The Would-Be Wife Read online

  Her father jumped to his feet. ‘I’ll kill him. I’ll break his neck with my bare hands,’ he vowed, holding up hands that looked large enough and capable enough for the job.

  ‘Shh!’ With a warning look in her eyes Lynn jerked her head towards Simon, who was uncharacteristically quiet, with his eyes fixed on his grandad. ‘He’s taking it all in,’ she murmured. ‘Little pigs have got big ears, and they repeat everything as well. Anyway, where would it get us, except him fatherless and us visiting you in the slammer?’

  Her father picked Simon up and sat down again with the child on his knee, holding him close. ‘He’ll never be fatherless while I’m alive. I’ll be a father to him.’

  ‘Not if you’re behind bars, you won’t.’

  ‘I’ll go round there and punch his lights out,’ Lynn’s brother threatened. ‘His fancy woman won’t want to be seen with him by the time I’ve finished.’ A bit of a hothead, Anthony had just returned from his first trip as bosun, aboard the Arctic Raven.

  ‘No, you won’t,’ Lynn warned. ‘He’s not worth doing time for. Mandy can have him. I’m going to the solicitor’s as soon as this bank holiday’s over, and that will be that.’

  ‘As soon as it gets near eleven o’clock, you two go down the dock for the settling,’ her mother said. ‘Then you can take us to Hammonds and treat us to a three-course dinner and a new outfit apiece. You’re coming out with us tonight, Lynn, we’ll have you dressed to the nines. Let Graham Bradbury see what he’s missing.’

  ‘How’s he going to see what he’s missing, Mam? He doesn’t drink in the same pubs as fishermen,’ Lynn said.

  ‘He won’t if he knows what’s good for him,’ Anthony said. ‘I’d love to catch him in Rayners with a few of our deckies there. He’d be out through the window, and we wouldn’t bother opening it.’

  Lynn tried to picture Graham in Rayners and failed. Rayners was notorious even on Hessle Road. Policemen went there in pairs. It was certainly not the sort of place to attract anybody like Graham.

  ‘It’s not very likely you’ll catch him in Rayners, is it?’ Lynn said. ‘I doubt if he’s ever been there in his life.’

  ‘No, his mother never let him out to play with the rough lads, did she?’ Anthony jeered. ‘Anyway, I’m off to Brenda’s. We’ll probably be going to Hammonds, so we might bump into you. If not, we’ll maybe see you on Hessle Road tonight. We’re starting at the Halfway and working our way along to the Alexander.’

  ‘You take Simon round to our Margaret’s for a bit, Lynn,’ her father said. ‘Me and your mam have got things to talk about. We’ll call round for you after the settling.’

  Anthony gave Lynn a sly smile and cast his eyes up to the ceiling. ‘Aye, you take him to our Margaret’s, and keep out of the way till you’re called for, Lynn,’ he said, and was out of the door.

  ‘Cheeky little bugger!’ Nina said as the door closed after him. ‘A son is a son till he gets a wife, but a daughter’s a daughter the rest of her life. And there’s never been a truer saying than that – except she’s not even his wife. Lads! As soon as they start courting they don’t want to know their parents.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, Nina. He came here first, didn’t he?’ their father said.

  The probability of bumping into Graham on a pub crawl on Hessle Road was practically nil, but Lynn put on the trendy mini dress and the new shoes her father had bought for her and took a careful half hour over her hair and make-up, cheered on by her mother.

  ‘That’s right, lass, get your war paint on. Somebody who knows him might see you even if he doesn’t, and run back with the tale. Let him know what he’s missing.’

  ‘I should think he already knows what he’s missing, Mam. We’ve been married long enough,’ Lynn said.

  Nina handed Lynn her best perfume. ‘It makes you irresistible to men. Spray at your own risk.’

  Lynn sprayed generously. ‘I should have a pack of ’em following me down the street now. If not, you can take it back and demand a refund.’

  ‘Ready then?’ her father grinned, looking smart in his best suit.

  ‘I am.’ Lynn slipped on the new burgundy-coloured three-quarter-length leather coat he’d paid fifteen pounds ten for only three hours earlier, and they set out for the ’Road.

  *

  In the Halfway Lynn’s heart turned over when she spotted Graham among the crowd waiting to be served. He must have got rid of his painted doll and come here looking for her! She nudged her mother, with a nod in his direction and an apprehensive glance at her father, who was determinedly making his way towards the bar. ‘It’s too crowded in here,’ she said. ‘Can’t we move on?’

