A Family Affair

by Nancy Carson

  And for a time, discreetly, she called at Tom’s studio two or three afternoons a week, leaving Posy with Florrie Brisco who was happy to have her, giving any excuse that seemed plausible. When Tom knew she was due to arrive he would usher out any customers who were predisposed to linger and chat, then anxiously wait for her, hoping Ned had not cottoned on and forbidden her to leave the house – or worse. And when she turned up, breathless, her eyes sparkling, he would know all was well and welcome her into his arms. Of course, they made love on the bearskin rug and those encounters elicited more emotion, more passion, more tenderness and more pleasure than ever either of them could recall. Sometimes, in the frenzy of orgasm, she would weep and call out his name and cling to him and wonder how she ever managed to survive without him. And he would ponder exactly the same thing from his viewpoint.

  He moved house, as he said he would, to a small terraced house in Salop Street at Eve Hill, far enough away from his mother to inhibit her visiting him at inopportune moments. Clover helped him choose furnishings, curtains, rugs, linoleum, as she promised she would, all the time conscious of what Ramona had achieved at the house in Edward Street. He never complained about the cost but happily dipped into his pocket and, before she knew it, the house had become a comfortable home for Tom and Daniel. Clover was pleased with her home-making efforts that she had approached with care and enthusiasm. Although it was not her own home, nor could it ever be, she felt a part of it and loved being there whenever she could steal away from Hill Street. On those occasions, she got to know Daniel and realised how bright and intelligent and how likeable he was. On Saturdays, when Tom had left for work she would go there, let herself in and pretend she was the lady of the house. She would clean and dust, polish and change the beds. She would make sure they had sufficient food in the pantry and leave Tom a note telling him of anything he was running short of.

  It was a tram ride back to the town centre for Clover on a Saturday afternoon, when she would commence shopping for her other home, the one she and Posy shared so reluctantly nowadays with Ned. If only she could wave a magic wand and abandon this mock home and this farcical marriage. She had a strong sense of belonging in that house in Salop Street with Tom. In consequence, she resented more than ever the constriction that marriage to Ned had imposed. If only she had the courage to let him know what was going on; he could divorce her, or even just let her go.

  At about this time, Ned was noticing subtle changes in his wife’s demeanour. She was unusually nice and affable towards him, smiling and letting him get away with things that previously she would have pulled him up over. She went out of her way to do things for him. There was a sparkle in her eyes as well these days, and she seemed less tense and much more content than he had ever known her in all their married life. Although he knew she was putting as much money away each week as they could afford, to pay back that lingering anonymous loan, she managed to afford some smart new clothes now, and he’d noticed that some very pretty underwear had appeared as well. She was taking extra care with her hair and in her whole appearance. Most days and nights latterly she looked serenely beautiful and he was delighted to see it. She told him she had made friends with another girl called Rose who had a son the same age as Posy, and they’d joined the Mother’s Union at St John’s church and went to meetings on Tuesday nights. St James’s church at Eve Hill, Rose’s parish, had started a Young Wives section and she and Rose had joined that as well, she said; they met on a Thursday night. But she was never late back and Ned had no reason at all to disbelieve her. Nor did he ask if they competed for prettiest underwear at those meetings, for those were the times when she seemed to wear all that stuff. He never asked if she went out while he was at work because it never crossed his mind. Adding two and two together in the game of life was never Ned’s strong point. He had not been allowed any sexual liberties from the beginning, so he was not aware of any change in her attitude in that respect.

  Clover’s affair had been burgeoning for about a year when, in the warm September of 1912, Ned damaged the Farman biplane which he piloted to test the latest Sunbeam Coatalen engines. The damage was superficial but it meant the aeroplane was out of action while spare parts could be manufactured to repair it and restore the wing-warping to full working order. Ned commended his Gull, still stored in Fred Woodall’s barn at Bobbington. If they could install the engine in that, he would finally achieve the ambition he had first set himself as well as expediting engine development. So he and a small party of helpers took a couple of steam lorries to Fred Woodall’s farm and disassembled the Gull. They transported it back to Sunbeam, reassembled it and set about making the necessary alterations to the engine mountings so it could accommodate the Coatalen engine, and a few other control improvements. Ned was happy to receive the praise and kind comments about the Gull that were heaped upon him and even Louis Coatalen himself came into the shop to inspect the machine.

