The Would-Be Wife

by Annie Wilkinson

  On her last afternoon in out-patients Lynn was assisting a qualified midwife in the routine tasks of the booking clinic. She was calling in one of the few remaining patients after a very busy afternoon when she spotted Graham sitting in the waiting room – the very last place on earth she would ever have expected to see him. Her heart almost stopped as she looked round for Mandy, imagining he’d brought her to book for delivery. Their eyes met and Graham stood up, as if he meant to come over to speak to her. Lynn hastily ushered her patient into the examination room and closed the door after them. She smiled brightly at the patient and then attended to all the routine tasks of height and weight measurements, blood pressure and urine testing with her mind in turmoil.

  Mandy must be pregnant! She was probably in the toilet, producing a sample for testing at that very moment. Graham must have brought her to book for delivery – but how could he? They hadn’t been together long enough for her even to suspect she was pregnant. No, but they’d met before, she remembered – while he was on that course in Leeds. It must have happened there. So, there would be another child for Graham – and a half-brother or half-sister for Simon, with Lynn nowhere in the picture – unless as the shadowy figure of the discarded former wife, painted into some dark, obscure corner. Lynn felt as though her stomach had been scooped out.

  He was there when she went to call the last patient in, but there was still no Mandy to be seen. When the clinic was over and all the patients had gone, he was still in the waiting room. Lynn walked quickly towards the main part of the hospital, intending to avoid him.

  He rushed to bar her way. ‘Lynn, I’ve got to talk to you.’

  She stopped, having no alternative.

  ‘Mandy doesn’t want to be named as co-respondent,’ he said, looking directly into her eyes.

  She stared up at him for a split second, and then laughed in his face. ‘Pity for her, then! What did she expect? She should have thought about that before she took the train to Hull and jumped into my bed – with my husband!’

  A couple of the nurses who were clearing up after the clinic gave them strange looks. A scene in her place of work was the very last thing Lynn wanted. She made another attempt to sidestep Graham, trying to avoid it.

  He obstructed her again. ‘She doesn’t want to be named because her husband won’t like it.’

  ‘Well, that just takes the biscuit! So, she’s going back to hubby, is she? Whose idea was that, yours or hers?’ Lynn demanded, taking care to keep her voice down.

  Graham hesitated just half a second too long. Lynn gave a bitter laugh, and shook her head. ‘Bad luck for him, anyway, if he’s getting her back. What a prize!’

  ‘Listen Lynn, there’s no need . . .’

  Lynn felt the rage rising inside her until she thought her head would explode. ‘Mandy’s the co-respondent, and I hope they’ll publish it in all the papers. I hope they paste it on every billboard in Leeds. I hope everybody she knows sees it! She started this business, and I’m going to finish it. I’d tar and feather her if I could, and tie her up outside her own front door with a placard round her neck. Get out of my way, Graham.’

  ‘There’s no need to be spiteful.’

  The other nurses were now openly staring, but goaded beyond endurance, Lynn was blind to them.

  ‘Spiteful! You moron! What do you take me for, a doormat? You both wipe your feet on me – and then you think I ought to put myself out to save her a bit of embarrassment? The woman who wrecked my home? Simon’s home? No! She called the tune, and now it’s time to pay the piper. There’s one thing I’ll say for her though – at least she was considerate enough to foul somebody else’s nest, instead of her own. It’s more than I can say for you. Her husband ought to think himself lucky!’

  She saw the expression on Graham’s face and another thought struck her. ‘Unless . . . of course! When you were in Leeds! That’s where you went. Her house – to dirty his bed as well. I should have known.’

  ‘Meet me later. I want to talk . . .’

  ‘Go away, Graham!’ Lynn pushed him out of the way and disappeared through the double doors leading to the wards, looking for a porter to have him forcibly ejected.

  Little prick! Brenda had called him a little prick, and she’d hit the nail on the head.

  Chapter 12

  The Arctic Fox and the Arctic Raven were both due in on the same market tide, three weeks since they had last docked. Lynn’s short-lived idyll on out-patients, working office hours with bank holidays off was over, and she was back on the post-natal wards. She was on a late shift so she got Simon up at dawn and they went down to St Andrew’s Dock, to see them come in.

