Swansea Summer (4 page)

‘I’m sorry, I …’ Helen rushed out of her bedroom, across the landing and dived into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Judy dropped the hairbrush she was holding and looked quizzically at Lily and Katie as they heard the toilet seat bang.

‘Morning sickness,’ Katie diagnosed, having seen her mother suffer similar symptoms during three pregnancies, which had all ended in miscarriages after her father’s beatings.

‘Can we do anything to help?’

‘Not much.’ Picking up a bottle of cologne from Helen’s dressing table, Katie sprinkled a few drops on to a handkerchief. ‘Helen told Jack she’s been having a bad time with it.’

‘That settles it.’ Judy dropped her handbag on Helen’s bed. ‘I’m never getting married and having children. I can’t stand being sick.’

‘It doesn’t last for ever.’ Katie handed Lily the handkerchief and ran downstairs.

Lily went to the bathroom, knocked on the door and opened it. White-faced, her forehead damp with perspiration, Helen was sitting on the floor, leaning against the bath.

‘Katie put some cologne on your handkerchief.’

‘Thanks.’ Helen clamped it over her nose as Lily laid her hand on her forehead.

‘We could send for the doctor.’

‘For morning sickness?’

Turning on the cold tap, Lily took a flannel from the bath rack, soaked it, wrung it out and laid it over Helen’s temples.

‘I’ll be fine by twelve.’

‘It stops by then?’

‘Usually. You won’t tell Dad, will you? He worries far too much about me as it is.’

‘Perhaps Judy should come in here to set your hair.’

‘I wouldn’t have so far to go if she’s prepared to run the risk of seeing me throw up.’

‘After seeing the state some people being interviewed on television get themselves into before they face the camera, Judy can bear the sight of almost anything.’ Judy walked in, dumped a bag of hair curlers in the sink and sat on the edge of the bath. ‘No, don’t move, Helen, you’re the perfect height for me to set your hair.’

‘Glad I’m the perfect something.’

Katie ran back up the stairs. ‘Here, this used to help my mother.’ She held out a glass of water and a piece of dry toast.

‘Thanks for the water but I can’t face the toast.’

A door opened on the landing and Joe, unshaved, unwashed, bare-chested in loosely corded pyjama trousers, emerged from his bedroom. Retreating smartly when he saw the girls, he returned in his dressing gown, collar pulled high, the belt tied tightly round his waist. He gave all of them, but especially Lily, his most charming smile. ‘I wasn’t expecting to find a ladies’ convention in my bathroom.’

‘Push off, Joe,’ Helen ordered.

‘I can hardly believe that after eighteen years of fighting you for the bathroom, from tomorrow I’ll be able to walk in here whenever I like.’

‘That’s tomorrow. We’re not budging.’

‘I see getting married has put you in an even better mood than usual, sis. Poor Jack, I hope he knows what he’s getting himself into.’

Before Helen had time to think of a suitable rejoinder, she had to throw up the toilet seat again.

‘It’s only just after nine, so you’ve bags of time,’ Lily murmured sympathetically, as she held Helen’s head.

‘Is she really ill?’

Judy gave Joe an acid smile. ‘No, she’s just playacting.’

‘Perhaps I should telephone the doctor.’

‘It’s only morning sickness,’ Helen protested, between bouts of nausea. ‘I wish men had the babies.’

‘If they did, the human race would have died out years ago and we wouldn’t be here to discuss it.’ Judy pulled a brush and comb from her pocket.

‘I’ll be downstairs if you want me to telephone or anything. Excuse me, Lily.’ Joe brushed against her as he stepped in and retrieved his shaving gear and toilet bag from a shelf above her head.

‘Stop flirting with Lily and get out of here.’ Helen slumped back against the bath.

‘I’m going.’ Joe closed the door behind him.

‘My hair …’

‘Just thank your lucky stars I washed it as soon as I got here. Now if you can stop being sick long enough for me to put the rollers in, we’ll get you to the Register Office on time. And with perfect hair,’ Judy assured her.

‘Is Helen all right?’ John asked Joe as he walked down the stairs.

‘Not really, but the girls are looking after her. As they’ve commandeered our bathroom, I thought I’d borrow the one in the basement.’

‘Leave it clean and tidy.’

‘Don’t I always?’

‘No.’

