All The Days of My Life (66 page)

Simon, when she told him, said “What?” in a tone of horror. Then, looking at her sternly, he told her, “Look – you don't know enough about Tom.”

“I know he's been kind to me,” Molly said. She was bending over painfully to put a casserole in the oven. “How could I have managed – sitting here on my own at night, thinking about Joe.”

She thought of Tom, bending over her chair to wipe away the tears, comforting her, cheering her up. “He wants to do it,” she told him. “It's not much to ask. I'd be glad of someone standing by when the nurses start to nag me. In any case,” she admitted, “I'm afraid. I've no one to turn to. Having a baby isn't much fun at the best of times. If I start thinking about Joe being dead, how am I going to manage? The pain'll be worse. I won't be able to help myself.”

“I suppose so,” Simon agreed grudgingly. “But it's a bit weird, you must admit. I don't understand it.”

“You don't have to,” Molly said.

Thus it was Tom who stayed at Meakin Street as the time for the birth approached, Tom who drove her to the hospital and Tom who talked to her in the early stages of labour, who mopped her brow and wetted her lips as the pain grew intense, who stood beside her, holding her hand and encouraging her as her body stretched and contorted in its efforts to produce the child.

It was Tom the doctor addressed first as he held up a large male baby. “What a whopper,” he said. “There must be giants in your family.”

And Tom, disconcertingly, replied, “Future light heavyweight champion of Britain, there.” For some reason Molly was horrified by this exchange of remarks and cried, holding out her arms, “Give him to me.”

For months she had seen the baby as an unpleasant physical problem and a source of future pain. Now she had him, he was real. He was half hers, half Joe's, and she loved him. When she had Josephine she had been young, and stunned. This time she was able to understand what had happened, imagine a future with a child. The nurse had
some difficulty in prising the baby away in order to wash him and cut the umbilical cord. She ignored Tom completely.

Nevertheless, visitors who came to see Molly and the new baby at Meakin Street were surprised to find Tom in attendance. He did not help with the care of the child, but he did assist in other ways, although, it must be admitted, by that stage Molly was paying for everything and his attentions, though assiduous, confined themselves to the less serious forms of house-keeping. Cissie Messiter was severe when she arrived unexpectedly one morning and found Molly cleaning the bathroom, while Tom sat downstairs finishing his breakfast. Taking the cloth from Molly and finishing the cleaning of the bath she puffed philosophically, “I suppose he's better than post-natal depression.”

Six weeks later Tom was still in the house. “I don't like it,” Sid told Sam Needham in the pub. “I don't like the way he's hanging about. What's he waiting for?”

“I reckon,” Sam said, “he's waiting for what you and I think he's waiting for.”

“It makes me feel queasy,” Sid answered. “But what can I do – what can any of us do? He's been very good to her. And she seems to need him.”

“I just hope she doesn't do anything stupid while she's still in a state,” Sam replied.

But Molly did.

Looking back I can see all those faces which were covered in smiles when Joe and me said we were tying the knot at last, going pinched when they heard the news about Tom and me. Then there'd be a sort of choking sound while the person bit back what they were going to say first, like “No!” or “For God's sake think again.” Then would come the nearly polite remarks, like “Are you sure you know what you're doing?” “Isn't it a bit soon?” All that.

Tom won't mind me saying it was madness. Hard to say who was the most stupid – him or me. To be honest, it was probably him, just because he hadn't lost his husband and had a baby in the last six months, so he should have known better. I should have known better myself but I suppose I was in a desperate state, with no idea how to manage, or who I was, even. And I wanted the safety of Allaun Towers for the boy and even for Josephine to come to when she wanted. I thought I could learn to love Tom – after all, I knew I'd loved all the men I'd lived with, in different ways. So, I thought, why not Tom? I already depended on him for gentleness and comfort.

I little knew, that's all I can say – I little knew what I was letting myself in for. Of course, it might have been different if I'd once clapped eyes on Charlie Markham during the courtship. One glance at Charlie and memories would have come flooding back. More than that, once Charlie and Tom were together there was no doubt about what Tom was. But Charlie had been primed to stay out of the way – the cat and the fox split up so's not to arouse Pinocchio's suspicions. Seven months after Joe's death, there I was at the altar again. What a wedding – what a reception – and, oh dear, what a honeymoon.

