by Maggie Ford
‘Something certainly is wrong,’ Geraldine burst out, angry again. ‘And it ain’t me. It’s that woman, with her bleeding enticing eyes and her bleeding seductive voice, and her—’
‘Don’t swear.’ The admonition, totally divorced from the pain she was trying to convey to her mother, shocked and enraged her. How could Mum be so unfeeling, concerned only that her daughter was resorting to swear words?
‘You don’t bloody care at all, do you, Mum? You’ve never ’ad to go through what I’m going through and you can’t even be bothered to put yerself in my place just for a second. I’m losing my husband, Mum!’
‘And blessed good riddance.’
‘You can’t say that. I love ’im! What d’you know about love?’
The question was ignored. ‘Yer’ll just ’ave ter learn ter fall out of love, won’t yer?’
Before Geraldine could retort to that unfeeling remark, Mum said, dropping her voice and speaking as though to herself or to a child not quite comprehending her words, ‘If yer ’usband died this very day, yer’d ’ave ter get on with life, learn ter survive, pull yerself up by yer boot straps and get on with it.’
Mum was wandering about the back room, picking up vases and the small, framed photographs of family members, studio photos and seaside snaps, and carefully replacing them as though they were the sole objects that mattered to her at this present time.
‘When God takes our loved ones there ain’t nothin’ we can do about it but get on with things, even when we’re in grief. So yer’ve got ter look at this, Gel, the same way as yer would if yer lost ’im proper like.’
‘It ain’t the same, Mum. Someone dying can be taken as God’s will if yer like, but this ’as been done by Tony ’imself, and the bitch of a woman who doesn’t care who she hurts, only interested in stealing someone else’s husband for her own pleasure.’
‘It is the same. And if you can’t see it, then it ain’t worth talking to yer. You’re a fool to yerself. You’re determined to suffer like some blessed screen heroine and pull yer ’air out, an’ make life a misery fer yerself and fer everyone around yer, as if other people tearing out their ’air on your be’alf will cure what you’re going through. Well, it don’t wash, Gel. It’s only you what can make things better. If yer can’t entice ’im back ter your bed, then best forget ’im, like ’e ’ad died, and get on with yer own life. It’s the only way. It’s the only advice I’ve got ter give yer.’
‘You can’t even give enough to cuddle me, can you?’ Geraldine spat.
‘What’s cuddling goin’ ter do?’ came the reply. ‘If I cuddled yer, yer’ll feel better for a time, but it’ll all come back, an’ I can’t be ’ere cuddling yer forever. Yer’ve got ter see ter yerself. No one else can do it for yer.’
Mum was wrong. She couldn’t see how alone she felt, had no feelings; if she lost Dad, or if he walked off and left her, would she be spouting the same platitudes, taking her own advice?
Geraldine came away from the house filled with anger and remorse and quite understandably sorry for herself. Alone in her world, she thought of Clara and went to seek her out. Mavis was too like her Mum to tell her woes to, and Evie was too young and in love to understand. And besides, she’d asked, pleaded with Mum not to tell anyone why she had gone there, and Mum, to give her credit, would honour that plea. Even if she thought it herself – ‘I could have told you so’ – she wouldn’t want others to have the privilege of thinking it, to her own humiliation, not even Dad.
Clara was all sympathy, crying along with her, holding her to her bosom and for a while it did help. But Mum was right after all. When she finally came away from Clara’s home, her sister-in-law standing at the door, eyes filled with concern and sorrow as she watched her go, all the cuddling in the world hadn’t changed anything one iota.
Chapter Twenty-four
There was one person who might make a difference. More or less by instinct her footsteps turned towards Alan’s place of business.
Some time ago he’d told her where it was, not too far to walk, on the corner of Roman Road and Eden Street by the Grand Canal, though she had never been there before. Soon she was standing at the open gates to the builder’s yard, gazing in, unsure whether to go through or not, whether he’d be at all pleased to see her there – in fact, what on earth was she doing here at all? But she needed an ally, needed someone who might understand.
