The Would-Be Wife Page 4

  She came to life. ‘If Margaret doesn’t mind looking after our Simon, I’ll come,’ she promised. ‘Definitely. You can count me in.’

  Chapter 7

  ‘I didn’t really expect you to be in on a bank holiday weekend, Dave,’ Lynn said on Sunday morning, determinedly behaving towards him as if the episode with the girlie magazine had never happened.

  Dave looked intently at her for a moment and then stood aside to let her in. ‘We never go anywhere on bank holiday weekends,’ he said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because every bugger else is going, that’s why not. Driving for miles in second gear, nose to tail behind a queue of cars waiting to get into Bridlington or somewhere, and having to get out of the van every two minutes to top the radiator up because the water’s boiling is not my idea of fun. I’d rather stop at home and sit in the garden, and take my bucket and spade to the seaside when nobody else is going. Anyway, it looks as if it’s going to piss it down with rain before long, like it generally does on bank holidays.’

  Janet appeared in the hallway smiling indulgently at Dave, evidently quite happy with his determination to stay at home. ‘He’s a misery guts,’ she said. ‘You’ve had your hair done. Have you got a date?’

  Lynn felt the colour rising to her cheeks. ‘Well, if you call making up a foursome with one of our Anthony’s shipmates a date, I have. Anyway I’m glad you’re in, because I’m going to the house to fill a couple of suitcases with the rest of my stuff, and I was hoping you’d come with me.’

  ‘The house,’ Janet repeated. ‘Not “home” any more, then.’

  Lynn’s eyebrows twitched expressively upwards for a second, and the wry expression on her face gave Janet her answer.

  ‘Do you fancy a cup of tea before we go?’

  ‘I’d rather just get on with it.’

  ‘All right, we’ll be off, then.’

  The rain had already started when they set out for the short walk from Richmond Avenue to Marlborough Avenue. Janet put up her umbrella.

  ‘Sorry to drag you out in it, but I didn’t want to go on my own in case she’s still there,’ Lynn said.

  ‘’S all right.’

  ‘Seems like she’s one of the family now. Somebody told me they’d seen her at his mother’s the other day.’

  Janet gave a disdainful little snort, and shook her head.

  ‘Unbelievable. When Dave’s cousin did a bunkoff none of his family would have anything to do with him, not even his mother and father. They stuck with his wife and kids.’

  ‘Well, we’re not talking about Dave’s cousin’s family, we’re talking about mum and dad Brad – and it sounds like they’re welcoming our Graham’s latest with open arms,’ Lynn said.

  Janet gave another snort and shook her head. ‘Shoved them in bed together, maybe,’ she said.

  The downpour started in earnest and Lynn shivered as they passed through the familiar creaking gate and walked up to the door. Her hand trembled slightly as she inserted the key in the Yale and turned it. They went through the hallway and into the living room with its lovely slate fireplace and then through to the dining room, with a few boxes still tidily stacked behind the door, as yet unpacked, months after the move. They wouldn’t need unpacking now, Lynn thought. Not by her, anyway. The house was deathly quiet; no movement, no radio playing, no laughter, no child’s chatter.

  She shivered again. ‘It’s as cold as Christmas in here.’

  Janet gave her a look of unadulterated pity. ‘In more ways than one,’ she said.

  They walked through to the fitted kitchen, with its up-to-the-minute glossy units and the double oven built into the wall. Those ovens had been well used during the few weeks Lynn had lived in the house, and there’d usually been a sink full of pots either draining or waiting to be washed, and clothes either drying on the ceiling rack or in the basket waiting to be ironed, not to mention Simon’s toys scattered about. Now there wasn’t a thing out of place. The kitchen looked like a show room.

  ‘It’s a lot tidier than when I lived here,’ she said.

  ‘It can be, if you’ve got no bairns upsetting things every two minutes, and you never do any cooking or washing,’ Janet said. ‘His mother’ll have taken his washing, and I’ve no doubt she’s been in cleaning the place for him as well, probably telling Mandy what a rotten wife you were and how you never looked after her golden boy properly.’

  Lynn felt the blood drain from her face. She felt sick.

  ‘Sorry,’ Janet said. ‘Me and my big mouth. I ought to mind my own business.’

