‘You’ll do no such thing, because they’ll be after you, and they’ll break their necks.’
‘Don’t be daft. Nobody’s broken his neck sliding down a banister. But that’s what I’ll do as soon as I reach home, I promise you. I won’t even look at you; I’ll go straight to the top of those stairs and slide down that banister, and the noise I’ll make will bring them all flyin’ out of their beds.’
‘Oh Bill, I’d let you do that now if you were here this minute.’
‘Well, it’s going to be an early dinner, and I can promise you that, as I’m driving home, I’ll be steady on the liquor. I must go now. I love you, Mrs B.’
‘And I have a strong affection for you, Mr B. Hurry home.’
She put down the phone; then went straight away upstairs and told the children the news.
‘Will we be rich now?’ asked Katie.
‘No, we won’t be rich, but we’ll have a little more to get by on.’
She knew Katie’s tongue and she could imagine her going to school and saying, ‘My father’s going to be rich and he’s a friend of Sir Charles Kingdom,’ and so on, and so on.
And their excitement seemed to revolve around that little bit more, and so she left them jabbering about what they wanted; except Mark. He followed her to her room, saying, ‘I’m glad for him, Mam. And I’m glad you married him.’
‘Oh, Mark.’ She put her arms about him, and he clung to her as he used to do when he was smaller and not the twelve-year-old budding man.
‘You know something, Mam?’
‘What?’
‘I…I like Bill. You know, inside I always think of him as Mr Bill. I like him better than I liked my father. I remember my father well.’
‘Oh, don’t say that, Mark.’ There was a sad note in her voice now, but he went on, ‘He never played with us, and I can remember him going for you. But from the minute Bill came into the house, he noticed us, he did things with us and for us.’
‘Look, Mark Bailey, get yourself away else you’ll have me in tears. And if Bill, or Mr Bill, or your dad, whatever, hears you, his head will be more swollen than it is at present. But’—she gently touched his cheek—‘thank you for what you’ve said, I mean about Bill, because he’s a very special person.’
‘Yes, yes, I think he is, too.’ And then laughing, he added, ‘Anybody who can bring in a kid who is about to throw a brick through a window and give him tea must be a very special person.’ They were both laughing loudly now as they went downstairs. But in the hall Fiona stopped and in a quiet voice she said, ‘But something must be done about Sammy and Willie, because, you know, that child is impossible. I can’t imagine him ever changing. All he can do is get worse, and he’s not a fit companion for Willie.’
‘I shouldn’t worry about Sammy, Mam. You know, I can’t help it but I…I like him too.’
‘Well, I’m glad you haven’t got a counterpart and you’ve picked a boy like Roland.’
‘I’ll tell you something, Roland likes him.’
‘Oh, go on with you.’ She pushed him away and hurried towards the kitchen, saying now, ‘Take some ice cream up to them to celebrate.’
She, too, celebrated, singing and humming to herself for the next hour. And when she heard a scream from above which caused her to jump from Bill’s chair in the study where she had been sitting musing about the bright future, she rushed out to meet the horde tumbling down the stairs, Mark holding out his transistor, calling to her, ‘Listen! Listen, Mam. They’re talking about Dad.’
They seemed to be hanging above her, clinging onto the banister, while Mark, on the bottom stair, held up the transistor and, with an ear-grinning smile, looked into his mother’s face and listened to a voice, saying, ‘This is a triumph for a small company. It is understood there were fifteen firms applying for this contract, and so it must say much for Mr Bailey and his particular small firm that they have succeeded against bigger firms more experienced in this form of contract. It is understood that he’ll be able to set on at least a hundred men, and this comes at a time when only this week Brignall and Patten have closed down with the loss of seventy-five jobs.
‘Tune in again this time tomorrow for more up-to-date news of what is happening in your street, your town, and your area. This is YS, YT, YA, signing off.’
‘Isn’t it wonderful, Mam!’
Her smile was as wide as Mark’s. ‘Marvellous!’
‘It’ll likely be on the news, nationwide.’
