Mothers and Daughters

by Fleming, Leah

  ‘Why the rush? How will I tell my friends you have shamed me?’

  ‘There’s no shame in marrying someone you love. We thought it would be fun.’

  ‘Marriage isn’t fun, it’s bloody hard work. You hardly know him … Out of sight, out of mind. Are you sure he’ll come home?’

  ‘I’m not listening to all this,’ Rosa had argued. ‘I’m meeting the girls. They’ll be happy for me. Anyone would think we were living over the brush. Look, here’s my rings and a picture to prove it. It was so romantic!’

  ‘Tush … romance. What has romance got to do with anything? This is a life sentence we are talking about. Have I had a day’s rest since I married Sylvio? Work, work, business and babies. I didn’t want that for you. I wanted you to be my star.’

  ‘You wanted me to live your dream and I have. I’ve travelled the world and now I’m back for a while. I’ve found the one for me, so be happy for us.’

  Why was everything between them such a battle? Mamma was never happy unless she was worrying over them, fussing over Luca, spoiling the boys. She and Marty just wanted to have fun and be together. It was funny how they just clicked into place, slotted together, laughing at the same things, sharing the same background. She’d found her soul mate and she was giddy with happiness. No one was going to pour cold water on her good news.

  Rosa was being very mysterious. She was bronzed and wearing the shortest mini-skirt, Connie had ever seen, little more than a pelmet, and tights too, real nylon tights with white boots. Her hair was piled up into a tousle of curls and her eyes were made up like soot.

  Joy had come with Kim, who was sitting in a high chair, sipping juice from a plastic beaker. Connie wondered if Anna would be feeding herself yet.

  ‘You look a million dollars,’ Connie smiled.

  Rosa suddenly held out her ring finger to show off a beautiful solitaire diamond over a gold wedding band, and Joy and Connie shrieked.

  ‘You dark horse! When, where and who?’ Connie gasped. Rosa was married and hadn’t told them!

  ‘It was all a bit of a rush on board ship, like in the film The African Queen. We didn’t even have a ring so we borrowed one from a passenger. It was so … romantic. He had to go on to Australia to do a gig, but he’s flying back soon and we’ll have the biggest bash ever. It was in the papers there. I would’ve told you. It was all so sudden and I’m so happy. We couldn’t believe it … we both knew. “Just One Look” like the song.’ Rosa began to sing the pop song.

  ‘But who is this Mr Wonderful?’ Joy asked. She’d brushed her hair forward into a long curtain and deep fringe, which hid a yellowing bruise.

  ‘Oh, didn’t I say? Someone you both know, actually.’ Rosa’s cheeks flushed. ‘I hardly dare tell you.’

  ‘Who?’ They were both so curious now, leaning forward, all ears.

  ‘Guess?’

  ‘Not Paul Jerviss?’ Joy asked.

  ‘Don’t be daft, he’s a medic in the hospital,’ Connie snapped. ‘One of his mates?’

  ‘Warm … from the Salesian college. Who do we know who went into showbusiness from there?’

  ‘Not Des O’Malley?’ Connie said, but her heart was thumping. There was only one name left on her lips and she couldn’t say it.

  ‘Getting hotter by the minute. Look!’ Rosa produced a wedding snap of the two of them looking smug, standing by the captain. ‘Mr Snake-Hips Gorman. Marty. I married Ricky Romero!’

  Connie went through the motions like a pro. She forced her cheeks to widen into a grin and whispered, ‘How lovely. You both look very happy.’

  ‘We are. It was just a bit of fun, us being miles from anywhere on the high seas. We got talking about home and families and friends. He sends his love to you, by the way. I knew you wouldn’t mind me going out with him. It was ages ago, wasn’t it?’

  Connie felt sick, the coffee gagged in her throat. She couldn’t swallow it down. A whirlwind romance … So much for Marty not being tied down.

  ‘How’s his career going? I haven’t heard him in the charts for ages!’

  ‘You won’t. He’s doing more technical stuff in recording studios, helping record companies.’

  She was being vague. It hadn’t worked out for him as he’d planned, then. ‘Some session work and the odd gig. Just wait till you see him. He’s so gorgeous.’