Still unsure of herself, Geraldine walked in, stood gazing at the piles of brick and timber, the ramshackle main building, little more than a shack, at a couple of men moving to and fro shifting something here, something there. Someone passed her trundling a wheelbarrow full of something. She moved aside for him and saw the odd look he gave her. This was no place for her, she was in the way.
What if Cynthia had been making it all up, thinking it funny to tell a silly fib about Tony, then stand by and watch her get in a state, bursting into peals of laughter at the game she’d played on her when it all came out that Tony was as loyal as the day was long? And now she’d made a fool of herself with Mum and with Clara. It could get all round the family, everyone grinning behind her back, except Mum, angry with her. Now she was about to make another a fool of herself to Alan. Better to leave.
‘Want some ’elp yer, missus?’
The voice held a challenge. Geraldine turned on her heel to see a big man in cloth cap, heavy boots, trousers and jacket splashed with plaster over a soiled, blue-striped shirt and stained pullover. Instead of a tie he had a polka-dot choker, once plum-coloured but now dark from sweat.
‘What yer want?’ Again challenging, her nice clothes being eyed with something like hostility – what was a woman like this doing in a builder’s yard? She could almost imagine the question: if she needed work done on her property, she should be sending the man who was working for her? She must either hurry away or face the man.
‘I … um – I …’
‘Yus?’
Geraldine gathered her wits and faced the man squarely, her voice becoming positive. ‘Is Mr Presley around?’
‘Oo wants ’im?’
‘Is he here?’ It was her turn to be hostile. There was enough on her plate without this.
‘All depends.’
‘On what?’ Her tone sharpened considerably. She wasn’t happy. The man was being openly uncivil, certainly no way to treat a potential customer, though of course she wasn’t, was she?
‘On wot yer wants ’im for.’
‘Now listen!’ she burst out, ready to rant. ‘I’ve come here on specific business and I will not be treated as if—’
‘Gerry?’ The voice stopped her in mid-flow. ‘Gerry, what’re you doing ’ere?’
Turning to see Alan in his working clothes striding towards her, she immediately began letting off steam. ‘Alan! This man! All he’s done so far is to treat me with not one spark of courtesy. I’ve come here …’
She paused, confused. What exactly had she come here for? This wasn’t the place to be if she hoped to tell him her problems, appeal for sympathy. ‘Alan, I …’
He was laughing, waving the man away who moved off with a brave show of indignation at being dismissed when he’d no doubt expected his boss to uphold his defence of his yard against stupid women in posh clothes who thought to invade it, and him not even alerted to the fact she was someone his boss knew.
Still chuckling, Alan repeated, ‘What are you doing here?’
She couldn’t even raise a smile. ‘I needed to see you, urgently.’
That put an immediate stop to his amusement, his brows knitting together at the way her face was beginning to distort. ‘What on earth’s wrong, gel?’
Geraldine caught her lips between her teeth to stem ready tears. She looked round, certain that the few men in the yard were watching her, the man leaving with a horse and cart, the man who’d been rude to her, even a housewife maybe looking out of her bedroom window nearby.
‘I can’t say anything here, Alan. I need ter talk to yer, but you�
��re busy. Perhaps later, after you’ve done work. I don’t want to be a nuisance and it’s probably nothing at all but …’ She was gabbling. ‘I don’t want ter get in yer way. I’ll wait till yer finish work and then—’
‘Want, be bloody damned!’ He took her by the arm, gently but firmly. ‘You’re in a state. Yer’ve come ter me. Bugger the work – I want ter know what’s upset you to come ’ere and find me, and I want to ’elp, if I can.’
He looked round the yard. The men watching immediately turned to what they’d been doing before staring with utmost interest at the cameo.
She shook herself mentally to push away the thought as he took her arm and led her from the builder’s yard, and her thoughts returned to Tony and what he’d done, was still doing if what Cynthia had said was true. Was she jumping to conclusions after all? At this moment it seemed she must be. How was she going to confide this to Alan? He would think her mad. Even she didn’t know what to think now as they made their way together round the corner to the café he’d indicated.
