The House by Princes Park (53 page)

Ruby hadn’t the faintest notion what he was talking about.

It was almost midnight when Moira and Sam arrived. Moira’s career as a teacher hadn’t got off the mark. She was three months pregnant and thrilled to bits. The baby was expected in June.

Nowadays, Pixie Shaw took it for granted she and her husband would be invited to Christmas dinner. Throughout the meal, Daisy was subjected to the third degree. ‘Clint hardly tells us anything in his letters,’ Pixie complained. She was annoyed Moira was having a baby and Daisy wasn’t. ‘And you got married so much earlier.’

‘It’s not a race, Pixie,’ Ruby said tartly. ‘Daisy and Clint will have children when it suits them, not you.’

‘Hear, hear,’ Heather echoed. There was no love lost between her and Pixie Shaw. ‘I wouldn’t dream of pressing Daisy to have a baby just so I can be a grandmother. It seems most unfair.’

For the first time ever, Ruby was glad when dinner was over. The meal had been full of tension. Next year, she’d
tell Pixie they’d been invited out, though the strained mood hadn’t only been Pixie’s fault; Daisy was clearly upset, Greta was sulking about something, and Matthew hardly spoke. Even Brendan didn’t help, he was aching to get back to his presents. She thanked the Lord that Moira and Sam were there, providing at least two happy faces.

Greta and Matthew must have had another row, which was all they seemed to do these days. Perhaps Greta had been spending too much money again. ‘She’ll have me bankrupt, so she will,’ Matthew had groaned only a few weeks ago. ‘She’s only gone and bought a gazebo for the garden – in the middle of winter too!’ Ruby had never dreamed her nice, agreeable daughter could be so thoughtlessly extravagant.

It was unreasonable to feel so cross when Moira and Sam decided to go for a walk, depriving the house of their cheerful company. She marched into the living room, determined to make everyone play a game and elicit a laugh or two, but Greta had already turned on the television and they sat like lumps for the rest of the afternoon watching
The Sound of Music
, a film Ruby had seen before and hadn’t liked – and liked even less the second time around.

It was a lousy Christmas. Ruby was glad when it was over and things returned to normal. But not for long, because Daisy revealed the reason why Clint had gone to America on his own and completely spoilt New Year.

Matthew rang one afternoon in March when a brisk, urgent wind was playing havoc with the house, rattling the windows and whistling through the cracks around the doors.

‘Ruby, something terrible’s happened.’ His voice shook.

‘Oh, yes?’ Ruby said coolly.

He mustn’t have noticed her frosty tone. ‘I got home
from work early, about an hour ago. I was feeling dead rotten, I think I must be coming down with flu.’

‘Dearie me.’

‘I thought Greta was out – until I went upstairs and found me fucking wife in bed with another man. Oh, Rube!’ he said hoarsely. ‘I don’t know what to do. I’ve got to talk to someone. Can I come round?’

‘Not now, Matthew, Greta’s here. My God!’ Ruby gasped. ‘I didn’t realise... She’s in a terrible state. She said you just turned on her for no reason at all.’

‘And you believed her?’ His bitter laugh tore at her heart. ‘You mustn’t have much of an opinion of me. No wonder that other fellow wouldn’t marry you, Ruby. You put your family before every other bloody thing on earth, no matter what they do. Tell my wife to stay where she is. You’re welcome to each other.’

‘Matthew!’ Ruby cried frantically. ‘I’ll come and see you straight away.’ But she was talking to herself. Matthew had slammed down the receiver.

She went into the garden and screamed for Brendan. He was halfway up a tree he’d been forbidden to climb and made his way down, looking guilty, expecting to be told off. ‘Come on,’ Ruby said brusquely. ‘We’re going for a ride in a car.’ She pulled him into the house, ‘Get your coat,’ she commanded.

‘Yes, Bee.’ Brendan said obediently. He was nearly four and aware something was wrong.

Ruby turned her attention to her daughter. Earlier, Greta had thrown herself on to the settee, sobbing her heart out. Matthew was an awful person, truly horrible. That afternoon, he’d flown into a rage, she’d no idea why.

‘Greta,’ Ruby said from the door. ‘Get up immediately. I want you to take me to your house in the car.’

‘What, Mam?’ Greta raised her tear-streaked face, surprised.

