Chapter Two

I clocked out at six with the rest of the lads and cycled home in persistent rain. A half moon shone through heavy black cloud, throwing shafts of light onto Paper Road's terraced houses. I was looking forward to our usual Monday evening meal of beef stew and dumplings, but also to seeing my beautiful two-year-old daughter, Edwina, who would waiting for me in the kitchen.
     I dismounted at our front gate, walked down the entry to the back yard, took off my cape and dropped it in the porch before entering the kitchen. The light was on. Edwina called out 'Daddy!' and flung herself at me. I picked her up and held her aloft.
     "How is my lovely daughter then?"
     Laura shoved her head round the lounge door. "She's okay. Hurry up and wash your hands. Mum's here by the way."
     I closed my eyes. Oh no, not Old Mother Hubbard Atkinson here again!  
     Suddenly the kitchen became cold and uninviting. I put Edwina down and resisted the temptation to walk out to the rain.
     Edwina hung on to my trouser legs while I washed "Daddy, Daddy - kiss."
     I leaned down to her and did just that.
     Edwina lead me into the lounge and I sat at the table with my back to the roaring coal fire. Laura sat to my left, Mum Atkinson to my right and Edwina, put there by Laura, sat in her high chair facing me.
     An unopened official-looking letter addressed to me lay beside my cup and saucer. It had arrived last Wednesday. A Shefton frank mark lay across the stamp. I never read mail over a weekend; sometimes never read it at all. I tossed it beyond Edwina onto the sideboard. She laughed as it whizzed over her head.
     "Aren't you reading it?" said Laura. "One of these days you will miss something important."
     "The letter can wait, right now there's nothing more important than beef stew."
     It smelled delicious and tasted even better.
     For a couple of minutes the only sounds heard were the tinkle of cutlery on plates and the coal fire hissing flames. Mum and I ignored each other. 
     I could tell Laura had something on her mind.
     "I've been thinking about starting work again. Mum says she is willing to look after Edwina."
     That really was something I had not expected. I looked at Mum Atkinson and said, "You won't be looking after Edwina because Laura is not going back to work."
     She stared at me. However beautiful she had been in her twenties - as photographs of her had shown - she now had a lined face and a taut mouth that could launch vitriolic attacks when she was angry - which was often. "Alan, I am only wanting to help both of you. Since you lost your mother last year I have..."
     "I know I've lost Mum. I'm trying to forget she isn't here anymore and it doesn't help when you keep reminding me."
     "But you can never forget your mother, Alan. She was such a lovely woman. It is tragic that she died so young."
     I gave her a freezing stare. "I don't forget her. I just don't want to talk about her, that's all."
     Edwina gazed at me with rounded brown eyes, knowing something was amiss. I smiled to comfort her.
     Laura broke an awkward tension. "About me starting work again, Alan..."
     "Forget it. I earn decent money at Cheadles and we have enough to live on. We have a TV, a radiogram, a phone, a car and an old banger so what more do you want?"
     "I want my old job back at Milford Steel."
     "But you've not worked there for over two years. So why now?"
     "Because I've had an offer."
     "Who from?"
     "Andy Whelan. We worked in the same office at Milford's. He's their Staff Manager now. Saw him in the Horse on Sunday night while you were propping up the bar. He remembered me leaving to have Edwina. He asked was I working. I said no but I was looking to start again. He said the job I used to have was now vacant and was I interested? I said yes but I'd need to check first about a baby-sitter. He wants a decision by this Friday but I can start any day this week if I want to. And the money is a lot better too."
     I finished my stew and started on my favourites - ginger biscuits. "Tell him you've changed your mind and you don't want the job."
     "But I do want it."
     "Your place is at home with Edwina."
     Laura's jaw stuck out. "I don't have a place - I am not a piece of furniture."
     "I didn't say you were but somebody has to look after her."
     "I'm willing to do that," said Mum.
     "Not necessary, thanks. Laura's not working again and that's final."
     "Oh, it's final is it?" Laura snapped. "So it's okay for you to work and mix with your pals while I stay here?"
