Mothers and Daughters

by Fleming, Leah

  It was Christmas Eve and they were shutting shop early once the last stragglers had picked up their jars of mincemeat and spices. It had been Neville’s idea to make a display of all the stuff needed for cakes and fancy goods and cookery. A one-stop shop for busy housewives. They’d brought extra treats, like diabetic sweets, jellies and gluten-free items, and sold almost all of their stock, but his heart wasn’t in their success. It was at the hospital, where Joy was still in labour and Trevor Gilligan was having his stomach pumped.

  He’d known something wasn’t right the way Trev’s mother slammed the door in his face. He’d been frantic to know what was happening. One of his regulars, Mrs Davidson, lived next door to the Gilligans, and Neville pumped her for information as nonchalantly as he could.

  ‘Everything all right with Trevor and his mother? I’ve not seen anything of them for weeks. Is she bad again?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, I’m not surprised,’ said Mrs Davidson. ‘We heard – and I shouldn’t be telling you this – young Trevor tried to do away himself … trouble with the police,’ she whispered. ‘An ambulance came in the night, and her a widow. What a terrible thing to do to his mum. He’s been sent away.’

  ‘Sent away where?’ Neville tried to hang on to the counter and looked normal.

  ‘To that place up by Moor Bank School with the bars on the window, silly blighter … What does a young man want to do that for? He’s all she’s got after Alf got killed on the railway line in the fog. But I shouldn’t be telling tales, should I? Must dash, got the whole family coming tomorrow.’ Off she shuffled with her Beecham’s Pills and arrowroot powder, leaving Neville staring into space.

  ‘Oh, Trevor, I’m sorry. What did you do that for? Please God, he’ll be OK.’ He felt sick with worry and he couldn’t make things better by visiting, either. All he could do was to write a letter, send him some money.

  What was the matter with this world when a nice boy has to try killing himself because he is different? Why should guys like him be married off just to please his family, father a child he didn’t want? It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t right. But Connie needed his protection. How could he think of letting her down?

  Merry bleeding Christmas! He wanted to sleep until it was all over. At least they’d pushed the court case back for another month and by then he’d be a married man. But the thought gave him no comfort at all.

  19

  A Cracker of a Christmas

  Christmas dinner was going to be a minor affair this year as Su and Jacob were visiting Joy, who gave birth after much stopping and starting to a tiny little girl, who they called Kimberley Dawn. She weighed in at just four pounds, so they were keeping mother and baby in hospital until she gained more weight. Denny was eating at his mother’s, as usual.

  Esme thought they should name the baby something Christmassy, like Carol or Noelle or even Nichola. She was relieved the baby was safe, and Joy seemed none the worse for her ordeal.

  ‘Holly would be a good name,’ Connie said. ‘Or Ivy …’

  She was smirking as she was preparing the last of the mince pie pastry under strict supervision. Someone had to teach the minx to cook.

  ‘I suppose she’ll be called Kim for short,’ Esme replied without enthusiasm, filling the cake tins, inspecting the pastry crust. ‘You should always have a tin spare in case of visitors. You never know who’ll be popping in to give the season’s greetings.’

  The house was trimmed up and she’d counted the Christmas cards to see if there were as many as last year. It didn’t look good to have only a few on display. Connie had hardly sent any of her own.

  True to form, Levi came first with some parcels for under the tree. On his own, of course; Shirley was not welcome at Sutter’s Fold.

  ‘Your first great-grandchild,’ he said, swigging the Christmas sherry down with relish. ‘Has our Neville been in yet?’

  ‘He’s at the Royal, I think, to see Joy, but he’ll be here for his Christmas dinner with Ivy and Connie, of course. Lily and Peter are going to the Walshes with Arthur this year. It’s only fair to turn and turn about, but we’ll give them a belt loosener, don’t worry, while you’ve got off with the fancy piece. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this shame, I really don’t!’ Esme sighed. ‘You’ve all put years on me!’

  ‘But you are old, Mother,’ Levi teased. ‘You’ve had your three score years and ten. Merry Christmas and I’ll see you on Boxing Day then, for my tea. I hope Ivy will not be here then?’

