Family of Women

by Annie Murray

  Linda was so glad she’d found the courage to go and look for her aunt. It was like finding a missing piece of a puzzle, a part of the family which she resembled, which could make sense of her feelings that no one else seemed to share. Even Carol, for all her clever liveliness, and all the love she felt for her, was not like her. She was a more settled sort, more like Mom.

  Over those weeks she had thought a lot about things Rosina had told her – about Nana and her mother, and especially Marigold. The information that Marigold had had a baby, when she was only seventeen, had come as an absolute thunderbolt. She’d always felt sorry for Marigold, but now her heart ached for her. Her own baby and Nana had handed it over like a parcel! Hadn’t the house in Aston always been full of babies? Always napkins and washing and a squalling bundle in Nana’s arms. Always the neighbourhood hero, Bessie – isn’t she kind, what a big heart, isn’t she marvellous? – and yet her own grandchild! Her heart had not been big enough to take that one in. And there was Marigold, her pockets full of scraps of songs which she never sang.

  She thought of how she’d felt when her monthly bleed arrived after that night with Alan, the tears of relief which showed her just how much worry she’d been carrying inside her. What if she’d caught for a baby then? It would have been the end of everything! It made her shiver even thinking about it. And Alan? It would have made no difference to him at all. She could have ruined her life for him, for nothing.

  In all the weeks since the accident, she hadn’t seen or heard from Alan.

  At first, after getting home from Rosina’s, amid all the excitement that had raised in her, she felt ashamed of having written to him the way she did. Hadn’t she been a bit of a coward? Shouldn’t she have gone to see him instead, told him face to face? But when she heard nothing, she thought that was that. He had accepted it, maybe shrugged it off. She was free.

  Of course she had had to explain to Mrs Richards what had happened.

  ‘The thing is, I don’t really see Alan any more.’

  ‘Don’t you?’ Mrs Richards was astonished. ‘Why’s that then? He’s such a nice boy, I thought.’

  ‘Well, he is, but . . .’ She shrugged.

  ‘Well I never.’ Mrs Richards looked deflated. ‘That is a shame. I thought I was going to hear the sound of wedding bells before too long.’

  Linda stared at her. ‘I’m only sixteen, you know.’

  ‘Well, I know, bab – but you don’t want to go leaving it too long, do you?’

  Once again Linda had that claustrophobic feeling. For a moment she wanted to scream. But she said nothing. Mrs Richards didn’t mean anything by it. It was just what she was used to.

  Late one afternoon though, at the time he used to appear before, Alan came to the shop.

  ‘Ey-up,’ Linda heard Mrs Richards say. ‘Look who’s here! How’re you, dear? You have been in the wars, haven’t you?’

  He was on crutches, one leg still in plaster.

  He pushed the door shut and came hopping over to the counter. Linda felt panic rising in her. What on earth were they going to say to each other? He looked very thin and frail, his dark hair quite long, collar-length and curling round his face.

  ‘Hello,’ he said to both of them.

  Linda murmured a reply.

  ‘I’ll have a split tin and four doughnuts,’ he said. It was strange to hear his voice again, quiet and well-spoken.

  ‘Jam ones?’ Mrs Richards said, sliding the bread into a bag.

  ‘Yes please.’

  ‘How’re you going to manage, carrying them?’

  He produced a cloth bag. ‘I can use this with the crutches. It’s all right. I’m used to it.’

  Linda felt relieved. Alan talked only to Mrs Richards as she counted the doughnuts into a bag, and she thought perhaps he would not say anything to her, would just go. Perhaps he looked back on his time with her as some stupid mistake. But she knew how much this would hurt as well. It had hurt that he had not written back to her. And then he turned to her.

  ‘Hello.’

  She smiled, with her mouth, keeping her eyes neutral. ‘When did you get out of hospital?’

  ‘Only a couple of weeks ago. I’ve had a lot of trouble with this leg – ’ He indicated his right leg, still in plaster. ‘They’ve had to operate twice. I’ve got a metal pin in it now. They think it’ll be all right, in the end.’

