Lynn put her cigarette to her lips with trembling fingers. ‘If only I’d got the time off to go to his mother’s with him, it would never have happened!’ she said.
‘And I suspected you were still pining for Graham!’
‘That’s what Alec thought – or so he says.’
‘Did he? What did he say, exactly?’
‘He said I’m still hankering after Graham, and Simon wants to be with his dad, and he hated his stepfather for busting his family up. He says he doesn’t want Simon to feel the same way about him, and that was his excuse for finishing it.’
‘It’s a pity he didn’t think about all that before he mentioned marriage.’
‘Yeah, isn’t it? But that’s the excuse, I reckon – not the real reason. Brenda’s chief bridesmaid’s the real reason. She was practically throwing herself at him at the wedding, and they’ve been seeing each other since.’
‘What will you do now?’
‘What can I do? You can’t make people stick with you if they don’t want. Graham doesn’t want Mandy because he never really wanted her in the first place, I don’t want Graham because of Alec, and now Alec doesn’t want me because of Orla. It’s laughable, isn’t it?’
But Janet wasn’t laughing. ‘You could always go back to Graham and make Simon happy, I suppose – if he’s the reformed character he’s cracking on he is, which I seriously doubt. But at least you’d have your own home.’
‘I’d get a place of my own and have done with men altogether if only I had the money. They’re more trouble than they’re worth,’ Lynn said, viciously stubbing out her cigarette.
Janet was all sympathy. ‘You haven’t had much luck with them, at any rate – makes me feel lucky to be settled with dull old Dave,’ she said. ‘Ring your mother and tell her she’s babysitting tonight. Have some tea with us. We’ve got the exams looming up; we could get the books out later, and do some revision. Take your mind off your troubles.’
Lynn shook her head. Her mind wouldn’t be so easily taken off Alec. ‘Thanks, but I can’t. I couldn’t eat a thing, and I’d better be getting back. She’s going out tonight.’
She passed her old home on the walk back to Boulevard, and felt no qualm about losing it, no pull at the heartstrings, but a sudden thought of standing in Fleetwood with Alec, looking up across Morecambe Bay, brought such a lump to her throat she felt as if she’d swallowed a brick. It would have been nice to see what Fleetwood was really like, what his mother was like, and his stepfather. Now she would never know, and the thought cut her. For her, three days every three weeks with Alec would have been worth an eternity with any other man – and that was little enough to ask. How could Simon have stood in the way of that?
No! It was no good dwelling on it. Alec had given her the brush-off, and it was nothing to do with her not going to Fleetwood. It hadn’t much to do with Simon, either, for all his talk about not breaking families up. There had been no change in Alec until Orla had appeared on the scene.
Chapter 24
Graham called for Simon about a month later, in a jubilant mood. ‘I’ve got a great deal on the house,’ he grinned. ‘More than we paid for it, a cash buyer, and they want to be in, as soon as possible. Oh, and congratulations on passing your exam, by the way.’
‘Gee, thanks, Graham.’
‘We’ll be able to cover our costs and pay the building society – without being out of pocket! We can start again, somewhere else.’
‘We can start again?’ Lynn laughed. ‘I’ve only just got my decree nisi, Graham.’
‘You won’t be much out of pocket with it, then, seeing it only cost you thirty bob,’ Graham grinned. ‘Come on, let bygones be bygones, and start again. You don’t want to live at your mother’s for the rest of your life, any more than I want to live at mine, and you’ll never get anywhere decent on your own.’ He smiled down at Simon, and ruffled his hair. ‘I’ve seen a house on Snuff Mill Lane with two apple trees and a pear tree in the garden – better than the one on Marlborough Avenue. The owners are emigrating to Australia, so they’re so desperate for a quick sale they’re practically giving it away. I bet if I wait until the last minute and then say I can’t come up with the price I might get them to knock it down another couple of hundred quid.’
‘I wouldn’t put it past you, either,’ she said.
‘All’s fair in love and house-buying,’ he said, and seeing her expression he averted his gaze and corrected himself: ‘Well, not in love, maybe. But it’s a boy’s paradise! You’ll love it, Simon, and we can soon put your swing up there.’ He looked up again, at Lynn. ‘He can go to school in Cottingham.’
