Keepsake (26 page)

Marty was outraged.
How could she laugh in the face of his agony?
He seized at anything now, however ridiculous
it might sound, so long as it injured her as much as she had injured him. ‘Now I see why your father let me have you. He was probably glad to get bloody rid!’

With nary a signal of warning, Etta lifted the teapot and smashed it down on his head.

Marty staggered, his feet crunching the shards of white pottery and his eyes glazing over as he struggled to right himself by means of a dining chair, then underwent a moment of stunned disbelief, blood and tea leaves running together down his face.

Beholding this tragi-comic sight, teetering on the verge of madness, and dangerous and as unpredictable as a wounded lioness, Etta wanted to laugh and to cry, to fling back at him that the man whom he accused of being her lover was in fact just a stranger who had kindly offered to transport her and William home when the pram had collapsed.

But there was no time, for Marty roared at her, ‘It’s like living with a fucking animal!’

And, completely blind to his children’s distress, he stumbled from the house. ‘That’s it, I’m gone for good!’

Without enough arms to go round, Etta left the baby to screech in his cot and rushed to cuddle the three sobbing children. ‘Don’t worry, don’t worry! Father didn’t mean it, he’ll be back.’

‘You hurt him!’ stammered Celia, her body racked with tears.

Etta groaned. ‘I didn’t mean to, he just…oh, come here!’ Fighting her own upset she set to cuddling them again, shushing and soothing and kissing, dabbing at tears. ‘I swear it was all a silly mistake, he’ll be back before bedtime.’

‘Promise?’ Edward’s lower lip juddered, his puffy red eyes showing a desperate need to believe.

‘I promise,’ soothed Etta, granting each a final pet and saying evenly despite her own senses being much assailed
and her heart pounding like a drum, ‘Now buck up whilst I go quieten Willie, then we shall all have some milk and buns.’

Marty strode away without knowing where he was going, trying to pace out his anger until he could walk no more, whereupon he threw his upper body over an iron rail that overlooked the River Ouse and stood there, chest heaving. It was late in the afternoon but still quite hot, the sun reflected in the brown ripples where barges and rowing boats jostled for position. Underneath a bridge on a patch of mud, children frolicked. He leaned there for a time, grimly watching the scene but not really taking in any of it except for the sour tang of the river, his throbbing head awhirl with all manner of thoughts.

‘By, you look like I feel.’

Accompanied by the droll Yorkshire comment, he sensed a shabby male presence drape itself next to his and, without interest, turned to see a boyhood friend. ‘Oh…now then, Ged. How are you?’

A cryptic grin from Ged Burns. ‘Not much better for seeing you, that’s for sure – you certainly know how to make a chap feel wanted.’

‘Ach, don’t mind me.’ Marty dredged up the energy to pat his companion, but then leaned back on the rail and sighed. ‘Wife trouble.’

Ged winced at the congealed blood on his friend’s temple. ‘She did that, did she?’ At Marty’s nod he looked sympathetic and offered a thinly rolled cigarette, then, when it was refused, inserted it between his own lips. ‘At least you’ve got a wife. No bugger’ll have me.’

‘Count yourself lucky then.’ His expression glazed, Marty picked at the hard skin that surrounded his thumbnail.

‘Struth, you have got it bad. What’s happened?’

Marty shrugged and took a while to answer, his eyes
following the group of barefooted youngsters who squelched laughingly amongst the mud, faces alight with glee. Was he ever so carefree? ‘Ah, one thing on top of another. One minute there you are, booling along fine, and the next…’ His voice trailed away into a distant gaze of unhappiness.

‘You’re in the shit,’ finished Ged, his eye holding a glimmer of empathy. ‘Got any kids?’

‘Four,’ sighed Marty.

An untidy eyebrow was arched in envy. ‘Can’t be that bad between you and the wife then. How old are they?’

‘Six, five, Alex’s nearly four and Willie’s just a bairn.’ His heart ached at the thought of them. He shouldn’t have ranted and upset them like that.

