Mothers and Daughters (7 page)

‘Did you get into trouble?’ Joy asked.

‘Just an ear-wigging from Dad. He said no daughter of his would go on hunger strike and come out looking like a consumptive. It was bad for business and if I wanted the Vote I had to show I was as good as any man and go about it the proper way. Alice didn’t have any parents, just an aunt who was as committed as she was, so they went on hunger strike and when she came out of prison she looked like you do, all skin and bone, with a terrible cough. I were that shocked I cried at the sight of her – she was so weak she couldn’t swallow. They stuck tubes down her throat and pumped gruel into her stomach whether she wanted it or not.’

‘That’s cruel,’ declared Joy.

‘Not half as cruel as watching your own kith and kin starving herself for no good reason! Alice had her principles and I admired her for that, but I don’t understand why
you
won’t eat. It made her ill, and
when the Spanish flu came after the Great War she was one of the first to pass away. She never lived to see us get the full Vote in 1928.’

‘What else did you do for the cause?’ Joy asked, changing the subject neatly, her face crumpling as if she were struggling with something inside.

‘This and that: fundraising mostly, going on marches to London with our banners. We’d set off at dawn on special train and march all day and sing all the way home. Alice could never march with us unless we had a basket chair. She was too sick, and that’s not going to happen to you, do you hear me? I want to see you wed with kiddies, and being happy. How are you going to do that in this state? Your insides won’t stand it.’

Joy said nothing more, but after the walk managed tea and a digestive biscuit.

Then Lily turned up out of the blue carrying a half-finished peg rug. She’d decided that lying in bed all day was not for her. If this baby wanted to stay inside it would have to take its chance.

They all sat by the fire, cutting up the cloth pieces to prod into the hessian, a mindless task. Joy handed the pieces over and watched the two of them at work.

‘Would you like to try it?’ asked Lily. ‘I could do with a hand, then it’ll get done quicker. It’s a present for my friend Cynthia at work. She’s getting married soon.’ She then gave them the run-down about all the goings-on at the travel agency.

‘Cynthia lost her mam and dad in the war. She’s
been looking after her little brothers and sisters. She thought Cupid had passed her by until one morning a policeman brought home young Terry from the recreation ground; the scallywag was bunking off school. He was kind and kept calling to see how the lad was shaping up. He came off duty and offered to take them all to see Bolton Wanderers play Manchester United. After that it was wedding bells ringing in the air,’ she laughed.

‘Is he handsome?’ asked Joy, prodding the wool into the sacking.

‘Not especially … but Arthur’s got a kind way with him and he’s made Cynthia very happy. Neither of them is an oil painting but looks are only skin deep. What matters is a golden heart. Why do you ask that, love?’ said Lily, who had once considered herself plain, but with love and friends had blossomed into a handsome woman, Esme thought. Esme prayed that Baby would stay put for another few months and give those two lovebirds the joy they deserved.

‘I’ll never marry,’ answered Joy with a sigh.

‘Why ever not?’ Esme jumped in.

‘I’m ugly and fat. You heard what that boy at school said … a slit-eyed wog. He called me a Sherman tank, as well,’ she replied in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘And Auntie Ivy said I was a dumpling.’

Esme was horrified. ‘Whoever said that wants his backside tanning with a leather strap! I bet he’s a boss-eyed pea brain with spots.’

Joy’s eyes flickered with amusement. ‘Neville said I was podgy too, and that you have to be good-looking to marry someone nice,’ she added.

Esme was so incensed she grabbed her by the arm. ‘You’ve been reading too many silly romances, lass. It’s rubbish, the lot of it. Look at me and Auntie Lily; we’re not film stars but Redvers Winstanley liked what he saw and had no complaints. It doesn’t work like that, love. Just get those silly ideas out of your head once and for all.’

She smiled and pointed to the mirror. ‘Have a look in there if you don’t believe me. Some would say you have a special beauty. Exotic is the word that comes to mind. Your father certainly found Susan attractive. Never be ashamed of who you are. We all care for you, and your mother is beside herself with worry and you’ve given us all a fright just because some pimple-head calls you names? There’s more to life than looks, young lady,’ she added. ‘There’s kind hearts and brains and good works and a bit of a sense of humour. I think we’ve all had enough of this caper.’

