to say goodbye as her house suddenly emptied. ‘Why don’t you come back later?’ she said to Lily. ‘It would be like old times, the four of us together. Neil wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘I’m a married woman,’ Lily said stiffly, ‘Not a free agent like you.’

  ‘Thanks for reminding me, Lil.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’ Lily’s cheeks went pink. ‘It’s just there’s the children to bath and put to bed, Neil’s tea to make, the pools to check, the telly to watch, and I always make a cup of cocoa before we go to bed at about eleven.’ Her voice was surprisingly harsh. ‘Next Saturday will be exactly the same, and the Saturday after that, and so on. I don’t know why I was so keen on getting married, Josie. It’s more dead bloody boring than working in an office. I sometimes wish I were a lesbian like our Daisy. She has loads more fun than I do.’

  Josie hid a smile. She glanced at Neil, waiting patien
tly for his wife, Gillian in his arms. ‘You’ve got a husband in a million there, Lil. You don’t realise how lucky you are.’

  ‘I don’t call it lucky to have landed a chap as dull as the proverbial ditchwater,’ Lily snapped. ‘I should never have married him. I don’t love him, and I never will.’ She marched away, turned round and marched back again. ‘Don’t take any notice of me, Josie. It’s seeing Francie that’s made me feel like this. He looks so gorgeous, so exciting in that outfit. Neil wouldn’t grow a ponytail if you paid him, and he wouldn’t be seen dead in a leather jacket. Yet he’s worth ten Francie O’Learys.’ She grinned. ‘I must remind meself of that when we go to bed.’

  Ben and Francie decided to start off the night with a Chinese meal. They left a few hours later to catch a taxi into town, on the assumption they would both be too drunk to drive home. Dinah went to bed with Francie’s present, a rubber date stamp and pad that had fascinated her so much when Josie had taken her to the small print works a few weeks previously. The house seemed unnaturally quiet, welcome after the chaos of the day. Aunt Ivy had washed the dishes, everywhere was tidy. It was time to read properly the contents of the fat envelope which had arrived by air mail that morning from Crosby, Buckmaster & Littlebrown in California.

  Dick Schneider’s letter was couched in friendly tones. His client was pleased to learn she was in agreement to an amicable divorce. Would she kindly read the enclosed papers carefully and sign those places marked with a cross? If she would prefer to take advice from her own lawyer first, then all expenses would be paid. Whatever the case, he would appreciate her treating the matter with some urgency.

  Jack was obviously in a hurry to marry his new wife, Josie thought bitterly. Lily had tried to persuade her to ask for alimony, but Josie didn’t want a penny.

  ‘Tell them about Dinah,’ Lily had urged. ‘After all, she’s Jack’s child every bit as much as yours. He should take some responsibility.’ Then, more grudgingly, she added, ‘He has a right to know, Jose, particularly after what happened with Laura. And Dinah has rights, too. She’s started school, and any minute now she’ll want to know why she hasn’t got a dad like the other kids. Are you prepared to tell her he doesn’t know she exists? It was different before. You didn’t know where he was, but now you do, at least this lawyer does. You could send a photograph.’

  Dinah had thought Francie was her dad, he was around so much. She didn’t seem to mind when told he wasn’t, and the subject hadn’t come up again. Though Lily was talking sense for once. Dinah would want to know one day, and it would be unfair on her, and Jack, to deny them knowledge of each other.

  Josie took a deep breath, signed the forms in the places marked with a cross, then wrote a brief letter informing Jack he had a daughter, Dinah, whose fifth birthday it was that very day. She enclosed a snapshot of their little girl in a bathing costume on Birkdale sands. Dinah, posing stiffly, spade in one hand, bucket in the other, had treated the camera to one of her rare, sweet smiles. Her pale hair was being blown into her eyes. She looked fragile, yet there was a toughness about her stance, an air of confidence, that plump, fun-loving Laura had never had. She put the letter and the photograph in an envelope marked ‘Jack Coltrane, Strictly Confidential’ and enclosed it with the papers in the large, self-addressed envelope Dick Schneider had sent. She sealed it, and stamped the flap with her fist.

  ‘There!’ she said aloud. There might be more forms to sign, she didn’t know, but in a few weeks or months she would be a single woman again, ‘on the market’, as Lily had put it.

  Except she didn’t want to be. She sat on the tiny settee and tried not to go through all the ‘if onlys’. If only she hadn’t done this, said that, gone there. The trouble was, most people needed two chances at life so they could do things right the second time around.

  Still, it was too late for a second chance with Jack. She got resolutely to her feet and went upstairs to check on Dinah, who was fast asleep, having stamped the date several times on her new doll’s forehead. Downstairs, she watched a play on television, and wondered if Ben and Francie would come back to hers or return for their cars in the morning.

  At half eleven, when there’d been no sign of either, she went to bed, and had just read the first page of an Ed McBain thriller when there was a knock on the door. She groaned, slipped into a dressing-gown and went to answer it.

  Ben was outside, grinning at her stupidly, looking young, very boyish and extremely drunk. ‘I’ve come for my children.’

  ‘They’re at your mother’s. Oh, you’d better come in,’ she said, too late, as Ben had virtually fallen inside the door.

