The Afternoon Tea Club

Yet, her daughter’s marvellous achievements aside, Marjorie was miffed to note that Gracie was being decidedly pushy, these days, about her mother needing to do something meaningful with her life instead of ‘moping around all day’.

Admittedly, helping Gracie with the shopping, cleaning and washing took care of morning duties, but – apart from daytime TV – what was there to actually do during the long tedious hours until bedtime? She daren’t admit to her daughter that most afternoons she simply sat on the sofa ploughing her way through books she’d acquired from the library because there really wasn’t much else to occupy her time.

‘Why don’t you go do some voluntary work, Mum? Or help an elderly person with their cleaning or something?’ Gracie encouraged, when her mother had moaned about the lack of activities during the afternoon.

But she was eighty-two, for God’s sake! Not some idle teenager being encouraged that there was more to life than being ‘poked’ or snap-chatted by all her friends or whatever the latest devices-related craze was. Didn’t the years of bringing up a family entitle her to a bit of peace, now she was old, craggy and tired? In the mirror, a grey-haired lady with a plethora of facial lines, born from far too much angst, stared back at her. Even with make-up, she looked tired.

That said, no one had told Marjorie about the inevitable boring bits she’d duly experience as she got older – especially the hardly-anything-to-do-all-day bit. And she didn’t want to admit that sometimes she felt like screaming, trying to think up new things to do every single day. That was tiring enough in itself! Yet she realised having nothing meaningful to do on a daily basis had made her withdraw from life. Sometimes she paced the flat; sometimes she could only bring herself to stare out the window, arms folded, at the communal patio, watching the birds pecking at seed on the bird table she’d bought and set up, mainly to give herself something to look at when she had nothing better to do. Oh, she’d been thrilled when the other residents had congratulated her for that. But even though she was thoroughly fed up with things at the moment she certainly knew she didn’t need another ‘Life Goal’ at her age.

‘Besides, I still have a few friends, as you well know, daughter dear.’

However, it did irk Marjorie that the few friends she had left were all occupied by grandchildren or great-grandchildren and didn’t see her very often. And being as Gracie was divorced with no little ones to occupy Marjorie’s time, she couldn’t even fulfil her own longed-for role as a grandmother. Marjorie often remarked that it was ‘High time you got married again, Gracie dear, and gave me grandchildren! You’re in your late forties now, sweetheart. No time to waste!’

And then their conversations would turn into a testy argument, with Marjorie wagging an index finger and Gracie insisting that since the collapse of her marriage – not due to them being childless, but because Harry had gone off with some ‘young thing’, as Marjorie put it – she’d wanted nothing more to do with men.

‘I’m loving all this free time by myself, Mother. I can do what I want, when I want, which is great. Thought you – of all people – would understand that? I tried pandering to Harry’s every need and where did that get me, huh? Still went off with someone else! What is it with you and I, picking the wrong men all the time?’

Marjorie had sighed.

So, no grandchildren for her, then. No rocking babies gently to sleep. No fun days out with tantrums in the park about whose turn it was on the swings. Nope! A life of solitary confinement, occasionally seeing friends whose lives weren’t embossed with the embroilment of family life, was her luck of the draw.

Thus Marjorie’s life, when she wasn’t moping around the house, consisted of occasional visits to the library to borrow and return books, just to give her a reason to get out of the house; or occasional walks in the park with Gracie, providing her daughter was free on a weekend; or taking her oldest and best friend Lou to the chiropodist, to get her toenails cut; but no excursions to get a nice cup of tea somewhere afterwards. So it was far from an exciting existence and, yes, she conceded privately, Gracie was right; it was aimless at best, pointless at worst.

Living with her daughter hadn’t turned out to be full of the promise she’d expected. But, tedium aside, Marjorie knew it was infinitely better than living by herself after Oliver died.

And thank the Lord he had!

Just as well he’d had his stroke because Marjorie couldn’t think of any new ideas about how she could possibly get rid of him, without getting the blame!