  He looked up at her. ‘Is your arm all right?’

  ‘Yes.’ She lifted it to show him, free of the plaster now. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Go on, Linda.’ Mrs Richards handed Alan his change and he awkwardly put it in his pocket. ‘It’s nearly closing-up time. You go along and help him carry the bag.’

  ‘But . . .’ Linda began.

  ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Alan?’

  Alan looked at her with injured eyes, and nodded. Tersely, he said, ‘I think a conversation might be in order, yes.’

  He said it in such pettish tones that Linda felt immediately annoyed.

  ‘Go on, Linda,’ Mrs Richards urged.

  ‘All right then,’ she said, trying to sound indifferent. She didn’t hurry putting her coat on.

  Once they were outside, in the smoky winter afternoon, they started walking automatically in the usual direction they always used to.

  ‘You could have visited. Just once, couldn’t you?’ His voice was full of hurt and rage. ‘Wouldn’t have killed you – instead of just writing that letter.’

  Her own anger boiled up inside. ‘You bloody nearly killed me – drinking and carrying on like that! Are you going to say sorry as well then? At least I wrote you a letter, which is more than you’ve bothered to do!’

  ‘Well, I was having my legs smashed up and . . . and rebuilt, that’s why. I wasn’t in a fit state . . .’

  ‘And I was worrying I might be having a baby – bet you never thought about that either, did you?’

  There were tears in her voice, to her fury, and she choked the emotion down.

  ‘After all we had – you just write to me like that . . .’ They reached the corner of the street and he stopped, obviously tired from managing the crutches. They were close to the door of a corner shop.

  Linda stood with her fists clenched in the pocket of her old duffel coat, the coat she had bought to look like him. ‘You look like a real student in that,’ one of the others had said to her at the Commercial School. She didn’t want to let his emotion into her, to start feeling sorry for him.

  ‘I had to. I can’t stay with you. I don’t think we’re good for each other, Alan.’

  ‘But I need you.’ He sounded so pathetic now. He moved a little closer, as if he wanted her to put her arms round him. She kept them firmly by her sides.

  ‘You don’t.’

  ‘I do. I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you, Linda.’

  She pushed her chin down and looked at the ground. Their breath was white in the freezing air.

  ‘How’s your mom?’ she asked abruptly. She didn’t really want the answer.

  ‘Bad.’

  She nodded. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Come back with me. I’m so . . .’ He left her to fill in the words: sad, desperate, lonely. His eyes said everything without the words. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

  Tenderness welled in her, and for a moment she imagined going back with him to the big, dark house, to the silence of a place from which his father was almost always absent and to which his mother might or might not ever return. And she would go up to his room, that brown space full of his Westerns and his fantasies of all he wanted to do and it would be just the two of them, the tight, enclosed world they had made together which needed no one else. And she would be with him and be stuck, rooted to the ground unable to get away. Her chest tightened and she had to take a deep breath.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Please . . .’

  His face was distraught. He looked pathetic standing there with his crutches and his cloth bag of bread.

  ‘
If you needed me so much, why have you taken all this time to get here? Or not written?’

  ‘I couldn’t. I was upset.’

  ‘I can’t make things better. I can’t. Even if I was with you, it wouldn’t make any difference.’

  ‘But it would! Remember – we were going to America together. I’ve been writing – while I’ve been in hospital. A script – I finished it. A new one.’ He was speaking very intensely, leaning towards her, resting on the crutches. A woman came out of the shop and walked between them, giving them an odd look.

  Linda looked at Alan. Would he ever go to America? Would he really?

  ‘But it’s not what I want,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to go to America – not really. That’s your dream, not mine.’

  ‘I need you. I don’t know what I might do if you don’t stay with me . . .’

  ‘I’m sorry Alan. I did love you, really I did. But everything’s different now. I can’t stay with you. I’ve got things I want to do.’

