by Maureen Lee
Annie found it all beyond her comprehension. 'If Lauri laid a finger on me, I'd walk out and never come back.'
'Perhaps you don't love him enough.'
'I think it's just a different sort of love.' She had no intention of getting cross. 'I understand why you were so angry when I came storming over to Birkdale. With me and Lauri getting on so famously, it must have made you feel lousy . . .'
'Oh, for Chrissakes, Annie!' Sylvia said savagely. 'I'd sooner be married to Eric any day than Lauri. I wouldn't marry Lauri Menin for a million pounds.'
Annie felt as if a fist had curled up in her stomach. 'That's stupid!' she said weakly. Rising from the settee,
she went to the window at the front of the room. She noticed a gold mini parked outside.
'Jaysus, these boots are kiUing me.' Sylvia undid the long zips and kicked the boots off, 'Is there anything to drink?'
'There's sherry in the kitchen from Christmas.'
'That'll do. A large one, treble or quadruple or bigger.'
Annie poured herself half a tumbler of sherry at the same time. She was anxious for Sylvia to continue, even though she wouldn't like what she had to say. 'That's stupid,' she repeated, returning to the lounge.
Sylvia had settled crosslegged on the hearth. 'Oh, Annie, as if I'd resent you being happy just because I wasn't! What a trite person you must think I am! I love you, in the way I'd love a sister.' She swallowed half the sherry in one go. 'No, what got up my nose was you feeling sorry for me, and at the same time thinking you and Lauri were blissfully happy, when you're not. Well, Lauri may be, but not you.'
'You're talking nonsense,' Annie said doggedly. 'We couldn't possibly get on better. We never fight. He lets me do anything I want.'
'^Lets you!' Sylvia raised her eyebrows. 'Marriage is a partnership. One half doesn't give the other permission to do things.'
Annie frowned irritably. 'I didn't mean it to sound like that.'
'Why haven't you got four children, Annie? Four's what you planned.'
'Well, Lauri thought . . .'
Sylvia interrupted. 'And if I remember rightly, you wanted another baby straight after Sara, not to wait nearly two years.'
'Lauri . . .' Annie began, but Sylvia seemed determined not to let her finish a sentence.
'Remember when we used to plan our grand weddings?' she said reflectively. 'When I married Eric I wore the dress I'd always wanted, but I can't recall you wanting that ghastly thing you wore in front of about half a dozen guests. As for my red suit, I gave it away.'
'Grand weddings don't come cheap,' Annie said weakly.
'Cecy offered to do the reception. Uncle Bert wanted to help.'
'Lauri didn't want charity,' Annie muttered.
'It wouldn't have been charity. Cecy thinks of you as a daughter, but Lauri wanted a small wedding to his child-bride and Lauri got his way, just as he gets his way on all the really important things.'
Without realising, Annie had drunk all her sherry. She stumbled to the settee, feeling light headed. 'Why are we discussing my marriage, when it's yours that's failed?' she enquired.
Sylvia leaned forward, her face screwed up with the effort of trying to explain. 'Because you're suffocating, Annie. It's time you snapped out of this eager-to-please, obedient-little-wife shit and became the sparkling, witty, intelligent Annie I used to know. I find it incredible you and Lauri have never had a fight. You must never talk about anything remotely controversial if you don't row from time to time.'
'Lauri . . .' Annie paused. 'I suppose it's me own fault. I give in too easily.' She resented the admission there could be something wrong.
'It's about time your husband knew he was married to someone with firm opinions and a temper.'
'I'm not sure what you mean,' Annie said faintly.
'I'm not sure myself. All I know is, since you married Lauri you've become a zombie.'
Annie giggled. 'I think you're exaggerating, Syl.'
'Is there any more sherry?'
'It's in the cupboard next to the fridge.'
Sylvia came back with the bottle and refilled their glasses.
'Why did you come?' asked Annie.
'Because Eric was particularly vile this morning and I desperately wanted to talk to someone.' She returned to her place on the rug. 'There was only one person. I've missed you awfully these last few years.'
'I've missed you.'
