The Yorkshire Pudding Club

by Milly Johnson

  ‘Great, thank you, but what do you really want?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, using his hand like a big comb through his black hair that had lots of stray grey ones coming through these days. He’d had it freshly cut, just after the point where it started to curl. It made him look younger somehow, and his brown eyes seem larger and darker.

  ‘I just want to be friends again,’ he said. ‘We’re so awkward with each other and we were never like that, so I suppose I’m here to sort it out. We were always good friends and couldn’t you use one of those right now?’

  ‘I’ve got enough friends,’ she said, not understanding why she had to be so snotty with him all the time. She hated herself for it, yet couldn’t seem to stop it.

  ‘You needed a friend the other day in the car park.’

  ‘If you hadn’t come, do you think I’d still be sat there?’ she snapped.

  John got up and strode towards the kitchen door, and then he stopped, took a deep breath, counted to three and swung back to his seat at the table.

  ‘No, I won’t let you drive me out,’ he said. He looked cross, but there was his hand, stroking Cleef, gently as you like.

  ‘Who’s the baby’s father?’ he asked calmly. ‘You said you didn’t know him well.’

  ‘None of your bus—’

  ‘I hear you were going out with Dean Crawshaw at that time. Setting your standards as low as usual, I see. You do realize he’ll be sitting on that same bar stool in the Victoria twenty years from now, just like he was sat on it twenty years ago!’

  Elizabeth closed her eyes against the shame of him knowing about Dean, and noisily started getting some cups out of the super-neat cupboard. John looked around the kitchen: the sparkling worktops, the polished floor, the oven hob so shiny it looked brand new. She used to clean her house until her hands were raw and bleeding because she couldn’t clean out the mess in her head.

  ‘It isn’t his,’ she said. ‘And yes, I’m sure before you ask.’

  ‘What is it all about, Elizabeth? Another way of hurting yourself?’

  ‘How bloody dare you? It wasn’t like that at all!’ she yelled at him.

  ‘Then what was it like, Elizabeth?’

  ‘It…it…’ She nearly told him. She very nearly told him, but he knew too much about her already and that made him dangerous.

  As if he was reading her thoughts at that moment, he said, ‘Do you think I’d tell anyone if you told me? Think I’ve told anyone at all any of that stuff I know about you?’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell. I made a mistake and I’m paying for it, so just get lost, will you!’ she said, and then her eyes started squirting again.

  ‘Oh, come here, you daft beggar,’ he said, and he opened his big arms and forced a quick, safe hug on her just before she pushed him off, before she let herself savour that feeling. She knew he would never try anything on with her, she knew he would not pretend to like her only to get her upstairs, and that is where John Silkstone had always confused her. John Silkstone was a ‘giver’; the takers in life were so much easier to deal with.

  ‘Don’t push me away, Elizabeth,’ he said. ‘Just let me in a little bit, eh? I never wanted us to fall out. I know it was my fault last time–I pushed it, I scared you off and I am sorrier than you could ever know for that, but it’s in the past. This is seven years on and I’m back, so please let us at least get on. I don’t want to dredge up faults and recrimination and blame. I always thought too much about you for all this to have happened and spoiled everything. Can we please just start again, being friends?’

  She nodded and blew her nose on the hankie he snapped out of the tissue box, which stood on the shelf of her Auntie Elsie’s old kitchen dresser. It had been sanded and waxed, sanded and waxed until it was as smooth as the knotty wood would allow. There was a hook on the side; Sam’s dog lead still hung from it that Elizabeth would touch out of habit sometimes when she passed it. They drank their differently flavoured teas quietly and after it, he said goodbye and that he’d see her soon, no doubt, and she hoped that he would, although she didn’t say that aloud. Satisfied by that for now, he went.

  For a long time after he had gone, Elizabeth sat at the table, wiping her leaky eyes on her sleeve, feeling like a snotty kid. Like the snotty, gobby, horrible, rude, unloved, unlovable kid she used to be. Until the day she came for help to the woman whom she hated most in the world; the woman who saved her from the nightmares then. But who was there to save her from them now?