‘Mother!’ whispered Lily. ‘Don’t go on about it. It’s hard to be that age, all betwixt and between. I’m not so old that I don’t recall how I felt about being flat-chested and plain when I went to dances.’

Turning to Joy, she said gently, ‘If you help me finish this rug then I’ll take you to Whiteleys for some material and I’ll make you up some pretty summer
dresses. We’ll celebrate you being on the mend. Is that a deal?’

Joy gave a weak smile and blushed.

‘Thank you, Lord.’ Esme kneeled by her bed in gratitude later that night. A light had switched on in Joy’s head. Somehow she would turn the corner by the summer. One way or another they would help her pick up the reins on her life.

In the weeks that followed, Rosa, Connie and Neville were never far away and brought the precious Dansette with a selection of EPs for them to rehearse to. Neville was being his usual bossy self again and told Joy they were resurrecting the Silkies.

‘There’s one I like by the Big Bopper. Listen, it’ll suit you. It’s called “Chantilly Lace”.’

They sat in the garden, out of Gran’s earshot, tapping their feet to the beat. It was hard to stand still and they formed a line and started making moves like in the old days.

‘But it’s not skiffle.’ Joy looked up.

‘Skiffle’s old hat now. Rock ’n’ roll is the thing, and you’ll look the part. I can see you all in pink lace and bobby sox. You can dance and make an act. What do you think, Joy?’ Nev asked anxiously. He was trying so hard to make up for his gaff in suggesting the diet. ‘I’ll get the sheet music, you learn the words and moves, and we’ll get the Silkies back on the road.’

They all went into town window shopping like old times. Auntie Lee coughed up for the gingham for their outfits and Auntie Su made them up.

Joy returned to Division Street again. No doubt Granny Esme was glad to see the back of all her visitors but Joy would miss spending so much time with her. Under her tutelage she’d learned how to make tray bakes and a good sponge cake.

‘The way to any man’s heart is through his stomach,’ Gran kept saying. Joy went to watch Cynthia go down the aisle with her policeman, wearing a new pale blue and white fitted dress with lace edging, and her first pair of Cuban heels, her black hair up in a long ponytail. Connie wore her usual blue jeans.

There were girls from Moor Bank Grammar School watching the goings-on on the pavement, who greeted Joy shyly.

‘By heck, Joy Winstanley, is that you? You’ve shifted some lard! We heard you’ve been sick. I like your dress. Is it a Mary Quant? You look like a model. Where did you get the pattern?’

Connie took a step back and let them get on with their gossip. There would be other hurdles for Joy to jump, she thought, but being fat or ugly was no longer going to be one of them. She was going to have to take a back seat when this new Joy went out into the world. If being ill paid off, there was something about going into a decline, but Connie was always starving and loved food. Joy didn’t need tanning lotion.
Her skin was olive and shiny and she looked so confident. Looking in the mirror was agony these days. There were spots and freckles and thin legs. It was a good job clothes didn’t interest her that much. To listen to Rosa and Joy rabbiting on, you would think the whole world revolved around what the pop stars were wearing, Connie sniffed.

She’d begged for blue jeans with a zip up the front and Neville found her a pair in a shop that fitted her long legs. With a sloppy joe on top, that became her uniform out of school. She hated her skinny legs.

Connie was glad Joy had come back home, though. Now she could concentrate on her exams. Starving was a mug’s game, except that it got Joy lots of attention and new clothes, but it had been a close thing. Connie prayed she’d never do it again.

There are kids rampaging down the airport foyer with
all that pent-up energy only the young have. Connie
watches them with envy. It is hard to contain herself,
watching the Arrivals board and still no information.

If only youth knew and age could, went the saying
…

The innocence of her childhood turned to the arrogance
of teenage years when only she knew best. The
Silkies went from strength to strength once Joy returned,
so fragile but a show-stopper in her cancan underskirts,
which were always fluffier and starched better than
Connie’s own. Those paper nylon dreams of stardom
with Rosa at the front, belting out songs, didn’t last
long but they served their purpose in bringing Joy back
to life
.

Connie had been the musician though, mastering
chords on the guitar with an ease that surprised her.
It was Mama who had told her that her grandfather,
Kostas, was one of the great lute players of the
Apokoronas region of Crete
.

