by June Francis
‘Well, think afterwards,’ said her friend. ‘I’m waiting for more work from you.’
Viv nodded and got on with working out a Round Robin but part of her mind was taken up with thinking about her mother, who had still been in bed when Viv had left for work. Had she done the right thing by saying she would not go to America? Aunt Flo would be disappointed but there was no doubt she would be in favour of mother and daughter getting together. Who was her father? She was glad it wasn’t Mr Kelly, but thinking about him and her mother together made her feel uneasy. Dominic Kelly was still a good-looking man despite being all of forty. She hoped her mother wouldn’t get up to any of her old tricks. ‘What’s a kiss between old friends?’ In her mind she still heard her mother’s voice. What if she caused another scandal in the street? Viv wouldn’t put it past her. Damn! Perhaps she should enquire about ships sailing to America but it would have to be done straightaway or Christmas would be here and gone. She pondered the matter off and on for most of the morning and was still undecided when twelve o’clock came.
When Viv came back from lunch she found Dot and several of their workmates gathered round a desk. They were playing Ouija with letters, numbers and an upturned cup. ‘One of these days,’ murmured Viv, ‘you’ll get an answer and frighten yourselves to death.’
‘It’s only a bit of fun,’ said Dot, grinning. ‘I’m sure there’s someone you’d like to get in touch with. Your dad for instance.’
‘Not like that, thanks.’ She shook her head, wondering if she was a fool still to want to know her father’s identity after what her mother and Nick had said. Her heart gave a peculiar flip when she thought of Nick. He was the plus in staying home for Christmas, although when he had kissed her goodnight he had not said when he would see her again. He had told her that he had a lot of catching up to do in work and would be putting in extra hours.
When Viv arrived home that evening she found her mother clad in a dressing gown. She was seated in the rocking chair in front of the fire, reading a magazine. Her feet in fluffy nonsensical slippers rested on a pouffe. There were clothes on the backs of chairs and a glass on the floor.
‘You can tell you’re home,’ said Viv, slamming the door. ‘What a mess!’ Her eyebrows rose. ‘There’s something missing!’
‘It’s the sofa.’ Hilda’s expression was wary. ‘I couldn’t bear the sight of it so I had Dom move it into the back yard. We’ll need to get rid of it for when we get new.’
Viv shrugged off her coat and perched on the edge of a dining chair. ‘You actually meant what you said last night?’
‘What I said?’
‘You know, about making a nice little nest of this place?’
‘Of course I did. You didn’t think I’d stay on as it is!’ Her scarlet lips twisted in distaste. ‘I’m used to better, you know.’
‘So I gather,’ said Viv drily, getting up and going into the kitchen to put on the kettle.
The old-fashioned shallow stone sink was crowded with dirty dishes and cutlery. It looked like her mother had shared a meal of fish, chips and HP Sauce with someone. Mr Kelly, she presumed. She felt her temper rising but kept control of it as she went into the front room. ‘You’re a lazy so and so, Mother. One of these days you’ll catch some horrible germ and die.’
Hilda frowned. ‘That’s a nice way to speak to your mother. I haven’t had time to think of doing the dishes. I’ve been busy, unpacking … shopping and things.’
‘Did you think of getting something for my tea?’ said Viv softly. ‘Or did I do right by buying it myself?’
‘I thought my first day home you’d know everything would be strange to me.’ Hilda smiled sweetly. ‘I was right, wasn’t I? But I did buy you a cake. A jammy doughnut. If I remember rightly you used to love them.’
‘It was lemon cheese tarts I loved but a jammy doughnut will do nicely,’ said Viv, taking some mince, an onion and potatoes from her shopping bag.
Hilda’s brow knitted. ‘I could have sworn you liked jammy doughnuts.’
‘You liked jammy doughnuts.’ Viv went back out into the kitchen, followed by her mother.
‘I take it our Flo taught you how to cook?’
‘A bit. Necessity taught me most. Although luckily Grandfather wasn’t fussy.’
‘I remember.’ Hilda’s smile was gently reminiscent. ‘He’d eat anything you put in front of him.’
Viv glanced up from peeling a potato. ‘How was it you forgot how to cook? You must have done it when Grandmother was ill.’