  Chapter 20

  She was running like in one of those dreams when someone chases you, and even though they are only walking, somehow they manage to catch you up. She brayed on that postbox-red door with the letterbox so shiny she could see her face in it. She didn’t have any shoes on and her socks were encrusted with pebbles, but she hadn’t felt them cut into her.

  ‘Please open,’ she said to the door and it did like magic, and she would have jumped up and kissed her Auntie Elsie who was thin and spiky as a nettle, if she’d had time.

  ‘Who are you running from?’ she said, as the child dived past her. ‘And you can get out of that dog-basket and stop being so silly!’

  ‘Shut the door, please, Auntie Elsie, please, please,’ the child screamed, and Auntie Elsie shut it, just in time as the Yale lock had barely engaged when there was another hard bang on the door.

  ‘Auntie Elsie, don’t open it, please!’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘It’s me dad and he wants me to get in bed wi’ him.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘He said, I’d not to go to school, I’d to go to bed and give him a cuddle.’

  Auntie Elsie ignored the hammering at the door and she marched over to the small girl with the wild curly hair and dragged her out from behind the bemused dog in his big wicker-basket bed.

  ‘Elizabeth Collier, what are you talking about? Are you telling me stories?’

  ‘I’m not, I’m not,’ the child sobbed. ‘He made me lie on the bed and said…and said…I’d not to tell.’

  ‘Well, you tell me now. What did your dad do?’

  ‘He…told me I’d not to get dressed for school because I wasn’t going in that day. Then he called me into his bedroom and…and…’

  ‘And what, girl? Speak up!’

  ‘He was lying there on his bed with just his pants and socks on…’

  It hadn’t felt right and it had made her remember what Beverley had said before she ran away from home about not letting him ever ‘start on her’ but she hadn’t understood then. It was only when he started cuddling up to her, that she recognized that this somehow was ‘the starting’. He had never cuddled her before, which was why it was funny he had kept her off school to do it, and it wasn’t nice, she did not like it at all. His slaver smelled of unbrushed teeth and cigarettes, when his mouth had closed over hers and his tongue pushed into her mouth, slimy and snaking about, looping around her own. She wiped her mouth frantically at the memory of it.

  ‘I tried to push him off, Auntie Elsie ’cos he were making funny noises. You’re not supposed to touch children there, are you?’

  ‘Where? Where did he touch you?’

  The child felt hot and uncomfortable pointing down below, then she screamed as the door reverberated in its frame from her father’s determined attempt to gain entry.

  ‘Never mind outside,’ said Auntie Elsie. ‘What happened then?’

  ‘I’ll get done—’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I bit him and ran here.’

  Auntie Elsie looked at the child, from her terrified grey eyes down to the blood coming through her dirty-white socks. Her face blackened like a thundercloud wiping out the sun and the child waited for her to start shouting again, but instead she went to the door, opened it and slammed it behind her. The child crept over to the window and peeped through the safety of the decorative holes in the snow-white lacy nets, listening to the voices. Auntie Elsie was really mad, that much she could tell, a
nd she called her dad a nasty B-word, which sounded funny coming from her auntie because she never swore. She was yelling at him, telling him to stay away or she would call the police and have him up for it. He was shouting back that it was all lies, and he screamed at the window, as if he could see her there.

  ‘Lizzie, get out here now!’ he bawled, and his finger stabbed at the pavement as if that was where she was to come to. Then his voice suddenly dropped and he was talking all nice again, and panic gripped the child as she thought he might get around her Auntie Elsie who had stopped yelling at him now. Then Auntie Elsie slapped him hard around the head and kept slapping him, and he went flying over the corsey edge and lost his shoe. Auntie Elsie waited for him to get up, ignoring his pleas and shooing him off. He walked backwards still talking but her auntie stood firm with her arms on her hips until he had gone. Then she knocked on her own door and Elizabeth let her in. She marched straight over to the cupboard and pulled out a carrier bag stuffed full of others.

  ‘Right, come on, we’re going home,’ she said, sliding her sleeves up her thin arms.

  ‘I’m bloody not and you can’t make me!’

  ‘We’re just getting your things and then you’re coming back here.’

  ‘My dad’ll get me!’

