To Have and to Hold (11 page)

By the time all the courses were over and Carmel was sipping delicately at the small cup of slightly bitter coffee and even more gingerly at the liqueur the waiter had insisted she try, which she found surprisingly pleasant, she was feeling almost uncomfortably full.

Then the waiters were there again, this time filling long tall glasses with something frothy and bubbly.

‘Champers,’ the colonel said, licking his lips in anticipation. ‘Can’t beat a bit of bubbly.’

Champagne! Carmel would have covered her glass again, but Emma wouldn’t let her. ‘We are here for Paul tonight,’ she said stiffly as the waiter hovered above her, bottle poised, ‘and you have drunk nothing but water.

Surely you can manage to drink one glass of champagne to toast his health?’

What could she say to that? She removed her hand and the waiter, with a wink in her direction, filled her glass almost to the brim.

Then Jeff was on his feet. The speech went on and on. They drank numerous toasts to Paul and his many achievements and accomplishments, to his full recovery from the dastardly attack and his success in his examinations, and then they toasted his future. Carmel thought champagne, with its frothiness and the way the bubbles went up her nose, just the nicest thing she had ever tasted and when the waiter filled her glass again she didn’t object.

‘Shall we rise, ladies?’ Paul’s mother said suddenly, as Carmel was draining her second glass of champagne. All the woman in the room obediently stood.

Now what was up? Carmel tugged on Paul’s jacket urgently and when he turned she saw from his slack mouth and his slightly vacant eyes that he had drunk more than was usual for him and that was before he spoke and she heard the slight slur in his voice.

‘It’s tradition,’ he told Carmel quietly. ‘The women leave the men to have brandy, cigars and a manly chat for a little while. I will be along shortly.’

Full of trepidation, Carmel arrived after the others, trying and failing to manoeuvre herself nearer to Lois. When she reached the drawing room, Carmel was forced to sit down next to a buxom woman she hadn’t spoken to before, who almost glowered at her.

Lois watched Carmel with concern, for she knew now what her aunt was about and she guessed some of the
ladies could give Carmel a hard time too if they had a mind to, especially if they’d had a lot to drink.

Barely had they sat, before Emma said, ‘We have a mystery person in our midst,’ pointing to Carmel. ‘Name of Carmel Duffy here. She’s from Ireland. That much we know, but she doesn’t seem to like talking of her background at all.’

Carmel’s gasp was audible to those near to her, which brought their speculative eyes upon her. In fact, Lois saw many of the women’s eyes light up. It was obvious that Emma resented or in some way disliked Carmel and so she was fair game to harass or annoy.

And harass her they did, throwing one question after another at her. She parried many of them—after all, she had had lots of practice—but they ridiculed many of her replies. Lois saw how agitated Carmel was becoming at the constant barrage of questions and in the end Carmel was almost forced to say that her father’s ill health made him unfit for work.

‘Why did you not tell us this earlier, my dear?’ Emma said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. ‘It is nothing to be ashamed of, but when you are so secretive, it makes people think perhaps you have something to hide.’

‘That’s right,’ said Melissa in her drawling and slightly supercilious voice. ‘Makes one suspicious, you see? Are you sure there isn’t some other skeleton lurking in the cupboard that you would like to tell us about?’

Carmel looked at Melissa’s malice-ridden eyes and felt like one of the foxes some of these women hunted. Suddenly she seemed to be a source of amusement, and almost all the woman seemed to be laughing at her as an object of scorn and derision.

Lois, watching the scenario with worried eyes, didn’t know what she could do to help retrieve the situation, especially when she saw the woman beside Carmel touch her knee and urge, ‘Do tell what it is you are hiding, my dear. I love a good gossip.’

‘And you are among friends,’ said another.

Like hell I am, Carmel thought, and wished she had the courage to tell them all to ‘Piss off!’.

That at least would give them something else to focus on. Emma was giving her friends licence to behave this way, urging them on as she said, ‘We’ll be discreet with anything you tell us, Carmel. You needn’t worry on that score.’

Carmel was feeling very hot. Her heart was thudding in her chest and she wondered if she was going to pass out, though she had never done that before.

