by Annie Murray
‘Still, once we’ve got the coal we can make a fire.’ He seemed encouraged by her. ‘Does your dad do the fire or your mom?’
Margaret didn’t want to have to explain that she did more or less everything, so she said, ‘My dad.’
‘I ain’t got one,’ the boy said. ‘Our dad was killed in the war.’
‘Oh,’ Margaret said. ‘I ain’t got a mom. She died in the war too.’
‘Did you get bombed out?’
‘No – she just died.’
They reached the back of the queue and waited. The boy was quivering all over.
‘Haven’t you got a shirt?’ Margaret asked. She wondered how old he was.
‘It’s soaking wet – our mom washed it. T’ain’t dried ’cause the fire’s gone out: it’s froze solid.’
She couldn’t avoid him looking at her now that they’d stopped walking, but he didn’t seem to see anything amiss. She looked up into a long, gentle face with big grey eyes. His lips were cracked and sore-looking and he was hugging himself to try and keep warm. She thought he looked sad.
‘Where d’you live?’ he asked. ‘I think I’ve seen you about before.’
When she told him, he said, ‘Oh, that’s not far. I live in Washington Street – behind the leather works.’ Now he had started talking, a stream of information came out. He was thirteen, had a sister who was nine and a brother of seven. His father had been a rear gunner in the RAF and had died in North Africa. His mom was trying to cope on her own.
By the time they had fetched the coal and parted, pushing heavy loads, at the corner of Upper Ridley Street, he had asked if he could call in and see her.
‘I’ll meet you on the corner,’ Margaret said. She didn’t want Peggy Loach anywhere near this fragile friendship.
The boy told her his name was Fred Tolley.
August–September 1984
Twenty-Seven
At the last toddler group before they broke up for the summer, Joanne and the others had a little party, to say thanks to Tess and the other helpers.
Everyone had brought along a few bits and pieces – sandwiches, cheesy biscuits, Twiglets and crisps – and laid them out on the kitchen table.
Tess was wearing an orange sundress. Her face was a little swollen and she was obviously very tired and heavy, but remained as good-natured as ever.
‘I’ll miss you all,’ she said, ‘but I hope to see you all again in the autumn. I should be up and running by then, if all goes well. But Mavis here . . .’ Mavis stood smiling modestly. ‘Mavis has been great, hasn’t she? And she’s off to college next term to start her training as a children’s nurse. So let’s all wish her luck!’
There were murmurs of ‘good luck’ to Mavis. Joanne went over to her afterwards. She had grown to respect Mavis a lot.
‘I just wanted to wish you all the best,’ she said, smiling. ‘You’ll be really good.’
‘Oh!’ Mavis looked delighted. ‘Well, thank you. And I’ll come back and see you all – when I can!’
Joanne was just turning to go and sort Amy out when someone tapped her arm. She jumped violently.
‘Hey, calm down, it’s only me!’ Sooky was smiling. But she looked concerned as well. ‘You scare easily. Are you okay?’
‘Yeah. Course. I’m fine.’ Joanne laughed it off, but her heart was pounding horribly hard. It was like this all the time now. Things had got worse. The mood Dave had been in the last few days meant that she was living constantly on her nerves. All his sorrow and contrition had disappeared. He kept giving her cold looks, which held a threat. She knew that if she had challenged him, he would have told her she was imagining things. But there was so much tension in the house that she felt slightly sick all the time and was finding it hard to eat or sleep properly. She fought giving in to it. The easiest thing would be just to do everything he wanted. But she could see that was crazy. Why on earth should he stop her going out or being with other people?
‘You going to that group again?’ he’d asked that morning.
‘Yes,’ Joanne said, trying to ignore his sneering tone. ‘But it’s the last one – it stops for the summer.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘About time. You can stop at home then, like a proper wife.’
‘A proper wife?’ Joanne was really riled by this. ‘You seem to think you’re the only one who knows what that is, these days.’