  Prior to installing the engine, Ned recalled having made some notes and calculations of ideas he’d had long before, when he was working at Star; he wanted to go over them first. He could not recall the details exactly but they were vital to safety, containing some rough calculations for stresses on the fuselage, conditional on engine weight, torque and so on. He did not know where they were. He might have left them at his mother’s house. So, on his way home from work he stopped by to have a look for them.

  ‘Clover ain’t long gone,’ his mother informed him.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘She came to pick Posy up.’

  ‘Oh? But why did she leave her here?’

  ‘Am yow living in cloud-cuckoo-land or what?’ Florrie asked pointedly. ‘Her leaves the babby here regular while her goz down the town.’

  ‘She’s never said.’

  ‘Maybe you should pay her a bit more attention.’

  He nodded his head, preoccupied with his search.

  ‘Wha’n yer looking for?’

  ‘Oh, just some notes with some calculations on the Gull.’

  ‘There’s no notes here. Everything to do with your flying machine you’ve had.’

  ‘I reckon you’re right, Mother. There’s no sign of ’em here.’

  So he went home. A wonderful aroma welcomed him as he ambled in; the unsurpassed aroma of home cooking.

  He sniffed the air expectantly. ‘What’s for tea, Clover?’

  ‘I’ve done you some pork chops. They look lovely and meaty.’

  ‘They smell nice. Mother says you’ve just been there to pick Posy up.’

  ‘Yes, I went to the town.’

  ‘Well you don’t need to take her to Mother’s, do you? Why can’t you take her with you?’

  Clover shrugged and felt herself go hot. ‘She’s such a weight to carry now.’

  ‘She can walk. Let her walk. It’ll do her good. You’re making her too soft.’

  Clover readily agreed, to save an argument, to avoid discussing it further.

  ‘How long will tea be?’ he asked.

  ‘Twenty minutes.’

  ‘Right. I’ve got to find some notes I made ages ago. We’re going to fly the Gull and I need to check on some things.’

  ‘You’re flying the Gull?’ She sounded pleased.

  Clover placed a saucepan containing water and potatoes over the coals of the fire grate. Some spilled over the side, hissing and spitting in the flames. She moved away from the stairs door as he opened it and went upstairs.

  He searched through all the drawers in the old second-hand dressing table they’d bought when they moved, in the wardrobe as well but found nothing. The boxroom, as yet unfurnished, housed a large cardboard box and a storage chest given to them by Florrie Brisco. The chest looked promising so he opened it. At once evident were some of his old drawings folded up, piles of newspapers, cuttings and ancient magazines. He rummaged through avidly, excited at the prospect of flying his precious Gull at last. He would know the paper he was looking for as soon as he saw it. But he saw no sign. Maybe he, or eve
n Clover, had packed it with other papers into one of the large envelopes or folders he could see. He withdrew one and opened it up. Childhood scribble, his own, sentimentally accumulated and saved for years by his mother who apparently thought he should have them. He cast it aside and took out another, opened it up and peered inside.

  Photographs…

  Of Posy…

  Photographs of Posy? Strange…

  He pulled them out of the envelope. Why had Clover not shown him these? There was one with Clover on as well, posing wide-eyed and sporting a very self-conscious smile, taken about a year ago judging by Posy and the clothes she was wearing. In the bottom right-hand corner of each was embossed the words ‘Doubleday of Dudley’. So that’s why he hadn’t seen them before. Because Tom Doubleday had taken them. She’d been to see him. She just could not keep away.

  It all started falling into place.

  The changes. Her being strangely nice, either to divert him from any suspicion or to assuage her guilt. The extra care and attention she was paying to her appearance, the new clothes and, dammit, the new underwear. New underwear for that swine to admire. And what had his mother told him only an hour earlier? She was leaving Posy there regularly. Why? Where was she going?

