Keepsake (10 page)

In the knowledge that he would have to go out and earn a living tomorrow, they lay entwined in love for the rest of that afternoon, undisturbed until a dray wagon came to deliver, whereupon the loud rumble of barrels being transferred from pavement to cellar caused them to rise and dress and Etta to tidy her hair. Pulling two wooden chairs to the window, they sat side by side to watch for a while, then, after the drayman had gone, just to lift their eyes beyond the roofs of the slum dwellings to the glorious sunlit day, and to smile contentedly at each other.

Had the position of the sun not informed him that it was almost time for tea, Marty’s grumbling stomach would have done. Still, he sat for a while longer, smiling at his bride and waiting.

Eventually she rubbed the knees beneath her silken gown. ‘Well…shall we dine?’

He brightened. ‘I was beginning to think my new wife lived on air!’

She laughed lightly, but made no move to rise.

After another short period of waiting, Marty prompted her. ‘So, are you going to get it then?’

‘I?’ Etta looked astonished.

‘Well it won’t appear on its own, will it?’ he said, amused.

She looked nonplussed – yes, it usually did.

He watched the incomprehension spread across her face, indeed, shared it.

After some indecision, she lamented, ‘I wish I could have brought Blanche, she’d know what to do.’ Then, before he could broach the distinct possibility that Etta might have
to look after herself, she announced brightly, ‘No matter! We’ll eat at a restaurant until we can hire someone.’

Marty had no time to comment on the ridiculousness of this statement, nor opine that the sovereigns she had brought would not last long if she were intent on lavishing them on restaurants. She looked so excited and lovely that he could not bear to spoil things. He must let her down gently. ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t fritter the money we have. Let’s go round to Ma and Da’s. They’ll feed us.’

‘But won’t they be furious?’ Etta knew how he had been dreading the event.

‘Highly likely, but I’ll have to make the confession some time. Best get it over with – and I doubt they’ll make a scene with you there.’ He raised a grin. ‘Then tonight we’ll make a list of things we need and you can go and buy them while I’m at work tomorrow.’

Looking bemused at this last statement, Etta nevertheless expressed a desire to meet her in-laws. ‘I do hope they like me.’

‘How could they not?’ He curled an arm round her and squeezed as they went to the stairs.

His parents’ home was only in the next street, but, avoiding the more insalubrious shortcuts that he himself would have taken if alone, Marty led Etta in a roundabout fashion down and then up grimy rows of terraced buildings. However, there was no evading the fact that several occupants of this impoverished area were acquainted with Etta’s husband, for they called out to him along the way.

And, self-consciously, he answered, ‘Hello, Mr Bechetti. Good evening, Mrs Cahill.’

Breaking away from his peers, a small Yorkshire lad came to trot alongside his hero. ‘I like your new sweetheart, Marty. Better than t’old one.’

‘Such cheek! I’ll tell your mother, Albert Gledhill.’ Marty
tried to sound scolding but the youngster only laughed and ran away, chanting, ‘Sweetheart, sweetheart!’

Feeling Etta’s inquisitive gaze he laughed off the impudent remark, but there was no way round what was to follow: the thing he had dreaded most.

Etta exclaimed, ‘Oh my goodness, there’s a drunkard fallen in the gutter!’ The man had been staggering some way ahead of them when suddenly he capsized.

Marty’s spirits sank. Bidding Etta to stay where she was, he rushed to attend the collapsed figure. However, after brief hesitation she disobeyed and wandered up to find the man unconscious and her husband anxiously patting his cheek.

But others were here to assist, one of them providing a wheelbarrow and treating this in somewhat cavalier fashion, she thought, as he announced with a bow, ‘Your carriage awaits, Mr Lanegan.’

Suffering deep embarrassment, Marty steadied the barrow whilst others loaded the body aboard. Then, with grim face, he thanked his helpers and wheeled the perpetrator away.

Much bemused that her husband assumed such responsibility, Etta padded alongside, querying apprehensively, ‘Where will you take him?’

‘Home.’ He struggled to keep the three-wheeled barrow level under the dead weight of its load.

‘You know where he lives then?’

‘I should do – he’s my father.’

Whilst a shocked Etta halted in her tracks, Marty carried on, though went only a little further before yelling through an open front door, ‘Ma! Can you give us a hand?’

