Faded Dreams (9 page)

   Unaware of the drama about to unfold, Joe had stopped off at The Old Bank. Florrie thanked God her mother was nursing bronchitis and wouldn’t be round this afternoon sticking her nose in as usual. Now she had to get the kids out of the way.

   ‘Here y’are, Betty. Put this two-shilling-piece in your pocket and take our Ellen to dancing class, and don’t spend the change… think on?’ The little girls didn’t need telling twice.

   The minutes ticked by as Florrie rehearsed her words out loud in a shaky voice, changing them over and over again, seeking a way to break it to Joe. When he arrived, bleary-eyed and rocking from side to side, he couldn’t have imagined that his wife’s opening statement was about to sober him up.

   ‘I’m expecting.’

   ‘Expecting? What d’ya mean, expecting?’  His face was a picture of disbelief, his slurred speech suddenly crystal-clear.  ‘Expecting? You can’t be…is this a bloody joke, or what?’

   ‘It’s no joke… I’m five months gone.’ She clasped her hands together, willing them to stop shaking.

   ‘Well… if
you’re
expecting,’ he wagged an accusing finger in her face, ‘it’ll be a bloody miracle… an’ it’ll not be mine.’ The tears spilling silently from her downcast eyes told him he had stumbled on the truth.

CHAPTER TEN

   ‘It’s
not
mine, is it?’ he dragged her to her feet, shaking her like a rag doll. ‘It’s
not
mine
… it’s a pissin’ little bastard, isn’t it? You dirty swine, you’re nothing more…’ the insults were coming fast now, ‘you’ve been letting somebody else shove it in, haven’t you?’

   ‘Don’t be so bloody crude.’

   ‘Crude? Crude? I might
well
be bloody crude, married to a whore like you. Come on then… who have ya been knocking about with behind me back? Go on… how many? Go on…ya might as well tell me, and upset me proper.’

   ‘I haven’t been knocking about… it was only once, I promise…
you
don’t know him… he doesn’t live in Blackburn now.’  The words tumbled out along with the tears.  ‘It was only once…so it’s more’n likely yours Joe.’

   He relaxed his grip on her shoulders and brought a sharp blow across her mouth with the back of his hand, his signet ring slicing into her upper lip. She reeled back on to the couch, drawing the blood into her mouth with her tongue.

   ‘That’s the first time you’ve ever laid a finger on me, Joe Pomfret,’ she met his wild eyes with cold, accusing ones.

   ‘Yeah, well that’s where I’ve made me mistake. I should have given you a bloody good hiding now and again, like some other fellas do with their wives… shown you who was the boss and then I’d have had a decent wife to come home to… instead of a filthy sod like you whoring up and down Blackburn. You’re a disgrace, that’s what y’are… a bloody disgrace.’

   Cursing at the top of his voice, he ran upstairs and with no clear plan in mind dragged a pillowcase off the bed and stuffed it with his best suit and shoes and one or two other personal possessions.  Downstairs, he found an un-ironed shirt and two stiff collars and crammed them into the bulging pillowcase.

   ‘What are you doing, you daft sod?’ She already knew the answer.

   ‘What I should have done years ago… I’m buggering off. You’ll not see me no more after this… I might as well chuck myself under a bus or drown myself now that you’ve made a laughing stock out of me. Well let’s see how you live with yourself after they’ve fished me out of yon lake in Corporation Park.’

   He was crying with hurt, rage and hatred, but crying most of all for the loss of a love that until today he’d thought indestructible

   ‘Don’t go Joe, don’t leave us,’ she stumbled across the kitchen and clung to him. ‘It’ll be your kid… believe me...it will.’

   ‘Get out my road and don’t talk so bloody empty,’ he sneered, pushing her aside. Thrusting his hand deep into the pocket of his trousers he threw a pile of coins and a ten-shilling note on the table.

   ‘Right… that’s all I have…this week's wage… every ha’penny of it.  Take the bloody lot and just make sure me little lasses get something to eat.  You and that… that bastard in your belly can bloody starve for all I care.’