As Joe closed the door on the stairs that led down to the basement, the doorbell rang. Expecting the florist with the buttonholes, John opened it and started at the sight of his estranged wife, Esme, dressed for the occasion in a pale-grey, velvet-silk costume he recognised as Dior, with a matching hat and contrasting lilac leather handbag, gloves and shoes.

‘Aren’t you going to invite me in, John?’

‘Have you come to see Helen?’ he questioned warily. Esme had taken the news of Helen’s pregnancy badly and even if she intended to extend the olive branch, he couldn’t see Helen taking it, not after some of the things Esme had said about Jack Clay, the term he’d served in Borstal and his and Helen’s morals.

‘I think I should go to the wedding.’

‘You “think”, Esme?’

‘Helen
is
my daughter and a mother’s place is with her daughter on the most important day of her life.’

John gazed at Esme dispassionately for a moment and wondered how he could ever have imagined himself to be in love with her. Yet they’d been married – had a daughter together …

‘May I come in, John?’

He suddenly realised he’d been staring at her. ‘It’s not up to me, Esme. I’ll have to ask Helen what she wants.’

‘If you’d let me see her …’

‘She’s not well.’

‘All the more reason for me to come in, so I can look after her.’

‘The girls are with her. I’m not sure she wants anyone else.’

Swallowing her pride, Esme forced herself to remain pleasant. ‘At least give her the choice.’

‘When she’s dressed, I’ll tell her you’re here.’

‘And in the meantime I stay on the doorstep.’

John fought his initial instinct to tell Esme to wait elsewhere. His solicitor had warned him that if he were alone with her for any length of time and it became public knowledge, the court might see it as cohabitation with a view to reconciliation and a reason to deny the divorce he desperately wanted. So desperately, he had swallowed his pride, sacrificed his reputation and met a prostitute in a hotel bedroom so she could help him and a paid photographer to fake the ‘evidence’ Esme needed to bring a petition against him for adultery. But the house was full of Helen’s friends – and Helen was Esme’s daughter as much as his …

‘You can wait in the living room.’ He stepped back, finally allowing her to enter the house. ‘But I’d appreciate it if you’d stay there until I’ve had a chance to warn Joe as well as Helen that you’re here.’

‘Thank you.’ Relieved, Esme allowed herself a small smile of triumph as she walked over the threshold. The first part of her plan had worked. She was actually in the house. All she had to do now was win Helen over to convince John she was sincere in wanting a reconciliation, and after the wedding arrange a quiet talk with him, put her proposition and persuade him to see the advantages for him if he went along with the decisions she’d made – for both of them.

That shouldn’t be too difficult; most men came round to her way of thinking after she’d exercised her charm on them. It hadn’t worked on John the last time she had tried, but that was understandable. She’d made the mistake of taking him for granted when they’d lived together. An hour alone, a few reminders of the more pleasurable aspects of married life and he’d drop his antagonism towards her. She was staking her future on it.

‘The ring …’

Martin held up the box he’d put beside his plate.

‘I should …’

‘Sit down and eat your breakfast.’ Brian pushed Jack back on to his chair and returned to the stove where he was preparing a fry-up for himself, the Clays, Sam – and Adam – if he ever emerged from the outside toilet where he’d been camped for the last half-hour. He lifted the lid on the frying pan and sniffed theatrically. ‘This black pudding smells heavenly. I’ve spent the last month dreaming about this. London food tastes like wet cardboard. Looks like it too, especially in the hostel.’ Chopping tomatoes and mushrooms, he added them to the pan.

‘Hair of the dog.’ Sam walked in from his room carrying an open bottle of beer.

‘How can you even think about it at this time in the morning?’ Wrinkling his nose in disgust, Jack reached for the teapot.

‘Bridegroom’s nervous.’

‘Anyone would think he’s going to the guillotine not the Register Office.’ Brian cracked half a dozen eggs into a bowl.

‘From what I know about women he might be.’ Ashen-faced, hands shaking, Adam walked in from the passage.

‘You don’t look too good.’ Martin handed him a towel as he washed his hands at the sink.

‘I think some joker spiked my beer last night.’

‘No. Really!’ Jack exclaimed.

‘And covered me with scent and lipstick.’

‘Ah, that would be Lifebuoy Lettie.’ Jack lifted a plate of bread Brian had cut and began buttering the slices as if he were being paid piecework rates to finish the task.

‘Lifebuoy Lettie – she stinks – she’s ancient -’ Adam’s face went from grey to puce.

