Keepsake (35 page)

‘Lodger indeed,’ scoffed Aggie. ‘Why, you can’t even look after yourself! Look at the cut of you, all skin and bone.’

The fight gone out of her, Etta merely stared, before giving a weary nod. Whether she wanted to or not, there was nowhere else to go.

So, lock, stock and barrel, the younger Mrs Lanegan and her brood set up home in her mother-in-law’s front parlour. Knowing she must find paid work, Etta worried that none would take her on without a reference from her previous employer; however, within hours and with further assistance from Aggie, she was to be taken on as a part-time assistant with a local provision dealer, the proximity to home and the shorter hours meaning she would not be away from her children so long as before. Thank God, for, cast adrift by her feckless husband, they were the only emotional anchor she possessed. On an economic front, so long as the money orders kept arriving, she could just about survive on her wage – but whether this would extend to her spiritual wellbeing was another matter.

Aggie, too, was apprehensive about this. How could the girl bear to sit there doing nothing for hours? To prevent this she told her new lodger that she must not feel as if she had to stay in the designated living space but was free to come and join her in the back sitting-room. This had been intended to make Etta see that there was work to be shared, but all the girl did was to exchange her chair in the front parlour for one in the back, sitting opposite Uncle Mal, staring dolefully at the embers. It made the old man awkward too. Finding her there again in the middle of the day whilst she herself laboured, Aggie bit her tongue for a while and went into the scullery to change her bucket of water and also to sneak a glass of stout which, in the absence of sherry, had to suffice, listening as Uncle Mal tried yet again to start a conversation.

He cleared his throat. ‘A ferocious amount of rain we’ve been having.’

Etta looked up, gave a wan smile at the aged figure and nodded, then went back to her fire-gazing.

Unable to bear any more, Aggie put aside her glass, stepped forth and announced briskly, ‘Hold out your hand’, then planted something on the upturned palm. ‘There! Don’t go saying I never give you anything.’

Etta looked upon the lump of stone bemusedly. ‘What is it?’

Aggie showed exasperation. ‘Donkey – now shift yourself from that chair and go clean the front step and sills! If I want a pair of Toby jugs I’ll buy them.’

Apologising, Etta slunk away, promising truthfully to give more help around the house, which satisfied Aggie to some extent, though she was to retain her concerns over her son’s collapsed marriage and today’s glass of stout was to be far from her last.

Red had his worries too, and, like his wife, decided to act upon them, though he resorted to different tactics. Commiserating sincerely with Etta that his son had got her into this mess by dragging her away from her life and estranging her from her own family, he sighed and announced as he reached casually for his pipe one evening, ‘But sure that’s Marty all over, always wants what he can’t have, then as soon as he gets it he doesn’t want it any more.’

Etta was furious to be portrayed as some cast-off garment. ‘Others may tolerate such capriciousness – I shall not! He has responsibilities and I shall hold him to them!’

‘Will it work, d’ you think?’ quizzed Aggie when her daughter-in-law had stormed from the room.

Red feigned innocence. ‘Sure, I don’t know what you’re talking about, do you, Mal?’

The old man gave a shrug. ‘I do not.’

‘He’s thinking to provoke the lass into going after Marty
and having things out!’ Aggie explained to the old man. ‘Let’s hope it doesn’t backfire and she takes her temper out on us instead.’

‘Ah, ’tis a great, great shame,’ lamented Mal. ‘I do pray to God your plot works, Red. It breaks my heart to see Marty’s little family so ruined.’

‘I’ll grant it breaks Etta’s heart too,’ murmured Aggie, and, sharing a worried look with Red, added, ‘Let’s hope ’tis not too badly-broken for your mischief to take effect.’

Whatever Etta was feeling inside, her parents-in-law could take credit that their words had had some impact, for she did appear to buck up enough to do her share of housework without having to be commandeered all the time. Still, Aggie detected an air of wistfulness as Etta went about her laundering and polishing, or, on this particular afternoon, her ironing, and not for the first time she felt a little guilty for having kept Marty’s whereabouts a secret from her – for it was obviously himself who was on her mind.

