An Unsuitable Mother

by Sheelagh Kelly

  Nina fell about giggling. ‘Oh, you’ll have to tell Dad that one!’

  And indeed, Nell was to do so much later, after Nina had gone upstairs following tea, as was a teenager’s wont. The crinkles of laughter were still around the parents’ eyes when there came the sound of their daughter’s passage down the stairs, the clomp of high heels, and the swish of her coat. ‘Right, I’m off,’ she eventually popped in to tell those seated by the fire.

  ‘Where’s Dan Dare?’ A startled Joe beheld her hairdo, stacked six inches high into a dome. ‘Well, you look like the ruddy Mikon, I thought Dan couldn’t be far behind.’

  ‘Da-ad!’ reproved Nina.

  Her mother too. ‘Don’t be mean, Joe.’ Nell admired the grey swagger coat with white flecks, the smart black court shoes with a strap over the instep. ‘She looks very elegant.’

  ‘Thanks, Mam – oh, bugger!’ Nina let out a sudden wail.

  ‘Oh yes, extremely elegant. We’ll have less of that,’ warned her father, to no avail as Nina hurried to apply an unsightly blob of pink nail varnish to her snagged stocking. ‘Where is it you’re off to anyway?’

  Nina showed exasperation. ‘Speech Day, of course!’

  ‘Looking like that?’ Joe observed her bouffant hair and shocking-pink lipstick. ‘And I don’t remember being told. Aren’t parents usually invited?’

  ‘I did tell you! You never listen – anyway, I’d better go.’ Nina shot for the door.

  ‘Wait on!’ yelled Joe, only to hear a slam. Then he rolled his eyes at Nell.

  ‘Well, I suppose she thought we wouldn’t want to go, you being so bored the last time,’ shrugged Nell, who held the firm suspicion that their daughter was lying, for she had overheard her and Shirley discussing a pop concert, and both had clammed up when she arrived. But, wanting Nina to be happy, she made no mention of that to Joe.

  However, someone else was to blab. With both parents working, the morning post had remained unopened all day, and not until tea had been consumed did Joe finally put on his glasses and sift through the collection of envelopes. One in particular drew a frown.

  ‘What’s all this? Dear Mr and Mrs Kilmaster, it was very disappointing to see neither of you at our Speech Day on Wednesday evening. Perhaps you had prior commitments. However, I should have been obliged if your daughter had attended …’

  Nina had carried the wireless into the kitchen, so as to listen to Radio Luxembourg, and could be heard singing along to it. Joe’s face darkened as he shouted for her.

  A head appeared round the door, adorned with metal rollers. ‘Was that you bawling?’ At the black summons that was thrown at her, Nina came fully into the room, accidentally tripping over the wire that snaked under the door from the radio to a point on the wall by the window.

  ‘Speech Day, was it?’ he announced tartly, showing her the damning letter. ‘Where did you really go?’

  After a flush of guilt, his daughter came clean. ‘To see Joe Brown.’

  ‘Right! Where does he live?’ Joe put his glasses aside, meaning business. ‘I’m off round to speak to his father!’

  Nina poured scorn on his ignorance, and jabbed at the radio that was still playing ‘A Picture of You’. ‘I mean him – at the Rialto.’

  ‘That lanky, spiky-haired lout?’ spluttered Joe.

  ‘And the Tornadoes.’

  ‘Ooh, are they the ones who play “Telstar”?’ cut in Nell.

  ‘Yeah!’ Nina lit up for her mother. ‘And Johnny Ki—’

  ‘I don’t want to hear the full blasted programme! I want to know what you were doing there – and where you got the cash.’ Then immediately Joe’s eyes turned to his wife. ‘Or do I need to ask?’

  ‘It wasn’t me!’ Nell looked injured.

  ‘Well you’re always funding her for some bloody thing!’

  ‘Not this time – I had no idea!’ She turned more disapprovingly now to Nina, but her tone was not so much recriminatory as disappointed. ‘You should have told us where you were going, Neen –’

  ‘Asked!’ barked Joe. ‘I think you mean asked.’

