The Factory Girl (20 page)

With their view of him finally obstructed by some screens surrounding another bed, they left, and the tram ride home was made in silence.

Two days later Dad had his operation. Declared successful, the next day he was sitting up, his arm still bandaged from the accident but well recovered from the operation on the
other thing
as he described it to his wife.

‘I ain't all that chuffed at the way they pulled me about though,' he confided to her when they were alone after a cohort of relations had been to see him to his utter humiliation, they aware of the reason for the operation.

Hilda looked amused. ‘How'd you know? Under the anaesthetic yer wouldn't know if yer was pulled about or not.'

He grimaced. ‘If yer saw the colour of me whatsit under that bandage, yer couldn't be off seein' as 'ow I've been pulled about. It's black an' blue down there. All bloody colours of the rainbow. I told the doctor what came round and 'e took a peek ter check and said it looked orright to 'im – in fact 'e said it looked very nice. Nice! Cheeky bugger! I told 'im, “If yer like that sort of fing, maybe it do look nice ter you but it don't look too rosy ter me.” Cheeky young sod, just 'cos he's a doctor, don't give 'im no call ter stare at me whatsit and tell me it looks nice to 'im.'

‘The thing is,' Hilda said, offering comfort, ‘it 'as done the trick. You won't 'ave no more trouble down there. And them bruises'll fade in no time.'

‘Yeah, but I don't want no doctor peeking at me and smirking and saying 'e thinks me lower parts look nice – bloody cheek.'

‘It's what doctors 'ave ter do. Just be glad it weren't a nurse.'

‘I've 'ad them gawpin' at me too. I can't wait ter get 'ome where I can keep me private parts ter meself. Yer body ain't yer own in 'ere.' His averted face peevish, Hilda hastened to soothe him.

‘Well thank Gawd it weren't nothing more serious. An' you be thankful too. I don't know what I'd of done if it 'ad been somethink really bad and you'd been … well, you know what I mean.'

Giving a cough to cover the fluster that had come over her at having nearly revealed her deepest fears of losing him and in that way inadvertently declaring the love that the habit of twenty-five years of marriage had long ago decently buried, she got to her feet and in a crisp tone said she'd see him tomorrow. Asked equally as tersely if there was anything he wanted brought in, he gave a short list of clean socks, a couple more handkerchiefs and a packet of fags for when he was allowed to leave the ward. On this she made a mental note, kissed his cheek and left.

‘So we didn't need your Tony's 'elp after all,' said Mum when Geraldine popped in to see her after visiting Dad.

He had said very much the same thing: ‘So now your Tony can keep 'is money, can't 'e?'

All she could say to that was, ‘I'm glad you're better now, Dad. We were worried for you.'

‘No need to've been,' had come his reply. ‘P'raps now I can 'old me 'ead up in front of people like 'im what crows about 'is money in front of people like us.'

She had been affronted and had shown it. ‘He's no different to anyone else. All he wanted was to help. He has no intentions of crowing. And what d'you mean by
us
? There's no such thing as
them
and
us
, Dad. Things are changing. And if he could have helped you out of a spot, why couldn't you have let him? You might still need some help till you go back to work.'

Her father had irascibly raised himself up on his pillow, wincing as he did so at the stab of pain at the tightening on the stitches on his still very tender wound. ‘I don't need no 'elp from no one,' he'd rumbled, and thus chastened, Geraldine cut short her visit and came away angry.

Now she was getting the same treatment from Mum. ‘Sometimes I almost feel I'm not wanted here,' she said, close to sudden tears that made her angrier than ever, against herself as well as Mum.

Her mother sat solid and dry-eyed, that back of hers as stiff and as proud as ever, impervious to her daughter's glistening eyes. ‘I don't know where you get that idea. I've never turned you away, 'ave I?'

‘You don't exactly make me feel that welcome.'

‘But 'ave I ever turned you away from me door?'

‘No.'