Etta watched as Mrs Lanegan sauntered out and, with resignation as if this were a frequent occurrence, helped to transport the recumbent occupant of the barrow into the house.

She wandered in quietly after them and stood unnoticed
as mother and son tended the drunkard, her eyes flitting briefly over the other residents who eyed her back curiously, before travelling to a row of empty beer bottles in the scullery.

His father deposited in the armchair, Marty clicked his tongue as Redmond slowly emerged from his trance. ‘
Now
he comes round!’ He turned an exasperated face on his mother, but at that point followed his wife’s gaze to the beer bottles and hastily sought to explain. ‘Sorry, Etta, it’s not the way it looks.’

Aggie turned a quizzical expression which quickly changed to one of astonishment at the vision in lilac silk and cream lace. There was no need to ask who this was. Her eyes hardened and flew to Marty as if demanding to know how he could have brought the Ibbetson girl here. She was unprepared for an even bigger shock.

‘Mother, I’d like you to meet my wife, Etta.’

Too deafened by the thudding of her own angry pulse, Aggie did not hear the collective intake of breath from her children and Uncle Mal, and also her husband, who was fully conscious though still a little dazed.

‘Did I hear right? Did he say
wife
?’ Redmond gawped blankly from one family member to the other, then promptly swooned again.

‘We were married today.’ Etta stared at the father in perplexed concern, yet, noting that none of the others seemed remotely worried and were more intent on her, she formed a tentative smile and extended her hand to her mother-in-law, for a second thinking that it might be refused. The other Mrs Lanegan was prematurely grey, and with her high cheekbones must once have been attractive but was now quite wizened. Clad in a faded dress, her chest was exceedingly narrow, giving the impression of frailness, but this was misleading for her lips were sanguine and her eyes lively and strong with that special blueness only encountered in a glacier as they fixed themselves on this
intruder. Here was a woman who liked folk to keep their place, and heaven help Etta, who had come and upset all that.

But the handshake was accepted with a formal nod. Though devastated that her son had defied her to marry in secret and to one of such different class, Aggie was unable to express her wrath in front of so illustrious a stranger, and, summoning politeness, invited Etta to take a seat at the table that was set for tea, brushing deferentially at the chair to make sure it was clean. ‘Won’t you join us, Mi – I mean, Etta?’

Etta glanced apprehensively at Mr Lanegan who was once again conscious. ‘If my presence would not be too much of an imposition?’ Told that it wouldn’t, she thanked her hostess and sat down, aware that her every movement was under studious examination from several pairs of eyes.

‘Is she a fairy?’ whispered little Tom, entranced.

‘Sure, and she’d give the little people a run for their money, Tom.’

Etta turned her beguiling smile on the white-haired speaker, Uncle Mal, who had the weathered air of one who had lived all his life in the open and was poorly attired with a neckerchief in place of a collar, and trousers that were bagged at the knees, but otherwise had a pleasant manner and at this moment was directing the full force of it at her.

‘Put those eggs on!’ Aggie growled at one of her daughters, indicating the pan of water on the range, whilst she herself disappeared into the scullery with another child following, the youngest two staying behind to stare at Etta, in whom they seemed rapt.

Despite the childish scrutiny Etta felt a little easier with her mother-in-law gone, for of the pair Mrs Lanegan seemed the formidable one. Studying Marty’s father now she saw a delicate countenance framed in bushy brown hair, calm if watery eyes with a kind look about them, which Marty
had obviously inherited. There was not a whiff of alcohol. Believing Marty when he had said things were not how they seemed, she could see that this man was no drunkard, yet was puzzled as to what might have caused the initial collapse plus the subsequent fleeting departures into unconsciousness she had witnessed in the few moments she had been there, deducing that his frail physique must be responsible. Whilst his wife only appeared to be fragile there was stronger evidence of it here in the pronounced slope of Mr Lanegan’s shoulders, his posture deplorable as he shambled out to the backyard, excusing himself to Etta as he went. That she smiled at him seemed to pacify Martin, who had been agitated since they entered. But she was not to be provided with an explanation just yet.

Murmuring reassurance to his bride and hoping Uncle Mal would not yield to his uninhibited penchant for describing bowel movements, the groom slipped away to the scullery where he disturbed Aggie in the act of trying to calm herself.

