‘“A coma”? What does that mean? I mean … I know what a coma is, but …’ Gloria’s head felt like it was spinning. Her brain was muddled. She didn’t seem to be able to think straight.
She felt Rosie take her hand and give it a gentle squeeze. The pair of them were seated in the canteen. It was quiet, save for the noise of the dinner ladies clearing up from the lunchtime rush. Pots and pans were being banged about and leftover food scraped off plates and slopped into large metal waste bins.
‘Does that mean he’s going to live?’ Gloria implored.
‘I don’t know,’ Rosie said. She felt so helpless. She didn’t know whether to be positive, and in doing so perhaps give Gloria false hope, or be more honest, and admit that in all truthfulness the little bit of information Miriam had imparted had not sounded good.
‘Did Miriam say anything else? Anything about what the doctors said? People come out of comas, don’t they?’ Gloria asked desperately. Gloria rarely uttered Miriam’s name, she hated the woman so much, but at this moment in time she didn’t give a damn. Every drop of her mind was focused on Jack, and every ounce of emotion taken up with her feelings for the man she had fallen in love with as a young girl, and who she had fallen in love with all over again this past year.
For want of words Rosie squeezed Gloria’s hand again. She then poured her a cup of tea from the pot she had bought when they came in, adding a good heap of sugar. She wished she had a hip flask of brandy or whisky like the ones some of the men kept in their overall pockets.
‘From the little I know I think it’s just a case of wait and see,’ Rosie said, pushing Gloria’s cup towards her. Gloria took a sip, but didn’t put the cup down, instead keeping it suspended just inches away from her mouth. Her eyes looked lost and forlorn, but, unlike Miriam’s, her eyes were dry. There were no tears.
Although Rosie had never seen Jack and Gloria together as a couple as their love affair had been clandestine (no one, not even any of the women welders, had known they were seeing each other – let alone had become lovers – until after Jack had left for America), but all the same, Rosie could tell they’d make a good couple; she’d seen them chatting in the yard on a number of occasions and it was obvious how at ease and happy they were in each other’s company.
But Jack and Miriam as husband and wife? They were an odd mix. Like chalk and cheese, but not in a good way. Not in an ‘opposites attract’ way. Jack was a nice bloke, whereas Miriam was not a nice woman. And their daughter Helen was most definitely not a nice girl. Rosie leant back in her metal chair and the two women sat in silence and tried their best to digest the news they had been given this last hour.
‘At least he’s alive,’ Rosie ventured.
‘Yes, of course,’ Gloria muttered, still staring ahead, her cup in hand. ‘There is that … God, this is the last thing I expected. I should really be thanking my lucky stars that he’s not dead – but being in a coma doesn’t really feel like he’s actually alive. Does it?’
Rosie nodded her agreement. ‘I know.’
‘Either of you two need a top-up there?’ a harsh, but friendly, heavily accented voice shouted over. It was Muriel, one of the older women, who worked in the canteen.
‘We’re fine, thanks,’ Rosie shouted back over. She looked at Gloria, who had put her teacup down but had not drunk more than a sip.
‘You heard anything from Vinnie lately?’ Rosie asked. It was an often repeated enquiry. That man was trouble. And his temper was dangerous. She had seen for herself the marks left by his fists on her workmate’s face, and the bruises round her neck where he had tried to squeeze the living daylights out of her. It made her blood well and truly boil. After the last episode, when Gloria had come into work with a black eye and a mouth so bruised and puffed up she could hardly talk, Rosie had been livid and determined to put a stop to him – although she’d had to admit she was at a loss to know exactly what to do.
Gloria herself had got a legal letter drafted at the end of last year threatening him with the law if he was violent towards her again, and that had worked for a while, but it had proved to be just a temporary solution to the problem.
Rosie had gone as far as discussing the problem with Peter who, she could tell, had been equally horrified that a man could be so violent to a woman, let alone his own wife. A week or so later they had heard through one of the caulkers, whose girlfriend worked with Vinnie at the ropery, that he had apparently been mugged and given a good going over. It had seemed too much of a coincidence that he’d been given a bashing so soon after he had done the same to Gloria. Rosie had tentatively broached the subject with Peter, but he had remained straight-faced, and she hadn’t known how to interpret the words he used on hearing the news. ‘Divine intervention,’ he had said. A perfectly innocent comment – or one infused with irony? She still wasn’t sure.
‘Funny you should ask about Vinnie,’ Gloria said, distractedly, ‘but he turned up last night. Shortly after Dorothy left … she came round to give Hope a two-week-old birthday present …’ Gloria’s mind was wandering.
‘What did he want?’ Rosie pursued. She was worried. It had been months since he had seen Gloria. Why turn up now?
