A Family Affair

by Janet Tanner

  ‘Can you roll your sleeve up, or do you want me to do it for you?’

  ‘You do it.’ For the first time since she had moved back to Greenslade Terrace, Charlotte sounded unsure of herself and frightened. ‘What’s the matter with me, Helen?’

  ‘I think, Gran,’ Helen said, ‘that you may have had a slight stroke. But you already know that, don’t you?’

  There would be no skittles for her this evening. But that wasn’t important. All that mattered was being with Charlotte and looking after her. A bit of a busman’s holiday it might be, but Helen had known when she had asked Charlotte to come and live with her that it might come with the territory. All she was glad of was that she, and not some stranger, was in a position to help.

  When Billy Edgell was released from prison it never occurred to him to go anywhere but home. He arrived back in Alder Road in mid-June, when the red clay gardens were full of spindly French marigolds and the children were using the circular road around the Green as a cycle racetrack.

  Joyce welcomed him home with a cup of tea, a lecture on mending his ways, and a running commentary on recent events in general and her own doings in particular.

  ‘It’s been all go, really,’ she said. ‘I hope you’ve noticed we’ve got a television now.’

  ‘Yes, I saw.’

  ‘Oh yes, we’ve come up in the world! Unlike some. There’s something funny going on over at Number 27 if you ask me.’

  ‘Who’s Number 27?’ Billy asked in a bored voice. He wasn’t the least bit interested in gossip about his neighbours.

  ‘The Simmonses, of course. Carrie Bloody Simmons, who thinks she’s a cut above everybody else. Her Jenny’s disappeared off the scene and there’s something fishy about it if you ask me. She looked as if she was putting on weight just before she went. So putting two and two together I reckon she’s got herself into trouble.’

  ‘Jenny!’ Billy said, surprised and a bit shocked. ‘In the club?’

  ‘Jenny,’ Joyce repeated with satisfaction. ‘It’s always the quiet ones, the ones that look as if butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths. I can see her now when she was a little girl – fat and plain but full of herself. Carrie used to put white ribbon bows in her hair. You remember, I expect. The others were always poking fun of her.’

  Billy was silent. It was the other Jenny he was thinking about, the Jenny who had turned into a stunner, the Jenny who had made him look a fool in front of his mates that summer day at the swimming pool. So somebody had got inside her knickers, lucky sod, and she wouldn’t even give him the time of day. The rejection was a slow sullen anger burning away at what mattered most to him – his male ego.

  ‘I bet Carrie’s doing her nut,’ Joyce went on, enjoying herself. ‘It’s prize, really, when you think about it. Her precious daughter in the club!’

  ‘Well, it won’t be the first time, will it?’ Billy said maliciously.

  Joyce’s beady little eyes narrowed. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The chap I was banged up with knew them in Bristol. He reckoned somebody got their leg over Heather when they were at school. Well – he reckoned quite a few did, but one of them must’ve shot their bolt and knocked her up. He didn’t know what had become of her, of course, because according to him the whole family did a vanishing act.’

  ‘Well I never!’ Joyce was cock-a-hoop. ‘When did you say this was?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly. In the war sometime. When Heather was about thirteen or fourteen. How old would she be now?’

  ‘The war,’ Joyce said, thinking. ‘That’s when they came here. I remember Carrie starting work down at the canteen. What a stuck-up cow! Well, she’s got her comeuppance and no mistake! Both her girls getting themselves in trouble! And fancy you finding out about it, Billy. It’s a small world, all right.’ She chuckled. ‘Oh my goodness, she’d have a fit and die if she thought anybody round here knew about it! You’ve made my day, Billy.’

  ‘I’m glad I’ve done something to please you,’ Billy said, grinning. If he knew his mother, she’d make the most of this. Well, it served Jenny and her snotty family right. She wouldn’t be making a fool of him again in a hurry.