   With pillowcase bulging in one hand and piano accordion slung over the opposite shoulder he made for the front door.  Unmoved by her distress, he turned for one last insult.

   ‘You hardfaced sod, I wish I’d never set eyes on you.  Aye go on…carry on scrikeing… you’ll piss less.’ 

   The door banged, the windows rattled, the house was still. Edie Sagar came face to face with her unpredictable neighbour on the corner. She opened her mouth to speak but one look at him in such obvious pain and she thought better of it. Although  hardly a weekend went by without some sort of pandemonium next door, she couldn’t even begin to imagine what had happened this time. She watched him disappear down the hill before knocking tentatively on his front door. There was no answer. Florrie was in no fit state for visitors.

*

   Betty tugged excitedly at her mother’s sleeve, ‘Mum? Mum? We’re home and look what me and our Ellie learnt.’ She performed a perfect handstand against the back door while her sister demonstrated a new tap-routine.

   From an upside-down position Betty’s eyes focussed in horror on her mother’s swollen mouth and came down to earth with a bump, in more ways than one. ‘Mum, what’s to do with your face?  Has
he
done it?’

   Florrie’s lip split a second time when she tried to smile. ‘Has he hell, don’t talk so daft…I walked in the doorpost, that’s all… I should have been watching where I were going.’

   ‘Where’s my dad?’ Ellen, being less perceptive than her older sister, took longer to recognise a family crisis. ‘It’s past tea-time, where is he?’

   Florrie pulled her daughters down on to the couch, one on either side of her, and took a deep breath. ‘He’s not coming home for his tea.  He’s not coming home any more. He’s left us.’

   ‘Hooray!  No more shouting and bawling, no more smashing pots,’ Betty gave an exaggerated sigh of relief and a whoop of joy, ‘it’ll be grand in our house now, won’t it, mum? Just the three of us.’

   Ellen clung to her mother and cried pitifully. Her dad had never done this before… never
left
them…not even when her and Betty had caused a row and made him get right mad, he’d never
left
them.  He’d always got over it, and kissed her mum and made her laugh, and made cornflakes with hot milk for all of them or warm buttery toast, and then they’d all been friends again. She fought back the dizziness that threatened, and tried to absorb this new situation .

    ‘Where’s he gone then, mum? He’ll have nowhere to sleep… he’ll be frightened all on his own and we’ll have nobody to mend our toys…make him come back mum,
please
.’

   ‘We’re better off on our own,’ her mother said curtly, ‘now stop your bawling before you end up with a headache, same as me.’

   The next day they found Granny Sefton slumped in her armchair with a blanket covering her knees, coughing violently. She shot the phlegm accurately into the blazing fire, watched till it stopped sizzling and then noticed Florrie’s thick lip.

   ‘What the hell’s happened to you?  Don’t tell me that drunken bugger’s been having a go at you?’

   Florrie repeated the story of her collision with the doorpost and changed the subject. ‘How are you feeling, mam?  Is your chest any easier?  Where’s pa?’

   ‘Propping the bloody bar up soaking himself in ale, same as
yours
is, but at least
mine
’ll not be propping women up as well. That shiftless bugger of yours has never been good for nothing ‘cept boozing and women,’ she croaked.

   ‘He’s not gone boozing today,’ Ellen piped up in her father’s defence, ‘he’s gone and left us for good, he’s not coming back, is he Mum?’

   Florrie cringed even though she knew her mother would have found out sooner or later.

   ‘Well now, that’s the best news I’ve heard all week,’ Mabel’s lips tightened,  ‘and if your mam has him back, she’s wrong in her head.’ 

   Betty and Ellen followed the old cocker spaniel into the garden and went about searching for his well-chewed tennis ball.  Florrie watched from the window, strangely detached from these little girls as if they were from a different time, a different life.

   ‘It’s about
time
you threw him out,’ her mother wheezed, ‘he’ll never be anything more than a bloody wastrel.’

