A Winter Bride

by Isla Dewar

  ‘Women,’ May declared, ‘operate from here and here.’ She thumped with clenched fist her heart and her stomach. ‘Heart and gut. It’s all intuition and feelings. Men operate from here and here.’ She tapped her head and pointed to her groin. ‘They use their minds and their cocks. Nothing more. And they’ve the cheek to laugh at us women and call us fragile. Hah.’

  Nell was dumbfounded. She didn’t know that people over the age of twenty-five talked about such things; certainly her mother didn’t.

  The Rutherfords gathered every evening round the table in the dining room, toasted the back lot, ate, drank, laughed and told exaggerated stories about the day they’d just lived through. Like the McCluskys, they loved one another but the difference was that they showed it. They touched. They hugged. They called each other love or darling or honey. They took Nell’s breath away. She wasn’t sure if she loved Alistair, but she was infatuated with his family.

  She first visited the Rutherfords in the November after she’d started dating Alistair and had been overawed. ‘Ma wants to meet you,’ Alistair had said. ‘You’ve to come to dinner on Saturday.’

  She’d said she would. But when Alistair had advised her not to wear anything silly – ‘You know, like that jumper that slides off your shoulder’ – she’d suspected that this wasn’t an invitation. It was a summons. May Rutherford liked to inspect any girlfriends that lasted longer than six months. At the time Nell and Alistair had been together for almost eight.

  Nell had gone straight from the shop and had changed out of her working outfit into a simple red dress and black patent leather shoes in the cloakroom before meeting Alistair. ‘Good meeting-the-boyfriend’s-mother outfit,’ he said. ‘You’ll be fine. Just let her boss you about and she’ll love you.’

  Nell said she wasn’t awfully keen on being bossed about.

  ‘But my mother is good at it. It’s her calling. She was born bossy. She bosses everyone and everything. She bosses the plants in the garden, wags her finger at them and dares them not to grow. She’s a maestro. Bossing is her art form. People feel privileged to be bossed by her. In fact, if you are in her company, and she doesn’t boss you, you feel left out, sort of neglected.’

  May had barged up the hall, arms spread. ‘Nell, here you are. We’ve been dying to meet you.’ She’d held her by the shoulders, looked her up and down and smiled. ‘You’re just lovely.’ She’d turned to Alistair. ‘You’ve got yourself a good one this time. Alistair says you like Italian, so it’s lasagne for supper with baked Alaska for afters. We’re going all international tonight.’ May was in the habit of announcing her menu to guests as soon as they arrived.

  Nell had been swept up the hall and into the living room and introduced to Alistair’s father, Harry. He’d stood up, strode to her, and had pumped her hand. He prided himself on his handshake: a firm grip and crisp up up-and-down movement. ‘Good to meet you at last, Nell.’ He’d waved Nell into a seat by the fire and had said to Alistair, ‘She’s a corker.’ He’d turned back to Nell. ‘What’ll you have?’

  Nell had floundered. She hadn’t known what to ask for. At home, her parents kept a bottle of whisky and a bottle of sherry, which were opened once a year, at five to twelve on New Year’s Eve. If you were female you got sherry, whisky if you were male. Anyone deviating from this rule caused consternation.

  Alistair had said, ‘She likes a rum and coke, Dad.’

  Harry said, ‘Excellent,’ and went to the huge drinks cabinet that took up most of the far wall, ‘May?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh.’ She’d flapped her hand. ‘I’ll have a wee G and T.’

  This room was vast, high ceiling, bay window. It was chintzy. May Rutherford was fond of a frill or two. A huge fire had blazed in the hearth. The central heating had been on full blast.

  May was taller than Nell had imagined. And she was forceful. She expected nothing more than to get her own way at all times. Her hair had been pulled off her forehead, fixed at the back of her head in an untidy bun; wisps escaped and had hung either side of her face. Her lips had been painted alarmingly red. She would have been daunting, but for her smile and for the concerned way she’d sat on the sofa, hands folded neatly in her lap, leaning towards Nell and asking how her day had been. She’d seemed genuinely interested.

