‘I really miss my mother,’ Lynn said as they sat drinking cocoa later on.
‘I suppose you do.’
‘Don’t you?’
‘It was a bit different for me,’ Margaret said. ‘I was the eldest. I never had a lot done for me. I had to help her with you and our Anthony, so I got used to having to fend for myself, and when I got married we leaned more to Jim’s family.’
And here she was again, Lynn thought, taking on other folks’ responsibilities, caring for Simon and dealing with his irate father while baby sister swanned off to her interesting, middle-class job. In spite of all that, they got on well together. If Margaret came to live in her dad’s house, she might do the same, if push came to shove, Lynn thought. It might not be so bad; the place was big enough. It might be a good move for all concerned. They could look after each other’s lads when one of them was at work, or babysit for each other if they wanted a night out. Their father could come home and not be lonely. In fact, it might be quite pleasant to live together in their childhood home.
Chapter 58
On Monday morning, Graham opened the wardrobe door, and discovered that two of his suits were missing. He checked through every item twice, his face dropping all the while. He turned to Lynn, wide-eyed with apprehension.
‘Where have you put my good suits?’
Lynn had slept well. She stretched, and yawned, and sat up to rest against the pillows. The sun was streaming through the flowered cotton curtains; it was going to be a lovely day.
‘Same place as the golf clubs; in the pop shop. Your gold cufflinks have gone, your second gold watch has gone, a couple of pairs of your shoes, and some of Auntie Ivy’s stuff, as well. I had to get a taxi because I’d have looked ridiculous with the golf clubs on the bus and anyway, they’re too heavy, and I thought: better not waste the journey seeing as I’m so hard up, so I took as much as we could carry.’
He looked as if he could hardly believe his ears. ‘We? Who’s the we?’
‘Me and the taxi man. He was very obliging.’
‘It’s – it’s . . .’ Graham shook his head, seemed at a loss for words for a moment, then said: ‘outrageous! Absolutely outrageous! I’ve never heard of anything like it in my life before. To steal somebody else’s things, and take them to a pawn shop . . .’
‘I didn’t steal them, Graham, I just raised some housekeeping money on them that you’ll get the benefit of as well as us. That’s not stealing.’
‘Well, you can bloody well go and get them back. Now.’
‘How can I do that? I haven’t any money!’
‘You’ve got the money the pawnbroker gave you, for a start!’
‘But I need that, for housekeeping; we’ve got to eat something, Graham. That’s why I popped the stuff,’ she explained, patiently.
‘Why didn’t you ‘pop’ your own bloody stuff?’
‘Because I’ve got nothing he’d have given me any money on.’
‘You’ve got that wedding dress.’
‘Oh, I sold that outright. I spent that money, ages ago. You’ve been too busy being platonic friends with Lucy Senior to notice what’s going on round here. If you want your stuff back, you’ll have to get it yourself, Graham – but don’t be too long about it, or it’ll be out of pledge. It won’t take him two minutes to sell two decent suits and two pairs of nearly new Italian shoes, seeing he’s a gents’ outfitters as well as a pawnbroker.’
Graham looked horrified. ‘I’ve never been into a pawn shop in my life,’ he said.
She flung the covers back and got out of bed. ‘Oh, well, there’s a first time for everything. I put the pawn tickets on the mantelpiece for you before I came to bed last night. I think Margaret’s already given you the one for the golf clubs. You’ll find the shop on Hessle Road; you can’t miss it. Usual opening hours,’ she said, and proceeded to the bathroom.
Connie arrived with all Graham’s redeemed property that afternoon, while Simon was at school and Graham, presumably, still at work. She put the golf clubs in the hall, went back to the car to bring the suitcase in, dumped that beside the clubs, and then turned to Lynn with venom in her eyes. The mask of pretended friendship was well and truly off.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ Lynn smiled, with provoking politeness.