‘Oh, he said he wanted to see the baby,’ Gloria mumbled, looking out the canteen window at a pair of young lads – one heating rivets with a big pair of tongs and then throwing them to his mate. It was like some strange game of catch, only played with a red hot metal bolt.
‘And did he – see the baby?’ Rosie asked, taking hold of Gloria’s hand and trying to draw her attention back to the here and now. She looked miles away. Totally lost in thought.
Gloria turned her focus back to Rosie.
‘God, no! Over my dead body.’ As she uttered the words they looked at each other, imagining the scene: Vinnie stepping over Gloria’s lifeless body to get to the child he believed was his. Neither Gloria nor Rosie was in any doubt that if Vinnie was riled up enough – and inebriated enough – he would be capable of losing it so badly that he might indeed take a life. And there would be no question as to whose life that would be.
‘The problem is,’ Gloria continued, ‘I know this is just the start and there’ll be more visits. As long as he thinks the baby is his, he’s going to be determined to be a part of her life. Even if it’s just to cause me grief.’
Gloria sighed heavily.
‘I was all set to come clean about who Hope’s real father was when she was born. That day here in the yard, when I held her in my arms and we were all bawling our eyes out –’ both women automatically smiled as they remembered the scene ‘– I vowed to myself,’ Gloria continued, her voice becoming thick with emotion, ‘that as soon as Jack was back – if he came back alive – I would tell him Hope was his. And that I would be open and honest about everything … Which, of course,’ Gloria added ominously, ‘meant telling Vinnie that the child was not his. That I had been with another man.’
‘Not that that should have mattered,’ Rosie jumped in. ‘I mean, he had been seeing – and sleeping with – that Sarah for a whole two years behind your back. And then you finally chuck him out and say “no” to any more beatings – and in a blink of an eye – or rather the time it took him to walk from the Ford estate to Grindon – he’s shacked up with his bit on the side.’
Rosie felt herself getting annoyed at the injustice of it all. She knew no one would condemn Vinnie for moving in with his mistress, but God only knew what kind of vicious gossip Gloria would be subjected to if people found out she had borne a child by a man who was not her husband.
‘I know it’s wrong,’ Gloria added, ‘but it’s just the way it is – one rule for them and another for us. The thing is, I was more than willing to take the flak for it, to be looked at like I was some harlot –’ she looked at Rosie and wished she could have taken the words back.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean …’ Gloria apologised.
Rosie immediately dismissed her comments with a wave of her hand, saying, ‘But now you really are stuck between a rock and a hard place. It wouldn’t be fair to declare that Hope is Jack’s – not with him being in a coma – and you cannot really tell Vinnie that the baby’s not his, because … God knows what would happen. It doesn’t bear thinking about. If you tell him, you have to have Jack by your side … I think at the moment,’ she continued, ‘you’ve only got one option – and that’s to keep mum.’
Gloria looked back at her boss, her friend and her confidante, and smiled dejectedly.
As they left the canteen and trudged back to the dry dock in silence, Rosie’s mind was swinging between thoughts of Jack lying in a coma, and Vinnie’s dark and threatening re-emergence. If only Jack and Vinnie could swap places. As it was, she would not like to be in Gloria’s shoes. Not for one moment.
When they’d climbed down into the dry dock where the women were working this afternoon on a frigate that had been caught in a mine blast and had suffered serious, but not irreparable, damage to its underside, Rosie walked over to Angie and tapped her on the shoulder. Her weld had died on her and when she lifted her mask her face was full of angry frustration.
‘You’re holding your rod too far away from the plate. That’s why your arc keeps going out.’ As she spoke, Rosie bobbed down so she didn’t have to shout over the commotion of the yard. ‘And if you loop the lead around your arm it’ll take some of the weight off,’ she advised. Angie was still learning the ropes when it came to welding, but she was a quick learner and only ever needed telling something the once.
Angie nodded her understanding but didn’t bother to speak; she had learnt fairly soon after starting work at Thompson’s that talk was pretty pointless as the noise of the yard was simply too much to contend with.
Sensing they had company, the women broke off from their welding and looked up to see that Rosie and Gloria had returned. Dorothy immediately pushed her helmet up and opened her mouth to speak, but before she had time to say anything, Rosie beat her to it.
‘The Admiral. After work!’ she shouted out, knowing that if the women couldn’t hear her they had probably lip-read her words, something they were getting quite adept at doing.
Dorothy closed her mouth and looked over at Gloria with concern. The women pushed their helmets back down and worked steadily through until the end of the shift. They all guessed that there must be some news about Jack, and judging by both their workmates’ faces, it was not good.