  With one name Rosa had ruined this rendezvous; with one photo, taken Connie right back to London and Switzerland and that terrible time afterwards. How could she ever tell her friend that Marty might be the father of her lost baby?

  It was as if a glass shutter fell down between her and the others. She heard their prattle through muffled ears. She wanted to run out of Santini’s and flee from Rosa’s happiness. Why couldn’t it have been her? Then she would have a baby sitting alongside Kim.

  ‘Can I kip down with you for a few nights?’ Rosa said to Joy. ‘Mamma and me have fallen out. She thinks I’ve let the Church down but we’re going to have a blessing with Mass and everything. She’ll come round eventually. Serafina’s not speaking to me either.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Joy looked panicked by this request. ‘I’m not sure …’

  ‘Forget it. I’d better go back and make my peace,’ Rosa smiled.

  ‘So what’s going to happen to your showbiz career?’ Connie asked.

  ‘The Gazette asked me that. There’ll be a spread in the paper on Friday: “Local Stars Make Good”. Mamma doesn’t know about that. She’ll forgive me then. Marty wants us to travel together but I have had a great year. I missed all you lot, though.’

  ‘You can’t have a career and babies when they come,’ Joy interrupted. ‘A child has to come first, and our husbands, of course.’

  ‘Listen to yourself. You do party planning – that’s a career, or the beginning of one,’ Connie couldn’t resist. She turned to Rosa. ‘She’s quite a sales girl. Surely you can do both?’

  ‘Joy’s right in a way. To get to the top you have to be ruthless, dedicated, nothing must get in the way of your auditions or your next show. There were girls dancing on the ship who had babies back home and were pining for their little ones. I wouldn’t want someone else bringing up my kids.’

  Connie flinched at her words. Rosa had changed. She was softer round the edge. Love had replaced that burning ambition. How envious Connie was of her happiness.

  ‘What do you think, Joy?’ Connie pushed. ‘Who comes first in your family?’

  ‘Connie! You promised … She’s talking off her head, Rosa. She thinks Denny and I are heading for divorce.’

  Connie brushed Joy’s fringe to the side to reveal the bruises. ‘Look at that. It isn’t make-up. It’s Denny’s fist. Rosa should know the score. Not all marriages are made in heaven.’

  ‘Is this true? Oh, Joy, I’d kill him if he did that to me,’ Rosa whispered.

  ‘You’ve both got it all wrong. For better or for worse, that’s what I promised. I know we’ll get through this. It’s the drinking that does it. He’s like his father. They can’t hold it and it changes them. Honestly, we’ve discussed it and it won’t happen again. Just leave it, both of you.’

  Why did she not trust Joy to stand up to him, Connie wondered. Joy’d invested her whole life in her precious house and its carpets and furnishings. Kim was the coolest baby in town with her little outfits, but there wasn’t a book in the house. What had happened to all Joy’s reading, to all those travel plans? Now she was as isolated from her friends on that housing estate as Connie was in the family.

  Joy was silent on the way back, but when they got closer to her house she exploded.

  ‘How dare you tell Rosa my business like that? But I expect you were put out about Marty. You can be a grade-one cow, sometimes! You’re just jealous,’ she said, and Connie shuddered.

  ‘I don’t think so. Not of the life you’re living now. I want to do something with my life first. Did you join the Register I told you about? Did they send you a programme?’

  Joy nodded. ‘When
have I time to gad about with a load of chattering women? Party work takes up all my time. I don’t need that sort of thing. I told you it was just a bad patch. Denny was worried when you called round. He says to tell you it was all a misunderstanding.’

  My arse, Connie thought. He knows I know. Perhaps that will keep her safe for a while, or will he put the bruises where they don’t show?

  ‘I could sit for you one night.’ She was trying to make amends for telling Rosa.

  ‘Thank you but you’ve done enough damage. Denny isn’t keen to have people in our house.’

  ‘But he goes out. Why not you?’

  ‘Oh, shut it, Connie. Don’t meddle in things you don’t understand. Leave us alone to sort it out. What goes on behind closed doors is private. Don’t interfere. Sort your own life out. Stop moping around. Do something useful or find a man of your own and then tell me how it feels.’

