Friends and Lovers (4 page)

‘Thank God,’ murmured Viv, watching her mother’s expression. ‘At least Aunt Flo cared about me. All you wanted was to live it up in America! You thought it was the Promised Land.’

‘I didn’t live it up! I never even got to Hollywood. New Jersey’s thousands of miles away and Charlie wouldn’t move. Freezing in winter and humid in summer. I felt like I couldn’t breathe sometimes. Our Flo had the best of it marrying Mike.’

She reached for her handbag again, opened it, shut it, then pushed it away petulantly. Her expression was sulky. ‘Damn! Why should I have cared about Father? He never cared for me when I most needed it. Our Flo was the one. I wish she hadn’t been at times, but she was like Grandmother Preston so Father said. That’s why I left you with her. Don’t you think I knew she’d care for you better than me?

‘Anyway, that’s all water under the bridge. When Flo said Father had died I though I’d better come home. I believed the pair of you might need a parent around and our Flo couldn’t come, not
with her brood. I thought you especially, Viv, needed a mother.’

‘Me! Need you? That has to be the joke of the month,’ she said, leaning against the table. ‘I’m amazed you spared me a thought after all these years with hardly a word.’

‘You’re hard, Viv Preston,’ said Hilda, her eyes glinting. ‘You’re not like your Aunt Flora. I was hoping that some of her ways would have rubbed off on you by now.’

Viv was deeply hurt. ‘Perhaps I take after you then?’ she said bitingly. ‘You were always the hard one, never showing me any affection. Now you’ve come home all you can talk of is Grandfather’s money. What are we supposed to think?’

There was silence. Hilda cleared her throat. ‘Hasn’t your mother mentioned the money, George?’ she asked eventually.

‘Never,’ he said vehemently. ‘If she thought about it she would want us to have it. And I tell you straight. Aunt Hilda, no way will you get your hands on my share. I have plans for it.’

‘How much was there?’

‘I’m not telling you.’

‘I’ll get a lawyer,’ she said mildly. ‘I’ve a legal right to some of it.’

‘You’ve no bloody right,’ George said explosively, his fists clenching and unclenching. ‘It’s not fair! And I’m not going to let you spoil
things for me.’ Without another word he strode out of the kitchen.

Viv stared at her mother. ‘Are you happy now? No sooner do you come on the scene than there’s trouble.’

‘He’ll calm down.’ Hilda twiddled her thumbs. ‘He’s very like his father in some ways.’

‘So Aunt Flo says. But why get him going in the first place? Why come back, Mother? I wish I could believe all that stuff about your wanting to be a mother to me, but I don’t. I’ve managed quite happily without you and can carry on doing so. You don’t belong here any more. So why don’t you go back to where you
do
belong?’ She walked from the room and ran upstairs, her heart pounding uncomfortably.

She found George putting his painting equipment into a rucksack. The lines of his face were taut. ‘I’d forgotten just how grasping your mother was,’ he muttered. ‘I only remembered how she used to make things happen in the old days. There was never a dull moment.’

Viv sat on the bed, hardly able to believe what had just happened. ‘What are you going to do?’

He looked at the paint box in his hand. ‘I’m going to Paris.’

‘You don’t mean right now?’ Her voice was startled.

‘Right now,’ he said firmly. ‘I’m not staying in
this house a moment longer or your mother will wheedle some money out of me.’

Viv smiled. ‘She can’t do that unless you let her. We’re not children any more, George.’

He grimaced. ‘I’m glad you feel like that. She makes me feel ten years old.’

Viv shrugged. ‘You’re not, though. And she’s got no proof that Grandfather didn’t get rid of the sovereigns. I reckon she’s having you on about going to see a lawyer.’

‘Maybe. It makes no difference.’ He shoved the box inside the rucksack. ‘What about you? Are you coming with me or staying here with her?’

‘I told you, George, I’m going to America.’

‘Even though your mother’s here? You can’t just walk out.’