  Billy wasn’t far wrong. Already Joyce was turning the information over in her mind and relishing it. From the window she could see Carrie’s house on the opposite side of the street, neat as a new pin, but hiding goodness-only-knew-what secrets behind its prim lace curtains. Well, at last she had the ammunition to take her down a peg or two. And how she was going to enjoy doing it!

  Helen was feeling uncharacteristically down and she couldn’t really put her finger on the reason for it.

  Charlotte was recovering well from her stroke – Reuben, whom Helen had called out for a second opinion, had confirmed it had been slight, and between them they had decided on a course of treatment to help her along and lessen the likelihood of a recurrence. It remained a possibility, of course – if someone had a tendency that way, the chance of having another, more serious stroke, was considerably increased. If that should happen and Charlotte was really incapacitated then it would throw up all sorts of problems about her care. But Helen had never been one to worry about what might never happen – there was enough of the phlegmatic Hall about her to make her feel the future was best left to look after itself.

  She hadn’t made any more serious errors at work either, nothing that Reuben could hold against her, and her position as assistant was beginning to look more secure again. Goodness only knew how much damage she’d done to her chances of being offered a partnership, of course, but here too she was hopeful of rebuilding the trust that would one day mean that Reuben would decide she was the right person for the job.

  She hardly thought about Guy, which was good, and when she did it was with anger, not mourning. She regretted that she had wasted so much of her life on him, but it was over now, and she could look forward to the future without constantly wondering if she had done the wrong thing in cutting loose from him. As for Paul – they were on friendly terms. There had been a distinctly frosty nip in the air immediately following the missed skittles match, but when she had explained the circumstances, he had been kind and concerned. Of course she couldn’t leave Charlotte alone any more than was absolutely unavoidable for the time being. But for all his protestations to the contrary she couldn’t help wondering if he thought she was glad of the excuse and she regretted too the fact that they couldn’t go out alone together and give themselves a chance to rebuild their relationship.

  Even so, none of these things was really enough to bring about the sense of impending disaster which haunted her. When she felt apprehensive for no good reason, it worried Helen. She felt apprehensive now, and it hung over her like a storm cloud waiting to happen.

  One Friday evening in late June Joyce went across the Green and knocked on Carrie’s front door.

  Ever since Billy had told her about Heather she had been mulling over various ways she could use what she knew to get at Carrie. She could, of course, simply spread the story around, adding her suspicions about the reason behind Jenny’s absence, but that wasn’t quite satisfying enough for her. She couldn’t be sure the gossip would get back to Carrie and even if it did she wouldn’t be there to see her discomfort. Joyce hadn’t waited all these years to get her own back to waste the opportunity now it had arisen. She wanted to make the most of her moment of revenge.

  It was when she saw Carrie going from door to door that Friday that the idea came to her. She knew what Carrie was doing – collecting her catalogue club money. She had used to do it every week, now it was once a fortnight – Joyce had no idea why and could only suppose that Carrie had been granted some kind of high-grade credit.

  Carrie’s customers were hand-picked, people she was friendly with and could trust to pay regularly even when their turn fell early in the twenty-week cycle. Joyce had never been approached and knew she never would be even if it hadn’t been for the bad blood between them. That, Joyce thought, smiling to
herself, was why her plan was such delicious irony. Not that Joyce used the word irony of course. It simply wasn’t in her vocabulary. ‘Ripe’ was the word she used. Oh, that’d be ripe. Real ripe! she thought to herself, and laughed out loud.

  Sally came barking to the door and Carrie answered it wearing a flowered dress and cardigan that looked as if it had come straight from the pages of the catalogue. The skirt – unpressed pleats – did nothing for her big hips. In spite of it being quite a warm evening, she was wearing stockings with her flat sensible sandals. When she saw Joyce, she frowned, and Sally, who had never forgotten being almost kicked by Joyce, growled threateningly.

  ‘Can I have a word?’ Joyce asked, ignoring the dog.

  She, too, was wearing a cotton dirndl and a cotton top with three-quarter sleeves, but her legs were bare and her feet, with their bright-red varnished toenails looked none too clean.

  ‘What about?’ Carrie asked suspiciously.