How little she knew of that side of her family, and
Mama was reticent to the point of being downright
unhelpful when she fished for more information. But
there were ways and she was curious
.

I was devious then and that was my undoing.

Sometimes it is better not to know until someone is
ready to talk. Better not to stir the dregs at the bottom
of the pot, just in case
…

Everyone in Connie’s form was talking about the school trip to Austria. There would be a whistle-stop tour of France and Switzerland, Lake Geneva, Lake Constance, finishing off in the little town of Bregenz. They would visit châteaux on the Loire, glaciers in Switzerland, the cathedrals of Rouen, Chartres, Tours, Brussels; so many unfamiliar names on the map of Europe that she was poring over every night with excitement.

‘I just have to go, Mama. I want to go abroad and see what Europe is like. I can go, can’t I?’ she pleaded, but her mother was vague and dismissive.

‘We’ll see,’ was all that was forthcoming.

‘The list has gone up. I’ll die if I don’t get a place. Everyone’s going – Jane, Polly, Tonia; all the gang,’ Connie added, just to make sure that Mama got the urgency.

‘I’m not made of money, Connie,’ said Mama, turning to the mound of ironing in the wicker basket.

Why was she so snappy these days with a distracted look in her green eyes? Connie sighed. It was not a good time to pester but time was short.

‘I can get a part-time job in the Market Hall. Uncle Levi will find me something. I’ll save all my pocket money for spends, I promise …’ she continued.

‘You have GCE exams coming up next year, nine subjects to pass. You need weekends for revision work, not standing behind a counter,’ Mama snapped.

‘I know, I know, but I’ve given up dancing class to study. I can work on Sundays. I’ve done my mocks. It’s a doddle. Please say I can put my name down! I’ve never asked for anything like this before.’

For weeks Mama had been busy revising for her own nursing exams. There were books everywhere and Susan complained she was not doing her fair share of housework. They weren’t speaking now, even when they all went to see Auntie Lee’s new baby in his pram. They’d called him Arthur Redvers. Connie thought it must be embarrassing to wheel a pram about at her age.

Auntie Lee looked as tired as Mama. Art sat in his high chair, borrowed from Auntie Ria, who was always producing babies, much to Rosa’s disgust.

At least they knew now where they came from, with this constant biology lesson in their midst.
Rosa said childbirth was disgusting, like pushing a football out of your back passage. Mama said Auntie Lee had had a rough time and the baby was very small, but it went to show that miracles did happen. Now all the Winstanleys worshipped at his throne and Granny Esme was never away. Surely it was Connie’s turn to have something to make up for the disruption in the household now that they’d be usurped?

‘Not another word on the subject. I’ll chew things over. There’ll be plenty of chances to go abroad when you go to university. I see no need to disrupt your studies,’ Mama added, but Connie was not for changing this subject.

‘If it’s money you are worried about, Miss Kent says we can pay on the drip.’

‘What is this “on the drip”?’ Mama asked, busy folding sheets. ‘They teach you slang now, do they?’

‘You can pay by instalments, a bit each week. Oh, please, can I put my name down?’ she begged.

‘I’m not promising anything. I must talk it over with Dr Friedmann and Susan. There are complications. He will know what to do,’ muttered Mama.

‘What complications?’ Connie asked.

‘Nothing for you to worry about but I really could do without you pestering me right now. There’s other stuff on my mind,’ said Mama, turning away. ‘Please finish off this ironing so I can study. I have such backache.’

‘It won’t cost you much, I promise. I can make my
own clothes. I have my Post Office savings and birthday money. You will talk to them?’

There was a glint of steel in Mama’s green eyes and her cheeks were flushed. Why did she not want to commit to such a wonderful holiday? Connie’s sandy brows puckered into a frown of anxiety. Was there something she didn’t know about? Dr Friedmann would be her ally. He was always trying to broaden her horizons.

Was it because the school was going to Germany? But the war was over yonks ago. Surely it didn’t matter that they were ending up there? The war was nothing to do with her generation. It was history.

But maybe not to Mama. She had never gone back to Crete or talked about her relatives. It was as if that part of her life didn’t exist. She had stopped going to the Orthodox church in Manchester. She never spoke the language and her English accent was broad Lancashire now. Somehow this holiday proposal was reminding her of something.