‘I said, drive me to your house. That was Matthew on
the phone. You stupid girl, you’ve hurt him badly. You didn’t tell me he’d found you in bed with another man. That’s not the way you were brought up. Oh, I’m so ashamed!’ Ruby stamped her foot in rage. She’d be sixty-two next month and it was about time she had a bit of peace. ‘Who was he, the man?’

There was a pause.

‘The husband of one of me friends.’

‘Well, you won’t be friends much longer once she finds out. If you don’t get off that settee this very minute, I’ll drag you outside. I’ll have a go at driving the car myself if you won’t do it.’

Greta got sullenly to her feet. ‘I don’t know why you’re so concerned about Matthew.’

‘Get a move on, girl,’ Ruby snapped. ‘I’m concerned about Matthew because he’s been the best friend this family could have had. Are you coming or do I have to drive myself ?’

No one spoke on the way to Calderstones, not even Brendan who was unusually subdued. When they reached the house, Ruby turned to her daughter. ‘Give me the key.’

‘I haven’t got it. It’s in me handbag at home.’

‘
This
is your home,’ Ruby said tartly. ‘Or at least it was. I’ll just have to knock and hope he answers.’

‘He won’t answer, ’cause he’s not there. His car’s gone.’

‘Damn!’ She’d let him down again.

Matthew still wasn’t home by midnight. Next day, when Ruby rang Medallion and asked to speak to Mr Doyle, she was told he was on holiday.

‘When will he be back?’

‘He didn’t say when he would return.’

‘When he does, please tell him Mrs O’Hagan would like to speak to him urgently.’

‘I’ll relay that message to his secretary.’

The day after, Greta drove round to Calderstones to collect her things, after phoning first to make sure Matthew wasn’t there. She returned, the car full of clothes, and tearfully reported that the house was up for sale.

‘Oh, Mam, I’ve been such a fool,’ she sobbed.

‘You certainly have. Oh, come here, love.’ Ruby held out her arms. It was impossible to stop loving someone because they’d been a fool – well, a bit more than a fool where Greta was concerned. But it would be a long time before she would forgive her for what she’d done.

Heather no longer wanted to share a room with her sister. She had bought a portable television so she could watch Open University programmes and study in bed. Greta would be in the way.

‘Can I sleep with you, Mam?’ Greta sniffed pathetically after a few nights on her own. ‘I’ve never slept by meself before. It feels dead peculiar.’

‘You certainly can’t. I like my privacy too.’

‘What about Brendan? Can I sleep with him?’

‘Not when there’s two empty bedrooms upstairs, no. By the way, have you done anything about getting a job?’

Greta sighed. ‘Not yet.’

‘Then I’d appreciate you doing it soon.’

‘I’ll look in the
Echo
tonight.’

‘If nothing’s there, try the Labour Exchange tomorrow.’

‘All right, Mam,’ Greta said with a martyred air, but Ruby was having none of it.

‘It’s entirely your own fault you’re in this situation, so I want none of your pained looks. Heather’s the only one in the house earning a wage. It’s not up to her to keep you.’

A fortnight passed and Matthew still hadn’t acknowledged her phone call. Ruby called Medallion again.

‘Mr Doyle was made aware of your message,’ she was
told. ‘He said to tell you he’ll be in touch next time he’s in Liverpool.’

‘When will that be? Where is he now?’

‘I’m afraid I’ve no idea when it will be, Mrs O’Hagan. Our firm has just been awarded a contract for three hospitals in Saudi Arabia. Mr Doyle will be overseeing the work.’

‘Thank you.’ Ruby rang off. Saudi Arabia! If Greta had been there just then, she would have strangled her.

Six months later, a letter from a solicitor dropped on the mat addressed to Mrs Greta Doyle. Matthew wanted a divorce on the grounds of adultery.

‘He can’t divorce me for adultery,’ Greta pouted. ‘He hasn’t any proof. I’m going to write back and contest it.’

‘He might try and get proof,’ Ruby pointed out. ‘He’s sure to know the name of the chap he found you in bed with if he was a friend’s husband and involve him, then the wife would be round here, making a scene. It’d be in the
Echo
, and your name would be mud. Not only that, the legal costs would be horrendous. You’d end up in debt for the rest of your life.’ She had no idea what she was talking about. Every word she’d just said could be a lie. But Greta
had
committed adultery and no longer deserved to be married to Matthew.

‘So what should I do?’ Greta cried piteously.

‘Just write to the solicitor and agree the divorce can go ahead as it stands.’ There were times when honour demanded
not
putting your family first.

