Young Lizzie was quick to whisper to her sister, ‘Just like Ma!’
Aggie did not hear. ‘Well, she needn’t think I’ll put up with her treating me like one. I’ll fettle that one, see if I don’t.’
To this end, the following Sunday when the young couple inevitably turned up, she awaited the opportunity to deliver the bad news, although now having had a week in which to cool down she found it more difficult. It would have been easier to blurt it outright had Etta been an unpleasant sort, but she wasn’t and Aggie felt obliged to opt for a gentler, diplomatic approach, especially as the girl had been unusually helpful that afternoon, undertaking all the washing-up herself.
This task done, Etta spread the damp tea towel on a line above the fireplace and smiled in response to her mother-in-law’s thanks. ‘Well, it’s only right that I should take my turn. You’ve made me feel part of your family. I’m so grateful.’
Aggie gave an inward groan, for Etta’s warmth made her own task harder. Yet it did give her an opening. ‘Speaking of family,’ she said casually as her son wandered outside to the lavatory. ‘Are you thinking of letting your own know where you’re at?’
Smote as if by lightning, Etta cooled. ‘Had they wanted to find me they would have done so already.’
‘As I understand it, your argument is with your father. Speaking as a mother, I’d want to know where my daughter was – especially if I only had the one.’
Etta felt tears prick her eyes and was angry at herself for being so affected. ‘My mother isn’t like you. She’s too influenced by my father even to contemplate tracing me.’
‘That’s sad.’ Aggie hesitated, but then persisted. ‘If you want me to act as go-between –’
‘No!’ Curbing her outburst, Etta was to moderate the rest of her reply. ‘Thank you, it’s very decent but I’ve no wish to be reunited with any of them.’ She couldn’t bring herself to say that she had already tried the written approach but through fear of being rebuffed had torn the letter up. ‘Martin and I need only each other.’ Immediately realising she had insulted her mother-in-law, she tried to apologise, but it was too late, the response was stiff.
‘Aye, well, maybe you’ll realise just how much you need others when you start a family of your own.’ Her ire rekindled over being taken for granted, Aggie added, ‘By the by, we won’t be eating at home next Sunday, we’ve been invited to Louisa’s.’ This was her eldest married daughter.
Etta misinterpreted and, thankful to have the subject changed, said more brightly, ‘Oh, I shall look forward to meeting her!’
Aggie was not about to let her get away with this. ‘When I said we, I meant Red and Uncle Mal and myself and the children. You and Marty’ll have to fend for yourself I’m afraid.’
Seeing Etta’s face droop, Red felt a rush of pity. ‘Well, maybe –’
‘Aye.’ Uncle Mal leaned forth to croon in sympathetic tone.
‘It’s not our place to go inviting other folk,’ pronounced Aggie firmly.
Her husband remained equable. ‘Strangers, maybe, but Marty is Lou’s brother and I’m sure she would be as pleased to meet Etta.’
‘And she will meet her some other time, but next Sunday I’m afraid Etta and Marty will have to rely on their own devices – sure, it’ll be no hardship for those who prefer their own company.’ Aggie looked Etta in the eye so that they were both clear as to where they stood.
When Marty came back into the room he sensed an atmosphere but assumed it was because his father had instantaneously dropped off to sleep. However, on the way home not long afterwards, he enquired of his wife who was unusually quiet, ‘Did something happen while I was in the lavvy?’
‘I’ve upset her again,’ Etta revealed dully.
‘What did you say?’
She related the brief exchange. ‘Consequently, we’re to provide our own Sunday luncheon in future.’
‘Don’t fret, Ett. You haven’t poisoned me yet.’
She punched him playfully.
He overreacted with a melodramatic performance that brought the sparkle of laughter to her eyes as he had hoped, and soon she was back to her animated self.
‘Oh well!’ she exclaimed, hugging his arm, ‘It was a bit much to expect your mother to put up with us every week. After all, we are an old married couple now.’
‘Aye, almost a month!’ He pulled her into his side, their hips jostling as they made their way down the street. ‘We must think of a way to celebrate our anniversary. Though I’m sure I can’t imagine how.’ Then he gave her a sly sideways glance that set her giggling and had them speeding home to bed.
