A Family Affair

by Janet Tanner

  ‘She should get the push.’

  ‘You’re the one that’ll get the push if you don’t watch your p’s and q’s. I mean it, Mary. You’re the one causing trouble. Joyce isn’t doing anybody any harm.’

  Throughout the exchange, Carrie had said nothing. But the outrage was swelling inside her, swelling and swelling until she felt she would burst with it.

  It was so unfair – so grossly unfair – that one of the coveted new houses should be given away to someone as a reward for being no better than she should be. And goodness only knew what state the place would be in before you could say Jack Robinson. That tribe would turn it into a junkyard, whereas if she had one of the houses she’d keep it like a new pin. In moments when she allowed herself to dream, Carrie had imagined her own kitchen, with her own modern bits and pieces that she’d accumulated over the years and the other things she’d buy if she had the money. She’d pictured an airing cupboard with an immersion heater instead of the clothes’ horse in front of the fire. She’d pictured herself working in the front garden, mowing the lawn and planting grape hyacinths for the spring and marigolds for the summer. And best of all she’d pictured the privacy. She and Joe able to argue and plan and make love without fear of being overheard. Her own home. Not a lodger in somebody else’s.

  But she wasn’t like Joyce Edgell. She kept herself decent. And because of that, Joyce was getting one of the new houses and she wasn’t.

  Unless of course the letter had come second post. Suddenly Carrie couldn’t wait to get home and find out. When they locked up she hurried on, not waiting for Ivy and Mary. Up the hill she went, forcing herself to keep going though her legs ached and she could feel the sweat breaking out under her armpits.

  But there was no letter propped up on the table against the yellow glass vase and bowl that made a centrepiece when the cloth wasn’t laid for a meal. Nothing but the sense of claustrophobia that descended on the room when the doors and windows had to be kept shut for winter and the windows steamed up against the damp air outside. There was still the faint odour of scorched clothes in the air too, reminding her of this morning’s catastrophe.

  ‘Anything come second post?’ she asked Glad, without much hope.

  ‘Not that I’ve seen,’ Glad replied.

  And Carrie’s heart sank until it felt as if it had relocated in the very bottom of her fur-lined zip-up boots. She’d missed out, this time anyway. And for the moment she didn’t know what she could do about it.

  The idea came to her as she and Glad were getting the tea. Carrie was putting a plate of liver and vegetables liberally covered with gravy to warm over a saucepan of hot water so that it would be ready for Joe when the coach dropped him off outside the door at six thirty, Glad was buttering bread for the rest of them, cutting slices which always managed to be wafer-thin at one end and doorstep wedges at the other because she insisted on holding the loaf against her chest instead of resting it on the bread board. Everyone but Joe had eaten their main meal in the middle of the day – Carrie and Jenny at school, the others at home. Heather and David, who worked in the carpentry shop at Starvault Pit, had an hour for dinner, and Walt, who had retired from the footplate now and did lighter work in the railway sheds, finished for the day at one.

  Some of the atmosphere left over from this morning’s row still hung in the air and was discernable in the slightly clipped tones the two women used to one another, though they were now being carefully polite, treading round one another’s feelings as if on broken glass. Even Jenny had noticed it, Carrie thought. She was curled up in the chair beside the fire – ‘Grampy’s chair’that she loved to sit in when he wasn’t – reading as usual.

  She should have a room of her own, Carrie thought, somewhere she could go to be quiet when she wanted, in summer at least. At this time of year it was far too cold to be anywhere but beside the fire. But it wasn’t right, her having to share a room with Heather now that she was getting older. Heather’s clothes took up most of the wardrobe, the floor was always littered with her shoes, and there was scarcely an inch of spare space on the dressing table for all her pots of make-up and cleansing cream and the Vitapointe she used on her hair. And besides … there were other reasons Carrie didn’t like them in together. It just wasn’t right.

