Coronation Wives

by Lizzie Lane

  Peter came in from school for lunch when she got home. ‘I’m starving,’ he proclaimed and promptly took a bite out of the fish paste soldier that Pamela was presently nibbling.

  ‘It’s ready,’ said Edna. ‘Wash your hands and sit up at the table.’

  Bubble and squeak, a mix of leftover vegetables from Sunday, was frying in the pan and getting crisp around the edges. Topped with a fried egg, a plateful duly found its way to Peter who sat at the table, knife and fork held upright, ready for the attack.

  After making Pamela another plate of fish paste soldiers, Edna sat herself down at the table. When she had left the Post Office, she had gone into Woolworths and bought a notepad, just as she had been going to do in the first place. The airmail envelope was still in her bag.

  She fancied Peter was eyeing her quizzically.

  ‘What are you writing?’ he asked.

  ‘Don’t speak with your mouth full,’ Edna replied.

  Not to be put off so easily, he asked, ‘Is it a story?’

  ‘Just a shopping list,’ she lied.

  The airmail letter she’d bought was too precious to waste. She had to get the words down properly. This was her son she was writing about, a child that needed her as much as Susan did, a child who might be ill one day and want his mother to be there.

  Peter was still curious. ‘Do you want some of my bubble and squeak, Mum?’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  Despite Peter, she managed to get down the basics of what she wanted to write.

  Once he’d gone back to school and Pamela had fallen asleep on the settee beneath a patchwork counterpane, she retrieved the precious airmail letter from her bag and carefully wrote that yes, she was his mother and, yes, she wanted her son.

  After folding it carefully she gummed the edges where indicated. If she changed her mind about sending it off, it would tear very easily and she could throw it away. But, thanks to the vision of Susan lying small and alone in a hospital bed, she didn’t think she would.

  ‘Your father called from a phone box today,’ Colin said that evening after greeting both children with a kiss on the cheek. ‘He says you haven’t been over this week.’

  Edna groaned, braced both hands on the sink, closed her eyes and threw back her head. ‘I’m tired! Doesn’t anyone around here realize that?’

  Colin had been about to give her a kiss on the cheek too, but changed his mind. He recognized a bad mood when he saw one. Edna had quite a few of them nowadays and he knew all the signs. Tentatively, he rested his hands on her shoulders, felt her stiffen, so dropped them down to his side. He’d tried being gentle with her, but he was tired and his patience was wearing thin. ‘Well, she is your bloody mother!’

  ‘Don’t remind me!’

  His tone gentled. ‘I know how you feel about her, Edna, but if anything happened to her and you hadn’t seen her for a while, you might feel bad about it.’

  She sighed. He closed his eyes and thanked God as the stiffness left her shoulders and she shifted her weight from one hip to the other.

  ‘I suppose so. It’s just that I am so tired of driving out to Saltmead and back again …’ She turned and ran her hand through her hair.

  She was still slim, as girlish as the day they’d married, and Colin still loved her, still wanted to do his best for her. ‘Tell you what, love,’ he said, cautiously resting his hands on her hips, ready to retreat should she reject him. ‘It’s Saturday tomorrow and I’ve got to go into the factory so I can’t drive you there, but what if I ring Janet and ask her to take you over your mother’s? You can give Polly her wages while you’re about it.’

  Edna looked awkward. ‘If Janet forgives me. I feel terrible about how I treated her.’

  Colin grinned. He knew she was still embarrassed about not allowing Janet near the children – Janet who had almost lost her job to see Susan.

  ‘I’ll ring,’ he said and went straight for the telephone. She looked over her shoulder as he left the kitchen and wanted to cry. He’s so good, she thought to herself, and I’m being a cow. But she was tired, terribly tired and full of guilt, remorse and downright confusion.

  ‘Ivan’s coming with her,’ he said when he came back from making the phone call.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘What’s for dinner?’ asked Colin, as he sat himself down at the table.

  ‘Bubble and squeak,’ said Edna.

  ‘With an egg,’ added Peter.

