The Likes of Us (6 page)

Listlessly she washed up and put away the teapots. Then she took the coal-bucket from the hearth and went down into the dripping, dungeon-like darkness of the huge cellar. There she filled the bucket and lugged it back up the steps. Mending the fire, piling it high with the wet gleaming lumps of coal, she drew some comfort from the fact that this at least, with Scurridge's miner's allocation, was one thing of which they were never short. This job done, she switched on the battery-fed wireless set and stretched out her feet in their torn canvas shoes to the blaze.

They were broadcasting a programme of old-time dance music: the Lancers, the Barn Dance, the Veleta. You are my honey-honey-suckle, I am the bee… Both she and Scurridge had loved old-time dancing a long time, a long long time ago: and, scorning the modern fox-trots, how often they had danced so in the first years of marriage while some kind friend looked to the baby, Eva! Oh, those wonderful early days: that brief era of glorious freedom, with the narrow restrictions of her father's house behind her and the mad decline of Scurridge in the unknown future! Oh! Those times... There seemed to be a conspiracy afoot tonight, set on making her remember, and she sat there while the radio played, letting the old tunes wash the long-submerged memories onto the shores of her mind; and later on she took a candle and went up into the cold, barn-like bedroom and climbing on a chair, rummaged in a cupboard over the built-in wardrobe and eventually unearthed a photograph album. Rubbing the mildewed cover on her overall, she took the album down to her chair by the fire. It was years since she had looked into the album and slowly now she turned the pages and went back across the years to her youth.

 

She was asleep when the knock came at the back door to startle her into sudden wakefulness, and consciousness that the gaslight had failed and the room was lit only by the flicker of the big fire in the grate. She thought for a bemused moment that she had imagined the sound, and then it was repeated more insistently this time, and she got up and after picking up and placing on the table the photograph album which had slid from her knee while she dozed, went into the passage.

She stood a few feet from the door and called out, ‘Who is it? Who's there?' It was a lonely house and, though she was not normally nervous, being awakened so abruptly had disturbed her a little.

‘It's me,' a woman's voice answered; ‘Eva.'

‘Oh!' Mrs Scurridge stepped forward and unbolted the door and swung it open. ‘Come in, love, come in. I wasn't expecting you tonight. You must be near frozen through.'

‘Just a minute,' her daughter said. ‘I'll just give Eric a shout.' She walked to the corner of the house and called out. A man's voice answered her and then there was the coughing splutter of a motor-cycle engine, from the road at the front of the house.

‘I thought you mustn't be in when I couldn't see a light,' Eva said when she came back. She kicked the snow off her boots against the step before coming into the passage. ‘What're you doing sitting in the dark? Don't tell me you haven't a penny for the gas now.'

‘It went out while I was having a little nap.' They went along the stone-flagged passage and into the fire-lit kitchen. ‘I'll just find me purse and see if I've any coppers.'

‘No, here.' Eva took out her own purse. ‘I've a shilling here: that'll last longer.'

‘Well, I've got some coppers…' her mother began. But Eva had already crossed the room and her heels were clacking on the steps to the cellar. Mrs Scurridge put a twist of paper into the fire and when she heard the shilling fall in the meter, lit the gas-mantle.

‘Isn't Eric comin' in then?' she asked as Eva returned.

‘He's got a football club meeting in Cressley,' Eva said, ‘He's callin' back for me. He might pop in for a minute then.'

Her mother watched her as she took off her headscarf and gingerly fingered her newly permed mouse-brown hair.

‘A busy young man, your Eric.'

‘Oh, here, there an' everywhere.' Eva took off her heavy tweed coat. Under it she had on a dark-green wool dress. Round the high neck of the dress she was wearing a necklace of an imitation gold finish with a matching bracelet round her wrist. She brought an air of comfortable prosperity and well-being with her into the shabby room.

‘They made him a foreman at the Works last week,' she said, with a faint note of complacent pride in her voice.

‘Ah, promotion, eh?'

Eva lifted her skirt from the hips to avoid ‘seating' it and sat down in her father's chair. She levered off her fur-lined winter boots and put her nylon-stockinged feet on the kerb. ‘He'll be manager one day,' she said. ‘Everybody says how clever he is.'

