So he was prepared to move back to Hull for her! She threw her arms round him, and gave him a smacking kiss. ‘All right, I will,’ she said.
Lassie came bounding back towards them, followed by five laughing boys.
‘Can we have an ice cream, Mum?’ Simon asked.
‘Can we have an ice cream, Auntie Lynn?’ her four fatherless nephews clamoured.
‘I’ll get you an ice cream,’ Alec said. ‘Race you to the van.’
Chapter 60
She went for half an hour’s free advice from Mr Farley after Alec had gone back to Grimsby.
‘I’m back,’ she announced, stepping into his office.
He looked up and smiled. ‘And what can I do for you, Mrs Bradbury?’ he asked, and in the depths of his bright brown eyes she read the thought: as if I didn’t know!
‘Get me a divorce,’ she said.
‘Any grounds?’
‘The usual – adultery.’
‘Of course. Once men start that game, they rarely change.’
‘What’s changed is, he’s a lot wiser now,’ Lynn said. ‘He’s not going to admit to anything.’
‘No, it would be too much to expect him to be so accommodating a second time,’ Mr Farley agreed.
‘And he’s desperate to preserve his “lady’s” reputation, as well as his own. He’ll lie his head off to do it, if he has to. I get the feeling he’s keen to marry this one, if he can. She’s rolling in it, or her father is.’
‘You don’t seem very upset.’
‘I’m not.’
‘A detective, then.’
‘I think he could follow him around for a year, and not get any evidence. He never sleeps away from home.’
‘In that case, what makes you think he’s committing adultery?’
Lynn took a moment to think of the most polite way to express it. ‘Certain changes in the matrimonial routine,’ she said. ‘In the matrimonial bedroom – and blokes like Graham have got to get it from somewhere, haven’t they?’
‘Perhaps – but it wouldn’t do as evidence. There’s no dispute as to the custody of the child, I suppose?’
‘No, I don’t think he’s planning on taking Simon to disturb his love-nest that he won’t even admit to having. So, is there another way round it?
‘You could try a legal separation and play the waiting game.’
‘How long would that take?’
‘Years, perhaps, but if he gets tired of waiting – or his lady does – he’ll give you the grounds for a divorce.’
‘I don’t think he will, this time.’
He looked her full in the face and he said: ‘How would he react if you were to commit adultery?’
‘Divorce me before you can say “decree nisi”, I should think.’
Mr Farley’s eyebrows twitched upwards for a second and he smiled, as if to say: well, there you are, then!
‘So I’ve got to let him play the injured innocent and admit to adultery I’ve never committed, you mean?’
‘Oh, no, that would be dishonest. I couldn’t act for you if I thought you might be perpetrating a fraud on the court. And if you were the guilty party you’d lose any claim to maintenance for yourself. If the house is in joint names you’d get your share of the proceeds of the sale, and you’d get maintenance for the child.’
‘So I get less than I’m due to, and I get my reputation smirched – and he comes up smelling of roses!’ Lynn exclaimed.
‘You don’t like the idea.’
‘I bloody don’t!’ she said, her solicitor’s-office politeness falling to the ground.
‘Then as far as a divorce on the grounds of adultery goes, we seem to have reached an impasse.’
‘Is there any alternative?’
‘There are three. Cruelty, desertion and incurable insanity.’
‘He’s never in, which doesn’t amount to desertion, unfortunately – but he’s definitely cruel, and probably insane. I’ll never manage to prove it, though. So adultery’s the only real option. Mine, I mean.’
‘Only if you want a quick divorce. ‘
‘Hmm,’ she said.
Janet was off work, so Lynn called to see her before going home. Dave was in, slumped in front of the television in the living room.
‘All right, Dave?’ she greeted him, although it was apparent that he wasn’t.
‘Hay fever,’ he snuffled, looking at her through red-rimmed eyes.
‘Oh, dear,’ she said.
The civilities over, she followed Janet into the back garden where they sat in the sun, happily breathing in pollen and drinking cold lager. With a face that gave the impression that she was sucking a lemon, Lynn recounted the gist of her visit to the solicitor.
