‘Aye, aye, I know, lass. Don’t take on. Come here, come on, we’re not going to fall out today of all days.’ Art’s voice was deflated and as he took his wife in his arms she rested against him for a moment, her head falling on his chest.
She knew she was lucky to have a man like Art and certainly, if his mother had had her way, they wouldn’t have been wed. Edith had already had a lass lined up for her third eldest child when he had met her, Gladys, at the Avenue Theatre. She and two of her friends had gone to see a staging of Richelieu, one of her friends having been given free tickets by her uncle who was the stage manager.
There had been ructions when Art had first taken her home, but he’d stood his ground, even when it had rocked under his mother’s fury, and once they had been wed Edith had made a show of accepting her into the fold. But it was only a show. Art’s mother never missed a chance to belittle her if she could, and Gladys knew it was that, more than anything else, that got under her husband’s skin. But family was family, and Edith was his mother, and they couldn’t not go on Christmas Day. They’d never hear the end of it.
Nevertheless, Gladys’s thoughts made her voice soft as she raised her head and looked into her husband’s big, good-looking face, and as she touched his cheek with the palm of her hand she said quietly, ‘It’ll only be for a few hours, love, and Dan will be glad you’re there.’
‘Aye.’ Art rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘That’s true enough. I don’t know how Dan puts up with it day in, day out. But he was never one for causing a scene, Dan. Anything for an easy life.’
‘Maybe.’ Gladys inclined her head but her voice was at variance with the action when she continued, ‘He’s a gentle soul, your Dan, and he thinks a bit of Kitty as well as feeling responsible for your mam now the twins are married, but still waters run deep, Art. There’s times . . . well, when I think he doesn’t like your mam much.’
‘That makes two of us.’
‘Oh, Art.’
‘I’m not pretending, lass, not with you. You know what I think, and I tell you there are times when I feel sick to me stomach that I haven’t had the guts to make a break with the whole lot of ’em – ’cept our Dan of course. The way John struts around the warehouses at times . . . But there it is. The wage packet can’t be ignored, eh?’
The last was bitter and Gladys’s voice was even softer when she said, ‘It’s not that and you know it. Your da would have wanted you to stay in the family business, it would have broken his heart if you’d split from the boys and your mam, now wouldn’t it? And you and Dan are a good influence in there. I reckon John would have gone down the line before now with some of the shady deals he’d have got involved in if you and Dan hadn’t put your foot down.’
‘Perhaps it’d have taught him a lesson.’
‘No, not John.’ Gladys could have said much more but this was not a day for honesty, more for glossing over Art’s brother’s strange dark nature, and now, as two small children, a boy and a girl, came hurtling into the room, the boy carrying a brightly painted toy steam engine and the girl a big flaxen-haired doll, she said brightly, ‘Come on you two, go and get your coats and hats ready to go round your granny’s.’ And to the heated chorus of protest which immediately ensued – and which their father made no effort to check – Gladys said firmly, but without any real conviction, ‘That’s enough of that, you’ll enjoy it when you get there.’
Kitty had almost finished the last elaborate table setting in the tastefully decorated dining room when Dan found her just before eleven that morning, and she squealed before covering her mouth with her hand as he tweaked her playfully in the ribs.
‘Eee, you! You’re not too old to have your backside smacked, me lad,’ she warned him, her eyes bright, and then, as her gaze fell on to the small, gaily wrapped package he was holding out to her, ‘What’s this? You’ve already given me me present.’
‘Chocolates and stockings?’ He dismissed the earlier present with a scornful wave of his hand. ‘That wasn’t your present, not really, but I wanted to give you this . . . privately.’
He had intended his tone to sound airy, but when Kitty looked into his eyes and said, ‘Why, lad?’ he didn’t know how to express himself. How could he say that he had wanted this moment to be special for her, that he knew of everything she had to put up with from his mother and that he often felt for her, especially because he knew she stayed to make life easier for him, and even for the rest of them although they were married and not so close to his mother’s authority. And he loved this big plump woman in front of him, he loved her in a way he’d never done his natural mother. He should have been Kitty’s child, that was the way he felt.
