‘For me?’ Millie asked in surprise. ‘No, you didn’t. What tramp?’
Dinah waved a hand carelessly. ‘I meant to write, but it wasn’t really important. He was that common and scruffy – walked with a bit of a limp, I remember.’
Millie flushed, suddenly uneasy. ‘What did he want?’
Dinah shrugged. ‘Obviously just after your money – must have heard about you and Dan. Wouldn’t tell me his name or anything about him. I told him to make himself scarce, but Mrs Hodges took him in for a cup of tea. Never saw him around again.’
Millie’s heart began to pound. She wanted to ask more, but Dinah was already gossiping about something else and she was left feeling perplexed and ill at ease.
But what really upset her as the day progressed was the way Dinah looked and behaved with Dan. Millie observed her former friend’s flirtatiousness. At the start she had her suspicions; by the end of the day she was certain.
That night after the charabanc had departed, leaving Dan behind, and they were alone in their bedroom, she challenged him. ‘You’re having an affair with Dinah Fairish, aren’t you?’
She thought he was going to bluster, deny it, and suddenly Millie realised that that was what she wanted. But he faced her stubbornly and said, ‘Aye, I am.’
Millie gave him a look of despair. She was hurt, but she felt more defeated than angry. To think that she had feared Dinah’s rivalry for his affections all those years ago, when they had been neighbours, and now it had finally happened.
‘How long?’ she asked hoarsely.
‘Just this summer,’ Dan confessed.
‘Just!’ Millie spat the word back at him, not knowing if she believed him. He reached towards her, but she recoiled from his touch as if it would burn her.
‘Millie, I’m sorry. It doesn’t mean anything. I’d never leave you or the bairns,’ Dan insisted. ‘Dinah doesn’t expect me to. It was just a daft thing that happened.’
She looked at him fiercely, swallowing the tears in her throat, wondering at his ability to wreck their marriage with those few words. ‘How stupid can you be?’ she accused him. ‘You’ve spoilt everything for a selfish woman like Dinah Fairish! Of course she doesn’t expect you to leave me – she wouldn’t want that. Dinah would never give up Bob and all his money for you, would she, Dan? A third-rate footballer who drinks away what little money he makes!’
Dan was stung by her scorn, whipping across the room to seize her by the arm. He shook her hard. ‘Don’t ever call me that!’ he blazed. ‘Not ever again!’
She fought him off, pushing him away from her and escaping to the door. ‘I’ll sleep downstairs with the boys,’ she hissed.
‘Good, go on! That’ll make a change!’ he lashed out sarcastically. ‘Who would blame me for looking for it elsewhere?’
Millie picked up her hairbrush and hurled it across the room at him, maddened at the accusation.
‘Don’t you go blaming your adultery on me!’ she shouted. ‘It’s your own selfishness that’s done it! To think I’ve just given you another son, and what do you do to show your thanks? Go off with the wife of an old friend! How do I know you haven’t been carrying on with her for years?’
‘Because I haven’t!’ Dan shouted back.
‘Well, there’ve been tongues wagging round here about you for long enough,’ Millie accused. ‘Have there been others, Dan, like Ava says?’
‘Ava! You shouldn’t listen to her gossip, woman! She’s been trying to come between us ever since we were first courting.’
Millie wanted to believe him, but she no longer trusted what he said. She had dismissed Ava’s insinuations about other women for so long, not wanting to believe them, that now she was confronted with evidence of her husband’s unfaithfulness she felt physically ill. She tried to control her shaking voice. ‘You can go tomorrow. I don’t want you back until you finish with that woman, do you hear?’
Millie walked out and slammed the door. She was aware that the whole household had probably heard their row, but she was past caring. She hurried to the nursery and climbed into bed beside the sleeping boys, their cheeks still hot from the sunshine, the sheets gritty with speckles of sand. She lay numbly, feeling a strange mixture of fury and regret. Later she shed tears as quietly as she could, unable to imagine the future without him, yet determined that she would not accept him if he carried on his affair.
