My Daughter, My Mother (49 page)

Dave looked up at her, his eyes full of need. He held out his hand and after a second she took it. They looked at each other.

‘Can we . . . ?’ He looked down for a moment, then back up at her. ‘Can we go up as well?’

They undressed shyly, on opposite sides of the bed. It felt to her such a long time since lovemaking had been loving that they had in some way to begin again. Yet there was his body, long and lean, creamy-white, every inch of it so familiar. For a moment they stood apart, each taking the other in. He was already stiff, ready for her, and the sight moved her. She walked round the bed to him, conscious of her own naked body and how she must look to him, a woman with long legs and heavy breasts.

They lay down on the cold sheets, which soon grew warm under the weight of their bodies, and made love, tentatively at first. He touched her with a look of wonder. Then it became urgent and finally tearful. Words poured from his lips as he moved in her, ‘My babe, oh my babe, my woman . . .’ He lay on her for a long time, still inside her, she holding him close with her arms and her legs cradling him while he sobbed, his wet cheek pressed close to hers. The warm closeness of it, of being reunited and having hope and love, made her cry as well. He kept saying he loved her, he loved her so much.

At last he pushed up on his arms and wiped his eyes with the heel of one hand. As he looked down at her his face was tender, but she could see how lost and scared he looked as well.

‘I don’t know what’s happened to me.’ His voice was thick with tears.

‘I s’pose you had a sort of breakdown.’ Her nose was all stuffed up. It was hard to breathe.

‘Here, I’ll get the tissues.’ He withdrew from her and reached for the box on the table on her side.

They drew the cover up and settled side by side. Dave pulled her into his arms.

‘Sometimes I feel so scared. I feel as if I’ve come to pieces and I don’t know how to . . . you know, like Humpty Dumpty.’

Joanne laughed. ‘I’m sure you can – put yourself back together again.’ She was beginning to realize, only now, just how long this might take.

‘I just feel so bloody pathetic. It’s like I can’t
do
anything. Everything’s a massive effort – even making a cup of tea. That’s what the counsellor said: it’s like injuring yourself, cutting yourself or breaking a bone. It takes time to heal up, so why should our minds be any different? But even coming over here on the bus every time, all those people – it feels like one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I mean, that’s not me, is it? I’ve never been like that.’

‘No, but this is different.’

Dave rolled up onto his elbow and looked down at her. ‘All I want is to be here with you – for you to be my missis. You and Amy, you’re everything to me. I know that now: you know, how stupid I’ve been and everything. I never knew what was going on, why I felt the way I did. I didn’t know what to do about it. But it’s all going to be different now, I promise you. I love you, Joanne, you’re my wife and – well, that’s it. That’s the only thing.’

He lay back beside her, kissing her again and again. ‘Oh. You’re gorgeous, you are.’

It was lovely, to be loved and kissed and held. But in her mind she could hear the warning voices, women from the refuge, Gina and Doreen and Linda. ‘He always says he’s going to change – he promises me the earth, and I think he means it when he says it. But after a day or a week or more, he’s up to his old tricks . . .’

It was her turn to lift up onto her elbow. Things were loving and sweet and all she really wanted, but she had to say it now – to make it clear.

‘I love you, Dave,’ she said. ‘I really do. I want you home and for us to be together, with Amy and everything. But it can’t go back to the way things were – not for any of us. I’m not going to stop in all the time like a prisoner, that’s one thing. I’ll decide for myself whether I go out or not. And I won’t have any violence. If you ever,
ever
lay a finger on either of us again – Amy or me – even just once, it’s over. I’ll leave you and take Amy; and I won’t come back. Not again, ever. That’s it.’

Dave stared back at her. He seemed to be struggling with something. Joanne saw that that something was her strength. Well, she thought, too bad. That’s how it is.

‘You do understand, don’t you?’

He closed his eyes. ‘Yes. Course I do. It’ll never happen again. I promise.’

‘Dave?’

‘Yeah?’ His eyes were still closed.

‘I love you. I do.’

In a subdued voice he said, ‘Love you too.’

She lay back down and they rested together, close and warm.

