Lost & Found (23 page)

Alec was surprised to hear Mavis humming as she prepared his breakfast on Friday morning. He’d expected her to be sulky, resentful that she couldn’t go to her mother’s wedding, but instead she seemed lighthearted, happier than he’d seen her for a long time.

‘James, Grace, come on, breakfast’s ready,’ Mavis said, and as the two children scrambled onto chairs, she placed the plates on the table.

The morning routine was different these days, earlier, and Alec still found it trying. At six o’clock Mavis got up to see to his mother, inevitably disturbing his sleep. The children usually woke at around seven, but by then Mavis had usually changed his mother’s sheets, washed her, and he didn’t have to worry about the children as he shaved and got dressed for work. Breakfast, however, was a different matter. There had been a time when he could read his morning paper in
peace, but nowadays he had to keep an eye on the children while Mavis fed his mother. ‘Grace, eat your porridge,’ he ordered.

‘Don’t want it.’

‘I said, eat it,’ Alec said forcefully, and, though sulky, at least Grace picked up her spoon. He rarely had to reprimand James, and glancing at his son Alec saw the boy’s wary look. Alec felt a surge of satisfaction. It was discipline, of course, the boy knowing better than to misbehave at the breakfast table.

As soon as Mavis returned, Alec would look in on his mother before leaving for work and now, as he pushed his bowl to one side, he glanced impatiently at the clock. Lateness was something Alec wouldn’t tolerate in his staff and he led by example, making sure he was always at his desk before the others arrived.

At last, he thought, as Mavis returned and, rising to his feet, he said, ‘I’m off.’

‘All right, see you later,’ Mavis said, leaning away from him as he tried to kiss her cheek.

Alec was fed up with tiptoeing around his wife, fed up with the way she avoided his lovemaking. He’d made allowances because she’d been grieving for her father, but it was three months now and he’d had enough.

It was time to assert his authority again, to demand his marital rights. He no longer feared
Mavis’s threat of leaving him. He’d seen how small her mother’s house was, and now that Lily Jackson was having a baby, there’d be no room for Mavis. No, his wife couldn’t go to Peckham. She had no alternative but to stay here.

Jenny left her house at a quarter to nine. Mavis was just leaving too, and they joined up to walk along Ellington Avenue together. ‘Good morning, Mavis. Isn’t it a lovely day?’

‘Yes, it’s gorgeous,’ Mavis agreed, smiling happily.

‘You look chirpy today. Is your mother-in-law’s health improving?’

‘No, she’s just as bad, but my mum came to see me yesterday. She’s getting married tomorrow.’

‘Oh, so that’s why you look so happy. You’re getting out of the house for a change and going to her wedding.’

‘No, I can’t leave my mother-in-law for that long.’

‘Alec won’t be at work. Surely he can see to her?’

‘I’m afraid not. She’s incontinent now, and lately she’s been messing the bed too.’

‘Yuk, how on earth do you cope with that?’

‘It isn’t easy, and I must admit it makes my stomach turn, but I can’t leave her lying there in that state.’

‘No, I suppose not, but if you can’t go to the wedding, why are you looking so cheerful?’

‘I’ve just found out that my mother loves me,’ Mavis said, her eyes bright with emotion.

‘But she’s your mum. Of course she loves you.’

‘Yes, I know that now, but all through my childhood I thought she was ashamed of me, that she didn’t want me.’

‘Blimey, you should have my cousin’s mother. She wants him out of the area and is making his life a misery.’

‘Oh, dear. I’ve seen a van parked outside now and again, and though I haven’t seen him, I guessed he was still staying with you. What is he going to do?’

‘Willy’s business is doing well and he isn’t budging. I’m not surprised you haven’t seen him. With the hours he works we hardly see him either, but he told us last night that he’s found a flat,’ Jenny said as they stopped at the school gates.

She bent down to kiss Greg goodbye, Mavis kissed James, and then the two boys dashed into the playground.

They made their way home again, but with Grace playing up there wasn’t much chance to talk. As usual the child wanted to get out of the pushchair, but Mavis didn’t give in until they were back in Ellington Avenue.

‘She’s cooped up indoors too much, that’s the trouble,’ Mavis said as she helped her daughter to push the pram.

‘A nursery has opened just around the corner. They take three-to five-year-olds for three hours a day, and if they’ve got any places left I think Grace would love it.’

