‘It does.’ Delia swallowed hard. ‘Everyone needs a confidante. Did you really become a teacher?’ she asked quickly before a compulsion to open her heart to her old friend threatened to overcome her.
‘I did, and I’m teaching at a national mixed school here in Hull.’ Jenny paused. ‘I’d like to run my own establishment, but that’s a few years away yet.’
‘Do you get home very often?’ She had to ask; this might be a way of learning how her boy was coping without her, and if he was staying with Jenny’s parents or had been sent elsewhere.
‘Not all that often,’ Jenny admitted. ‘Only a few times a year. I’m tied to the school schedule, but to be truthful I’d visit more often at weekends if it were not for Jack’s wife, whom I cannot abide. They still live with Ma and Da after all this time. Ten years! They have four children and she doesn’t lift a finger to help in the house or on the farm; my ma looks after the children most of the time too, especially little Molly. She’s a darling, but her mother practically ignores her.’
Jenny beckoned the waiter over. ‘Will you have another glass of wine, Delia?’ She smiled. ‘The name came easily after all! Do say you will, and then I must be off. It’s a day of work tomorrow. One glass of red,’ she said, when Delia refused. She didn’t drink much alcohol, and thought it might prove to be the road to ruin for her.
‘Where was I?’ Jenny said, when her wine arrived. ‘Oh, yes. Susan, Jack’s wife. Do you remember her? Susan Barnett as was? She lived at the other side of Hedon? Very flirtatious. I never really liked her, and now she’s so lazy … well, I hesitate to use the term that would suit her as I’m in such esteemed company. And,’ she leaned towards Delia and lowered her voice. ‘I’m inclined to think that she tricked Jack into getting married; it was done in a rush and their eldest girl, Louisa, is beautiful and looks nothing like either of them or any of her three sisters, and,’ she emphasized again, ‘Susan didn’t go full term with her. An early baby, she said.’
Delia felt her heart hammering. ‘What are you saying? That the child isn’t Jack’s? Why should you think that? When were they married?’
The sense of betrayal that she had always felt came back full and strong, and yet there was also a sense of triumph that Jack had been deceived.
‘Not soon enough.’ Jenny sipped her wine. ‘I can add up, remember! And my reason for thinking it, and what saucy Susan doesn’t know, is that I saw her canoodling a few times with Ralph Pearce, who’s a snake in the grass if ever there was one.’
They chatted a while longer and then Jenny sighed. ‘I’ll visit home for a few days during the Christmas holidays, but not for Christmas itself. I couldn’t stand it, even though Ma and Da will be upset. Selfish of me, I know, but I have single friends who don’t go home either, male and female, and we’ll enjoy a nice meal together here at the Maritime. Will you still be here? If you are you must join us.’
‘Perhaps,’ Delia said evasively. ‘The theatre will be closed on Christmas Day … but Jenny, don’t tell your family about me, will you?’ She saw the look of disappointment on her friend’s face. ‘Please! I don’t want my parents to know where I am. They haven’t cared about me for so many years, and they would probably think that theatre work is only suitable for a woman of the lowest kind.’
‘They might have regrets?’ Jenny suggested, reaching for her coat.
Delia stood and picked up hers too. ‘They won’t. When I said I was leaving, my mother said don’t come back, and my father told me to get out. I was seventeen.’ A sob caught in her throat, but she went on, ‘Those are the last memories I have of them; why would I think they have changed their minds?’
Jenny leaned forward and kissed her cheek. ‘I won’t tell,’ she said softly. ‘But I’m very glad that you’ve come back. I’ll come to see you again, or I’ll write to you care of the theatre, but please let’s try and spend Christmas Day together. I’ve missed you; it’s been such a long time.’
A cab had been ordered to take Jenny to her rooms in Pearson Park on Princes Avenue. Delia didn’t know the district and Jenny exclaimed, ‘Oh, you must come and see it. The park is delightful and the housing is new. The owner of the villa I’m in went abroad on business and has never lived in it. He lets off several rooms, only to women, mainly teachers like me or retired elderly spinsters, and we have the use of the kitchen and bathroom. It’s almost like being in the country.’
She insisted that Delia should come in the cab and be dropped off at her lodgings off Church Street, and as Delia waved goodbye she worried that she had said too much. In a weak moment, would Jenny mention seeing her to her mother?
Would Mrs Robinson remember my last visit to their house that day? Will she recall how she sat me down with a cup of tea when I became dizzy and almost fainted? I don’t know whether she realized that it was what she had just told me that made me feel sick and wretched and totally despairing; that Jack and Susan Barnett had gone to see the vicar about reading the banns for their marriage. I felt that my life was over before it had begun, and I wanted to walk down to the Humber bank and keep on walking into
