Bel grimaced. “Thanks, but no thanks.”
“One more thing. Under no circumstances must our Martha come to me funeral. I’m not having it, d’you hear?”
“I hear, Flo, but why all this morbid talk about death and funerals?”
“I took the policy out years ago. It was this morning at the crematorium that I decided I’d sooner be buried.”
“Flo!” Bel’s face was a tragedy. “I’d completely forgotten about Ian’s funeral. Was it awful, luv? How’s your Sally taking it? Did the dress fit all right?”
“The dress looked simply divine,” Flo said tiredly. The expression had become a joke between them. “As for the other, it was awful, yes. Sally’s taken it hard, and so’s Jock.”
“Shall we do something exciting tomorrer night, Sat’day, like go somewhere dead extravagant for a meal?
It might cheer you up.”
“Sorry, Bel, but I’m going on retreat in the morning.”
Bel groaned. “You’re a miserable bugger, Flo Clancy.
What do you do on these retreats, anyroad?”
“Pray,” Flo said virtuously.
“They’re a waste of time—a waste of life!”
“I don’t see you doing anything earth-shattering.”
“I’ve got an important job.”
“So’ve I.”
“I get taken out to dinner.”
“Mr Fritz takes me out to dinner sometimes.”
“He takes us both, so that’s not counted.” Bel sat on the edge of the settee and rested her chin in her hands. She said, thoughtfully, “Actually, Flo, it’s well past the time you and Fritz got something going together.”
Flo laughed. “I’m happy as I am, thanks all the same.
Anyroad, it’s well past the time you found yourself another husband.”
Bel ignored this. “These damn retreats, I can’t think of anything more boring and miserable than praying nonstop for two whole days.”
“Oh, I dunno,” said Flo. “The thing is, I always come back feeling spiritually uplifted and enriched.”
“I can’t understand it,” Sally said distractedly. “It’s as if Ian was the glue that kept us together.” She ran her fingers through her short, greying hair. “But when did me and Jock need anything to keep us together? I love him, and I know he loves me. Remember the day we met him and his mate, Flo, on the New Brighton ferry?”
“I’ll never forget that day, luv.” It was the last time she had seen Tommy O’Mara.
Her sister’s marriage was falling apart. Grace didn’t help. She accused her mam and dad of always having cold-shouldered her, of making her feel second best.
“Then me and Jock have a go at each other,” Sally moaned. “I tell him it’s his fault Grace feels the way she does, and he says it’s mine.”
The only good thing to come out of the whole sad business was that the two sisters had become close again.
Sally frequently turned up at the launderette just as Flo was closing, and they would walk back to William Square, arm in arm. Jock went to a social club in Kirkby almost every night—“As if all he wants is to have a good time with his mates. I think I remind him too much of what we went through with Ian. He won’t come with me to church.”
“I don’t know what advice to give, Sal,” Flo said truthfully. She thought her sister spent far too much time in church, but preferred not to say so. “Perhaps it’s just a stage he’s going through. He needs to let off steam.
Jock’s a good man at heart.”
“It’s not advice I need,” Sally sniffed, just someone to talk to. Our Martha’s come up with enough advice to write a book, from giving our Grace a good hiding to wiping the floor with Jock.”
“Both of which would do more harm than good.”
“That’s what I said. Mind you, her Kate’s been a great help. She often comes round to see me.” Suddenly Sally seemed to find a mole on the back of her hand enormously interesting. Without meeting her sister’s eyes, she mumbled, “I can’t understand how our Martha ended up with such a lovely daughter, and we were landed with Grace. Oh!” she cried tearfully. “Forget I said that. I love my girl, but I don’t half wish she were different.”
“I wish all sorts of things were different, Sal.” Flo sighed. “You must bring Kate round to see me sometime.
I’d like to get to know her.”
She had never intended it to be this way, but it had all started the day she first saw Tommy O’Mara through a mist of steam in Fritz’s laundry: Flo’s life seemed to be divided into little boxes, each one carefully marked “Secret”.
Martha and Sally knew this about her, Mr Fritz knew that. Hugh O’Mara thought he was her friend. No one knew about the servicemen during the war. There were her bogus “retreats”. Bel, who thought she knew every thing there was to know, knew virtually nothing, only that for a short time before the war she’d gone out with Tommy O’Mara.
Flo often worried that one day something might be said that would lift the lid off a box, give away one of her secrets, expose one of her lies.
