The Yorkshire Pudding Club

by Milly Johnson

  ‘Look, Janey, it was a horrible, stupid accident. I didn’t for one minute think I could have got pregnant, otherwise I’d have gone for the morning-after pill. I can’t understand it–I didn’t even miss my period last month,’ said Elizabeth.

  ‘What? You had a full period?’

  ‘Well, looking back it was a lot lighter than usual.’

  ‘It was probably just your body letting go of some old blood,’ said Helen.

  Janey was less intellectual and groaned, ‘Oh, you stupid daft cow! Well, at least that explains why you were so agitated and told old Laurence to stick his job; your hormones must have been all to cock.’ She sounded cross and exasperated but bounced over and gave Elizabeth a hug, even though her friend didn’t want one and pulled back in that ‘gerroff’ way of hers.

  ‘How will you manage?’ Janey went on.

  ‘I don’t know, I just will,’ Elizabeth said. ‘If sixteen-year-olds on the dole with rent to pay manage, then I’m bloody sure I will.’

  ‘Yes, if anyone can, you can,’ said Helen, with a wide, supportive smile.

  ‘Yes, well, that’s not in question,’ said Janey, who had always felt sorry for Elizabeth being left alone at eighteen whilst she’d had a full complement of lovely family members looking out for her.

  ‘I’ve managed so far by myself,’ said Elizabeth.

  ‘And us two will be here for you, won’t we?’ Janey said to Helen, who nodded her agreement and smiled, with a friendly sort of envy at her tall red-haired friend.

  Janey was already filling out, her chest bumping out of her blouse, her cheeks pink and glowing like a country maid’s. In stark contrast, Helen was pale and drawn; she had lost weight and her breasts looked smaller, if anything. Her hair was lank, even though she had only washed it the previous night, and her face was dotted with pimples–retribution, she supposed, for having such beautifully clear skin all the way through her teenage years. She didn’t care though, for when Simon was moody and quiet or interrogating her about what she had eaten and how much she weighed, she would curl up with her Miriam Stoppard book and read how her baby was growing every day, even if those days were full of bleeding gums and nausea and spots and grease. Each one brought her closer to her baby being born, and that thought alone could make her cope with anything. Except that it made her miss her father, more than ever.

  ‘What do I do first then?’ asked Elizabeth, over more tea. ‘Do I have to ring the doctors?’

  ‘Yes,’ Janey and Helen said together.

  ‘You’ll start antenatal classes straight away, I would have thought, and the midwife will tell you all about which benefits you’ll be due—’ Helen continued before she was rudely interrupted.

  ‘Benefits my backside! I’ll be up and working as soon as I can,’ said Elizabeth indignantly. ‘I’m not sitting on my arse sponging off the state and watching flaming Trisha. I’m off to see some agencies on Monday in Leeds.’

  However much of a mess the rest of her life was, at least there would be no complications in getting a job for a hardworking woman with experience. Or so, in her naivety, she thought.

  Chapter 13

  During the large family celebratory meal they held for her, Janey smiled for everyone’s benefit and tried to be happy about being pregnant, really she did. She forced thoughts to the forefront of her mind of how much George had wanted this to happen and how fate had eventually intervened and made it so. Everyone was thrilled about it–her mum and dad were over the moon, so were her in-laws Joyce and Cyril, who were never away from the house with either fruit, knitting patterns or pans full of homemade soups and stews to keep up her strength. At the rate they were fortifying her, she could have gone for a WWF title by the end of her first trimester. She knew she should be adoring this attention and revelling in the fact that her husband was treating her even more like a queen than he usually did, but all she wanted to do was sit and cry. It was nothing to do with her hormones, but plain and simple resentment that in fulfilling everyone else’s dream, she was losing grip of her own. The guilt she carried for feeling like that told her she must truly be a selfish, self-centred bitch, which only fuelled the tears more. Elizabeth set off early on the Monday morning, parked her bright yellow Old Faithful at the train station, and headed off for the familiarity of Leeds with the company of a glossy mag and a bag of Midget Gems. It felt good to be back in the echoey city train station, even if it was the usual three-mile hike to the ticket barriers. She loved the buzz of Leeds with its beautiful old architecture, impressive new architecture, big bookshops, old-fashioned arcades, large hip designer houses and tiny Jewish jeweller shops happily cohabiting in the bustling centre. For once, she enjoyed taking things at a slower pace and dodging the rush of executives locked on course for their offices. She had plenty of time to kill before her first appointment and called into a small Italian coffee-shop for a minty coffee whirled with cream, which was more like a pudding, and a toasted, heavily buttered ciabatta. Out of the window, she watched the world of power suits and laptop cases go by without her.