  ‘Oh, Levi, you should never have married her in the first place. Divorce is a terrible thing. She’ll want her share. She brought up your child and now you shame us.’

  ‘She can have the house. I’ll have the business. Shirley’s place is cosy and there’s always a bed for Neville.’

  ‘Neville and Connie will stay with her. That’s been agreed.’

  ‘Then I won’t interfere, seeing as you’ve sorted it all out as usual to your satisfaction, not theirs.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean? Not every family would take in a fallen woman and a nancy boy. We’re doing our Christian best for the baby, like we did for Freddie’s little mistakes. Winstanleys stick by their own, as you well know. I’ve bailed you out enough times.’

  ‘Yes, yes, sermon over. I must be off. If Neville wants me he knows where I’m at. Cheerio, one and all, and have a nice day tomorrow.’

  He’s getting more like his brother Freddie by the minute, Esme thought. Since he dumped his wife he’d lost weight and got some sparkle back in his eyes. Levi was never her favourite child but he’d cut out the boozing and come on. He’d had a rough war as a prisoner, and there was still things he’d never talk about with her; things he’d seen twenty years ago. Funny how soldiers were still paying a price for defending their country, and their families suffered too.

  She was glad Neville hadn’t been conscripted, even if it might have made a man of him. She just didn’t understand him. This David and Jonathan thing between him and his friend was all there in the Bible too. Love between men was as old as history, and soldiers seemed to do it a lot. But she put that down to them being on their own without any women.

  The family must stick together in this and see off any threats to its unity. Esme felt like she was the glue sticking everyone together, but it was wearing thin in parts and she was tired.

  Connie was gearing herself up to visiting Joy, knowing it would be her own turn next, and she still hadn’t managed to master a simple pearl plain stitch. Her knitting was only up to dishcloths standard, but there were a few months yet to lick her into shape.

  How she’d manage living with Ivy was another matter. Two women in the kitchen was always bad news. She looked back to when Su, Ana and Ivy had fought over their food cupboards in the Waverley. Those were times of rationing and foreign girls wanting fancy food, but they’d been happy days. Together they’d stopped Lily from making a big mistake and marrying Walter Platt.

  Poor soul, he was still not wed and living with his mother, wondering why life had passed him by.

  Connie was trying her best to please but her eyes were dull and she shoulders stooped like Lily’s had before the Olive Oil Club took her in hand. Esme hoped Connie had got some good pals in Joy and Rosa to back her up. She and Joy would be young mums together, just like Ana and Su. Funny how history repeated itself.

  Now Ana was gone and Su had turned to Jacob Friedmann for company. Two lonely people finding love late in life. She’d had Redvers for such a short time, and lost two of her children. She hoped Neville and Connie would make a go of things for the baby’s sake. No one else need know their predicament. It wasn’t an ideal start, a false marriage, but it was all that was on offer for the moment. So why was she feeling so guilty? Why did she feel uneasy in forcing them together? Why did Walter and Lily’s long engagement come to mind, and how desperate she had been to change that? All this was too confusing for Christmas Eve. Time to sit down and listen to the carols on the wireless from King’s Colle
ge, Cambridge. That would soothe her jumping heartbeat. Then Christmas would really begin.

  Connie sat in her room wrapping parcels with a heavy heart. She hated the festive season, since Ana’s death. Even Joy’s safe delivery couldn’t dispel her gloom. And then there was a tune on Radio Luxembourg, ‘Anyone Who Had a Heart’. It made her want to weep. Who was there left who really cared about her in that special way? The little teddy she’d bought for Kim sat staring at her with its beady eyes. If only she was a child again.

  Joy’s baby was in a bassinet, tiny, red-faced, ugly, swaddled like the baby in the manger, and all she’d felt looking at it was panic to have to go through what Joy had suffered: tearing, stitches and soreness. She’d added soaps and pretty talcum powder for the new mother, and lavender cologne, hoping it would remind her that she was still Joy and not just a mother smelling of baby sick.

