Oh lordy.
Lordy lordy lordy!
What were you thinking, Shirley?
Shame on you.
SHAAAAAAAAME on you!!
And I really did feel ashamed.
Okay. It was a mistake. And nobody’s fault but my own. I’ll hold my hands up. Both of them. I should never have gone to that stupid funeral. What was I thinking? I should never have put on that stupid disguise and gone to the funeral of someone I’d never even met just because I wanted to find out more about the orphaned daughter. My love rival. My nemesis. It was one of the worst decisions I’d ever made, if I was honest.
And let’s face it. Honesty had nowt to do with my appearance at that crematorium, I’ll admit it. I even went in bloody disguise.
Disguise!
Though even if I said so myself, that disguise was pretty bloody good, actually.
And my gut instinct had been right. No-one asked why I was there. No-one was interested, full stop.
Which was pretty annoying because . . .
Oh, I could barely bring myself to even think about it . . .
Which was pretty annoying because against all the odds, and in complete contrast to what Gwen had told me . . .
Doug had gone to the service.
Yup, siree sirah, Doug was there as he lived and breathed, in full-blown Technicolor, as they said at the flicks.
Which is more than could be said for Muriel, of course.
Dead as a doornail, dead as a dodo, dead as you like Muriel. Muriel who pooed in Gwen’s walk-in wardrobe and would poo no more.
My heart had done the rumba in my ribcage when I saw that Doug had walked in behind the coffin, cradling a sobbing Vera in his arms. That’s how it felt, anyway. It rattled around like those dancers on Come Dancing, shaking all over the dance floor in their sequins, all hand-stitched. For my part, all I wanted to do in that moment was run. But I couldn’t. That way I’d definitely draw attention to myself. I couldn’t exactly gasp, ‘Sorry! Wrong funeral!’ I was stuck there. For the duration. I was trapped. Caged. No way out.
It was like someone had superglued my backside to the pew.
I had to gasp for air a bit. Hopefully the folk either side of me just thought I was overcome with emotion. But it was too much for me to handle. How long was I going to be trapped there for? This was the worst mistake in my life!
The sweat was peeling the skin off me, I felt tingly and prickly all over and I couldn’t for the life of me get my breath. I actually envisaged dying right there and then at the funeral, but the only thing that stopped me was the fear that when I did, they’d rip off the disguise to give me mouth to mouth and Doug would find himself flummoxed. And, even in death, I didn’t want to make a holy show of myself. So I stayed alive.
Eventually I calmed down. My breathing returned to normal. And I began to wonder if what I had experienced was more of a panic attack than impending doom. Eventually I felt almost relaxed. Especially when I realized Doug wasn’t going to spend the whole service turning round to see who was there.
Fortunately it wasn’t a very long funeral. Muriel’s life hadn’t been that interesting. And there was only so much positive spin you could put on a woman who was pissed behind the wheel and drove into a bus. The vicar said something about the bus driver being full of humility and forgiveness, which had really made Vera wail, but other than that Muriel’s life really hadn’t amounted to too much. There was talk of her finally being reunited with her husband. There was the twenty-third psalm. Some old crumbly did a poem about not having really died, and just having gone to the room next door actually.
Er. I don’t think that was strictly true. Pretty sure she had died, love. It were in the papers.
And yes, she was about to go through to the next room. Coz that’s where the burning furnace was.
Then the crumbly sat down.
And that, really, was that.
As the curtains were drawn and some nondescript music played over the tannoy I held my order of service to my face, all coy like a woman in a crinoline in olden days Paris, hiding behind her fan. I couldn’t risk Doug clocking me.
But of course the awful thing, the horrible thing, the thing I really could have done without, was that yet again – just like at Barnes Wallis – I was under the same roof as my beloved and – order of service or no order of service – he just hadn’t twigged.
I wanted to scream, I’M HERE, DOUG! YOUR BIT ON THE SIDE! YOUR COURTESAN! YOUR FANCY PIECE! YOUR TOYGIRL! I’M HERE BROAD AS DAYLIGHT!
But he just hadn’t realized. And that hurt. Really hurt.