   ‘I didn’t
throw
him out,’ Florrie spoke quietly and evenly, ‘he’s gone because… I’m…I’m expecting… he doesn’t want any more kids.’

   ‘Well…the… cheeky… bugger! He should have thought about
that
a bit sooner... about not wanting any more.’

   Florrie wondered who had the fiercest temper, her mother or Joe. It hardly mattered since she always seemed to be on the receiving end of both of them, or she
had
been till yesterday. Now it was just her mother.

   ‘I thought
you’d
have had more sense and not had any more kids. But you’re as bloody daft as
he
is, always hanging round his neck, it’s a wonder you haven’t got
five
kids by now like that mother of his. Anyway, he’s not a proper fella… what
proper
fella would clear off and leave his wife in the family-way like that, to bring his kids up on her own?’

   Florrie swayed backwards and forwards in her father’s rocking chair, slowly at first and then faster and faster, the tapping of the chair on the flagged floor matching the rhythm of her racing heart. The walls were closing in on her, one minute her mother’s face was practically touching hers, the next minute it was out of sight. A strangely unfamiliar voice was screeching through  inflamed bronchial tubes and echoing inside her head. She clasped her hands protectively over the small swelling in her belly, an instinctive gesture that brought her back to some kind of reality.

   ‘Mam, shut your mouth, for Christ’s sake,’ she shouted, ‘I’ve had enough off you and him, you’re both the bloody same.’

   The words were barely uttered before Mabel leapt from her chair and slapped her once, twice, across both sides of her head. ‘ Hey, watch your language, you ignorant young bugger. I’ll have less of your lip… after all I’ve done for you, and don’t think you’re too old to have a good hiding. Married woman or not, I’ll break your bloody neck if you talk to me like that again.’

   ‘I’m sorry, mam,’ Florrie said flatly, eyes blinking rapidly and ears ringing from her mother’s blows. ‘I  know you’re badly-up with your chest, I’m sorry mam.’

   Staggering back to her chair Mabel massaged her aching chest. She reached for her pot of tea, added a generous measure of whisky and slurped noisily, sighing with relief as the hot liquid stung her throat. Her granddaughters returned to the kitchen and her words became more guarded.

   ‘You’ll be the death of me one of these days Florrie Sefton, you and that bloody Pomfret lunatic you married. He’s the one that’s got you into this pickle, he’s more to blame than you are.’ (The conversation had turned into a code that the children were unable to decipher.)

   ‘He should have been more careful… you know what I mean by
that
, Florrie… he should have had enough sense to “get off the tram a bit sooner, instead of going all the way to the terminus.” Well, I’ve been telling you for years about fellas, haven’t I? They’re selfish, the lot of ‘em… as long as they get their pleasure, bugger anybody else.’

   Florrie heated some oxtail stew for her father’s tea, washed a few clothes that were soaking in the sink, and tidied up. And then, as if nothing untoward had happened, Mabel kissed her daughter and grandchildren and sent them home with a brown paper carrier-bag packed with enough food to last a week.

*

   Joe stared across the lake, the calm innocuous waters contrasting vividly with his turbulent emotions. He had set off for work this morning as happy as a lark, stopped off for a pint on his way home and then, right out of the blue, she’d dropped
this
on him. And now, thanks to her and that fancy fella of hers - whoever he was - he had nothing left to live for. 

   Slumped on a bench , his pillowcase next to his feet, he wondered how cold it was out there...how deep? There was only one way to find out,  he wouldn’t be the first, or the last, to do away with himself and finish up at the bottom of the lake. He’d told her that’s where they’d find him and it would serve her right when they
did
. Everybody would know what a rotten wife she’d been and she’d have to live with that for the rest of her days.

   He wished to God he had the courage to end it all. No wife, no family, no home, and to crown it all, it now looked like he hadn’t even enough  nerve to top himself.

    A woman and her small boy threw pieces of stale bread into the lake and watched  the hungry ducks disturb the smooth still water as they fought for them.

   ‘Mummy, why is that man crying?’