It nearly happened the day Sally came to the flat, bringing Kate Colquitt with her. Bel was there, and they’d just watched Roman Holiday on television—Bel still went weak at the knees over Gregory Peck.
“This is Kate Colquitt, our Martha’s girl,” Sally said.
Flo could have sworn that Bel’s ears twitched. She still longed to know why Flo and Martha never spoke.
“Martha’s girl, eh! Pleased to meet you, Kate. How’s your mam keeping these days?”
“Very well, thank you.” The girl had a sweet, high-pitched voice.
“Why didn’t you bring her with you?” Bel enquired cunningly. Flo threw her a murderous glance. Bel caught the look and winked.
Kate merely replied, The mam doesn’t know I’ve come.” She turned to Flo, green eyes shining in her lovely fresh face. “I’ve always wanted to meet you, Auntie Flo. I saw you at Ian’s funeral. I was going to introduce meself, but when I looked for you you’d gone.”
“Please call me Flo. ‘Auntie’ makes me feel a bit peculiar.”
“Okay.” She followed her aunt into the kitchen when Flo went to make a pot of tea, chatting volubly. “I like your flat, it’s the gear. I’d love a place of me own, but me mam’s dead set against it. She says I’m too young. How old were you when you came here, Flo?”
“Twenty.”
“There! Next month I’ll be twenty-two. So I’m not too young, am I?” She looked at Flo, wide-eyed and artless.
“I was a very old twenty,” Flo muttered. An incredibly old twenty compared to this girl, who was too innocent for this world. She looked as vulnerable and defenceless as a flower by the wayside.
“There are times,” Kate sighed, “when I’d love to be by meself. Y’know, read a book and stuff, watch the telly.”
Flo imagined her mother, Martha the Manipulator, never allowing her daughter a minute’s peace. “Why do you need a red bow in your hair when you’re only going to see Josie Driver?” “I’d sooner you didn’t go out with a Protestant, Sal.” “You’ve always got your head buried in a book, Flo Clancy.” And then there was Norman, which meant that Kate had two overbearing people to cope with, wanting her to do things their way. Sally said that he had moved to Kirkby and he was round at the house almost every night.
“Are you having a party on your birthday?” Flo asked brightly, as she arranged the cups and saucers on a tray.
“Just a few friends. You can come if you like.”
“Ta, luv, but I don’t think that’s such a good idea.” She picked up the tray. “D’you mind bringing that plate of biscuits with you, save me coming back?”
“What happened between you and me mam, Flo?” Kate enquired earnestly. “Auntie Sally says I’m not to mention I’ve been to see you. It must be something awful bad.”
Flo chuckled. “That’s something you need to ask your mam, luv.” One thing she knew for certain was that the girl wouldn’t get a truthful answer.
They went into the living room. “You took your time,”
Bel said. “I’m parched for a cuppa.”
“I remember you used to wait for Hugh O’Mara outside St Theresa’s,” Kate went on, “though I didn’t know you were me auntie then.”
Bel’s head jerked upwards and she looked at Flo, her face full of questions.
The very second Sally and Kate left, Bel burst out, “Hugh O’Mara! Who’s Hugh O’Mara? Is he related to Tommy? I didn’t know he had a kid.”
“Why should you?”
“I thought you’d have said.”
Flo explained that Hugh had been born after Tommy died. It was hateful giving credit to Nancy for something she’d done herself, but too much time had passed for Bel to know the truth. Flo couldn’t have stood the gasps of incredulity, the astounded comments. Bel would have crawled through the snow to get back her baby. Bel would have stood on the rooftops screaming to the world that her baby had been stolen, then demolished Nancy’s front door with a battering ram once she had discovered where he was. The realisation that another woman wouldn’t have taken it as meekly as she had made Flo feel uneasy. It was a bit late to regret what a coward she’d been, too easily influenced by the wishes of her family.
“That’s all very well,” Bel hooted, when Flo finished her careful explanation, “but what the hell were you doing waiting for the lad outside St Theresa’s?”
I should have been a spy, Flo thought. I would have been brilliant at lying meself out of the most dangerous situations. She said that a woman at the laundry had had a son in the same class as Hugh. “They were friends. I used to go by St Theresa’s on Fridays on me way from the bank. Peggy asked me to make sure Jimmy was going straight home. That’s how I met Hugh. He was a nice lad, quite different from his dad. I still see him,” she added casually. “If he’s passing the launderette, he might drop in.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Bel said, outraged out of all proportion.