Ged unleashed a stream of smoke through the gap in his brownish teeth. ‘Not bad going. Look at me, twenty-seven, same as yourself, no kids, no wife, no house even, I doss where I can – and you think you’re hard done by?’ He dealt Marty a laughing, persuasive nudge. ‘Fancy coming to drown your sorrows? I don’t mean in there,’ he nodded at the river and laughed again. ‘I mean in a tastier liquor.’

Marty would rarely contemplate imbibing during the day, but this afternoon the thought was tempting. However, remembering he had tipped all his earnings on the table he was forced to tell his companion, ‘I haven’t a meg.’

‘Wife grabbed it all, did she?’ Before Marty could reply, Ged patted his own pocket and added, ‘Ah well, at least that’s one thing I’m not short of.’ He displayed a handful of coins and jerked his whiskery chin as a sign of invitation.

After only the slightest pause, Marty murmured, ‘What the hell.’ And he went with his friend to a quayside hostelry.

Here, in the dank interior, his companion, obviously eager for company, was to keep the drinks flowing for the rest of the afternoon, indeed well into the evening, and Marty was content to let him. Unaccustomed to alcohol, he became
quickly inebriated and eventually his troubles began to seem not so bad. Through the murk of insobriety, he vaguely recalled someone else joining them, a blur of laughter and a feeling of freedom he had not enjoyed for many a month, daylight fading and the lamps being turned on. But after that…

Returning to some form of consciousness, Marty gradually became aware of a painful jarring motion and his head banging rhythmically against a darkened window, and realised with a start that he was on a train. His befuddled slits of eyes took in the man who sat opposite, the only other person in the carriage, and he recognised him as the friend he had not seen since boyhood. Finally coming to, he managed vaguely to recall their reunion – but that had been in daylight. Now it was pitch black outside and a train was carrying him to heaven knew where. The compartment smelt like a brewery.

Dishevelled and still dazed, Marty threw his companion a look of alarm. ‘What’re we doing on this train? Where’s it go?’

‘Lichfield,’ said the other on a yawn.

Even more perplexed, Marty rocked with the motion of the carriage. ‘Christ, where the fuck’s that when it’s at home? I don’t even remember buying a ticket.’

‘You didn’t,’ slurred Ged.

‘Oh, don’t tell me I owe you money,’ Marty groaned.

The reply was affable. ‘No, that sergeant gave us both a travel warrant.’ Ged produced his and waved it.

Swaying in his seat, brow furrowed, Marty fumbled automatically in his pockets and came up with a similar document, his confused, bloodshot eyes examining it. ‘Sergeant?’

‘The one what recruited us.’ Arms folded, Ged closed his eyes and wriggled back in his seat as if to sleep.

Panic flared in Marty’s breast. God almighty – he had joined the army! Kicking his friend awake, he demanded frantically, ‘How long did I sign up for?’

‘Ow! Watch it, you bastard.’ Ged clasped his shin, then prefixed his reply with a lazy belch that filled the compartment with yet more beery fumes. ‘Same as me, six years.’

Marty gasped, moaned and clutched his injured head.

He could have wept. But what would have been the use in it? Tears would not wash his signature from that form. There could be no going back now. And upon serious reflection did he even want to? What was left for him in York? Apart from his children, his dear, dear children – but a fatherly instinct to protect them told him that his being at home was doing more harm than good. Even if Etta did deign to have him back, he could not tell how long he could tolerate being taken for granted. He was sick and tired of looking after everybody. Why couldn’t someone look after him for a while?

In a mood of dark resignation, he settled back, folded his arms and closed his eyes again. Yes, this might be just what he needed. Let the army look after him until he could decide what to do next. It didn’t seem too big a risk. With England enjoying
entente cordiale
with her old enemy France, and the Boers no longer a problem, it was doubtful there would be another war during his stint, for such hostility blew up rarely. True, he could be ordered to put down foreign natives, but with a gun against their spears that didn’t seem too hazardous, and the further away from his wife this train carried him the better the idea seemed to be. At this moment, it was his greatest desire to put as many miles as possible between him and that idle, selfish shrew.

She had not waited up for him that night, but, bubbling with anger whilst at the same time listening out for his tread on the stair, she found it impossible to sleep. Yet she must have dozed eventually for it was now daybreak. The other side of the mattress remained cool. Though sick with foreboding, Etta managed to adhere to normality for much of that day, fobbing the children off with the lie that their father had come home very late and was now at work, and answering any dubious query as to whether he would be home that night with the breezy response, ‘I’m sure he will!’

