by Anne Bennett
By the end of January 1939 world events ceased to concern Meg as much as the foul weather, and she was immensely grateful for the new winter coats. A heavy snowfall had frozen, then further snow had fallen on top of the ice; then this had frozen, too and so on all week. It played havoc with the sports fixtures, with many events cancelled, and so, on the last Friday evening in January as they ate their dinner Charlie had said that Terry mustn’t even try to play football in the park the following morning.
‘Not worth it,’ he said. ‘You’d only have to fall on that frozen ground and you’d end up with a broken leg or something.’
Instead, Terry had gone to get his hair cut, and their dad had given the younger ones money for the pictures, so Meg and Ruth had the house to themselves for once, but the children hadn’t long left the house when Meg was surprised to see Nicholas come in the door. ‘Terry’s not playing football today,’ she said, ‘because of the weather.’
‘I know,’ Nicholas said. ‘I spotted him going in to the barber’s and took a chance on getting you on your own.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yeah. I need to tell you something, but it’s sort of delicate.’
‘Can’t be that delicate,’ Meg declared, with a smile. ‘Come on, spit it out.’
Nicholas’s expression didn’t alter, yet he didn’t answer and Meg felt the first stirrings of unease. But she was the sort of person to meet trouble head on so a little impatiently she said, ‘Come on, Nicholas, you can tell me and if you don’t do it soon Terry may well be in on top of us. Doesn’t take long to do a short back and sides.’
Nicholas blurted out, ‘I – I … look, this is really awkward but look, I think your dad has a girlfriend.’
Meg was flabbergasted, and extremely relieved that there was no one else there to hear words that surely couldn’t possibly be true. It was nonsense, it had to be nonsense, and that was what she told her cousin.
He shrugged. ‘Thought it better to prepare you, like.’
‘Prepare me?’ Meg said. ‘Shock me, more like, coming here telling me things that are not true.’
‘If you say so.’
‘But it can’t be true.’
‘Look, Meg, I’ve told you something and you don’t want to believe it,’ Nicholas said. ‘There’s nothing I can do about that, so we’ll have to leave it there.’
‘Oh, all right then,’ Meg said impatiently. ‘What have you seen or heard that has made you think that my father is having some sort of affair?’
‘I overheard my parents talking about it,’ Nicholas said. ‘I was supposed to be doing my homework in the attic but I was coming down for a drink and I heard them.’
‘So what did they say?’
‘Dad said he hoped your dad knew what he was doing, messing about with the likes of Doris Caudwell. And Mom said there was no fool like an old fool, and Dad said he’s a bit of a laughing stock at the pub and that she’d set out to get her claws into him from the start.’
Meg groaned. ‘I bet he’s a laughing stock,’ she said grimly. ‘But who is this Doris Caudwell?’
‘Search me,’ Nicholas said. ‘I think I’ve seen her, though.’
‘How have you done that?’
‘She met your dad from the tram the other evening,’ Nicholas said.
‘I thought all the men come home together?’
‘They do. I don’t know if she meets him regularly or how long it’s being going on or anything, because I’m not usually on the same tram, but a couple of nights ago I had a detention for not handing my homework in on time.’ And here he grinned at Meg ruefully and went on, ‘Not that I told Mom the real reason why I was late home. Said I volunteered for extra maths. As if?’
‘Get on with it,’ Meg said impatiently.
‘Yeah, anyway, Dad and Uncle Robert and your dad wouldn’t have known I was on the same tram because I was on the top deck and they were already inside when I got on but I didn’t know that and I was coming down the stairs as the tram pulled in to Bristol Street and saw this woman waiting by the stop. I didn’t take that much notice at first, but then I saw your dad seemed mighty pleased to see her, and my dad and Uncle Robert were talking to him on the pavement, sort of arguing, and didn’t see me sneak past. As I went up Bristol Passage, I looked back, and it was as if they were trying to reason with your dad, but he suddenly pulled free of my dad and went off down the road with the woman. I didn’t wait to see any more. I made for home and was in quite a bit before Dad. I reckon he and Uncle Robert were talking about it.’