Yes, that sounded bad. But Marjorie’s husband Oliver had been a bully, both emotionally and physically, for most of their married life. Marjorie couldn’t remember when it had first started. Possibly it had begun when he’d left the army ‘under a cloud’. He’d been very morose around that time. But each subsequent job hadn’t worked out for him, either. Not that Marjorie was making excuses for him, but she belonged to an era that truly believed in their ‘for better or worse’ vows.

Yet excuses aside, he’d hit her a lot. Oh, he’d been very apologetic at first, which had sucked her in, believing him to be remorseful. But it had continued. Thrice she’d been to hospital; once for concussion, once for a broken arm, once for her miscarriage due to his aggression. He’d become increasingly abusive after Gracie was born because he couldn’t stand the fact that – suddenly – all Marjorie’s attention was poured onto their new-born child.

‘There are three of us in this relationship. Not just you and ruddy Gracie! Remember that, woman. Now go get me my dinner before I really lose it with you!’

Fortuitously he’d never laid a finger on Gracie. Marjorie knew she’d have had to leave if he’d done that. But when she’d turned to her mother for moral support and advice, her mother had shaken her head. Unfortunately, she was one of those women who considered it wrong to interfere in another person’s relationship, whatever the circumstances.

‘Yer makes yer bed, yer lies in it!’ was her comment when Marjorie turned up, the first time it happened, to discuss Oliver’s behaviour.

Another time, when she’d had her mother around for Sunday lunch – hoping for once that Oliver wouldn’t let himself down in front of them – the meal had started off okay, until Oliver mentioned the fact that Marjorie had bought him the wrong shaving gel that morning. As Oliver raged, Marjorie had overheard her mother calmly tell Gracie, ‘Just leave them to it, lovey.’

Marjorie had no siblings and wasn’t sure what response she’d get if she offloaded to her friends. She knew everyone had their own problems and where could she have gone for respite with a young child in those days? So she put up with their situation and suffered in silence.

However, Marjorie had been mortified when Gracie told her mother, on her eighteenth birthday, that she intended to leave home and go travelling for a year with friends.

‘Oh but, Gracie, you can’t just leave! You’re my life!’

‘Well, I know that, Mum. But I need some time out on my own – everyone’s doing it before college or university! Besides, if I’m being really honest, I, um, I just can’t stand being here any longer. I can’t tolerate the awfulness of things any more. There’s really no reason for you to continually suffer at the hand of Daddy. Why don’t you leave him? Or ring the police? Or you could go and live somewhere else? Anyway, me and my mate, Rosa, will probably go and look for work in London, afterwards, because anywhere’s better than being here!’

‘But, Gracie, you can’t leave. What about your education?’

‘It can wait, Mum. Other students have time out and this is no different. Besides, I really think you should do something about Daddy.’

But Marjorie had always been frightened of Oliver and simply didn’t know what to do. And even if she had told someone about her troubles with him, would they have wanted to get involved in all that? She suspected they’d have told her to leave him. But she was a housewife and funds were limited at best. She had no access to surplus money in order to move away, so she’d felt trapped.

Gracie had never understood the reasoning behind her father’s venom. Weren’t you supposed to have loving, caring parents around you as you grew up? She’d tried to intervene once, standing between her beloved mother and crazed father. But she’d got a furious verbal diatribe from him. He hadn’t hit her but he’d sworn and yelled loudly enough to warn her off interfering again. And he’d also frightened their friends away over the years when they’d rung – often by brusquely telling them Marjorie or Gracie were out. So they’d stopped ringing. At school, Gracie had tried to explain to her friends what was going on at home.

‘He’s completely unreasonable, so never call me at home, okay? It’s too risky. We’ll make plans for the weekend here at school instead.’

Marjorie had been so wrapped up in avoiding Oliver’s fury or trying to placate him that she’d forgotten what kind of impact it might have been having on their young daughter. The result of which was that her darling Gracie wanted to leave home. Yet why should Gracie suffer the consequences of her father’s actions?

‘Oh, darling, I’m so sorry it’s come to this,’ Marjorie had said, sobbing, as the reality of Gracie’s words hit home. ‘I know I should’ve sorted it all out, somehow, years ago. But I’ve never really known what to do about your father. Look, please stay. We’ll work something out, Gracie. Please don’t go, sweetheart. Oh, I couldn’t bear it if you left!’

