by Jenny Holmes
His abrupt manner unsettled her further. She fidgeted with her almost empty glass, crossed and uncrossed her legs and, spotting Gladys talking with Earl Ray and Sonny Dubec at the bar, attempted some small talk. ‘Did I tell you that I’m moving into a flat with Gladys in the New Year? It’s on Canal Road. I was dreading breaking the news to Dad, but it turns out that he didn’t mind, thank goodness.’
John listened with a distracted air then, as the band took the stage again, he suggested that it was time to go. ‘If you don’t mind,’ he added.
Hazel’s heart sank. Whatever had happened between him, Reggie and Dan had altered the mood of the evening for the worse and she saw there was no hope of rescuing it. ‘Of course not,’ she replied primly.
They left in a hurry and returned to the car but when John pulled out the choke and turned the ignition key, the engine coughed and refused to start. He tried again, stamping his foot hard on the accelerator without success. ‘I warned Dan not to flatten the battery, the silly sod.’
‘Dan borrowed your car?’
‘Yes, earlier this week.’ John tried a third time. ‘Hang on a sec. Let me get this engine started.’
With nothing to lose, Hazel seized her chance. ‘Ah, so that’s what you two were arguing about.’
‘When?’ The engine coughed again and this time spluttered into life.
‘In the club. I saw you. Reggie was there too.’
John revved the engine then sat a while, allowing it to tick over. ‘Yes, sorry about that,’ he muttered. ‘Dan doesn’t listen – that’s his problem. But never mind – it’s time I got you home.’
So they set off out of town and along Canal Road, with Hazel pointing out number 102 as they passed it. John said very little until he turned onto Ghyll Road and unexpectedly stopped the car beside a lamp-post outside Thornley’s Brewery.
He killed the engine and turned to Hazel with a troubled look. ‘This isn’t like me, you know.’
Her heart missed a beat. ‘What isn’t?’
‘Going off and leaving you on your own like that. You must think I’m a blithering idiot.’
‘No, I don’t. And there’s no need to explain if you’d rather not.’ She took a deep breath and tried to adjust to yet another sudden turn of events.
‘Sorry – I can’t go into details.’
Hearing the sincerity in his low, hesitant voice, Hazel felt the ice between them melt. ‘Honestly, there’s no need.’
‘There is. It spoiled our night.’
‘The evening hasn’t been a roaring success,’ she admitted with a sigh.
Her comment drew a faint smile from him then he turned further in his seat towards her with an earnest air. ‘Listen, Hazel, I hope this won’t put you off coming out with me again. I wouldn’t blame you if it did. But if we do carry on, I promise not to abandon you next time.’
She nodded slowly, drawn in by the graceful twist of his body, the symmetry of his strong features illuminated by gaslight and the touch of his hand as he placed it on her arm.
‘And I won’t be allowing Dr Bell any more chances to step into my shoes either,’ he added, giving that upwards twitch at the corner of his mouth that suggested a joke, this time at his own expense.
‘David’s a good dancer,’ she protested archly.
‘A right little Nijinsky, eh? Not like me. I can hardly put one foot in front of the other.’
‘I never said that.’ The night had certainly had its twists and turns and they weren’t over yet, Hazel realized. Inside the car, with its gleaming dashboard, she waited with bated breath.
‘So will there be a next time?’
And here it was again – the sudden rush of feelings that quickened her heartbeat and twisted her stomach into knots. ‘That depends.’ By stalling she hoped to steady herself and keep control.
‘On what?’
‘On whereabouts you want to take me.’
‘Where would you like to go? Out to Shawcross again – once your family Christmas is over and done with?’
Heart racing, eyes widening, she yielded. ‘That would be nice.’
‘Honestly? We’ll fix a date in the New Year.’ He slid his hand down her arm onto her knee. ‘I don’t deserve any more chances after the way I’ve behaved. But I’ll keep my promise – it won’t happen again.’ Leaning forward, he brushed his lips against hers.
His features fell out of focus as he came close, his lips were soft. Hazel closed her eyes and gave way to sensation. Inside the warm car, under the gas lamp, she thrilled to John’s kisses and sank into his embrace.
