by Susan Lewis
Janet: You are my lucky guy,
Me: My one and only lucky guy,
Sarah: Lucky guy.
We haven’t got any further than that yet, but it’ll be really good when it’s finished. Gary thinks we’re rubbish. So does Geoffrey, next door, who comes to watch over the fence. But we don’t care what stupid boys think. We’re going to be on Top of the Pops one day, and they’ll be laughing on the other side of their faces then!
‘Tea’ll be ready in ten minutes,’ Daddy says, coming out to put a tea towel on the washing line. ‘Egg and chips tonight.’
I look at Mummy, who’s been singing along with us, and I feel really happy. It’s Thursday, and we always have egg and chips on a Thursday.
Chapter Three
Eddress
Eddie and I seem to be rowing all the bloody time lately. Course, we always used to, because I can’t stop meself, it’s just in me nature. But it feels a bit different now, and I know it’s my fault, I’m so bleeding irritable all the time. I don’t want to be mind, but everything about him’s getting on my nerves, from his politics to his poetry, to his own special way with the kids. I know I should feel glad he’s so good with them, because he’s having to do a lot while I’m like this, but I keep getting the feeling he’s trying to prove he’s a better parent than me. I know he’s not really like that, but I’ve got it stuck in me head that that’s what he’s doing, and I can’t get it out again. I hate meself, honest I do, but I can’t help the way I’m feeling, can I?
Anyway, truth is, left to him those two blighters would run wild, and I’m not having anyone say that about my kids. They’re the best dressed, politest and cleverest on the street, and if I have anything to do with it, they’ll be the best behaved too. I don’t care if the other kids are allowed to stay out until it gets dark. I want mine in bed at a decent hour, and I don’t want them hanging out of Susan’s bedroom window either, moaning to anyone who’ll listen about their wicked mother who beats them and starves them, and only ever lets them stay up on Thursdays to watch Top of the Pops. (That girl’s imagination is going to get her in trouble one of these days, you see if I’m not right.)
Eddie and I are in the kitchen at the moment, washing up after tea. (I got to take it a bit careful, but I have to do something.) He’s just informed me that he’s told Susan she can stay out playing for ten more minutes, when she knows very well she should be in by now. I can see her out there, bouncing up and down the hopscotch they’ve chalked on the pavement, ponytail bobbing, cardigan slipping off her shoulders, socks bagging round her ankles, making her look a right little scruff. She hasn’t got her glasses on either. She’s becoming too sneaky by half, that girl, getting round her father while I’m giving Gary a bath, creeping out and leaving her glasses behind. My boy’s a bloody joy in comparison to her! I only wish she had his easy-going nature, though I have to admit, it’s a blessing she’s not as loud. Typical boy, he is, hurtling fearlessly through life at top speed and full volume, always on the go, morning to night. He’s in bed now, still not asleep. I left him playing Thunderbirds in the dark with his hands. I stood on the landing listening to him just now, trying not to laugh, and fighting the urge to go back in there and squeeze him till he squealed. Susan used to be more like him, but lately I’ve noticed how much more like her father she’s getting – moody and defensive, and seeming to look at me with eyes that see too much.
Eddie breaks the silence. ‘Ten minutes isn’t going to hurt her, Ed,’ he says. ‘They were in the middle of a game.’
‘She’s always in the middle of a game,’ I snap. ‘Left to her, the games would never end and she’d be out all night.’
‘That’s a stupid exaggeration.’
My hands tighten on the plate in the water. I want to break it over his head. It’s all right for him to have patience, innit, and to be Mr Nice all the time. He doesn’t have to put up with what I’m putting up with, having to go off in a bleeding ambulance tomorrow, watching the neighbours looking out from behind their curtains, feeling all sorry and pleased it’s not them. He’s off to work like normal, isn’t he? His life hasn’t changed. He can pick the children up and play their games. He doesn’t have to avoid the mirror when he gets undressed at night, or try to scratch a bloody bosom that’s not there any more. There’s a nasty little trick, innit, reminding you it’s gone by making it itch. Well I don’t need bloody reminding, thank you very much. I know it’s not there any more. I could never make any mistakes about that.
