Winners and Losers

by Linda Sole

  Connor dumped the bra in the wastebasket. One of the girls at the party must have shoved it in his pocket. It wouldn’t be the first time. There were some fans that followed the band from one town to another and most of them were girls.

  ‘Alan! It is so good to see you!’ Emily cried as she hurried down the stairs to meet him. ‘Let me look at you – yes, you look so much better. You must have done just what the doctor ordered.’

  ‘Yes, I think I did,’ Alan said. ‘I’ve been painting, sitting in the sun, reading and drinking good wine. I should have done it years ago, Emily. I worked all hours for God knows how many years, and it was hard to switch off at first, but I am so pleased I did.’

  ‘You make me slightly envious,’ Emily said and leaned forward to kiss his cheek. Alan turned his head and their lips met. She was surprised, but she didn’t pull away. The kiss was warm and sweet and it made her yearn for things she had forgotten. ‘That was nice . . . we should do it again later, Alan. Come into the parlour and have some tea. You must be frozen. It has turned very cold this past couple of days and you’ve just come from France.’

  ‘I wish you could have been there with me. It was perfect but for the fact that the English Channel lay between us.’

  ‘Oh, Alan . . .’ Emily reached for his hand. ‘I have become so very fond of you, my dearest. I think I may have fallen in love with you.’

  ‘But do you love me enough to leave this house and come away with me?’

  ‘Please don’t ask me that question yet. I want to enjoy having you here for Christmas, dearest Alan – and then we can talk about the future . . .’

  Daniel saw Maura coming towards him as he walked from the cattle market into the adjoining street. He had hoped she would leave the area once she had the five hundred pounds, but it looked as if she had hung around. If she was hoping for more, she would be out of luck. He had given Alice money to buy presents for her and the children, and he had only a few pounds left from the money Frances had loaned him. Unless he could find time to finish one of the cars he was struggling to restore in the little time he had to spare from the land, he would be in trouble soon. At the moment he hadn’t a hope in hell of paying his sister back.

  He was tempted to get into his van and drive off, but he knew that Maura would come and find him in Stretton if he did that, and he would rather have this out here in Ely.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked brusquely. ‘I’m broke so there’s no point in you asking for more.’

  ‘You might have bought a present for your son.’

  ‘Why? I don’t know him. I’ve only your word that he is even mine.’

  ‘You’ve seen the photos. You know he’s yours right enough.’

  ‘I thought you were leaving once you got your money.’

  ‘I never said that.’ Maura scowled. ‘I’ve opened my own hairdressing shop in Market Street and I’m doing all right. I still want that other five hundred, but I’ll wait a bit longer – providing you buy David a present and bring it round.’

  Daniel put a hand in his pocket and brought out three pounds. ‘This is all I’ve got. You had better buy him something. I have no idea what he likes. I’m not coming there; it would be pointless to start something I have no intention of continuing.’

  ‘You would know what he likes if you’d visited,’ Maura said. ‘He is only a lad and he needs a father.’

  ‘Well, find him one, then,’ Daniel grated angrily. ‘But don’t expect me to take an interest. I’ve got my own family.’

  He walked past her, got into his van and started the engine. She jumped out of the way as he reversed. He knew that he was risking trouble by refusing her what she asked, but he wasn’t going to give her more money. His problems were mounting all the time and at the moment he couldn’t see a way out of them. Some of his potatoes had got the blight and he’d had to dump them. Coupled with the fact that one of the cows had an infected teat and couldn’t be milked, that was enough to cut his income by nearly a hundred pounds. Unless things started to pick up he would end up going to the bank for more money, because he couldn’t ask Frances for another loan.

  He would have to find time to work on the sports car he had almost finished. He knew it would sell once he could get it running sweetly. He might get two hundred and fifty pounds for it if he was lucky, and that would pay some outstanding feed bills and buy the manure he needed for next year’s crops.