Sixty-One

The next reminiscence session at the library was on
The Blitz
. Margaret sat beside Alan as everyone talked about air-raid shelters and the sound of the planes, the cold, terrifying nights of the bombing, and emerging at dawn to see which bits of Birmingham had been flattened this time.

‘I don’t remember any of that,’ she told Alan when the tea was being brewed up afterwards. Alan handed her a cup and saucer in his usual gallant way. ‘Miss Clairmont and Mrs Higgins always listened to the news on the wireless. I remember when they bombed Coventry – everyone was talking about it. And there were planes over us sometimes. Everyone was scared they’d just empty out whatever they had left on their way back! But it was nothing like they had in Brum.’

The evenings stirred up their memories and feelings, which made it all the easier to talk about the past. As the session ended, Margaret was alight with excitement. Surely he’d ask her again this week? They’d be able to go to the pub round the corner and have the bliss of sitting in the warm, talking and talking! They scarcely ever thought about smoking – they were far too involved.

As everyone was gathering their coats and bags Alan turned to her.

‘Have you got time for a drink this week?’

Margaret was touched by the fact that she could see he was trying to seem casual, to insure himself against disappointment.

‘Ooh, yes – I wouldn’t miss it,’ she said. ‘I’ve been looking forward to it all week!’

A delighted grin spread across his face. Margaret blushed. Had she sounded too forward? Still, it was the truth – she had been!

Once they were settled in their favourite corner of the pub again, they talked more about the war and the things they’d heard.

‘That poor woman,’ Margaret said.

Alan immediately knew who she meant. One woman, from Balsall Heath, had been a young teenager. Her house received a direct hit and everyone in her family was killed, except her. From then on, her life was spent in children’s homes. Her voice had been full of unspent grief, even after all these years.

‘Everyone carries a bit of it all around in them, one way or another,’ Alan said sadly. ‘Whatever it says in the history books about battles and tanks and all that. For most people it’s about a mom or a dad or a brother – or a house.’

Margaret nodded, feeling the truth of his words.

Alan hesitated. ‘Your husband . . .’ he said, then stalled. She knew he needed to know about Fred. ‘You never talk about him – not unless I ask.’

She looked at him.
Fred doesn’t matter
, she wanted to say.
It’s you – you’re the one who matters.
But of course she couldn’t say that. She told Alan about Fred, about how they’d met and about Fred’s mom.

‘Fred and I were like two lost souls, clinging onto each other. It’s been years since we’ve ever really said anything to each other. We’re like ships that pass in the night – only in the daytime as well. He’s not a bad man, but I s’pose he just didn’t have a very good start. Neither of us did.’

She thought for a moment, then went on, ‘I don’t know if he ever loved me. I don’t know if I loved him. I don’t think I knew what it meant. Not until—’ She stopped in confusion. She couldn’t look at him, not for a moment. But when she did pull her gaze up to meet his, he was still looking at her intently, hungrily.

There was a long silence and then Alan cleared his throat. He seemed in some way unsteady.

‘I . . . I’m in trouble here, Margaret, I have to tell you. I just . . .’

Everything inside her seemed to swell until she could hardly breathe. She didn’t need to ask herself what he was saying. It was clear in his face. For the first time in her life she knew what she was seeing: someone looking at her with the force of love in their eyes. She knew that the way she was looking back was the same.

As she gazed helplessly at him, Alan reached out and laid his hand over hers. She could not resist, had not the slightest will to do so. It felt as if everything – all she needed – was here.

‘Oh,’ she said tremulously. ‘Oh dear.’

‘Yes,’ Alan said. ‘Oh dear. I’m – I don’t know. This has all happened a bit fast – for me, anyway. I haven’t thought about anything but you for weeks.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed, throbbing with happiness. ‘Me too.’

Again they sat staring at each other. They smiled with utter joy. They fell serious again.

‘I’m . . .’ Margaret began. She had to stop and think. ‘I’m a married woman. Not happily married, no. Just married.’

She frowned, looking at him to help her work this out.

