A tin of milk part 6: Family Matters……and always will6 min read

I am the family face;
Flesh perishes, I live on,
Projecting trait and trace
Through time to times anon,
And leaping from place to place
Over oblivion.

“Quite right; we get to say and do all the things we wanted to when we were young and responsible.”

“Like joining a reading group you mean…..”

Molly, the waitress ‘sauntering around with nothing on’,  is home from the restaurant, home being a comfortable terraced house with distant (very) sea views.

“Hi mum, I’m home. God what a day! My feet are killing me.”

“Hello love.  Come and sit down and I’ll pop the kettle on.  I was just having five minutes in the chair and thinking about that last summer holiday we had before your father got poorly.”

“You stay there mum; I’ll put the kettle on. That was a great holiday. Dad in his silly baggy shorts and cap. The Englishman abroad; he might as well have had a knotted hanky on his head.”

“I think he’d have preferred to. Daft as a brush your Dad.”

Molly goes through to the compact kitchen she has known all her life, fills the kettle and flicks the switch. She goes back into the living room and slumps into a chair. “How is he today? He looked a bit washed out yesterday.”

“He’s having a little lie-down upstairs. It takes it out of him – more than he lets on I think.” Molly sees her mother’s eyes well as she tries not to cry. She pulls out a handkerchief and snuffles into it. “It must be a high pollen count of something; I’ve been blocked up all day. I don’t think he wants to worry us.” She looks up, smiles and says briskly, “How’s that kettle doing? Would you like some cake with your tea?”

“No mum, tea will be fine. You stay there. Dad’s not the only one who’s looking a bit washed out. I’ll pop up and see him in a sec., when I’ve had my tea. Will he want a cup do you think?”

“Ask him when you go up. No sense in waking him now if he’s nodded off.”

The two women hold their fears in check as Molly rattles crockery and takes the milk from the fridge.

“I don’t know! what a state we’re all in. I’ll be glad when your father’s treatment is finished and he can think about getting back to work. I can go back to full-time and we can chip away at a few bills and start planning another holiday.”

“So Dad can embarrass us all again. Here you are, this will cheer you up. He’s only got a couple more sessions hasn’t he?”

“Two more, then he sees the consultant again and then we’ll know if it’s gone.”

“It will have done; you know dad, he’s not going to let something like this stop him.”

“Course not….Anyway, what are you up to this evening?”

“Well, I’ve got an open invite to go and get lashed and laid with Tony or I can stay in, curl up with a book and get an early night…….No contest really.”

“A good book then?”

Molly laughs. “Any book, thank you very much. Where have all the decent men gone?”

“There’s one upstairs but I’ve not come across many.”

Molly makes a conscious attempt to lift the conversation. “You should have been at work with me today mum. Some of the families that came in, honestly, kids driving their parents mad, mother-in-laws with pursed lips…God it was busy though.” Molly sips her tea, trying to think of the right way into the next conversation; nothing comes to mind and she decides just to say it. “Mum I’ve been thinking.”

Her mum glances up and says, in the tone of voice that suggests she distrusts thinking, “Oh yes?”

“I might not go back to uni. It’s not so great and I’m flat broke, we all are. I could probably get a permanent job at the restaurant; they like me and they know we’re in a bit of a fix. I’d probably be as well off as if I graduated anyway and the course isn’t brilliant to be honest. I’d be around a bit more too, to help out until Dad’s back on his feet.”

Molly’s mum smiles and shakes her head. ”No love. Of course we’re going through a sticky patch but if there’s one thing that would break your father’s heart it would be that, mine too come to that. You worked so hard to get there and I’ll not have you throwing it all away now just because money’s tight. And if, God forbid, your father doesn’t get better……”

Molly rushes to fill the space, the chasm really, left by her mother’s unfinished sentence. “Right away…..”

“What?” Her mother looks around the room, unable to follow this line of thinking. She panics. Every part of this room has something of him in it. Wherever she looks he is there, pictures he’s put up, carpet he’s laid, photo’s., his keys. She is so, so frightened.

“If dad doesn’t get better right away.”

She gathers herself and says, “Oh yes, of course, right away, if he doesn’t get better right away, the last thing he would want is for your future to be ruined because of his illness. Your graduation will be a tonic for all of us but especially for your dad. Besides, someone in this family’s got to use the brains they were born with.”

“But mum…”

“No buts. Your great grandmother was a Molly too you know. I can only just remember her; she must have died quite young, like a lot of them. She left school at fourteen and went straight into service. And that was it for her – the end of her ambitions. The war liberated her for a bit and she married of course…… eventually. Worked hard all her life and when she died she had two shillings in her purse and nothing else in the world. I’m not having you live a life of regrets. …..Now then, you pop upstairs and see if your Dad wants that cuppa and I’ll sort tea out and start saving for a new knotted hankie for him to wear at your graduation.

“Something a bit racy…red with blue spots. something like that.”

“I’m not so sure, I don’t want other women throwing themselves at him. He might take off with one of them.”

“Chance would be a fine thing.”

And for some reason the tick tock of the clock on the wall seems to get louder in the quiet of the room as the two women get on with life.