  The door to Golden Door Recruitment was old, peeling and a very ill shade of brown, and was squeezed in between a large card shop and a downmarket men’s clothes store. The office itself was at the top of three flights of stairs, which Elizabeth climbed to find a surprisingly large, but empty, reception area at the top. Distressed wooden furniture, bald rugs and once-trendy PVC chairs spewing yellow foam from various splits had been placed there to create an ambience of shabby-chic, alas achieving all of the former and none of the latter.

  Elizabeth allowed herself to be greeted and seated by a woman sporting shoulder-pads sized somewhere in between Joan Crawford’s and a Chicago Bear’s, and was given a form to complete with all her personal details whilst she waited until ‘Frances’, who was running late, could see her. It would only take a few minutes, Joan Bear said, returning to her desk where she tapped efficiently away at a keyboard, leaving Elizabeth scribbling on top of a badly polished glass table patterned with dried-up coffee mug rings.

  A good half an hour and a selection of thrilling magazine articles such as We only had three teeth between us, but we fell in love later, just when Elizabeth was about to lose the will to live, Frances emerged from the office with her name on it, smiling and pouring apologies. She looked about twelve and as if she had been at her mother’s make-up bag. Underneath the three-inch thickness of her Judith Chalmers shade of foundation, the weaselly arrogant look was more than reminiscent of Julia, and a sparking current of instant dislike arced between them. Frances showed Elizabeth into a well-equipped hi-tech office, took her place behind a computer-topped desk and drank the remnants of her coffee before making a three-minute intense study of Elizabeth’s ‘résumé’, not that it said all that much.

  ‘Ah, you’ve just worked at the one place, that’s fantastic. Why’s that?’

  ‘I liked it,’ said Elizabeth, which she did until Eyebrow Man and Bow-Legged Troll came along.

  ‘So what made you leave then?’

  ‘I felt it was finally time for a change.’

  ‘After twenty-two years? Interesting!’ Frances said, in a Yeah right! tone of voice. She studied her client for a hard few seconds, referred to the sheet again and said, ‘What was your leaving salary again?’

  ‘Nineteen thousand, two hundred.’

  ‘Oh!’ Which was obviously Frances talk for, ‘You’ll be lucky to match that’. ‘And are you looking for temporary or permanent work?’

  ‘Either, but I’ll mention it anyway: I’m pregnant.’

  ‘Oh!’ Frances sighed as in ‘Dear, dear me’. ‘Well, let’s have a look anyway. You never know.’ She pressed a few buttons on her computer and looked hard into the screen, muttering away absently.

  ‘Data-inputter, shiftwork, eleven thousand five hundred, suit school leaver…oh, maybe not…ha ha–administrator for busy office, blah blah…seven thirty to six but you do finish at half past three on a Friday. Oh, sorry, that’s in York. W
here do you live again? Bradford, was it? Sorry, Barnsley…fantastic. Here’s one–Halifax, wages clerk. Did you say you did wages? Fifteen thousand with BUPA pro rata…oh no, they’re looking for someone with SAGE. Let’s see Temporary…Here we are…flick, flick…oh maybe not. No…no…’

  The phone rang. Frances picked it up. ‘Hello? Yes…yes…Oh, she’ll have to wait…Well, it’s not my fault she got sacked, is it, so fob her off till the morning. Tell her we’ll get back to her…Yeah, I am with someone…Okay. Ciao.’ She tutted. ‘Some people!’ she said, with an impatient click of her tongue. ‘Now, where’s my pen? Oh God, where have I put it? Oh, what am I?’

  ‘A gormless bimbo?’ Elizabeth answered to herself. She would have laughed but it would have made a very hollow sound. This was useless; she felt it in the pit of her stomach like a big heavy ball. This was not going to be as easy as she had thought; the market seemed geared for youth and blank canvas rather than age and experience.

