by Sandy Taylor
We started to talk about our future.
‘We’ll have to rent somewhere to start with,’ said Ralph.
‘That’s okay.’
‘But it won’t be forever. Once I’m a qualified plumber I reckon we can think about buying somewhere.’
‘It all sounds very grown-up and serious,’ I said, smiling.
‘I want you to be happy.’
‘I’ll be happy wherever we live.’
‘So will I, but it’s good to have something to work towards and I want the roof over our head to belong to us.’
‘Do you enjoy plumbing?’
‘I worked for the railways when I left school but there were too many chiefs and not enough Indians. That’s when I decided that I would be happier working for myself. Plumbing seemed like the obvious choice. I’ve always liked fixing things and I actually love it.’
‘More than you love me?’ I said, teasing him.
‘I’d choose you over a leaky tap any day of the week,’ he said, grinning.
Ralph was saving up for a ring. We spent some happy times gazing in jewellers’ windows. Once, we went into a shop, the girl came out onto the pavement with us so that we could point to the rings we liked. Back inside, she got a little key from under the counter and opened the back of the window. She took out two black velvet cushions with a selection of rings on them and even though we told her we were only looking at the moment, she made me feel special and let me try on a selection of them.
The only thing that was spoiling these dreams was Mary. She wasn’t herself at all. She was moody and sullen, which was odd, because her and Elton were getting on okay. She had seemed to accept my marrying Ralph. I could tell she wasn’t completely happy about it but she seemed to be resigned to it. It didn’t help matters when I told her I wouldn’t be going to Paris with her on the work trip. We were in her bedroom playing records when I broke the news.
‘What do you mean, you can’t go?’ she screamed.
‘I would if I could,’ I said, wanting desperately for her to understand, ‘but we’re saving up for a wedding. I can’t expect Mum and Dad to pay for it all.’
‘I knew this would happen,’ she said, glaring at me, ‘I knew that everything would change.’
I didn’t know what to say. I hated arguing with Mary.
‘This has been our dream, since we were children, you and me travelling the world, getting out of the estate, having a better life. It’s been our dream!’ Mary cried.
‘Your dream, Mary,’ I said as gently as I could. ‘It’s never been mine.’
‘So you’re happy to settle for married life, a load of kids and a council house?’
‘I love Ralph, I want to marry him, it doesn’t feel like I’m settling for anything. It’s what I want.’
Mary stood up and stared out of the window, not speaking.
I stood beside her and leaned on the window ledge. ‘You’ll have a great time,’ I said. ‘You can tell me all about it when you come back, it will almost be as good as going myself.’
‘Bloody Ralph Bennett,’ she muttered.
‘I want you to be happy for me, Mary,’ I said, linking my arm through hers.
‘Well, I’m not feeling happy for you right now.’
‘I know, but you will, won’t you?’
‘I haven’t got much choice, have I?’
* * *
As June gave way to July things got worse. Mary was pulling away from me. She stopped coming over to my counter for a chat. She found excuses not to see me. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d gone to the record shop together, or sat in her bedroom doing our hair and trying out new make-up. She hadn't said anything about being ill but she was taking odd days off work. I didn’t know what to think. We had always shared everything. I had always known just how to help Mary and how, if she was in a sulk, to win her round, but for the first time ever, I didn’t have a clue.
‘You go round and see her,’ said Mum.
‘But I don’t think she wants to see me,’ I said sadly.
‘When has Mary Pickles not wanted to see you?’
‘I don’t understand what’s going on.’
‘That’s why you have to talk about it,’ said Mum. ‘You’re not going to solve anything sitting here worrying about it, now get yourself round there and sort it out.’When I got to Mary’s house that evening, her third brother, Wesley, and her fourth brother, Wayne, were in the front garden messing about with the motorbike. There was nothing unusual in that; what was unusual was that they hardly looked up from what they were doing when I arrived. Normally they would joke with me; that day they pretty much ignored me. In fact, I got the impression they were pretending they hadn’t seen me.