But then it didn’t matter any more, for with a flurry of greetings and gales of laughter, the men joined them. Paul was by Carmel’s side and she felt immediately calmer.

Her calmness didn’t last long, however. When, a little later, the party returned to the supper room, it was to see it transformed with tables now lining the edge of a space cleared for dancing, and a band setting up on a makeshift stage. Emma had found out that Carmel didn’t know how to ballroom dance, so, using the excuse that she was sure Carmel would like to watch proceedings, Emma inveigled her to one side of a table facing the dance floor. She was flanked by two matronly ladies. Paul was on the other side of the table and grouped around him were the other young women. Lois and Chris were on another table altogether.

Paul, pleasantly mellow, seemed unaware of any undercurrent and just sat there smiling benignly at everyone. He was certainly enjoying the attentions from the girls, who seemed determined to make this a night for him to remember.

Not that he sat for long, for he danced with one girl after another, and some of their mothers, and then with his own. Carmel sat and watched it all in hurt-filled misery.

Lois and Carmel could not make a very late night of it because their late passes only allowed them to stay out until eleven, despite the fact they had booked the next day off work. When Carmel had first mentioned this to Paul he had told her he would leave when they did and travel home with her so that they could have some time together, but by the time they were ready to go, Paul was too drunk and having too good a time to remember any promise. She left him without even a kiss, just a desultory wave as she made her way outside to the waiting taxi with Lois and Chris.

Lois knew how upset Carmel was, and little wonder, but it was no good rehashing the evening in the taxi. Chris was nearly as drunk as Paul was anyway, and probably wouldn’t see any problem at all, so they would have to wait to talk about this until they got home.

By the time they reached their room, though, the wretchedness and disappointment of that evening seemed burned on Carmel’s very soul and she felt very depressed about the whole thing. They intended creeping into the room quietly, certain Jane and Sylvia would be asleep, but found instead they were waiting up for them.

‘We couldn’t sleep without knowing what it was like,’ Jane said. ‘Was it terrific?’

Carmel knew the girls were agog with curiosity and she suddenly realised she wanted to talk it over, and preferably with someone who wasn’t there, who hadn’t already got preconceived ideas. Maybe she had overreacted.

‘What was the house like? Was it a mansion?’ Jane asked.

‘Yes, near enough, anyway,’ Carmel answered.

‘Someone took our coats and things as we went in and there were waitresses with white pinafores like those at Lyons Corner House serving the food, and really smart waiters serving drinks,’ Lois added. ‘I’ve been to plenty of parties at that house before and they have been nothing like this one. And the guests…well some I had never seen before and they were all well-heeled, you know?’

‘And I think it was all for a reason,’ Carmel said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, I’ll tell you it as it was,’ Carmel said, ‘and you let me know what you think.’ She began to recount the evening, beginning when they had first rolled up in the taxi. She had no trouble doing this because the events of that night had been etched on her brain.

Jane interrupted at the point where Carmel said that Paul’s mother didn’t think she would make a suitable wife for Paul.

‘Did she actually use those words?’

‘Yes,’ Carmel said. ‘She is an out-and-out snob, Paul’s mother, and as I haven’t come out of the top drawer, I might as well not exist.’

‘You’re kidding?’

Carmel sighed. ‘I wish I was. The bloody woman virtually told me that I wasn’t of their class and wouldn’t really fit in. I’m sure she doesn’t want me in the family. I’d say she already has someone in mind for Paul.’

‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this,’ Sylvia said. ‘We don’t live in the Dark Ages any more.’

‘Maybe someone should mention that fact to her then,’ Carmel commented grimly. ‘I mean d’you know one of the questions she asked me?’

‘I couldn’t imagine.’

‘If I could play tennis, or had any truck with sailing, and then went on to ask me whether I thought I could make Paul the “right” sort of wife.’

‘Bloody cheek! And where was Paul while all this was going on?’ Jane asked.

‘Well,’ said Carmel, ‘there were these three girls that his mother took pains to tell me he had known from the year dot. Obviously the “right” sort of girl, only they are no longer in the nursery and they were all over Paul like a rash. And no one knew about the engagement either. Paul’s mother engineered that too. She told Paul that it was a little shabby to just turn up and say we were engaged when we hadn’t got a ring. She said to leave it a little and make the announcement later. I just thought it might be how it was done in the middle classes, but now I think she planned the whole thing.’

