Family of Women (48 page)

‘I dunno, do I? And there’s no need to take it out on me, I only came to tell you!’ Joyce was almost in tears.

‘Oh, for goodness sake,’ Violet said. ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’ She left Mrs Busby and went to kiss Charlie’s squashy cheeks. ‘Sorry, Joycie – don’t get in a state. It’s only that I’m in the middle of – you know, everything.’

‘What’s up? Oh – hello, Joyce!’ Rita walked in with two mugs of tea. ‘Ooh, look at him – you going to let me have a hold today?’

‘It’s my mom,’ Violet explained.

‘Well, you go – I can manage,’ Rita said. She had taken Charlie’s little hand. There was something so inviting about him, everyone wanted to touch him. ‘Poor old duck – no good her being there on her own, is it?’

‘I’ll finish Mrs Busby . . .’

‘Don’t be daft – I can do her. Go on – scarper!’

On the bus over to Aston, Violet looked out at the grey sprawl under a heavy grey sky and felt her spirits sink low. In the background of her mind was the nag of worry about her mother, but she couldn’t do anything until she got there and saw what was what. She’d deal with it then.

She knew the reason for her low spirits. After all, most things were going well. She loved her job, Carol was well and thriving and happy at school, and Linda was like a changed person. Quite a bombshell that, coming home saying she’d been to London – to Rosina! She had some nerve, Violet had to hand it to her!

Whatever had happened, a few days after Linda came home she announced she was going to start at night-school, learn all sorts, shorthand, typing, accounts – maybe even a language if she could. She was full of it!

‘I want a better job,’ she said. ‘I can’t stay doing what I’m doing for ever, can I?’

And that Alan lad seemed to have disappeared off the scene. Violet was half sorry about this – he’d seemed rather nice and obviously wasn’t short of a bob or two, with that bike and everything, even if he did dress like a tramp.

As for the business about Rosina, she still felt stirred up about that.

‘You should go and see her, Mom,’ Linda said. ‘
I think she misses the family.’

‘Why doesn’t she come and see us – we’re all up here, it’s only her down there, all on her own. Is she all right? She’s not in trouble?’

‘No. She’s all right.’

Linda had been quite cagey about Rosina, just said they’d sat and talked a lot and Rosina had told her about her children. Violet knew perfectly well she wasn’t getting the full story.

What had kept her from contact with Rosina all these years? All her own troubles, the war, Harry, Carol, had all loaded down on her so there was no room to see out. And something else about Rosina herself: the distance she had created between them by taking off, accentuating a distance that had always been there somehow, the way it was with Linda, because they were so opposite to her. They were bold, hungry, they saw things very differently.
They’ve got guts
, Violet thought. Not like me – I’ve always been a stop-at-home. Not much about me really. That was how she had always felt, except for that brief, glittering time with Roy, Roy who had seen something in her . . .

And that was the source of the pain she felt now. For all these years she had turned her back on the memory of those months during the war, tried to see it as a time when she had been unfaithful, wicked, and that Carol’s illness had been sent to punish her. How much more so, she thought, knowing what had happened to Roy and Iris’s twins. A double curse! They had paid all right, both of them. Didn’t that show how wrong they’d been? It was the war – all sorts of things happened, a chaos which sent people flying in all directions like skittles. And when peace came you had to settle back to what you knew, to the real commitment of your life. And she had done, hadn’t she? She’d been a faithful, caring wife to Harry in sickness and in health – sickness especially. She had done her duty.

When she’d seen Roy she had not let herself feel anything much – not at the time. It had all been too quick. Once she was alone, the reaction set in. She sat in the back room, smoking to try and calm herself, shaking. Eventually, out of the deep ache, the tears came. Roy, after all this time, those eyes, hands . . . and all the questions she wanted to ask, things she wanted to say –
This beautiful girl is your daughter . . . Do you remember? . . . Do you feel anything for me still? Because I loved you like no one else
– all these things echoed in her unspoken. There had been nothing she could read in his expression. She had had that one chance, in such a hopeless place with all those other people around them, and now he had gone. She had no idea where he lived. Of course, it was the best thing. What else could she have done? Yet ever since, she had been full of regret and longing.

All the way to Bessie’s she sat staring through the window and ran the scene over and over in her mind, seeing not the streets they were passing through, but Roy Keillor’s face.

