Forty
Dot knocked and walked straight into number eighteen the next Saturday evening, full of urgent news.
‘Bob – you there?’
There was a smell of frying onions from the back and Sid and Joyce were wildly rolling marbles to and fro across the front-room floor in a game that was already getting out of hand.
‘What’re yer doing that in ’ere for?’ Dot snapped at them. ‘You can’t walk down the road without nearly breaking yer neck on marbles and now you’re throwing ’em! You’ll break the winder! Go on – get outside.’
‘It’s dark, nearly,’ Sid pointed out.
‘Well, put them away then and do summat else. Where’s yer dad?’
She addressed the question to Em, who had appeared from the back in her giant pinner.
Em shrugged.
‘Is he . . . ?’ Dot made an enquiring movement of her neck, raising her eyebrows. They both knew what she meant but she wasn’t going to say anything in front of the little ones. Em nodded sullenly.
‘Right – that’s it,’ Dot said, with steely intent.
She stormed along the road and round the corner. After a thunderous rap with her fist she didn’t wait to be invited in, but pushed the door open. In the front room she found a very startled Bob with Flossie Dawson, whose hair looked unusually dishevelled. It was abundantly obvious what had been going on.
‘Dot!’ Bob protested. ‘What the hell—?’
‘How dare you come barging into my house—’ Flossie started up.
‘Don’t you what-the-hell me!’ Dot erupted at the two of them. ‘You know perfectly well where I’ve been this afternoon while
you
– ’ she thrust her finger at Bob’s face like a pistol – ‘were supposed to be minding your kids.’
She gave Flossie a look of searing contempt. ‘And you’re a fine one to accuse
me
of barging in. I’m Dorothy Wiggins, by the way. I don’t think we’ve ever been introduced. I’m Cynthia’s best friend – Cynthia, Bob’s
wife
, that is. Or didn’t he mention that he’s got a wife?’
As Flossie began to protest, Dot leaned towards her, hissing threateningly, ‘Don’t think I can’t see through you. I’ve seen your sort before and there’s summat about you that doesn’t add up, for all your talk and your airs and graces . . .’
‘Get out of my house!’ Flossie shrieked. ‘How dare you come in here shouting at me in that common way. Bob, tell her to leave.’
‘Oh-ho!’ Dot laughed triumphantly, hands on her hips. ‘You’re a fish wife with the best of ’em, ain’t yer, in spite of yer hoity-toity ways! Bob,’ she commanded, ‘you’d better get home. Now. I’ve got summat to say to yer.’
‘Don’t let her order you about!’ Flossie tried to say but Dot turned on her again.
‘
You
– just keep out of it! Come on, Bob.’
‘I’d better go,’ Bob said. ‘I’ll see yer later, Floss.’
Dot strode along the road ahead of him.
‘Right,’ she said once they were inside. ‘Sit down. Kids – upstairs – now.’
She paused while they heard the sound of clattering feet on the stairs. Looking at Bob she wondered why she felt like his mother even though she was younger than him.
‘What’s happened?’ he asked fearfully.
Angry replies sprang to her lips.
What do you care? You never go and see her . . . It was me there today instead of you, again . . .
She swallowed them down, sinking onto the chair at the other side of the table.
‘They want her to come home. Not for always, not at first. On a visit, like. You need to go and say it’s all right.’
Bob stared at her. He wiped his hand over his face. She thought he was about to cry but he looked up again, seeming stunned.
‘Cynth, coming home?’
‘Just for a day, to start with.’
‘I thought, I dunno. I thought she’d never . . .’ He shook his head. ‘Christ, Dot. I thought it was all over, and that’s the truth. When I saw her, the way she was . . . She was, well, it weren’t Cynth. Is she . . . ?’
‘She’s better. They said she could come next weekend. It’s going to take time, Bob. And you’re going to have to look after her, stop all this nonsense with
that
one.’ She couldn’t even sound angry any more, just matter-of-fact and sad.
‘God . . .’ He put his head in his hands for a moment, then looked at her again with frightened eyes. ‘I don’t know what to do. I don’t even know whether . . .’