‘It’s galling,’ she said, ‘but I might have to cave in. I’d much prefer to be Alec’s wife, but better his live-in lover than stay married to Graham.’
‘What does it matter? You can marry him anyway, as soon as Graham divorces you,’ Janet said, and added: ‘That’s if you’re sure he will marry you. You’d be taking a chance on that, wouldn’t you?’
‘Well, married or not, if a bloke wants to leave, he’ll leave,’ Lynn said, ‘or make himself so obnoxious he drives you into leaving. So marriage is no protection at all, is it? Not these days.’
‘Never was, I suppose. Nicer to be married, though.’
‘Much nicer to be married, and nicer still if I could get married without ruining my reputation beforehand – giving people room to call me nasty names behind my back.’
‘What do you care what anybody says behind your back? You’ll never know. I never let it bother me. Just as long as they don’t say it to your face, that’s all, and not many people have the guts to do that,’ Janet said, and took a gulp of lager.
‘You know by the way people start treating you whether anything nasty’s being said or not,’ Lynn said. ‘And I already know exactly what his mother will be saying. I had a taste of her whores and her trollops when there wasn’t a shred of truth in them. She’ll be over the moon if I go out and prove her nasty allegations for her – I can’t bear to think about it. And then there’s matron and the hierarchy at Hedon Road. They’re not fond of women with big, fat blots on their characters, are they? Bringing the profession into disrepute, and all that. I’d be lucky to get made up to a sister after that.’
‘Do what Brian Farley says, then. Tell him to get his private dick onto it.’
‘That’s another thing. I might not get legal aid as easily this time round, and where’s the money coming from if I don’t? My dad’s got enough on his plate with helping Margaret and the lads, and my mother says she’s sticking a claim in for maintenance from him as well. And Graham’s a lot more wary this time round, so it would probably be a sheer waste of money anyway.’
‘Hmm,’ Janet said. ‘Don’t you get yourself into some fixes? It’s a pity you didn’t get rid of him the first time round.’
But they’d covered all that ground before, and Lynn was weary of it. ‘Dave’s not going out quite so much these days, I suppose?’ she said.
Janet’s eyes took on a steely glint. ‘If I come home off a late shift and he’s not in, there’s hell to pay and he knows it, so he makes bloody sure he is in,’ she said. ‘His outings to explore Hull’s old hostelries have come to a sad end. That’s if he ever did explore ’em. He was probably too busy exploring his fancy piece. I’ve applied for a job on the district, so I won’t have to work with her, but I don’t expect I’ll get it. They like you to have two years’ experience.’
‘Poor Dave.’
‘Poor Dave my foot. I thought it could never happen to me, but dull old Dave gave me a nasty shock. I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s a lot of self-deception in relationships. People believe what they want to believe, and see what they want to see – until the day the blinkers drop off.’
‘If there were no self-deception, there couldn’t be much deception, I reckon,’ Lynn said, with a rueful smile.
&nbs
p; ‘Right. They’d know they weren’t likely to get away with it, so they’d think twice. I don’t think he’ll try it on again in a hurry,’ she said, nodding in the direction of the living room.’
‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me,’ Lynn quoted.
‘Too right.’
Lynn finished her lager. ‘Good luck with the job, anyway,’ she said. ‘I’ll have to go, or I’ll be late for Simon.’ She stood up, and carried her glass into the kitchen.
Janet followed her. ‘I wouldn’t worry too much about bringing the profession into disrepute, if I were you,’ she said. ‘Everybody knows what my ex-friend’s been up to, but it doesn’t seem to be doing her much harm. People haven’t got long memories anyway. Six months after he makes you Mrs McCauley they’ll have forgotten all about it and you’ll be respectable again.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ Lynn said.
Graham wasn’t in for tea, and when Lynn went upstairs the bedroom looked exceptionally tidy. She opened his wardrobe door, and saw it was empty. Was it fear of the pawnbroker, she wondered? Or had he gone back to Mammy Bradbury, along with his clothes? Or maybe he and Lucy had had the courage of their convictions, and decided to live together and defy the world. But that wasn’t very likely, in view of their platonic protestations.
