The Keepsake

by Sheelagh Kelly

  Etta voiced her gratitude, but sensed that her presence made Louisa feel awkward and that the offer was made out of politeness rather than true kinship, and though she promised to call occasionally she had no real desire to, for Marty was the only member of this clan that she would ever really need.

  For all this, there were some closer to home with whom she really should try to make a connection. And the next morning, Monday, she was granted the opportunity to cultivate friendship with all of her neighbours at once, at least the female ones, for they were congregated in the yard, busy at their laundry. Marty had bought her an iron-hooped tub which stood outside the back door, and now seemed a good time to put it to use. Trying to recall what came first, Etta carved some slivers from a large bar of soap then wandered out to tip these into the tub, nodding tentatively to the other women before going back in. Then came the trans-portation of water from the copper in jugs, a seemingly endless task. Finally she gathered the articles to be washed, and, hoping her ignorance would not be too obvious, went out to join the women.

  Though many of them had Irish surnames, over the sixty years since their ancestors had come here to escape the potato famine, the accent had become Yorkshire. They were laughing raucously over some shared joke, but when Etta came amongst them they controlled their amusement. This somewhat exasperated her, for even though Marty’s parents told her she was part of the family they often reacted in a similar vein, clamming up in case she overheard their earthy joke, as if she wouldn’t understand. In fact she did enjoy such humour and felt excluded and sad that they felt so constrained by her presence. She told the women, ‘Don’t mind me,’ and introduced herself for the benefit of those she had not met, but though they smiled and gave their names and did not actually state that she was intruding, this was the way she felt.

  Many of them were laundering sheets. Etta briefly entertained the idea of doing her own, but then, preferring to finish the embroidery she had been working on, decided against it for today and concentrated on underwear and stockings, a shirt and a few muslin aprons. As an afterthought, whilst these were soaking in the tub, she went back inside to fetch her lilac dress. Even kept for Sunday best, its cream lace was looking slightly worse for wear, its ribbons grey around the edges. Too daunted to immerse the entire garment, she opted to dip just these parts in the wash tub, but after barely any rubbing on the washboard they became distorted, the ribbons fraying and requiring a trim, and Etta despaired that her lovely gown would never be wearable again.

  Possessing no mangle, she asked politely if she might have the use of her neighbour’s, which was granted. Whilst working, she tried to chat to the woman, but this only extended to comments about the weather, and however much she tried to keep it going it soon petered out, so she was glad not to have many items to do and was soon finished.

  Her washing dangling from the communal line, Etta left everyone else still pummelling and wringing amongst the suds and went to make herself a cup of tea. First, though, after a look at her red hands, she reached for a little cardboard pot of salve.

  Hearing the clink of crockery, the one whose mangle she had borrowed looked round expectantly, but when no cup of tea was forthcoming she sniffed to her companions, ‘Too posh to offer us one. Let her buy her own bloody mangle then.’

  Another tittered. ‘She hardly needs one for the few things she’s washed. Two pairs o’ drawers and a sock.’

  ‘And have you seen the colour of her doorstep?’ asked another, at which all turned to behold the scuffed and dirty tread. ‘I’ve never seen her stone it yet, nor wipe her sills.’ To those who cleaned theirs every day of the week except Sunday, this was a capital offence. Hearing their amusement and suspecting that she was the butt of it, Etta could not imagine why they were all so uncharitable. Telling herself to ignore them, she sat down with her cup of tea and read a few chapters of a romantic novel, before turning to her embroidery.

  Apart from a break for a cold luncheon, this was to involve her for most of the day. Whilst the women were still scrubbing at their washboards, boiling and rinsing, bluing and mangling, brows dripping sweat, engaging in banter, she poured all her energy into French knots and long stitch. Let them make fun of her, see if she cared.

