Every Woman for Herself

by Trisha Ashley

  ‘No, it’s because she’s dark and sticky,’ Em said, smiling.

  Bran, who’d been sitting silently stirring sugar into his porridge in slow motion, looked up and answered the smile. ‘Sticky pudding?’

  ‘After dinner,’ Em said.

  ‘I don’t know what your problem is, Jess,’ Anne said, from behind the newspaper. ‘You don’t want them to grow up thinking being a giraffe-necked blonde bimbo is the height of ambition, do you?’

  Jessica is sulking again. Em might be about to win the battle after all.

  * * *

  I have packed up my black clothes and Gloria is going to take them to a charity shop. I wear my jumble-sale finds now, and a crocheted cardigan in multicoloured yarn that Gloria made for me, in a pattern of daisies in squares.

  Other than my cardigan I seem to be moving towards the sea-green and silver spectrum, which I suppose is more suitable to a cool and fishy Pisces than black.

  Horrorscopes: what your star sign says about you!

  PISCES are cool: watch them slither off on their own business just when you thought you’d caught them in a net of the mundane. But don’t worry, there’s nothing scaly about them and they always return home to spawn.

  Mace was definitely taciturn next morning, but that was all right because Caitlin talked enough for all of us. I don’t suppose he is brooding over what his ex-wife said, though, because it was probably something she thought up in the heat of the moment.

  He does seem to be a devoted daddy, whatever Gloria says about his reputation, while I cannot say I was impressed by Kathleen’s maternal instincts. But clearly she’s got some, or she wouldn’t want to take Caitlin to America with her.

  Mace sort of loomed in the kitchen doorway and glowered while I helped Caitlin into her teddy suit and made sure her wellies were on the right feet.

  ‘Take her out for a walk,’ he ordered, like she was a dog.

  ‘That’s what I intended doing,’ I snapped. After all, I hadn’t done anything to make him mad – yet. Not perhaps the most opportune time to confess about Dead Greg?

  We left him stewing in his own juice (Tartar sauce?) and I took Caitlin up to Ramshaw Heights in the car, feeling in need of the air and exercise and a space in which to compose my explanation to Mace about Greg, before Angie broadcast it to all. It had to be done sometime.

  Em is going to try and find out where she is staying, by one means or the other: better not to ask.

  She did take the vicar some jam, and he said he’d treasure it forever, though I hope he doesn’t because it’ll go mouldy. She didn’t tell me what he said about Womanly Wicca Words of Spiritual Comfort, but she looked thoughtful when she came home.

  I left Flossie behind, snoozing noisily, but with the Parsonage door open at the top of the stairs in case she woke and fancied company. She likes a touch of Frost, in small doses.

  At first Caitlin walked quietly by my side through the lightly iced woodland, pulling me to a halt from time to time in order to point out some marvel.

  ‘This,’ she announced importantly, ‘is rabbit poop, and this is sheep poop, and this is dog poop.’

  Feeling some answer was expected of me I said vaguely: ‘Oh?’

  ‘But I don’t know what squirrel poop looks like,’ she went on, satisfied that she had my full attention. ‘And there are lots of squirrels here, so there should be some. I wonder where it is?’

  ‘Under the trees?’ I suggested. ‘Though I suppose they’re swinging from tree to tree, or whatever they do, and let fly at the same time, so it will be scattered everywhere.’

  Caitlin giggled. ‘We could be showered in squirrel poop at any minute! I’ll tell you a joke,’ she added.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘What’s got a hazelnut in every bite?’

  ‘I don’t know. What has got a hazelnut in every bite?’

  ‘Squirrel shit!’ she said, laughing like a hyena.

  I recalled that Sylvia Plath used to walk in the woods at Hardcastle Crags, not so very far away, and write poetry. Either she didn’t have her children with her at the time, or she was much better at blanking out small, piercing voices.

  We wound our way up along the valley and came out high up where you could look way, way down from the jutting rocks.

  ‘I like you,’ Caitlin announced unexpectedly. ‘You don’t say things like: “Get away from the edge of that rock this minute, Caitlin!”’

  Startled and guilty I realised that her wind-whipped slight form was precariously balanced near the edge of a slab of rock.

