To Have and to Hold

by Anne Bennett

  ‘And you are among friends,’ said another.

  Like hell I am, Carmel thought, and wished she had the courage to tell them all to ‘Piss off!’.

  That at least would give them something else to focus on. Emma was giving her friends licence to behave this way, urging them on as she said, ‘We’ll be discreet with anything you tell us, Carmel. You needn’t worry on that score.’

  Carmel was feeling very hot. Her heart was thudding in her chest and she wondered if she was going to pass out, though she had never done that before.

  But then it didn’t matter any more, for with a flurry of greetings and gales of laughter, the men joined them. Paul was by Carmel’s side and she felt immediately calmer.

  Her calmness didn’t last long, however. When, a little later, the party returned to the supper room, it was to see it transformed with tables now lining the edge of a space cleared for dancing, and a band setting up on a makeshift stage. Emma had found out that Carmel didn’t know how to ballroom dance, so, using the excuse that she was sure Carmel would like to watch proceedings, Emma inveigled her to one side of a table facing the dance floor. She was flanked by two matronly ladies. Paul was on the other side of the table and grouped around him were the other young women. Lois and Chris were on another table altogether.

  Paul, pleasantly mellow, seemed unaware of any undercurrent and just sat there smiling benignly at everyone. He was certainly enjoying the attentions from the girls, who seemed determined to make this a night for him to remember.

  Not that he sat for long, for he danced with one girl after another, and some of their mothers, and then with his own. Carmel sat and watched it all in hurt-filled misery.

  Lois and Carmel could not make a very late night of it because their late passes only allowed them to stay out until eleven, despite the fact they had booked the next day off work. When Carmel had first mentioned this to Paul he had told her he would leave when they did and travel home with her so that they could have some time together, but by the time they were ready to go, Paul was too drunk and having too good a time to remember any promise. She left him without even a kiss, just a desultory wave as she made her way outside to the waiting taxi with Lois and Chris.

  Lois knew how upset Carmel was, and little wonder, but it was no good rehashing the evening in the taxi. Chris was nearly as drunk as Paul was anyway, and probably wouldn’t see any problem at all, so they would have to wait to talk about this until they got home.

  By the time they reached their room, though, the wretchedness and disappointment of that evening seemed burned on Carmel’s very soul and she felt very depressed about the whole thing. They intended creeping into the room quietly, certain Jane and Sylvia would be asleep, but found instead they were waiting up for them.

  ‘We couldn’t sleep without knowing what it was like,’ Jane said. ‘Was it terrific?’

  Carmel knew the girls were agog with curiosity and she suddenly realised she wanted to talk it over, and preferably with someone who wasn’t there, who hadn’t already got preconceived ideas. Maybe she had overreacted.

  ‘What was the house like? Was it a mansion?’ Jane asked.

  ‘Yes, near enough, anyway,’ Carmel answered.

  ‘Someone took our coats and things as we went in and there were waitresses with white pinafores like those at Lyons Corner House serving the food, and really smart waiters serving drinks,’ Lois added. ‘I’ve been to plenty of parties at that house before and they have been nothing like this one. And the guests…well some I had never seen before and they were all well-heeled, you know?’

  ‘And I think it was all for a reason,’ Carmel said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you it as it was,’ Carmel said, ‘and you let me know what you think.’ She began to recount the evening, beginning when they had first rolled up in the taxi. She had no trouble doing this because the events of that night had been etched on her brain.

  Jane interrupted at the point where Carmel said that Paul’s mother didn’t think she would make a suitable wife for Paul.

  ‘Did she actually use those words?’

  ‘Yes,’ Carmel said. ‘She is an out-and-out snob, Paul’s mother, and as I haven’t come out of the top drawer, I might as well not exist.’

  ‘You’re kidding?’

  Carmel sighed. ‘I wish I was. The bloody woman virtually told me that I wasn’t of their class and wouldn’t really fit in. I’m sure she doesn’t want me in the family. I’d say she already has someone in mind for Paul.’

  ‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this,’ Sylvia said. ‘We don’t live in the Dark Ages any more.’

