Faded Dreams (8 page)

   ‘I went as white as a sheet when I heard about it… I tell you Florrie, it damned near broke me heart wishing ‘em luck there and then, right in the middle of Jubilee Street…’

   He cleared his throat and wiped his eyes, ‘I’m buggering off down town again but I’ll not be long.’

   Shaking from head to foot, Florrie slumped  on to the couch. She lost all track of time so it could have been moments, or hours later when she heard the front door banging shut and then the door to the kitchen opening and softly closing.  She raised her head and there he was, Frank.

   Taking her hands in his he drew her to her feet, ‘I’ve come to say goodbye, Florrie.' His voice was thick and strangled,  

   She offered her cheek not trusting herself to look at him. He cupped her face in his hands, gently forcing her to meet his eyes filled with the yearning  he could no longer hide..

   ‘I want to say goodbye
properly
Florrie.’ 

   Florrie feared she would faint. She was breathing too quickly but  as she parted her lips to gulp more air his mouth softly brushed them.

   She didn’t resist, after all wasn’t this what she had longed for night after night as she had lain in Joe’s arms?  She moved closer, her arms sliding up around his neck, clutching him to her as if she would never let him go.

   Desperately they clung together, his lips finding hers effortlessly again and again, each time more passionately. The soft sounds of Edie’s wireless filtered through the kitchen wall. A band was playing, “Somebody Stole My Gal” - sweet and melodious, not loud and tinny the way Joe banged it out faster than you could sing it.

   But this was no time to think of her husband. Frank had already slid the bar across the front door and now did the same with the sneck on the back door before pulling her again into his arms.

   ‘Not down here Frank,’ she breathed, guiding him towards the stairs.

   As if in one mind they found themselves not in the marital bed but on the tiny tattered rug beside it. The linoleum was cold and cracked with pieces missing where the bed frame had mangled it, but when Frank tenderly placed his rolled-up rough khaki shirt underneath her head Florrie cared nothing for the shabby surroundings.

   Only when they were sipping scalding tea in front of the kitchen fire did she realise the enormity of what she’d done. Over the years she’d had plenty of Friday night flirtations and finished up being kissed and cuddled up a back alley outside The Wheat Sheaf. Joe had most likely been up to the same thing with the barmaid from The Old Bank so what did it matter? It was just a bit of harmless fun that had never been a threat to her marriage. 

   But this was different, this wasn’t harmless fun, she had let everybody down, especially Joe and she would have to live with her secret from now on.

   Unless...unless...Frank had other plans for her. She withdrew her hand from Frank’s and feverishly twisted her wedding ring as if reaffirming her marriage vows. He lit two cigarettes and handed her one.

   ‘I wish… I wish…’ she began.

   ‘Now don’t start having regrets, sweetheart.'

   ‘I won’t Frank, I promise I won’t.'

   'I can’t go away knowing you are sorry or ashamed that we’ve loved each other.'

   'But what’s going to happen now, Frank… to the two of us?’

   'Who knows what’ll happen to any of us...tomorrow… or next week? We could all be bloody dead, couldn’t we?  But I love you, Florrie, nothing can change that?'

   'It can't end here, Frank, it mustn't.'

   She sank to the floor sobbing quietly and rested her head against his knees. He stroked her hair, searching for the words that would pacify her.

   ‘Listen to me, cock,’ unwittingly he used the term of endearment familiar to East Lancashire. ‘When I come home…
if
 
I come home… the only thing for certain is that my life is with Janie and yours is with Joe.’

   ‘Don’t talk about Joe. What about
us
Frank
?
You've just told me you love me and if you’re telling me now that it’s all over and done with between us... I can’t…I can’t go on.’ Through her tears she looked up at his sweet face and saw her own anguish mirrored in his eyes.

   ‘Yes you can, cock, you
must
… for the sake of the kids if nothing else.’  He swallowed hard, he had to make it right for her, he couldn’t leave her hoping, longing.