Meg was chewing her thumbnail. She knew Nicholas was right. Her father had been coming in late for a week or two now, always blaming the traffic and she had thought the traffic was going slower because of the snow and the ice.
‘Why didn’t they talk it over with me?’ she demanded. ‘Surely that would have been the thing to do.’
‘They probably didn’t want to upset you.’
‘It’s not them would upset me,’ Meg said. ‘It’s my dad with this sort of secret carry-on.’
‘Maybe they thought it would amount to nothing in the end,’ Nicholas said. ‘You know, a flash in the pan, and you wouldn’t have had to know a thing about it.’
There was a silence between them and then Meg said, ‘What’s she like, this woman?’
Nicholas shrugged. ‘Just a woman, you know. I only caught a glimpse of her. Sort of ordinary.’ He paused and then asked her, ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Nothing for now,’ Meg said after a moment. ‘If your dad and Uncle Robert are right and this is just a fling, it will all blow over. I might make things worse if I say anything now. I think I’ll wait and see. And, Nicholas, I don’t want the others to know anything about it.’
‘I won’t say a word,’ he promised.
EIGHT
By March, which had come in like the proverbial lion sending icy gusts of wind funnelling down the street, Charlie began leaving the house on Saturday nights as well as being late on Fridays, and then he started disappearing on Sunday afternoons too. By the time the month was drawing to a close, he was out a couple of nights in the week as well. Meg said nothing, but Billy and Sally had begun to ask where he was going.
‘Just out,’ Charlie would answer them. ‘When a man works all week, he values time to himself.’
Meg had thought he might be reverting to the drink, but she never heard him staggering about the place, and he seemed to have no trouble getting up in the morning. Although she still worried that his lady friend might be unsuitable, she had to confess that she’d seldom seen her dad so cheerful since her mom died. He came home from work with a smile on his face and whistled around the house, or sang snatches of songs like he used to do.
One evening, Meg decided to tackle her dad about the mysterious Doris Caudwell for all their sakes. The night was a cold one and she pulled the curtains tighter across the windows and shook more coal onto the fire, then put the wireless on for company so that big band music filled the room as she settled to wait for his return.
By the time Charlie came home, Meg was asleep, but she roused herself as he came in the door. She was still bleary-eyed as she snapped off the wireless and faced him.
‘What is it?’ he asked anxiously. ‘Is everything all right? The children …?’
‘The children are fine,’ Meg said.
‘So, why are you waiting up?’
‘To ask you something,’ Meg said. ‘Something that I shouldn’t have to ask you.’
‘What?’ Charlie asked, but he knew full well what his daughter was getting at and she knew it too.
‘Oh, come on, Dad,’ she snapped impatiently. ‘Don’t play the innocent. Are you going out with a woman called Doris Caudwell, or aren’t you?’
The red blush that flooded over Charlie’s face told its own tale, and Meg felt as if a lead weight had settled in her stomach.
Shamefaced, her father nodded. ‘Who told you?’
‘That doesn’t matter,’ Meg said, and added
a little bitterly, ‘It could have been any of a number of people, because one thing I am pretty sure of is that it wasn’t a secret to anyone but us, and for the life of me I can’t think why that was.’
‘I didn’t want to upset you.’
‘D’you think this is any less upsetting?’ Meg snapped. ‘And when did you intend to tell us, or were you just going to install her in the house as your wife and the children’s mother without any sort of consultation about it at all?’
‘Of course not,’ Charlie said. ‘I just thought you might feel it too soon after your mother.’
‘If you feel that way, you shouldn’t have begun any sort of relationship,’ Meg said icily.
‘I … I don’t feel that way,’ Charlie said. ‘At least … goddammit, Meg, you know what I thought of your mother, and when she died I didn’t go looking for someone else or anything.’
