September Starlings (37 page)

My face was heating up as I finally threw caution and
temper to the winds. ‘Leave go of my arm,’ I shouted. Several passers-by stopped and stared at us, while people in the park, on the other side of the railings, turned and looked before carrying on with their walks and games. ‘You’re always hurting me,’ I said, quieter now. ‘And telling me what to do. You treat me as if I’m stupid, and I’m not. I’ll get married when I’m ready, Tommo. And when I do, I’ll choose my own blinking curtains.’

He dropped his arm and stepped back, a look of amazement narrowing his eyes. ‘You don’t like my mother.’

‘No, I don’t like her at all. She’s a very nasty piece of work, and I won’t live near her.’ I’m sure that I was wearing the look of a person who is surprised by what she’s hearing, even though the words were coming from my own mouth. I had lost all self-control, was whizzing along in the jaws of a hormonal whirlwind.

He nodded. ‘So if I find another place, away from her, can we fix a date?’

‘No.’ He was upsetting me, making me experience all kinds of negative emotions. But Dad had told me that I would be unsteady for a while, something about too many shocks to my system, too many changes. ‘I want a couple of years first.’

‘Why?’

‘To grow up.’

He curled his hand into a fist, smashed it against the opposite palm. ‘Your dad’s done this, hasn’t he? He’s persuaded you to stop at home and be a daddy’s girl. Well, please yourself. I’m not hanging about waiting for you, Laura McNally. There are other girls who’ll take me on, especially now that I’ve got a job. I’m doing accountancy,’ he said proudly. ‘Starting next week. Just office duties at first, but I’ll pass the exams and get higher up the payroll. Some girl will be glad of a chap with prospects.’

I swivelled on my heel and stalked off towards the bus stop. Although my eyes were overflowing, I maintained a steady pace and did not look back. I heard him calling my
name, heard him threatening not to see me again, yet I did not falter. He was the love of my young life and I left him there, outside Queens Park in the middle of Bolton.

Instinct in a woman should never be ignored. I was strong that day, determined that he would not get the better of me. Had I held on to that decision, my path would have been smoother. But Tommo was tough, and he had seen what he wanted. Unfortunately, I was the subject of his wildest dreams.

‘Go back.’ Anne leaned on the wall outside the Black Horse, arranged the skirt decorously round her knees. ‘School is the most important thing in your whole life. Go back and finish the sixth form. You’ve six good passes at ordinary level – why not go on and do the advanced? Then you’ll have more jobs to choose from.’

Everyone in my small world was getting on my nerves. Mother wore an everlasting secret smile, was enjoying the fact that I had been brought down from my ivory tower. Dad had tied himself in knots once more, was trying to invent a type of aspirin that would not irritate the digestive system. John McNally’s whole system was taking a battering, yet he did not have the sense to slow down. Bernard ‘Tommo’ Thompson had taken to staring at me again from a distance, Anne was being all holy about education, and Confetti’s letters were frantic. ‘It doesn’t matter now what you did with your boyfriend, because God is good. Laura, if there were no sinners, God would be out of a job, so get right back to school this minute.’ Et cetera.

‘Shut up, Anne,’ I said. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. In this world, there are readers and doers. I’d prefer to belong in the latter category.’

She stared at me. ‘Swallowed a dictionary? What’s all this “latter category” stuff? Just get off the high horse for a minute, Laura. You know I’m talking sense. If you’re ever alone, a widow or something, you’ll need some qualifications to fall back on. Just because that dozy chap
has left university … Christ, if you listen to that lad, you’ll end up a pauper.’

‘I’ve finished with him,’ I snapped, careful to keep my voice down. The domino set was arriving at the pub, all flat caps and bow legs. ‘Hello, Mr Henderson,’ I called.

They smiled, tottered into the snug where the usual battle would commence after a pint or two. There were two religions in Barr Bridge – Church of England and dominoes. I wished with all my heart that my life could be so simple. Cut a bit of grass, sweep the path, pick up a pension, wage war over a cheat with a double six up his sleeve.

‘You might have finished with him, but he’s not started with you yet.’

My mind was still on the dominoes. ‘What?’

‘Tommo. He’s hanging round again.’

I shrugged. ‘So’s the smell from the cowsheds, but you get used to it after a while.’

She shook her mane of hair. ‘Don’t come over all clever with me, Laura McNally. That boy is trouble. You’re going to waste your life if you stick with him.’