Dave had stared at her, a hard, dangerous look in his eyes. It’s no good, Joanne thought, I can’t let him get to me. She tried to outstare him, but in the end lowered her gaze, feeling her cheeks flush pink. Of course he got to her. He was trying to control every aspect of her life, wasn’t he? Sometimes she started to wonder if it was all inside her head. But she knew how frightened she was of him, and she was having to fight against that fear with all her strength.
‘Are we still going to the park?’ Sooky asked.
‘I think so – we can take the remains of the food with us. The kids won’t want much dinner after all that, will they?’
‘No,’ Sooky smiled. ‘They’ll be far too busy anyway!’
Over the past few weeks, when there was a chance, they had stayed on together after the toddler group finished. It was so good for everyone – both children and adults – to have the company. It was a way of getting through the day. They’d been back to Kieran’s house a couple of times. Billy and the girls got on very well. Today they had agreed to go to the park.
They sat on the grass, looking down towards the boating lake: Joanne and Amy, Sooky and Priya, and Kieran and his boys. They had each brought a few toys along and a soft ball for them to kick around. Kieran fed baby Charlie his bottle while Billy played with the girls.
‘How’s it going, Kieran?’ Sooky asked.
Kieran always tried to be cheerful, even when things looked really bleak, but he seemed genuinely hopeful today.
‘It’s going okay, thanks.’ He looked up from feeding Charlie, a smile spreading across his freckly face. ‘Good news: Gerri’s coming home this weekend – just for a couple of days to begin with.’
‘Oh, that’s great!’ Joanne and Sooky said together. Joanne felt herself lifted out of her own troubles. Poor Kieran, he had really had a plateful. Gradually she was beginning to relax. Being out of the house was such a relief.
‘How d’you think she’ll manage?’ Sooky was asking. Joanne admired her, the way she was so open and interested in other people and not afraid to ask.
‘Well, I hope she’ll be okay.’ Kieran’s face became serious again. ‘It’s quite a lot for her – you know, home and the kids and everything all at once. What’s terrible is seeing how frightened of everything she’s become. Still, it’s all relative. A few weeks ago she couldn’t even manage to make a cup of tea. Now she’s managing things like that, doing her hair . . .’
It made a sad picture. Joanne thought about her mom. She’d said she’d been low after having Karen. Is that what she’d been like? She hadn’t been in hospital, or not as far as they knew. She felt like asking her dad – but would she get an answer? Most likely not. Had he even noticed at the time that his wife was depressed?
‘Well, I hope it goes really well,’ Sooky was saying.
‘Thanks,’ Kieran said. ‘It’s one step at a time. I’m not expecting miracles . . .’
Joanne thought was a nice guy he was. For a moment she had a pang of longing. If only she was with someone as nice as Kieran! Then she felt disloyal. She loved Dave, she did. But she loved the old Dave, as he had been, not the frightening stranger he had become. That wasn’t him, not really, was it?
In that moment, a terrible realization came to her. If I don’t do something, we’ll lose each other forever. Look at Mom and Dad: they’ve been strangers for years. I’ve got to . . . But what? Despair came over her. Dave was so angry and forbidding these days. So hard even to like. It felt impossible to try and begin a conversation.
‘Joanne? Hello?’ Sooky had evidently been trying to get her attention for some time. ‘Yo
u really are on another planet today! I said, shall we put the rest of the food out?’
‘Oh, yeah! Course, sorry.’ She shook herself out of her thoughts. She should make the best of being here, with friends. A warm feeling filled her. Yes, she had friends. As they laid out the rest of the little picnic there were a rare few minutes without interruption, so she took the chance to say, ‘How’re things with you, Sooky?’
‘Oh, they’re fine,’ Sooky said. ‘No, Priya – wait till I’ve finished . . . Better, actually. My mom’s started talking to me again now.’
‘Really, that’s great!’ Joanne said, with a sudden rush of longing for hers to do the same. ‘What brought that on?’
Sooky put her head on one side. ‘I’m not really sure. But after they had that man over – you know, the marriage meeting . . .’ Her face twitched as if she wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. The laughter won. ‘Well, he wasn’t very nice. In fact he was a disaster. And somehow Mom – I don’t know . . . But she’s been different ever since.’
‘You didn’t say you’d marry him, did you?’
