by Julie Shaw
Shirley giggled at the mental image. ‘Stop it, June!’ she whispered. ‘You know what she’ll be like if she hears you saying that! Come on. Stop making me laugh and start making me gorgeous.’
But June wasn’t to be side-tracked. Checking the doorway, she grabbed hold of the hairbrush she’d just been using and, flicking it like a feather duster, started waltzing round the living room, doing a perfect rendition of a scene in Calamity Jane.
‘A woman’s touch …’ she began trilling, ‘can quickly fill … the empty flower glasses on the winder-sill …’
‘I can HEAR you!’ snapped Mary, from beyond the door.
By the time it was ten o’clock, Shirley was almost ready, and when she was finally allowed to see herself in the mirror, she gasped in surprise at her reflection. She felt the prettiest she’d ever felt in her life. Her dark hair had been beautifully curled and pinned into place, and adorned with a sparkling diamante tiara. Her make-up was flawless, her skin fair and dewy, and her lips shined with the Vaseline June had put on over her carefully chosen pale-pink lipstick. All that remained was for Mary and June to help her into the dress that her mam had said cost a week’s wages, but which Shirley knew she’d been paying for in instalments for three months. For all her plans to make her own dress, rather than waste pots of money, Shirley couldn’t have been more thrilled when her mam told her they’d be buying one for her. It had been fitted especially for her in Bridge Street Bridal Boutique, and was the most gorgeous thing she’d ever had. It had hung ready in her bedroom for a few days now, a shimmering, magical presence, and Shirley couldn’t wait to step into it and complete the transformation.
Shirley thought of Keith then. Was he as excited as she was? Was he nervous? Was he ready? She felt her stomach flip – both at the thought of him seeing her in her wedding dress, and at the thought of him finding the whole thing too much and of doubts perhaps creeping in and scaring him. It was such a big thing, to be married, after all.
The week had crawled by, as Shirley had always known it would. But with one highlight – the fact that she and Keith were able to enjoy a rare day off with two of the most important people at the wedding. Annie’s little daughter, Linda, was going to be a flower girl and her Auntie June’s son Tony the page boy. They were both six, and Shirley and Keith babysat them individually often, but as soon as they clapped eyes on one another – when round at Shirley’s mam’s, trying on their outfits, several weeks back – they’d immediately become inseparable, so were thrilled to bits when Keith suggested they take them off their respective mams’ hands for a bit and go for an outing to a well-known local beauty spot called Shipley Glen.
They were an odd match – chalk and cheese, in many ways; Tony, a quiet, well-mannered lad, friendly but very reserved, and Linda, every bit as confident and outspoken as everyone else in her enormous family – and no wonder, having Annie for a mum. She also shared Annie’s good looks and, with her huge eyes and chocolate ringlets, always looked as pretty as a picture. All in all she looked as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, which wasn’t necessarily the case.
It was still early in the season, but Shipley Glen was always busy, and when they’d had their picnic and an ice cream – even though it was fairly chilly – they joined a big throng strolling over the bridge that led down to the river. They were almost there – and a long way from any public conveniences – when Tony announced that he needed the toilet.
‘Just go over there behind that tree,’ Keith had told him. ‘Lots of boys have a wee in the woods.’
‘But I don’t want a wee, Uncle Keith,’ Tony whispered. ‘I need a number two. An’ I need it now!’ finished the now rather anguished little boy.
Keith rolled his eyes, but Shirley managed to find some scraps of tissue for them and Keith duly trotted off with Tony, deep as he could into the patch of trees nearby.
‘Yuck!’ announced a disgusted Linda. ‘That’s revolting, Auntie Shirley!’ Upon which Shirley explained that sometimes you had to do what you had to do and that it was either that or a very, very long and possibly urgent walk back.
And she’d thought that was the last of it, as well. Keith and Tony returned, the latter looking mightily relieved, and they continued on over the bridge to look at the ducks on the river. Shirley was getting used to the admiring glances of people when they were out with the children, as both were invariably immaculately dressed by their mothers, and equally sweet and well behaved. Today, however, Linda noticed an elderly gentleman walking with his wife, and as he pointed towards them, asked ‘What’s that old man looking at, Auntie Shirley?’ in a voice that could have probably stopped traffic.
