Sophie Lyon

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Novel extract

Bristol, 1963

‘So you said yes,’ said Helen to Lynne. They were sitting on the end of her bed in their shared room in hall. ‘You’re doing the right thing, you know.’

It sounded like Helen was trying to convince them both. Lynne pulled at the loose weave of the plaid blanket. ‘I hope so.’

‘What was it Golda Meir said back in the day?’ said Helen. ‘There is no alternative?’

‘“We have no alternative.”’

‘Well, obviously you do in this case. But honestly, this does seem to be the best option.’

‘Or the only acceptable one.’ Lynne straightened the wrinkles in the blanket where she’d pulled at it.

‘What now, then? I mean, in what order?’

‘Tell Mother, I suppose. Robert said he could drive us to Erneley at the weekend.’

‘Brave of him to beard Joyce in her lair.’

The very idea of Mother’s reaction made Lynne’s stomach turn. ‘He said it was the right thing to do.’ 

‘He’s gone up in my estimation. Didn’t you say your parents had a phone? Will you give her a bell from the phone box?’

‘Mother thinks telephones are for emergencies only,’ said Lynne. ‘If I send her a letter today, it should arrive in time for her to get to the shops if she needs to. Perhaps that’s cowardly of me.’

‘Practical, I’d say. No need to put her on red alert before you even get there. I don’t blame you.’

‘I’m not sure what I need to do for the University,’ said Lynne. ‘Should I tell the Warden or the English department?’ 

‘No idea. He’s probably a good start. But I agree with Robert: tell your mother first, see how that goes.’

‘It’s that one,’ Lynne said, pointing to the 1930s semi her parents had bought when they got married.

Robert stopped the Ford Anglia in front of the green double doors of the separate pebble-dashed garage. ‘Is here alright?’

‘Yes, perfect.’ She wondered how Erneley and St Anne’s Road compared to his own home. His family lived somewhere near Manchester – he’d said Altrincham when he went home at Easter – but Lynne didn’t know where that was exactly, or whether it was similar.

Beside the garden path, the small front lawn was ringed with pink and yellow tulips beneath the tight green spires of the foxtail lilies that would bloom next month with the snapdragons and peonies. The front door was freshly painted green to match the garage, and the lawn was newly mown. Mr Mills must have been. Father used to cut it on Saturday mornings with the two-stroke lawnmower he kept in the back of the garage with its petrol can.

Robert turned off the engine and took the keys out of the ignition. ‘Ready?’

Lynne’s fingers were on the door handle. ‘I don’t think I can get out.’

‘Is it stuck?’ Robert leaned across her to try to open it.

‘No, I mean I’m not sure I can go through with this.’

Robert reached for her hands and held them between his. ‘Lynne, darling, we’ve been over this. It’ll be fine, I promise. Let me do the talking.’ He let go, got out of the car and walked around it to open the door for her.

The front door muffled the bell’s ring and the sound of Mother’s heels in the hall. She opened it, looking neat and trim as ever, her blonde hair set in the same style she’d worn since the fifties, the bobbed ends curling around her ears. Today, she was in the pale pink floral dress Lynne knew was one of her favourites.

‘Hello, Mother,’ said Lynne, stooping to kiss her cheek. ‘Robert, this is my mother, Mrs Joyce Dallard. Mother, Robert Cooper.’

‘How do you do, Mrs Dallard,’ said Robert.

‘How do you do? Please do come in,’ said Mother, in her telephone voice. She stood aside as they walked in and closed the door behind them. ‘I hope you had a good drive.’

‘Yes, we made good time,’ said Robert.

‘The front room is through here,’ said Mother, ushering Robert to the door. ‘Lynne, why don’t you go and put the kettle on? I’ve set the tray already.’

Robert pulled a face above Mother’s head, his eyes wide and a rictus smile, a caricature of anxiety. When Mother turned back towards him, he smiled at her in his usual easy way.

Like a one-man Greek theatre mask, thought Lynne. She touched the sleeve of Father’s coat, still hanging on the stand next to Mother’s smaller one. On the little table by the stairs, a pad of paper and a pen sat beside the new telephone. They’d had it installed because the school said they might need to contact Father at some point. As no one they knew had a telephone at home, it was barely used. Other than those times Mother had telephoned Doctor Maynard towards the end, when the morphine doses weren’t working any more. Doctor Maynard made the house calls even in the middle of the night. He said it was the least he could do, given how long he’d known them all. Lynne took a ragged breath and walked down the short corridor to the kitchen.

The tray was on the Formica counter above the blue cupboards. Mother had laid it with the best cups and saucers, a plate with a selection of biscuits and the silver-plated spoon in the sugar bowl. Lynne lit the gas burner on the stove with a match and put the kettle on to boil.