  Daniel sighed as he drove home. The endless grind to try and make ends meet was wearing him down. He thought about Connor, who had sent a card to say he would pop in on Christmas Eve, and found that he envied his brother the freedom to come and go. He wasn’t sure that he would enjoy Connor’s life, but it must be better than being tied to a job he had come to hate. If he could take a risk, he would sell the fields and concentrate on his cars, but with four children to feed it was too much of a gamble. More and more people were buying cars these days, but there were still a lot of people who didn’t own one. If he gave up the farm too soon, he might be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire – and yet it was wearing him out doing both jobs, and Alice had started to complain that she never saw him.

  Alice stood outside the small hairdressing shop in Ely. She had asked her sister-in-law to make her an appointment to have her hair cut. Mary had her hair permed or Marcel-waved by a man at the shop in the High Street, but Alice’s hair had a natural curl and she didn’t want a man to do hers. Mary had told her about this new shop, and she’d booked an appointment for her. Alice had noticed that the ends had been splitting recently and because it was too long it had become greasy again.

  Putting her doubts to the back of her mind, Alice opened the door and went in. A young girl came towards her and took her coat.

  ‘Mrs Searles? I am Shirley. I am going to cut and set your hair for you.’

  ‘Oh . . . thank you. I think my sister-in-law came in to see you?’

  ‘Yes. She asked me if I could fit you in and I had time today.’

  Alice nodded, still a little nervous. She was asked to sit in front of a basin and a gown was slipped over her dress, a towel around her shoulders. She held another small towel to her face as she bent over the basin to have her hair shampooed.

  ‘Shall I put a beer rinse on for you, Mrs Searles? It will help with the grease.’

  ‘Yes, please,’ Alice said through the towel. ‘It has been a bit of a mess recently . . .’

  She straightened up as the girl brought her back and rough-dried her hair with the towel. It felt wet as it was put back round her neck. Her hair was combed straight and then the girl asked how much she wanted taken off.

  ‘I think about two or three inches,’ Alice said. ‘I can look after my hair easily when it has been trimmed, but it is ages since I went to a hairdresser.’

  ‘You should come at least every three months. But it will feel so much better once it is done. You have really nice hair, Mrs Searles.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Alice smiled. She saw a woman who looked to be in her early thirties come in and sit behind the reception desk. The telephone rang and she answered, giving the name of the shop and then chatting as she booked an appointment for a regular customer.

  Shirley gave Alice a layer cut and then parted her hair to one side; she finger-waved it and pinned it down to just above Alice’s ears and then began to curl the hair into circles, clipping it with flat silver-coloured clips. When she had finished curling the hair at the back, she put a brown net over Alice’s head, tied it at the back and lowered a hood dryer over her head.

  ‘You can adjust it if it gets too hot,’ Shirley said. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘No, thank you. I’ll just look through the magazines.’

  Alice flicked through the women’s magazines that Shirley brought her. She seldom bought one herself because it just seemed a waste of money when they needed every penny for other things. This hairdo was an extravagance, because she could have had just a cut and that would cost less, but Daniel had
given her some money to spend for Christmas and this was her personal treat.

  The door of the shop opened and someone came in. Looking in the mirror, Alice saw a young lad and her heart caught. For one moment she thought it was her own son Danny, but his hair was slightly darker. He went up to the desk and talked to the woman, and she gave him some money from the till.

  He must be the woman’s son. Alice watched in the mirror as she talked to the boy and then followed him through to the back of the shop.

  Shirley came to take Alice out of the dryer a few minutes later. Alice kept her voice calm as she asked who the lad was, though her mouth felt dry and her heart was hammering like crazy.

  ‘He is Maura’s son,’ Shirley said. ‘Nice looking boy, isn’t he? She is on her own now since her marriage broke up. It isn’t easy bringing up a child alone. I give her credit for taking on a business like this, because it was a bit of a gamble. We’re doing very well so far, but it must be a worry for her. She had a bit of a windfall and she put all her money into the shop.’

