Faith - Lesley Pearse [13]
‘Love ain’t like what you see at the pictures,’ June said sagely. ‘It’s not all pretty and sweet. It’s more like a kind of madness that takes over your brain. You don’t see what the bloke really is. All you can think about is him kissing you and holding you. But that don’t last, let me tell you. If you’re lucky, when that wears off you’re left with a decent bloke who’ll take care of you, but if you aren’t, then you’ll regret the day you ever set eyes on him.’
‘But you and Dad were happy together!’ Laura exclaimed indignantly. She might not actually remember Bill being very happy and joyful with his children, but he had seemed happy enough with June when they came home from the pub together.
‘How could anyone be happy living like this?’ June gestured at her surroundings with her cigarette. ‘He never saw this as being anything more than a kind of dosshouse to fall into when he’d had a skinful of beer. He never valued me.’
Laura was shocked by that. ‘Surely he does!’
‘Oh, he does now he’s in the nick,’ June spat out. ‘He tells me that he adores me and you kids, that he’s sorry and it will all be different when he comes out. But words are cheap, he’s said all that before, and I was stupid enough to believe him. I’ll be forty-two when he comes out this time, a middle-aged woman who’s spent her life in a slum, no holidays, no nice things, and precious few good memories. And he expects me to wait for him!’
It was in November, thirteen months after her father had been arrested, that Laura found out her mother wasn’t waiting for Bill. June had been doing her two nights a week cleaning for months, but then she upped it to three in September. About the same time she began having her hair done at the hairdresser’s, bought herself some new clothes, and put makeup on every time she went out.
Laura was glad to see her mother looking better, and it was easier to get her homework done on the nights June was working because once the little ones were in bed, she had peace and quiet.
She had begun sharing the double bed in the front room with her mother when Bill went to prison, and she was often so sound asleep she didn’t wake when June came home at night. But one morning Freddy woke early and Laura found she was alone in the bed.
Just a few minutes later, as she was changing Freddy’s wet nappy, her mother came in. She was wearing the same blue costume she’d gone out in the night before, and high heels, but she said she’d just popped out for some cigarettes.
Laura knew she was lying, for there were a couple of cigarettes in a packet on the table, and if her mother had slipped out to the shops she would only have pulled on old clothes and gone in her slippers.
That day at school Laura kept thinking about it, and remembered that a couple of weeks earlier she’d woken up to find her mother fully dressed making a cup of tea in the kitchen. At the time she’d believed her story that she couldn’t sleep so she’d washed and dressed, but now it looked as if she’d been out all night both times. It could only mean she’d been with a man.
As soon as she got home, she asked her mother point-blank.
‘What do you mean, have I been with a man?’ June replied, getting up and looking at herself in the mirror over the fireplace, which was what she always did when faced with something awkward.
‘I know you have, Mum,’ Laura said. ‘And you’re married, so that’s wicked.’
June whipped round, her small face sharp with spite. ‘I’ll tell you what’s wicked,’ she said. ‘A daughter who can’t bear to see her mother have a bit of life. Do you know what it’s like to be stuck in here day after day with only you four kids? Well, I’ll tell you, it’s enough to drive anyone mad.’
Laura was mature enough to understand why June had been tempted by another man; she was after all well aware of her father’s shortcomings. She might even have been glad for her if she hadn’t been so nasty.
What hurt was that she had been lumped together with the three younger children as a burden, when she