Friends and Lovers
Page 5
There was silence. Hilda cleared her throat. ‘Hasn’t your mother mentioned the money, George?’ she asked eventually.
‘Never,’ he said vehemently. ‘If she thought about it she would want us to have it. And I tell you straight. Aunt Hilda, no way will you get your hands on my share. I have plans for it.’
‘How much was there?’
‘I’m not telling you.’
‘I’ll get a lawyer,’ she said mildly. ‘I’ve a legal right to some of it.’
‘You’ve no bloody right,’ George said explosively, his fists clenching and unclenching. ‘It’s not fair! And I’m not going to let you spoil things for me.’ Without another word he strode out of the kitchen.
Viv stared at her mother. ‘Are you happy now? No sooner do you come on the scene than there’s trouble.’
‘He’ll calm down.’ Hilda twiddled her thumbs. ‘He’s very like his father in some ways.’
‘So Aunt Flo says. But why get him going in the first place? Why come back, Mother? I wish I could believe all that stuff about your wanting to be a mother to me, but I don’t. I’ve managed quite happily without you and can carry on doing so. You don’t belong here any more. So why don’t you go back to where you do belong?’ She walked from the room and ran upstairs, her heart pounding uncomfortably.
She found George putting his painting equipment into a rucksack. The lines of his face were taut. ‘I’d forgotten just how grasping your mother was,’ he muttered. ‘I only remembered how she used to make things happen in the old days. There was never a dull moment.’
Viv sat on the bed, hardly able to believe what had just happened. ‘What are you going to do?’
He looked at the paint box in his hand. ‘I’m going to Paris.’
‘You don’t mean right now?’ Her voice was startled.
‘Right now,’ he said firmly. ‘I’m not staying in this house a moment longer or your mother will wheedle some money out of me.’
Viv smiled. ‘She can’t do that unless you let her. We’re not children any more, George.’
He grimaced. ‘I’m glad you feel like that. She makes me feel ten years old.’
Viv shrugged. ‘You’re not, though. And she’s got no proof that Grandfather didn’t get rid of the sovereigns. I reckon she’s having you on about going to see a lawyer.’
‘Maybe. It makes no difference.’ He shoved the box inside the rucksack. ‘What about you? Are you coming with me or staying here with her?’
‘I told you, George, I’m going to America.’
‘Even though your mother’s here? You can’t just walk out.’
She laughed. ‘You’re walking out!’
‘It’s different for me. She’s not my mother.’
The laughter died in Viv’s face. ‘Your mother’s in America and you don’t seem to give a damn about her, George. You’re a hypocrite. I’d have to be daft to go to Paris with you.’
He turned brick red. ‘You don’t understand, Viv! It’s not the way you think. For men, sometimes the last person they need around is their mother. She’d smother me. She loves me too much. Besides, I’m doing this for my dad too. It was his dream to be an artist.’ He hesitated. ‘I’m sorry about earlier. You’re right, I was using you as a substitute for Kathleen. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care for you in my own way.’
Viv’s expression softened and she hugged him, suddenly close to tears. Then, without a word, she walked out of the room and downstairs, prepared to do battle with her mother once more.
Hilda glanced up from that day’s newspaper which quivered in her hand. ‘Well?’ she said. ‘Have you come back to insult me a bit more. Where’s George? That lad’s too like his father for his own good.’
‘I wouldn’t know anything about that,’ said Viv, sitting down and gazing uncertainly at her mother. ‘I don’t remember ever seeing his father. Much as I never saw my own.’
‘Hmmmph!’ Her mother rustled the newspaper. ‘I got a shock when I saw the pair of you rolling about on the floor. I believed you an innocent.’
‘That is because I was a child when you left. But I’m still a virgin if that’s what’s worrying you. Although you’re a right one to talk about morality! I’m illegitimate, remember?’
‘You think I’ve ever forgotten?’ said Hilda wryly. ‘It was one of the worse moments of my life, finding out I was expecting you. This place has some unhappy memories. The worse was when Father threw me out.’ She gazed about the small cramped room with its faded wallpaper and old-fashioned oak furniture, and a sigh escaped her. ‘Still, I’ve some happy memories too. Mother used to lie on that sofa.’
