The Wedding Gift

Chapter 3



June could hear the argument going on in the other room as she tried to
concentrate on her last minute homework.


'I'm not going to let you waste money on a wedding present,
no; she'll have plenty as it is. I'm not allowing it, that's that. And
put that cigarette out, I can't stand it; can you ever be without a
cigarette, woman? Now, leave me alone. I don't want to hear anything
more about it.'


June heard her father's footsteps approaching; she fixed her
gaze onto the page and hoped he wouldn't come over to her. But he
did.


'What are you doing then? Ah, trying to do your maths, are
you? Let me see.'
She bit into her lip; she hadn't made much of a start and she'd been
sitting there a good twenty minutes.


'Surely you can do that one, can't you?' he said, pointing a
long finger with its neatly clipped nail at her page.


'I think so.'


'Well, come on, then. Get on with it June.'


He stood over her, utterly disabling her ability to
concentrate.


'Bah, you're a stupid, stupid girl,' and with this remark
came a blow to the back of her head, a clean, straight, orderly smack.
She could smell his cleanness, sense the starch of his collar, the
shine on his shoes.


He marched out and she heard the click of the door latch as
he set off for work. She would have to be getting off to school. She
gathered up her things and went to get her coat. Her mother was
hovering between the kitchen and the hallway looking fragile and
unsteady, a fresh cigarette just lit.


'Bye then, Mum.'


'Bye bye Junie, be good, give your mother a kiss now won't
you?'


She kissed her mother's tender cheek, recoiling at the stench
of the cigarette and offering a resigned smile.


'Never mind, Mum, she probably won't even notice you not
giving her a present, you aren't going to the wedding anyway are
you?'


'I know, pet, but it's just that I would have liked to give
her a bit of something, as we've been such good
friends.'


'Anyway, see you later then, Mum.'


As she closed the door she could hear Bobby barking, she'd
forgotten to say goodbye to him. Oh well, he wasn't on his own. She
wished more than anything that she could get her mother something to
give to her friend as a wedding present, but there was absolutely no
way she could manage this, she hadn't even threepenny bit to her
name.


Her mind gradually turned to school. The nearer she drew the
more she dreaded arriving. After being humiliated in the music lesson
yesterday, the last thing she could bear was to hand in unfinished
homework. Tonight there would have to be French revision for tomorrow's
test. There was no way of knowing whether she would be able to get on
with it. Last night she had decided to get under the quilt with a book,
rather than finish the maths. Reading was her passion, and at the
moment she was engrossed in one of her father's volumes, the second
part of a trilogy.


As she walked through the school gates she did a quick scan
of the yard to see if Priscilla was there. This girl had been going out
of her way to make June's life a misery at the moment, picking on her
at every opportunity. It wouldn't be long before she snapped, she could
feel it. One more remark, one more look, and she would hit back, she
didn't know exactly how yet, but she felt it coming.


Thankfully she was greeted by her best friend Pam. Pam was
her ally in every way; she didn't know how she could bear school
without Pam. She was the sweetest and mildest person, without being
devoid of intelligence. Indeed she had the kind of intelligence June
admired most, the sort that didn't seek recognition. She just got on
with things quietly and with a certain resolve.


'Maths first thing today isn't it, have you done the work?'
She enquired; she knew June's erratic habits with
homework.


'All but the last three questions; I tried to get it done
this morning but Mum was upset about something.'


'If you hurry up you can copy mine out.'


'Oh, you are too good to me, Pam. Come on then, I'll lean on
the wall, but we'd better go round the corner or else someone's bound
to notice and take the rise out of me.'


'Yes, you're right.'


June hadn't got a clue why Pam liked to have her as a friend,
but she was very grateful that she did. It wasn't that she had no
friends, but she didn't have many she could really trust, like she
trusted Pam. Pam would never let her down. Indeed, for someone who
liked to keep a fairly low profile, Pam was risking it a bit being
around June. June wasn't exactly an attention seeker, but little
incidents often found her in the spotlight for one reason or another.
While most of the time she would tow the line and be utterly fearful of
authority, or of other pupils who seemed to wield some sort of power
all of their own making, there had been notable occasions when she
hadn't been able to help herself act in self-defence. She wasn't
exactly notorious for it, but people had heard. Some namby pamby types
were reluctant to associate with her for fear of being tarnished with
the same brush. She didn't care a jot about them, thankfully. She only
cared about Pam. She would never forgive herself if anything unpleasant
should happen to Pam on her account.