I stood for a moment and still the boys said nothing. The awful feeling in my stomach got worse.
‘Is everything all right?’ I asked.
Wesley grunted.
‘Is Mary all right?’
‘I think she’s in her room,’ mumbled Wayne.
I knocked quietly on the door and Mrs Pickles answered it. She looked even more anxious and worried than usual. I stepped into the house. Mr Pickles was sitting at the kitchen table, but he didn’t look up either.
By now I had a feeling of absolute dread in my stomach.
‘Is Mary all right?’ I asked again. And with that, Mr Pickles banged his fist on the table and walked out. I just stood there not knowing what to do.
‘Mary’s in her room, Dottie,’ said Mrs Pickles, picking up the chair that her husband had knocked over. ‘You can go up if you like.’ I looked closely at Mary’s mum and I could see that her eyes were all red and her face was blotchy as if she’d been crying.
‘Is she in bed?’ I said.
‘No Dottie, she’s not in bed,’ said Mrs Pickles quietly. She picked up a dishcloth and turned her back on me and began to dry the dishes that were draining on the sink.
I walked up the stairs and tapped on Mary’s door. There was no answer. I put my ear against the door but I couldn’t hear anything; she wasn’t playing her records.
‘Mary it’s me, Dottie,’ I said. ‘Can I come in?’
There was still no answer so I pushed down the handle and opened the door. Mary was sitting on her bed. She was very pale and she was crying, quietly. It broke my heart to see her looking so sad. I sat down next to her and put my arm around her. She didn’t snuggle into me like she normally did, but sat stiff and rigid, holding a hanky to her nose.
‘Has someone died?’ I asked, because that was the only thing I could think of that made any sense.
‘No,’ she said, but she said it so softly I could barely hear her.
‘Please tell me what’s wrong, Mary.’ I wiped a tear from her cheek with the back of my finger as gently as I could.
She shook her head and swallowed.
‘I can’t, Dottie.’
‘Have I done something?’
‘Of course not.’
It was then that I noticed the picture of Montmartre. It was screwed up on the floor. I picked it up. ‘Why have you done that?’ I asked, trying to smooth it out.
‘Because I’m not going to need it any more,’ she said.
‘But why?’
‘Because I won’t be going there,’ she shouted, ‘Ever.’
‘I don’t understand.’
Mary sniffed and wiped her eyes with the handkerchief. She took a deep breath.
‘I’m going to have a baby,’ she said and she burst into tears again.
I couldn’t take in what she was saying.
‘Are you sure?’ I said.
‘Of course I’m sure. Do you think I’d make it up?’
‘I didn’t mean that,’ I said, ‘it’s just that…’
‘It’s just that what?’ said Mary, standing up and walking across to the window.
‘Have you told Elton?’ I said.
Mary shook her head.
‘He’ll have to marry you. He’ll have to do the right thing,’ I sai
d.
‘That’s what Mum and Dad keep saying.’
‘Of course they do,’ I said. Mary walked back to the bed and sat down. ‘Have you told them whose it is?’
‘No,’ she said miserably.
‘They don’t know about Elton?’
‘No.’
I put my arm around her shoulder.
‘How can I tell them, Dottie? My brothers would kill him if they knew and…’
‘And what?’
‘It wasn’t really his fault.’
‘Well, he certainly had something to do with it.’
Mary put her head in her hands.
‘You’ll have to tell them eventually,’ I said.
‘I know,’ she said, and then she turned away from me and sobbed into her pillow as if her heart was breaking.
I sat there for a while rubbing her shoulder.
‘It’s not the end of the world,’ I said gently. ‘I know it’s going to be difficult, and I know it will be a bit of a shock for Elton, but once he gets used to the idea it won’t be so bad and you’ll get to marry him and…’
Mary pushed my hand from her shoulder.
