The Bondage of Love

by Catherine Cookson

  On one occasion Fiona had refused Bill’s suggestion of a dinner and dance, saying, if it was all the same to him, she would prefer to have him at home for a full evening. Like a good old-fashioned couple, she would have described it. Herself at one side of the fire knitting, he at the other, reading.

  The children, too, had brought pleasant occasions into the house, such as when Sammy won his brown belt. On that night they had their own private little disco; for this occasion they had cleared the recreation room and had a buffet meal provided by Nell and Fiona. Katie and Sammy had given a demonstration of their prowess, and Willie had caused hilarious hoots of laughter when he, too, showed what he could do by fencing with a broom, his opponent being Sammy, whom he managed to topple onto his back more times than Katie had done in the karate combat.

  There had been a goodly company of them that evening, but more males than females, as Mark had brought two school friends and Sammy had invited Jimmy Redding and two other male karate members of the club. Katie had asked Sue Bellingham and Marion Cuthbert, while Willie’s choice had been Daisy Gallagher, of all people. This had caused Katie to go to Sammy and say, ‘I’m sorry, Sammy, but somehow she won’t fit in, she’ll be uncomfortable.’ And for once, Sammy had not corrected her on the matter of class distinction; what he had said was, ‘He can ask all he likes, but she won’t come.’ And when Katie had asked, ‘What makes you think that?’ Sammy had answered enigmatically, ‘Oh, I just know. I know Daisy very well; I just know she won’t come.’

  In turn Katie questioned herself quietly: How much did he know about Daisy? How well did he know her? And how much did he want to know her? And her dissecting told her, that, in a way, Sammy was nearer to Daisy than he was to her. Even with his benefit of education over the past years, there still remained beneath this the solid figure of the young Sammy Love that she had once known and loathed.

  When Willie had asked Daisy if she would come to their little do, she had looked him straight in the face and asked, ‘At your place?’ And he had said, ‘Yes, of course, our place.’ And to this she had answered flatly, ‘Don’t be daft.’

  ‘Why am I daft?’ he had enquired in no small voice.

  ‘Because you are: your eyes see no further than your nose.’

  ‘Maybe,’ he had said, ‘but I thought they had learned to see that my heel stuck out as far as my backside.’

  The look she gave him, which could have been classed as disdain, was accompanied by, ‘Well, you said it.’ And she had come back with, ‘Like me granny, I say more than me prayers and I whistle them.’ And she had flattened him yet again with, ‘There’s one thing I’ll say for you, you’re easily amused.’

  It was Fiona who had remarked to Katie, ‘Isn’t Willie asking the girl whom he fences with?’ And Katie had said, ‘Yes, Mam, he’s asked her, but she won’t come.’

  ‘Why? Is she uppish?’

  At this Katie had let out a loud laugh; and it had been some time before she answered Fiona’s question, by saying, ‘She’s Daisy. She would say, she’s her own self. And by, Mam, she is! Well, you’ve seen some of them in the town, brogues, football stockings, and pink hair, and everything startling in between.’

  ‘Oh, she’s one of those? And she fences?’

  ‘Oh yes. Yes. There’s a lot like her down there. Well, not up to Daisy’s standard of colour; it’s part of the vogue now to be outrageous. But there’s one thing I’ve learned about her, that her tongue is much sharper than any foil; it’s more like a rapier edge.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Fiona had asked, and Katie had answered, ‘I just can’t explain. You’d have to meet her, Mam. And I doubt if you ever will, because she’s very level-headed and she’s quite aware of where she would fit in and where she wouldn’t. If anybody knows their place, it’s Daisy, and she would put you or anyone else, Mam, in their place if you tried to move her out of it. She’s a character, and there’s only one person I know who could get through to her, and that’s the assistant fencing master. I’ve told you about him, Jimmy. Well, he’ll be here tonight,’ she had ended, ‘and you’ll see him. And Jimmy’s got a theory all his own. But I suppose, at bottom, he’s quite right when he says a person can pass himself in any company so long as he remains himself. He’s the only one she seems to take any notice of. But, you know something? Dad would understand her. Oh, yes; I think Dad would understand her.’

