Changing Patterns (19 page)

Vivienne lifted her shoulders. ‘If it wasn’t me it would have been someone else. You’re not as popular as you like to think.’ She paused for a few seconds. ‘Matron.’

Mary narrowed her eyes, meeting the girl’s stare. She saw the glint of triumph. Don’t, she told herself, don’t rise to the bait. Without speaking she spun on her heels. She didn’t look at Vivienne Allott but as she passed Mary heard the soft snigger. For a moment her step faltered, the urge to scream abuse at the girl almost irresistible.

Straightening her shoulders and lifting her chin, she quickened her pace and walked out of the hospital.

By the time Mary got off the bus it was mid afternoon. She sat on the wall, her back to the sea. The village, perched on the rising hill a few hundred yards away, surrounded the church where they would be married. The windows in the rows of cottages caught the low sun, the lustrous reflection thrown back towards the sea. From her vantage point Mary could see people going in and out of the post office and shop. She glanced to her left where the lane curved; to where Tom was killed.

She had the sudden urge to be home.

Peter wasn’t there. She sat on the front steps. The wind carried with it the smell of the sea, a fishy, pungent seaweed smell that stung her nose. A group of squabbling seagulls, losing their battle against the wind, skidded along the water nearby. She watched them riding the scummed waves, dipping and shaking their heads.

Mary wondered if Vivienne Allott would ever realise or regret how much damage she’d caused by her vicious tongue. She doubted it. People like that never did; they just spread their poison and moved on, leaving people’s lives destroyed. Well, she wouldn’t let that happen. One way or another she and Peter had a good life in front of them. They had one another and that was how it would always be.

She began to cry.

However unfair it was, and however justified her anger, the shame and humiliation of being dismissed from her post and the fear of what the future held without her wages filled Mary with dread.

‘I need to talk to you.’ Jean’s scarf was flattened to her head by the rain.

Cold apprehension spread along Ellen’s spine. Hell’s bells, she knows about Patrick. ‘Come on in, it’s tipping down.’ She let Jean pass and forced the front door closed. It always bloody stuck. It was on Ted’s list of ‘things to do’ that never got done. ‘Go in the front room. You’ll have to keep your coat on, it’s always a bit chilly in there, but it’ll be better than going in the kitchen.’ From the looks of things the last thing Jean needed was Hannah Booth listening in. And the last thing Ellen wanted to do was give her mother-in-law another supply of gossip.

‘Thanks.’ Jean struggled to undo the wet knot of her scarf and gave up, pulling it over her head. She looked around the room. ‘I don’t think I’ve been in here since before Patrick and me were married. You’ve changed the three piece suite and the wallpaper,’ she said, her voice flat. ‘It’s nice.’

Ellen switched on the standard lamp and drew the curtains. ‘It needed doing. Ted did the hall as well. Got rid of that awful paper with the revolting cabbage roses.’

‘I remember.’ Twisting the scarf in her hands, Jean said again, ‘I need to talk to you.’

‘Mmm?’ Ellen noticed the grate was full of dead ashes but couldn’t remember when they’d last lit a fire in it. ‘Sit down. Take the weight of your feet.’ Her mouth was dry. Both knew they were edging towards Jean’s reason for coming to the house, neither wanted to be the first to speak about it.

‘I know we haven’t always got on and I know I’ve been a bit of a cow in the past.’

‘Still are, sometimes.’ Ellen gave a burst of nervous laughter. Trust Jean to come when Ted was at the shop.

Jean forced her mouth into a smile but said nothing.

In the other room, Hannah coughed, a dry, hard, prolonged sound.

‘Mrs Booth not well?’

‘It’s a heavy hint. She knows you’re here and wonders why we’ve not gone into the kitchen.’

Jean nodded thoughtfully. ‘I see.’ She sat down on the sofa, winding the scarf around her hands until it was coiled tight and dripping water onto the carpet.

‘That’ll be an old rag by the time you’ve finished.’ Ellen reached over and gently took it from her.

It was as though the gesture finally broke the barrier. The tears flowed silently. ‘It’s Patrick.’ Jean hunched her shoulders under her coat, stuck her hands up the sleeves, and rocked back and forth. ‘It’s Patrick … he’s…’ She couldn’t carry on.

