The Would-Be Wife

by Annie Wilkinson

  Lynn went to see Anthony and Brenda in their little two-up and two-down on Gordon Street as soon as they were back from the Adriatic. The question burning in her mind had to wait while Brenda proudly filled the kettle, pointing out the half-tiling her father had done in the kitchen, and the new electric boiler he’d installed over the kitchen sink while they were away on honeymoon. The living room had been completely redecorated by Brenda’s mother, and the pair of long gold brocade curtains hanging at the window had been made by the same woman who had made the bridesmaid’s dresses.

  ‘We brought you some fags back,’ Anthony said, handing her a package. ‘They’re only a bob for twenty over there.’

  After admiring everything there was to admire and hearing all that they were bursting to tell her about the wonders of the sunny Adriatic, with its golden beaches and warm sea, Lynn broached the subject most on her mind.

  ‘Have you heard anything from Alec?’

  ‘Not yet. Why?’

  ‘Because I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since the day after the wedding.’

  Anthony looked dumbfounded. ‘Well, I haven’t seen him since we got back, either. He’s probably still at his mother’s. With the ship being in dock, he probably decided to spend a bit of extra time there. He’s been catching up with a few of his old shipmates in Fleetwood, maybe.’

  ‘Maybe he has, but why would that stop him phoning me?’

  ‘Maybe his mother hasn’t got a phone.’

  ‘There are such things as public telephones, Anthony. But supposing the nearest one is miles from his mother’s, why hasn’t he written? I’ve looked for a letter or a postcard from him every day, but it’s been over two weeks, and I’ve had none.’

  ‘Didn’t you write to him?’

  ‘No. I didn’t get his mother’s address. It never crossed my mind to get it, because I thought he’d have phoned me. I just hope he hasn’t had an accident on the motorbike.’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so.’ Anthony seemed at a loss for anything else to say.

  Lynn turned to Brenda. ‘Did Orla go with him to Fleetwood?’

  ‘No, she didn’t,’ Brenda said, her cheeks growing pink.

  Lynn raised her eyebrows, stunned to have her worst fears so convincingly confirmed.

  ‘She didn’t go with him,’ Brenda insisted, ‘but she’s seen him since he came back to Hull.’

  ‘Since he came back to Hull!’ Lynn echoed.

  ‘She bumped into him when she went to the dock offices, to see about a job there. He told her he’d be sailing on the Sprite, on the twenty-fifth. He’d just signed on.’

  Anthony looked as surprised as Lynn. ‘That’s tomorrow. Why hasn’t he been to see our Lynn, then?’

  ‘How do I know?’ Brenda shrugged. ‘Maybe he doesn’t want to be seen out with her on his own before she gets her divorce. Maybe he thought he’d better not disturb her while she’s studying for her exams. I don’t know.’

  ‘We hadn’t seen each other for nearly a fortnight – and he thought he’d better not disturb me?’ Lynn exclaimed. ‘Wasn’t he talking about us getting married not so long ago . . . or was that just my imagination?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ Brenda repeated.

  ‘When exactly was it that Orla bumped into him?’

  ‘Yesterday, I think. Or maybe the day before. I can’t remember, exactly.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Lynn said, starting to open one of the packs of cigarettes she’d just been given.

  Anthony pushed an opened packet towards her. ‘Here, have one of mine.’

  She took one and he gave her a light. Brenda disappeared into the kitchen, leaving them alone.

  ‘You’ll be sailing yourself in a day or two, I suppose?’ she said.

  ‘I’ve signed up as mate on the Nimrod,’ he said, obviously over the moon. ‘We’re sailing after the bank holiday.’

  Lynn smiled, glad for him. ‘Congratulations! Pity they didn’t give you a better ship, though.’

  ‘Oh, well, that’s the way they do it. You start on the bottom rung, in the worst ships. If I get a good trip in, I might get a better ship next time.’

  He’d be lucky to get a good trip in on that old thing, Lynn thought. Men on the old ships were handicapped from the minute they sailed.

  ‘Have you told my mam?’

  ‘Not yet. I haven’t had time.’

  ‘After the bank holiday,’ she repeated. ‘This must be the longest holiday you’ve had since you left school.’