7
Etta quickly recovered from the altercation with Aggie, and the latter, gracious in winning the battle of Sunday lunch, proceeded to teach her daughter-in-law how to manage a household. But tuition was only part of the equation: it had taken years of experience to perfect Mrs Lanegan’s pastry, she could only pass on the method not the skill, and judging by the younger Mrs Lanegan’s efforts, hers would have been better employed in making bricks. Still in the blissful newlywed stage of marriage, Marty was laughing to himself about this as he came through the courtyard, wondering what Etta had in store for him this evening. She was a dreadful cook, but oh, how he loved coming home to her.
It had been hell at work. Still limping, Custard Lugs had not yet been able to wreak vengeance, but the promise of it was simmering in his eyes every time Marty looked at him. It was only a matter of time, and the dread of this had concerned him for most of the day. His was a tiring enough job without the extra stress of having to dodge that ruffian.
But for now he felt safe. Grinning in preparation of seeing his loved one, he grasped the door knob and entered – but before he had a chance to lay eyes on his wife someone leapt from behind the door, threw a blanket over his head and to all intents rendered him blind and almost suffocated as it was swathed tightly about him, pinning his arms to his sides and imprisoning him. More alarmed for Etta than himself – please God don’t let her be harmed – he twirled violently to dislodge his assailant, who gave a squeak and thudded to the floor, whereupon Marty fought his way out of the blanket, his face red with fury as he made to deliver retribution.
Etta cringed and yelled as she looked up at him with tears in her eyes, half of laughter, half of pain from the bloody nose he had inflicted. ‘Stop, it’s only me!’
Aghast, Marty clutched his head and shrieked, ‘You stupid bloody woman!’ Then he bent to help her.
Furious at the insult, she immediately dispensed with the laughter and lashed out with her foot. ‘It was a joke, for heaven’s sake!’
He leapt back. ‘Some joke! I thought I was being attacked – and even worse, I thought they’d hurt you!’
‘Huh, well someone has!’ Having been fantasising about him all day, Etta had worked herself into a frenzy of lust, and her practical joke had been meant as a precursor to sexual frolics. Acutely disappointed and furious that her plan had backfired, she refused his help and got up, testing her throbbing, bloody nose gingerly. ‘I think you might have broken it.’
He heaved a sigh of exasperation and made to dab at the trickle of blood with his handkerchief, but she shrugged him off pettishly.
It took both of them a long time to calm down, Etta turning her back on him and going to fetch their meal. Marty was first to tender his regret. ‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered as she laid the plates none too gently on the table. ‘I was terrified ’twas your father come to beat me inside out again and snatch you away.’
‘You don’t know him like I do.’ Etta remained morose as she set out the knives and forks. ‘Never concern yourself that he’ll want me back.’
The underlying poignancy to this remark caused him to reach out to her. ‘Then he’s a downright fool and it’s his great loss – but others have it in for me too, Ett, I wasn’t to know. I’m really sorry for hurting ye, I wouldn’t do it for the world, you know that.’
She pretended to sulk but allowed herself to
be pulled into his arms. ‘I intended to grab you and whisk you off to bed.’
‘Well, you still could.’ He grinned suggestively.
‘With this conk?’ She pouted.
‘True, it is a bit off-putting – like making love to a walrus!’ He laughed and jerked his head away as she squealed and tried to hit him. ‘Calm, calm! Now ye know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of a joke. But, sure, have you ever known anything to put me off?’
Responding to his lazy grin, she was grudging in her forgiveness. ‘Too late now. You’ll have to make do with kippers.’ But from the way she pushed her lower body at him, her head cocked slyly and her eyes bright over the crimson nose, he knew there was to be an erotic dessert.
‘I wonder if we’ll still be like this when we’re old and grey,’ sighed Etta as she lay beneath him later, glued together by sweat.
Totally forgiven, Marty was almost asleep and snuggled into her neck. ‘Mm, of course…though I hope we won’t still be stuck in this dump.’
After all her hard work to prettify the house, it rather hurt that he damned it so. But she stroked his back lovingly and told him, ‘It wouldn’t matter a jot to me.’ To her, the pursuit of happiness had been all-consuming. Before meeting him, her lonely existence had caused her often to question what purpose life had. Only in marriage to this adorable, loving man had she realised her destiny. ‘I’d face any hardship so long as I can be with you.’