‘There you are then. Never let it be said that I'd turn a daughter of mine away from me own door. And if that's what yer implyin', Gel, then all I can say is, it's casting aspershuns on yer own mum.'

‘I didn't intend it that way, Mum.' Tears welled in her eyes, filtering her view of the light from the kitchen window as though seen through the facets of a splinter of glass.

Her mother busied herself pouring the obligatory cup of tea offered to any visitor to an East End home. ‘Well, be that as it may, 'ow did yer find yer dad when yer went in ter see him?'

In Victoria Park where they'd gone for a stroll, this part of March remaining warm enough for it, Geraldine told her older sister of the doctor's findings about her being two months pregnant. She'd said it with all the pent-up joy inside her but Mavis merely pulled a face as she pushed little Simon in his second-hand baby carriage that had certainly seen better days.

‘Lucky ter be able ter crow about it. All right fer you. Your old man's got a business. Yer can afford to be pleased about 'aving a baby.'

It wasn't what she'd wanted to hear. ‘His business doesn't bring in all that much.'

‘Enough from what I can see,' said Mavis, eyeing the dress Geraldine was wearing, shop-bought and certainly not cheap, even if it was the oldest one she had.

Geraldine always took care in picking her dresses according to whom she was seeing. For Tony's sister, of course, it was the most expensive day dress she could find. For her family, it was one that wouldn't put their backs up. She would even take a wander round the market stalls in Roman Road to find something cheap just to wear to visit them. Though contrary to her purpose it had often caused Mavis to remark that surely with her money she could afford better than that. ‘It makes it look like you're patronising us, pretending yer can't afford much when we know yer can,' she'd once said.

There was no winning either way. Even today. All she'd wanted to do was impart her joy to Mavis at finding herself pregnant, and even that was thwarted with her sister already casting aspersions on her happy news.

Mavis had looked so dowdy, the carefree young girl gone forever. In her place a housewife, worn by worry over an unemployed husband, a mother stewing how to keep her son properly fed, and now with her son only nine months old she was worried sick that she had missed two full months' periods.

‘I don't know 'ow we're goin' ter manage, Tom out of work an' all with no money comin' in.'

‘He might not be for long,' said Geraldine, trying to offer solace, but as she might have expected, Mavis gave her a scathing look.

‘You don't really believe that. You only 'ave ter take a look at the length of them dole queues. My Tom ain't goin' ter walk into a job this year nor next as far as I can see. Him with no skills, oo'd want 'im? An' now me with another kid on the way possibly.'

‘It might still be a false alarm – all the worry about Tom.'

‘What, an' me always regular as clockwork? Or used ter be. Not the way he … well, you know, it's 'is only bit of comfort nowadays. He can just about afford a packet of fags now and again, and an occasional pint to 'elp keep 'is chin up. What else 'as 'e got if he ain't got me ter give 'im his bit of comfort at night?'

Geraldine felt little sympathy. It was their fault if Mavis was pregnant this quick after having Simon. They should have at least tried to be careful knowing their circumstances. To her mind people often brought their own troubles on themselves, but she thought better than to say so to her sister, already down in the mouth. In fact she wished she hadn't spoken so quickly about her own condition, but she had been so happy about it that she hadn't paused to give it proper thought.

If only there was something she could do – like Tony offering Mavis's husband a job. But doing what? There was no call for an assistant in the shop as it was seldom busy. She still wondered how Tony could make so much money when it was never busy and he still hedged about his father seeing him all right, as if he felt it put him down to admit it. There was no way in which she could offer Mavis money even though Mavis wasn't as proud as Mum at taking it, but there was the same atmosphere there. She had offered her a dress or two in the past and Mavis had accepted them, grudgingly, as if to retain her sense of pride by making the giver feel put down rather than the other way around. It wasn't a nice feeling, to offer help then immediately to be made to feel awkward where she should have felt nothing of the sort. Perhaps Mavis was saying that being given some cast-off dress wasn't going to put food into her family's mouth, that she had less need to dress well as a greater need to see her family fed. Yet even when she did chip in with something edible, as Mum did, there was the same negative response, a sideways look even while it was being accepted.

