Coronation Wives

by Lizzie Lane

  ‘Janet will help. She can’t wait for Susan to come home either,’ said Edna.

  Colin wondered if there was an underlying barb in what she said, that she was accusing him of not caring enough about his daughter coming home, but he was too busy to dwell on it.

  On the day of Susan’s homecoming, Edna dashed out to the front gate clasping her unbuttoned cardigan tightly across her chest. The ambulance bringing Susan would probably enter from the end where Kingscott Avenue joined the main road. There was no sign of it. Just in case it took an alternative route, she checked the other end too. The mobile shop, a converted baker’s van that stocked nothing much more enterprising than Oxo cubes and corned beef, was the only vehicle in sight at that end of the street.

  She went out twice more before a vehicle she recognized did enter the street. Charlotte pulled into the kerb and waved. Ivan was in the passenger seat and there were packages in the back.

  ‘Hello, darlings!’ she cried.

  Colin waved from the door. Peter stood at his side and Pamela was in his arms.

  ‘Besides bringing Ivan, I’ve brought these,’ Charlotte said, handing Edna the packages, which were brightly wrapped in pink and pistachio green. ‘Chocolate Easter eggs from London. Janet arranged for Dorothea to collect them while on her honeymoon. Isn’t that incredible? Sometimes I think it’s quite wonderful to have a brand new daughter-in-law.’

  Edna did not question what it was like the rest of the time. She didn’t know Dorothea very well, but wasn’t entirely sure she was quite the right girl for Geoffrey.

  ‘I also brought this,’ said Charlotte exuberantly. ‘Ivan? If you could just get on the other end …’

  Ivan exchanged a bemused look with Colin, but did as he was told. Between him and Charlotte, a brightly painted banner unfurled saying ‘Welcome Home, Susan’.

  ‘We could tie one end onto that tree,’ said Charlotte indicating a particularly spindly rowan that looked lucky to have survived the winter, ‘and the end of the canopy above the porch. What do you think?’

  She hadn’t really wanted an answer from Edna, that much was obvious in the way she dragged the banner forward, Ivan trailing behind it.

  ‘You can’t,’ Edna blurted.

  Charlotte looked at her. ‘Why ever not?’

  Edna nodded in the direction of two women, watching from either side of a garden gate two houses along the road. One or two other neighbours eyed what was going on from their gardens while forking the earth around spears of tulip, daffodil and narcissus.

  ‘There’s a few more watching from the bedroom windows,’ Edna added, lowering her eyes.

  Charlotte looked taken aback, but certainly not put off the task in hand. ‘Perhaps they want to welcome her home too,’ she suggested.

  Edna shook her head. ‘Oh no, they don’t. Peter came in crying last night. They’ve told their children not to play with him just in case they get something.’

  ‘That’s nonsense!’ Charlotte said loudly. ‘I should know. I’m a doctor’s wife!’ The watching women fidgeted. ‘I’ll have a word with them later,’ she added. She noted how quiet Edna was, how nervous she looked. Best, she decided, to be as jolly as possible.

  Ivan refolded the banner and placed it at the side of the two steps that led up to the front door.

  ‘Is your father here?’ Charlotte asked.

  ‘Yes. Is Janet coming?’

  ‘She will be.’ Charlotte slipped her arm into Edna’s. ‘Let’s go inside. Ivan will take care of things out here.’

  She threw him a certain look, a Charlotte look that said almost as much as words. Ivan grinned to himself once they’d all gone inside. Goodness, but she was a strong woman, more forceful by far than any of these housewifely types that were eyeing both him and the house with distrust.

  The house was overheated and Charlotte was forced to shrug off her coat. Nuts of burning coke glowed dull red in the fire grate. Edna’s father dozed in a chair at the side of the fire, his head to one side, mouth wide open, his empty teacup sliding slowly from his lap towards his knees. Colin grabbed it. The action was swift and soft, but enough to wake the old man up.

  He blinked and straightened up. ‘Is she here?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Colin, raising his voice slightly so he could hear better. ‘I’ll make some more tea. Do you want another cup?’

  Edna’s father said he did.

