by Anne Bennett
Jeff had held his breath, knowing that if Emma was to say that was what she meant, Paul would leave and God alone knew when they would see him again.
Fortunately, Emma had recognised that fact herself. ‘No,’ she’d said. ‘You have me all wrong-footed.’ She’d crossed the room and laid her hand on Paul’s arm. ‘I’ll not have one minute’s rest while you are on that thing. You’ll drive me into an early grave. As for the neighbours…well, they will think there has been some sort of altercation between you and your father when he didn’t buy you a little run-around when you graduated.’
‘Perhaps the neighbours will think I am standing on my own feet and some might even think it about time,’ Paul had replied. ‘Isn’t that sort of attribute valued any more? As for an altercation with Dad, that would be fairly difficult to do. He seldom takes any part in these discussions, do you, Dad?’
It had hurt—not the words but the look he’d cast his father, which was one of almost pity, as if he wasn’t a real person with opinions of his own.
Jeff knew that he deserved little better, but that day, the morning of 1 January 1935, he decided he was going to change. Only minutes later, he was turning his car towards Erdington.
Paul spotted his father outside the house and thought something had happened. Surely only some disaster would have brought him to his door. He dressed hurriedly, flew down the stairs and flung it open.
‘What is it?’ he cried.
‘What?’
Paul’s teeth were chattering, both with the cold and the expectation of bad news. ‘Come in, for God’s sake, and tell me what has happened.’ He drew his father inside. ‘It’s proper brass-monkey weather out there and we’d best go into the breakfast room. We have a paraffin stove there.’
Jeff stood gazing around the quite large room Paul led him into. The hall had had patterned tiles, but here lino had been laid once, and it was pitted and ripped. Set upon it were a rickety wooden table and four chairs nearly as bad. There was also a kitchen cabinet that had seen better days, filled with an assortment of odd crockery and cutlery, and a battered kettle, which Paul lost no time in filling and placing on top of the paraffin stove that held pride of place in the middle of the room.
‘Sit down,’ Paul said. ‘I will make us some tea.’
Jeff sat down at the table on one of the rickety chairs and said, ‘Nothing has happened. That is, nothing bad. It’s just…Paul, can we talk?’
Paul could hardly believe his ears. As he bustled, setting out cups and saucers, he thought of the years of when he was growing up when he would have given his eyeteeth for his father to say, ‘Paul, can we talk?’ If ever he had asked his advice when he was a lad, his father would always ask what his mother thought and his mother’s decision was always the one he would uphold, even when Paul sensed that he didn’t agree with it.
Other boys at school would tell him of going to cricket, or football matches, or fishing with their fathers. How he had envied them. However, when he asked his father if they could do any of these things together, he would shake his head sadly. ‘Your mother would never stand it, son.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, be a bit mean, leaving her on her own, don’t you think? Best say nothing about it.’
And now this father, whom he barely knew, had turned up unannounced at the house he said he would never visit—or at least his mother had said that, and he hadn’t contradicted her—and claimed he wanted to talk. It didn’t make sense.
The silence in the room stretched out and Paul, busy with his thoughts, was unaware of it. And Jeff watched him apprehensively and wondered what he was thinking. Suddenly the kettle came to the boil, the shrill whistle sliced through the silence and Paul lifted it up and started to fill up the teapot.
‘The milk will have to be condensed,’ he said. ‘We never bother buying fresh. It doesn’t keep.’
‘That’s all right,’ Jeff said. ‘I’ll take it as it comes.’
‘Can I get you something to eat?’ Paul said, handing his father a cup. ‘I mean, I haven’t much in, but I could probably do a jam sandwich or something.’
‘Nothing,’ Jeff said. ‘Tell the truth, I’m feeling a little delicate this morning.’
Paul grinned, ‘Yeah, I’m a bit hungover myself,’ he admitted. ‘But I could sell my granny for a cup of tea.’
Jeff gave a small laugh. ‘I know just what you mean.’