  On Saturday, Ivan and Janet arrived as scheduled. Edna started to apologize about how she’d behaved about the children and how she should have been in touch sooner.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Janet, hoping her newly found contentment would filter through in her smile and make Edna happy again. ‘All that matters is that Susan gets well.’

  A lot of the houses in Nutgrove Avenue had Christmas trees or fairy lights at the windows. On the journey over the children had been enthralled by the sudden sprouting of Christmas decorations, their little faces pressed tight against the car windows. There was no tree or decoration of any sort in the window of number nine and both doors were wide open. Edna looked at it bleakly, her actions stilted as she got out of the car and pulled the front seat forward so Pamela could scramble out too.

  ‘You want this?’ Ivan held out a brown wages envelope with Polly’s name on it.

  Edna looked at him appealingly. ‘Will you bring it in?’

  The smell of old urine mixed with soapy steam rolled up the passageway from out back. Edna hesitated. How embarrassing! What would Ivan think?

  ‘We’ll go in here,’ she said and opened the door of the front room in which a big bay window looked out over the road. It was little used, but she couldn’t possibly take a stranger out back where her mother’s bloomers were being boiled free of stain and smell.

  The front room was too tidy to be welcoming and she shivered as she entered. She always had. Perhaps it was something to do with the pristine plainness of it, the cold green lino, the beige and brown mat in front of the grate, the sharp brightness of the chrome-plated companion set and ashtray. It might have been none of those things, but purely the fact that the room was little used. But not today.

  A figure huddled close to the dull darkness of an empty fire grate.

  ‘Hello, Dad.’

  Her father held his head in his hands, his half crescent of hair standing proud of his head, unwashed and stiff with old Brylcreem.

  ‘Dad?’

  Slowly his fingers parted like the folds of a fan and his face appeared. Beaming now, he got up from his chair. ‘It’s lovely to see you, pet.’

  The sound of Pamela’s running footsteps echoed down the passageway behind them as the little girl ran off to the garden.

  ‘This is Ivan,’ Edna said, suddenly remembering the handsome man who stood at her side. ‘I’ve got Polly’s money.’ She took the brown envelope from Ivan’s hand. “Where is she?’

  ‘She’s not here.’

  Her father’s recumbent expression altered. His eyes stared, his mouth hung open and the jowls hung like bags of blancmange.

  ‘Dad? What is it?’

  ‘She’s gone again. Polly’s gone after her.’

  Edna wanted to shake him for sounding so pathetic, but who was she to talk? How often had she been weak, soft and easily manipulated?

  He wrung his hands then ran one through what remained of his hair leaving it standing out each side of his head like a sticky white halo. ‘It’s getting difficult.’

  She was reminded of some poor halfwit that used to live further down the road. The children used to bait him, shout names and follow him to the shops just to force him to share his sweets with them, a sad way of buying friendship. But her father was not a halfwit. He was just tired, confused and afraid.

  Edna turned to Ivan and Janet. ‘We have to find her.’

  Ivan immediately made for the door. Janet followed him. ‘I’m coming too.’

  Ivan placed his hands on her shoulders. ‘No
. You stay here.’ He jerked his head at Edna’s father. ‘He needs someone to look after him.’ Then he turned to Edna. ‘Where shall I look?’

  Her father, his voice heavy with weariness, said, ‘The park. She likes the flowers, and the bowling green.’

  Edna gave Ivan a brief description. ‘She’s thin with sharp features.’ She had another thought. ‘Look for Polly. She’s pretty, blonde and dressed in black and white.’

  ‘I know her,’ he said. ‘She comes to visit at my house.’

  My house, thought Edna, and briefly felt a sense of things passing, never to be the same.

  As she chased around Victoria Park looking for Ethel, Polly muttered, ‘Silly cow! Time she was put out to Barrel.’ Barrel was the nickname for Barrow Gurney, the site of a psychiatric hospital to the south of the city.