But Gracie had stood her ground.

‘It’s not your fault, Mother. He’s unresponsive to reason. It’s domestic violence, pure and simple. He’s a wife-beater and it’s a criminal offence. There’s no other way to dress it up. So I can’t stay. I can’t stand seeing what he does to you every day and feeling helpless about what to do. It’s not right. You should report him, even though I know you’re scared. Anyway, my leaving will help – I know he didn’t want me so that makes me part of the problem.’

‘Gracie, none of this is about you!’ Marjorie had pleaded. ‘Are you listening to me? None of it. It’s his doing. He’s the problem. Good God, I should never have let it get this far. But I thought I was dealing with it in my own way. Darling, please! I’m so sorry it’s come to this.’

‘I know you’re sorry, Mum, and I just wish I could make it all better for you but nothing I say makes any difference. It still goes on. Anyway, my friends have booked the trip now, so I’m sorry to disappoint you but I’m … I’m going.’

Marjorie knew she had to concede to her daughter’s wishes. But she daren’t tell Oliver. And so one morning, before Oliver was awake, she smuggled Gracie away to the bus stop. Time away from the family would probably be good for Gracie. She was young; she had prospects and her own life to lead. Marjorie knew she couldn’t hold her back indefinitely, even though she secretly wanted to hold on to her forever. And then, needing someone to tell, she’d gone round and offloaded to her best friend, Lou, sobbing remorsefully on her lap, whilst Lou had patted her friend’s head.

‘Oh, I thought summat was amiss with Oliver. I’d heard talk. And your poor girl. But you can’t be standing for all that nonsense, love. Tell him I’ll send my son Derek round if he comes for yer again!’

But Marjorie was convinced things would only get worse for her if she tried that suggestion. Instead, she found the courage to secretly buy a pay-as-you-go mobile phone, so she could ring Lou privately when things got too bad. Unfortunately, Oliver found it and smashed it to smithereens and then punished her.

‘You’ll not be going behind my back and gossiping with your friends about me!’ he’d shouted at her, as Marjorie cowered in a corner, quietly sobbing.

He’d once, laughingly, justified his treatment of Marjorie to their friends, on an impromptu night out. They hadn’t known what was going on until then. ‘A good beating is all these women understand!’ He’d smirked at their shocked faces.

Oliver’s temper had continued to simmer under the surface until Gracie got married and moved to Dorset. Gracie’s husband, Harry, was a police officer, but he’d told Gracie there was nothing anyone could really do unless her mother made a formal complaint or someone saw her bruises. So Gracie persuaded her mother to wear a light sleeveless summer top at their next summer barbecue and then, when Harry finally saw the bruises for himself that day, he stepped in to have a serious word.

‘Fuck’s going on, Oliver? What’s this all about? If I ever see anything else like this again or if I bloody well even hear about it, I’m doin’ you! So think on, mate!’

Outraged, Oliver had then been careful to hit Marjorie where the bruises weren’t so easily spotted! But the frequency, Marjorie was relieved to note, dissipated.

After Gracie divorced Harry for his infidelities and rented a flat, back where Marjorie and Oliver lived in Hampshire, Gracie hoped she’d finally be able to help her mother, providing she could persuade her to be helped.

‘You’ve got to leave him, Mum. Look, why don’t you come and live with me, now I’m on my own? I’ve got the two bedrooms so we can have one each. It’d be nice to have some company for a change and we get on well enough, you and I, don’t we? We could have days out and, well, I just think it would be lovely for us both,’ Gracie had said.

It had sounded like a heavenly idea to Marjorie.

‘Well, I’d like to leave, Gracie, but to be honest I’m frightened of him. What if he made life even more unbearable for us, in some way? Besides I don’t want to involve you in all of that again. At least it’s not as bad as it used to be. Anyway, darling, you deserve a happier life now you’re free from Harry and you’ve got some lovely friends and a good job at the school. I know you mean well, sweetie, but I’ll be okay. I’ve survived this long, haven’t I?’