  ‘We wouldn’t have known where to find you if anything had happened.’ Nell continued to handle this with tact. ‘We’re only angry because we’re worried about you being hurt –’

  ‘Aye, and she will be hurt if she lies to me again!’ cut in Joe. ‘Do you think your teachers want to go to Speech Day either, to sit through somebody droning on for hours – and take that smirk off your face!’ He had seen Nina’s lips twitch over his admittance that the event was boring. ‘Right, well, if you’re going to lie about where you’re going, then you won’t be going anywhere for a month.’

  ‘Can’t lock me up,’ muttered a sulky Nina under her breath.

  ‘You what?’ Joe overheard – and in one swift movement he had grabbed the teapot from a tray and emptied its contents over her head. ‘You cheeky little sod!’

  Her head dripping lukewarm tealeaves, the victim cried out. ‘You could have scalded me to death!’ And with a frustrated gasp for her newly washed hair, Nina stormed upstairs, from whence came the sound of running water, much banging about, then the growl of a hairdryer.

  The parents sat in silence after she had gone, staring at the television screen, though digesting little of the programme. Joe was still fuming, Nell pursing her lips.

  ‘I suppose you think I’ve been too hard on her again,’ he said eventually.

  Nell lifted one shoulder, trying hard to sound diplomatic. ‘Well, I agree she shouldn’t have gone without asking, but locking her away for so long won’t help.’

  ‘I might have known I’d be the villain.’

  She clicked her tongue. ‘I’m not saying that! I’m trying to find some middle ground. A month is aeons to someone so young, all you’ll achieve is resentment. Can’t you remember being her age? The curses I piled on my parents …’ She broke off to regard him slyly. ‘I’ll bet you didn’t always do as you were told either.’

  Joe was calming down, but his denial was strenuous. ‘I bloody did! Eliza used to clatter us for splashing water on the windows when we washed our hands – even for looking at her the wrong way …’

  ‘And you don’t want Nina to feel that way about you, do you?’ asked Nell softly. ‘Things are different today, Joe, people aren’t so strict with their children …’ Seeing him rear, she quickly adopted a subordinate role. ‘I’m not arguing with you! She has to learn she can’t get away with it … but a month is a bit steep.’ Ending with a look of entreaty, she went to make a pot of tea for supper. And when this arrived with a plate of assorted cakes and biscuits, he was in a more lenient frame of mind.

  ‘A week then,’ he allowed grudgingly, and dunked a gingernut.

  Nell beamed and thanked him. ‘I’ll just go up and tell her, to save her stewing about it.’

  Hair back in rollers, Nina was leaning over the open windowsill when her mother appeared, and underwent a moment of panic trying to disperse the cigarette smoke.

  ‘Now then, Fag-ash Lil,’ said Nell. ‘Don’t bother trying to waft it out of the window, I could smell it miles away.’

  Caught out again, Nina’s sulk turned to expectancy as her smiling mother handed over the cup of coffee she had made. ‘Did you talk him round?’

  ‘What do you think?’ Nell chuckled as her daughter’s face broke into a relieved grin. ‘I managed to get your sentence reduced to a week.’

  ‘Better than nowt. Thanks, Mam. I knew you’d talk sense into him.’

  Nell cocked her head in slight disapproval. ‘I don’t think Dad’ll be so lenient if he smells the fags.’

  ‘Well, he wouldn’t, him being such a bloody hypocrite – I had to wash my hair all over again!’

  Nell turned cross then. ‘Now, I won’t have you speak about your father like that! He thinks the world of you.’

  There came a genuinely repentant mumble, after which an indulgent Nell sat on the bed to ask, ‘So, was Joe Brown worth it then?’

  ‘Oh yea
h, he was fab!’ Nina flopped on the bed beside her mother. ‘Tornadoes were great as well. Me, Shirley and Bridget can play, “Telstar” on our combs. We performed it for the RE teacher the other day – we do a Shadows walk to it – she thought it were right good.’

  ‘Your teachers sound nice,’ Nell said, at which Nina agreed, but added with a heavy sigh that it was just school that was crap. Nell tried to sound optimistic. ‘Well, it’s not really that long until you’re sixteen.’

  ‘Sixteen?’ Nina’s head shot up. ‘I was reckoning on fifteen – and that’s bad enough!’

  ‘Oh, Neen, I don’t think your dad’ll swallow that. He’s expecting you to take your GCEs.’

  ‘That’d be another year and a half! It’ll nearly be time to get married. Can’t you persuade him to let me leave next spring?’ Nina cuddled up to her, using the well-worn ploy.

