by Susan Lewis
The bloody sod just ignores me. Well let him wait till he gets home, if he doesn’t have a packet of fags he’s going to be bloody sorry.
It’s ten past nine when I hear the back door open and his feet wiping on the mat. He goes to hang his coat on the bottom of the stairs then comes into the living room. I can feel the cold around him as he goes to stoop down in front of the fire.
‘Did you get them?’ I say.
He reaches in his pocket and tosses twenty Embassy into my lap. Just as well, because I’ve only got one left in the other packet and I need more than that to last me till morning.
‘I only did it because I don’t want any more rows,’ he tells me.
‘Then we won’t be having one, will we?’
He stands up. ‘Why don’t you make more of an effort to give up?’ he asks. ‘You don’t even try.’
‘What’s the point? The damage has been done, hasn’t it? So it’s a bit late now to think about giving up.’
‘You want it to come back, is that it? You’re not satisfied with what’s already been done to you . . .’
‘Honest to God, you talk a load of old bunkum sometimes. They got rid of it, didn’t they? It’s gone. They cut me up, fried me with radium . . .’
‘I know what they did. I’m just saying, you were told to give up the fags and you haven’t even tried.’
‘Well that’s my business, innit? I’ll do what I want, without you interfering, thank you very much.’
‘Then don’t come to me if you get it again, because it’ll be your own damned fault.’
‘I won’t, don’t worry. Now, do you want a cup of tea, or are you just going to keep standing there getting on at me?’
‘I’m going in the front room to do some homework for night school.’
‘It’s too bloody cold in there. You’ll freeze to death.’
‘I’ll take the paraffin heater in. Have you checked on Susan?’
‘About half an hour ago. She’s all right.’
He goes off into the next room, leaving me to light up without his accusing eyes watching my every move. He makes it bloody hard for a person to enjoy a simple fag when he goes on like that, honest he does. Gets right on my bloody nerves, nagging and moaning, lecturing me like I’m some bleeding imbecile who can’t do anything right. God knows, we don’t get many pleasures in life, so it’s a bit much, if you ask me, begrudging me a fag now and then.
I decide to make a cup of tea and take him one in, whether he wants it or not. He’ll be cold in there, so it might warm him up a bit.
I find him with his overcoat and cap on, sitting at our best table trying to do something with a slide rule. The paraffin heater’s warmed the room up a bit, but we can still see our breath and there’s a little dewdrop on the end of his nose.
‘You’re a big ’a’p’orth sometimes,’ I tell him, putting his cup down and taking a hanky out of my pinny pocket. ‘Shutting yourself up in here in the middle of winter with no fire to keep you warm. Why didn’t you say something, I’d have got one going for you while you was out.’
‘It’s all right, I’m not going to do much tonight. Thank you.’
‘Like a big kid, you are,’ I say, tucking the hanky up his sleeve. ‘Don’t know what you’d do without me to take care of you.’
‘Nor do I,’ he says.
I wasn’t being serious, but from the tone of his voice I know he is. That’s the trouble with Eddie, he never knows when something’s meant to be a joke. ‘I’m going back in the warm,’ I tell him. ‘Don’t stay in here too long, or I might have to come and chip the ice off you.’
I reckon there’s time to have one more fag before he finishes his homework, but I’m only halfway through when I hear the front-room door open and him coming down the passage. I quickly chuck the rest of the fag on the fire and pick up my knitting. I don’t normally let him boss me around like this, and I’m not very happy about wasting half a fag like that either, but I’m feeling a bit tired after all the fuss today so I’m in no mood for a row. But if he starts, I’ll give him one all right and he’s the one who’ll end up sorry.
‘Hungry?’ I say, as he sits down in his chair. ‘We’ve got some luncheon meat if you want a sandwich.’
He shakes his head. ‘Still full up from tea,’ he says. ‘What’s that you’re knitting?’
‘A cardigan for our Gary.’ I hold it up so he can see.
‘Why don’t you teach me how to knit?’ he says.
‘You?’ I laugh. ‘Men don’t knit. Men get out there on the garden and clear away all the muck that’s built up over the winter.’
‘I’ll do it at the weekend,’ he promises. ‘I want to knit now, though.’
