Obsession (3 page)

‘By the way,’ Edwina said, as she took the cup of hot chocolate Corrie was handing her. ‘I know you and Paula like to tease me, but you wouldn’t really consider advertising for a man, would you?’

Corrie who was stoking the fire, turned slowly to show her mother a look of mock surprise and confusion. ‘Well I was thinking of putting a note in Norman the newsagent’s window offering French lessons. Why, don’t you think I should?’

‘Not really, sweetheart, apart from anything else you can’t speak French.’

‘I don’t think one has actually to
speak
it,’ Corrie said, with more feigned innocence.

‘In Amberside that’s just what they would expect,’ Edwina laughed. ‘Now, turn on the TV, let’s spoil ourselves and snuggle up on the couch in front of the late night movie.’

‘Ooooh,’ Corrie thrilled, ‘just let me get my slippers on first.’

– 2 –

WHEN PAULA’S BABY
girl was born two weeks later Corrie and her mother took the bus into Ipswich. A few minutes after they arrived at the hospital with their gifts of flowers, champagne and baby paraphernalia Dave came bustling down the ward, having just returned from taking his parents home. Corrie and Edwina stood to one side and watched as he lifted the baby into his arms, gazing down at her with such awe and devotion that both women were very nearly moved to tears – until Corrie saw the expression on Paula’s face and they both burst out laughing.

Dave took their teasing in good spirit, but still, even when she started to whimper, wouldn’t be parted from his daughter.

‘She’s hungry, you idiot,’ Paula said.

Dave looked up at Corrie and Edwina with a grin so wide it looked painful. ‘Amazing isn’t it? She knows when she’s hungry.’

Paula’s face was a picture as reluctantly he handed the baby over. Then he proceeded to watch, mesmerized, as little Beth started to suckle.

‘She’s brilliant, isn’t she?’ Dave cried in triumph. ‘Look she can even …’

‘Dave! Shut up!’ Paula said. Then turning to Edwina and Corrie. ‘You should have seen him when I was giving birth. If it hadn’t been for the fact a head was on its way down, he’d have had his head up there. Got in everyone’s way, including his own. Then when it started getting really bad, what does he do? He starts cracking jokes! Tell them what you said to the midwife. Go on.’

Dave’s face was all innocence.

‘Well there’s me,’ Paula said, ‘holding onto his hand for grim death, screaming my head off, and feeling like I’m giving birth to a table, and he
he
can’t stand the pain. “God, you’ve got one hell of a squeeze,” he says to me. Then he turns to the midwife and says, “Do you think I’ll ever play the piano again?”, “Oh, I’m sure you will,” she tells him. “Funny,” he says, “I couldn’t before.” ’

Dave looked so stupidly pleased with himself, that despite the laughter Corrie was hard put not to show how moved she was at how deeply Paula and Dave loved each other. Her own mother and father had been that much in love and she wondered if Edwina was thinking of that now and remembering the times when they had looked down at their new-born baby the way Dave and Paula were looking at theirs.

The introspection was fleeting and with Paula teasing Dave so relentlessly while he sat there beaming with pride, Corrie couldn’t resist a few jibes of her own. She and Dave were always scoring points off each other, and today, with the heady combination of champagne and euphoria, they surpassed themselves. In the end they caused so much hilarity on the ward that they managed to attract quite a crowd around the bed.

Finally Edwina and Corrie made their farewells. When they got out onto the street Corrie was still animated, so much so that as they walked towards the bus stop and she chattered on to Edwina about the baby she ended up walking, smack! bang! into a lamp-post. She saw stars.

Edwina caught hold of her arm, but as dazed as Corrie was she could see her mother was trying very hard not to laugh.

‘Oh, my God! Was anyone looking?’ Corrie gasped. ‘Please, tell me no one saw.’

‘No one saw,’ Edwina assured her, laughing as a grinning news vendor quickly averted his eyes.

‘I shouldn’t be allowed out,’ Corrie wailed. ‘Something like this always happens to me. And ow, it bloody well hurts.’

‘Come on, I’ll treat you to a cup of tea somewhere,’ Edwina chuckled.

With no reason to rush home since Auntie Harriet was minding the shop, Corrie was about to agree, when she got a clear look at Edwina’s face – just these couple of hours away from the house had taken their toll. But Edwina wouldn’t hear of going home straight away.