Armed with her completed homework, June started the day off
on a much better foot. She didn't clap eyes on Miss Butler, the music
mistress, by some stroke of luck. She enjoyed English, as always, and
lunch had been her favourite bangers and mash followed by treacle
sponge, the best pudding the cooks ever made. After lunch they had had
a heavy going period of French, in the run up to the test. She got the
measure of how much revision she would have to do, and this spoiled
what could have been a pleasant enough afternoon followed by a chat
with Pam before setting off for home. As she walked through the gates
some younger girl and her friend pointed at the hole in her bag and
mocked.


'You're going to lose everything out of that bag if you're
not careful,' they smaned.


June just clutched the bag, putting her palm over the hole
and marched on, indignant.


When she got home there was no one there. She used her key
and was greeted by a very-pleased-to-see-you Bobby. She let him out at
the back into the garden and played ball with him and helped herself to
a glass of milk and a biscuit, breaking a piece off for the fussy dog.
He was someone else she couldn't be without. He and Pam were her best
buddies. Pam loved him too, as her parents wouldn't allow her to have a
dog. On the odd occasion that she came round she would make such a fuss
of him that Bobby must have thought he'd died and gone to doggie
heaven. Bobby had become hers on what she still considered to be the
best day of her life. It was the day when she'd gone with her mother to
her father's office in town to take something or other, she couldn't
remember what. Her father had lifted her up to his office window to
watch all the steel workers emerging from the factory in their clogs.
She could still remember the racket they had made on the cobbles. It
was the kind of sound that nothing else could imitate. A colleague of
her father's had a puppy he didn't want from a large litter of mongrels
and June had pleaded with him to take the dog home. On this one
occasion he'd shown her just how kind he could be, and that he loved
her. She was overjoyed with Bobby, who was coming up to 5 years old
now. Apparently the Steel Workers no longer wore clogs and she had
never been back to the office he went to every day.


She heard the door opening and her mother
called.


'Hello, Junie are you there.'


'Yes, here I am in the kitchen, Mum.'


June went through to the hall and was taken aback by the
sight of her mother carrying a large bag from Walsh's, the most
exclusive department store in town.


'What have you bought, Mum, what have you got in
there?'


'Oh, June, I couldn't not get Mavis a present, I just
couldn't. Let me show you, you'll love it.'


'How did you pay for it, then?'


'I put it on the tab, on your father's tab.'


'Oh no, Mum, he'll go mad when he sees it, take it back
tomorrow, please, hide it now before he sees it.'


'I'm not going to do that I don't care, June, she's the best
friend I've had, don't you see.'


'Yes, yes, I know, but Dad?'


'Don't talk about him now, let me show you, come
on.'


She followed her mother into the sitting room where she
placed the bag on an armchair. She watched as she took out the bundle
wrapped in layers of tissue paper, her hands trembling with excitement.
She peeled back the layers one by one to reveal a beautiful wooden box
with a mother of pearl inlay. She opened it up to reveal a glinting
silver dressing table set of what was obviously top quality. June
gasped.


'That must have cost a fortune,' she
exclaimed.


'It's not solid silver, only plate, pretty isn't
it?'


'Well, yes it's beautiful, but silver plate isn't exactly
cheap, Mum.'


'Have I gone overboard do you think then?'


'Mum, I just don't know, I love it, but?'


'Oh, June, what have I done?'


'Take it back tomorrow, you can do that.'


'Yes, you're right, I will, I'll change it for something
else, less extravagant.'