Clarence was standing on the front step, peering anxiously along the road. He’d always been a bit shortsighted and still refused to wear glasses, despite the National Health Service. When he caught sight of her he waved agitatedly and took a few steps towards her with his stick.

‘Took your blinking time!’ he quavered at her. ‘I’ve been waiting here . . .’

Violet didn’t answer. No good getting cross: he was old and frightened. His hair was almost all gone now, barring a few wisps. You’d never think he was younger than Bessie, not even sixty yet.

‘Go on up!’ Clarence fretted behind her. ‘Marigold’s up with her, but she ain’t no bloody good.’

gn="2em" align="justify">Violet flung her coat on a chair on the way through and hurried up the stairs.

‘Marigold? What’s up – how is she?’

Marigold had lumbered to her feet from beside Bessie’s big brass bedstead.

‘She had a turn. This morning – before she ever came down.’ Marigold’s face was as blank as ever, yet Violet could sense something in her, a kind of suppressed excitement. Also, she stank of hard liquor of some sort. Poor old Mari, with all this going on.

She thought her mother was asleep. Her eyes were closed, hanks of grey hair on the pillow round her head, her face sunken. The left side of her mouth seemed tugged to one side, as if by an invisible thread. Violet could hardly believe her eyes. It was as if a huge tree had been felled. As she knelt down beside Bessie, though, her eyes opened and she gave a whimper of distress, nostrils flaring.

‘It’s all right – it’s only me. What’s up, Mom – you feeling bad?’ There was no reply except for something Violet had never seen in her mother before: a look of utter terror in her eyes.

‘Has the doctor been?’ she asked Marigold.

Bessie made a loud, strangled sound.

‘Can’t she talk?’

Marigold shook her head. ‘No. And she don’t want the doctor. He’ll make her go to the hospital.’

Looking at Bessie’s frightened face, she knew Marigold was right.

‘But Mari – Dr Cameron won’t make her go. And we need to know what’s wrong – how to look after her.’

Dr Cameron had known them all since they were children. He was about Bessie’s age himself.

Marigold just stared at her sullenly.

‘You’ve done everything right,’ Violet reassured her. ‘Only I think we need help. It’s all right, Mom.’ She squeezed Bessie’s hand, struck by how cold it was. ‘We won’t let them take you away. But I’ll get Dr Cameron to pop in and see you, all right?’

Violet walked down to the surgery to see old Dr Cameron. His rumbling Scottish voice had always been a comfort.

‘I daresay she’ll be averse to going near any hospitals,’ he said jovially.

‘She can’t speak,’ Violet said. She suddenly felt tearful.

‘Can’t
speak
? What, Bessie? Dear me – that does sound serious.’

Violet knew Dr Cameron was one of th
e people who had only ever seen the good side of Bessie, all the babies she’d fostered, pillar of the neighbourhood.

He came as soon as he could and stood looking down at her.

‘Now, ="j p

Bessie tried in vain to speak. Her eyes rolled with frustration and a sweat broke out on her forehead. All that came out were grunting, distorted sounds.

‘You’re worried I’m going to pack you off to the hospital, aren’t you? You do know it’s not the workhouse any more? Things have changed, Bessie. You’d be better off there, you know.’

An agitated quiver was going on in Bessie’s right hand and her face was working. Violet could see that every fibre of her was protesting. She took Bessie’s good hand and was surprised how hard Bessie gripped it, face working.

‘What, Mom? I can’t make you out.’

Bessie was trying desperately hard to speak, but all that came out was, ‘Arrr . . . arrr.’

‘Clarence?’ Violet guessed. ‘You can’t look after Clarence?’

She saw that she had guessed right.

‘Don’t you fret. We’ll all look after him.’

Marigold’s voice came from behind them. ‘She wants to stay here.’

Dr Cameron turned to her. ‘Yes. That’s pretty clear. And I don’t know that in terms of her health there’s much to be gained from taking her in. But you’re the one here, Marigold. D’you think you can manage?’

Marigold nodded, stolidly.

‘We’ll help you,’ Violet hurried to say. ‘All of us – I’ll come over after work and Linda’ll come sometimes . . . And the neighbours’ll help, of course.’

‘Is that all right then, Bessie? Are you happy now?’