‘Oh, Jenny, that’s a marvellous idea.’

‘Don’t get your hopes up. They may be full,’ Jenny cautioned.

‘I won’t, but fingers crossed,’ Mavis said. ‘I’ll go round there as soon as I get the chance. How do I find it, and do you know if they’re open in the morning or afternoon?’

‘Mornings, I think, and it’s in that hall at the end of the next road.’

‘Yes, I know it. Thanks, Jenny, this could make such a difference,’ Mavis called as they parted outside Jenny’s house.

Jenny paused to watch Mavis for a moment. She had looked happier this morning, her eyes for once sparkling, and Jenny had been struck by how pretty she looked. Though Mavis had lost a lot of weight, strangely it suited her, and with a bit of make-up she’d be a stunner. How old was Mavis? Twenty-three, twenty-four maybe, still so young, but trapped in an unhappy marriage and a life of drudgery.

With no idea that Jenny was watching her, Mavis hurried inside. A nursery! Oh, please let there be a place left, she thought, and leaving the pushchair
unfolded in the hall she looked in on her mother-in-law.

Edith was awake, and Mavis walked over to the bed, stacking pillows behind the woman’s back. ‘I’ve just heard that a nursery has opened close by. Will you be all right if I go out again to see if they can take Grace?’

‘No, no, don’t leave me,’ Edith said weakly, her eyes pathetic with appeal. ‘I…I don’t feel at all well.’

Mavis closed her eyes in defeat. ‘All right, I’ll leave it until Monday. You might be feeling a little better then. Can I get you anything?’

Edith shook her head as her eyes closed again. Mavis left her to doze while she went to let her daughter out into the garden to play She was tempted to ring the surgery again, but the last time Dr Hayes had been called out he had said there was nothing further he could do. His patient was over the bronchitis and able to eat, if slowly. Her main problem was the multiple sclerosis, and his only suggestion had been that she and Alec might like to consider a nursing home.

Of course, Alec wouldn’t hear of it, Mavis thought as she began to wash up the breakfast things, beginning her long day of trying to fit in the housework along with keeping an eye on her mother-in-law and daughter.

The sun was shining through the window and
she could hear the twittering of birdsong. For a moment Mavis paused, wishing she could just open the window and fly; she longed to soar like the birds, free, if only for a day.

Leaving the washing up, Mavis walked out into the garden to see Grace laying out her toy tea set, her dolls arranged in a circle. She was chatting to them as she poured imaginary cups of tea and Mavis smiled at the scene.

No, even if able to fly, she would never want freedom from her children, just from her mother-in-law. Her stomach did a flip. Oh, God, it was almost as if she was wishing Edith dead and it was awful to think like that.

Mavis left Grace to her game, feeling sick with shame as she returned to finish the washing up.

The ceremony was over and Lily was now Mrs Culling. She rested a hand on her swollen stomach as they left the building, glad that her child wasn’t going to be born out of wedlock with the stigma that carried.

Eddie, Pete’s friend from work, and his wife were there as witnesses, and now Eddie said enthusiastically, ‘Come on, you two. Stand together and I’ll take a couple of photographs.’

Lily held Pete’s arm, smiling into the Box Brownie, her small bunch of flowers held ineffectually in front of her distended stomach.

‘Oh, shit,’ Pete said. ‘Look, it’s Mrs Biggs and she’s coming this way.’

Lily frantically looked for escape but there was none. She quickly moved away from Pete while shoving her flowers into Eddie’s wife’s hands.

‘Don’t tell me that you’ve just got married,’ Mrs Biggs said, her voice high.

‘Us! Leave it out,’ Lily protested. ‘We’re just here as witnesses for these two. Ain’t that right, Sylvia?’

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ Sylvia said quickly.

‘You must think I was born yesterday.’

‘I told you, it ain’t us,’ Lily protested, but Mrs Biggs was already marching away.

‘Who the hell was that?’ Eddie asked.

‘Our neighbour, and the biggest mouth in the street,’ Lily wailed. ‘Now everyone will know and I’ll never be able to hold my head up again.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ Pete said. ‘It’s her word against ours. Now come on, we’re going for a meal to celebrate and sod Mrs Biggs.’

‘I don’t feel like celebrating.’

‘Now listen to me, Lily. You’re my wife now and I feel like shouting it to the world. I know I can’t do that, but the restaurant is well away from here and that bitch isn’t going to stop me from raising a glass to toast our marriage.’