Hilda’s smile faded and she rested her back against the fablon-topped kitchen table. ‘I never could cook properly. I muddled through, obeying my mother’s orders. When she died and me and Flo went to live with old Beetroot – she was your Great-aunt Beattie, by the way – she wouldn’t let me near her precious stove. She actually told me she couldn’t have me wasting food by trying out recipes. I asked her how I was to learn and she hit me across the legs. Any backchat or anything she thought I was doing wrong and I would get a belt. When she found out I was seeing Dom Kelly she considered it disgraceful, me having anything to do with a Catholic. She hit me that hard my legs were red raw and bleeding. I hated her. I used to pray she’d die.’ She paused to take a packet of Polo mints from the pocket of her dressing gown and jerkily undid the foil.
‘It must have been awful,’ said Viv, feeling sympathy for her.
‘At least you never suffered like that,’ muttered Hilda. ‘I made sure you had a good home. There mightn’t have been much there in the way of goodies but our Flo treated you like her own daughter.’
‘I appreciate that you thought of all that before you left me with her,’ said Viv gravely. ‘But I wasn’t her daughter, I was yours.’
Hilda grimaced. ‘So you were.’
‘When did you meet my father?’ Viv’s voice was gentle.
Her mother stared at her and laughed. ‘You won’t catch me by surprise. Forget him, Viv. You’ve got me and you don’t need a father.’ She popped a mint into her mouth and said vaguely, ‘Talking of fathers – how much did mine leave?’
Viv’s smile was fixed as she chopped a couple of potatoes and put them in a pan. ‘You mean your father whom I looked after like a daughter? If he’d lived with you in America you’d have had to pay for someone to look after him, wouldn’t you? Let’s say that all the money he left is wages in lieu of the care I gave him in place of you hiring a nurse. Fair comment, don’t you think?’
‘I suppose so.’ Hilda’s expression was a little sulky. ‘I haven’t got that much money with me, you know. It takes time to transfer money from one country to another.’
‘Crying poverty again? You shouldn’t have thrown the sofa out because we might have problems buying a new one in that case. And you shouldn’t have asked Mr Kelly to do jobs either, if you haven’t got the money.’
‘I didn’t say I haven’t the money,’ snapped Hilda. ‘Just that I haven’t got it all right now! I’ve got some but not enough for all that needs doing. I thought you might like to chip in with some of Father’s?’
Viv was silent as she placed the mince in a pan with water and lit the gas. Some of what her mother said about transferring money could be true. On the other hand she could still be just as tightfisted as she had been in the old days.
‘I still plan to go to America sometime so I want my money,’ murmured Viv. ‘We could do the decorating ourselves, that would save.’
‘I’m not going to be climbing ladders,’ said Hilda firmly, straightening up as the kettle boiled and going to make the tea. ‘I’ve asked Dom to do it and that’s that! I can’t go back on it. Besides, I’ve already given him some money. He’s starting with my bedroom and I’ve ordered myself a new bed. I can’t be doing with George’s. Yours can wait.’
‘Just what I thought would happen,’ drawled Viv. ‘I hope you realise that if you’re upstairs when Mr Kelly’s there, Mrs McCoy over the road will soon know about it. She has a telescope in that bedroom of hers.’
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‘She always was a nosy faggot,’ muttered Hilda.
‘All you’ve got to do is behave yourself,’ said Viv positively. ‘I’ll meet you halfway, Mam. I’ll order and pay for my own bed and decorate my own room. I think I can afford that. Besides, I reckon this way I’ll get what I want.’
‘OK. That sounds fair enough. Although the furniture’s a bit crummy in Father’s room.’
‘Let me worry about that,’ said Viv, slicing an onion. ‘Will you be getting a job if you’re so hard up? Maggie might take you on. You have some experience working in a bakery, don’t you?’
‘I don’t know why you’re saying that about me being hard up.’ Hilda’s tone was irritable. ‘I told you, it’s just a matter of time. Besides, I wouldn’t work in that bakery for a gold clock. When the money comes I’ll get you a television to make up for not buying you the bed.’
