by Susan Lewis
‘No. Not until you answer Dad’s question.’
Her eyebrows go up in the way that means I’m going too far.
‘You’ve got to answer him,’ I tell her. ‘Are Jack and Uncle Maurice staying here tonight?’
‘All right. No, they’re not,’ she says. ‘Now, does that make you happy?’
I nod. ‘Now you have to say you’re sorry.’
‘What for?’
‘So you and Dad can be friends.’
She gives one of her sighs then says, ‘All right. Sorry.’
‘Now you, Dad. You’ve got to say sorry too.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he says.
‘That’s better,’ I tell them. ‘Now we can all be friends.’
Mum doesn’t ask this time, she just wraps me up in a great big hug. ‘I don’t know what to do with you sometimes,’ she laughs. ‘You’re growing up so fast, I forget you’re not still a baby.’
I’ve got my arms all round her, and she smells so lovely that I want to go on staying there, but I’m getting hungry now, and Dad’s just put our chips on a plate.
We’re about halfway through our tea when Mum says she’s not feeling very well so she’s going back to bed. After she’s gone I put my knife and fork down because I’m not hungry any more. When everyone else has finished and we’ve helped clear the table, I go to pract ise the piano because it might make her feel better. She’ll be able to hear, because her bedroom’s above where the piano is.
When it’s time for bed I put my pyjamas on really fast to stop myself getting too cold, then I go in to say goodnight to Mum. Her light’s not on, but I can see her in the light from the door and her eyes are open.
‘Come on,’ she says.
I go and sit next to her.
‘You did very well on the piano,’ she tells me. ‘You’re a good girl. I’m very proud of you, and Dad’s going to give you sixpence for getting a gold star.’
‘Will you get up again tomorrow?’ I ask.
‘We’ll see. I’ll tell you what though, if you go and jump into bed now, I’ll come in and lie down with you for a while. How’s that?’
I rush into my bedroom to move all my dolls to make some room. Dad’s already put a hot-water bottle in for me, so I lie it on the space next to me to warm it up for Mum.
‘Mm, that’s lovely,’ she says, as she slides in next to me. ‘Are you comfortable?’
‘Yes.’
‘We haven’t had a little song from the walls for a long time, have we?’ she whispers.
‘Shall we have one now?’ I whisper back.
‘Come on then.’
Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep
And doesn’t know where to find them,
Leave them alone, and they’ll come home,
Wagging their tails behind them.
It’s a bit babyish, but we don’t mind, so we sing it again.
Mum falls asleep before I do, so I go on singing to her for a while, in case she can hear, then Dad comes in and tells me it’s time for me to go to sleep now too.
Chapter Sixteen
Eddress
It’s been a funny old couple of months since Christmas, I can tell you. And what a bloody Christmas it turned into, didn’t it, thanks to our Jack and Maurice’s shenanigans. Still, that’s all behind us now, thank God. They’ve gone off to New Zealand, leaving the baby here with her father, because the courts wouldn’t allow her out of the country. How on earth Jacqueline brought herself to leave the poor little mite I’ll never know, but she did, and it seems her and Maurice are settling in nicely over there – if you call upsetting the natives settling in, which sounds about right for our Jack. Never could abide foreigners, so why she wants to go and live amongst ’em I’ll never know. In his last letter our Maurice was talking about Rhodesia again, so I suppose they might end up there where she can have a go at upsetting the blacks. Whether our mam’ll ever have anything to do with them again, God only knows. She never let them back over her threshold before they left, and she still swears she never will.
We’ve had a few other things to be worrying ourselves about though, like our Susan not doing well at school, and me having to go back in hospital for a couple of weeks at the start of February. I don’t know what gets into that girl when I’m not here, honest I don’t. One minute she’s as good as gold with Eddie, helping him with the tea, making her own bed and Gary’s, the next she’s cheeking him back, being difficult and even telling him there’s nothing wrong with me, and that I’ve just gone off and left them. How she gets these things in her head, I’ll never know. He ended up giving her a good smack and sending her to bed or she was going to frighten Gary with all her nonsense. I suppose it’s got something to do with her worrying about me, but we keep telling her, she should put it out of her mind and concentrate on her lessons.