  ‘No point,’ her mother said, obviously failing to see Graham. ‘It’ll be crowded everywhere.’

  ‘No, look who’s over there! Let’s go, before my dad spots him.’

  ‘Where? Where?’

  ‘There!’

  But when the man turned from the bar holding four pints of beer aloft his likeness to Graham dissolved.

  ‘That’s not Graham! It’s nothing like him,’ her mother said, ‘but there’s our Anthony at that table over there, with his new girlfriend. Come on, let’s go and join them.’

  Lynn dragged up a chair and sat next to Brenda, a round-faced, delicate-featured girl with a milk-and-roses complexion, pale blue eyes and a slight ginger tendency in her fairish, shoulder-length hair.

  ‘I dig your frock, Lynn!’ Brenda said. ‘Psychedelic. A bit on the mini side, in’t it?’

  ‘Aye, well, I’m a dedicated follower of fashion, Brenda,’ Lynn said.

  ‘She’s got good legs, that’s why she’s taken to minis. Best pair of legs in Hull, our Lynn!’ Catching his girlfriend’s expression Anthony quickly added, ‘Barring yours, Brenda.’

  A very masculine-looking young man in a smart grey suit appeared and set two beers and a port and lemon down on the table. Lynn glanced up into a broad healthy face under a crop of short brown hair.

  ‘This is Alec, Alec McCauley. We had a good trip, didn’t we, Alec? I’ll soon have your job, though.’

  Alec’s wide smile revealed strong, straight teeth. ‘Not until I’ve got the skipper’s job! I want a glass sou’wester. When I’m on deck and the sea’s drenching me and rolling me all over I look up and see the old man sitting up there on the bridge, nice and warm and dry, looking down at me, and I think: that’s the best job. I’ll have a dollop of that. Can I get you two ladies a drink?’

  Lynn’s mother returned his smile. ‘No thanks, we’ve got one coming.’

  ‘You’re a long way from home, Alec, judging by your accent,’ Lynn said, noting a lively interest in his steady blue eyes. Mariner’s eyes, accustomed to scanning far horizons, she thought.

  ‘I’m from Fleetwood,’ he said, with a glance at the third finger of her left hand.

  ‘He came with his dad. They’ve got digs on Bricknall Avenue with a retired trawler engineer and his wife – next door but one to your in-laws, Lynn.’ Anthony grimaced, thumbing his nose in mockery of them.

  ‘Ex-in laws – soon will be, anyway,’ she corrected him, and in case Anthony hadn’t told Brenda, she added, for her benefit: ‘He’s mucking about with another woman now.’

  ‘Who? Gordon?’ Brenda asked.

  Lynn’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You know them, then?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘No, not Gordon – Graham,’ Lynn said, and described her encounter with the unforgettable Mandy of the vivid green eyelids.

  Alec spluttered, choking on his beer.

  Lynn’s father gave him a hefty slap on the back. ‘That went down the wrong way!’

  Alec coughed, his eyes watering.

  ‘You all right, mate?’ Anthony asked.

  Alec nodded. ‘I was talking to somebody like that not two hours ago,’ he wheezed. ‘She came round with a parcel. My landlady was out when the postman came, so he’d left it with them. I thought she was their daughter.’

  Lynn’s mouth fell open. ‘Are yo
u telling me they’ve got her in the house? She’s staying there?’

  ‘She was there to give me the parcel, anyhow – if it’s the same lass. And if it’s not, she’s got a double.’

  ‘I’ll lay him out!’ Anthony threatened.

  Except for a ‘Hah!’ Lynn was speechless. Her mother-in-law had made so many sneering comments about a young neighbour who’d had a baby out of wedlock that Lynn could never for a minute have imagined her entertaining Mandy, not in her wildest dreams.

  ‘That don’t surprise me,’ Brenda piped up. ‘Graham’s had plenty of coaching in how to be an adulterer from his dad.’

  Lynn gaped at her. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Gordon! He was doing the dirty deed with his best friend’s wife for years, as well as the barmaid at the Good Fellowship. Everybody knows that – except his wife, I suppose. He used to take Graham with him when he got older. Graham’s seen him, chatting her up – the barmaid, I mean. He bragged about it to him. I know because my cousin went out with him for a while, and he told her. Oh, aye, Graham learned quite a lot off his old dad, by his own account.’