The following year, 1981, as soon as her divorce from Matthew was finalised, Greta got married for the third time. She was forty-five. Frank Fletcher was a sweet, if rather dull little man, a widower, with two grown-up sons, both married. He was a clerk in the shipping company where Greta worked, and owned a semi-detached house
on the estate where she would have lived with Larry had life gone differently.

The wedding was held in a register office. There were just six guests; Ruby, Heather, and Frank’s sons and their wives – none seemed too pleased that he was marrying again. Brendan had just started school and was otherwise occupied.

After the soulless ceremony, everyone went to Ruby’s for something to eat. The Fletchers refused the wine and beer she’d bought, saying they preferred tea. After politely eating a few sandwiches, they went home, leaving only the enamoured Frank who could hardly believe his luck in landing such a pretty bride. The newly married couple left for their honeymoon in Scarborough in the afternoon.

Greta was still on honeymoon when Ruby tidied her room and was surprised to find the wardrobe full of her smart clothes. She mentioned the fact to Heather when she came home.

‘She doesn’t want them any more,’ Heather told her. ‘She said there’d be no need for stuff like that when she’s married to Frank.’

‘I wonder if any of them will fit us?’

When tea was over, they went upstairs to try on the clothes, accompanied by Brendan, who seized the hat Greta had worn to Daisy’s wedding and put it on, grinning at them through the green feathers. The women went through the wardrobe and wished Greta was taller.

‘I wonder if I could have a false hem put on this?’ Ruby held up a blue crêpe frock.

‘I could wear this jacket, but not the skirt. Look at this sweater! I bet it cost the earth. Oh, I can’t do this!’ Heather threw the sweater on to the floor and burst into tears.

‘Neither can I.’ Ruby dropped the blue frock as if it was too hot to touch. ‘I feel like a grave robber.’

‘I don’t think she’ll be happy married to Frank, Mam.’

‘She might, love,’ Ruby said sadly. ‘You know, I should have been nicer to her when she came home, but I was so annoyed...’

‘Our Greta’s never been any good on her own. I should have let her back in our room. We drove her away, Mam.’

‘I wouldn’t put it quite as strongly as that, love.’ Ruby put her arm around her weeping daughter. ‘She behaved disgracefully with Matthew. It would have been wrong to welcome her home and act as if nothing had happened.’

‘It
wouldn’t
have happened if Rob and Larry hadn’t died.’

‘That’s something we’ll never know, Heather. If it hadn’t been Matthew, it might have been something else.’ Ruby sighed. ‘Brendan! Give us that hat before you wreck it. One of these days Greta might want to wear the damn thing.’

She was in a hotel room, an expensive hotel, not her own, and she was lying in a double bed, feeling like death. The other half of the bed had been occupied. She could see the indent of where a head had lain on the pillow and the bedclothes had been thrown back when the person had got out.

Who, Ellie wondered? Last night there’d been a party and she could recall getting plastered, but from then on her mind was a blank. She looked at her watch; half-past nine.

It wasn’t the first time this had happened. Ellie worked for a London-based agency that provided pretty girls for all sorts of occasions; company dinners to which wives hadn’t been invited, business exhibitions, sporting events. At the moment she was in Madrid with six other girls for a motor show – sports cars – and it was their job to drape themselves provocatively over the bonnets as an incentive to prospective purchasers to part with monumental amounts of cash. Last week it had been a computer exhibition in Sweden where they’d been expected to look charming and wise. Next month it was office equipment in Rome, though the work was mainly based in the British Isles.

The agency adopted a high moral tone. It had its reputation to consider and the girls were forbidden to have sexual relationships while employed on a job. Ellie only occasionally broke the rule, and always when she’d had too much to drink, like last night.

She sat up, clutched her reeling head, and noticed her clothes were on the floor beside the bed. The net curtains on the open window billowed outwards and she saw a stone balcony outside. The sun was shining brilliantly and it was already warm considering it was only May – she dreaded to think what Spain would be like in summer. People could be heard splashing about in a pool.

The room had two doors, one of which was ajar, revealing a bathroom. Ellie climbed out of bed and got washed, then put on the tight white skirt and red blouse, the uniform for the motor show. They were badly creased and there was a wine stain on the skirt. She’d prefer to be gone when the owner of the room came back.
If
he came back. There was no sign of anyone staying there; no suitcase, clothes, toilet gear. Maybe he’d already checked out.