I stack the plate behind the others in the dish rack and reach for another. I start to wash it, but my temper’s rising up to a point where I know I’m going to explode.
‘Don’t you ever call me stupid again,’ I shout, and grabbing a towel I storm off to the front door, drying my hands and shaking with rage.
‘Susan!’ I yell.
She doesn’t even look up, just throws her stone into a square.
‘Susan! Get in here! Now!’
‘But Dad said . . .’
‘I don’t care what your father said, you get in here now and straight to bed.’
Her face floods with colour. I’ve embarrassed her in front of her friends and she looks so angry I think she’s going to cheek me back. She’ll be sorry if she does, and she obviously knows it, because she comes stomping down the garden path, pushes in past me and thumps up the stairs.
‘It’s not fair,’ she protests, close to tears. ‘Dad said I could stay out. No-one else has to go to bed this early.’
‘That’s enough of your lip. Now get up to bed.’
When I go back to the kitchen Eddie’s finishing the washing-up. He doesn’t say anything, and nor do I. I can’t even bring myself to look at him, so I go into the dining room and light up. Summer’s struggling in at last, so there’s no fire in the grate. The windows are open, but I’m still too hot. I’m always too hot, because unless I want everyone to see I’ve got nothing to fill out the top of me frock, I can never take off me cardy. They’ve given me a couple of falsies to pad out me brassiere, but they’re not the right size and they keep slipping out. Susan found ’em a couple of weeks ago. Eddie caught her marching down the garden path with ’em stuffed up her jumper. He whisked her in again pretty fast, probably hoping I wouldn’t see, but I did. Funny, but it made me smile and think of her growing up, sprouting breasts of her own. Then the dark clouds came back and had me praying to God that hers don’t take after mine. The thought scares me even more than the dread of it coming back again to me. It was the first time I’d allowed myself even to think it, and that was when I made a deal with God, letting Him know that I would accept it if mine came back, just as long as He spared my girl.
She drives me mad when we have our ups and downs, but until I had her, honest to God, I didn’t have any idea how deep the love could be for a child. Nothing matters more than her, except Gary now he’s here too. That’s what’s going to save us from this, you mark my words. My children need me, so I have to be here for them, and I damned well will be.
The radium treatment’s going well, the doctor said. The operation was a success, and they’re finding out new things all the time. It’s going to be all right. I’ll be out of the woods before I know it. Eddie believes it, or he says he does. I just wish I could too. I mean, I do, sometimes, but then I get afraid again and I can’t sleep, or think, or even talk to anyone without getting all worked up inside. You want to try it, one minute you’re laughing your head off at something, the next you remember it all, and it’s like the gas has run out in the middle of baking a cake. I suppose it’s going to take a lot more than two bob in the meter to get me cooking again though.
I can hear Eddie putting the dishes away. Any minute he’ll go upstairs to Susan, dry her eyes and read her a story. She probably hates me now, after I showed her up out in the street. Daddy the hero will make it all right though. Daddy can never do any wrong. She loves him more than she loves me. I heard her telling Gary that. Gary loves me the best, he says. I love them
both the same, but in different ways. Our mam says I push them too hard to do well, especially Susan, but I’m determined they’re going to make something of themselves. I’ve got plans for their education that might even take them on to university. They’d be the first in our family to go that far. Eddie wants that for them too, but he doesn’t push them enough. He’s too soft, lets them get away with too much.
‘Cup of tea?’ he says, putting his head round the door.
I shrug and grind out my cigarette. ‘If you want to make one.’
‘The kettle’s on. I’ll just go and tuck Susan in and make sure Gary’s asleep.’
While he’s gone I go and empty a new packet of Typhoo into the caddy and stand watching the kettle on the stove. Z Cars’ll be on in a minute. I wish Eddie would watch it with me, but he doesn’t like telly much. He’d rather sit in the front room and listen to the 78s he buys in the second-hand shop, or read a book, or do his homework. I wonder if we’re really meant for each other. We’re so different, and now, since all this, we’re not even close in that way any more. I just can’t get in the mood, and I don’t expect he’s all that keen to do anything anyway, with me only having one now.
