by Anne Bennett
‘Oh Arthur …’ Embarrassed, Hannah began to protest. However, she got no further for Arthur kissed her, but not the tender, tentative kiss she’d been expecting and would have welcomed. Arthur’s kiss was like a stamp of ownership and Hannah felt her lips pushed against her teeth. And then Arthur parted her lips and pushed his tongue into her mouth till she felt she would choke and she began to thrash her head backwards and forwards.
This seemed to excite Arthur further. Panting heavily, he released Hannah and then he sat astride her, kneading her breasts savagely with his fingers, squeezing her nipples until she cried out in pain.
Arthur smiled, taking Hannah’s cries to be born of desire, and slipped one hand between her legs while the other trailed over her body.
Hannah opened her eyes that she’d kept closed in pain and saw Arthur’s face contorted with desire and she felt excitement building inside her. And yet, she felt no hardening of Arthur’s penis against her and looking down, she saw it between her legs, as soft and flaccid as when he’d begun.
Arthur caught Hannah’s eyes on him and his face flushed crimson with shame. He threw back the covers from them both and sat on the bed, his head in his hands, and began to sob.
Hannah dampened down her own frustration, for she felt sorry for Arthur and she knelt up in bed and gently put her arms around him. He raised his eyes, hardly able to believe what Hannah was doing. He felt inadequate and very ashamed. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Ssh, it doesn’t matter.’
‘You … You don’t mind. You don’t despise me?’
‘No. No, of course I don’t despise you. The very idea!’ Hannah said.
‘But … But it’s our wedding day … Our wedding night.’
‘And such a lot of nonsense spoken about it,’ Hannah said fiercely. ‘It would put a lot of stress and strain on anyone. It’s a wonder any couple does it the first night. Maybe they don’t indeed. No one would ever know. Don’t worry, Arthur. Haven’t we the rest of our lives to get it right?’
Arthur felt relief flood over him. He’d been aware of this problem all his adult life, though it had never bothered him, but he’d thought and hoped that with Hannah, whom he admired and respected, it might resolve itself.
And yet Hannah proved to be so understanding, so sympathetic, so special, that Arthur began to feel better about himself. He allowed her to coax him back to bed where she snuggled down under the covers, and curled her body around his. She lay awake long after Arthur slept and vowed to herself that she’d never make Arthur feel bad about that night.
The next morning, Arthur seemed fully recovered and was his usual attentive self and Hannah knew that that was how he was going to deal with it – pretend it had never happened.
She took her lead from him. That day, they strode out after breakfast up to the front. Hannah had never seen the sea, except for the grey expanse of water she’d crossed on her way to Ireland.
She’d never heard the roar of it, or seen a long beach of dull, beige-coloured sand and large grey and black boulders. She’d never seen the rising swells of it and the white-fringed rollers that came crashing down on to the rocks in a sea of swirling foam. Despite the biting wind, Hannah was fascinated and stood watching it until Arthur drew her away and put his arms around her shivering body. ‘Come on, you’ll get your death of cold,’ he said.
‘Oh, but, Arthur, it’s so beautiful. Majestic, somehow.’
‘And free,’ Arthur added.
Hannah wished he hadn’t said that. It spoilt the moment. After a while though, Hannah was chilled through and she looked longingly at the numerous cafés around them. ‘I’d love a cup of tea or coffee, Arthur,’ she said. ‘It would thaw me out.’
‘Nonsense, my dear, it’s not cold, just bracing,’ Arthur said. ‘And really it’s pointless wasting our money in such places. You’ll spoil your appetite for dinner at the lodgings and after all, that is paid for. We’ll just walk a little further and then turn back and be in good time for it. Hold my arm and you’ll feel warmer.’
Hannah felt no warmer, but held on to Arthur’s arm anyway, unable to think of anything further to say. Anyhow, she was interested in seeing Blackpool Tower, which Arthur told her was modelled on the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, and she gazed at it in awe. There was an entrance fee to climb it with delights promised on every floor, but Arthur declared it to be a total waste of money. ‘What would you want to climb up there for, my dear?’ he asked Hannah incredulously, when she expressed a desire to go. ‘You’re complaining of the cold now. Don’t you think you’ll be blown to pieces and colder than ever on the top of that?’