‘How dare you? How dare you pawn my son’s things?’ Connie raged. ‘I warned him about you before he married you. Why he ever let himself get tangled up with somebody like you, I’ll never know, when he could have had his pick of dozens of girls from decent families. We’ve got some standing in this neighbourhood, and now we’re having to run to pawn shops – because of you! Dragged right down into the gutter – to your level!’
‘My level – you insulting—’ Lynn checked herself, and took a deep breath. ‘I dare do a lot of things, Connie – and if you could hear what people say about you, you’d have a better idea how much standing you’ve got,’ she said.
Connie appeared not to have heard. She’d had her rant prepared, and she was in the throes of delivering it. ‘Telling him you’re going to leave him every weekend! What sort of a wife are you? And what are you up to every weekend on Hessle Road? Drinking and cavorting with fishermen in rough pubs, while your husband has to fend for himself after slaving all week! For you, you worthless trollop! Get to your father’s, you lazy, idle, thieving slut! Get there for good, and don’t come back. Next time you go, we’re having the locks changed and you won’t get back in to steal anything else.’
Have the locks changed, so she wouldn’t get back in – to her own home? To Simon’s home? Lynn suddenly decided that dynamite wouldn’t blast her out of this house. All thoughts of going to live on Boulevard were forgotten. Her eyes were like gimlets under the slightly drawn brows, her nostrils slightly dilated, and her mouth set in a tight, straight line.
‘I’ll get back in, all right, Connie,’ she said. ‘I’ll get in anytime I like. This is my home – and my son’s. My name’s on the mortgage, just as much as Graham’s, and it was my father gave us the deposit for the first house we had and he hasn’t been paid back yet, so he made the biggest contribution here. I’ve got a better claim to this house than Graham. If he has the locks changed, I’ll have no alternative but to get the police to force an entry, just like I had no alternative but to pawn his stuff, because he refused to give me anything for us to live on. That’s called wilful refusal to maintain, in case you don’t already know. You seem to think it’s perfectly all right for him to be out and about spending money on Lucy Senior instead of maintaining us, but how do you think a court will see it? Because it’ll come to court if he pushes me too far. He’ll get his name in the paper, and then all your customers will know what your “standing” in this neighbourhood is, as if they di—’
She felt a stinging blow across her cheek, and then bony fingers gripping her shoulders like a vice, shaking her. With eyes blazing, Connie snarled like an animal and suddenly lurched forward with teeth bared. Lynn recoiled, expecting to be bitten, for a split second.
‘Slut!’ Connie spat. ‘You’re nothing but a set of thieves, and whores, and hooligans! You and your slut of a mother, and your ruffian of a father!’
Lynn wrenched herself free. ‘Get out. Get out of my house this minute, and don’t come back.’
‘I haven’t finished . . .’
‘You have. Oh, but you have! I’ll have you up for assault, if you don’t get out this minute. I’ll show the whole world who the ruffian is, then your customers will really have something to talk about.’
The look on Lynn’s face must have been enough. Connie left the house without another word, and slammed the door behind her. With her heart thumping like a hammer Lynn went to the window to watch Gordon drive her away. She had never had any illusions that she’d been Connie’s first choice for a daughter-in-law, but the depth of her antagonism had come as a surprise.
‘. . . thieves, whores and hooligans! . . . your slut of a mother! . . . your ruffian of a father!’ Lynn
started to shake with shock and impotent rage as the insults reverberated in her mind.
Chapter 59
On Midsummer’s Day Lynn took Lassie to pick Simon up from school and called at Brenda’s to see her and the baby before going to Boulevard. Anthony was home, and Lynn’s heart leaped when she saw Alec there as well. Lassie jumped onto the settee beside him.
‘We’ve asked him to be godfather,’ Anthony explained.
‘Hello, Simon! How are you, Lynn?’ Alec said, with the same broad smile, the same gleam in his blue eyes.
‘All right. How are you? I hear you’re a skipper now.’
‘Yep, not doing too badly. We sold part of one of the catches to perfume-makers, believe it or not.’
