‘Is that why you really lived with your Auntie Elsie?’ Helen asked, patting her chest as if to steady her heartbeat.
Elizabeth nodded but she couldn’t speak; the words could not have got past the hard ball of tears in her throat. At that moment, she looked so wee, so fragile to the others, and Janey came to sit beside her on the sofa and hugged her, and for the first time ever, Elizabeth let her without protest.
‘That why your Bev ran off then?’ said Janey, and felt her nod against her shoulder.
‘I heard so much in that house and I never knew then what was going on. Of course, now it all makes perfect sense,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I can hardly let myself think what our Bev must have had to put up with after our mam left. He were a dirty…dirty…bastard. I hated him when I realized what he’d done to her. I was so terrified my Auntie Elsie would die and I’d have to go back to him, I was sick every time she got a cough or a cold. She used to promise me that she wouldn’t die before I was eighteen and she didn’t, she cleared it by nine months.’ Then she laughed, but it was an empty sound without any mirth at all in it.
‘Has your Bev ever been in contact with you since?’ asked Helen, coming to sit at the other side of her friend.
‘Naw, and it’s twenty odd years now, so I don’t think she will be. My Auntie Elsie told the police she’d run off and they checked the hospitals but she never turned up at any of them.’
‘Why didn’t she tell them about your bloody dad an’ all?’ said Janey.
‘I don’t know. Maybe she didn’t know what to do for the best. It’s not as easy as you might think, holding the power to decide a man’s fate. Whatever he might have done.’
‘Looks easy enough from where I’m standing!’
‘Janey, for God’s sake, pipe down,’ said Helen.
‘Sorry,’ said Janey, biting her lip. ‘So, didn’t the police find anything at all?’
‘Not a dicky bird. I’ve tried to trace her through her National Insurance number, but it’s never been used. I can understand why she went and I never blamed her for it–she needed to get away and start afresh. She had to forget about all of us to be able to do that.’
‘Was she really…you know…when she left?’
‘Pregnant? Yes, I’m as sure as I can be that she was pregnant. She stopped going to school, she was so sick and her stomach was getting really big…and her chest…I used to tease her about that getting huge. I was rotten to her, calling her fat names all the time until one day, she stopped fighting and just sat down and cried in front of me, and I walked off and left her because I wanted a bag of crisps from downstairs. I can even remember the flavour–KP beef, can you believe that? That was the night she left, two days before her sixteenth birthday. I was eating KP beef crisps and she was going through hell.’
‘You weren’t to know,’ said Helen. ‘You were a little girl. You can’t possibly feel guilty–how can any of this be your fault? You must never think it was!’
‘That, my friend, is so much easier said than done.’
‘I just can’t imagine…Did he ever…you, Elizabeth?’ said Janey, not able to say all the words.
‘It started, but I managed to run away,’ she replied, her voice increasingly trembling, ‘to my Auntie Elsie’s. I don’t know what would have happened to me, if I hadn’t had her. I still lie awake at night and think, What if she’d been out that day? Or, What if she’d not believed me?’
‘What ifs can drive you insane,’ said Helen, who knew. ‘She was in and she did believe you, that’s all you should remember.’
Elizabeth was crying now, great big round blobs that landed on her cardi and she couldn’t wipe them away with the back of her hand fast enough, then Janey handed her a tissue.
‘And I’m carrying a bairn with those rotten genes in it!’ wept Elizabeth.
‘I don’t know–you didn’t turn out so bad.’ Janey nudged her, smiling, but she needed a tissue herself.
‘That’s funny, ’cos you’ve just spent the last God-knows-how-long telling me I’m a hard cow,’ said Elizabeth.
‘You are!’ said Janey, who had no intention of letting her off with anything because she had spoken for her own good. ‘But you’re also my best mate and I love you to bits even though you drive me crackers.’
Elizabeth half-laughed, half-cried and let her head stay on Janey’s shoulder.