Simon began jumping round the kitchen in a state of high excitement.
Lynn gave Graham a sour look. ‘You’ve been busy, haven’t you? He’s doing all right in St George’s, for your information, and he needs to be somewhere handy for my mother.’
‘He’ll do better living with both parents, anyway,’ Graham insisted.
‘So you say.’
‘So you’ll say, when you see the house. Come and have a look at it.’
Simon tugged at her hand. ‘Come on, come on! Let’s go and look at the house. Ple-e-ase!’ he begged.
‘It’s too far away to bring you to your Nanna’s when I’ve got to go to work.’
Graham’s expression brightened even further. ‘Well, now you’ve got a staff midwife’s job you’ll be able to afford a car! I’ll teach you to drive.’
Lynn saw the gleam of hope in Simon’s eyes and thought: why not? She couldn’t have the man she wanted, so why not make him happy? Why play around any longer? For months before Anthony’s wedding she had been torn between holding on to Alec and going back to Graham for Simon’s sake. Now, looking at his eager little face she had to concede that Alec might have been right; maybe he never would have got over a break up between her and his dad. And as soon as all hope of being with Alec had gone, she had known, deep down, that she would go back to Graham in the end.
‘Well, you’ve got rid of the house; you can get rid of that bed, as well, while you’re at it. I’m never sleeping on that again,’ she said.
‘That’s all right, as long as you don’t mind having second-hand. The vendors are leaving all their carpets, and they’ll be leaving all the furniture they can’t sell. We might keep some of that, and we could just about furnish the house with what Auntie Ivy left. It’s still sitting in storage because nobody wants it. It’s not modern, but it’s really solid stuff. She had some quite good antiques.’
‘All right, it’ll do until we can afford our own choice. And another thing: there’s got to be honesty – about everything, and I mean absolutely everything . . . including money, Graham. You know how much I earn, but you’ve been earning a lot more than you ever admitted to me. I want to see your payslips from now on.’
‘Anything,’ Graham said. ‘Anything you like.’
‘All right then. We’ll go and see the house,’ she said. The torture of indecision was over. Alec had made it simple for her.
‘Mandy was nothing,’ Graham murmured, nuzzling her ear as they lay in bed together on the first night after the move to Snuff Mill Lane. ‘You’re The One, Lynn, the only one that ever mattered. You’re my Numero Uno.’
‘I know that, Graham,’ Lynn purred. ‘Mandy was just a moment of madness. You’ve already told me.’
‘It’s true!’ he protested. ‘I knew the day you came home and tossed all her clothes out of the window. That’s my girl, I thought, and I told her to go home!’
Liar! Instead of sending her home, he’d taken her to his mother’s! Lynn gave a sardonic little snort. ‘Shut up, Graham,’ she whispered, wanting no distraction from the sensations beginning to overpower her, least of all the distraction of Graham’s outrageous lies. She shut her eyes, and as their new bed began a gentle, rhythmic bounce Alec McCauley loomed into her mind. She smiled at the delicious thought of him, of being naked with him, skin to skin, doing this with him instead of Grah
am – because although Graham was good in bed, Alec would have been better. With him she wouldn’t have been Numero Uno – she would have been his One and Only. There would have been trust as well as lust – she knew it in her bones. She’d had that feeling off him when he first took her hand, a confidence along with the thrill of his touch. If Graham only knew he was a mere substitute for a better player, she thought, what would it do to his ego? She would never in her life make love with Alec but the thought was delicious, and her smile broadened at her fantasy – at her own deep and secret treachery.
Graham did shut up, concentrating on her pleasure as well as his own. He was giving one of his best performances and Lynn began to move with him, giving herself up to the pleasure, chasing the elusive climax until it caught her.
‘I’ve never had it as good anywhere as I get it right here at home,’ Graham said, his voice thick and throaty.
Lynn relaxed, gave a great sigh of satisfaction and breathed: ‘Oh h h . . . Alec!’
Graham stopped in mid thrust. ‘Oh, Alec?’ he echoed. ‘Who the chuff’s Alec?’