Her expression was suddenly reminiscent. ‘But we’ll have to get rid of it. It’s a disgrace. We’ll keep the old rocking chair, though, and do it up.’ Her face softened. ‘I remember Mother sitting with me on her knee and rocking us both. I think we could make a nice little nest out of this place.’
‘We?’ Vivien could not believe her ears. ‘You surely aren’t stopping? We?’ she repeated, feeling as if she had wandered into a play because everything seemed so incredible. ‘Do you think I’d live here with you? Where were you when Grandfather was incontinent and his sheets needed changing? When his long johns stank to high heaven and I had to peel them off him while he hung on to them? What right have you to be here now he’s gone, talking about throwing out his furniture?’
‘I was his eldest daughter and he never wanted me here,’ murmured Hilda. ‘If things were so terrible you should have put him in a home.’
The word triggered off old memories and Viv felt a surge of pain. ‘Home!’ The words came spilling out. ‘That’s what you wanted to do with me when you quarrelled with Aunt Flo, wasn’t it?’ she said furiously. ‘You wanted to go to America and I was a handicap! If you didn’t want me why didn’t you have me adopted when I was a baby? Or was my father still on the scene and you believed he might marry you? Who was my father, by the way? You’ve never talked about him.’
‘It was our Flo’s fault I kept you,’ said Hilda, her cheeks flaming. ‘I thought I was going to die, and by the time I realised I wasn’t it was too late. She said you were too beautiful to part with, and she was right. You were like a little doll – bewitching in a bonnet. Surprised, are you, that I had some feelings for you?’ Her eyes lifted to her daughter’s.
Viv took a deep breath. ‘Yes. I didn’t think you felt anything for anyone, but you still haven’t told me who my father was.’
Hilda was silent for several seconds then drawled, ‘Your father, honey, was no good.’
‘What do you mean, no good? Was it that he didn’t want to marry you?’
‘He was a louse of the first order and I’d rather not talk about him. Now make me a cup of that awful coffee and tomorrow get some decent stuff.’ She lifted the newspaper in front of her face, effectively shutting out her daughter.
But Viv was not going to be shut out. She pulled down the newspaper. ‘It seems to me, Mother, that you’re a lousy judge of character when it comes to men. Unless Charlie was all right?’
‘He was all right,’ said her mother, struggling with the newspaper. ‘But I admit I should never have married Kevin.’
‘Why was my father a louse? Didn’t you love him at all?’
Hilda said sharply, ‘Don’t be so juvenile! What’s love got to do with it? Are you thinking we swore eternal love and then he went off and got killed in the war? It wasn’t like that.’
Viv stared at her, feeling as if all the air had been knocked out of her. When she had considered her conception she had romantically believed her mother had at least been in love with her father and that it had been just as she had said a few seconds ago, but now it seemed that it had not been like that at all. ‘You … you mean it was … just sex?’ she stammered.
‘What’s wrong with sex?’ snapped Hilda. ‘Even your Aunt Flo is a great believer in it.’
‘When did it happen? Where did it happen?’
Her mother’s fa
ce set stubbornly. ‘Work it out for yourself. It was wartime. There was an air raid and a blackout.’
‘You mean you couldn’t see each other’s faces?’
‘I didn’t want to see his face.’ Hilda lifted the newspaper. ‘I felt guilty enough as it was.’
Suddenly Viv could not bear listening to any more. She left the front room in a rush. It seemed her mother didn’t even know who her father was! She had to get out, away from her. She ran upstairs and into George’s room but he was not there and she realised he must have left by the back way while they had been talking.
She sank on to his bed. From downstairs came the sound of a radio playing. Her throat tightened with emotion. No way could she face her mother until she’d had time to pull herself together.
Then Viv remembered that she had a date with Nick Bryce. She glanced at her watch. It was still a few hours away but she could get ready now. Her spirits lifted a little. She could fill in a couple of hours at Dot’s and apologise for not waving her out of the door last night.