Just before dawn she heard him descend the stairs and let himself out of the house. She got up, still dressed in yesterday’s clothes, and hurried down to the kitchen. She caught a glimpse of Dan disappearing across the yard and out into the lane, and thought she heard him whistling a Cole Porter tune that he had been humming all summer.
Millie felt sick and empty. She sank into a chair and cried, thinking how she might never see her husband again. Perhaps this was the excuse he was looking for to leave her, she thought miserably. Had she brought the whole situation on herself? She was startled by a door opening behind her, appalled to think of being found in this state. Grant walked in and closed the door quietly behind him.
They looked at each other in silence and Millie saw that he’d guessed, too.
‘He’s gone then?’ Grant asked gently. Millie nodded, wiping her face with a handkerchief.
‘I’m frightened,’ she whispered. ‘I told him to go – but I’m frightened he’s never coming back . . . !’
Grant crossed the room and laid a hand on her shoulder. ‘He’ll come back, Millie, if that’s what you want,’ he said kindly. ‘He’s got that much to come back for.’
Millie glanced at him in surprise, feeling his hand heavy and comforting. She covered it fleetingly with her own. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured, filled with sudden strength from his touch and presence. Then she stood up and Grant withdrew his hand. Together, without another word, they got on with stoking the fire and making the breakfast.
***
The following months seemed interminable to Millie. She did not hear from Dan and found it hard to answer Albert’s constant questioning about when he would next see his father. She went through periods of anger, and then remorse, her guilt at separating Dan from his sons increasing as the winter wore on. Albert would take down his father’s team photograph from his Yorkshire days and point him out, speaking to the picture as if Dan could hear him. He was developing a stammer, and it twisted Millie’s heart to hear the unhappy boy, but her mother told her not to weaken.
‘It’s Dan’s fault he’s not seeing the bairns,’ Teresa insisted. ‘He knows where they are and what he has to do.’
By now the rumours about their estrangement and Dan’s affair were common knowledge around the town. Millie was certain Ava had been the one to spread the story so rapidly, although she denied it. Millie determined to hold her head up when she went out, and kept herself busy around the hotel and with the children. Business had picked up since the Jubilee party and the tea room was once again a popular meeting place. They installed a soda fountain and the children of the more prosperous business owners were encouraged to hold birthday tea parties in the dining room, newly decorated by Grant.
On Jack’s birthday Millie hoped in vain that Dan might appear. Albert grew impatient for his fifth birthday, convinced that his father would turn up for that.
‘He always comes for my b-birthday, doesn’t he, Mam?’ he asked.
‘Don’t expect it this year,’ Millie warned. Even Dan’s erratic payments had stopped after Christmas, and Millie had no idea where he was.
But Albert’s faith in his father was unshakeable. Over the winter, with long hours studying Dan’s team photograph, he developed an interest in football, and would escape into the back lane following Robert whenever the door was left open. Millie would run after him, calling him back, to no avail.
‘Cars go down that lane now,’ she fretted.
‘Hardly ever,’ Grant pointed out, fetching the boy back.
‘He’s not strong enough to play with the older lads,’ Millie object
ed. ‘They’re too rough with him.’
‘He’s a strong little lad now, Millie, as big as Robert,’ Grant smiled. ‘Haven’t you noticed?’
Millie realised that it was true; her baby Albert had grown into a robust small boy who was now ready for school. She could no longer mollycoddle him as Ava accused, for he would have to hold his own in the school yard this term. Eventually Grant persuaded her to allow him to take Albert out in the back lane as long as he stayed and kept an eye on the boy. Sometimes Grant would take him and Robert along to the Comrades to watch a match or kick about in the corner of the ground while he helped coach one of the youth teams.
On the day of Albert’s birthday, after the boys had returned from school, Millie laid on a special tea and invited in the neighbouring children for games. The family had clubbed together to buy him a second-hand Meccano set, a pack of Happy Families and some comics. Grant had spent hours making him a bagatelle board. But despite Albert’s obvious delight at his presents and the fuss they were making of him, Millie could tell the boy was fretting for his father. He kept glancing towards the open door as the children tucked into jam sandwiches, cake and jelly. She felt a wave of guilt, mixed with anger at Dan, which turned into annoyance towards the boy for not appreciating what she had done for him.