  Not, of course, that they were likely to get a four-bedroomed house now if they got one at all. Carrie had heard that the four-bedroomed ones had been put up first because of the greater needs of the larger families, and if the numbers up to fourteen had already been allocated it was likely they’d all have gone. She’d put in for a four-bedroom; now there probably wouldn’t be any more until the next phase was started, heaven knew when. But a three-bedroom would be better than nothing. At least it would get them out from under Glad’s feet. Perhaps she should go and see somebody from the Housing Department, tell them they’d be happy to accept a three-bedroomed house, if they were lucky enough to get one. Perhaps tomorrow she’d get on a bus and go over to the Council Offices at South Compton before she went to work. Yes, that’s what she would do.

  And then the idea occurred to her, starting a small pulse of excitement deep inside her and yet frightening her a bit at the same time because of its audacity. George Parsons had secured one of the new houses for Joyce – not a doubt of it. And if he could swing it for Joyce, then what was to stop him swinging it for her too? Not that she’d use Joyce’s tactics, of course. But there were more ways than one of skinning a cat.

  ‘We want another jar of jam down, Carrie,’ Glad said, piling the last slice of bread and butter on the bread plate. ‘Will you get it? That shelf’s too high for me.’

  Carrie went to the pantry, stood on the low wooden stool and looked to see what there was to choose from amongst the pots of home-made jam stacked alongside the big Kilner jars of bottled fruit.

  ‘Plum or blackcurrant?’ she called.

  ‘Oh – let’s have the plum. I like a bit of nice plum jam.’

  Carrie got it down, took off the cover, and scraped away the top layer which had some mould growing on it. And all the time she could hear Ivy’s voice in her head, repeating and repeating what she had said to Mary. ‘George Parsons would lose his job if it got out.’ Well, maybe he wouldn’t actually lose his job, but it would certainly make things very awkward for him. And I wouldn’t mind betting he wouldn’t want that stuck-up wife of his to find out what’s going on either, Carrie thought.

  Without realising it, the women she worked with had handed her just the weapon she needed. And though the prospect set butterflies fluttering in her stomach, Carrie knew that nothing was going to stop her using it.

  ‘I’m going down to change my library book,’ Carrie said.

  Joe, who had just finished his tea and was sitting back with a Woodbine and the Daily Mirror, half smiled at her and nodded. But Glad, in her big chair with her feet up on a footstool, gave her a sharp look.

  ‘Aren’t you going to wash up first?’

  ‘It’s all done,’ Carrie said. ‘All washed and on the draining board. I’ll put it away when I get back.’

  ‘I don’t know when you get time to read,’ Glad said. ‘I’m sure I don’t.’

  Carrie bit her tongue. Truth to tell she hadn’t finished her library book. Sometimes she read a bit in bed, but this week it had been too cold to keep her arms out over the covers and she’d been dog tired anyway, hardly able to keep her eyes open. But this was Tuesday and the little library in a room in the Victoria Hall opened for an hour between seven and eight on a Tuesday. She wanted to get out of the house without telling anyone where she was going, and the library provided just the excuse she needed.

  ‘I won’t be long,’ she said, putting on her coat.

  ‘Well, if you’re going, see if they’ve got anything by Ethel M Dell for me,’ Glad said, making a nonsense of her previous statement.

  Carrie could have sworn. She had to pass the library on her way to George Parsons’house, but they’d be suspicious if she was gone too
long. She’d intended to do what she had to do first and only call in to the library if she had time.

  With the darkness, fog had come down, not thick, but enough to hang in clouds around the street lamps and shroud the valley so that the lights of the houses on the other side hung suspended in it like will o’the wisps. The black mounds of the batches – the mountainous coal waste tips – had merged into the darkness and the sound of a train steaming its way along one of the two railway lines which bisected the town was nothing but a muffled throb. Carrie pulled her scarf higher under the neck of her coat, tucking it snugly around her throat, and hurried down the pavement side of the road, where allotments fell steeply down towards the mill, the river and the yard that was the headquarters of Amy Porter’s haulage business. Past the bombsite that had once been the Methodist chapel she went, over the lines which snaked out of Starvault Pit and allowed a team of horses to tow wagons of coal waste to the batches, crossing the road again when she reached the Planning Offices and descending into the tunnel beneath the railway lines that was known as The Subway.