‘Mammy, I’m –’

‘Don’t you dare say you’re sorry!’ Nearly choking herself in trying to dispose of the sherry, which had come by dishonest means, she slammed the empty glass down and stabbed a finger at him, hissing the words through clenched teeth. ‘You treacherous spalpeen, you’re not sorry at all!’

‘I’m not sorry for marrying Etta, but I’m sorry you made me have to lie in doing it!’

‘Oh, so it’s my fault! God damn you – here, give me that bloody glass before your father gets back – that’s if he hasn’t collapsed again out there from the outrage!’ And she tipped another tot of the illicit sherry down her throat before hiding the bottle behind bags of flour and dried peas and reaching for the bread knife, which was first levelled threateningly at Marty before being used to more legitimate purpose.

Reappearing from the privy, Redmond found his wife carving a loaf, his son standing by shamefaced.

Shaking his head in disgust, he told the latter tersely, ‘We’ll have this out later. Back to the table with you, you’re neglecting your wife.’

In between discussing the hot weather with Uncle Mal, Etta had been examining her surroundings, a small but tidy room displaying religious pictures, many china ornaments of surprisingly high quality, gleaming brass oil-lamps with elaborate cowls, and lace antimacassars all pristine, but as her husband re-entered she turned to feast her attention on him as if he had been gone years. Marty sat beside her.

Competing for her attention, Uncle Mal leaned towards her mouthing boastfully, ‘I’m seventy-eight, ye know.’

Etta tore her eyes from Marty. ‘That’s a remarkable age.’

Then, a plate of bread and butter was delivered to the table and tea began. The pampered Etta might have no idea as to how meals were produced, but she could not fail to notice that there were insufficient boiled eggs to go round. Presented with one herself, she thanked her mother-in-law but said, ‘I do hope by our impromptu appearance we haven’t deprived anyone?’

‘No one in this family is deprived,’ replied Aggie firmly.

‘Of course, I didn’t mean to imply…’ Etta’s hands remained in her lap as she watched her mother-in-law deftly slice the top off one diner’s egg and give it to another, performing this thrice more until everyone had a share.

‘Nobody will go hungry. Please be at liberty to begin.’ Obviously unhappy, but, out of courtesy, not going so far as to voice this, Aggie passed around the bread and butter.

Etta removed the top of her egg and began to eat, her every mouthful under surveillance from those children who had already scooped up their meagre ration and were now reliant on bread.

Beside her, despite being one of the lucky few with a
whole egg, Marty festered. Was his mother deliberately trying to make him feel guilty?

Both he and Etta were glad when the meal was over, yet it would be impolite for them to rush off after being fed and they were obliged to sit a while longer. Voicing more thanks, Etta moved aside to allow Martin’s sisters to clear her plate and others. They were several years younger than herself, their skinny, shapeless trunks belonging more to monkeys than women, yet Elizabeth and Maggie emitted an air of competence as they moved around the table, stacking the crockery and taking it away. Her eyes moved back to the ornaments on the sideboard upon which she commented to no one in particular.

‘I must say, you have some very handsome china.’

Before thanks could be issued, Uncle Mal raised white eyebrows and emitted cheerfully, ‘Those? Pff! They’re just Aggie’s gimcracks.’ He inflated his chest and hoiked up the waistband of his trousers. ‘You want fine china, ye should’ve seen the collection I used to have, shouldn’t she, Red? ’Twould have graced a palace –’

‘Probably did before you got your hands on it, Unc,’ joked Marty from the side of his mouth, then shrank at the glare from his mother.

Mal was oblivious. ‘– but that was before my dear Bridget passed away and her sisters grabbed the lot and I was forced to come and live here. Never left me so much as a spoon to stir my tea, so they didn’t…’

‘You’ve talent enough for stirring without spoons,’ accused Red, but Mal just heaved an emotional sigh and pulled out a handkerchief to mop at his glistening eyes. ‘God love her, she had real style, my Biddy. I’m not saying Aggie doesn’t try her best of course…’

Grossly insulted and too furious to sit still, with face a-thunder Aggie marched off to the scullery where, against habit, she aided her girls with the washing up.

Meantime, a child was ousted so that Etta could get to
one of the more comfortable seats, the youngest planting himself at her feet.