  For Rosa she’d bought a bone clip for her hair and offered her the last of her songs to show to Shady Sadie. Since her pregnancy she’d not written a thing. For Neville she’d bought one of those hand-crocheted ties that were all the rage on the fashion pages. For Granny Esme a pretty photograph album to put all the family pictures in that were still in a shoebox in her wardrobe. Then there was a toy for little Arthur and some chocolates for Auntie Lee and Maria, and a tin of cigarettes for Uncle Levi.

  Another Christmas and how would she make it through? What would Mama make of all this? Connie wrapped a scarf up for Auntie Su, and a ballpoint pen for Jacob, who was always losing his glasses and his pens.

  In January she’d be a married woman, but with the same surname. It was going to be a farce from start to finish, and dishonest, but that was all there was on offer.

  She’d received a card from Diana Unsworth and a note saying: ‘I shall be home in Grimbleton on Boxing Day. Come and see me.’ How strange. Auntie Lee must have told her the score, but there was nothing she could do now.

  She thought of Ricky Romero going solo, touring abroad. First love seemed so silly now. Then she thought of that night with Lorne Dobson. How could she forgive herself for that? To be just another of his cheap conquests and maybe to have created a new life.

  Then Paul Jerviss’s face flashed into her inner eye; such a decent guy but his sort wouldn’t look twice at a girl like her now. Pity is all he would feel so she might as well face it. Her life was over before it’d begun. Buck up and make the best of things; don’t fight what can’t be altered.

  Then her baby kicked. ‘I know, I know …’ Connie patted her belly. ‘It’s not your fault. You didn’t ask to be born. Don’t worry, I’m doing the best I can for you even if it’s going to be hell on earth for me.’

  It must have been nearly midnight when Neville knocked them up. Gran was snoring over her medicinal brandy wine and didn’t hear him. Connie was sitting cross-legged on the floor, trying to coax the fire into life and find some Christmas spirit.

  ‘I just had to come. You heard about Trevor, have you?’

  ‘Shush! No,’ Connie replied. ‘You’d better come in but don’t wake Gran. What’s up?’

  ‘He tried to kill himself with pills, his mother’s barbies, but he took too many and made himself sick, and now they’ve put him on the psychiatric ward at Moor Bank. I’ve been trying to visit but I’m not family and they won’t let me in to see him. I’ve been so worried. I knew something was up, daft happorth!’ Neville was crying.

  ‘I expect he felt trapped, ashamed, scared and confused. He ought to join our club,’ Connie said without emotion.

  ‘Is that how you are feeling too?’

  ‘You as well?’ she said.

  Neville nodded. ‘I don’t know how to say this, Connie, but I can’t do it. I can’t marry you.’

  ‘I know,’ she sighed, but he kept on trying to explain. ‘I know, Neville, neither can I.’ He wasn’t hearing so she shook him to make him listen

  ‘You can’t?’ Nev looked up with relief in his eyes.

  ‘No, it’s not fair to you or me to tie ourselves down like this, and it’s not fair to my baby either.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘There’s nothing to say. It was a daft idea: a desperate idea and not ours. Here, I’ll pour you some Glühwein; the only good thing I picked up in Switzerland. You warm wine, with these bundles of spices in a package. It’ll give you Dutch courage. I’m so glad you’ve said your piece.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘What for? One of us had to put a stop to this sham before we got to the altar. It’s just dishonest, and for what? To give my baby a name? It’s already got that name, so nothing changes, does it? I can’t live with Ivy. We would kill each other, and she’s always loathed us girls. All she wants is the baby for herself.’

  ‘I’m sorry Con. Everyone said it would help my case if I got wed. I don’t know what to say now.’

  ‘Stop apologising for a start. We can still go along with it in public … but there is one question left. Are you going to tell the family or shall I?’

  Neville sipped the hot mug with a sigh. ‘I think you know the answer to that one.’

  Connie smiled. ‘Merry Christmas – while it lasts.’

  Christmas Day followed the usual pattern: church, presents, sherry, soup and then a fat capon with all the trimmings. Neville kept looking at Connie for courage as his mother kept wittering away about the wedding arrangements. They waited until the pudding was lit and the sixpences found, just in case there was another choking episode, and then both of them stood up and told Gran and Ivy about their joint decision.

