Sheelagh Kelly - The Keepsake

Marty had no time to comment on the ridiculousness of this statement, nor opine that the sovereigns she had brought would not last long if she were intent on lavishing them on restaurants. She looked so excited and lovely that he could not bear to spoil things. He must let her down gently. ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t fritter the money we have. Let’s go round to Ma and Da’s. They’ll feed us.’

‘But won’t they be furious?’ Etta knew how he had been dreading the event.

‘Highly likely, but I’ll have to make the confession some time. Best get it over with – and I doubt they’ll make a scene with you there.’ He raised a grin. ‘Then tonight we’ll make a list of things we need and you can go and buy them while I’m at work tomorrow.’

Looking bemused at this last statement, Etta nevertheless expressed a desire to meet her in-laws. ‘I do hope they like me.’

‘How could they not?’ He curled an arm round her and squeezed as they went to the stairs.

His parents’ home was only in the next street, but, avoiding the more insalubrious shortcuts that he himself would have taken if alone, Marty led Etta in a roundabout fashion down and then up grimy rows of terraced buildings. However, there was no evading the fact that several occupants of this impoverished area were acquainted with Etta’s husband, for they called out to him along the way.

And, self-consciously, he answered, ‘Hello, Mr Bechetti. Good evening, Mrs Cahill.’

Breaking away from his peers, a small Yorkshire lad came to trot alongside his hero. ‘I like your new sweetheart, Marty. Better than t’old one.’

‘Such cheek! I’ll tell your mother, Albert Gledhill.’ Marty tried to sound scolding but the youngster only laughed and ran away, chanting, ‘Sweetheart, sweetheart!’

Feeling Etta’s inquisitive gaze he laughed off the impudent remark, but there was no way round what was to follow: the thing he had dreaded most.

Etta exclaimed, ‘Oh my goodness, there’s a drunkard fallen in the gutter!’ The man had been staggering some way ahead of them when suddenly he capsized.

Marty’s spirits sank. Bidding Etta to stay where she was, he rushed to attend the collapsed figure. However, after brief hesitation she disobeyed and wandered up to find the man unconscious and her husband anxiously patting his cheek.

But others were here to assist, one of them providing a wheelbarrow and treating this in somewhat cavalier fashion, she thought, as he announced with a bow, ‘Your carriage awaits, Mr Lanegan.’

Suffering deep embarrassment, Marty steadied the barrow whilst others loaded the body aboard. Then, with grim face, he thanked his helpers and wheeled the perpetrator away.

Much bemused that her husband assumed such responsibility, Etta padded alongside, querying apprehensively, ‘Where will you take him?’

‘Home.’ He struggled to keep the three-wheeled barrow level under the dead weight of its load.

‘You know where he lives then?’

‘I should do – he’s my father.’

Whilst a shocked Etta halted in her tracks, Marty carried on, though went only a little further before yelling through an open front door, ‘Ma! Can you give us a hand?’

Etta watched as Mrs Lanegan sauntered out and, with resignation as if this were a frequent occurrence, helped to transport the recumbent occupant of the barrow into the house.

She wandered in quietly after them and stood unnoticed as mother and son tended the drunkard, her eyes flitting briefly over the other residents who eyed her back curiously, before travelling to a row of empty beer bottles in the scullery.

His father deposited in the armchair, Marty clicked his tongue as Redmond slowly emerged from his trance. ‘ Now he comes round!’ He turned an exasperated face on his mother, but at that point followed his wife’s gaze to the beer bottles and hastily sought to explain. ‘Sorry, Etta, it’s not the way it looks.’

Aggie turned a quizzical expression which quickly changed to one of astonishment at the vision in lilac silk and cream lace. There was no need to ask who this was. Her eyes hardened and flew to Marty as if demanding to know how he could have brought the Ibbetson girl here. She was unprepared for an even bigger shock.

‘Mother, I’d like you to meet my wife, Etta.’

Too deafened by the thudding of her own angry pulse, Aggie did not hear the collective intake of breath from her children and Uncle Mal, and also her husband, who was fully conscious though still a little dazed.

‘Did I hear right? Did he say wife ?’ Redmond gawped blankly from one family member to the other, then promptly swooned again.

‘We were married today.’ Etta stared at the father in perplexed concern, yet, noting that none of the others seemed remotely worried and were more intent on her, she formed a tentative smile and extended her hand to her mother-in-law, for a second thinking that it might be refused. The other Mrs Lanegan was prematurely grey, and with her high cheekbones must once have been attractive but was now quite wizened. Clad in a faded dress, her chest was exceedingly narrow, giving the impression of frailness, but this was misleading for her lips were sanguine and her eyes lively and strong with that special blueness only encountered in a glacier as they fixed themselves on this intruder. Here was a woman who liked folk to keep their place, and heaven help Etta, who had come and upset all that.

But the handshake was accepted with a formal nod. Though devastated that her son had defied her to marry in secret and to one of such different class, Aggie was unable to express her wrath in front of so illustrious a stranger, and, summoning politeness, invited Etta to take a seat at the table that was set for tea, brushing deferentially at the chair to make sure it was clean. ‘Won’t you join us, Mi – I mean, Etta?’

Etta glanced apprehensively at Mr Lanegan who was once again conscious. ‘If my presence would not be too much of an imposition?’ Told that it wouldn’t, she thanked her hostess and sat down, aware that her every movement was under studious examination from several pairs of eyes.

‘Is she a fairy?’ whispered little Tom, entranced.

‘Sure, and she’d give the little people a run for their money, Tom.’

Etta turned her beguiling smile on the white-haired speaker, Uncle Mal, who had the weathered air of one who had lived all his life in the open and was poorly attired with a neckerchief in place of a collar, and trousers that were bagged at the knees, but otherwise had a pleasant manner and at this moment was directing the full force of it at her.

‘Put those eggs on!’ Aggie growled at one of her daughters, indicating the pan of water on the range, whilst she herself disappeared into the scullery with another child following, the youngest two staying behind to stare at Etta, in whom they seemed rapt.

Despite the childish scrutiny Etta felt a little easier with her mother-in-law gone, for of the pair Mrs Lanegan seemed the formidable one. Studying Marty’s father now she saw a delicate countenance framed in bushy brown hair, calm if watery eyes with a kind look about them, which Marty had obviously inherited. There was not a whiff of alcohol. Believing Marty when he had said things were not how they seemed, she could see that this man was no drunkard, yet was puzzled as to what might have caused the initial collapse plus the subsequent fleeting departures into unconsciousness she had witnessed in the few moments she had been there, deducing that his frail physique must be responsible. Whilst his wife only appeared to be fragile there was stronger evidence of it here in the pronounced slope of Mr Lanegan’s shoulders, his posture deplorable as he shambled out to the backyard, excusing himself to Etta as he went. That she smiled at him seemed to pacify Martin, who had been agitated since they entered. But she was not to be provided with an explanation just yet.