Viv tried not to look disbelieving. ‘We could rent one. Then if you change your mind about staying and I go to see Aunt Flo, we can just send it back.’ She dropped the chopped onion in the mince and stirred the lot. ‘By the way. I’ll be writing to Aunt Flo. Is there anything you’d like me to say to her for you? I’d thought of asking her if she knows who my father was.’
‘You what?’ Hilda’s whole body stiffened. ‘What do you want to do that for?’
‘Well, you won’t tell me.’ Viv smile was bland. ‘But I thought there was a fair chance you might have told your sister.’
‘I might have,’ murmured Hilda, lowering her eyes and gazing at her fingernails. ‘But then I mightn’t have. She was like you, wanting to know who he was all the time. She was angry for me but I was daft in those days so I kept my peace. Years later I think we might have talked about it again. I can’t remember exactly.’
Viv’s gaze was fixed on her mother’s face and suddenly she remembered her expression of old. ‘I think you’re lying. I’m going to ask her anyway.’
Hilda threw up her arms. ‘You do what you want! I’m not here to stop you doing anything! As long as you do me the same favour. But what good knowing about your father will do you, I don’t know! He was no angel as I’ve told you.’
Viv flushed. I take it he wasn’t completely evil either?’
‘Men can be swines but he wasn’t that bad,’ said Hilda, her lovely mouth compressing. ‘That’s all I’m, saying, Viv.’ With those words she poured tea into a cup and handed it to her daughter. ‘Don’t say I never do anything for you.’ She forced a smile and went back into the front room.
Viv heard the click of the wireless going on and Lonnie Donegan’s ‘Rock Island Line’ thrummed on the air. Damn you, Mother, she thought. If it wasn’t that I need a visa to get into America and it’s too late to get one now in time for Christmas, I’d leave you here and take off. Why can’t you just be straight with me? But she had to accept that deviousness had often been her mother’s way in the past and she had not really expected a miraculous change in her behaviour. Besides, Aunt Flo was sure to give her the answer she wanted if she went by what her mother had just said.
At that moment there was a smell of burning and Viv had to act swiftly. She poured half of the tea in her cup into the pan of mince and lowered the gas. As she drank the first half she reflected that it might not be the first strange concoction she would be eating if her mother decided to take a hand in the cooking.
Over the next week or so Viv tried to accept Hilda for what she was but it was not easy. Mrs McCoy stopped Viv in the street and asked her point blank what Mr Kelly was doing in their house. According to her he was there some part of most days. An annoyed Viv told her to mind her own business and Mrs McCoy came back with: ‘You’re as bad as your mother!’
Viv wouldn’t have lost her temper only she suspected that her mother was up to something with Mr Kelly. Every evening when she came home Hilda was either in a state of deshabille or dressed up as a cowgirl. Viv made a point of making no comment but was convinced that one day she would come in and find her mother being lassoed by Mr Kelly and dragged upstairs.
But that was not the only thing that exasperated her. She and her mother had agreed to share the work. Hilda had said that she would do the washing if Viv did the ironing. That seemed fair but her mother took the washing to the laundrette and sat watching it go round, gossiping and renewing old friendships. When Viv came home from a full day’s work she was faced twice a week with a mound of ironing, most of it not hers.
Her mother’s dinners generally consisted of fish and chips, tripe and onions in stewed milk, or meat pies from the bakery. She always apologised when placing these offerings on a table spread with a clean tablecloth, a candle and a glass of sherry for each of them, adding that she had had a cook when she lived with Charlie. Viv did not know if she was telling the truth or was just plain lazy.
There was also her mother’s extravagance. For someone who was waiting for money to be transferred Hilda did a fair amount of shopping. Clothes, chocolates, magazines, bottles of sherry and gin, new cutlery, new curtains and bed covers! Then to top it all Viv came home one day to find Mr Kelly and her mother admiring the new bedroom suite in Hilda’s room. As well as that there was a brand new television occupying a corner of the front room!
‘Has your money come then?’ demanded Viv, slamming the pork chops in the frying pan when Mr Kelly had gone.
‘Not yet.’ Hilda popped a mint into her mouth and said, ‘I got them on the H.P., honey. Don’t you worry, I’m not going to demand my rightful share of Father’s money.’