  ‘Of course, that’s the sort of thing I should be saying, isn’t it? Only I’m not used to children, so I forget.’

  ‘I’ll remind you – after I’ve done it. I don’t go right to the edge anyway, because Daddy let me once, while he was holding my hand, and I felt like I wanted to jump off and whirl round and round like a sycamore helicopter. Only Daddy said I’d plummet straight down like a conker, and when I got to the bottom I’d be spread out like raspberry jam, so it wouldn’t be worth it.’

  ‘Er – no,’ I agreed.

  ‘And he’d be very angry with me,’ she added, as a clincher.

  ‘Does he often get angry?’ I asked tentatively.

  She giggled: ‘Yes, but not with me. Mostly with people on the telephone, and magazines when they tell fibs about him. And Mummy,’ she added. ‘He’s a big grumpy bear.’

  ‘This is a long walk, isn’t it? What have you got in your pockets?’ I asked, hoping for sweets, even old fluffy ones.

  ‘What’s it got in its pocketses?’ she screeched. ‘I’ve got Lord of the Rings on tape, and Gollum hisses and says that, and when I first heard it I had nightmares every night for a week!’

  ‘I’m not surprised – it’s too old for you.’

  ‘No it’s not. I could read it now. I can read anything. I can read the newspapers.’

  ‘I wouldn’t bother. The only interesting women they ever tell you about are in the obituaries.’

  Still, that explained her wide vocabulary. Not having much experience with small children I’d assumed all the others at the nursery were a bit dim, but maybe that was just in contrast to Caitlin?

  ‘My brother, Bran, could read when he was two, and he learned French from a set of old Linguaphone records when he was four,’ I told her, but she didn’t seem noticeably impressed.

  ‘Those people over there are snogging.’

  ‘Kissing. Snogging’s not really a nice word.’

  ‘I snogged Joel last week, but I didn’t like it, so I’m not going to do it again.’

  ‘It’s a pity I didn’t think of that earlier.’

  ‘Not snogging, because you don’t like it?’

  “Not doing anything twice that I didn’t like the first time.’

  ‘But sometimes you have to do things you don’t like,’ she pointed out like a miniature philosopher. ‘Daddy usually manages not to do the things he doesn’t like, but then sometimes it makes other people cross.’

  ‘Yes, that’s the price you have to pay.’ I held my hand out. ‘Come on, let’s get back to the car – we’ve got time to stop for a hot chocolate with whipped cream on the way back if we run!’

  * * *

  Mace greeted us at the cottage door, and he didn’t look any more cheerful than when we left.

  He silently handed me a note on horribly familiar blue paper, and stood there, arms crossed across his broad chest, watching me read it.

  Light blue touchpaper and retire.

  You are trusting your innocent child to a murdering whore! it said, rather predictably.

  ‘Is it true?’ he asked, (quite mildly, considering) as Caitlin ran off past him into the house, her teddy-bear ears flapping.

  ‘Which bit?’ I said brightly, wishing I’d got in first with the explanation.

  ‘The murdering bit. I can see the possibilities of the other myself, now you aren’t dressed like a small perambulating Bedouin bag-wash any more.’

  I sc
owled at him. ‘I meant to tell you, but you didn’t seem in the mood for conversation this morning.’

  ‘You were going to tell me you were a murderer?’

  ‘Of course not. I didn’t murder him, it was an accident – ask the vicar!’

  ‘Chris knows about this?’

  ‘Yes, I told him when he caught me hitting melons the other day, although actually I’ve given it up now.’

  ‘Murder?’

  ‘Hitting melons. You see, I accidentally hit Angie’s husband, Greg, with a frying pan, and he died, and Angie – that’s who sent you the letter – is a bit upset about it, and she’s followed me here. I don’t know why she keeps calling me a whore though, because I didn’t lead him on – I haven’t led anyone on, except my ex-husband, and look where that got me.’

  He stared at me. ‘I find your conversation curiously oblique, but I think I’ve got the gist – and,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘I’m not altogether sure I still fancy that ginger and melon jam your sister Em presented me with.’

  ‘We had to do something with the melons. They’re very dear just now.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that.’

  I sighed. ‘Well, I don’t suppose you will be wanting me to come and fetch Caitlin tomorrow?’