  And she turned away and walked off, fast, along the road.

  Chapter Eighty-Four

  Violet closed the door of Rita’s Salon behind her and locked up.

  It was Rita’s afternoon off and it hadn’t been busy – Tuesday afternoon, and a freezing, late November day. She had had two ladies under the dryers until a few minutes before closing time.

  ‘There – all done,’ she said aloud, trying the door to make sure. She felt so proud, being able to take charge, to feel she could manage everything the day threw at her.

  Rita, generous as ever, was talking about renaming the salon ‘Rita and Vi’s’ – ‘or d’you want it to be Violet? Vi sounds more catchy, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes, it does. But there’s no hurry – it’ll cost us a bit doing that, won’t it?’

  She felt secure with Rita. Name or no name over the door, she was part of the business. Her life had a path now, and she had some say in it.

  Walking along the road, past the shops and towards Bloomsbury Road, she felt contented. There was no need to feel ashamed of her house any more – even the front door was now a shiny green, thanks to help from Joe Kaminski. Linda seemed to have decided to take pride in herself – thanks, in some strange way that she didn’t really understand, to Rosina – and Carol was well and thriving.

  She pulled her scarf tighter round her neck. It really was cold. Must be snow on the way. She didn’t want to think about Rosina. Not yet. Not that she ever had any falling-out with Rosina, but it had been so long with no contact, no knowing what bitterness or sadness might lie behind her silence. And Linda wasn’t telling the whole story, that she was sure of. But she couldn’t deal with that now. Not till a few other things were over. Not while she still had Mom to deal with . . .

  Bessie would die. Sooner than they thought, by the look of her. She couldn’t go on for long, not in that state. But it still seemed impossible that the huge, dominating woman who had ruled all their lives would not just get off her bed one day and take over again.

  Violet’d told Marigold she wouldn’t be over today, as she had to work on late, but Mari hadn’t seemed bothered. She had to hand it to her, Violet thought. She was coping ever so well with Mom and Clarence. They always under-estimated Marigold, she realized – had done all her life.

  Her mind ran over what she needed to do. Most days she did this on the way home: Linda should be back soon, Carol would be next door with the Kaminskis, where she went on the days when Violet wouldn’t be home by the end of school. Get some tea on – mince tonight, the meat was in the fridge. Fridge! She was going up in the world! They’d get a television soon, she decided. Save up. It’d be nice to have a bit of chat in the house. She’d never thought she’d miss that when the girls were small, keeping on all the time, but it was surprising how quiet and lonely life could seem now. Mrs Smith down the road had hers on all day, even if there was nothing much on, just the test card. It was company, she said. Brightened the place up.

  As she approached the house she met Mr Bottoms coming the other way, dressed in his neat little mac. It grieved him to speak to her, she could see, even after all these years. He still had them labelled as a ‘problem family’ even though they’d come through most of their problems. They didn’t even have fights about the animals any more – Snowdrop and the dogs were too long in the tooth to cause any trouble. In any case, Reg’s attention had shifted from next door to an anxiety about all the coloureds coming in. Sometimes he talked to her about it over the fence when she was hanging washing out. It wasn’t like this before the war, he would say. Didn’t she think it was wrong, things changing the way they were?

  ‘They’re letting too many in at once. We won’t know where we are soon, if we’re all mixed up together.’

  Even now though, his whole bearing communicated fastidious disdain. As he came closer Violet found herself wondering what it must be like to go to bed with Reg Bottoms (still in his mac?), but the very notion made her want to laugh and she banished it fiercely from her thoughts.

  Reg raised his cap with military precision.

  ‘Aft’noon, Mrs Martin.’

  ‘Afternoon, Mr Bottoms.’

  No first names, even after all this time, no smile, even though her lips were curved upwards. She thought he was going to go straight past but he swung his arm back towards her house.

  ‘Someone there for you.’

  ‘Oh?’ she frowned. ‘Ta.’