‘Eddie, you’re a soft old bugger sometimes,’ I tell him. ‘It’s no wonder they used to call you a nancy boy and a poof, with your art and your poems and all the reading you do. And now you want to knit. Whatever next, I ask myself. You’ll be putting on my clothes and going down the bingo.’
He laughs. ‘It’d get the neighbours going if I did.’
‘Anything gets them going, bunch of nosy-parkering old gossips they are. Not that I don’t enjoy a nice chat and a cup of tea myself, when I’ve got time . . . What are you laughing at now?’
‘You.’
‘Why? What did I say?’
‘Nothing. Come here and give us a kiss.’
‘Oh now, don’t you start that . . . Eddie, I’ll lose my stitches,’ I say as he starts to pull me out of the chair.
‘Put the bloody knitting down and come over here. Come on, on my knee.’
‘I’ll squash you flat, you silly bugger.’
‘Do as you’re told for once, will you?’
I sit on his lap and put my arms round his neck. ‘What a pair of blinking chumps we look, sitting here like this,’ I say.
‘There’s no-one to see us, so stop moaning and give us a kiss now.’
‘I’m sitting awkward, your arm’s . . .’
‘Eddress.’
‘What?’
He gets hold of my face and plants a kiss right on my lips.
‘There,’ he says.
‘You’re a soft old sod,’ I tell him.
‘Bit soft on my wife, it’s true.’
I settle down and rest my head on his shoulder. ‘So what’s brought all this on then?’ I ask after a while.
‘I just thought it would be nice to have a bit of a cuddle.’
He’s right, it is nice, so that’s what we do, sit there in front of the fire, with the telly and the lights off, having a cuddle, while he tells me poems from Longfellow and Shelley and Keats. That’s my Eddie for you, not like anyone else I know. I wouldn’t want him to be, either. I just wish he was rich enough for us to pay for Susan and Gary to go to good schools, in case they don’t pass the exams. But we’ll get by, all of us. No, we’ll do more than that, we’ll go right to the bloody top, that’s what we’ll do, and the next thing you know we won’t just be hobnobbing with the Mrs Cranfields of the world, we’ll be living right next door to them.
Chapter Seven
Eddress
Sometimes I wonder where the weeks go, honest I do. One minute it’s Christmas, the next we’ve got Easter coming up on us, then before we know it it’ll be Whitsun and we’ll be thinking about our summer holidays again. I think we’ll go back to Dawlish this year, in a chalet. It worked out all right last time, apart from when Gary decided to go missing and we had the police out looking for him. What a to-do. Had the whole bloody campsite upside down, hiked people out the showers, off the lavs even, until we found him playing with a little boy seven chalets down, happy as Larry and twice as daft. Little perisher, going off like that. Gave us the fright of our lives.
I’ve been doing a bit of baking today ready for Easter, a dozen biscuits, a fruit cake for our mam, gingerbread men for the kids and some shortbread for Eddie. I’ll do the hot cross buns on Thursday night, I think, then warm them up in the oven on Good Friday morning. It’s lov
ely when the kitchen’s all warm and full of mouth-watering smells like this, and the wireless is on. I was listening to a programme just now about what’s supposed to be in, and what’s out. Didn’t half give us a laugh when Betty and June from over the road dropped in for a cup of tea and a chat after. Bloody Peregrine for a boy’s name’s supposed to be in. I ask you. Poor little bugger, fancy having to grow up with a moniker like that. Annabel’s all right for a girl, I suppose, quite nice really, wish I’d thought of it when our Susan was born. I gave Eddie his way over that. I wanted to call her Diane, but he liked Susan Heywood, so Susan it was. Gary was my choice, bloody sight better than Peregrine! Thanks to Eddie he’s ended up with Nakita too. Gary Maurice Nakita.
