‘Give me a chance. It only came this morning. He’s gutted about what she’s done to your dad, though,’ Brenda said, handing the card back. After a pause, she asked: ‘So how come Graham’s skiing in Austria? I thought you were skint.’
‘We are. I suspect his mother’s paid for it.’
‘That figures. She should have sent you and Simon as well.’
‘Not likely. We don’t work hard enough to be tired and pale, and if we were, she wouldn’t notice. Have you heard from our Anthony at all?’
‘Aye, he says the gales aren’t quite as bad up there now, thank goodness. He’s home on the twenty-first. I can’t wait. I hate being on my own.’
‘I know how you feel. What’s Orla up to these days? I haven’t seen her for ages,’ Lynn said, as casually as she could manage.
‘She’s all right. Getting engaged soon.’
‘Who to?’
Brenda laughed, and gave her a knowing look. ‘No, not to Alec, Lynn. To a nice lad she met working at the dock offices.’
‘I thought she’d have ended up with Alec at one time.’
‘I thought you’d end up with Alec, at one time,’ Brenda countered. ‘Anyway, him and Orla certainly weren’t suited. He’s sailing out of Grimsby, now. Anthony’s heard him on the VHF radio that the skippers and mates use to talk to each other.’
Alec was alive, then! ‘Oh! Out of Grimsby!’ Lynn said, so taken aback she could think of nothing else to say, but her heart was turning somersaults.
‘Will you be calling at Margaret’s?’
‘Yeah,’ said Lynn, recovering her composure. ‘Have you seen her since . . . ?’
‘Since she came out of hospital? I went once, with Anthony, and I saw the way she looked at me and my bump,’ Brenda said, looking down at her obviously pregnant shape. ‘Terrible – I don’t know how I’d describe it, sort of . . . haunted, I suppose. Anyway, I felt so awful I didn’t want to go again looking like this. Too much like rubbing it in.’
‘She doesn’t talk about any of it.’ Lynn said. ‘Everything that’s happened since she missed that trip to London – it’s as if she’s washed it all out of her mind.’
‘Is she going to the Memorial Service?’
‘No. I’m going though, with young Jim, and a lot of Jim’s relatives, I expect. Are you?’
‘No, it might bring bad luck. Anthony’s all right so far, and I want it to stay that way.’
*
Graham’s car was back in the drive the afternoon following the Memorial Service. Sunburned and smiling he heaved his suitcase into the house, dumped it in the hallway, and gave Lynn a kiss on the cheek. Lassie jumped and barked round his feet, excited to the point of delirium. He bent down to rub her ears. ‘Did you miss me, girl?’
Simon was just as thrilled to see him. ‘Did you bring us anything back, Dad?’
‘A lot of washing for your mum,’ Graham laughed.
‘Have you got anything for me?’
‘No. It was a place for grown-ups. There wasn’t anything for kids there,’ Graham said, ruffling his hair.
‘Not even a few sweets, Graham?’ Lynn said.
‘Sweets are bad for his teeth. And you shouldn’t encourage him to be so mercenary, demanding presents the minute he sees people. Is there any hot water? I want a bath.’
‘Yeah, there’s plenty.’
‘Oh, by the way, the company’s given a hundred pounds to the fishermen’s appeal fund.’
‘Very good of them, I’m sure,’ Lynn said. ‘A scrap metal merchant’s given a thousand out of his own pocket, and the local paper’s given five hundred.’
‘Huh! Just to outdo everybody else, I suppose, and now they’ll be advertising their generosity all over the place,’ Graham said, with a shrug. ‘Oh, well, I thought you’d be pleased, that’s all.’
He took himself off upstairs and started running the bath, leaving his suitcase in the hallway. Half an hour later he was down again, dressed in smart casuals and smelling of aftershave.
‘You’re not going out, are you?’ Lynn protested. ‘You’ve only just got back.’
‘Down to the golf club. I want to see if there’s anybody from the company there, and find out what’s been going on while I’ve been away. Got to keep my ear to the ground. I think I’ll have a round to stretch my legs, as well, after all that travelling.’