  ‘He won’t, he’ll stay away ’cos he knows what’ll happen if he doesn’t–and if I hear you swearing again, Elizabeth Collier, it’ll be me that’s doing the getting. Now come on!’

  The little girl did not move. Auntie Elsie huffed impatiently. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, get a lead on the dog if it makes you feel better.’

  It did. She pulled Sam’s lead off the hook screwed into the side of her auntie’s old kitchen dresser and the big black dog stood tail a-wagging whilst she fastened it round his neck. He was soft, was Sam, but she knew he would bite for her if he had to, she just knew he would.

  ‘Are you all right to walk? You better put my slippers on,’ said Auntie Elsie, passing over a long tartan pair with a bobble at the toes. ‘Come on, look sharp!’

  She held out her hand and the child took it for the first time ever. It was thin and bony but the grip was tight, strong and safe, and between her auntie and big, black Sam, she flip-flopped down the street in the direction of that place she would never again call home.

  When they came back struggling with bags, Elsie pulled the girl square in front of her and wagged a finger in her face.

  ‘Now listen, I’m putting you in what used to be your grandma’s room, and if you don’t behave yourself here or at school, she’ll come down from heaven and tell you off, do you understand?’

  The child nodded and then Auntie Elsie took her upstairs into the back bedroom with the dressing-table with the hairbrushes arranged on top of it and the big bevelled mirror behind it and the high iron bed that she used to sneak in and bounce on whenever she went up to the toilet. They were going to hang her clothes up in the dark wooden wardrobe but her Auntie Elsie said they were all hacky and she’d have to wash them properly again for now but they would go to the School Shop to buy her some more. Auntie Elsie chased Sam downstairs because he wasn’t allowed up, but she must have known later that he came up every night and turned his three heavy circles before flumping down on the mat at the side of the child’s bed.

  Auntie Elsie gave her boiled ham and over-diluted orange juice for tea but this time it tasted like a feast for her stomach and her heart. She asked her questions about Bev and the child told her she thought Bev must have run off to hospital because she kept being sick and was getting fat. Auntie Elsie said, ‘Dear God,’ a lot and sniffed and was lovely to her after that.

  And there they lived, the three of them in Rhymer Street. Then, when Elizabeth was eighteen, Sam died in his sleep and before the month had ended, Auntie Elsie had gone the same way.

  Chapter 21

  For once Janey and George were fulfilling their stereotypical roles. Janey was halfway through the ironing in the kitchen, George was gardening. He caught sight of her watching him through the window and he waved and smiled. He wiped some sweat off his forehead and started digging again and Janey’s heart went as fluttery as it did when he turned up for that first date wearing the big plastic flower. He was taking advantage of a fine Sunday and had started to level out the ground to make a patio for them to enjoy when the summer came. They had a nice big garden and he’d built a fence around it so they were as private as a terraced house could be, although most of the people on the row were old and it wasn’t as if they needed to be that secluded. The wild parties were thin on the ground, although there was the occasional slanging match when someone had over-pruned a tree that was hanging over their boundary.

  George broke off for a cuppa and came into the kitchen with his old gardening clothes on, big gloves and smelling of earth, although it might well have been powdered rhino horn, monkey glands and oysters for the effect it had on Janey–this same Janey who was supposed to get turned on by clean suits and nice white-collar ties. It was like a switch going on inside her that opened all roads to every part of her body that was even slightly receptive to a sexual hormone.

  ‘Come here, you,’ she crooned and he did, but protesting that he was all scruffy and the dirt would come off on her clothes. Like she cared; she wanted to be filthy and most of all, at that moment, she wanted him to run his big, dirty hands all over her. She switched off the iron; she wouldn’t be needing it for a bit. He was laughing as he pushed her away for her own good, but she grabbed his gloved hands and stuck them on her fast increasing chest and that was the end of that battle. She hoisted herself up on the kitchen table and they pushed each other’s clothes aside because they couldn’t wait to take them off. Her hand was in the butter dish at one point and the box of Yorkshire teabags clattered to the floor as both parties orgasmed noisily and fast and together, like they did in films. Then Janey made her husband a cuppa and they fed each other fingers of Kit Kat before he went back to the patio and she carried on with her ironing.