  ‘It’s all right. It’s funny, but I feel sorry for him.’

  ‘Sorry for who? Graham?’

  Lynn nodded. ‘Aye, I do.’

  Janet looked stunned. ‘What? Why the hell should you feel sorry for Graham?’

  ‘Because one day he’ll wake up and realise what he’s destroyed and what he’s lost – what we’ve all lost – and it’ll be too late. He’ll realise he can never put it right again or get back what he’s thrown away – and he’ll feel like I feel now. I think about him on that day, and I want to cry.’

  ‘You’re imagining he’s like you!’ Janet exclaimed. ‘He’s not! I’ve seen him in action before. He’s a narcissistic little tosser who doesn’t give a monkey’s hang-down how much grief he causes other people, as long as everything’s sweet for him. In fact, I’d go further. I’d go a lot further. I’d say he revels in it. He loves it! He gets off on it!’

  ‘How, though?’

  ‘Because it makes him feel so important!’ Janet said, her face a picture of scorn. ‘He’s the star of his own show! He’s the prize that women squabble over. He decides who the winner’s going to be, and the loser can cut her wrists, for all he cares. In fact, it would only be another ego boost for him if she did. And then after a while he gets bored again – and it’s time to spice his life up with another woman and another drama.’

  Lynn was quiet for a moment, surprised at her normally undemonstrative friend. ‘He’s not as bad as that, but it’s not just between women now. There’s a child – his own son,’ she said.

  ‘Huh! That don’t seem to bother him, does it? He is as bad as that, Lynn, and you’ll see it before you’ve finished. His partner in crime gets the thrills second hand. They’re a pair of tossers, him and Kev, a pair of complete wasters. If it weren’t for Simon, I’d say you’ll be a lot better off without him. In fact, I’d say you’ll be better off without him anyway, because he’d be a rotten influence on him.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be without him before much longer, better off or not,’ Lynn said.

  ‘I just thank my lucky stars Dave’s not that type,’ Janet said.

  ‘Come upstairs while I get my packing done, and then let’s be off.’

  ‘Get it all – get everything you want; you won’t have to carry it. I’ll go and fetch Dave. He’ll run you back to your mother’s in the van,’ Janet said.

  ‘Come with us, will you?’ Lynn said.

  There’s something to be said for the heartache diet, she thought, while pulling on her pantee girdle that evening. It no longer cut her in two, and she could barely pinch an inch of fat around her waist. Buddha was on his own in the big belly stakes now. Her new slimmed-down figure was the silver lining inside the black cloud of her ruined marriage and her up-ended life – and the sight of her slender profile in the mirror gave her a definite boost. She went downstairs wearing a princess-line dress she hadn’t been able to get into for months, and not one roll of fat to be seen.

  Her parents were dressed up for an evening at the theatre. Alec had just arrived. A smile lit up his face when she walked into the room, and he gave her a nod of approval.

  ‘You look as if you’d been poured into that frock,’ he said.

  ‘Take care of her,’ her father warned.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Alec said, ‘she’ll be all right with me.’

  ‘Give up, she’s a grown woman. She can take care of herself,’ Anthony jeer
ed.

  ‘You make a lovely couple,’ Nina said, with a satisfied little smirk. The quick lift of her eyebrows and the knowing look she gave Lynn signified that she hoped Graham Bradbury would be around to see it.

  Chapter 8

  Alec was not much of a dancer, as could only be expected from a lad who’d been at sea since he was fifteen, Lynn thought – but he was good company. He did most of the talking, to begin with. He could spin a good yarn, and made her laugh with tales of his first days at sea, when he’d been so seasick he’d wanted to die, and had felt like bursting into tears when the skipper swore at him.

  ‘Why on earth did you come to Hull?’ she asked.

  ‘I saw a deepwater trawler when we were fishing near St Kilda. I couldn’t believe how big they are, and I decided I had to get on board one. So I came to Hull to do a few trips, see how I like it.’

  ‘And do you like it?’

  ‘I’ve only done one trip to Iceland, and it’s bloody cold up there now. I’m wondering what it’ll be like in winter,’ he laughed, with a mock shiver.