Lily was touched by Pete’s words. He was right, it
was
their word against Mrs Biggs’s and they could brazen it out. She’d done it with Mavis, told her daughter that she loved her, had held her in her arms, waiting for that special feeling that never came.

She did feel a sort of bond with Mavis, all she now had left of Ron, but that special love a mother should have for her child was still missing. She’d
somehow convinced Mavis that it was there, touched at least by the joy in her daughter’s eyes. Of course, for Mavis’s sake, she would have to keep it up, play the role of a loving mother, but now Lily’s hand moved to touch her stomach again. What if she was unnatural? What if she couldn’t love this baby either?

Martha Biggs was a small, wiry woman, thin-faced with short, grey hair. Though well into her sixties, she was still vigorous and her pace brisk as she walked back to Harwood Street. She had lived in Peckham all her life. It was a respectable area, the home she moved into when she married in a nice street, but not any longer, Martha thought, her back stiff with indignation.

As she turned the corner, there was only one woman in sight. Marilyn Foster was on her knees, scrubbing her doorstep. Martha hurried to her side. ‘I’m disgusted. I really am.’

‘With what? I’m only cleaning me flaming step.’

‘I’m not talking about you. It’s our neighbour, the one who lives between us.’

‘What, Lily?

‘Yes, her…that…that hussy.’

Marilyn scrambled to her feet. ‘Hold on, I ain’t having that. Lily’s a friend of mine.’

‘Oh, so you knew she was getting married this morning?’

‘Married! Lily? Don’t be daft. She’s already married to Pete.’

‘No, she wasn’t, but of course they are now and I saw it with my own eyes. They’ve been living in sin, but now that she’s pregnant they sneaked off to the registry office to get married. Eight months gone and only just wed. It’s disgusting, that’s what it is and I don’t know what this street’s coming to. We don’t want her type living here and I’m going to make it my business to get her out.’

‘You mean-minded old bitch,’ Marilyn snapped as she picked up her bucket again. ‘Anyway, I don’t believe you.’

Martha bristled, but didn’t get a chance to say another word before Marilyn marched inside, slamming the door behind her.

With her lips puckered with annoyance, Martha looked around and, spotting the woman who lived opposite leaving her house, she hurried across the road.

‘You’re not going to believe this,’ she said, launching into her story.

Mavis glanced at the clock. The service would be over now, her mother married to Pete, and Mavis wished she could have been there. So much had changed in such a short time, her feelings about Pete, the baby—and it was all thanks to finding out that her mother loved her.

She looked back at the past with different eyes now, thought about how awful her mother’s life had been, and, though she still grieved for her father, Mavis knew that much of her mother’s unhappiness and bitterness had been down to him. Because of his drinking and gambling, her mother had been forced to be the provider, her life one of hard work and drudgery. Like her, she’d had no time to be a proper mother, but at least Mavis knew she didn’t suffer the grinding poverty that her mum had faced.

Mavis grimaced. God, she’d been awful to Pete and he hadn’t deserved it. She had blamed him when her father disappeared, had refused to accept him in her mother’s life, had even married Alec rather than live with them. If only she could turn back time—have the understanding that she now had when she was sixteen. Her life would have been so different. She wouldn’t have married Alec and maybe she would have met the elusive man she still saw in her dreams.

‘Mummy, Mummy, I love you. Can I have a biscuit?’ Grace appealed.

‘Oh, darling, I love you too,’ Mavis said, sweeping Grace up and into her arms. ‘And no, you can’t have a biscuit.’

‘See, told you,’ James said.

Mavis’s smile was a loving one as she looked at her son. No, she didn’t want to turn the clock back.
If things had been different she wouldn’t have had her beautiful children, and the thought of that was gut-wrenching. If only she could give them more of her attention, spend more time with them, but, of course, with Edith so ill, it was impossible.

‘Mavis, my mother’s bed needs changing again,’ Alec said as he came into the room.

‘Go on, you two,’ Mavis said as she lowered Grace to the floor. ‘It’s a lovely day and you should be playing in the garden.’

The children ran off and without looking at Alec Mavis left the room. He had changed lately, had reverted back to being more demanding, and refused to accept any excuses when he wanted to make love on a nightly basis.

Love! No, it wasn’t love. His attacks on her body were more like an assault. At first she’d resisted, but he had become short with James and, fearing that his anger would turn on her son, that he would start thrashing him again, Mavis had been forced to give in.

