Amy was devastated. ‘Oh, no, poor Thomas. I really wouldn’t mind, and I’m sure Danny couldn’t catch anything from grass cuttings. Anyway, he could always leave his boots in the back yard.’
‘I should hope so, but you can’t take any chances, not where young babies are concerned. Thomas must stay away until the child is older and has developed a greater immunity to infections.’
Amy said no more, but made a mental note to visit her father-in-law in the dreaded allotment, if that was the only way she could get to see him. She certainly didn’t believe that Danny would come down with some unknown disease simply because his grandfather liked to grow tomatoes.
Mavis finally deigned to sit beside her on the worn old sofa, having first removed several items of baby clothing, a towel, and a dirty nappy with the tips of her fingers. ‘You should put these to soak right away.’
‘I soak them in Napisan, but I don’t like to disturb him till he’s finished feeding.’
‘How many feeds is that he’s had today?’
‘I can’t remember,’ Amy said, feeling flustered.
‘I suppose you’re still picking him up every five minutes. Is he sleeping through yet?’
Not wanting to admit the true facts, that sleep was something Danny still didn’t do very well at all, Amy said, ‘Sometimes. It’s better now that I’m giving him Fairex for his supper.’
‘Goodness, he’s far too young for solids.’
Amy sighed and said no more.
Mavis watched the baby suckling for a while, making no attempt to touch him. After a moment she let out a heavy sigh, sounding seriously put out. ‘Well, I might as well go since I’m clearly not wanted. I must say I’m surprised you aren’t showing a little more - gratitude - for my taking the time out of my busy day to help. Babies are hard work, as I warned you from the start. And if you continue to obstinately refuse to take advice from someone who knows better, then I can’t think how you’ll manage.’
‘I’m coping fine, thank you,’ Amy said with the glimmer of a smile. ‘And Chris is marvellous.’
‘It’s not Chris’s job, he has enough to do at the bakery. Looking after the baby is
your
job, but I fear you’ll make a mess of it, as you do everything else. Still, when did you ever listen to me? I’ll be on my way then, I’ve no wish to stay where I’m not needed.’ Mavis stood up, hooking her handbag over her arm.
‘You could put the kettle on,’ Amy suggested. ‘I’m gasping for a brew and I haven’t had chance today.’
Deeply offended that she should be called upon to perform such a menial task, Mavis stomped off to the kitchen looking very much the martyr. She returned several moments later with a loaded tea-tray, complaining she couldn’t find the tea-strainer.
‘We don’t have a tea-strainer.’
‘Dear me, you mustn’t let standards slip simply because you’re feeding a baby. A tea strainer is absolutely essential if you are to avoid tea leaves in your cup. I’ll buy you one this afternoon.’
‘No thanks, we can afford to buy our own, if we want one. It’s just that a fancy tea-strainer isn’t a priority right now.’
‘I see.’ Her mother-in-law’s voice was clipped, taught with disapproval. ‘You do realise that the biscuit barrel is empty. I
always
make sure I have some garibaldi biscuits in. They are Chris’s favourites. Fortunately he still likes to pop home for a snack now and then.’
Amy longed to say that this was Chris’s home now, instead she tried to make a joke of it. ‘It was Chris who finished them all off last night as a matter of fact. Greedy piggy! But then we were up half the night with meladdo here.’
She could have kicked herself. As expected, Mavis pounced.
‘Good gracious, I’m surprised at you, Amy, expecting your husband to help with night-feeds. Chris needs all the sleep he can get with having to rise before dawn to bake bread, whereas you can sleep during the day.’
This made her laugh. ‘Fat chance of that. I always mean to try for a snooze but then there’s the washing to be done, all by hand, the ironing, a sink full of pots to be cleared and a meal to prepare, so I never quite manage even five minutes shut-eye. Last night Danny had colic and just wouldn’t settle. The doctor says that will pass after the three month mark. Sorry about the biscuits though, I’ll get some more when I go out later.’
Now she was over-explaining, something she’d promised herself she’d never do. Drat the woman, why did she always have to get under her skin?