Kitty watched his Adam’s apple move up and down as he swallowed and searched for words, but whatever she read in his face seemed to satisfy her because she made a little movement with her head as she said, ‘Oh, lad, lad. Thank you,’ and she took the present from him, opening it carefully.
The little ruby and diamond pin was exquisite and worked in fine gold, and at her gasp of delight he removed it from the box and pinned it, very tenderly, on the lapel of her black alpaca dress.
‘Eeee, no, I can’t wear it there. She’ll ask me where I got it,’ Kitty protested tremblingly. Edith had always been jealous and resentful of the regard in which Dan held her and she didn’t want a scene on Christmas Day.
‘And you tell her.’ His voice was firm and cold as he spoke of his mother, but that wasn’t unusual. ‘I bought it for you to wear, Kitty, not to hide away; I just wanted to give it to you when we were by ourselves, that’s all. I’m not ashamed of giving it to you.’
‘An’ I’m not ashamed of wearin’ it, don’t think that, lad,’ she said softly, her eyes moist. ‘It’s just that she gets a bit . . . upset like, at times.’
His mother’s tyrannical rages and rapacious quest to control and manipulate every area of all of their lives couldn’t be termed ‘getting upset’, Dan thought wryly, but looking into Kitty’s troubled face he made himself smile. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said softly, ‘I’ve thought of everything, you know your lad.’ It was said to make her laugh, and when she did, he added, ‘I’ve bought her a pendant, all right? I’ll give it to her in a minute.’
‘Oh, thank you, lad, thank you.’ Kitty patted his arm gently, and such was the strangeness of the atmosphere they had lived in for so long, neither of them considered it odd that Kitty should be so grateful Dan had bought his mother a gift too.
It was two o’clock. The first course of dressed crab had been served and eaten, and John had just carved the enormous turkey and they were all helping themselves to vegetables from the heaped dishes in the centre of the table. There were seventeen present in all, although the youngest three children were in high-chairs. Edith, seated at the head of the table, was smiling and almost gay for once, Dan’s heavy gold pendant resting against the silk of her grey frock. Next to her sat John and his wife, Ann, and their only child, Sidney, who was fifteen years of age and like his mother in appearance. They were making conversation with Art and Gladys and their two children, Catherine who was ten and David who was two years younger, the youngsters comparing presents and the adults laughingly bemoaning the state of their bank balances.
The twins and their wives were either side of Dan, and their children, girls of six and two for Gilbert and Doreen, and twin girls of three for Matthew and Ruth, were clearly overexcited and on the verge of becoming tearful.
It looked to be a jolly family gathering, the festive table, laden with food and bottles of wine, adding to the air of prosperity and overall lush ambience, and Edith felt a deep satisfaction as she surveyed her possessions – her children and grandchildren being the most rewarding. She was even sufficiently mellowed to include Gladys in the thought today, although normally the mere sight of the big, strapping woman who looked what she was – a nice, ordinary, working-class northern lass – was enough to set her teeth on edge.
She would make sure Dan didn’t make the same mistake Art had at any rate. Dan would marry well, very well, she was determined of that. She touched the pendant at her throat, a small smile playing about her mouth as she glanced down the table at her youngest son, her face serene and content.
John caught the gesture – it was the same one his mother had made several times during the two hours they had been with her- and his jaw set tightly. You would have thought no one had ever given her anything before, the way she had rammed that damned bauble down all their throats the minute they’d got in the door. There were the twins, they’d given her the silver cutlery set which must have cost a pretty penny, and Art and Gladys had stoked up for the monogrammed leather luggage, nice bit of leather too. And his gold and mother-of-pearl jewellery box would have cost more than all the rest put together. And what does she bill and coo over? A tuppenny-ha‘p’orth of nowt. Damn her.
But he knew something that would put Dan in his place, aye, and he wouldn’t be the blue-eyed boy then, would he. A few words from him and he’d wipe that look off his mother’s face all right. The thought warmed him, relaxing his jaw. He’d been going to tip her the wink on the quiet but maybe this was better with them all here; he could pass it off as a bit of a joke if he played his cards right. But his mam wouldn’t laugh. Not his mam.
