That'll Be the Day (2007) (4 page)

 
And on this threat he strolled back down the passage and left the house, closing the door quietly behind him. Betty found that she was shaking and collapsed on to the sofa as her fat knees threatened to give way beneath her.

All these years she’d protected her children, wanting them to put out of their minds all that had happened, deliberately never mentioning their father so that they would forget him. How could she begin to explain to a much loved daughter that the father who’d smacked and abused and treated her so badly as a child was back on their doorstep wanting to see her again, demanding to reclaim his rights, not out of love but revenge. And how Jake would react, Betty really didn’t care to think.
 

‘Over my dead body!’ she muttered to herself.

Chapter Four

Having finally got rid of Winnie, Lynda kept her mind off worrying about her mother’s continued absence by setting out pots of scarlet geraniums all in a line, their vivid colours catching the September sun and glowing like balls of fire. Betty would call them pelargoniums, of course, but whatever their name, when one day Lynda bought that cottage in the country she dreamed of, she’d fill her window boxes with this robust and dazzling plant. Every one of them a brilliant scarlet. And this ivy leaved variety in glorious pinks and mauves she would put in hanging baskets all along her porch. Lynda could picture it perfectly, a tranquil haven far removed from Champion Street.

She was carefully watering the last plant, admiring the five-petalled flowers with their darker veined centres when Clara Higginson appeared.

‘Aren’t geraniums beautiful, Lynda? I really don’t think I can resist buying one. I shall have one of the pink variety with splashes of white. They look as tempting as strawberries and cream.’

Clara and her sister Annie ran the hat stall with the help of their new protégée, Patsy. Not quite so tight-lipped or sharp-tongued as her sister, and with softer curves and rounded cheeks, full lips and a small nose. Clara might have been pretty in her youth, Lynda thought, back in the dark ages of the war. And there was a rumour that she might once have had an illicit affair.
 

Even so, Lynda shuddered at the thought of ending up like her, a lonely middle-aged spinster, as she wrapped the plant in a torn off scrap of newspaper sporting a picture of a living room declaring the end of chintzy and advocating clean-cut, angular “contemporary”lines.

‘And how are you this fine morning, and your dear mother? She looked rather strained when I saw her earlier.’

‘She’s got a cold coming on,’ Lynda said. It was often remarked upon that you only had to cough on this market and the rumour would flash round in seconds that you had pneumonia. But the elderly spinster was really quite kind, if a bit old fashioned, and Lynda guiltily told herself she should welcome the woman’s concern, not mock it.

‘Oh, what a nuisance,’ Clara was saying. ‘Is there anything I can do?’

Judy chose that precise moment to hurry back to the flower stall rather out of breath and with a heavy basket of shopping on her arm. ‘I’ve just dashed over to let you know your mam’s feeling much better, Lynda. She’s comfortably ensconced on her own sofa with strict instructions that she keep her feet up for an hour or two. I’ve told her no dashing about till she’s properly recovered from her funny turn. I’ve also warmed her a dish of soup for her dinner.’

‘A funny turn was it?’ Clara enquired, looking troubled. ‘I thought you said it was only a cold coming on?’

‘Well, that’s what caused the funny turn, I expect. Thanks, Miss Clara, I’ll give her your best wishes, shall I?’

‘Oh, yes, please do. I’d best be off. Annie will wonder where I’ve got to, but I meant it, Lynda. If Betty isn’t well, I don’t mind popping in on her when you’re busy with the stall.’

‘Thanks, I appreciate the offer,’ and the two girls smiled as the older woman bustled off.
 

‘She isn’t such a bad old stick,’ Judy said. ‘Here, I’ve brought us a sandwich each, and mugs of coffee. I guessed you’d be stuck here so thought I’d join you for a bit of a chin-wag.’

‘Bless you! I can’t think how I would have managed without your help this morning. You must take home one of these geraniums. According to mam, and she knows about such things, geraniums are for friendship, and you’ve certainly proved yet again to be my very best friend.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of robbing Betty of her stock. What are neighbours for, if not to help each other?’