‘It’s what you always wanted,’ I said. ‘Elton and…’
‘Don’t!’ said Mary. ‘Don’t say anything else.’
‘All right but…’
She sat up and wrapped her arms around herself.
‘Go away,’ she said. ‘Please go away. I want to be on my own.’ When I didn’t move, she said, ‘Please, Dottie!’ Her voice was desperate. I kissed the back of her head, and left her and went back downstairs.
Mrs Pickles was sitting at the kitchen table with her hands around a cup of tea.
‘Goodbye, Mrs Pickles,’ I said. I wondered if I ought to say I was sorry or something.
She looked up at me. ‘Did she tell you what’s happened?’
I nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘I suppose it’s that boy she’s been seeing.’
I thought of Elton and his sparkling eyes and slicked-back hair. I imagined his face when he found out. It wasn’t up to me to break the news. It wasn’t my news to break. It was up to Mary.
‘I don’t know,’ I said.
She stared into her tea as if it could solve all her problems. She looked very old, all of a sudden, and broken.
I walked back home in a state of shock. Me and Mary had always told each other everything, I just couldn’t believe that she had kept something like this from me. Once again, I felt the familiar pangs of guilt. I’d been so wrapped up in Ralph I hadn’t even noticed Mary was expecting a baby. She must have been worried sick, but she’d carried that burden all by herself. Poor Mary. She must have felt so frightened, and so lonely. And it was probably going to get worse before it got better.
I walked round a dog that was sniffing in the hedgerow. Maybe it would all turn out all right in the end, when the dust had settled. Mary wasn’t the first girl to get caught like this and she wouldn’t be the last. Maybe when Mary and Elton were married he’d grow up a bit and be a proper husband and father. He’d probably have to give up his dream of becoming a rock star. He wouldn’t like that but he’d get used to it. It might be the making of him. I knew Mary would never have wanted it to happen this way, but it was what she had always wanted: to be married to Elton.
I reached our house and pushed open the back door. ‘Tea’s nearly ready,’ said Mum in her normal, cheerful voice. She was stirring a pan of mince and onions on the hob and a big pan of boiled potatoes was bubbling nearby. Her sleeves were rolled up and her face was ruddy, shining with sweat. She’d made some scones earlier and they were cooling on a wire rack. They smelled delicious, but I couldn’t have eaten a thing.
I would have liked to rush towards Mum and have her scoop me up and hug me like she used to when I was a child. I didn’t even know how to begin to tell her about Mary. It was too much. I had to get used to the idea of her being pregnant in my own mind first before I could start talking about it with Mum.
‘Did you sort it out?’ she said.
‘It was nothing I’d done,’ I said.
‘Well there you go then,’ said Mum, smiling, then she looked at me more closely. ‘Is it something you can talk about?’ she said gently.
‘Not yet, Mum.’
‘I’m here if you need to.’
‘I know.’
I went up to my bedroom. I sat on my bed and gave way to the tears that were threatening to choke me. At least with Rita gone I could cry in private. How could Mary be having a baby? She might have been eighteen but she still looked about twelve. How was she going to look after it? And what would everyone say? What would Elton say when he found out he had to let go of his dream and marry Mary? I couldn't imagine Elton doing anything he didn't want to do, whatever anyone said.
There was only one person I wanted to see, one person I wanted to tell. It was the person who would know best how Elton was likely to react. It was the person who would be there to support him, and me. It was Ralph.
My heart wasn’t in dressing up to go out that evening. My face was pale, my eyes swollen from crying. I met Ralph in the usual place and he hugged me and asked if I was all right. I kept my face hidden by my hair and we started walking down to the cafe.
I was pleased to see him, to be with him, but I didn’t know where to start to tell him everything that had happened in the previous two hours. I was shivering, really cold, and he put his arm around me and held me tight.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked. ‘Something’s wrong! Tell me what it is.’
‘I don’t know how,’ I said.
He stopped, and made me look up at him.
‘Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad.’