   ‘Joe’s not a bad lad, Florrie. God knows he can be a fiery bugger at times, but his heart’s in the right place and he has a lot of good in him.  And he
does
love you even if he has a funny way of showing it.’

   ‘What about… Janie?’  She could hardly get the name out.

   ‘I don’t even know when I’ll see her again. I’ll drop her a line and tell her we’ve moved out. But don’t you fret about Janie, she’ll be all right with or without me,’ a slight bitterness crept into his voice, ‘you can bet Bob’ll not be far off,  looking after her, no doubt about that.’ 

   They clung together watching the orange flames against the sooty chimney, some soft and gentle, some striving with each burst of energy to reach into the blackness above.

   Eventually he rose to his feet, smartened his uniform and unfolded his cap, wanting to hold her once more yet fearing that if he touched her again he would never leave.

   ‘I don’t want to make this worse, love… I’ll go quickly.’ 

   He dropped a final kiss on her forehead. It was the moment she had been dreading. She fixed her eyes on the floor.

   ‘Come back safe, Frank,’ she
thought
she said, but with her distress so raw she couldn’t be sure. And then he was gone.

*

   She had swilled her face with cold water and swapped her crumpled frock for a freshly ironed one by the time Joe came home. She began to cry all over again.  He hung his jacket on the nail behind the kitchen door then held her close, gently stroking her eyes with calloused fingers.

   ‘I know how you feel cock… it’s the same way for me. We’ve both got attached to them lads… especially Frank. We’ll just have to pray and hope for the best.’

   Joe’s emotions were always close to the surface ready to bubble over without warning. Tears rolled down his face and Florrie did what she always did, thrust her own unhappiness aside to tend to his. Guiding him to the couch and holding him as tightly as a mother might hold her distraught child, she reached for the crumpled frock and tenderly wiped his face with a corner of the skirt… that same shabby frock that Frank had
admired
barely an hour ago… the same emerald green as her eyes, he’d told her.

   ‘Hush Joe, hush. They’ll be all right, you’ll see. Now then, stop upsetting yourself and I’ll make us a pot of tea.  I’m going to have a Cephos Powder with mine, you’d better have one as well.’

   Florrie always kept a box or two of the local remedy handy. She was a firm believer in their power to shift headaches, and
she
ought to know, living with Joe gave her plenty of
them
. Over the years she had come to rely on them not just for headaches or in times of stress but often simply to relieve the drudgery of everyday life

   Once when Betty had said, ‘Mum, what are we having for tea? I’m famished,’ she had answered, ‘
I’m
going to have a pot of tea and a Cephos now, and then something proper a bit later on.’ Joe had turned this simple exchange into a family joke so that whenever anyone enquired what was for dinner, tea, or supper he would mimic her high-pitched voice…

   ‘
Let’s all have a pot of tea and a Cephos… and something
proper
a bit later on!’

   ‘Oh shut your gob, you cheeky bugger,’ Florrie would feign anger before joining in the laughter.

   But today was no laughing matter and Joe gratefully accepted the slim packet from the new box of powders on the mantelpiece and gulped it down with a mouthful of water and as if by magic was instantly calmed just as she knew he would.

*

    A few weeks later Florrie sat on the edge of the bed retching so hard she thought her stomach was changing places with her throat. She hadn’t felt well all night, it must have been that bacon sandwich she’d eaten at supper time. Joe pulled on his trousers, buttoned his flies and reached under the bed for the chamber pot. He held the half-full pot of urine under her chin in order to catch whatever was coming up off her stomach.

   ‘What’s up, lass?’

   ‘It must have been that bacon-butt, it tasted
off
.’ The memory of the greasy bacon coupled with the stink of stale pee was enough to make her stop retching and throw up.  She pushed the brimming
jerry
back into his hands and lay back on the bed. ‘Take it away, I’ll be all right now, you’re gonna be late for work, I’ll go in to work at dinnertime.’