‘Stop looking for him, he’s not coming,’ she said, prodding Albert to eat his tea. ‘Just be grateful for all the things you’ve been given. And we’re going to have party games just like you wanted.’
He gave her a look as if to say it would not be the same without his dad. She was exasperated at him, amazed that he kept such a clear memory of Dan, having not seen him for nearly a year. What had Dan done to deserve such admiration when she was the one who did everything for their son? Grant saw her tenseness and suggested they get on with the games.
Just as the children scattered from the table to play in the yard, she heard a familiar whistle that made her heart miss a beat. In seconds Albert was off his chair and racing for the door, jumping from the top step into the open arms of his father.
‘Dad!’ he shrieked.
‘Ha, ha! Bonny lad!’ Dan laughed, swinging him around in a hug. ‘Am I in time for the party?’
‘Y-yes!’ Albert cried, and buried his face in his father’s neck, ecstatic.
The other children swarmed around while the adults stood and stared, feeling awkward. Dan glanced over the boy’s shoulder and caught Millie’s tense look. She saw tears in his tired eyes.
‘I told M-mam you’d not m-miss me birthday!’ Albert said in triumph, craning to look at his mother. Millie’s heart twisted at the sheer joy lighting his fair face. ‘Didn’t I say so?’
Millie gulped, ‘Aye, you did,’ unable to bring herself to say anything more coherent.
Robert pulled at Dan’s leg in excitement. ‘Are you stopping for long this time?’
Dan grinned at the boy and ruffled his hair, bending to haul him into his arms too. ‘Depends if your mam’ll have me,’ he answered.
The boys chorused together, ‘She will! Won’t you, Mam?’
Millie and Dan stared at each other. She thought how jaded he looked despite his attempts to be jovial, his face drawn and grey, his eyes deeply shadowed. He had aged years in the months of his disappearance and she wondered what could have happened to him.
Dan looked at her pleadingly. ‘I want to come home, Millie,’ he said, his voice cracking, seemingly oblivious of the others in the room. His appeal was only to her. ‘I’ve finished with football and all that life,’ he said in a sad, broken voice. ‘Will you have me back? Please, Millie?’
Teresa made an impatient noise, but Millie stopped her before she could rebuke her son-in-law.
‘This is your home, Dan,’ she said, her voice unsteady. ‘Of course you can come back.’
She stepped forward, seeing his face break into a smile of relief, the old dimpled smile that had set her heart racing so often in the past. He lowered the boys to the floor and put out his arms to Millie in reconciliation. They hugged tightly, thankful that the barren time apart was ended, not caring in that moment what anyone else thought of them, only that they were together again.
Chapter Twenty-Four
1936
It was not easy having Dan around the hotel permanently, chiefly because of Teresa’s resentment towards him and Ava’s flirtatious manner. At first he just slept a lot, content to potter about the house entertaining the boys when he was awake rather than seek the company of his old drinking mates. Millie was pleased that he was making an attempt to stop drinking, for she saw that as a major cause of past friction between them and of his health breaking down. She tried to get him to eat more, but he preferred to smoke cigarettes from the moment he woke up to last thing at night. Bit by bit she pieced together what had happened to her husband after she had sent him away the previous August.
Dan had returned to Tyneside, but Bob Fairish had also grown suspicious and Dinah had sent him packing at once to protect her own marriage. Back in East Anglia, he admitted to going off the rails, drinking too much, fighting round the pubs and being undisciplined on the pitch. By Christmas he had been suspended and dropped from the team twice; by early in the New Year he had been sacked and no other team would take him.
‘Why didn’t you come home then?’ Millie asked, feeling both ashamed of him and pitying. ‘All I knew was that you’d disappeared. Didn’t you know how worried I’d be?’
Dan looked at her guiltily. ‘I was too ashamed to show me face,’ he whispered. ‘I’d thrown away everything we ever hoped for and I thought I’d thrown away the chance of getting back with you and the boys.’ His eyes glinted with emotion. ‘After the way you stood up to me – over Dinah – I thought you’d never want to see me again. I’ve tret you that badly, Millie, I can never forgive myself. . .’