  ‘I’m sure there’ll be something, eventually,’ said Frances in a tone that doubted it very much. ‘What was your typing speed again?’ she asked, but Elizabeth could have sworn she wasn’t really listening.

  ‘Seven hundred words per minute,’ she tested her. She was past caring.

  ‘Mmmm. Fantastic.’ Frances was staring hard at the screen. She could have been playing Grand Theft Auto for all Elizabeth knew.

  ‘And what qualifications did you say you had again?’

  ‘Fifteen O levels, seven A levels and a degree in Japanese.’

  ‘Ooh now, Japanese is very business commercial. I think if you leave it with us we will sort you out in no time.’

  Christ, get me out of here!

  As if Frances read her thoughts, she stood, swept her eyes curiously down to her client’s midriff and held out her hand to give a very thin, limp handshake that gave Elizabeth the shivers.

  ‘Well, it’s been fantastic to meet you, Lizzie…’

  Elizabeth bristled. She hated anyone calling her that, although the diminutive version of Frances’s name–Fanny–seemed to fit her well enough.

  ‘…Here’s my card and don’t you worry, we’ll be in touch as soon as we can. All right?’

  ‘Fantastic,’ said Elizabeth, stretching her mouth into a long line of rictus insincerity. By the time she had reached the dysentery-brown door, Frances’s business card was an eighty-one-piece jigsaw.

  Outside, the clouds were casting an ominous grey light over everything and the sky looked as depressed as Elizabeth felt. In the city she knew so well, she suddenly felt lost, vulnerable, almost agoraphobic as the space seemed thick and oppressive. A wave of nausea engulfed her at the same time as a ravenously hungry sensation, and she could not tell if it was baby or anxiety. What she did know for definite was that she just could not face traipsing off to Branways Office Temps and Angels of the North, repeating this hopeless rigmarole; not today anyway. She was on the scrapheap at thirty-eight and now she just wanted some magic to teleport her home to find herself in front of the fire, with a packet of Gypsy Creams, some bilberry tea and Cleef curled up on her knee. If she hurried, she could catch the next train back, pick up the car from the car park and be at home in an hour. A big soggy snowflake landing squarely on her nose confirmed that this was the most sensible thing to do, so she headed back to the train station sharpish.

  She boarded the busy train and moved down in search of a seat, although all three carriages were full, so she paused by a young man whose haversack was planted on the window seat next to him. Any other time she would have had no hesitation in asking him to shift it, and a few years ago she would have rammed it up his backside for daring to be so bloody rude when people were standing. She was tired and weak, though, and not up for a fight, and she just wanted someone to notice that she was pregnant and needed a seat, but unless they had X-ray specs, that was going to be a no-no. She thought she had cracked it when the bloke behind her politely asked Haversack Man to move it, but only so he could slide his own carcass onto the seat. Chivalry was dead, it was official, and she was forced to stand in stiff and stoic British silence for twenty minutes before collapsing wearily into a vacant seat for the last ten.

  When she got off the train at Barnsley, it was like walking into a snow globe. Fat flakes were coming dizzily down and she huddled into the little warmth her entirely weather-inappropriate suity-type jacket offered. She dashed across the road to the car park to where her bright yellow car, customized with the outline of a big pink flower painted over the back, was waiting for her. Quickly opening up the door, she climbed gratefully inside and stuck the key in the ignition. The engine turned over, shuddered a bit and then died. The second turn resulted in a cough and a click and nothing else. Elizabeth had that cold sweaty panicking thing that reduces one to ‘What do I do? I know nothing about cars!’ level, and then she noticed that the button for her lights was turned to ‘on’. She had never, ever left her lights on before.

  ‘Please, not today of all days!’ she cried mournfully aloud to herself.

  She ferreted through her bag for her AA card, only to remember that she had left it in her ‘ordinary’ bag, as opposed to this ‘smart interview’ one, along with her mobile phone apparently. She sat back, her numb hands on the steering wheel, feeling hopeless, hope-less, tired, pathetic and angry at her own stupidity. Stupid, dozy, stupid, stupid hormones! She was never disorganized, never forgot anything. Is this what pregnancy hormones made you into–a stupid, pathetic, stupid jelly?