  ‘Well, he never told me that, and I can’t imagine Connie putting up with it,’ Lynn challenged her

  ‘Nobody bothered to tell her, I suppose.’ Brenda laughed, ‘And she’d be too busy dusting her light fittings and polishing her floors to notice, my cousin reckoned. She’s very house-proud, by all accounts.’

  ‘Like father, like son, then,’ said Anthony. ‘You’ll never have that trouble with me, lass.’

  ‘I won’t, will I – seeing you’ll be at sea for three weeks at a stretch and only three days ashore. It don’t leave you a lot of time for messing with other blokes’ wives and chatting barmaids up, does it?’

  Lynn’s father came and put the drinks on the table, just in time to catch the tail end of the conversation. ‘It don’t leave you enough time to look after your own wife properly, never mind anybody else’s,’ he said, with a wink at Nina. ‘It’s time I gave it up and came ashore. So who’s chatting barmaids up?’

  Lynn listened in total humiliation while Brenda told her father all about Gordon Bradbury and Graham.

  Tom Carr listened to her with a deepening frown. ‘Well, he’s gone one better than his old dad, then, hasn’t he?’ He looked at Lynn with a warning light in his eyes. ‘Tell him to sling his hook now and come home for good, while you’ve only got our Simon. If that’s how he’s carrying on you don’t know what you might end up with.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘If a woman will jump into bed with a bloke she’s hardly known five minutes, what’s the odds it’s not the first time? What’s the odds she’s not clean?’

  Lynn gave a grimace of disgust, her head spinning with all this new and nasty information. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Anyway, I’ve already decided. I’m going for a divorce. Janet’s put me on to a real good solicitor.’ She glanced at her mother, who had said nothing so far. ‘What do you think, Mam?’

  ‘Well, if he’s that bad, I suppose you’ll have to,’ Nina shrugged.

  Lynn’s father looked astounded. ‘If he’s that bad?’ he repeated. ‘If? He’s shifted another woman into her bed! How bad do you want it, Nina?’

  Nina turned to Lynn. ‘All right, then,’ she said, ‘you’d better go and get the rest of your stuff tomorrow.’

  ‘Hell, he’s moved her into your house!’ Brenda exclaimed. ‘He has gone one better than his old dad then. At least Gordon kept it outside.’

  ‘Come on,’ Anthony said, ‘drink up and forget Graham Bradbury. We’re supposed to be out to enjoy ourselves We’re supposed to be showing Alec how to get paralytic on a Hessle Road pub crawl.’

  They drank up and headed for the next pub down that road, maybe two-and-a-half miles long from Dee Street to Osborne Street, and renowned for its abundance of fishing families and licensed premises.

  *

  ‘North to the Faroe Islands, south to the coast of Spain

  West with the whaling fleet and off to the Pole again

  Over the world of water, seventeen seas I’ve strayed

  Now to the north I’m sailing, back to the Trawling

  Trade . . .’

  The folk singer’s fingers flew like lightning over his guitar strings as he accompanied his jaunty song. A few in the audience joined enthusiastically in the chorus:

  ‘Come, ye bold seafaring men,

  There’s fortunes to be made

  In the Trawling Trade

  In the Trawling Trade!’

  The place was packed to capacity, with no hope of getting a seat. Surrounded by people determined to enjoy themselves, Lynn felt marooned on her own little ice floe of misery, unable to think of anything but Graham and imagining she saw his face everywhere.

  ‘We’ll stay ’ere, shall we?’ Anthony said, his speech a little slurred at this, their fifth port of call. ‘I like a bit of entertainment, and this bloke’s norra bad singer.’

  ‘He’s brill!’ Brenda said, her feet tapping to the music.

  ‘Back to the midnight landings, back to the fish-dock smell,

  Back to the frozen wind, as hard as the teeth of Hell.

  Back to the strangest game that ever a man has played,

  Follow the stormy rollers, back to the Trawling Trade!

  Come, ye bold seafaring men,

  There’s fortunes to be made . . .’

  ‘What do you think, then, Alec,’ Lynn’s father said. ‘Do you reckon you’ll make your fortune in the trawling trade?’