Now, to cap it all, Eddie’s been hauled up in front of the management at work to be told he’s taking too much time off, and if it goes on any longer they’ll sack him. Bloody furious he was when he told me, and of course he ended up blaming our Maurice, because he blames him for everything now.
‘It’s his bloody fault you ended up back in that hospital,’ he ranted at me when he came home that night, still all in a lather after his ticking off. ‘If it weren’t for him and all his carrying on you’d be all right by now. I told you it wasn’t doing you any good, having them here, but you wouldn’t listen, would you? Oh no, you had to have it your way, and now look where we are, being bloody punished for allowing his sinning to go on under our roof.’
I argued back a bit, because it’s not in me nature not to, but I have to admit (not to him, mind you) that all that business with our Maurice did wear me out a bit, and I’m always in two minds about God, so I have asked meself once or twice if He might be punishing me, not just about our Jack and Maurice though, but about everything else I’ve done in me life. There’s a lot, believe me, enough to make me glad I’m not a Catholic, because I’d never want to confess to anyone else what I’ve done, especially not a bloody priest.
Anyway, whether or not it was a punishment, it bloody well felt like it when I was in hospital this time round. Don’t know what the hell they did to me, but it’s taken me until now – the middle of bleeding March – to get back on me feet again. To be honest, I got to a point when I was in there where I could see meself coming out in a bloody box, I felt that bad. Never said anything to Eddie mind, don’t want him thinking like that, or we’d all be bloody done for.
He’s been having a chat with the doctors again. He thinks I don’t know, but I do. I don’t say nothing though, what you don’t know you can’t worry about, is my motto. I just wish it was his, because it can’t be doing him any good. I mean, he’s not a bleeding doctor is he, so what’s the point in finding it all out? I’ve got a feeling they’ve told him they might not have got it in time. Turns my bloody insides straight to ice just to think it, I can tell you. Can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t even bloody think straight when it comes over me what’s going on inside me. It just don’t seem right that they can’t do anything about it. Makes you feel so helpless that you want to do something . . . Well, something bloody drastic, if only you could think what. Honest, you got no idea how bloody angry it makes you, knowing your own body’s letting you down. It’s like having a brand spanking new car and finding out it’s all rusty inside. Cheated, that’s what it makes you feel, downright bloody cheated. Trouble is, you can’t take your body back, can you, or send someone round to sort out the bloke who shafted you, because God’s never home when you need Him to explain what the bloody hell He’s doing, and if the mechanics you’re left with haven’t got the tools to put you right . . .
It’s a load of old bunkum. That’s what it is. I mean, if they have told Eddie they can’t cure it, it’s a load of old bunkum, because they could discover a new drug any time, or it could just get better of its own accord, or we could all get bombed by the bloody Russians for all I know. They just landed theirselves
a rocket on Venus, so chucking the odd bomb over here shouldn’t be too much trouble, should it? So it don’t make any sense to listen to all that nonsense. It just gets you all worked up about something that might never happen, and it don’t get you nowhere that.
Anyway, I’m up and about again now, good as new. All right, I’m not as fast on me feet as I was, got to take me time over things, but that’s improving as I go on, so I should be back to normal I reckon, by Whitsun, or at least by summer. We’re even talking about going up to Wembley to watch the World Cup in May, if England manages to get through that is, and providing we can get tickets. Eddie knows a bloke down the Rovers ground who might be able to get some, and there’s someone else down his work who’s got a brother-in-law who’s supposed to have an in at Wembley. We haven’t been to a football match since we had kids, and we used to love going down the Rovers on a Saturday afternoon with our blue and white scarves and rattles, then stopping up the Shant on the way home for a drink with our mates.
