Bill Bailey Page 7

  She shook her head slowly, saying, ‘Well, in that case the man must have been quite unbearable.’

  ‘Watch it. Watch it, woman.’ He was about to grab her when a thin voice penetrated their preoccupation, calling from the stairway, ‘Mam, I want a drink; my throat’s dry.’

  She clicked her tongue.

  ‘Katie! I bet she’s been awake all this time, in fact, all of them. I warned them they hadn’t to come downstairs, so you had better go up and tell them what it was all about else there’ll be no peace. Make it short and snappy.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ And turning from her, he called, ‘Get back to that bed this minute else I’ll give you a drink all right…’

  The scrambling she now heard overhead confirmed that they were all up and waiting.

  Life was good.

  At least that’s how she felt until half past eleven the next morning when the phone rang.

  ‘Fiona!’

  ‘Yes, Mother?’ She closed her eyes, drew in a long breath and waited.

  ‘You are determined to disgrace yourself, aren’t you?’

  She opened her mouth and stared at the mouthpiece, then replied, ‘Yes, Mother, if you say so. But what have I done now to disgrace myself?’

  ‘Holding drunken parties. I couldn’t believe it. But then I could. What that man has brought you to and what you seem to forget is that you’ve got three children to bring up. And what an example you are showing them: cars lined up outside, and the street raised as they piled into them late at night.’

  ‘Shut up!’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘You heard me, and I’ll say it again, shut up! The drunken orgy to which you are referring was come by with tea and coffee, and the men were all gentlemen…yes gentlemen, having a board meeting to discuss a big new venture. Do you hear that, Mother? A big new venture, which spells money, big money…great big money. That should impress you. And the next time we have a board meeting here I’ll invite Mrs Quinn in and from then on you’ll hear no more gossip from her, because, Mother, she is like you, she is jealous and would give her eye teeth to have a man of her own. Again like you, Mother…’

  ‘How dare…!’

  ‘I haven’t finished, so shut up. And I’ll say this, and it’s been in my mind for a long time, if you had looked after Father and treated him as you should he might have been here today. But when he was ill and needed comfort, where were you? At your meetings, terrified, if you missed one, you wouldn’t be the next chairwoman; and running after the Reverend Cottsmore, much to the annoyance of his wife. Now there you have it.’

  The perspiration was running from her brow into her eyes; her hand was trembling as she held the phone. She waited for the torrent of abuse but it did not come.

  She replaced the receiver, then leant back with both hands on the small table and for a moment she felt she was going to pass out.

  Her step was erratic as she walked towards the kitchen, and there, sitting down, she dropped her head onto her hands and started to cry, not because of what her mother had said to her but because of what she had said to her mother. She felt full of remorse, telling herself she should not have brought that up. She knew her father had been aware of her mother’s feelings for the Reverend Cottsmore and that it had hurt him, but he himself had done nothing about it. But she recalled one thing he said and that was the day before her wedding. He was sitting in the little summer house at the bottom of the garden.

  They had the place to themselves and on that very day her mother had been out arranging flowers in the church. He had taken her hand and said something she considered very odd at the time. ‘One day, my dear,’ he said, ‘you’ll reach what is called the change. You’ve likely heard all about it. With some it lasts for years, all depending on the person’s constitution. But during it never think of divorcing your man.’

  He had laughed, and she had laughed with him, but she knew now that he was telling her that her mother was experiencing the change and that she wasn’t accountable for her instability. But if she remembered rightly, her mother’s instability must have preceded the change by a long time. Yet this knowledge did not lessen her feeling of guilt, and she felt that her father, had he been alive, would certainly not have applauded her outburst.

  She rose from the table, thinking she would go and have a sherry to help pull herself together; but almost aloud, she said, ‘No! Don’t start that.’ Her girlhood friend, who was two years her senior, had begun with an early sherry when they moved to London six years ago, and what was she doing now? Attending Alcoholics Anonymous, and with a divorce on her hands. And so she made a strong cup of coffee.

  But this didn’t help and an hour later she lifted the phone again.

  When a small voice said, ‘Hello,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry, Mother.’

  There was no reply, and so she went on, ‘I shouldn’t have said what I did, but I was so upset because, as I said, it was just a business meeting and…and they only had tea and coffee.’ She was feeling like a child trying to explain some misdemeanour.

  The voice came pitifully small now, saying, ‘You hurt me, very deeply. You hurt me so much, Fiona.’

  ‘I’m…I’m sorry, Mother. I really am. And…and I’ll call in sometime, sometime soon.’

  ‘Very well. Very well.’

  There was a pause and then the click of the receiver being put down…

  She felt miserable all day, so much so that after picking up the children from school she had to make an effort to be interested in their chatter. And Mark, always sensitive to her change of moods, asked, ‘You got a headache Mam?’

  She replied, ‘Yes, rather a bad one.’ And later she gave the same excuse to Bill because she didn’t want him to think worse of her mother than he already did.

  It was exactly seven days later, however, that all the feelings of remorse and guilt towards her mother were swept clean away.