“I didn’t think you’d be interested.”
“Why, Flo Clancy, you know I’m interested in every thing!”
“Well, you know now, don’t you?” Flo snapped.
It was a whole year before Jock tired of the social club and Sally stopped going quite so often to church. The old harmony was restored. It helped when Grace got engaged to a nice young man called Keith, who worked in a bank, and became absorbed in plans for her wedding eighteen months off at Easter 1966. “Jock’s pulling out all the stops. It’s going to be a grand affair,” Sally announced.
“He thinks if we spend all our savings she’ll realise we love her just as much as we did Ian.”
Sally continued coming to William Square, sometimes bringing Kate Colquitt with her. Flo and Kate got on like a house on fire. “You should have had kids, Flo,” said Bel, who usually managed to be there when visitors came.
“You would have made a wonderful mother.”
It was a bitterly cold January afternoon, a month after her twenty-third birthday, when Kate turned up alone at the launderette. “I hope you don’t mind. I finish work at four.” She made a nervous face. “Norman’s off with a terrible cold and he’s moved in with us for a while so me mam can look after him. I don’t feel like going home just yet. I can’t stand it when both of them get on to me.”
“I don’t mind a bit, luv.” Flo sat the girl in her cubbyhole and made her some tea. Once she’d warmed up, she’d let her loose among her ladies, who’d soon make her forget her troubles. “What do they get on to you about?” she asked.
Kate raised her shoulders and heaved a great sigh.
“Norman wants us to get married and me mam thinks it’s a grand idea. He’s so sweet. I can’t remember a time when he hasn’t been around, yet . . . oh, I dunno. It’s worse now Grace is engaged—she’s four years younger than me. Mam keeps saying I’ll be left on the shelf, but I’m not sure if I care. I’ve started training to be a State Registered Nurse, and I’d like to finish before I settle down. In fact, sometimes I think I wouldn’t mind staying single like you, Flo.”
She made herself useful, helping to untangle washing that had knotted together in the spin-driers, and getting on famously with the customers. She was still there when Flo was about to turn the Open sign to Closed, and Hugh O’Mara came in wearing the leather coat that had taken three months to save for, and which Nancy strongly disapproved of him wearing for work.
“Hugh!” Kate cried, her face lighting up with pleasure.
“I haven’t seen you in ages.”
He appeared equally pleased to find her there. They sat on a bench, heads together, engrossed in conversation, and when the time came for Flo to lock up, the pair wandered off happily, arm in arm. A few days later, Kate turned up again, then Hugh arrived as if it had been prearranged. The same thing happened the next week and the next, until Flo got used to Tuesday and Friday being the days when Kate came to help untangle the washing, was joined by Hugh, and they would go off together into the night. She watched, entranced, as the looks they gave each other became more and more intimate. She realised they were falling in love, and couldn’t have approved more. Her son would never find a prettier, nicer, more suitable wife than Kate Colquitt. She felt sure that even Nancy would be pleased when she was told. So far, everyone except Flo was being kept in the dark.
As the months crept by they were still in the dark. It was obvious to everyone in the launderette, including Mr Fritz, that the young couple were mad about each other, but Kate was too scared to tell her mam. “She never liked Hugh much. She said there was something not quite right about his background.” She asked Flo how people got married in Gretna Green.
“I’ve no idea, luv,” Flo confessed, exasperated. She badly wanted to interfere, to tell them to get a move on, but held her tongue.
“Martha suspects Kate’s got a secret boyfriend,” Sally remarked one day. Apparently there were nights when Kate didn’t get home till all hours and refused to say where she’d been. Poor Norman Cameron was doing his nut.
Flo wondered if Kate was more scared of Norman than of her mam. “He’d kill any man who laid a finger on her,”
Sally had said once. Perhaps she was scared for Hugh. Or maybe she was enjoying the clandestine nature of the affair, just as Flo had enjoyed her illicit meetings with Hugh’s father all those years ago.
Secrecy must have run in both families, the O’Maras and the Clancys, because Kate and Hugh continued to see each other for over a year before everyone found out and all hell broke loose.
Flo had been out of bed barely five minutes when there was a pounding on the door. She opened it, still in her dressing-gown, and Sally came storming in, her normally placid face red with rage.