How mean of her to refuse to consider what it might mean for her daughter to have a treat. Connie was feeling fobbed off like a child whining for some expensive toy.

She would be fifteen next year and the horizon was full of exciting possibilities: travel, boyfriends, college and getting away from the sooty drabness of Grimbleton. Why was Mama such a spoilsport? Auntie Susan would have let Joy go on such a trip.

They were all glad Joy was back at school. The illness had changed her so much. Now she wore bright colours and got herself noticed at the bus stop. She went dancing with friends from her form at the Queen’s Hall and went to the pictures with boys in a group. Auntie Susan was always making her new clothes.

It took some getting used to seeing Joy so glamorous and grown up. They were drifting apart, each with different friends and interested in different things. Joy was going to leave school next summer. Auntie Lee was hoping to give her a job in the travel agency.

Sometimes they all still met up at Santini’s like in the old days but it wasn’t the same.

They didn’t share ‘confessions’ any more as they stirred the cappuccinos in glass cups, pouring on brown sugar. It was all very polite and a bit boring, talking about the boys at the bus stop from the grammar school, and who was going out with who amongst Rosa’s friends.

Was there something wrong with Connie’s development that she didn’t fancy a single boy? She preferred to stay in and read and study and watch documentaries on TV. She wrote poems in a special notebook that was hidden under the bed and sometimes set them to music. Her bedroom was a sanctum sanctorum in the attic of the Waverley.

From her window there was a sky full of stars and
the outline of the purple moors. She loved the old desk and bookshelves, and chintzy curtains made from offcuts from a market stall. There was a record player and a small radio set to catch the top twenty hits.

Here she could be Jane Eyre, Elizabeth Bennet, Natasha in
War and Peace
, living their lives over and over again in dreams. Sometimes she had company – Jane Shilling and Tonia Carter came home for coffee and they talked school all evening.

Why couldn’t she go on the school trip with them? There had to be a way. Maybe she could convince Mama if she offered to pay for most of it herself? Rosa had promised to give her the secret recipe for suntanning lotion. They were going to make up a batch to sell in their schools before the long holidays.

This recipe was famous for giving the Mediterranean tan that was all the rage now, to set off the skinny white tops and shorts. Olive oil, iodine and vinegar mixed together in small bottles and smeared over the body. Only Rosa had the right measurements. Get it wrong and limbs would fry in the sun. Rosa wanted a cut of the profits and they’d spent whole Saturday afternoons gathering the ingredients from pantries and begging small bottles from the Winstanley stall.

Rosa was planning to leave school next year too, to train as a dancing assistant at the Lemody Liptrot
School of Dance, while waiting to be discovered. She wanted to make it in a West End show and she’d written off to an agent in Manchester called Dilly Sherman. She was doing no study for her GCEs, and helped out in Sylvio’s salon as a shampoo girl. She earned enough to buy fashion, not sew it, and always looked that bit ahead of the gang. She had blonde streaks in her fringe, which she had to paint over with mascara each morning when she went to school or she would be expelled on the spot.

How could Connie not go on the trip? She’d miss out on all the friendship and fun. If all else failed there was always Granny Esme to ask for a loan

Granny had been kind to Joy and bought her new clothes. Everyone had made such a fuss of her when she was ill. It wasn’t fair. Nobody was bothering with Connie.

Deep down she was jealous of this new Joy, so trim and neat, with not a hair out of place. It was hard to think they’d once all played together as little girls. Now their future plans were so different. Where would they all be in ten years’ time?

By the end of half-term the list for the trip abroad was almost full when Connie sneaked her name on the bottom. There was an official meeting to hear the details of the itinerary. It started with an overnight ferry crossing from Dover to Calais, first night in
Tours, via Rouen, and then the Loire Valley, across to Dijon. It sounded fantastic. The first hurdle to cross was getting a signed form of parental consent.

‘I shall also need your birth certificate and two Polyfotos for the passport application,’ said Miss Kent, who was co-organiser of the trip with Miss Spencer, the deputy head. ‘Those who want payment cards see me after the meeting.’

Connie was first in the queue for the payment card and consent form. It would be easy to forge Mama’s signature, and once she had the birth certificate, which she knew was in the document box on top of the wardrobe, she’d be on her way, paying the deposit from her savings. When Mama saw she was serious, the rest would be forthcoming.