‘No, no, it won’t be on there, dear. Perhaps on BBC North.’
And it was on BBC North. They all sat around the television staring at Mike Neville, the jovial practised presenter. He opened the programme with a repeat of the closing down of Brignall and Patten and the loss of seventy-five jobs. He spoke of the busmen refusing to drive after a certain time at night because of the hooliganism and the threatening attitude of young gangs. He next told of the attack on a crippled seventy-five-year-old woman as she was returning from drawing her pension. And this apparently took place in a quiet suburb where up till then residents thought they were quite safe and that such incidents happened only in the lower end of towns. Then, his face stretching into a wide smile, he said, ‘Now for the good news of the evening. David and Goliath are not dead, for today David, in the form of Mr William Bailey, a building contractor of Fellburn, brought off a scoop. He put a stone in his sling, and fifteen other firms, among them half a dozen big boys, fell. There are still Jack the Giant-killers kicking around…Pardon my puns.’ He made a face at himself. ‘Mr Bailey will be celebrating with his eleven good men and true, as he told our David. These eleven men have nearly all worked for him for the past twelve years. They are, he said, the foundation, and there could be no better workmen in the country. Mr Bailey is a Liverpudlian by birth but a Geordie by inclination. And he couldn’t have been more forthright if he had been born a Geordie, because he said, “Yes, I’ll be taking on quite a number of men, but they’ll have to be those who’ll pull their weight and know that when we start at eight, it doesn’t mean quarter-past; and when we finish at half-past four they don’t start to get ready for that at half-past three.” Mr Bailey knows what he wants and he’s the kind of man who will get it. That’s how he’s pulled off this very choice deal…I wonder if he’ll set me on; I could run round with the tea.’
This must have brought forth a quip from the cameraman, which couldn’t be heard but which Mike Neville made use of in his own inimitable way: ‘Well, Mr Bailey admits he started as a tea boy. And what one can do another can…What do you mean, there are exceptions?…’
‘Isn’t he funny, Mam?’ Katie was looking up at Fiona where she stood behind the couch.
‘Yes, he is.’
‘He’s had a bad leg, that’s why he was off and couldn’t come and talk.’
‘He doesn’t talk with his leg, stupid.’ Mark pushed Willie now. ‘And it was his foot not his leg.’
‘Now, now, Willie.’ Fiona leant over and grabbed her son’s flailing arms.
‘I wish Daddy B was in. He would have liked to hear that, wouldn’t he?’
They all looked at Mamie now and laughed. Then Fiona, ruffling the child’s hair, said, ‘Yes, he would have liked to hear that, but—’ She turned and looked at the clock, saying, ‘Just about now he’ll be going into a slap-up meal in a posh hotel in Newcastle.’
‘Mam.’ Katie was kneeling up on the couch, looking into her mother’s face. ‘Will you be going out in the evening all dressed up in new things? To dinner and parties and such?’
‘Well, I might be going out to a dinner now and again, but I’ll not always be wearing new things.’
‘Well, you couldn’t go to a dinner two weeks running in the same dress. And you’ll have to have a fur coat that you can take off and hand to the waiter, and he’ll put it on the back of the chair or hang it up.’
‘My dear girl’—Fiona was bending over her now—‘I won’t have any fur coat that a waiter can put on the back of the chair or
hang up. Now get that into your head. And now listen to me, and not only you, but all of you: life will go on much the same for a long while, except that very likely we won’t see so much of your dad, because he’ll be working all hours. There’ll be treats but they certainly won’t be every week; nor will you be any better dressed than you are now. Your dad’s bought you two rig-outs in the last few months, you know. So things will go on pretty much the same for a time.’
‘How long?’
Fiona looked down on Willie. ‘I don’t know, Willie, but when your dad comes back you mustn’t greet him with, “What am I going to get out of this?”’
‘Oh, Mam!’ Mark got up, saying, ‘They didn’t mean that.’
‘I know. I know. I don’t know whether I’m on my head or my heels either. Look what I did, sending all that ice cream up to you. I never meant to do that.’