It was certainly loud enough that the couple stopped in their tracks.
‘I think he’s probably just commenting on how pretty you look,’ Shirley said, trying to steer her attention back to the water. ‘That and what good, well-behaved children you and Tony are.’
But there was no stopping Linda when she had a point to make, any more than there ever was with her mam. Turning to the man and his wife, who were now looking indulgently at her, she said, ‘I am. I always am, but he’s not a good boy. He’s a mucky little tyke,’ she said, pointing at a mortified Tony. ‘He’s just had a shit in the woods!’
The four of them hurried off then, and it was all Shirley and Keith could do not to burst out laughing, even while chastising Linda at the same time.
‘You can’t say things like that, Linda!’ Keith told her, once they were well out of earshot and the prospect of poor Tony being humiliated any further.
‘Why not?’ Linda wanted to now. ‘If he can do it, then why can’t I say it?’
The answer to which would have taken some time to explain. ‘You know what?’ Shirley said, once they’d moved on to the playground and Keith and she were perched on a bench while the children played. ‘I can’t wait till we’ve got little ones of our own.’
Keith laughed. ‘What, so you can teach them as many swear words as our Annie’s taught her little ones?’
‘No, you daft get,’ she said grinning. ‘So we can have fun like this.’
‘We will, then.’
‘Will what?’
‘Crack on and have some, Mrs Hudson.’
‘What, now? What, straight away? Oh, I’d love that so much. But can we? Keith, I’m not sure we can afford it.’
He pondered a moment, silently counting something on his fingers.
‘What?’ she said.
He finished counting. ‘Nope,’ he said, grinning back at her. ‘Tried my best but as far as I can see, there’s not a single member of my family who’s ever let a little detail like that hold them up.’ He took her hand and squeezed it. ‘And I’ve turned out all right, haven’t I?’
Shirley’s dad came down the stairs just as she was about to go up, and she gasped at seeing how handsome he looked in his wedding finery. She’d seen him dressed up before, of course, for other weddings, christenings and funerals, but today he looked especially handsome and smart, which tickled Shirley, given that he’d spent most of her and Keith’s courtship going on as if it was the worst thing in the world. No, today he looked, well … like he was proud to be a part of it. Suited and booted, proud and happy to be giving away his only daughter, with his hair all sleek and shiny, and the white carnation they’d fetched from the florist’s yesterday, along with the rest of the flowers and her beautiful rose bouquet, already fixed to his lapel.
Her mam, too, looked a picture, in her peach-coloured two-piece, finished off with a pair of dainty matching court shoes. Shirley looked at them enviously, having wanted to wear heels for her wedding day but, as it would have made her taller than Keith, she’d chosen ivory pumps instead. And she’d been glad to. It had been the right thing to do.
‘Oh, Mam and Dad,’ she said, feeling the enormity of the occasion threaten to overwhelm her. ‘You’ve done me so proud. You look just like the royal family, honest you do.’
‘Stop that, lass,’ Raymond said
, stepping aside to prevent Shirley from flinging her arms around him. ‘You’ll spoil your hair, and crush my bloody flower! Go on with you – go get that wedding dress on, so we can have a good look at you afore anyone else does.’
The sleek black car that was to take Shirley to St John’s Church for her wedding had been hired by Margaret and Bob as one of their wedding gifts, and trimmed with white ribbon and bows. If climbing into it on Lidget Terrace had been exciting, with all the neighbours looking on, climbing out of it, taking her father’s hand as she stepped carefully onto the pavement, felt incredible.
Though it was already just gone 11 – the time they’d booked the wedding – Raymond was clearly not as keen as she was to glide straight through the church gates. ‘Now, Shirley,’ he said, linking arms with her and holding her still momentarily, ‘I want you to know something important.’ His tone was serious and when she turned to look at him, she saw his expression was as well. He cleared his throat. ‘I want you to know that it isn’t too late to change your mind,’ he said quietly. He was now holding her gaze as well as her arm. ‘If you’ve had second thoughts,’ he went on, ‘then now is the time to tell me. If you don’t want to do this, just say, and I can sort it all out.’