‘Yes, but I’d still like to go. It’s just the experience, isn’t it?’
‘A costly experience.’
‘It’s not so much.’
‘Maybe not to you,’ Arthur said, turning away as he spoke. ‘Come along, we’ll be late for dinner if we’re not careful.’
Hannah followed glumly behind him, feeling sure the dinner they’d ordered at the hotel would be little improvement on the one they had served to them the previous night. Or indeed the breakfast that morning – lumps of tepid scrambled egg served on old, soggy toast with barely a scrape of butter on it.
Most of the other residents were much older than Hannah and Arthur and not inclined to make conversation and Hannah felt the dining room to be a dismal unfriendly place. The food was no help in dispelling this feeling and yet Arthur didn’t seem to find it a problem. It’s probably cheap, that’s why, Hannah thought later that day, as she chewed her way through sausages burned on the outside and still pink inside and tasting like sawdust. Cheapness seemed to be the only thing Arthur cared about.
It was the next day after another, fraught night when Hannah had to say similar consoling words to Arthur that Hannah finally lost her temper. It happened because Arthur declared the Winter Gardens too expensive a place to go inside.
‘All I’ve heard you say since we arrived is that this, that and the other is too dear or a waste of money,’ she cried. ‘This is our honeymoon! It’s supposed to be enjoyable. Much as I like the sea, I don’t want to remember that on my honeymoon all I did was wander up and down looking at it.’
Arthur looked affronted. ‘Hannah, if I may say so, you do not understand the cost of things,’ he said stiffly.
‘Yes I do!’ Hannah retorted. ‘I’m not a child. But if money is a problem, I’d rather not have had a honeymoon here at all. It would have been easier not showing me a host of delights I cannot enjoy or take part in.’
‘Please, Hannah, keep your voice down,’ Arthur hissed, looking around at the people in the street anxiously. ‘People are looking.’
‘Well, let them look,’ Hannah snapped. Her eyes were flashing fire and her face bright with temper as she went on. ‘I’m not putting up with this penny-pinching attitude any longer.’
What she was about to do to change it she hardly knew, but before she was able to make another retort, Arthur glared at her, horrified, and then turned from her and began walking away. Hannah realised she had two choices; either to turn after him berating him like a fishwife, or leave him to sulk and go about on her own.
She still felt too angry with Arthur to run after him and despite her spirited retort, she had a horror of showing herself up in public and so she stood for a moment, watching Arthur’s stiff back get further away from her before turning her head and walking the other way.
All in all she had a good afternoon. She had a little money of her own and she intended to use it. She’d never seen slot machines and one-armed bandits that Blackpool had in abundance and normally would have been more careful with her money, but that day she threw caution to the wind and, though she lost every penny she spent, she decided it was good fun. She then tried unsuccessfully to get the arm of a crane that was encased in a glass box to lift a watch up for her, and she put money in the laughing policeman, which put a smile not only on her face, but anyone’s in earshot.
She had little left
after that, but enough to pay to climb the Tower. She stood on the top, buffeted by the wind as Arthur had prophesised, and unable to see much because of the leaden grey sky. But, she was still glad she did it. What was the point of coming to Blackpool and not climbing its most famous landmark?
Once more on the ground, she wished she didn’t have to return to the dismal lodging house for the awful stuff they put in front of you under the guise of food. She looked longingly at the succulent fish and chips she saw people tucking into in the cafés and the smell of it made her stomach rumble. But she was nearly out of money and only had enough for one small cup of coffee before making her way back.
Arthur greeted her coldly, which was only what she expected, and they ate the badly cooked lump of doughy, grisly, indeterminate meat covered in brown, tasteless gravy, that the lodging house described as steak and kidney pudding, in silence.
