by Nancy Carson
‘Oh, Kenneth’s a bostin’ little chap. I’ll bring him up one o’ the days so’s you can see him. Anyway, how’s Ben?’
‘About the same, thanks. He’s in the house. Go in and see him, and I’ll pour you a cup of tea. There’ll be one in the pot still. I’m just waiting for May to come back.’
‘I thought as that was May’s daughter sitting there … poor little soul. How old is she now?’
‘Coming six. She’ll be six in September.’
He bent down and touched Emmie’s cheek and the child grimaced, although it was her attempt at a smile.
‘Where’s Stanley serving now, Uncle Tom?’ Lizzie tried to sound casual. ‘Have you heard from him lately?’
‘He’s in Ireland, Lizzie … Dublin … He’s due back on leave soon.’
‘Oh? Well, promise me you’ll tell him to come and visit me and Ben. We’d like to see him again. Ben would really enjoy talking to him, I bet.’
‘I will. I daresay as he’d love to see Ben an’ all. To talk over the war with him.’
‘How much longer has he got to do in the army before he’s finished? He seems to have been a soldier all his life.’
‘He’s just signed on for another spell, Lizzie. He won’t be due out till nineteen twenty-six.’
‘Struth! … And d’you think he’ll ever get married?’
Tom shrugged and gave a little laugh. ‘I wish he would, Lizzie, but who knows? He’s still only a young chap, really. There’s plenty time – and plenty spare young women about these days. When he comes out he’ll still only be thirty-eight or thirty-nine – a good age for a man to settle down.’
‘Plenty of time to have sown his wild oats.’
Tom laughed at her candour. ‘Wild oats? Well, he’ll have had plenty bloody opportunity … without me behind him.’
Lizzie blushed and wished she’d never said such a thing. Tom leaned over and fussed Emmie, and Lizzie felt relieved at the transfer of attention as she helped the child to her feet.
‘Listen, I can hear your Mommy coming.’
Tom turned and saw May carrying a box. He greeted her, and Lizzie explained the reason for his visit.
Lizzie then remembered about the Coalport tea service. ‘I bet you can remember this, Uncle Tom.’ She placed the box on one of the chairs and opened it. ‘It’s what you bought my mother for her weddin’ present … in eighteen sixty-eight. A long time ago.’
‘Oh, that tea set. Well I’m buggered.’ He peered into the box. ‘Is it still intact?’
‘It’s still intact,’ May confirmed. ‘We’m saving it for our Henzey – for when ’er gets wed.’
*
Two distinct emotions, both worlds apart, were existing symbiotically within Ben Kite’s consciousness. The first was complete satisfaction, and it was evoked by the sight of his children as he watched them progress, intelligent and well adjusted.
Henzey was the apple of his eye, and always would be. She was the perfect cross between himself and Lizzie, inheriting her fine looks and mannerisms, but his colouring and temperament. Already it was evident she would grow up to be startlingly beautiful, with soft, long-lashed blue eyes and an abundance of raven hair. It pleased him greatly to acknowledge it. She also possessed a gift for art and, when she brought him her work to admire, hopeful of his praise, he was often amazed at her dexterity.
Herbert was more complex. Unlike his sisters, he was not a particularly sensitive child, always keen to be in the thick of a rough and tumble with lads his own age. He showed no signs yet of any academic gift – indeed, his scholastic endeavours raised him only to the middle of his class at school.
Alice, on the other hand, was becoming a bookworm. She wasn’t greatly gifted with common sense, and the arithmetic they tried to teach her at school went straight over her head. She seemed drawn noticeably to books for boys and men, relishing the hard bound compilations of Cassell’s Magazine and Scribner’s Magazine she borrowed from Jesse Clancey.
Already, music enthralled Maxine. The old piano that had stood redundant for years in the front room was given a new lease of life when Ben declared it should be tuned properly so Maxine could learn to play it. So they sent for Mr Mason, the blind piano tuner, and he spent half a morning tuning it, while Lizzie stood beside him with a feather duster and a damp rag, dislodging and wiping away the cobwebs and dead spiders of decades from inside its frame, and from between its taut strings. Jesse Clancey imposed on his mother, who was reluctant at first, to give Maxine an hour’s tuition every week.