  Edna was looking out of the front window towards the road, her face white with tension. ‘There’s another car,’ she said and headed for the door.

  She did not recognize the man behind the wheel of the big black car as it eased into the kerb, but she did recognize his passenger.

  Smile as wide as the Severn, Polly stepped out of the car, her many petticoats swishing and crackling against her nylon stockings as she placed one high-heeled court shoe onto the pavement.

  ‘I brought you this,’ she said to Edna as she kissed her cheek and handed her a carrier bag. ‘Easter eggs,’ she said proudly and threw a swift glance over her shoulder. ‘Mickey got them for me.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Edna found it hard to say anything else. She’d wanted Susan to be in the car, which was silly really. Susan would be coming home by ambulance. And Polly looked so … like Marilyn Monroe, she thought; the hair bleached almost blizzard white; the glossy red lips, the low-cut bodice of her dress, the nipped-in waist, the height of her heels. How could anyone walk in shoes like that?

  ‘Are you and your friend …’ Edna dipped her head in order to see the driver better, meaning to invite both of them in, but Polly interrupted.

  ‘We have to go.’ She nodded and waved at Ivan, who appeared to be doing something along by the hedge.

  ‘Haven’t you got an inside privy?’ Polly asked, presuming that Ivan was answering the call of nature.

  Edna frowned. ‘What?’

  Polly shook her shiny head and got into the car. ‘No matter. Have a nice party. Give Susan my love.’

  ‘Aren’t you staying?’

  ‘No.’ Polly looked away, her expression as sharp as her reply. ‘We have to go.’

  There was no time to ask about Carol and why she wasn’t here for the party. Polly, the car and her secret male escort were gone.

  Edna barely acknowledged Ivan as she went back inside, the string handle of the carrier bag cutting into her fingers.

  ‘More Easter eggs,’ she said to Colin as she slammed the bag down on the table. ‘But she isn’t stopping and she hasn’t brought Carol. Yet another one too frightened to come near us.’

  ‘Oh no!’ said Charlotte. ‘You’ve got it all wrong.’

  She went on to explain what was going on and that it had nothing to do with catching anything – except a criminal. Explaining Polly’s relationship with O’Hara was the difficult part and impossible to gloss over. ‘I didn’t like to tell you.’ She glanced guiltily at Colin then looked away. ‘Especially seeing as Billy’s a friend of yours.’

  ‘The little …’ Colin began, but suddenly changed tack. ‘What am I saying? Billy and Polly are two of a kind. She’s no angel, but then neither is he.’

  Edna lost interest in the conversation. The fact that Polly might be having an affair was of far less importance than her daughter’s welfare. Again she went outside, down the garden path, her cardigan wrapped around her as a shower of rain sprinkled her shoulders before a gusty breeze blew it away. Pavements sparkled under sudden sunlight and trickling water tinkled like fairy bells along gutters and down drainpipes.

  Edna shaded her eyes against the brightness. Again she looked towards the most likely end of the street, then again in the other direction. The avenue seemed so empty. Even the mobile shop had gone.

  Disappointed, she turned towards the house. Halfway up the garden path, a voice called, ‘Here it comes. Here it comes!’

  She turned and was vaguely aware that Ivan was getting out of Charlotte’s car. She’d completely forgotten him. He’d obviously taken shelter from the rain.

&nb
sp; ‘Here it is,’ he said, smiling and pointing towards the junction of Kingscott Avenue and the main road.

  Edna raced back to the gate, the metal cold but unnoticed beneath her clenched hands. Neighbours watched too.

  Silvery metallic and gleaming in a sudden splash of sunlight, the ambulance stopped. Edna’s father, Colin, Peter, and Charlotte with Pamela in her arms all came tumbling out of the front door.

  The doors of the ambulance were opened, and Colin’s arm slid around Edna’s shoulders. She hardly noticed him. Her heart was drumming in her ears. Susan was home and nothing else mattered.

  ‘Surprise!’

  The first person down from the ambulance was Janet. She was wearing a straw hat decorated with artificial fruit and a circlet of small, yellow chickens painted on cardboard.

  The ambulance men grinned as co-conspirators. Bursts of giggles came from within the ambulance. Susan was in a wheelchair.