  And, despite knowing full well she was being played for a mug, Nell uttered a growl of submission and declared, ‘I’ll see what I can do – but you’ll have to act your part in keeping him sweet!’

  So, in the following months, Nina did try her best not to upset her father, for this being rewarded with a record player at Christmas. Nell too paved the way by making this festive season the best yet – a white one too – with stacks of Joe’s favourites to eat and drink. Though Nina’s cause was not helped by a school report in February, which informed Joe that despite his daughter’s abilities being of a high standard, she rarely exerted herself and was occasionally insolent. As much as Nell might try to smooth things over with rump steak for tea, this was not a good time to put in one’s request. Nevertheless, with her fifteenth birthday well under her belt, Nina was itching to be free. Hoping Shirley’s presence would prevent her father from going completely berserk, she had invited her to be there.

  Entering without knocking, her collection of rollers veiled with a headscarf and an aura of frost, Shirley rushed straight to the roaring fire and presented her mauve fingers. Nell enquired if it was still as bad out there. Since Christmas there had been snow and ice of catastrophic proportions. They were saying it was even colder than 1947, but Nell found that hard to believe. ‘Let’s hope we don’t have to travel by rowing boat again when it melts!’ She sought to compliment the teenager’s attire. ‘Love your jumper, Shirl. It shows off your smashing figure.’

  ‘Thanks, Mrs K.’ Shirley removed her headscarf, so as to allow her hair to dry.

  Nell continued to chat to her woman to woman, and asked, had she done her hair a different colour? The other said she had: Black Tulip.

  ‘I should have mine done – look at all these grey hairs.’ Nell bent her head for Shirley to see.

  ‘If you want to buy a colour I can run it through for you if you like.’ The small mound of snow on the toe of each of Shirley’s white ankle boots had begun to melt, and above the cuff of fake leopard-skin her legs were blue, as the dark-haired siren lowered her hips onto the hearth rug.

  Joe had abandoned the Radio Times and was now, over his reading glasses, eyeing the tight jersey fabric of Shirley’s skirt. ‘By, that’s a snug fit. Are them suspenders I can see, or have you got a couple of fruit gums shoved down your stocking-tops?’

  Having been teased like this from childhood, the voluptuous one merely grinned.

  ‘He’s an impudent devil,’ scolded Nell, then remembered her daughter’s promise. ‘Oh, Neen, you were going to play Telstar for us! Come on, here’s a comb, Shirley!’ And with Nell’s encouragement, Nina and her friend took a moment to wrap some toilet paper around their combs, then, with fancy footwork, performed the massive hit.

  It was a hit with her father too. Though, ‘I can’t help the feeling I’m being buttered up for summat,’ said Joe with a knowing smile, upon being served a cup of tea and a slice of cake by his daughter after the performance.

  Momentarily diverted, Nina said brightly, ‘Well, as it happens, I’d love to go and see Chris Montez …’

  ‘How much?’ Joe gave a sigh of resignation, but was in a kindly mood tonight, and dipped into his pocket to count out four and sixpence.

  ‘By, you are nice, Mr Kilmaster.’ Chewing on gum, Shirley sought to provide an opening for Nina. ‘I have to pay for meself now I’m at work.’

  Then Nina said, ‘See, I wouldn’t need to tap you and Mam up, Dad, if I had me own job …’

  It took a second to register, then Joe exclaimed, ‘So that’s the reason behind all this lubrication! Well, you can forget it, you’re staying on to do your GCEs.’ And no amount of argument could shift him.

  ‘Shirley’s parents let her leave! And Mam says it’s all right with her.’

  ‘Well, it’s not with me – isn’t it about time you were going home, Shirley?’

  Dropping her sultry mien, the friend was quick to pluck up her headscarf and depart.

  ‘That one’s leading you astray!’ asserted Joe. ‘Just because she’s in a dead-end job –’

  ‘I can think for meself, you know, Dad!’

  ‘Nobody wants to undermine you, Joe,’ said Nell, trying to dismantle the hurdles that Nina kept erecting. ‘Just hear me out a minute before you decide.’

  ‘Go on, then, know-all!’ He granted her the floor, obviously not expecting to be persuaded in any way, judging by his attitude.

  ‘Just what are you expecting her to do once she passes all her exams?’

