A Family Affair

by Janet Tanner

  ‘Oh no … of course not … that’s all right …’

  ‘… because I did not bring my car. The roads are all closed for the procession. But I will walk with you if you would like. Unless of course you want to meet your friends.’

  ‘No – no,’ Heather said, breathless suddenly. ‘I don’t know where they are. They could have gone already, and if they haven’t, I’ll never find them in this crush.’

  ‘We walk together then?’

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’

  He wasn’t a great talker. Heather chattered endlessly to fill the silence when they left the fair behind, but she didn’t mind that. She felt wonderfully happy, intoxicated almost, and at the same time utterly at ease, as if she was with an old friend she had known all her life.

  The night was clear, the stars shining, but there was a deep pool of shadow on the pavement beneath the wall that retained their elevated garden. The road was deserted and the wall hid the pavement from the house. There was no-one to see when he kissed her good night, but if there had been she didn’t think she could have cared less.

  ‘Can I see you again?’ he asked, a little diffidently, very politely.

  ‘I’d like that.’

  ‘On Saturday?’

  ‘Yes – why not?’

  ‘I’ll pick you up then. About seven thirty? We could go to the pictures, perhaps.’

  ‘That would be lovely.’

  She climbed the steps, happiness bubbling, and stood for a moment listening to the sound of his footsteps going back down the hill and hugging the teddy bear as it were him. Then she let herself into the sleeping house and crept up the stairs to bed.

  ‘I saw you with that Polish chap last night, didn’t I?’ David said as they ate breakfast next morning.

  ‘Did you?’ Heather pushed away her plate of half-eaten toast. She was feeling decidedly bleary this morning – on top of the late night, excitement had kept her from sleeping.

  ‘What Polish chap is that?’ Carrie asked, bustling in from the kitchen with a fresh pot of tea. Her tone was sharp – she didn’t miss a thing, Heather thought.

  ‘Steven,’ she said.

  ‘Steven who?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s a funny name. I can’t remember.’

  ‘Steve Okonski,’ David supplied. ‘He works at our pit.’

  ‘A miner,’ Carrie said, faint disapproval in her tone.

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘And a foreigner.’

  ‘A Pole,’ Heather said. ‘They were on our side in the war, remember?’

  ‘Maybe so, but you still don’t know where you are with foreigners.’

  ‘Oh, Mum …’

  ‘You can’t be too careful,’ Carrie went on, refilling the teacups. ‘He could have a wife and half a dozen children at home for all you know.’

  ‘In Purldown?’

  ‘In Poland. And there’s no need to be sarcastic, Heather. You know very well what I meant.’

  It might almost be funny, Heather thought, if she didn’t know the reason for her mother’s overcautious interfering.

  ‘I’ll find out, Mum. I’m seeing him on Saturday.’

  ‘Bit soon, isn’t it?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘To be seeing him again. You don’t want to appear too keen, you know.’

  Heather ignored this.

  ‘I’ll find out what I can, Mum, if that will satisfy you.’

  ‘It’s not me that needs to be satisfied. It’s you.’

  ‘And I will be,’ Heather said wearily. ‘I’ll find out all about him, I promise you.’

  But that was more easily said than done. Steven, quiet on most subjects, was almost totally uncommunicative when it came to talking to himself. Heather didn’t think it meant he had anything to hide, simply that he was what the paper novelettes she liked to read called ‘the strong silent type’. She didn’t mind that. In fact she rather liked it. And it had its advantages. He never questioned her either, never probed for more information than she was willing to offer. Because she had become so emotionally close to him so quickly, there were times when the things she had left unsaid felt like a leaden weight inside her, a burden on her heart. She couldn’t yet bring herself to share it, and the fact that he did not seem to think the past important for either of them was comforting. So she chattered in the open sunny way that was her outer nature, her protective shell, and what silences there were were comfortable ones.

