Jean’s head ached. She poked one finger behind her glasses and rubbed her eyes, swollen and itchy from crying. She watched the two little girls run across the concrete playground to join the line of children already outside the main door. Linda’s grey socks had already slipped down, her thin legs encircled by red lines from the knotted elastic bands that were supposed to hold them up to her knees.
She was worried about Jacqueline. She’d hardly answered Linda’s chatter all the way to school. She knew her daughter was upset, both about the quarrel and that they were staying with her Granny Winterbottom. She’d almost had to drag Jacqueline to Moss Terrace. But Patrick wouldn’t leave and Jean couldn’t be around him so she had no choice. She’d try to explain everything to Jacqueline after school.
Relieved there were no other mothers about to ask awkward questions, she leaned against the low wall that surrounded the small building. The stone was cold against her legs but not as cold as she felt inside. She couldn’t remember the last time she was as unhappy as this.
The Headmistress, holding the large brass bell by its wooden handle, frowned at the restless children, inspecting them. A scuffle broke out between two boys hitting one another with their school caps, promptly brought to a halt by a quick cuff from one of the teachers who paced up and down the lines.
‘Mrs Howarth?’ The Headmistress was waving at her. What now? Jean saw all the children turn round to look. ‘We have the nit nurse coming this afternoon. We haven’t had Jacqueline’s permission form back. Do you have it with you?’
‘No but it’s fine.’ Jacqueline would be mortified, she thought, seeing the others giggling. She was glad to see Linda’s arm slip around her daughter’s waist.
Unwilling to move, to carry on with the pretence of a normal day, she stood for a long time staring up at the tiny bell tower on the school roof that hadn’t held a bell since the early days of the war. When she was small, that bell announced the beginning and end of the school day.
Soon she heard the singing in assembly. It was an old familiar hymn, ‘I’ll be a sunbeam for Him’, and she listened until the last notes of the piano died away. Jacqueline’s favourite. Perhaps she should have kept her home after all. It wasn’t the first argument she’d heard since she was little but it was the worst. And if she didn’t know if things would ever be the same again between her and Patrick, how must their daughter be feeling?
She walked slowly along the short lane from the school, past the old air raid shelter, now bricked up, and onto Huddersfield Road, reluctant to go back to her mother’s. At the entrance to Skirm Park she walked in. At the first bench she sat down. The fragrance of the low spreading red rose bushes wafted around her. She bent down and picked up a couple of fallen petals, crushed them in her hand and lifted them to her nose. Patrick had bought a red rose as a surprise to give to her on the first night of their honeymoon. She remembered being horrified at the thought of the price. Months afterwards he confessed he’d done a deal on the black market.
Yet, despite that, it was those gestures which endeared him to her. However angry she was with him he always managed to charm her round somehow. But not this time. Yesterday had been the final straw.
She brushed her palms together, ridding them of the last of the crushed rose petals, and rubbed the red stain from her skin.
What would happen next Jean didn’t know. She tried to forget the gloating expression on her mother’s face when they’d walked through the door with suitcases. Elsie Winterbottom had left Jean in no doubt that she’d never expected her marriage to last. And, for once Jean bitterly agreed with her. Marrying Patrick had been the worst mistake of her life.