Sooky shook her head. ‘I’d rather be abducted by aliens. In fact,’ she added seriously, ‘I’d quite like to be abducted by aliens. Now that could be really interesting – don’t you think?’
‘No!’ Kieran laughed. ‘It sounds nightmarish.’
‘Sooky’s got a thing about sci-fi,’ Joanne said.
‘Yes, but that’s taking things a bit far,’ Kieran said. ‘I mean, as a way of getting out of marriage!’
They were all laughing. The children giggled too as they gathered round, drinking squash and eating pieces of banana that Sooky had brought along.
‘We’ll go and see the ducks and geese after, shall we?’ Kieran was saying. ‘Give them our crusts?’
They looked down towards the boating lake, from where there were sounds of splashing and laughter. Some teenagers who had finished their exams had come to take boats out and were having a riotous time. The sun glanced off the water. Two women in bright blue-and-orange salwar-kameez glittered past, chatting together on the near side. Beyond the water were a few dog walkers, a man standing, looking . . .
Joanne’s eyes focused on him, the one without a dog, standing still, hands thrust into the pockets of his jeans, staring across at them. Her insides turned to ice.
‘Oh, my God!’ she murmured.
It was his stillness that was menacing, the way he had so obviously come to spy on her. But how did Dave know where she was? Had she mentioned that they were going to the park?
‘What’s up?’ Sooky asked, following her gaze.
‘Nothing.’ Joanne spoke abruptly, looking down quickly. The shock had stolen her breath and she was almost panting. Had he seen her notice him? She desperately didn’t want Amy to see that he was there.
‘Hey, you look really upset,’ Sooky said. Joanne could feel both her and Kieran looking at her. She hadn’t breathed a word to anyone about what was happening at home. It was a private nightmare that she tried to forget when she was out. But these were friends. They shared their own problems with her. Could she say something? Dare she?
‘It’s just . . .’ Her blood was thumping through her. She could hear it in her ears like a drum. She looked up. ‘I’ll tell you in a minute – not with the kids here . . .’
The children were soon absorbed again, and Joanne dared to look across the boating lake. The teenagers had quietened down, probably after warnings. He had gone. There was no one the other side. Had she imagined it? Was she really going funny in the head?
‘You okay?’ Sooky asked again.
‘Yeah.’ It seemed daft to tell them now that there was nothing to see. ‘Just having a few problems at home at the moment. Nothing to worry about. I expect it’ll sort itself out.’
Twenty-Eight
Joanne felt very uneasy for the rest of the time they were together. When they all parted to go home, she was queasy with dread. Amy was fractious about parting from her friends, and Joanne had some tense moments with her before she finally drooped sleepily in the buggy.
At the front gate she stopped, her pulse pounding once more. What if he was at home, waiting? Should she go for a walk instead, spend the afternoon wandering round Handsworth – because she was afraid to go into her own house? Even in her worked-up state the craziness of this was obvious. But there was a prickling sensation at the back of her neck and her hands were cold and clammy, even in the heat of the day.
She saw her neighbour Mrs Coles approaching along the street with her rocking walk, bags of shopping swinging on either side. She was a barrel-shaped lady, wearing a dress patterned with swirls of blue and purple and little flat navy shoes, which her bunioned feet had pushed out of shape. Her hair was escaping from the rough bun she wore it in and she was perspiring mightily in the heat.
‘All right, Joanne?’ she greeted her huskily from a distance. ‘Been out, have yer? How’s little’un?’
Joanne snapped back into herself, praying that Mrs Coles wouldn’t wake Amy. Mary Coles was the kindest of souls and Amy adored her, but Joanne just needed some peace for a while.
‘We’ve just been to the toddler group. She’s fast asleep – worn out!’
‘Aah, God bless her.’ Mrs Coles leaned over Amy. A gold crucifix leaned with her, swinging out of the front of her dress. ‘Look at her, little angel!’
‘Have you been shopping?’ Joanne asked, though she obviously had.
‘Just picking up me bits and pieces: bit of liver for Jim – he likes his liver and onions of a Tuesday . . . I’m going to have a nice sit-down now.’ She drifted to her own gate. ‘See yer, bab.’
