Walking Back to Happiness

by Anne Bennett

More than once, she was tempted to go down and tell Ernest to go alone, she was putting her own son to bed. But she never did. Ernest had a short fuse and a very nasty temper she was careful not to inflame.

  So, she’d kiss the child lightly, careful not to pick him up and hug him, though she longed to, because he’d probably crush her clothes. She’d leave the room, dabbing at her eyes once she was outside the door with her hanky, lest Ernest see the tears and be vexed.

  But at least she’d protect her son as long as she could from this secret she’d carried for months. ‘I could offer you an operation,’ the surgeon had said just a couple of weeks before Matthew came home for the summer. ‘The tumour in your kidneys is too large and touching too many organs to remove, but an operation might shrink it, give you more time.’

  ‘How much time?’

  ‘Eighteen months, possibly two years. Certainly no longer.’

  Marian thought only of her son, soon to be an orphan. The only relation left was Ernest’s brother, Maurice, in Leeds. Ernest had always considered him feckless. ‘Spoilt you see,’ he’d said. ‘Mother’s pet. The child she never thought she’d have. While I was in the trenches in France, my baby brother was being petted and pampered in the nursery.’

  But now, with Ernest dead and her soon to follow, Maurice, his wife, Phyllis, and son, Ralph, were all Matthew had in the way of family. When Marian knew she was dying, she wrote and begged her brother-in-law to look out for her son. She’d not seen him since Ernest’s funeral and even then they’d only attended the service and returned the same day and there was no time to talk. Now though, she must ask for his help.

  It came by return of post, a letter so warm and welcoming that she shed tears of relief and gratitude. Matthew must regard their home as his own, Maurice said, and there was another letter from Phyllis full of compassion and sympathy and Marian regretted the years she’d not tried harder to maintain a relationship with them.

  But, she stressed, Matthew must not know, not yet. She would have had the operation to postpone her death a little longer and be home and recovered as far as she would ever recover before he came home again in the autumn to begin his second year at university.

  Matthew knew none of this. He thought the request to come to the city he’d been born in, to an uncle and aunt he could scarcely remember and to a cousin he remembered too well and with dread, was a ridiculous one.

  He needn’t have worried about his cousin though. He had much more pleasant diversions to distract him than that of beating up a young boy and his aunt and uncle’s welcome was sincere enough. He just wasn’t used to such laxity, such a free and easy way of going about things.

  Then he met Angela Bradley. Even her name, Angela, suited her, for that’s what he thought of her as, an angel. And yet he doubted many angels had such vibrant beauty as she had and certainly not the gorgeous auburn hair that hung down her back in waves that were tinged with gold. Despite her excesses of the past weeks, Angela’s skin was flawless and her eyes sparkled. She was perfect, absolutely perfect. They sat side by side, drinking wine and Angela smoking endless cigarettes, while they found out about one another.

  ‘So you don’t live here?’ Angela asked and her heart soared when Matthew said, ‘No, I live with my mother in a house in Somerville Road, Sutton Coldfield.’

  ‘I live in Erdington,’ Angela said, but she didn’t mention the name of the road, suddenly embarrassed because the houses in Somerville Road were enormous. ‘I bet you live in a mansion,’ she said.

  Matthew flushed uncomfortably. ‘It is quite big,’ he said, ‘three storeys. There used to be an army of servants to look after a house like that, now there’s just a daily and a cook. Oh, and a gardener because the garden is huge and goes down to the lake at the edge of Sutton Park.’

  ‘Oh!’ Angela said, for she knew all about Sutton Park because she had been there many times with her father. Roads ran through that massive green lung of the Royal Borough of Sutton Coldfield and it was threaded with streams that fed the five large lakes. ‘To live so close to that must be marvellous,’ Angela said.

  ‘It is, I suppose,’ Matthew said. ‘We tend to take it all for granted. We’ve even got a landing stage for a yacht.’

  ‘And have you a yacht?’ Angela exclaimed in surprise.

  ‘No, more’s the pity,’ Matthew said. ‘I used to watch some Sunday afternoons and see the yachts bobbing about and the dads teaching their sons how to sail, or I’d see the fishermen on the other side. Lots of dads had their sons with them. I often wished it could be like that with mine.’