  Polly wasn’t too sure of her bearings around Victoria Park. It was a case of marching on and keeping her eyes open. The smell of leaf mould and wet grass drenched the air and small children – too young for school – ran along the low walls next to the road. At one time they’d had railings on top of them, but along with a pile of old saucepans, they’d gone years ago to make Spitfires, or so they’d been told. She kept to the level path, presuming the old girl’s legs wouldn’t cope with the one that led up to the Bowling Green. Eventually she came to a concreted area where swings, a slide and a roundabout were skirted by cast iron seats and close cut grass.

  ‘Have you seen an old lady go past here?’

  The young woman she asked was sitting on one of the seats, a Pedigree coach built pram in front of her, a baby in her arms. She started at Polly’s question. Polly apologized for frightening her.

  The young woman nodded her acceptance of the apology and asked, ‘What did she look like?’

  Polly eyed the fat baby that sucked at the woman’s breast. No wonder she’d started. Fancy getting her bosom out in the middle of the park!

  ‘Thin. Sharp features. Wearing a pale green candlewick dressing gown.’

  The woman’s eyebrows rose in sharp surprise. ‘Bit mental, is she?’

  ‘No! She’s just ill,’ snapped Polly.

  ‘Well, I ain’t seen her.’ The woman pulled the child off her teat and covered her flaccid bosom with a less than clean cardigan and shouted, ‘Clifford! Come on. Time we was off.’

  The command was directed at a small child whose legs were dangling from one of the swings. His knees were the colour of cracked mud.

  Polly turned away in disgust. She might come from the Dings and live in Knowle West, but for Christ’s sake, she’d always kept her Carol clean and she’d never breastfed in public. Disgusting!

  A train rattling by drowned Clifford’s wails and his mother’s shouts as Polly made her way up the steep path that led back through the park towards the Bowling Green. All the way up she looked around her for any sign of Edna’s mother – and not necessarily wearing a dressing gown! The truth of the matter was she had an awful feeling that Mrs Burbage might be dressed in a lot less than that. She’d just been about to give her a bath and had got her half-stripped when the faint smell of burning had come up from the kitchen. The potatoes for tonight’s shepherd’s pie had boiled dry and Mr Burbage was out in the garden tending his runner beans so she couldn’t depend on him to do the obvious.

  Three old gents in bowling whites were playing on the green when she got there. A very stout man was bending, about to take his shot, moving forward with uncommon grace, almost like a ballet dancer. She watched for a moment while she got her breath and willed the old chap to hit the jack. Hope I do too, she thought, and giggled to herself. Mickey O’Hara was getting himself a new employee to work in his nightclub and she was happy about it. Aunty Meg was not. She’d tried telling her that she’d be working as a receptionist, but it didn’t wash.

  She’d decided to pack in looking after Ethel Burbage. She hoped Edna’s father wouldn’t be too upset. She’d tell Edna about it as soon as they’d found the old girl.

  Although apprehensive at what he might say, Polly had plucked up the courage to tell Billy about the job Mickey had offered her. He’d looked a bit concerned – probably jealous. But she’d pretended not to notice. Damn the bloke, he’d got ’imself into that bloody position and they were all having to put up with it.

  There was a loud crack as the ball hit the jack and sent it racing across the lawn. It shook Polly from her thoughts and spurred her on to find Mrs Burbage – the old cow!

  I’ll murder the old witch, she thought, shivering as she pulled her coat around herself and headed further up the hill to where a mass of laurel hedge and dense fir trees surrounded the park keeper’s house. A man wearing trousers with string tied just below his knees – obviously a gardener – came from that direction pushing a wheelbarrow full of garden tools.

  Polly rushed up to him. ‘Have you seen—’

  He pointed at the park keeper’s house. ‘A woman in pink corsets with ’er stockings round ’er ankles?’ His cheeks were apple red and he was grinning from ear to ear. Well, if he expected her to blush he was in for a disappointment – even if she was mortified!

  She gave him a fierce poke in the chest. ‘And how would you know a pair of corsets from a liberty bodice unless you wears ’em yerself? I’ve heard about blokes like you hanging around in parks!’

  He went redder – just as she’d wanted him to. But his smile remained and he looked at her as if he was in with a chance. Bloody cheek!

