A Life Between Us

by Louise Walters

  I have to go now, Meg wants me,

  Love from Tina xx

  Thirteen

  December 2013

  Keaton wondered as he drove home if it might be worth getting a pet for Tina. A cat, possibly? A dog might be too much, and besides, he didn’t like dogs. But really, the idea was soft – it was silly. He was clutching at straws, he knew, just casting around in the darkness for something to hold on to. He was driving home from the Christmas do with a head full of empty and useless ideas, yet he couldn’t wait to get home and talk to Tina about them. Two cats, maybe? A little cat family? Like that historian couple who Tina cleaned house for on Mondays. She was fond of their cats. Surely she would love a pet of her own? He opened the car window and breathed deeply, wanting cold fresh air in his lungs and in his head. He’d had only the one drink, an ill-advised gin and tonic, and hadn’t enjoyed it much; in fact, he’d thought himself in some kind of danger as he’d felt the alcohol begin its hideous dance in his blood.

  And a holiday, he thought. They should take a holiday somewhere nice, somewhere exotic, perhaps before they got the cat? Tina needed a break, and so did he. Something had to give, something had to change. A cruise, maybe? Time to relax, see the world, swim, read? An exotic holiday followed by their very own little pet family. It would be just the ticket. Maybe. It was something, at least.

  The images of the party and the images of Sharanne intruded at last, despite his efforts to ignore them. She had been so pretty tonight and slim, dressed in a black dress and high-heeled shoes – simple, a classy look. Red lipstick. And they’d pulled a cracker together and she’d put on her purple paper hat and read out her motto in her sharp, confident voice and everybody had laughed. And that was the trouble. She was highly regarded at work; she was efficient and bright. She was funny. Alastair and everybody else thought a lot of her. It would be difficult to undo this, to speak to her, but he would have to try. He couldn’t do this thing that she clearly wanted him to do. It was beyond doubt now. But it could not happen. Even if he… which he didn’t. He absolutely did not. He was in control, utterly. Maybe the purely male part of him, the part of him that drifted aimlessly somewhere between his brain and his bollocks, the part that physically assessed women whether he wanted it to or not, that part that decided yes or no in a second, less than a second, maybe that was beyond his control, maybe that part of him was attracted to Sharanne. But he was married and wasn’t marriage all about ignoring that part of your being? Isn’t that what decent men did? He was married, and not to just anybody, but to Tina, his suffering and tortured wife, his good friend.

  He arrived home. He sat for a few moments in the silent and rapidly cooling car, composing himself. He knew now what temptation tasted like, and it was bitter.

  Tina was awake when he got in, which surprised him. She was hung-over, she said. Why on earth had she drunk so much that afternoon? She was sorry not to have made it to the dinner. Anyway, how was the food, the disco? Did he have fun? Did Alastair get drunk and make an exhibition of himself on the dance floor again? And would Keaton get a hot chocolate and come and sit with her? She’d made a decision.

  ‘What’s this decision, then?’ asked Keaton, after he’d made the drinks. He sidled along the sofa to be next to his wife. She smelled nice, she smelled reassuring – she smelled like Tina. Of course, she was Tina, and it was good to be with her again. It had been too long. Just a few hours, but so long. She smelled of clean skin, fabric conditioner, and faintly of her regular shampoo. He couldn’t think which one she used, and that was bad, wasn’t it, surely he should know which shampoo his wife used? The bottle sat there in the bathroom and he saw it every day. Attentive husbands knew these things. He usually thought of himself as an attentive husband. Tonight she also had the effusive scent of wine about her, but he could ignore that. Tina was no drinker. She must have had a very bad day. Perhaps he should have been kinder after work instead of impatiently showering and dashing off out again. It really hadn’t been worth it.

  ‘I’ve decided to go back to the counsellor,’ said Tina.

  ‘Really? Oh, darling, that’s wonderful,’ said Keaton, straight away deciding not to make too much of a fuss; not to treat this as the biggest thing ever. He needed to play it cool. But he wanted to grab her, pick her up and twirl her around the room.

  ‘I rang Kath while you were out,’ Tina went on, eager, like a little child, ‘and I told her a bit about… only a bit… about things… and she knows… I told her I actually do want a child and she thinks… she says you’re right and I should try counselling again. She said she does counselling herself. I think that’s what she said. Something like that. Anyway, I’m going back. I will.’ She paused for breath and added, ‘I didn’t tell her everything. You understand.’

  ‘Of course, sweetness, I do understand.’ Tina wanted a child? Had she just said that? Did she mean it? He shook himself clear of his thoughts. ‘I think you’re right and this time it will help you, I’m sure. The counselling. I think you’re ready now.’

  ‘I am. I feel that too. I’ve had enough.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I need to get it off my chest once and for all.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Keaton, but feeling vaguely uneasy. There was nothing to get off her chest, was there? There were just feelings to conquer, thoughts to set free and watch float away downstream. This is what he wanted for Tina.

  ‘I need to confess, if you like,’ said Tina and he noticed then the look in her eyes, the twist of her hands in her lap, the excitement – unnatural – in her voice. ‘It’s time.’