He enjoyed his dinner after that, and once Kitty had served the plum pudding with a rich brandy sauce and they had all got their spoons dug in, he began to hum a popular hit of the year, ‘Hello! Hello! Who’s your lady friend?’ in-between mouthfuls.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ Ann cast him a surprised glance after a moment or two, at the same time as Edith, on his right, her tone irritable, said, ‘John, for goodness sake, what are you humming?’
‘Dan knows. Eh, man? ’Tain’t that right?’ He slurred his words slightly as he spoke, which wasn’t altogether acting; he’d drunk a good few glasses of wine during the meal, and his mother only bought the best.
‘What?’ Dan, at the other end of the table, had been occupied with his youngest niece who had been endeavouring to stick a stray pea up her nose and hadn’t heard what had been said.
‘“Hello! Hello! Who’s your lady friend, who’s the little girly by your side?”’ And at Dan’s blank look, ‘Sorry, man. Have I spoke out of turn?’
‘I don’t know, have you?’ Dan asked coolly.
Oh, so that was the tack he was going to take? Well, he’d fix him right enough. John forced a hick of a laugh, but in spite of his flushed face there were three people in the room who knew he was not as intoxicated as he’d like them all to believe. Dan was one of them, John’s wife, Ann, was another, and Art had been set up too often in the past when they were children by this particular brother not to know when John was following some hidden agenda of his own.
‘Oh, I get it.’ John turned his eyes from Dan to his mother before shrugging his shoulders. ‘Enough said, sorry I spoke.’
‘What’s all this about?’ Edith cast a swift look at Dan’s tight, closed face before nudging John sharply. ‘John? I’m talking to you. What’s going on?’
‘Not for me to say. I just thought he’d have told you, that’s all.’
‘Told me?’ And then, as Edith put two and two together, ‘It’s a girl, is that it? That is it. Who is she and how long has this been going on?’
‘Now don’t take on, Mam. He’s not a bairn –’
‘Cut the hypocrisy, John. You’ve said what you intended to say; at least be man enough to come out into the open.’
Dan’s voice silenced even the chatter of the children. Not one of them had ever heard Dan speak in this way, or seen his face so hard and angry. This was not the easy-going, affable, quiet soul they all knew and – apart from John – liked and loved. This was someone quite different.
‘Wha . . . what do you mean? Nowt wrong in having a bit of fun is there? You should’ve said something if you wanted it kept quiet.’
Dan ignored John’s blustering after one cutting glance at his brother and spoke directly to Edith as he said, ‘John was trying to tell you, in his own inimitable way, that he saw me talking to a girl a few evenings ago. And not just any lass either, this one is known to you – or at least her name is.’
‘Her name?’
‘She is the daughter of Sadie Bell.’
‘What?’
Edith’s voice was not loud but the quality of the one word was enough to cause the twins’ wives to start gathering up the children and ushering them out towards the drawing room. It was only Sidney, John’s boy, who remained at the table with the adults, and his thin face was not the face of a youngster as he moved closer to his mother, putting a hand on her arm.
Ann, for her part, was half turned in her seat and staring at her husband with something approaching hatred on her face, and she spoke next, saying, ‘Whatever this is about you had it all planned, didn’t you, for maximum effect. How could you? How could you on Christmas Day, John, with the bairns and everything?’
‘Shut up you.’
It was quiet and savage, and as their eyes caught and held for a moment the look that passed between them was chilling. Did they know what he was like, the rest of them? Did they have any idea what he was
really
like? The bitter feeling of aloneness, which had begun the day she married John Stewart and was only eased by her son’s love and companionship, flooded Ann now. How many times had she sat with them all like this? she asked herself silently. Joining in the conversation, smiling, acting a part, the part of the contented, quiet wife? Hundreds, thousands probably by now. In the early days of her marriage she had been in the habit of watching Mavis and Jacob, and then Art and Gladys when they had wed, and she’d used to wonder if those women were suffering the torments of the damned too. But they hadn’t been, of course they hadn’t been. Not like her anyway.