And then, because he knew whatever this visit was all about, there was nothing to be gained by going all around the Wrekin, he sat down opposite his father and said, ‘Go on then. You said you wanted to talk.’
‘Yes,’ Jeff said. ‘And the first thing I want to do is apologise for being such a poor dad for you, and Matthew too, of course, but it is you I am concerned about now.’
It was the very last thing that Paul had expected. He said, ‘You weren’t a poor dad.’
‘Nice of you to say so, Paul,’ Jeff said. ‘But I let you down badly sometimes.’
‘Come on, Dad,’ Paul said. ‘This is life. Maybe it isn’t a good thing to have everything you want.’
‘Like your mother does, you mean?’ Jeff said. ‘And you’re right, of course. I never argued with your mother and while it is a good thing in one way to present a united front before children, rules and decisions should be discussed first, maybe compromises made. I found myself agreeing with things that went totally against the grain for the sake of peace and quiet. And I am not blaming your mother here, but myself for being weak enough to just let her get her own way, even when I knew it wasn’t what I wanted and often wasn’t what you boys wanted either.’
‘Look, Dad, isn’t this like so much water under the bridge now?’
‘Yes, of course it is,’ Jeff said. ‘No one has a chance to reclaim years or have another go at getting it right.’
‘And I haven’t grown up too bad, so you must have done something right.’
‘You are a fine boy—man now, of course, a boy no longer—and I think you grew up well despite your mother and me,’ Jeff said. ‘I am proud of you and your decision to work in the hospital rather than to set up in some private practice somewhere. I am even proud of the way you managed to procure this house and settle the problems of affordable transport on your own, but I bet you that there’s not much graduation money left.’
‘Well, no,’ Paul had to admit. ‘Most of the graduation money went on the bike. They were reluctant to let me have terms under the hire purchase scheme as I hadn’t a guarantor. And I hadn’t been working long.’
That brought Jeff up sharp. ‘You didn’t think to ask me?’
‘No,’ Paul said, then added more truthfully, ‘Well, yes, I did, but I thought you wouldn’t approve, or Mother wouldn’t anyway, which was always one and the same thing.’
Jeff smarted under the words said in such a matter-of-fact way.
‘Then there was the trip to Ireland to see Carmel’s parents,’ Paul went on. ‘They are as poor as the proverbial church mice, by the way, and the father a bully of the first order.’
‘Are they invited to the wedding?’
‘Just the mother. Oh, and a nun called Sister Frances that Carmel worked with in Letterkenny Hospital.’
‘A nun on the guest list, eh?’ said Jeff with a quizzical raise of the eyebrows. ‘Better be on our best behaviour then.’
‘I should think that goes without saying at my wedding,’ said Paul with mock severity. ‘There is to be none of that dancing naked on the tables you know?’
‘Ah, Paul, what a spoilsport you are,’ Jeff said, then added with a twinkle in his eyes, ‘It might even be worth doing it for the look in your mother’s eyes. Can you just imagine it?’
‘There is no imagining to it,’ Paul said with a chuckle, ‘for there would be no expression in them. If you did something half as bad, Mother would be lying stone dead of shame on the floor.’
‘D’you know, Paul, I think you are right there,’ Jeff said, draining his cup and getting to his
feet. ‘Now, how about showing me around this place?’
‘No problem,’ Paul said. ‘You can even see all of it because Chris stayed with Lois’s parents last night. Mind you, I am not apologising for the state his room might be in, nor mine either.’
‘Point taken,’ Jeff said. ‘Lead the way.’
The paraffin stove took the barest chill off the air in the breakfast room, but the rest of the house was like an ice-box and their breath escaped in visible whispery strands. Jeff was glad he had not removed his coat and noted that even Paul took a jacket from his room as they passed. But though the whole house was as cold as ice and the furnishing less than basic, Jeff saw that they had a acquired a solid house that, with a little time spent on it, would make a lovely home for the two couples. ‘You have a grand place,’ he said to Paul as they returned thankfully to the breakfast room. ‘What is the rent?’
