Stay as Sweet as You Are

by Joan Jonker

  Irene looked down at her hands. ‘Yes, I’ve seen them, sunshine. But yer told me in secret and made me promise not to tell yer dad.’

  Bob was sitting forward on the edge of the couch, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘In the name of God, pet, why didn’t yer tell me?’

  ‘Because yer always looked so sad and unhappy. She doesn’t hit me now, hasn’t done for ages. We had a big row last week and she came at me to give me a belt. That’s when I told her I knew she was slipping out the back way at night when she thought I was asleep. She got worried then, and she actually smiled at me. That’s never been known before. She didn’t get round me though, and I told her so. I said I wouldn’t tell you ’cos yer had enough worries, but that one day yer’d find her out for yerself. And yer have, haven’t yer, Dad?’

  ‘It seems I’m finding out a lot of things, pet. I must have been going around with me eyes closed not to have realised how bad things were for you. But now yer can see that the sooner we get away from her the better.’

  Lucy shook her head. ‘No, Dad, I don’t see that, or understand. I don’t see why it’s us that has to move. That house is our home and I think we should stay there.’ There was a tremor in her voice, but determination in her heart. She couldn’t say she’d overheard her father saying he was seeing about getting a divorce, but if he did then he wouldn’t be married to her mam any more and she’d have no right to live in the house. But if they left now, they’d never get it back. ‘I don’t want us to leave, Dad, please?’

  ‘It’s not as easy as that, Lucy. There’s grown up things ye’re too young to understand.’ Bob was wondering what he’d ever done to be punished in this way. Because seeing his beloved daughter like this was indeed a punishment. ‘But we’ll be all right. I’ve got the feelers out for some decent digs for us, until I can find us a proper house.’

  ‘Dad, don’t take me away from this street and all me friends, please? I wouldn’t be happy anywhere else.’

  Irene could see the girl was near to tears. And Bob looked like a man who had reached breaking point. ‘Look, sunshine, yer’ve told yer dad how yer feel, so why not give him time to think it over? He’s only trying to do what’s best for yer.’

  ‘I know that, Mrs Pollard.’ Seeing the look of despair on her father’s face, Lucy left her chair in such haste it would have toppled over if Irene hadn’t caught it in time. Sitting on his knee she laid her head on his chest. ‘I don’t like to see yer looking so unhappy, Dad, because it makes me unhappy. Let’s not talk about it any more now; you take yer time to think things over. Me mam’s done bad things to both of us, but she can’t part us. No matter what happens we’ll always have each other.’

  ‘You and yer dad will never be alone, sweetheart,’ Aggie said, trying to swallow the lump in her throat. ‘Yer’ve got lots of good friends and we’ll do anything to help yer.’

  ‘I know yer would, Mrs Aggie.’ And hoping to bring a smile to her father’s face, Lucy asked, ‘Can me and me dad come and lodge with yer?’

  ‘Nothing would please me more, sweetheart, if I had the room. I’d be in me bleedin’ apple-cart, and that’s a fact.’ Aggie grinned. ‘I can just see Titch’s face if he came home and found you sleeping in his bed. He’d think yer were that princess in the storybooks what was asleep for donkey’s years and got woke up when a handsome prince kissed her.’

  Lucy’s giggle brought a smile to each of their faces. ‘Yeah, he’d be struck dumb.’

  ‘Ooh, I don’t know about that. It would take more than a sleeping princess to rob my son of his powers of speech. He was born with the gift of the gab. The midwife what delivered him said that when she lifted him up by his legs and smacked his bottom, he opened his eyes and said if she did that once more he’d hit her back.’

  Now the mood was lighter, Irene pushed herself up from the chair. Greg was very good at watching the stove for her, but he wouldn’t think of giving the stew a stir so it wouldn’t stick on the bottom of the pan. ‘I’m off, folks. Will yer be calling in tomorrow afternoon, Bob?’

  ‘If it’s convenient for Aggie. I wouldn’t go home anyway, I’d hang around and wait for Lucy to come. To be greeted with a sneer when yer walk in yer own living room after working an eight-hour shift, isn’t exactly the best of welcomes.’

  ‘Ye’re welcome here, lad,’ Aggie said. ‘I was going to go to the Adelphi Hotel for afternoon tea, but I’ll give it a miss for once.’