  Only much later in the afternoon was there someone to talk to. No longer plagued by Etta every lunchtime now, her mother-in-law decided to call around half past three to see how the younger Mrs Lanegan was coping. Aggie was a scrupulously clean person – one had to be round here in the shadow of iron foundries and factory chimneys, the moment one cleaned one’s sill the flecks of soot were already beginning to settle again – but, raised with servants, Etta had yet to grasp the concept of hard work that went into the upkeep of even a modest abode and gave more relevance to which colour thread she was to employ on her embroidery. The blissful ignorance that so endeared her to Marty only served to infuriate Aggie, who did not hold back in her criticism, though only after she had returned home.

  ‘Here’s me taking them a bit of pie for their tea, thinking she’d be rushed off her feet, what with it being washing day an’ all, and what do I find her doing? Sitting embroidering on her backside –’

  ‘Embroidering her backside?’ Uncle Mal gave a laugh of interest. ‘Sure, is it not pretty enough?’

  But his niece remained grim, ‘– and not a soap bubble in evidence!’

  Aggie was not the only one to think this odd, though it took Marty a while longer to voice it. Monday had always been a nightmare for the men he knew, not even a downpour able to delay the ritual wash, and the clothes being dried in front of the fire so that no one could get near it. Not so under Etta’s management. Sun or rain it seemed not to matter to his beautiful wife.

  Smitten as he was with her, he could put up with unwashed sheets for several weeks before this became a problem, but even one so besotted could not fail to notice that there was now a brownish, body-shaped imprint on either side of the bed.

  On the third Monday running, after he had lighted the copper for her and still there appeared little hint of activity to come, he stroked his chin as he wondered how to phrase this to Etta, finally suggesting that he put the bed linen on to soak before he left for work. ‘To make your job easier.’

  Dabbing her face with rosewater, Etta apologised, though did not seem too upset over the fact that he had had to remind her of her duties. ‘Yes, I suppose I had better do them. It just never entered my head. I’ve had so much else to do.’

  ‘So will I put them on before –’

  ‘No, leave them to me.’ She sprang up to kiss him goodbye. ‘Off to work with you now, and leave wifey to her business!’

  How she was to regret this blithe response. The laundering of the sheets turned out to be horrendous from start to finish. Inflicting a scald on her hand as she tried to hook the steaming linen from the boiler with just a stick, drenching herself as she struggled to transfer them to the wash tub, arms aching like they had never ached before after pummelling and scrubbing against the washboard all morning, she felt utterly exhausted – and still her sheets did not bare comparison with others on the line, which she graciously voiced to the women before going inside to put more ointment on her smarting hand.

  The reason was given to her in an overheard comment from one neighbour to another: ‘She might see a difference in her piebald sheets if she bothered to do them every week like normal folk.’

  Etta was flabbergasted. Suffer that every week? How would she find time to wash her clothes as well? They might be happy to waste their energies, but she had far better things to do. After greasing her sore hand and protecting it with a glove, she ate lunch. Then, suddenly remembering she had not topped up the boiler after using it, she hurried to the cold tap with a jug. Having replenished it, she set about finishing her embroidery. If uninterrupted she should be able to complete her project this afternoon and have the cloth on the table for when Martin came home for tea.

  There was slight irritation when her mother-in-law turned
up at three, causing work on the tablecloth to stop. As Aggie had brought a letter from Aunt Joan and also half a pie, Etta kept her tone civil and chatted for a moment, but did not offer her guest refreshment, for she itched to get back to her embroidery. This did not pass unnoticed, nor had the inadequately laundered sheets that hung in the yard, but Aggie said merely, ‘Well, I’ll leave you to it then…’

  Etta grinned eagerly and retrieved her needle. ‘I’m hoping to finish this before Martin gets home.’

  ‘I trust he’ll appreciate it,’ sniffed Aggie, and left with another disparaging glance at the stained sheets, muttering to herself. ‘And they call us dirty tinkers.’

  ‘Thank you for the pie!’ called Etta in afterthought, before quickly reverting to her task.

  Her fingertips burning from having spent most of the day pushing a needle in and out of thick linen, not to mention the painful scald on her hand, Etta was further hurt that evening when Martin failed to comment on how she had improved the house for his homecoming, finally having to demand of him, ‘Haven’t you noticed my tablecloth?’

