A Girl Can Dream. Anne Bennett
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some sort of affair?’
‘I overheard my parents talking about it,’ Nicholas said. ‘I was supposed to be doing my homework in the attic but I was coming down for a drink and I heard them.’
‘So what did they say?’
‘Dad said he hoped your dad knew what he was doing, messing about with the likes of Doris Caudwell. And Mom said there was no fool like an old fool, and Dad said he’s a bit of a laughing stock at the pub and that she’d set out to get her claws into him from the start.’
Meg groaned. ‘I bet he’s a laughing stock,’ she said grimly. ‘But who is this Doris Caudwell?’
‘Search me,’ Nicholas said. ‘I think I’ve seen her, though.’
‘How have you done that?’
‘She met your dad from the tram the other evening,’ Nicholas said.
‘I thought all the men come home together?’
‘They do. I don’t know if she meets him regularly or how long it’s being going on or anything, because I’m not usually on the same tram, but a couple of nights ago I had a detention for not handing my homework in on time.’ And here he grinned at Meg ruefully and went on, ‘Not that I told Mom the real reason why I was late home. Said I volunteered for extra maths. As if?’
‘Get on with it,’ Meg said impatiently.
‘Yeah, anyway, Dad and Uncle Robert and your dad wouldn’t have known I was on the same tram because I was on the top deck and they were already inside when I got on but I didn’t know that and I was coming down the stairs as the tram pulled in to Bristol Street and saw this woman waiting by the stop. I didn’t take that much notice at first, but then I saw your dad seemed mighty pleased to see her, and my dad and Uncle Robert were talking to him on the pavement, sort of arguing, and didn’t see me sneak past. As I went up Bristol Passage, I looked back, and it was as if they were trying to reason with your dad, but he suddenly pulled free of my dad and went off down the road with the woman. I didn’t wait to see any more. I made for home and was in quite a bit before Dad. I reckon he and Uncle Robert were talking about it.’
Meg was chewing her thumbnail. She knew Nicholas was right. Her father had been coming in late for a week or two now, always blaming the traffic and she had thought the traffic was going slower because of the snow and the ice.
‘Why didn’t they talk it over with me?’ she demanded. ‘Surely that would have been the thing to do.’
‘They probably didn’t want to upset you.’
‘It’s not them would upset me,’ Meg said. ‘It’s my dad with this sort of secret carry-on.’
‘Maybe they thought it would amount to nothing in the end,’ Nicholas said. ‘You know, a flash in the pan, and you wouldn’t have had to know a thing about it.’
There was a silence between them and then Meg said, ‘What’s she like, this woman?’
Nicholas shrugged. ‘Just a woman, you know. I only caught a glimpse of her. Sort of ordinary.’ He paused and then asked her, ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Nothing for now,’ Meg said after a moment. ‘If your dad and Uncle Robert are right and this is just a fling, it will all blow over. I might make things worse if I say anything now. I think I’ll wait and see. And, Nicholas, I don’t want the others to know anything about it.’
‘I won’t say a word,’ he promised.
By March, which had come in like the proverbial lion sending icy gusts of wind funnelling down the street, Charlie began leaving the house on Saturday nights as well as being late on Fridays, and then he started disappearing on Sunday afternoons too. By the time the month was drawing to a close, he was out a couple of nights in the week as well. Meg said nothing, but Billy and Sally had begun to ask where he was going.
‘Just out,’ Charlie would answer them. ‘When a man works all week, he values time to himself.’
Meg had thought he might be reverting to the drink, but she never heard him staggering about the place, and he seemed to have no trouble getting up in the morning. Although she still worried that his lady friend might be unsuitable, she had to confess that she’d seldom seen her dad so cheerful since her mom died. He came home from work with a smile on his face and whistled around the house, or sang snatches of songs like he used to do.
One evening, Meg decided to tackle her dad about the mysterious Doris Caudwell for all their sakes. The night was a cold one and she pulled the curtains tighter across the windows and shook more coal onto the fire, then put the wireless on for company so that big band music filled the room as she settled to wait for his return.
By the time Charlie came home, Meg was asleep, but she roused herself as he came in the door. She was still bleary-eyed as she snapped off the wireless and faced him.
‘What is it?’ he asked anxiously. ‘Is everything all right? The children …?’
‘The children are fine,’ Meg said.
‘So, why are you waiting up?’
‘To ask you something,’ Meg said. ‘Something that I shouldn’t have to ask you.’
‘What?’ Charlie asked, but he knew full well what his daughter was getting at and she knew it too.
‘Oh, come on, Dad,’ she snapped impatiently. ‘Don’t play the innocent. Are you going out with a woman called Doris Caudwell, or aren’t you?’
The red blush that flooded over Charlie’s face told its own tale, and Meg felt as if a lead weight had settled in her stomach.
Shamefaced, her father nodded. ‘Who told you?’
‘That doesn’t matter,’ Meg said, and added a little bitterly, ‘It could have been any of a number of people, because one thing I am pretty sure of is that it wasn’t a secret to anyone but us, and for the life of me I can’t think why that was.’
‘I didn’t want to upset you.’
‘D’you think this is any less upsetting?’ Meg snapped. ‘And when did you intend to tell us, or were you just going to install her in the house as your wife and the children’s mother without any sort of consultation about it at all?’
‘Of course not,’ Charlie said. ‘I just thought you might feel it too soon after your mother.’
‘If you feel that way, you shouldn’t have begun any sort of relationship,’ Meg said icily.
‘I … I don’t feel that way,’ Charlie said. ‘At least … goddammit, Meg, you know what I thought of your mother, and when she died I didn’t go looking for someone else or anything.’
‘So how did you meet this woman?’
‘I met her in the Swan where she had come in for a drink with another woman,’ Charlie said.
Meg curled her lip. Women who went into public houses alone were considered to be the lowest of the low.
‘Now don’t look like that,’ Charlie censored. ‘She’s not loose or anything like that, but the other woman was going to see her chap and didn’t want to go into the pub alone, and as Doris is a widow she agreed to go in with her. She is actually quite alone in the world, for she has no children and no siblings, and neither had her late husband. Their parents are long dead. She’s also a stranger here, drafted from Yorkshire.
‘You seem to know a lot about her from one meeting.’ Meg commented.
‘That first time we met it was your uncle Robert who did most of the talking.’
That