by Marie Joseph
‘I don’t know whether Ben did it or not, sir,’ she said at last. ‘He often disappears for months at a time, his sister told me. It may just have been a coincidence, but he would take it bad about getting the sack and not being given a reference.’
Simon moved his injured leg too quickly and smothered a groan. His face flushed with irritation and an impatience he was finding hard to control.
‘Dammit, girl! I had no choice! He was taking stock, good stuff, and his sister was brazen enough to wear what he had taken. Did you know that?’
‘Patty wouldn’t know,’ Emma said quickly. ‘She’s rough, but she’s not dishonest. She has a little girl not quite right in the head, and a man who hits her.’ She bit her lip. The canteen was filling up, and they were being stared at. Everybody knew that at Delta Dresses management and staff shared tables and acted democratic-like, but Mr Simon was angry. For no good reason he was angry with her, and it showed. His face was dark with anger, and she was trying to make him see. trying to make him understand.
‘Ben never knew a proper father. He’s never had a proper home. He has a black side to him, but most of the time he tries to be happy. He is happy, sir. In spite of everything he can still laugh. He needs help, sir. Badly he needs help, not punishment.’
‘You missed your way, Emma Sparrow. You should have been a social worker, do you know that? Any minute now and you’ll be telling me your own father is in prison because he’s a victim of circumstances. Simon shook his head from side to side. ‘It’s women like you who make men like Ben Bamford and your father into what they are. Okay, I believe you when you say you don’t know why Ben left town, but if you knew he was responsible for this….’, he pointed to his eye and slapped his leg, ‘would you still say he was just working out his resentment against me?’
He stopped abruptly. What the hell was he doing? Arguing the toss with one of his girl machinists, with the rest of the workforce watching from the side lines. The anger drained from him, leaving him trembling and weak. Putting both hands on the table he levered himself up into a standing position.
‘I’m sorry I misjudged you,’ he said. ‘I believe you when you say you know nothing about all this. But if Ben Bamford does come back, perhaps you would let me know? I haven’t told the police my suspicions, but all the same I would like a word with him. Okay?’
He walked away, straight and tall, limping slightly, leaving Emma sitting still at the table, her coffee untouched and her packet of biscuits unwrapped.
There was a singing in her ears and a pounding in her chest. For a moment as he had placed both hands on the table she had been overwhelmed with an urge to stretch out her own hand and cover one of his hands with it. She had felt no anger at the things he had said; she realized that in his weakness he had been merely striking out at whoever was nearest. But this … this feeling of tenderness was spreading through her, causing her stomach to contract in a sharp grinding pain.
He was hurt, had been badly hurt, and she wanted to soothe, to comfort, to stroke his pain away. She was too soft. She would have made a bloody social worker, just as he had said. She understood when she should have condemned.
But oh, his hand with its long fingers and its clean oval nails…. For a wild moment she imagined lifting it and holding it against her cheek. She just knew the way his touch would be….
And he despised her. He hated her for the company she kept, and he was as far above her as the bloody stars in the bloody sky.
‘Emma! You don’t swear! You never swear!’ She remembered Sharon’s young voice, shocked into insecurity, and saw again the bewilderment in her stepsister’s blue eyes.
‘But I do swear,’ Emma told herself. ‘There are times when all the swear-words in the world could not express the way I feel. Like now,’ she went on, muttering to herself. ‘Like bloody now!’
Seven
BEFORE THE MONTH was out Chloe had tied up the loose ends of her job in London, hand-picked her successor and left the young man with his head in a whirl from her quick-fire instructions, intricately kept files and cross-indexed way of running the office.
‘Now, honey,’ she told Simon, ‘you just get on with what you have to do and leave the house settling to me. I’m going to enjoy getting the place we picked fixed up, and I’m not even going to think about getting another job till it’s all done and I’ve been back home. Till we’ve been back home.’
