When the taxi pulled up outside the house, Clara became silent for the first time since they had left the cemetery. It was drizzling and the sky hung heavy over the rooftops. This, combined with the ominously drawn curtains of the two houses and those of their neighbours, added to the sense of foreboding as the two women stepped out of the vehicle.
After Abby had paid the driver, she and Clara stood together on the wet pavement, neither of them making a move to their old front door. It was only when Wilbert and Lucy appeared in the first of the two funeral cars with Leonard and his family that the women walked across the pavement and stood outside the house. Ivor, Jed and Bruce and his wife and child were in the second car, and as that drew up Wilbert opened the front door and ushered his sisters into the hall.
‘Go on through, you know the way.’ Wilbert was trying to make light of the moment as he took Clara’s arm and led her to the kitchen, but Lucy hung behind, catching hold of Abby and drawing her aside as first Ivor and his sons, and then friends and neighbours filed into the house.
‘I just wanted to tell you that Wilbert’s told his mam to behave today if she comes down,’ Lucy said in a low voice. ‘She didn’t want to come to the church, said her legs are playing her up, but my guess is that she feels awkward because her and Aunty Audrey haven’t spoken for years. Anyway, she took to her bed yesterday and made noises about feeling ill this morning.’
‘Did she know Clara and I were coming?’
Lucy nodded. ‘But like I said, Wilbert’s given her a talking to so I don’t think there’ll be any trouble.’
Abby didn’t comment on this. She could have said that if her mother wanted to play up, no power on earth would stop her, least of all her own son whom she’d always manipulated since he was a bairn.
Abby could see that the house was different to how she remembered it. Lucy had certainly put her own ideas and stamp on the place. This surprised her. Lucy seemed such a meek and mild little creature and she knew changes wouldn’t have been wrought without fierce protest from her mother, but she felt it boded well. Wilbert was paying the rent and had been doing so for the last eight years since her mother had given up her part-time work, so maybe he and Lucy felt they could be more assertive.
The hall was now painted a light cream colour and there was red carpet on the floor and up the stairs, which immediately gave a welcoming feel. The door to the front room was open and it was filled with various people chatting away, but again Abby could see that her mother’s holy of holies bore no resemblance to the room she remembered from her childhood. The multi-coloured carpet and pale walls made it look bigger, and her mother’s stiff horsehair suite had been replaced with a red velvet one. Lucy obviously liked red but then she’d need its cheerfulness living with her mother, Abby thought wryly.
‘Come through to the kitchen.’ Lucy ushered her forward and here Abby received her biggest surprise. The old kitchen had been gutted and in its place was a room which boasted wall and floor cupboards with a worktop running along two walls, bright lino on the floor and a smart new kitchen table and chairs. The table was groaning with food and so were the worktops. The draining boards either side of the sink held bottles of sherry, whisky, port and beer.
All this Abby took in with a fleeting glance before she turned to Lucy and said warmly, ‘This is lovely, everything is lovely. You’ve transformed the place.’
Lucy blushed her pleasure at the praise. She whispered confidingly, ‘Don’t tell your mother because she thinks we still rent it but we’re buying it. The landlord wanted to sell a few years ago now and so we decided to take a mortgage. I’ve been earning good money at Ramshaw and Sons, the accountants I work for, so we said we’d put off having a family for a while and get the house round first. Wilbert’s wage only really covers the mortgage and bills and food, you see. But Wilbert didn’t want his mam knowing all our ins and outs so we’ve kept it quiet.’
Abby nodded. That she could understand. She glanced across to where Clara was standing talking to Jed, a glass of sherry in her hand, before her gaze moved to Ivor who was sitting in a corner of the kitchen. He had Bruce, Bruce’s wife and their little boy around him, and Leonard was standing at the back of his father’s chair, his hand resting protectively on Ivor’s shoulder.
Lucy followed the direction of her eyes. ‘He’s inconsolable, ’ she said quietly. ‘We’ve had such a time with him. Everyone’s been worried to death. I’ve been taking an evening meal into him and Jed because he won’t come in to us, although I know Jed would prefer that. But when they get home from work he just sits in those four walls, won’t even go down the pub with Jed for a pint like he used to before Aunt Audrey died. Leonard and Bruce have been good too, trying to get him out of himself a bit. They think the world of their da, like Jed does.’
‘Everyone’s rallied round then.’
Lucy heard the bitter note in her voice and looked at her in surprise. ‘Of course they have, it’s only natural, isn’t it?’
Abby warned herself to tread carefully. All she needed to do was get through this day and then she could go home.
‘I think he’d come in to us if your mam wasn’t here,’ Lucy continued. ‘Wilbert said they’ve never got on, Uncle Ivor and your mam, not even before your mam and Aunt Audrey had the big falling out. Do you know what that was over?’
The question took Abby aback although she perhaps should have expected it. She was about to murmur something noncommittal when Lucy’s gaze went behind her and she said, ‘Oh hello, Mam. I wondered if you were going to come down.’
‘Did you indeed.’
Her voice was just the same. Abby knew she ought to turn and say something but her blood had frozen.
‘Wondered so much you came and asked, eh? I could have been dead up there for all anyone cared and me with my legs so bad. So, how did it go then?’
‘All right.’ Lucy hesitated. It was clear her mother-in-law had no idea it was Abby’s back she was facing and she didn’t quite know how to handle the situation.
She was relieved when Abby slowly turned round, her face devoid of expression. ‘Hello, Mam.’