  ‘Not very pleasant, according to my dad. It’ll certainly be too cold for you up at Bear Island, or the White Sea. Get to Iceland’s North Cape in January and come back with frostbite – on your lips, your hands, and your feet.’

  ‘Oh, sounds wonderful.’

  ‘Greenland’s even worse, according to my dad. He was in Godshaven, the capital city of Greenland; he says it’s more like Godforsaken, one or two shops, no pictures, no pubs, no dance halls, no nothing – except glaciers, icebergs and plenty of snow. Apparently as soon as you tie up in Godshaven you’re surrounded by girls, wanting you to get them pregnant.’

  ‘What!’ Alec laughed.

  ‘Yeah, straight up. Because it’s illegal for ’em to stay in Greenland if they’re pregnant. It’s the only way they can get themselves shipped off to Denmark. So you’ve got all that to look forward to, as well as everlasting darkness, gales, icebergs, black frost and ice that settles so thick on the ship and the rigging that you have to get on deck and crack it off just to stay afloat.’

  Alec leaned back and looked at her, eyebrows raised and a smile of shocked amusement playing on his lips. ‘Thanks for the encouragement!’

  ‘Don’t mention it. I was brought up in the wrong place to have any illusions about deepwater fishing,’ she said, warming to her theme. ‘It’s great for the trawler owners though, I’ll grant you that. They never lose, whatever happens. They own the ships, they own the fish houses, the ice house, and even the fish meal factory. You have to buy all your gear from them, frocks, boots, mittens, knives, everything, and you can’t get them anywhere else because they’ve got the monopoly, so they make you pay through the nose . . .’

  Brenda and Anthony danced by. ‘You make a lovely couple,’ Brenda called.

  ‘Thanks!’ Lynn said, wishing that Graham were there to see it. She turned back to Alec. ‘Where was I?’

  ‘They make you pay through the nose.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. If a fisherman has a bad trip, he ends up owing them money. If a ship goes down, the fishermen lose their lives and their widows and orphans go begging – and the owners get a nice insurance payout. They don’t share it with the widows and orphans though, because when a ship sinks it’s an act of God, and they’re not responsible, by their reckoning. You’re no better than their serfs.’ She saw the look in his eyes, and thought: shut up, Lynn.

  ‘We’re not serfs,’ he protested. ‘Serfs have no choices.’

  ‘Nor have the lads on Hessle Road, or very little,’ she said. ‘My mother nearly had a nervous breakdown when our Anthony went to sea, but there really aren’t many other options for lads who don’t get an apprenticeship somewhere. So the lads are bred to fishing, and the lasses are bred to being fisherman’s wives – most of us.’ She didn’t go into her own determination to marry out of the fishing community and leave the life that was like Christmas for three days out of every three weeks – followed by the gut-churning feeling most of the women had when the taxis came to take their men back to their ships, not daring to wave them goodbye, not daring to look at the trawler as it left in case they never saw it again – and then three weeks of worry until they landed again. She didn’t tell him she’d vowed to turn her back on all that and had deliberately chosen a man who risked nothing, who would be guaranteed to come home every night, who would probably live to be ninety, who got his thrills by breaking hearts rather than by braving seas. The only salt water Graham had ever braved were the tears of the women he’d used and cast aside.

  ‘It doesn’t seem to have put your dad off, anyway,’ Alec said. ‘It’s not too cold and dangerous for him.’

  ‘As long as the ship stays afloat it’ll never be too cold for him, will it?’ she said. ‘It’s nice and warm where he is. He generally picks a pile of sweat rags up at the Owners’ Association Stores on his way to the boat.’

  Alec nodded. ‘Oh, aye – he’s in the engine room. Maybe I should have become an engineer. But when my beard’s frozen solid I can always cheer myself up with the thought of a tot of rum. That’s one of the best things about deepwater trawlers – the bond!’

  ‘Ah, yes, that lovely little duty-free shop, where you get your fags and booze. They don’t let you bring it ashore, though. That’s always been a sore point with my dad and our Anthony.’