  ‘Francie said they were here. Or was it my car?’

  ‘Your car’s around somewhere.’ She helped him to his feet. ‘I’ll make some black coffee, sober you up.’ She went into the kitchen. If only she’d had a phone, she would have called a taxi. After he’d had the coffee, she’d get dressed and call one from the box on the main street.

  She was running water in the kettle when Ben came lurching in. To her astonishment, he grabbed her by the waist and said hoarsely, ‘I don’t want coffee, I want you. That’s why I came back – not for the kids or the car, but for you.’

  For one mad, wild moment she felt a surge of desire. It was so long, too long, since she’d made love, and the pressure of his hands on the curve of her hips reminded her of what she had been missing. But common sense returned, and she moved out of his reach. ‘Don’t be silly, Ben,’ she said shortly.

  He dragged her back against him, his hands grasped her breasts, he groaned. ‘I love you, Josie.’ He buried his head in her neck. ‘Not silly, love you, love you, love you.’

  ‘You’re drunk, Ben. You’ll feel dead embarrassed tomorrow.’ She tried again to move away, but his hands tightened on her breasts. She was trapped. She jerked her elbow sharply back into his stomach, but it had no effect.

  ‘I’ve never loved anyone but you,’ he was saying, almost sobbing against her neck. ‘You were my girl, my special girl. We were going to get married. What happened, Jose? Why didn’t we?’ He turned her round so they were facing each other, and she stared, shocked, at the ravaged face, the haunted eyes. ‘What happened, Josie?’

  Life, she wanted to say. Life happened. Wrong decisions, right decisions. You said no when you meant yes, or the other way around. Someone else might have married Imelda, another woman might have married Jack Coltrane. Laura might not have been born, Laura might not be dead.

  Ben was kissing her, kissing her roughly, hungrily, trying to force her mouth open with his tongue. She resisted and felt his teeth grind against her own. This wasn’t the Ben she used to know. She didn’t like this Ben at all. His hands were tugging at the belt on her dressing-gown, undoing it, caressing her body, hurting it, through the thin material of her nightie, telling her all the time how much he loved her, missed her, wanted her, that she was on his mind every minute of every day. She was the only woman for him, always had been, always would, and she was so beautiful, so precious.

  Now he was touching between her legs, and she felt him shudder powerfully against her. She contemplated screaming. The walls of the house were paper thin. Someone would hear, someone would come, rescue her. The police would be called. But she didn’t want to do that, not to this tragic, unhappy man. Not to Ben. Nor did she want to frighten Dinah.

  Josie stopped struggling and let herself go limp. She gently clasped his face in her hands and said in a soft voice, ‘Are you going to rape me, Ben?’

  He froze. He stayed completely still for a long time. Then he removed his hands, stepped back. ‘Jesus Christ, Josie. I’m so sorry.’ He didn’t meet her eyes.

  She picked up the kettle. ‘Go and sit down, and I’ll make us both a cup of coffee.’

  The kettle rattled on the ancient gas stove so she didn’t hear the front door open and close, and when Josie went into the parlour with two cups of coffee, Ben had gone.

  He came early next morning to apologise, extremely sha
mefaced, highly embarrassed. She’d had a feeling he would. Dinah had gone to Mass with Aunt Ivy. Josie, her head still spinning after the previous day, intended to go later.

  ‘I walked home last night, sobered myself up,’ he said on the doorstep. ‘This time I really have come to collect my car – if I can remember where I left it.’

  ‘Come in.’ She half smiled, and he gave a sigh of relief.

  ‘I thought I’d blotted my copybook for ever. I don’t know what came over me last night, Josie. I’ve never behaved like that before. Mind you, I’ve never been so drunk either.’

  ‘Let’s put it down to a single aberration.’ They went into the parlour and he glanced appreciatively around the tiny room.

  ‘I like it here. It’s so calm and comfortable, like a fairy-tale house.’ His lips twisted slightly. ‘A fairy-tale house for a fairy queen. Remember the fairy queen in The Wizard of Oz, Jose? We saw it together. You said you’d love a frock like hers.’

  ‘She was a good witch, not a fairy.’

  ‘Was she?’ He looked oddly troubled. ‘I thought I could remember everything we did with complete clarity.’

  ‘I’ve seen the film twice since, first with Laura, then Dinah.’

  He gave a rueful smile. ‘It keeps me going, reliving the times we spent together. Some mornings I wake up and try to imagine it’s you in bed beside me, that we got married after all. I drive home from work, and think what it would be like if you opened the door.’

  ‘Ben,’ she said warningly, ‘I wouldn’t have let you in if I’d known the conversation would turn this way.’

  ‘Sorry, Jose.’ He glanced at her curiously. ‘But we’ve both made a complete cock-up of things. You’re separated, my marriage isn’t exactly what you’d call happy. Aren’t you ever sorry we didn’t get married?’

  She shook her head firmly. ‘No, Ben.’ She had thought about it sometimes, but never with regret.

  ‘I just wondered.’

  Aunt Ivy and Dinah could be heard coming in the back way. Ben got up to leave. ‘Can I come and see you occasionally? Just to talk?’