It was as they started on the roly-poly pudding, which was made with the same dough as the dinner, but this time smeared with jam and covered with over-sweet yellow custard, that Hannah leaned towards Arthur. ‘Come on,’ she coaxed. ‘We can’t go on like this. I did have a point this morning, say what you like, but I did. You don’t like spending money on anything.’
‘Someone has to look after the pennies.’
‘I’m not expecting you to take me to expensive places or spend every penny,’ Hannah protested. ‘But just to relax now and then and not go all stiff and starchy if I suggest we have a few goes on the fair, or stop for a drink of coffee.’
Begrudgingly, though never acknowledging that Hannah was right, Arthur did go to the fair later that day. It was not a success. It seemed to give Arthur actual pain to spend money and he showed such little emotion on any ride he went on that he dampened Hannah’s enthusiasm. The thrill of fear that rippled down Hannah’s back as the Big Wheel thrust them into the air made her want to scream, but the look on Arthur’s face stifled it in her throat, as it did her shout of exhilaration on the Carousel or the Big Dipper. As for the Ghost Train, Arthur was no earthly use to her. The long moans and sudden appearance of a skeleton looming up in the blackness and the spidery things that brushed her face and trailed in her hair caused her to start suddenly and give little yelps of terror. But no comforting arm came around her.
Even the candyfloss was a disappointment; though she pulled large lumps off, as soon as she put it in her mouth it seemed to disappear and she got incredibly sticky. But she didn’t complain to Arthur and didn’t bother asking for a toffee apple, or an ice cream.
That night Arthur made no attempt to touch Hannah and she was relieved to be able to sleep unmolested, though she tried hard not to show it.
The following morning, Hannah lay and listened to the rain hammering on the windows and she got out of bed and padded across the floor to see heavy, relentless rain, the sort that sets in for the day, falling like steel stair rods from a blackened sky. They were to go home that day and really she was glad. Maybe Arthur would relax in his own house more and she was sure if he could relax, let himself go, the problem he had with arousal would be solved. It wasn’t that she longed for the sexual act itself, knowing with Arthur it would probably be a disappointment, but she knew it was important to him, like it would be for any man. It was also necessary if Hannah was to ever have the child she longed for. She gave a sigh, turned from the window and began to dress.
The breakfast bacon was nearly raw, and the eggs scrambled and just as tasteless as those the previous day, but it hardly mattered anymore. They were going home. Hannah would be mistress of her own house and then any meals would be cooked by her. She’d been a fairly indifferent cook when she’d first come to Gloria’s, but she’d learnt quickly and now good food properly cooked and presented was important to her.
She was looking forward to seeing both Gloria and Josie again, surprised how much she’d missed them. She turned to say something about it to Arthur on the train going home, but he forestalled her. ‘This business of the child, my dear.’
‘Josie?’
‘Yes, Josie. She gets on very well with Mrs Emmerson, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Well, yes. Sure the devil himself would get on with Gloria.’
‘Quite,’ Arthur said. ‘So then, if Josie were to stay with Mrs Emmerson …’
‘Arthur, we’ve been through this,’ Hannah said with a sigh. ‘My sister entrusted Josie to me. It was almost the last lucid thing she said. I promised to look after her and she died peacefully because of it. I cannot and will not go back on that promise.’
‘These deathbed promises are all very well, but to tie yourself to a child …’
‘I’m sorry, Arthur, but that’s how it is. We had this out months ago. You said you would make her welcome.’
‘Have you considered the cost of rearing her?’ Arthur snapped. ‘At least we should have a contribution from her family for that.’
‘Who from, Arthur?’ Hannah said. ‘One brother is a priest and one sister a nun, another in Connemara hasn’t two half pennies to bless herself with. Ellen’s just recently married, while Sam just makes enough to keep himself and his grandparents, and two more are making their way in America.’
‘What of the house? There should be money there?’
‘Yes, there will be,’ Hannah agreed. ‘But split between all of them it would not amount to that much. It goes to auction next week, for there wasn’t enough interest in it, so Sam said. The money for the beasts is already banked and any farm equipment that Sam had no use for.’