The giggles now turned to high laughter when Mamie, addressing no-one in particular, said, ‘I want a big pram and a talking baby.’
‘She wants a big pram and a talking baby’ built into a chorus which followed Fiona out of the room.
A talking baby. She wanted a talking baby too; and she had hardly dared to think about it these last few days because she had gone past her time. She had gone past her time before and nothing had happened, but this time she prayed it would, for she wanted to give Bill something of his very own. She was only thirty, and so there was plenty of time; but she longed to give him two, three, or four. No; she would stop at two. But oh, how she longed to see that man’s face when he held his own child, because he gave so much to others.
She stopped by the telephone table. Her mother hadn’t phoned today; nor was it likely that she would now because she was bound to have heard something of this, if not on the radio or the television, then certainly from Mrs Green’s paper shop; for Mrs Green didn’t only sell papers, she gave away, free, the local gossip.
Looking at the phone, her face spread into a smile; her mother hadn’t phoned her but she could phone her mother. Oh yes, yes, she could phone her mother.
As if the thought had lifted her to the phone, she already had the receiver in one hand and was quickly dialling a number with the other. And when the sweet voice came on the other end, ‘This is Mrs Vidler’s residence,’ she pressed her lips tight to quell the sound of laughter from being in her voice when she would say, ‘Mother, it’s me, Fiona.’
There was a slight pause before the voice said, ‘Fiona? This is an unusual occurrence, you phoning me.’
‘It’s an unusual day, and I have unusual news, Mother. But I’m sure you’ve heard about it already.’
Another and considerably longer pause now before the voice said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Oh, Mother! If you hadn’t the radio, you have the television on every night, as well as, if I’m not mistaken, your routine taking you to Mrs Green’s gossip shop at least once a day.’
‘Fiona! I needn’t listen to you, you know that. I can put the phone down.’
‘Yes, you can, Mother, but you won’t, will you? Because you must have heard about my husband getting this wonderful contract and the praise that’s been doled out to him on both the television and the radio. He’s been referred to as David, and as Jack the Giant-killer.’
‘Well, his mouth is big enough to hold either of those characters, I should imagine.’
Fiona did not retort to this; instead she said, ‘You can’t bear it, can you, Mother? To know that this brickie, as you call him, or that man, or that person, has pulled off one of the biggest deals in building in this area for a long time. And what is more, he is a friend of Sir Charles Kingdom.’
‘Oh, well, there you have it. As I said, it’s who you know, and if you can suck up to a title.’
‘So, you’ve already expressed your opinion on my husband’s success. But let me tell you, Bill didn’t get this contract through the people he knew, but because of his good work and because it is known that he has a trained group of sound workmen.’
‘Well, what you’ve got to remember, Fiona, is the old adage, you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.’
Fiona’s teeth pressed together: her mother was winning as usual, boiling her up. But she couldn’t let her get off with it this time. ‘It’s a pity distance doesn’t cut off the phone because I don’t suppose we’ll be staying here much longer; Bill’s had his eye on one of those big houses in Gosforth, one standing in its own grounds. He had said if he got the contract that’s where we would move to. He’s also considering buying a chalet type of house in Barbados, where we can slip over two or three times a year for a break. And when we make these moves, Mother, I could also change our phone number, in fact, I’ve been thinking about being put on ex-directory, the particular type, you know, where no-one can get through, no matter how much they press or ask. Goodnight, Mother.’
She walked into the kitchen and stood at the sink looking down the garden. The sun was casting long shadows over the lawn from the one big tree growing there. She loved this house; she never wanted to leave it. As for Newcastle, she couldn’t bear the thought of living in the city, not even on the outskirts, all that traffic buzzing about. And Barbados, well you could keep Barbados for her. If she was going anywhere she would like to go to America or Australia, but certainly not Barbados. Lying on a beach all day would bore her to death. Oh!
