Two Women

by Martina Cole

  Barry was quiet for a few moments, thinking about what she’d said. Susan was pleased about this. She wanted him to want what she wanted for their child.

  Finally he spoke.

  ‘Listen, Mrs Dalston, if you think you’re turning my son into a fucking poofter then you had better think again. Now you’re getting away with murder here because I fucked up at the church and I know I owe you one. But if ever see my son with a book or anything remotely resembling one I will take your fucking head off your shoulders. Do you understand me? Fucking gentle! You’ll have him playing fucking netball before he knows what’s going on.’

  He turned her over on to her belly then and forced her up on to all fours, even though she was trying to stay on her back. Eventually he dragged her around roughly. Digging his fingers into her shoulders, he whispered, ‘Don’t fucking push it tonight, Susan, okay? I ain’t in the mood.’

  By the time he entered her she was on auto-pilot and ten minutes later he was finished. Her legs were aching, her shoulders were sore from his rough treatment and her belly was tight and uncomfortable.

  Two minutes after he withdrew from her he was asleep. His arm lay across her and it felt like a steel band pinning her to the bed.

  Lying there, white, drawn and exhausted, Susan cried again, only this time it was for her unborn child and for a life she realised she had thrown away. The little house was seen now through eyes unblinkered by love as the scruffy dump it really was, even if it was a step up from her mother’s flat.

  The rest of her life rose before Susan and the fear it engendered set the child rolling inside her belly as if it too was rebelling against the fate that had sent it to the two people in that poky bedroom.

  Caressing it gently, Susan tried to calm herself and the child. She was trapped and she had trapped herself, that was the worst of it. Susan Dalston, as she now was, had sentenced herself to life.

  ‘I mean it, Joey, what’s going on with you and Susan?’

  He was drunk, but not so drunk he did not realise he was on dodgy ground here, very dodgy ground.

  He decided he would front it out as usual.

  ‘What you fucking on about now? Me and Susan, what about us?’

  June walked across the bedroom and stuck a finger in his face.

  ‘You heard me. Are you giving her one? I warn you, I was listening today at the window with your mother so remember that before you say a fucking word.’

  Joey felt the fright in his chest. He was trying to remember what he had done and said but the drink had had him in its hold and he couldn’t remember much.

  ‘What did you hear then? A father talking to his daughter on her wedding day. Big deal.’

  ‘We, that is your mother and I, heard you apologising to her and trying to get your leg over again, that’s what we heard. You know I know, Joey. Why do we have to go through all this pretence? What I want from you is your word that you will leave her alone in future. No more and no less.’

  He was silent still and June began to mock him.

  ‘ “I love you, Susan. You’re me best girl, you know that.”

  Joey sat himself down on the bed and put his head in his hands.

  ‘Rubbing her belly . . . What’s wrong, Joey? You think it’s yours, do you? I suppose it could be. Then it would be your son and your grandson. That’s one for the record books, eh?’

  Joey looked up then, into his wife’s eyes.

  ‘You’re jealous, ain’t you, June? Because I don’t love you like that and you know it. But is Susan mine, that’s what we have to sort out once and for all, isn’t it? Is Susan McNamara my daughter? I mean, she could easily be someone else’s, couldn’t she, June?’

  June shook her head and grinned, showing yellow teeth.

  ‘You’ve always thought that, haven’t you, right from day one?’

  She picked up her drink from the dressing table and gulped it down. ‘She’s yours all right, Joey, don’t you worry about that. It’s Debbie you should be wondering about, not Susan.’

  Joey shrugged then, an irritating gesture that made her want to kill him.

  ‘Maybe I should start giving her one then?’

  ‘Debbie has too much sense to fall for that with you, mate. Did Susan give in gracefully or did you force her? Only from what she said today, I think you made her, Joey. I think you enjoyed making her do it, to get back at me for leaving you for Jimmy.’