Sylvia smiled. 'But I wasn't prepared to have you dripping sympathy all over me. I thought it was time you knew the truth about yourself.'
'That's kind of you, I must say,' Annie said caustically. 'Your own marriage is up the creek, so you're trying to convince me mine is too!'
'It's not that. I was fed up watching you kowtow to Lauri all the time. You'd think he was your father, not your husband.'
Annie's head was swimming too much to get annoyed. She lay down on the settee and mumbled, 'Oh, bugger off, Syl.'
'Jaysus, Annie,' Sylvia sighed pleasurably. 'I'm pissed out of my mind.' She put down her glass and fell back full length on the rug.
'Where do we go from here?' Annie said carefully.
'From here? Once I'm sober, I'm going to Liverpool to buy a frock I saw in a boutique for tonight's dinner party, a truly cute little purple number made entirely of fringes. It's the sort they used to do some dance in during the 1920s. I can't remember what it's called, the dance, I mean.'
'The Charleston.'
'That's right.'
'Mike Gallagher got married on New Year's Day in a leather jacket covered with fringes.'
Sylvia raised her head, dismayed. 'Mike's married?'
'Auntie Dot nearly did her nut, but I thought he looked fab.'
'Wow! I never told you this, Annie, but when we saw Mike in the Cavern, I thought he looked fantastic with that gorgeous hair, like Henry the Fifth. I was sorry I dumped him all those years ago.'
Annie hiccupped. 'Well, it's too late now, you've lost him.'
'Shit!' Sylvia beat the rug with her fist in mock chagrin. 'I thought, if I ever left Eric, I could have Mike.'
'Are you likely to leave him?' Annie tried to look deadly serious.
'It's inevitable. One of these days, the sex will wear off and we'll hate each other completely. Of course we can't get divorced, his family would never stand for it.' She put her hands behind her neck, stared at the ceiling, and said reflectively, 'I might become a nun.'
'In your purple frock with fringes?' Annie laughed.
'I'll start a new order; the Little Sisters of Rock and Roll. We'll chant Beatles' songs and worship at the shrine of Paul McCartney.'
'Not John Lennon?'
'No. He was at Art College before me, but nobody liked him.' Sylvia suddenly sat up and cried, 'Oh, Annie! Why are we both so miserable?'
'Believe it or not, Syl,' Annie said slowly, 'I don't feel the least bit miserable, despite you saying I should be.'
'That's because your brain has turned to cotton wool.'
'Then perhaps everyone should have cotton wool for brains and the world would be a happier place.'
The back door opened and Valerie Cunningham called, 'Annie, are you there?' She came into the room with Daniel. 'You didn't turn up at playgroup, so I thought I'd better bring him home.'
She'd actually forgotten to collect her son! Annie made a brave attempt to sit up, but fell back with a groan. 'Jaysus, me head!'
'Hello, Sylvia,' Valerie said brightly. 'It's ages since I've seen you.' She made them both black coffee. 'This is a turn-up for the books,' she remarked. 'I never thought I'd find Annie Menin as drunk as a lord at this time of the day.'
Annie still had a hangover when Lauri came home. He was amused and didn't mind there was no meal ready. She didn't mention she'd forgotten to pick up Daniel, an awfully negligent thing to do. She'd feel guilty when the hangover wore off. Sylvia had gone to Liverpool by taxi, because she was too drunk to drive. She was coming back for her car.
Lauri was peeling the potatoes, because
his wife had forgotten how to use the peeler, when Sylvia came bursting through the back door. She pulled off her white fur coat and threw it on the floor.
'What d'you think?' she cried, wiggling her hips.
Annie blinked as the brief purple dress shimmered. She blinked again at the violent purple and black striped tights. Sylvia also had a black velvet band around her forehead with a jewel in the centre.
'You look . . .' Annie searched for words, ' . . . truly ghastly.'
'Good!' Sylvia smacked her lips.
'Are you going to a fancy dress?' Lauri asked innocently.
'No, I'm going to play charades with Eric'
She only stayed long enough to re-introduce herself to Sara and remark how incredibly tall she'd grown. The little girl turned out to have never forgotten her Auntie Sylvia. Then she departed in a cloud of expensive perfume and a final shimmy of her purple frock.