Millie put her hands up to his gaunt cheeks protectively. ‘Maybes not,’ she said gently, ‘but I can.’ She kissed him tenderly, wanting to dissolve all the hurt between them and the cruel words of the past.
Gradually Millie saw Dan reviving, his health and confidence returning, nurtured by her care and the love he received from the boys. Just before Christmas, he was taken on as a part-time delivery man at Davidson’s, where the manager was an avid Newcastle supporter who was happy to listen to Dan’s colourful stories of the game. Grant soon persuaded him to help coach the Comrades, and by the spring he was playing again on a regular basis for the amateur club.
His old optimism returned. ‘We’re doing our bit for the government’s campaign for fitness!’ he joked as he taught Albert how to dribble the ball past an opponent. ‘That’s the way, tap it left. By, you’re coming on grand!’
Albert revelled in his father’s praise and in the popularity he acquired at school by having Dan Nixon as his father. Millie tried not to intervene when he fought with Robert for Dan’s attention or when the older boy pushed him around jealously. She had to restrain herself from taking Robert aside and telling him he was not Dan’s child and that Albert should not be denied his father’s attention. But she knew she must not, and it grieved her to see that Robert was a natural ball player whereas Albert improved only through sheer hard work and gutsy determination to please his father.
At least, she consoled herself, all the boys were receiving plenty of attention. Dan and Grant would take them down to Burt Park to see the Comrades play or to kick a ball around the newly laid playing field in the municipal park. Ava treated them to the cinema every week, while Millie and Dan took them swimming in the new public baths opened on Fern Street. By the summer, two-year-old Jack, a quiet but determined boy, was attempting to join in too. Once on his feet he lost his baby plumpness and was soon racing about after the others.
In May there was excitement over the coronation of the new King George, after the shock of King Edward’s abdication over an American divorcee. Ava had become an expert on the matter, reading anything she could get hold of in newspapers and magazines about the royal love
affair, revelling in the scandal and the illicit romance.
‘I think it’s lovely he gave up all his privileges and the Empire for Mrs Simpson,’ she declared, in tears when she heard the abdication speech on the wireless. ‘Fancy doing that! All for the woman he loves . . .’
Millie noticed wryly how Ava became just as fixated with the lives of the new king and queen and their young daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret Rose. As soon as the newsreels of the grand coronation were shown in Ashborough, Ava was queuing to view them, dragging Robert along with promises of lots of soldiers on parade. Robert came back disappointed, but Ava eulogised about the royal pageant of carriages, ermine cloaks and diamond crowns. A month later she was poring over reports of the Windsors’ quiet marriage in France and reading out descriptions of what they wore.
‘They’re in Austria on honeymoon,’ she announced to anyone who would listen. Albert obliged.
‘W-what’s a honeymoon?’ he asked, intrigued by the word.
‘It’s a holiday you go on after you get wed,’ Ava explained. ‘It’s very romantic.’
‘Where did you go, Auntie Ava?’ Albert asked.
Ava’s lips pursed crossly. ‘We didn’t have a honeymoon,’ she answered tersely, flinging a resentful look at Grant, who was shelling peas newly picked from Walter’s garden. ‘Uncle Grant couldn’t afford to take me anywhere – never has done.’
‘B-but you went to America,’ Albert pointed out. ‘Mam says that’s very far away – thousands and thousands and thousands of miles away.’
‘That was no honeymoon,’ Ava replied sniffily.
Millie saw Grant flush. She knew he was as irritated with Ava’s obsession over royalty as she was with his lack of interest in it. But he did not retaliate.
‘Where did you go, Mam?’ Albert persisted. ‘D-did you go in a honeymoon?’
Millie laughed. ‘No, we stayed here too.’
‘So do only royal people have them?’ Albert puzzled.
THE TYNESIDE SAGAS: Box set of three dramatic and emotional stories: A Handful of Stars, Chasing the Dream and For Love & Glory Page 74