‘It’s a lot of palaver over nothing.’ Ada’s customary, bah-humbug grumble as the family gathered on Raglan Road on Christmas Day didn’t fool anyone.
‘You like it really, Mum,’ Rose chided, taking her coat and hanging it on a hook at the cellar head. ‘Sit down by the fire. I’ll help Hazel to set the table.’
‘Have we got enough chairs?’ Jinny counted five, including two brought down from the bedrooms. ‘Are Dan and Gladys coming?’ she asked Rose.
‘Yes, they’ll be here any time. But not Eddie and Joan – they’ve gone to her mother’s.’ Fussing with knives, forks and place mats, Rose calculated that they were one chair short.
‘How about Sylvia and Norman?’ Jinny asked. The turkey in the oven would just about stretch to nine people if necessary and there were enough roast spuds to feed a small army.
‘Sylvia has decided to stay at home and have a quiet Christmas.’ Peacemaker Rose hoped that the bland explanation would pour oil on troubled waters. She didn’t tell the others about the blazing row Ada and Sylvia had had two days earlier, where Sylvia had declared that wild horses wouldn’t drag her and Norman round to the Prices’ for Christmas dinner, not after the way people had gossiped behind her back. And she wouldn’t go to her mother and father’s house either. She said she washed her hands of everyone.
‘Can’t Ethel and Cyril persuade her to come round with them later on?’ Jinny didn’t like the idea of Sylvia and Norman being left out completely.
Taking up position in the fireside chair, Ada cut the conversation short with a chilly, ‘That’s up to Sylvia.’
‘Back to the question of chairs – I can nip round to Nelson Yard and fetch one,’ Robert offered as he reached for his jacket and cap. ‘It’s no trouble.’
‘Yes, do that. You won’t need a key – the door’s open,’ Rose informed him.
Making a quick exit, he bumped into Gladys and Dan on the doorstep. ‘Go on in,’ he invited before explaining his errand and hurrying off.
‘Something smells good,’ Gladys exclaimed. She was warmly dressed in a pale blue sweater and dark slacks, handing over brightly wrapped presents for Hazel, Robert and Jinny while Dan, unshaven and already a little drunk, sat down at the half-laid table. ‘Happy Christmas, everyone!’
Taking her present, Hazel gave Gladys a peck on the cheek. ‘Happy Christmas to you too.’
‘This is a milestone – the last time everyone will be living cheek by jowl,’ Gladys reminded her. ‘Come January, you and I will be all set up on Canal Road in our own little flat.’
‘Bully for you,’ Dan remarked bitterly. ‘Some of us can’t afford the luxury.’
Gladys took up the cudgels. ‘You could if you didn’t throw all your money down the drain.’
‘Now, now,’ Rose warned. ‘No bickering, please.’
Hazel worried that the festive gathering was getting off to a lukewarm start despite the paper streamers and the daintily decorated tree. But when Robert came back with the extra chair and once they were all seated around the table, differences were laid to one side. Jinny produced a plump turkey that was done to a turn, together with all the trimmings. These included the savoury pudding brought along by Ada that followed a traditional recipe containing sage and dripping. Robert picked it out for special praise, which mollified Ada and brought a relieved smile to Rose’s anxious face.
‘And God bless the cook,’ Robert added
, looking down the length of the table at a red-cheeked, flustered Jinny.
‘What does God have to do with it?’ bleary-eyed Dan objected.
‘Everything!’ Gladys’s trilling laughter helped them skim over another sticky moment. ‘After all, where would Christmas be without Him?’
Hazel agreed. ‘No Baby Jesus, no Wise Men, no presents.’
Gladys didn’t pursue the argument. ‘And thank you anyway, Aunty Jinny.’
‘Now can we please tuck in?’ Ada’s knife sliced through a piece of tender breast meat.
Food was eaten, verdicts given on the turkey – lovely and moist; very tasty; better than last year – Christmas pudding was produced. No, I couldn’t. Go on then – just a spoonful. Who’s got the sixpence?
‘Me,’ Dan said, pulling it from his mouth between thumb and forefinger.
‘Good – that’ll help you out of your next tight spot,’ Gladys quipped.
Even Dan joined in the laughter at this one and by the time the dishes were cleared away, they were all ready to get out the games and settle into a late-afternoon session of dominoes, whist and tiddlywinks.