Shirley looked at her dad, feeling the love shining in his eyes. And she knew, then and there, that everything was indeed going to be all right. That he wasn’t being mean. Wasn’t trying to make her change her mind. Just expressing his love in the most important way possible. Letting her know that her happiness was the thing that mattered most in his life. And if that meant calling the wedding off, he was ready to.
She wanted to throw her arms around him all over again, but, mindful of the veil that was now fixed carefully to the tiara in her hair – not to mention his carnation – merely squeezed his arm closer to her and smiled. ‘I’m sure, Dad. I’ve never been surer of anything. I promise you, this is exactly what I want.’
Raymond smiled too, the small hint of tension leaving his eyes. He then turned to look ahead, to the church doorway. ‘Well let’s get you down that aisle then, lass, eh? I think you’ve kept young Keith waiting long enough, don’t you?’
And Shirley was happier than ever not to keep her fiancé waiting any more – her fiancé, who less than an hour from now would be her husband, for better or for worse. And as the bridesmaids fell into step behind them – little Linda holding a posy of roses, to match her own, and with little Tony alongside her, bearing the red velvet cushion for the rings – she had eyes for him only. She could hear the wedding march, the swish of her train, the appreciative gasps from all the guests – but not see anything but the man she was about to wed.
He was nervous; that much had been obvious immediately, and looked no less so when she drew level and joined him. Nervous, but at the same time, a man, not a lad – strong-jawed, and filling out his smart new wedding suit. There was just the one thing. There was a very strange smell in the church, which hit her even more once she lifted her veil; a smell that put her in mind of hospitals – one that felt immediately familiar. Perhaps something they used to clean the church.
But this was no place to start sniffing and asking questions, obviously, so she did her best to ignore it as the vicar started speaking and, as the ceremony went on, she was fully occupied anyway, with all the singing and praying and saying I do-ing that the occasion demanded. All of which went by in short order and in a blur. It seemed as if almost no time had passed, or very little, before she was once again outside, about to climb into the car she’d just climbed out of, only this time while trying to shake rice and confetti from her hair – and on the arm of her husband instead of her father.
The journey from the church to the Gatehouse Club, where they were holding their reception, was only short, and something of a blur as well. They’d looked at one another, slightly stupefied, giggling like the children they suddenly felt at the reality of what had happened – at calling each other ‘my husband’ and ‘my wife’ when in public, which suddenly felt like the funniest-sounding thing in the world.
‘I don’t think I’ll be able to, not without bursting out laughing,’ Shirley confessed.
‘Me neither,’ Keith agreed. ‘Oh, and this is mah wife, don’t you know? Mrs Shirley ’udson.’
‘Shirley Hudson,’ she repeated, struck by the fact that, however many times she’d said it to herself, or practised writing it, pound to a penny she’d be blushing beetroot when she had to say it for real.
‘How does it feel, though?’ Keith wanted to know, once they’d clambered out and were headed for the reception hall to receive their guests. ‘You know – how does it feel knowing you’re now one of the Hudsons? Think you’re ready for it?’
Malcolm joined them, then, linking his arm through Shirley’s free one. ‘Yeah – how does it feel to be my big sister, eh?’
It felt great, Shirley decided. Great, bordering on brilliant. To have siblings she could call her own, where once she’d had none. Though she wasn’t allowing him that much. Not just yet. ‘I don’t feel any different, really,’ she lied. Then, catching another whiff of the smell she’d noticed earlier, ‘Oh, but did either of you smell that funny smell up by the altar, by any chance?’
Even from her position between the two of them she could half-see the change. Catch Keith’s cheeks reddening as she turned to look at him, catch the warning glance he shot his brother. Definitely catch Malcolm’s evident amusement at something of which she wasn’t a part.
Not yet, anyway. ‘Come on,’ she said, stopping on the path. ‘What’s going on here?’ She grinned. She couldn’t help it. They looked just like a pair of naughty schoolboys. ‘Come on,’ she said again. ‘We’re going nowhere till you tell me what’s so funny. And what that smell was, for that matter. You know, don’t you?’
‘Dettol,’ Keith admitted, clearly knowing he was beaten.