She stirred yet another cup of strong, almost black tea in thick, stained china, keeping her eyes on what she was doing. Why was it always over strong, dark tea, in horrid cups and chipped saucers that she must tell Alan her troubles?
He was sitting opposite her, as always. Came a wild thought – if only they were seated on a sofa, his sofa, his arm around her, his hand warm on her shoulders, face close to hers. How much more comforted she would feel. Instead of this place.
‘So what is it, Gel?’
‘Don’t call me Gel,’ she burst out irritably. ‘Gerry or Geraldine – not Gel, please!’
‘Sorry.’
Silence fell between them. It was relatively quiet, not much going on in the place, most having had their midday snack and gone back to work, those who had work; and all that could be heard was the sound of washing up in the kitchen area. Clara had asked if she wanted anything to eat with the cup of tea she had made, but Geraldine had felt that the last thing in the world she needed had been to eat anything. She still wasn’t hungry, felt that even a biscuit would have choked her.
After a while, Alan said quietly, ‘Whatever’s on your mind, Gerry, you can’t keep it to yerself.’
She found her voice; it sounded husky. ‘I always seem to be running to you. I shouldn’t be bothering you like this.’
‘Who else should you bother?’ There was no amusement there though the question had the element of amusement.
‘I don’t know,’ was her lame reply.
‘Then tell me.’
No, she couldn’t tell him. What she’d heard about Tony wasn’t true, a made-up joke played on her by an unscrupulous woman, like all of that unscrupulous lot. Yet deep down she knew it was no lie said for fun and suddenly she was crying, silently, head bent over her cup, a tear falling into it.
Alan’s hand reached across to cover hers but she couldn’t look up.
‘Let’s go somewhere else,’ he was saying. She was sure he’d said these same words once before, somewhere else. She was aware of herself nodding agreement and being helped up by him, led out, their tea left untouched.
Back at the builder’s yard, now with her eyes dry, he led her into his office and sat her down in his chair, a decrepit thing with scuffed arms and torn padding, but like his messy office and jumbled yard, suitable for what he did.
Perching on the edge of the desk beside her, he said, ‘Get yer wind, then we’ll go in me wagon to my place. They can do without me for a couple of hours. It’s the afternoon. Ain’t that much goin’ on once the morning’s finished – not what Bill can’t cope with anyway.’
Before she could ask where they were going, he was out of the door for another word with Bill, his foreman. She could see them outside the one dusty window pane of the office, Bill, squat, merry-faced, in his forties, with fading ginger hair and heavy ginger eyebrows, nodding attentively to what Alan was telling him.
‘Go where?’ she asked, getting to her feet as Alan returned.
‘To my place?’ It was a question that begged no answer. ‘We can talk better there. I’ve got the old wagon I use ter pick things up in. Engine ain’t all it should be but we ain’t far away. If yer don’t mind being bumped about.’
She shook her head and was soon sitting beside him in the wagon that though repainted green looked as though it had seen plenty of service during the war. It was ancient and battered but she supposed good enough for the work he did.
Before long she was following him into his home, a small terraced house squeezed between similar homes each with a door and window on the ground floor with two small windows above, of the two-up two-down type but much smaller than her parents’ home. She supposed this was all he really needed on his own.
The front room was tiny, an armchair, a settee, a sideboard, an upright chair and a tiny writing bureau filling it fit to burst. An empty grate with a bit of carpet in front of it, the room retained a bare look even so, a look of utility, any sense of cosiness not a prime aim. There were books everywhere – books and magazines on building, carpentry, plumbing, all sorts, scattered on the sideboard and in heaps on the floor, only adding to this lack of comfort.
‘I’ll get some tea,’ he said as, standing in the centre of the room gazing about, she automatically took off her hat.
‘No, I don’t want any,’ she stopped him. She wasn’t even sure why she was here – wished she hadn’t let him bring her but then she’d been so dispirited and at a loss as to what she really wanted to say to him. She was still at a loss, seeing herself a fool, certain he would also see her as one.