But he wasn’t. And neither had he appeared by the next morning. Etta was extremely worried by now. What if she had really injured him? What if he had collapsed and was lying unconscious somewhere? No, someone would have found him and taken him to hospital. Should she go there? Yes, she should, and upon taking the children to school she did so immediately.

But there was no record of any such admittance. Nor was there anything in the local newspaper, for she had pored over every word of it.

Whilst this brought vast relief, conversely it resurrected her anger, for there could be only one explanation: he was staying away purposefully to make her suffer.

Where the devil was he? If he did not come back soon it would not be just her marriage that was at stake: she
could pay the rent this Friday, but after that…

It was no use sitting here wondering, she must go and search for him, the first place being his parents’ abode. But Aggie, Red and Uncle Mal looked at her askance when she asked if they had seen Marty in the last couple of days.

She lowered her voice, though the child in her arms was far too young to understand and the rest were at school. ‘I didn’t want to worry you but he hasn’t been home.’

Aggie slapped her palms to her high cheekbones. ‘Begor, he could be lying kilt!’

‘No, no, I don’t think so…’ Etta turned sheepish. ‘We had a row – it was all a silly misunderstanding. When the pram broke that time in town, a man gave me and William a lift in his car. I’d forgotten all about it, but apparently Martin saw us and assumed the worst.’ She omitted to mention that she had hit him over the head with a teapot.

Aggie clicked her tongue and shared a despairing glance with her husband. Both had feared it would come to this.

‘He charged out saying he was gone for good. I thought he was just saying it to frighten me…but I’m beginning to think he meant it.’ Etta appeared sick and afraid. ‘I don’t know what to do, I’ve hardly any money once this week’s rent’s paid.’

Red felt responsible for his son’s behaviour and, rapidly alternating between sleep and wakefulness, was to react with logic. ‘Aggie, give the lass some cash out o’ the tin.’

‘Is that all the pair of you are worried about?’ demanded Aggie. ‘Paying the rent? The lad could be kilt, I tell yese!’

Red swooned again.

‘I’m sure not,’ Etta was quick to say, jiggling William, who was showing apprehension over the raised voices. ‘Otherwise I’d have contacted the police.’

‘The hospital!’ barked Aggie.

‘I’ve already checked there,’ her daughter-in-law assured her.

‘Ach, your man’ll be fine enough!’ retorted old Mal
dismissively. ‘’Tis plain as the nose on your face what he’s at – a law unto himself as usual.’

Awake again, Red tended to agree. ‘Aye, now come on, deary, how much is this rent?’

‘Six and six.’

‘
Six and six!
’ shrieked all in unison, provoking the baby to tears and worsening Red’s narcoleptic fit.

Etta reared defensively, jouncing William even harder. ‘Well it wasn’t my idea to move to such a large house! Martin was the one who insisted upon it – and now he runs off and deserts me!’

Despite the baby’s noise, Red fell in and out of sleep, his wife throwing up her hands in despair. ‘Well, for sure, we can’t find that amount,’ sighed Aggie, joining Etta in trying to calm William. ‘I could maybe spare a florin…’

Etta was quick to refuse. ‘Thank you, but I can survive for now. By staving off the rent collector this Friday I can hang on to my funds another week. By that time Martin should be back.’ And, fighting her anxiety, she smiled and kissed the baby’s wet cheek in an attempt to show she believed it.

For two Fridays after Martin walked out, Etta did manage to avoid the rent collector, but on the third week running she was finally spotted crawling on all fours beneath the window.

‘Have you found it yet?’ The man’s voice yelled through a gap twixt sill and lace curtain, obliging her to freeze. ‘Yes, you on your hands and knees! I presume you’re down there looking for the money you’ve dropped. That’s if one takes the charitable view, of course. Anybody with a suspicious mind might think you’re trying to get out of paying.’ When Etta still did not move, he concluded, ‘I’ll be back next Friday. If I don’t get what’s owed you’ll be evicted!’