I’ve been thinking about the past a lot lately. Well, I suppose it’s hard not to when your number’s looking like it might be up. It’s better than thinking about the future and knowing you won’t be there. That’s bloody hard, that is. Breaks you right up. You don’t want to do it to yourself, not when you got kids. Honest you don’t. Still, it’s all right now. The worst is over, and I’m sitting here in the front room on a lovely spring day, looking at the most beautiful white lacy dress for our Susan to wear at Whitsun. It’s just turned up from the club book, along with some new shoes for Gary and a Fair Isle pullover for Eddie. Usually I knit all our jumpers meself, but I haven’t been able to this past while, so I ordered a few from John Myers. We can do it on the weekly, now Christmas is all paid off.
It’s a funny feeling I’ve got today. Don’t know where it’s coming from, but here I am, sitting in me own house, where I’ve been every day this past I don’t know how long, yet it’s like I’ve just come back after months and months of being away. Now isn’t that strange? I reckon, if you ask me, not that I’m getting me hopes up too much, you understand, that it could mean I’m finally back on the real road to recovery. Something inside me knows that I’ve turned the last corner now. I’m not like someone lost in a wilderness any more, crashing about, not knowing whether I’m coming or going, or even bloody dead or alive. I’m back here now, right where I belong, and that sun out there today is the light at the end of the tunnel. I’ve come through. I’m on the home bloody stretch, so just you watch me romp past that finishing gate come May or June. Whitsun! The World Cup! Dawlish for our holidays! It’s a lovely time we’re going to be having, just you wait and see.
‘Yoo hoo! Anyone home?’
‘In here.’
I’m in too good a mood to try and dodge Cissy Weiner today. Anyway, I have to admit she’s been bloody good to Eddie and the kids these last couple of months, and to me too, which is why I’ve invited her to come and see The Sound of Music with me and Betty next Wednesday night. We’re going up the caff in Kingswood after, if they’re still open that late, so she’ll probably drive us mad with all her talking, but I can always tell her to belt up if she starts getting on our nerves.
‘Hello Eddress,’ she says, bustling in the room like the fussy old bag she is. ‘Oooh, look at the lovely colour in your cheeks. I can see you’re feeling well today.’
‘Not bad,’ I assure her. I never actually told her she could call me Eddress, but I suppose after all she’s had to do for me these past couple of months, it wouldn’t seem right to go on calling me Mrs Lewis, now would it? ‘Did you put the kettle on while you were out there?’ I ask her.
‘No, I’ll just go and do it now. Don’t put that dress away. I want to have a better look. It’s the prettiest thing I ever did see.’
Her and her Scarlett O’Hara talk. Silly cow. ‘It’s for our Susan at Whitsun,’ I tell her.
‘She’ll look a picture, she will. I just wish I could find something like that for one of mine.’
I don’t tell her where I got it, in case she has the bright idea of sending for one too. Really bloody upset me that would, if one of her girls turned up in the same dress as our Susan for the Whitsun parade.
‘Right,’ she says, coming back in. ‘Kettle’s on, tea’s in the pot. Dr Tyldesley been in today, has he?’
‘About half an hour ago, so he took me temperature and checked everything that needs it. I’ve taken me pills too. I reckon these new ones are a lot better than the others. I don’t feel half as bad as I used to.’
She goes on smiling and blinking, and looking like she doesn’t have a clue what I’m talking about. Oh well, maybe Tyldesley didn’t tell her he changed my pills. I mean, he didn’t actually tell me either, but you’ve only got to be me to know something’s different.
‘Eddie getting ready to vote, is he?’ she asks. ‘They reckon Labour’ll sweep the board this time.’
‘Oh, he’ll be out there all right. He’s offered to do a bit of canvassing, when he’s got time, and he’s doing an hour at the polling station after work on the day.’
‘What about you? Are you going to vote?’
‘Course I am. I don’t want those bloody Tories getting in, do I?’
‘None of us do.’
That takes me back a bit. ‘Don’t you vote Tory?’ I ask her. ‘I thought you did.’
