Deception and Desire (24 page)

The warmth ran and spread and she sipped her whisky again, her hands steadier now around the glass. It was almost, she thought, as if her perception of the two men was merging, Steve becoming Van, Van becoming Steve.

She glanced up at the portrait that hung over the fireplace, the commanding life-size portrait of Van in his prime.

‘If only you had known him,' she said softly, then, almost as soon as the words were out she was regretting them with a rush of guilt that made her feel illogically as if she had committed sacrilege.

Van had not wanted to know Steve. It had been Van's decision that she should give him up. Through all the years, though she had grieved for her lost son, she had never questioned Van's judgement and she did not question it now. Habit was too strong.

‘I'm sorry, Van – I didn't mean it. You were right. You were always right.'

His eyes looked back at her from the canvas – those deep-set eyes of such a dark blue that they were almost black seeming to hypnotise her from beyond the grave, and Dinah knew without question that all the heartache and the guilt counted for nothing. If she had her time over, she would do it all the same again.

She was just twenty when she first met Van. She was also penniless – and pregnant.

Dinah seldom thought now of those dark days – it seemed they might almost have happened to someone else and not to her at all. But when she did think of them she found she could remember with frightening clarity the way she had felt – helpless, trapped, abandoned and alone.

Perhaps, she thought, it would not have been quite so bad if she had not led such a sheltered life and been so incredibly young for her age. It had been, after all, the start of what people blithely referred to as ‘the Swinging Sixties'. But as yet they had barely begun. The taboos of the past decades were still casting their long shadow, living with a man before marriage was still regarded as ‘letting oneself down' and becoming an unmarried mother was a cause for shame and disgrace.

These values had been deeply ingrained in Dinah by her mother, Ruth, herself the daughter of a Nonconformist minister. Dinah's father had died of peritonitis when she was seven – ‘ Divine retribution', Dinah had once heard her grandfather remark – and Dinah and her mother had left their home and moved to the rambling old manse occupied by her grandparents.

Dinah disliked the manse. It was dark and musty with wood-panelled walls, overpowering Victorian fireplaces above which countless china ornaments sat on a dark oak mantelshelf, and cabbage-rose wallpaper yellowed by age and damp. The downstairs floors were flagstoned, apart from the parlour which had black-varnished floorboards around a faded carpet square, and upstairs was linoleum with a scattering of rugs. There were few mirrors to reflect what little light there was – mirrors encouraged vanity, Grandfather said – and no pictures, with the notable exception of a vast pencil drawing of John Bunyan which dominated the living room. His eyes seemed to follow you wherever you went, Grandfather said, and Dinah had thought it was true. Whenever she got up to mischief she would look nervously over her shoulder and meet John Bunyan's unwinking stare.

Not unnaturally, life at the manse was dominated by religion – not the joyous hat-in-the-air religion of Dinah's best friend Mary, who was a Roman Catholic – and probably doomed to hellfire for it, according to Grandfather, who strongly disapproved of the friendship – but a stern and sober existence lived to honour a stern and sober God.

There was little laughter – Grandfather had the weary sainted look of a man carrying all the cares of the world on his shoulders, Grandma scuttled behind him like a pale timid mouse, and her mother had stopped laughing after her father had died. When Dinah laughed she felt almost as if she were committing sacrilege and she would look quickly over her shoulder to see if John Bunyan had noticed.

And that was on weekdays. On Sundays it was even worse.

Sundays meant two doses of chapel, one in the morning and one in the evening. Dinah found it dreadfully boring, sitting in the front pew dressed in her best and then being patted and patronised by the ladies of the church, out to get on good terms with the minister. She amused herself by listening to Mrs Thomas, who sang the hymns lustily in her booming mezzo-soprano and held the last notes a beat or so longer than anyone else, or counting the times old Mr Henry coughed, or even watching Grandfather's spittle sparkle in a shaft of sunlight as he spat out his sermon from the pulpit just above her.