  ‘Oh, she’s a female Sammy then?’

  ‘Oh no, Mam. She could knock Sammy…well, the Sammy that was, into a cocked hat.’

  ‘She uses language?’ Fiona’s face had stretched somewhat, and Katie said, ‘Well, I haven’t heard her go in for the four-letter kind with which our Mr Love greeted you, but she can damn, bugger and bloody like the best of them.’

  ‘Katie!’

  ‘Oh, Mam!’ Katie had turned her head slightly to the side before she added, ‘You live a closeted life. You always have, you know. You’ve been lucky and’—her voice dropped—‘I’ve been lucky, too. I said this to Willie the first time we went to the Centre. I said to him, “You know, we’ve been lucky to be brought up as we have.” None of us, Mam, in this house knows how the other half lives. Even dad doesn’t now; he’s moved so far up the scale. I bet there’s not one of his workmen live like some of them do down at Bog’s End. I’ve had my eyes opened during these past months and have been made to think a lot about why people do things and are as they are. You know what I think, Mam. It’s the kind of environment we live in that makes us. In the long run it makes us what we are. Take Daisy for instance. If she had been brought up under you, she would now be having university in mind, for she’s as bright as a button.’

  ‘Well, why isn’t she still at school? Even now they can stay on.’

  ‘Not with a family like hers. I think there’s about ten of them. And as far as I can gather the father hasn’t been in work for the last five years. And of the five brothers at home, there’s only one at work. I would love to meet them, you know. I really would. And the family next door, they are two maiden ladies who enjoy rescuing the family from the father who gets drunk, mortallious she calls it, and runs around wielding and threatening them with a poker.’

  ‘O…Oh!’ The syllable expressed shock, and Fiona was shocked at that time to realise that she was finding out another side to this Fickleworth Leisure Centre, or at least to the people who frequented it. And the latent snobbery born of her mother and buried for years raised its head for a moment as she said, ‘Aren’t there any nice people go to the Centre?’

  ‘They’re all nice, Mam. At least the ones I’ve met, including Daisy. They’re all nice.’

  ‘Katie! Do you know you are shouting at me?’

  ‘Oh, Mam, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’

  After a moment of quick thinking, Fiona said, ‘And so am I, dear, so am I; that sounded like utter snobbery. And when I come to think of it, your dear friend, Sue, would be classed as a nice girl, and yet I’ve never liked her. She knew too much too young, and she used to pass it on to you, and you used to come home questioning me about certain aspects of a woman’s life which you shouldn’t have known anything about at that time. And yet, there you are, Sue Bellingham would generally be classed as a very nice girl, and yet I’ve never thought so and I never shall. And there’s talk of her being married, I understand?’

  Then had followed a bit of conversation that actually did shock Fiona, for her daughter had said, ‘May I ask you something, Mam?’ And it was odd that, Fiona recalled, these were the same words that her daughter had said some years ago when she wanted her to explain a conversation that she’d had with her dear friend, Sue.

  On this occasion Fiona had said, ‘Come and sit down. Is there something worrying you?’

  ‘No. No. Nothing’s worrying me, Mam. There’s only one thing I’m sure of, and don’t tell me I’m too young to say this, because I’m on sixteen, you know. One thing I’m sure of absolutely, I’ll never marry. All right, all right, Mam, don’t look like that and shake
your head. I know it inside myself. I made a fool of myself once, and yet when I look back it was very real. And to think of falling in love again and going through anything like that, it would drive me to suicide. I couldn’t bear it. And look what I did, Mam. Just look what I did. I could have killed that girl. I know now, I could. I was obsessed with him, possessed by him. It could never happen again. Oddly enough I’m not affected at all by boys or young men, no matter how good-looking or attractive they are. There’s your new friend’s son, Roland Ferndale, causing half the girls in our form to have heart attacks. They’re always on about him. And from what I hear he can pick and choose, and he does, and drops them like spent matches all over the place.’

  ‘Oh,’ Fiona laughed now, ‘I wouldn’t think he’d have the time. To go by what his mother says, the poor boy has to spend his time cramming.’

  ‘Probably. But she doesn’t know what he crams into his time, by all the things I hear. Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is, I want to ask you something. Now you won’t be shocked?’