‘God, she sounds a vicious cow,’ Sylvia said.

‘She is,’ Carmel said. ‘Sorry, Lois, but she is.’

‘Don’t be sorry,’ Lois said. ‘I agree with every word, and I was ashamed of her, if you want the truth.’

‘It isn’t just her, though, is it?’ said Jane. ‘If my bloke did something like that with some girl, however long he
had known them, I would give him such a clout.’

‘I know,’ Carmel said with a sigh. ‘It was incredible really. There were these girls, pawing at him and stroking him and showing him in every way that they were available and his for the asking and he was enjoying every minute of it.’

‘What man wouldn’t?’ Sylvia said.

‘He might want to,’ Jane put in, ‘but he doesn’t do it when he is spoken for, not if he knows what is good for him.’

‘It made me look really stupid, especially in front of his mother, but I couldn’t do anything about it,’ Carmel said. ‘In that sort of situation you can’t act in any sort of normal way. I already felt awkward and out of place and so I could hardly start berating Paul and acting like a fish wife.’

‘In defence of Paul,’ Lois said, ‘though in all honesty it isn’t much of a defence, he was very drunk. I mean, I have known Paul for years and I have seldom seen him so bad.’

‘Yeah, and I think that was his mother’s intention too,’ Carmel said. ‘She went all out to get him drunk over the meal. It worked too, and he was pretty far gone when all the woman in the room left the men to their port, brandy and cigars.’

‘Straight up?’ Sylvia said in amazement. ‘Do people still do that? I have read about it in books and that, but I never thought that in this day and age it was still done.’

‘Well, it was done there all right,’ Carmel said. ‘I would say with people like the Connollys, tradition is alive and well. Once in that room away from the semiprotection of the men Emma and her cohorts really had a go at me.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘They wanted to know all about Carmel, and were ridiculing what she said and everything,’ Lois said. ‘I honestly didn’t know how to divert their attention and then the men came in and it was better for a bit.’

‘Until the dancing,’ Carmel said.

Lois nodded in agreement and both girls went on to describe how Paul’s mother had effectively isolated Carmel from Paul, but made sure he was sitting by the girls she did approve of.

At the end of their account of the awfully humiliating night that Carmel had endured, Jane said to Lois, ‘I do think you might have done more to help. After all, you are related.’

As Carmel had spoken, Lois had begun feeling bad that she had left her to flounder on her own so much and so she took the rebuke. ‘You’re right and I’m sorry. But, in an effort to make amends, Carmel, how about if I was to teach you how to dance properly?’

‘How?’ Carmel said. Knowing that ballroom dancing was very popular, she had made enquiries when she had first come to Birmingham, but with her shift patterns and the lectures and study, she couldn’t fit the lessons in. But it was, she thought, important to learn now. She could do nothing about the tennis or the yachting, but she should surely be able to dance.

’I’ll teach you,’ Lois said. ‘Why I didn’t think of it before I will never know. We have a gramophone at home and lots of dance records because I used to practise when I came home from lessons when I was younger. I could bring them and we could have a go in our spare time. What d’you say?’

‘I’d say I’d really liked it. I always liked dancing when I was younger—Irish dancing, that was, of course—so I’ll do it to please myself, not to please Paul, nor his mother either.’

‘That’s the spirit, Carmel,’ Jane said approvingly.

‘We’ll all help,’ Sylvia said.

‘D’you know how to dance too?’

‘Course, it’s easy,’ she said. ‘I learned at school. Most girls did. We’ll have you dancing the light fantastic in no time.’

‘That will be one in the eye for your future mother-in-law,’ Jane put in.

‘Aye,’ Carmel said and added, ‘That’s if she ever becomes my mother-in-law.’

‘Carmel, what are you saying?’

‘I’m saying that Paul had better apologise and realise how wrong he was because I won’t tolerate being messed about like that ever again.’

‘No one would blame you for that,’ Sylvia said.

‘Bloody parents,’ Carmel said. ‘Nothing but trouble, in my opinion. I mean, did you know I nearly told Paul it was all over because of mine? Huh, that would have pleased his damned mother.’