The second of the distinct emotions Ben experienced was bitter regret, which stemmed from his volunteering to fight in the Great War. Increasingly, he accepted that singular, rash act as the cause of his indisposition. More significantly, however, he recognised it as the virtual end of what had been as good a marriage as he could have ever hoped for. Oh, he was still married, to the same lovely girl, but he’d unwittingly destroyed that marriage. Now he was a burden upon Lizzie, and he sincerely felt she deserved more; much more than he was able to give. He loved her with all his heart and, because he loved her so much, he hated to see her selflessly devoting her time to him, barely ever complaining. He did not deserve such attention. Her life – her potential for living – was too closely tied to his own greatly narrowed existence for his peace of mind.
One Saturday morning, late in that warm July of 1920, the same two contrasting emotions became heightened more than at any other time since his return home. His children, full of the joys of life, asking his opinion on this and that, ate their breakfasts together, bubbling with conversation. Lizzie brushed the girls’ hair in turn, plaiting Maxine’s, piling and pinning up Henzey’s dark tresses, and made sure they were all properly turned out. Then the children set off for the town where they could gaze in the shops, watch other folk and perhaps mingle with other children.
That done, Lizzie helped Ben wash and dress. Then she fed him, helped him struggle up the yard to the privy and back, washed the dishes, fetched coal from the cellar and made the fire up, swept the yard, scrubbed the front step, cleaned the windows, dusted the front room, prepared vegetables for their dinner, and then put the kettle on to make him a cup of tea.
‘Lizzie, for Christ’s sake, slow down,’ he said. ‘You’re making me feel dizzy. You’ll wear yourself out. You never stop doing things for me …’
‘Things that have to be done, Ben. Things you couldn’t do on your own.’
‘Dear God! I wish I could do more. D’you know how it feels sitting here like a mawkin … can’t do a thing … having to watch you bugger yourself up doing everything … not just for me, but for the kids as well?’ He wheezed as the effort of speech robbed him of his precious breath.
Lizzie poured boiling water into the old teapot and gave it a stir, then left it to steep on the hob of the grate. ‘I know how you feel, love,’ she assured him gently.
‘But you don’t, Lizzie … You think you do, but you don’t. You don’t know half what’s going through my mind.’
‘Well I’ll never know if you don’t tell me.’ She reached for two cups and saucers.
‘Here, come and sit beside me.’ He held his hand out to her. He was in his normal downstairs position, sitting across the sofa with his feet up, a light blanket over his legs.
‘In a minute, when I’ve made the tea.’ She poured milk into the cups. ‘D’you want a piece of toast or anything?’
He shook his head. ‘Sit down while the tea’s a-steeping. I want to talk to you.’ Her look was distant and troubled, he thought. She seemed grossly unhappy.
She sat down compliantly at one end of the sofa, shifting his legs over to make room. He took her hand and rubbed his thumb gently over the back of it.
‘Go on, then,’ she said, and looked into his eyes, serious, earnest. ‘What d’you want to tell me?’
‘For a start I want to tell you how much I love you …’
She turned away. ‘I know how much you love me, Ben.’
�
�But I want you to hear it … Oh, it ain’t just that, Lizzie. I know it ain’t much of a life for you the way I am, but I want you to know I don’t take for granted what you do for me …’
‘Whatever I do, I do it because I want to, Ben. Not because I have to.’
‘Will you stop interrupting me? As I say, I don’t take it all for granted … Look … What I’m trying to say is this … Oh, I don’t know how to put it.’ He sighed with exasperation and shook his head. ‘Look, I know I ain’t much of a husband … particularly in bed, I mean … You know what I’m trying to say … Well, you’re still a young woman, Lizzie, my flower, and still lovely with it … and much as I love you … I could hardly blame you if you took up with somebody else … if you had a bit on the side … A lie-by.’
‘A lie-by?’
‘Somebody you could go to bed with … for a bit of physical pleasure and comfort.’