She had a delicious little daydream of their going to the Scarborough Grand and booking themselves in for a dirty weekend while her mother was away from the reception desk, and then her mother surprising them in some wonderfully compromising position – and chuckled to herself.
Oh, if only! She made a mental note to send Graham’s photo to her mother and get her to circulate it among everyone she knew in the hotel business with the caption: ‘Wanted – evidence that might lead to a successful petition for divorce.’
*
In the weeks that followed there was very little housekeeping money, and rarely any Graham, until very late in the evening. Then the cognoscenti put the word out that Graham Bradbury’s wife was back at work at Hedon Road Maternity, and after that there was no housekeeping money at all. In view of his attitude Lynn decided there would be nothing to be gained by complaining, so she economised on food since he was rarely in for meals, and managed to eke out her earnings – but it was not a pleasant way to live, all told. She was thankful that Simon was exposed to very little of it; Graham had usually left for work before he got up for school and was home long after he was asleep.
At least Graham was paying the mortgage, she thought. Then the letter arrived from the building society, addressed to Mr and Mrs Bradbury. She opened it, and discovered they were in arrears with their payments. She tackled him about it.
‘I’d think twice about that, Graham,’ she said. ‘If they foreclose, you’ll never get another mortgage, and what will your platonic friend think to that? And her parents?’
‘Get your friend to pay it. The one you and Simon were strolling on Hessle foreshore with.’
She raised a quizzical eyebrow.
‘Yes, Simon told me.’
‘Platonic friends can’t be expected to pay other people’s mortgages, Graham,’ she reasoned.
He gave her a sarcastic look.
‘That’s all he is,’ she insisted. ‘A platonic friend. Surely you believe they can exist?’
On Friday afternoons after school Simon was usually desperate to go down to stay with Auntie Margaret and the lads. The time they spent at Boulevard was a time for playing out almost as long as the daylight lasted for Simon, and work provided both company and a refuge for Lynn. Alec kept in touch by the ship-to-shore radio telephone, and she lived for his calls.
Chapter 61
Before the six-week holiday started, Lynn gave Graham fair warning that her sister and nephews would be staying with her in Cottingham during Monday to Friday of the first week of the summer break. Graham took refuge at his mother’s, as she had guessed he would. To Lynn, his complete absence was like a weight lifted off her. Margaret’s lads had a few days discovering the countryside, roaming free in the woods and fields for a change, climbing trees, making dens, playing at Cowboys and Indians, going for picnics, sometimes with Lynn and Margaret and sometimes by themselves. Simon had company. They quarrelled, made up, ate like gannets and slept like logs – after endless bedtime stories. George seemed to be cured of his nightmares.
Lynn’s opportunity for a trip to Grimsby came at the beginning of August, when her father’s ship was laid up for major boiler repairs. Alec phoned, and they arranged for her to go to Grimsby for a couple of days when he was next ashore. She decided to let her father have the pleasure of his five boisterous grandsons and a dog and go for a few days alone, rather than take them with her.
The steam ferry from Hull Corporation Pier to Immingham Pier only took twenty minutes, after which she took the train for the short journey into Cleethorpes and soon found Queen Mary Avenue – a wide, pleasant street of semi-detached houses.
A plump brown-haired woman with blue eyes and a ready smile answered the door and introduced herself as Alec’s stepmother. If Lynn hadn’t known better she would have taken her for his mother, there was such a resemblance.
‘Come in. He’ll be in on the six o’clock tide. We’ll have a cup of tea, and then we’ll go down to meet him off the ship, if you like.’
‘Is your husband coming in, as well?’
‘Not this time.’
‘Well, do you mind if I go on my own, Mrs McCauley?’
‘Not a bit! I just thought I’d show you where his ship will come in. And never mind the Mrs McCauley. Call me Rita.’
‘Thanks, Rita, but I can’t imagine it’s much different to Hull. Fish docks are fish docks, aren’t they? You can’t really mistake them for anything else,’ Lynn said. ‘Just follow your nose, I should think.’
Rita chuckled. ‘Hey, don’t cast aspersions on our fish!’ she protested. ‘Aim for Grimsby Dock Tower. That’ll steer you in the right direction. I won’t be here when you get back, I’m off to my mother’s for a couple of days; I’ll be back on Saturday afternoon. Alec’s got a key. If you need anything to eat, help yourself. There’s plenty in the fridge.’