‘Well, it's nice to hear of a young man getting on,' her mother said; ‘especially when he's something to you.'

Eva ran her palms up and down her calves then pushed back the hem of her skirt to expose her knees to the fire. She was a thin young woman, easily chilled, and she could not remember ever being able to keep warm in this house in winter. She stretched out her hands and leaned towards the blaze.

‘Brrrh! What weather... It's freezing like anything outside.'

‘I hope your Eric'll be safe on his bike.'

‘Oh, he'll be all right. He's a careful driver: and it's better with the side car on, weather like this... Have you been cutting yourself?' she asked, noticing her mother's hand for the first time.

Mrs Scurridge told her what had happened and Eva said, ‘You want to look after it. Don't let it turn septic.'

Mrs Scurridge dismissed the injury with a shrug. ‘It's only a scratch. I've put some salve on it. It'll heal up in a day or two…'

‘I like your frock,' said Mrs Scurridge after a moment. ‘Is it new?'

‘Well, nearly. I've only worn it two or three times. I got it in Leeds when we were looking at furniture. It was in Creston's window – y'know, in Briggate – an' it took me eye straight away. Eric saw me looking at it an' he bought it me. I knew we couldn't afford it, what with all the expense of movin' an' everything, but he talked me into it.' She gave a short laugh of feminine pleasure, at this thought of her husband's indulgence.

‘You've got moved and everything, then?'

‘Yes, we're in, thank the Lord. It'll take a bit of making comfortable, what with it being so new in' all that, but it's like heaven after livin' in digs.'

‘I dare say it will be. But you got on all right with the folk you lodged with, didn't you? You never had any trouble or anything?'

‘Oh, no, nothing like that. Not that there hasn't been times when I could have said a thing or two, mind. But Mrs Walshaw's much too reserved an' ladylike to ever have words with anybody. She had a way of looking down her nose at you 'at I never liked. She'd taken quite a fancy to Eric, y'know, what with her an' Mr Walshaw not havin' any child of their own, an' I believe she thought he'd never find a lass good enough for him. No, you can't quarrel with Mrs Walshaw. Quite the lady, she is. You'd never think to meet her she'd made all her money keepin' a fish and chip shop an' taking lodgers in.'

‘Aye, it takes all sorts... You'll have been kept busy for a bit, then?'

‘Oh, You've no idea. What with cleanin' an' paintin' and buying furniture an' making curtains, we've had a real month of it. But it's such a lovely house, Mother. I walk round sometimes when Eric's at work and tell myself it's really ours. An' I still can't believe it. I'm always thinkin' I'll wake up one morning and find we're back in Mrs Walshaw's back bedroom.'

There was a short silence while Eva gently rubbed her legs in the heat of the fire. Then Mrs Scurridge said diffidently, ‘You're not... You don't think you're over-reaching yourselves at all, do you? You know what I mean: taking on a bit more than you can manage.'

‘Oh, no,' Eva said; ‘we're all right. We've been saving up ever since we were married. Both of us working. An' Eric was always careful as a single lad, y'know. He never threw his money around like a lot of 'em do. No, we'll be all right. We shall have to pull our horns in a bit from now on; but we'll manage nicely, thank you.'

‘Well then,' said her mother, satisfied. ‘You know your own know best. An' I'm right glad
'
at you're settled in a home of your own at last.'

‘An' you can come an' see us any time you like now,' Eva said. ‘It's not far – just half an hour on the bus from Cressley.'

‘Yes, I'll have to see about it now. I'll be poppin' over one o'these fine days. Just let's get a bit o' better weather here.'

Eva toasted her knees. ‘Well,' she said, ‘an' how are you keeping?'

Mrs Scurridge gave a faint shrug. ‘Oh, so so. A touch of lumbago now an' again; but I can't grumble. I'll be happier when we have a bit better weather. You feel so cut off here when there's snow on the ground. Half a mile from the nearest house and hardly any traffic on the road at night.'

‘You should get out more,' Eva said,
'
stead o' sittin' in night after night.'