  She took him to stand near the lock pits where some of the youngsters from Hessle Road were already waiting, where she herself used to stand as an excited, carefree child so many years ago. Seagulls were circling around the ship as usual, many of them sitting on the rails and making themselves thoroughly at home, as if they were part of the crew. The fisherman called them ‘mollies’, and most believed that they embodied the restless souls of drowned sailors. A gull flying before the mast was following the corpse as it drifted over the sea bed. Her mournful mood and the thought of all those drowned men lying unburied and alone in the cold, dark ocean brought sudden tears to her eyes, and a tightness to her throat.

  The Arctic Fox squeezed slowly through the lock pits, and one of the deckhands began to lift the waiting children onto the ship. Lynn stepped towards him, holding Simon’s hand – wanting him to see where his grandad was during his long absences, and to understand something of his way of life.

  ‘He’s the Chief’s grandson,’ she said, and Simon was lifted aboard after the rest. Lynn followed. While the rest of the children scampered all over the ship she took Simon down long, vertical ladders deep into the bowels of the trawler, feeling his terror as she helped him down, her nostrils full of the well-remembered smells of engine oil and fish. On the catwalk above the engine room she called to her father, but when he came to greet them in his oily boiler suit Simon hung back, shy of him after three week’s absence, especially in these fearsome surroundings. ‘It’s nothing to be frightened of,’ Lynn encouraged him. ‘I used to love coming onto the ship when your grandad came home.’

  Simon was not convinced, but Grandad soon broke the ice, showing him some of the machinery until the docking tug towed the ship, stern first, to the berth on the market, port side to the quay. Then the skipper rang down ‘finished with engines’, and most of the crew jumped ashore and made for the taxis waiting at the back of the fish market.

  While her father went to shower and change into his shore clothes Lynn took Simon back to the lock pits to catch the Raven coming through. Anthony was lifting another little clutch of Hessle Roaders aboard, and she and Simon followed them, to be shown the trawl nets, the mess deck, the galley, and the bunks, fore and aft – and then the bridge, where they found Alec with the skipper. The ship made fast alongside the quay, and they left it as the ‘rummagers’ stepped aboard.

  Grandad walked in front with Simon on his shoulders and Anthony by his side. Lynn walked behind with Alec, towards the taxis and home. She felt the strength and roughness of his hand around hers, then looked up, and smiled at the gleam in his blue eyes.

  ‘I can’t understand your husband, letting you go,’ he said. ‘You’re one of the best-looking women I’ve ever seen in my life. Is he blind?’

  Lynn raised her eyebrows in feigned surprise. ‘One of?’ she queried.

  His eyes twinkled as he laughed at his mistake. ‘Oh, I got that wrong, didn’t I? The best-looking woman I’ve ever seen, I meant to say. Come out with us tonight, and we’ll carry on where we left off, down Hessle Road.’

  Anthony heard, and turned round ‘Aye, five pubs down, and seventy to go,’ he said.

  ‘No kidding? Every other house on Hessle Road must be a pub, then,’ Alec grinned.

  ‘It’s a long road, and he’s counting all the pubs that are up the side streets as w
ell. Dee Street’s where the skippers and mates drink, and West Hull Liberal Club. That’s where you belong,’ Lynn said.

  ‘I’ll save that until Anthony’s a mate, and I’m a skipper,’ Alec said. ‘So what about it, Lynn?’

  ‘Sorry, no can do. I’m on a late shift.’

  ‘What time do you finish?’

  ‘Nine o’clock.’

  ‘All right, we’ll come for you in a taxi,’ he promised. ‘You’ll get the last hour in, before closing time.’

  ‘Do you realise how far the maternity hospital is? It’s miles out on Hedon Road – next to Hull prison.’

  ‘I’ll come in a taxi for you,’ he repeated.

  ‘What a waste of money!’

  ‘No it’s not.’

  ‘What, for an hour? ’Course it is.’

  ‘I’m coming anyway. We’ll go on to a club when the pubs shut.’

