The Would-Be Wife

by Annie Wilkinson

  ‘Over there,’ Brenda said, nodding towards the lovely couple.

  ‘I’ve already seen ’em.’

  The sight of them together had knocked Lynn sideways, but to preserve her injured pride she recovered herself enough to make a good show of smiling and laughing up at Alec, happy to let him carry Simon off the boat and very pleased to let him help her off too. Graham’s expression was a picture. It was obvious to Lynn that his shock on seeing her with another man was as great as hers on seeing him with Mandy. Good. She was glad that she had a strapping man like Alec to flaunt under his nose. Let him see he wasn’t the only fish in the pond.

  Anthony followed with Brenda and deliberately passed Graham within an inch or two of his face. ‘Yes, you bastard – have a good look,’ he said. ‘They don’t need you – they’ll do all right without you, mate.’

  Simon stopped, and took his father’s hand. ‘Daddy! Daddy!’

  Graham stared straight ahead, his face like granite.

  Simon looked up at him, bewildered. ‘Daddy?’ He gave his hand a shake. ‘Daddy!’

  No longer feeling quite so triumphant, Lynn took hold of Simon’s other hand. ‘Come on, Simon. Come on, son,’ she coaxed, sickened further at Graham’s total lack of response to his own child.

  With neither a word nor a gesture from his father to encourage him to stay, Simon allowed himself to be pulled away.

  ‘Why didn’t my Daddy come with us?’ he demanded, as they walked off. ‘Why didn’t he hold my hand?’

  ‘Because he’s with somebody else,’ Lynn said.

  ‘Doesn’t he like us any more?’

  Anthony leaped up and thrust his fist into the air. ‘I could punch daylight through him!’ he burst out. ‘I wish I’d chucked him in the bloody river.’

  ‘Did you see the face on it?’ Brenda said. ‘Looked as if he was chewing a wasp. He must think he’s the only one entitled to enjoy himself.’

  ‘That was the same lass that brought my landlady’s parcel round, but I wish we’d done what you wanted and gone to the seaside, Brenda. York was a really bad idea,’ Alec said, glancing at Simon.

  ‘It was a great idea before we bumped into Face-ache,’ Brenda contradicted. ‘Anyway, this is your last day ashore and we shan’t see you for another three weeks, so we’re not going to let that little prick ruin it for us, are we?’

  That choice expression coming out of such an angelic face prompted shocked laughter from the other three, and Simon laughed at their laughter. It eased the tension, and Lynn warmed to Anthony’s girlfriend.

  Brenda grabbed Simon’s free hand. ‘Come on, Lynn, lets give him a swing,’ she cried, and they ran along the path, lifting Simon off the ground and carrying him along with them. Cries of ‘Again!’ and ‘Again!’ kept them at it until they got to the waiting taxi.

  ‘You like walking on walls, don’t you, Simon?’ Anthony asked. ‘I always did when I was a nipper. So we’ll all walk on the wall round York, as far as we can go.’

  ‘Then we could have a ride up to Scarborough. I like

  Scarborough,’ Brenda said.

  So after York city wall it was Scarborough for fish and chips and a look round the town – and then buckets and spades, sandcastles and tea. They arrived back in Hull long after Simon’s bedtime.

  ‘Get a babysitter, and come out for a drink with us, Lynn,’ Alec said, but Lynn wouldn’t be persuaded. She wanted to stay with Simon.

  ‘I want to go home and see my dad,’ Simon demanded, as they watched the taxi drive away.

  ‘We can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because that woman who was standing in the queue with him lives there now. Come on, you’ve had a lovely day, and it’s time you were in bed.’

  Defeated, Simon reluctantly let himself be ushered upstairs and into the double bed they were sharing. He was still awake when she went downstairs, half an hour later.

  She went into the kitchen and made herself a cup of tea, thinking how drastically his life had changed, and in only a couple of weeks. No hope of gardens with swings and apple trees now, and no father worthy of the name. He’d had more kindness shown him by a total stranger. Alec McCauley and her brother must have spent a fortune on that day out. Lynn would have liked to pay her share, but had so little to spare she daren’t even ask what the taxi fare was. She comforted herself with the thought that they wouldn’t begrudge what they’d spent. On their two or three days ashore time was worth a lot more to them than money, and those two had certainly squeezed the most out of every minute.