  ‘Tina,’ he began. Tread carefully, he told himself. This could go either way. This could go horribly wrong. ‘Tina, darling, it’s not a case of confessing, is it? It’s talking and being listened to and getting help with coming to terms with what happened.’

  ‘Oh, Keaton. Do you think anything is ever that simple?’

  She was silent then, and leaned her head on his shoulder, and soon she was asleep, so he manoeuvred himself from the sofa, laid her head down gently on the cushions, kissed her, cleared away her untouched hot chocolate, and went off to dig out a couple of blankets from the box in their bedroom. He left her to sleep on the sofa after tucking her up and kissing her forehead. He went to bed, and had no idea how he felt. He had no idea how his wife felt, which was even worse. Was she crazy? This was something he’d asked himself over the years, more frequently in recent months. She suffered from delusions, certainly, that much was obvious. She carried around with her, at all times, a huge burden of guilt, and it was high time she gently placed that down forever, and walked away from it. If only she would talk about it, open up and tell him the whole story. Did she mean it, the baby thing? Would they…? Could they…? As he slipped into sleep he thought that Tina was a bad, miserable drunk and he would have to hide the rest of their Christmas bottles away before she got hold of them, and anyway with a baby on the way she shouldn’t be drinking; these dreamy ideas entwined with thoughts of how nice Sharanne had looked… how glamorous in her black dress, and her cracker joke so awful, and how everybody had laughed, everybody, and Tina the loudest.

  Fourteen

  April 1964

  Lucia knew her parents wanted her to get out from under their feet and get a job. It wasn’t even as if she was helping at home much, if at all. Mum knew something was amiss; she’d clearly guessed something had gone wrong back in January, but Lucia wasn’t telling, batting away her mother’s tentative enquiries. Mum was quietly unconvinced that Lucia had grown “bored” of her old job, and Mum was right. Lucia hadn’t been bored at all. The job had been fun. All those records, all those exciting, young customers: Clive Stubbins among them. And Sheila, her workmate and, she’d thought, her friend. Now, Lucia had no friends, and no money, apart from the amount she had been saving for new shoes, and that had almost all gone, with no new shoes to show for it. And she wasn’t handi
ng over keep any more, because she had none to hand over. So Mum and Dad were supporting her while she swanned around, or moped around, depending on her mood during any given hour.

  ‘That girl needs a job,’ Dad said, with his knack of talking about his children in front of them as though they weren’t in the room. ‘No child of mine is going to be a layabout.’

  But she was a layabout, and despite the hints and uneasiness, her father’s mild threats, nothing was done about it. She was their girl, after all. She’d get a job in good time. Lucia had suffered with a bad cold for much of the winter. Mum knew it was better not to make too many requests, but she had tried. ‘Could you give me a hand with this laundry, please, love?’ or, ‘Are you bored? I’ve got a remedy for that,’ and she would indicate the large ironing basket brimming over, largely with Lucia’s clothes. Lucia preferred to ignore hints, and rarely did she respond reasonably to requests. She chose to ignore her mother’s increasing fatigue and her worn, yellow-pale face, her breathlessness while sitting perfectly still. Mum was in her fifties and, as she frequently complained, she wasn’t getting any younger and she was tired, tired, tired, so tired that some days it was all she could do to drag herself down the steep and narrow staircase. She was thin and grey and told Lucia that she had given up looking in the mirror, hating what she saw there.

  Mum loved to sew, and over the years she had taught Lucia to embroider and patchwork and make simple toys for William. Lucia had never been that keen, but she had sometimes enjoyed sitting with her mother: the two females of the household keeping each other company, having quiet little talks during which nothing was said. There was plenty of mending to be done. William had turned out even rougher on his clothes than Robert and Ambrose had been at the same age. He was a nice lad though, Lucia admitted to herself, quiet but happily quiet, a good healthy eater who loved the outdoor life. She had worse brothers.

  She gave in and sewed with her mother that morning. She knew she ought to, for once. And she was bored, if the truth be told, and lonely, and she was in the mood for talking today. Her mother was the only female left in her life, because Helen Shapiro didn’t count. Besides, she was going off her music. She was going off all music. The Beatles were changing everything, nobody seemed to want to listen to anything else these days. And even her dad, who professed to hate “hooligan” music, joyfully whistled ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ when he thought nobody was listening.

  Lucia patched a worn-through knee on William’s school trousers. She was a good seamstress, she knew, despite her natural aversion to it. She made neat little stitches, just as Mum had taught her.

  ‘I do miss Robert so,’ said Mum, frowning at her work and holding it up to the window. They were sitting at the dining table, a gentle coal fire glowing in the grate and the family cat Horace licking his paws, sprawled on the clippy mat in front of the fire. Dad and Ambrose were at work (although nobody was entirely clear where Ambrose’s “work” was these days). William was at big school now, the secondary modern, where he was doing all right, although both his parents had been disappointed that he hadn’t quite done well enough in his eleven-plus to get into the grammar school.

  ‘I wish he would write more often,’ said Mum, and Lucia saw a tear fall onto her mother’s neat work.