Mum's offerings – maybe a small basin of stew or a home-made cake, something she too could ill afford while Dad was in hospital – were always readily accepted above anything Geraldine had to offer and which she considered far better quality than Mum could ever give, and more of it.

Time and time again she came away vowing not to bother any more, yet she could no more visit Mavis empty handed than fly in the air. If only she'd be a bit more grateful, or at least try to show it sometimes. But then, Mavis had always been hard to get along with.

Only one consolation was that on one occasion Mavis accepted something from her with her usual begrudging thank you, but added, ‘You won't tell Mum about this, will you?'

Reassuring her that of course she wouldn't, she had seen relief on her sister's face. Mum's enormous and at times senseless pride touched even Mavis into being wary of handouts from what Geraldine could only interpret as the better-off playing Lord and Lady Bountiful before their less fortunate relations, when all the time she was only trying to do her best for them. It hurt. It hurt very much, almost making her vow to let them get on with it.

Geraldine let out a little giggle as, clinging on to Tony's arm for support, the two of them stumbled into the flat. Three-thirty in the morning with the first grey glimmer of a late May dawn just beginning to show, and still the party when they'd left it had been going strong, probably wouldn't break up for another hour at least.

The party had been in Chelsea, Tony invited by a jeweller whom he'd dealt with from time to time – someone wealthy with a lovely apartment, beautifully furnished, a hired jazz pianist, a spread to die for, and drink coming out of their ears.

‘Why can't we live somewhere like that,' gasped Geraldine, ceasing to giggle as she let her handbag fall to the floor, struggled out of her hat and coat and flopped down into an armchair without hanging them up.

She gazed a little bleary-eyed about the flat. After the brilliance of the party, the beautiful frocks, the rich décor, this place struck her as decidedly drab, cold and uninviting, for all the fine furniture it held. She shivered.

‘How much longer are we going to stay here?' she asked, accepting the brandy and soda Tony handed to her.

‘Here?' His gaze followed hers about the small living room and he grinned, taking a sip of his own brandy. ‘It is getting a bit cramped, come to think of it.'

She stared up at him, trying to focus. ‘Then when are we going to remedy it? When are we going to move to something worth living in?'

‘I was going to talk about that some time or other.' He was still grinning inanely through his drink. ‘But your father being laid up, you've had your mind more on that, so I thought I'd delay things until you asked again – sometime.'

It was true, she'd been taken up with the state of her family with Dad not able to work after being discharged from hospital, and when he was well enough to go back to work, finding it hard to get back into the docks with so many men clamouring for jobs. It had been Wally who had managed finally to wangle him back in. In all that time, his family had lived virtually from hand to mouth and if it hadn't been for Wally and Fred and Evie bringing in something, God knows what they'd have done.

Geraldine had managed to dissuade Tony from offering his help. ‘They won't thank you for it, darling,' she told him. ‘In fact they might even get nasty about it. Best leave well alone and let them weather it out.' His reply had been to ask whether she worried about them and he'd been taken aback when she'd flared at him that of course she was worried, but it hadn't yet come to handouts. Tony had gone silent on her after that and the air had been a bit strained for the next few days.

But that was all passed. Dad, back at work, was the one angering her now with his remarks that he'd got himself right without help from
other people
, that he didn't need
other people's
help in looking after his own family contrary to what
some people
thought, that he managed all right before
they
came along and would continue to do so. All of which she knew was directed at her husband who had done nothing to him except to make the mistake of offering a few quid or so to help him along. So as far as she was concerned, Dad could sink or swim and the rest of them along with him.

She let out another little giggle and slipped down a fraction in her chair, returning her gaze to the room around her.

‘Then let's talk about living somewhere really nice,' she said. ‘So as to be all nice and settled by the time the baby arrives.'