  ‘It is.’

  They smoked in thoughtful silence after that, while Brenda kept up her clatter in the kitchen, and later upstairs. Lynn left shortly afterwards, with a suspicion that her sister-in-law knew rather more about Alec’s defection than she was letting on.

  Chapter 21

  Graham looked as if he’d swallowed something that disagreed with him when he brought Simon back from his mother’s a couple of days later. ‘We’ve had the bailiff round – at my mother’s!’ he said. ‘Thanks a lot, Lynn.’

  ‘You’ve been served, then,’ she said.

  ‘I certainly have. Not served right, though.’

  ‘I’d say you are.’

  ‘I wouldn’t. I’m a reformed character now.’

  ‘Really? For how long?’

  ‘For ever. Come out for a drink with me tonight. We’ve got to talk things over.’

  ‘I’ll look after Simon,’ Nina volunteered, looking pointedly at Lynn.

  ‘No thanks,’ Lynn said, shortly. ‘I haven’t got to do anything.’

  ‘You really mean to throw everything we had away then? Lose everything?’ Graham asked.

  At last, it had sunk in. This was exactly what she had foreseen, and in foreseeing it she had felt an unbearable grief for Graham. His face was haggard; he looked devastated – but Lynn had come a long way since the day she’d stood with Janet in that house in Marlborough Avenue, grieving for his grief. She’d loved and lost another man, had her trust betrayed a second time – and now she felt vindictive. Let him suffer . . . why not? He’d made her suffer, and now it was her turn to put the boot in. ‘Why do you think I sent the bailiff round, Graham?’ she demanded.

  He looked at her as if she’d kneed him. Simon turned an angry little face towards her. ‘Stop being nasty to my dad!’ he shouted, and went to cling on to Graham’s legs.

  ‘I can’t believe it! Everything we’ve worked for. What for? She’s gone! There’s no earthly reason, now,’ he almost wept.

  ‘That’s a matter of opinion – but we’ll keep this discussion for another day,’ she said, conscious of Simon’s burning eyes on her.

  ‘And I’m in line for another promotion!’

  Nina’s ears pricked up at that. ‘Another promotion?’ she said. ‘They must think a lot of you, Graham.’

  Graham acknowledged the compliment. ‘They do. I only wish everybody did,’ he said, looking towards Lynn.

  ‘Well, congratulations. You won’t have to quibble about the maintenance settlement, then,’ Lynn said.

  ‘That’s something else we’ve got to talk about,’ Graham said. ‘We’ve got to come to an agreement about that, instead of letting solicitors rack their fees up at our expense.’

  The money! She saw Brian Farley’s twinkling eyes and sly smile in her mind’s eye, and burst into laughter. ‘They’re not going to be racking their fees up for me, Graham. My divorce will cost me thirty bob, no matter what,’ she crowed.

  ‘And it will probably cost me fifty times as much; money that would be better spent on us, as a family. We are a family, Lynn, and I’m fed up with being a part-time father.’

  ‘You see him as much now as when you lived with us.’

  ‘I don’t. How can I? And it’s not the same. I’m not there when he gets up in a morning, or when he goes to bed. We only ever share a meal at my mother’s. He’s not in my home, and I want that back. There’s the whole question of who looks after Simon to be discussed.’

  Lynn stared at him, open mouthed.
‘Of who looks after Simon? There’s never been any question about who looks after Simon. I look after him.’

  Simon scowled at her.

  ‘Hold on a minute,’ Nina said. ‘When it comes to looking after Simon, I do more than anybody.’

  ‘But that’s the same as me looking after him,’ Lynn said. ‘I’m the one who’s responsible.’

  ‘It’ll be the same as you looking after him when you are looking after him, and I’m out at work! That’s when you’ll be the one who’s responsible,’ Nina said.

  Lynn looked at her, aghast. ‘But you’ve never had to work! My dad never wanted you to work.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got news for you; it’s not only what your dad wants – and it’s not only what you want, either. It’s time I got some consideration.’

  Simon put his hands over his ears. ‘Stop arguing,’ he shouted.

  ‘You two,’ Nina said, ‘had better go for a walk, and settle your differences somewhere else, instead of upsetting this bairn.’