  ‘I was only trying to help.’

  ‘Well, you’re not helping.’

  They drove the rest of the way in silence. Connie was smarting from Joy’s outburst. Kimberley was quiet in the back. She was such an appealing child, with those dark eyes and curls. How could Denny not recognise how lucky he was? If only Connie could believe that Joy would stand up for herself when the next fight came …

  Neville looked at the stiff card invitation to Rosa and Marty’s wedding with a smile. It would be the biggest bash the town had seen for years. ‘Rock Star Marries Cruise Line Starlet’, the paper announced. The fact that Marty wasn’t Cliff Richard, the fact they were already married aboard ship, and Rosa was little more than a chorus girl, didn’t seem to matter. Connie and he were going to go together. He wondered, as Marty’s ex just how she was feeling on top of everything else. It was almost a year since her baby was born and he still wondered who the father was. Connie was a closed book on that subject.

  It was going to be a black-tie job in the big country house hotel outside town after a Nuptial Mass at St Wilfred’s. The great and the good of Roman Catholic Grimbleton would be there: all that incense and knee-bending was very theatrical. He quite fancied converting if it weren’t for all the other stuff he’d have to believe and practise.

  He was being extra careful these days. No trips to Manchester clubs to eye the talent. The magistrates had been lenient, taking into account his youth, his family background and intended marriage, and he’d pleaded guilty to the offence. There was a fine and warning, but the case got the full treatment in the Mercury, the worst shame of all. He’d slinked behind the market stall for months afterwards, convinced no one would want him to serve them, but nothing was said to his face. His father stood by his side and he learned to grow a tough shell round his feelings. ‘Smile and wave at yer troubles, sonny. It’ll pass,’ said one of his old customers. He could have hugged her for her compassion. Others didn’t look him in the eye any more but snatched their coins and fled as if he was some nasty pervert.

  It was a customer who told him that Trevor and his mother had exchanged their council house for one in Burnley. They’d never met again except in court. It was all so sad and unfair. What with his mother’s breakdown, Gran, and Connie’s baby, Neville just kept his head down. He’d put his energies into setting up their health shop in the High Street. It was more like a chemist’s shop, selling smellies and herbal products, soaps and packaged pills and potions.

  He did visit Ivy, but she was distant and dopey, drifting through her days in a haze of cigarette smoke and television. Her breath smelled of cheap sherry and peppermints. She was no longer the firebrand he’d known and he felt sorry for her loneliness.

  They’d smartened up the rooms above the shop so he could live there. It was a compact flat, but he’d had such fun making it funky with white walls and black furniture, abstract print curtains and jazzy pictures on the wall. There was nothing like having the key to his own door. If only there was someone to share it with, but there’d been no one on his radar since Trevor. How could there be?

  Things were changing though. The Guardian had letters from homosexual men asking for a change in the law. There were moves afoot to allow some private relationships to flourish behind closed doors. The film Victim had raised discussion at the highest level. There was hope perhaps for the future. All he could do now was to subscribe to magazines that gave him a fix of talent and beautiful bodies, reminding him that he wasn’t the only queer in the world.

  Joy insisted Rene Gregson sat for Kim so she and Denny could enjoy the wedding without having to watch the clock. Susan and Jacob were guests of Maria and Sylvio Bertorelli. There’d been such a fuss over what to wear. Mummy wanted her to go Burmese style in a silk longyi and boxed jacket, but she knew Denny would sulk at this display of national pride.

  If she were to keep him sweet she’d need to make a traditional evening dress, and soon. He’d not touched her since Connie’s unexpected visit but she felt uneasy.

  For once she had money to splash on some lovely brocade in a deep cherry-red colour. Her party plan business just kept getting better. Everyone wanted Tupperware in their kitchens. She’d been invited into some of the smartest homes, and her delivery was now so polished and slick she could sail through an evening, confident of success. Now Head Office had asked her to train up other starters, and she was learning to drive on the quiet with her earnings. It was good to have her own bank account and cheque book, which bought Kim extra treats and toys.