‘I can’t come with you, Chloe, and that is that.’ Simon was sprawled in an orange vinyl armchair in the furnished flat, his grasshopper-like legs stretched out to the silver-gilt gas fire. ‘No way can I leave the mail order set-up at the moment. Prices are fluctuating so much that the mock-up of the new catalogue is out of date almost before the ink has had time to dry. As it is, I am having to budget for an extra warehouse to consolidate what we have already bought. The way things are going we will be selling at a loss before the thing has even got off the ground.’
‘Pooh!’ Chloe wrestled with a mammoth-sized book of Sanderson prints, twisting it round and holding up a sample to the light for better effect. ‘These are the drapes we’re going to have in what that sweet little man at the agency called the “master bedroom”. Green with a white carpet. Pretty, eh?’
Simon watched her as she pondered, selected, changed her mind and came back to her first choice. He had tried to explain that not until the contract was signed would she be allowed to do anything to the new house set well back from the main road, a modern open-plan house built into a hill, with the back sloping down to a little wood carpeted at the moment with vivid patches of bluebells. But Chloe had waved his warnings aside.
‘But the old couple are leaving, honey. It’s all arranged. They have given me a key and said I can go over any time. I am going to have the carpets laid long before we move in, and the drapes all up, and the kitchen fitted. It’s your job, honey, that’s making you ultra-cautious. It’s making you middle-aged!’
That had hurt. No way could he have been called that even two years ago, but now, bearing the financial responsibility for two companies, there were days when he felt middle-aged. He had seen one or two silver hairs in the thick dark waves springing back from his forehead, and most nights he was even too tired to make love.
‘But I am not taking time off to come with you to the States,’ he said firmly. ‘It would be impossible. Out of the question.’
Chloe threw down the book so that it landed with a thump on the highly patterned carpet.
‘We might as well be married,’ she said, curling her long legs up beneath her and reaching for a cassette in the file at her side. ‘And does it ever stop raining up here?’ She glanced towards the window. ‘Grey skies, grey faces. I went into town today and it was hard to tell the difference between the Pakistani women shoppers and the locals. Every one of them dark and morose as if something unspeakable was about to happen round the next corner. Does no one ever smile, for heaven’s sake?’
‘Some of them have little to smile about.’ Simon leaned back and closed his eyes as a Chopin waltz filled his mind with soothing sound. ‘How would you like to work all day long crouched over a sewing machine, never even having the pleasure of holding the finished product in your hands? So many sleeves, so many collars, one after the other, then back to a house furnished as unjoyously as this, worse than this,’ he amended, seeing in his mind’s eye the front living-room at Emma Sparrow’s house with its air of shabby neglect. ‘My God, we don’t know the half of it!’
‘Don’t call on God, He’s on their side, honey.’ Chloe, inactive for too long, jumped up and walked over to the window to stare out at the rain. ‘They don’t even realize they are being deprived.’ She pointed a finger at the green work-file on the small table by Simon’s chair. ‘They don’t take work home with them and worry about balance sheets when they should be relaxing. Off they clock, or whatever it is they do, then forget the factory the minute they step outside. A chip butty, then off they go to the pub or the club. Not a care i
n the world. Oh yes, honey, God is on their side all right.’
‘Some of them have problems, love.’ Simon reached for the file and opened it. ‘Responsibilities don’t always stop at the factory gates.’
‘There are three silver hairs sprouting from the top of your head,’ Chloe said, and went into the kitchen to lean against the old-fashioned drop-leaf dresser and wait for the coffee percolator to begin to bubble.
‘One mug of instant coming up,’ Sharon said, handing the steaming coffee to Emma. ‘I wish you would stop waiting up for me. Why don’t you go to bed early when you’ve been ironing? I thought for a minute you were going grey when I came in, but it was only the light from the lamp on the telly. I wouldn’t be surprised, though. You look awful, our Emma, honest you do.’
‘Thank you.’ Emma took the mug and curved both hands round its warmth. ‘Have you ever known a spring like this one? The smell of wet coats on the bus tonight was terrible. Like mouldy dishcloths.’
‘We’ve fixed the date.’ Sharon sat down on the settee, dangling both legs over the battle-scarred arm-rest.
‘The date for what?’