‘He’s hit you again?’

‘What? No…he’s…’

There was no longer any use pretending she didn’t understand what Jean meant. ‘You’ve found out then,’ Ellen said, almost relieved to be giving voice to the words.

‘What do you mean?’ Jean’s voice was husky.

Ellen heard footsteps on the pavement outside. She watched the shadowy silhouettes pass the window before she spoke. She needed to be cautious. She could be jumping on the wrong bandwagon here.

‘You said you wanted to talk?’

‘It’s about something our Jacqueline saw.’ Jean lifted up her chin, steadied her voice as best she could. ‘And from what you said, I think you know what that was.’

‘No.’

‘You said I’d found out. So you know something.’

Ellen bent her head, fiddled with the Kirby grips that held her French pleat together. Still looking at the floor she said, ‘What exactly did she say she saw?’

‘Patrick and her next door to you … kissing.’ Jean waited for the reaction. There was none. ‘How long have you known?’

Ellen prevaricated. ‘Known?’ She met Jean’s eyes and sighed. ‘Not long.’

‘How long?’ Jean leant forward, narrowing the gap between them. She had the urge to grasp Ellen by the shoulders and shake her.

‘Since I came back home from Mary’s.’ Ellen shifted back in the chair.

‘How?’

‘How what?’

‘How did you find out?’

Another pause. ‘Ted told me.’ Ellen smoothed the sleeves of her jumper along her arms. ‘Look, all I know is that Patrick started calling round here months ago.’ She glanced at Jean. ‘I didn’t know why at first, all I knew was he drove me mad talking politics – got Ted all worked up as well.’

‘And?’ Jean dismissed Ellen’s last remarks with a shake of her head. ‘What’s that got to do with him and…?’ She paused, began speaking again, slowly, working it out for herself. ‘He went from here to next door, didn’t he? In the front door and out the back? Very nice. And you’re trying to tell me you didn’t know anything about it?’ She gave a derisive snort. ‘I’m not a fool, please don’t treat me like one.’

Ellen’s protest was strident. ‘We … I didn’t know. Didn’t realise what he was doing. Neither did Ted at first but he caught them at it in the backyard once.’

Jean flinched; the unwanted picture instantly conjured up.

‘He didn’t tell me though,’ Ellen added hastily. ‘Look, I’m sorry, Jean. I know you won’t believe me but I didn’t know anything about it until a few weeks ago. I only found out when Ted came for me from our Mary’s. Honest.’

‘Honest! You don’t know the meaning of the word.’

‘There’s no need for petty insults,’ Ellen retaliated. ‘After all the flack you gave me at Mary’s, do you really think it wouldn’t have come out in one of the rows we had?’ She stood, noticing for the first time how ill Jean looked. The sallowness of her skin emphasised the dark smudges under her eyes and the red swollen lids. The involuntary surge of concern for her sister-in-law was alien to Ellen.

Jean bowed her head. ‘Sorry.’

‘I’m trying to help you here.’ Ellen paced from door to fireplace and back before she spoke again. ‘I’ll tell you what I know, shall I?’

‘Go on.’ Jean straightened her shoulders and ran her fingers across her forehead, wiping away the rain that still dripped from her hair.

‘Right, and this is the truth, all I know is that Patrick used us as an excuse to see her next door. I didn’t cotton on at all but, like I said, Ted found out and he told Patrick to pack it in. If he wants to play away from home, don’t involve us.’

Jean moaned.

‘I’m sorry.’ Ellen put a hand on Jean’s shoulder. She could feel her trembling under the wet raincoat. She must be frozen. ‘I am sorry, really. Patrick can be a right bastard sometimes but this beats the lot.’

‘It’s not the first time, believe me,’ Jean muttered.

‘I’m sorry.’

Patrick had always thought he was God’s gift but for some reason he’d also appeared to think the world of this plain, dumpy woman. And he idolised Jacqueline. Ellen couldn’t believe he’d chance losing his daughter. ‘Well, he’s a bloody idiot!’