  ‘And it wasn’t?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t,’ Matthew said rather wistfully. ‘I always wanted to gain his approval. I mean, I know, or I supposed I knew, he loved me in his way, but he never said it or showed it much. He’d haul me over the coals quickly enough if I did anything bad, but he never said anything good.’ He shrugged. ‘Too late to ask him why he was the way he was now he’s dead. What’s your father like?’

  ‘My father,’ Angela said, ‘would give me anything I desired. All my life he’s been there. Lately,’ she said almost guiltily, ‘I’ve given him a tough time, but he’s so possessive, he wants to own me. He doesn’t realise I’m growing up. I had to get away, so I came to stay with Hillary. We were at school together.’ Angela thought that this was not the time to tell Matthew she’d been virtually expelled. She had the feeling he wouldn’t approve, and she was so attracted to the man, she wanted to look good in his eyes.

  ‘I’ve read fathers are often like that with their daughters,’ Matthew said. He could understand any father being besotted with the beautiful creature Angela, for he was fast becoming that way himself. He was glad, too, that Angela was here on a visit like himself. He guessed her father would be as shocked as his mother about the goings-on. He noticed that Angela never mentioned her mother. He assumed that she was dead and decided not to quiz Angela about it, in case it should upset her.

  Matthew had the desire to take Angela away from all this. Away from this depravity and lax behaviour. She was very young, she couldn’t be tainted by it yet. It was true she smoked, but then many girls did that. If he’d been asked, he would have said Angela had a pure, unsullied look about her, he wouldn’t believe she’d drink excessively, would ever have taken drugs, or sleep around.

  For Angela, it was the soberest party she’d gone to since she’d arrived. She drank only sparingly, refused the joint circulating and warned the others not to offer her any pills. Together with Matthew, she watched her friends getting spaced out or blind drunk. When they all began stripping off, Matthew pulled Angela to her feet. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  Angela giggled. He was treating her like a vestal virgin. Dear God, if only he knew. Normally, she’d have been joining in like all the rest, for she was finding sex very nice indeed and was equally as rampant as her friend, Hillary.

  But Matthew must never know that. For there was just one man she wanted now. She fancied Matthew like mad and if he wanted to think she was as pure as the driven snow and sober as a judge, then that was the part she would act. It wouldn’t be hard once they got back home. No one knew about her there. She decided to talk to him about going back to Birmingham. Surely he wasn’t expected to stay away until September?

  But for once, Arthur didn’t want Angela home. God, he’d had a terrible fright that night in Pershore Road. Bloody good job that doctor untied him and he was able to get away. Fancy the old fellow kicking the bucket like that, right there. Still, he thought, I bet he died with a smile on his face.

  They wouldn’t have made such a stink of it, of course, if he hadn’t been an MP. Splashed all over the Evening Mail it was. For days, weeks, he’d feared a knock on the door, policemen feeling his collar. ‘Answer a few questions at the station, sir.’ He’d barely slept, barely eaten, certain that the doctor would say something, that he’d been identified.

  Not of course that he’d used his real name and address there. No one did. Mug’s g
ame that. But he’d been going for years, he was a regular. His car would have been spotted. If anyone had had the nous to take his number plate and given it to the police, he was done for.

  He didn’t want his daughter to come back to this just in case. He was a nervous wreck. He must write, put her off, but gently. Wouldn’t do to arouse her suspicions.

  ‘My father doesn’t want me home just yet,’ Angela said to Matthew. ‘I can’t understand it. I’ve been here months and every week he’s written and said how much he misses me and for the last month, he’s been asking when I’ll be home and now …’ She was confused. She thought her father would be pleased, delighted to have her back home. ‘He said he’s really busy at the moment,’ she went on. ‘Said to leave it a week or two. He could spend more time with me then.’