  Flushed with anger, Lynn grabbed her jacket and went, closely followed by Graham.

  ‘Job done, Graham,’ she said, storming on ahead of him. ‘You’ve achieved what you set out to achieve! You’ve caused a lot of trouble, but you needn’t imagine any court would grant a father custody of a four-year-old rather than a mother, because they wouldn’t!’

  ‘Why has it got to be either, or? Simon needs two parents; why can’t he have both? We had a good life together, Lynn.’

  ‘We had a great life together – that’s the reason you started getting your leg over with Mandy. You thought you had me safely fastened in that house with Simon, helpless to do anything about it. Well I’m not helpless. I’m not your mother, Graham, I’m nothing like her, and I won’t be sitting on the nest while you’re out with your barmaids and’ – a new thought struck her – ‘. . . maybe your best friend’s wife!’

  Graham was outraged. ‘I’d never do that to Kev!’

  ‘You did it to me, though! So now I’ll earn my own keep and paddle my own canoe. You men are all the same, a set of cheating bastards.’

  ‘You’ve changed, Lynn, and not for the better. You’ve turned hard.’

  She laughed at that, and then assumed an expression of puzzlement. ‘I wonder why?’

  ‘There’s still Simon. Something’s got to be sorted out about him, and if you’re busy paddling your own canoe, who’s going to be looking after him? It sounds as if your mother’s getting fed up with it.’

  ‘She’s not fed up with it at all, she loves Simon. She’s just trying to push me back to you.’

  ‘Somebody with some sense, then. I love him as well, and I want to be a proper father to him.’

  ‘A bit late in the day, if you ask me.’

  ‘I’ve always done my best for Simon!’

  ‘The best thing you could have done for Simon would have been to be a decent husband to his mother! Then she wouldn’t have had to leave!’

  ‘You didn’t have to leave! It would have all blown over.’

  ‘You’re not listening, Graham! Get this: I’m nothing like your mother. I object to you having other women in my bed. I even object to you having other women out of it. The solicitor jargon says: “the petitioner finds it intolerable . . .” – and it’s spot on! I do find it intolerable.’

  ‘I wish I could turn the clock back, but I can’t! Lynn, listen to me, Lynn, don’t throw everything away because of one stupid mistake!’

  ‘It wasn’t stupid, Graham,’ Lynn said, trying to stop her lip quivering, ‘it was evil!’

  He looked astounded. ‘Evil! That’s going a bit far, though.’

  ‘Hard for you to see, that, isn’t it? Seeing how adultery runs in your family.’

  ‘Adultery runs in my family! How do you make that out?’ he demanded, with a laugh. ‘Adultery’s not a hereditary disease, Lynn.’

  ‘What is it, then?’

  ‘It’s a big, stupid mistake, and it’s not worth all the upheaval it causes. I’ve done with it. I want my family back.’

  She looked him in the eye. ‘I wouldn’t trust you as far as I could throw you, Graham. It’ll take you a long time to get that back, if you ever do.’

  She turned her back on him and walked briskly away, wondering why she’d said that. Did she mean to go back to him, after all? She couldn’t go back to him; Alec was the man she loved. But Alec had stayed out of touch with her for two solid weeks, and then returned to Hull and seen Orla, and then sailed away on the Sprite without as much as a word to her – the woman he supposedly intended to marry. Truthfully, half the punishment she’d just dished out to Graham had been caused by her anger at Alec, and her bitter disappointment in him.

  Graham ran to catch her up. ‘Simon starts school in September; I’d have liked us to be back together before then,’ he said.

  ‘Not a chance. You must be out of your tiny mind.’

  ‘So where’s he going to start?

  ‘St George’s.’

  ‘With a lot of little hooligans from Hessle Road! What’s he going to learn from them, apart from a lot of cheek, and bad language?’

  Lynn reared back as if she’d been stung. ‘You’re talking to a hooligan from Hessle Road! And my nephews go to school in Hessle Road in case you’ve forgotten, you arrogant little—’

  ‘Ah, but you’ve pulled yourself out of it – and you want better for Simon, surely.’