She laughed. ‘You’re walking out!’

‘It’s different for me. She’s not my mother.’

The laughter died in Viv’s face. ‘Your mother’s in America and you don’t seem to give a damn about her, George. You’re a hypocrite. I’d have to be daft to go to Paris with you.’

He turned brick red. ‘You don’t understand, Viv! It’s not the way you think. For men, sometimes the last person they need around is their mother. She’d smother me. She loves me too much. Besides, I’m doing this for my dad too. It was his dream to be an artist.’ He hesitated. ‘I’m sorry about earlier. You’re right, I was using you as a substitute for
Kathleen. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care for you in my own way.’

Viv’s expression softened and she hugged him, suddenly close to tears. Then, without a word, she walked out of the room and downstairs, prepared to do battle with her mother once more.

Hilda glanced up from that day’s newspaper which quivered in her hand. ‘Well?’ she said. ‘Have you come back to insult me a bit more. Where’s George? That lad’s too like his father for his own good.’

‘I wouldn’t know anything about that,’ said Viv, sitting down and gazing uncertainly at her mother. ‘I don’t remember ever seeing his father. Much as I never saw my own.’

‘Hmmmph!’ Her mother rustled the newspaper. ‘I got a shock when I saw the pair of you rolling about on the floor. I believed you an innocent.’

‘That is because I was a child when you left. But I’m still a virgin if that’s what’s worrying you. Although you’re a right one to talk about morality! I’m illegitimate, remember?’

‘You think I’ve ever forgotten?’ said Hilda wryly. ‘It was one of the worse moments of my life, finding out I was expecting you. This place has some unhappy memories. The worse was when Father threw me out.’ She gazed about the small cramped room with its faded wallpaper and old-fashioned oak furniture, and a sigh escaped her. ‘Still, I’ve some happy
memories too. Mother used to lie on that sofa.’

Her expression was suddenly reminiscent. ‘But we’ll have to get rid of it. It’s a disgrace. We’ll keep the old rocking chair, though, and do it up.’ Her face softened. ‘I remember Mother sitting with me on her knee and rocking us both. I think we could make a nice little nest out of this place.’

‘We?’ Vivien could not believe her ears. ‘You surely aren’t stopping? We?’ she repeated, feeling as if she had wandered into a play because everything seemed so incredible. ‘Do you think I’d live here with you? Where were you when Grandfather was incontinent and his sheets needed changing? When his long johns stank to high heaven and I had to peel them off him while he hung on to them? What right have you to be here now he’s gone, talking about throwing out his furniture?’

‘I was his eldest daughter and he never wanted me here,’ murmured Hilda. ‘If things were so terrible you should have put him in a home.’

The word triggered off old memories and Viv felt a surge of pain. ‘Home!’ The words came spilling out. ‘That’s what you wanted to do with me when you quarrelled with Aunt Flo, wasn’t it?’ she said furiously. ‘You wanted to go to America and I was a handicap! If you didn’t want me why didn’t you have me adopted when I was a baby? Or was my father still on the scene and you believed he might marry you? Who was my father,
by the way? You’ve never talked about him.’

‘It was our Flo’s fault I kept you,’ said Hilda, her cheeks flaming. ‘I thought I was going to die, and by the time I realised I wasn’t it was too late. She said you were too beautiful to part with, and she was right. You were like a little doll – bewitching in a bonnet. Surprised, are you, that I had some feelings for you?’ Her eyes lifted to her daughter’s.

Viv took a deep breath. ‘Yes. I didn’t think you felt anything for anyone, but you still haven’t told me who my father was.’

Hilda was silent for several seconds then drawled, ‘Your father, honey, was no good.’

‘What do you mean, no good? Was it that he didn’t want to marry you?’

‘He was a louse of the first order and I’d rather not talk about him. Now make me a cup of that awful coffee and tomorrow get some decent stuff.’ She lifted the newspaper in front of her face, effectively shutting out her daughter.