  Well, now he could guess.

  In a flash his world utterly collapsed. He felt entirely devastated, cheated. Life had cruelly dropped into his lap a calamity that, stupidly, he had not anticipated. Oh, he knew his marriage was far from perfect. In fact, it was the strangest marriage he’d ever heard of. What other poor, maligned sod, breadwinner and provider of everything, was daft enough to tolerate never being allowed sexual access to his own wife, apart from one embarrassing, abortive attempt? What other stupid bugger was demented enough to take on a woman nine months pregnant with another man’s child, even loony enough to plead for the privilege? What other stupid idiot could overlook for so long the needs of a healthy young woman like Clover, for the pleasure and release that love-making brought, especially when she was not getting it from her husband?

  Damn Tom Doubleday. Advantage-taker. Tosspot. Seducer. Adulterer.

  He might have known this would happen. Why should it be any great surprise? He should have foreseen that those two would get together sooner or later and resume their dirty goings-on. In a way it served him right. He had been blind, naïve, soft. More; he had been unutterably stupid. Maybe a man gets what he deserves. But it angered him beyond measure just the same.

  He held on to the photographs and went downstairs. Posy was sitting quietly in the clothes basket in front of the middle door, tugging diligently at the woollen hair of her rag doll. Liquorice the cat was under the table. Clover was stooping at the oven at the side of the grate, withdrawing the meat tin in which the pork chops were cooking. She turned and smiled affably as she placed them on the table with the intention of using the fat to make some tasty gravy.

  ‘I found these.’ He waved the photographs in front of her face indignantly. She coloured up and her mouth suddenly went dry. ‘Why didn’t you show me?’ There was a mean glint in his eye, anger, hurt, resentment.

  ‘Because I knew if I showed them to you, you’d know I’d seen Tom.’ She answered honestly, trying to remain calm.

  ‘And obviously, you’re still seeing him.’

  ‘Yes.’

  The back of his right hand cracked viciously across her cheek, sending her crashing into the grate. As she fell, she knocked the pan of potatoes, boiling by now, into the fire. She screamed, trying to regain her balance and get out of the way of the boiling water as it hissed and spluttered over the coals and the hearth in angry clouds of steam. The pan crashed to the hearth with a clatter, splashing the residue over her long skirt. She put her hand out to steady herself only to find the scorching hob. She shrieked with the pain of it while the cat howled and leapt out by the back door in a blur of black-and-white fur. Posy was squealing too, and Clover, forgetting her own pain completely, instinctively rushed to her and picked her up.

  ‘Oh, my precious, are you hurt, are you hurt?’ she blurted, terrified that the boiling water had splashed over the child and scalded her. She hugged her and ran her fingers through Posy’s hair consolingly, ignoring the searing pain in her own hand.

  ‘He fwighkened me, Mommy,’ the child blubbered. ‘Daddy fwighkened me. The cwash frighkened me.’

  ‘Let me look at you.’ Hot water was flowing across the linoleum towards the clothes basket, some of it soaking into the hearth-rug. She stepped over the hot puddles, grabbed Posy and sat her on the table in the front room to inspect her carefully. Relief swept over her as she realised she was physically none the worse, untouched, just scared by the sudden violence of the incident. ‘You’re all right, Posy, thank God.’ She gave Ned a look of utter contempt and held her daughter protectively. ‘But it’s no thanks to your daddy.’

  ‘I’m not her daddy,’ Ned protested vehemently.

  ‘Yes, you are my daddy and you fwighkened me,’ the child shrilled defiantly, not understanding the gist of the argument at all.

  ‘All right. Let’s all calm down,’ Clover said and looked at her hand that was causing her so much pain. A huge blister had appeared on her palm, at the base of her thumb. She went to the tap and ran cold water over it. ‘Well, I hope you’re satisfied with your little outburst,’ she said coldly to Ned. ‘We could have scalded poor Posy. Disfigured her for life.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to hurt the child. Only you.’