‘What, whether you want her back?’
He couldn’t look at her. ‘I don’t know if she’s my Cynth any more. I don’t know what to do for her.’
‘Let her come home a few times and settle down. She does seem better.’
He grasped onto her words. ‘Does she? D’you think so?’
Tears rose in Dot’s eyes as she nodded. ‘I think we might get her back. But you’ve got to get rid of that woman. And you’ve got to be kind to her, Bob – and patient.’
Em saw her first. The children were all waiting by the window, in a state of almost unbearable excitement, knowing Mom was coming home – if only for a visit.
‘You’ll have to be very good and quiet with her,’ Dot told them. She had misgivings about them all being there, whether Cynthia would be overwhelmed by it all, but they’d been deprived of their mother for so long, how could she stop them? And Cynthia was aching to see them.
Even Sid was quiet, seeming awed by the occasion. They could all just fit by the window, squeezed in shoulder to shoulder with Joycie raised up on a stool, their breath misting up the glass. They didn’t even start drawing on the misted-up window as they would have done normally. They watched, every fibre of them alert, waiting for Mom to arrive.
Bob, Dot and little Nance were waiting outside. Eleven o’clock, they’d said. Until three. A short visit to start with. At two minutes after eleven the lumbering hospital transport pulled up just along the road and the children craned their necks to see. Then the four of them came along Kenilworth Street, Cynthia in the middle with Bob and Dot on each side, Nancy trailing along behind them. They walked slowly, guiding her carefully, almost as if she was blind.
‘There’s our mom!’ Sid’s voice, normally so raucous, sank to a whisper. Joyce stood there without a word, her eyes huge, as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
At the first sight of her mother Em felt an enormous, aching lump come up in her throat. She blinked hard, drinking in the sight of Cynthia’s face, hardly able to believe it was really her. Mom, their Mom, home again, in her same old coat and on Dad’s arm – instead of Flossie Dawson. Mom and Dad together, as things should be. They’d been told not to rush out and startle her, but they all felt suddenly shy and rooted to the spot in any case. The ache spread to Em’s chest.
They stopped at the gate in the weak winter sunshine. Cynthia gazed up at the house, seeming to stall, ready to turn back and run away again. She shrank behind the others, as if frightened. Bob said something to her, and Dot put one arm round her friend’s shoulders and pointed with the other towards the window, talking gently all the while. Em saw her mom take in the shadowy little figures behind the glass and a look came over her face that was both fearful and full of yearning. She forced a smile onto her face and waved, and then they led her into the house.
The sound of the latch was like a spell being broken.
‘Mom!’ Sid cried.
Em held back as the younger ones ran forward. It was so strange seeing her there, now, in the room.
‘There, they’ve been waiting for yer,’ Dot said. She and Bob released Cynthia’s arms and Sid and Joyce went and buried themselves in her skirts, clinging like monkeys.
‘Oh!’ Cynthia gasped. Her voice came out quietly, as if she wasn’t used to talking. ‘Oh, babbies!’ Bending over, she was already weeping, holding them tightly to her. ‘Em, come here. Oh, my little Em!’
And Em was taken into the embrace as well and she sank into her mother’s body, a button of her coat pressed against her face. She smelled more or less like Mom, though there was an odd, hospital smell too. Em closed her eyes. She could hear crying, feel her mother’s body convulsing but all she wanted was to rest there and be held, and nothing else. Mom . . . Mom . . .
After a few moments Dot said tearfully, ‘Let’s let your mother sit down, eh?’
The children peeled themselves off Cynthia. They were all still in the front room. Bob had gone out to put the kettle on and hide his own emotion.
‘Come on, love – sit down. Let’s take your coat for yer.’ Cynthia was wearing the clothes she had had on when she went in, though they hung even looser on her. Dot led her to a chair. ‘Nance, you go and carry some of the cups in for Bob.’
‘Are you all right now, Mom?’ Sid asked, edging onto her lap immediately. Joyce wiggled her way on as well and Em perched on the arm so that her shoulder rubbed up against her mother’s.
