Family of Women (26 page)

Linda went to the fence and peered
through at the little plane standing there in the weeds, its shape unmistakable, the round-ended wings, the bits chipped off the propellors. No one seemed to know why it was there. Peter used to run round, arms out, roaring and sputtering, and they
all followed and joined in, a childish squadron of Spitfires. She remembered one summer evening when they were all up here, her and Joyce, Peter and Alenka Kaminski, who was Joyce’s age, with Carol laughing and straining against the straps of the pushchair as she watched them all playing. Linda used to push Carol all over the place when she was little, she never minded. And now they were having to push her again.

She hugged herself and stared at the sad, silent plane in its bed of nettles. All that cold afternoon she felt herself changing shape inside, shrinking back. No more King Edward’s. No more hope of being something special. Fate hadn’t chosen her for something after all. She’d go to the secondary modern and be like everyone else, leave school at fifteen, get a job. At the grammar school they talked about taking more exams, going to college or university. Another world, and it was not to be hers.

She thought about Johnny Vetch’s words, ‘If you go there, you’ll be a different person . . .’

Her breath streamed through the fence towards the Spitfire, lying there in the citrus afternoon light. There it was, a battle hero, grounded and unseen. For a moment she felt like reaching out and stroking its wing for comfort. Instead, she picked up a big stone and hurled it, heard it thump off the rotting wing and fall to the ground.

‘Pass me my shoes over,’ Joyce ordered.

She was preening in front of the bedroom mirror in her white taffeta wedding dress, the veil a cloud of net over her shoulders. She was thoroughly enjoying the audience of her mother and sisters, who she assumed were rapt with admiration.

Without enthusiasm, Linda reached for the pair of white shoes with their two-inch stiletto heels.

Watching her, Violet was strucenter,k once more by the way that Linda was a mystery to her – quite different from the other two. She was getting tall now, curvy, with a sultry look to her, that black hair curling inwards in waves round her face. She could tell Joyce was getting on Linda’s nerves – as usual. They’d heard about nothing but Danny and the wedding for months now and Linda was bored sick with it.

‘God, Lin – I’m getting
married
!’ Joyce gibbered. ‘Can you believe it?’

‘Not really,’ Linda said.

‘You could at least sound pleased for me.’

‘I
am
pleased for you!’

‘Well, you don’t
sound
it.’

‘You want to be careful in them.’ Violet nodded towards the shoes. If you catch one of them heels in the hem you’ll have a nasty tear.’

‘Well, I won’t, will I?’ Joyce said pertly. ‘I’m not that stupid, am I?’

‘That’s a matter of opinion,’ Linda retorted.

‘Oh, shut
up
.’

‘Charming. Does Danny know what you’re like?’

Joyce’s pointy, narrowed-eyed face squinted back from the mirror, eyes filling with tears. ‘You’re horrible, you are! It’s my wedding day and you can’t even stop being a cow! You should be nice to me today!’

‘Yes – cut it out, Lin,’ Violet said, though half her mind was on the dogs in the garden. One of them was barking loudly and she eyed them through the window. Herself, she rather liked Danny with his stocky barrel of a body and naturally cheerful expression. Joyce had been climbing on to the back of his motorcycle in her skirts and high heels for over a year and now there were wedding bells. Joyce had struck lucky, she thought.

‘You going to put your make-up on now?’ Carol wanted to know. Violet and Linda had helped her upstairs and she was on the bed, watching intently. She’d been in her wheelchair since she came out of St Gerard’s and was going back to hospital in the autumn, for the operation on her back which they hoped would make her able to walk properly again.

‘Give me a chance!’ Joyce winced as she squeezed her feet into the shoes. If there was a fashionable but viciously uncomfortable style of shoe to be had, you could guarantee Joyce would get hold of it. She looked at her meagre collection of make-up. ‘D’you think blue or green’d be better?’

‘Blue,’ Linda said.

‘Green,’ Carol said.

Joyce tutted. ‘Goodness
sakes
. Mom – tell them to get out! They’re getting me all mithered, fussing around me all the time!’

‘Right – you two . . .’ Violet was about to usher them out of the room, but Joyce, about to lose her audienca f Pe, changed her mind.