‘Sixteen and six,’ Paul said. ‘And then we had to pay three months’ rent in advance and fifty pounds’ indemnity in case we break or damage anything.’
‘So with your graduation money virtually all used up, how are you going to furnish the place?’ Jeff asked. As he saw Paul stiffen he said sharply, ‘There is no need to bristle and get on your high horse. Pride and a stiff neck is all very well when you are on your own, but now you have Carmel to consider. You can’t expect her to live in these conditions, nor Lois either.’
‘Both girls understand. We’ll save and do one room at a time.’
‘Paul, James intends to furnish Lois’s part of the house as a wedding present,’ Jeff said. ‘He came to see the house and that’s what he decided. Told me himself only yesterday.’
‘Chris didn’t say,’ Paul said
‘Chris doesn’t know, Lois neither,’ Jeff said. ‘James intends it as a surprise and I would like to do the same for you and Carmel. James can get it all at cost from Lewis’s and, as he said to me, the more he orders, the cheaper it is. Think about it, Paul. You can’t expect Carmel to struggle along with rubbish, when beside her Lois has everything new and modern.’
Paul sighed. He knew he could not ask that of any woman. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘It’s just that you have already spent so much on me, funding me through university, and I was grateful until I realised by accepting sponsorship I was giving Mother a stake in my life. I swore then that I would accept nothing else.’
‘Right,’ Jeff said. ‘Now listen. First of all, this is me you are talking to, not your mother, and the new me. It is perfectly normal for a parent to give their marrying children a wedding present if they can possibly afford to and this will be mine to you. Your mother will have no part in it and therefore no say. And there will be no strings, no conditions. All I ask is that when you marry, you work to keep the spark alive between you, for when it goes out, it is almost impossible to rekindle.’
Paul felt immeasurable sadness when he saw his father’s stark eyes. He felt as if he had been given a glimpse of the bleakness of his life. And he felt a lump rise in his throat as he took his hand firmly and shook it.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
There is not a woman living who would not be ecstatic on being given a free hand to choose the furniture and fittings for her new home, knowing someone else would pick up the bill at the end of it, and Carmel was no different from anyone else. What was even better was that it was so unexpected. In Camel’s world, people didn’t do things like that.
Paul watched her face as she sat opposite him in a coffee shop one lunchtime, and he knew he had made the right decision in accepting his father’s offer. How could he have faced her and told her what his father had proposed and said he had rejected it carte blanche, without even consulting her?
He knew that, even worse, she wouldn’t say a word in condemnation. The disappointment would be in the dullness of her eyes, the lack of expression in her face and the general slump of her body, and he would have felt the worst heel in Christendom.
‘What about Lois?’ Carmel said suddenly. ‘Won’t she feel it awfully? Maybe we can share some of the things.’
‘There is no need,’ Paul said. ‘Uncle James is doing the same thing for Lois and Chris. That is the good of it. With her father manager of a huge department in Lewis’s, he can get us top-quality goods at a fraction of the cost. You and Lois can pore over the catalogue or wander around the store and make your choices to your heart’s content, once Lois is told. At the moment it is all hush-hush. Uncle James wants to surprise her. My father wouldn’t take that risk, because he wasn’t sure that I would accept it.’
‘Oh, I’m so glad you did,’ Carmel said.
‘What would you do if I had said no?’ Chris said with a smile. ‘Get angry with me? Rant and rail and call me stupid?’
‘I can’t think of any occasion when I would be angry with you,’ Carmel replied simply. ‘As for being stupid…when someone does something unexpected, there is always a reason. Maybe I would like to find out that reason, not to change your mind, but perhaps to try and understand.’
‘D’you know, Carmel, you are a very special lady?’
Carmel gave an impish grin and said, ‘Oh, you’re not so bad yourself.’
Paul laughed at her. ‘You just wait. If we weren’t sitting in a very refined coffee shop finishing a substantially good lunch, I would show you what’s what, my girl.’
A delicious tremor ran all through Carmel at Paul’s words and the expression in his eyes.