  ‘Are you—?’ he began.

  ‘Married!’ she snapped and swept past him up the path heading in the direction of the park keeper’s house.

  These bushes smell dusty, she thought, as she turned between the clusters of bottle green laurel. She was keen to get this over with and would have marched on regardless if she hadn’t heard someone calling her. Darting back out from the bushes, she narrowed her eyes better to see the figure running up the path towards her. Nice looking, athletic and long-legged. Who the bloody hell did she know like that?

  Ivan! Now if she were going to take in lodgers, she’d stipulate that they’d all have to look like him – especially if she wasn’t married.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ She folded her arms beneath the warmth of her bosom as if good-looking blokes trying to get her attention never had impressed her.

  ‘I came to help you find Edna’s mother.’

  ‘Get yer coat off.’ She nodded at the khaki trench mac he was wearing, turned and started for the front door of the park keeper’s house.

  Ivan followed her, his mac already off his shoulders and halfway down his arms.

  The door of the park keeper’s house opened onto a small hallway with panelled walls and a wood-block floor. Mrs Burbage was sitting on the stairs of the house staring into the distance and humming distractedly. The park keeper was standing over her stroking the sort of moustache and side whiskers that had gone out of fashion around the time the ‘talkies’ came in.

  ‘Sorry about this,’ said Polly. ‘She’s not well.’

  Eyes still fixed on Mrs Burbage, the man nodded thoughtfully. ‘I knew ’er when she was eighteen,’ he said.

  ‘You’re kidding!’

  ‘No, I’m not.’ He looked pleased with himself.

  Polly grinned as a sudden vision of a more youthful Mrs Burbage sprang into being. It was always hard to think of older people having been young at one time, singing, dancing, falling in love – locking limbs with the opposite sex.

  Polly bent low and touched the old woman’s shoulder. ‘Come on, Ethel. Time to go home before we find out all about yer lovelife.’

  Edna’s mother raised her arm, but continued to stare into the distance. ‘There it is! The eleven o’clock to Weston! Will the tide be in, Mother? Can I paddle? Can I build sandcastles?’ Her voice was high like a small child’s.

  You’re a grown woman! Of course not. Pull yourself together.

  The words and the impatience were checked. Words were useless. Ethel wouldn’t un
derstand and Polly didn’t want to say them.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, placing her arm around the old woman’s shoulders and gently raising her to her feet. ‘You’d better wrap up. There’s a bit of a draught when the train comes in. And when we get to Weston there’s bound to be a cold breeze coming off the sea.’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ cried a smiling Ethel Burbage, her eyes round and shining with the joy of a six-year-old child on her first trip to the seaside. ‘Can I ride on the donkeys?’

  ‘Only if you’ve got a threepenny bit.’

  It didn’t really sink in. That was the way it was. Nothing really sunk in and when you thought it had it was swiftly forgotten. She turned away from Polly and raised her smiling face upwards to Ivan. ‘Are you going to build a sandcastle with me, Daddy?’

  Touchingly, Ivan smiled back and at the same time placed his mac around her bare shoulders. ‘Of course I am,’ he said gently and together he and Polly took Edna’s mother back to Nutgrove Avenue.

  ‘No matter how bad she was in the past, it’s sad to see her like that,’ said Janet to Ivan after they’d dropped Edna and the children off. ‘I’m glad my mother’s not like that, though I sometimes wish she was more involved with her family and less with the flotsam and jetsam of the world.’

  He was driving and kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead. He looked thoughtful.

  ‘A penny for them,’ she said softly.

  Ivan raised his eyebrows. ‘A penny for what?’

  ‘Oh, for tomorrow, yesterday, the day before if you like, but mostly for your thoughts. What are you thinking about?’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ he said grimly.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I am taking your mother to help the flotsam and jetsam.’

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Unwashed men, dirty bed linen and drying laundry hanging from lengths of string tied across the room, bare windows, bare boards and six camp beds, the sort they’d used in the air raid shelters during the war. This was where a man named Lech Rostok and five other refugees were living. Charlotte resisted the urge to wrinkle her nose.