‘Bye,’ Joanne said. ‘Enjoy your rest.’
‘Oh, I will,’ Mrs Coles chuckled. ‘Cup of tea and a couple of Penguins by the telly, that’ll see me right . . .’
Joanne watched her fondly. She pulled herself together and went up to the house. Pushing open the front door, she wheeled Amy’s buggy inside, leaving her in the hall. Inside felt quiet and unoccupied, but just to be sure she walked from room to room, even upstairs. There was no one there.
Back in the kitchen, she put the kettle on. Maybe a cup of tea and a couple of Penguins would sort me out too, she thought. She saw that her hands were shaking.
It was a hot, languorous afternoon. There was no need for lunch after the snacks in the park, and Amy was deeply asleep. Joanne hung out the washing, but it felt too hot to do any serious housework and she found herself at a loose end.
She wandered around the silent house, into their bedroom where she pulled the covers up and tidied the bed, then she folded away Amy’s clothes. She went back into her own and Dave’s room and sat on the edge of the bed. From where she was sitting she could just see the rooftops of the houses beyond. Why was she in here? She felt unable to think clearly.
Realizing she had still not made the tea, she went back down. Despite the heat, it was still the comfort of hot tea that she wanted. Carrying her mug, she went to the shelves in the front room, took down their photo albums, one dark blue, one white, and went and sat at the table. It was too glaringly hot to be outside.
She wanted to think about her husband. To try and straighten out her mind.
The first album was made up of a motley collection of old snaps of both their families. They’d used those camera films that you used to send away in the post, and the colour had leached out of them already, making the past look faded and longer ago than it really was.
The cellophane-covered pages showed a few pictures of her and Dave as children: he blond, gap-toothed, always grinning; she skinny, with bonny pink cheeks, pretty curls of hair around her face and already obviously long legs. At school she had sometimes been called ‘Storky’.
There were fewer of the middle years: one or two small school portraits, then Dave in his football kit. There was a full-page picture of him after he was selected for the Juniors at Aston Villa. He was twelve years old, standing proud, grass all around him, one foot
on the ball. 1973: the Villa coming out of a downer, back up to the Second Division. It was the year the new manager was appointed: Ron Saunders. By 1977 the Villa was back up to the First Division and in European competitions. There were pictures of Dave, taller, broader each time, scattered across that period and always playing football. In 1977 they let him go. You’re good, lad, but not quite good enough. He’d taken some getting over that: maybe he’d never got over it.
She peered more closely at a picture taken the next year. It was a family group: Brian and Wendy, Dave’s mom and dad, Wendy’s sister Clare and herself and Dave – all sitting round a white plastic table at the back of Dave’s parents’ house. It was when barbecues started becoming popular, and Wendy, liking to think she had a gypsy nature, was all for it.
‘I love eating outside,’ she’d enthused. ‘It’s so much more natural.’
There she was with her long honey-coloured hair, a big daisy clipped in on one side, and cut-off denim shorts, looking like a Flower Power teenager in her early forties. And Brian, in what now looked like a custard-coloured shirt (Joanne remembered it had been bright yellow at the time), with his cheerful smile, very like Dave, but smaller and stockier.
Joanne’s eyes slid over everyone, stopping at Dave and herself. Dave had been seventeen, she sixteen. Even though he was no longer training, he still had his clean-cut footballer looks, a royal-blue shirt with a collar. She was grinning broadly, in a cream sundress (hadn’t it been cheesecloth?), her hair flicked away on each side.
She moved the album up close, homing in on Dave’s face. He was smiling too. Did he look older suddenly than in the months before? Harder, sadder? After it happened, he hadn’t told her, not for a fortnight. He’d disappeared, wouldn’t even come to the door. It was Wendy who told her what was wrong. She came out and spoke to Joanne a couple of times.
‘He says he’ll phone you,’ she told her. Once, Joanne could see she’d been crying. She was holding a dishcloth and twisting it tight. ‘It’s not you, love. The bottom’s dropped out of his world. He won’t say a word . . .’ She moved back, closing the door. ‘Just give him a bit of time, love. ‘