‘So how did you meet this woman?’
‘I met her in the Swan where she had come in for a drink with another woman,’ Charlie said.
Meg curled her lip. Women who went into public houses alone were considered to be the lowest of the low.
‘Now don’t look like that,’ Charlie censored. ‘She’s not loose or anything like that, but the other woman was going to see her chap and didn’t want to go into the pub alone, and as Doris is a widow she agreed to go in with her. She is actually quite alone in the world, for she has no children and no siblings, and neither had her late husband. Their parents are long dead. She’s also a stranger here, drafted from Yorkshire.
‘You seem to know a lot about her from one meeting.’ Meg commented.
‘That first time we met it was your uncle Robert who did most of the talking.’
That surprised Meg. ‘Why?’
‘Because she works at the same place as Rosie,’ Charlie said. ‘She doesn’t know her. Apparently they work in different areas. Doris actually doesn’t know many people, unless you count the woman she came out with. She says she hasn’t had time to make friends yet.’
‘Where does she live?’
‘She has a small flat on Bristol Street.’
‘Why did she come here from Yorkshire?’
‘Because she said she didn’t mind where she went,’ Charlie answered patiently. ‘See, she was a seamstress and not getting that much money and, as she said, she had to provide for herself after her husband died. So when she heard that war-related work was paying more, she made enquiries. They asked what she could do, and when she told them, they asked if she wanted work near to home. She said she didn’t mind where she went and so she arrived here.’
‘So that was the first time you saw her,’ Meg said. ‘So why didn’t you leave it there?’
‘Because when she was there again the following week, I couldn’t just ignore her.’
‘And you asked her out?’
‘Yes,’ Charlie said. ‘I did,’ and added a little defiantly. ‘To tell the truth I felt a bit sorry for her. And I know how she feels because I’m often lonely myself.’
The plaintive note in Charlie’s voice gave Meg a bit of a jolt, for she had wondered before if her father might be lonely and she felt sorry for him until he said ‘Do you know, I really envy Robert and Alec going home to loving wives and warm beds.’
‘Oh,’ Meg snapped ‘Is that what you were hoping for: a warm bed with a woman you had just met?’
‘’Course not,’ Charlie said. ‘There was nothing in it then. Just two lonely people being company for one another. We saw a film at the cinema in Bristol Road and popped into the Trees for a quick drink afterwards and that was the extent of it.’
‘But it didn’t stay like that?’ Meg tried to hide the deep hurt flowing through her body.
‘No, it didn’t stay like that,’ Charlie said. ‘That’s how relationships do develop. Doris thanked me and said how much she had enjoyed it, and I realised I had too, and I took her out the following week, and so it went on, but I never went looking for it.’
‘But you did nothing to stop it once you did see what was happening,’ Meg said. ‘How could you, Daddy? Mom has been dead only just over eighteen months.’
‘There isn’t a timescale on these things, Meg.’
‘Then there blooming well ought to be,’ Meg burst out. Even recognising her father’s lonely state, she felt such pain at what she saw as his betrayal, and knowing how powerless she was to change the situation, she lashed out. ‘Just what sort of father are you? You knew Mom was risking her life to carry another child and she died giving birth to the child of that union, a child that you then refused to have anything to do with. Little Ruth will grow up without the love of a father or a mother, but it isn’t her fault that Mom died. And now, when she is barely cold, you are seeking to replace her.’
Charlie stared at her. ‘I will forgive you for your outburst,’ he said. ‘I can see you’re extremely upset.’
Meg could feel a pulse beating in her head as white-hot fury filled her body and she screamed, ‘I am not upset, I’m bloody angry. Do you think you are the only one that’s lonely? There isn’t a day goes by when I don’t miss Mom and wish she was here, and I am very lonely at times, too, but all you care about is your bloody self.’