  ‘Well, you succeeded in that all right.’ There was a mirror hanging on a nail tapped into the window-frame over the sink. She peered into it to look at her cheek where he had struck her. A blue and red bruise was already showing through. With her dry hand she rubbed it gently. ‘I hope you’re proud of yourself. You’ve shown me what a real man you are.’

  ‘And you’ve shown yourself to be what you really are,’ he hissed scornfully. ‘A whore. Tom Doubleday’s bloody whore. Well you’d better not bring another of his bastards into this house.’

  Clover sighed. Of course, it was irrational to expect that she’d never be found out. Yet she felt no guilt. Why should she? She had never declared any love for Ned. He had always known where her true emotions lay. She had never made any secret of it. Oh well, it was certainly out in the open now.

  ‘So where do we go from here?’ she asked. ‘Are you going to divorce me?’

  ‘What, and make it easy for you to marry him? Do you think I’m going to reward you with a divorce? Never. You can stick it out, like I’ve had to stick it out.’

  ‘I won’t stop seeing him, Ned.’

  ‘Oh yes you will.’

  She shook her head resolutely. ‘Never,’ she said and she meant it. ‘I lost him once before. I’m never going to lose him again. Scheme and contrive how you will if you must, you’ll never stop me seeing him. So why not let me go?’

  Ned slumped to the chair that was behind him. His head went in his hands and his shoulders started shaking. He was sobbing as he looked up at her, his eyes wet with tears, his face contorted in his absolute misery.

  ‘Because I love you, Clover,’ he wailed. ‘I’ve always loved you, though Christ knows why.’ He fumbled in his trouser pocket for a handkerchief, pulled it out and blew his nose. ‘Why should I be afflicted with a love that could never be returned? Do you know what that’s like, Clover? Have you any idea of how miserable it makes life?’

  ‘Yes,’ she answered softly, continuing to run her hand under the cold tap. ‘I know very well how it feels.’

  Chapter 28

  Ned turned up at work next day brooding. When his workmates, nudging each other covertly, asked him what was wrong he declined to answer. During his time at Sunbeam, little comments he had made about his life and habits, although insignificant by themselves, together painted a picture of strange irregularities in his marriage. They would laugh behind his back at his incredible naïvety, married to a girl who was rumoured to be unsettled, unfeeling, quite a bobby-dazzler and beyond his aspi
rations to satisfy. There was always banter between workmates, and they would make openly sarcastic and also very cryptic allusions to Ned’s sex life; allusions that passed over him unfathomed, amusing his workmates the more. To perceive he was the butt of their ribaldry grieved him, he could not understand why they would burst out laughing at his expense, and even that showed up as one of his quirks; he had no sense of humour. In other things he was not so dumb, they knew. His flair for his job proved that. Certainly, they respected his knowledge and instinct when it came to trimming and flying aeroplanes. He would show them. He would show them he wasn’t half the fool they thought he was.

  Ned did not find the notes he’d sought about the fuselage of the Gull, but they pressed ahead anyway and installed the latest version of the Coatalen engine. If Ned’s report on its behaviour was favourable the engine was scheduled to go into production. Already, potential customers had been informed of its impending introduction and there was significant interest, not least from the Army.

  So, a couple of lorries delivered the Gull, complete with engine and propeller, to the flat fields of Pendeford and the job of reassembling the old flying machine began. When it was ready, Ned sat on his seat like a distrustful king on a rickety throne, his mind awhirl with an unnatural fusion of profound despondency over Clover, and excitement at the imminent likelihood of taking to the skies in his beloved Gull. At his signal one of them cranked the engine and it fired into life, spluttering and backfiring at first, till it found its harsh but steady mechanical rhythm. Ned opened the throttle a little and felt the Gull’s urge to go. He pulled his goggles over his eyes, allowed himself a half smile and thrust his chin out in defiant resolve. He was about to fulfil a long-cherished dream on this, the most confusing day of his life.