  ‘Fuck off, June, you’re a pain in the arse. For your information she loved it, it was her who came to me. It’s only since Barry Dalston came on the scene that she’s changed towards me. It was her who started it all off actually. She missed you so she turned to me, we turned to each other . . .’

  June began to undress.

  ‘If this was other people I might believe that. I know what it’s like to be sad, unloved and unwanted. I know that can cause things to happen. I remember someone saying once it often happens after the death of a mother. The husband and daughter turn to each other for comfort and it gets out of hand. But you’re not noble enough to do it for those reasons, Joey. People like that realise what they have done and they stop. You would enjoy doing it to her because she was your daughter. You try and pretend you think she isn’t because it makes you feel better. Well, she is yours. All yours. She is totally yours.

  ‘Only after today, of course, she’s Barry Dalston’s. He’s giving her one now, as you know. You watched them at it today. Me and your mother watched you watching them, so to speak. You’ve broken Ivy. I only hope you can repair the damage you’ve done to her because you could have murdered and she would have stood by you. But not for this. She was in a terrible state, terrified people would hear about it, find out and we would all be labelled child molesters.’

  Joey stared at his wife. She was down to nothing but her bra and knickers now and was lighting a cigarette.

  ‘Do me a favour, June, please.’

  His voice was small, quiet.

  ‘What’s that, Joey? Keep it all quiet, eh? Brush it under the carpet, what?’

  He laughed nastily.

  ‘Give us a call at about eleven in the morning. Some of us have to go to work, okay?’

  He jumped into bed and turned on his side.

  ‘Tell who you like, June, I don’t give a fucking toss. It’s your word against mine and let’s face it, if I lose me rag there ain’t many people going to say it to me face, is there?’

  June sat on her side of the bed and looked down at him.

  ‘Only the Davidsons and the Bannermans.’

  Joey laughed again.

  ‘You wouldn’t tell them, June, you know you’d only be cutting off your own nose, love. Now are you coming to bed? If not, turn off the light and piss off, I’m tired.’

  June turned the light off and left the room. She dragged on a cardigan and went to sit in the front room. It was dark but she did not bother to put on the light. Her mind was reeling because she knew this was all her fault really.

  She had guessed for a while and she had done nothing. She had found him out and still she had done nothing.

  It had made her life much easier, to tell the truth. Plus Susan had made her jealous though she did not know why. She wasn’t pretty in any discernible way, she wasn’t anything really. It was her wanting to be so much better than her mother that really grated. Every time she had picked up a book and become lost in another world she had more or less made June’s life seem unimportant somehow.

  Even though she knew her daughter was right, it hurt. Or maybe that was why it hurt. Because she was right.

  She had never once cared that Joey was doing things to Susan that a father had no business doing to his own child. Well, she admitted to herself, she had cared but for the wrong reasons, always the wrong reasons.

  She was jealous in case Susan affected the part of him June herself could never affect: his heart.

  She was frightened he loved Susan properly. Cared for her more than he cared for his own wife, the mother of his childr
en. The child he was taking to bed she had given birth to for him.

  Why did she not care what he was doing to that child, their daughter? What was missing inside her that she still did not really care, was just glad that Susan was out of the house, out from under her roof?

  All the other women had been nothing, she knew that, had always known that. Until Susan she had been sure she was the only person Joey McNamara had ever really cared for or needed.

  Now she was not so sure.

  Susan was not a bit of strange, as he referred to his other amours. Susan was his daughter, his child. His own flesh and blood. Was that the attraction?

  June curled up on the sofa and lit another cigarette, its red spark the only light in the room other than the subdued shadowy glow of the street lamp outside.

  It was chilly now, the treacherous cold that summer brings at the start of a fine day. She heard the dawn chorus, the little birds chirping away. Their noise would be drowned out soon by the traffic.

  It was Sunday, the day of rest. People would sleep off hangovers, go up the pub or cook huge meals no one really wanted to eat.

