The Would-Be Wife

by Annie Wilkinson

  ‘Right, then. What I think is, the way he’s working on Simon and your mother – it’s disgusting. So when did he realise he couldn’t live without you? As soon as he found out how much maintenance he’d have to pay?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Lynn grimaced. There were certainly no blinkers on Janet, she thought.

  ‘Thank God I’ll never have to face what you’re facing,’ Janet said. ‘Dave might not be anybody’s idea of a heart throb, but at least I know I can trust him. He’s never looked at another woman since the day we started courting.’

  Bump. Lynn’s faith in Janet as an infallible guide to men and their motives took a rapid nose-dive and crashed to earth.

  *

  The photographer was already behind his tripod and ready for action when Lynn and her mother arrived at St John’s Church. Anthony and Alec were standing by the church door in brilliant early August sunshine, wearing light-grey morning suits, grey silk cravats, white carnations and big smiles for the camera. Alec caught her eye and winked. She returned the wink, and the smile.

  Brenda’s friends and family were arriving in droves, the adults mostly in couples, the women in light suits or summer hats and dresses.

  Margaret arrived with her four boys, and Lynn thought that considering her limited means she had turned them out very creditably.

  ‘I wish they’d given my dad and Jim a chance to get some time off. I think we’re the only women here without a man,’ Margaret said.

  ‘Huh! Nothing new for me to be on my own,’ Nina said, with a toss of her head.

  ‘Our dad’s in this morning. He’ll just make it, I think,’ Lynn said, twirling the white carnation she’d brought for him. ‘And Anthony’s had a stroke of luck. He’ll get a couple of weeks off because the owners are keeping the ship in dock for a survey, so Brenda’s dad’s paying for them to fly off to the Adriatic on a proper honeymoon.’

  ‘Jammy so and sos!’ Margaret exclaimed enviously. ‘All me and Jim got was a couple of nights in a caravan at Withernsea, and he sailed the day after that.’

  ‘Well, I got as far as Cornwall,’ Lynn said.

  A woman in a light-green suit appeared, and took their minds off holidays, honeymoon or otherwise.

  Margaret was outraged. ‘Look at that! Green! Who in their right mind wears green at a wedding – and a fisherman’s wedding at that!’

  ‘Like a bad fairy at a christening,’ Nina sniffed. ‘Somebody on their side, obviously.’

  A flower- and ribbon-bedecked wedding car glided majestically into view.

  ‘She’s here! She’s here!’ one of Brenda’s young relatives squealed, and others took up the cry.

  ‘She’s here!’

  Alec quietly took hold of Anthony’s elbow and steered him inside the church. Most of the remaining guests followed. The car stopped and Brenda’s chief bridesmaid got out, daintily lifting the skirt of her long pale blue empire line dress with one hand and hanging on to her bouquet of white roses with the other. A coronet of matching roses adorned her strawberry blonde curls. Two little bridesmaids carrying posies followed, and then Brenda’s father in charcoal grey, complete with white carnation.

  The photographer rushed towards the wedding car. ‘Hold on, hold on,’ he called. ‘Bride stay in the car for a bit!’

  Brenda gave them all a wave, and settled back into her seat.

  ‘I want the bride in the car first, then I’ll take the bridesmaids outside the church door, then the bride walking up to the church on her father’s arm,’ the photographer ordered.

  She’s a good-looking lass, anyway,’ Margaret said when Brenda got out. ‘And so’s she,’ she added, nodding towards the chief bridesmaid, whose blue eyes and milk and roses complexion were very like the bride’s.

  ‘Orla, Brenda’s cousin,’ Lynn said, briefly.

  Orla ushered the two little girls forward and stood behind them for the photographer.

  ‘Pageboy as well,’ the photographer ordered. Orla came over to collect him, all smiles.

  ‘She’s as nice as she looks,’ Margaret whispered.

  Simon took her hand and went willingly. He allowed the photographer to pose him and stared self-importantly into the camera with his chin proudly up, revelling in the attention.

  Lynn almost burst with maternal pride. When the photographer had finished she leaned down to give Simon his final instructions. ‘You come in after Brenda and her dad. Behave yourself, and do as Orla tells you.’

