Romantic Association - Loves Me, Loves Me Not

I was a June bride. Pamela was my bridesmaid and Dennis, one of Raymond’s new pals from the paper, was best man. After the service we walked across to The Fat Ox for the reception in the room upstairs. While everybody was eating and drinking Mum quietly packed a hamper of sandwiches, sausage rolls and angel cakes for us to take away with us.

We couldn’t afford a honeymoon so we spent the first night of our married life in our little flat above Ida’s Hat Shop in Park View. Raymond had moved in weeks before and had completely redecorated every room.

Mum had also put a bottle of sherry in the hamper and we picnicked on the hearthrug by the glowing bars of the electric fire, like children who weren’t quite sure if it was all right for them to be alone with no one to tell them what to eat or what time to go to bed.

I couldn’t remember ever being so happy. For weeks after the wedding I lived in a kind of blissful glow. But one night when I came home from work my happy little world received a jolt.

Raymond had got home before me and he was sitting at the table looking at photographs. At first I thought he was looking at his own old photographs but then I noticed that it was the shoe box of my own snaps that Mum had brought a few days before; I hadn’t got round to finding a home for it.

There was no reason why Raymond shouldn’t look at the photographs. Over his shoulder I saw myself as a baby, as a schoolgirl enjoying picnics on the beach with my parents, and a later one of me grinning and wearing Dad’s air raid warden’s tin hat. As my eyes roamed over my past I saw Raymond slide one photograph under the others.

But he looked up as if nothing had happened. ‘You should put these in an album.’

‘I might, but now let’s put these away so I can set the table.’

I gathered them up quickly and put the box back on the sideboard. Next day was half day closing and I got home early. I lifted the lid and took out the top few photographs. I knew exactly which one I would find at the bottom of the pile I’d picked up from the table.

There were just three of us. Laura, Bill and me. Their wedding day. She was holding her bouquet and clasping his arm. I stood a little apart, clutching my own bouquet. We were all smiling, just as the photographer had told us. I put the photograph back and shoved the shoe box into the bottom of the wardrobe. Out of sight, out of mind. Except I couldn’t forget the way Raymond had hidden the photograph beneath the others, as if he didn’t want me to know which one he had been staring at.

But Raymond seemed happy enough and I was content. As Christmas drew near I began to make plans to have Mum and Dad at our place. I started putting things away and spent my spare time going through recipes in magazines.

It was during a tea break at work that Pamela came looking for me. ‘I thought I’d better tell you.’

‘Tell me what?’ I said without looking up from the recipe for an economy Christmas pudding.

‘Laura’s home.’

I raised my eyes slowly. ‘What?’

‘Laura, she’s come home. She’s left Bill.’

There it was, everything that would take my wonderful world and shake it up—maybe smash it to smithereens.

‘Why has she left him?’ I asked. I wondered if someone had written and told her that Raymond had survived the war.

‘She hated it. The life out there. Miles away from the nearest town—all those sheep—and nowhere to go for a night out. Anyway, she’s home. And…well…’ Pamela paused uneasily.

‘What?’

‘She must have found out by now about Raymond.’

‘Yes.’ Suddenly I felt cold. ‘Yes, I suppose she has.’

That night Raymond and I had planned to go to the Roxy. I looked at him over the table as we ate our Welsh rarebit and wondered if I should tell him. I didn’t think he knew because he acted pretty much as usual, telling me about his day and asking me about mine.

I could have told him then. Oh, today, I could have said, nothing much happened except that Pamela told me that Laura has come home.

But I didn’t. I washed the dishes and got ready and hoped that at least she wouldn’t be coming along to the Roxy. I mean in those days a woman who had left her husband simply because she was bored attracted scandal. Surely Laura wouldn’t want to draw attention to herself?

I was wrong. The dancing hadn’t even started when she walked in. Raymond and I were sitting at a table under the balcony and he had his back to the dance floor. He heard the shocked gasps and the murmurs of surprise and he looked at me. ‘What’s happened?’

All I could do was stare.

Raymond frowned and turned his head slowly. I couldn’t see his face, but I didn’t need to. A wave of nausea hit me as I sensed his shock.

‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered. The words caught in my throat.

He turned to look at me. ‘Why?’

‘She’s left Bill. I should have told you.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

I didn’t have time to answer him even if I could have. Laura had seen us and she came straight across the floor. People drew back and I don’t think it would be exaggerating to say that some held their breath.

Just as if nothing had happened, just as if there had been no years in between, she smiled at Raymond and held out her hand, as he had done the first time he had asked her to dance. She didn’t even look at me.

The music began and they started to dance. People watched, just as they had before. There was no denying that together they were the most glamorous couple anyone had ever seen.

Gradually the other couples surrounded them and soon I saw only glimpses of my friend and my husband as they moved around the floor. And then I lost sight of them altogether. I stood up and searched keenly as the couples danced by, but soon there was no denying it. Raymond and Laura were no longer there.

Cold. I felt so cold. I made my way to the foyer and collected my coat from Hilda.

‘They’re up there,’ she said, nodding towards the stairs that led to the little snack bar.

I was mortified that anyone should think I was looking for them. I didn’t say anything. I put my coat on and walked out.

It was bitterly cold on the promenade. The wind gusted viciously, snatching my breath and knifing cruelly through my body. But, instead of making for home, I headed north towards the lighthouse and watched its wide beam sweep across the turbulent waters. Tears made cold tracks down my face and every now and then I tried to rub them away with my gloved hands.

I stopped when I reached the cemetery. The dead end of town, as we used to joke when we were children, and turned round to go home. There was nothing else to do.

The front door seemed to open of its own volition the moment I put my key in the lock. My mother was standing there. She must have been waiting in the tiny hallway, listening for every footstep.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ she asked, and I knew she was angry because I hardly ever heard her swear.

‘Walking,’ I said.

‘Honestly, Jeannie, if I wasn’t so pleased to see you I would smack you! Now, come upstairs and take your coat off. Sit down by the fire and I’ll make you a cup of cocoa.’

Cocoa. My mother’s remedy for all ills and upsets.

‘Your father and Raymond are out looking for you,’ she said when she came back into the room. ‘Your father’s sick with worry and Raymond’s near demented.’

‘Raymond?’

‘Yes, Raymond, your husband. Remember him? He told us you’d simply walked out on him at the Roxy and, when he realised you’d gone, he came straight home. When he found you weren’t here he thought you might have come to us.’

‘Did he tell you why he thought that?’

‘Yes, he did. Laura’s back and he…’