‘You’re never too old …’ Robert avowed, challenging Hazel to ‘tiddle the winks’. He cleared a space at the end of the table and they began.
As she threw herself into the Christmas spirit, Hazel couldn’t help but give a thought to the people unable to indulge in a spot of family bickering, as Rose had called it.
There was David for a start, whose present had been a small volume of poetry by Robert Burns. He would be at home above the surgery with only Irene and baby Grace for company. No doubt he would enter into the spirit for their sakes. Still, she felt a twinge of sadness for the man whose dead wife’s framed picture graced his bureau. He’d been willing to take a risk on a newly qualified midwife and give Hazel the chance she needed and because of this she admired him more than she could say.
Then, of course, there was John. She thought of him again – alone in his silent house – and her heart ached. She longed to run up the street, to knock on his door and invite him to join them. Who cared if Dorothy got to hear of it and cast sour aspersions? What did it matter if Nana and Aunty Rose were taken aback?
‘Your turn, Hazel.’ Her dad’s reminder drew her back into the cosy present. She took aim, fired her tiddlywink towards the small Bakelite cup and saw it land with a triumphant chink. The moment had passed.
At four in the afternoon, as darkness fell, there was a knock at the door announcing the customary arrival for Christmas tea of Ethel and Cyril.
‘Guess who we’ve dragged out of their love nest,’ Ethel announced as they all made space for extra visitors.
‘Come in, come in and shut that door behind you,’ Jinny told Sylvia and Norman, who lagged behind.
They shuffled into the kitchen, Norman in shirtsleeves and a fawn pullover, Sylvia without a coat and done up in the one dress that still fitted her towards the end of her fifth month – a crêpe de Chine wrap-over in deep red with navy piping around the neckline. Her dark hair was neatly crimped and she’d dabbed on rouge to disguise her pale cheeks.
‘You two will catch your deaths if you’re not careful,’ Ada warned from her privileged fireside chair.
Rose drew the new arrivals to the fire then fussed over an irritable Sylvia. ‘Fetch the girl a chair,’ she told Dan, who was deep into his fourth bottle of pale ale.
Clumsily he pulled a stool from under the sink and scraped it across the lino.
Ada tutted. ‘Not a stool, Dan – fetch Sylvia a proper chair.’
There was much shifting and shuffling in the confined space as one was produced.
‘A stool would have done.’ Sylvia sat down with a frown. ‘We haven’t come for long, Aunty Jinny. And we haven’t bothered with cards and presents this year – I hope no one minds.’
Watching from her side of the room, Hazel tried to work out how Sylvia was coping. She’d made an effort to dress up nicely and this was a reassuring reminder of the old, carefree times. But her face was pinched and peaky and she seemed to ignore Norman, who was boxed into a corner, forced into exchanging pleasantries with Rose. She also seemed determined to ignore her condition, talking instead about a second-hand gramophone that she’d picked up for a song on a stall at Clifton Market.
‘I couldn’t believe my luck. It came complete with a box of needles and three Count Basie records,’ she boasted across the room to Gladys and Hazel, who decided to join her.
‘Count Basie comes before baby clothes, eh?’ Gladys said with deliberate lack of tact and openly critical of the way Sylvia was carrying on. ‘What are you going to dress this poor child in, come April? Has it even got a nightie?’
There was an uncomfortable silence, covered up by Jinny’s offer to make tea and sandwiches.
‘No, ta!’ Dan slurred his words. ‘We’re still full to bursting from turkey and savoury pud.’
‘But a cup of tea would be nice,’ Ada said with a pointed look at Dan.
Ignoring Gladys’s disapproval, Sylvia turned to Hazel. ‘Never mind about baby clothes – no one’s interested in that. Tell me – when’s the big move to Canal Road?’
‘In a week’s time,’ Hazel replied. Now that she had the opportunity, she made a close-up, professional assessment of Sylvia, noting the thickening waist and reassured that there was no sign of oedema or excessive fatigue. Nevertheless, she had to resist the urge to ask Sylvia to attend clinic. Now’s not the time or the place, she reminded herself.
‘She turned green with envy when I broke the news,’ Gladys remarked.