It dawned on Marty then that his wife had never once complained about the poor conditions into which he had plunged her. She seemed perfectly content to make the best of things so long as she had something pleasant to do like her embroidery or reading a novel or one of her other hobbies. Oh, his adoration was equal to hers if not greater, but for him that was only a part of it. He hadn’t unearthed this gem simply to bury her in squalor. Kissing her, he peeled himself gingerly away, rolled into a more comfortable position and declared, ‘There’s got to be something more for us than this.’
‘What more can there be but to care for the person you love?’ came Etta’s gentle query.
‘There is, and I’ll get it,’ swore Marty. Touching her cheek in the dark, he allowed his hand to fall back to the mattress and was soon asleep.
Etta lay there listening to the sound of his breathing for a while, then soon she too drifted off.
Ironically, the day after Etta’s practical joke, that which he had been dreading finally came about: one second Marty was poised to make a dash for a customer, the next he felt a painful blow to the back of his neck, then inky darkness washed over him.
Apparently he was unconscious for no more than a few minutes, but the nauseating headache induced by Custard Lug’s cosh was to disqualify him from work for the rest of the day and was still there next morning. ‘Ooh, look!’ he winced at Etta. ‘Come and feel this hard swelling.’
‘I’ve been caught like that before,’ accused his wife, trying to make light of a situation that had alarmed them both.
He pointed a scolding finger at her. ‘I’ll remember that when you’re looking for sympathy!’
She chuckled and petted him. ‘Only teasing – oh, my poor love, I trust that brute will be punished.’
But with no proof that the man with yellow ears was the culprit, Marty was unable to lodge a complaint. Back at work, he was also forced to endure malicious smirking from his antagonist for the rest of the week. Had that been the end of the matter he would have called it quits – after all, it had been he who inflicted the first injury – but it was made very clear to him that his enemy considered this to be a lifelong blood feud. Hence, he would forever require eyes in the back of his head.
At least, joked Etta, her husband had some sort of contact with people other than his family, even if it might be unwelcome. She herself found it nigh on impossible to commune with anyone other than him. Oh, she had tried, but though some of the neighbours had greeted her in passing, they were unwilling to prolong the experience, seemingly awkward in her well-spoken presence – apart from the men, who might openly admire her but were no company, being too restricted by their wives. ‘Not that I care,’ she told Marty, echoing the declaration she had made to his mother. ‘As long as I have you, no one else matters.’
But it mattered to Marty that his wife might be ostracised, and the next day on his way home from work he took a detour from his usual route in order to call on his eldest sister, whose home was on the northern side of town in the shadow of the Minster. By coincidence, two of his other married sisters, Bridget and Anne, who lived outside the city, were here on a visit too, all three chorusing their surprise at his entry to the small courtyard dwelling and jumping up to encircle him.
‘Well, I never, if it isn’t the married man!’ Louisa was a female version of her father with a bush of light brown hair and a kind face that broke into smiles upon sight of the brother who had not visited in many a week. ‘Get yourself in here, we’ve a bone to pick with you, sneaking off and not telling any one of us!’ Her voice was bossy and she pinched his cheek as if he were still a little child, but her blue eyes were warm, as were those of her sisters as they poked and prodded him accusingly.
Whilst Marty gave laughing apology and fought off their tickling fingers, Louisa’s stick-thin husband Dan rose from his seat to reach out and shake his brother-in-law’s hand, saying in a deep Yorkshire accent, ‘By, you little rascal, I bet you copped it when you told Ma!’
‘You’re not joking,’ said Marty with a rueful grin, then to Bridget and Anne, ‘And what are you two doing here? Have your fellas got sick of you and chucked you out? Sure, I’m not surprised.’ He cowered away, laughing as, playfully, they attacked him again.
‘They’re at the market, cheeky!’ Bridget told him. ‘Came in to buy some stock. So we thought we’d come with them, didn’t we, Annie, and take the opportunity to come and visit our sister.’
‘And your husbands have taken the opportunity to sneak off to the pub,’ teased their brother. ‘Still at market at this time of evening? They’d tell you anything!’