  When she emerged again she saw that a light was burning in the window of the small corner room of the Victoria Hall which housed the library and wondered if she should change her plans and go there first in case her visit to George Parsons took her past the time when it would be closed. But she decided against it. She was too strung up, all the things she was going to say to George Parsons going round and round in her head. Get that over first. If she missed the library, she missed it.

  George Parsons lived in Withies Lane, which angled away from the main road just past the church. On one side it was lined with a rank of miners’cottages, on the other were newer, smarter houses and bungalows, detached and semi-detached. George Parsons owned the second one in, a square bungalow with bay windows and a large garden, hidden from the road by hedges and shrubs. The light was on in what she supposed must be the living room and also one outside the porch, which sent a tunnel of hazy light down the path.

  Carrie opened the gate and went towards it. Her heart had begun to thud uncomfortably and her mouth was dry with nervousness, but she pressed the bell without hesitating, afraid that if she delayed the moment she might lose her nerve. She heard the faint chime echoing in the house and swallowed hard, clutching her library book tightly to her chest with her gloved hand.

  After a moment a light came on in the hall, shining out through the coloured glass panels in the door and illuminating the bird of paradise centre piece. The door opened. It was Alice Parsons, George’s wife. She was wearing a thick tweed skirt that looked as if it had come from one of the posh shops in Bath, and a heavy-knit cardigan.

  ‘Good evening.’ Her voice sounded faintly surprised as well as ‘potty’. ‘Alice Parsons puts on the pot,’ people said, scathing, because ‘putting on the pot’was a sign that some folk considered themselves a cut above everyone else.

  ‘Good evening,’ Carrie said. ‘Is your husband in? I’d like a word with him.’

  ‘We’re just having dinner,’ Alice said severely.

  ‘I won’t keep him long.’

  Alice Parsons stood her ground, her considerable bulk almost filling the doorway.

  ‘What do you want to see him for?’

  ‘I’d rather tell him that, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘If it’s to do with his work, you should go to the Council Offices and make an appointment. He’s not an elected councillor, you know, on call to all and sundry.’

  George Parsons appeared in the hall behind his wife. He was a dapper man with a small military-style moustache and jet-black hair that looked suspiciously as if it had come out of a bottle. For work he always wore a smart pinstriped suit with a flower in the button-hole, but now, like his wife, he was clad in a cardigan.

  ‘Who is it?’ he enquired.

  ‘It’s Mrs Simmons. She wants to see you.’

  ‘You’d better ask her to come in then, hadn’t you?’

  Alice stood aside reluctantly and Carrie went into the hall.

  ‘Mrs Simmons – what can I do for you?’

  He had more charm than his wife – she’d give him that.

  ‘I’d like a word with you – privately,’ Carrie added, glancing at Alice who was showing no signs of leaving.

  ‘Very well. Come into my study.’ He turned to Alice. ‘You finish your dinner, my dear.’

  Her face showed her displeasure.

  ‘I’ll put yours in the oven to keep warm.’

  ‘It’s all right, I’d finished anyway.’ He gestured to Carrie to follow him along the hall, and threw open a door. ‘My study – that’s what Alice calls it, anyway. I like to think of it as my den.’

  It was a small room, dominated by a desk and leather-backed chair, the walls lined by more books than even the library boasted, Carrie thought, a little overawed. George turned on both bars of the electric fire and rubbed his hands together.

  ‘Not very warm in here, I’m afraid. It hasn’t been used all day. But I presume this won’t take long. Now – what did you want to see me about?’

  ‘The new houses,’ Carrie said. ‘The estate that’s going up at Midlington.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We’ve had our names down on the list ever since the end of the war, and we really need one. There’s five of us living with Joe’s mother and father, and it’s not fair on them or us. I know the first lot of the letters have gone out, but we haven’t had one,’ Carrie said, all of a rush, then added: ‘One of the three-bedroom ones would do if the four-bedroom ones have all gone already.’