  ‘It’s a sore point with everybody,’ he laughed. ‘Joe Bloggs can nip across the channel to spend an hour or two in Boulogne, and bring his bottles of spirit back as well as two hundred fags. We do a five-day trip to the Arctic, maybe fifteen hundred miles, and the most we’re allowed is two packs of fifty cigs. And the customs men are the first on board when we dock, rooting through all our stuff.’

  ‘ “Rummagers”, we call them, but they were never the first on board here – we were,’ Lynn laughed, her mood lightening at the memory. ‘Many’s the time we’ve smiled sweetly as we walked past them with a few of packs of duty-free fags tucked in our big coats, or even in our knickers. They knew what was going on, but they never asked to search us. It was more a lip-service thing, their rummaging; they were quite sympathetic to the fishermen really, as long as they didn’t overstep the mark.’

  ‘Meet us next time we come home – I’ll lift you on board and you can smuggle some for me,’ Alec said, and gave her a wide smile.

  ‘I would, but my mini’s too short, my bell-bottoms are too tight, and I haven’t got a big coat. I’d be sure to get caught. So how do you like Hull?’ she asked.

  ‘It looks all right from where I’m standing,’ he said, gazing appreciatively at her. ‘Full of good-looking women from what I’ve seen so far.’

  Except that one of the women you’ve seen is from Leeds, she almost said, her eyes searching the dance hall for Graham. The evening passed without any sight of him, and when the taxi carried the four of them to Boulevard at the end of it Lynn said a careless goodbye to Alec.

  ‘I was going to hire a taxi for the day, maybe have a look round York tomorrow, Lynn,’ he said, as she was getting out of the taxi. ‘Do you fancy a day out? We could go and get a meal somewhere.’

  Brenda jumped at the idea. ‘We’ll come with you!’

  ‘I thought you wanted to go to Withernsea!’ Anthony said.

  ‘Well, I’ve changed my mind.’

  ‘All right, we’ll all go,’ Anthony agreed, ‘and split the taxi fare. What about it, Lynn?’

  ‘I don’t want to leave Simon.’

  ‘Don’t leave him, then! Bring him with us!’ Alec said.

  ‘Well, if you’re sure you don’t mind . . .’

  Nobody seemed to mind, Alec least of all. What a smashing bloke he was, Lynn thought. Being out with him had gone a long way towards patching up her tattered self-esteem. Yet Graham had never been far from her thoughts all evening, and it sickened her to think that he would never see what a lovely couple she and Alec had made.

  They set off in high spirits, passing through East Yorkshire villages t
hat Alec had never seen, and that Lynn and Anthony barely remembered. Alec and Anthony kept them laughing with tales of their antics during their first days at sea and some of the characters they’d met on board, until Simon demanded to be taken on a ship with them.

  The taxi finally drove through the gate of York to reveal some of the beautiful half-timbered medieval buildings that Alec had wanted to see. Instead he got the driver to sweep straight past them all and down to the river, where they joined a queue to go on a pleasure trip. Simon raced up and down the riverside with Lynn chasing after him for fear he might fall in. Alec finally stopped him by swinging him up onto his shoulders.

  ‘I’d have thought you two would have had enough of water,’ Brenda said, when they finally found seats on board.

  ‘Call this water? There’s hardly enough to make a cup of tea,’ Anthony said.

  ‘No icebergs in it, either,’ Alec said.

  Brenda looked at Lynn, and voiced her very thoughts. ‘I wonder where Lover-boy is today?’

  ‘Probably taken his tart to the seaside, if she hasn’t already gone back to Leeds,’ Anthony guessed. ‘Tell him to take a long walk on a short pier, Lynn.’

  Lynn looked significantly towards Simon, and gave a slight shake of her head. The rest of the party took the hint, and fell silent.

  They cruised peacefully along under an almost cloudless blue sky, with the sun shining on the water. The boatman gave them the history of various buildings they passed and pointed out the high water marks on the stone-reinforced river banks that bore testimony to the numerous times the city had been flooded As they were returning to the wharf Alec was telling them a tale of having fallen into a tar barrel while skylarking with some other lads during his time in the net store in Fleetwood. Lynn was laughing, when she saw Graham and Green Eyelids in the queue waiting for the next cruise. Her eyes met Graham’s and the laughter died in her throat. A second later she felt Brenda’s elbow in her ribs.