   He finished dressing, hurried down the long back yard and tipped the contents of the jerry down the lavatory. It seemed funny to him that Florrie was ill, that bacon was fresh straight from the warehouse the day before yesterday, him and the kids had eaten it and
they
hadn’t been ill.

   Florrie struggled to keep going for the next few months by taking regular doses of bicarbonate of soda, while Hettie grew increasingly concerned.

   ‘Belly-ache doesn’t last this long, she mee-mawed, (the mixture of sign-language and lip-reading used by weavers to communicate.) Y'don’t think you’re expecting, do ya?’

   ‘Who? Me? Expecting?’ Florrie mee-mawed back, mouthing the words above the thunderous clattering of machinery and accompanying them with elaborate mime - pointing to herself, raising her eyebrows, opening her mouth as wide as it would go, as if flabbergasted.

   'He doesn’t want any more...’ she traced a circular pattern on her belly with her forefinger by way of explanation, pausing for Hettie to lip-read. ...‘he’s always been that careful since Ellie, I’ve relied on him for that.’  

   Hettie glanced furtively around to see if other weavers were picking up their conversation and mee-mawing Florrie's business all over the weaving shop, then shook her head vigorously,  ‘I didn’t mention
Joe
.’

   ‘Shuddup, you’d better not mention
Frank
either,’ Florrie shouted in vain, her voice inaudible above the incessant clamour of a hundred looms. Edging her way between the looms she clutched Hettie’s arm.

   ‘I’d kill myself, honest to God I would…if
I
didn’t,
he’d kill me.
’ With panic spreading across her white face, she mimed Joe’s fury, 'I’d get hung, drawn and quartered.

   ‘Get back to work, kid…everybody’s looking…you’ll get us both the bloody sack… might be a false alarm…let’s hope so.’ Hettie held up her hand to show she had her fingers crossed.

   But this was no false alarm and three months later her suspicions were confirmed.

*

   Florrie met up with Hettie outside The Market Hall early on Saturday morning. They made their way past the tarpaulin-covered market stalls that were already attracting shoppers and boarded the tram.

   The small town of Darwen was only a stone’s throw from Blackburn and yet Florrie had never visited it until today. Hettie knew of a man there who called himself  “Doctor” but rumour had it that he wasn’t a
real
doctor and if he’d been one in the past, he wasn’t one any more.  He charged two Guineas, more money than Florrie had to her name. By some miracle Hettie had managed to scrape it together, God only knew when she’d be able to pay her back.

   The scruffy middle-aged man with the posh voice showed Florrie into the back kitchen of the terraced house leaving Hettie to wait nervously in the dingy hall. After what seemed like hours the door reopened and Florrie stood there, ashen-faced, clinging to its frame.  ‘Come on…let’s go,’ she choked.

   Without another word they hurried through the unfamiliar town until Hettie stopped and grabbed her arm.

   ‘Wait a bit…slow down…what’s gone on kid? Can he get rid of it or not?’

   ‘He says he daren’t risk it… he says I’m too far gone.’ Florrie’s voice was remote as if she was talking of someone unconnected with herself, a stranger.

   Hettie took her arm and guided her into a toffee shop where two brown tables and matching chairs were set out.  She pushed Florrie into the nearest one and brought two glasses of steaming hot Vimto from the counter. ‘Come on lass, get that down you, it’ll warm you up.’

   The soothing crimson drink brought her back to life. ‘What am I gonna do, Hettie? He doesn’t want any more kids, we can’t afford another one…and anyway… what if…what if it isn’t
his
?’

  
‘
You’ll
never know, and
he’ll
never know.  Nobody else knows about you and Frank, only
me
and I’ll say nowt to nobody.  Now come on, pull yourself together cock.  You’re going home, and as soon as you see him you’re gonna get it over with and tell him he’s going to be a dad again.