As a matter of fact, Etta’s reverie was of a different nature, much further in the past than her failed marriage. As her hand steered the iron into folds and pleats, the vivid pictures in her mind were of herself as an eight-year-old, with her dear old nanny, her mother and her brother John – what a nice boy he had been then, careering through a garden hand-in-hand with her, picking her up when she tumbled and getting out his handkerchief to rub the graze from her palm. The scene included other children, and beautifully dressed ladies with whom she had shared a picnic by a lake at a big house – whose house she did not know or care, the pertinent thing being the mood of intense happiness she had felt then, remembered so clearly now, perhaps because her childhood had come to an abrupt end not long afterwards when Nanny had been dismissed, and she had never really felt that way again until her wedding…

‘Get kettle on, then!’ Her trance was interrupted by the shouted demand from across the neighbouring wall to Aggie, who was out in the yard folding up her washing line, and within seconds the house was invaded by Mrs Thrush, whose loud presence put paid to any mind-wanderings.

‘I can’t stop long!’ The beefy posterior in its grey dress was lowered onto a wooden chair, its owner proceeding to survey Etta’s endeavours with the iron. It was common knowledge that Aggie’s daughter-in-law was none too adept at domesticity, but now there seemed a definite improvement. Leaning forward to tweak a section of white linen, Mrs Thrush remarked to Aggie, ‘She’s not doing bad for somebody who couldn’t even tell the difference between a box o’ starch and a bag o’ flour not so very long ago.’

Despite being slightly offended that her shortcomings had obviously been discussed in public, Etta took the observance in good part. ‘Yes, I made some terribly stiff pastry until someone rectified my blunders.’

Adding her own compliment to Mrs Thrush’s backhanded one, Aggie mashed a pot of tea and poured four cups, giving one to Uncle Mal who sat quietly in his corner, then, for once, she was compelled to tell Etta, ‘Leave that ironing and rest your legs for a while.’

Glad of the break, Etta stretched her aching muscles then sat down and joined the conversation, though this was only to last for as long as it took to drain the cups, Mrs Thrush finally announcing, ‘Well, it’s no good me sat sitting here, I’ve a pile of mending to do. I’d rather dig holes in t’road. And if me needle comes unthreaded I’m done for – I can’t see, you know, specially if I’m working on owt darkcoloured.’

Aggie agreed that the advancing years brought many drawbacks, grunting and wincing as she too rose from her chair to clear away the crockery. ‘It’s rotten growing old.’

‘Old?’ Uncle Mal piped up in amusement. ‘A mere slip of a girl.’

‘Tell that to my joints.’ Aggie rubbed her fingers. ‘I think I’m getting arthuritis.’

‘You’re not the only one!’ Mrs Thrush rose with a grimace of empathy. ‘Right, off to that blessed mending then.’

Moving to take up her iron again, Etta said, ‘I’ll do it for you, Mrs Thrush, if you’re in no hurry that is.’

The neighbour exchanged a surprised glance with Aggie, before saying, ‘There’s quite a bit to do…’

‘It won’t trouble me – rather mending than laundry any day!’

To counter any misgivings on Etta’s skill, Aggie told her neighbour, ‘She does all ours. A dab hand at needlework, she is.’

Mrs Thrush accepted the kind offer. ‘Well, thank you, lass – and you with all your troubles thinking of me. I’ll fetch it round. Eh, she’s a good un, bless her!’ Then, an afterthought, ‘Would sixpence be adequate?’

Etta hungered for the cash but knew the widow couldn’t afford it. ‘I couldn’t possibly accept. Besides, it won’t take me long.’

‘Right! In that case,’ said a grateful Mrs Thrush, ‘whenever you want a hand with your mangling just give us a shout over t’wall – I’ve arms like a navvy. I mean it now.’

And she went to fetch the stack of mending, which was indeed undertaken in no time, whilst in turn, the following week Mrs Thrush’s brawny arms were to wade through Etta’s pile of washing.

When word got round of Etta’s nimbleness with a needle, others sought to barter too – a threadbare sheet trimmed and stitched down the middle, hems expertly raised or lowered – in exchange for a pile of the hated ironing. And so it was that on the afternoons when she was not working at the shop, Etta found herself doing the thing she did best
– the only pity being that it would never grow into a proper business, for, at two and sixpence per week to hire, a sewing machine was definitely out of reach.

Glad at her deeper involvement in the community, Aggie and Red were nevertheless to remain worried over the military matters regarding their son, about whom there had still been no word. A good many weeks were to pass until, along with one of the postal orders, there came a letter from the man himself. Etta’s first instinct was to throw this on the fire, but luckily his anxious mother was there to grab it.