‘Have you forgotten?’ she asked, innocently. ‘That friend of our Anthony’s. He just popped into my head; I don’t know why.’
Graham gave a couple more feeble thrusts, but both the rhythm and the enthusiasm were gone.
‘He picks a good time to pop into your head, then,’ he protested, moving to sit on the edge of the bed with his back to her. ‘That’s ruined it for me, now.’
Lynn languidly stroked his shoulder. ‘Sorry, love,’ she lied.
‘Popped into your head! That’s just ruined it for me,’ he repeated. He turned towards her with a resentful, suspicious look, and a warning. ‘Well, he’d better not be popping into anything else, that’s all.’
‘Sorry, love,’ Lynn repeated, but it was as much as she could do to stop herself laughing out loud. Let him chew on that for a while. She turned on her side to switch off the lamp and hide the gleam in her eyes.
‘Alec,’ Graham repeated slowly. ‘I remember him now – that fisherman I saw you with in York, the one who brought Simon to my mother’s that time. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve been having it off with him, cracking on to the solicitors that you were Snow White, while all the time you were worse than me! And sly, with it.’
He wanted her to start protesting her innocence so he could start an argument, Lynn thought – but he wasn’t going to get the satisfaction. ‘No, not worse than you and Mandy, even if I had,’ she said. ‘But I’ll tell you what, Graham – let’s suppose I was having an affair with him. You can forgive me for that just like I’m forgiving you for Mandy. Then we’re all square, aren’t we? Even stevens.’
Graham thought for a moment, then lay back in bed, pulling the covers up to his neck. ‘You haven’t,’ he decided.
Lynn smiled into the darkness. The idea that anyone might ‘transfer her affections’ to an Alec after having had the privilege of knowing Graham was too alien a concept for Graham to consider. It was evidently more than his king-sized ego could entertain.
She gave a sigh of satisfaction. She’d had her little revenge, and it had been sweet . . . but better say no more about Alec, she decided, as sleep overtook her. Giving way to nasty, punishing impulses like that might be quite enjoyable, but long term it could only do harm, and she would do no more of it. No, she’d chosen to stay married to Graham, and she would make it for better rather than for worse – for all their sakes.
Chapter 25
‘I don’t like this kitchen half as much as the one you had on Marlborough Avenue, with all them lovely orange units and that built-in oven,’ Lynn’s mother said, when she and her father arrived on Bonfire Night. ‘This one can’t hold a candle to it. It looks pre-war.’
‘That’s what Connie said,’ Lynn replied. ‘The garden’s all right, though – not that you’ll see a lot of it, in the dark. Our Margaret and the lads are already out there – and Jim, for a wonder. They’re just lighting the bonfire.’
‘Aye, this doesn’t happen often, does it? Both of us ashore at the same time,’ her father said.
Lynn led them out into the garden where Margaret’s husband Jim was just putting a match to a couple of firelighters under the kindling. As the flames roared skyward Simon and his four young cousins jumped and chased around, whooping and shouting with excitement, eyes wide with delight and faces wreathed in smiles.
With Connie a couple of paces behind him, Gordon sidled up to Lynn’s father and being more than a head shorter, stared up at him, man to man.
‘I’m sorry our Graham let your lass down like he did, Tom. I’m glad they’ve sorted it out,’ he said.
Tom gave him a nod and a smile, and shook the hand which Gordon solemnly offered.
‘He’s come to his senses now, all right,’ Gordon assured him. ‘He soon realised what a lovely family he’d risked losing – and we nearly lost a lovely daughter-in-law.’
Connie didn’t rush to endorse that observation, Lynn noticed.
Instead, Nina hurried to fill the awkward silence with an indignant: ‘Mandy’s what possessed him, obviously! A trollop like that, who’ll chase a man from Leeds and put it on a plate for him! What can you expect?’
Connie gave her an approving look. ‘There’s too many easy women about, that’s the trouble,’ she said. ‘They’re everywhere.’