  ‘Ooh, ay, Missus,’ Irene laughed, ‘the state of you and the price of fish! The Adelphi Hotel indeed! That’s a new one on me.’

  ‘It’s one of my little secrets, queen.’ Aggie left her chair and stretched to her full height. ‘I’m very well-known in social circles, but it’s not something I brag about. I’m not a snob and I wouldn’t want my friends to get an inferiority complex.’

  ‘I’ve already got one, Aggie.’ There were the makings of a smile on Bob’s face as he pushed Lucy to her feet. ‘But you didn’t give it to me.’

  ‘Don’t let anybody put yer down, lad.’ Aggie followed them to the door. ‘Ye’re as good as anybody and better than most.’

  Lucy gave the old woman a kiss before taking her father’s hand. ‘I won’t see yer tonight, Mrs Aggie, ’cos I’ve promised Rhoda I’d go over there after I’ve had me tea. But I’ll see yer tomorrow. And you, Mrs Pollard.’

  ‘You and yer mate are welcome to come and have a game of cards,’ Irene said as they reached her house. ‘The boys would enjoy that.’

  ‘Thanks, Mrs Pollard, but I might not go out at all. I think I’ll stay in and keep me dad company.’

  ‘He’s welcome to come, too, sunshine.’

  ‘Not tonight, Irene, but thanks all the same.’ Bob squeezed Lucy’s hand and smiled down at her. ‘I’m going to have an early night in bed and do some serious thinking. Eh, pet?’

  ‘Yes, Dad.’ Lucy pulled him towards their door. ‘We’ll go to bed at the same time.’

  After dinner was over and the dishes washed, Ruby picked up her handbag and left the room. Lucy’s eyes followed her, and as she heard footsteps mounting the stairs she knew in her heart her mother was getting ready to go out. How has she got the nerve, the girl asked herself, when me dad’s told her he knows what she’s up to? She doesn’t seem to care what he thinks.

  Bob lowered the paper he was reading and looked across at his daughter. ‘I’m thinking the same as you, pet. She’s going out again.’

  ‘Are yer going to tell her she can’t, Dad?’

  ‘No, it’s no use, love, and anyway, it’s too late for that now. At least we’ll have the house to ourselves.’

  Lucy bit on her bottom lip. Her dad did look very tired, but she had promised her friend. ‘Can I ask Rhoda to come over here for half an hour, then? I promised I’d try and do something with her hair. Not that I’m any good at it, but she thinks because mine’s curly I can make hers the same. It’s only for a laugh, Dad, and we wouldn’t get in yer way. I always feel mean not asking her in here, ’cos I’m in her house nearly every day. But she’s only been in here once or twice in all the years we’ve been friends. Me mam wouldn’t let her in.’

  ‘Of course she can come over.’ Bob’s smile turned into a yawn. He was so weary he felt like falling into bed and sleeping for a week. ‘But only for an hour, pet, I do want to have an early night.’

  When Ruby came into the room, the smell of cheap scent came with her. Her face was caked with powder and rouge, and her lips were scarlet. ‘I’m going out.’

  ‘I gathered that,’ Bob said, without looking up from his paper, while Lucy pretended to be so intent on pushing the skin back from her cuticles, she didn’t hear. But as soon as the front door closed she was off her seat. ‘I’ll go and get me mate.’

  Bob was staring into space when he heard the girls’ laughter and he quickly fixed a smile on his face. ‘Hello, Rhoda.’

  ‘Hiya, Mr Mellor! How yer doing? And don’t say ye’re doing everyone because me mam got there before yer.’

 
; ‘I always was slow on the uptake, love. Anyway, you’ve changed a lot. Yer used to be a lot bonnier than yer are now.’

  There was a look of bliss on Rhoda’s face. Bob’s words were music to her ears. ‘I’ve lost a lot of me fat, Mr Mellor, like me mam said I would. Mind you,’ the girl pursed her lips and her look was comical, ‘she was eight years out in the timing. I was six when she said it was puppy fat, and here I am nearly fourteen.’

  Bob grinned at the girl who had been Lucy’s steadfast friend since they were toddlers. ‘Yer look well, Rhoda, very pretty.’

  ‘I’m not as thin as yer daughter yet, but I’m working on it. And I haven’t got curly hair like hers, but I’m not working on that, she is.’

  ‘Don’t expect miracles,’ Lucy told her. ‘I’m not a hairdresser.’

