Licence to Dream (2 page)

They worked together on that and he learned more about the tamer plants, proving that he’d inherited his mother’s green fingers.

The bright yellow Hibbertia was so cheerful he always lingered to smile at it and there was something about the intense blue of the leschenaultia that made his breath catch in his throat. But it was the wild plants he loved most, especially the tiny orchids, so many types that he lost count.

As his uncle had promised, things were getting better.

* * * *

When he was eleven, his mother met a new guy. Ben was cool with that because Tom was fun to be with and made his mother happy. His uncle had already warned him that this was likely to happen when a woman was as pretty as Louise. It didn’t mean she’d forgotten his father, only that she enjoyed being married.

One day his mother came out to join him in the garden. ‘Tom’s asked me to marry him.’

‘Me and Uncle Johnny thought he would.’

‘The trouble is, Tom’s been transferred to Queensland so we’ll all have to move over to the other side of Australia.

‘Uncle Johnny too?’

‘No. Your uncle likes it here. He’ll never leave York. But we can come back and visit him.’

‘But Uncle Johnny will be on his own.’

‘I know. And I’m sorry about that. You can come and visit him in the summer holidays, if you like. He’s already offered.’

‘I suppose.’

‘And you’ll be able to learn about a whole new set of plants and animals over in the east.’

That was no consolation as Ben had begun to share his uncle’s love of the area round York.

It took him a while to settle down again because they lived in the suburbs of Brisbane and he missed the country. He spent a lot of time outside in the garden and in the end he took over because Tom wasn’t interested in gardening, even if he’d had time for it. His Mum said Tom was a workaholic and sighed. Then she found herself a job and seemed happier.

With her encouragement, Ben remodelled the garden completely, making some quite big changes to the layout. It looked far better when he’d finished.

As he said to his uncle on one of his visits to York, there was usually something interesting to do in a garden.

Johnny grinned at him. ‘I think you were born with a happy soul, Ben Elless.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘You’re always cheerful. That’s good. I’m a bit that way myself. I think you take after the Elless side of the family physically too. You’re tall already but I reckon you’re going to be over six foot, like me and your father.’

Ben grimaced and looked down. ‘With big feet.’

‘All the better to stand on.’

Just after Meriel’s fifteenth birthday her life changed drastically. She went home from school as usual and was sitting eating a biscuit before doing her homework when there was a knock on the door.

Her mother got up. ‘I’ll go.’

When Denise returned she looked puzzled. ‘It was a courier. He brought this.’ She held out a bright yellow envelope. ‘It’s addressed to me.’

Helen looked up. ‘Well, why don’t you open it, then, Mum?’

‘I suppose I’d better. I’m sure it’s a mistake.’

Two minutes later she screamed and began to sob, the letter clutched tightly to her ample bosom. ‘He can’t! I won’t let him! He can’t
do
this to me.’

It took a few minutes before Denise could be persuaded to stop sobbing. When she did, she thrust the letter into Helen’s hands.

‘Read that! See what your father’s done to me.’

The two girls read it together.

Dear Denise

I’m sorry but I can’t live with you any longer. We’re nearly in the twenty-first century now and yet you live like someone from the 1940s. You even refuse to get a job so that we can buy our own house. I’ve always wanted that, as you well know.

Most important of all, I’m a man, with all a man’s normal needs, which you deny. So I’m leaving you and I want a divorce.

You won’t change my mind about this because I’ve met someone else, someone kind and loving. She’s come into an inheritance so we’ll have a house of our own, one with a garden.

I’ll still provide you and the girls with money, of course, but it won’t be as much as before.

By the time you read this, I’ll have moved to another town. You can communicate with me via my lawyer, James Benton of Benton and Bowles in the High Street.

I wish you well, Denise, and the girls too.

Frank

Meriel gasped and stole a quick glance at their mother, who was still sobbing.

‘Fetch Grandpop and Grandma,’ whispered Helen. ‘They’ll know what to do.’

With great relief Meriel hared off down the street and gasped out her story.