But Viv was not going to be shut out. She pulled down the newspaper. ‘It seems to me, Mother, that you’re a lousy judge of character when it comes to men. Unless Charlie was all right?’

‘He was all right,’ said her mother, struggling with the newspaper. ‘But I admit I should never have married Kevin.’

‘Why was my father a louse? Didn’t you love him at all?’

Hilda said sharply, ‘Don’t be so juvenile! What’s love got to do with it? Are you thinking we swore eternal love and then he went off and got killed in the war? It wasn’t like that.’

Viv stared at her, feeling as if all the air had been knocked out of her. When she had considered her conception she had romantically believed her mother had at least been in love with her father and that it had been just as she had said a few seconds ago, but now it seemed that it had not been like that at all. ‘You … you mean it was … just sex?’ she stammered.

‘What’s wrong with sex?’ snapped Hilda. ‘Even your Aunt Flo is a great believer in it.’

‘When did it happen? Where did it happen?’

Her mother’s face set stubbornly. ‘Work it out for yourself. It was wartime. There was an air raid and a blackout.’

‘You mean you couldn’t see each other’s faces?’

‘I didn’t want to see his face.’ Hilda lifted the newspaper. ‘I felt guilty enough as it was.’

Suddenly Viv could not bear listening to any more. She left the front room in a rush. It seemed her mother didn’t even know who her father was! She had to get out, away from her. She ran upstairs and into George’s room but he was not there and she realised he must have left by the back way while they had been talking.

She sank on to his bed. From downstairs came
the sound of a radio playing. Her throat tightened with emotion. No way could she face her mother until she’d had time to pull herself together.

Then Viv remembered that she had a date with Nick Bryce. She glanced at her watch. It was still a few hours away but she could get ready now. Her spirits lifted a little. She could fill in a couple of hours at Dot’s and apologise for not waving her out of the door last night.

She went into her grandfather’s old bedroom and began to get ready. She donned a circular skirt with a hooped underskirt, and a lacy sweater she had knitted, then took her time applying
make-up
. She felt better after that. She crept downstairs, pausing in the kitchen to listen for any sounds of movement from the front room but the only sound to be heard was Rosemary Clooney singing ‘This Old House’. She paused. This house had been her home for the last few years. She had not always been happy in it but it seemed wrong to let her mother take it over. Her grandfather would turn in his grave. Suddenly it seemed to her that she would never be rid of his influence. Determinedly she crossed the kitchen to the back door and went out, resisting the temptation to slam it. Dot’s first and then that date with Nick Bryce. Perhaps by the end of the evening she would know exactly what to say to her mother to get rid of her.

‘Mam asked if you had your monthlies. You look all pale,’ said Dot, opening her bedroom door.

‘I’ve got enough problems without periods thrown in,’ said Viv, sitting on one of the beds.

‘Tell Mother.’ Dot sat cross-legged on the other twin bed in the room she had once shared with her sister. ‘Have you and George had a row? He looked blue murder last night when he discovered you’d left with tall, dark and devilishly
interesting-looking
.’

Viv smiled but she had no intention of talking about Nick Bryce to Dot except to say, ‘I’ve a date with him later. As for George, he’s gone off to Paris so I don’t have to worry about what he has to say any more.’

Dot’s eyes bulged. ‘You don’t just up and go to Paris like that! Although I’d love to. It would be great!’

‘He wanted me to go with him,’ murmured Viv, toying with the cross on the chain round her neck. ‘But I’ve other plans. And, besides, that isn’t why I’ve come.’

‘I knew you hadn’t come just to say sorry because that could have waited till work in the morning. So give.’ Dot leant forward eagerly.

Viv took a deep breath. ‘It’s my mother. She’s come home.’

Dot’s jaw sagged. ‘I thought your mother was dead,’ she said in a stage whisper. ‘You told me …’

‘I lied! I didn’t want to own up to her and that I’m illegitimate! My mother never wanted me. She dumped me on George’s mother when I was little and I’ve hated her for it ever since.’