  She couldn’t help being curious about him, though, wanting to know all about him, but as she prised certain nuggets out of him she began to suspect that perhaps there were things – not things he wanted to hide, as in a wife and children, but things he didn’t want to think of, much less talk about.

  She didn’t press him. All in good time he would tell her the secrets of his past and she would tell him the secrets of hers. In the meantime she would simply enjoy his company and enjoy falling in love.

  ‘Heather, I want a word with you,’ Carrie said.

  It was a Sunday afternoon, quite pleasant for November. Whilst Joe had retired to bed for a ‘snooge’ – his usual treat after Sunday dinner, and well earned too, Carrie thought, considering he was up at five in the morning every weekday and rarely in bed before eleven – she had gone for a walk to the site of the new houses. She was anxious to see how they were progressing and eager to find out where exactly Number 27 Alder Road would be.

  The four-bedroomed houses were almost finished, she discovered, even to the point of doors and windows being fitted, and when she clambered on to a plank that straddled the expanse of red mud outside the kitchen window of one and peered through, she had been impressed to see that a sink had been fitted, cupboards hung and electric wiring completed to the point where the bare wires hung in loops from the walls. She had walked on around the already made-up road, counting as best she could, though one long rank of eight houses almost threw her, until she reached Number 27.

  It was – or would be – almost opposite the last of the rank of eight, for the road was shaped like a ship’s decanter – a narrow neck ballooning out to a sweeping curve around an area of grass that would come to be known as the Green. As yet the house had barely progressed past the foundations’stage, and what would one day be the garden was a sea of red clay on which piles of building materials had been deposited. Carrie had stepped gingerly over the low breeze-block walls into what she imagined would be the living room when the house was completed, treading out the rooms and trying to picture what they would be like. The imagining excited her but also produced a little niggle of disappointment. It wasn’t going to be as big as she had hoped, and again she thought of the problem with the bedrooms. Heather and Jenny would be no better off than they were now – in fact, things might be worse for them, since the room they would have to share would probably be smaller than the one they had already.

  The idea had come to her as she walked back down the steep lane to the main road. When she got home, she sounded out Glad, and then waited her chance to speak to Heather. It had come just before teatime. Heather had gone up to her room to get ready to go out with Steve and Carrie had followed her up.

  ‘Heather, I want a word with you.’

  Heather was at her underwear drawer sorting out a clean pair of stockings. She looked round, surprised. Something in Carrie’s tone told her this was no chat.

  ‘It’s about the new house.’ Carrie sat down on the edge of Jenny’s bed. ‘I’ve been thinking. There’s not that much room in it really and I just wondered, when we move in, if you wouldn’t rather stay here.’

  Heather was silent. The clean stockings dangled from her hands.

  ‘Well – you’re grown up now. You ought to have a bit more independence. And Jenny is getting to an age where she needs her privacy too.’

  A shadow passed across Heather’s face; for a moment she looked on the point of tears. Then she said in her usual bright voice: ‘Trying to get rid of me, are you?’

  �
��Of course not! How can you say such a thing? It’s just that I thought …’

  ‘Oh, Mum, I know very well what you thought. You don’t have to tie yourself in knots trying to explain.’

  Carrie bristled.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t speak to me like that, Heather. I’m only trying to do what’s best for all concerned. And that includes your gran and grampy. They’re not getting any younger, and it’s going to be a big miss for them, suddenly left on their own.’

  ‘I thought Gran was looking forward to having the place to herself,’ Heather said.

  ‘Well, she is, of course. But it’s a very different kettle of fish just having you and not the rest of us under her feet all the time. I’ve had a word with her and …’

  ‘It’s all settled then, is it?’ Heather asked tonelessly.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that. Not unless you’re in agreement. But I do think it would be ideal. After all, you’ll still come here for your dinner, won’t you? And you’ll have this room to yourself when we go.’

  ‘You didn’t think of asking David to stay here instead of me, I suppose?’ Heather said. The tears were suddenly bright in her eyes again. ‘No – I thought not.’