     "Looking after Edwina is your job." I said. "Loads of other women do it. They have children to look after just as you do. Look at your sister, Sarah: she's got four kids and she looks after them while her husband works."
     "Four children are much different to an only child," Mum said.
     "I know that - I'm an only child - remember? I know what being an only child is like."
     "An only child never learns to share," Mum said. "They think everything belongs to them." She vented her anger on a large dumpling; didn't pull it apart as most people do - but slashed it in half, impaled a half on her fork, and said, "You are a single child, Alan. You are now twenty-three and married with a daughter, but you have shut yourself down since your mother died and you live in your own little world."
     "I live in my own little world to avoid people like you, Mum. Let's face it: you've never forgiven me for dropping Laura in the club. Well it's about time you did."
     She gasped, reddened, her neck swelling with annoyance. "You don't deserve forgiveness. You came out of National Service with one stripe on your arm and you thought you were Field Marshall Montgomery. And then you seduced my daughter ..."
The dumpling half quivered on the end of the fork.
     "I did not seduce her. I fell in love with Laura. It just happened."
     Laura's bottom lip trembled. "Surely we don't have to dig that up again Mum?"
     Mrs Atkinson breathed in very deep. All her guns were loaded and she was pointing them at me. "You, Alan, are a spiteful and ungrateful man. I should never have consented to the marriage."
     "We didn't require your consent and because we married at a Registry Office you didn't attend. You hid in the background." Edwina started rubbing her eyes - almost at the point of tears. I softened my tone but said what needed saying. "We both wanted you at the wedding, Mum. My dad had died at Normandy, my ma was in hospital and your husband had passed on. We needed you but you didn't come. But your daughter Sarah attended as bridesmaid."
     "She came because I looked after her children."
     "That's an excuse. You didn't come because Laura was six months pregnant and you felt slighted." I sat back. "Anyway, that's over now. We're living comfortably and doing okay, so don't come sticking in your oar at this house."
     Laura jumped to her mum's defence. "Mum's here tonight because I asked her to come. She's even prepared the meal. The dumplings are mixed to her own recipe."
     I nodded. "I'll say thanks for a lovely stew, Mum, but that doesn't give you any right to tell us what to do."
     She finished off the dumpling. "I don't want to run anybodies life. I'm offering help. I live alone and I don't have much to occupy my days. When Laura telephoned  and mentioned the Milford job and asked would I baby-sit Edwina, I said yes."
     "How old are you?"
     "What has that to do with you?"
     I made calculations. "Laura is almost twenty-one and Sarah is twenty-seven. That makes you around fifty. You say you haven't much to do, well, get out more often. Go to the Women's Institute or, better still, join a Working Men's Club and maybe you'll pull another feller. I'm not being funny. You're still very attractive and there's plenty of good men around who would love to make you happy."
     She didn't know how to react to part criticism and part complement so she said nothing. I left it at that and took a tired Edwina upstairs - after letting her kiss her mother and her grandmother.
     We had put up pink wallpaper in Edwina's bedroom and the ceiling light was shielded by a maroon shade. I checked the radiator heat: it was just right. Nothing was too good for my daughter. I corrected myself - our - daughter. Once I had changed her, she fell asleep. I held her for a moment and then laid her on the bed and kissed her forehead. 
     As I crossed into the main bedroom Laura came upstairs and closed the door behind her. 
     "How could you treat Mum like that?"
     "You know we don't get on."
     "Part of that is because you're so damned awkward."
     I tried taking her in my arms but she pushed me away. "Look," I said, "there's no reason for you to work. Can't you wait until Edwina starts school and then take a part-time job?"
     "No, I can't wait. That's another three years away. This job's cropped up and I'm taking it."
     "No you're not."
     She came forward and tapped my chest with a forefinger. "I've thought it over and I'm applying for the job. I'll take Edwina round to mum's each morning and pick her up after five o'clock."
     "I won't let you do that."