  ‘Aren’t you going to ask me in?’

  Carrie looked to be on the point of refusing, but manners got the better of her. She stood aside, letting Joyce into the hall.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘You run a club, don’t you?’ Joyce said. ‘Kays, is it?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘I’d like to join.’

  Carrie looked startled. ‘You?’

  ‘I want some sheets and pillow cases but I can’t afford to pay all at once. With the club you pay weekly, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but all twenty turns have gone for this time around.’

  ‘When d’you start again?’

  ‘It’s only about halfway through. Anyway, all my customers will want to go on again.’

  ‘What about Mrs Watson?’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘She’s moved, hasn’t she? You won’t want to go all the way over the other side of Hillsbridge to collect her money.’

  ‘I haven’t decided yet,’ Carrie said. ‘In any case, there’s a waiting list.’

  This was exactly what Joyce had expected; she was ready for it.

  ‘Are you making excuses, Carrie Simmons? Don’t you want me in your club, is that it?’

  Carrie, who hated scenes, refrained from saying that was exactly it.

  ‘There’s no room on the list.’

  ‘Not good enough for you, am I?’

  ‘I don’t want to quarrel with you, Joyce.’

  ‘You always did think yourself somebody, Carrie. Why, I don’t know. Well, at least none of my children have let themselves down like yours.’

  Carrie began to tremble.

  ‘What! With your Billy just out of prison?’

  ‘Our Billy’s just a rascal. The police have got a down on him. But none of my daughters have got themselves into trouble. That’s more than you can say.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Carrie demanded, but her flaming face was all the encouragement Joyce needed.

  ‘You know very well what I’m talking about – your Heather. Oh, you might have thought moving out here from Bristol you could keep it quiet. But things have a way of getting out. Your Heather had a baby when she was still at school. And you’ve got the nerve to look down on me! But that’s not the end of it, is it? That’s where your Jenny comes in. And we all know about Jenny, don’t we?’

  She’d hit the nail squarely on the head. All the colour had drained from Carrie’s face and she looked defeated and old.

  ‘You don’t know anything, Joyce,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘You couldn’t know about that. We were so careful! Jenny’s ours, mine and Joe’s …’ She broke off, her eyes going wide with horror and in that moment Joyce knew. In a flash it all came clear. The big gap between David and Jenny. The reason they’d all moved here from Bristol. Carrie and Joe and Heather and David. And Jenny, just a baby when they’d arrived. A tiny little baby.

  Unwittingly she’d uncovered far more than she’d expected, far more than she’d ever dreamed was there to be uncovered. It was all there in Carrie’s horrified eyes. Joyce’s triumph was complete.

  ‘Whatever is the matter?’ Joe asked.

  He had been in his garden, picking the tops out of the runner beans, when Carrie appeared, clearly distraught.

  ‘Something terrible’s happened! Oh, Joe, I don’t know what we’re going to do!’

  Joe transferred the latest bean shoot from right hand to left and put his arm round Carrie’s shoulders. She was trembling violently; he couldn’t remember when he’d last seen her so upset. ‘Come and sit down and tell me about it,’ he said soothingly.

  He led her back to the house, depositing the bean shoots neatly on top of the compost heap en route.

  ‘Now then,’ he said when he had closed the kitchen door after them. ‘What’s upsetting you, m’dear?’

  ‘Joyce Edgell knows about our Jenny.’

  ‘Well, that’s not the end of the world, is it?’ Joe hadn’t been happy about Jenny’s pregnancy, it wasn’t what he wanted for her, but these things happened and he couldn’t see the sense in all the secrecy really, he merely went along with it because Carrie placed so much importance on it. ‘It’ll all be over and forgotten in no time when our Jenny comes home and everything gets back to normal. You’ll see.’

  ‘No!’ Carrie was verging on hysteria. ‘I mean about Heather – and Jenny!’

  Joe thought for a moment, frowning.

  ‘No. She couldn’t know. How could she know about that?’