Cleethorpes was supposedly a separate town to Grimsby, but the two ran into one with not much open countryside between them. With the dock tower and the raucous crying of the gulls for guides Lynn easily found the docks. Grimsby was further towards the mouth of the Humber and nearer to the north sea than Hull, and she was struck by the sound of the tide.
Alec’s face was covered in a glad smile as he walked towards her, and Lynn was reminded of the many, many times she’d gone to meet her dad. As soon as she was within his reach he took hold of her and gave her a smacking kiss, squeezing her almost to suffocation. ‘You found your way all right, then.’
‘Couldn’t miss it,’ she said, glancing up at the Dock Tower . . . It’s a real landmark, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah, we’re always glad to see it when we’re coming back to port. It was too much of a landmark during the war; it helped the Luftwaffe to find their way to Liverpool, so it nearly got demolished. What do you think to Grimsby, then?’
‘Pretty similar to Hull. Same sort of lock gates, same sort of dock, same sort of market, same gulls, same sort of tiny terraced houses behind Freeman Street, all heaving with people. Same sort of fishermen congregating in the same sort of pubs . . .’
‘The Red Lion or the Lincoln instead of Rayners and all the rest of them, and Freeman Street instead of Hessle Road,’ he said. ‘It’s a bit different. Are you hungry?’
‘Starving. Are you taking me to the Red Lion?’
‘We’ll find somewhere better than that. I’ll drop my sea bag off and we’ll go into Clee somewhere.’
‘Did you have a good trip?’
‘Not bad.’
‘Your stepmother won’t be at home. She’s gone to her mother’s for a couple of days.’
His eyes lit up, and the smile stretched from ear to ear. ‘I told you she was a go
od ’un,’ he said.
Twilight was deepening into night when the taxi deposited them, well wined and dined, outside the darkened house in Queen Mary Avenue.
Alec opened the door, and switched the light on. ‘Would you like a cup of tea, or anything?’ he asked, politely.
She picked up the overnight bag she’d left in the living room ‘No thanks, I’m ready for bed,’ she said, and gave a mock yawn.
‘I’ll help you get undressed,’ he laughed.
He had a large bedroom with a comfy double bed. She got undressed in the bathroom and slipped on a short, frilly nightie. There was a quiet rap on the bathroom door.
‘Come in!’
He came in, half undressed. She was alone with him at last, and it felt even more intoxicating than the wine she’d drunk. She gave him a smile and left him, to slip between the sheets of his double bed and listen to him cleaning his teeth, feeling more nervous than she’d anticipated, and hoping she wasn’t making another monumental mistake.
A minute later he strutted into the bedroom almost naked, displaying a broad, hairy chest, flat belly, and strong, capable limbs – altogether a fine figure of a man. He had a gleam in his blue eyes – and his bath towel slung over a massive erection.
She burst into laughter. He gave her a wide grin, and like a professional striptease artist he flung the bath towel dramatically away and flicked the bedroom light off. She soon felt the warmth of him, and the strength of his arms around her.
‘What do you want,’ he said, ‘a boy, or a girl?’
She could barely speak for laughing. ‘A girl! She’ll never go to sea.’
‘Let’s get to it, then.’
‘How do you know it’ll be a girl?’
‘I’m fifty per cent certain, and I’m trusting the rest to luck,’ he said.
Chapter 62
There were several people at the christening who’d been at the wedding, including Orla, who would have been chosen for godmother, Lynn suspected, but for the conspiracy between her brother and his wife to nudge her and Alec into each other’s arms. It was a rather reticent and demure Orla who smiled at Lynn and Simon. She barely gave Alec a glance, having eyes only for her betrothed. The former bridesmaids were there in pretty summer dresses. Simon and his four cousins were scrubbed and combed to a shine, and behaving themselves as creditably as they had been warned to do. The ten full months between Brenda’s marriage and the birth of her baby was enough to satisfy anyone who might have taken Alec’s advice to set a stop-watch.
The Would-Be Wife Page 30