Violet thought how kind Dr Cameron was, his smiling eyes looking down at Bessie, who gave a relieved moan in reply.

‘Violet –’ He spoke to her quietly, on the stairs, knowing Clarence was hovering about in the back room. ‘You know, your mother may recover from this – but she may not. Another stroke and there’s no knowing. If anything happens, we shall have to go against her wishes, I think. But we’ll see for now – hm? She’s not a well woman – that’s all I’m saying. You’ll all need to keep an eye on her.’

‘Well, you sound cheerful this morning!’ Mrs Richards said, smiling as Linda came humming through the bakery door, ready for work.

Linda nodded, pulling her hair back into a ponytail and putting on the little white hat. ‘Cheerful’ didn’t feel a strong enough word for what she was feeling just now. In the weeks since she’d seen Rosina, she felt as if everything had changed, her whole outlook on life. She constantly bubbled inside with excitement. At uo; qqqqqqht="0gn="her evening classes at the Commercial School she was learning shorthand and typing. She was very quick at shorthand. Her mind seemed to suck it in like a hungry sponge waiting for water. She practised at home, and Carol was fascinated by all the little Pitman squiggles and helped to test her. The teacher told her she was one of the best pupils she had ever had.

‘If you carry on like this,’ she said, ‘you’ll be faster than me! I’ll be able to write you an excellent reference.’

She had no clear idea in her head about where she was going, only that she wanted to move on, to learn and make something of her life.

‘I think you’re marvellous,’ Mrs Richards said, when she first heard what Linda was doing. ‘Good for you, duck. Course, I could never have done it, not like you. And my Arthur wouldn’t have liked it.’

Linda was so glad she’d found the courage to go and look for her aunt. It was like finding a missing piece of a puzzle, a part of the family which she resembled, which could make sense of her feelings that no one else seemed to share. Even Carol, for all her clever liveliness, and all the love she felt for her, was not like her. She was a more settled sort, more like Mom.

Over those weeks she had thought a lot about things Rosina had told her – about Nana and her mother, and especially Marigold. The information that Marigold had had a baby, when she was only seventeen, had come as an absolute thunderbolt. She’d always felt sorry for Marigold, but now her heart ached for her. Her own baby and Nana had handed it over like a parcel! Hadn’t the house in Aston always been full of babies? Always napkins and washing and a squalling bundle in Nana’s arms. Always the neighbourhood hero, Bessie –
isn’t she kind, what a big heart, isn’t she marvellous?
– and yet her own grandchild! Her heart had not been big enough to take that one in. And there was Marigold, her pockets full of scraps of songs which she never sang.

She thought of how she’d felt when her monthly bleed arrived after that night with Alan, the tears of relief which showed her just how much worry she’d been carrying inside her. What if she’d caught for a baby then? It would have been the end of everything! It made her shiver even thinking about it. And Alan? It would have made no difference to him at all. She could have ruined her life for him, for nothing.

In all the weeks since the accident, she hadn’t seen or heard from Alan.

At first, after getting home from Rosina’s, amid all the excitement that had raised in her, she felt ashamed of having written to him the way she did. Hadn’t she been a bit of a coward? Shouldn’t she have gone to see him instead, told him face to face? But when she heard nothing, she thought that was that. He had accepted it, maybe shrugged it off. She was free.

Of course she had had to explain to Mrs Richards what had happened.

‘The thing is, I don’t really see Alan any more.’

‘Don’t you?’ Mrs Richards was astonished. ‘Why’s that then? He’s such a nice boy, I thought.’

&lsquosed p
A>&lsquoseWell, he is, but . . .’ She shrugged.

‘Well I never.’ Mrs Richards looked deflated. ‘That
is
a shame. I thought I was going to hear the sound of wedding bells before too long.’

Linda stared at her. ‘I’m only sixteen, you know.’

‘Well, I know, bab – but you don’t want to go leaving it too long, do you?’

Once again Linda had that claustrophobic feeling. For a moment she wanted to scream. But she said nothing. Mrs Richards didn’t mean anything by it. It was just what she was used to.

Late one afternoon though, at the time he used to appear before, Alan came to the shop.

‘Ey-up,’ Linda heard Mrs Richards say. ‘Look who’s here! How’re you, dear? You have been in the wars, haven’t you?’