‘It is,’ I said.
We went into the cafe. I sat down at one of the tables and waited for Ralph to get the coffees. I pushed a little pile of sugar around the tabletop with my fingernail.
‘Do you want some records on?’ he asked, putting a cup of coffee down in front of me.
‘No, thanks,’ I said.
He sat down beside me and put his hand gently on my arm. He leaned down to try to catch my eye but I wouldn’t look at him. I still didn’t know how I would find the words to tell him.
‘Come on then out with it,’ he said. ‘It can’t be that bad.’
I’d been thinking of nice ways to explain, adult ways, ways that would make it sound less shocking, but I still couldn’t make myself actually say the words. I watched the steam curling from the surface of the coffee. I watched the pattern of the milk, still swirling on the top, and I listened to the buzz of the voices of the other people in the cafe.
Ralph spooned sugar into his coffee. He stirred it. I was on the point of telling him, I was just about to say something, when the cafe door swung open and Elton came in. He had the usual swagger about him, the usual half-smile. He did a mock salute when he saw us and sauntered over to our table, as if he didn't have a care in the world.
‘No Mary?’ he said, pulling out a chair and sitting down, ‘I thought she’d be with you two.’
By the look on Elton’s face it was obvious he knew nothing. Now I felt a kind of anger towards him. He should have been there for Mary when she needed him. He should be with her now. Still I didn’t look up. I made the sugar on the table into a letter ‘M’.
‘When did you last speak to her?’ I asked.
Elton shrugged. He had a cigarette packet in his hand. He turned it over on the table, flipping it with his fingers and then catching it. ‘I dunno,’ he said, ‘a couple of days ago.’
‘You need to speak to her, Elton,’ I said.
He caught the packet, flipped it again. His legs were stretched out, getting in people’s way. A girl climbed over his ankles to get to the door and frowned at him. He didn’t notice. ‘Why?’ he asked.
‘You just do,’ I said. I could hear the urgency in my voice, a kind of panicky shrillness that wasn’t usually there.
Ralph heard it too. ‘What’s wr
ong, Dottie?’ he asked.
I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say. It was up to Mary to tell him, but now they were both looking at me waiting for an answer.
I should have said something vague. I should have hinted or implied or just said that I was worried, but before I could stop myself the words came out.
‘Mary’s pregnant,’ I said.
‘She’s what?’ said Elton.
‘She’s going to have a baby.’
There was a moment’s silence. A moment of absolute shock when it felt as if time stood still and nobody breathed. All I could hear was the deafening sound of my heart pounding in my chest.
I looked up then. I looked at Elton and I held his eye. I could almost see his brain working, hearing, but not understanding; trying to make sense of what I’d just said and then immediately going on the defensive. The cigarette packet dropped onto the floor and he left it there.
‘Well don’t look at me,’ he said angrily. ‘Is she saying it’s me? Is she trying to pin it on me?’
‘Well, who else would she be trying to pin it on?’ I asked.
‘You tell me,’ he said. His eyes were wide and angry, and something else, something I’d never seen in Elton before; he was frightened. He pushed back his fringe with his hand, leaned down to pick up the cigarette packet, tapped it on the table. ‘It wasn’t me,’ he said. ‘If it’s true that Mary’s pregnant, then it’s nothing to do with me.’
I was now totally confused. My heart was beating faster and faster. I wanted to be angry with Elton, I wanted him to face up to his responsibilities and be a man and do right by Mary, my best friend, but there was something in his eyes that made me believe him. ‘It must be you,’ I said.
‘Well it’s not,’ said Elton, ‘and do you want to know why it’s not? Because we’ve never done it.’ He was leaning forward. He was tapping the cigarette packet on the table; he was pale and he was frightened but he was sincere. I noticed how thin his wrists were, and his fingers. I noticed the hairs on his wrists where they emerged from the cuffs of his jacket. I noticed that Elton was vulnerable. He was like a rabbit in the headlights.