‘Dettol?’ Shirley said. ‘Why on earth could I smell Dettol?’ She felt suddenly concerned then. She knew all about stag nights. And she knew about the Hudson brothers, as well. ‘Keith,’ she asked anxiously, ‘are you hurt?’
Malcolm burst out laughing then. So his brother obviously wasn’t. ‘No,’ he said, ‘It’s not Keith that’s hurt – it was his suit that took the battering. He –’
‘Keith!’ Shirley snapped, trying hard to be cross with him. ‘You promised me on your life that you wouldn’t go out in that frigging suit!’
Malcolm laughed even harder. ‘You’ll have to take him in hand, Shirl – he didn’t only go out in it. He bleeding slept in it, too! Woke up in it this morning, on the couch, and it looked like a dish rag – all wrinkled and stinking and beer-splattered, and probably worse … and, if I say so myself, I think we did a pretty good job in cleaning it up and making it look half-respectable, don’t you? Sponged it off – I even found the iron and pressed it for him, too. You know,’ he added proudly, ‘as a proper best man should.’
‘With Dettol?’ Shirley said, shaking her head, not knowing what else to say.
‘It was all we could find,’ Keith explained. ‘You’re not going to go ballistic on me, are you, Shirl? Not today of all days? I got here, didn’t I?’
‘He did do that, at least,’ Malcolm added. ‘Come on. Could have been soooo much worse, couldn’t it, Shirl?’
And might well be, at some point in the future, she mused. Her new husband was, after all, a Hudson.
But that was fine, she decided, as the three of them headed towards their waiting guests. Because she was a Hudson now, too.
Chapter 17
14 December 1962
Exactly nine months and four days after joining the ever-growing band of Mrs Hudsons, Shirley felt the first uncomfortable signs of early labour. It was an ordinary day. A day that had started like any other – well, like any other in the last few uncomfortable weeks, anyway – with her hauling her huge belly out of bed and struggling to wriggle her swollen feet into her slippers, then going down to make Keith a cup of tea before waking him
up for work. But today something wasn’t right; there was a niggle low down in her stomach that felt different from all the niggles she’d felt up to now. And as she stood filling the kettle for the stove, she smiled to herself, despite the discomfort. Perhaps it was happening at last.
But the smile was soon wiped off her face. No sooner had the thought come to her mind than a pain suddenly gripped her that was so unexpected it not only turned her grin into a grimace, but almost made her collapse then and there on the kitchen floor.
‘Keith!’ she yelled, as she staggered back out into the hallway. ‘Keith, wake up! I think it’s the baby!’
The thought that she might have conceived a child on her wedding night had been one that had never been far from Shirley’s mind. And finding out that she was indeed pregnant, just as May had become June, had been such a blessing, despite the fact that she’d only realised because she felt so sick and ill that she was beginning to find it difficult to get out of bed in the morning. And as it showed no signs of stopping, despite the pills her doctor had given her to help with it, as blessings went, it had been mixed, to say the least.
She’d been so grateful to her parents in that regard. Though she didn’t doubt they’d have treated their pregnant daughter like a princess in any event, her weakness made them insist that she give up work very early on, supporting both her and Keith – who still had to work all hours, of course – so she could stay at home and get all the rest she could.
It hadn’t seemed fair. The sickness had carried on right through the pregnancy, causing her to have to bite her tongue as new mother after new mother reassured her that it would ‘stop before she knew it’. Well, it hadn’t! And she was also sick of hearing from other mothers about how the sicker you were, the stronger the baby was going to be.
But she tried not to dwell on the irritations of being so sickly, and instead concentrated on their amazing good fortune. With their finances so dire, Mary and Raymond had been life savers in so many ways; while the Hudsons had long since grown bored of the arrival of yet another baby into the family, for Shirley’s mum and dad it was the most exciting thing ever, and they’d gone completely overboard. They bought absolutely everything anyone could think of that might be needed: the pram, the crib, the first set of clothes, packs of terry towelling nappies, stockpiles of bootees and mittens – even a special fluffy baby towel for when they bathed it. Mary and Granny Wiggins had also spent weeks knitting tiny little woollen jackets in pure white wool, together with one or two lemon ones, for variety. ‘These’ll do for a girl or a boy,’ Granny had assured them as she added daily to the ever-growing stack.