Mavis said, ‘Well, at least you’re taking the
doctor’s
advice.’
Amy gritted her teeth. ‘If Chris wants to help feed his son, I think that’s quite a good thing. We’ve agreed to take turns, as we both need to snatch whatever sleep we can.’
‘Good heavens, it wasn’t like that in my day,’ Mavis retorted, lost for any better argument.
‘Things change,’ Amy brightly informed her, putting Danny to her shoulder to burp him. And as for picking him up,’ she continued, deciding she might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, and make it clear from the start that she would bring up her own child as she chose. ‘I see nothing to be gained by letting him cry till he’s sick or gives himself wind. He might have a tummy-ache, or be feeling lonely and in need of a cuddle.’
‘You’ll live to rue the day if you spoil him,’ Mavis snapped.
‘I don’t think you can spoil a child with love. Everybody deserves a bit of a cuddle now and then. I intend to make sure that my baby gets plenty of that.’
‘I can see you have some very modern, radical ideas festering in that silly little head of yours.’
‘Yes, I do, don’t I? Love, comfort and fresh air, very radical. Oh, and the freedom for my son to explore the world and make his own decisions when the time comes,’ Amy said, smiling softly as she lay Danny on the new hearth rug where he could kick his bare legs and look about him. ‘No doubt you’d think that wrong too.’
The next thing Amy heard was the slamming of the front door. ‘Oh, dear, Danny love. I think I might have said something to offend her.’
Thomas was happily ensconced in his allotment shed. He’d been living there ever since the big row. It had all got very nasty. Mavis had gone on to rail and rant at him about how she’d never wanted Chris to move in the first place, and how it was all Thomas’s fault for finding them the house.
‘If you’d never interfered, my son would still be living at home, where he belongs.’
Pointless to remind her that Chris shouldn’t be living with his mam and dad at all now that he was a married man. Thomas had been down that road countless times and knew it to be a cul-de-sac with a brick wall at the end.
‘You’ve gone too far this time,’ Mavis had accused him. ‘If you think you can parade your fancy woman right before my eyes and shame me before everyone, you’ve got another think coming.’ At which point she’d marched upstairs and packed his bag, which she’d then thrown out of the house. Using the back door of course, so that nobody could see.
Thomas knew when he was beaten. He’d taken his cap and jacket from the peg and moved into his shed on the allotment that same night, where he’d stayed ever since. He thought he’d got away with it, that nobody knew, but now here was Amy, standing before him, her small face a picture of horror.
‘So this is where you’ve been hiding yourself, why I haven’t seen you for weeks?’ Amy pulled up an orange box, looking about her in open curiosity as she made herself comfortable.
The shed was small but remarkably tidy, if rather dusty and stacked high with tomato boxes, shelves of seed potatoes, rakes, hoes and spades hanging in a row on the wall. A paraffin lamp swung from a beam, and there was a stack of old newspapers in one corner. And among all this garden paraphernalia sat a small brown leather suitcase from which socks and shirts spilled. Amy stared at it in dismay.
‘You surely can’t be living here.’
‘I can and I am. I had a bit of a ding-dong with her majesty, and she threw me out. But don’t you fret about me, love. I went through worse when I was in the ARP. It were a bit parky the first night but I crept back home while she were out shopping and picked up a couple of blankets and a pillow. I’m nice as ninepence now. I’ve even got a friend.’
Amy couldn’t help smiling as she regarded the small black cat curled up fast asleep on the old man’s knee. Danny was also asleep in the pram parked outside the little hut. Thomas had oohed and ahed for a bit, commented on the lad’s strength as he gripped his grandfather’s finger, now they were sitting inside and Amy was struggling against the need to express the sensation of shock rushing around in her head. How could her father-in-law be living in a garden shed? It was unbelievable. What on earth had happened to bring about this miserable state of affairs?
She tickled the cat’s chin and it stretched itself luxuriously. ‘What’s his name?’
‘Blackie,’ said Thomas, imaginatively. ‘He shares me dinners and he’s no trouble.’