‘Praise be to God!’ Upon reading the first few lines Aggie let out a breath of relief. ‘’Tis all over and done with.’ She read the letter aloud, the gist of which was that, after thorough investigation, Marty had been deemed to have committed no major offence. There had been no false attestation, no attempt to profit financially by applying to go on the married roll. His only subterfuge had been one of omission rather than downright falsehood. Therefore, the commanding officer had leniently reduced his punishment to seven days’ detention. Marty did not reveal all the humiliation that had gone with this, but wrote merely that he considered himself lucky.

Indeed, this was Etta’s scornful opinion as her mother-in-law conveyed the news. ‘
Seven days
– for deserting his wife and children?’

‘It wasn’t exactly for that,’ corrected Aggie, attempting to take in the rest of the letter until she saw it was too personal. ‘Oh…you’d better be reading this for yourself.’ When Etta declined to take the missive she flourished it at her rattily. ‘Look, I know he doesn’t deserve it, but at least pay the lad that courtesy before ye go throwing away your marriage.’

Etta’s face showed condescension as she grabbed the letter and read it, and remained unforgiving as she handed it back. ‘There, I’ve done as you asked. Now will you permit
me similar courtesy?’ At Aggie’s nod she voiced her cool request. ‘When you write to him, I should like you to say that other than any financial contribution I have no wish to receive any communication from him ever again.’

Upon receiving this crushing blow via his mother’s pen, Marty took this to mean he had been barred from his children too, and his whole reason for being came tumbling down to flatten the life out of him. If Etta was seeking to punish him then she could have done it no better way. As the weeks went by, obsessed with such dreadful loss, he began to see his little ones in everything he did: as he cleaned his rifle he thought of Edward, as he shaved his face he saw Celia’s reflection, as he dug a ditch he thought of Alex and her mud pies, as he polished his buttons he thought of Willie’s baby fingers playing with them – the agony was indescribable. And there could be no comfort, no tender female arms in which to take solace, for Amelia, too, was now out of bounds.

Well, it wasn’t right, he would stand for it no longer, and he wrote and told his mother so.

The go-between was to relay his demand to his wife. ‘Marty wants to see his children.’

At the unexpected sound of his name over the remnants of dinner, Etta flinched as the rawness returned to seep through all-too-fragile scars. ‘Oh,
does
he?’

Aggie’s ice-blue eyes glanced up from the letter, she and Etta the only ones left in the room. ‘I know he’s done wrong, but he’s hardly some sort of Casanova. I mean, he’d need clean underpants for that.’

Etta simply fumed.

‘He made one mistake, and he’s paying for it,’ defended his mother. ‘It’s bad enough he can’t see his wife, don’t prevent him seeing his children too, it’s not fair on them.’

Etta objected. ‘I’ve never said he can’t see them!’

‘Well that’s what he was led to believe, and so was I
come to that – I mean, you got me to do the dirty work, instructed me to write and tell him you wanted no further truck with him, what else was he to think?’

Etta closed her eyes in exasperation, thinking she should have done the job herself. ‘I merely wished to convey that I have no desire to correspond, I never even mentioned the children.’

Aggie brightened. ‘So he can see them?’

Etta granted a somewhat reluctant concession. ‘I suppose so – but if he expects them to meet his floozy –’

‘No! Give him some credit,’ said Aggie, back to perusing the letter, ‘he’s been granted a week’s leave, says he’ll be coming up here on Saturday.’

Etta tried not to display the panic she felt at his imminent reappearance. ‘Then I shall have to prepare them…’ And herself too. Oh damnation, why was he coming here to stir it all up again?

‘You have no objection to his coming to visit them, then?’

‘I have every objection!’ Still inflamed from his betrayal, she pushed away the half-finished cup of tea and rose to get ready for work. ‘But I can hardly prevent it considering that they live with you, unless I drag them out to pound the streets all week.’ She began to brush vigorously at her long hair, raking the harsh bristles across her scalp.

Aggie indicated the letter. ‘So will I tell him he can come?’

Etta nodded as she wound the hair into a chignon and stabbed it with half a dozen pins, but her face made it plain she had no wish to be there when he arrived and she added tightly as she made to leave the house, ‘I myself will have to find other lodgings.’