She went into her grandfather’s old bedroom and began to get ready. She donned a circular skirt with a hooped underskirt, and a lacy sweater she had knitted, then took her time applying make-up. She felt better after that. She crept downstairs, pausing in the kitchen to listen for any sounds of movement from the front room but the only sound to be heard was Rosemary Clooney singing ‘This Old House’. She paused. This house had been her home for the last few years. She had not always been happy in it but it seemed wrong to let her mother take it over. Her grandfather would turn in his grave. Suddenly it seemed to her that she would never be rid of his influence. Determinedly she crossed the kitchen to the back door and went out, resisting the temptation to slam it. Dot’s first and then that date with Nick Bryce. Perhaps by the end of the evening she would know exactly what to say to her mother to get rid of her.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘Mam asked if you had your monthlies. You look all pale,’ said Dot, opening her bedroom door.
‘I’ve got enough problems without periods thrown in,’ said Viv, sitting on one of the beds.
‘Tell Mother.’ Dot sat cross-legged on the other twin bed in the room she had once shared with her sister. ‘Have you and George had a row? He looked blue murder last night when he discovered you’d left with tall, dark and devilishly interesting-looking.’
Viv smiled but she had no intention of talking about Nick Bryce to Dot except to say, ‘I’ve a date with him later. As for George, he’s gone off to Paris so I don’t have to worry about what he has to say any more.’
Dot’s eyes bulged. ‘You don’t just up and go to Paris like that! Although I’d love to. It would be great!’
‘He wanted me to go with him,’ murmured Viv, toying with the cross on the chain round her neck. ‘But I’ve other plans. And, besides, that isn’t why I’ve come.’
‘I knew you hadn’t come just to say sorry because that could have waited till work in the morning. So give.’ Dot leant forward eagerly.
Viv took a deep breath. ‘It’s my mother. She’s come home.’
Dot’s jaw sagged. ‘I thought your mother was dead,’ she said in a stage whisper. ‘You told me …’
‘I lied! I didn’t want to own up to her and that I’m illegitimate! My mother never wanted me. She dumped me on George’s mother when I was little and I’ve hated her for it ever since.’
‘Golly!’ Dot took a packet of Wrigley’s spearmint chewing gum from a pocket of her skirt. ‘Where’s she been all this time then?’
‘America! She always wanted to go there and I was in the way. She would have put me in a home but my Aunt Flo wouldn’t let her. Now she’s back and says she wants to be a mother to me. But what kind of mother is it, Dot, who tells her daughter that her father was no good and that she didn’t even want to look at his face when they were making love?’ She swallowed. ‘Not that it was love. She said it was just sex and it happened in a blackout. I suppose now I’ll never get to know who he was! And on top of everything she’s given me a blinking headache. Have you got a couple of Aspro?’
‘She said all that, did she?’ Her wide-eyed friend handed her a strip of gum.
‘I want Aspro not gum,’ said Viv, unwrapping the strip. ‘Can you imagine doing it with someone you didn’t know really well?’ She chewed absently.
‘The Devil’s Daughter,’ said Dot unexpectedly. ‘I read it in a book once. Except it wasn’t the devil of course. It was some lord of the manor who had his wicked way on a dark stormy night.’
‘Don’t be daft!’ Viv’s glance was exasperated but slightly amused. ‘You’re always going on about something evil. My dad couldn’t have been the devil. Although Mam could easily pass as one of his relations! A witch. Just like one of those hags in Macbeth. Although, if I’m honest, she’s still too glam.’
‘It was a good story,’ said Dot, her expression dreamy. ‘Exciting.’
‘I bet it was. Enjoyed all that sex, did you?’ said Viv drily.
Dot grinned. ‘What sex? There’s never anything explicit. I wish there was. I might find out a few things.’
‘And where would that lead you? Into trouble like my mother. It’s no joke, Dot! Now get me some Aspro – please?’
Dot jumped up. ‘Perhaps your mother’s lying? Maybe your father’s still alive and rich and famous and he’s sent her money for years to keep quiet about him having an illegitimate child?’