He met her eyes, and Lynn felt herself under a minute inspection for a few moments. His gaze travelled from hair that hadn’t had a decent cut for months, to a face devoid of make-up and fresh from a sleepless night all the way down to her down-at-heel shoes.
He frowned. ‘I never thought I’d have to tell you this, Lynn, but you’re letting yourself go. All the fun’s gone out of you. You’re not very good company, these days.’ He glanced round the living room, littered with library books, shoes, Simon’s scarf and gloves, and cups and plates used for a TV lunch which she hadn’t got around to carrying into the kitchen. ‘You’ve nothing else to do but look after Simon and keep the house up to scratch, and just look at it!’
‘Oh, excuse me, but I haven’t been having a holiday. I was at a Memorial Service yesterday, with two of Jim’s sisters, and my two eldest nephews, who’ve lost their father. They were all in tears, and Margaret couldn’t even face going, so she stayed at home and looked after Simon and the younger two. I don’t think it’s sunk in with her that he’s died, and seeing she’ll never have a body to convince her, or a funeral to put an end to it all, I don’t think it ever will. I think she’ll be in this sort of suspended animation for ever, and it’s heartbreaking to see it. So I haven’t been having a lot of fun, Graham.’
‘Sorry, I suppose not,’ he said. ‘Well smarten yourself up a bit, and I’ll take you out for a couple of hours tomorrow night, if my mother can have Simon.’
‘I’d rather not trouble your mother,’ Lynn said. ‘Better leave her with the opportunity to go out with your dad. She never knows when she might get the chance.’
‘Suit yourself,’ Graham shrugged.
‘I’ll tell you what, Graham – if you’re going out, I’m taking Simon down to Margaret’s and we’ll sleep at my dad’s. We could both do with the company.’
‘All right. But don’t forget my mother’s doing Sunday lunch for us. We’ve got to be there for two.’
She’d said it herself, but she felt Graham’s agreement to her sleeping at her father’s like a slap in the face. How times have changed, she thought. A few weeks ago he would have been desperate to get her into bed, especially after a full week’s separation. The idea of her sleeping away from home would have been out of the question.
‘You’ll have to pick us up from Margaret’s, then – unless you want her Yorkshire puddings to be ruined,’ she said. ‘There are hardly any buses on a Sunday, and I don’t know the times.’
‘I’m sure somebody down there could tell you; there aren’t many of them have cars,’ he said, and after glancing at her face added: ‘All right. I’ll pick you up at one.’
He went to the sideboard drawer for a comb and stood admiring his reflection in the mirror over the fireplace and slicking his hair back. ‘There’s one good thing about it, though – Margaret not having a body to bury, I mean – at least it saved her the expense of a funeral,’ he said. ‘That would have knocked a hole in her finances – she’d probably have been up to her ears in debt if she’d had all that expense. And with no husband to support her it’s a blessing in disguise she hasn’t got another two to provide for – and where she’d have put them in that tiny house I don’t know. So look on the bright side, I say.’
And there stood Graham, ever the businessman, Lynn thought – a mind like a bloody adding machine. She disappeared into the kitchen and stood leaning with hands either side of the sink, looking down on the viciously pointed vegetable knife in the bowl with visions of grabbing it and sticking it into him – and then watching his blood seep out onto the Australian emigrants’ abandoned carpet. How satisfying it would fe
el! A minute or two later she heard the car pull out of the drive and went back into the living room.
Simon was watching Graham’s departure through the window. ‘Are you mad, Mum?’ he asked.
‘I am, a bit.’
He flung himself into an armchair and crossed his arms, his lower lip protruding. ‘I am. He never brought me a present. Everybody at school said he’d bring me something back.’
Lynn ruffled his hair. ‘Never mind,’ she soothed. ‘Stick your lip back in. Worse things happen at sea.’
‘I know that.’
‘I know you know.’
She looked towards Graham’s bursting suitcase, still standing in the hallway, still decorated with labels from the Austrian ski resort – waiting for her to unpack it all and do his tons of washing and ironing. Well, there’d be skiing holidays in Hell before she emptied that.
Following her gaze, Simon said, hopefully: ‘I wonder if he was kidding? I wonder if there’s a present in that suitcase?’