  It was touch and go whether the sheets would dry with it being as chilly as it was, but it was a bright day and there was a bit of breeze so Elizabeth decided to risk it. She loved the smell of fresh air on the sheets, and the bed always felt cleaner and softer on those first nights when they were put on. Her washing billowed like sails on a ship and whilst it dried, she got on with making herself a light lunch. She picked out an olive from the jar on the yellow worktop whilst she was buttering the toast, then another and another. She had not known really what possessed her to buy them because she had never bought a jar of olives in her life, but as she was passing down the aisle in the supermarket they seemed to call to her and looked so plump and succulent with their bright red stuffed centres. She had been eating them like crisps ever since and thought maybe this was one of those ‘cravings’ that she had always presumed was a joke symptom, manufactured by comedy writers so that they could poke fun at how mad women go during pregnancy.

  She rang Janey for a quick hello whilst she was scoffing. ‘What are you two up to then?’

  ‘I’m just finishing off some ironing, George is in the garden.’

  ‘What do you think of olives?’

  ‘Olive who?’ said Janey, who sounded far too breathy for someone who was only supposed to be ironing.

  ‘No, you dummy, olives as in the fruit or vegetable or whatever they are.’

  ‘Oh sorry, olives in jars, you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yeurch, can’t stand them,’ said Janey. ‘Why are you asking me about olives?’

  ‘I’ve got a thing for them at the moment.’

  ‘It’ll be your body telling you you’re deficient in something.’

  ‘Well, it’s never told me before that I’m olive deficient!’ Elizabeth replied. ‘How come you’re all breathless?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later,’ said Janey, although from her smiley tone of voice it wasn’t difficult to work out.

  ‘So you’re having “cravings” as well then?�
� said Elizabeth cheekily.

  ‘Yes, and mine are a bit more exciting than bloody olives, I can tell you that for nothing!’ said Janey, watching George digging through the kitchen window, whilst absently licking her lips. ‘You excited about tomorrow, chuck?’ she went on, turning her attentions back to the telephone. ‘First-day nerves setting in yet?’

  ‘I don’t know what I feel.’ Elizabeth attempted an examination of her emotions, but they were all mixed up as usual. ‘What about you, Mrs Manager? How are you feeling about tomorrow? You nervous?’

  ‘Me? I’m raring to go, mate,’ said Janey. ‘In fact, when I’ve finished this off, I’m going to start cutting out a couple of very nice maternity suits, seeing as I’ll be executive status starting tomorrow. There’s hardly any choice in the shops, so I’m back to full-on stitching days again.’

  ‘Clever girl,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Right, I suppose I better let you get to it then.’

  ‘Well, good luck and enjoy your olives,’ said Janey. George’s chunky, biteable bottom was sticking up in the air. She thought she might just have to switch off the iron permanently this time.

  ‘I’ll ring you at the end of the week to see how you got on ’cos you can’t always tell on your first day, can you?’ said Elizabeth. ‘Then you can tell me how your scan went as well.’

  ‘Yes, we’ll compare notes. Have you heard from Helen? She rang me last night to wish me luck for tomorrow but she sounded awful.’

  ‘She rang me as well,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Poor love. I’ll ring her in a bit and see how she is.’

  ‘Good luck, chuck.’

  ‘Knock ’em dead, Fred.’

  Elizabeth put another load of washing in. She knew it was ridiculous but she wouldn’t lie on the sheets she had shared with Dean until they had been washed and washed and washed, until something inside told her they were finally clean of him. She had scrubbed the house from top to bottom after he had gone, anything and everything that he might have touched had been bleached and sprayed and wiped, but the sheets still felt contaminated, although she reckoned this wash might do it. They had been a birthday present from Helen last year so she didn’t want to throw them away. They were thick Egyptian cotton white sheets, pillowcases and a duvet cover, and Janey had bought her two down-filled pillows and stitched up some small lavender bags to stick in the pillowcases with them. Maybe they hadn’t been the most traditional presents but she had mentioned that she hadn’t been sleeping too well, and being the sort of people they were, her friends had picked up on it. She decided to ring Helen. It didn’t seem fair that she was having such a rough time, seeing as out of the three of them, she was the only one who wanted to get pregnant in the first place.