‘It makes a nice change to be in the cut and thrust of a town,’ she said cheerfully, looking around her. ‘It’s been so long since I saw traffic and high buildings, and so many people.’ Suddenly she shrieked and her hands flew to her head as a gust of wind nearly took her from her feet. ‘My wig!’ she cried. ‘I nearly lost my wig!’

Laughing, Corrie straightened it, then lifted the scarf from Edwina’s neck to tie it around her head. Edwina often made sport of her wig, but other than the doctors Corrie was the only person alive to have seen Edwina without it.

‘What a pair we are,’ Corrie laughed as she tied the scarf under Edwina’s chin. ‘Oh God, I don’t believe it!’ she cried, as a bus swerved dangerously close to them and splashed a puddle right up to their knees. ‘Well, that’s settled it anyway, straight home now. We can’t have you hanging about with wet feet, you’ll catch your death of cold.’

All the way home on the bus Corrie made Edwina laugh by bemoaning the fate that seemed intent on fashioning a life of pratfalls and
faux pas
for her, when she was doing her best to be so adult and sophisticated. ‘If ever I write my autobiography,’ she said, as they alighted from the bus in the village square, ‘I shall be compelled to call it “The Confessions of an Eternally Embarrassed Woman.” ’ And with that they both exploded into laughter as Corrie hit
the
button of her umbrella and it flew off the end of the stick.

Five minutes later they were in the dimly lit hallway of their cottage, taking off their coats.

‘Tell you what,’ Corrie said, shrugging her coat back on, ‘why don’t I pop back up to the square and get us a couple …’ Her words suddenly dried as she turned to look at her mother. ‘Mum!’ she cried. ‘Mum! What’s happening? Mum, are you all right?’

‘Yes,’ Edwina said faintly, hanging onto the stair rail. ‘Yes, just a bit dizzy, that’s all.’

Corrie looked at her watch. ‘Oh Mum! You should have taken your medication half an hour ago. Come on now, come and sit down, I’ll get it for you.’

She led Edwina into the sitting room, then raced upstairs to the bathroom. Her heart was pounding, her mind a vortex of terror. She stood over the wash basin, gripping the edge. She took several deep breaths, let them out slowly and waited. But when the fear finally left her, she was submerged in anger. A deep, violent rage that made her shake all over. That hideous disease! It was always there, waiting to spoil what little fun they had. Like a monstrous child it would never allow itself to be starved of attention. She looked down at the pills in her hands and had to fight the urge to scream. She wanted to hurl them at the window, smash the glass, destroy the bottles. Lash out and hurt … Hurt what? There was nothing she could hurt. Nothing she could do. For no reason a sudden image of Dave, holding little Beth in his arms, flashed through her mind, and she squeezed her eyes tightly, not wanting to face again the emotions it stirred in her. But she couldn’t deny it. She wanted her father now. She wanted him for herself because she felt so alone and helpless. She wanted him for Edwina because he was the only man Edwina had ever loved … They needed him now …

Stop it! she told herself vehemently. Just stop! And
tearing
herself from the encroaching arms of self-pity she ran back down the stairs with her mother’s pills.

It was later that evening, after Edwina had taken a nap, and Corrie had been to check on Auntie Hattie at the shop, that Edwina walked into the kitchen and found Corrie in the darkness staring out at the rain.

‘Sweetheart?’ she said softly.

Corrie turned around. For a while they simply looked at each other and Corrie’s heart twisted inside her. Her mother was so soft, so gentle, so ethereal. Then Edwina lifted her arms and Corrie went to her, laying her head on her shoulder.

‘There, there,’ Edwina soothed as Corrie’s tears flowed down her cheeks. ‘That’s it, let it all out now.’

‘Oh, Mum, it’s just so awful,’ Corrie choked. ‘It’s so unfair. You’re so young, and I love you so much.’

‘And I love you too.’

They held one another tightly for a long time, until Corrie said, ‘I can’t help it, Mum, but I keep thinking of Dave, you know, when he held the baby. I keep thinking of what it was like for you then – I mean, when I was born.’

‘Ah, yes,’ Edwina sighed, smiling as she stroked Corrie’s hair, ‘I thought you were thinking about your father at the time.’

‘Will you tell me about him?’ Corrie sniffed. ‘I mean, I know I’ve heard it before, but …’

‘Of course, sweetheart. Now come on, it’s chilly out here, let’s go and sit by the fire.’

Corrie nodded, and forcing a smile as she ripped a piece of kitchen towel from the roll, she said, ‘I’m behaving like a great big baby, aren’t I? Sorry.’