‘Oh Elizabeth, you should have told us, love, you stupid daft mare,’ Janey sighed, wiping her own eyes. Dear God, they’d never even suspected that’s why she was so mixed up.
‘Yes, I think I am stupid sometimes.’
‘Well, now it’s all out, you can stop being stupid, can’t you?’ said Janey.
‘Start by telling John you’ll take the chair,’ said Helen. ‘Stop punishing yourself and let people be nice to you, Elizabeth. Let him buy you this. I have one and I love mine. Course, it’s old now, it was my da—’ She stopped and cursed herself.
‘Don’t do that, please,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Don’t be doing stupid stuff like not mentioning the word “dad” in front of me. Alex and Bob–they were always both so lovely to me.’
For years she had watched both men for that look in their eyes–predatory, unsafe, unclean–but had never ever seen even a trace of it.
‘They were good blokes, both of them. You were lucky.’
‘Make it up with John,’ Janey said, passing her a fresh handful of tissues. ‘He’s another good bloke.’
Elizabeth shuffled and nodded and grumbled in her usual Elizabeth non-committing way.
‘I’ll put the kettle on, shall I?’ said Helen, who could always be relied on for a good old British solution.
Chapter 29
After her friends had gone, Elizabeth had a wash and re-applied her cried-off make-up because turning up like Alice Cooper was not the best face she wanted to present for what she had to do. Then she grabbed her handbag and car keys and drove off in the general direction of where John said his building site was, although Oxworth was not exactly a huge place and he would surely be easy enough to find.
Her task was more straightforward than anticipated, for when she got to the village boundary, there was a big sign directing would-be buyers to Silkstone Properties and a telephone number for enquiries. There was an even bigger sign at the actual site, which was on the far outskirts. Oxworth was semi-rural, pretending to be nothing other than what it was–a small quiet village at the side of a pretty stream six miles away from the town centre. It had a lovely Italian restaurant, a few shops, a kindergarten and an old-fashioned cinema that had about three seats and where the film stopped halfway through for an ice-cream break. Elizabeth had been there with John a few times in the past, when it was an unwritten rule that whoever had the seat nearest the aisle went up for the tubs.
As she got out of the car, she saw John chatting to a twenty-something, slim woman at the bottom of the steps to a temporary pre-fab building. Despite the surrounding mud, she had clippety heels on and was doing all the flirty things like pushing her hair back, laughing at what he said, sticking her small Wonderbra-ed breasts out to indicate that she fancied him. Not that it was a surprise, for John Silkstone was a good-looking bloke, even in those big boots and that hefty jacket and with the dark waves of his hair just poking out from under his hard hat at the back.
His generous lips were curved into a smile for his eyelash-batting audience, who was caught in the soft gaze of his big toffee-coloured eyes. He had always been handsome, although his clothes sense had been slightly dyslexic in his Spaghetti Western phase. He could have had any woman he wanted, except he never seriously looked at anyone but her, the mad fool. Lisa must have wet her pants when his spotlight came round onto her, although she had just about set fire to herself to get him to notice her.
At the moment, John was listening to what Miss Frilly Drawers had to say and the crinkles at his eye corners made him appear more attractive than Elizabeth had ever seen him looking before, even when he was younger and line-free
. Okay, she made the grudging admission to herself that she was jealous to see him talking to another woman and smiling at her like an enamoured pup. Especially a slim, pretty, blonde, young, responsive, unpregnant woman. She started walking back to the car again, grumbling under her breath words to the effect of, ‘Oh, what’s the use?’ when she heard him call her name. When she turned he was coming over, clearing the distance between them in big, heavy-booted strides.
‘I presume you want me?’ he said, without smiling. ‘I suppose you’re here because you want me to come over and take that chair away. Don’t worry; I’ll pick it up when I’ve finished work. Right, I’ve said it for you and saved you the trouble. See you later.’ Then he started to go.
‘Er…no, wait,’ she said, and he stopped and turned back to her.
God, this was difficult.
‘I’d…er…like to keep it, if that’s okay with you?’