  ‘Yes, it must be a worry with a young lad and no husband,’ Alice said. She looked in the mirror, hardly seeing her own reflection because she felt so odd. When Shirley held the mirror for her to see the back, she nodded and said it was lovely. She thought it looked too set and stiff, but she could brush it out a bit more when she got home, and it would go how she liked it when she washed it herself. ‘Thank you very much – how much do I owe you?’

  ‘Seven shillings and sixpence,’ Shirley said, ‘because it was a full cut. If you had it trimmed regularly, it would be five and six.’

  Alice gave her a shilling tip and left. She had been in a hurry to leave the shop, but now she wandered aimlessly along the street towards the bus stop. She had thought she might buy a pair of shoes from the shop in the High Street, but she didn’t feel like it now. She felt cold and shivery, a little bit sick. The lad had looked about the same age as her own son, or maybe a little older, but the resemblance was so strong that she was sure in her own mind that they both had the same father.

  The boy had looked very much like her husband must have when he was that age. Alice had a sepia photograph of Daniel as a boy, and the lad she’d just seen could have stepped straight out of the picture frame.

  The truth suddenly jumped out at her – the owner of the hairdressing shop had a son by her husband! Alice wanted to scream but instead she found a wooden bench and sat down. Her hands were shaking as she tried to make sense of what she had seen. Had Daniel had an affair with that woman before he started courting Alice – or was it still going on?

  Daniel didn’t have time to carry on with other women now. Alice reminded herself that he worked all hours to try and make a decent living for them. He hardly ever went to the pub these days. It wasn’t still going on. It couldn’t be!

  Alice took a grip on her thoughts. She had been so shocked to see the boy, because he could have been her own Danny. She felt sick and angry, because Daniel should have told her long ago, but she knew she had to find a way to live with the knowledge.

  She needed to do some more shopping. She still had presents to buy for the children and she wasn’t going to spoil their Christmas just because of what she had discovered. She was so angry with Dan, but she wouldn’t say anything until after Christmas – although she didn’t think she could bear him to touch her.

  Daniel was working on a car when Alice walked through the yard. He waved to her and called that he would be in for a cup of tea in a few minutes. Mary was sitting at the kitchen table. She had the kettle boiling and the cake tin on the table.

  ‘Your hair looks smart,’ she said. ‘You look a proper picture, love.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Alice said. She put her parcels on the dresser and touched her hair. ‘It feels a bit tight at the moment but it will be better when I’ve brushed it. Has Sally been good?’

  ‘Yes, as always.’ Mary sighed. ‘I sometimes wish mine weren’t all grown-up – even the youngest two are growing away from me. John is talking of getting married next year. It makes you feel old when your children get married, Alice. Of course, you’ve got a long way to go yet.’

  ‘Yes, though Connor may get married soon. He isn’t my son, but sometimes he feels like one. I think he is serious about marrying that girl from Ely.’

  ‘I heard him and that group of his on the radio last night,’ Mary said. ‘They are saying his new record could be the number one for Christmas. He must be making a lot of money.’

  ‘Yes, I imagine he is,’ Alice said. She sat down at the table as her sister-in-law poured a cup of tea. Daniel came in from the yard but she didn’t turn her head. She wasn’t sure she could look at him, especially with Mary there.

  ‘I thought there would be a cup of tea on the go,’ Daniel said. ‘Your hair looks nice, love – though I like it best when it grows a bit. I shall have to help with the milking when I’ve had this tea. Joe can’t manage to get the cows in the stalls on his own.’

  ‘You should get a full-time herdsman,’ Mary said. ‘Or get rid of them and put all your fields down to arable. The price of milk is hardly worth having these days, so they tell me.’

  ‘We don’t do so bad,’ Daniel said. ‘It is an idea, though. If I got rid of the cows and pigs, it would make life easier.’

  ‘Oh, pigs are all right,’ Mary said. ‘Feed them and they are no bother, that’s what Henry always said, though it was mostly me doing the feeding, but cows are always needing the vet or injuring themselves – and the milking has to be done every day.’