There was a slow heavy scuffling on the linoleum in the hall, a sound of breathless wheezing.

‘Wait a minute.’ Ellen crossed the room and quickly opened the door. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Just coming to tell you I’m off for a lie down, my leg’s killing me.’ Hannah moved her bulk from side to side, trying to peer over Ellen’s shoulder.

I wish! Ellen thought. ‘For your afternoon rest? Like you normally do, you mean?’ The sarcasm wasn’t missed.

‘No need to be like that. I thought I’d see if there was anything I could do.’

Always good at the pretence, Ellen almost said, bitterly aware that few grasped how unpleasant Ted’s mother could be. She made her skin crawl.

Hannah leaned against the doorframe for support, her arms, tightly encased in her cardigan sleeves crossed over her large bosom. Casually, as if accidently, she nudged Ellen, trying to get her to move.

Ellen stood her ground. ‘No, everything’s fine.’

Hannah puckered both lips and sniffed loudly. ‘Right, then, I’ll be off.’ She pushed herself upright and made a great show of pulling her handkerchief out of her pocket and blowing her nose. ‘Bye,’ she called, trying one last time to see beyond Ellen.

Jean didn’t answer.

Hannah used the doorframe to balance as she turned and moved slowly towards the kitchen, her hands splayed on the wall on both sides of her. At the bottom of the stairs she gave Ellen one last venomous look before pushing aside the velvet curtain and heaving herself onto the first step.

‘Good riddance.’ Ellen looked back into the front room. ‘Come on, take that coat off and let’s get you into the kitchen in front of the fire now she’s gone.’

They could hear Hannah’s slow ascent to her room, the stairs and floorboards groaning under her weight until, at last the door to what had been Patrick’s room banged closed.

‘Right, a brew?’

‘Please, if it’s no trouble.’

‘Nope, none at all.’ Ellen crossed the kitchen and shovelled more coal on the fire. Sullen smoke oozed through the lumps so she moved them about with the poker and flames popped up here and there. She glanced at the clock. Ted and the kids would be back from the shop in an hour. Hopefully Jean would have gone by then. ‘Have you told our Mary?’

‘No, I wanted to be sure.’

‘You should. She’ll know what to do.’

‘I know what I’m going to do, thanks.’ Jean rubbed her sodden handkerchief under her nose one final time.

From the set of her mouth and the unwavering look she gave her, Ellen knew as well. ‘You’re going to leave our Patrick, aren’t you?’

‘Certainly not – I’m going to kick him out.’

Well, there’s not much to say to that, Ellen thought. And nothing she could do or wanted to do. She had enough on her plate. But no doubt, sooner or later, she’d get dragged kicking and screaming into it whether she wanted to or not.

But she wouldn’t deal with it on her own. She was determined. Mary had to come and help. One way or another she’d make sure of that.

They drank their tea staring into the fire and listening to the rain splattering on the window.

‘I’ve really missed Mary these last few years,’ Jean said, not taking her eyes off the flames. ‘She’s the only real friend I’ve had.’

‘Oh?’

‘We made a good team on the ward, nursing together at the Granville during the war.’ Now the decision was made; now she knew she would make him leave, Jean didn’t want to say any more about her husband. It was rather a relief to talk about something else after two days of mourning her failing marriage. ‘In a way I miss that too. Not the war, the nursing.’ She rested the mug of tea against her mouth, glad of the warmth on her skin. She was just about thawing out. ‘You know? The gratitude of the patients?’ She turned to Ellen. ‘Even though half the time we couldn’t understand what they said, we could still tell they were grateful.’ She frowned. ‘Mary said it changed at the end of the war, after I left, when the Granville was made into a transit camp for the Germans coming back from Canada. But I didn’t see any of that. By then I was married and had Jacqueline.’ The thought brought her back to the present and she frowned.

‘Another brew?’

‘No, I must be going. I’ve a lot to do.’ Jean sucked in her lips. ‘And I need to do it before tonight.’

She stood and fumbled with her coat. Fastening it she noticed, for the first time, the photograph almost hidden behind a large glass vase on the sideboard. The picture lay crooked in the frame where the corner was loose. It was of her and Patrick on their wedding day.