A Better World than This (35 page)

‘I love you,’ she whispered. ‘The loving you gets worse. I think about you all the time. Do you think about
me
all the time, Sam?’

‘If I were free,’ he said carefully, ‘if things were different, I would marry you tomorrow. You’re so full of love you scare me.’ Putting her from him he straightened his tie. ‘You
should
never love
anyone
that much, Daisy. People get hurt when they love too much.’

‘
Can
a person love too much, Sam?’ Her eyes were dazed, her face soft, her eyes gentle with adoration.

‘Yes!’ He took a cigarette from his silver case and busied himself lighting it, annoyed to find that his hand shook. ‘Don’t put me on a pedestal, Daisy. I’m not worth it.’

‘I think you are.’

‘No!’ He looked round for an ashtray. ‘I’m not a saint, not even a plaster one. Daisy. …’ He inhaled, drawing smoke deep into his lungs. ‘I want to take Jimmy back with me in the morning.’

For a moment she was lost for words. ‘But how can you?’ She frowned. ‘I thought you said you were working? I thought you said you were driving Mr Evison to Cornwall? Has he said you can take Jimmy with you?’

‘Nope.’ He was obviously ill at ease.

‘Well, where would he go?’

He refused to meet her eyes. ‘To Suffolk. With his mother and Dorothy. Queenie wants to see him.’

‘Queenie?’

‘She’s his grandmother, for Pete’s sake!’

‘Why are you shouting, Sam?’ Daisy glanced towards the door. ‘I
know
she’s his grandmother, and it’s only natural that she would want to see her grandson.’ She hesitated. ‘It’s just that I thought … with your … your wife going to Canada and everything it wouldn’t be. … Is her boyfriend going with them to Suffolk?’

‘Did
I
say he was going? Did I even
mention
him?’ With his back turned to her and the cigarette dangling from his lips, Sam began taking things from his case.

‘No. But I would’ve thought, with them living together and everything. …’

‘Did I
say
they were living together? In so many words? Have I
ever
said that?’

‘You
implied
.’ Daisy looked stricken. ‘I don’t mean to pry. …’

‘Well,
don’t
then!’

‘Daisy?’ Florence’s knock at the door had a touch of hysteria about it. ‘Your aunt and uncle are back. Did you know they were coming back for a midday meal?’

‘I’m coming.’ Daisy took a deep breath. ‘We’ll talk about it later, Sam. I must go now.’

‘Talk about what?’ Sam’s face was sullen. Two angry red spots burned on his cheek-bones. ‘There’s nothing
to
talk about as far as I’m concerned.’

‘Daisy!’ Florence sounded as if she was beginning to froth at the mouth.

‘I’m coming.’ Daisy opened the door, the smoothness of her face at variance with the turmoil inside her. What was wrong with Sam? Why couldn’t he
tell
her instead of flying off the handle like that? She would understand. She was good at understanding, wasn’t she? She was the calm one, the smoother of paths, the peacemaker. Always in control. Not like Florence here, doing her nut because there were going to be two extra for dinner.

Daisy ran down the stairs. But why, for God’s sake, why couldn’t her auntie and uncle have stopped out just for today? Bought fish and chips. Eaten cockles off the stall on the front. Got a couple of meat pies and eaten them on the beach, or sitting in a shelter. It was warm enough.

Edna put her head round the kitchen door. ‘I’d like a word with that London chap when he comes down.’

Daisy’s control snapped. ‘If you say one word to him, Auntie. One
single
word about what’s none of your business I’ll … I’ll … I won’t be responsible!’

‘Well!’ Edna drew herself up to her full height of five feet and half an inch. ‘I’ve never been spoken to like that in my life before.’ Her lower lip wobbled. ‘Our Betty, bless her, would cut out her tongue rather than cheek me like that.’

‘I
warn
you.’ Daisy stepped back and closed the door deliberately in Edna’s outraged face. ‘That’s why their Betty, bless her, is what she is,’ she muttered darkly to an equally astounded Florence. ‘A
nothing
. A lump of nowt with no mind of her own. Give me that omelette pan, or can we
make
that fish pie go round? They said they were stopping out. So why did they have to come back?’

‘What’s up with you, Daisy?’ Florence stared at Daisy in surprise. ‘You’ve had a row with Sam, haven’t you? I could hear him shouting as I came upstairs.’ She looked virtuous and smug. ‘But you shouldn’t take it out on your guests. Your auntie is a guest, or isn’t she? Wasn’t that what you told me? Kow-tow to the visitors, no matter what?’