The rosewood box was always kept locked but the key was on Mama’s dressing table in the casket that contained jewellery, a silver cross and chain, earrings and some foreign coins. She used to root about when she was little, lifting up the old papers in foreign writing, unable to translate their meaning.

The box was easy to find and she opened it eagerly, but besides nursing certificates, an old identity card and medical card there was no sign of Connie’s own papers, just a cutting of her name in the paper for winning the scholarship.

Her birth certificate wasn’t there and with a sinking heart Connie realised that she would have to ask Mama.

Perhaps if this was left to the last minute and she
kept up the payments no one would be any the wiser for a few weeks? Evenings rolled by with Connie tracing this foreign journey on the map and planning a list of all her outfits and toiletries.

They all compared notes together, Connie, Tonia and Jane, whose parents had paid up in one lump sum.

Then it was the dreaded exam revision and heads down until all the papers were finished in June. By then Connie’s funds had run out and she was three weeks behind on her dues.

Selling the olive oil lotion had not brought in as much as they’d hoped. It was a wet summer and nobody was in the mood for suntanning. Jane complained that when she put it on that it had stained her best top. ‘I smelled like a fish-and-chip shop.’ Connie had had to give her the money back as they were going to share a room.

‘I’m going to take Nivea Crème,’ Jane said, ‘not this rubbish. Tell Rosa Santini to check her recipe next time.’

Two weeks before the trip Miss Kent asked to see Connie, demanding all the proper documents. ‘You’re holding up the passport, Connie. I need them by tomorrow and your final payment too. You still owe forty pounds. Shall I contact your mother?’

‘No, no. I’ll bring it tomorrow,’ she croaked, heart thumping, knowing her plan was unravelling fast. Surely Mama would see sense, but every time she had
badgered Mama, there was always the same reply: ‘Not now, Connie. Can’t you see I’m busy?’

Tonight, though, she was going to have to face them with the truth, but she was sure Mama would not let her down.

She waited until Dr Friedmann left the dining room and went to his study and Auntie Su and Joy were in the kitchen. Mama was glancing through the
Guardian
and listening to the wireless while she was putting away the spare cutlery, clearing the table for her swotting-up.

‘Mama, I have to tell you something and it won’t wait,’ Connie said, turning the knob of the radio to off.

Mama looked up curious.

‘I need forty pounds and my birth certificate,’ Connie said all in one breath.

‘You need what?’ Mama replied, putting down the paper and looking up at her with amazement.

‘It’s for the school trip. I’ve got to have all the money in by tomorrow,’ she confessed quickly, hoping to disguise her rising panic.

‘But we’ve not decided,’ said Mama.

‘I know, so I’ve been paying bits up until now. I’ve no savings left. Please, you promised,’ she begged.

‘I did no such thing. I said we would talk about it with the others. It slipped my mind.’ Mama shook her head. ‘I thought you’d forgotten about it, and just as well.’

‘I didn’t pester you. You want me to go, don’t you,
or did you deliberately forget? It’s all arranged now. I can’t let them down, it’ll spoil it for everyone. It’s all been carefully costed out and they need my balance.’ Mama was shaking her head. ‘We never saw any forms, any details …’

‘I filled them in for you. I know how you hate forms,’ she lied. ‘I’ve been searching everywhere for my birth certificate but it’s not in the box. Where is it? I need it for tomorrow.’

‘Never mind where it is … You are too young to have it,’ shouted Mama, standing up.

‘I’ll soon be old enough to leave school and get married and get into trouble. You’ve no right to hide it from me!’ The words were spitting themselves out of her mouth. ‘School just need to check my identity for the group passport, that’s all.’

Mama was pacing around the room like a trapped tiger in a cage muttering to herself in Greek. ‘You’ve no right to be going behind my back. You’ve brought all this on yourself, you silly girl. I never said you could go. I promised nothing and now you demand forty pounds out of the blue as if I can just take it out of my purse. You are a wicked girl. No! I don’t give my consent,’ she said, banging the table, so Connie picked up a willow-pattern dinner plate and hurled it at the wall in frustration.

‘I hate you! I hate you! You spoil everything. You are so mean,’ she screamed, throwing another plate on the floor.