  ‘Oh, I likely shall be, dear, but I shan’t say anything, I’ll try to cover it up.’

  They pushed at each other, then Katie said, ‘It’s something that Sue said to me.’

  ‘Oh, it would be Sue.’

  ‘Yes,’ Katie nodded, ‘it would be Sue. I get a little sick of her at times, more than a little sick, but anyway she’s going to be married, and she got on about…well’—she shrugged her shoulders—‘what happens. She had been talking to her mother about it.’ Katie stopped here now and to Fiona’s eyes she looked very embarrassed. Then she almost brought Fiona to the edge of the couch when she said, ‘When you first went to bed with Bill, I mean after you were married, of course, was it a long time before you started to think…well, to think you’re in bed with somebody else? Well, just that, a long time to think you’re in bed with somebody else?’

  ‘Katie! What are you saying? What are you asking?’

  ‘Just that.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know what you mean. Tell me what Sue said. Tell me what you mean. Did she say what she was talking about?’

  Katie leant back, closed her eyes, and after a moment, she said, ‘Well, Mam, she said that her mother told her that after a short while she would likely get fed up with what was happening…in bed…especially if it was too often and made you tired.’ Again she stopped and wetted her lips before she said, ‘Then her mother said, when that happened she had to imagine she was in bed with someone else. She had to pick someone, such as a film star or a…well, a coloured man or…’

  ‘Wh…at!’ Fiona was on her feet now and Katie was sitting up straight, saying, ‘I knew you’d be shocked. I knew you’d be shocked.’

  ‘I’m not shocked. I’m outraged that that girl…I’ve never liked that girl. She could have been a bad influence on you; but I feel you’re sensible enough to know what she’s like, really like.’

  They stared at each other; then Katie said quietly, ‘It isn’t true then, is it?’

  ‘No. No, of course not. But…but I’m speaking personally, and I say I know nothing about that side of life. If you love someone dearly, he’s all you want, that’s if he loves you in return. Katie—’ Fiona now plumped down on the couch again, and taking hold of Katie’s hand, she said, ‘Look! Promise me that you’ll drop your friendship with that girl. Over the years, all she seems to have talked about, that seemed of any importance to her, was sex. I can remember the things you used to come in and tell me, and I just dismissed them, because sometimes, quite candidly, I didn’t believe you. I thought it was just your own curiosity and you were making out that Sue said this, and Sue said that.’

  ‘She’s asked me to be her bridesmaid, Mam.’

  ‘And what have you said?’

  ‘I said no, Mam.’

  At this Fiona drew in a deep breath, then let it out slowly before she said, ‘Well, on that point I’m glad. But what made you refuse?’

  ‘Well, I suppose, if I was going into it, I would say I had some of the same reaction to her talking as you’ve just had to me talking.’ But at this point Katie thought, if she had told her mother all that Sue had said to her, and in some parts had become giggly eloquent in the telling, her mother mightn’t have believed her, even now …

  That night, in bed, when Fiona had tried to tell Bill of her daughter’s enlightenment through Sue, he had taken her into his arms and repeated what Katie had said earlier, ‘You know, you have lived a very closeted life.’

  When she had gasped, ‘You’ve heard of this before?’ Bill quickly said, ‘Oh, it isn’t unknown. There’s lots of things I’ve heard of, and lots of things I haven’t. But one thing I can tell you of which I agree with you, is that I’m glad Katie has ditched that little hot bitch.’

  ‘What d’you mean? How d’you know? You’re referring to Sue?’

  ‘Yes, I’m referring to Sue. Of course, she’s older than Katie by a year or so, but still too young to give a fella like me, in my calibre, the “come hither”.’

  ‘She didn’t, Bill?’ When she pulled away from him, he pulled her tightly to him and repeated in her tone of voice, ‘She did, Fiona. She did, and not so very long ago.’

  ‘You must have been mist—’

  ‘Remember, Mrs B, I was a middle-of-the-road man. I’m never mistaken in that way. How did I come on to your ken? I was escaping from women. And what did I run into? Your mother, who was there, ready, with open arms. There’s all kinds of seduction, you know. You don’t have to strip off.’