  ‘Maybe someone should mention that fact to her then,’ Carmel commented grimly. ‘I mean d’you know one of the questions she asked me?’

  ‘I couldn’t imagine.’

  ‘If I could play tennis, or had any truck with sailing, and then went on to ask me whether I thought I could make Paul the “right” sort of wife.’

  ‘Bloody cheek! And where was Paul while all this was going on?’ Jane asked.

  ‘Well,’ said Carmel, ‘there were these three girls that his mother took pains to tell me he had known from the year dot. Obviously the “right” sort of girl, only they are no longer in the nursery and they were all over Paul like a rash. And no one knew about the engagement either. Paul’s mother engineered that too. She told Paul that it was a little shabby to just turn up and say we were engaged when we hadn’t got a ring. She said to leave it a little and make the announcement later. I just thought it might be how it was done in the middle classes, but now I think she planned the whole thing.’

  ‘God, she sounds a vicious cow,’ Sylvia said.

  ‘She is,’ Carmel said. ‘Sorry, Lois, but she is.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry,’ Lois said. ‘I agree with every word, and I was ashamed of her, if you want the truth.’

  ‘It isn’t just her, though, is it?’ said Jane. ‘If my bloke did something like that with some girl, however long he had known them, I would give him such a clout.’

  ‘I know,’ Carmel said with a sigh. ‘It was incredible really. There were these girls, pawing at him and stroking him and showing him in every way that they were available and his for the asking and he was enjoying every minute of it.’

  ‘What man wouldn’t?’ Sylvia said.

  ‘He might want to,’ Jane put in, ‘but he doesn’t do it when he is spoken for, not if he knows what is good for him.’

  ‘It made me look really stupid, especially in front of his mother, but I couldn’t do anything about it,’ Carmel said. ‘In that sort of situation you can’t act in any sort of normal way. I already felt awkward and out of place and so I could hardly start berating Paul and acting like a fish wife.’

  ‘In defence of Paul,’ Lois said, ‘though in all honesty it isn’t much of a defence, he was very drunk. I mean, I have known Paul for years and I have seldom seen him so bad.’

  ‘Yeah, and I think that was his mother’s intention too,’ Carmel said. ‘She went all out to get him drunk over the meal. It worked too, and he was pretty far gone when all the woman in the room left the men to their port, brandy and cigars.’

  ‘Straight up?’ Sylvia said in amazement. ‘Do people still do that? I have read about it in books and that, but I never thought that in this day and age it was still done.’

  ‘Well, it was done there all right,’ Carmel said. ‘I would say with people like the Connollys, tradition is alive and well. Once in that room away from the semiprotection of the men Emma and her cohorts really had a go at me.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘They wanted to know all about Carmel, and were ridiculing what she said and everything,’ Lois said. ‘I honestly didn’t know how to divert their attention and then the men came in and it was better for a bit.’

  ‘Until the dancing,’ Carmel said.

  Lois nodded in agreement and both girls went on to describe how Paul’s mother had eff
ectively isolated Carmel from Paul, but made sure he was sitting by the girls she did approve of.

  At the end of their account of the awfully humiliating night that Carmel had endured, Jane said to Lois, ‘I do think you might have done more to help. After all, you are related.’

  As Carmel had spoken, Lois had begun feeling bad that she had left her to flounder on her own so much and so she took the rebuke. ‘You’re right and I’m sorry. But, in an effort to make amends, Carmel, how about if I was to teach you how to dance properly?’

  ‘How?’ Carmel said. Knowing that ballroom dancing was very popular, she had made enquiries when she had first come to Birmingham, but with her shift patterns and the lectures and study, she couldn’t fit the lessons in. But it was, she thought, important to learn now. She could do nothing about the tennis or the yachting, but she should surely be able to dance.

  ’I’ll teach you,’ Lois said. ‘Why I didn’t think of it before I will never know. We have a gramophone at home and lots of dance records because I used to practise when I came home from lessons when I was younger. I could bring them and we could have a go in our spare time. What d’you say?’