‘Oh, really?’ he said, folding his arms across his vast expanse of chest. ‘Well, there’s a turn-up. And…?’
‘And?’
‘Well, you could have rung me to tell me that!’
Elizabeth took a big, fortifying breath and said, ‘And…I’m sorry.’
‘For?’
‘For? Okay, for being ungrateful. Thank you, it’s lovely and so was all the other stuff.’
‘And?’
This was not just difficult, it was excruciating.
She huffed. ‘Not making this very easy for me, are you?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘and why should I? You hurt my feelings.’
‘Yes, I know. I’m s…sorry.’
‘Apology accepted. And…?’
Oh, flaming hell, I’m going to tell him to shove it in a minute.
‘Okay, I’ll answer for you, shall I?’ he said. ‘And…you’re going to cook me my tea tonight to make up for it.’
‘Am I, indeed?’
‘Yes, you are, indeed,’ he said, expecting her to argue. He could see her biting down on her lip, fighting the urge to tell him to go to hell and he chuckled inwardly, wondering how far he could push it.
‘All right then,’ she said, with a smile that nearly burned her lips off. ‘So what would you like to eat?’
‘My favourite.’ His eyes twinkled at her.
‘Okay,’ she said, managing to stuff the word with both humility and murderous intent.
She remembers, he thought, hanging onto his best poker face.
‘Right, I’ll see you later then, Elizabeth. Now, if you’ll excuse me…This isn’t the weekend for me, unlike some. I’ve still lots of work to do,’ and off he stomped, splashing through the mud, back to the half-finished buildings and burring machines and other men in big boots and lumberjack shirts. He did not look behind him but she was still very much on his mind.
Well, well, well. Miracles do happen in South Yorkshire then, thought John Silkstone, who grinned all the way to tea-time.
Elizabeth went home and took all the plastic off the chair and the stool, and then almost ceremoniously she sat down in it, bolt upright, before she softened her spine against the cushion and tried her best to relax.
When Helen drove home from the supermarket that afternoon, she had to stop the car to vomit at the side of the road, unfortunately having to suffer the indignity of being seen by others driving past. When she first read the list of adverse symptoms one gets in pregnancy, she did not, for one moment, expect to get them all. Her gums were always bleeding, she sounded like she had a permanent cold and was totally debilitated by the relentless waves of nausea. It was a long journey home and all she wanted to do when she got there was snuggle into Simon and to draw some comfort from him.
She found him reading in the lounge and he kissed her on the head in greeting, then recoiled immediately, saying she smelled of sick and should go and brush her teeth. When she came back from the bathroom, he had disappeared into his office next door to the house. She would have taken him tea, just to see him, just to be with him, but she was not allowed in there–even though she had put down the 60 per cent cash deposit to purchase the house in the first place. The house, like his heart, had strong boundaries within it.
Teddy Sanderson had been so sweet when she was especially grey the previous morning. He said that his wife Mary had suffered likewise with Tim: dreadful sickness, hair like a grease factory and she had slept more than their old cat, but it had all been worth it in the end. As soon as she had that little boy in her arms, all that misery and discomfort had instantly become a distant memory. He promised the same for Helen.
She tried to focus on the positive. When her daughter arrived into the world, everything would be good and normal again; her sickness, Simon’s indifference, her fears and insecurities would all fade to nothing. That is what would happen, because she did not think she could face it being otherwise.
When Janey and George were courting, they didn’t have a great deal of money, but invited Elizabeth around for tea one night–just a cheapie, they said, with eggs, chips and peas. Then Janey got a strange feeling that there was one type of pea that Elizabeth didn’t like so she bought in processed, garden, mange-tout and a tub of frozen mushy peas and some beans, just in case she hated all sorts of peas. Then whilst she was unpacking the shopping, she dropped the full box of twelve eggs on the floor, and there were no survivors. George had had to dash out and buy another dozen. It turned out to be one of the most expensive, cheap egg, chips and peas meals in history.