Such a blatant suggestion warranted an equally blatant protest. ‘Ben, do you know what you’re saying? I’ve never heard anything like it. What d’you take me for? An old pro or something? As if I’d do such a thing.’
‘I mean it, Lizzie. I’ve thought about it a lot. You’re the most respectable woman I know, but I also know what you’re like … You need loving and I can’t oblige … And it grieves me as much as it grieves you, my flower … You must feel the need every now and again.’
She studied his scarred hand on hers, not wishing their eyes to meet at that moment. God, an affair! He was right on target, of course; as if he could read her very thoughts.
‘Yes, I do feel the need … from time to time.’ What was the sense in denying it? ‘But I have to put such thoughts to the back of my mind, Ben. To think of me doing that with somebody else. It wouldn’t be right. It’d mean me being unfaithful. I wouldn’t want to be unfaithful, Ben.’
Neither spoke for a few seconds, each summing up the significance of what the other had said. Lizzie’s eyes were still fixed on their joined hands.
‘You can be unfaithful if I say it’s all right,’ Ben said eventually, ‘if I release you from your vow of keeping thee only unto me. I see how Jesse Clancey looks at you, Lizzie. You know very well he’s always had a soft spot for you … And he’s single … What’s more, he’s decent with it … You could do a lot worse … You don’t think he comes here of a night to talk to me, and I don’t know what’s going through his mind, do you …? He can’t keep his eyes off you.’
Lizzie avoided looking at Ben in case guilt surfaced in her eyes. ‘When we got married, Ben, it was for better or worse, in sickness and in health, as I remember. I made my vows then, and I intended to stick to them then. I still intend to. So I don’t want to listen to you now driving me into another man’s bed, because that’s what it sounds like.’
‘Oh, Lizzie, God bless you. What I’m trying to tell you is simple enough. If you feel the need to stray, I understand … and I wouldn’t hold it against you. I ain’t suggesting for a minute that you’d have to let me know about it … In fact, I’d rather not know … so don’t ever tell me … Just as long as you promise never to leave me, Lizzie … It’d break my heart if ever you left me.’
‘Oh, Ben. Where would I go, for Lord’s sake? I’ll never leave you, you big gawby, you know I won’t. So don’t even think it.’
‘Then you’re free to do as you want.’
God! She effectively already had. She looked away, feeling ashamed and thoroughly guilty. ‘No, I never will. I promise you that.’ It was the least she could do.
‘Hey! There’s no need for tears, our Lizzie … There’s no need to make any promise either. You never know who or what’s around the corner … Anyway, what about when I’m dead and gone? Even if you never stray while I’m alive, I’d never expect you to stay unmarried for ever … You’re a lovely looking woman and you’ve got your whole life in front of you. When I’m gone make the most of it … So long as the kids are content with whoever you decide on … Just so long as the kids are content.’
‘Oh, stop it, Ben. Stop talking like that.’
She dried her tears, and stood up huffily, uncomfortable with this line of talk. She poked the fire into life and fished a spoon out of the table drawer for want of something to do. It was as if he could read her mind. Had he ever considered that she might have been unfaithful while he was away fighting the Germans?
‘Tom Dando says that Stanley’s coming home on leave soon,’ he said, breaking an awkward silence. ‘There’s somebody else you could have a little fling with. I reckon you’ve always had your eye on him, even though he is your cousin. Just as long as he ain’t caught a dose of the pox on his travels … There’s a lot of pox about after the war, you know.’
Lizzie felt her colour rise, and got up awkwardly from the sofa. ‘What makes you think Stanley’s interested in me?’
‘He always used to be. He said so himself.’
‘We were only kids then.’
‘We were little more than kids ourselves then, Lizzie.’
She spooned sugar into his tea, and handed it to him.
He watched the bubbles spinning in the middle of the cup for a few seconds. ‘D’you remember the day you were churched, and we stayed behind after the service … and we sat in front of the altar with our Henzey?’
‘I’ll never forget it, Ben.’
‘Nor will I. When I looked at you I could tell you were thinking the same as me – that I loved you with all my heart and soul, and that I always would … no matter what.’