Her mother wrapped it up again carefully. And she watched her
carry it upstairs, her shoulders drawn in towards her chest, deflated.
She must have lit up a cigarette, as the smell drifted down. Her father
would be cross if he smelled cigarettes upstairs. She wondered why her
mother seemed to be giving up on all the unwritten rules today. When
she came back down and started getting the tea ready, June could tell
she'd been crying. She shoved it to the back of her mind and took her
school bags upstairs in a valiant effort to start some French revision.
Once inside her room she tipped the contents of her bag onto her bed
and spread them out. The hole was getting bigger. She must stitch it up
or else lose all her pens and bits and pieces. Not now though. She
looked at the green and gold bound volume on her bedside table, tempted
to start reading again. No, French test, French test, come on. She made
herself comfortable on her bed and opened up her French vocabulary
book. Two pages of spellings to learn and three pages of verb
conjugations. Bobby was scratching at her door, she let him
in.


'Oh, Bobby, will you do my French test for me?' The reply
came in the form of a lick to the back of her hand. She must still
smell of biscuits. He lay on the rug next to her bed and she felt more
relaxed in his presence.


'Pommes de terre, le chou, le chou-fleur?'


She heard her father arriving home; Bobby pricked up his
ears, but looked up at her rather than in the direction of the door, as
though awaiting her reaction. She mapped his movements in her mind, the
hat on the hat stand, the umbrella propped in the corner, the coat
sliding off his shoulders, being hung with a little adjustment to the
sleeves.


'Hello, where are my girls?'


'Hello Ron, just getting on with the food, just popping a pie
in.'


June went to the top of the stairs and leaned on the
banister, 'Hello Dad.' Bobby poked his nose through the banister
rail.


'Get that dog back downstairs, June, come on boy, down you
come, downstairs boy.'


Bobby always did what her father asked. She watched him slope
down the stairs much in the way that her mother had climbed them
earlier. She pulled up her socks and clipped her fringe back up and
followed Bobby down.


'Mmm, pie Mummy, is it chicken pie?'


'Chicken pie? You must think we're made of money, no, it's
mutton and veg.'


Her father went upstairs to wash and brush his hair, as he
always did, before settling down with some reading matter; something
brought back from work or a newspaper if he'd had time to pick one
up.


'Have you been smoking up here, Marge, it reeks of damned
cigarette smoke up here? Bloody hell, how many times do I have to tell
you?'


Her mother didn't answer, there would be no point, and
anyway, what was the purpose in excuses or a feeble plea? It would only
exacerbate his mood. The brief 'How are my girls' was his only attempt
at connecting with them like any normal father would, and they were
used to the fact that it never lead to any further pleasantries or
small talk. He said it like an automaton, as though he'd heard it said
in an American film and thought it was what you were supposed to say to
your wife and child on arriving home. When he came back downstairs,
June was at the back door of the kitchen throwing Bobby his ball.
Unusually, he looked in.


'Well, Marge, what have you got to say for yourself, stinking
the place out, and in the bedroom as well, it will probably stop me
going to sleep tonight, that stench?'


June noted the way his white shirt and grey waistcoat looked
as fresh as the moment he'd walked out of the door that morning. How
did he manage to keep so smart? She knew her mother starched the
shirts, but how was it that they showed no sign of the passage of the
day, not a crease seemed evident. Then her heart missed a beat as she
noticed that he was looking at her mother's shoes, she had her best
shoes on; she'd forgotten to remove them when she came home. She had
her best shoes on and was standing there with the oven gloves in her
hand, totally unaware of his attention to her feet.


'Marge, you've got your best shoes on woman, why have you got
your best shoes on, been somewhere today?'


June knew this was the start of something awful, as her
mother was a terrible liar. She didn't answer straight away he snatched
the oven gloves out of her hand and threw them on to the
table.


'Well, tell me, then, where have you been in your best
shoes?'


'I've been into town, shopping.'


'Shopping, shopping in town? Shopping for what exactly?
Marge, you haven't defied me have you. You haven't been spending again,
when I expressly asked you not to? I'd better go and see if I can find
what you've been wasting my hard earned cash on this time then, hadn't
I.'


He made for the stairs.


'Ron, no, I made a mistake, it's going back tomorrow. It was
a silly mistake. I shouldn't have.'