‘You’re a fantasist,’ said Viv, wondering why it mattered so much all of a sudden, knowing who her father was, when she had given him little thought in the past. ‘Mam’s got it still and seems to have no trouble hooking the fellas. Besides, he’s dead.’
‘Dead?’ Dot paused, her hand on the door. ‘How do you know that?’
Viv’s nerves jolted and her fingers curled on a fold of her skirt. ‘I don’t know! Perhaps Mam told me years ago and it’s been in my subconscious all this time.’
‘It’s amazing what you’ve got buried in your mind,’ said Dot. ‘I sometimes wonder if I’ve got my ancestors’ thoughts as well as my own.’
‘It could explain the odd things you say sometimes,’ said Viv, her mouth curving slightly. ‘She might have lied of course. Because if he’s dead, why can’t she talk about him to me?’
‘Guilt!’ said Dot positively. ‘And she might just want to forget the past. Anyway, I’ll get those Aspros.’
The silence after she left was as good as a pill and Viv stretched out on the bed as best she could with a hooped underskirt. She hoped Norm wouldn’t come in suddenly because he’d see her knickers but while she could hear him practising his chords below she was safe. It was warm in the room because of the two-barred electric fire in the tiny cast iron and tiled fireplace. Guilt! Could it really be that which had brought her mother home? Viv found it difficult to accept. Her mother had never shown any sign of guilt before and had always gone her own sweet way, doing exactly what she liked. Viv remembered her dressing up for a night on the town. In her childish imagination Hilda had seemed like a fairy princess. How she had admired her in those early days before she had left without even a goodbye.
Dot came back into the room and handed Viv a drink and the Aspros. She took them with a word of thanks.
‘Your father could have been a rich Yank,’ said Dot, her eyes bright. ‘Didn’t your aunt marry a Yank?’
‘Mike. Mam had her eye on him too but Aunt Flo beat her to him.’
‘Your aunt might know who your father is.’
Viv stilled. It was a definite possibility. ‘Aunt Flo wants me to go to America for Christmas,’ she said slowly. ‘I could ask her then!’
‘You jammy thing!’ Dot looked envious. ‘Put me in your suitcase. I won’t be any trouble. Just think of living in the same country as Elvis!’
Viv grinned. ‘No problem. I’m sure they’ll allow you to work your passage if you’re discovered amongst my clothes.’
‘What about your mother? Will she be staying here?’
‘Well?’ demanded Dot. ‘What are you going to do about your mother?’
‘I don’t know.’ She glanced at her watch and drained her cup. ‘I’ll have to be going. I’ll sleep on it. Things always look different in the morning.’
‘That’s true,’ said Dot, getting up. ‘Dracula always has to go back in his coffin or the sunlight gets him.’
‘Or Peter Cushing with a stake or crucifix. I wonder if I can get Dracula to take a bite out of Mam’s jugular?’ Viv grinned and rose from the bed. Dot saw her out, waving until she was out of sight.
Viv caught a bus in Tuebrook into town, hoping that she would not be late for her date with Nick. He had occupied her dreams but she had had little time to think about him since her mother’s arrival on the scene. They had arranged to meet outside Boodle and Dunthorpe, the high class jewellers, on the corner of Lord Street and North John Street in a part of the city that had been extensively rebuilt after being bombed during the war.
‘I thought you might have changed your mind,’ said Nick, taking Viv’s hand and immediately beginning to walk up North John Street. He was dressed casually in a navy blue polo neck sweater and dark trousers, worn with a navy tweed jacket. His dark hair, which had been rather short back and sides when she first met him, had grown. He looked terribly attractive.
‘I’m sorry I’m late but it’s been a bit of a day.’ Her voice was slightly breathless.
‘George being awkward?’
‘George has gone … off to Paris.’
Nick’s eyes widened. ‘He’s what?’
‘Gone to Paris. My mother came home and off he went. There was a big argument over Grandfather’s money. Her causing trouble as usual.’ Her voice wobbled. ‘I wouldn’t mind but she’s newly widowed and rolling in it.’ She stopped abruptly, surprised to be overcome by the intensity of her feelings.