  ‘I want better for Simon, all right. I want better for him than having to listen to a lot of bloody condescending crap from people like you and your mother – the ten-bob aristocracy! If only you knew how ridiculous you are!’

  ‘There’s no need to be abusive.’

  ‘You’re the one that’s being abusive, looking down your nose at people. And if “pulling yourself out of it”, as you call it, entails looking down on your own family, then we’ll be a sight better off getting right back in it – me and Simon both!’

  ‘I’m sorry – that wasn’t what I meant. I don’t want to fall out with you, Lynn. We’ve got to start talking. And we’ve got to keep talking, whether we get back together or not. We’ve got our Simon to think about. We’ve got to come to some agreement, unless you want him to be brought up on a battlefield.’

  He was right, of course. There could be no clean break. Having Simon meant that she would never be free of Graham intruding in her life. There could never be an end to it, and for Simon’s sake, she would have to make the best of it, and be civilised about it. She took a deep breath. ‘No, I don’t want him brought up on a battlefield, Graham.’

  ‘Well, don’t take a bite out of me every time you see me.’

  ‘Don’t insult my relations, then.’

  ‘I didn’t. Even so, you’ve got to admit there are better schools than the ones around Hessle Road.’

  ‘Don’t start.’

  ‘No fear,’ he said. ‘I know better, now.’

  She left him at the gate.

  Simon was ready for bed when she went inside, and very off-hand with her. Nina was having one of her rare nights in, so Lynn walked up to Janet’s to get the latest episode with Graham off her chest. She still felt too raw about Alec to mention him, but left Janet’s house feeling calmer, and went to bed half an hour after she got home.

  Simon was still awake. He watched her, stony faced, while she pulled on her pyjama bottoms before taking off her skirt, and put on the pyjama top before wriggling out of her bra and pulling it through the sleeve – all done in less than a minute.

  ‘I want to go and live with my dad in the big house,’ he said, when she hopped into bed beside him.

  Icy fingers of fear clutched at her heart. ‘Not you as well! Do you really want to go and leave me, Simon? Really?’

  He nodded. His lip trembled, and then he threw his arms round her and burst into tears.

  Chapter 22

  ‘I went to the housing department the other day, to see if I could get a council house near my mother,’ Lynn told Janet when they were
eating lunch in the staff dining room a day or two later. ‘There’s no chance.’

  ‘I didn’t think there would be. You might get something with a private landlord, though, if you’re that desperate.’

  ‘Desperate is right – I’ve had a look round a few, and you’d have to be, to take any of the ones I could afford. There’s none I’d want to live in, and I’d hate to have to take Simon to any of them. He’s a connoisseur of houses. He’s got very high standards.’

  ‘I don’t blame him. Be quite a come-down, wouldn’t it, after the house with the swing in the garden,’ Janet said. ‘Even a kid must feel a move like that. But needs must, when the devil drives, and he might have to get used to it. Is it that bad at your mother’s?’

  ‘We get on each other’s nerves at times, but it’s not that it’s bad, exactly – it’s more that I’m a grown woman with my own child, and I feel as if I ought to have a place of my own.’

  ‘Hmm, maybe,’ Janet said. ‘But if it’s not that bad, you’ll be better off staying at your mother’s, where you’re both comfortable. At least he’s got his grandmother on tap. You don’t have to drag him out of bed at the crack of dawn and rush him off to some childminder before you come to work, or pick him up and drag him back home when it’s hours past his bedtime, like some of the lasses do. Or rush about shopping, and washing, and getting meals ready.’

  ‘I miss doing my own shopping and cooking and washing, strange as it might seem.’

  ‘I know what you mean; so would I, but then there’s the never-ending stream of bills coming through the letterbox, don’t forget – and only one salary, and a pupil midwife’s at that. I reckon you’re better off where you are until Simon’s a few years older. You might be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire, if you move.’

  ‘I know, forever skint for the privilege of living in some depressing grot-hole in a terrible area. I’ve thought about it, and I reckon you’re right. She will keep on dishing her advice out, though. It’s annoying.’

  ‘Take no notice, then,’ Janet shrugged. ‘Just say aye and no in all the right places, and let it roll off you, like water off a duck’s back. It’s better than bleeding money out to some Rachman landlord for one of his pig-sties.’