  ‘If yer make a mess of it, yer won’t be able to blame the tools.’ Rhoda placed a bag on the table. ‘Me mam’s pipe cleaners are in there, together with a brush and comb. So there’s no excuse if I don’t end up with curls like yours. If I don’t, yer’ll have me mam to answer to.’

  Lucy raised her hands in mock horror. ‘Oh no, not yer mam! Let me answer to yer dad instead, please, I beg yer.’

  ‘Shut up and get on with the job.’ Rhoda pulled a chair from the table and plonked herself down. ‘And I’ll be counting the curls when yer’ve finished. If I haven’t got as many as you there’ll be skin and hair flying.’

  Bob went back to his paper, but not to read. For the next hour he had a real, genuine smile on his face as he listened to his daughter and her friend. They never stopped talking and laughing. When one wasn’t rattling off about one thing or another, the other was. And it did Bob’s heart good to hear young voices and laughter in the house. This was how life should always have been for Lucy. And Bob was grateful for this short period of normality.

  ‘There yer are, there’s thirty pipe cleaners in now.’ Lucy put the comb down on the table. ‘And if yer hair’s straight in the morning I’ll eat me hat.’

  ‘Ooh, er, how am I going to sleep with these in? I’ll have to sit up all night.’

  ‘Don’t be daft! Put a scarf on yer head before yer go to bed and it’ll keep the pipe cleaners in place. Anyway, yer’ve got to put up with some discomfort if yer want to be glamorous.’

  ‘Okay, kid, don’t be getting obstreperous.’

  Lucy’s jaw dropped. ‘Don’t be getting what?’

  ‘I ain’t repeating that! It took me all me time to get it out the once.’

  ‘Well, what does it mean?’

  ‘How the heck do I know? I was in TJ’s one day and some kid was screaming his head off. His mam dragged him out of the shop telling him not to be what I’ve just told yer.’

  ‘I’m going to ask our teacher tomorrow what it means,’ Lucy said. ‘And if it means something bad I’ll clock yer one.’

  ‘What are yer going to ask her?’

  ‘What that word means.’

  ‘What word?’

  ‘The one yer’ve just used.’

  ‘Can yer say it, then?’

  Lucy sent her curls swinging as she shook her head. ‘Of course I can’t say it. But you can.’

  ‘I’m staying out of it,’ Rhoda said, picking up her bag. ‘And another thing, I’m staying away from T.J. Hughes’ and screaming kids. If I’d known the miserable little blighter was going to cause me this much bother I’d have hit him meself.’

  Bob couldn’t help laughing aloud. He knew these two had been mates for years, but had no idea how close they were. He was sorry when Rhoda said it was time to go. ‘Thank you for a very entertaining hour, Miss Fleming. I sincerely hope yer head is one mass of curls in the morning.’

  ‘Oh, it will be, Mr Mellor. Yer see, Lucy’s coming over to ours early in the morning to take the pipe cleaners out and roll me curls for me.’

  Lucy gasped. ‘I never said I’d do that.’

  ‘No, you didn’t say it, I did.’ Rhoda pushed her friend into the hallway. ‘And don’t yer start getting obstreperous with me, Lucy Mellor, or I’ll give yer a thick lip.’

  Ruby huffed when she walked into the living room at eleven o’clock that night. Why did he have to lower the gas every time she went out? It made the room look miserable, and all for the sake of saving a copper. She pulled the chain at the side of the gas-light to brighten the room, while calling her husband all the tight-fisted buggers she could think of. It was when she was taking her coat off that she saw the blanket and pillow on the couch. ‘Oh no,’ she said aloud. ‘If he thinks I’m sleeping on there again he’s got another think coming.’

  Wally’s lovemaking and flattery had filled her with confidence, and the belief that she was far too good for her husband. And the drink he’d plied her with clouded her judgement. She hung her coat on a hook in the hall, then picked up the blanket and pillow. Without making any effort to be quiet, she climbed the stairs, threw the bedding on the bed and waited for Bob to stir. ‘If yer think yer can get away with that, ye’re dafter than I thought yer were.’