  ‘Good,’ Nell had said. ‘We were very busy. I like that; you don’t notice the time passing.’

  May had clapped her hands. ‘Good girl. You enjoy a bit of hard work. Nothing else for it in this life. The only thing that’ll get you anywhere is good old fashioned down-and-dirty hard graft.’

  There was something about this family, Nell had thought. They were down-to-earth, energetic, enthusiastic, easy to get along with and utterly, fabulously rich. May, though, was clearly the boss: a throaty-voiced, over-active despot in this chintzy, overheated world.

  As they had taken their seats at the dining-room table, Alistair had nudged Nell. ‘Ma must like you; she’s put out the posh glasses.’

  They were May’s pride and joy, fine gold-rimmed crystal glasses that only the privileged drank from and the very trustworthy were permitted to wash.

  Before they’d started eating, May had filled everybody’s glass and had sat back nodding to Harry. He’d risen, lifted his glass, looked round at the gathering and shouted, ‘To the back lot.’ Everyone repeated the toast, Nell included, though she hadn’t a clue what they were talking about.

  The meal had gone well. May had fussed. She’d bustled to and from the kitchen carrying overflowing dishes, heaping food onto plates, insisting that everyone eat. ‘C’mon, Nell, have some more lasagne. Put some meat on your bones. You’re too thin.’

  She’d kept glasses topped up, and all the while, had quizzed Nell about her family.

  ‘We’re not well off,’ Nell had said. ‘Compared to you, we’re poor.’

  Alistair had sighed, slapped his forehead and said, ‘Don’t mention poor to my mum. She’s a world expert on being poor.’

  May had taken a swig of her wine, and then had pointed at Nell with her fork. ‘Do you have electricity? Is your bathroom indoors? Do you eat regularly?’

  Nell said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you’re not poor,’ May had replied. ‘Me, my mother and three brothers lived in two rooms. My father buggered off when I was three. Never saw him again. We’d no electricity. The bathroom was two floors down and across a muddy back yard. If you needed to go in the middle of the night, you didn’t. You crossed your legs and hung on. There were rats. Often the only thing I had to eat was a slice of bread and the top of one of my brother’s boiled egg. I went barefoot in the summer. In winter, I wore hand-me-downs. We burned the furniture to keep warm and when that was finished, we burned the door. Cold; I’ve known cold. I’ll never let myself be cold again.’ She glared at Alistair who was playing a melancholy tune on a pretend violin. ‘Oh, you can mock me. You’ve never been cold or hungry in your life. If you had, you’d know the fear of being poor. It’s humiliating. Nell, eat your lasagne and have some more salad. And leave some room for your pudding.’

  When the meal had ended, May had waved Harry and Alistair away from the table. ‘Take your coffee and drinks through to the living room. Nell and me’ll clear up. C’mon, Nell. I’ll wash, you dry.’

  Until that evening, Nell hadn’t thought about kitchens. She’d never considered them to be beautiful, and had never thought of lingering in one. In fact, it was a relief to leave the kitchen at home. Walking out of that room meant that the dreary business of preparing food and clearing up after that food had been eaten was over. It was time to relax.

  May’s kitchen was large. She’d swelled with pride as she stepped into it. ‘This is where I’m really me,’ she’d said. ‘This room makes me happy.’

  Food was cooked on a huge range. Copper pots hung from the ceiling; herbs grew in pots on the window sill. One wall was lined with shelves containing over two hundred cookbooks. Nell’s mother had one cookbook, a battered, splattered collection of war
time recipes, which she rarely opened.

  May was a passionate cook. Food and love were one for her. A well-fed family was a happy family. The surest route to anyone’s heart was through the stomach. ‘Well, most of the time,’ she said. She had nudged Nell and winked. ‘But, your children would grow to walk away from you, if you made them face the day on nothing more than the top of a boiled egg.’ Hungry families fought. She knew this; it was a knowledge that moved through May’s veins, beat with her heart and rested in her bones.

  The far wall of the kitchen was made up of floor-to-ceiling cupboards, each one with a door painted one of the colours of the rainbow. They were packed with food. Nell had never seen so much in her life.