‘Nevertheless, I insist. I don’t know how I come to deserve a friend like you.’
 

Judy gave a wry smile. ‘Because you’ve listened patiently to all my feeble moans and groans, from my mental arithmetic test with the dreadful Mrs Donaldson to the joyless state of matrimony, not to mention my endless fretting over my blessed children.’

‘Feel free. You don’t moan nearly enough, particularly about Sam. He’s a selfish pig and you’re an absolute saint.’

‘Don’t exaggerate! Just because you don’t trust men doesn’t mean I should be the same. I saw you talking to Terry, did he ask you out? And did you accept?’

Lynda saw the determined little smile and accepted the abrupt change of topic with resignation. It was none of her business if Judy insisted on turning herself into a doormat and believed everything her philandering husband told her. If Lynda had one unselfish wish for her friend, it would be for her to dump that controlling husband of hers.

Lynda had pulled up an orange box for Judy and the two young women were enjoying their snack lunch together. They’d been friends since schooldays, although Judy was three years older and would turn twenty-nine just two months after Lynda’s own coming birthday in October. There were no secrets between them as they were entirely comfortable in each other’s company and Lynda was only too ready to tell her friend all about her date with Terry Hall.

‘He’s really quite dishy so why the hell shouldn’t I go out with him?’

Judy laughed. ‘No one can say you don’t grasp life with both hands, love. I envy you. I wish I had half your courage.’

There it was again, that faintly wistful note. ‘Is it my courage you envy, or my freedom?’ Lynda tentatively enquired.

Judy laughingly shook her head. ‘Why would I, a happily married woman, want freedom? Far too frightening.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Lynda protested with a secret smile. ‘The single state has its advantages.’

‘I can see that you enjoy your independence, but I quite like having a man look after me.’

‘Sam, look after you?’ Lynda looked at her askance. ‘I’ll believe that when I see it.’

‘He does, in his way. He’s certainly a good provider, and good with the kids.’

Lynda never had liked Sam Beckett, considering the union a bad one from the start, but had been far too young at the time to understand why the man made her flesh creep, or to say as much. Not that Judy would have listened. She wouldn’t hear a word said against him, though God knows why? He didn’t deserve her, he really didn’t.

Sadly though, Lynda’s fears had been proved correct. Despite her friend’s efforts to disguise her unhappiness, anyone would need to be blind, deaf and dumb not to see how things stood between them. Judy obediently did his every bidding, waited on him hand, foot and finger, and it made Lynda furious to see her so much under his control while he spread his favours where he pleased.

‘And is that your only criterion for a good husband, that he be a good provider? I would want so much more. A sexy lover, his undivided attention, and complete and utter fidelity.’

 
Judy didn’t answer immediately but concentrated on taking a bite of her egg sandwich. At last she said, ‘And if you didn’t get those things?’

‘Divorce? Life is too short to spend it dreaming of what might have been.’

‘Easy for you to talk when you’re not faced with the problem, but I’m not sure I could cope on my own.’

‘You’re stronger than you think, girl, and should stand up to him more. I’ve told you so a million times. Over those wonderful pictures you paint for a start. It’s a crime, it really is, to hide them away in the attic. Why don’t you set up a stall on the market? They’d go like hot cakes.’

‘You know Sam doesn’t like me working. It’s my job to look after the children and the house, though he has no objection to my little hobby. He’s not nearly so selfish as you make out.’

 
‘
Little hobby
, how patronising! Why can’t he see that you have real talent? He’s so selfish. I think he likes having you chained to the kitchen sink, but it really is time you started putting yourself first. The kids are older now, and settled at school. How much time does it take to clean one small terraced house which
he
is rarely in, anyway?’

The warning look was cooler this time and Lynda saw that she’d gone too far.

‘It’s all right for you,’ Judy said. ‘Being single you can do as you please. Sam may not be the best of husbands but he
is
a good father. You don’t understand how badly it would affect the children if we split up.’