  ‘Why, you aren’t likely to hit her with a frying pan, too, are you?’

  ‘Certainly not! I like Caitlin – even Em likes Caitlin. I wouldn’t hurt a hair on her head.’

  ‘No, that’s what I thought. We will carry on as before, then, and I’ll keep my melons hidden when you’re around,’ he said, with one of his sudden, absolutely demoralising smiles.

  I wish he wouldn’t do that.

  ‘I told you I’d given melon-bashing up.’

  ‘So you did,’ he said, still smiling: a ravaging horde in his own right.

  * * *

  On the way back to the cottage I tried to remember exactly what he’d said about whores and Bedouin washing to see whether I’d been insulted or not.

  I would have immediately asked Em’s opinion, but Xanthe Skye was sitting in the kitchen with her, eating rich fruit cake and drinking something green out of a Russian tea glass.

  I stopped in the doorway. ‘Is my aura all right today?’

  Xanthe examined the air around me with an expert gaze. ‘A bit sultry dear, but no blue.’

  ‘Oh good,’ I said, coming further in. ‘The sultry bit’s probably because Mace’s found out about Dead Greg, Em. He’s had a poison-pen letter from Angie.’

  Dead Greg was clearly no surprise to Xanthe, but of course all the people who matter in Upvale will know, they just won’t drag it into the conversation.

  ‘How did he take it?’ Em asked, cutting me a slice of cake.

  I considered. ‘Quite well, really, I suppose.’ And I recounted what he’d said as well as I could remember it.

  Had I known Gloria was within earshot I’d have left the whore bit out. She bounced out of the nearest scullery:

  ‘Cheeky bugger!’ she said. ‘You don’t want to go near that one, he’s wicked!’

  Xanthe sighed. ‘He certainly is!’ she agreed dreamily.

  Gloria gave her a look.

  ‘At least you won’t be going to look after his little girl now.’

  ‘Yes I will. I told him Dead Greg was an accident.’

  ‘I hope you told him you’re not a whore as well!’ she said tartly. ‘Or that your sister would be, if he gave her half a chance.’

  ‘That’s enough, Gloria,’ Em said firmly. ‘There aren’t any whores these days, everyone’s at it, apparently – except me. And I only want to utilise him on a temporary basis, while Charlie is only interested in his money.’

  ‘He’s not for either of you,’ Gloria said, glowering. ‘I know what I’ve seen in the tea leaves.’

  ‘Earl Grey?’ enquired Xanthe interestedly.

  Chapter 15

  Taken Out

  Anne gave me an article she’d written for Skint Old Northern Woman, to be published anonymously, which read more like one of her war correspondent reports than anything. But I was deeply touched by it, and felt I understood Anne more than I’d ever done before.

  Health Check, no. 2: The Body as Battlefield: One Woman’s Fight Against the Big C

  As a war correspondent I’m fit and healthy, but battle-scarred. Any threat to my health I always expected to come from outside, but this time I carry a war-wound caused by a traitor within myself: cancer.

  The enemy sneaked in and set up an advance position in the form of a small lump in my left breast, hoping to go unnoticed until reinforcements were well entrenched.

  However, fortune favours the flat-chested: when you have boobs like two fried eggs even a tiny bump stands out like a beacon.

  Even then, I just assumed it was a troublesome cyst – there was nothing impressive about something the size and shape of a petit pois under the skin. But within two days I found myself diagnosed with malignant cancer, and offered a range of exciting clinical procedures.

  I opted for a lumpectomy, and with amazing speed was summoned to hospital where the surgeon circled the little bugger and whipped it out, also taking a gland or two from under the arm to check for any spread to the lymph glands.

  The arm was sorer than the boob, but the glands showed negative for cancer spread, so it was worth it.

  The outlook was good, but six weeks of radiotherapy was advised as back-up, which I accepted. It’s no big deal.

  Then they offered me the drug Tamoxifen, ‘just in case’. You take it for ten years, and when I asked if it had any side-effects they gave me a leaflet to read.

  The possible side-effects included hot flushes, skin rashes, genital itching, menstrual disorders, breast pain, hair loss, weakness, muscle and joint pain, and sickness.