‘Golly!’ Dot took a packet of Wrigley’s spearmint chewing gum from a pocket of her skirt. ‘Where’s she been all this time then?’

‘America! She always wanted to go there and I was in the way. She would have put me in a home but my Aunt Flo wouldn’t let her. Now she’s back and says she wants to be a mother to me. But what kind of mother is it, Dot, who tells her daughter that her father was no good and that she didn’t even want to look at his face when they were making love?’ She swallowed. ‘Not that it was love. She said it was just sex and it happened in a blackout. I suppose now I’ll never get to know who he was! And on top of everything she’s given me a blinking
headache. Have you got a couple of Aspro?’

‘She said all that, did she?’ Her wide-eyed friend handed her a strip of gum.

‘I want Aspro not gum,’ said Viv, unwrapping the strip. ‘Can you imagine doing it with someone you didn’t know really well?’ She chewed absently.

‘
The Devil’s Daughter
,’ said Dot unexpectedly. ‘I read it in a book once. Except it wasn’t the devil of course. It was some lord of the manor who had his wicked way on a dark stormy night.’

‘Don’t be daft!’ Viv’s glance was exasperated but slightly amused. ‘You’re always going on about something evil. My dad couldn’t have been the devil. Although Mam could easily pass as one of his relations! A witch. Just like one of those hags in
Macbeth
. Although, if I’m honest, she’s still too glam.’

‘It was a good story,’ said Dot, her expression dreamy. ‘Exciting.’

‘I bet it was. Enjoyed all that sex, did you?’ said Viv drily.

Dot grinned. ‘What sex? There’s never anything explicit. I wish there was. I might find out a few things.’

‘And where would that lead you? Into trouble like my mother. It’s no joke, Dot! Now get me some Aspro – please?’

Dot jumped up. ‘Perhaps your mother’s lying? Maybe your father’s still alive and rich and famous
and he’s sent her money for years to keep quiet about him having an illegitimate child?’

‘You’re a fantasist,’ said Viv, wondering why it mattered so much all of a sudden, knowing who her father was, when she had given him little thought in the past. ‘Mam’s got
it
still and seems to have no trouble hooking the fellas. Besides, he’s dead.’

‘Dead?’ Dot paused, her hand on the door. ‘How do you know that?’

Viv’s nerves jolted and her fingers curled on a fold of her skirt. ‘I don’t know! Perhaps Mam told me years ago and it’s been in my subconscious all this time.’

‘It’s amazing what you’ve got buried in your mind,’ said Dot. ‘I sometimes wonder if I’ve got my ancestors’ thoughts as well as my own.’

‘It could explain the odd things you say sometimes,’ said Viv, her mouth curving slightly. ‘She might have lied of course. Because if he’s dead, why can’t she talk about him to me?’

‘Guilt!’ said Dot positively. ‘And she might just want to forget the past. Anyway, I’ll get those Aspros.’

The silence after she left was as good as a pill and Viv stretched out on the bed as best she could with a hooped underskirt. She hoped Norm wouldn’t come in suddenly because he’d see her knickers but while she could hear him practising his chords below she was safe. It was warm in
the room because of the two-barred electric fire in the tiny cast iron and tiled fireplace. Guilt! Could it really be that which had brought her mother home? Viv found it difficult to accept. Her mother had never shown any sign of guilt before and had always gone her own sweet way, doing exactly what she liked. Viv remembered her dressing up for a night on the town. In her childish imagination Hilda had seemed like a fairy princess. How she had admired her in those early days before she had left without even a goodbye.

Dot came back into the room and handed Viv a drink and the Aspros. She took them with a word of thanks.

‘Your father could have been a rich Yank,’ said Dot, her eyes bright. ‘Didn’t your aunt marry a Yank?’

‘Mike. Mam had her eye on him too but Aunt Flo beat her to him.’