The only truly cheerful face at the wedding breakfast at the Savoy was Isabel Allaun's. Enjoying the pleasure of seeing her son married at last
and the sense of being returned to an atmosphere she had long missed, where waiters in tailcoats presented silver trays on which stood shining glasses of champagne, she glittered.

“Such a pity your son couldn't come,” she said to Ivy. She had already met Shirley and Brian and their sons, but Shirley's slightly depressed air and Brian's obvious disapproval had not made a good impression on her. She privately thought that Jack Waterhouse, now an MP, even if a Labour MP, might be more socially poised and generally acceptable.

“Jack had to go abroad,” Ivy told her new relative by marriage. She did not say that Jack had made sure he would be abroad, seeing the hasty marriage of his sister into the upper classes as a double betrayal of Joe Endell and everything he had stood for.

“What a pity,” Isabel said. “Never mind. He'll be able to see the photographs.” “And don't bother to order any of the photographs for me, either,” Jack had told Ivy dourly.

“Are you feeling all right, Ivy?” Simon Tate said, coming past. He saw she was very pale. “Shall I get Sid?” Simon was keeping an eye on Ivy. “He didn't turn up at that restaurant by accident,” he had told her. “He phoned and my secretary said where I was and who I was with. He deliberately came along to pick her off.”

“I'm fine,” Ivy said, standing there in the crush and feeling faint. Sam Needham, like Jack, had refused to attend. “I've got nothing against Molly,” he had said. “Only I think at the moment she's out of her mind.”

“Such a happy outcome,” Isabel Allaun said to Ivy. And Ivy wondered why Isabel should be so delighted that her son had married working-class Mary Waterhouse. Feeling dizzier and dizzier she looked round for Sid, but saw his back going through the door, just as Charlie Markham, who had been best man, stood up to speak. “I was afraid my cousin Tom would never marry,” he said, “but now he has a wife, an old childhood friend, and with her he gains a child – wife and family, all in one –”

Ivy looked at the door through which Sid had gone, hoping he would return soon. She turned her head, searching for a chair. Horror engulfed her, and blackness. Simon Tate put his arm round her in time and helped her to a chair.

Molly, standing behind the cake, with Charlie, saw her mother start to collapse. She turned anxiously to Tom, who was laughing at one of Charlie's jokes. Sid was supposed to have made a short speech, but he
had disappeared. Charlie completed his remarks, there was clapping, cries of “Speech,” directed at Tom, who turned to Molly and brushed her lips with his. Together they cut the cake. As the steel went through the white icing Molly felt Tom's hand over hers on the knife. His palm was cold as ice.

I knew then, with Sid missing, and Ivy passing out and Charlie making his jovial, jolly-good-chap remarks, that I was done for. I should have turned and run but honestly I couldn't believe I'd have made such a mistake. I was used to making mistakes about what to do but not to making mistakes about what I felt. If my instincts had told me Tom was generous, kind and loving, I knew they had to be right. I should have thought then of the small betraying details – that washer that was always going to be put on the dripping tap and never was, the way he'd never offered me more than a few caresses, which I thought was because he was shy about the fact I was a recent widow and I'd just had a baby. I might have been more curious if I hadn't been hiding things myself, like how important it was to me to see my child grow up at Framlingham with a live father, and not a dead one, and how much I needed to get a new identity, now Joe was gone. In fact that was what I didn't really understand myself. The trouble was we were both after things which mattered a lot to us, but which we weren't telling each other about. What a start to a marriage.

Eventually, the guests disappeared. Tom and Molly planned spending the night at the hotel and going to Framlingham in the morning. Sid and Ivy were to take care of the baby for a week and then drive to Kent.

Molly, left in the room with Tom and Charlie, said goodbye to the last of the guests and looked unhappily at the cake, with a section cut out of it, the confetti on the floor and the empty plates and glasses. She missed the baby already. It had seemed appropriate to settle in at Framlingham without the child, but now she regretted she had agreed to the plan. She swallowed, then smiled at Tom. “Happy?” she asked him.