  She hadn’t cried in years and suddenly here she was, starting to blub yet again, the rate of tears accelerating as she watched the snow fill up the windscreen, making her feel like she was being buried alive. Then a thought hopped into her mind, to kick her whilst she was down, that there was no one at home to say, ‘Where’s Elizabeth? She should be home by now. I’m getting worried so I think I’ll go out looking for her.’ No one. How long could she sit there before someone came for her, she wondered. Cleef wouldn’t even miss her, only his tea. He was a cat and would just go and find another house and be as fed and as warm and not give her a second thought, just like he had not given Helen a second thought when she had given him away.

  Elizabeth did not have a job, she had bog-all prospects of getting another one, and inside her was growing an alien that she could not find it in herself to get rid of, but did not really want. She twisted the key again and again and again in an angry frenzy.

  ‘Start, you bastard thing!’ she cried, and when that didn’t work, ‘Please, nice car, start for me, pleeeease…’

  Then someone knocked on her window and opened her car door.

  ‘You okay?’

  It was him. John Silkstone. He had turned up like Clint Eastwood did when a town was in trouble. Thinking back, he always had been the human equivalent of a Swiss Army knife.

  ‘Won’t it start?’ he asked.

  Her throat was too constricted to answer. She just shook her head and stared at him with huge, watery, grey eyes. She felt the indignity of her situation deeply. She had seen him twice in seven years–once dressed like a tramp, and now trying to drown a steering wheel with a good eye and a black one. He was the only one who had ever seen her cry.

  ‘I don’t know! Come on!’ he urged.

  ‘No, it’s all right. I can manage.’ Why on earth did I say that? she thought, when it was blatantly obvious that she couldn’t. Not that he was having any of it, anyway.

  ‘You don’t change, do you, Independent Mary? Come on, shift yourself!’

  He pulled her out of the car by her sleeve and led her unresisting, like a child, to a Land Rover nearby with an engine purring, as hers should have been. Then again, he wasn’t a dozy pregnant beggar who left his lights on. He stripped off his coat behind her and plonked it on her shoulders and she almost buckled under the weight of it.

  ‘Good job you’re still driving the same car, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘I knew that daft pink flower would come in handy one day–remember?’

&n
bsp; She remembered. He had been with her when she had bought it at the garage. She had taken him along to suss it out because she had trusted him in all things. She had fallen in love with the crazy Battenburg colours and he’d laughed and said, ‘Trust a woman! But at least you’ll be easy to spot in a crowd!’ Then he had disappeared inside to press buttons and levers and rev up the engine and then get underneath to inspect the chassis.

  ‘Here, give us your keys and get in.’

  She opened her mouth to say something brave but her weary body overrode it and, instead, she climbed into his passenger seat to find the heater was on full blast and it was lovely and cosy. The radio was on but the wipers were not and the snow-rain slashing against the windows gave only a blurred image of what was going on across the car park. The tears popping out of her eyes did not help; it appeared there was a washer off in her ducts.

  Minutes later, the driver’s door opened, letting in a fearsome reminder of the freezing outside world, and big John Silkstone in a thick checked lumberjack shirt clambered in and blew some life back into his hands.

  ‘No, your car won’t start,’ he said, his black hair glittering with melting snowflakes. ‘What did you do? Leave your lights on or something?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, waiting for the ‘women drivers’ tirade to start. Not that he was ever like that.

  ‘You picked a good day to do that. It’s a nasty one, all right.’ He clipped in his seat-belt, slipped off the handbrake and started driving.

  Silence reigned, unless you counted ‘Una Paloma Blanca’ playing out from Radio Sheffield.

  ‘Shopping, were you?’ John asked at the traffic-lights.

  ‘Went to Leeds,’ she said, slipping into monosyllabic mode.

  ‘I saw you coming off the train when I pulled in to get a newspaper from the shop. You know, the one in the bus station.’

  ‘Yes, I do know where the paper shop is,’ she said. It was the one she had stood shivering outside all those years ago, waiting for some bloke wearing a flower to take her out for a drink, although she didn’t remind him of that.