‘I doubt it.’
‘Can we have a look?’ he pleaded.
There was a long pause before she caved in. She opened the case and left Simon to rummage through it, then went upstairs to the bathroom to clear a litter of dirty clothes and a pair of malodorous socks lying under a layer of talcum powder.
She took the dirty clothes down to the washer, to find that Simon had done his rummaging more thoroughly than any customs officer on a trawler, and found nothing but shoes, wash-bag and more dirty laundry.
Chapter 49
‘Brenda’s invited us to lunch with her and our Anthony on Easter Sunday,’ Lynn said, during breakfast on the following Saturday morning. ‘My dad’s going to be at home as well. It’ll be quite a family gathering.’
Graham lifted his eyes from his bacon and eggs. ‘Oh, dear. My parents were hoping to be invited here. Can’t you get her to put it off until the week after?’
‘They’re trawlermen, Graham, they won’t be here next week, and there’s not much chance of them being ashore together again for ages. Anyway, I’ll get them to come here, instead, how’s that? And then we can invite your parents as well, and our Margaret and her lads, and have a family party. Eight adults and five boys, we might just be able to squash round this dining table.’
Simon’s eyes shone at the prospect. ‘Oooh, yes!’ he said ‘Then Auntie Margaret’s lads can sleep here afterwards.’
Graham cast his eyes heavenward. ‘Perish the thought!’ he said, ‘and you can’t have forgotten that your dad threatened to kill me?’
‘Only once, and then only if you had any more Mandies. You haven’t, have you?’
‘And risk my life? I wouldn’t dare.’
‘You’re in no danger, then,’ she said, ‘so why not let bygones be bygones?
‘I’ll be very honest with you, Lynn; I’ve got nothing in common with your Anthony – or your dad, come to that. They can’t talk about things that interest me, and I can’t talk about things that interest them. They’ll be talking about trawling, and I’d be like a fish out of water, literally. It’s all too much effort. I’d rather spend my time talking to people who are on the same wave-length, preferably people who can help me on.’
‘Like the people at the golf club, I suppose.’
‘Well, some of them.’
‘Are there many other blokes at your level in the company who’ve joined the golf club, Graham?
‘No.’
‘I suppose they spend their time talking to people in their own families, who might just happen to be in different lines of employment.’
‘You might be right. They’ve probably got no ambition, which is all the better for people who have.’
‘So they’d probably rather spend the money on outings with their families than golf club membership, and golf club gear.’
‘I dare say they would, but that’s not the way to get on in the company. And even then, I spend more time with you than your dad ever spent with your mother. And I know she’s hopped it again, by the way,’ he said.
She laughed. ‘The bloody cognoscenti, again. Was it the cognoscenti at the golf course, or the cognoscenti at the fruit shop?’
‘They’re everywhere,’ he said, with a grin. ‘Their eyes and ears are always open, and their tongues never stop wagging, but it would be nice if I occasionally got the news about what’s happening in this family before my mother gets it from her customers. Seeing I’m supposed to be a member of it.’
‘If you were that keen on being a member of this family, you’d have your bloody dinner with it, on Easter Sunday.’
‘Sorry, I’m pleading a prior engagement. Tell them I’ll be working hard at the golf club, ingratiating myself with the management of Four Winds Pharmaceuticals, in the interests of this branch of the family.’ He looked out of the window for a moment, onto a garden beginning to show signs of life. ‘We might get a round of golf in today; it looks as if it’s going to be fine. Thank goodness the light nights will soon be here.’
*
After his Austrian holiday, Graham was out almost every night, leaving Lynn with the dog she’d never wanted as her only and very welcome companion after Simon was in bed. There was no possibility of her going out at night, so she determined that she would do her socialising during the day. She began a routine of walking Lassie to school with them, and then getting a bus straight down to Margaret’s, occasionally by way of Brenda’s – or to Janet’s if she was off work. Even to be on the bus, hearing other people’s snatches of conversation was preferable to spending hours in the house on her own, and Lassie seemed to enjoy an outing as much as she did herself. It was good to walk along Hessle Road or along Marlborough Avenue and up Richmond Street, and maybe bump into people she’d known for years.