Okay, so I looked completely different from usual. Okay, so he had no reason to expect me to be there – and probably just as well. But that intrinsic pull that I always thought would spring up whenever we were in the same space was completely absent. Yet a-bloody-gain! His focus was solely on her, his wife. Rightly so, you might have said; it was her mother’s funeral after all. But this was not the picture of sad family life he painted to me on his daily visits. This was the ultimate show of strength. I could hear folk in the congregation passing comment.
Isn’t he great?
They’re so well matched.
And after everything Muriel said about him.
Bless him.
Look at him.
Yeah all right, I was looking. And it was knocking me sick.
Vera. Always the bride. Never the bridesmaid.
I’d not been surprised when he’d phoned the night before and told me he’d have to cancel his visit next day as he was feeling under the weather. I’d almost said, It’s okay, Doug. I know you’re burning the alkie tomorrow. But I kept schtum and told him I understood. Even if I knew he was lying. Even though I wanted to say, I’m onto you, Sonny Jim. Even though he was old enough to be my dad. I kept my counsel, because that was what good girls did. For I had decided I’d be a good girl. Because good girls always won. Didn’t they? They had to.
I would make sure they did.
I kept hearing that voice in my head. Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady.
I’m a good girl, I am!
I used to love that film. Sat in of a Saturday or a Sunday afternoon, me, Mam and our Josie, loving the frocks, loving the songs. Mam knew all the words.
I’m a good girl, I am!
Once the service was over I made a sharp exit before Doug could turn round from his front-row seat and realize I might have been there. I hurried away from the crematorium in as sober a walk as I could. It was almost a trot. I didn’t want to run to draw attention to myself. I took the first bus that came to the stop outside and, even though it was going in completely the wrong direction for me, I stayed with it to the end of the journey. Just in case.
Just in case what? Just in case he saw me and twigged? Twigged that I was obsessed with his wife, the competition?
Just in case my cover was blown?
Just in case he saw me and said, What the hell are you in that rig-up for?
But there was a bigger fear. Just in case he saw me and said, Do you know what, Shirl? It’s over.
Something was making me feel like he was slipping from my grasp. Something was making me feel like I was always going to play second fiddle to her headline act. It was a feeling I was used to, let’s be honest. I had always lived in the shadows while our Josie shone in the limelight. But Doug had led me to believe that one day I’d be the star of his show. And now I was appreciating this might prove unlikely. Did I really want to be the other woman, the kept woman till the end of my days? Vera had already won on so many levels. She had his ring on her finger. She had the kids. Maybe one day he’d get bored of me and turn his attention to somebody else he met by the outdoor pools at Butlin’s. It might only be a matter of time. Was I heading for the knacker’s yard when I was only eighteen years of age?
I knew there were other men out there. I knew there were better men out there. But for some reason, he was the one I wanted. He was the one who’d first shown an interest, first shone the light on me. He was the first ever man to see me naked and make love to me and tell me I was beautiful and make me feel good about myself, and that had to count for something. It had to. And if it didn’t then I would make sure that it did.
But how?
How could I do that?
Looked like it was time to up my game.
Doug had his own business. It was something to do with providing the parts for catseyes in the middle of the road. He had told me, but I’d forgotten what it was. Blimey, I could be useless sometimes. Like when I couldn’t remember if he’d told me Vera was a big fat lump or not. You’d have thought I’d remember that kind of thing. Oh Shirl, you daft apeth.
Catseyes. He ran a company that made a bit of them. For the roads. The bit that lit up perhaps, that showed you which way to drive when it was dark. Maybe he made those bits.
I did know he had a couple of Portakabins in an industrial estate between Oldham and Rochdale. And his surname was on the side of those Portakabins.
That, he’d say, was his empire.
He had men working under him and lots of business contacts.
Sometimes I dreamed that that empire would one day be mine.
I could do his touch-typing. His filing. Answer the phone.
Just putting you through . . .
And yet.
And yet.
I had this sense of foreboding. Call it woman’s intuition, call it what you like, but I sensed all would not be well in the future. I remember when our Josie’s pet rabbit Gnasher died and she started having nightmares and then was found sleepwalking on Tiberton Street singing ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining’ and had no idea why she was doing it. Mam said the woman from the Chinese laundry’s hair went white overnight when her twin sister died. You see, grief did funny things to people. And people did funny things with grief. No doubt Vera was going to be no exception.