To her surprise, it was her grandma who spoke first.

‘I told her she was a fool to deny him her bed,’ she said. ‘Our Denise has never been easy to live with but that must have been the final straw.’

‘We’ll come round straight away,’ Grandpop said.

‘Better if I go,’ Grandma said. ‘She won’t want to see a man at a time like this. She’ll talk more easily to me, Arthur. You stay here too, Meriel love.’

‘Did you have any idea your father was seeing someone else?’ Grandpop asked when they were alone.

‘No. He used to go for lots of walks, so I suppose he saw her then.’

‘It’s not often someone pulls the wool over our Denise’s eyes.’

Meriel hesitated, then said what she’d been thinking. ‘I don’t blame Dad for leaving, not really. She’d never let him do anything he wanted.’

‘He should have stood up to her, not run away. Frank made his promises to her in church. I don’t hold with breaking promises.’

‘She made promises too.
Love, honour and obey.
’
Meriel didn’t agree with the ‘obey’ bit but the loving was important and she’d seen no signs of love between her parents, not even mild affection. They’d simply tolerated one another, living side by side. She’d often felt sad about that, because some of her friends’ parents were happy together and it showed.

Marriage seemed to be a very chancy thing. She didn’t think she’d ever risk it.

What upset her most was that her father was moving away, discarding his daughters as well as his wife.

But when she went to bed that night, she found a letter from him under her pillow, apologising and promising to do all he could to help her in the coming years. He’d have her and her sister to stay with him and Linda, once they’d settled in together.

That made Meriel feel a bit better but to her surprise, she didn’t really miss her father because he’d never played with them or taken them out, like her friends’ fathers did. It was Grandpop she’d always turned to, still did.

Over the next few months Meriel learned to bite her tongue at the things her mother said about their father – and about men in general. She tried to discuss it with her sister.

Helen just shrugged. ‘It’s better for her to let off steam. Ignore it.’

‘How can I? You’re always out with Peter. You don’t get half as much haranguing from her as I do.’

Helen smiled. ‘Get yourself a boyfriend, then. It’s about time.’

‘I would if I fancied anyone, but I don’t.’

‘Has anyone asked you out?’

She shrugged. ‘One or two.’

‘And?’

‘I didn’t like them kissing me. All sloppy. Ugh.’

‘You’re too busy with your drawing. How do you expect to find a husband if you never go out and meet guys?’

‘Maybe I don’t want a husband.’

Helen gave her another knowing smile. ‘You will one day. You’re just a late starter.’

Meriel wasn’t sure she even wanted to start if it made you smile as dopily as Helen did sometimes.

‘I’ve got myself a job,’ Denise announced two months later. ‘The money your father’s paying me isn’t nearly enough to manage on, not if you’ve got standards.’

‘Good for you, Mum!’ Helen said. ‘What as?’

‘A receptionist.’

‘You’ll be good at that.’

‘It’s all I’m fit for without qualifications. You devote your life to a man, running his house
perfectly
and how does he repay you? He runs off with a floozy, that’s what he does.’

It soon became obvious that Denise enjoyed going out to work, though she wasn’t admitting it. She grumbled for days about having to learn to use a computer but for all her protestations, she coped and was soon made permanent at her job.

Their father made one or two phone calls, but didn’t come to visit and didn’t invite his daughters to visit him. It turned out that his new wife was expecting a baby. He sounded excited about that.

Her mother grew rather tight-lipped for a while and Meriel had to tread even more carefully than usual.

* * * *

When Ben was seventeen, his stepfather was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He watched his mother care for Tom, staying cheerful and supportive through the operations and the chemotherapy.

Nothing worked and Tom died nine months later.

They came home from the hospital together and she went to make a cup of tea.

‘I’ll do it.’

She nodded, her eyes brimming with tears, and then suddenly she was crying against him. He was much taller than his mother now, so he held her close and patted her back, not knowing how to comfort her.

After a while she pulled away. ‘Sorry.’

‘It’s all right. I’m going to miss Tom, but not as much as you will.’