‘Come on then, you lasses,’ ordered Dan, ‘leave the newlywed alone and let him sit down. He needs to conserve his energy.’
‘Oh, Marty, I can’t offer you anything substantial.’ Louisa looked pained as her brother perched on the edge of a sofa that was full of children. ‘We’ve already had our tea. Our visitors have eaten me out of house and home.’
‘You cheeky article!’ Bridget threatened her jokingly, as did Anne.
‘But we can offer the man a drink,’ cut in Dan. ‘Fred, grab a jug and nip to the pub!’
‘No, not for me!’ Marty prevented his six-year-old nephew from his errand, grabbing him and undergoing a brief wrestling match in which two other little boys joined, the other occupant of the sofa, a wide-eyed baby girl, being scooped away from the danger by her mother Bridget.
‘Tea then?’ jumped in Louisa.
‘No, no, I can’t stop!’ Marty broke off to calm the boys down. ‘Thanks all the same, but my wife’s waiting for me.’ Everyone laughed at the proud emphasis he laid on this.
‘Ooh, she’s got him under the thumb already.’ Dan nudged his wife.
‘You wouldn’t say that if ye saw her,’ riposted Marty.
‘So when are we going to see her?’ demanded Bridget with a gleam in her eye, bouncing the baby in her arms. ‘We’ve been thinking she must be right ugly, you don’t seem so keen to show her off.’
Marty pretended to deal her a backhander. ‘Get away with yese, I know full well Ma must have given you a detailed account!’
Louisa flushed and tried not to look at the others, recalling her mother’s opinion that Etta had some ‘filthy, dirty habits’, which in fact she herself had just been relaying to her sisters when Marty had arrived. Feeling her husband’s sly gaze she chattered hastily, ‘Well, we’ve been told she’s a stunner but we’d like to see for ourselves, wouldn’t we?’
This statement was echoed by her sisters, as was her foll
owing invitation. ‘You must bring her round.’
‘I’m glad you said that,’ smiled Marty. ‘’Cause Etta’s a bit lonely when I’m out all day at work and the neighbours aren’t very forthcoming, so I hoped she might be able to pop round here if she needs a friendly face – she’s got Ma of course, but just somebody nearer her own age.’
Louisa seemed hesitant at first. ‘Well, I was meaning the pair of you should come round for your tea this Sunday – but yes, of course Etta will be more than welcome to call if she can find the time.’
‘Great!’ Marty slapped his knees and leapt up. ‘I’ll get home right away and tell her. Give my regards to Mick and Joe!’ With a kiss to each cheek, he departed.
‘My God, what have I agreed to?’ Louisa clasped her cheeks with a fearsome look at the others. ‘And her so posh. I won’t know what to say to her nor nothing. What if she should want to use the lavatory?’
Dan beheld her with pity. ‘Don’t you know anything? Posh folk don’t go to the lav. They have a different biology to the rest of us.’ He grinned at his sisters-in-law, who tittered along with the children.
Oblivious to his teasing, she pondered on the difficulties. ‘Maybe I should buy some proper toilet tissue…’
‘You’re frightened she’ll get newsprint on her bum?’ Dan roared with laughter. ‘My God! You’ll be painting the seat gold next.’
‘’Tis all right for you!’ Louisa slapped him, then turned on her sisters who found this almost hysterically amusing. ‘And the pair of you can stop wetting yourselves, I’ll be sending her round to your houses next!’
And for the rest of the week she was to fret, rushing to the window every five minutes in case Etta should turn up, practising what she might say to her, forgetting all that Aggie had said about Marty’s wife being lax with the housework, remembering only that Etta was posh, and posh people were different, weren’t they?
But she need not have worried, for when Etta did turn up it was on Marty’s arm on Sunday afternoon, and she was not the imperious creature Louisa had feared but was very warm, charming and friendly, not hoity-toity at all. Even if her confident manner was a little intimidating, Louisa could see why Marty had fallen for her, and so for his sake she agreed that if Etta ever needed the company she should feel free to visit. ‘Though not on Wednesdays ’cause that’s when I clean for the doctor’s wife – and Thursday is a bit awkward as I usually go to market – but any other day…’
The Keepsake Page 16