  ‘Oh, Heather – now you’re just being silly.’

  ‘Am I?’ She smiled slightly, a small bitter smile. ‘Oh, it’s all right, Mum. Yes, I’ll stay here if that’s what you want.’

  ‘Heather, I don’t want you to think …’

  ‘I said I’ll stay. I know you’d be more comfortable if I …’ She broke off. She had been about to say ‘if I wasn’t around’. But she didn’t want to open old wounds, didn’t want to make things unpleasant. ‘It will be quite nice to have a room to myself,’ she conceded.

  ‘Only if you’re sure it’s what you want,’ Carrie said. Now she had her battle won she could afford to be magnanimous.

  Heather shrugged her shoulders, not trusting herself to answer, and turned back to her underwear drawer. She wasn’t at all sure it was what she wanted, but then, what she wanted never seemed to come into it where Carrie was concerned.

  Carrie was the sort of person who liked to be in control. She did it with the very best of intentions, it was true, but for all that, her certainty that she knew best made her ruthless. It seemed to Heather that Carrie never for one moment entertained the slightest doubt but that her way was the right one, her decision provided the best possible outcome for any problematic situation. Once upon a time, Heather had seen her mother as a rock and safe haven, some kind of paragon and champion and protector all rolled into one. Now, she was no longer so sure that Carrie knew best. But Carrie was still a force to be reckoned with!

  Her mother was just a human being, after all, and as fallible as anyone else. Her total belief in herself was in itself a weakness. Carrie riding into battle with determination as a sword and self-righteousness for a breastplate could be terrifying, even if her intention was to fight on your side. Especially, perhaps, when her intention was to fight on your side.

  And whatever her motive, you argued with Carrie at your peril.

  Chapter Three

  In years to come, when she looked back on the spring and summer of 1952, it seemed to Jenny that scarcely a day passed without some momentous event taking place. It was an illusion, of course, but the fact that more life-altering things happened that year in the short space of six months or so than had happened in the whole of her life so far meant that even the quiet days, the ordinary days, were imbued with a sense of purpose and excitement and change.

  Some of the things didn’t affect Jenny personally, of course, but the memory of them would always remain with her. One such thing happened on a grey February day, when Mr Denning, the headmaster, came into their classroom just before the bell rang for the end of morning lessons. He looked very serious, very sombre, and a hush fell over the room as he spoke quietly to Mr Heal and then turned to address them.

  ‘Those of you who go home at dinner time may hear some very sad news, and I would like you all to hear it at the same time.’ The hush grew even deeper; they stared at him, round-eyed, and he went on: ‘I have to tell you that it has been announced on the wireless that the King has died.’

  A murmur ran around the class; Jenny felt it whisper over her skin like a shiver. She had never encountered death, never lost anyone dear to her, but in that moment King George felt close, his passing a bereavement in which they all shared. It wasn’t just the shock of hearing of the death of a much-loved monarch whose face was so familiar from newspaper photographs that it could be summoned up with no effort at all, it was also the realisation that even being a king was no protection against the grim reaper.

  ‘Princess Elizabeth is flying home from Kenya. She is now our Queen,’ Mr Denning went on, but Jenny scarcely heard him. Her brain was whirling with the enormity of it. The King dead. For the rest of her life she would always be able to recall the way she felt at that moment.

  Neither would she ever forget sitting The Exam – the dreaded eleven-plus – leaving home with the good wishes of the family and their exhortations to ‘Do your best now!’ ringing in her ears; feeling sick with nerves as she took her place in the examination room; feeling relief when she read through the paper; feeling anxiety that she must be missing something – it couldn’t be that easy! And afterwards, the days and weeks of waiting until the letter dropped through the door inviting her to the local grammar school for interview – and a short interview at that – just ten minutes, whereas some of the others had to go for the whole morning, to do more written papers.

