All the Days of Our Lives (38 page)

‘Thank you – I will try,’ Marek said. His smile lit up his face.

Summer 1948

‘Tara, Mr Perry – see you on Tuesday!’

The forced smile faded from Em’s face as she hurried away from work after her Saturday half-day. Her head was throbbing and she felt weary and a bit queasy. When the sick feeling started, it had given her a momentary jolt of excitement. Did that mean . . . ? Could she be . . . ? So often that had happened over these past two years, some small thing giving her hope. But no, of course there was no baby. Her monthly visitor had only just finished. She was just a bit tired, and churned up, that was all. If she took a couple of aspirin she’d feel better.

There might even be a few things left to buy in the shops before she went back to Norm’s mom’s. Even now she struggled to call the place ‘home’.

The long years of rationing had not improved anyone’s temper. The only thing derationed so far was bread, and everyone was worn out and fed up with it all. The war had been over for three years and nothing much seemed to have improved! She knew Edna Stapleton would have done the main food shop, but she wanted to get Robbie his sweets, and Edna had asked her to go to a particular shop for eggs.

There was no luck with the eggs, but she managed to get Robbie’s sweet ration, then headed back, feeling weary and irritable. Turning into Reginald Road in Saltley, she met with a sight that did nothing to improve her temper. Ahead of her along the road was Norm, dragging a sobbing Robbie by the hand.

Em tutted. Norm was supposed to have taken Robbie to the barber’s – early on before it got too crowded. He had obviously left it until the last moment and they were only just on their way back. And why was Robbie blarting? she asked herself crossly. God knew, Norm didn’t have to do much for him – couldn’t he even manage to keep the child happy for the short time that he did spend with him?

She reached the house just after them and was all ready to be snappy.

‘What’s the matter with him?’ she demanded, as they all crowded into the tiny hall. She could hear her mother-in-law somewhere at the back, calling, ‘Now, now – what’s all that noise and fuss about?’

She could see that Robbie had been to the barber’s and received a severe short back and sides. Then she caught sight of his ear.

‘He cut me!’ Robbie howled even harder for his mother’s benefit. ‘He cut me with the scissors and then put ’is stingy pencil on it and it hurt!’

‘Oh dear, let’s have a look.’ Ignoring Norm, on whom she still, rather unreasonably, blamed all the trouble, Em squatted down and looked at Robbie’s smarting ear. The barber had nicked it and then tried to ease the damage with a styptic pencil, which tended to sting even more than the cut. ‘Ooh, that looks sore – never mind, we’ll see if we can find a plaster. And, look, I got your sweeties for you. You can have one before dinner, just as a treat.’

Robbie brightened up no end at the sight of a pineapple chunk. Em stood up as Norm disappeared out to the back.

‘I s’pose you’re off fishing this afternoon?’

Norm turned, half shamefaced. ‘For a bit. Me and Wal. Looks a good day for it.’

Most Saturdays now he was either out fishing with a mate or two or, in the winter season, playing football with the lads. There was a police team. It was something new that the army had given to him – that he had more need of male company. And, Em thought bitterly, to be away from her, from having to bring up a child. It felt a long time since they’d done anything together, just the two of them.

‘What’re you going to do?’ he asked.

Fat lot you care
, she thought. ‘Well, I suppose I’ll be looking after Robbie – just for a change,’ she said sarcastically. Turning away, to go and fetch aspirin and a plaster, she said. ‘I’ll go to our mom’s.’

‘All right then,’ Norm said. As if trying to make things better, he followed her and pecked her on the side of the head, adding, ‘It’s nice for them to see him. See you later, love.’ And off he went with his rod and sandwiches.

Em’s mother-in-law, Edna Stapleton, was a kindly woman who had always made them welcome in her house. She had had a long and stable marriage, her husband Bill employed at Metro-Cammell ever since his working life had begun, and, having had only two sons, they had been reasonably comfortably off. Their terraced house was neat and always immaculate.