They even did what was in and out for things like cigarettes (Gauloise are in – none of us have ever even heard of them, Consulate are out, good job too); women’s shoes (Fortnum and Mason are in – I thought they sold food to the Queen; Freeman, Hardy and Willis are out – just as well because none of us can afford the place); clothes designers (Mary Quant and Jaeger are in, Hartnell and Tinling are out – we’ve only ever heard of Mary Quant and Hartnell and none of us is skinny enough to wear one, or rich enough to be out of fashion with the other). On and on it went, Donovan in, the Bachelors out, Jack Russells in, corgis out, Habitat in, Harrods out – never heard such a load of old bunkum, but it don’t half make you wonder about how the other half live, especially when they got into which artists you should have hanging on your walls, or how it’s not the done thing any more to have sanitary towels for your dogs! There’s a whole other world out there, in’t there, and I bet they don’t know anything about us lot either. I can tell them this much though, we’ve never bought sanitary towels for our bloody dogs.
June’s gone now, but Betty’s still here, upstairs checking on the kids. They were playing mothers and fathers earlier with Susan and Geoffrey as the grown-ups, and Gary and Nigel having to do as they’re told. It went quiet for a bit, which is never a good sign, so I’m just dusting down Eddie’s shortbread with some sugar, while Betty goes to find out if they’re up to no good.
‘Gary and Nigel are fast asleep,’ she says, coming back in the kitchen and picking up a tea towel to dry a few dishes, ‘and Susan and Geoffrey are playing ludo.’
‘I wouldn’t mind having a bit of a doze myself,’ I remark, clearing the sugar away. ‘This weather always makes me feel tired, don’t it you?’
‘A bit, yeah. Where do you keep this mixing bowl?’
‘In the cupboard next to the back door. I’ll put the kettle on again, shall I?’
‘I’ll have to go and get some more fags, I can’t keep borrowing off you.’
‘That’s all right, you can let me have them back later on. The packet’s there, on the window sill, if you want one now.’
She lights two, passes me one, and leaves hers in the corner of her mouth as she rinses out the teapot.
‘How much longer’s Don on nights?’ I ask her,
‘A couple more weeks. We should have enough saved up to get a car soon. He’s got his eye on an old Wolseley he saw down Two Mile Hill.’
‘I wouldn’t be in too much of a hurry,’ I warn. ‘Ours is always breaking down and if Eddie can’t repair it, it just sits out there getting on my nerves.’
‘What’s the matter with it now?’
‘God knows.’ I yawn, loudly, and rest my fag on the window sill so my hands are free to put the biscuits and cake on a shelf in the pantry. ‘I’m bloody tired today, I know that,’ I grumble. ‘It’s hard work having the kids home from school when it’s raining, always under your feet, moaning they’re bored or fighting fit to kill each other. I can’t believe they’ve been good for this long.’
‘How did you get on up the doctor’s the other day? Did he give you anything for your cold?’
‘Ssh,’ I say, going to close the hall door. ‘I don’t want old big ears, Susan, hearing I went up the doctor’s, or she’ll start asking questions. You know what she’s like, wants to be told the ins and outs of everything, and with an imagination like hers, the less she knows the better. We haven’t even told her she passed the test for Red Maids yet, or she’ll just start getting herself in a state again. Honest to God, you’d think we were sending her to Transylvania the way she carries on, bloody witches, vampires and ghosts. I keep telling her, she’s not even going to be a boarder, like some of them. She’s only going as a day girl, so she can get the number eight bus all the way there every morning, and all the way home again every night. But try telling her that. She thinks we’re wicked and mean and we don’t want her any more. Honest, kids, who’d have ’em?’
I cover the pot with a cosy and carry it through to put next to the fire, while Betty spoons sugar into a couple of cups and pours in a drop of milk.
‘So what did the doctor say?’ she asks, keeping her voice down as she comes into the living room behind me.
‘Oh, he just gave me a prescription, but I’m not going to bother getting it. I’m all right now, just a bit of a cough.’
‘Anything about your check-up? Have you heard when it is yet?’
‘No.’ My answer comes out a bit snappy, but I don’t like people mentioning anything about what I had done.
‘It’s over six months now though, innit? I thought they wanted you back . . .’
‘Maybe they don’t any more. They haven’t been in touch, and I’m definitely not going to go chasing them. Eddie thinks I should, but he would. Do you know, he actually accused me of hiding the appointment letter the other night. Bloody fool, as if I’d do that.’
‘You didn’t, did you?’