While the water heated up, she went into the small larder for the milk. The black and white lino was pristine, the airer suspended from the ceiling empty of laundry, the linen tea towel neatly folded beside the Belfast sink in the corner. As Lynne poured some milk into a jug from the bottle in the cold cupboard, she heard the water in the kettle begin to bubble and walked back to the stove to take it off the heat before the whistle shrieked. It made such an appallingly loud noise that she used to be able to hear it in her bedroom. She filled the teapot Mother had left on the counter beside the tray. The only thing she seemed to have forgotten was the knitted tea cosy. Lynne pulled it out of the tea towel drawer, put it over the pot and carried the tray through to the sitting room.

Mother turned her head as Lynne came in, and frowned at the cosy. She was sitting with her legs crossed at the ankles in her usual chair beside the fireplace, closest to the door. Although Mother said it was so she could get to the kitchen easily should someone need something, Lynne had always suspected it was more that the chair’s vantage point opposite the bow window allowed Mother to see anyone coming up the path to the front door.

Robert had taken the end of the chintz sofa closest to Mother. He looked relaxed, with his arm along the back of the sofa. He clearly hadn’t broached the subject yet then, thought Lynne. What on earth had they been talking about – she couldn’t imagine anything they might have in common. She put the tray on the small coffee table between them and poured the tea.

The metallic clinks of the spoons in their cups echoed the tick of the mantle clock. The tweedy armchair opposite Mother still had the lace-edged antimacassar on the back, even though Father hadn’t worn hair cream. His gramophone was on a small dresser at the back of the room, next to the upright piano with the closed lid, his small long-player collection in a wire magazine rack beside the dresser – Benny Goodman, Edith Piaf, Fats Waller. Lynne hadn’t heard any of the records since Father died.

‘And what do you do at university, Robert?’ Mother asked. ‘Are you another English student?’

‘Engineering, Mrs Dallard.’

‘Engineering! That sounds like a good, practical subject. And what do you hope to do when you leave? Will that be at the same time as Lynne, or are you nearly finished?’

‘I’m in my second year as well. I’m hoping to go into the car industry. There’s good work for mechanical engineers like me.’

‘What a sensible choice.’ Mother took a sip of her tea. ‘This is an excellent cup of tea, Lynne.’

‘Would you like a biscuit to go with it?’ said Lynne, offering her the plate.

‘No, thank you.’ Mother’s eyebrows contracted minutely as she looked at Lynne before she turned and smiled at Robert. ‘But please, do have one if you would like.’

He balanced the biscuit and side plate Lynne gave him on his knee. She waited for Mother to say something, glancing from Robert to the coffee table. He moved the plate from his knee and set it next to the tray.

‘I’m glad you think it’s a sensible choice,’ said Robert, sitting up straight. ‘I hope to find a good position before I leave university. It’s important I do.’

‘Oh, absolutely,’ said Mother.

It was like the girl in the café at Weston, when Lynne had accused Robert of being a snake charmer. She could never get over the way everyone seemed instantly to like him. Mother’s expression suggested that for once Lynne had done something very clever.

‘Mrs Dallard,’ said Robert, ‘may I ask you something?’

‘Of course.’

‘I think when I ask, you will understand why I feel it’s important to find a good position. Ordinarily, I would ask Lynne’s father, and I’m very sorry not to be able to.’ He paused. ‘Lynne and I would like to get married. Please may we have your permission?’ He almost ran the sentences together.

Mother gasped in a small breath and touched her hand to her chest. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m just a little surprised. Surely you’ve only just met?’

‘We met in January,’ said Lynne.

‘You never mentioned! You were home all that time at Easter too.’

‘Perhaps it didn’t come up,’ said Robert. ‘Lynne said there was a lot going on at Easter.’

Lynne looked at him gratefully, but he didn’t turn his head.

‘We were busy at church and the fête, I suppose,’ said Mother. She twisted to Lynne. ‘But still, you could have said something.’

‘So may we have your permission?’ said Robert. He sounded calm.

Mother’s attention diverted back to him. ‘I do wish Thomas were here,’ she said. ‘He would know what to say.’ She twisted her wedding ring, now on the fourth finger of her right hand.

‘Please say yes,’ said Robert. ‘It’s important to Lynne. To us both.’

From her position beside him, Lynne saw the skin around his eyes crinkle as he smiled. She kept as still as she could manage, not wanting to break the spell.

‘Well then, yes, you have my permission.’  Mother tucked her hair behind her ears and gave a little laugh. ‘I shall get to know you better over the next year or so, I dare say. By June next year, it won’t feel such a surprise.’

‘We thought we’d get married straight away,’ said Robert.

‘Straight away?’ Mother’s voice sharpened. ‘But why not wait until you graduate?’

Robert finally turned to Lynne and lifted her hand from the sofa. ‘We’d rather not wait,’ he said.

Mother looked at him and then at Lynne. Her mouth tightened. She leaned forward to put her cup of tea on the coffee table, smoothing her skirt with her hands as she sat back. ‘I see.’