The housing shortage was so extreme, the queues for council properties to rent so long, that it was a good job she was so even-tempered, as they were all stuck with each other for the moment. Em was ashamed of the fact that, however kind her mother-in-law was, Edna Stapleton was also rather interfering and got royally on her nerves.

Edna meant well. She was cheerful, energetic and fiercely house-proud, forever scrubbing at something and always convinced she knew best.

‘Oh, I don’t think you ought to be feeding him again yet, ought you?’ she’d say when Robbie was a baby. ‘You don’t want to spoil him.’

‘You don’t want’ was one of Edna’s phrases. ‘You don’t want to put that on there,’ when Em put a little vase of flowers in her own and Norm’s bedroom. ‘It’ll make a stain.’ ‘You don’t want to put him in that – it’s still damp . . .’ Or ‘You want to make sure you turn that mattress . . .’ Em was sick to the back teeth of being told what she did and didn’t want. She knew really that her in-laws were far better than many, but she longed to live in her own house, where she could decide what she wanted for herself. Where her married life could start properly, instead of being stuck with Norm’s parents.

After a quick dinner of bread with pickled beetroot and a wafer of cheese, Em was still in a bad mood.

‘Come on, Robbie,’ she sighed. ‘We’ll go and see Nanna and Granddad.’

‘Oh!’ he protested, grimacing. ‘I wanna go and play out with Don and Eric!’

‘Well, you’re not going with them today,’ Em said firmly. She didn’t like the way Robbie was hanging about with a lot of the older boys these days. He was mad to be with them, scouring the bomb pecks for shrapnel and other treasures, playing games of shooting Germans.

As they walked along in the muggy afternoon, Em glanced a few times at her son’s shorn head. She wasn’t sure she liked the haircut. It was very short and made him look too grown-up, and somehow harder in the face.

‘Your hair’ll grow back soon,’ she said, rubbing a hand over it. Robbie shrugged her off impatiently.

He was in a world of his own, pulling on her hand, trying to get her to walk faster and muttering to himself. He was in some war game now as well, she could tell. Suddenly he caught sight of a skinny, red-haired boy across the street.

‘Eh – Tommy!’ he yelled.

‘All right, Robbie!’ the lad, about ten, bawled back.

‘Shoosh, Robbie,’ Em scolded. ‘Don’t shout across the road like that. It’s rude.’

Robbie shrugged. He was starting to walk with a swagger, she saw with a pang. He wasn’t like her little boy any more, soft and biddable. These days he was off out, the first chance he got, and came home filthy with cuts and grazes on his legs, full of the big boys and all their adventures. It had hit her hard when he first went to school, even though it was to Cromwell Street where she had been herself. She sometimes felt he’d outgrown her, even though he was only six – that she was a bore who spoiled his fun. It was only at night when he was half asleep, or if he was poorly, that he felt like her sweet little boy again, the boy who needed her comfort.

Here I am, she thought resentfully, with the two of them, husband and son – and neither of them take the blindest bit of notice of me. Norm had taken a while to settle back to life at home after the army. Over these past years his restlessness had died down a bit, but he was not the man who had gone away, devoted to her and wanting nothing but to be with her. He was off and out with the lads far more. Sometimes she looked back with nostalgia to the days of the war, when she had missed him and longed wholeheartedly for him to come home. Now he was here, everything felt so flat. She found herself longing for a daughter who might give her more company.

As they crossed the cut, Em pulled Robbie to a stop and looked down into the water.

‘I can’t see, Mom,’ Robbie said, jumping at the wall and scuffing his shoes. He held up his arms, little again suddenly. ‘Lift us up.’

With an effort she hoisted him up in time to see a filthy joey boat containing coal slide out of sight under the bridge.

‘There – gone,’ she said, and kissed the soft skin at the back of Robbie’s neck.

‘Mom, don’t!’ he cried, wriggling. ‘That’s sissy, that is! Put me down!’

As she bent to let him down to the ground Em felt tears start in her eyes. Here she was, twenty-five years old and she felt like an old matron, stuck in her ways. There was nothing to look forward to. And she knew deep down that her resentment and anger towards Norm stemmed from the fact that she had still not caught for another baby. And so far as she was concerned, it was all his fault.