  ‘It’s selfish of him not to,’ said Lucia. She hadn’t written at all to Robert, who had made a big fuss of them at Christmas, sending a long letter and cards and gifts for them all. They had heard nothing from him since, but Mum had sent two letters, short and sweet, with news of the family.

  ‘New Zealand is so very far away. Will he ever come home, do you think?’ said Mum.

  ‘I don’t know and I honestly don’t care,’ said Lucia, finishing off her work, snapping off the thread precisely with her mother’s tiny, sharp, pearl-handled scissors. Mum dabbed at her eyes with the sleeve of her cardigan, knitted by herself last winter. Mum was a good knitter, although she described it as a chore. She had long made pullovers for her boys: plain grey ones suitable for school, more fancy designs too if she had a mind to; if she found an interesting pattern at the haberdashery shop in town. Cardigans for herself and Lucia, in baby pinks, powder blues, mint greens, lemons. Lucia had grown to feel half-irritated, half-comforted by the constant click of her mother’s knitting needles. She had told her mother, before Christmas: ‘Please, no more homemade cardigans. Not for me. They’re not fashionable. They’re ugly.’

  ‘You’re a strange girl,’ said Mum.

  Lucia swallowed these words, chewed them up, and spat them out. ‘I don’t have to care about Robert,’ she said, taking up a second pair of William’s trousers. ‘He doesn’t care about us.’

  ‘Nonsense. But I do hope he doesn’t miss Edward’s wedding.’

  ‘That’s up to him,’ said Lucia. Christ, the wedding. Next week she was supposed to be meeting Simone in town to get measured and choose the material for the bridesmaid dress. It was all arranged. It was April and the wedding wasn’t until August, but Simone was a planner. She was a fusser. Lucia was not looking forward to the shopping trip. She had put on a little weight recently. She was embarrassed. It was Mum’s fault, trying to feed her up all the time. Mum’s fault, yes. Always.

  ‘I dare say it is, but it would be lovely if he could make it.’ So much in Mum’s world was “lovely”, or could be.

  ‘I don’t suppose Simone will care either way,’ said Lucia. ‘She’s only got eyes for Edward, the rest of us don’t matter. She’s so… frivolous. Because she’s French I suppose.’

  ‘Half-French,’ corrected Mum, in that quiet faraway voice all mothers have during conversations with their children when they are really thinking about something else. ‘You must try to like her, Lucia. I wonder when I’ll have my first grandchild?’ she asked, sharp and bright, warming to her theme. ‘That would be nice, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Babies are so lovely.’

  ‘I hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘And you, Lucia? How do you feel about being a mother one day?’

  ‘I’m not ever going to be a mother.’ She thought of Sheila, who must be getting disgustingly fat, and she dwelled, just for a moment, on how hideous she would have looked on her wedding day, which, she’d heard on the grapevine (Ambrose had heard talk in the pub), had taken place a month ago. Clive’s former fiancée’s father had, she’d also heard, reimbursed Clive for the cost of the engagement ring. Then the ring had made its way back to him, because his fiancée didn’t want it. Clive had pawned it. Or had Lucia made that bit up for her own satisfaction? She wasn’t sure. No matter, those two were married now, and a baby was very much on the way, and they were happy, Lucia thought with spiteful glee. Well, they could keep their happiness.

  ‘Oh, you’ll change your mind one day,’ said Mum, patting her daughter’s arm.

  ‘I doubt it. Shall we have more tea?’ said Lucia, and Mum murmured, ‘Yes, let’s.’ Lucia rose from the table. She swayed, couldn’t stop herself, as blood surged into, out of, all around her head. She slumped down, clattering into the teacups as she fell forward.

  ‘Lucia?’ Mum’s voice was distant, echoing. ‘Lucia?’

  Sunday 11th April 1976

  Dear Elizabeth

  Thank you for your letter. You have used more pretty stationry. I am sorry about my plain paper but its all we have at home at the moment. I prefer lines on paper else my writing goes wobbley. I’ll do my best to keep it straight. Something has happened at home. I have another Uncle, his name is Uncle Ambrose. He came yesterday. He had a cup of tea with granny and Lucia. He ate a lot of biscits. He was a bit sad and asked if he could stay for a while and Aunty Lucia said he could’nt stay long. She made up a bed for him in her old bedroom. He did’nt know our grampy was dead and he was very quiet when he found out in fact he wiped his eyes and granny rubbed his back and said it was all right. He said why did�
��nt anybody let him know and Aunty Lucia said how on earth could they nobody knew where he was for the last eleven years. He said some things I did’nt understand then he started talking about how S.H.I.T. it was IN JAIL and why did’nt anybody visit? Aunty Lucia told him to mind his languidge and she said it was a long time ago and he should stop wining about it he was’nt in jail for long was he and why should anybody bother when he was a common thief and a nare do well who brought shame on his family. So now we know. Our new Uncle was a criminel but we like him. Me and Meg sat in our den in the laurel bushes and we dicided we would ask Uncle Ambrose to come into our den for a visit. We do’nt let many grown ups into our den so far only Uncle Edward who sat with us once even though it was a bit small for him.