  Food being one of his main priorities these days alongside sexual intercourse, after partaking of his wife’s lips with gusto, Marty’s eyes had homed in on the mouthwatering pie on the table – obviously one of his mother’s – and not the cloth beneath. He had wolfed half of it down before Etta’s injured enquiry pricked his conscience. ‘Sorry! I was just enjoying your apple pie so much.’

  ‘I didn’t bake it, your mother brought it round.’

  ‘Oh, I thought it was yours, it’s hard to tell the difference these days.’ Covering his flattery with a more genuine compliment, he made great play of studying the embroidered cloth, proclaiming it, ‘The most wondrous piece of handiwork I’ve ever clapped eyes on!’

  She looked suitably appeased, but told him, ‘I didn’t think I was going to be able to finish it in time, I scalded my hand trying to lift the heavy sheets out of the copper – look.’ Her lips pouting, she peeled off the glove.

  ‘Aw!’ Marty cupped the hand gently, frowning over it. ‘Maybe I should have stayed behind to help you.’ He kissed the skin around the injury. ‘That looks nasty. Ma’ll have something for it in her medicine chest.’

  Etta remembered then. ‘Oh, your mother brought a letter from Aunt Joan. She’s invited us to tea on Saturday week.’

  ‘Great,’ said Marty without much enthusiasm, before the memory of Joan’s baking won him round.

  ‘I suppose we’ll have to return their hospitality,’ said Etta.

  ‘You can’t invite them here!’

  She frowned. ‘Are you ashamed of our home?’

  ‘No! I just can’t abide the old witch, that’s why.’ He chuckled and examined her hand again. ‘Did you show Ma when she came round?’

  ‘No, she seemed in a rush.’ Etta winced. ‘Gosh, it’s really throbbing now.’

  ‘I’ll pop round and ask if she’ll take a look at it; you’ll never sleep for the pain otherwise. Take it easy while I’m gone.’

  Exhausted after her own washing day, and irritated with Redmond for falling asleep halfway through their conversation, the last thing Aggie needed was a request for her to trail round to her son’s abode and her response was grumpy. ‘Etta never said anything while I was there.’

  ‘Well, you know Etta, she wouldn’t like to make a fuss. She struggled with those steaming sheets all on her own.’

  ‘We all do, son.’

  He conceded this, then wrinkled his nose. ‘Aye, but she’s not born to it, is she, Ma? And it’s a right nasty scald, I’m worried it might turn poisonous, told her you’d know what to do…’

  His mother rolled her eyes. ‘I can see I’ll get no peace if I don’t come now.’

  Marty dealt her a thankful grin.

  Taking with her a pot of home-made ointment, she threw a parting line at Uncle Mal. ‘If His Majesty wants to know where I am when he deigns to wake up, tell him I’m gone to perform a resurrection.’

  However, after viewing the scald she was less than sympathetic. ‘Martin Lanegan, is this what you dragged me out for? Why, from your tone I thought to find her stitched into her shroud – and that scald no bigger than a cat’s bottom!’

  Marty reflected his wife’s look of indignance. ‘Aye, but that doesn’t stop it hurting! Often the tinier things are more painful than the big ones.’

  ‘Are they indeed?’ muttered Aggie, in no mood to suffer such foibles tonight. ‘Well, I’ll leave you the pot of ointment and let you apply it yourself.’ Handing it over she turned to go.

  Grimacing at Etta, Marty hurried after his mother, telling her in the yard, ‘Sorry to drag you out, Ma, I wasn’t sure what to do. I’ve told Ett to take it easy for a while.’

  Sick of this besotted pampering, Aggie could withhold the caustic retort no longer. ‘She’ll have no trouble doing that, to be sure!’

  Marty was irked. ‘That’s not fair!’

  ‘No, I suppose it isn’t, just like it wasn’t fair of your wife not to offer me so much as a glass of water when I’d gone to the trouble of fetching Joan’s letter and a pie for your tea – just like I do every week because I know if I don’t my son won’t get anything decent in his belly! After she’s enjoyed my hospitality for the past two months!’ Too annoyed to stop now, Aggie let her objections flow. ‘You know what that one’s trouble is? She’s never had to put herself out for anyone, thinks we’re all there to run about after her.’ Seeing that Etta had overheard and come out to join them, she did not halt her complaints but addressed them to the culprit herself. ‘Just wait till you have children, milady, then you’ll know!’