  Let him come, then, Lynn thought. An hour out with Alec would make a welcome change. Her mother would take Simon round to Margaret’s while she and Lynn’s father went out, and Margaret would put him to bed with her own brood. She wouldn’t mind. ‘Well, if you’re coming anyway, I’ll take my glad rags and my war paint, and get ready as soon as I finish work,’ she said.

  The taxis were all gone for the moment. The day was clear and fine with a refreshing chill in the air, so rather than wait they walked all the way to the Boulevard to a hearty breakfast and an exchange of news and the making of plans which did not include Lynn. She would have to miss the excitement of shopping trips and three-course meals in town. She would be on the bus to work long before the men went to the office to settle.

  *

  The taxi was waiting for her right outside the hospital doors when she left work that evening, but further off in the car park she saw Graham’s car waiting in the spot he used to occupy when he came to pick her up in the pre-Mandy days.

  Graham had seen her, and was halfway out of the car. ‘Lynn! Lynn!’

  Her heart gave a painful little throb as she jumped into to the taxi beside Alec and closed the door. ‘Let’s move.’ she said. ‘We haven’t got much time.’

  The taxi drove off, leaving Graham standing looking after them, one leg on the concrete and the other still in his car.

  The taxi stopped at the end of the drive, waiting to turn right along Hedon Road.

  ‘I reckon that’s your husband, just behind us,’ Alec said, watching Graham’s car through the wing mirror as it came to a halt at the back of them.

  ‘Not for much longer,’ Lynn said.

  A gap in the traffic allowed the taxi to pull out, leaving Graham behind.

  ‘He’s doing his best to keep up with us. That lorry nearly took his front end off.’

  ‘Well, how many Hessle Road pubs have you managed so far?’ Lynn asked, signalling an end to conversation about Graham.

  ‘One or two,’ he grinned. ‘We’re meeting Anthony and Brenda at the Halfway.’

  ‘Let’s just call in and say hello, then go to West Hull Liberal Club. There’ll be dancing there. I’d rather dance than just sit in pubs.’

  ‘All right. If you can stand getting your toes trodden on, I’m game.’

  ‘They survived the last encounter,’ she said, and glancing into the driving mirror she was pleased to see that they had left Graham far behind.

  ‘Have you ever been to Fleetwood, Lynn?’ Alec asked, when he took her in his arms for the last waltz.

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s a nice place. I was thinking of going for a few days soon, to see my mother. Do you fancy coming with me?’

  ‘Won’t she be coming to Hull before long, to join your dad?

  ‘Why would she?’ he asked, not breaking step. ‘The bloke she’s married to lives in Fleetwood.’

  ‘Oh!’ Lynn glanced upwards to meet his eyes. ‘I’ve dropped a brick, then.’

  ‘You couldn’t be expected to know, seeing I never told you. But it’s not the sort of thing you can come straight out with as soon as you meet somebody. You can hardly say: “by the way, my mother and father are divorced,” as soon as you’ve finished shaking hands.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose you can,’ Lynn said. ‘And I suppose our Simon will have a lifetime of explaining why we don’t live with his dad, as well.’

  ‘That’s if you go through with it.’

  She stopped dancing. ‘Huh! I’m going through with it, all right!’ she said, and hesitated for a moment before adding:

  ‘But it must be embarrassing for a kid, having to explain.’

  ‘Not embarrassing, exactly, just a bit awkward. People take it for granted that everybody has two parents who live together, and when they realise you’ve got a different name to your mother, you can see the cogs going round in their brains, wondering whether you’re a little bastard.’

  Lynn suddenly didn’t feel like dancing any more. ‘Simon doesn’t even know what that word means.’

  He put an arm round her, and led her from the floor. ‘Neither did I, at first. I was seven when my parents split up . . . but you soon find out.’

  Lynn glanced quickly up at him, the cogwheels turning in her own brain as she wondered what sort of impact having divorced parents was going to have on Simon. If Alec’s father was at sea he wouldn’t have been able to look after him, so he must have lived with his mother and her new husband – unless he’d been farmed out with a grandmother. What must it have been like for him? She opened her mouth to ask, and quickly closed it again. That might be a touchy subject, best avoided altogether. So here she was, with a grown-up survivor of what Simon was to undergo. She consoled herself with the thought that Alec seemed none the worse for his parents’ divorce. If Simon turned out as well, he wouldn’t do too badly.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘Aren’t you going to ask why they’re divorced?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Will you come to Fleetwood with me, then? I’ve got a motorbike at my mother’s; we could ride it back to Hull.’