  Well, she thought, she was damned if she would. By then, Matthew would have a good idea of the kind of girl she was and then the chance with him might be gone. Anyway, what right had he to say she couldn’t come home? It was her home too. Well she’d go back, and damn him. What could he do? She didn’t care if he worked twenty-four hours a day, she’d have Matthew at hand and that was how she wanted it. Matthew had also written to his mother saying despite the welcome from his aunt and uncle, their ways were strange to him and he and Ralph were poles apart. He said he thought he’d done enough bridge-building for now and wanted to come home.

  Marian was out of hospital, the operation to hopefully prolong her life over, but she was far from well. She wrote to Maurice and in his reply, he said he was willing to keep the lad indefinitely, but he was restless, anxious to be home. And so resigned to it and longing anyway for the sight, sound and feel of her son, she said he could come back and welcome.

  Angela and Matthew returned together and sat holding hands during the long journey, talking non-stop. Matthew was expected, but Angela wasn’t and so, unsure of her father’s reaction, she said, as the train pulled into New Street Station, ‘We’d better separate and go to our homes by ourselves.’

  Matthew agreed. Neither Angela nor Matthew had told their respective parents about each other, feeling that it would be better to tell them face to face.

  And so, a little later, Arthur faced his daughter across the room, astounded that she’d gone against his advice. ‘Aren’t you pleased to see me, Daddy?’ Angela asked. Till now she’d always been sure her father would be obviously delighted to see her. If it had not been convenient or not a good idea, he’d never let her feel it. She was the most important person in the world to him and she was well aware of it. But now, for the first time, she was unsure.

  ‘Of course I’m pleased, my dear,’ Arthur said. ‘Delighted, in fact. It’s just as I told you, I’m busy and …’

  ‘Oh Daddy. I don’t care about that,’ Angela said. ‘Don’t think you have to entertain me. As a matter of fact I’ve met someone, someone special. He lives here, I mean in Birmingham, and he was visiting cousins in Leeds when I met him.’

  ‘Oh,’ Arthur said guardedly. Angela had never brought a boy home. In fact, she’d never brought anyone home. She had openly said she was ashamed of the place.

  Thinking of her behaviour over the past months, he hadn’t high hopes for the type of boy Angela would attract, yet he had to feign interest.

  ‘His name is Matthew, Matthew Olaffson.’

  ‘Foreign? Norwegian?’ Arthur said, unaware that he’d lifted his nose in the air and given a slight disdainful sniff.

  Angela, though, had noticed nothing amiss. ‘His great-grandfather was,’ she said. ‘Or maybe the great one before that. They lived in Leeds originally and his grandfather owned an engineering works. After the war, Matthew’s father came to Birmingham to open another factory.’

  ‘You mean Matthew’s grandfather owns an engineering works?’

  ‘He did. He’s dead and so is Matthew’s father. His mother runs the Birmingham side, because Matthew is at Birmingham University, studying for an engineering degree.’

  Now that, Arthur thought, was more like it. Not that he had a lot of time for students either, long-haired layabouts most of them. But at least the lad was studying and engineering what’s more, not some airy fairy nonsense. And he seemed to have a ready-made factory to step into when he was qualified.

  ‘The point is, Daddy, he wants to meet you,’ Angela said. ‘We’ve been going out for the few months I’ve been away.’ This was a lie but she considered it a necessary one. She wanted her father to think she knew Matthew Olaffson inside out, for then she went on to say, ‘We want to make it more permanent. We could get married next September when he’s twenty-one. He gets his inheritance then, all the money his father left him.’

  Matthew had never actually mentioned engagement or marriage, but that was a minor point as far as Angela was concerned. She usually had little trouble getting boys to do as she wanted. She would have said the same about her father too, but since she’d grown up and developed a life and ideas of her own, he’d got incredibly stuffy.

  Arthur was dumbfounded. His little girl! His baby. But then he faced the realisation that she hadn’t been his little girl for a few years now and the older Angela was difficult to even like at times, her defiance wearying and upsetting and her behaviour frankly disgusted him.

  But he’d never visualised her with another man, not permanently, not to leave him, not for another man to be more important in her life than he was. And yet he’d sensed a difference in Angela since she’d returned, as if she’d taken a jump nearer maturity. She’d not sworn at him, or shouted at him since she’d entered the house, nor had she smoked a cigarette.