  She should have been prepared for her mother’s visit because two days previously, when picking up Katie from school, the child had informed her that her grandmother had been to the school and talked to her at dinner time. Apparently she had questioned her about the child she had visited in hospital, and Katie had told her that it was Mr Bill’s and they were going to adopt it.

  She had stopped the car and looked at Katie and said, ‘Is that what you said, exactly? Try to think.’

  So Katie thought; then she said, ‘I said its mother and father had died in a car accident and now it was Mr Bill’s.’

  She had stared at her daughter’s apprehensive face, then smiled and said, ‘That’s all right then.’ Yet for the remainder of the journey she had continued to ask herself why her mother should go to the school, if not to find out something to add to what she already knew.

  It was known in the ward that negotiations were going on about the adoption of the child; so some talk may have filtered from there to her mother through Mrs Quinn, whom she herself had seen on two occasions visiting another child in the ward. It would also be known that they were bringing Mamie home in a fortnight’s time. But what was not widely known was that she and Bill were to be married in a fortnight’s time…

  It had rained almost incessantly for three days, and because of it the work on the clearing of the new site had been held up, and this had brought Bill home at half-past three this afternoon. And he was now in what was to be his study going over papers and plans.

  She had picked up the children from school, settled them with their tea in the kitchen, taken Bill a cup of tea, and was crossing the hall when the front doorbell rang. And there, under an umbrella, stood her mother. She felt her mouth drop open as she watched her close the umbrella, shake it, then lean it against the wall under the small porch.

  ‘I’ve got to talk to you…The children in?’

  ‘Yes; they’re in the kitchen having their tea.’ She watched her mother look round the hall, then march towards the sitting room; and she herself followed, yet not before casting her glance towards
the study. Once in the room she pushed the door tight.

  Her mother was standing to the side of the couch. ‘I’m not going to stay,’ she said, ‘but I must talk to you. You…you said you would call in, but you haven’t seen fit to do that, so I just had to come. I felt it my duty to warn you because I know you are deaf to what anybody else but that man says. It’s about this child that he’s making you adopt.’

  ‘Nothing of the sort, Mother; he’s not making me adopt the child. You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Oh! don’t I, girl. Can you tell me of any man who’s hoping to marry a woman with three children who would want to adopt another one unless there was something behind it?’

  ‘Mother! Be careful.’ Her jaws were tight, her teeth moving over each other now: the sound was almost audible.

  ‘I am careful, and careful for you. He’s…he’s a disgrace. Of course he wants you to adopt this child. Of course he wants to bring it into a family, because it’s his. He had been carrying on with that woman for years. Oh, she was married all right and had another child, but he was never away from her house. Mrs Poller could tell you a thing or two.’

  She heard herself say grimly, ‘Mrs Poller? Who is Mrs Poller?’

  ‘The woman, of course, he lived with before he came here.’

  ‘Oh; not Mrs Quinn this time? And so you have been to this Mrs Poller, have you, to investigate?’

  ‘No; I did nothing of the sort. I happened to meet her in the paper shop and she was on about him. She had heard about the adoption and it was she who told me that he was never off her doorstep, supposedly because the young husband worked for him. But she had seen them both in the car together. What more proof do you want? And it was he who had to take the girl to the hospital when she was having the child. The husband was down with flu, so he said. He’s a disgrace. He had been carrying on with her for years, all the time he was staying at Mrs Poller’s. And God only knows how many more flyblows he’s got kicking around the town. And he’s duped you into…’

  Fiona let out a high cry as the door burst open. She saw a man who didn’t look at all like Bill spring across the room and grab her mother. Her own screams were joined by those of her mother and the cries of the children in the hall.

  ‘Bill! Bill! For God’s sake! No! No!’ She was tearing at his hands that were gripping her mother’s shoulders close to her neck, and he was shaking her like a rat as he cried, ‘You dirty-minded old swine! I could kill you this minute. Do you hear?’

  It wasn’t Fiona’s efforts that loosened his hands but the realisation of what he had said that slackened his grip on her mother. And he watched her fall back full length onto the couch, where she lay straddled, gasping and moaning, her eyes staring wide in terror.

  After some seconds Fiona made to go towards the couch, but Bill thrust her roughly aside, crying, ‘Don’t you touch her, she’s putrid!’ Then he was bending over the couch, yelling into the frightened face, ‘You’re putrid, filthy! Do you hear? Your mind, all of you, dirty, rotten. And listen to this: I’m master in this house now whether I’m married or not, and I’m telling you I give you fifteen minutes to get out and never put your face in that door again, because I won’t be responsible for what I’ll do to you.’

  He stepped back from her but stood panting, his jawbones moving and showing white through his skin. There was no sound for a moment except the whimpering of the children. Turning slowly about, he walked towards them; then picking up Willie, whose face was awash with tears, he went towards the kitchen, Mark walking on one side of him and Katie holding onto his trouser pocket at the other.

  Fiona continued to stare at her mother; she was feeling now she couldn’t go towards her, she couldn’t touch her, whereas she might have a few moments ago when she thought she was gasping her last. She watched her slowly pull herself into a sitting position and push her skirt down over her knees. She watched her mouth open twice before managing to say haltingly, ‘I’ll…I’ll have him to court for…for attacking me.’