‘Your aunt might know who your father is.’

Viv stilled. It was a definite possibility. ‘Aunt Flo wants me to go to America for Christmas,’ she said slowly. ‘I could ask her then!’

‘You jammy thing!’ Dot looked envious. ‘Put me in your suitcase. I won’t be any trouble. Just think of living in the same country as Elvis!’

Viv grinned. ‘No problem. I’m sure they’ll allow you to work your passage if you’re discovered amongst my clothes.’

‘What about your mother? Will she be staying here?’

Viv was silent. Would her mother stay in Liverpool if Viv went to California, or would she turn up at Aunt Flo’s house for Christmas? It was a new thought. Her aunt had considered it a lovely idea, but was it? Viv needed to think some more.

‘Well?’ demanded Dot. ‘What are you going to do about your mother?’

‘I don’t know.’ She glanced at her watch and drained her cup. ‘I’ll have to be going. I’ll sleep on it. Things always look different in the morning.’

‘That’s true,’ said Dot, getting up. ‘Dracula always has to go back in his coffin or the sunlight gets him.’

‘Or Peter Cushing with a stake or crucifix. I wonder if I can get Dracula to take a bite out of Mam’s jugular?’ Viv grinned and rose from the bed. Dot saw her out, waving until she was out of sight.

Viv caught a bus in Tuebrook into town, hoping that she would not be late for her date with Nick. He had occupied her dreams but she had had little time to think about him since her mother’s arrival on the scene. They had arranged to meet outside Boodle and Dunthorpe, the high class jewellers, on the corner of Lord Street and North John Street in a part of the city that had been extensively rebuilt after being bombed during the war.

‘I thought you might have changed your mind,’
said Nick, taking Viv’s hand and immediately beginning to walk up North John Street. He was dressed casually in a navy blue polo neck sweater and dark trousers, worn with a navy tweed jacket. His dark hair, which had been rather short back and sides when she first met him, had grown. He looked terribly attractive.

‘I’m sorry I’m late but it’s been a bit of a day.’ Her voice was slightly breathless.

‘George being awkward?’

‘George has gone … off to Paris.’

Nick’s eyes widened. ‘He’s what?’

‘Gone to Paris. My mother came home and off he went. There was a big argument over Grandfather’s money. Her causing trouble as usual.’ Her voice wobbled. ‘I wouldn’t mind but she’s newly widowed and rolling in it.’ She stopped abruptly, surprised to be overcome by the intensity of her feelings.

Nick stared at her. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Damn!’ she said, and scrubbed at tear-filled eyes. ‘I don’t know what I’m getting all worked up about.’

‘Perhaps you’re upset because George has gone?’ suggested Nick, taking a handkerchief from a pocket.

‘No! Yes!’ Viv shook her head and a small laugh escaped her. ‘I’m more upset about my mother turning up.’

Nick took hold of her chin. ‘Keep still. You’ve messed up your mascara. You look like a panda that’s been rained on.’

She stood motionless while he wiped her eyes, very aware of the strength in the fingers holding her chin.

‘I take it she’s come because of your grandfather’s death?’

‘Yes.’

‘A natural thing to do, wouldn’t you say? Especially if she’s just been widowed. She’s probably lonely. I take it there were no children of that marriage?’ Viv shook her head.

Nick kissed the tip of her nose and smiled. ‘My gran always said that death is a time when you look at life and wonder what it’s all about. You think of what’s gone before, and look at yourself, and ask: What now? Where do I go next?’ He started to walk again and she had to quicken her natural pace to keep up with him.

‘You think my mother has regrets about leaving me?’ The thought made her feel churned up again but she did not let her emotions run away with her this time.

‘Surely she must have?’

‘She never showed it.’ Viv’s voice hardened. ‘She was selfish, Nick. You remember her but you only saw the image she promoted to outsiders. Inside the family she was different. She could be charming,
I’ll give you that. And she’s
still
glam. But if you’re asking me to believe she’s changed and become all loving and caring … well, I don’t believe it, and I’m off to America as soon as I can!’