Even worse were the hours between and after services. Practically every activity which helped to pass the time was forbidden, for the day was set aside for worship and contemplation. Reading was not allowed, unless it was the Bible or a book of Bible stories, sewing was not allowed, jigsaws were not allowed. Playing cards was certainly not allowed; Grandfather disapproved of them at any time, proclaiming them ‘ the works of the devil', and once when he had caught Dinah indulging in a quiet game of patience he had confiscated the pack and thrown them into the fire beneath the great Victorian mantelpiece. Dinah, tears brimming in her eyes, had watched them turn brown and curl at the edges, until the flames finally consumed them as she imagined the flames of hell would consume her if she continued to offend the Lord God by flouting His commandment to keep holy the Sabbath Day. The radio – or wireless as it was called then – was turned on only for the weather forecast and
Songs of Praise
, and afterwards Grandfather would read aloud from the leatherbound family Bible which was kept in a cupboard beside the fireplace.

Later, when she was in her teens, Dinah tried to rebel against the Sunday regime. Mary went to the coffee bar on Sunday afternoons, and one day Dinah dared to go with her, having made the excuse that she was going for a walk.

She spent the afternoon in a state of nervous excitement, too afraid of the possible consequences of her adventure to really enjoy it, drinking cups of foaming espresso coffee and feeling guilty as she listened to the pounding music of the jukebox and chatted to the leather-jacketed youths who clustered around it. This was probably the start of the path to damnation, she thought, resenting Grandfather for making her feel an outcast, yet unable to shake off the pervasive feeling of wrongdoing.

When she got home Grandfather was waiting for her, coldly furious.

‘Where have you been?' he demanded.

‘For a walk,' Dinah whispered, quaking.

Grandfather drew himself up to his full height. He was a big man, over six feet tall and broad-shouldered; in his best Sunday black, with his gaunt face and thick head of silver hair, he was a daunting sight.

‘How dare you lie to me!' His voice, which could fill the chapel, echoed fearsomely around the flagstoned hall. ‘Don't you know it is wicked to lie? I will ask you again – where have you been?'

‘With Mary.'

‘Mary. You mean Mary O'Sullivan?' He uttered it with the same distaste he might have said ‘Lucrezia Borgia'.

She nodded, unable to look at him.

‘And where have you been with Mary O'Sullivan?'

‘We … went for a cup of coffee.'

‘And where did you have this cup of coffee?'

She could not answer. Her mouth had gone dry. Grandfather took hold of her shoulder, shaking her.

‘You've been to that coffee bar, haven't you?
Haven't you?
'

She was looking down. All she could see was Grandfather's shoes, shiny with polish.

‘Look at me when I am speaking to you!' he ordered. ‘You and that
hussy
have been to that evil place, and on the Lord's Day too. I am ashamed of you, Dinah, ashamed and disappointed. You do know, don't you, that what you have done is wicked?'

‘But … it wasn't!' she protested weakly. ‘I didn't do anything wrong.'

‘There was music, I suppose? So-called
pop
music?'

‘Well – yes, but …'

‘On a Sunday! Why do they need pop music on a Sunday? It's rubbish at the best of times, inciting young people to do things they shouldn't, have thoughts they shouldn't have. But on a Sunday!' He broke off, beside himself with rage. ‘The place should not be allowed to open on the Lord's Day. If I had my way I'd close it down altogether but I suppose there is a call for it from a certain type of person. But not for you, Dinah. You will never go there again. Not on a weekday, and certainly not on a Sunday. Now, wipe that lipstick off your mouth, go to your room and remain there until it is time to go to chapel. Do you understand?'

She nodded and fled, shaking, ashamed, confused. She knew deep down that she had done nothing wrong, but the habit of respect for Grandfather was too strong to break. Honour thy father and thy mother, the commandments said. Here in the manse it had been expanded to include Honour thy grandfather and grandmother. Dinah had not yet learned to argue.

But how had he known? How had he known she had not been for a walk as she had pretended? As she asked the question his voice seemed to echo in her head: ‘Be sure your sins will find you out.'

Dinah's face burned with shame. It was a long time before she rebelled again.