Lizzie looked up at Ben and saw his eyes, full and watery. She put down her cup and saucer on the table and threw herself across him, holding him as tightly as she dared. He understood her so well. Had he really perceived what had been on her mind for such a long time? If he had, and he was prepared to allow it, he was either a bigger, braver man than ever she’d realised, or the biggest fool ever. With such a big-hearted husband, could she ever be unfaithful again, with or without his blessing? It was out of the question. If the boot were on the other foot, and she were the invalid, would she be able to face the prospect of him being unfaithful to fulfil his carnal needs? It was too horrible to contemplate.
He ran his fingers through her hair lovingly, while she wept, unwilling to show her tears. ‘Never ever leave me, Lizzie. Promise?’
‘Oh, Ben, I promise. You know I’ll never leave you.’
Chapter 16
It was the first Sunday in August that Stanley Dando called. Lizzie answered the knock on the door to see him looking as patrician as ever in his Captain’s uniform. The children were at Sunday School, and Ben was dozing on the sofa after his dinner. She greeted him with a pleasant smile, feigning surprise, and he kissed her on the cheek which, to her quiet annoyance, made her blush. No sooner had they started to speak than Ben woke up.
It had been some years since Ben had seen Stanley, but he recognised him at once. Before long they were in easy conversation about the war, and swapping experiences. Lizzie took advantage of this to go upstairs and spruce herself up.
She’d been on tenterhooks for days wondering whether Stanley would call. At first she was keen that her Uncle Tom would pass on her invitation but, after Ben’s confession that he wouldn’t object to her taking a lover, she changed her mind. She wished for no temptation to be placed in her way. That unexpected discussion had elicited intense feelings of humility in Lizzie, pushing her closer to Ben again, if only spiritually. It pleased her, but it did not resolve anything fundamental. She still needed loving – but, at least, she’d become stoically resigned to remaining faithful. Since this reconciliation was non-physical, however, she knew deep in her heart that it would not be enough. It would be nowhere near enough. She still needed something beyond; something more than Ben’s spiritual love and her own good intentions.
As Stanley talked to Ben his cool eyes frequently met hers, and unwittingly lingered. She could tell what he was thinking. He was mentally undressing her, and a secret stab of longing touched her, which she prayed w
ould go away. Although she tried to avoid his piercing looks, her vanity and a fatal wish for him to desire her, ensured that she could not. The very last time she had known sexual love, nearly five years ago, had been with him. Lord, had it been so long? As Ben told a humorous tale of the thin, hard mattress he called a ‘biscuit’, on which he slept in the trenches and how it provided fodder for ants in the form of fleas and bugs, Lizzie remained quiet, pondering how manly, how immensely more desirable Stanley had become.
So her earnest resolve to remain faithful evaporated like steam; as she knew it would.
Before long, the children returned from Sunday School in their best clothes, noisy, and exuberant, glad to be released into the sunshine from that monotonous, weekly imposition. They were introduced to their Uncle Stanley, whom they only knew by occasional reference. He gave them each a shilling, in return for which he received four incredulous but grateful smiles, and their instant approval.
‘You never had any more children then?’ Stanley asked, and Lizzie thought what a pointed question it was.
‘No, we never had any more,’ she replied, lowering her lids.
He stayed for tea and, at about half past eight when the children had been put to bed, he suggested they send for some beer. Lizzie offered to fetch it and he gave her the money to pay for it. By the time they’d drunk it all it was dark, and Ben remarked that he needed to go up the yard, so would Lizzie help him?
‘I need to go as well, Ben,’ Stanley said. ‘I’ll take you. Then I must be off home.’
When they returned Stanley picked up his peaked cap and lingered at the door.
‘Lizzie’ll see you off,’ Ben said, panting as he settled himself on his sofa. ‘I would myself if I could.’
‘It’s all right, Ben, don’t trouble yourself. I’ll see you again soon, God willing.’
‘Call and see us any time.’
So Lizzie, who had been fidgeting on her chair like a cat with fleas waiting for this moment, too keenly went to the door with Stanley and out into the darkness of the entry. They stopped as they reached the street, and he turned to her. It was a warm, sultry night, with low clouds, and Lizzie fancied she saw flashes of lightning in the far distance.