Daisy banged a pan down hard on the cooker. ‘Don’t
you
start. And if you must know I
am
a bit upset. Sam is taking Jimmy back with him.’

‘For good?’

‘For the Easter holidays.’

‘Well, surely that will help? With him out of the way. It was only the other day you were worrying because you said he’d be neglected this week. I think it’s the best thing that could happen.’

Daisy felt too defeated to argue. Florence was probably right. Jimmy going away for Easter was a good idea. But
something
was wrong. Now she was calming down she still felt that something was wrong. Her hand holding the chopping knife was stilled for a moment. Maybe Sam’s wife was missing Jimmy after all. Maybe she was going to take him with her to Canada, and maybe Sam suspected this.

In spite of the fierce blast of heat when she opened the oven door Daisy felt suddenly cold. Suppose Jimmy never came back? Suppose his mother applied for and got custody of him? Sam really loved his son. It would break his heart.

It would be bad enough if Jimmy never came back
here
where he had been for such a brief time. … Never to watch him lunging round the house again, bumping into everything, shaking the floor as he jumped from chairs or the settee, no matter how many times he was told not to. Never to hear him coming in from school, banging the door back, dropping his hat and coat on the floor, making a dive for the biscuit tin and telling her terrible corny jokes through a mouthful of crumbs.

Suppose she never saw him again?

‘Daisy?’ Uncle Arnold’s nice kind face peered round the door. ‘I think you’d best come and have a word with your auntie. She’s upstairs packing her bag to go back home.’

By the time they reached the Pleasure Beach that afternoon Daisy was almost back to her normal unflappable self. Almost, but not quite. Edna’s feathers had been too badly ruffled for her to be smoothed over with a few soothing words.

‘Very well, then,’ she had said. ‘You’ve made your own bed, now lie in it, but don’t come running to me when you need a shoulder to cry on. You’ve changed, our Daisy, and not for the better. That Florrie Livesey’s a bad influence on you. There’s bad blood there somewhere. And as for that London chap, well, just keep him out of my way, that’s all. He’s far too good-looking for his own good. Handsome is as handsome does, remember that. Our Betty, bless her, didn’t choose Cyril for his looks goodness knows, but at least she knows where she stands with him.’

‘Look at me, for instance,’ Arnold had said, trying as ever to make the peace. ‘Ugly as sin, but lovely with it.’

The Pleasure Beach was crowded. Weasel-faced men and leathery-skinned women shouted at everyone who passed by. They held out balls for hurling at dummies, or rifles to be fired at bobbing targets.

Sam and Daisy, with Jimmy between them, stopped in front of the Ghost Train. Jimmy jumped up and down with excitement, his eyes wide as he heard the thunder of the cars along the tracks, the blood-curdling yells and the piercing screams. It was all far better than he had ever imagined. Noisier, brighter, golder. He pulled at Daisy’s hand, urging her towards the Noah’s Ark with its rocking motion and its animals passing two by two. He ran on ahead past the raucous rattle of the Big Dipper and the Grand National, turning round impatiently when she didn’t follow as quickly as he needed her to.

In front of the Giant Plunger he tugged at his dad’s sleeve. ‘Please, Dad! Please!’ He gripped Daisy’s hand. ‘You promised Daisy! Oh, let’s go on here first!’

‘Seems we’ve no choice.’ Pushing his trilby to the back of his head with a finger, Sam grinned down at his son. ‘Okay, laddo. Come on, Daisybell. Hold on tight!’

Daisy wished she’d been sitting next to Sam, but with Jimmy sandwiched between them the car slid into a dark tunnel, the wheels grinding horribly on the iron rails. She was sure the startlingly sudden ascent would jerk her head off, and closed her eyes, opening them wide at the unexpected emergence into bright daylight. For a brief moment she saw the whole of Blackpool spread below them, spring-green and beautiful. She tightened her hold on Jimmy as the car climbed even higher, swaying from side to side, creaking and groaning. Just in time she snatched the knitted beret from her head, remembering another time, another place when the wind had taken her hat and tossed it away.

‘Hold on to the rail. I’ve got Jimmy. Hold on fast, Daisybell!’