‘You’re a bit young to be facing all this.’

‘You shouldn’t have to lose two husbands.’

‘No, it doesn’t seem fair.’ She swiped away a stray tear. ‘I’ll get through it. Those who’re left behind don’t have much choice but to carry on, do they?’

He didn’t go to visit Uncle Johnny in Western Australia that summer, but stayed in Queensland to be with his mother.

It was the first time he hadn’t spent the summer in York since his father died. He missed it, missed being alone in the bush. But his mother needed him. He couldn’t have left her alone so soon after losing Tom. Uncle Johnny understood.

* * * *

Denise looked at her younger daughter one evening. ‘I see it’s the careers night at your school next week. You are still intending to go on to A Level, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Good. You need to choose your subjects for the sixth form, it seems.’

‘I’ve already chosen them.’

‘Oh? You didn’t ask me.’

‘You were busy.’

‘I’m not too busy to make sure you start on the right track. It’s too late for your sister to have a decent career. She’s as trusting as I was, thinks the sun shines out of her Peter’s backside. It’s not too late for you, my girl.’

‘But – ’

‘I’m going to make sure you have a good profession behind you, so that you never have to be dependent upon a man. And if I have to take your father to court to get the money for your training, I will. What subjects are you doing?’

‘Whatever I need to get into art college.’

Denise made a scornful noise in her throat. ‘When are you going to grow up? You can get the idea of studying art right out of your head. You’re going into something with security.’

‘You know I’ve always wanted to study art.’

Denise gave her daughter the same sort of look she’d given her husband when he tried to go against her. ‘I’ll not support you if you study art, so how will you manage it?’ She began to tick her points off on her fingers. ‘You’ll need somewhere to live, money to pay the tuition fees, money to live on. You don’t think your father will provide all those, do you?’

The quarrels raged for days, but in the end, thanks to Grandpop’s intervention, they compromised. Meriel agree to keep up maths and computing for her two final years, in exchange for being allowed to continue studying art.

‘But you’re not studying art at college,’ Denise said flatly. ‘I shan’t change my mind about that.’

* * * *

Like her mother, Helen Ingram married young, with seventeen-year-old Meriel sulking along the aisle behind her as chief bridesmaid in a long pink dress – absolutely the wrong shade for someone with silver-blond hair and green eyes! It had been touch and go whether her father would be allowed to give Helen away, but face-saving prevailed, as it always did with Denise – and besides, he’d offered to help pay for the wedding, so you could hardly tell him to stay away from it. But he knew better than to bring his wife.

After Helen left home, Meriel found it even more difficult to bear her mother’s moods alone. Since she was to continue at school until she was eighteen, she was allowed to use the spare bedroom as a study and even to have a computer there, bought by her father. She got a weekend job in a café so that she could buy extra art materials, because her mother refused point-blank to pay out good money for that sort of childish rubbish.

Less than a couple of years, Meriel told herself, and I’ll be away at art college. I can put up with it until then, and afterwards, once I’ve got a job, I’ll find a place of my own to live, even if it’s only one room.

When it came time to think about a career her teachers encouraged her to study art, making comments like ‘promising’ and ‘raw talent’.

The battles were fought all over again during her final year at school.

‘I’ve told you before, you’re not studying art,’ Denise said. ‘There’s no security in art.’

‘But Mum, I’m
good
at it. Really good. Just ask my art teacher.’

‘I’m good at home-making, too, and a fat lot of help that was to me.’

‘But it’s all I’ve ever wanted to do!’

‘Did you hear me? You’re
not
studying art.’

The row lasted only a few minutes, but bitter things were said on both sides.

For the next couple of weeks Meriel wept and pleaded, argued and threatened, shouted and sulked, but all in vain. Denise remained adamant.

‘You’re good at maths. All your teachers say so. The obvious thing is for you to do is become an accountant.’

‘An
accountant!
I’d rather
die!’

Her mother ignored that remark. ‘It’s a nice safe job, respectable and clean. That matters. No one respects those who work with their hands.’