  Charlotte’s voice rang out and even captured the neighbours’ attention. ‘Three cheers for Susan!’

  ‘Hip, hip, hooray!’

  For the first time in many, many months, Edna’s face burst into a mask of joy instead of desperation.

  ‘Well, you’re a sight to behold,’ said Colin.

  Peter was standing open-mouthed. ‘Can I have one like that?’

  He meant the wheelchair. Besides the fact that Susan’s cheeks were coloured a vivid cochineal, she also was wearing an Easter bonnet and a large spotted bow around her neck. Brightly coloured crepe paper covered the frame of the wheelchair. Mirrors were fixed on each chair arm. Two more were fixed at head height onto the back of the seat. Balloons, no doubt filled with helium from the hospital supply, were tied all over it. On top of that a piece of wood was fastened across the front and, at its centre, was a steering wheel. Edna recognized it as being one of those used on the toy pedal cars Colin made at the factory.

  Colin planted a big kiss on Susan’s cheek. ‘Glad to have you home, love.’

  Edna hugged her, but was suddenly aware that Susan was leaning to one side and peering over her shoulder.

  ‘Mummy! You’ve made a banner just like people put up for the Queen when she got crowned.’

  Edna looked over her shoulder and eyed the banner that she’d told Charlotte not to put up. So that was why Ivan was loitering out here! There it was, fastened along the outside of the hedge that faced the road. No matter how many times she’d run out to the front gate, she could not possibly have seen it.

  ‘Forgive me,’ said Ivan, but Edna just gazed happily into her daughter’s face, and then less happily at the various neighbours who were looking back at her.

  They were back in the house before the rain started. More tea was made, cake handed out, and the Easter eggs admired.

  Janet had presumed that Edna would put the eggs back for Easter Sunday. She actually put only two of them back, but broke a quarter off the other one, which she handed to Susan.

  ‘And me,’ whined Peter holding out his hand.

  ‘No,’ said Edna, slapping it away. ‘You’ll have yours on Sunday. Susan’s been ill. She deserves a little treat.’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ said Colin. ‘This is a celebration for everyone.’

  Janet sensed the tension between them, took out a chocolate egg from the carrier bag Polly had left and broke it into pieces. ‘I’m sure Polly won’t mind them having some now,’ she said.

  Janet half-expected Edna to protest, but she didn’t. It wasn’t, she decided, that Edna was purposely being cruel to Peter and Pamela. Susan was home and, for now, was the centre of attention. Things would settle down in time.

  ‘I’m going to wash my hands,’ said Janet. Pamela had been particularly messy with the chocolate.

  Edna’s next comment took her by surprise. ‘There’s no need to. You won’t catch anything.’

  ‘I didn’t think I would.’

  ‘I keep everything a lot cleaner than I used to. No one will get polio in this house ever again.’

  Colin interrupted. ‘Now look here, love …’

  Edna appeared not to notice him. ‘Germs are everywhere. We have to be vigilant. I don’t think I was vigilant enough.’

  Janet almost shivered as the feeling of guilt returned, but forced herself to rise above it. ‘Before he died, my father said that polio could be picked up anywhere – including swimming pools.’

  ‘Swimming baths,’ said Edna.

  Susan pressed a piece of chocolate into Janet’s hand. ‘That’s for taking me to Clevedon,’ she said, a happy smile on her firm, round features.

  Janet looked at her, this child whom she had cosseted as much as she could when no one else could get near her. Susan had just provided the opening for what Janet wanted to say. It came out in a rush. ‘Susan fell in the swimming pool on the day we went to Clevedon. Surely I’m more to blame than you are.’

  ‘I know,’ said Edna.

  ‘You know?’

  Edna smiled. ‘Of course. But the pool at Clevedon is a swimming pool full of seawater that goes in and out with the tide. It’s not a swimming bath, is it? It’s a pool!’

  Edna’s logic sounded reasonable, though Janet wasn’t sure how it filled and whether a pool was different to a swimming bath really mattered. But you’ve done your best, she said to herself. It’s all you can do.

  Susan asked if the banner welcoming her home could be taken down from the garden hedge and hung from her bedroom wall.