She turned from the window. She wasn’t going to let her mother spoil this. The children were settled, so she would go up and have a bath, give her face one of those ten minute mudpacks; put on another dress, the blue one that Bill liked; it showed off her figure, he said. What time was it now? Just turned seven. He’d likely be in the thick of that dinner now; but he shouldn’t be later than half-past nine or ten.
She almost skipped from the room, ran across the hall, and put her head round the door of the sitting room, saying, ‘I’m going to have a bath. Behave yourselves.’
‘You going to do your face up with that lemon pack, Mam?’
‘Yes. Yes, I might even do that.’
‘Well, I’ll come up and watch you.’
‘You’ll do nothing of the kind.’ Her arm was thrust out, the finger pointing. ‘Give me half an hour to myself.’
As she turned away, she glimpsed Mark’s hand pulling Katie back onto the couch, the while saying, ‘Sit down, hussy!’
And Katie’s strident tones, likely telling her brother what she thought of him, followed her up the stairs.
Oh, she was happy, happy in all ways. Just that one fly in the ointment. But her mother had always been a fly in the ointment, so why worry? It was just on nine o’clock when she thought she heard the car turning into the drive, and she went into the kitchen because she knew he would come in the back way.
When she didn’t hear the garage door bang she went into the hall again and looked through the small side window but it was too dark to see as far as the gate. Yet she had heard his car stop there.
The night having turned chilly, she went to the hall wardrobe and put on a coat; then she walked down the drive in the shadow of the cypress hedge. But she stopped where the hedge finished, for there was a car drawn up to the kerb and so parked that no car would be able to enter the drive. The car wasn’t theirs; Bill’s was a silver-grey Volvo, whereas this car, as far as she could make out in the light from the far street lamp, was either a dull reddish colour or brown. She detected a movement inside; so she stepped back a few paces before turning and making her way back to the house again. Bill would have something to say to them when he found he couldn’t get into his own drive. He had often remarked on the snoggers finding their way to the avenue when it was dark; it wasn’t all that brightly lit and was certainly quiet.
About half an hour later she thought she heard a commotion in the street, and she told herself that would be Bill telling the occupants of that car where to go to. She didn’t go out, but waited in the hall. However, when there was no sound of the car coming up the drive,
she once again went down and stood in the shadow of the cypress hedge. The car was gone. Somebody else had likely complained and there had been a bit of an altercation. That’s what she had heard. She did not go out of the gate into the street but returned to the house.
At eleven o’clock she began to worry. The children, having become tired of waiting for Bill’s return, were in bed and asleep. The house was quiet.
There was the sound of a car, but it was from next door and made her wonder why Mr Paget should be returning so late. He very rarely went out in the car at night and in his present state of mind she imagined his driving would be anything but safe.
At half-past eleven she was standing in the hall rubbing one hand against the back of the other, telling herself that he wouldn’t have stayed so late without having phoned her. Whom could she get in touch with? Sir Charles’ secretary? He lived at the manor, apparently. But Bill had said he was at the dinner as well.
She whipped through the pages of the directory, and then she was dialling the number. She listened to the bell ringing and ringing, but she wouldn’t put the phone down. Then a woman’s weary voice said, ‘Yes? Yes, what is it? Who is it?’
‘May I speak to Sir Charles Kingdom’s secretary, please?’
‘Who…who’s speaking?’
‘This is Mrs Bailey.’
‘Oh. Mrs Bailey. Well, this is Lady Kingdom here. What is wrong?’
‘My husband hasn’t returned from Newcastle. I…I understood he was having dinner with Sir Charles’ secretary and others and he said he wouldn’t be late, but it is now nearing twelve o’clock and…and…’
‘Oh, my goodness me! Yes, yes. Wait a moment, I’ll get up.’
‘Oh, I’m very sorry.’
‘Don’t worry. Don’t worry. I can contact Rupert on the intercom.’
She waited, one hand holding the receiver, the other tapping her lips in agitation. When a man’s voice came on the phone, saying, ‘Mrs Bailey?’ she said, ‘Yes. Yes, it’s Mrs Bailey.’
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