  ‘We’re not getting married. It’s not a good idea.’

  ‘Is this some silly joke?’ Esme spluttered, her paper hat slipping over her ears. ‘Tell them, Ivy. They can’t do this, after bringing our family name into the public shame after all we’ve done for you, and it’s almost arranged.’

  ‘No it’s not, not by us. You’ll thank us in the end for being honest,’ said Connie, sitting down. ‘I’m surprised at you, Granny, going along with this mad scheme, pretending we’re suited, letting us make a mockery of marriage for everyone’s respectability. Ivy I can understand – she’ll do anything to get her own way – but you can’t order us about like little kids. We’ve both made our minds up alone.’

  ‘It’s not right and I’m not doing it,’ Neville added.

  ‘Well, be it on your own heads,’ said Esme, wagging her finger. ‘Don’t expect me to bail you out. Not a penny, not a penny will I give you. You can fend for yourselves! There’ll be nothing from me ever again!’

  Connie felt awful. She’d never cheeked her gran like this before.

  Neville stood his ground. ‘I’m a working man, I don’t need you to bribe me.’

  ‘Are you indeed?’ Esme sniffed, pointing at Connie. ‘She’s not bringing any baby to this house if she’s unwed. You’ll leave this house right now, and I never want to see your face again. I won’t be putting a roof over a bastard’s head. I have enough to cope with with my jippy hip and rheumatics.’

  ‘You did last time,’ Connie argued. ‘You gave my mother a home, but I won’t stay where I’m not welcome … I’ll manage somehow,’ she said, rising to leave.

  ‘Not in this town you won’t, you wicked girl!’ Esme continued, feeling the heat of too much sherry and punch.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll find somewhere else to stay so my shame won’t come to your door.’ Even as Connie spoke her heart was racing at what they had just done, but the gloves were off and she was giving as good as she got.

  ‘Ivy?’ Esme turned to Neville’s mother for support. ‘Say something.’

  Everyone was looking at Ivy, whose cheeks were glowing, eyes glinting in fury. She suddenly got up, her chest swelling, and she whisked the tablecloth off the table like a magician, spilling pudding plates, glasses, candlesticks, sending them spinning onto the floor. With one great wail of fury she went for Connie, beating her on her chest, pounding her with her fists. ‘Whore of Babylon, wicked girl, spawn
of the devil!’

  Neville jumped to restrain her. ‘Gran, do something. Give her some water!’

  ‘I’ll give her water,’ Esme said, grabbing the crystal jug from the sideboard and throwing the contents over Ivy’s head, soaking her, shocking her into silence. ‘Stop it, you silly woman, calm yourself … Neville, get that girl out of the house. Now see what you’ve both done. You’ve sent your poor mother over the edge. Go and tell Edna next door to ring the doctor, and send for Levi. This is what comes from your wickedness. Never darken my door again, either of you. I’m finished with you. You young ones are nothing but trouble!’

  Connie stood frozen with shock in the driveway, shaking and sobbing. The wind from across the moors chilled her even more. Gran had never been like this, ever, and Ivy had gone berserk. There was madness in her eyes, a gleam of a murderous hate, all because she was depriving her of a baby, a baby she would have ruined and possessed for herself. But for Gran to banish her like that …

  Neville was quick to make up some story to Edna about his mother being upset. Everyone knew about Levi’s defection so they would put this down to reaction to stress.

  They both sat in the Triumph Herald, sharing their last cigarette, looking at each other with dismay, waiting for the doctor to arrive.

  ‘We’ve done it now, so where next?’ said Connie.

  ‘I’ve got to bed at my dad’s, at Shirley’s. He was the one who put the doubt in my mind. He’ll understand.’

  ‘Take me to the Walshes’ then. I’m sure Auntie Lee will give me a sofa for the night. When things cool down, Gran’ll see sense. It was Lee who made me change my mind.’

  ‘So the Winstanley family hasn’t deserted us altogether. At least there’s some comfort in that. I’m sorry about Mum. Are you OK? Did she hurt you? We ought to get you checked over,’ Neville said with concern.