Relating this to her mother-in-law later, after first making
sure the coast was clear, Etta declared it, ‘The most embarrassing moment of my life – oh, I could kill your son for what he’s put us through. Well, I shall just have to pawn this to raise the money.’ She tugged at the gold locket and chain around her throat. ‘But if he doesn’t come back soon I’ve no idea how we’re going to cope.’

Aggie voiced the obvious. ‘You’ll just have to find a job.’

‘How, with four children?’ demanded Etta.

Unimpressed by her son’s abrupt departure, even though she was worried about him, Aggie felt a sense of responsibility. ‘You can leave them with me.’

Whilst not overly thrilled by this offer, Etta mulled it over and eventually saw it was the only solution. ‘I suppose I must until your son decides to turn up. But what kind of employment should I seek?’

There’s a thing, thought Aggie, for the girl was patho-logically workshy.

Uncle Mal sought to help and, with a palsied hand, reached out to tap one of the boys. ‘Here now, Jimmy-Joe, get that press off your father, he can’t read it while he’s asleep.’ The nine-year-old prised the newspaper from his sleeping father’s grip and took it to the old man, who instructed him to hand it to Etta. ‘There’s a list of jobs on the front page.’

Etta thanked him unenthusiastically, then, whilst her children skipped and toddled in the evening sun, she perused the situations vacant. House maid? No, she just could not face that. Ah, this was more like it, a high-class store required a seamstress for its ladies costume department. Naturally inclined towards needlework, it seemed perfectly reasonable to take this direction. She pointed it out to Aggie. ‘Should I apply, do you think?’

Her mother-in-law shrugged her narrow shoulders. ‘It’s that or starve.’

Etta felt her hackles rise at such lack of sympathy, overlooking the fact that Aggie was being more than generous
by offering to mind her children. She stood abruptly. ‘I’d better not waste any more time then.’

Gathering her brood, she went home to pen a formal application and was gratified to receive a reply on Monday asking her to come for interview that afternoon. Donning her best attire, she took the children round to their grandmother’s then made her way into town.

Upon following directions from an assistant in the ladies department to an almost bare vestibule with wooden seating, she found three other applicants outside the interviewer’s office. Etta observed them from the corner of her eye, wondering if they needed the post as desperately as she. Waiting in line to be interviewed, she watched each of them go in and come out, searching their faces for signs of triumph or disaster. Then it was her turn. Summoning a smile, she entered to face her inquisitor, who sat behind a desk.

‘Good afternoon, Miss Lanegan, please be seated.’ The prim-looking woman in the gabardine costume smiled up at her, bolstering Etta’s confidence.

‘Thank you,’ she sat on the wooden chair. ‘But as a matter of fact it’s Mrs’

‘Ah…’ There was a swift change of mood, the middle-aged spinster frowning and briefly perusing the letter of application. ‘My secretary must have made some mistake, we don’t normally have occasion to employ married women…’ She glanced up again, saw the pretty young woman’s anxious expression and underwent a rethink. ‘Still, as you are here I feel obliged to examine your references.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t have any,’ confided Etta.

The other blurted a little laugh of disbelief. ‘But I cannot employ you without!’

Etta explained hurriedly, ‘I’ve never required payment for my efforts before.’

A supercilious, rather disbelieving smile twitched the interviewer’s lips. ‘Then how am I to know you are suitable?’

Somewhat taken aback by this tone, Etta delved into her bag and fetched out an embroidered handkerchief, offering humbly, ‘This is a sample of my work.’

‘Very pretty.’ The woman allowed it a cursory glance before handing it back. ‘But I should require much higher qualification than that little scrap – do you even have the proof that you stitched it yourself?’

At first shocked by the implication that she was a liar, Etta was then suffused with fury and embarrassment, but managed to bite her tongue and said tightly, ‘I was unaware when I came for interview that my character would be called into question. Perhaps you’d care to contact Mrs Isabella Ibbetson of Swanford Hall? I am sure she will verify my fitness to work in your establishment.’

A knowing smile from the interrogator. ‘A pity you didn’t see fit to acquire the lady’s commendation in writing before you came here.’ But then, moved by the glint of moisture in Etta’s eyes, she chose to relent. ‘If you wish to return with such a letter I should be happy to set you on as a trainee.’