  They would be sailing on the morning tide. Fishermen! No sooner home than they’re gone again, and pity the woman who falls in love with one. There were better ways to live. Being married to a trawlerman was no life for a woman. Like her mother said, not a proper married life at all.

  Chapter 9

  A couple of days later Lynn left Simon with her mother and dressed in suitably sober fashion, she took a bus into town to walk down Whitefriargate to Silver Street and the Land of Green Ginger, where the solicitors and legal people had their offices in Georgian buildings down cobbled streets. She looked on brass plate after brass plate until she found Mr Brian Farley and went in. After a long wait she was led by a young man who introduced himself as Mr Farley’s articled clerk through two doors attached to the same doorway – an inner one and an outer one – into a small office

  ‘I’ve never seen that before,’ she commented, indicating the doors. When closed they could only have been two or three inches apart.

  ‘Oh, your secrets will be safe with us,’ the clerk laughed, but left the doors open. They soon heard footsteps approach, which stopped outside.

  The clerk glanced towards the doors with a wry expression. ‘He’ll be lighting a cig before he comes in. That’s the usual procedure.’

  ‘He should have lit it in here, and offered me one,’ Lynn said, taking a packet of cigarettes out of her handbag. She wondered for a moment if Mr Farley lit his cigarettes outside the door just to avoid offering his clients one. So much the better, really, if the little she’d heard about solicitors and their charges was true. If she’d taken one of his, it might have appeared on the bill at three times the cost. The thought of that bill gave her a sinking feeling. Poor Dad, he’d paid a fortune for the wedding, and now she was going to have to ask him to shell out again, for the divorce.

  The clerk left the room and a small, dark-haired, middle-aged, rotund figure of a man walked in with a cigarette between his lips. He closed both doors after him just as Lynn was lighting up. She raised her eyes from the flame as she inhaled and found herself looking into a pair of bright dark eyes with humour in them.

  Mr Farley smiled, and extended his hand. ‘A fellow sinner, I see.’

  Lynn put her lighter back in her pocket and shook his hand, instantly feeling she had an ally. Under his sympathetic gaze, and prompted now and then by his murmurs of commiseration she was soon pouring out her story, and eventually had to blow her nose and dab away the tears that had begun to steal down her cheeks.

  Mr Farley was all solemn sympathy. ‘You could probably stay in the matrimonial home if you had a mind, and make him leave,’ he told her.

  She sat twisting her handkerchief for a moment or two, trying to remember what the monthly mortgage was. She hadn’t a clue. ‘Graham’s always dealt with all the finances,’ she said, finally, ‘but I’m sure I’d never be able to afford it on my own.’

  ‘What does Graham do for a living?’

  ‘He works for a pharmaceutical company. He’s just had a promotion.’

  Mr Farley gave a smile of approval. ‘Regular employment, and quite a good salary, I should think. Well, you’ll have his contribution as well. He’ll have to pay maintenance.’

  Lynn realised with a sudden shock that relying on Graham to sort the money out was now a thing of the past. She would have to take all the responsibility for that on her own shoulders. She would have to take all the responsibility for everything, come
to that. She sat up and took notice.

  ‘How much, do you think?’ she asked. The tears were gone.

  Mr Farley smiled, as if at a private joke. ‘How much does he earn?’

  ‘I don’t know! I never asked him. He paid the mortgage and the bills on his salary, and I did all the shopping on mine. We had a joint bank account, but he always saw to everything. I never had anything to do with it,’ she said, horrified at her own lack of basic common sense. Her salary was still being paid into that joint account.

  Mr Farley’s smile broadened, and his eyes twinkled wickedly. ‘People come in here and start weeping into their hankies, but the tears dry up as soon as we get down to brass tacks and start talking about the money,’ he assured her. ‘Who gets what, that’s the crux of the matter.’