‘I told you – we’re finished.’

‘Ha ha.’ There was a hollow sound to this pale imitation of amusement. ‘No way. He’ll get you back.’

I wondered briefly whether I should tell Anne the reason for my sudden maturation, but decided that she could make much of my short pregancy. If she knew about that, then Tommo’s name would be blackened for ever in my cousin’s book. ‘Anne, you are so good at minding my business. Have you none of your own?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, I’m going to do a history degree, then I’ll go into law. I’ve mapped it all out, Laura. It’s no use reaching your twenties without some idea of the future.’

I sniffed, got down from the wall, searched for a scathing answer. There was none, of course. Anne was going about her life properly, was steering in the direction
of a career, a good job. And I was drifting on the tide of life like a piece of flotsam. I should have listened to her. I should have gone back to school, then college, should have broadened my horizons.

But I didn’t. And Tommo simply waited until he got his own way.

He finally wore me down towards the end of 1960. After several bouts of painful activity, I became pregnant again and ran away from home so that my father might be prevented from performing a second act of kindness. I was also anxious to escape from Mother, whose temper had not improved with the years. She had stopped showing me off long ago, had given up on her early plan to make me into an ‘educated young lady’, but she continued to criticize my every move. So I upped and offed into territory that was no more welcoming than home and a great deal less attractive than our farmhouse on the outskirts of Barr Bridge.

At first, we lived in John Street with Tommo’s parents. As there were three bedrooms, I was allowed to sleep in the house as long as the usual proprieties were observed. Even though I was pregnant, Phoebe Thompson ruled that any contact between her son and me should be strictly verbal.

I hated Phoebe Thompson with an intensity that was both sinful and frightening. She constantly made remarks about my appearance – ‘You really should get that hair cut, because long hair drains a pregnant woman of her strength’ was one of her favourite statements. It was as if she were setting out to destroy me by picking at little bits of my anatomy – my hair, my hands, my complexion. Perhaps she hoped that I would disintegrate before her very eyes if she kept eroding my confidence.

Dad arrived, of course, visited me, tried to persuade me to return home. ‘And you could continue to work for me,’ he said. ‘Just till you get married.’ My job had been a good
one, especially since my graduation from the secretarial college. I was a competent typist, could do shorthand, bookkeeping, filing and office management. Office management at McNally’s had been easy enough, as there had been just one person to manage – myself. Now Dad was taking on a proper staff, was expanding the business in Bolton, Leigh, Chorley and Preston.

I sat on a dining chair and studied my hands. According to Mrs Thompson, my hands were big and ugly, didn’t fit with the rest of me at all. ‘I’m not coming back. Anyway, the wedding’s going to be at Sts Peter and Paul, so I’m going there for instruction. Barr Bridge is too far away.’

‘Are you intending to convert?’

‘No.’ I had been considering becoming a Catholic, had decided to wait until a time when pregnancy had ceased to guide the hand of fate. ‘But I suppose any children will have to be Catholic,’ I added.

Phoebe came in then with a brown teapot and some mugs, eyed my father with the distrust she reserved for me, the dustbin men and strangers. ‘Will you have a flour cake with boiled ham?’ she asked, sounding as if she would prefer to feed both of us to the lions.

‘No, thank you.’ Dad wore the look of an injured man whose final breath might well be choked off by the smallest morsel. ‘I’ll have to be getting back to my work.’

‘Cooling Teas,’ mused Mrs Thompson. She had a habit of sucking her teeth while musing, and she sucked them now as she considered my father’s products. ‘I’ve tried them and they’re no good for fever.’ Before anyone could cut in, she asked, ‘Sugar, Mr McNally?’

‘Two, please.’

She doled out the sugar, stirred vigorously, plonked the mugs in front of us. ‘Fine kettle of fish when they’ve got to get married. Unheard of in my day, it was.’

Dad looked at her. ‘I thought it was rather commonplace, actually. Many of the people in our area had weddings that were somewhat hasty. And perhaps you might like to try our latest tea, Mrs Thompson. This is the
adult version of a new recipe. There’s camomile in it, and most folk find it palatable and good for the lowering of temperature.’ He placed a muslin bag on the table. ‘I would be grateful for your opinion, Mrs Thompson. Market research, you see.’