  Taken aback by the sudden vehemence of all this, Etta was swift to retort, ‘Then I shan’t have any!’

  ‘Then I’ll congratulate you on being a lot cleverer than the rest of us!’ Aggie wagged her finger. ‘But it’ll be your loss, because you won’t be any good till you have had any!’

  Conserving any loyalty for his wife, Marty scolded, ‘I think you’ve said enough, Ma.’

  Aggie had meant to leave at that point but now turned her anger on him. ‘Son, if you want to stand like a dummy and have her walk all over you then that’s your affair, but I don’t and I’ll say my piece. Ever since you brought her here I’ve held my tongue, made allowances because of the different background, but there’s a limit to my patien—’

  ‘I beg you,’ Etta cut in imperiously, ‘not to stretch your patience on my behalf. I was unaware that I was such a burden to you, but now that it has been made abundantly clear I’ll endeavour to amend the situation. We shan’t trouble you again. Goodnight.’ Eyes burning, she turned and went indoors, indicating that she expected Marty to follow, but, by no means certain of this, she was to suffer agonies when he remained outside.

  Shocked by the exchange, trapped between one and the other, Marty gave an anguished look at his mother.

  Even before he dealt her that helpless shrug, Aggie knew what lay ahead. ‘Right, if that’s the thanks I get for all I’ve –’ Too furious to say more, tears of rage in her eyes, she spun on her heel. ‘Ah, to hell with ye!’

  ‘Ma-a!’ Marty called after her, but, suddenly realising this was providing a show for his neighbours, he uttered a feeble gasp and hurried inside to his wife.

  How on earth had this happened, Marty asked himself a week later? One minute they had been sailing along fine, the next, a few ill-chosen words and a moment’s irritation had escalated into a family feud.

  Remaining furious over his mother’s denigration of her, Etta refused to have anything to do with Aggie. Well, that was understandable, Marty supposed. He was angry with his mother too and had not felt like speaking to her either for a couple of days after the altercation. But his hope that this would eventually blow over was to be dashed when Etta discovered that he intended to go round to his parents on his way home from work that night.

  ‘As if nothing has happened?’ she demanded of him, looking hurt. ‘I thought you were on my side?�
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  ‘I am! But you want to get this fixed, don’t you?’

  ‘No! I told you I don’t wish to speak to your mother again and I meant it – you said you agreed with me.’

  He gave an awkward laugh. ‘But now things have cooled down…’

  ‘I meant it!’

  ‘Etta, she’s done a lot for us.’

  ‘And I’ve thanked her, but what she said to me was unforgivable.’ Around the jet-like pupils, the whites of Etta’s eyes were tinted an angry red.

  He frowned. ‘Are you asking me not to go and see my own mother?’

  ‘And are you saying that what she said to me was just and fair?’ volleyed his wife.

  ‘No, but surely –’

  ‘Of course, it’s up to you to decide whom to support.’ Etta folded her arms and shrugged, but left him in no doubt as to what she expected.

  He scratched his neck, for the moment saying nothing, his troubled eyes on a woodlouse making its laborious way across the brick floor. ‘What if Ma and Da should turn up here, would you expect me to ignore them?’

  Again she shrugged uncaringly.

  Marty ballooned his cheeks. She was making this terribly difficult for him. He made no decision one way or the other, just took her in his arms and promised that everything would turn out all right.

  But it didn’t. The incident had disturbed Etta more than she chose to admit – made her physically ill, in fact – although she did not have to confess it because Marty could see that for himself. Each evening when he came home he now found her lying on the bed, not with that mischievous promise in her eye but instead wearing a look of nausea. Mercifully this was to wear off after an hour in his company; he made sure that it did by cosseting her with little treats, pandering to her unusual craving for porridge at the oddest hours. But still the nausea returned on a regular basis to cause them both unrest.