  ‘You’ve got a point, Mary,’ Daniel said. ‘It was all right when Connor was here. I could leave him to get on with things, but it’s hard to get a man who will work for what I can pay him. There are better wages doing piecework or in the jam factory.’

  ‘All the men and a lot of women are working in that new radio and TV factory in Cambridge,’ Mary said as she sipped her tea. ‘They pay decent wages. I’ve thought about trying it myself.’

  ‘You wouldn’t want a full-time job,’ Alice said. She looked at her sister-in-law because she couldn’t bear to look at her husband.

  ‘No, not really,’ Mary said. ‘I might get a job in the jam factory, though. They take part-time workers there. I wouldn’t mind working somewhere that pays more money.’

  ‘Are you finding it hard to manage?’ Alice asked but Mary shook her head.

  ‘My eldest pays me a bit of rent and Janet starts work next year. She will pay four shillings for her keep. No, I can manage, Alice – but it gets a bit lonely at times.’

  ‘You help out with the church, with flowers and fêtes and so on . . .’ Alice was concerned; Mary didn’t often mention her feelings. She’d taken it for granted that her sister-in-law was content with her life. ‘Why don’t you go and live with Frances? She did offer you a job.’

  ‘I didn’t want to move the children. Frances wrote and asked me for Christmas, but I turned her down. We shall have a house full as usual.’

  ‘She asked us, too. We couldn’t spare the time to go down. It is awkward, because she was so generous to us when we went down earlier this year. I have asked her here and I know Emily is always asking her to stay, too, but it seems she doesn’t want to budge from the hotel.’

  ‘Well, I suppose it is her life,’ Mary said. ‘I think I shall visit when Christmas is over, though. I like Frances and she had a rough time.’

  ‘Yes, she did,’ Alice agreed. ‘I might come with you and bring Sally. Dan can manage here by himself for a while.’

  Alice didn’t look at her husband as she spoke. She knew he would find it difficult on his own, because he would have to look after the three eldest children. She had always said it wouldn’t be fair to leave him, but at the moment she was angry and she felt like punishing him.

  ‘Frances would like that,’ Mary said. ‘I saw Dorothy yesterday and she said Clay was taking her down for a few days in the spring. I was surprised, because I thought Frances had refused to speak to him.’


  ‘Maybe she thinks it is time to forgive him. It was a long time ago . . .’

  She knew that Daniel would never forgive his brother, but perhaps Frances was more forgiving.

  Frances massaged her temples. She had a throbbing headache. She had been feeling better for the best part of a week, but now her headache had returned and she felt as if her head would burst.

  The doctors had told her that there had been little change in the tumour. It hadn’t grown by any noticeable amount since her last visit to the hospital. She still had a few years left to her, they said; she was one of the lucky ones. A lot of people with brain tumours were dead within a year; hers was the manageable kind. They couldn’t cure it for her and an operation was out of the question, because she might end up a cabbage, but they had given her medicines to help with the pain.

  It would get worse in time, of course. Frances wasn’t sure she could stand it if it became much worse than it felt now – but she still had spells when she felt fine. If she looked at herself in the mirror, she couldn’t see any difference.

  Emily had refused to come for Christmas because she had too much going on at Vanbrough. Frances had considered going to visit her for a few days, but she had Vane’s cousin staying. Perhaps she would go later in the year.

  Clay had rung her earlier that morning, wishing her a happy Christmas. He was ringing her more often these days. Daniel hardly ever got round to phoning, but then he didn’t have a phone in the house. She knew that he had to go into the village to call her from the phone box. Sometimes it was already in use and he might have to wait ages. She had thought he might have one installed with the money she had given him, but it appeared he didn’t think it important. If he’d had a phone, Frances could have rung him. She’d sent presents and cards, and Alice had sent a card and a present to her, of course, but Frances would have appreciated a phone call from her favourite brother.

  She knew that Daniel worked all hours and she considered telling him that he had no need to worry about the loan. She didn’t want the money back anyway. If he had rung her himself, she would have told him, but her letters went to Alice, and Daniel wouldn’t want her to know he had borrowed money from his sister.