  This didn’t sound like a whole lot of fun, but then I turned the leaflet over and found the possible serious side effects: liver problems, yellowing of the skin and eyes, visual disturbances, feverishness and unusual bruising and bleeding of the skin.

  After a brief exchange of views on the matter (I told them to stuff it where the sun don’t shine, they told me I was very lucky to be offered the drug at all), I elected to decline it.

  Lessons I learned from this experience are: 1) Watch your back (and your boobs). 2) Don’t rush into anything, but study your position carefully and weigh up the options. 3) Don’t panic – you need a clear head to fight and survive. 4) If you’ve got all the facts, you are as expert as anyone else and can make your own decisions. 5) Your operation scar’s just as much a battle scar as any other, and you don’t need to be ashamed of it.

  Finally, number six is: Live each day like it’s all you’ve got. I’ve always done that anyway – today is the only day we can be sure of. Don’t waste it.

  ‘Anne,’ I said, ‘the magazine isn’t going to be published at all – I’m just doing this for fun.’

  ‘Yes it is, Em and I will see to that. It’s the sort of thing that should be published, if only once.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Em agreed from the other end of the kitchen table. ‘I’ve got the advance from my book, and Anne’s got some savings, and we’re putting it into the first and possibly only edition of Skint Old Northern Woman magazine – or comic. Susie says it might turn out looking a bit more like Viz than Woman’s Own. I’ve got lots of pieces written for it already.’

  She bent her head back over her cookery books. ‘Do you think duck pâte would be good as the starter tomorrow?’

  ‘Do your vichyssoise soup. Everyone likes it, and it’s cold, so it doesn’t matter what time you eat it,’ Anne said.

  ‘Yes, but listen you two,’ I interrupted. ‘I can’t possibly let you pay for the magazine to be published. It won’t sell enough to pay for itself, and you might need the money!’

  ‘We think Skint Old Northern Woman should exist,’ Em said. ‘If only briefly. And that’s that. The rest of the discussion group are coming round here tonight to help sort out which article
s go where, and Susie’s bringing her sister, Jen, to help us – the one who works for the small publisher.’

  ‘He’s a little man?’ Anne asked, interested.

  ‘No, he’s small as in not a huge publishing house. But efficient. We can have it out before Christmas.’

  ‘Bloody fast, Em!’

  ‘That’s modern technology for you – stuff it in one end, out comes the finished product at the other.’

  ‘I think there might be a bit more to it than that,’ I said feebly. ‘Besides, you can’t have a magazine without pictures.’

  ‘We’ll have that painting you’ve just finished – ‘Jessie Down the Well’ – on the front cover,’ Em said.

  ‘Yes, and Susie’s done some good cartoons. That should do it,’ added Anne. ‘There you are. All sorted, Chaz.’

  ‘You don’t think Mace or the vicar is vegetarian, do you?’ asked Em, getting back to business.

  ‘Mace looks like a meat eater to me, Em,’ Anne said.

  ‘When did you meet him, Anne?’ I asked curiously.

  ‘Out and about – don’t spend all my time in bloody bed. And the vicar came to see me – don’t know why. I quite fancied him, but he’s got the hots for old Em.’

  ‘Chris isn’t vegetarian,’ murmured Em, absently thumbing through Mrs Beeton. ‘Can I do roast beef and Yorkshire pudding?’

  ‘You certainly can, better than anyone,’ I said enthusiastically.

  ‘No, I meant, because of the Mad Cow – that Jessie won’t touch it for a start.’

  ‘She won’t touch anything with calories in anyway, she’s even started saying the bubbles in fizzy mineral water make you fat,’ I said.

  ‘And everyone probably thinks we’re the Mad Cows already,’ sniggered Anne. ‘Go for it, Em.’

  ‘Right. And sticky toffee pudding with custard afterwards – men like their stodgy puds.’ She closed the book. ‘There. That’s that. I’m off to the shops. Shouldn’t you be off to get Caitlin, Charlie?’

  I jumped. ‘Oh yes, of course. I thought we could both paint in the verandah today so I’ve set the small easel up next to mine for her.’

  ‘There are iced rabbit biscuits in the Beatrix Potter tin – take them down with you. But not the frog ones, they’re for Bran.’