Daisy answered him, but the wind took her words and devoured them. The car crested the summit of a long slope, giving a stomach-churning lurch before rushing at speed down an almost perpendicular incline. Jimmy screamed loudly, eyes and mouth wide open in terror. The car climbed yet another track, higher even than the last, wheezing and juddering as if it knew it would never make it. For a heart-stopping moment Daisy was sure it would slide backwards, crushing them to pulp at the bottom. Risking a quick glance at Jimmy, she saw that his small face had turned the colour of risen dough.

At the top of a slope she nerved herself to look down. This time she saw the fairground’s white buildings and beyond them the biscuit-coloured hotels and guest-houses along the promenade. Before the car plunged down again she glimpsed a flash of green sea, then it was holding the rail till her knuckles whitened, feeling the breath torn from her body. By her side Jimmy buried his head in Sam’s shoulder.

By the last clanking climb, followed by yet another violent rush towards the ground, Daisy had begun to wonder if the ride would ever end. A bearded fairground hand in charge of the massive brake winked at her as she climbed from the car.

Sam caught the admiring glance and thought, not for the first time, that happiness changed Daisy’s whole appearance. It lifted her features into quite startling loveliness. Seen like this, with her cheeks flushed and her dark hair blown round her vivacious face, she was almost beautiful. The tenderness she had always been able to evoke in him surfaced. Pulling her to him he kissed her cold cheek.

‘Want to go on again, Daisybell?’

‘I’m going to be sick,’ Jimmy said. And was.

Joshua walked briskly along the front towards Central Pier. He had needed to escape from the house for a while to avoid Florence’s simpering glances. He had refused her coy invitation to join her in the kitchen for a cup of tea.

‘Earl Grey, of course. I’m sure you’ve read that Queen Victoria drank a cup of Earl Grey tea every afternoon at four.’

Women built like Florence should never be coy, Joshua thought uncharitably. She wasn’t to know that today was the anniversary of his wife’s death, and because of this Joshua hated Easter. He supposed his refusal had been a bit abrupt, but Miss Florence Livesey really was a most peculiar woman. He wished he could like her more than he did. But Florence was one of those unfortunate beings who brought out the worst in other people. Born into the wrong environment somehow, out of step with the life ordained for her, Florence held frustration and anger tightly inside her, as if at any moment she would lose control.

Joshua stopped for a moment to stare at the sea. Miss Livesey, a born teacher. He nodded to himself. He had met and worked with more than one Florence in his career. Met them trudging determinedly down long school corridors, wearing skirts which looked as if they’d woven the material
themselves
, shedding pins from slipping buns of colourless hair, gawky, unfeminine, ink in their veins, never really leaving their sixth-form years where, oblivious to their unpopularity, they had revelled in timetables and the school curriculum. Brilliant academics, stern disciplinarians, stalwart headmistresses of girls’ grammar schools. Poor, poor Florence, with her total inability to suffer fools with even a pinch of gladness.

He walked on. Oh, dear God, how he hated Easter. To most people it was a time of rebirth after the sorrow of Good Friday. Easter was daffodils in the parks, hot cross buns, the first hint of warmth in the air. ‘Jesus Christ is Risen Today’ sung in church. Bank Holiday Monday with women in new spring hats. Painted eggs, simnel cake, a promise of summer not all that far away.

Joshua walked a little slower, bitter memories surfacing, reminding him of how it might have been. He shook his head slowly from side to side. He wasn’t the sort of man to dwell to no good purpose on what might have been. Or was he?

‘That way madness lies. Let me shun that.’ Shakespeare, as Florence would have added. What would become of her? He saw no future as a landlady for Florence.

He would have to leave Shangri-La. There was no future either for him there. Yet he dreaded having to find another room at the top of some boarding-house or small hotel. There was comfort and stability in the familiar, and he’d grown to love the view from his window of rows of chimney pots and grey slate roofs, wet with rain more often than not.

He coughed, feeling the raw pain deep inside his chest. The doctor at the field hospital behind the lines in France had told him that mustard gas left a man vulnerable to the cold and the damp for the rest of his life. The wind was growing chill now, but perversely he decided to walk the length of Central Pier. He needed to isolate himself from the milling crowds, where everywhere he looked he saw couples walking side by side. Two halves of the same one, he told himself. He cursed at his mood of uncharacteristic self-pity.
Inside
the pier toll-gate he paid the entrance fee and set his face towards the open sea.