When her father had been ill, she had been determined to be strong, to assert herself, but Mavis realised that despite her resolve, she was no match for Alec. He knew he could hold the children over her, threaten them, and used her fear for them to get his own way.

Mavis hated her life. She might not know the poverty her mother had suffered, and had material
comforts in her marriage, yet still a bleak future stretched ahead. Count your blessings, Mavis told herself. At least she had James and Grace, along with a new baby brother or sister soon. Cheered a little by these thoughts, she went into her mother-in-law’s room.

‘I…I’m sorry, Mavis,’ Edith said forlornly.

Mavis knew from the awful stench that she had more than wet the bed, but managed a smile. Her mother-in-law was a different woman nowadays, weak and grateful for anything that was done for her. The bossy, formidable Edith Pugh had been replaced by a gentler, kinder persona, but, oh, if only the same could be said of Alec.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll soon sort you out,’ Mavis said, forcing brightness into her tone as she gently rolled Edith to one side, gathering the soiled sheet from beneath her.

By the time she and Pete arrived home, Lily knew that half the street would probably have heard Mrs Biggs’s story. She had chucked her flowers away and removed the carnation that was pinned on Pete’s lapel, ready to brazen it out if anyone asked questions.

Fortified with a few glasses of port and lemon, Lily held her head high as she climbed out of the van, but the only person she saw was Marilyn, running out of her door to greet her.

‘Lily, where have you been?’

‘To Pete’s mate’s wedding.’

‘Oh, so that’s it,’ Marilyn said, smiling widely.

‘That’s what?’ Lily said, her brows rising in mock surprise.

‘Martha Biggs has been on the warpath. She’s been going round telling everyone that she saw you and Pete getting married this morning.’

‘Blimey, what did she do?’ Lily joked. ‘Go back in time? Did you hear that, Pete, it seems that you and I are newlyweds.’

‘Really? Does that mean I’ll get a decent honeymoon night this time?’

‘You should be so lucky,’ Lily quipped. ‘I could murder a cup of tea. Are you coming in, Marilyn?’

‘You should have stuck to tea on our wedding night,’ Pete said as he walked in behind them.

‘It wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t used to drinking and how was I to know that a few glasses of sherry would go to my head?’ Lily said, keeping up the improvised story that Pete had started.

‘I don’t know how Mrs Biggs got it into her head that you were getting married this morning,’ Marilyn said as she sat down. ‘It’s bloody daft and I told her that.’

‘That’s easy,’ Lily said, this part of the story rehearsed in advance. ‘She saw us at the registry office. Pete had taken some photographs of the happy couple, and I said in passing that when I married
Pete the camera went wrong so none of ours turned out.’

‘Oh, what a shame,’ Marilyn said.

‘It was only a joke really, but when I told them that his mate insisted on taking a photo of us. Sylvia, his new wife, shoved her flowers into my hand and we were just posing when Mrs Biggs saw us. It’s no wonder she got the wrong idea, but she wouldn’t listen when I pointed out her mistake.’

Marilyn laughed. ‘The silly cow. Mind you, with her spreading the news there might be a bit of talk.’

‘If anyone is silly enough to believe her, that’s up to them,’ Lily said, managing a dismissive tone.

‘Like me, they’ll know she’s talking rubbish. If you weren’t married, you’d have tied the knot before your stomach swelled, just like that woman’s daughter at number six. Look at you, you’re eight months pregnant and can hardly hide it.’

Yes, it was true, Lily thought. If a girl got pregnant, the marriage followed quickly, so maybe waiting had inadvertently worked in their favour. ‘Yeah, and can you imagine the registrar’s face if someone turned up to get married with a stomach like this?’

Marilyn chuckled. ‘He’d have a shock, that’s for sure.’

Lily made the tea, knowing that if she looked
at Pete she wouldn’t be able to stem her laughter. The registrar had indeed looked shocked when he saw her, his face blood red as he began the short service.

Relief flooded through her. They had pulled it off and, like Marilyn, Lily doubted anyone would believe Mrs Biggs. It was time to move forward, to make the most of her marriage to Pete. He was a good man, a good provider, and soon their baby would be born.

It was a second chance, and maybe this time it would be all right. Maybe this time she’d feel an instant maternal instinct when her baby was placed in her arms.