‘And what remuneration could I expect?’ Etta inwardly chastised herself for appearing so desperate.

The interviewer was incredulous. ‘You expect to be paid in addition to receiving the benefit of our experience? Oh no, my dear, it would require a good deal of training before you could hope to earn anything.’

Etta’s heart sank and she said abruptly, ‘That’s no good to me, I have children to feed.’

The other’s face lost any trace of nicety, resorting to its former primness. ‘Then, my dear, I suggest you alter your forthright views before you next apply for work. Please ask the next applicant to come in as you leave.’

Etta remained in her seat for a moment, feeling helpless and absolutely seething. Then she rose as majestically as she could and turned about with a caustic, ‘Goodbye.’

Relating the entire debacle to her in-laws, she embellished
it with sweeping gestures and finished with the declaration, ‘I don’t know who on earth she thought she was, treating people with such contempt!’

‘Sure, you’re in good company,’ quoth Mal. ‘Red knows all about that, don’t ye, son?’

‘I surely do,’ sighed Red, whose agricultural work had become increasingly irregular due to the use of new tech-nology. ‘There’s no greater disrespect than being replaced by a machine.’

‘Though machines are not all bad,’ mused the old man. ‘If ye’d money to burn ’twould be novel to have one that did everything for ye.’

‘Sure you’ve got one already – ’tis called Aggie.’ The speaker sipped her tea then steered the conversation back to its course. ‘So will you write to your mother for a reference do you think?’

‘Most certainly not!’ Etta beheld her as if she were mad. ‘I said that merely to put the abominable woman in her place. I have absolutely no intention of lowering myself to ask my mother for a reference!’ It was too shaming. ‘Besides which it would be utterly pointless. The minute Father spots my handwriting on the envelope he’ll tear it up.’

‘You don’t know that.’ Red tried to project optimism but only succeeded in annoying Etta.

‘I do!’

‘Better humble pie than starvation,’ cut in Uncle Mal as Red fell asleep.

‘That’s true,’ admitted Etta with a sigh. ‘I didn’t receive as much for my locket as I’d expected, barely enough to buy food for another week – and even that depends on whether the rent collector manages to catch me. Oh heavens, the confounded fellow will be here again on Friday, what on earth am I to do?’ She rubbed her face vigorously, then, over the tips of her fingers, threw a look of resignation at her mother-in-law. ‘I have little choice, do I? I shall have
to go now and write to Mother. I do hope she won’t keep me waiting too long for an answer.’

Etta’s wish was granted, a response coming within twenty-four hours of writing. It appeared that Red had been correct in saying that Pybus Ibbetson would not destroy his daughter’s letter without reading it, for, tellingly, the reply was delivered to the correct address. However, once opened, its content was less heart-warming; not only did it bear Etta’s original letter in eight pieces, but an instruction from a senior manservant, obviously dictated by Ibbetson himself, advising Etta that the occupants of Swanford Hall had no desire to correspond with her.

Hating herself for being persuaded into this humiliating surrender by her mother-in-law, Etta was terse when Aggie enquired if she had heard anything of benefit from her parents. ‘That depends on one’s viewpoint,’ she said archly. ‘I certainly consider it a benefit that I shan’t have to grovel to that pig again.’

Though sympathising with the girl’s hurt, Aggie rebuked her. ‘’Tis no way to speak of your father.’

‘Would you prefer that I call him louse?’ demanded Etta. ‘You certainly don’t expect me to compliment a man who ignores the plight of his destitute grandchildren?’

‘You laid that out in your letter, then?’

‘No, I didn’t even mention it to Mother, but they must realise I have children! I’ve been married for seven years – at least I
was
married until that other pig deserted me. Now I’m totally at a loss as to how I should describe my marital state.’ She saw Aggie’s lips tighten and added vehemently, ‘I’m sorry, I know he’s your son, but the mess he’s left us with…I could kill him!’

Aggie dealt a weary nod of acquiescence.

‘By Friday we could be homeless!’

Her mother-in-law pondered this. With Maggie and Elizabeth in service now, only the two boys still at home,
there was more room. ‘I suppose you must move in with us then.’