Nora’s shock was evident. She had seen that Lucy was talking to someone who was dressed exceedingly well, the charcoal and black suit the woman was wearing shouting class and the black hat which came low into the neck a beautiful bit of work. She had assumed it was perhaps Ivor’s boss’s wife. Now she found herself staring into the face of the daughter she had never liked and in latter years had come to resent with an enmity which outstripped even what she’d felt for Audrey.
Abby, too, was astounded but for a different reason. In her childhood all her friends had envied her because her mother was beautiful, and in her forties and fifties Nora had retained an attractiveness which her sullen expression and harping couldn’t diminish. Even on her last visit to this house eleven years ago her mother had still been presentable. But the woman she was staring at now looked at least ten years older than her sixty-four years, and that was being generous, but more shockingly there was no vestige of the handsome woman she had once been in the shrunken figure glaring at her. Her mother was recognisable, but in the way that a cruel caricature is.
No trace of what Abby was thinking showed in her expression, but as Nora stared at her daughter’s smooth skin and lovely face, Abby’s youth and beauty were like an insult. Her wrath was visible and Abby braced herself for what was going to come, but then she felt someone take her arm and turn her round. Ivor faced her.
‘I want a word, lass,’ he said, his tone flat. ‘In private. We’ll take a stroll in the back lane, Lucy,’ he added to Wilbert’s wife who had been watching the interplay with increasing agitation.
‘I don’t want to leave Clara in here,’ Abby muttered as Ivor walked with her to the back door. ‘My mam might go for her, the mood she’s in.’
‘It’s not Clara she’s gunning for and the lass is all right with Jed for a minute or two. You’ll do better letting your mam calm down for a while.’
Abby could see some sense in this and so she opened the back door and stepped into what was now a pristine backyard, continuing into the back lane before she turned and faced Ivor. ‘What do you want to say?’ she asked directly.
He stared at her. ‘My Audrey died thinking the one thing we had between us which no one else had was our boys,’ he said heavily. ‘And for that I’m grateful. But you’re my daughter. I’m not proud of the way you came into being but I’m proud of the end product, so to speak. Aw,’ he shook his head, ‘this sounds like a load of blather even to me. Look, your da was a grand man and I wronged him. I’m heart sorry for that.’
‘I don’t understand why,’ said Abby as they began to walk along the dreary back lane, the wind whipping at her legs. ‘Why my mother when you had someone like Aunty Audrey?’
Ivor, his head deep on his chest, said, ‘Because I was a fool, lass. That’s it in a nutshell.’
Seconds passed before she said, ‘Mam . . . she looks awful.’
‘She drinks.’
‘Drinks?’
‘Aye, when she can get it which isn’t so often now. But they’ve had a time with her, young Wilbert and Lucy. She’s a devil, Abby, but then you know that.’ He stopped and leaned against the brick wall. ‘I’m mourning my Audrey to the point of doing away with meself but there’s another part of me that’s glad she’s gone. Because of your mam, you understand. Because of what she might have said or done.’
Abby couldn’t make any comment to this. After a few moments she said, ‘We ought to go back.’
‘Aye.’ And then as though to refute this he suddenly straightened, his eyes tight on her as he said, ‘I didn’t know, about you and Wilbert and Clara. Do you believe that?’
Did she? She wasn’t sure.
‘I promise you, lass, I didn’t know. If there was some way I could make amends . . .’ He wiped each side of his mouth with his fingers, swallowing hard before he repeated, ‘I didn’t know.’
‘It doesn’t make any difference now,’ said Abby dully, turning as she spoke and beginning to retrace her footsteps. She shouldn’t have come. She had known that all along, hadn’t she? She didn’t want to feel sorry for Ivor, not after what he had done to her da. But this man beside her, he was her da. No, no he wasn’t. Not in the things that counted.
Abby had barely stepped into what used to be the scullery but was now part of the kitchen when her mother confronted her. Nora had clearly been waiting for them. Her voice was low but vicious when she said, ‘You. You’re not back two minutes and you’re causing trouble.’
‘
Mam
.’ Wilbert was near enough to hear and his voice carried a warning but nothing was going to stop Nora now. Her daughter’s fine clothes, the air of unconscious affluence and poise and, the final insult, Ivor’s championing of Abby had infuriated Nora beyond reason. ‘It was always the same but the men can’t see it, not where you’re concerned. Butter wouldn’t melt, would it?’
‘This is your sister’s funeral.’ Abby’s voice was icy cold. ‘After all you’ve done, the least you can do is to show her respect.’
‘Don’t you preach at me, girl. Not you!’
Nora’s voice had risen and Abby was aware of the deathly hush which had fallen over the proceedings. She caught sight of Clara’s horrified face and knew her main priority now was to stop her mother blurting out the truth about their paternity. With this in mind and in order not to rile their mother any further, she turned, meaning to exit the way she had just come, but Nora caught her arm. ‘Think you’ve been so clever, don’t you, with your airs and graces. Think you’ve got one over on me but I’ve had the last laugh. You hear me?’
‘I think everyone can hear you,’ Abby said.
Wilbert was trying to pull his mother out of the room but Nora resisted, her voice all the louder as she said, ‘I cooked your goose, girl. I told him you’d married someone else. What do you think about that? You ever think about James Benson? Wonder where he’s lying on foreign soil? Well, he’s alive an’ well and with a high-class wife an’ all. Someone of his own sort.’
‘What did you say?’ Abby motioned to Wilbert to let Nora stay.
‘You heard me.’
‘He came to see you? James came to the house?’
‘Aye, sniffing about as soon as he was back but I sent him away with a flea in his ear.’ Nora was triumphant in her fury. ‘First his father and then him, and both as thick as two short planks. Nineteen forty-three it was, or forty-two, I don’t remember, but I told him.’