  ‘But what if he won’t tell us how much he gets?’

  ‘He’ll find he has no choice, Mrs Bradbury. Well, it seems to be an open and shut case, providing you haven’t condoned his adultery.’

  Lynn’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘And you have no extra-marital entanglements yourself. He could cross-petition, if so.’

  For a moment Lynn was speechless with shock. ‘If you mean am I committing adultery as well as him, I can tell you I’m not!’

  He smiled. ‘That simplifies things. We’ll be very happy to act for you. Now about the co-respondent. Do we know the lady’s name and address?’

  ‘I wouldn’t describe her as a lady. I only know she’s called Mandy, and she’s from Leeds.’

  ‘Nothing else?’

  Lynn shook her head.

  ‘I’ll send Jack round to the matrimonial home. He can get all the details, if they’re still there.’

  ‘Who’s Jack?

  ‘Private detective. Your husband would be well advised to get a solicitor, if he hasn’t already.’

  Lynn had a sudden thought. ‘I’d better give you his mother’s address,’ she said. ‘He might find them there, if they’re not at the matrimonial home.’

  Mr Farley handed her a form. ‘Fill that in and post it. You’ll get legal aid without any trouble, and the court will probably order your husband to pay the costs anyway. When you hear from them, make another appointment, and bring us your marriage certificate. You can’t petition for divorce without it.’

  ‘The matrimonial home,’ Lynn echoed, as she stepped into the street. Now there was an impressive piece of solicitor jargon for the house she’d imagined she would be living in until her dying day.

  Chapter 10

  Careful not to wake Simon, Lynn crept into the bedroom that night and quietly got undressed, then with only the landing light to see by she began laying her uniform ready for the morning. On groping at the back of a drawer to find a pair of stockings, she pulled out the blue garter that Margaret had given her on her wedding day.

  Something borrowed, something blue, something old and something new, she remembered, and what a stupid old superstition that was. She tossed the garter into the wastepaper bin.

  It took an age to get to sleep. She awoke later and tossed and turned for an hour, unable to rest for thinking about that garter and her wedding day. Unwanted and unwelcome memories chased each other round her mind like hamsters on a wheel, and the more she tried to dispel them, the faster and more insistently they chased. In the end she switched on the bedside light and saw that it was past three o’clock. Sleep had deserted her, so she got out of bed and opened the wardrobe. Her wedding dress was still hanging in the furthest corner, protected by an old white sheet her mother had stitched together at the sides. She lifted it out, took off its covering, and laid it on the bed. The pearls and pearlised sequins on the bodice gleamed in the glow of the lamp, and the ivory silk of the skirt shimmered. Pearls for tears, her mother had warned, but Lynn had swept her objections aside. The dress was the loveliest thing she had ever seen; it had suited her perfectly and she’d meant to have it, regardless of silly superstition. Besides, the pearl superstition came from the notion that if you took something precious from the sea, the sea would take something precious from you – your man. But the sea would have had a struggle to get Graham; he never even went for a paddle. There was no chance of his ever being washed overboard, so ‘pearls for tears’ was irrelevant – or so she’d thought.

  At the bottom of the wardrobe was a sea-green shoebox, still containing her neat little satin wedding shoes with their Louis XIV heels. She lifted them out and inspected the decoration on the front. Pearls again.

  Lynn sat on the bed and stroked the dress, held the silk against her cheek, remembering again Margaret chanting ‘something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue’ as she gave her the last-minute gift of the garter, and then their laughter as she struggled with her frothy underskirts to get it on. Her mother had lent her an old silver cross and chain to serve both as something borrowed and something old. Every superstition had been duly deferred to by a family rooted among the most superstitious people in the British Isles. Her mother and sister had seen to it that there was nothing other than the pearls to tempt fate, and Lynn had gone off to St John’s Church beside her father in that flower-bedecked wedding car bursting with happiness and full of confidence in the future.