By the time he comes down again I’ve made the tea and carried the pot into the room. I pour him a cup and pass it over, knowing he doesn’t want it really, that he’s just drinking it to keep me company.
‘Is she all right?’ I ask him.
‘Yes. She’s got her mother’s temper, I know that, but she’s calmed down now.’
‘Yeah, well, just don’t ever call me stupid again,’ I say. ‘We can’t all be as brainy as you, and if you hadn’t got me dander up she wouldn’t have gone off to bed crying.’
‘I’m sorry.’
We drink our tea. I look at the telly and think about turning it on.
‘What time’s the ambulance picking you up to mor row?’ he asks.
Why does he have to go and bring that up now? I want to forget about it for five minutes, except it’s always there, innit, in the back of my mind. I got the bus the first time, but can’t do it again. It’s not so bad going, it’s coming back that’s the problem, even though I’m only having to go up Cossham to get me treatment, not all the way downtown to the General. That’s a blessing, that is, because I hate the General. Never want to go there again in me life. If all this radium they’re giving me now works, I won’t have to. Takes it out of you though, going up there, having to wait around for hours, then getting prodded and poked about, marked up for X-rays, taking all kinds of tablets, then having to wait for the ambulance to bring me back again. I always make sure it picks me up down by the garages, so no-one will see me getting in or out of the bloody thing.
Betty keeps an eye out for when I come back, making sure I manage it up to the house all right. Bit weak on me legs after I’ve been through all that, see, and tired right out. She’s a good friend, and I know I can rely on her not to gossip. Eddie takes the children to our mam’s for tea on those days, so they’re out of the way, and don’t see me coming in and going to bed. We’ve told them I’ve got a part-time cleaning job at the sack factory on Warmley Hill once a week, so that’s why Gran makes their tea on Wednesdays. They don’t realise when they come home that I’m already in bed. They think it’s a night job, and I come in long after they’re asleep. It’s best that way. They’re too young to understand what’s really going on. They’d only get confused and afraid, and what’s the point in that, when it’s all going to be over soon. No more radium, no more cripple wagon, no more secrets. We’re all going to be right as rain come the autumn.
I answer Eddie’s question about the ambulance time, then we talk about other things for a while: his night school, new shoes for Gary, whether we can afford a holiday this year. Normally we rent a caravan at Chesil Beach for a week, but lately we’ve been thinking about getting a chalet in Dawlish. We probably won’t be able to though, because it’s June already, so they’ll be all booked up.
‘I’ll give them a ring tomorrow and find out,’ he says. ‘If there’s one free I think we should take it.’
‘Can you get the time off work?’
‘I expect so. If I can’t, I’ll drive you and the kids down on Saturday, spend the weekend, then come and pick you up the following Saturday.’
‘We should take our mam too.’
‘All right.’
I know it’s daft, but instead of telling him I don’t really want to go without him, I just sit there lighting up another fag. The thing is, he might not want to come, and sod him if he doesn’t. I don’t bloody well care. Let him stay here on his own. We can manage without him. It’ll be a blessing not to have him in the same bed for a week, I won’t have to pretend I’m asleep when I’m not.
‘Are you all right?’ he asks.
‘Course I am. Why?’
‘Just thought you seemed a bit . . .’
‘A bit what?’
‘Nothing. It doesn’t matter.’
I could go on arguing, but I don’t. I’m tired and getting het up about tomorrow again. I finish me cigarette, light another and stick it in the corner of me mouth while I pick up the jumper I’m knitting for Gary. As I draw the needles out of the ball of wool a small voice comes from the top of the stairs.
‘Mum!’
My eyes go to Eddie. ‘What do you want?’ I shout back.
‘Can I come down for a minute?’
‘What’s happened to the magic word?’
‘Please.’
I look at Eddie again. ‘Come on then,’ I say. ‘But just for a minute.’
Moments later the door opens and Susan pads in. She’s in her pyjamas, her lovely curly hair cascading down her back, her eyes red from crying.
‘What do you want?’ I ask her.
Her mouth trembles. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispers.
I put me knitting and cigarette down and pat me lap for her to come and sit down. Poor love, she doesn’t even really know what she’s saying sorry for, and to be honest, nor do I. She’s sobbing her little heart out now, so I hold her nice and close to try and make her feel better. After a while I tilt her chin up so I can see her. Her little freckled face is all blotchy and swollen. ‘Oh, what a fright,’ I tease, pretending to jump.