‘Anthony told me. Ambergris.’
‘You were at the wedding,’ Simon said.
‘I know I was,’ he said, stroking Lassie. ‘So were you.’
Brenda sat with the baby in her arms, beaming at them all.
‘What are you going to call him, Auntie Brenda?’ Simon asked.
‘I can’t tell you before he gets christened,’ she said. ‘It’s really bad luck.’
‘Am I coming to the christening?’
‘’Course you are. Your mum’s going to be the baby’s godmother,’ Brenda said, looking directly at Lynn.
‘Am I?’
‘Aye. Alec’s the godfather, and you’re the godmother, so make sure you get the day off work,’ Anthony said. ‘We’ve booked it for the Sunday before the August Bank Holiday. My ship’s going to be in for a survey, so I’m having some time off.’
‘Bank holiday,’ Lynn grimaced. ‘I’d better put in for it straight away, then.’
‘This time last year we went for a walk on Hessle foreshore,’ Alec said. ‘I wouldn’t mind doing it again’
‘Count me out,’ said Brenda. ‘I’ll be busy with the baby.’
‘And me,’ said Anthony. ‘I’ll be spending my time with my wife and son – and my dad docked this morning. He’ll be coming round soon.’
‘I’ll come!’ Simon volunteered.
‘All right,’ Lynn said. ‘It’ll be a nice walk for Lassie.’
‘Can we take Auntie Margaret’s lads?’ Simon begged. Lynn looked at Alec.
‘The more the merrier,’ he said.
There were lots of other people out, strolling with pets and children along the foreshore, buying sweets or ice creams, or just sitting looking at the waters of the Humber and enjoying the midsummer sunshine. Lynn let Lassie off the lead and she ran ahead with five boys chasing after her, their feet crunching on the shingle as they ran.
‘A year to the day since we were here last,’ she remarked, opening the conversation.
There was something else on Alec’s mind. ‘I was in Isafjord when their father’s ship went down,’ he said, nodding after the boys. ‘I can’t say I saw it, because nobody could see anything. It just disappeared off the radar. I didn’t know he was on it until Anthony told me. I’d been talking to the skipper on the radio just before it happened. Nobody could have helped them. The storm was so bad we were all fighting our own battles, just to stay afloat.’
She shuddered. ‘And yet you still go back,’ she said. ‘I’ll never understand it.’
‘Neither will I. I love it just a bit more than I hate it, I suppose,’ Alec said. ‘And besides, what would I do ashore?’
‘You learned that job, you could learn another.’
‘That’s like saying you learned midwifery, you could learn something else. You wouldn’t want to, after learning your trade, because it’s the one you really want to do.’
‘At least midwifery’s safe – for the midwife, at least. Don’t you envy other people, with their safe jobs and their steady incomes? They never settle in debt, and they’re guaranteed to be home every night.’
And they’ve never seen the aurora borealis, shimmering across the black winter skies like a curtain of fantastic coloured light. They’ve never seen a night sky in the Arctic, looking as if someone’s thrown a bucket of diamonds up onto a cushion of the blackest velvet. They’ve never been in a storm, and survived it by the skin of their teeth, or felt the sheer elation that comes from that, Alec thought.
‘Their lives are a bit too tame for me,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t stand to be caged in a factory, or a workshop, or even a hospital. Most shore people wash their cars, and mow their lawns, and worry about their tomato plants, and watch the weekly instalments of their telly programmes, and every week’s just like the last, and the next will be the same. They’ve never been afraid in their lives, nor ever expect to be. They’re barely half alive!’
She took a deep breath, and let it out in a long sigh. ‘Look at Margaret’s lads, racing along in front of us. Don’t you think they’d rather have a father half alive, than one hundred per cent dead?’
He looked towards the boys and she sensed his sympathy. ‘He was just unlucky,’ he said, quietly.
‘Unlucky? Well, there’s no disputing that, is there? He’d have had more luck if he’d had a shore job. So would they.’