‘Why didn’t you just ask me? I’d have told you straight there and then that I didn’t like garden peas!’ Elizabeth had scolded Janey.
‘I felt bad enough about only inviting you for flaming egg and chips, without quibbling over the side order!’ Janey had retorted, and then they had both laughed and feasted on an Alp of chips and fried eggs and tea and bread and butter and all manner of peas and beans.
Elizabeth had recounted the story to John a few days after. He listened patiently and at the end announced that it had to be the most boring story he had ever heard, which made her snort with laughter. However, he admitted that he was starting to slaver over the idea of egg and chips and beans, which he said had to be his favourite comfort meal of all time and the one he’d have as a last request, if he ever ended up on Death Row. He got Elizabeth lusting over them again as well, so they cooked them up in her little kitchen, drenched them in salt and vinegar, cut big slices from a new white loaf of bread and buttered them thickly, opened up a cheap bottle of plonk and sat on the sofa giggling at Blazing Saddles. It had been a good night.
John arrived at seven o’clock, washed and brushed up with a pair of jeans that showed off his very nice bottom and a Paul Smith pink shirt that made the best of his broad shoulders.
‘Is it ready?’ were his words of greeting.
‘No!’ said Elizabeth indignantly. ‘How the hell did I know what time you were coming?’
‘Best get on with it then, hadn’t you? This is my treat and, I tell you, I’m going to savour every flaming minute of it,’ and with that he sat in the new cover-free rocking chair with his feet up, read the newspaper and flicked through the television stations on the remote whilst she disappeared into the kitchen to cook. When it was ready, she served him with a tray with a sarcastic plastic flower in an eggcup and then got her own and sat on the sofa with it. Every so often, he would look up at her whilst chewing and winking, and she endured him silently, smoke blowing out of her ears.
When he had finished, she took the tray from him, only to drop it with a cry as she bent over double. He jumped up and pushed her gently down onto his vacant seat in the rocking chair. She was rigid, leaning forward like a seated statue in an awkward pose.
‘What’s up? You all right? Elizabeth, what’s the matter?’ he said, kneeling at the side of her.
‘I don’t know,’ she said, rubbing her stomach. ‘I think I felt him move.’
‘Did it hurt?’
‘No, it was just the shock of it.’
It was a weird feel
ing, like a load of bubbles going off inside her, like an inside-out burp. John cleared up the dropped plates and poured her some more of her fruity tea, whilst she sat stiff-limbed in the chair waiting for the next sensation.
‘You okay?’ he said.
‘I think so,’ she said. Something inside her rippled. ‘Oh my, oh my, there it goes again!’
She froze and let it happen to her. It was a gentle but odd, scary sensation and would be until she got a handle on the fact that what she was feeling was actually another human being move around inside her. Naively, she hadn’t even considered it would.
‘Can I have a go?’ he said, only to immediately withdraw that and apologize, but Elizabeth tentatively took his hand and placed it on her very rounding stomach because she so much wanted to share this moment with someone and halve the fear. His hand lay lightly on her stomach, hers on top of it, guiding it and he said he felt the slightest shift inside her. She didn’t know if he did but he said it at the same time that she felt it for herself, so it was possible.
‘Feeling better now?’ he asked.
‘Yes. I think that’s what it is–it must be the baby starting to move.’
They looked up at each other, smiling. It was the perfect moment for him to lean over and kiss her if he was ever going to, but he took his hand away and sat down on the sofa and handed her the mug of tea, telling her to take it easy for a bit.
He thanked her for the meal when he left and she let him kiss her softly on the cheek. It was a small sweet kiss from a big sweet bloke, and she knew that if she were normal, she would never have let him go home.
There was a hideously early phone call on Monday morning, which set Elizabeth’s heart boom-booming a little. No one phoned at this hour unless it was serious.
‘Hi, it’s me,’ said Janey, sounding out of breath, which made Elizabeth’s senses all switch to alert.
‘You all right? God, Janey, what’s up?’
The Yorkshire Pudding Club Page 19