  The yellow cupboard had been filled with packets of pasta, rice, flour, sugar, lentils, packets of tea, jars of coffee; the red full of tins: meat, tuna, fruit and vegetables; the blue, jams and jellies; the orange door fronted a fridge stuffed with cream, butter, cold meats, milk, and wine. Behind the violet door was a packed freezer. The green door was locked. Nell had asked what was in this cupboard. May had replied that it was her little secret.

  ‘I like to see my family fed,’ she’d said. She’d filled the sink with hot water and set about washing the plates. ‘What do you think of Alistair?’

  ‘He’s very nice.’

  ‘Nice? Nice? Don’t mention nice to me. I don’t like it. It’s a mean little word, tepid, means nothing. Alistair’s a good, kind, gentle soul. He is a bit logical, I admit. But then most men are. It’s one of their failings.’

  She’d told Nell to pile the dried plates on the counter. ‘I’ll put them away later. See, men think in straight lines. Women think in curves. It makes them rounder people. Do you like men, Nell?’

  Nell had said she did.

  ‘I like men. They’re handy. I like a man in my bed. But I don’t like them in my kitchen when I’m cooking. They always want to know what I’m making. And they hang about watching me and nibbling at things. I like a clear run between the sink, the chopping board and the cooker. And I don’t like men to see my mistakes, like if I drop something on the floor and pick it up and put it on the plate. Men don’t like that. Men are afraid of two things—’ she’d held up two fingers encased in orange Marigold gloves ‘—bossy women and germs. Remember that.’ She’d started washing the cutlery. ‘When we’re done, I’ll show you my family albums. And leave them glasses. I’ll dry them myself. They’re precious.’

  Before looking at the albums, May had beckoned Nell upstairs. ‘Come, I’ll show you my collections.’

  She’d led Nell into her bedroom. A massive four-poster bed complete with thick floral drapes had been centre stage and the carpet had been white shag. ‘I love this room. This is where I come to find peace. I just sit by the window and relax,’ she’d said, crossing to the floor-to-ceiling louvred doors on the wall opposite the bed ‘Look. My precious shoes.’

  Nell had gasped. There had been rack upon rack filled with shoes – all colours, all styles.

  ‘I love shoes. Never could resist a pair I like. Got over five hundred pairs.’

  It had been plain to Nell that quite a few of them hadn’t been worn.

  ‘Then there’s my handbags. Got one or two of them. Always good to know there’s something in the cupboard to match whatever I’m wearing.’ She’d opened another door. Handbags had been neatly stacked side-by-side from carpet to ceiling. ‘Got quite a few now. Nothing lovelier that a soft leather handbag. Beautiful to touch.’

  Nell, proud owner of three pairs of shoes and one handbag, had been impressed.

  Then they’d gone back downstairs to the dining-room, where May had brought out many family albums, all stuffed with photos of Alistair and Johnny.

  ‘You know what people are going to be like from the minute they are conceived,’ May had said. ‘Harry and me were drunk the night I copped it with Johnny, so he’s the wild one. But we snipped up to bed one quiet Sunday when we both wanted a bit of a cuddle and that’s when Alistair came along. He’s the quiet, thoughtful one. Hardly kicked at all in the nine months I carried him. He was too busy sitting in there thinking.’

  On the drive home, Alistair had said, ‘Christ, she asked you to help with the washing-up. She never does that. She must like you. What did she talk about?’

  ‘Men. Then she got out a bottle of brandy and poured us both a huge glass and showed me the family albums. Pictures of you naked on a rug when you were a baby, and the like.’

  ‘Christ.’

  ‘Have you taken many girls home to meet your folks?’

  He shook his head. A small thrill buzzed through Nell. This must mean he was serious about her.

  She asked him what happened on Thursday evenings, as May had said Thursday nights were family nights and Nell was never to expect to see him then.

  ‘Me, my brother, mother and father all have a big meal and talk business. We discuss how to make money, then discuss how to make more money.’

  Nell had said, ‘Gosh.’ When her family got together with relatives they mostly discussed the price of coal. She leaned back, smiled to herself and asked what was in the locked cupboard in the kitchen.