‘Now that’s where you’re wrong. I understand perfectly.’

Judy’s cheeks coloured slightly. ‘Sorry, I tend to forget.’

 
‘Don’t fret, I survived, didn’t I? Mixed up though I may be.’ Lynda frowned. ‘I freely admit that much as I love and support my mother, I’d give a great deal to have enjoyed a normal upbringing with two loving parents but their separation was probably for the best and certainly inevitable.’ She reached for a second sandwich, allowing her mind to drift back to those years, painful though it still was to remember.

‘Mam didn’t see my dad for months on end because of the war, and whenever he did get leave I think she wondered what on earth she’d let herself in for. He would bark out orders, expect her to deliver meals at the drop of a hat and she’d resent it, too used to pleasing herself and living life in the sort of muddled disorder she enjoys. Waiting on a man didn’t appeal at all. They were constantly at each other’s throats. Then he’d accuse her of seeing Yanks, which I’m sure wasn’t true, and she’d call him a bully. Young as I was, I can still remember the rows, the frozen silences, the chilling atmosphere, secretly resenting the fact that those few precious days of Dad’s leave always seemed to be spoiled. And then he just stopped coming altogether.’

Lynda hadn’t set eyes on her father since she was eleven years old when he’d gone back off leave in the autumn of 1943. She hadn’t realised, at the time, that she would never see him again and had kept waiting for him, wondering why he no longer came to see her. He even stopped answering the carefully penned letters she sent him.

‘Was he a good father?’ Judy asked, blue eyes soft with sympathy.

Lynda stifled a sigh. ‘I think so. How can I tell? My memories of him are so hazy, so confused. I can’t even properly remember what he looked like, his face is a complete blank. I think I deliberately shut it out as it was so painful to remember. I do recall a stranger once standing in the kitchen and Mam telling me that he was my dad and I should kiss him. He was very tall and smelled funny and I didn’t want to, so he told me not to bother as he liked boys better anyway.’

‘Oh, Lynda, what a thing to say.’

Lynda blinked, as if even after all this time the tears were still stuck at the backs of her eyes. She gave a resigned shrug. ‘He was in the Merchant Navy, so of course he’d prefer boys. Jake was always his favourite. I tried hard to make him like me but never felt confident that I’d succeeded. Then when he stopped coming home, I was quite certain it was my fault. I would sit at the parlour window for hours on end, afraid to move in case he suddenly appeared and I missed the moment.’

 
Lynda remembered her mother explaining that it was because of the war, that he was away fighting the enemy. When hostilities finally ended she’d excitedly expected things to return to normal, to be as they once were when she’d been seven and the war just beginning. Every night she’d include him in her prayers and try desperately to be a good girl, like when she wanted Father Christmas to bring her presents. But nothing she did made the slightest difference.

Some of her friends’ fathers hadn’t come home from the war either and finally Lynda had plucked up the courage to ask ‘Is Dad dead?’ dreading her mother’s answer.

‘No, love, he came back from the war fit and well. The truth is, he doesn’t care about us any more. I expect he’s got himself a new wife and children by now.’

That was a day Lynda would ever remember: the day her innocence and her faith in fathers, in men generally, was destroyed for ever. The world became a less safe, less secure place after that.

‘Is it my fault, Mummy? Was I too naughty? Did I do something wrong to make him go away?’ she’d sobbed, but her mother had hugged her tight and denied any such thing.

‘Course not, love. It’s not your fault at all, it’s his.’

Lynda knew it had been hard for her mother with little money coming in and two young children to support. Divorce was disapproved of then, seen almost as a sin, although there was plenty of it going on following hasty war marriages.

She remembered being a rather solitary child with a tendency to depression yet perversely fond of showing off, probably in a desire to be noticed. It wasn’t that Betty didn’t love her but having to carry out the roles of both parents, being bread winner as well as nurturer, she was often too tired to play games with her children and have fun.