‘Oh, I
s’pose
they can stay,’ she granted long-sufferingly. ‘Only tell them to stop talking stupid.’

‘No – ’ Violet was firm. ‘Next door, you two – you need to get changed. Quick!’

She still had her old work frock and pinner over the top and needed to get on, but she lingered for a moment, watching Joyce put on her make-up. Violet’s tired features broke into a smile. There was Joyce, seventeen and with her job at Bird’s, and
getting married
! Joyce really thought she’d arrived. Violet saw herself on her own wedding day, at the same age and with similar hopes. Then she thought of the wrecked, disillusioned man downstairs whom she had to go and get ready.

Heaven help you, Joycie
, she thought, the smile fading. But then she and Harry had had the war, their generation sharing all that grief and trouble. It had broken Harry. But it’d be different now – had to be.

‘I hope you’ll be happy, Joycie,’ she said gently.

Joyce turned, eyelids brushed with blue, and for a rare moment she was a soft young woman, and solemn.

‘I think we will. Danny’s a good ’un, Mom.’

‘I know. I can see.’ She put her arms round her daughter. Joyce felt to her more solid and substantial than she was herself. ‘You worried?’

Joyce shook her head. ‘Nah. Mind my veil . . . Is Dad . . .? Is he really going to come?’

Violet wasn’t sure if this was asked with hope or dread.

‘He says so. Won’t hear of staying behind. He wants to see his little girl get married. Look, I need to go and finish him, or Danny’s dad’ll be along before I’ve got him dressed.’

Let alone me, she thought, hurrying to him. Mother of the bride. It’s going to be a rush job.

Harry was still in bed. She’d taken him a cup of tea earlier, and he’d drunk half and left the rest to go cold on the bedside cabinet. He lay there with his eyes closed, one arm out from under the covers, so thin in its blue-and-white-striped pyjama sleeve. He looked so settled, so still, that she wondered, as she often did, whether he had slipped away. But then she heard his breathing. It was tempting just to leave him there. She felt exhausted at the thought of getting him up.

Like having my feet buried in concrete
, she thought.
That’s how it feels, living like this.

He had spent months in hospital after he broke down completely. He was better in himself now, gentler somehow, as well. But his body was never going to get any better. She knew that. And in accepting that, things had become quiet and gentler within her. Those days, after the war, when she had paced the floor day after day, weeping in anguish, were past. For a moment, in the shadowy room, she could see in his wasted features and grey hair a glimpse of the vital, energetic Harry she’d married, and the tenderness which so often saved her rose in her again. She rememugh Pikwbered that Christmas when he and his pals had made those paper snakes to sell, paper and paint everywhere, the drive he had then to get on and get out of Birmingham.

‘You silly sod,’ she whispered.

Harry opened his eyes. He seemed alert, and she saw that he hadn’t been asleep at all.

‘What’re you gawping at?’

‘You, sunshine.’

‘Have I got to get up now?’

‘It’s about time, if you don’t want to be late. Sure you want to?’

‘If it’s the last thing I do. Give us a hand.’

She went to assist him, feeling his skeletal form straining to perform this simple movement. He groaned, already panting from the exertion, and she felt a moment of despair at the effort required to get him to the church.

‘Harry . . .’

‘No – don’t say it. I’m going to that church.’ He looked round at her. Even in the gloom she could see the sallowness of the whites of his eyes. ‘I’m a useless item, but I’m not missing our Joyce getting wed.’

‘All right, love, I know. Let’s get you sorted out then.’

These days she surprised herself, often, by the gentleness in her voice, by her own patience. Since those months in hospital, he’d never been able to work. Not much more we can do, the doctors said. His system had taken too much. But she hadn’t always been patient. Not all the way through, in those days of fear and strain. Now, though, she could see that he was moving slowly, so agonizingly slowly, towards the end of the line.

So she washed him and painstakingly shaved him, quite used to running the razor over the sharp contours of his face, and helped him dress in his old Sunday suit.

‘Look like a bleeding scarecrow, don’t I?’ he said, but with resignation.

‘You’re all right,’ she said, thinking, surely he doesn’t imagine he’s going to walk down the aisle with her? He’ll never make it.