  Alec raised an eyebrow and there was a gleam in his blue eyes. ‘Tell me what other trade there is where you can get right to the top without years in college? I left school at fifteen with no qualifications, but I stand as good a chance as anybody else in trawling. If you’ve got enough gumption and a bit of good luck you can do all right – my dad’s proved that.’

  ‘Following in your father’s footsteps,’ Lynn’s father grinned.

  ‘I could do a lot worse. He’s a skipper, and he’s doing all right. Ten per cent of the catch, after expenses. Not bad, is it? So what’s to stop me doing the same?’

  ‘Nothing, if your dad’s paved the way for you,’ Anthony said. ‘The owners like skippers’ sons.’

  Alec shrugged, appearing not to resent the jibe. ‘So, make the best of your advantages, is my motto.’

  There was no slur in Alec’s speech, Lynn noted, and his words seemed to be directed at her as much as at her father. Alec McCauley was going somewhere, at least according to Alec McCauley, and he evidently didn’t intend to be long about it. So, his father was a skipper, and it was easy to believe that he would be one too; a successful one – maybe even a Don. He looked the type – broad shoulders, wide brow and steady eye, altogether built for command. While Alec’s plans for his future washed over her Lynn sat half listening, wondering what Graham might be doing at that exact moment. Fishermen, she thought – after three weeks at sea you’d think they’d have had enough of the subject of ships and fishing grounds and what they could have done better than the skipper but the talk usually came back to that, one way or another, and she’d heard it all before.

  ‘Where’s your dad?’ she asked. ‘Didn’t he want to come out?’

  ‘He’s still fishing, I expect. I haven’t sailed with him since I was a nipper, learning the trade on pleasure trips in the summer holidays. You’ve got to cut loose sometime, and the sooner the better, I think. I’ll get there on my own.’

  Lynn saw her father’s reaction to Alec – he evidently respected him.

  ‘Hell, aye. It’s a bad idea to sail with relatives, and if your dad’s a skipper, the rest of the crew would soon be crying favouritism,’ he said.

  She nodded vaguely, scanning the pub, engrossed in thoughts of Graham, but not too engrossed to realise that Alec was trying to impress her. That chap nearest to the singer – if that wasn’t Graham it was his spitting image . . .

  But when he got up to go to the bar sh
e saw it wasn’t Graham. Graham seemed to have had a double in every pub they’d been in, or she had Graham on the brain, more like.

  Now Alec was looking at her, as if waiting for an answer. He’d obviously said something she hadn’t quite caught.

  ‘Pardon?’ she said.

  ‘I said if you’re not doing anything tomorrow night, come dancing with us. I’m supposed to be going with Anthony and Brenda but I don’t fancy it without a partner.’

  ‘Well, there’s our Simon . . .’ Lynn said.

  ‘Don’t worry about our Simon. We’ll look after Simon,’ Her father cut in. ‘You go out and enjoy yourself.’

  ‘Excuse me!’ Nina challenged, looking her husband straight in the eye. ‘What about me enjoying myself, after I’ve been on my own for three weeks? We’ll be going out. We’ll be going dancing ourselves, if we’re not going to the theatre.’

  Our Margaret probably wouldn’t mind looking after Simon for the night, Lynn thought. Her sister seemed to have no objection to children and already had four boys of her own, although she was not yet thirty. Lynn had once attempted to share the knowledge about contraception she’d acquired in nurse training with her, but Margaret’s only reaction to that had been to avert her grey-blue eyes, blush to the roots of her fair hair and change the subject, making it clear that her private life with Jim would be kept private. Lynn had been embarrassed then, and acutely aware of having trodden on forbidden territory. She’d never tried it again.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she asked Alec.

  ‘Beverley Road, I think. Brenda knows.’

  Beverley Road was one of the places Graham liked to go. He might even be taking Green Eyelids there. Lynn looked again at Alec, sizing him up as a rival to Graham. Not as good-looking maybe, but he was a full three inches taller, with a perfect physique and an air of assurance that commanded respect – all in all, a man that no woman would be ashamed to be seen with. A satisfying little scenario began playing in her mind, of Graham Bradbury looking on from the sidelines, mad with jealousy at the sight of his wife dancing in the arms of this imposing young stranger – and she knew for a fact that Graham would never have the guts to challenge the stronger man. Her mother was right, Lynn thought. Let Graham get an eyeful. Let him see what he’s missing – and if he tried to talk to her, she’d cut him dead.