  ‘Don’t ask,’ Alistair had said. ‘It’s another of her collections; her most important one.’

  It only took a few weeks for Nell to be fully sucked into the dazzle of Rutherford life. They called her name when she stepped over the front step. ‘Hey, it’s Nell.’ She was thrilled by their welcome. It made her feel special, and this was new to her.

  In time, she started to stay over with them at weekends and slept in the spare room. She’d lie listening as the house slipped into silence, waiting for Alistair to pad barefoot along the corridor, down the stairs to her room and into her bed. Telling him to keep his freezing feet away from her, she would slide into his arms. This was perfect, so much warmer and more comfortable than making love in the car; no more steamy windows. In the morning, Harry would wink at them. Of course he knew what was going on; his son was only doing what he would have done when he was his age, if he’d had the chance. It was natural, he thought. It never occurred to him that Alistair might, like his brother, make his girlfriend pregnant and have to wed. Alistair was the cautious one. And Johnny was simply a casualty of passion. That’s what happened. It was life.

  And even though Johnny’s mischievousness had led to him and Carol having to get married, Harry knew that each man was responsible for his own actions and that it wasn’t his place to warn Alistair from making the same mistake as his brother.

  May took Nell under her wing, and bought her gifts: a new handbag; a watch; a cashmere jersey. ‘I saw it and thought about you,’ she’d say. She’d regularly turn up at the shop where Nell worked. ‘Just passing. Thought you might like to go out for a spot of lunch.’ Nell was flattered. She’d never been taken out to lunch in her life. Her family never ate any meal out, ever. May would take her arm and together they’d walk to the North British Hotel, a plush, expensive and comfortable place where May’s face was known and always welcome. ‘Table for two for Nell and me,’ May would say. No matter how busy the place was, she was never denied. Waiters bowed their heads, pulled out their chairs, fussed round them with menus and the wine list. Nell had her first taste of being important – one of the privileged people – and she loved it.

  ‘You would think your mother would be careful with money considering her childhood,’ Nell said to Alistair once. It was late. They were in bed, speaking quietly in the dark. ‘I thought people who’d known real poverty saved a lot, in case it ever happened to them again. They want to feel secure.’

  Alistair had agreed that she had a point. ‘My ma loves money. She likes to keep it close. She loves cash and hates banks.’ He’d sighed, ‘That’s what she keeps in the green cupboard in the kitchen. A stash; thousands of pounds.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Don’t tell her I told you. It’s a secret. A secret stash.’

  Nell promised not to tell.

&
nbsp; ‘She loves to spend money because for years and years she never had any. She didn’t have friends at school on account of how she looked. Not exactly raggy clothes, but pretty close. Now she loves to buy things for people. Probably she’s buying their love and friendship, but I don’t like to think about that. And she can’t resist buying things for herself and for the house. She gets a kick out of splashing cash around. She loves that shop assistants fuss round her. Plus I don’t think she can quite get over the fact she can afford to buy whatever she wants. She sees something. She likes it. She buys it. She’s happy.’

  Nell said she still thought May should save for a rainy day.

  ‘Oh, there’s plenty in the green cupboard for a rainy day. There’s money enough in there for years and years of rainy days,’ Alistair had told her.

  In time, Nell was allowed into the inner sanctum. May let her into the kitchen when she was cooking. Nell learned to chop, slice and mix ingredients, and, as the room filled with the aroma of garlic and onions hitting hot olive oil, she listened to May’s opinions on men, love, money and the family.

  ‘Nothing is more important than family. Romantic love, pah.’ May had flapped her hand wafting it away. She’d told Nell how she thought romance was an annoyance. It made your heart beat too fast. It disturbed your sleep. It stopped you thinking straight. ‘It’s nothing; lasts a year, maybe two. Then you’re left with affection and companionship if you’re lucky. Money matters, of course, but only if you use it properly. It can buy you lovely things and that’s fine. Mostly you should use it to buy respect. Make no mistake, money can buy you happiness, but family should be the heart and soul of your life.’

  Chapter Seven

  The Second Saturday

  in January at