‘For the wedding, dope!’ Sharon swung her legs till her sling-backed shoes fell off. ‘It has to be October because that is the soonest Mrs Rostron could fix both the church and the reception. We’re having it at the Pied Bull out the Preston side. A proper sit-down meal with steak and kidney, followed by trifle and everything. And I’m going to look in the July sales for a dress and veil. I want a tight waist and points coming down over my wrists, an’ a high neck with a sort of mandarin collar, an’ a kind of short circular veil with the front part to come down over my face when I’m in church.’ Her blue eyes glowed with excitement. ‘Then when the service is over I’ll turn to you, because you’ll be my bridesmaid, of course, and you can lift my veil back. But I don’t want it all sticking out like you see in some of the photographs in the paper. Some brides look like meringues, I always think.’
‘Sharon!’ Emma put her coffee mug down on the tiled hearth and held up her hand. ‘Steady on a bit. Where’s the money coming from for a do like that? For a dress like that? Have you any idea how much a reception at the Pied Bull would cost? You wouldn’t get it for a penny less than eight pounds a head, not nowadays.’
Sharon swung her legs down and slid on to the rug in front of the electric fire. ‘Ricky’s parents are paying, dope. They said with me not having a mother or anything, and with my dad being ... well, with him not being in regular work, it would be their pleasure to pay.’ She drew her knees up to her chin and laid her head down. ‘Ricky’s an only one, don’t forget, and Mrs Rostron said with not having a daughter she would have been done out of planning a proper wedding. She’s right chuffed about it.’
‘But I’ve never even met her!’ Emma leaned forward. ‘We can’t let her do all that. I know Dad can’t afford a posh affair, but he has his pride. I know what he’ll say about it when you tell him.’
‘He has nowt to do with it.’ Sharon’s face was flushed with the direct heat from the fire. ‘He’s got no say, not with what he’s done. I would have asked for the wedding to be brought forward so that he would still be where he is, but Mr Rostron said it’s only fair to have him give me away. They’re ever so broad-minded considering they’re such big Chapel workers. Mr Rostron lets Ricky’s mother have all her own way, but he did put his foot down when she wanted the men to dress up in monkey suits and top hats, and Ricky and me agreed with him. Oh, our Emma, can you just imagine our dad in a grey top hat and striped coat and tails? I’d die laughing.’
Her light voice prattled on, and Emma half closed her eyes, only listening with a vague concentration. Little Sharon, already on the pill and planning every detail of a white wedding. The virginal bride floating down the aisle on her father’s arm with a veil covering her blushes. With that boy, that spotty boy waiting for her at the chancel steps – it would be funny if it weren’t so … so sad.
‘You are sure it’s not just the thought of a big wedding that’s making you want to get married?’ Emma slid down to sit with her back against the chair. ‘Remember you’ve a long time to live after all the fuss is over. It won’t be the same living with a mother-in-law. If you are determined to get married, wouldn’t it be better to ask the Rostrons to give you the money they would be spending on just the one day and use it to furnish a two-roomed flat somewhere? At least you would be on your own that way.’
Sharon’s small mouth set hard. ‘I have told you and told you, our Emma. I know what it would be like living there. Mrs Rostron doesn’t go out to work, not even half-time. She sews and bakes, and when I go for my tea there I just sit straight down at the table and there’s a plate put in front of me. She makes casseroles with chicken pieces, and hot-pots, and she takes her pinny off before she sits down. An’ they don’t just sit and watch telly all night. They discuss things. They play rummy sometimes, and every night at ten o’clock Mrs Rostron goes through and makes Horlicks. It’s proper living, our Emma. You just don’t know!’ She gazed at the fire as if seeing pictures in the glowing electric bars. ‘I did wonder if our Joe might be a page-boy? You know, in a proper suit with a white shirt and a little dark-red bow-tie. But then he’s a bit big. No, I think I’ll just have the one bridesmaid. I think you would look nice in pale-blue, Emma, although green’s your colour, except that it might be unlucky.’
When Sharon had gone up to bed at last, with everything practically decided except for the hymns and the kind of flowers to carry, Emma sat on for a while, too tired to move and too exhausted to sleep.
