‘Fight, mitch off school, drink, smoke ...’ Martin interceded.
‘I’ll grant you I messed up,’ Jack admitted. ‘But I won’t let him make the mistakes I did.’
‘You’re sure it’s a boy?’ Martin smiled for the first time since he’d entered the room.
‘Absolutely and Helen agrees with me.’
‘And if it’s a girl?’
‘We’ll know the hospital switched him at birth.’ Jack picked up his case. ‘I’ll take this round to the flat, then I’ll be with you.’
‘If you’re any longer than five minutes Adam will haul you out,’ Martin warned.
‘Let him try. I’ve no intention of crawling through tomorrow with a hangover after a skinful tonight.’ Jack winked broadly. ‘I’ve made plans with Helen that require me to be one hundred and ten per cent on form.’
Despite his misgivings, Martin couldn’t help laughing as Jack changed his tune from ‘With This Ring’ to ‘The Magic Touch’.
Martin opened the wardrobe and spread his clothes out along the rail after Jack left. Neither of them had much in the way of possessions but with only his hairbrushes on the chest of drawers and mechanics’ manuals on the shelf in the alcove next to the boarded-up fireplace, the room looked bare and empty.
‘Jack all right?’ Their old flatmate Brian Powell, who’d returned from London for the wedding, looked in on him.
‘You know Jack.’
‘He and Helen will be fine,’ Brian insisted confidently.
‘He seems to think so.’
‘Big brother not convinced?’ Brian took a packet of Players from his shirt pocket and offered Martin one.
‘Someone has to worry about him.’ Taking the cigarette, Martin pushed it between his lips and felt in his pockets for his matches.
‘It’s amazing the changes a month has made. The Jack I knew spent his evenings and weekends servicing his motorbike and testing brew strengths in pubs, not picking out colour schemes and decorating. And I overheard Lily telling Judy that all Helen can talk about is bed linen, saucepans and recipes.’ Brian pulled his lighter from his shirt pocket and lit Martin’s cigarette, then his own.
Martin closed the door of the wardrobe. ‘I just can’t believe that as of tomorrow my kid brother is going to be a married man.’
‘With a cracking wife.’
‘They’re so young.’
‘Lose the gloom, Marty. You sound more like forty than twenty-one.’
‘They both have a temper.’
‘So they’ll throw a few pots and pans at one another.’ Brian shrugged his shoulders.
‘One or both of them could end up in hospital.’
‘Before that honeymoon glow wears off, they’ll have a baby to take care of and from what I’ve seen of nippers they’ll be too exhausted to do anything except survive until the next sleepless night.’ Taking the ashtray Martin handed him, Brian sat on the bed. ‘And then it will be, “Uncle Martin, please take over, just for one night so we can get some sleep.”’
‘Me? I know nothing about babies.’
Amused by the panic-stricken expression on Martin’s face, Brian adopted a look of mock gravity. ‘Then it’s high time you learned. Let’s see, there’s folding and changing nappies but that’s best left until after it’s born. Boys’ are folded different from girls’; get it wrong and you could warp the poor mite for life.’
‘You’ve got to be joking.’
‘I assure you I’m not.’ Leaning back, Brian blew a smoke ring at the ceiling. ‘There’s making up bottles, that can be really complicated, you have to check the mix and temperature of the milk is just right and that the nipper is fed at the right pace. Too fast and it will throw up – and always over your best suit, shirt and tie. Too slow and it will starve and yell its head off, but before that you ought to know how to hold a baby so it doesn’t fall apart. The best winding techniques ...’
‘What’s winding?’ Martin looked sideways at Brian.
‘As you’ll find out, everything’s connected to one end or the other.’
‘And how come you know so much about babies?’ Martin questioned suspiciously.
‘I have twelve nieces and nephews.’
‘You’re kidding.’ Despite having lived with Brian for several months, Martin had never quite been able to tell the difference between some of his more peculiar jokes and his attempts to impart serious advice.
‘I wish. Would you like me to begin with the significance of nappy contents?’
