Jane Gilley - The Afternoon Tea Club

Marjorie had sighed.

So, no grandchildren for her, then. No rocking babies gently to sleep. No fun days out with tantrums in the park about whose turn it was on the swings. Nope! A life of solitary confinement, occasionally seeing friends whose lives weren’t embossed with the embroilment of family life, was her luck of the draw.

Thus Marjorie’s life, when she wasn’t moping around the house, consisted of occasional visits to the library to borrow and return books, just to give her a reason to get out of the house; or occasional walks in the park with Gracie, providing her daughter was free on a weekend ; or taking her oldest and best friend Lou to the chiropodist, to get her toenails cut; but no excursions to get a nice cup of tea somewhere afterwards. So it was far from an exciting existence and, yes, she conceded privately, Gracie was right; it was aimless at best, pointless at worst.

Living with her daughter hadn’t turned out to be full of the promise she’d expected. But, tedium aside, Marjorie knew it was infinitely better than living by herself after Oliver died.

And thank the Lord he had!

Just as well he’d had his stroke because Marjorie couldn’t think of any new ideas about how she could possibly get rid of him, without getting the blame!

Yes, that sounded bad. But Marjorie’s husband Oliver had been a bully, both emotionally and physically, for most of their married life. Marjorie couldn’t remember when it had first started. Possibly it had begun when he’d left the army ‘under a cloud’. He’d been very morose around that time. But each subsequent job hadn’t worked out for him, either. Not that Marjorie was making excuses for him, but she belonged to an era that truly believed in their ‘for better or worse’ vows.

Yet excuses aside, he’d hit her a lot. Oh, he’d been very apologetic at first, which had sucked her in, believing him to be remorseful. But it had continued. Thrice she’d been to hospital; once for concussion, once for a broken arm, once for her miscarriage due to his aggression. He’d become increasingly abusive after Gracie was born because he couldn’t stand the fact that – suddenly – all Marjorie’s attention was poured onto their new-born child.

‘There are three of us in this relationship. Not just you and ruddy Gracie! Remember that, woman. Now go get me my dinner before I really lose it with you!’

Fortuitously he’d never laid a finger on Gracie. Marjorie knew she’d have had to leave if he’d done that. But when she’d turned to her mother for moral support and advice, her mother had shaken her head. Unfortunately, she was one of those women who considered it wrong to interfere in another person’s relationship, whatever the circumstances.

‘Yer makes yer bed, yer lies in it!’ was her comment when Marjorie turned up, the first time it happened, to discuss Oliver’s behaviour.

Another time, when she’d had her mother around for Sunday lunch – hoping for once that Oliver wouldn’t let himself down in front of them – the meal had started off okay, until Oliver mentioned the fact that Marjorie had bought him the wrong shaving gel that morning. As Oliver raged, Marjorie had overheard her mother calmly tell Gracie, ‘Just leave them to it, lovey.’

Marjorie had no siblings and wasn’t sure what response she’d get if she offloaded to her friends. She knew everyone had their own problems and where could she have gone for respite with a young child in those days? So she put up with their situation and suffered in silence.

However, Marjorie had been mortified when Gracie told her mother, on her eighteenth birthday, that she intended to leave home and go travelling for a year with friends.

‘Oh but, Gracie, you can’t just leave! You’re my life!’

‘Well, I know that, Mum. But I need some time out on my own – everyone’s doing it before college or university! Besides, if I’m being really honest, I, um, I just can’t stand being here any longer. I can’t tolerate the awfulness of things any more. There’s really no reason for you to continually suffer at the hand of Daddy. Why don’t you leave him? Or ring the police? Or you could go and live somewhere else? Anyway, me and my mate, Rosa, will probably go and look for work in London, afterwards, because anywhere’s better than being here!’

‘But, Gracie, you can’t leave. What about your education?’

‘It can wait, Mum. Other students have time out and this is no different. Besides, I really think you should do something about Daddy.’

But Marjorie had always been frightened of Oliver and simply didn’t know what to do. And even if she had told someone about her troubles with him, would they have wanted to get involved in all that? She suspected they’d have told her to leave him. But she was a housewife and funds were limited at best. She had no access to surplus money in order to move away, so she’d felt trapped.

Gracie had never understood the reasoning behind her father’s venom. Weren’t you supposed to have loving, caring parents around you as you grew up? She’d tried to intervene once, standing between her beloved mother and crazed father. But she’d got a furious verbal diatribe from him. He hadn’t hit her but he’d sworn and yelled loudly enough to warn her off interfering again. And he’d also frightened their friends away over the years when they’d rung – often by brusquely telling them Marjorie or Gracie were out. So they’d stopped ringing. At school, Gracie had tried to explain to her friends what was going on at home.

‘He’s completely unreasonable, so never call me at home, okay? It’s too risky. We’ll make plans for the weekend here at school instead.’

Marjorie had been so wrapped up in avoiding Oliver’s fury or trying to placate him that she’d forgotten what kind of impact it might have been having on their young daughter. The result of which was that her darling Gracie wanted to leave home. Yet why should Gracie suffer the consequences of her father’s actions?

‘Oh, darling, I’m so sorry it’s come to this,’ Marjorie had said, sobbing, as the reality of Gracie’s words hit home. ‘I know I should’ve sorted it all out, somehow, years ago. But I’ve never really known what to do about your father. Look, please stay. We’ll work something out, Gracie. Please don’t go, sweetheart. Oh, I couldn’t bear it if you left!’

But Gracie had stood her ground.

‘It’s not your fault, Mother. He’s unresponsive to reason. It’s domestic violence, pure and simple. He’s a wife-beater and it’s a criminal offence. There’s no other way to dress it up. So I can’t stay. I can’t stand seeing what he does to you every day and feeling helpless about what to do. It’s not right. You should report him, even though I know you’re scared. Anyway, my leaving will help – I know he didn’t want me so that makes me part of the problem.’

‘Gracie, none of this is about you!’ Marjorie had pleaded. ‘Are you listening to me? None of it. It’s his doing. He’s the problem. Good God, I should never have let it get this far. But I thought I was dealing with it in my own way. Darling, please! I’m so sorry it’s come to this.’

‘I know you’re sorry, Mum, and I just wish I could make it all better for you but nothing I say makes any difference. It still goes on. Anyway, my friends have booked the trip now, so I’m sorry to disappoint you but I’m … I’m going.’

Marjorie knew she had to concede to her daughter’s wishes. But she daren’t tell Oliver. And so one morning, before Oliver was awake, she smuggled Gracie away to the bus stop. Time away from the family would probably be good for Gracie. She was young; she had prospects and her own life to lead. Marjorie knew she couldn’t hold her back indefinitely, even though she secretly wanted to hold on to her forever. And then, needing someone to tell, she’d gone round and offloaded to her best friend, Lou, sobbing remorsefully on her lap, whilst Lou had patted her friend’s head.