  The organist struck up with the Wedding March. Lynn gave Simon a hasty peck on the cheek and hurried after the other stragglers into a church beautifully decorated with posies at the end of every pew and a magnificent flower arrangement by the altar, no expense spared. Lynn only hoped that Simon’s behaviour would match his angelic face.

  Her father slid quietly into the pew beside her just in time to see his son slip the ring on the bride’s finger. Lynn handed him his carnation.

  The photographer was lying in wait for them as they emerged into the sunshine, and brought everyone to a halt to take photographs of the groom kissing the bride at the church door. The chief bridesmaid and Alec were next, she linking his arm and gazing up at him, he looking down at her and smiling – not a welcome sight, in Lynn’s eyes. With his wife now on his arm, Brenda’s father looked as if a ton weight had been lifted from his shoulders. The happy couple and everyone near them were soon covered in confetti, and people shuffled about, laughing and slapping each other on the back and chatting while the photographer tried to herd the two families together for a joint photograph.

  ‘He seems a nice enough lad,’ Lynn heard when she dashed into the ladies’ room just outside the reception hall, ‘but we were hoping for somebody a lot better than a fisherman for her.’

  ‘She’s always been headstrong, our Brenda. Orla, now . . .’

  In the mirror above the hand basins Lynn recognised Brenda’s mother and one of her aunts. Who the hell were they, she thought, to talk about somebody ‘better’ than her brother, as hard-working and decent a lad as ever walked? And not only ‘better’, but ‘a lot better’!

  ‘Better in what way?’ she challenged as she met their eyes in the glass.

  They obviously recognised her. Both women averted their eyes and hurried for the door, with hands still wet. Lynn could almost feel the heat from their glowing cheeks as they walked past her.

  Although wounded for Anthony, she let them go, rather than spoil the reception by saying any more. Why bother about them? They were nothing but a pair of bloody upstarts – just like Graham’s parents.

  ‘Somebody a lot better than a fisherman!’ she fumed, after the door had closed on them.

  But wasn’t that the very thing she’d been aiming at herself, when she’d married Graham? Hadn’t that been one of his major attractions – that he was a cut above the fishermen? She stared into the mirror at her own heated cheeks and bright, angry eyes and wondered at her own hypocrisy.

  Well, that was all in the past. That was then, and this was now, and everything was different. It’s amazing how love changes people, she thought.

  When Lynn walked back into the reception room Orla was sitting next to Alec at the top table, smiling up at him with her long, milky white throat extended and that look on her face that all men recognise; the look that tells him more clearly than words: I’m game – what about you? There was another one from that superior family who was not too superior to think a fisherman might be good enough for her, Lynn thought, with a shock. She felt a surge of anger and dislike towards this seventeen-year-old who was so confident of her charms. How dare she? Brenda must have told her that she and Alec were a couple, but Orla was evidently acting on the ‘all’s fair in love and war’ principle. Alec was a free man, and she, Lynn, was a married woman, not free yet even to wear his engagement ring – so what was to stop Orla?

  Nothing was stopping her! She was eyeball to eyeball with him, all friendliness and vivacity, with her pouty lips parted in a half-smile. Her mere nearness to A
lec was an affront to Lynn. Anger gave way to jealousy and fear, and watching them during the meal Lynn saw that if she didn’t make sure of him soon she might lose him to this young predator.

  She couldn’t let it happen. Alec was the man she wanted and he was the man she was damned well going to have. She would see the competition off, even if the competition was a radiant redhead a full eight years younger than she was. Brenda’s aunt would never have cause to complain that she’d hoped for somebody better than a fisherman for her daughter – not if Lynn had anything to do with it. At that thought her heart contracted in painful sympathy for Graham, and the grief he would feel when it finally sunk in that he’d lost them.

  Brenda’s mother tinkled on her glass for silence and Alec stood up. Like most mates, he made an impressive figure of a man, sturdy and well-proportioned with a direct, open countenance and humour in his eyes – a man who looked like a man, and the sort most people would be glad to know. He looked across at Lynn and laughed, took a nervous sip of wine and began.