‘You didn’t seem to think so last night.’ Jack stared intently at the butter he was softening by scraping.

‘Once she gave you the nod, there was no keeping you away from her.’ Brian added pepper, salt, milk and butter to the eggs.

‘It wasn’t a pretty sight,’ Sam elaborated. ‘I’ve never seen a man maul a woman around so much, or in so many’ – he paused as if he were searching for the right word – ‘private places in public before. I was just about to arrest the pair of you for indecency when stop tap was called and she took you down the cellar.’

‘You let me go!’

‘It wasn’t a question of “letting you”. There was no keeping you away from her.’

‘What did I do with her in the cellar?’

‘How should we know? We’re not Peeping Toms.’ Jack turned a straight face to Adam.

‘You must have known I was out of my skull.’

‘You turned vicious when we suggested it,’ Sam complained.

‘You should have taken me home.’

‘Vicious is an understatement. Ferocious might be a better word. Today’s my big day, I wanted to stay in one piece.’ Jack offered Adam a slice of bread and butter.

‘It was love at first sight – well, perhaps not first, you had seen her before.’ Brian tipped the eggs into a saucepan.

‘Lust after many sights.’ Sam held out his bottle of beer. ‘It’s warm and flat but wet. Want a swig?’

Stomach heaving, Adam brushed aside the bread and butter and beer, and rushed to the front door.

‘Be back in time for the wedding.’ Brian closed the door after him.

‘Bring the milk in, Brian,’ Sam asked.

‘What did your last slave die of?’

‘The beating I gave him for being mouthy.’ Sam reached for the teapot.

Brian returned a few moments later with the milk. ‘Helen’s mother is sitting in her father’s front room.’

‘Don’t you think we’ve had enough leg-pulling for one wedding?’

‘I’m serious, Marty.’ He looked at Jack. ‘Judy told me what Mrs Griffiths called you and Helen when you told her you were getting married. You’re more forgiving than me, mate. If my future mother-in-law had said half the things about me that Mrs Griffiths said about you, there’d be no way I’d allow her to come to my wedding.’

‘We didn’t invite her.’

‘Perhaps she wants to make amends,’ Martin suggested.

‘More likely she’s turned up to say a whole lot more.’ Jack’s mouth settled in a grim line.

‘You want me to go next door?’

‘To do what?’ Jack asked his brother.

‘You’re right. It’s Helen’s family’s problem.’

‘Only until twelve o’clock,’ Jack muttered darkly.

‘It’s my day and I don’t want her at the Register Office or wedding breakfast and that’s an end to it.’

John had taken Helen into the kitchen to tell her that Esme was in the living room, so she deliberately raised her voice in the hope her mother would hear.

‘She is your mother, Helen,’ John reminded her mildly, feeling he ought to say something in his estranged wife’s defence, lest Esme accuse him, yet again, of driving a wedge between her and the children, although she’d expressed no desire to have either of them move out to her mother’s house with her when she left.

‘All she’s ever done is belittle me and try to make me look stupid.’

‘If I have, I am sorry for it, Helen.’ Esme pushed open the kitchen door but was careful to remain in the hall. ‘I heard you arguing with your father,’ she explained. ‘The last thing I intended to do was to upset you on your wedding day.’

‘Then why did you come here?’ Helen demanded.

‘To bring you these.’ Esme removed two envelopes from her handbag. Inching round the door, she laid them on the Formica kitchen table. ‘They are cards from your grandmother and me. We want to wish you well in your new life.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘I am sorry, Helen, the last time I saw you I said some things I shouldn’t have. The only explanation I can offer is that I was shocked and worried for you. You are my daughter. I don’t expect you to forgive me but when you are a mother you may understand why I said what I did.’

‘And where did you get that speech? Your last production in the Little Theatre?’ Helen turned her back on her mother and stared resolutely out of the window.

‘Helen, darling …’

‘You upset Jack.’ Helen would have died rather than admit her mother had upset her more.

‘For which I am trying to apologise.’ Making an effort to ignore Helen’s antagonism, Esme changed the subject. ‘You really do look very lovely. That is a beautiful costume, it is so well-cut and the blue matches your eyes. Your hair looks perfect …’

‘You won’t get round me by flattery.’

‘I wasn’t flattering you, simply speaking the truth. Please open the cards.’

Imagining how miserable he’d feel if the situation were reversed and Helen’s anger was directed at him, John picked them up and handed them over.