She felt mean and small not being able to share Sharon’s excitement. There was a dullness inside her as if she were incapable of feeling anything at all. Reaching up she switched off the lamp on top of the television set and went on sitting in the darkness trying to work out what she really thought about it all. Had the unknown Mrs Rostron with her fur stole and her slow-cooked casseroles really decided Sharon was the daughter she had never had, or was she merely making sure that her wandering boy stayed at home? Would it be as Sharon was sure it would be, or would Ricky’s mother begin to feel resentment when she realized that Sharon was more than ready to be waited on hand and foot? What would happen when the babies came? Would Mrs Rostron take them over also?
And did any of it matter? Was she, Emma Sparrow, merely envious? Was she seeing, sitting here in the dark, the future, her own future stretching ahead with years of looking after the boys and her father? With no Sharon to take even the smallest share of the burden?
And worse than that, was she growing old long, long before her time, so that hearing of another’s happiness twisted her guts with bitterness and precluded her from enjoying, even vicariously, their joy?
Was that the Emma Sparrow she had wanted to be?
Wearily Emma got to her feet, switched off the fire and went slowly up to bed. The slow drippy spring was ending. Soon it would be summer and the school holidays and the boys would be running the streets all day. She would have made thousands more buttonholes, cooked another legion of fish fingers, and thrown a dozen or so empty tomato sauce bottles away in the bin.
She undressed in the bathroom, washed her face, brushed her teeth and took a clean nightgown from the airing cupboard. She thought about her father in a morning suit with a top hat slipping down over his ears, and went to bed laughing … but not too much in case she woke Sharon, who was asleep with the light shining straight down on to her face.
‘Absolutely not,’ Simon was telling Chloe, almost to the day he drove her to the airport. ‘No way can I come with you, love.’ He ruffled her hair then bent his head and kissed her mouth, but there was no response.
‘Two weeks, two lousy weeks, that’s all. You could fly back and leave me there, for heaven’s sake! Are you trying to tell me that Delta Dresses and the piffling mail order thing would disintegrate without you doing their sums for them for two lousy weeks?’
She was bored. Chloe would always be bored if
she wasn’t doing three things at once, and the new house wasn’t progressing as fast as she had thought it would. Chloe was discovering that workmen turned up, then disappeared either on account of the rain or because the sun was shining and they wanted to get on with somebody else’s outdoor painting. Kitchen units took weeks to arrive, and when they came they were sometimes the wrong size or even, heaven forbid, the wrong colour.
‘This wouldn’t be allowed to happen back home,’ she said. ‘I’ve known Momma go into a store, order something and find it waiting for her when she got back. Do you wonder this country is getting a third-rate reputation?’ She put up a hand as if to stop a sudden surging stream of traffic. ‘And don’t look at me like that. I can see Union Jacks in your eyes. I was only joking, for heaven’s sake!’
‘Do you really believe I wouldn’t like to come with you?’ Simon picked up the gold-rimmed glasses he had taken to wearing and put them on. ‘I don’t count sheep when I am trying to go to sleep. I multiply the buggers then take their square bloody root. It’s not Union Jacks you see in my eyes, it’s figures. Columns of them, all screaming out to be balanced.’
Chloe stopped arguing. It was obviously useless. She would just have to go alone, and hope that by the time she came back they could think about moving in. Then she would find a job. She started to walk round the cluttered room, taking long strides that brought her up sharp against a piece of overstuffed furniture. It was okay for Simon. His adrenalin was pumping madly, in spite of his obvious weariness. His work stimulated him, gave each day fresh impetus. He was facing a challenge and glorying in it, whilst she, left at home, tidied the hideous flat and drove into town to match samples of material and try to co-ordinate scatter rugs with the colour she had picked out for the bathroom units.
She sat down and tried to collect her thoughts. Okay, so she understood that what Simon was doing he was doing for her and their future life together. She scowled. What kind of archaic reasoning was that? She didn’t want a man who turned himself into a workaholic just so his wife could have a patio built or hire a cabin cruiser on the river. She wanted a man who enjoyed her company.