‘Don’t you bloody start. No, course I didn’t. Where would it get me if I did? I have to let them make sure it’s still all clear, I know that. But if there was something wrong I’d know, and there’s not. Now, let’s have a cup of tea and then I’ve got something to show you.’
There’s an advert for kids’ coats that I cut out of the paper. They’ve got fur linings and hoods, they’re waterproof and half the price you’d pay down Millets or somewhere like that. The reason they’re so cheap is you have to send away to China for them, where everything’s a lot cheaper than here, but they’re nice, good-quality-looking coats, so I think we should get some.
‘How do we pay?’ Betty asks.
‘It says here we can send the money by postal order or cheque. Well, seeing as neither of us has got a bank account, I can sort it out when I go to the post office tomorrow to pick up the family allowance. Do you want to get two for Geoffrey and Nigel?’
‘I don’t know if I’ve got a fiver to spare this week,’ she answers. ‘I’ll ask Don when he gets up. See what he says. Have you told Eddie?’
‘It was him what spotted the advert in the first place. You know him, anything to do with Russia or China.’ I finish off my tea, then put the strainer on the cup to pour myself another. ‘Blimey, listen to that rain. It sounds like it’s going to come straight through the bloody windows.’
‘Never get the washing dry in this weather,’ Betty grumbles.
We stare down at the fire as the coals shift and settle again. My eyes are feeling heavy, I reckon I could drop off right where I’m sitting. ‘I’ve promised to take the kids up the zoo next week,’ I say, ‘so I hope it clears up by then.’
‘That’ll be nice. Up the zoo. Our Geoffrey likes the reptile house. Gives me the bleeding creeps, all those sodding snakes and toads, but he has to go in. Thought I might take ’em to the pictures instead this holiday.’
We go on chatting about this and that, what’s hap pening on Coronation Street, whether they’ll really ban cigarette advertising on the telly the way they’re saying, about Molly Carson, over in the next street, whose husband just ran off with some floozy from St George leaving her with four kids to bring up, until it’s time for me to start putting Eddie’s tea on. Betty’s got to go and wake Don up too, but her kids stay to watch children’s hour, even though they’ve got their own telly
next door now.
When Eddie comes home his food’s ready to go on the table – fish pie made with a nice piece of cod, chips and peas. Susan and Gary have fish fingers sitting at her little table, then Eddie’s back out the door again, off to night school. Before he goes he puts the paraffin heater in the bathroom to warm it up a bit, so after Susan helps me wash up I send her up to have a bath while I play a game with Gary. When she’s finished I boil a kettle to warm up the bathwater, then I plop Gary in while I go to give Susan a brisk rub-down to try and stop her from shivering. I’m always too rough, she tells me, with her teeth chattering together, she can do it herself. So I let go of the towel and take her pyjamas out of the airing cupboard. They’re nice and warm, which puts a smile on her face when I pull the top over her head.
As usual her record player goes on, ‘Bobby Shaftoe’s gone to sea’, so I leave her to brush her own hair while I scoop my boy out of the bath and carry him into his bedroom. Eddie decorated it a couple of weeks ago with some wallpaper we found in the club book that’s all pictures of the Beatles. So there we are, me and Gary, shivering, rubbing and laughing in his tiny little boxroom being watched over by John, Paul, George and Ringo, who’s Gary’s favourite. Susan prefers George and has dreams about him, she tells me.
Before getting into bed in his Beatles pyjamas Gary has to have a quick bang on his drums, so I make sure Susan’s all tucked up, go through the usual ‘you’re horrible for making me go to bed early’ business, then I turn off their lights and take meself back downstairs. I wait in the kitchen doorway, and sure enough, as soon as the little devils think I can’t hear them they start calling out to one another.
‘If you come in here I’ll tell you a story,’ Susan offers.
Seconds later I hear Gary’s door creak open and his little feet pad across Susan’s room, followed by a few grunts and slaps when he obviously manages to step on her as he climbs into her bed. It’s no wonder he has nightmares with the horror stories she tells him, but he can never seem to get enough of them, so it’s his silly fault if he keeps listening. (I won’t be saying that when he comes waking me up in the middle of the night, I’ll want to clout her one then.)