‘Why don’t I feel that’s enough? That’s the way it’s supposed to be, isn’t it? You get married, you stay married. Then when I’m with you, Fred and all my other life – it doesn’t seem to mean anything. It’s as if I’m living in two different worlds.’ She put her hand to her head. ‘When I’m at home it’s the same as it’s always been. I mean, we’ve had our problems. My youngest daughter’s been having difficulties in her marriage. She walked out with the baby because she said he was . . . Well, he’d started knocking her about. I didn’t believe it at first – Dave’s been a good lad, and we’ve known him since he was quite a young’un. But evidently it’s true. But when she just upped and left – I thought: You don’t
do
that. I mean, you just
don’t
. In our day you put up and shut up, didn’t you?’

‘Well, no, not everyone . . .’

‘No, all right, but in the main, people just stayed. After all, the law was all on the man’s side . . . But the thing was, it was her getting up and going.
Choosing
to go. I mean, she was protecting Amy – and herself. But it was her feeling that she could
choose
. I was so angry at first. I thought: How
dare
she?’

Alan was listening attentively. ‘The law makes a hell of a difference.’

‘Well,
yes
. It’s all changed. Now you can make your own decisions more. All my life I’ve never felt I could choose anything – not even new clothes,’ Margaret said. As she spoke, she was learning about herself. She hardly knew that she had felt such things. She had never known she had so many words in her. ‘Let alone anything else. But now . . .’

She looked at him, searching his face, not yet daring to say it.

‘Is this my fault?’ Alan looked stricken. ‘I don’t want to cause harm.’

She looked levelly at him. ‘There’s always going to be harm – one way or another. If you turned round and left now, and we never saw each other again . . .’

He closed his eyes. ‘No, don’t say that.’

‘Exactly. That’s what I mean.’

‘You’re the best thing – the
only
thing – that’s happened to me in ages.’

She nodded. ‘And you are to me.’ She wanted to say something better than that, but it was too big to say.

‘Look,’ Alan said. ‘I’ll walk you home.’ He always did, or most of the way, even though he’d left his car in a nearby street. They liked the time together.

Outside, without a word, they linked arms and she felt him pull her close. Before long, at the corner of the road, he stopped, in the shadows.

‘Oh, Margaret.’ He turned to face her. There was a second’s hesitation and then, also feeling natural, they stood cuddled in each other’s arms. ‘I just want to hold you close,’ he said. ‘Every waking moment that’s all I think about, I swear to you. I feel like a flaming teenager. I don’t know what’s happened to me.’

She giggled into the collar of his coat, feeling his rough chin against her left temple.

‘I think about you too. All the time.’

She turned her head up. In the darkness, she could just see the moist gleam of his eyes; smell the warm beer on his breath, the smokiness of their clothing from the pub.

‘I think I must love you,’ she said.

‘Oh – I love you all right, girl.’

Laughing with amazement and joy, they moved closer, lips touching, pecking and playing, until they had to stop laughing to kiss properly.

When she got home, what felt like a century or so later, Margaret was alight with desire and happiness. She felt as if it must show all over her, as if Alan had planted vivid red kisses all over her face and neck for anyone to read there.

‘Can we meet sooner – than next Thursday, I mean?’ Alan asked.

She longed to, could hardly bear not to see him every day, every hour.

‘The evenings might be a bit tricky,’ she said, thinking of Karen’s eagle eye on anything she did.

‘What about the daytime?’

‘But you’re at work!’

‘Yes, but I do get a dinner break – well, sometimes anyway. I could make sure I do. And your husb—?’

‘Yes, Fred’s at work every day.’

‘What about Monday? I’ll need to see you after the weekend, I can tell you – it tends to drag a bit, to tell you the truth.’

They arranged to meet at a pub a little way away from Alan’s firm in Rea Street.

‘We don’t want to be too close to the works,’ he said, ‘or all the lads’ll be in there ogling us. Sorry you’ve got so far to come, though.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ she said. ‘I’ve only got to hop on the bus.’

They parted with a long, lingering kiss. Afterwards she felt she had been ripped away from where she truly belonged.

She slid quietly into the house. Fred was where she had left him, in his chair, his head back, mouth open and fast asleep. Margaret went through to the kitchen and put the kettle on. Her sounds woke him.

‘Oh!’ she heard him say. She went into the front room. He was rubbing his face. There were empty cans of bitter on the table next to him and he looked a bit muzzy. ‘Must’ve fell asleep,’ he said. It took him a moment to remember that she’d been out. ‘So – you’re back.’