On one rickety shelf stood a small shaving mirror, brush and razor; a jug and basin on the tool box beneath.
‘How do you boil water?’ Amy asked, appalled.
Thomas indicated a small paraffin stove with a jerk of his head. A rusty old kettle rested on top, steaming gently.
It was too much. ‘Oh, Thomas, you can’t possibly live here. You can cope with that for a shave, but how do you go on for a bath? It’s
awful
!’
‘I go down to the public baths and manage very well, thanks. Eeh, I’m forgetting me manners. D’you want a cuppa?’
He reached for a teapot, stained from many similar brews, and began to spoon in tea leaves. Amy watched in silence as he added the boiling water. She even managed not to say a word as he wiped a couple of mugs on a grubby tea towel, then, after sniffing a half empty milk bottle, poured a drop into each.
She accepted the tea without a murmur, although she had serious doubts about that milk. Certainly something was smelling in here: a strange mix of stale food, sweaty feet, shaving soap and ripe tomatoes.
‘Where do you sleep?’ She could see no sign of a bed.
‘I put down me bedroll. Don’t worry, I’m quite comfy.’
‘Good job it’s summer then, or you’d be frozen to the floorboards.’
‘Wife’ll happen have got over her hump by the time winter sets in.’
‘And if she hasn’t?’
Thomas shrugged. Ever phlegmatic he seemed to be saying that he’d cross that bridge when he came to it.
Amy wondered if she dare ask what the row had been about, but decided against it. A private argument between man and wife really wasn’t any of her business. But then Thomas saved her the trouble.
‘She thinks I’ve been playing away.’
‘Playing away?’
‘With Belle Garside.’
Amy nearly choked on her tea. And she’d been right about the milk. ‘You must be joking. Belle Garside, and
you
?’ Did that sound a bit rude, she wondered, to imply Belle would never fancy her father-in-law?
‘Aye, it’s a bit of facer in’t it? As if she’d look in my direction, sexy lady like Belle. Mavis isn’t thinking straight. It’s the beans on toast which is bothering her the most, I reckon.’
Amy had quite lost the thread and decided it was perhaps time she left. She stood up. ‘I’ve got to go. Danny will be wanting feeding again soon and I need to do a bit of shopping before he wakes up. Can I get something for you while I’m out round the market, some fresh milk perhaps?’
He grinned at her. ‘That’d be champion.’
She plonked a kiss on his cheek. It felt all rough and scratchy, then she looked at the untidy heap of clothes spilling out of the suitcase. ‘I could take your washing.’
‘Nay, you’ve enough to do wi’ that babby.’
‘A few more shirts and socks won’t make much difference.’ It would make all the difference in the world. Amy was overwhelmed by washing. Her days were an endless round of scrubbing stinking nappies, and all by hand, since they still couldn’t afford to buy a machine. But she bundled Thomas’s dirty clothes into the tray beneath the pram without a word. With clean socks the shed might smell a bit fresher. Anyway, the dear chap deserved clean socks, if nothing else. ‘I’ll fetch ‘em back when they’re done, but you can always come over to ours you know, if you feel like a change of scene.’
Thomas shook his head. ‘Nay, I might run into our Mavis. Anyroad, I don’t want to be a nuisance. You need time on your own just now.’
Amy’s heart swelled with love for the old man. He was so kind, so understanding. But the idea of Thomas and Belle having some sort of torrid affair - Amy almost giggled at the thought. ‘I’ll fetch you a bit of hot pot later. I’ve some left over from yesterday. You can happen heat it up on that stove.’
‘Eeh, you’re a star, lass. A proper star. Our Chris struck lucky when he wed you.’
‘Tell that to your wife,’ Amy wryly remarked.
‘Nay, we communicate only by notes which she leaves stuck on the door with a drawing pin.’
Amy didn’t dare ask what these missives might say. She took the brake off the pram and hurried away, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Gina couldn’t take in what was happening to her. She stood in the magistrate’s court and heard them remand her in custody for burglary under the larceny act of 1916. She felt numb. As if this were happening to someone else.