‘This is the living room. Like the bedroom and kitchen, we’ve had to make do with Dad’s old furniture, but I’ve tried to give it a contemporary look.’ Helen opened the door at the end of the passage in the basement of her father’s house, switched on the light and stood back, watching Judy’s face as she entered the room.
‘It’s gorgeous, Helen, and so big. The new window is huge. It must be light and airy in daytime.’
‘It is. The builders lengthened this room when they extended the bedroom to make room for the bathroom. Dad said it didn’t cost that much more to square off the back of the house but it’s made a lot of difference in here.’
‘Wherever did you get this material?’ Judy fingered the black, white and red check heavy-duty linen decorated with yellow bows that covered the three-piece suite.
‘The warehouse. Dad sold us a bale at cost and Lily helped me sew it up. She made the curtains too.’ Helen smiled at Lily as she joined them.
‘Clever Lily.’
‘I had a good teacher in Auntie Norah.’ Lily looked critically at the pleats she’d set on top of the curtains and wondered what her foster mother would have made of her efforts.
‘You must miss her,’ Judy sympathised. They fell silent, remembering the widow who’d brought Lily up and had been the friend and confidante of practically every woman in Carlton Terrace.
‘Jack decorated this room too.’ Helen ran her fingers over the red wallpaper that covered the boxing in on the fireplace that now housed a small gas fire. ‘With Marty and their new flatmate Sam’s help. Lily’s Uncle Roy kept an eye on them but they did well. Even Dad was surprised by the job they made of it. The building work cost a small fortune. Jack and I felt guilty enough without sticking Dad with the bill for painting and papering the place as well, but he’ll get his money back in rent. Not that Jack and I intend to stay here for ever. As soon as we’ve saved enough for a deposit we’re going to look for our own place.’ Helen wiped a speck of dust from the Formica coffee table with her finger. Its striking black and white geometric design matched the shade on the standard lamp behind the sofa.
‘More wedding presents?’ Judy asked.
‘From Martin and me,’ Katie volunteered.
‘We’ve had some lovely things.’ Helen opened an old-fashioned china cabinet. ‘Joe bought us this black and white contemporary dinner and tea set; we’re keeping it for best and using a cheap one from the warehouse for every day. Lily’s Uncle Roy gave us a stainless steel cutlery set; Lily found some marvellous stainless-steel kitchen utensils. You have to see them to appreciate their shape. They’re really unusual and ...’ She saw Judy exchange an amused look with Lily. ‘Sorry, I know I go on a bit but I can’t wait to move in and start using everything.’
‘You’ll have to teach Jack how to use some things.’ Katie switched the lamp on and the main light off so they could admire the effect. ‘I don’t think he’d recognise a duster or a dishcloth, let alone that carpet sweeper your aunt gave you.’
‘This room is really smart.’ Judy sat in one of the armchairs. ‘Comfy too,’ she added as she settled back against the cushions.
‘We think so.’ Helen sat on the sofa opposite her.
‘I can’t believe one of us is actually getting married. It seems so ...’
‘Grown up,’ Lily finished for Judy. She looked at the others and they all laughed.
A thud echoed in from the garden. Helen peered through the window into the darkness and saw a suitcase in th
e middle of her father’s onion bed. A few seconds later Jack landed beside it.
‘Idiot! My father’s always going on about the mess Jack’s made of his vegetable plot by vaulting the wall instead of walking round. He’ll kill him if he sees him.’ Running into the passage, she opened the back door.
‘Sorry,’ Jack apologised sheepishly, as he retrieved his suitcase.
‘You’ll be sorrier still if my father sees you.’
‘He has.’ Jack waved cautiously to Helen’s father who opened his kitchen window on the floor above.
‘Thank God you two are getting married tomorrow,’ John Griffiths shouted down. ‘I don’t think my garden will stand another day of your courtship.’
‘Sorry, Mr Griffiths, I didn’t think.’ Drawing Helen towards the back door, Jack pulled her out of sight of the living room window and the ones on the floor above. ‘Got a kiss for the bridegroom?’ Without waiting for Helen to reply, he bent his head, kissing her slowly and thoroughly before caressing her breasts with his fingertips, evoking sensations they both knew from past experience could easily spiral out of control.