‘You've got to tell him,' Mary said. ‘ You've got to tell him you've got a boyfriend. You're sixteen years old and this is nineteen fifty-seven. He can't keep you locked up forever like some Victorian virgin.'

‘I can't tell him! He'd kill me!'

‘Then don't be surprised when Dave Hicks finishes with you. He will, Dinah, believe me. He won't go on being satisfied with meeting you behind the bicycle sheds in the lunch hour for ever. And when he ditches you it will be your own fault for not standing up to that old ogre.'

‘He's not an ogre,' Dinah said, feeling honour bound to defend her grandfather. ‘He's only the way he is because he thinks it's for my own good.'

‘Rubbish! He just likes having you under his thumb. It gives him a kick.'

‘No, he's a good man really. He must be – he's a minister.'

‘Hah! A chapel bumper! He's not a real priest.'

Dinah said nothing. She hated arguing with Mary about religion. They didn't often do it – it wasn't a subject that interested either of them overmuch – but when it did arise, the divisions between them were so deep and entrenched they threatened the friendship.

Once Dinah had been rash enough to tell Mary that Grandfather had said the trouble with Catholics was that they thought going to confession was a passport to doing exactly as they pleased – they could pay lip service to repentance, say a few Hail Marys and go out and do the same again.

Mary had been furious and they had been bad friends for days. Now, because she could not bear to fall out with Mary, Dinah let the slur on her grandfather pass.

‘It's no use. He won't let me go out with Dave. I know he won't,' she said, returning to the most important question.

‘Then say you're going out with me. He'll never know.'

‘I wouldn't bank on it,' Dinah said, remembering the episode of the coffee bar. ‘ It's as if he has second sight. Perhaps God really is on his side.' She shivered.

‘The devil more likely,' Mary retorted. ‘What about your mother? Doesn't she have any say in it?'

‘Not much.'

Since returning to the fold Ruth had also returned to the childhood habit of allowing her father to dominate her Dinah was too used to being told to ‘do as your grandfather says' to have any real hope that her mother might prove to be an ally. When she was a child she had thought it was just that she was in cahoots with him, ‘the grown-ups' lining up against her and inseparable in their rigid views and values. Now she was beginning to realise that, unlikely as it seemed, Ruth was just as afraid of Grandfather as she was. But it made no difference. She could not imagine Ruth ever admitting that her father might be wrong, even between themselves, let alone standing up to him on her behalf.

Dave Hicks was in Dinah's class, and she'd liked him for ages, experiencing little flutters of excitement when he looked at her, soaring on wings of happiness when he smiled. She had longed for him to like her back, but at the same time she had dreaded him asking her out because she knew she would either have to refuse or face the most dreadful rows at home. Now that it had actually happened she did not know what to do.

So far she had made excuses why she couldn't meet him in the evenings and gloried in the heady pleasure of simply seeing him in school time. The weather was hot and sunny, enhancing the dream-like aura that surrounded her, and each day after school he walked part of the way home with her, sometimes carrying her satchel, tennis racket or cookery basket, but never holding her hand and certainly not putting his arm around her because teachers often passed by in their cars and such boldness would not only have been frowned upon but punished.

He had kissed her – in the dark corner behind the cycle sheds – and it had been wonderful. Even the fear of being caught could not spoil the trembling excitement, the romance, the sheer intoxicating happiness that had filled her, and ever afterwards the smell of sun-warmed tarmac, the feel of rough cotton fabric beneath her fingers, even the sight of dust motes dancing in a ray of sunlight could evoke for Dinah the magic of that moment when he had held her uncertainly, his lips, clumsy and unpractised, pressing against hers. The problems had all seemed very distant then and she had wanted only to snuggle close and kiss him again and again.

But forgetting the problems in the heat of the moment didn't make them go away. All very well to say that what they had was enough for her – it wasn't enough for him. He wanted a girl he could go out with in the evenings, sometimes at least. He was becoming impatient. And with a sinking heart Dinah knew Mary was right. Unless she did something about it he was going to ditch her and find someone else, someone not restricted by the rigid rules and regulations laid down by a dictatorial old man.