‘I see. No second chance for your mother.’

Viv stared at him with an uncertain expression. ‘I take it you gave your mother a second chance? But she was always there for you, Nick. You can’t possibly understand the way a mother mixes up a girl’s emotions.’

He stopped and seized her upper arms with an unexpected, violent movement. ‘Why is it
your
sex thinks they’re the only ones who have trouble with their emotions? I tell you, Viv, there isn’t anything you can tell me about mothers who turn your feelings inside out! Who drive you up the wall – who cause you so much shame that your insides feel so knotted up that you have to do something or you’ll go crazy!’ He smiled grimly. ‘I busted a hundred prefab windows once because I felt so bad about what my mother was but it didn’t do me any good. I still felt angry and wanted to hurt her. I did some stupid, crazy things.’

‘I’m sorry,’ stammered Viv. ‘It was a stupid thing for me to say.’

His voice quietened. ‘I was sixteen when I finally lashed out at her and told her exactly what I thought of her. She broke her heart crying and kept saying she was sorry and that she wished a bomb
had fallen on her in the war. It made my blood run cold because we’d both seen what a bomb could to do a body. Then she told me about my father. How she had been sixteen when he got her pregnant. He wanted her to have a back street abortion but she refused. So he married her but never forgave her for trapping him, as he called it.’ Nick paused and his grip on her arms slackened. ‘But you’re right about one thing, Viv, she was always there for us – except for the time when Dad took us away from her. Eventually he rejoined the army and allowed us to live with Gran. Mam had met someone else by then and had a couple more kids. Even so she came to see us. Then the bloke went off and Gran got ill so Mam and the kids moved in with us and she looked after Gran till she died. Then we were back together and it was like that until Mavis married and emigrated to America and I did National Service.’ His hands dropped away.

Viv rubbed her arms, thinking that she would have bruises there in the morning and trying not to show how affected she had been by his story. She cleared her throat. ‘So you gave your mother a second chance and you feel OK about what she did now?’

‘I’ll never feel OK about that. And there’ve been other men while I’ve been away though they never lasted long. Now I’m back, Mam looks to me for financial help and to act as the man in the house to
my half-brother and half-sister.’ He added lightly, ‘I happen to care about them.’

There was a silence which stretched. He had given Viv plenty to think about but it would have to wait. They had reached a narrow street made up of tall, blackened buildings. Mathew Street was just one such street of fruit warehouses existing not far from Liverpool’s own Covent Garden where vegetable, fruit and flower traders set up in Queen Square behind St John’s Market. The Cavern was a jazz club there which could only be reached by descending a flight of damp stairs into cellars which were dank, smoky, smelly and crowded. They had arrived a little late.

Nick produced a membership card for the man sitting at a table by the door and somehow he and Viv managed to squeeze their way in. The sound of a clarinet welcomed them, filling the cellars with noise. The place would have sent a claustrophobic mad.

Viv knew little about jazz and blues but was prepared to listen to the music and think about what it was trying to say. ‘Stranger on the Shore’ always sent a quiver through her because the sound of the clarinet was so hauntingly evocative of the vastness of the sea and how small it made a person feel. Even so skiffle and folk music had been more to her taste before rock’n’roll had started to beat its way into the feet of the youth of Merseyside. She thought of
music and the part it played in Liverpudlians’ lives. Maybe it was because their city was a port situated within easy reach of America and the islands of the Caribbean, Ireland and Wales. So many people getting off boats or crossing borders went no further, and they brought with them the songs and rhythms of their own land. The Irish pennywhistle and fiddle could be heard in clubs, pubs and houses as could the sound of calypso, a Welsh tenor, folk songs, and sea shanties sung by sailors for generations. Most of them spoke to the heart and the spirit but did not satisfy the teenager’s need to let off steam.