Once they reached the bottom of the stairs, his breathing was so laboured you’d think he’d run a race. Violet led him to his chair by the window, and he sank into it with a groan. The ashtray on the arm was full of stubs from yesterday, and she went and tipped it in the kitchen bin.

‘I’ll get your porridge.’ He lived mainly on porridge now. That and fags. ‘Then I’ve got to go up and get ready.’

She cut herself a piece of bread, daubed some Stork on it and took it upstairs with a cup of tea. On the stairs she heard the girls giggling together. It was a nice feeling, them getting on for a bit, happiness in the house.

The bedroom smelt stale, with that sickly aroma of Harry. The doctor said, ‘His body is slowly eating icha Ptself, Mrs Martin.’ She didn’t know exactly what that meant, but after hearing it, the smell repelled her more than before. She pushed the window open and smelt newly cut grass. Mr Bottoms had been out yesterday with his mower.

‘Now then – get going, Vi,’ she said. ‘Or you’ll be in that church in nothing but your girdle!’

Her dress was simple, a pretty blue and white cotton print with a white collar and sleeve edgings, and it hung flowingly over the curves of her slim figure. She’d been taking more pride in herself again now she was out at work. It was Rita, a jolly newcomer from London, who’d taken her on at the salon, just to help out at first. She could not have put into words the gratitude she felt towards Rita.

‘You can sweep up and wash the brushes and that – do some washes. We’ll see how you get on.’

She settled in fast. Rita, big-hearted and generous, took to her like a sister.

‘You’re a natural,’ she said. ‘I bet you could soon pick up a few basic cuts, Vi.’

And the wages, though not handsome, boosted Harry’s National Assistance and Joyce’s wages from Bird’s.

The salon was now called ‘Rita’s’. Violet loved being there, after the loneliness of home and being forever surrounded by sickness. Here was a pretty, sweet-smelling female world of chat and cosseting. It wasn’t just frippery haircuts, she decided. It was a way of looking after people, making them feel better, and she loved washing people’s hair. They told her she had gentle hands, especially after Rita, who could be a bit vigorous on the scalp.

Rita was big and exotic-looking, with long dark hair all swept up into piled, curling styles. She’d always give Violet a cut when she needed it. She’d had her hair long and scraped back for ages, with no time or money to think of doing anything else, and it had gone lank and split at the ends. Her skin had been pasty and tired, like old congealed porridge. Rita helped her learn to take pride in herself.

‘Well, this mop needs a cut all right,’ Rita had said, the first time, running strands of Violet’s hair through her fingers. ‘Lovely colour though. It’s all natural too! Oh, I’d love to be a natural blonde.’ She regarded her own swarthy features in the mirror. Her dad was an Italian, she said.

‘Very straight though, isn’t it? No good trying to look like the Beverley sisters. You need it quite short and smooth. I’ll make you look gamine, darlin’.’

‘What?’ Violet asked, alarmed.

‘You know – boyish. Cheeky, sort of thing.’

‘Well . . . if you think . . .’

‘Oh, I do, love. Very definitely.’

Rita snipped the hair into a neat bob round Violet’s chin.

‘Ooh, those cheekbones! You’re so lucky,’ Rita murmured caressingly. ‘A face I&rsquort Pn"t;d give my right arm for.’

Violet listened in astonishment. No one had told her nice things like that before. Only Harry, but such a long time ago that it felt as if she had been someone else. And Roy . . . But as soon as thoughts of him came to her mind, she slammed the door on them. No good thinking about that, his face the last time she saw him. She couldn’t stand the ache it gave her inside, even after all this time.

She combed her sleek hair, stroked a dusting of blue on to her eyelids and added mascara.

‘You don’t look so bad, for an old ’un,’ she told her reflection. ‘Better than our mom looked at thirty-eight, any road.’

She had a pretty white cardigan and sandals bought specially.

‘Today I’m going to my daughter’s wedding,’ she told herself archly, then laughed at herself. Today, no matter what other troubles there were, it was going to be good. She thought about Harry.
Please let it be all right
, she thought.

Linda had helped Carol downstairs and they were drinking Vimto in the kitchen, Carol resting in her wheelchair.

‘You look
nice
, Mom,’ Carol said.

A rare smile spread across Violet’s face.

‘Am I all right? Petticoat not showing?’