‘D’you fancy going up the park?’ Cynthia said when she arrived. ‘It’s quite a nice day – I’d like a bit of a breather.’

‘All right,’ Em said listlessly. She knew it was a good idea, but she could really have done with a sit down.

‘Just give me a minute.’ Cynthia said. ‘Come on, Robbie, you can come up with me while I change my shoes.

Bob was in the back room, and Violet was sitting at the table, peering at the newspaper. She looked up, squinting at Em.

‘Oh, hello,’ she said smiling.

Bob, who had been snoozing, opened his eyes long enough to say, ‘All right, wench?’ and slid back into sleep again, snoring gently. Even though she saw him nearly every day, Em was aware that her father was ageing fast.

‘You coming up the park with us, Vi?’ Em asked, hoping she would. Violet was good with Robbie and took some of the pressure off her.

‘Can’t – I’m going out with Sue and Peggy.’

‘Oh.’ Em was disappointed. But she knew there must be more exciting ways for her seventeen-year-old sister to spend the afternoon. ‘Anywhere nice?’

Violet shrugged. ‘Dunno really – we might go into town.’

‘Vi, you’ve nearly got your nose on that newspaper . . .’

Violet straightened her back for a moment, then sunk down again. ‘I can’t see unless I sit close.’

‘Well, that’s no good, is it? You need glasses. You can get them free now, you know that, don’t you?’

Violet looked round. ‘Can I?’

‘So they say. Norm’s mom’s talking about getting glasses.’ Edna was full of the new National Health Service. Some of her friends were going to see a doctor for the first time in years, after suffering in silence. ‘You ought to go and see.’

Cynthia came back down again. ‘Come on then,’ she said. ‘There’s a chance Dot might come an’ all. We can meet her up there.’

‘All right,’ Em said. She was fond of Dot, her mom’s old friend, but the thought of going all the way to Aston Park to listen to the two of them canting didn’t fill her with enthusiasm. Still, she had to get through the day somehow.

Thank goodness for my little job, she thought. She was still working Tuesday, Thursday and half of Friday and Saturday with Mr Perry. It got her out of the house. Otherwise, she thought, I’d be going off my head by now.

Norm scraped into the house just in time for tea, having been down the pub after the football. Em thought sourly that he could always manage to be in time for his mother, if nothing else.

Edna had made a fish pie and the room stank of fish, but it tasted quite good, padded out with a lot of potato and carrot.

‘Nanna,’ Robbie said in the middle of tea. ‘Can we get a dog?’

‘Don’t talk with your mouth full,’ Edna corrected him.

‘A dog?’ Bill chuckled. He picked up his teacup, which looked like a toy in his big hairy hand. He worked an overhead crane at the factory – had done all through the war, while they were making tanks instead of railway carriages. ‘You’ll never get that one past yer nan.’

‘Please, Nanna?’

‘Ooh, no, I’m not having animals in my house – they’re dirty,’ Edna said.

Em immediately felt that she wanted Robbie to be able to have a dog, even though she wasn’t too fussed about animals either.

‘One day, son,’ Norm said. ‘When we’ve got our own house – then you can have a dog.’

Robbie’s face lit up with excitement. He looked tanned and healthy from their afternoon in Aston Park. ‘Can I, Dad? When? When’re we going to get our own house?’

Norm ruffled his son’s cropped hair. ‘I don’t know, son. When our boat comes in, I think – that’ll be the time.’

Robbie’s brow creased. ‘We ain’t got a boat – have we?’

When Em and Norm went to bed that night, Norm was chattering, as if to break through the silence that seemed to have grown up between them. He talked about the fishing and his mates, and what they’d seen going along the cut and the people they’d met.

The big bed took up most of their room and there was just space for a couple of chairs and a chest of drawers, which they shared.

Em stood barefoot on the lino, brushing out her hair in front of the tilted mirror on the chest of drawers. She took her hairgrips out and laid them out carefully. Without her hair pinned back, and in her nightdress, she looked younger. She turned and got into bed.