  ‘Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, I’m not as nervous as you might think, after six pints of lager . . .’ he began, in his Lancashire twang.

  Orla squealed as if it were the funniest thing she’d ever heard, and the room erupted into laughter.

  ‘. . . and you’ll all be glad to know you won’t be sitting through a long speech, because in about three minutes I’ll be making a dash for the gents’ . . .’

  This prompted more peals of merriment from Orla, followed by a gale of laughter from everyone else, but Orla managed to out-laugh them all.

  Alec began a mock-serious protest against the routine slur of ‘drunken fishermen’ from non-fishing folk, and followed it up with a couple of pithy tales of the bridegroom’s youthful errors while ‘under the influence’, which made a mockery of the protest and tended to justify the slur. This was greeted with more laughter; even the waitresses were laughing. Orla laughed herself to tears and began dabbing her eyes carefully on her table napkin, evidently mindful of her mascara.

  Lynn watched her annoying and obvious performance through narrowed eyes. That girl certainly knew how to massage a man’s ego, and the trouble was that men could never see through it.

  ‘I can see why you like him, Lynn,’ Margaret said. ‘Anybody would.’

  Lynn nodded, glad to see Margaret enjoying herself. She hadn’t seen Margaret laugh so much since they were children. Now Alec was looking into Orla’s eyes, his own eyes dancing as he laughed at her laughter. After a minute or two he managed to pull himself together enough to pay the customary compliments to the bride, bridesmaids and both sets of parents, and to thank them all for coming. Brenda looked on, smiling demurely while he told her guests how much he was looking forward to seeing them all at the christening and they could ‘set their stop-watches’. His ordeal was over too soon for his audience if not for him, but rather than make the anticipated dash for the exit, Alec sat down to listen to the rest of the speeches and drink the toasts. Then Anthony and Brenda stood up and left the table, and everyone else began to follow suit. Alec started to walk over to Lynn, with Orla not far behind.

  ‘Ooh, wait! I nearly forgot!’ Brenda called, and went back to collect her bouquet. ‘Get ready to catch, girls!’

  All the young women in the room turned towards her. Brenda turned her back on them all, and hurled her bouquet over her shoulder. Orla caught it, and tilting her chin gave Alec a come-hither smile, keeping him in conversation so long that Lynn wondered if he would ever manage to tear himself away from her. The bride and groom did a quick tour of their guests to say goodbye, while Simon, his cousins and the little bridesmaids started chasing each other in a mad game of tig, until one of the girls fell over a chair and went howling to her mother, pointing to Simon as the cause of the accident.

  ‘Say you’re sorry,’ Lynn demanded.

  ‘I’m not!’ Simon defied her, and began haring after the other girls, who were shrieking as they tried to evade him. Lynn chased after him and grabbed hold of him, but he wrenched himself free, and ran after one of the bridesmaids, laughing triumphantly. Alec intercepted him and put a stop to the game by lifting him onto his shoulders and following the newlyweds out with the rest of the guests, to watch them drive off in a car well decorated with ‘newly married’ placards, and an old boot tied to the back bumper. Lynn joined them, thoroughly ashamed of her son. His behaviour was worse than all Margaret’s boys put together.

  Orla fluttered her eyelashes at Alec. ‘A honeymoon in the Adriatic!’ she sighed, as the happy couple drove away.

  ‘I hope they make the most of it, our Anthony especially,’ Nina said. ‘By the time the ship puts to sea again, summer will be over in the Arctic. They’ll soon be back to about four hours of daylight, and fishing in sub-zero temperatures.’

  ‘And that’s September,’ one of Anthony’s shipmates added. ‘Come December the only way to tell the difference between night and day around Bear Island will be to look at the clock on the bulkhead. There’ll be perpetual darkness and force ten gales, or freezing fog, and the ship icing up . . .’

  ‘Brrr.’ Alec gave a mock shiver, and turned to carry Simon back inside.

  ‘There’s something for you to look forward to,’ Lynn called after him.

  ‘I can hardly wait!’