  He wondered if it was the influence of the boy Angela mentioned or just a question of her growing up that had changed her. He didn’t know, but it was such a relief to have her talking to him rather than snarling at him that he knew he had to be amenable and agree to see the boy. He’d even countenance engagement if she wanted it so badly, but marriage before she was eighteen, that he wouldn’t agree to, but there was no need to tell her that yet.

  He cleared his throat. ‘Well, Angela,’ he said. ‘If the boy means so much to you, I’d better meet him, I suppose.’

  ‘Oh Daddy,’ Angela cried and with a smile of pure delight, she ran across the room to kiss Arthur on his cheek. Arthur held her close for the first time in months and hoped fervently for Angela’s sake and his own that he liked this boy.

  Matthew was at that moment saying to his mother, ‘I think we should get the doctor to look at you.’

  He’d been shocked by the sight of his mother who’d looked robust enough when he’d left home. Now, less than three weeks later, he noticed how thin she was. Not of course that she could lose so much weight in three weeks, but she’d not had that putty-coloured skin when he’d left and her eyes weren’t sunken into her head like that. She was listless, had no energy.

  ‘Don’t fuss,’ said Marian. ‘I’ve had this summer ‘flu. I said nothing because I didn’t want to worry you. It does take it out of one, but I’ll be better in no time, you’ll see.’

  Matthew still looked doubtful. ‘You look awful, Mother, really. Let me ring the doctor.’

  Marian laughed. It was an effort, but she did it. ‘Matthew,’ she said in mock severity. ‘No woman likes being told she looks awful. As for the doctor, what can he do for ‘flu, for goodness’ sake? He’d just say to rest and have plenty of fluids and take aspirin for the temperature – that’s all he can prescribe. Mrs Foley in the kitchen has made sure I’ve plenty of rest and the delicious food she’s cooked has tempted my appetite, I’ll tell you.’

  ‘Well, it hasn’t fattened you up any.’

  ‘It’s fashionable to be thin.’

  ‘Well, that settles it,’ Matthew said. ‘You are doing too much at the works. You’re to take a break now. Certainly while I’m here. I should be in every day learning the trade. “From the ground up”, Father always said.’

  ‘If that’s what you wish,’ Marian said. She was tired, deathly tired, a
nd at any rate, she knew that soon Matthew would have to learn every aspect of the business. A degree was all very well; Ernest had insisted on a degree for his son and heir, but there was no substitute for actually working there day after day.

  In an attempt to lighten the atmosphere and take Matthew’s mind from how frail and ill she looked, she patted the bed and said, ‘Come on, sit down and tell me all about your stay.’

  Matthew sat obediently. He’d been worried to be met at the door by their cook, Mrs Foley, who told him his mother was in bed recovering from a dose of ‘flu. Mrs Foley had been cook in the family for years since losing her husband to the selfsame thing that was now killing her mistress. She’d guessed there was something serious the matter with Marian before Marian’d been aware of it herself, but had said nothing.

  Marian had told her in the end and also said Matthew wasn’t to be told. Mrs Foley had not been too happy about that. After all, Matthew was no young lad any more and she thought Marian Olaffson could have done with her son’s support. But she was adamant and so now with Matthew returned long before he was due, she had to go on with this façade and say the mistress had the ‘flu. She could see Matthew wasn’t taken in entirely and now he was up there talking to his mother. She’d taken a tray with sandwiches and some fancies and a pot of tea for the two of them. She knew that Marian might drink the tea, but she’d eat nothing and probably tell Matthew she’d eaten earlier.

  Mrs Foley was right, that was exactly what Marian did say. She listened to her son telling her of Maurice and his wife and Ralph. Matthew wasn’t one to tell tales and he didn’t now and though he mentioned the parties he’d gone to, he didn’t say what went on and he praised his uncle and aunt for their genuine welcome.

  He was not aware how expressive his vivid blue eyes were and how well his mother knew him after nearly twenty years of rearing him. She knew much of the way it was from what her son didn’t say and her heart sank, for she knew Matthew could never settle in the north with Maurice and Phyllis when it was all over. She hated the thought of leaving him all alone.