  ‘Oh! Bill!’

  ‘Oh! Fiona!’

  They rocked together with laughter. But some time later, when he was asleep, she lay wide-eyed, thinking. As he had said, indeed he had been a middle-of-the-road man: he knew all about women. Yet, now all he wanted was her, and had threatened seriously what he would do if she ever attempted to leave him. This being so, her life should be full to the brim. Yet, there recurred, and more often during the past weeks, that odd feeling of want. But of what? Yes, of what? One thing she knew she didn’t want, was to spend what spare time they had dining and dancing, or going to meet people like the Ferndales. And lately more of them seemed to have been popping up on their horizon. So, what did she want? Yes, what did she want? …

  Five

  Mamie’s behaviour was erratic, as usual. For weeks on end she would behave herself, no tantrums; no, she wanted this and she wasn’t going to do that. And when there was an upset with her, it was mostly to do with her friend Nancy Polgar. She would want Nancy to come to tea, not tea up in what was the old schoolroom and now was a playroom, but with the others, with the family in the sitting room. Or she wanted her to come and stay for the weekend. Should Fiona say it wasn’t convenient, sparks would fly: she would threaten to write to her grandfather. She would, she would. The whole family were tired of listening to this threat which was never carried out.

  On the occasion when she came home and said Mrs Polgar had invited her for the weekend, Bill thought that Fiona would visit this Mrs Polgar’s house. Of course, he had met her once at the parents’ meeting and found her, as he had said, all right, a very talkative woman but otherwise all right. But little was known of her except that her husband was a commercial traveller and that she herself was an expert at making stuffed toys, animals and such. So Fiona had visited the house and found it very ordinarily furnished; comfortable, what she had seen of it, although this was only the sitting room. She had been given a cup of tea, and Mrs Polgar had talked at great length of the pleasure she felt with regard to the friendship between Mamie and her daughter, because, as she pointed out, her daughter, a year or more older than Mamie, was still very shy.

  The visit resulted in Fiona finding no fault about allowing Mamie to stay for the weekend with her friend, even though she herself would not have termed the girl shy. In fact, if she were feeling critical, she would have said, somewhat sly, because the girl’s eyes always seemed to find difficulty in looking you straight in the face: she had noti
ced they were very sharp and had taken everything in, but when the girl was spoken to, they would always be directed downwards.

  An incident occurred that caused her to be somewhat suspicious of Mamie, too, so much so that after she found she was in the wrong, she had made herself be very lenient and loving towards the child for some time afterwards. The incident concerned money missing from Willie’s bank. Willie had always been a saver and when he wanted something he would not ask for it, but save for it, if possible out of his pocket money; and the box, an antique inlaid Victorian lady’s sewing box, given him by Fiona some years previously because he had always admired it, became known as Willie’s bank. And when Willie came to her one day and said, ‘I’m…I’m worried about something. I thought last week that I had made a mistake in the counting, but when, just now, I put another fiver in, and counted it, I found there was one missing.’

  Bill had been informed, as had Katie and Sammy, and Mamie came under suspicion from each of them. That was until Sammy, lifting Angela’s plastic box down from the shelf, saw something sticking onto a piece of the clay. It was a fivepence piece, and there at the bottom of the box was some more loose money, ranging from a penny to a fifty-pence piece.

  This discovery seemed to speak for itself. Angela was used to trotting in and out of all the rooms; she had likely lifted up the box lid and seen the money and had taken some coins and a piece of paper. They could find out, but nevertheless Sammy’s discovery seemed to have solved the matter. But when they searched further they did not find the five-pound note.

  It was some months later, on a Saturday afternoon, and Sammy, Willie, Katie and Daisy had, with other members of the club, been in the Centre since ten o’clock that morning, showing off their prowess with a TV unit for a publicity advert that was to promote the Centre still further by the addition of hard tennis courts on a piece of adjacent land. The committee’s idea was to interest the public into subscribing towards the cost of the proposed venture. And now, the four of them were standing near the park gates engaged in an argument which had started as a discussion. And Willie was saying, ‘Can you give me one good reason why you won’t come?’