  Colin kissed the top of her head. ‘I don’t think so, my sweet. Lovely as it is I think a picture of Andy Pandy or Muffin the Mule would be more like it, eh?’

  Edna pushed between Colin and Susan, and wound her arm around Susan’s neck. ‘Of course you can, darling. Anything you want you can have. And you’re too old for Andy Pandy, aren’t you?’

  Colin looked put out.

  Edna didn’t seem to notice. ‘Can you get it down for her, Ivan, and put it up in her room? I’d much appreciate it.’

  Ivan went out to get it down. Janet followed him out. ‘It was a brilliant idea,’ she said to him.

  ‘I like making little girls happy,’ he said jovially. He flashed her a smile. ‘Big girls too.’

  She wasn’t one for blushing, but her tongue could be pretty sharp if she wanted. However, there was no chance for a tart response.

  ‘Is that child home for good?’ asked one of the few neighbours still leaning on a garden gate.

  The woman had pork chop cheeks and a small, red mouth. Her hair sat in pinched waves packed tightly against her head.

  Janet got to her feet and looked down into the woman’s face. ‘Of course she is.’ If she sounded superior, it couldn’t be helped.

  The woman clasped her hands before her as if making an instant decision – probably about standing her ground. ‘How do we know it isn’t catching?’

  ‘Because the medical profession know better than you do.’

  ‘Oh. And how do you know that?’

  For a moment, Janet had a most terrible urge to smack the woman’s plump cheeks. Lest she lose control, she folded her arms across her chest and tucked her hands beneath her armpits.

  ‘I can categorically tell you that you have more chance of catching polio from me than you have from that child. I work at Saltmead Sanatorium. I am in contact with much worse cases than her all week. I have not suffered so much as a cold. So far as I am aware, I have not passed this dreadful disease onto anyone I have come into contact with, though of course,’ she said, leaning closer to the woman so that her chin was not too far from her nose, ‘there is always a first time.’

  The woman looked startled.

  When it was time to go, she hugged Susan, who was still sitting in her wheelchair, her parents close by, her siblings sat like courtiers at her feet.

  ‘Next time I come I’ll expect to see you up and about in your calliper,’ Janet said to her.

  Susan’s smile melted. ‘I don’t like wearing it. It hurts.’

  Janet pinched her cheek.
‘It might rub a little, young lady, but if you want to walk again you have to grit your teeth and bear it.’

  ‘Now, now! That’s enough. Never you mind, Susan my sweet. You don’t have to wear that horrible thing unless you really want to.’ Edna draped herself between her daughter and Janet.

  Charlotte opened her mouth to say something, but Janet got there first. ‘She has to get used to it, Edna. It’s for her own good.’

  Edna’s look said it all. No one was going to tell her daughter what to do. She’d gone through enough. There was a lot of spoiling to be done and Edna was the one about to do it.

  ‘My child will not be forced into doing anything. I won’t allow it.’

  Janet remained forthright. ‘You have to. It’s for her own good. She can’t be dependent on you for ever.’

  ‘I can see trouble coming,’ said Charlotte as they drove back to Clifton. Ivan was sitting beside her.

  Janet was in the back seat staring out of the window. Like her mother, she was worried. She shook her head helplessly.

  ‘What can we do? Susan’s her child, not ours.’

  Edna was up early the next morning. Her first stop was the bathroom where she poured oodles of disinfectant into the bath and the toilet. Hands were washed in water laced with a liberal lashing of Dettol. Nothing would ever infect her children again.

  Susan’s bed was in the front room downstairs. Edna went down the stairs and gently pushed open the door. Susan was lying on her side, one arm behind her, one in front with fist closed. Her legs were bent, the left more so than the right, like an athlete taking off for the long jump. Only Susan could not possibly jump like that. Her right leg was floppy and lacked muscular form.

  Edna couldn’t resist tickling her daughter’s cheek. She wanted her to open her eyes, just in case … in case of what? In case she was dead. It was a fear she’d experienced a hundred times. God might take Susan away because she hadn’t paid enough attention to her own mother and she’d given Sherman away without a fight.