  Once inside, he carried Simon a few yards away from the rest of them, put him on a chair and sat down beside him, cutting off his escape. Simon looked towards Lynn, as if signalling her to come to the rescue, but she left him there. A couple of minutes later he and Alec seemed to be deep in conversation. Orla soon drifted in their direction, accompanied by a couple of the young bridesmaids. Eventually Simon jumped off his chair and went to play with them . . . and Orla took his place.

  Lynn began to relax. It was her son that Alec was interested in wooing, and by extension, Lynn herself – not Orla.

  ‘Any progress with the divorce yet, Lynn?’ he asked her later.

  ‘No. I’ve been meaning to phone the solicitor, see if he can get things moving, but with all the wedding arrangements, and work, and studying, and one thing and another . . . Anyway, why worry about it now? There’ll be plenty of time when you’ve gone back to sea.’

  ‘What about coming to Fleetwood with me, then?’

  ‘Sorry, I can’t get the time off.’

  ‘Have you even asked?’

  ‘Of course I’ve asked! It’s just that we’re a bit short-staffed at the moment,’ she said, guilt at her own failure to make a timely request for the days off forcing her into a half-truth, and making her snappy.

  ‘Oh, well, I’ll go on my own this time, then. Spend a few days with my mother, and bring the bike back,’ he said, with disappointment written all over his face

  It was Lynn’s turn to be disappointed. She had been looking forward to seeing a lot more of Alec while the ship was in dock, but she could hardly object to his going to see his mother, especially as she’d been invited to go with him.

  *

  Alec was not the only man interested in wooing Simon, Lynn thought, when Graham came to collect him a couple of days later.

  ‘I’ve got a couple of people interested in the house,’ he said. ‘It looks as if we might not lose anything on it. So where do you want to live next?’

  ‘You keep the house, if you want it, Graham. We won’t be living anywhere next. We’re getting divorced, remember?’

  ‘No, I’ve got a terrible memory for things like that.’

  ‘Go upstairs and get your shoes and your trunks, Simon,’ Lynn said, determined to get Graham out of the way. ‘Your dad’s going to teach you to swim, aren’t you, Graham?’ If Graham was going to be using Simon as the pretext to intrude on her life at every end and turn, then he could damned well do a bit more with him than just dumping him at his grandmother’s. He could do something that would benefit Simon, and that he would enjoy.

  Simon looked eagerly up at his father.

  ‘I hadn’t planned on it, but
. . .’ Graham said, confronted by Lynn’s challenging stare. ‘go and fetch your trunks, son.’

  Simon dashed off, pretty smartly.

  ‘Good lad,’ Lynn nodded.

  ‘I am, aren’t I?’ Graham grinned.

  She couldn’t help smiling. ‘Have you sent that acknowledgement of service back yet?’

  ‘I can’t remember getting anything to acknowledge.’

  ‘We’ll have to send the bailiff round with another one, then. It’s pointless playing these games, Graham. All it’ll do is add to the costs – and you’ll end up paying ’em.’

  ‘Come on, Lynn, give me another chance. I won’t let you down. We had a lot of good times together.’

  ‘And you had a lot of good times with Mandy. No, I’m not letting myself in for any more of that, Graham. I wouldn’t trust you as far as I could spit.’

  ‘It’ll never happen again. Mandy’s gone, and she won’t be coming back. I want our family back to the way it used to be. I felt it more than ever when your Anthony got married. I should have been at that wedding, by rights.’

  She laughed in his face. ‘You’re joking! I’ve heard of people having punch-ups at weddings, but if you’d shown up at that one there’d have been a massacre!’

  After they’d gone, Lynn ruminated for a while about Graham’s conveniently bad memory. He’d had those divorce papers for weeks; he was just making things as awkward as he could. So, if sending a bailiff round was to only way to progress matters, that’s the way it would have to be.

  She cleared everything off the dining-room table and set her books out, and then determinedly cleared Graham and everything else out of her mind and sat down to do some serious studying for her exam. It was more important than ever now. She loved Alec but she was set on making herself absolutely independent, and since she’d chosen to earn her own living she would do it in a job that she enjoyed. She couldn’t afford to fail, and until she got that qualification everything else would have to take a back seat. She felt fairly confident. After all, she’d put enough work into it.

  Chapter 20