  She heard the clack, clack of her other daughter’s shoes as Debbie walked along the balcony towards the front door. Heard her key in the lock and her footsteps stumbling through the doorway. Getting up, she helped Debbie, who was drunk and practically incapable, into her bedroom. She stripped her off and Debbie fell asleep.

  June looked down on to her sleeping daughter’s profile. She was pretty in a funny, cheap sort of way, but her body was stumpy and heavy like her father’s. She looked pretty only because people always looked at her then Susan, and compared them with each other.

  As June gazed down at her she was aware that her husband had come into the room. Looking at him, she whispered. ‘Fancy some of Debbie now, do you? Or is there something else I don’t know?’

  Joey pulled her from the room. Shutting the door none too gently, he bellowed, ‘Get your arse in that bed, woman, and shut the fuck up.’

  June did as he said.

  Not because she wanted to do it but because she was cold and tired. When he reached for her she was amazed at how she responded to him. If was as if they had been parted for years and had just come together after all that time. After missing one another, wanting and needing one another. They made love till the sun was high in the sky and their bodies were slippery with sweat. Yet not once did either of them utter a word.

  Afterwards they slept in each other’s arms, something they had not done for years. June was at peace with herself and did not know why. All she did know was that she was glad. It was as if Susan had lost out somehow and she had won.

  Though what exactly she wasn’t sure.

  Chapter Twelve

  Susan felt tired and irritable, it had been a long day. Married for only a month, and eight months pregnant, she was beginning to realise the extent of the work involved in keeping the house nice, cooking her new husband meals and having a heavy weight dragging her down from the moment she woke to the moment she went to bed.

  But, all in all, she was enjoying herself.

  Their wedding was now part of East End folklore. People had talked about it for days, all laughing and joking and making remarks. Susan had taken it all in good part and endeared herself to neighbours and friends alike. Her home was spotless, her washing was done regularly, and her step and her windows shone like beacons before the passing women.

  Unlike her next-door neighbour, Doreen Cashman, who lived like a pig, let her kids run in the street and spent her days smoking fags and gossiping, Susan was accepted by the older women and taken to their hearts.

  Susan, though, liked her new neighbour.

  Doreen was a slut with long bleached yellow hair, a cigarette permanently dangling from her lips and a mouth like the Blackwall tunnel.

  But she was funny, hilarious even, and Susan found her a good sort.

  Barry, however, couldn’t stand her and made that fact very evident. Doreen did not care a hoot. She gave as good as she got, which did not endear her to him at all. She was the type of woman he referred to as a brass, and she was a brass in that she did moonlight as a prostitute now and again then told the world what she had done. Even the older women laughed at her antics when they were in the mood. Susan thought her a character, someone with personality, life pouring out of her.

  After only a month, Susan had grown to rely on Doreen. Her wit, her outlook on life and her crazy lifestyle made Susan envious of her at times.

  But all in all she was happy enough with her marriage. After the disaster of the actual day they had settled into their new home and made it like a little paradise for the two of them. Kate Dalston was thrilled to bits with Susan’s aptitude for housework and cooking that matched even her own high standards. Consequently she came round every day and they were getting quite close. Susan loved having a real mother figure in her life, and if sometimes Barry did not come home, she didn’t berate him. She just cooked him some food and asked him how everything was going when he finally did arrive, and acted as if everything was normal.

  Barry, realising that she was a diamond, gave her peace and quiet and affection. So long as Doreen was not in the house everything was fine.

  Doreen for her part made sure she disappeared as soon as his key was heard in the door.

  This morning the sun was out, the heat was growing and the council had arranged for standpipes in the road because of the water shortage. In the East End this was common in summer and Susan was grateful to Doreen’s two elder boys as they saved her the job of filling buckets then carrying them all the way home. She was making them both a cup of tea when her cousin Frances arrived without warning and with an expression on her face that told both women something bad had happened.