  Bob lay still for several seconds to collect his thoughts. Then, with a deep sigh, he pushed the clothes back. Gathering the blanket and pillow in his arms, he said quietly, ‘You will not sleep in my bed.’ He started to walk out of the room, intending to throw the clothes down the stairs, but Ruby barred his path. Her two hands pushing him backwards, she yelled at the top of her voice, ‘Who the bleedin’ hell d’yer think yer are? Yer can’t be right in the head if yer think yer can make yer wife sleep on the couch.’ All the time she was pushing and beating Bob’s chest with her fists. And when he didn’t reply, her language became that of the gutter.

  Lucy woke with a start and shot up in bed. She heard her mother screaming like a wild woman and was sickened by the swearwords. Then she heard her father speaking in a low voice. ‘Will yer move out of my way?’ His words sent Ruby into a rage and her screaming intensified.

  Lucy scrambled from her bed and flew into the next room. She saw her mother lashing out at her father with both hands and was horrified. ‘You leave my dad alone.’ She stood behind her mother and began to pummel her back with clenched fists. ‘Ye’re wicked, you are. Now leave him alone.’

  Ruby turned around, pulled her arm back and delivered a stinging slap to the side of Lucy’s face. ‘Get back to bed, yer little faggot.’

  Bob closed his eyes. To think it had come down to this. His daughter trying to protect him from a wife who was clearly not in her right mind. And the neighbours both sides must be able to hear the row. He laid the clothes down on the bed, put his arms around Ruby’s waist and lifted her from the floor. ‘You either sleep on the couch or walk the streets all night. The choice is yours.’

  Lucy stepped away from the thrashing arms and legs as her mother was carried screaming from the room. Holding a hand to her cheek which was smarting from the slap, she watched as her mother clung to the bannister like grim death, screaming like a wild woman as her father tried to carry her downstairs. And, sick at heart, the girl knew that what was happening now had put paid to any thought of her dad staying. It wouldn’t be fair to expect him to, either.

  ‘Go back to bed, Lucy,’ Bob said. ‘I’ll handle this.’

  ‘Will yer be all right, Dad?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll be all right. You go back to bed, there’s a good girl.’

  Bob waited for a few seconds, then took an arm from around his wife’s waist. He let it fall before bringing it up sharply under her arms and wrenching her away from the bannister. He managed to get her down the stairs and into the living room, where he dropped her on to the couch. She was still shouting and blaspheming as she tried to push herself up, and it was then that Bob saw red. With the sound of Lucy’s face being slapped still ringing in his ears, he had come to the end of his tether. ‘Shut up, woman, before I make you.’

  ‘That’ll be the day,’ Ruby sneered. ‘Yer haven’t got the bleedin’ guts. Ye’re not man enough.’

  Bob had always sworn never to raise a hand to
a woman, but he had taken enough humiliation from this loudmouthed, so-called wife of his. He didn’t put his weight behind the slap he gave her, but it was hard enough to bring a startled cry from Ruby. ‘You bleedin’ sod! I’ll get yer back for this.’

  ‘That slap was for Lucy. And if yer don’t keep that filthy mouth of yours shut, I’ll be happy to give yer one from me. And I won’t pull me punch next time. So it’s up to you. Yer can go upstairs, very quietly, and bring down the blanket and pillow for yerself, or yer can take a chance on me belting yer one before throwing yer out on the street.’

  Ruby had sobered up quickly. She had never seen her husband like this, but she could tell by the anger in his voice that he was more than capable of carrying out his threat. However, habit wouldn’t let her give in to him. ‘I’ll be quiet if you sleep on the couch.’

  ‘My terms are not up for discussion, Ruby. Take it or leave it.’

  She still wasn’t ready to give in. ‘And how long is this lark going to go on for – me sleeping on the couch?’

  ‘Oh, not long, Ruby. Not long at all.’

  ‘How d’yer mean, not long? What’s going on?’

  ‘I don’t have to tell you anything about my private life. You don’t tell me anything, never have done. I don’t know where yer go or who yer see. I was going to say I don’t know what yer get up to, but I know that now.’ Bob’s sigh came from deep within him. ‘I have an eight-hour shift in front of me, I’d like to get some sleep. So go and fetch the bedding if yer don’t fancy a night walking the streets.’

  Ruby left the room without a word. And when she came down, Bob climbed the stairs hoping to get a few hours’ much-needed sleep. Tomorrow was another day. A day in which he had to sort his life out once and for all.

  ‘What in the name of God went on last night?’ Irene asked as Bob walked into Aggie’s living room the next day. ‘The whole street must have heard yer.’