He had nothing to say to that. After a moment he asked: ‘How are you getting on with Graham?’
‘I don’t think you’d be taking me for a walk if you thought I was getting on with him,’ she said. ‘Our Anthony must have told you.’
‘But you’re still living in the same house,’ he said, cautiously.
‘And that’s all. We’re co-existing in the same house. Not very comfortable for either party, but neither willing to make a move,’ Lynn said, her face completely expressionless.
‘Why not leave him, then, and live in Boulevard, like you did before?’
‘It would make a lot more sense, because I could probably work full time then, and get a better salary. But I don’t want to drag Simon out of another house that he likes, and I don’t want to drag him out of his school and away from the friends he’s made there. And it’s wonderful for a child where we live, surrounded by woods and fields. It’s great for Margaret’s lads when they come to stay – and I love it, as well. The only fly in the ointment is Graham, and his bloody mother. And I don’t want them to win. Can you understand that?’
‘Partly. Everything but the last,’ he said. ‘What would they be winning, if you leave him?’
‘Everything, that’s all. They’d have got us out of our home. His mother was even talking about changing the locks, to keep me out! Can you imagine it? She’d love to oust me, and so would he, but they’re not going to get the satisfaction. Call it sheer bloody-mindedness, if you like, but he’s the one that’ll be leaving this time.’
‘It’s a battle of wills, then. Are you really sure it’s worth fighting?’
‘You’d think so,’ Lynn said, ‘if you’d heard some of the things she called me, and my parents. You’ll have heard my mother did a bunk, I suppose.’
‘With the feller she was with the night we went to the house hoping to—’
‘That’s the one.’
‘Shame we never got that far.’
‘Maybe not, from my point of view. It might have turned out badly for me. You jilted me, remember?’
‘It wasn’t Orla,’ he said, defensively. ‘It was never on the cards, me and Orla. I really thought you wanted Graham. Simon certainly did.’
‘It was complicated – but anything there ever was between me and Graham is over and done with,’ she said. ‘Finished. Kaput. And I don’t think Simon’s as enamoured as he used to be, ever since he saw him kick Lassie in the guts.’
‘Oh. Sounds a nice character.’
‘You’d have thought so, if you’d seen it. So what about the lasses in Grimsby?’
‘They’re very nice. I’ve taken a few of them out.’
‘Nobody special?’
‘Only you,’ he said. ‘I haven’t had a trip off since last time I saw you. There’s no point in having holidays, because there’s nobody I’d want to go with.’
‘Oh, shame!’ she laughed. ‘I could
do with a holiday.’
‘Come and visit me, and I’ll show you the delights of Grimsby, then. I’m living with my dad and his wife.’
‘So he married a woman from Grimsby.’
‘He did. He went over to New Holland to have a drink with an old pal one night and met her in a pub called the Yarborough – and that was it. He moved to Grimsby and married her – that was months before I went. She’s a good ’un. You’ll like her. Bring Simon. Bring ’em all, if you like.’
‘Grimsby! Great holiday destination,’ she said.
‘Today Grimsby – tomorrow the world! Anyway, Grimsby’s not that bad, but we live next door, in Cleethorpes. On Queen Mary Avenue, you know. It’s rather select,’ he said, adopting a plummy accent and placing a forefinger at the side of his nose to thrust it mockingly upwards.
‘It’s a pity I’m working weekends,’ she said. ‘There’ll be no chance of me going anywhere until the school holidays.’
‘I’m thinking about buying my own house. I’ve got to do something with the money I’m making, other than keep handing it over to the taxman.’
‘Don’t buy it in Grimsby,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t live there.’
‘Scared of letting Graham have the house?’
‘That’s part of it. A bigger reason is I couldn’t leave Margaret and the lads. They need all the help they can get. And sending Simon to three different schools in just over a year might be too much to expect him to cope with.’
‘Come and see Grimsby while you’ve got the chance, then, before I move to Hull. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity!’
The Would-Be Wife Page 29