  ‘Where’s Barry?’ Frances asked tersely.

  Susan shrugged. Sweat was trickling down her neck and back, making her itchy and uncomfortable.

  ‘How do I know, Fran? He could be anywhere.’

  Frances looked lovely and Susan poured her a cup of tea while admiring her dress and shoes.

  ‘You look as fresh as a peach, don’t she, Doreen? You always had the figure, girl. Make the most of it, I say.’

  Frances looked ashamed. Without a word she walked out into the tiny garden. She looked in a state, as Doreen put it to herself, and she had an idea it was over Barry Dalston.

  ‘What do you want to see him for, Fran? Only he normally comes in about sixish, if you want to come back then?’

  Frances was still feigning interest in the garden.

  ‘Does he still drink in the Londoner?’

  Susan shrugged. ‘I don’t know, he’s all over the place these days with me father. Can I give him a message?’

  Doreen picked up the anxiety in Susan’s voice and leaning on the wall by the back door called out, ‘What do you want to see him for anyway?’

  Her tone of voice brought Frances back into the kitchen. Susan had just sat herself down on a chair and was pulling at the neck of her dress to fan her skin and try and cool off. Her belly was huge. Looking at her cousin, Frances felt the first stirrings of regret for what she had done and what she had to say.

  ‘You been up the hospital lately? What did they have to say?’

  Susan laughed. ‘Not a lot. I have to wait now - the last few weeks are always the hardest or so everyone tells me. Trust me to be in the fucking club through the hottest part of summer, eh? Just my luck.’

  She patted her belly happily and sighed.

  Frances smiled sadly.

  ‘It must be hard, mate. Still, at least you ain’t bothered by Barry, are you? I mean, him wanting his leg over and that. You give it up at six months, don’t you?’

  Doreen and Susan both roared.

  ‘You’re joking, ain’t you? He’s still at me like anything. I could do with the rest to be honest.’

  Frances looked dismayed and this made the other two women laugh even more.

  ‘Listen, Fran, you
feel randier when you’re pregnant for some unknown reason and Barry says it’s good for the baby too. He read it in the paper.’

  ‘I bet he did! I didn’t even realise he could read, to be honest.’

  Doreen and Susan laughed at that, assuming it was a joke.

  Frances took Susan’s hands in hers and sighed heavily.

  ‘Listen, Susan. I need to talk to you, mate. What with the baby and everything . . .’ She turned to Doreen. ‘Would you mind leaving us alone, please?’

  Susan pulled her hands from her cousin’s and shook her head. ‘Whatever you’re going to say, you can say it in front of Doreen, I’ll probably tell her anyway.’

  She didn’t want to hear this, somehow she knew it was going to cause trouble.

  ‘Listen, Susan.’ Frances knelt down in front of her and gripped her hands, an action that for some reason really irritated Susan.

  ‘I don’t know how to tell you this, but I have to . . .’

  ‘You slept with Barry on my wedding day? I already know about it.’

  Susan’s voice was low, heavy with menace, and Doreen sighed in annoyance. She knew her friend was feeling under the weather and that something like this was not conducive to a peaceful lying in. As she saw the hurt in Susan’s eyes she felt an urge to punch Frances in the face.

  The girl dropped her eyes and stood up unsteadily.

  ‘That’s not the worst of it, Susan.’

  She was baffled for a moment. Suddenly she knew what her cousin was going to say and, heaving herself from the chair, felt her hands make contact with Frances’s hair. Susan was dragging her across the kitchen the next minute and attempting to throw her out of the back door.

  ‘You bitch! You’re in the club, ain’t you?’

  She could feel her baby struggling as she strained with exertion and pushed the unwelcome guest from her home. Her home, the one she shared with Barry. Barry Dalston, the lying, cheating, two-faced bastard.

  Doreen was pulling her away from Frances, using all her considerable strength to separate the two girls.