‘You’ll always be my baby,’ Edwina said, touching her cheek.

‘Oh, yuk!’ Corrie said, but laughing she pulled her mother back into her arms.

‘So,’ Edwina said, a few minutes later. ‘Would you like me to start with how we met?’

Corrie nodded.

‘That far back, mm? OK. Well, I was nineteen and working in one of the
better
dress shops in Brighton. I had a little bedsitter above it that the proprietress rented to me and a bicycle I rode around the town on my days off. I was always hoping, of course, that I would meet someone, make some friends, but I was too shy to go into the coffee bars alone. Then, would you know it, the shop door opened one day and Phillip walked into my life.’

‘You’ve missed out the bit about Great-Granny,’ Corrie protested.

‘So I have. Well, she had been into the shop the week before to buy a new frock, which had needed altering. Dreadful woman she was, frightened me half to death. Mrs Browne,’ Edwina said, affecting a deep resonant tone. ‘Mrs Cornelia Browne. Gosh, she was awful, over-bearing, sharp-tongued and turned out to have the kindest heart imaginable. Anyway, she had to return for her dress, and when she did, her grandson came with her.’ Edwina was watching Corrie’s face closely. Then smiling and knowing that this next was one of the bits Corrie had always loved to hear as a teenager, she said, ‘The bell over the door rang, I looked up and there he was. It was love at first sight.’

Grimacing, Corrie imitated the playing of a violin.

‘Of course neither of us admitted to it straight away,’ Edwina chuckled, ‘it took about a week for Phillip to pluck up the courage to tell me, and then of course I told him I felt the same way. After that we spent all our free time together, mostly in my bedsit, talking and listening to music. One of our favourite songs, as I recall, was “Dedicated to the One I love”, by the Mamas and Papas. It was the first record I ever bought. We used to sing it at the tops of our voices.’ She paused for a moment, smiling, then
went
on. ‘We had a lot of fun then, in those first few weeks, but, well, it was a difficult time too. You see he very much wanted to make love to me, and I wanted him to, but because I was still a virgin he wouldn’t.’

Corrie looked up. ‘You never told me that before.’

‘You weren’t twenty-six before.’

‘So did you? In the end?’

Edwina shook her head. ‘No. Not until we were married. But as you know, we married within three months of meeting each other. We went to see Cornelia first. Since I didn’t have a family and Phillip only had his grandmother … Well, he was very fond of the old lady and wanted her blessing. She was horrified. Left us in no doubt as to her opinion on the matter. A shop assistant as a wife for her precious university educated grandson! Unthinkable! But as soon as she’d had her say, a teasing light leapt to her eyes, and we married the following week.

‘We went to Spain for our honeymoon. I’d never been on a plane before, it was so exciting. We stayed in an awful hotel, building works going on all around us, but we didn’t really notice. Your father, Phillip, he was so gentle, he treated me …’ she laughed, ‘it was as though he thought I would break. He had quite a shock I can tell you when I, a virgin, started to get adventurous. I made him do things I don’t think he’d ever done before. But it was such fun finding out together. And once he realized he wasn’t in any danger of hurting me … Well, I’ll spare you the details – suffice it to say we were never long out of the bedroom.

‘Anyway, just a week after we came back from our honeymoon Cornelia died. It was a shock for us both, Phillip most of all, naturally. And an even bigger shock was the amount of money she had left to Phillip. With it we bought a tiny flat just off the King’s Road in London. It was the place to be then, in the late sixties, probably still is. Then, two months after we moved in I discovered I was pregnant.
I
was horrified. Phillip was delighted. By then he had a job in a City bank and was earning quite good money, so we could afford a family, he insisted. And once I realized how happy he was I was happy too. And eight months later the proudest moment of his life occurred when the midwife handed him his baby daughter.’

Corrie pulled a face.

‘Ten days later Phillip collected us, you and me, from the hospital, and to my amazement, when we got back to the flat there was a For Sale notice outside. “Yes,” Phillip said, “we’re moving. We’re going to buy a palace for our princess!” ’

Corrie moved forward and took her mother’s hands as swallowing hard Edwina looked down at the handkerchief she was wringing in her lap.

‘It’s all right, you don’t have to go on,’ Corrie said gently.

Edwina shook her head. ‘As you know,’ she continued, ‘we never did get the “palace”. One evening, while returning home from work, Phillip stepped out in front of a car and was killed instantly. You were three months old.’