Taking her at her word he asked her to sit down, which she did, on the edge of the settee as the armchair held several newspapers, as did the far end of the settee. Because of these Alan came and sat beside her.
‘Right then, Gel … Gerry,’ he corrected hastily. ‘I ’ope you don’t mind being ’ere, but yer looked so terrible it made me feel yer really need a shoulder ter cry on, and a café ain’t the sort of place ter do it. Nor is me office. So …’ He paused, then went on. ‘Tell me, Geraldine, what’s it about? What’s made yer look so sad, so ill?’
‘Do I look ill?’ she queried idiotically.
‘Yes, yer do. I want to ’elp, if I can.’
He sat in silence while she fought with herself whether she really wanted to say anything or not. But to just sit here was meaningless. She must say something.
‘It’s Tony,’ she began, then, drawing strength from those two small words, began to talk of the absences she had assumed were his business taking up his time, of the odd instances when she thought she imagined he no longer felt any real affection for her.
‘I always thought it was my imagination. Since we lost Caroline I’ve felt so isolated even in company. Tony says I think too much, but when I talk of trying for another baby he shies away, says there’s time. Nor do I seem to be capable of … well, you know, starting a family.’ It was hard talking of these sort of things to him, yet they had to be said in order to make it clear. ‘Then over Easter, someone I know, someone we both know well – Cynthia – let drop that Tony was seeing some other woman.’
In a flurry of words she blurted out what had been said, adding, ‘She could have been making it up, playing a rotten joke on me.’
Alan’s voice was low and sombre. ‘I don’t think so, Gel.’
This time she let the offending diminutive pass over her. His arm had gone round her and he gently pulled her towards him. With no will in her, she let him, laying against him in a welter of misery. ‘What am I going to do?’
She felt him shake his head. ‘You’ll have to talk to him, Gel.’
‘I can’t,’ she whispered, but trying to find hope in the midst of this sense of wretchedness, went on, ‘If it was a joke, I could make such a fool of meself. He’d be hurt, me making him feel I don’t trust him. No one wants someone ter think that of them. It could even break up our marriage and it’d be my fault.’
‘It wouldn
’t,’ he said, his tone soft.
‘I ought to ignore it,’ she offered. ‘Forget it.’
‘Yet it’s still there, eating into yer, making yer unhappy.’ He thought for a moment. ‘If yer was ter say what this … Cynthia?’ She nodded against his chest. ‘This Cynthia said and tell ’im yer thought it was a rotten joke on ’er part, maybe yer’d feel more certain and with no harm done.’
He was offering crumbs of comfort. Yet she was slowly beginning to know that it had not been a joke, only her heart wanting it to be.
He seemed to read her thoughts. ‘You don’t think so, do yer?’ She shook her head vigorously and let herself lie even closer to him. ‘I wish I could take all this away from yer,’ he was saying. ‘I want to, so much.’
‘There’s nothing you can do,’ she whispered. ‘You holding me is comfort. Makes me feel I’ve got a friend I can turn to.’
‘Yer can always turn ter me.’ His tone was washing over her. His arm about her had grown firmer. She felt his lips resting among the hair on the crown of her head and as she lifted her head a little, it brought those lips close to hers.
‘Alan …’
She hadn’t known exactly when their lips touched but for a moment was lost in the sensations rushing through her body at their warmth, their pressure, the hunger that had begun to race from him to her. Seconds later reason came flooding back. She drew away in alarm.
‘No!’ It wasn’t repulse. Had things been different this would have been wonderful. But she was married, no matter what Tony had been up to. Two wrongs could not make a right and for all she was totally in distress at what Tony was apparently doing, she couldn’t start doing the same thing and then think to condemn him.
Alan had released her the moment she drew away and it occurred to her in some disembodied way that another man might have pressed his needs if he felt as she had in that moment, which she could see by the tension in his face that he had. A strange love surged through her at that knowledge, one that she curbed instantly.
‘I’m sorry, Alan. I shouldn’t have … I didn’t mean to …’ She got up from the settee. ‘I’d best go. I have to go home.’ She would have to confront Tony, she knew that now.