  ‘Thanks, but I leave Simon with my mother all day while I’m at work. I don’t think she’d take kindly to the idea of me going off for days on end – she’s too fond of gadding off herself. Besides, I don’t want to leave him; I’m away from him enough. I don’t want him to think his mother’s abandoned him as well.’

  ‘We’ll take him with us.’

  ‘Then you couldn’t get your bike.’

  ‘I’ll get it another time. They won’t mind keeping it for me.’

  ‘Oh, better go and get your bike, Alec,’ Lynn said. ‘It’s not only Simon. I can’t take any leave yet. I’ve got my midwifery exams soon and I can’t afford to fail. I want to be earning enough to get a house of my own.’

  ‘You’ll never get a mortgage – a woman on your own.’

  ‘I know, but I should be able to afford the rent on something small.’

  ‘Sounds as though it’s going to be a struggle. Why not find a nice husband, and let him get the house for you?’

  ‘I did, and look what happened.’

  ‘He wasn’t so nice, by the sound of it. I meant a nice new husband.’

  She laughed. ‘Are you volunteering?’

  ‘Aye, why not?’

  ‘You fishermen are too impulsive.’

  ‘Fishermen have to make their minds up fast. We’ve no time to waste.’

  ‘You’re a bit too fast for me, Alec. And maybe I should get divorced from the old husband before thinking about a new one.’

  Chapter 13

  ‘How did you get on at work today?’ her mother asked when Lynn got home after her shift the following afternoon.

  ‘Good. I got two deliveries in, mothers and babies doing well. Where’s Simon?’

  ‘Out.’

  ‘Out where? At Margaret’s?’

  ‘No, out with Graham.’

  ‘Graham! What did you let him go with Graham for?’

  ‘Because he wanted to go, for one thing. For another thing, Graham’
s his father, Lynn. I didn’t feel as if I had a right to stop him from taking his own son for an hour.’

  ‘His own son didn’t seem to matter to him while he was having fun and games with Mandy,’ Lynn snapped.

  ‘Well, Mandy’s gone now,’ her mother said, ‘and he’s got a right to see his son. Simon’s got a right to see his father, come to that. And anyway, it’s time Graham took some responsibility for him.’

  ‘What time’s he bringing him back?’

  ‘He said he was taking him for an hour.’

  ‘What time was that?’

  ‘A couple of hours ago.’

  Lynn picked up the telephone, and rang the house at Marlborough Avenue. There was no answer. She tried his parents on Bricknall Avenue, and spoke to her mother-in-law. Yes, Simon was there. Yes, she would put Graham on the line.

  ‘We’re having tea at my mother’s. We’ll be back home in a couple of hours,’ he told her. ‘You can pick Simon up from there.’

  ‘You’ve got the car. If I come for him, I’ll have to walk it. You can bring him back here, to the place you picked him up from.’

  ‘No, you pick him up from home. I want to talk to you.’

  Well, then! He’d failed at two attempts to collar her in the maternity hospital, and now it was evident he would stoop so low as to use Simon to bring her to heel. Lynn felt the heat rising to her cheeks. Alec was coming to take her out after tea, and her mother and father would be going out as well. For a fleeting moment she felt sorely tempted to tell Graham to keep Simon overnight and give Margaret a rest for once, but instinct warned her against it.

  ‘It’s not my home, Graham.’ she said. ‘It hasn’t been my home since you had Mandy in it, and it will never be my home again. Now put Simon on the phone. I want to speak to him.’

  ‘He’s out in the garden. My dad’s pushing him on the swing, and he’s loving it. I’ll see you later, in our home,’ Graham said firmly, and put the receiver down.

  ‘What did he say?’ her mother asked.

  ‘He says,’ Lynn fumed, ‘that although he’s got a car and he managed to pick Simon up from here, he’s not bringing him back here. I’ve got to traipse up to Marlborough Avenue in a couple of hours, and either accept a lift back from him, or walk it home with Simon. Which means that Alec will probably be here before I’m back.’