  ‘I don’t know. But she was saying awful things – terrible – and hinting …’

  ‘There you are then. She doesn’t …’

  ‘And then I let the cat out of the bag. If she didn’t know before, she does now.’

  Joe looked amazed. ‘What did you say then?’

  ‘Oh – I don’t know – I can’t remember exactly. I was so shocked it just sort of came out. Whatever are we going to do, Joe? We can’t move again. Not now. And Heather … I mean, this is her home now. But if it gets round – and it will …’

  ‘You’re making mountains out of molehills. It’ll be just talk, that’s all.’

  Carrie turned on him furiously.

  ‘Oh, for goodness sake, will you take things seriously for once!’

  ‘It’s no good getting worked up about it.’

  ‘How can you say that! Can’t you see what it means? It’s not just people talking, though that’s bad enough …’

  ‘You worry too much about people talking.’

  ‘It’s our Jenny. She’ll get to hear, won’t she? Somebody will make it their business to say something to her, you can be sure of that. Oh, Joe, I’m going out of my mind with worry!’ And she burst into tears.

  Joe sighed. He hated to see anyone cry, but most especially Carrie.

  ‘I always thought you were making a rod for your own back doing what you did.’

  ‘It was for the best! We agreed!’

  ‘No, m’dear – you decided. I just went along with it for the sake of peace.’

  ‘That’s the same thing, isn’t it?’ Frantic anxiety was making her aggressive. ‘Our Heather was just a bit of a kid! It was for the best. I’d have done the same for Jenny if I was younger.’

  ‘And have this all over again? Lying’s not right, Carrie. You always get caught out in the end.’

  ‘A fat lot of help you are!’ she snapped. ‘What are we going to do, Joe?’

  ‘I don’t know, m’dear. But I think you’d better have a drink and calm down. Getting in a state won’t help anything.’

  He went to the cupboard, hesitating over the quarter-bottle of brandy kept there for emergencies, changed his mind and went upstairs. He had a miniature of gin hidden in the drawer where he kept his odds and ends. He’d been keeping it for Carrie for when she heard that Jenny was in labour – remembering what she had been like when Heather was giving birth, he’d reckoned she’d need it. But as emergencies went, this was just as pressing.

  He took it downstairs, fetched a glass a
nd a bottle of bitter lemon. After drinking it, Carrie seemed to recover some of her equilibrium.

  ‘Well,’ she said, pressing her fingers to her mouth and looking as tragic as if she had just faced the fact that the world was about to come to an end, ‘I suppose the first thing is I shall have to go down and talk to our Heather.’

  Joe felt an enormous sense of relief. If Carrie was back to making plans, the worst was over.

  ‘There you are, m’dear. I told you you’d work something out.’

  ‘Well, somebody has to!’ Carrie said, rather scornfully.

  Joe ignored the jibe. He had accepted long ago that Carrie could be more domineering than he would have liked, and he was used to her organising ways. It was Carrie helpless that he really couldn’t take. In a strange way he found it deeply disturbing, as if a sleeping giant was waking and shaking the foundations of his world.

  ‘It’ll all come out in the wash,’ he said comfortingly, ignoring the look of exasperation which Carrie shot at him.

  David and his friends were drinking in the Miners’Arms. He did a lot of drinking in pubs these days, but it didn’t seem to help him much. To the less perceptive, it might look as if he was getting over Linda’s death, but that was simply because he’d stopped moping about and on the surface at least returned to some sort of normality. But in his heart it was still winter, bleak, never-ending winter. Sometimes, when he overdid the drinking, he could find oblivion for a little while, but next day the darkness of the soul was back, worse than ever. David thought it would never end.

  Tonight he’d hidden the way he felt inside, downing a couple of pints of bitter whilst he and his mates had played a game of shove ha’penny, followed by a game of darts, and now they had decided to move on to the club, where there was a jukebox. As they emerged from the spit-and-sawdust bar, another gang of lads was coming up the steps. David fell back into the lobby to let them in, not taking much notice, until a cheeky voice said: ‘Oh look – it’s David Simmons! Evening, David!’