A Girl Can Dream

‘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 surprised Meg. ‘Why?’

‘Because she works at the same place as Rosie,’ Charlie said. ‘She doesn’t know her. Apparently they work in different areas. Doris actually doesn’t know many people, unless you count the woman she came out with. She says she hasn’t had time to make friends yet.’

‘Where does she live?’

‘She has a small flat on Bristol Street.’

‘Why did she come here from Yorkshire?’

‘Because she said she didn’t mind where she went,’ Charlie answered patiently. ‘See, she was a seamstress and not getting that much money and, as she said, she had to provide for herself after her husband died. So when she heard that war-related work was paying more, she made enquiries. They asked what she could do, and when she told them, they asked if she wanted work near to home. She said she didn’t mind where she went and so she arrived here.’

‘So that was the first time you saw her,’ Meg said. ‘So why didn’t you leave it there?’

‘Because when she was there again the following week, I couldn’t just ignore her.’

‘And you asked her out?’

‘Yes,’ Charlie said. ‘I did,’ and added a little defiantly. ‘To tell the truth I felt a bit sorry for her. And I know how she feels because I’m often lonely myself.’

The plaintive note in Charlie’s voice gave Meg a bit of a jolt, for she had wondered before if her father might be lonely and she felt sorry for him until he said ‘Do you know, I really envy Robert and Alec going home to loving wives and warm beds.’

‘Oh,’ Meg snapped ‘Is that what you were hoping for: a warm bed with a woman you had just met?’

‘’Course not,’ Charlie said. ‘There was nothing in it then. Just two lonely people being company for one another. We saw a film at the cinema in Bristol Road and popped into the Trees for a quick drink afterwards and that was the extent of it.’

‘But it didn’t stay like that?’ Meg tried to hide the deep hurt flowing through her body.

‘No, it didn’t stay like that,’ Charlie said. ‘That’s how relationships do develop. Doris thanked me and said how much she had enjoyed it, and I realised I had too, and I took her out the following week, and so it went on, but I never went looking for it.’

‘But you did nothing to stop it once you did see what was happening,’ Meg said. ‘How could you, Daddy? Mom has been dead only just over eighteen months.’

‘There isn’t a timescale on these things, Meg.’

‘Then there blooming well ought to be,’ Meg burst out. Even recognising her father’s lonely state, she felt such pain at what she saw as his betrayal, and knowing how powerless she was to change the situation, she lashed out. ‘Just what sort of father are you? You knew Mom was risking her life to carry another child and she died giving birth to the child of that union, a child that you then refused to have anything to do with. Little Ruth will grow up without the love of a father or a mother, but it isn’t her fault that Mom died. And now, when she is barely cold, you are seeking to replace her.’

Charlie stared at her. ‘I will forgive you for your outburst,’ he said. ‘I can see you’re extremely upset.’

Meg could feel a pulse beating in her head as white-hot fury filled her body and she screamed, ‘I am not upset, I’m bloody angry. Do you think you are the only one that’s lonely? There isn’t a day goes by when I don’t miss Mom and wish she was here, and I am very lonely at times, too, but all you care about is your bloody self.’

Charlie was taken aback by his daughter’s vehemence but tried for a conciliatory tone. ‘I did it for you, too, if you would only see that.’

‘Oh, don’t make me laugh,’ Meg said. ‘You did it for you. The rest of us don’t matter.’

‘You do matter,’ Charles insisted. ‘But Doris will be here to see to the children now and that means that you can have a life of your own.’

Meg’s head was whirring. ‘She knows about us then, this Doris?’

‘She knows that I am a widower and that I have children,’ Charlie said, and added a little nervously, ‘I didn’t tell her how many. Didn’t want to scare her off. After all, she isn’t that used to children.’

‘So how do you know she’ll take us all on?’

‘If she marries me, of course she’ll take you on,’ Charlie said. ‘It’s a wife’s duty.’

Meg knew how traditional her father’s views were. He would expect his wife to get up before him in the morning, make him breakfast, pack up his sandwiches, keep house all day and be there when he got in after work with a hot meal on the table. ‘What if she really likes her job and doesn’t want to give it up?’ Meg asked. ‘Or really can’t cope with the house and kids and that?’

‘Meg,’ Charlie said, ‘Doris is a lonely woman who I’m sure wants to be married and I am willing to marry her. I don’t know if I love her like I did your mother, but I am fond of her. She will be grateful to have another crack at marriage and will give her job up without a qualm when we wed. And of course she’ll cope. She is a woman, and caring for husband, children and a house is what women are born to do.’

Meg knew her father really believed that. She gave a sigh and realised how bone-weary she must look when her father said, ‘Why don’t you go up to bed now, Meg? We have talked enough for one night.’

However, once in her room, sleep eluded her; she was too agitated to relax enough just to let go and drift off. She knew the children would have to be told about Doris. They might easily see her as an interloper, and while Meg wouldn’t blame them, for their sake she would have to help them accept the inevitable. She tossed and turned as she rehearsed what she would say, eventually falling into a fitful sleep that was filled with lurid nightmares.

Meg decided the children had been in the dark long enough so she told them all together the following morning as they sat having breakfast after Charlie had gone to work.

There was a howl of anguish from Billy at the news. Ruth, sitting on Meg’s knee, turned startled eyes on her young brother as he blurted out, ‘I don’t want no new mother. We got you, ain’t we?’

‘I don’t want one either,’ Terry said.

Meg knew it was up to her to get the children to feel at least more positive about the woman, because if their father decided to marry her, they would have no choice in the matter. ‘Now come on,’ she said. ‘You haven’t given the woman a chance. You have never even met her.’