  For the first time in months she felt more like her old self again and she’d even gone to one of the Housewives’ Register meetings on the estate where they were talking of starting up a playgroup for little ones in the local church hall. It would be run by the mothers themselves and manned on a rota system; a chance for children to mix and share pre-school activities. The idea was catching hold all over the country.

  Twenty young mothers sat squashed in the sitting room, most of them living close by, making her welcome, jabbering away about things they’d read in the paper, or in a book or on the radio. When had she last thought about the world outside her own kitchen? She took Kim to play at their fund-raising coffee morning, and for the first time since her birth Joy no longer felt so isolated.

  If only Denny would lift himself out of his black mood. He thought all her activities a waste of time but he did nothing except work and drink, not playing any sport, growing fat and driving coal lorries, which he said was demeaning.

  ‘One day it’ll all be yours,’ she offered in sympathy, but he just shrugged.

  ‘I’m just a glorified coal man.’ He couldn’t get over being dropped by the Grasshoppers. He hated Pete Walsh, the coach, Lee’s husband, and by extension all the Winstanleys.

  She suggested he do something useful, like training up youngsters into a team, talentspotting, but he dismissed each idea with a withering look.

  They were drifting apart and it scared her, but now they had a fabulous night to look forward to, a chance to be a couple again.

  Joy cut out her material into a shift with a low back with a bow at the base and a long kick vent to show off her legs. She’d found a silk wrap to tone in among her mother’s collection, and the feel of the silk and the sensuous colours made her yearn for the country of her birth. She could style her hair, thick and lustrous, into the traditional Burmese bun at the nape of her neck, and pin a corsage into it for effect. She wanted Denny to see her at her best. They were young and had all their life together ahead of them. Joy shivered. Why did that thought no longer give her any comfort at all?

  Connie was struggling to summon up any enthusiasm for Rosa’s wedding, and it wasn’t because of Marty. She’d met him twice since he flew back and there was nothing there between them. He’d been kind and brotherly to her, she could see that now, never besotted or in love. In fact he’d humoured her but when she saw him gaze down at Rosa, his eyes lit up with adoration and sparkle. They had found something in each other and it glowed off them. If only she could be sure that Anna was not his child. Should she tell him but say
that Anna could be Lorne Dobson’s girl? It was just too shameful to discuss.

  Now it was May and this time last year … it was all so raw and sore and secret. No wonder she couldn’t be bothered to find a new dress. She’d no money, but Gran was determined she’d not let the side down.

  ‘You’re only young once, treat yourself,’ she said, shoving a pile of notes into her hand. It was conscience money, Connie thought: too much and too late. If only she’d been so generous last year, then life would be different all round. It was hard not to be resentful. ‘Get something nice from Whiteleys,’ Gran ordered and Connie did. Neville would moan if she turned up like second-hand Rose.

  She found a turquoise-blue lacy slip dress with a matching coat. It was short and showed off her long legs. She’d had her ears pierced and treated herself to some long dangling turquoise and silver earrings and some pretty silver T-shaped shoes to flash up the outfit. Mustn’t let the side down. They’d all be there: Su and Maria, Queenie Quigley, all the old Olive Oil Club faithfuls, except one of them was missing.

  If only Mama were here to enjoy this fashion parade. Her absence was so powerful in this rotten year, but at least Rosa’s big wedding would cap it off with something more cheerful.

  25

  Oh, What a Night!

  Rosa stood back from the long mirror, puzzled at her reflection. Who was this stranger looking back at her, this elegant woman with eyes flashing like jet? Serafina was lifting up her dress at the back, trying to be the perfect bridesmaid.

  She was glad she’d held out about the puffed-out wedding dress. She was already a married woman but she’d given into Maria’s chunterings that no daughter of hers was going down the aisle in a mini-dress, showing next week’s washing. They’d fought and cursed, slammed doors and stormed out, made up and compromised on this beautiful oyster-white fitted evening dress with crystal beading over the fitted bodice and a tight skirt gathered in the back into a fishtail net concoction. It was theatrical, thanks to Dilly Sherman, who’d found just the right boutique in King Street, Manchester.