  Poor Dad, the amount of money he’d lashed out on it all! A large tear rolled down her nose and landed on the beautiful ivory silk, followed by another. The dress was a work of art, and she felt it almost a crime to spoil it. She stood up and wiped her face with her fingers, then found a clean handkerchief and dabbed at the tears. Taking care not to drop any more on it she put it back in its cotton shroud and hung it in the wardrobe, then wrapped the little satin shoes in the yellowing tissue paper and put them back in the box with the few bits of faded confetti and lucky horseshoes. She retrieved the garter from the waste bin and laid it on top of the shoes, then replaced the lid and put them all in the wardrobe.

  She shut the door on them. They were all relics of the past, and at Messrs Farley and Brown in Land of Green Ginger she had cut that past adrift from her future. She had no future now with Graham, and the gnawing emptiness inside her convinced her that without Graham she had no future at all, except for days without number filled with bleak, unending grief. She got into bed, her tears flowing on, copious and silent, not likely to disturb Simon.

  Pearls for tears. She shivered. If only she hadn’t insisted on having pearls.

  *

  At the end of the week Lynn was with Mr Farley when Jack himself walked in. ‘I had to go round a couple of times, but I got them in, finally,’ he said. ‘He’s admitted everything.’

  A little smile lifted the corners of Mr Farley’s mouth and made wrinkles around his bright brown eyes. ‘Very good of him, I’m sure. Have you got all the details?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mr Farley turned to Lynn. ‘Well now, we can proceed with the petition – preferably as quickly as possible. With your legal aid it will only cost you thirty shillings. Better get the financial end of the business settled while he’s still feeling guilty. That wears off very quickly, believe me – and when it does he’ll put up a lot more resistance to a good maintenance settlement.’

  ‘Well, if he’s felt any guilt I’ve seen no sign of it, but whatever you think best,’ Lynn said, with a smile as wry and fleeting as the solicitor’s. She signed the papers he put before her and then went to catch the bus to Richmond Avenue. Half an hour later she was sitting in Janet’s living room.

  ‘We can proceed to a divorce,’ she announced, ‘and it’ll only cost me thirty bob, with legal aid.’

  ‘Thirty pieces of silver. Just the right price, for him,’ Janet said.

  Lynn nodded and leaned forward, making chopping movements at imaginary leg-irons. ‘The shackles will soon be off, and I shan’t have to ask my dad for a bean.’

  Janet looked disgusted. ‘Losing your home, though! Everything you’ve worked for. Having to go back to live with your mother!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘I kno
w. I sometimes wonder whether this divorce will turn out to be the worst day’s work I’ve ever done. Simon’s still hankering after his dad, and so am I, truth be known.’

  ‘Think again, then, if that’s the way you feel.’

  ‘Go back to him, you mean – after the way he’s carried on? No chance.’

  ‘But it’s your house as well – your home! Everything you wanted for Simon: a garden with a swing, and even an apple tree. It’s a lot to give up.’

  ‘It’s not the house, it’s really not. I wouldn’t go back to live in it, anyway.’

  Janet said nothing, but Lynn caught a enquiring look in her hazel eyes.

  ‘I mean it. I’d see her everywhere; I’d never be able to forget it. Apart from which, if he got away with it that easily it would be giving him the green light to carry on, wouldn’t it? No. You had it right the first time, Janet. He’s a tosser, and I’ve got too much pride to put up with what Connie put up with for years and years.’

  ‘If she hadn’t a clue what was going on, she didn’t really put up with anything,’ Janet said.

  Chapter 11

  June came, and the days were longer and brighter, but as grey as November for Lynn. Day after dreary day she left Simon with her mother and went to work, facing up to the new reality of her life. She was glad to go; there was plenty of distraction in a busy ante-natal out-patient department, and the work was rewarding. Most women having babies were happy to be having them, looking forward to welcoming a new life into the world, and something of that happy, optimistic attitude seemed to pervade the whole place. Day after day, Lynn threw herself into caring for the ‘ladies in waiting’, hoping that the married ones would never be confronted with faithless husbands and feeling a more acute sympathy for girls and women who were struggling alone, for whatever reason. It was cheerful on the whole, a good place to work, and she had good colleagues, Janet above all.