He nodded and smiled back at her. It was a smile which came a fraction too late. Charlie said, “Don't let's stand here among the remains of the marriage feast. Come on – I'll drink a toast to you in the bar.”

They spent the afternoon there. Tom got drunker and drunker. Molly found that she felt better if she was not sober. The scene disconcerted even Charlie, who bent towards Tom as he ordered yet another round of drinks and said something to him in a low voice. Molly, a bit drunk, did not see him muttering into his cousin's ear. She did catch the expression of anger on Tom's face, which disappeared as he said to Molly, “You must be feeling very tired. Shall we go upstairs so that you can rest?”

She nodded. She had the idea that, once upstairs, Tom would make love to her. She wanted, now, to feel a body close to hers. She wanted the passion, the intimacy, the release. But in the suite upstairs Tom led her past the huge arrangement of flowers on the table, the long window looking out on to the Thames and, dropping her hand in the bedroom doorway, said, “I'll run you a bath, shall I?”

“No thank you,” Molly said. “I'll just lie down.” Tom kissed her lightly on the lips and said, “Sleep well, then.”

He went out, shutting the bedroom door. Molly, slightly bewildered, full of champagne and brandy, decided that perhaps she should rest. She lay down and slept. She woke at six, alone, desperately missing Joe Endell. Tom was not in the other room. She fell on to the sofa and cried. “Is it a mistake?” she said to herself. Then aloud, “Is it a mistake?” But she thought of Allaun Towers, the red bricks glowing in the sunshine. She thought of the pasture-land, full of grazing cattle, the lake and the trees. “He'll have all that, the way I did,” she thought, imagining her healthy boy learning to walk on the lawn in front of the house, pushing his way through corn taller than he was, learning to row on the lake. She thought that he, without a father, and she, without Joe, would have something for themselves. She told herself that Tom must have got bored, as he sat there, waiting for her to wake up. She told herself that he was over forty, that he had never been married before, that he was bound to feel strange and uncertain with her. She told herself that she should not have decided to sleep in the first place. And yet, said a voice inside her, he suggested it. He led you to the room and shut the door. Tact, said another voice. It was tact, kindness, good manners. Why should he want a drunken scramble on the bed in the middle of the afternoon as a consummation of the marriage?

Glumly, she ordered coffee, and later, whisky. She watched TV and quelled a strong impulse to leave. I must give this a chance, she whispered to herself. She remembered Tom helping, Tom being kind,
and drank more. At ten Charlie Markham rang up, sounding embarrassed. “Sorry, Moll,” he said, “Tom's here – turned up unexpectedly and joined a small party I'm having here.” He paused. “Trouble is,” he said, “Tom's passed out now. I'm bringing him back.”

“Thanks, Charlie,” Molly said glumly.

“Case of a belated stag party, I think,” Charlie told her. “He would sit at home last night – well – I'm on my way, then.”

“Thanks, Charlie,” Molly said again. She bit her lip and tried to control her rage. Charlie's effort at kindness made the whole matter seem worse. Together they put Tom to bed. Charlie looked at the defeated bride and the drunken groom with pity, which he tried to conceal. He accepted Molly's offer of a drink and sat down saying, “Weddings are bloody awful things if you ask me. Best forgotten once they're over.”

“Yes, Charlie,” Molly agreed, but she felt bewildered. She was alarmed by Charlie Markham's sympathy. She had never known him to be kind before. “He'll have a sore head for Framlingham tomorrow,” Charlie said. “Don't be too hard on him in the morning.”

“No, I won't,” Molly said. “Thanks again, Charlie. Come and visit us when we're properly settled in.”

“Looking forward to it,” he said, getting up. “I haven't been there for years. Good luck, Moll.” He kissed her on the cheek, and left.

After he had gone Molly sat and ached for Joe Endell. She pined for the baby. At the same time she felt very alarmed. She had a bath and leapt out of it quickly, as though responding to an emergency. She was half asleep in front of the television wearing the blue, embroidered dressing-gown she had bought before she married Tom, when at last he came in. He looked pale. He was carrying his jacket. He shut the door behind him with care and asked, “What's the time.”