Sylvia’s face reddened. ‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Yes, you did. Especially when I dropped a certain Mr Earl Ray’s name into the conversation.’
‘I hear he gave you some free tickets to a concert.’ Sylvia’s voice was quiet and her expression rueful rather than angry, like a child hovering on the edge of a playground game.
‘He did. But you can have mine,’ Hazel offered without hesitating. ‘I know how much you like his music.’
Sylvia shook her head. She glanced at Norman, who had broken away from Rose and was now chatting to his father-in-law. ‘Gladys has got it all wrong,’ she insisted. ‘I’m not jealous.’
‘Quite right. You and Norman have other things to look forward to.’ It was as close as Hazel dared come to the topic that Sylvia seemed so anxious to avoid and it was a mistake.
‘Oh, why must everyone go on about it?’ She stood up jerkily, tipping Hazel sideways off the arm of the chair. ‘If it’s not nighties, it’s matinée jackets, and if it’s not matinée jacket, it’s bootees.’
‘Calm down, Sylvia. Hazel didn’t mean any harm,’ Gladys objected.
‘Stop bossing me around. Leave me alone,’ Sylvia snapped back.
‘I’m not bossing you around. Nana, did you hear me say anything nasty to Sylvia?’
‘Pipe down, both of you. A fine Christmas this is turning out to be,’ Ada said with a dismissive wave of her hand.
‘Your nana’s right.’ Cyril stepped forward with a warning look.
Sylvia pushed past him and headed for the door. ‘That’s right, Dad, gang up on me with the rest of them, why don’t you? I knew this would happen; I don’t know why I even bothered coming.’
The crowded room was already in disarray when Dan stood up and knocked over his bottle of beer. He ignored it and clapped loudly. ‘Bravo, Sylvia, another fine performance.’
The beer spilled and soaked into the white tablecloth. Dan swayed then sat down heavily.
By this time Sylvia was beside herself. She clutched at Norman’s sleeve. ‘We’re off,’ she told him.
But now Ethel blocked her way. ‘Not without saying sorry, you’re not.’
‘Sorry for what? For not knitting bootees?’ Sylvia screeched then tried to push past her mother. Her face changed colour quickly from flushed to pale and she needed Norman to steady her. ‘I’m sick and tired of this, you hear? From now on you’re all t
o leave me alone.’
Her mother winced then stepped aside. ‘Right you are,’ she muttered. ‘If that’s the way you want it.’
‘Oh, Sylvia,’ Rose murmured sorrowfully in the shocked silence that accompanied her departure with a nonplussed Norman.
Jinny stood Dan’s bottle upright then mopped up the beer with a teacloth.
‘I’ll do that.’ Hazel took over, carefully picking up the bright yellow and red tiddlywinks and dabbing them dry.
‘Happy Christmas, everyone,’ Dan muttered sardonically.
Hazel didn’t react. She’d pushed Sylvia over the edge without meaning to and she regretted it. She was also deeply worried about her cousin’s rapidly changing moods. Please come to the clinic, she thought as she lifted the stained cloth from the table. Whatever you’re going through, you need to talk to someone. I’m here – it’s my job. You must come clean about everything and let me help.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
In the dog days between Christmas and New Year, Hazel heard no word from John. She tried to distract herself by keeping busy – firstly by packing a tea chest with all the things she would need to take with her to Canal Road and then by running her clinic.
‘Did you have a nice Christmas?’ Eleanor asked when she arrived.
‘Yes, ta. Did you?’
‘Yes. I had a lovely, last-minute surprise – an invite from David to come here for tea on Christmas Day.’
As he came down the stairs, David overheard Eleanor sharing her snippet of information and readily joined in. ‘Irene put on a good spread for us, didn’t she?’
‘Very good.’ Eleanor blushed then pretended to be busy with some papers on her desk.
Oh! Caught off balance, Hazel looked from one to the other with sudden curiosity. Eleanor and David. She pictured the pair of them having a cosy festive tea, with Irene carrying trays to and fro and baby Grace fast asleep in her cot.
‘No peace for the wicked, eh?’ David joked as they crossed on the stairs. He’d been working as usual since Boxing Day, dealing with cases of acute angina, lumbago and bronchitis on top of run-of-the-mill childhood illnesses such as measles and chicken pox.