  George Parsons gesticulated helplessly, then thrust his hands into the pockets of his cardigan.

  ‘I sympathise, Mrs Simmons, I really do, but I’m afraid the allocation of the houses is outside my jurisdiction. When your name comes to the top of the list, I’m sure your case will be considered on its merits, along with all the others. Until then … I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do to help.’

  Carrie took a deep breath. This was it then, the moment to play her trump card. Inside she felt like a bowl of melting jelly, but neither her face nor her voice betrayed this as she said into the momentary silence: ‘You got one for Joyce Edgell.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  For just a moment the shock and disbelief was plain to see. Then it was gone, hidden by his usual smooth manner and a small dismissive smile.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Simmons, but I think you are making a mistake. If Mrs Edgell has been allocated one of the new houses it has nothing to do with me.’

  ‘I think it does,’ Carrie persisted. ‘I know for a fact she hasn’t had her name down on the list as long as we have because I work with her in the Church School kitchens and we talk about these things. And that isn’t all I know either.’

  She saw the colour drain from his face and then come back in a scarlet flood and knew she’d drawn the right conclusions. Well, that was a relief anyway! Until that moment a little nagging voice of doubt that could not quite be silenced by the outrage and furious determination had been nagging at her that she might be building her case on a foundation of quick sand.

  ‘There’s all sorts I know,’ she went on, ‘like why she hurries off when we’ve finished for the day and who’s waiting for her under the trees at the end of the lane. And all I can say when she gets a house ahead of the rest of us who keep ourselves to ourselves is that it stinks!’

  Her voice was rising; he glanced towards the door with something like panic in his eyes.

  ‘Mrs Simmons – keep your voice down – please!’

  ‘Oh, I’ll shout a lot louder than this, Mr Parsons, if I don’t get one of those houses. I’ll shout so loud they’ll hear me all the way over to the Council Offices in South Compton!’

  He was patting the air now in a conciliatory motion.

  ‘All right – all right – I’ll do what I can. But I can’t promise anything.’

  ‘I can, Mr Parsons – I already have. If you don’t want everybody el
se to know what I know, you’ll do more than just try to fob me off like that.’

  ‘Mrs Simmons …’

  ‘I won’t keep you any longer, Mr Parsons. I’ve said what I came to say. There’s no point you trying to tell me I’m wrong, because I happen to know I’m right.’ She paused. He was very pale now, the scarlet colour concentrated in two high spots in his cheeks. She felt almost sorry for him and shocked that she could have reduced the pompous Clerk to the Council to this so easily.

  ‘I’m a discreet woman, Mr Parsons. I don’t go round gossiping like some do. If I get a letter in the next couple of weeks, this will be just between ourselves. Nobody will hear a word of it from me, not even my own husband. They don’t know I’m here, and I shan’t tell them. But if I don’t get a letter, well, then it will be a very different story.’

  He opened his mouth to say something but she cut him off by moving decisively toward the door. He opened it for her, pausing with his hand on the knob and nodding at her almost imperceptively. She held his gaze for just a moment, then went through into the hall.

  ‘Good night, Mr Parsons. Thank you.’

  ‘Good night, Mrs Simmons.’

  ‘I’m sorry for spoiling your dinner.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that.’

  They both knew the exchange was for the benefit of Alice, who could, for all they knew, be listening on the other side of the living-room door.

  She went out into the night, into the cold and the mist, and her face began to burn, whether from the cold or from the release of tension and relief that it was over she did not know and could not be bothered to wonder. She walked fast, adrenalin driving her along, incapable of coherent thought.

  The light was still on in the library room, the outside door ajar. She went in, asked Miss Phillips to renew her book while she looked on the romance shelves for something by Ethel M Dell. Only when she picked one out did she realise her hands were shaking.