Annie watched the gold mini drive away. She returned to the kitchen, where Lauri said, 'I'm glad you two have made up, but is Sylvia all right? She looked rather manic to me,'
'She's desperately unhappy. I'll tell you about it later.' Daniel clung to her legs demanding a story. Sara was patiently waiting in the armchair, her favourite Noddy book on her knee.
'You read to them, love,' Lauri said. 'I'll do the sausages.'
'Are you sure you don't mind?' Annie asked anxiously. 'I've been a terrible housewife today.'
He kissed her. 'It does no harm to go off the rails occasionally.'
Annie squeezed into the armchair with the children. This was her favourite time of the day; her husband home and two little bodies snuggled against hers. Lauri was singing something tuneless in the kitchen. He was a husband in a million - Kevin Cunningham would raise the roof if he came home and found Valerie with a hangover. But was it enough to be married to someone prepared to cook sausages and let you pick the wallpaper, yet who put his foot down when it came to really vital things like having children? Kevin wouldn't make the dinner, but he and Valerie had a joint bank account and she could write cheques whenever she pleased. Annie had no idea how much money was in the bank and Lauri had laughed, as if it were a big joke, when she suggested they had a joint account, just as he'd laughed when she'd asked if, like Valerie, she could take driving lessons.
If it wasn't for him, they'd have four children, Joshua and Sophie, as well as Sara and Daniel. Sara mightn't be so withdrawn if she had a sister or brother close in age, but Lauri had insisted they wait. He claimed she would be 'overworked' with two small babies.
'If Valerie can manage, so can I,' Annie argued at the me.
'But Valerie doesn't manage, does she, love? I don't /ant to come home every night and find you xhausted.'
'But it's me who would have been exhausted,' Annie liought, several years too late. Could it be that Lauri /as selfish, that he didn't want the smooth running of is home disrupted by too many children and an xhausted wife?
'You've lost your place, Mummy,' Sara said accus-igly. 'You've missed out where Noddy crashes his car.' he knew the book off by heart.
'Sorry, sweetheart. I was miles away. Where am I up o?'
By the time she'd finished, Annie decided, because it eemed the safest thing to do, that Sylvia had been alking nonsense. Just because her marriage was a mess, he had no right to suggest there was something wrong vith Annie's.
'Bloody cheek!' she murmured.
'You've gone wrong again. Mummy. That bit's not in.'
t was June, and something of vital importance was lappening in the Labour Party. People kept ringing up o speak to Lauri. One night, several members, ncluding Uncle Bert, came to the house. They stayed n the breakfast room all evening, arguing furiously, .auri argued loudest, and it was strange to hear his lormally pleasant voice raised in anger. At one point, le came into the lounge and asked Annie if she would dndly make them a cup of tea.
'I don't know how you stand living with this man, uv,' Uncle Bert said jocularly as he was leaving. 'I bet ^ou're fed up having politics pushed down your throat he whole time.'
Annie smiled politely. People had said more or less the same thing before, but Lauri scarcely mentioned politics at home. 'What was the meeting about?' she asked when everyone had gone.
'Nothing, love,' he said absently.
It was a national issue, she'd gathered that much. Harold Wilson, the Prime Minister, had been mentioned. She started to watch 14 Hours on television when Lauri was out, and bought the Daily Telegraph several times. There were some weighty articles that gave her the facts.
She hadn't realised there was such high unemployment in the country - the highest since the war. Prices were rising, wage demands soaring out of control. The Employment Minister, a woman called Barbara Castle, was trying to push through a White Paper called In Place of Strife, to curb the power of the unions, but the Trades Union Congress and the left wing of the Labour Party were totally opposed.
A few days later, Uncle Bert and the same crowd turned up again just after Sara and Daniel had gone to bed. Annie left the lounge door open and listened. She gathered they were opposed to In Place of Strife and were drawing up a resolution to send to Transport House for the eyes of the Prime Minister himself. She was impressed.