I kept seeing this image of her in a cowshed, milking a cow. Coz oh boy, was she gonna be milking this one! She’d be more demanding of Doug’s time, I just knew it, and he’d have to do whatever she said coz let’s face it, when your missus had just lost her mam, you had to show willing. I totally understood that, I just didn’t think it was fair. I’d waited in the wings long enough. He’d sworn to me that he’d leave her one day. Was the date of that day going to be: the twelfth of never?
I felt like I was going mad. I couldn’t think about anything else. My work was suffering, even I could see that. I stopped getting As at secretarial college, I was slipping to Bs. Everybody knew summat was up. I felt there was so much rubbish and information and thoughts and fears bubbling about in my head, I had to speak to someone.
I spoke to our Josie.
I felt bad, like she didn’t have enough on her plate already.
She’d come round to mine for a meal and a bottle of pop. She was trying not to drink now she were pregnant with the baby. I was cooking my old favourite: a tin of condensed tomato soup with a tin of tuna and a tin of peas in it, served with this new-fangled invention they’d just brought out – oven chips. She still hadn’t gone back to Mam and Dad’s and was stopping with the Bob Carolgees lookalike, so she was glad to get out from under his feet, truth be told.
I told her everything I knew. I mean, there wasn’t much. I told her I’d seen his wife at Barnes Wallis and she was pretty. I didn’t tell her I’d been round with my Pretty Lady products and interrogated the neighbour, then dressed up and gone to a funeral to keep tabs on her. I only told our Josie I’d found out that Vera’s mam had died and it had been in the papers and I felt like she had the upper hand. Josie just sat there shaking her head.
‘You’re not gonna like what I’m going to say, Shirl.’
‘Say it anyway, I can be the judge of that.’
‘Well, it’s not good, is it? Him with another woman. And he lied and said she were horrible. And now you know she’s not. Is he really gonna chuck it all away to risk everything with you?’
I shrugged, even though I knew the answer was a resounding no.
‘What d’you reckon I should do, Josie?’
‘I hate to have to say it but . . .’
‘What?’
‘Get out. Get out now. Show him who’s boss.’
‘But he bought me this flat.’
‘You’ll find another. And you’ll meet another bloke. One who’ll treat you right.’
‘But what if I don’t? What if he’s the one?’
‘He’s not the one. There’s no such thing as the one. Oh, there’s someone but . . .’
‘There won’t be . . .’
‘Shirley, there’s someone out there for everyone. Even you. They just might not be the John Travolta in shining armour we all had planned for us selves.’
‘Well, we both know that for a fact. No-one’ll ever live up to John Travolta.’
‘This much is true, cock. This much is true.’
I sighed. I’d known exactly what she was going to say, and that’s why I’d asked her. But still, hearing it aloud rather than in my head was a tough weight to carry.
‘Have you tried talking to him?’
‘What about?’
‘About all this!’
‘No.’
‘Well, don’t you think you should? You’re not gonna get anywhere unless you talk to each other.’
‘But what if he just says, “Yeah, you’re right. It’s Vera over you.”?’
‘Then it’s best you know now, rather than further down the line. The sooner you know what’s going on the better.’
I knew what she said made sense. And I knew she had my best interests at heart. But I just didn’t know whether I could go through with it.
Why was it that I had no qualms dressing up and putting glasses on and following his wife to her own mother’s funeral? But face to face, being honest, that was somehow much more difficult.
‘I will. I promise. I’ll talk to him.’
And then I changed the subject and we talked about prams. My heart wasn’t in it though. And I could tell hers wasn’t either.
‘How’ve you been keeping?’ I asked Doug the next time I saw him and I’d sorted him out, sex-wise. You know, down there.
‘Oh, you know. So so.’
‘Hardly seen you lately.’
‘I’ve been having a nightmare, Shirl.’
‘Oh aye? What’s occurring, Göring?’
He liked it when I said that. He thought it was cute. And I’d have bet you a dime to a dollar that Vera never said anything like that.
Other things I said along these lines were: You’re a stickler, Hitler. And: Don’t make me yawn, Eva Braun.
He reached over and pinched my nose.
‘Nothing for you to worry your head about, ditsy Dora.’
‘I’m anything but ditsy, Doug.’
He chuckled. ‘True.’
‘Is it trouble at home?’