Reluctantly she pushed him away. ‘Someone could come to the door.’
‘You won’t be able to say that tomorrow,’ he whispered.
‘I won’t want to – tomorrow. Just think, twenty-four hours from now we’ll be Mr and Mrs Clay and almost in London. In the middle of the theatres, shops ...’
‘Not too many expensive trips,’ he warned. ‘We need to save for the baby and our own house, remember.’
‘Looking costs nothing,’ she continued, undeterred. ‘And there’s the sights, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Harrods ...’
‘All the sights I want to see will be in a hotel bedroom furnished with a large and hopefully comfortable double bed.’ He nuzzled her neck.
‘You’ve a one-track mind, Jack Clay.’ She laughed, evading his touch.
‘Only when you’re around.’
As he twined his fingers gently in her hair and pulled her head to his again, Adam shouted from the other side of the wall.
‘If you’re not over here in sixty seconds, Jack, we’re going down the Rose without you.’
Ignoring Adam, Jack kissed Helen again.
‘The girls are here.’ Helen broke free as voices drifted in from the basement living room.
‘Send them away. We’ll have a quiet night in and christen that new mattress.’
‘On your stag night?’
‘I know exactly how I want to celebrate and it isn’t getting drunk with the boys.’ He slid his hands beneath her sweater.
‘It’s tradition.’ She tried to push past him, but he cornered her against the wall.
‘To hell with tradition.’ His fingers slipped the hooks at the back of her brassiere.
‘Just as it’s tradition that the bride spend the night before her wedding with her girlfriends.’ She trembled as he succeeded in freeing her breasts and closed his hands round them.
‘You want to?’ His dark eyes glittered with a look she was becoming familiar with.
Just as she was about to say ‘no’ Judy’s laughter rang out from the living room. ‘They’re already here. Please, Jack.’ Twisting her hands behind her back, she struggled to refasten the hooks.
‘Every married man I know complains his wife won’t let him go down the pub. You’re throwing me out before we’re even married.’
‘Stag nights are different.’
He rehooked her bra. ‘I’ll go, but only because I’ll have you all to myself from two o’clock tomorrow.’ Seeing dirt on his suitcase, he lifted it towards the light and brushed it down. ‘Shall I leave this in the bedroom?’
‘Please.’ Helen felt suddenly and inexplicably shy as she followed him in through the back door and down the passage to the bedroom.
He dropped his case on the rug at the foot of the bed and looked around. ‘You’ve put the eiderdown Brian and Judy gave us on the bed.’
‘You like it?’
‘Even I can see it goes great with the lamps and wallpaper.’
‘I mentioned the colour scheme to Judy in one of my letters, but she sent a sample to Lily before buying it, just to be sure.’ She glanced at his case. ‘Do you want me to unpack for you?’
‘There’s only a couple of shirts, trousers and some underclothes. I can do it.’
‘The boys are waiting.’
‘I meant when we come back from honeymoon.’
‘Everything will be creased by then, silly.’ The thought of his clothes hanging next to hers in the wardrobe and his presence in the intimacy of the bedroom she had expended so much thought and time on brought the realisation just how close their lives would be from tomorrow on.
‘Happy?’ he questioned, concerned by the preoccupied expression on her face.
‘I’ll be happier tomorrow night.’
Gathering her in his arms, he tickled the soft skin at the base of her ear. ‘Everything’s going to be perfect. I’m going to take good care of you and’ – he patted her stomach – ‘little Jack.’
‘I thought we’d settled on Dirk after Dirk Bogarde.’
‘You settled on Dirk, I settled on Jack. We have another six and a half months to argue about it.’
‘I didn’t agree to that.’
‘I only settled it with myself.’ Hearing laughter, he glanced behind him to see Judy, Lily and his sister in the passage.
‘The honeymoon’s supposed to start after the wedding, Jack,’ Judy reminded him tactlessly.