  She could feel there was someone else there, like a second sense, even from a distance. He was sitting, waiting for her, on the front step. She stopped at the gate, without going in, and they stared at each other.

  Chapter Eighty-Five

  Roy’s brown eyes were fixed on her calmly, as if there was simply nothing else he could do but be here at this moment.

  ‘I didn’t know I was going to come.’ He stood up, slowly. ‘I was going home from work and I just had to.’ He shrugged.

  ‘How did you –’ her throat had gone dry and she had to swallow – ‘know where I live?’

  ‘Rachel Miller told me. You know, little Bernice’s mother. I’ve known her a while and she mentioned you.’

  Violet walked towards him. Everything felt very strange, with an intensity that made it like a dream.

  ‘No one’s here. Not at the moment,’ she said. ‘You can come in.’

  Automatically she led him through to the back, put the lights on, and the kettle, and felt pleased the room was newly painted and tidy.

  ‘Sit down,’ she urged him.

  Roy sat on the edge of a chair, looking very ill at ease, far more so than the last time they met, as if there were things he had to say and didn’t know where to begin, and seeing this calmed her. It wasn’t just her then: there were things to say.

  ‘Where’s your daughter then? The little one?’

  ‘Next door. My neighbours have her after school. I’ll have to get her soon. There’s time for a cuppa first though. They’re good to her – she likes it there.’

  He looked at her in silence, really looked at her, as if drinking her in.

  ‘How’s the family?’ she asked.

  Roy nodded. ‘All right. It’s not easy, the wheelchair and that.’

  ‘No. I know. It’s a while since we’ve had that now. You still reading your poems?’

  ‘Yes – well, if there’s ever time. Actually, not much really.’

  Violet carefully laid the pot and cups on the table, feeling the neatness of her own movements. She knew he was watching her and it gave her a powerful feeling, but she tried to keep herself calm.

  Turning, she handed Roy his tea and he looked up into her eyes.

  ‘Vi – she’s mine, isn’t she?’

  They each had a thumb on the saucer.

  ‘Your girl – Carol?’

  Shakily she released the saucer and sat down, nodding.

  ‘Yes. She is.’

  ‘Did you know? Before I – before we left, I mean?’

  Before Iris suspected any
thing, before he decided they had to move away, to do the right thing. He had to stick by Iris and the children, and she knew she would have to stick by Harry. She tried not to think of that last evening they had spent together, how she had cried and clung to him, trying to engrave the memory of his body on hers.

  ‘No. I didn’t know. And then, after, I didn’t know where you were. Didn’t think it would help if you knew anyway.’

  ‘But your husband . . . He must have guessed, worked it out?’

  Violet looked down. For some reason, at the mention of Harry, a blush spread over her cheeks.

  ‘He did. But he was in such a state, see. He said things happen in war, lots of things, and we have to go on and forget about it. It came out sometimes, now and then, and he’d have a go at me. But he was so poorly. He suffered a lot. He was in a Jap POW camp.’

  ‘God . . .’

  ‘He was never right after. He passed away, last year.’

  She sipped her tea, feeling like crying and trying not to. Roy watched her.

  ‘You’ve had it bad. I’m so sorry I didn’t know – about the baby, I mean.’

  ‘Couldn’t be helped. When I realized, I was frightened of course, upset. It’s all passed now though, Roy. I’m just so glad to see her walking and happy after all she’s gone through, in and out of St Gerard’s and all that.’

  ‘Yes, they’re marvellous. Philip’s going back soon.’

  ‘How’s Iris?’

  Roy nodded. ‘All right. It’s not been easy, what with the polio and that, losing John, and then how Philip’s been. She just . . . well, as I say, it’s not been easy.’

  There was a silence. Even though they had been talking it was still impossible to say anything very much. Why exactly was he here? Violet wondered. He was still married to Iris, so it was not about her, he had not come back to revive what they had had. The only other reason he could be here, then, was to see Carol.

  ‘Shall I go and get her?’