‘Well, however much it is, or isn’t, when it’s all settled that money should come to us,’ Arthur said. ‘In fact, you should have a share in it. You grew up with them.’
‘But I’m not part of the family,’ Hannah said. ‘I don’t want their money and I won’t let you spend Josie’s share.’
Arthur’s mouth dropped open in amazement. ‘That money is ours by right.’
‘I’m not talking right or wrong in this,’ Hannah said. ‘One day the child may need money of her own.’
Arthur was furious. ‘I can’t be expected to bear the total cost of that child’s care until she is adult without the least financial contribution.’
Hannah knew with Arthur’s true aversion to spending money, Josie would never be truly welcome there if it was affecting his pocket and in a way, he had a point. Martin had said he would send something for her when he was settled and she’d never known him let anyone down before. But nothing had come yet, and she didn’t want Arthur to hold any antagonism towards the child. She’d feel it, even if nothing was said, and that was the very thing she wanted to avoid.
‘Then let me go back to Gloria’s to work,’ Hannah said. ‘You know she wants me to. I’d get your breakfast first and leave the evening meal ready.’
‘I didn’t want you to work,’ Arthur said mulishly. ‘Not now we’re married.’
‘I know you didn’t,’ Hannah said placatingly. ‘But think about it, Arthur. What would I do at home all day anyway?’
‘What if you should have a child of our own?’
Hannah bit back the retort that something would have to be resolved in the sexual area before that could be achieved. Instead, she said, ‘Then I should imagine I’d have plenty to do. But just for now, Arthur?’ She felt his resolve weakening and so she played her trump card. ‘And then Josie living with us wouldn’t cost you anything, I’d be able to see to her myself.’
Arthur considered the proposal. He had no desire for Hannah to work. Really he had no desire for her to go anywhere and have men look at her now she was married. She was his wife and as such his needs should be paramount in her life. But he knew children were expensive, he’d heard colleagues talking about it at work, the amount they ate and the clothes and shoes they needed.
Maybe, he thought, this would be a solution to the problem for the moment. When the farm was sold, he’d have that money, whatever Hannah thought. He was the head of the house and as such he’d insist Josie’s inheritance be passe
d over to him. No need though to upset Hannah by telling her that, not yet anyway. He nodded sagely. ‘Let’s try it for three months or so,’ he said. ‘See how it goes.’
‘Okay, Arthur,’ Hannah said, trying to hide her pleasure. She hadn’t thought that marrying Arthur would mean a total cessation of work from the beginning, though she’d known that her hours would have to definitely change in some way. But at first, Arthur had been adamant that he wanted her at home full-time.
After three months, things might be different, but then again they might not. ‘Gloria will be so pleased,’ Hannah said. She gave a sudden shiver of excitement. ‘I can’t wait to see her again,’ she went on. ‘Josie, too, of course.’
Arthur gave a grunt, but said nothing further, never a man for small chat. Now that the matter had been resolved satisfactorily, he retreated behind the paper he’d bought at the station.
Hannah didn’t mind. She lay back in the seat and watched the miles being eaten away. She wished she had a little gift for the two of them, but she hadn’t even a stick of rock for Josie. Guiltily, she remembered her reckless spending on the slot machines that had swallowed up so much money.
Still what was gone was gone. No use crying over spilt milk was one of Gloria’s sayings and an apt one, Hannah always felt. And that, thought Hannah, is true about my less than satisfactory marriage too.
Despite supposed to be helping Gloria, Josie had run to peep out of the visitors’ lounge window at the front of the house half a dozen times before she saw the taxi turn into the road. ‘They’re here,’ she screamed.
‘All right, all right, I’m not deaf,’ Gloria said, emerging from the kitchen as she spoke, drying her large red hands on a towel. But though her words were sharp, her eyes twinkled, and Josie knew she was pleased Hannah was home too.
Josie barely heard her anyway. She already had the door wrenched open and was halfway down the path.