  Heather grabbed her the moment Carrie read out the news, swinging her round, dancing round and round the table, laughing and crying. ‘You did it! You did it! I knew you could!’, whilst David beat a tattoo on the fender with the fire-irons and Glad beamed.

  ‘I don’t know where the money’s coming from for your uniform,’ Carrie said, but Jenny knew from her tone just how pleased she was too.

  In spite of the fact that she had a short interview and was therefore considered certain to be offered a place, Jenny was still terrified she might say or do something utterly stupid and ruin her chances, and she found the interview even more nerve-racking than the exam had been. At least then she’d been able to sit and write the answers, something she felt comfortable with; at an interview she would have to make a good impression by saying the right things. She fretted about it endlessly and on the day of the interview, when Mr Heal accompanied the successful half-dozen pupils to the Grammar School, travelling by bus, she looked enviously at Valerie Scott in her smart grey flannel costume with its fitted jacket and pleated skirt and wished she had something like that to wear instead of her hand-knitted Fair Isle jumper – OXO the pattern around her chest read, the others teased her – and the skirt, which, although pleated, had been made for her by Carrie on her Singer sewing machine.

  The interview must have gone well, however, for a few weeks later the letter offering her a place at the Grammar School arrived and Carrie began worrying all over again about how she was going to afford all the things on the list – blazer, tie, beret, navy-blue skirt, cream Viyella blouses, all to be purchased from The Don, a very grand shop in Bath that specialised in school uniforms, not to mention a satchel, hockey stick and gym kit.

  The whole family chipped in to help get it together, even David, and Jenny knew that Heather had gone without the new dress she had wanted, and probably a good few other things besides in order to ensure Jenny had all she needed. She felt humble, and weighed down by responsibility knowing they had sacrificed so much because they were so proud of her.

  One of the really memorable events in that memorable year, of course, was taking possession of the new house.

  They moved in on a Saturday in May when the patchy washed-out blue of the sky looked like being overwhelmed by heavy black clouds that were moving in over the hills from the direction of Bristol – never a good sign – and Carrie was panicking that their furniture might take a soaking in th
e back of the open lorry they had hired from Herby Haines. Herby tried to calm her fears, saying he had a tarpaulin for use in just such an emergency but Carrie didn’t care for the idea of such a dirty sheet, which had covered everything from coal to chicken coops getting anywhere near her bed or three-piece suite.

  In the event they managed two loads up the hill to Alder Road before the rain began and the things that were left – Joe’s garden tools, the coal shovel, David’s bicycle – would come to no harm. By four o’clock they were in and relatively straight though Carrie was still rushing around, sweating profusely and snapping at anyone who failed to respond to her orders with equal alacrity, and Jenny retreated to her new room to unpack her things from the cardboard boxes Carrie had begged from the Co-op grocery store.

  The room was at the back of the house, quite a large room – David had opted for the smallest bedroom for some reason Jenny could not understand, perhaps because he had been put off large dormitories by his army National Service, she thought. It housed a built-in airing cupboard and was quite bare apart from her bed, a dressing table, a wardrobe and bookcase Carrie had picked up at a house clearance sale and a bright rag rug which Glad had begun making for her as soon as they’d got the news about the house. Jenny paused at the landing window, looking out at some boys playing football on the Green – she recognised Billy Edgell among them – then went along the landing, peeping into the bathroom with its smart blue suite, and into her own room.

  Her own room. The words had a wonderful ring. ‘My own room,’ she said out loud, savouring them. She unpacked her clothes from a battered suitcase, layering them neatly in the drawers, and arranged a few bits and pieces on the top of the dressing table – a little pottery vase containing a bunch of lucky purple heather, a pair of old glass candlesticks, a china rabbit and a jewellery box she’d had for Christmas last year and which now contained plastic brooches, a bead necklace and an ARP badge of uncertain origin. She was just stacking her books in the bookcase, taking great care to put the titles in some sort of order, when she heard someone clattering up the as-yet uncarpeted stairs.