‘I’m rolling in it, today,’ Lynn told Janet when she answered the door later that week. ‘I can afford to treat you to a coffee on Chants Ave.’
‘Come in. I’ll treat you to one here, for nothing. You’ve brought the dog, I see,’ Janet said, stooping to pet her. ‘Hello, Lassie. Hiya, girl.’
Lynn stepped inside, and took off her coat. ‘Do you mind? I don’t like leaving her on her own all day. I wish to God I’d never moved. I took him back after his dalliance with Mandy, so why couldn’t I have taken the house back as well, instead of cutting my nose off to spite my face?’
‘It was the way you felt at the time, I suppose – but it was great when you were just round the corner. How’s it going, anyway?
‘I’m fed up, Janet. I look at what’s happened to our Margaret, and I think I’ve no right to complain – but I’m fed up of not having any independence, and I’m fed up of spending so much time on my own, and I’m fed up of being hard up. He’s out nearly every night, and I don’t say much about it, because he earns the money and he thinks he’s got a right to do what he likes with it. And even when he’s in it’s obvious he doesn’t really want to be in with us. He prowls about like a caged animal as often as not, as moody as hell, finding fault with everything, including Simon. Then he’ll go out and leave his mood behind, casting a gloom on the whole place.’
‘Sounds grim,’ Janet said, leading the way through to the kitchen.
‘It’s getting that way. Everything was hunky dory when we first got back together – he was spending time with Simon, taking us on family outings, treating us, talking about having another baby – but all that’s gone by the board now.’
‘Dave’s going out a lot more these days but when he’s in he never prowls,’ Janet said. ‘He slumps – in front of the telly. I’m glad to see the back of him sometimes. It’s nice to have the telly off and have a bit of peace and quiet now and again.’
‘I wish I could say the same. I didn’t want this little dog when he first brought her home, but I don’t know what I’d do without her now. I love her to bits.’
‘Don’t get like some of those women who treat them like substitute babies, will you? Remember she’s a dog,’ Janet said, flicking the kettle
on and putting a bowl of water down for Lassie.
‘I don’t think I’ll be having another baby. He hasn’t mentioned it for ages.’
‘Maybe just as well, if he’s started hopping off on skiing holidays on his own, and spending all his time away from home.’
‘You remember that dinner party I told you about a while back, when one of the bosses’ wives was ogling him the whole evening?’
‘I do,’ Janet said, lifting two mugs off the shelf, and throwing a spoonful of instant coffee in each, followed by a splash of milk.
‘Well, I was vacuuming the car after he got back from Austria, and I found an earring – a sapphire set in solid gold – hallmarked, not costume jewellery. Not the sort of thing you’d want to lose. I thought it must have been hers, so I found out where she lived, and I posted it to her – with compliments from Lynn.’
‘He’s up to his old tricks again then.’
‘I’m not sure. It came back by return of post. Graham was furious, when he found out I’d sent it. He said he lends the car to other people at the company quite often, and one of their wives must have lost it – except I found it in the back, which is not where wives usually sit when their husbands are driving.’
‘No, and wives don’t usually do things in the backs of cars that cause them to lose earrings; they generally do that sort of stuff in the comfort of their own homes. Where is it now?’
‘He took it.’
‘He must know who it belongs to, then. Maybe the boss’s wife’s not the only one he’s grappling with.’
‘Hmm.’
‘You’re not smoking, Lynn. I’d expect you to be puffing like a factory chimney, thinking about this lot.’
‘No, I’ve nearly given up. I started to cut down after I’d left work, and this week after I’d done the rest of the shopping I had a choice between a packet of fags, or a packet of loo rolls with what I had left. I really wanted the fags, but I absolutely had to have the other. So which would you have picked?’
Lynn grinned, expecting Janet to laugh. She didn’t.
‘I’d have got the fags and made him wipe his arse on his shirt lap. God, he’s a tight little swine, isn’t he?’ she exclaimed, pouring boiling water into the mugs. She pushed one towards Lynn and led the way into the dining room.
The Would-Be Wife Page 25