‘Aye, I suppose I should. You get out of the habit, though. And besides, this weather–'

‘No need to ask about me father,' Eva said. ‘Seems this weather doesn't keep him in. Where's he gone tonight? Down town?'

Her mother nodded, looking into the fire. ‘Dogs, I suppose.'

‘Leaving you here on your own, is usual.'

‘There's no pleasure out on a night like this.'

Eva nodded. ‘I know all about it.' She drew in her breath. ‘I don't know how you stand it. I don't, honestly.' Her gaze flickered round the room and the dinginess of what she saw seemed so to oppress her that she barely restrained a shudder. ‘Thank God I got out when I had the chance.'

‘It was different with you,' her mother said. ‘You'd have gone anyway, sometime.'

‘Not if he'd had his way. It just suited his book having two women about the house to wait on him. An' with my money coming in he could hang on to more of his own.' She stopped, then burst out in angry impatience, ‘I don't see it. I just don't see it. A husband should be somebody like Eric, who considers his wife an' looks after her. An' when he stops being like that your duty stops as well. You don't owe me father a thing. You could walk out of here tonight an' nobody could blame you. An' you know there's a place waiting for you any time you want it now. You've somewhere to go now.'

Mrs Scurridge threw a shrewd glance at her daughter's profile, flushed pink now from the heat of the fire and her outburst of indignation. ‘Is that what Eric thinks too?' she said. ‘What does he think about it?'

‘Well... he thinks like I do. He doesn't know why you stick it.'

‘But that doesn't mean he'd be happy to be saddled with his mother-in-law as soon as he's settled in his first home. Especially a mother-in-law like me.'

‘Why especially like you?'

‘Well, I don't suppose he thinks I'm the smartest woman he's ever seen.'

‘But you could be smart,' Eva cried. ‘You could if you got away from here. What's the use of bothering here, though, livin' week in an' week out miles from anywhere with a husband who spends all his money on gamblin' an' drinkin'? How can anybody take a pride in conditions like that?'

‘Well, my place is with your father, Eva, and that's all there is to it.'

‘But you don't–'

‘That'll do,' her mother said quietly.

Eva said, ‘Oh!' and stood up with an impatient gesture.

The radio was still playing. ‘Do we have to have this thing on?'

‘You can switch if off if you like. I was listening to some old-time dance music, but it's over now.'

Eva went round the back of the chair and turned the knob. In the silence that followed she remained standing there, one hand resting on top of the wireless cabinet, her back to her mother.

‘Mother,' she said suddenly, and turned round, ‘am I illegitimate?'

Her mother started. ‘No, you're not.'

‘But you an' me dad had to get married because of me, hadn't you?'

‘No, no. It wasn't quite like that. We did get married when we knew you were coming; but we should have done anyway. We weren't forced into it.' She met her daughter's eyes. ‘How did you find out?'

‘Oh, it's something I've hid in the back of me mind for a long while now,' Eva said, still standing behind the chair. ‘It was just a matter of checkin' a couple of dates to make sure.'

‘Have you said anything to Eric?'

‘No.'

‘Are you going to?'

‘I don't see why I should.'

‘Neither do I,' Mrs Scurridge said. ‘But you don't think he'd mind, do you?'

‘I don't know,' Eva said frankly. ‘He... Well, he's a bit straitlaced about some things, is Eric. I don't see any point in spoiling anything…'

‘But nobody can call you illegitimate, Eva,' Mrs Scurridge said. ‘We were married months before y…' She turned her gaze to the fire. ‘I'm sorry, love. I never saw any reason to tell you.'

‘Oh, don't you be sorry.' Eva's mouth set. ‘It's him, not you.

‘You shouldn't hate your father so much, Eva.'

‘How can I help it when everything he touches turns rotten? He's spoilt your life an' he'd have done the same with mine if I hadn't stood up to him. He couldn't even get married in a right way. He had to get hold of you by getting you into trouble.'

‘It wasn't like that at all,' her mother said intensely. ‘He was different in those days. You'd never credit the difference.'

‘So you tell me. But I can't remember him like that. The only father I know is a tight-fisted, mean-hearted old rotter who can't live decent for gamblin' everything away.