Everywhere including the flat above the fruit shop, Lynn thought, her eyebrows twitching upwards for an instant at the thought of Mandy’s sojourn there. That was one easy woman Connie hadn’t minded welcoming at any rate – but thanks to Nina they all felt themselves on safer ground now and only too happy to be able to throw all the blame for the marital malfunction on the party not present to defend herself.
Gordon nodded sanctimonious agreement. Tom Carr’s face gave nothing away.
‘Well, she’s back where she belongs now, so she’s best forgotten,’ Margaret said.
‘Let’s hope she stops where she belongs, then!’ said Nina.
‘I’m sure she will. There’s nothing for her in Hull, now our Graham’s come to his senses,’ Gordon said, looking towards Graham, who was sorting fireworks with Jim and five young boys at the far side of the bonfire.
Another lull in the conversation ensued, while they idly watched the busy little group, with the almost leafless fruit trees at the back of them, all illuminated by the flames.
‘What a shame our Anthony’s not here! He used to be ashore at the same time as his dad, but he had to change ships when he got a mate’s job. He’s doing great, though! Not twenty-four yet and he’s on his third trip,’ Nina crowed, with never a thought for Margaret, who might well feel her husband slighted by the comparison, since Jim was pushing forty and had only made third hand.
Lynn looked at her mother, willing her to stop, but Nina was oblivious. ‘He’ll be home in another three days. They’ll probably be giving him a better ship next trip . . .’
Margaret herself interrupted the flow. ‘Brenda could have come, though.’
‘She’s gone to Orla’s,’ Lynn said, and at the mention of Orla, her thoughts flew to Alec. If he wasn’t at sea, he would be there as well. Her stomach gave a painful little wrench.
‘She could have come; she was invited, but they’re a clannish lot, that family. Stick together like glue,’ Nina said.
‘Graham!’ Gordon called, beckoning to him. ‘Over here a minute.’
Graham answered the summons.
‘Shake hands with your father-in-law,’ Gordon ordered.
Lynn watched a mildly sheepish Graham hold out his hand. ‘All right, Tom?’ he said.
‘Aye, I’m all right, Graham.’ Tom grasped Graham’s hand and shook it. He didn’t let go, but held on, determinedly fixing his son-in-law’s gaze and leaning slightly towards him. ‘And I want you to listen to me, because I’m only going to say this once. If you pull that stunt on our Lynn again – I’ll kill you.’
Graham nodded, and said nothing. The rest of them wat
ched in total silence as Tom slowly released his hand and Graham slunk back to Jim and the fireworks with his shoulders hunched up to his ears, looking like a kicked dog.
Gordon stared up at Tom, speechless with astonishment. Connie looked as though she might faint. Nina and Margaret exchanged embarrassed glances and Tom smiled pleasantly and implacably at them all.
Lynn broke the trance. ‘I think I’ll just go and check on the spuds,’ she said, and escaped into the house. The idea of the party had been to bury the hatchet – and instead of that her father had sharpened it, and made it obvious he meant to keep it handy. The best laid plans of mice and men, she thought, but couldn’t help a chuckle at the look on Gordon’s face. She opened the oven door and found the potatoes nearly as raw as they’d been ten minutes ago, when she’d put them in to bake, not too surprisingly. Thank goodness Anthony was still at sea. Her party would have been ruined altogether if he had landed.
Five minutes later they were all chatting together again, all intent on smoothing things over, and all behaving as if nothing untoward had been said. Connie and Gordon were very affable, but Lynn had the feeling that they were not quite as fond of her as they had been, and all were quietly aware of a forced quality in the friendliness and a certain coolness under the surface smiles. Like the bobbins that hold the trawl net up though thrust fathoms down into the sea, Graham came bobbing back up to the surface when they sat down to eat and the beer began to flow, and played the genial host for all he was worth. Connie developed a headache during the meal, so Gordon took her home shortly after they had eaten.
The rest of the party resumed the firework display, interrupted when Jim burned his hand lighting one of the fireworks.
‘Run it under the cold tap, Dad!’ his eldest said, and the cry was taken up by the rest of them. Jim went into the kitchen with them hot on his heels, all full of advice and sympathy.
‘You ought to go to the hospital with that,’ Graham told him. ‘It might go septic.’
The Would-Be Wife Page 14