  Fiona’s voice was trembling as she replied, ‘That’s if he doesn’t have you up for defamation of character before, together with your friends. And I’ll tell you this: the mother and father of that child were like a son and daughter to him; he thought of them as his son and daughter; he had looked after the man since he was a young boy. It is a serious accusation you’ve made against him and it will surprise me if he doesn’t go to a solicitor.’

  It would have surprised her if he had because he was a man who fought his own personal battles, mostly with a laugh, as she had found out. Nevertheless, this was different: she herself had been afraid of him and he could have throttled her mother. My God! yes, he could have. But that her mother was far from being dead she now realised when she said, ‘You must take me home; I can’t walk that distance.’

  ‘I’ll not take you home, Mother; I’ll order a taxi for you.’ And on this she went into the hall and did just that. But instead of returning to the sitting room she went to the kitchen.

  The children were sitting at the table again, and so was he, but none of them was eating. She didn’t look at him but at Mark to whom she said, ‘Finish your tea and then go upstairs,’ and he answered quietly, ‘Yes, Mam.’ She had turned about and reached the kitchen door when Willie’s voice piped up, saying, ‘Are we not gona have the baby then?’

  She turned and looked at him. They must have all been in the hall listening. She was about to answer when Bill yelled, ‘Yes, we’re going to have the baby.’

  The children were startled and frightened for a moment and he, bowing his head now, said, ‘It’s all right. It’s all right. I’m…I’m in a paddy. But yes, we’re going to have the baby.’ And he put out one hand to ruffle Willie’s hair and the other towards Katie to take hold of her hand while his eyes rested on Mark. And he smiled at him and again he said, ‘You bet your life we’re going to have that baby.’

  She closed the door and walked slowly across the hall, pausing to steel herself before entering the sitting room.

  Her mother was now sitting quite upright. Her bag was open to the side of her and she was dabbing her face. She still used powder, and she had covered her entire face with it giving her complexion a sickly pallor. And as Fiona watched her, any grain of sympathy that she might have had for her fled. She knew that she would make straight for one of her cronies and would give her a detailed description of what had happened. And so she said, ‘Mother, if I hear one derogatory word that you have said against Bill, I shall tell him. And I can assure you that won’t be the end of it. He’s a determined man and he values his good name, and it is a good name. So you’d be wise to take this as a warning.’ She turned her head, saying now, ‘There’s the car.’

  She watched her mother rise slowly to her feet, pick up her handbag, adjust her coat and with a steadier step than she herself had so far maintained walk past her without a glance. She stopped at the front door, but only to open it, picked up her umbrella and walked down the pathway to the waiting taxi.

  Chapter Eight

  She was wearing a slack off-white coat, a small turban type hat to match, her brown hair curling inwards onto her shoulders and picking up the tone of her tan-coloured close-fitting woollen dress.

  He was standing close by her side in a well cut dark grey suit. He looked very well groomed and could, at this moment, have been termed handsome.

  One of the two men behind the desk, pointing to the card in Bill’s hand, was saying, ‘Repeat after me: I do solemnly declare…’

  And after Bill had made his declaration, Fiona was asked to make hers; yet both seemed deaf to what had gone before and to what precisely followed after until the man smiled, then said, ‘I suppose you know it’s customary to kiss the bride?’

  As they kissed, Katie giggled. Mark made a shushing sound, and Willie looked up at his new granddad, as he had been told to address the strange man who had arrived with a strange woman at their house yesterday, and in whom he
was more interested than in his new father, because, after all, he was still Mr Bill, and he knew Mr Bill, whereas he had to get to know this other tall man who made him laugh.

  They were now in the outer hall of the Registry Office. Fiona had been kissed by her Alcoholics Anonymous friend from London, and then embraced by her friend’s boyfriend, a member of the same society; there had been more hugging by her new father-in-law and by his girlfriend about whose age Bill had erred, for Madge would never see sixty-five again; then handshaking by Barney McGuire and his wife who had acted as their two witnesses. And then it was her turn to do some embracing. First she kissed Mark who smiled at her but said nothing. With Katie it was different. ‘Can we stay up for the party?’ said her daughter.

  ‘Yes, for a short while.’

  When she came to her small son he brushed her kiss aside, saying, ‘I don’t want to go to the party, I want to go to the hospital.’

  ‘Presently.’

  Bill now put his arm about her shoulders and they all went out into the bright sunshine and got into their respective cars and drove to a nearby hotel where, in a private room, a table had been set for them: no wedding cake, just an ordinary meal. Later, the present party and all Bill’s men and their wives were to have a wedding dinner in the grander Palace Hotel, followed by a dance. It had been arranged like this because the family had something of import to do in the afternoon.

  It was a merry meal that went on for two hours and when the party broke up, Fiona’s London friends went back to their hotel, Bill’s father and Madge went back to the house, while Bill and Fiona drove with the children to the hospital. Arrived there, they did not this time make their way to the ward but went straight to the superintendent’s room, where a nurse was sitting on the couch holding the free hand of a little girl who was wearing a pinafore frock which enabled her plastered arm to be free.