'How does this sound?' said a voice, 'The Party is letting down the entire Trade Union movement with the proposed White Paper and . . .'
'Not letting down, betraying,' said Lauri. 'And point out the Labour Party grew out of the Trade Unions.'
Annie was innocently watching The Avengers when Lauri poked his head around the door and asked if she would make tea.
The tea served, they returned to their resolution. Annie hung round, wondering if she could bring herself
to stick her oar in and ask what the Trade Unions intended doing about the really poor people; the ones who worked in very low-paid jobs and didn't have a union, or had no power to strike, like nurses. Did the unions care about the people who didn't have a job at all? And what about women? What had the transport union done to help the woman who'd become a bus driver and had been forced to quit by the other drivers, all men?
Lauri looked up and said, 'Did you want something, Annie?'
Her courage failed. 'I . . . er, would you like some biscuits?'
'Not for me, luv,' said Uncle Bert. The others were too involved with the resolution to notice that she'd spoken, just as they'd been too involved to thank her for the tea.
The meeting dispersed and everyone went home. Lauri came into the lounge rubbing his hands with satisfaction. 'Did you finish the resolution?' enquired Annie.
'Yes, love. Dan's having it typed.'
'Lauri,' she said eagerly. 'If I had a typewriter, a portable one, I could type things for you. Not only that,' she had an even more brilliant idea, 'if I went to meetings, I could take the minutes down in shorthand. I'm sure I'd get my speed back in no time.'
Lauri passed the back of the settee where she was sitting and ruffled her hair. 'No thank you, love. We don't want your pretty little head bothered with politics.'
Annie's brain must have turned to cotton wool. It took an age for the words and all that lay behind them to sink in. Her husband was deep in a newspaper when she said furiously, 'How dare you say that!'
He stared at her, mildly astonished, 'Say what, love?'
'How dare you suggest rm too dim to be bothered with politics?'
'I never suggested any such thing. You've never shown the least interest, that's all.' He shrugged and returned to the paper.
Annie snatched the paper off him and flung it to the floor. 'That's because I haven't had the opportunity. All we talk about is wallpaper and children and what flowers to plant.'
Lauri was getting agitated. 'This isn't a bit like you, Annie. What's got into you tonight?'
Annie glared at him. 'Why couldn't / be at that meeting?'
'Because you're not a member of the Party,' he said easily. He tried to put an arm around her shoulders, but she moved out of his reach. 'Anyway, you
hadn't the faintest idea what it was about.'
'I know exactly what it was about,' she said cuttingly. 'Barbara Castle's In Place of Strife, which I thoroughly approve of. The country will never get back on its feet if we give in to the unions.'
Lauri groaned. 'That, Annie, is a perfect example of why I have never wanted to bring politics into my home. Nothing is more divisive.' He looked at her beseechingly and for once there was no suggestion of a twinkle in his brown eyes. In fact, everything about him was different, not just his eyes, but the expression on his face, the way he spoke, his gestures. With a shock, she realised for the first time he was addressing her as an adult, not a young girl. He continued, 'I totally disagree with what you just said - people nearly came to blows over that very thing at the last ward meeting.'
'Why do you go, then, if it's so awful?' Annie sneered.
Lauri winced. 'It's not awful, I love it. But I like to leave it all behind when I close the front door. Here, this room, this house, is my sanctuary, the place where I
expect peace and quiet, not violent arguments about politics.'
Then Annie understood what Sylvia always had, that behind his charming, easy-going persona, Lauri Menin was a very selfish man.
'In other words,' she said quietly, 'your wife must never bother her pretty little head over anything that might disturb your peace and quiet.' She resisted the urge to bring up the children she'd wanted, Joshua and Sophie, children who'd never been born for the sake of his peace and quiet. Perhaps some things were best left unsaid, otherwise the words would create a barrier that might never be breached. Suddenly, without warning, she resented he was so much older and settled in his ways. Dot said marriage was an adventure and Annie wondered what it would be like to be married to someone her own age, because nothing about her marriage had been adventurous. It had been safe, comfortable, secure, the things she'd wanted once, but wasn't sure if she wanted now.