‘I can barely wait,’ she said, springing to her feet and tugging at his arm. ‘Come on. Let’s go. We are wasting the daylight and we have little enough of it.’
Paul found keeping the secret from James far less irk-some than Carmel did. For a start, although he and Chris shared a house, they seldom met up and if they did, they were too tired or too rushed to talk much. The scant time they had free, they usually spent with their fiancées.
With Carmel and Lois it was different. They were often on similar shifts, on the wards together, in the canteen together. They sometimes went to the theatre or cinema for a treat and they talked about everything under the sun. Now, for the first time, there were vast unchartered waters that Carmel couldn’t even dip her big toe in. But because the girls talked and confided in one another, it was Carmel who told Paul one day, at the end of January, that Lois and Chris were going looking at beds on his next day off.
‘Trust him to think of double beds first, the dirty old roué,’ Paul said with a smile.
Carmel smiled too and snuggled into the crook of Paul’s arm. Outside, snow was being blown into drifts by the wind that howled and gusted against the house, but inside all was cosy and warm where a bright fire crackled in the grate. One of the first things Jeff had done, after having his offer accepted, was to arrange for the chimneys to be swept and a few hundredweight of coal to be delivered into the coal bunker. He also filled the shed with bundles of sticks and told Paul to light a fire if he was asking Carmel to the house and not to have her shivering in the breakfast room, and Carmel was very glad that Paul had done as he was told.
‘The point is, though,’ she said, ‘what if they go and buy a bed? Don’t you think this secrecy thing has gone on long enough?’
‘I do. It has,’ Paul agreed. ‘And first thing tomorrow I will phone my father from the hospital and tell him. Now that is out of the way, come here and tell me that I am the most wonderful, terrific lover you have ever had.’
‘I haven’t had that many to compare you with,’ Carmel said with a smile and then added, ‘What I do know about you is that you are the most conceited, big-headed—’ She could say no more, for her mouth was covered by Paul’s. As the kiss grew in passion and intensity, Paul couldn’t help wishing that he had a double bed upstairs, or anything more comfortable than his rickety old camp bed.
Paul wasn’t so consumed by lust though, that he forgot what Carmel had said. The following day, as soon as he had a minute, he found a phone.
‘I was only talking of this to James the other day when we met up
,’ Jeff said. ‘I mean, surprises are all very well, but if you are not careful they can turn into shocks—and unpleasant ones, at that. Thanks for telling me. I’ll get on to him.’
Two days later, Carmel was getting ready for bed when Lois, who had been over to see her parents, came in. Carmel looked at her glowing face and said with a wide grin, ‘I presume that you have spoken to your father.’
‘Yes,’ Lois almost squealed. ‘It’s wonderful terrific news and I can’t believe you knew and said nothing.’
‘It was awful,’ Carmel said, ‘but I had made a promise. It will be even better now you know.’ The two girls threw their arms around each other and danced a jig around the room. Jane and Sylvia, who came in just moments later, were amazed at their good fortune and could quite understand their excitement.
News of it flew around the hospital and most of their colleagues were full of admiration, though some of that was grudging. Then the following week, Lois and Carmel took Jane and Sylvia along to the house to see it for themselves and they were delighted for their friends. ‘You can understand some people being a bit resentful, can’t you?’ Carmel said. ‘I mean, we already had so much, with the house and all.’
‘That’s hardly your fault,’ Sylvia said. ‘And don’t you think if the same chances had come their way they wouldn’t have grasped them with both hands? I know I would have done, and anyone who says differently is a liar.’
‘That’s right,’ Jane said in agreement. ‘You just enjoy it and don’t you bother about anyone else.’
Carmel was so glad that Sylvia and Jane felt that way. Their opinion mattered a lot to her.
When, shortly after this, Carmel and Paul began to make arrangements for their wedding, Carmel was surprised that Paul wasn’t to be Chris’s best man as she had almost assumed he would be.
‘But why not?’ she asked.
‘Because I am a Catholic.’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’