Phoebe pushed out her non-existent chest. ‘Well, I’ve never been one to reserve my opinions. Speak as I find, I do. As soon as one of us is poorly, I’ll brew this up and see what it does for us. But I’ll say my piece, whichever road it turns out.’

Dad sipped his tea. ‘Yes, that’s the way to be. Though I’ve found that many of us who speak as we find don’t like others to do the same.’ He replaced his mug and sat back. ‘What brand was that?’ he asked pleasantly.

‘I think it was Horniman’s,’ she replied.

‘Not good,’ said Dad. ‘Strange, because it’s always been a top brand.’

She didn’t enjoy listening while Dad spoke his mind. After snatching up her free sample of McNally’s, she tripped out of the room and banged a few pans in the kitchen. Dad looked at me and grinned sheepishly. ‘I couldn’t help it,’ he whispered. ‘The woman’s a bully. You’re not going to carry on living here, are you?’

‘Not likely,’ I mouthed. Tommo was out looking for a house as we spoke – as we whispered – and I had ordered him to find something at least half a mile away.

He swallowed, pulled at the top button of his shirt. ‘No need to get married, love. I’ll not give you medicine like I did last time, but I’ll stand by you, whatever you do. Don’t go rushing in with this lad, Laurie. He’s been no more than a weekend visitor. You don’t know what he’s like. Come home and wait a while.’

I sipped my tea, replaced the mug on Phoebe Thompson’s best tablecloth. ‘Go home, Dad,’ I said quietly.

He inhaled deeply. ‘I’ve got no home. You are my home, love.’

I looked at my father, thought about his life. He had a factory and a grand big farmhouse with modern
conveniences and green wallpaper. He had several bank accounts, a motor car, two vans and a workforce that adored him. He had a daughter who was getting married to a boy who was disliked by most people, and a wife who was hated by all who met her. He had tobacco smoke, silence and the
Bolton Evening News
. ‘Oh, Dad. I wish it could be different for you.’ If only Mother had carried on with her waywardness; if only she’d gone off with some rich man to America or Africa, or even to Manchester.

‘I’m not your responsibility,’ he said. ‘And I shouldn’t make you feel guilty. I’ve had my chance, and I’ve mucked some of it up, but I shouldn’t be holding you back.’ He looked at his watch, measured it against Phoebe’s mantel clock. ‘If you’re ever in bother, come to me.’

My dad was an old man, had been old for as long as I could remember. In 1960, he must have been about fifty-two, but as he walked out of Phoebe Thompson’s house that afternoon, I saw age in his walk, on his lined face, in his eyes. My heart was heavy and sad, because although my mother had been fashioning his coffin for years, I knew that I had just knocked in a nail or two.

Tommo found us a house to rent in Horsa Street on the other side of town, two long bus rides away from his clucky mother. With a cheque from my father, I bought furniture and utensils, and we moved into our new home on the day of our wedding. Dad gave me away, and Anne was my bridesmaid. Mother stayed at home with a chill on her kidneys, but Auntie Maisie and Uncle Freddie did me proud in their newest clothes and happiest smiles.

The best man was Frank, who had ordered a new pair of boots for this special occasion. It may have been my imagination, but he seemed to walk a little taller and straighter that day, as if making an effort to be whole under the critical gaze of his mother. Even so, she chided him outside the church, pushed and bullied him as we posed for the photographs.

After the strain of the wedding, I was tired to the point of pain. Pregnancy did not suit me, and I was glad to
arrive in our pretty bedroom with its cream lace curtains and yellow bedspread. Tommo had been drinking, was listing somewhat to starboard as he entered the room. He stood at the foot of the bed and grinned at me, then launched an attack that left me bruised and sore. At the end of a few minutes, my wedding dress was in ribbons and the bridegroom was snoring in a heap on top of me. I looked at his handsome face, saw a twist in his lip, wondered whether he would always be so brutal in drink.

Downstairs, I brewed tea in a virgin pot, put balm from my father’s shop on the bruises, curled up on the couch and slept for a short time. When I woke with a jump, I knew with a blinding certainty that I had done the wrong thing. The realization came to me just like that, in a flash of burning light that seared my brain with its intensity. I had made a mistake. It wasn’t just the injuries, the torn dress, the lack of concern for my condition. No. It was a picture in my memory, an image of a man with red-gold hair and grey eyes. The man was not Tommo. It was his brother who sat in my head. Because I recognized the expression that had sat on Frank’s face when the service was partway through. It had been a look of pity.