     Her beautiful oval face came closer, her lips brushed mine. "You have no option, Alan, no option at all. I've been putting out feelers for several weeks. That's how Andy Whelan heard about it. He knew we frequented the Horse most Saturday and Sunday nights and when he saw me there last night he told me of the office vacancy. I jumped at the chance." She smoothed down the shirt's collar I had changed into. "You've had things pretty much your own way since your mum died. When you wanted to be alone, I left you alone so stop feeling upset. You tell me and Mum not to remind you of her yet we have a dozen photographs of her round the house. And there are none of my parents. When I put some up, you took them down. Now it is my turn. I shall put up photos of mum and dad and you will leave them alone."
     I fastened my shirt collar and put on a tie. "I don't want pictures of your mum. I see her enough as it is."
     "How about a picture of my father then? Will that be okay? He passed away while you were in the Army. I loved him very much. Mum and I thought the world of him. I missed him more than I thought possible and I was sure nobody could replace him. But when you were demobbed and we started courting I didn't believe I could be so lucky. You seemed to be everything that my father was: honest, handsome, caring and considerate but recently you've been domineering and thick-headed."
     I moved her hands from my knotted tie. "You've been listening to your mum too much. You're even beginning to sound like her."
     Laura stood on tip-toe to kiss my ear. "I want to work again and I will do, whether you like it or not."
     "I don't like it, Laura. Go back to Milford Steel if you want to but if things go wrong with Edwina then you pack in the job."
     She nipped my ear between her teeth then leaned back to look at me. "Let me take the job and I shall be good to you tonight. Now go apologise to mum."
     "I'm not apologising."
     "Well at least talk to her." Oddly, it was only then she noticed I had dressed for going out. "Surely you're never going out in this rain? Can't you hear it on the windows?"
     "I can hear it but a bit of rain won't hurt me, will it? Anyway, I always go out on a Monday."
     "You go out nearly every other night as well."
     "So what? I earn the money. I give you plenty for the housekeeping, don't I? And you complain about me having a couple of pints!"
     I sat on the bed and pulled on a pair of shoes. She sat beside me.
     "That's a laugh," she said. "You having a couple of pints? More like a couple of bucketfuls. You never drank this much until your mum passed away. You should stop boozing and stay in a bit; keep away from that smelly, smoke-filled pub."
     I fastened my shoe laces and stood up. "The Horse does not smell. I don't recall you complaining about the place last night when you were downing port and lemons."
     "I didn't down them - I drank them."
     "And a lovely sight it was. You have a special way of cuddling a glass by the stem, did you know that? I noticed it when we started courting. I thought - look how that girl holds a glass. I wish she'd hold me like that."
     She eased me out of the room. "Go on, on your way, speak to Mum."
     I pushed my head through the door opening. "How old is she?"
     "Fifty-two, but be careful, she's touchy about her age."
     I leaned further in and kissed her. "She's touchy about everything."


     Alicia Moira Atkinson still showed much beauty. In her early fifties as I now knew, she was tallish - around five-ten, elegant and attractive - as was Laura. But she had a sharper cutting edge than did Laura. An edge that sliced through whatever you said to make you seem stupid. Laura and I had both suffered from her temper, a temper that became a flashing blade when she learned of Laura being pregnant with Edwina.
And that incident - Laura becoming pregnant - was the reason why Mrs Atkinson and I detested each other, for I had soiled her daughter and taken her away.
     When I entered the lounge she was sitting close to the coal fire, staring into its golden centre. She didn't look up. I may just as well have been invisible.
     "About Edwina," I said.
     "Yes, what about her?" Her look at me showed challenge.
     "You want to look after her while Laura is at work?"
     "I do. She will be fine with me."
     "Okay, but things would be different if I'd known earlier Laura wanted a job."
     "That works both ways, Alan. If I had known you and Laura intended sex before marriage I would have forbidden you to see her."
     "Maybe so, but that's in the past. And we weren't thinking ahead of making love - it just happened. I've told you that before but you can't get it into your head."
     I warmed my hands in front of the fire.
     "Are you going out?"
     "I am going to the Horse. Don't need your permission do I?"
     She didn't answer. I glanced round the lounge at the photographs. Laura was right: twelve photos hanging on the walls, eight of Mum, two of Dad and two of Mum and Dad together.
     I had a raincoat hanging on a peg in the kitchen. Without saying a word I put on the coat and left the house.