He sighed. ‘I can’t lie to you. It’s Vera. Her mam died.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Was it a long drawn-out death or . . .’
‘No, it was quite quick really. Car crash. She was under the influence.’
‘Of what?’
‘Diamond White mostly. And a bit of Baileys. It’s been horrible, if you must know. Coz the kids were in the car with her.’
I did a massive mock gasp. ‘Are they okay!?’
‘Minor cuts and grazes but, yeah. They’re okay now.’
‘Oh Doug, that’s awful.’
And I reached out and hugged him to me and I could feel how tense he was just talking about it. But you know. This was good. Because I knew he was being honest with me. All this time I’d worried he was stringing me along like . . . I dunno . . . like a massive string of sausages. But look. He was lain in my arms being honest with me.
Some folk would’ve said that that was a result.
Some folk like me.
‘Shit’s hit the fan a bit, really,’ He said. ‘I was gonna tell you but . . . I know you don’t really want to hear about Vera.’
‘Oh, I don’t mind, Doug. Not really.’
Good girls always won, you see.
‘What does she look like, Doug? Describe her.’
‘She’s all right.’
‘Is she fat? I can’t remember what you’ve told me.’
‘She’s not fat.’
‘She’s thin?’
‘Skinny as a rake. Blonde hair. Looks a bit like thingy.’
‘Who?’
‘Barbara from The Good Life.’
‘Hmm. She’s a pretty little thing, that Barbara.’
‘Vera might be pretty, Shirl. But all that glitters is not golden.’
I took that in for a while.
‘Can’t all have brains like me, I suppose.’
‘You might be right there.’
Right. So he as good as said she was thick.
Result.
‘Okey dokey, pig in a pokey,’ he added. ‘I’m going for a slash.’
As I lay in my bed, luxuriating in the comfort of the mattress and my quilt, I could hear him urinating in the bathroom. A loud thudding downpour; put me in mind of Niagara Falls. But I didn’t care. It sounded wonderful. Like an orchestra. Doug wasn’t leading me on. Doug wasn’t lying. One day he’d be leaving that skinny bitch for little ole me.
It was just a matter of time.
Oh, this felt good. This felt amazing, in fact.
This feeling could last forever.
But when he came in from the bathroom, the cacophonous flush rattling around the flat, he looked very red in the face.
‘Are you all right, Doug?’
‘High blood pressure, doctor says.’
‘Oh.’ I’d heard of that, though I wasn’t that sure what it was. He sat on the bed and took some deep breaths.
‘I’ll be all right in a minute,’ he said.
‘Okay.’ I still didn’t know what to do, really.
But the longer he sat there, the longer he did his heavy breathing thing, and the more ratty he got.
‘Fuck me,’ he said, under his breath.
‘Isn’t that my line?’ I joked, sounding for all the world like our Josie on one of her bawdy nights out. Not very me at all, really.
He stood, suddenly. ‘I can’t do this. I need some space.’ He started pacing the room, all panicky. ‘What if I had a heart attack now?’
‘Well, I’d call an ambulance.’
‘And how would we explain that to Vera?’
‘We’d think of something.’
I really wished he would have a heart attack. Right there, right then; then she’d have to have found out. Straight away.
Why was my husband found in your house in nowt but his undies and a Supertramp T-shirt?
Why d’you think, Bell-bottoms?
But he was pacing again.
‘You’re not going to have a heart attack,’ I insisted.
‘But what if I did?’
‘You’re just having a panic on. You’ve been through a lot of stress. This is how it’s coming out. I do understand. I had one the other day at the . . . at . . . somewhere.’
‘I’ve got to go.’
Talk about nought to sixty in thirty seconds. One minute he’d been lying in my bed being all nice and lovey dovey. The next he was saying he needed to get out and I didn’t know where I stood. MEN.
Suddenly I was all on my ownsome in the flat.
Gone. In a puff of smoke. Well, gone in a puff of high blood pressure. He’d run that fast I expected to see skid marks on the hall carpet.
The next week he didn’t come and see me once.
The week after that, the same.
I got the odd phone call. Snatched conversations. Lame excuses. Doctor’s orders. Poorly kids. Vera feeling sad.
I was back at square one yet again.
Well. If he had no intention of leaving Blondie, maybe it was time to make Blondie want to leave him.
But how to do it?
Time to get my thinking cap on.