She chuckles. ‘We’re as Labour as you and Eddie in our house,’ she tells me. ‘I’m doing a shift down the polling station too, on the day. Mine’s in the morning, just making some tea and generally lending a hand. If you’re feeling up to it, why don’t you come along too?’
‘Yeah, I might,’ I say. ‘There’ll be a lot of faces there I know, and I haven’t seen anyone since I can hardly remember when.’
‘That’s settled then. I’ll put your name down, you can do the same shift as me. Now, I’ve got to ask you if you can spare a couple of pennies for the blind dogs.’
She’s always collecting for one good cause or another, bloody do-gooder that she is. Worse than Eddie. Anyway, I got no objection to helping train a dog so some poor blind person can get around a bit. God knows, enough’s put in the collections for people who’ve got what I’ve got, so it would be a bit bloody rich if I refused to help anyone else, wouldn’t it, even if I have only got one and three in me purse. I’ll borrow a couple of bob off Betty to buy some fags later, rather than ask Eddie for any more before Friday.
Cissy stays for about an hour, chatting on and on the way she always does, boasting about her girls, and what she does for her patients, who it seems wouldn’t be alive, half of them, if it weren’t for her. The woman never bloody stops, but I don’t suppose she means any harm. To tell the truth I reckon she’s a bit lonely, because it can’t be easy making friends when you’re married to a German, can it? Eddie says he’s a nice bloke, but I’ve hardly ever spoken to him meself, and I don’t know how Eddie manages it without mentioning the war. It’s all I can ever think about when I see him. And the Jews – though Eddie says Mr Weiner hates the Nazis as much as we do. Well, he has to say that now he’s living here, doesn’t he? But maybe he does hate them, or he’d still be in Heil Hitler land pinning yellow stars on poor sods with big hooters. I don’t suppose a lot of it goes on now though, does it? It wouldn’t be allowed.
Twenty to four prompt Gary comes crashing in through the back door, bursting for the toilet and shouting back down the stairs for a chocolate-spread sandwich and a coconut marshmallow. Never ceases to amaze me how that boy manages to remember what’s in the cupboard. Down it all goes, with a glass of squash, while he tries to tell me what he did in school. He’s in too much of a hurry to get back out to play to make much sense, but I manage to talk him into a hug and a kiss, which he immediately wipes off his face in case I’m wearing any lipstick.
At five past four Susan bounds in, full of her new best friend, Diane Meadows, who’s going on the school cruise in June, so they’re going to make sure they have beds next to each othe
r, and matching bags to carry their luggage. (Where does she get all these ideas?) She wants a sandwich-spread sandwich and a glass of Ribena. She has to go running back outside then, because she’s promised Janet and Sarah across the road that she’ll play skipping with them and they’re out there waiting.
‘Don’t you want to see your new dress?’ I ask her. ‘It came from the club book today.’
Her face lights up. ‘The white one?’
I nod.
‘Where is it?’
‘Hanging up in your wardrobe.’
She charges up over the stairs, sounding like a herd of elephants. I follow her up and find her standing in front of her mirror holding the dress up against her.
‘It’s the best dress in the whole wide world,’ she declares. ‘Can I try it on?’
‘I think you’d better, because we don’t want to leave it till Whitsun to find out it doesn’t fit.’
But it does, perfectly. Or it will by then, she’s growing that fast. Just a tiny bit big across the shoulders and under the arms, nothing a little tuck here and there won’t sort out if need be come the day. She’s going to look like an angel.
She turns and gives me a hug all round my neck.
‘How did you get on in school today?’ I ask her.
‘All right.’
‘No tellings off for chatting, or not paying attention?’
‘No. Well, I did have to put my finger over my lips once, but that’s because I was asking my best friend Diane if I could borrow her rubber. That’s all I was saying, so I shouldn’t have had to put my finger over my lips for that, should I?’
‘Are you sure that’s all you were saying?’
‘Honest. I just told her that Gary borrowed mine last night and forgot to give it back, so that’s why I didn’t have one today. And she said her brother does that too, forgets to give things back. And I said brothers are a nuisance, I’d rather have a sister.’