  ‘I’d say I’d really liked it. I always liked dancing when I was younger—Irish dancing, that was, of course—so I’ll do it to please myself, not to please Paul, nor his mother either.’

  ‘That’s the spirit, Carmel,’ Jane said approvingly.

  ‘We’ll all help,’ Sylvia said.

  ‘D’you know how to dance too?’

  ‘Course, it’s easy,’ she said. ‘I learned at school. Most girls did. We’ll have you dancing the light fantastic in no time.’

  ‘That will be one in the eye for your future mother-in-law,’ Jane put in.

  ‘Aye,’ Carmel said and added, ‘That’s if she ever becomes my mother-in-law.’

  ‘Carmel, what are you saying?’

  ‘I’m saying that Paul had better apologise and realise how wrong he was because I won’t tolerate being messed about like that ever again.’

  ‘No one would blame you for that,’ Sylvia said.

  ‘Bloody parents,’ Carmel said. ‘Nothing but trouble, in my opinion. I mean, did you know I nearly told Paul it was all over because of mine? Huh, that would have pleased his damned mother.’

  ‘How could your parents cause you to make a decision like that?’ Jane said. ‘You have been here for over two years.’

  ‘It’s all linked to my past,’ Carmel said. ‘The past that you are curious about, which I will tell you all about now, if you like.’

  ‘Tonight I heard for the first time that your father is too sick to work,’ Lois said. ‘So, do you want to go on from there?’

  ‘Hah, too bloody idle more like,’ Carmel said, and added, ‘the only sickness my father has is the one in his mind because you have to be sick to like inflicting cruelty like he does.’

  The three girls didn’t listen to the enfolding tale in silence as Paul had done. They stopped Carmel often to verify or elucidate something. As for Carmel, once she had begun, the words spilled from her mouth in her effort to rid herself of the burden that she had carried around with her for so long.

  All the girls were shocked, but also outraged on Carmel’s behalf.

  ‘No man has a right to get away with this,’ Lois said fiercely.

  ‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ Carmel said testily. ‘What’s “right” got to do with anything? I’m ashamed I am even related to the man.’

  She went on to tell them how it was for her mother and siblings; had been for her too until she had left. The others were shocked into silence as they listened to the true story of a family locked in a life of poverty and deprivation, made worse by the actions of a selfish brute of a father and could better understand Carmel’s attitude to the poor in the Bull Ring.

  ‘Anyway,’ Carmel said at the end, ‘with my father as an example, I had little time for men and long ago decided marriage was not for me. I didn’t account for falling in love.’

  ‘Yeah, that gets most of us in the end,’ Lois said. ‘But your marriage to Paul would be different altogether, Carmel. I think he would cut off his right arm before he would lay a hand on you.’

  ‘I know that,’ Carmel agreed happily. ‘I have no worries on that score, but I did have concerns that I wasn’t doing right by him, but he said he was marrying me, not my family, and the same goes for his too, I suppose. He isn’t to blame for his bloody mother.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us what you were fretting over?’ Lois asked. ‘After all, we have become very close.’

  ‘That was part of the reason I didn’t,’ Carmel said. ‘You are the only friends I have ever had and I had never got in the habit of confiding in anyone, telling secrets, and I didn’t want you all to look down on me.’

  ‘Why should we?’ Jane said.

  ‘Anyway, true friends would never do that,’ Lois said firmly.

  ‘I know that now,’ Carmel said. ‘But I’d had no experience of friendship when I first arrived here.’

  ‘I’m surprised that your father agreed to you coming here to take up nursing or any other damned thing,’ Sylvia said. ‘He sounds such a selfish brute.’

  ‘He didn’t agree,’ Carmel cried. ‘He nearly killed me.’ She described the last beating she had endured at her father’s hands and went on, ‘And though it was bad, it was my passport to freedom because I confronted the priest and he too was shocked by the level of the violence used. He and Sister Frances fully supported me in the end. And then, once I was on my way here, I knew that I had won,’ Carmel said. ‘I had pulled myself out of the mire and I wanted to dust off the shame I had always felt about my family, leave it behind in Ireland and start here on equal terms with everyone else, almost as if my past had never happened.’