She followed him up the stairs, a look of panic in her eyes.
June closed the back door leaving Bobby outside scratching and whining,
but she didn't want him to get the sharp end of her father's tongue
when something had irked him. She couldn't decide whether to follow
them upstairs or hover in the hall. She could hardly bear it, but she
had borne it for so many years, why did it never get any easier? Oh,
but Christ, her mother had already started sobbing, what was he doing?
She crept up the stairs on tiptoe, her chest aching with the pressure
of suppressing the sound of her own breathing. She looked into her
parents' bedroom through the crack that the large hinges left between
the door and the frame. She could just make out her father rifling
through her mother's drawers as she knelt on the floor with her hands
over her mouth, unable to control the deep moaning that was coming from
her throat. Then he pushed her out of the way and looked under the bed.
June's chest throbbed with pain and she screwed up her eyes and
squeezed her hands tight shut.


'Aha, so is this it then? You've been in Walsh's have you? I
suppose you put it on my tab. Well, you know what happened to you last
time you did this, Marge?'


He tipped the contents of the bag out onto the bed. Her
mother lunged forward and lay on top of the tissue
parcel.


'No, don't look, don't look, I'm taking it back, I'm going to
take it back tomorrow.'


He rolled her over with one mighty tug of the arm, but he
kept tight hold of it, squeezing harder as she winced. He put his face
right up to hers.


'I want to know what you think you can spend my money on,
Marge.'


He let go of her and started working over the tissue paper
wrapping as she continued to sob. He grunted as his eyes came to rest
on the glossy wooden box, for a moment his fingers seemed to be
enjoying its quality of craftsmanship. Then he opened it
up.


'Silver plated dressing table set? This is for her isn't it;
this is for that friend of yours that's getting
married?'


'Yes, yes, I just wanted to get her something, Ron, she's
been such a good friend.'


'Friend? She hasn't even invited you to her posh little
wedding, Marge, you're not god enough for her and her posh family,
don't you see?'


'No, no, it's not like that, Ron, really, it was only her
parents who wanted to keep the numbers down, keep the cost down, you
know.'


Then the worst possible happened. Her father suddenly made
for the door, shouting her name.


'June, June, did you know your mother had been off spending
my?'


He saw her cowering behind the door; before she could say
anything he grabbed her by the hair on the back of her
head.


'What do you think you're doing, girl, snooping eh, peering
through cracks in doorways, waiting to see something? You little
bitch.'


He forced her to the floor, still holding on to her hair, her
scalp was searing with pain.


'Ron, leave her alone, she didn't know where I'd been, just
leave her it's not her fault.'


'No, but I don't like snoops around my house, you see Marge,
I hate snoops.'


The slap came sharp across her cheek and immediately she felt
as though a fire had scorched it, her mother cried out, 'That's enough,
that's enough, I'm sorry, I won't do it again, I
won't.'


'Too bloody right you won't, Marge, or you'll get what's
coming to you, understand.'


He left the room, slamming the door as he went. Her mother
helped her up onto the bed and they held each other tightly, rocking
back and forth. June couldn't stand her mother's despairing sobs, she
just wanted to forget it, dust herself down and go to her
room.


'I'm sorry Junie, I'm sorry Junie.'


'I hope she has a nice wedding anyway, Mum.'


'Yes, me too, me too.'


The next morning June stayed in her room until he had gone.
Her mother didn't appear to have got up at all yet. She got dressed
quietly and packed her bag. She took an apple from the kitchen and
fussed Bobby before closing the door behind her. The French test was
the first lesson of the day. She sat down in her place, the test paper
in front of her, knowing she wouldn't be able to do much of it. She
reached down into her bag for her pen. It wasn't there. Oh, God, what a
time to lose her pen.


'June, have you nothing to write with?'


'No, I seem to have lost my pen, Miss Clark.'


'June, I despair in you. I suppose I will have to lend you
mine.'


She could feel the eyes of the other girls all over her as
much as she could feel the ache in her cheek. At the end of the test
the papers were all collected in by prim little Sandra and placed in a
neat pile at the corner of the teacher's desk.


June waited until all the girls had left the room. Then,
while Miss Clark's back was turned she swept up the papers under the
front of her cardigan and dashed out. On the way to her next lesson she
sneaked out to the back of the kitchens and dumped the test papers in
the waste food bin.


The following week, Miss Clark announced that she seemed to
have mislaid the test papers and the girls would have to do the test
again. Everyone groaned, but June felt triumphant. This time she'd had
time to revise.