She looks at me warily.
‘Is that my Susan, or is it someone else?’ I say.
A smile wobbles on her lips.
‘I think it’s her, Dad, but I won’t know till she laughs.’
A giggle works its way out and I gasp in surprise. ‘It is her! It’s our Susan.’
She laughs again and rests her head back against me.
‘Want something to eat?’ I ask. ‘A salmon-paste sandwich?’
She nods. ‘With the crusts cut off?’
‘All right. And a glass of milk. Did you drink your milk in school today?’
‘Yes. And I ate all of my apple.’
‘Good girl.’ I kiss the top of her head. ‘Now, off you go up to bed and I’ll bring your sandwich.’
‘Will you read me a story?’
‘I thought you liked Dad to do it?’
‘I do. But I like it when you read them too.’
I glance at Eddie. ‘Shall we ask Dad if he’ll read one to both of us?’
‘And me!’ Gary cries from the other side of the door.
We all burst out laughing. ‘How long have you been out there?’ I call. ‘Come on. Come in here.’
The door bangs open and in he jumps. ‘Can I have a sandwich too?’ he says, climbing up on my lap. ‘I want the crusts on mine.’
‘You’re a scallywag,’ I tell him. ‘You should be asleep by now.’
‘But Susan’s up.’
‘I’m older than you,’ she reminds him.
‘Enough,’ I say, as he pokes out his tongue.
‘Bed, both of you,’ Eddie says, scooping them up, one under each arm.
They squeal and start wriggling, pretending to escape. Then he lets them ride up the stairs on his
back while I light meself another fag, and go to take the bread out of the bread bin. The milk’s in the new fridge, which makes me feel proud as Punch, because we’ve always had the devil of a time trying to keep it from turning. By the time I put the empty bottle on the doorstep with a note tucked in the top for the milkman to leave two pints in the morning, I can hear them up there, squabbling over whose bed they’re going to go in for the story. It turns out to be Susan’s, I find when I get up there, with her blackboard spread out on their knees as a table.
After the sandwiches and milk, the blackboard’s put back on its easel, and a space is made for me, leaving those two nincompoops barely hanging onto the edge of the bed. Eddie perches on the padded stool that matches Susan’s rose-patterned dressing table, and once we’re all settled, he starts us on the long, magical journey down the rabbit hole.
At the end of the first chapter he quietly puts the book down and carries a sleeping Gary to his own bed, while I tuck Susan in and kneel down next to her. Looking sleepily up at me, she says, ‘Goodnight, Mum.’
I kiss her, and settle her arms in under the covers. ‘Goodnight, God bless,’ I say softly, and after stroking her face I go to turn out the light.
Eddie’s on the landing, drawing the curtains. We give each other a bit of a smile, and I wonder what he’s thinking. He’s a decent man, so it won’t be bad thoughts. Even if it were, he’d never let me know. He’ll stick by me, I reckon, if only for the kids. Men need a bit of the other though, don’t they? But I can’t do it. I just can’t, not now I’m like this, so I go on into the bathroom to start cleaning up the mess after the kids, while he goes back downstairs to do his homework.
Susan
That slug Kelvin Milton has been whispering to his friends about me since assembly this morning. He’s not even trying to hide it, the pig. They keep looking at me and snickering. It’s not as though I’ve got new glasses, or anything, so I don’t know what they’ve got to laugh at. I’ve poked my tongue out a couple of times, but I got told off when Miss Taylor spotted me. It’s not fair, because I’m not the one being naughty. It’s them, and they’re so dumb that none of them even knew what the capital of France was when Miss Taylor asked. (It’s Paris.) My new best friend, Belinda Watts, isn’t in today, so I haven’t really got anyone on my side, unless you count Frances Clark, but her breath always smells. I might sit next to her in the canteen at dinnertime though, because I know what that Kelvin Milton’s like, him and his stupid friends will keep throwing things at me. I’m going to tell Mum about him tonight. She’ll sort him out. He’ll be scared stiff then, ha ha!