  ‘I understand how you feel,’ Sylvia said. ‘But no one can ever do that.’

  ‘I know that, but when you asked me things, I would find all the memories crowding back into my mind and I was scared that if you found out, you would all feel differently about me.’

  ‘I do feel differently about you,’ Jane said. ‘I feel tremendous admiration for you. If I had to cope with all you did, I doubt that I would be here today. You must be a terrifically strong woman, Carmel, who will be able to cope with all that life might throw at you.’

  ‘Let’s hope it isn’t all that much,’ Sylvia said. ‘We are all going to lead charmed lives, surely?’

  ‘Course we are,’ Lois said.

  Suddenly, tears of gratitude for the friendship of the three girls stung Carmel’s eyes.

  ‘You are not crying,’ Sylvia said accusingly.

  ‘No,’ Carmel said, giving a surreptitious sniff.

  ‘God, but you are one bloody awful liar,’ Sylvia said, giving Carmel a push.

  Lois handed her a handkerchief she had tucked up her sleeve and Jane said, ‘We’d best hit the sack. Sylvia and I are on earlies tomorrow and you will have to be up too if you are meeting lover boy.’

  Carmel laughed. ‘I’ll have plenty of time, I’d say. Judging by the state he was in last night, I don’t think he will be going anywhere till almost lunchtime.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  About the time Lois and Carmel, who had slept late, were tucking into their breakfast, Emma was tapping on her elder son’s door. She had a tray with a cup of tea and plate of hot buttered toast on it, together with a couple of aspirins.

  ‘Come on, darling. Rise and shine,’ she said as she entered the room.

  Paul opened his heavy pain-filled eyes reluctantly. God, he felt rough. His mouth was so dry it hurt to swallow, and he felt as sick as a dog. He knew he couldn’t stomach anything to eat, but the tea looked good and he could definitely do with the aspirins, if he could just sit up without throwing up.

  His mother put the tray on the bedside table and opened the curtains. Sunshine spilled into the room.

  ‘Ouch,’ said Paul. ‘I don’t think the sun should be allowed to shine so brightl
y so early in the morning.’

  ‘It’s not early in the morning, it’s after nine,’ Emma said. ‘And a beautiful day that you are missing.’

  ‘To me that’s early,’ Paul said. ‘I have a bloody awful headache and don’t feel too hot, to tell you the truth. What’s the panic, in any case?’

  ‘The headache is self-induced,’ Emma said unsympathetically. ‘You did imbibe rather freely yesterday. Never mind, darling—it was your party, after all. A trip to the sea is just the thing for a raging hangover, and days as warm as this don’t happen much this late in September.’

  ‘What are you on about?’

  ‘We are spending the day with the Chisholms on their yacht.’

  ‘What?’ Paul cried, sitting upright in the bed, and holding his hands to his aching head.

  ‘You heard what I said.’

  ‘I thought I did,’ Paul said. ‘I thought you said we are spending the day with the Chisholms.’

  ‘That’s right. Melissa asked you especially and you said it sounded just the thing.’

  ‘But Carmel and I are choosing the ring today.’

  Emma laughed. ‘Is that wise, my son, all this haste to get engaged? Are you really ready to settle down? Going by your behaviour at the party I would say maybe you need to play the field a little longer. If fact, if that young nurse has one spark of pride, she’ll not want anything more to do with you ever again, never mind getting engaged.’

  The events of the party were hazy to Paul, and from the time the meal was finished, some areas were complete and utter blanks. He took a couple of grateful swallows of the hot sweet tea, before asking, almost in a whisper, ‘What did I do?’

  ‘What didn’t you do?’ Emma said, embellishing a little. ‘You were kissing and cuddling Melissa and her sister, Kate, and Penelope Crabtree all night, and in full view of everyone—Carmel too, I might add—and holding them almost indecently close when you danced. It was Melissa you took outside later—that was fortunately after Carmel had left—and both of you came back very dishevelled. I do think, Paul, it was a very shabby way to treat a girl you purport to be fond of.’