  ‘Well, get a decent job for a start – maybe even go to university. She wouldn’t even have to leave home with one right on our doorstep at Heslington –’ His daughter interjected a puff of complaint, for all she could see was the destruction of her old countryside haunts to make way for this seat of learning. ‘– she’s lucky enough to still have that opportunity, even if she did fail her eleven plus!’

  ‘Oh, you’ll never let me forget that, will you? I don’t want to go to university! I’d hate being hemmed in by people so brainy they can’t even manage to fasten their buttons in the right hole – anyway, I wouldn’t be seen dead in a duffle coat. I just want to earn some cash and enjoy myself whilst I’m at it, get married when I’m seventeen, then have two kids.’

  Nell’s outspread palms told Joe that he could not really argue with that.

  ‘I just want more for her than I’ve got!’ he exploded.

  ‘But I’d be happy with that, Dad!’

  ‘And I thought you were happy with it too, Joe?’ proffered his wife. ‘You never showed any inclination to buy your own house –’

  ‘That’s an entirely different matter! I daresay I would’ve if I’d had loads of cash, but I didn’t want to be skimping on food and clothes and – hang on a minute! This isn’t about me, it’s about her education …’ But under Nell’s gentle look of persuasion, and his daughter’s resolute glare, he let out a curse. ‘Why do I flaming bother? It’s a bloody conspiracy!’

  But Nina’s gleam of triumph was short-lived, as her father declared, ‘Well, maybe if you convince me you can get a decent job without those exams, then I might let you leave.’

  She erupted in frustration. ‘How can I prove that until I’ve actually left bloody school?’

  ‘Well, for a start you can drop that bolshy attitude! My father would’ve knocked my head off for backchat like that!’

  Nina became instantly submissive, lowering her eyes. ‘Sorry, Dad – I just really hate school, that’s all, and staying on to do exams won’t alter that. Is it so bad not to want the earth? You only work in a factory, yet you like your job and the people you work with, don’t you?’

  ‘It’s true I prefer it to clerical work, like I was forced into by Aunt Eth—’

  ‘See!’ she butted in sweetly. ‘You didn’t like being forced into something you didn’t like, so why should I?’

  ‘I might not have liked it, but it was a thousand times better than hewing coal like my stepmother made me do! I had to do as I was told or I’d be out on my ear. Young uns today don’t know they’re born. Look, Neen,’ trying to calm down, he used fiscal persuasion, ‘I’
m not trying to force you down the mines, I just want you to get some qualifications so’s you can earn more money … Tell you what, you write a letter stating your intentions and asking for an interview, make some copies, then post it off to different firms. Then we’ll at least have an idea of what we’re up against.’

  Nina obviously did not consider this much of a compromise.

  But, ‘I think you should be grateful,’ advised Nell.

  Joe had not really expected his daughter to receive any serious offer, so when a letter came inviting her for interview, he was thrown off guard. Even more so when she was offered the post of junior clerk in a department store.

  Backed into a corner by both his daughter and his wife, he was forced to give way. But he warned, ‘There’ll be no favours. You’ll pay for your keep – how much is your wage, by the way?’

  ‘Three pounds, seven and six.’

  ‘That’s before your stamp’s taken off, I suppose?’

  ‘Stamp?’ Nina looked baffled.

  ‘And you reckon you’ve had enough schooling?’ replied a sarcastic father, explaining about national contributions.

  Nina looked annoyed upon learning that over five shillings would be deducted. But Joe snorted there would be even less of it when she’d handed it over to her mother, adding to Nell, ‘And you’re to give her back only as much as she needs for her bus fares and dinners – there’ll be no buying records, nor going to the pictures every night, nor spending it on fags – don’t think I’m daft, I know you’ve been puffing them off since you were twelve!’ His face held a momentary glimmer of fun, then was serious again. ‘So, are you going to take up this crummy offer, or stay on at school and give yourself a better chance?’

  ‘How much of my wages will I be allowed to keep?’ asked Nina.

  Joe threw up his hands in a gesture of despair. ‘Good God, what hope is there for this country – you can have a pound a week. Like it or lump it.’

  Nina reworked her budget, totting up her requirements under her breath. ‘Cigs’ll take about half a quid if I can keep to less than ten a day, same again to get me into a bop for five nights, and maybe the flicks on Sunday – okay, I’ll tell ’em I’ll take it then!’