Charlie was taken aback by his daughter’s vehemence but tried for a conciliatory tone. ‘I did it for you, too, if you would only see that.’
‘Oh, don’t make me laugh,’ Meg said. ‘You did it for you. The rest of us don’t matter.’
‘You do matter,’ Charles insisted. ‘But Doris will be here to see to the children now and that means that you can have a life of your own.’
Meg’s head was whirring. ‘She knows about us then, this Doris?’
‘She knows that I am a widower and that I have children,’ Charlie said, and added a little nervously, ‘I didn’t tell her how many. Didn’t want to scare her off. After all, she isn’t that used to children.’
‘So how do you know she’ll take us all on?’
‘If she marries me, of course she’ll take you on,’ Charlie said. ‘It’s a wife’s duty.’
Meg knew how traditional her father’s views were. He would expect his wife to get up before him in the morning, make him breakfast, pack up his sandwiches, keep house all day and be there when he got in after work with a hot meal on the table. ‘What if she really likes her job and doesn’t want to give it up?’ Meg asked. ‘Or really can’t cope with the house and kids and that?’
‘Meg,’ Charlie said, ‘Doris is a lonely woman who I’m sure wants to be married and I am willing to marry her. I don’t know if I love her like I did your mother, but I am fond of her. She will be grateful to have another crack at marriage and will give her job up without a qualm when we wed. And of course she’ll cope. She is a woman, and caring for husband, children and a house is what women are born to do.’
Meg knew her father really believed that. She gave a sigh and realised how bone-weary she must look when her father said, ‘Why don’t you go up to bed now, Meg? We have talked enough for one night.’
However, once in her room, sleep eluded her; she was too agitated to relax enough just to let go and drift off. She knew the children would have to be told about Doris. They might easily see her as an interloper, and while Meg wouldn’t blame them, for their sake she would have to help them accept the inevitable. She tossed and turned as she rehearsed what she would say, eventually falling into a fitful sleep that was filled with lurid nightmares.
Meg decided the children had been in the dark long enough so she told them all together the following morning as they sat having breakfast after Charlie had gone to work.
There was a howl of anguish from Billy at the news. Ruth, sitting on Meg’s knee, turned startled eyes on her young brother as he blurted out, ‘I don’t want no new mother. We got you, ain’t we?’
‘I don’t want one either,’ Terry said.
Meg knew it was up to her to get the children to feel at least more positive about the woman, because if their father d
ecided to marry her, they would have no choice in the matter. ‘Now come on,’ she said. ‘You haven’t given the woman a chance. You have never even met her.’
‘And whose fault is that?’ Terry said. ‘We never even knew about her till now.’
Sally burst into tears as Billy said mutinously, ‘Anyway, I don’t want to meet her.’
Sally scrubbed at her eyes with the edge of her cardigan and said, ‘Nor me. I don’t want someone to come in and try and be our mom. We had a mom and now we have you and I don’t want no one else.’
Meg sighed as Ruth, picking up the atmosphere in the room, began to grizzle, and as she cuddled her she said, ‘Now you’ve upset Ruth with your goings-on. You must all realise that if Daddy wants to marry this woman then he will, and none of us can do anything about it.’ She looked at the woebegone faces of her brothers and sisters and felt for them, but it was doing them no favours letting them feel that they could influence their father in any way.
‘Don’t know why he wants another wife anyway,’ Terry said. ‘We’re all right as we are, aren’t we?’
‘Daddy obviously isn’t.’
‘Didn’t he love our mom?’ Jenny asked.
‘He did,’ Meg said emphatically. ‘You know he did. I think maybe he’s lonely.’
‘How could he be lonely when he has us?’ Sally asked.
‘It’s a different kind of loneliness when you an adult,’ Meg said, ‘and I know Daddy feels sorry for this Doris, because he told me so.’
‘Feels sorry for her?’ Terry repeated. ‘You don’t marry someone because you feel sorry for them.’