‘I’m getting better, I think,’ Cynthia said, wiping her eyes then putting her arms round Sid and Joyce and holding them close. ‘I hope I’ll soon be better. Oh, it’s so lovely to see you all!’
As she talked, Em saw the gaps in her mouth where they’d taken out her teeth.
Bob brought in tea and biscuits. He didn’t seem to know what else to do, or say. It was Dot who gave orders to the children and kept things going, who understood that Cynthia just needed to see her children, to hold them; and after they had talked for a little while over cups of tea, it was Dot who saw that Cynthia was soon feeling tired and beginning to look overwhelmed.
‘Now, your mother’s only here for a short time today,’ she told the children. ‘Just to let her have a little taste of being at home and get her used to it. We’ll have a bit of dinner together, but she’ll have to go back this afternoon.’
‘Oh, Mom, you’re not going away again, are yer?’ Sid said. He had a little snip of her dove-grey cardigan between his finger and thumb, rubbing on the soft wool for comfort. ‘Can’t you stay now?’
‘I don’t think they’d let me,’ Cynthia said, stroking her hand fondly over his head. ‘I’m still a bit tired all the time, bab. I don’t want to go back to being poorly again. I need to be better to look after you, see? But I’ll come home soon.’
Em just sat drinking and drinking in the sight of her face, her being here. All of them wanted to tell her things – about school and their games and friends. But after they’d had some sausages and mash and the day was rushing by, Dot said, ‘Now, kids – you come next door with me for a few minutes. I’ve got some nice sweets for yer. We’ll let your mom and dad have a little chat together by themselves, all right?’
‘Mom’ll stay till we get back, won’t she?’ Joycie asked anxiously.
‘Course she will. Come on. And you, Nance, I’ve got sherbet lemons – special treat for yer.’
Bob’s heart was pounding, his hands breaking out in a sweat. He felt very small, like a child, with no idea how to break the silence that began as soon as Dot had taken the others next door. They were each side of the fire and Cynthia couldn’t seem to look at him. She sat staring at her bony hands clenched together in her lap.
Seeing here there, seeing her the moment she had arrived in the house, thinner but herself, had been like a bubble bursting for him. His real life had arrived again, as if he had been let out of something which he’d run to for escape. Now he was full of shame. She must know, must sense all the wrong things he had done. He had not been to see her, not once since that first time, as if she was nothing to him and could be just disposed of. And the way he had carried on, falling into the arms of another woman so fast and so easily! He could hardly believe now that he was the same man. He wanted to groan with shame at the thought, seeing her here, so thin and distant-looking after all her suffering. Why had he not been able to look after her better? Be more of a man?
He was trying to find the courage to speak, to say something about the way he hadn’t come to the hospital, to find excuses, but she spoke first, in barely more than a whisper.
‘I’m sorry, Bob.’ Her thin, pale face creased painfully and she looked up, wide-eyed, longing for his forgiveness. ‘I’m ever so sorry. I’ve let you all down so bad . . .’
He leaned forward, barely still on his chair.
‘No, Cynth – you haven’t. You couldn’t help it. It were the babby – it’s like that sometimes. They explained it to me . . .’
‘Yes, but I should’ve . . .’ Her tears began to fall. They still seemed to come so easily. ‘It shouldn’t’ve happened. I’ve been no good to anyone, leaving you all . . .’
‘It’s all right, love.’ He meant it, felt full of forgiveness and shame and sorrow. Hopefully, not knowing what else to say, he asked, ‘D’you think you’ll be better now?’
Again she looked very pained. She seemed to shrink into herself. ‘I don’t know. I feel so frightened.’ And she was shaking, he could see. He shrank inside, afraid himself, not knowing what to do. He sat staring at her.
‘Bob?’ Her voice was tiny. ‘Would you put your arms round me? That’s all I want.’
He leapt up at her request, his throat blocked with tears, and pulled her gently to her feet.
‘Come ’ere, love,’ he said roughly, and held her lovely familiar shape, so thin and trembling, in his arms. ‘That’s my little love.’ Putting his hand gently on the back of her head with its cropped, institutional bob, he leaned his forehead against hers and closed his eyes.