‘Rightful?’ Viv’s voice went up several octaves. Her mother knew just where to touch her on the raw. ‘You’ve got no more moral right to it than the cat! And another thing – what’s Mr Kelly doing here again? We aren’t getting any more decorating done yet. You’re getting yourself talked about, Mam. Before you know it Mrs Kelly will be banging on the door complaining.’
‘No, she won’t,’ sniffed her mother. ‘She’s glad of the extra money for Christmas. I’ve given him more money and asked him to do something about the kitchen for me … get rid of that awful sink.’
‘Doesn’t that man ever go to work?’ cried Viv.
She gave up trying to reason with Hilda and, slightly envious of her mother’s transformation of George’s old room, ordered some bedroom furniture for her own in light oak, consisting of a single wardrobe and a kidney-shaped dressing table with triple mirrors. It cheered her up because on top of having to cope with her mother’s disruptive presence, Nick Bryce had not been in touch.
Sometimes she dreamt of him finding her on a moonlit beach in a rocky cove. He was dressed in Victorian clothes and swept her off her feet and tore the crinoline from her in order to kiss her passionately and make her his own.
She woke in her newly decorated bedroom with racing heart. It was crazy but her dream also reminded her of what Dot had said about The Devil’s Daughter. It set her thinking about her father and she found herself doing something that had never occurred to her before when next she went Christmas shopping. She looked at older men’s faces asking herself: Did my father look a bit like you? It was foolish and she soon stopped when a couple gave her the glad eye.
Christmas week arrived and there was still no answer to her letter from her aunt. Hilda made a comment about it but Viv said it was probably because it was Christmas time. She did not add that she had asked Flora to send the reply to her question to Dot’s house. She did not quite trust her mother not to destroy a letter from Flo. A postcard came from George saying that he was in Paris and painting and was fine. It was a relief to hear from him because she had worried a little. She considered asking Joe Kelly for Nick’s address. If she sent him a Christmas card then he would know that she had not gone to America and perhaps he would call and ask her out. But her pride got in the way and she left it. If he wanted to see her, he could do the chasing.
The day before Christmas Eve Dot asked Viv if she would like to go out for a meal with some of the girls from work and perhaps finish up in a c
lub? Everything had been arranged weeks ago but a couple of the girls had dropped out. Viv had nothing else on and so she said yes.
Her mother was not pleased. ‘I thought we’d be spending Christmas Eve together’ she said irritably, ruffling the pages of the magazine she was reading. ‘I’ll be all on my own. Everyone’s with their families.’
‘Not everybody,’ said Viv. ‘And I’ll be in just after midnight probably.’ She hesitated. ‘We could go down Breck Road together now if you like. I’m not going out till eight.’ She glanced around the front room that had not enjoyed Mr Kelly’s attentions yet. ‘We should have put some decorations up. George and I always did, although Grandfather thought it a waste of time and he’d never countenance a tree.’
Hilda’s expression brightened. ‘We could get some mistletoe and balloons and we could do something about a tree! It’s not too late!’
Viv was surprised by her mother’s enthusiasm and it seemed to her that for a moment she looked much younger. Suddenly Viv felt light hearted herself. It was the first time they had done such a thing together.
They meandered down Breck Road, looking in the brightly lit shop windows and stopping and buying when they saw what they wanted.
‘Perhaps you should get some lights for the tree?’ suggested Hilda. She had bought balloons, tinsel, mistletoe and holly. Viv had splashed out on the tree, a box of crackers, chocolate goodies and little knick knacks for the tree.
Viv was silent a moment. She had dipped into her grandfather’s money for Christmas presents, a new skirt and jumper and the night out, and was reluctant to spend any more. But then a wave of nostalgia swept over her and she was remembering a Christmas at her aunt’s when Mike and George had surprised them with a lit up tree in the front parlour. It was the first Christmas tree that Viv had ever seen and the magic of that moment had stayed with her. A sigh escaped her.
‘You’re right, Mam. We do need lights. A tree’s nothing without lights. What if we go halfy halfy?’
Hilda hesitated then said with a grimace, ‘What the hell? It’s only Christmas once a year.’ So they bought the lights and, loaded up, made their way home to decorate the front room.