Lynne braced herself. ‘Mother -’

Mother held up her hand to stop Lynne, before putting it back in her lap. ‘I suppose I should thank you,’ she said to Robert. ‘I always have thought it a silly notion for girls to go on past school-leaver age, when they are only going to get married and have children. But Thomas said girls had the right to be educated. It’s a pity Lynne didn’t learn some common sense along with her English studies. I’m grateful to you for standing by her. She’s luckier than she deserves to be.’

‘I’m lucky she said yes,’ said Robert.

‘She’d have been a fool not to,’ said Mother.

Lynne’s hands sweated as she stood in the corridor outside the Warden’s Office in hall. She wiped them on her dress and knocked on Doctor Cotter’s door.

‘Enter.’ Doctor Cotter sat in a wing-back chair behind a large, leather-topped desk. He gestured Lynne to one of the two smaller chairs on a Persian rug in front of it.

Behind him, through the sash window to the right, she could see the coloured terraced houses along the docks and, in the distance, through the window to the left, tiny figures walking on Brandon Hill. An oil painting of a man with side whiskers hung between the windows, and the wall opposite the empty fireplace was lined with glass-fronted bookcases. Lynne crossed the Persian rug and sat in the chair the Warden indicated.

‘How may I help you, Miss Dallard?’ said Dr Cotter.

‘I’ve come to tell you that I am leaving the university.’ Lynne was pleased her voice was clear, no wobble.

‘I see.’ He sat back and rested his elbows on the arms of his chair, fingers templed. ‘Is there anything that might persuade you to stay? You have been a promising student – there should be no anxiety about the Part One examinations.’

‘No, it’s not that. Although I have found it harder to study since my father’s death.’

‘Of course, quite understandable.’

It was a dead end, not an invitation to say more. Lynne waited for Dr Cotter to say something else, but he just sat there, the silence stretching between them. ‘It’s not that,’ she said again. ‘I’m getting married.’

‘How delightful,’ said Dr Cotter.

Another dead end. ‘Yes,’ said Lynne. ‘I am getting married next month.’

‘So soon?’

Lynne felt irritated. He knew perfectly well what she was saying. ‘We would rather not wait.’ It was what Robert had said to Mother when they’d gone to Ernely.

‘I see. What a pity,’ said Dr Cotter.

This time, Lynne said nothing. Let him fill the silence.

‘It happens, of course. There was another young lady last year – although I believe she left under,’ he looked away briefly, ‘sadder circumstances.’

Tricia, thought Lynne.

‘Is the young man in question a student?’

‘Someone from home,’ she lied. She wasn’t sure what the rules were about getting girls pregnant, but she wasn’t going to take any risks. She might have to leave, but she wasn’t going to get Robert into trouble as well.

‘Of course. Well, as there is nothing I can say that would persuade you, you must allow me to congratulate you.’

‘Thank you.’ Although it didn’t particularly feel like something to be congratulated about.

Dr Cotter uncapped his fountain pen and dipped it into the pot to draw ink, then made some notes on a pad of paper sitting on his blotter.

‘There are procedures that need to be followed to terminate your place at the university. Your grant will need to be repaid, of course, and the balance charge for your room will remain. You share with Miss Robbens, I believe?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘I have high hopes for her. As I had for you, but perhaps it was not meant to be.’

Lynne’s cheeks reddened. ‘Perhaps not.’ When she was with Robert yesterday evening, he’d said, “It will be hard, I know, but don’t let the Warden get to you. You’ll be Mrs Cooper soon, and none of this will matter.”

Dr Cotter capped his pen and laid it beside the pad of paper. He waited for the ink to dry before he spoke again. ‘Miss Dallard, it is perhaps not my place to pass comment, but as the Warden of a Ladies’ hall of residence, I take an interest in my students’ progress. People often interrogate me about the utility of educating young women. I do hope this is not the end of the road for you and your studies. It would be a shame.’

He sounded kind and disappointed in equal measure. Why did everyone think they knew what was best for her, thought Lynne. Helen, Mother – now the Warden. ‘Thank you, Dr Cotter. I am very happy to be getting married.’ Lynne lifted her chin and smiled at him. ‘When do you need me to leave?’

‘As soon as you are ready. I assume you will need to make arrangements for your possessions, as your father —’ He stopped. Dr Cotter made a point of standing in the hall forecourt to greet any parents who delivered their girls to hall at the beginning of terms. He had met Father several times. 

Lynne said quickly, ‘My fiancé will be able to collect me and take me home.’ She didn’t want any reminiscences or kind words. Not now, not in this room. ‘He has a car.’

‘Does he! A man of means. In which case, shall we say by Saturday morning?’

‘I’ll let him know.’

Dr Cotter walked around the desk towards her.

Lynne stood up from her chair and shook his outstretched hand. It felt very warm and dry; she hoped he didn’t notice her sweaty palms.

He walked towards the door of his office and held it open for her. ‘Good-bye, Miss Dallard. And good luck.’