‘What have you girls planned for tonight?’
‘Babycham, sherry...’ Helen began.
‘Beauty treatments, girl talk – and peace from all men,’ Judy added tartly.
Jack gave Helen a last hug before releasing her. ‘Take it steady with the drink, love.’
‘That’s great advice coming from someone on their way to the Rose,’ Judy retorted. ‘I bet a penny to a pound none of you will be sober an hour from now.’
‘You’re on,’ he agreed.
‘How would we know?’
‘You can check with Brian.’
‘He’ll be the first to get legless.’
Sensing an edge to Judy’s voice, Jack turned back to Helen. ‘Bye, sweetheart. See you tomorrow.’
‘I’ll be there.’ As he kissed her again, Helen wished she had the courage to defy convention and do as he suggested, send the girls away and spend not only the evening but also the night with him.
‘If you’re giving out beauty advice, Judy, I’d be grateful for some,’ Lily followed the other two up the stairs to the ground floor as Helen locked the basement.
‘With your skin and hair, you don’t need any. What’s this?’ Judy asked as Helen’s brother, Joe, wheeled a trolley loaded with plates and bottles out of the dining room.
‘Surprise for the bride.’ He pushed it into the living room. ‘Thought you girls might be peckish.’ He said ‘you girls’ but Judy, Helen and Katie noticed he only had eyes for Lily. They also noticed that she refused to meet his gaze.
‘You made us sandwiches?’ Helen asked suspiciously.
‘Actually ... no. I asked Mrs Jones to cut them, but I did buy the sausage rolls and pasties in the baker’s and I picked up some extra Babychams and cocktail cherries in case you ran out.’
‘This is a girls’ night in, Joe,’ Helen said ungraciously.
‘Which is why I’m meeting Robin in ten minutes. We may even call in on my soon-to-be brother-in-law’s bachelor party.’
‘The two of you?’ Helen was amazed. Joe and his friend Robin were final-year university students, ‘stuck-up snobs’ in the eyes of Jack and his friends who saw condescension and arrogance in every overture they made, in her opinion with some reason. Bolstered by mid-course examination successes and the publication of his poetry in local magazines, Joe’s belief in his own social and intellectual superiority had grown to an irritating level.
‘Why not? We can’t study all the time and the fin
als are weeks away.’ Checking his pocket to make sure he had his keys, he opened the front door. ‘Enjoy your last night of freedom, sis.’
‘Pints of best all round, a drink for yourself and one of your specials for the bridegroom.’ Adam winked at the brassy middle-aged barmaid, as he thrust his hand in his pocket and pulled out a handful of change.
‘Bit early to start on the shorts,’ Brian cautioned, as he watched Lettie pour three measures of vodka into one of the beer mugs.
‘Can’t send a condemned man to the gallows sober.’
‘After one of those, Jack won’t be capable of standing upright,’ Brian demurred.
‘Jack can outdrink any of us.’
‘Only if he sticks to beer. Here, I’ll give you a hand.’ Taking two of the glasses, Brian returned to the table that Jack, Martin and Sam had commandeered.
‘Pint, Jack.’ John Griffiths set a full glass in front of him.
‘Cheers and thank you, Mr Griffiths. Why don’t you join us?’ Jack moved his chair to make room for John to sit at the table.
‘I’m with a party in the lounge bar, but thank you for the invitation.’
‘Maybe later?’ Jack not only respected but had grown fond of John Griffiths during the past few weeks. Instead of being outraged when he’d broken the news of Helen’s pregnancy, John had welcomed him as a prospective son-in-law, conjuring solutions for all the practical problems like finding them somewhere to live and giving him a reasonably paid permanent job in his warehouse, so he’d be able to support Helen and the baby.
‘If I can, Jack,’ John replied. ‘Enjoy your night.’
‘His scars are even worse close up,’ Sam whispered to Jack, as John limped away. ‘How did he get them?’
‘He was burned in a fire.’
‘Recently?’
‘When he was a kid.’
‘It’s made one hell of a mess of his face and hand.’
Swansea Girls Page 46