To herself, when she was alone, polishing and cleaning the house the way Oliver liked it or when he was down the pub, drinking heavily and playing snooker with his old army mates, Marjorie used to think, Why are we still together if you don’t love me? Divorce might have been an option for some people but she knew Oliver would never grant her one and she wouldn’t have wanted one anyway. So, mostly, she just wished he was dead.

And then he did die.

He died one Sunday morning sitting at the table, chewing his toast, waiting for his bacon and eggs, banging on the table with the handle of his knife, making dents in the table top.

‘Where’s my bloody breakfast?’ he’d called from the dining room. ‘And if you don’t hurry up – aargh! Wha’s happenin’ to me? Marj! Marj!’

Hearing the change in his tone from anger to panic, Marjorie had rushed into the dining room and then stopped, realising exactly what was happening. Her father had died from a stroke too. They told you the signs to watch out for on the telly. She watched in disbelief as her husband slid from the table onto the floor; his right hand hooked like a claw, reaching out to her in his last gesture of anger.

‘Do something, b-bitch!’

But something snapped in Marjorie at that moment. How dare he!

How absolutely dare he speak to her like that! She’d given him her life and he’d trodden all over it. His awfulness had even sent Gracie out of their door. And this was how he was treating her, even now? She’d been totally prepared to help him, until that point, despite the relentless abuse he’d inflicted on her.

Instead, she took a deep breath and folded her arms. She would help him – she’d be his wife to the bitter end, as per her wedding vows – but she had something to say to him first.

‘It serves you right, you old bastard!’ she said, exuberantly.

She saw one of Oliver’s eyebrows flick up in surprise; she’d never dared answer him back before.

‘Do you realise what you’ve done to us, over all these years? Did you enjoy inflicting all that pain? Did it make you feel more worthy as a man?’

He didn’t answer. His eyebrow dropped; his eyes stared out in front of him.

She was aware of the tick, tick, ticking of the dining room clock, as she waited for an answer. She even thought at the very least he might say, ‘I’m sorry, love.’ How very different their lives might have been, if he hadn’t been such a beast of a man! How very different their days might have been, if he’d been kind, instead of forcing his wife and daughter to walk on eggshells, fearful of what he might do or say to them next!

Why wouldn’t he answer her? Clearly he wasn’t remorseful in the slightest about the way he’d treated her over the years!

With a sigh, she turned to ring the doctor.

‘Well, he’s gone all red like he’s choking or something. But I don’t, um, I don’t know how to dislodge anything if it’s stuck, you see. Well no. We’re old folks, love, and I wouldn’t be able to do anything like that. The – the what did you call it? The something thrust? No, I don’t know how to do it, love,’ Marjorie replied to the doctor’s receptionist. ‘Yes, I think he was eating some toast. I tried banging on his back but nothing’s come out. Oh, wait a minute. Oh, gosh! Oh, now it looks like he’s not breathing. So shall I, um, shall I ring the ambulance instead?’

Chapter 3

Stacy was soaked from the hefty downpour by the time she got back to her flat, following afternoon tea at the community centre. She stood dripping on the doormat; her yellow cardigan now soaked with cold rain. She’d forgotten her umbrella and it had rained in heavy blobs, despite the heat. She hated her hair getting wet because it expanded, uncontrollably, into a frizzy mess if she let it. That’s why she’d kept it long, a bit too long really, in the hope the weight would keep it down. It didn’t make much difference though. Her clothes needed to go straight into a washing machine, but she didn’t have one. She always did her washing at the laundrette next to the corner shop, so her clothes would have to wait in the washbag until she got around to doing that. The first thing she wanted to do, however, was have a shower, to wash away the stickiness from choosing the right colour but wrong fabric for her afternoon tea outfit. She didn’t actually have any going-out outfits because she never normally went anywhere.

She felt quite relieved to be home, but as she turned the key in her door she was greeted with a cacophony of pitiful mews and yowling. It sounded a little different to usual. As she entered her flat a black and white cat slouched from behind the kitchen door and wound itself around her ankles, staring wistfully up at her with its lovely yellow eyes. Stacy bent down to stroke it.

‘Oh, Pooch, my little pretty,’ she murmured, picking it up and kissing its face. But the cat suddenly struck out a paw and clawed the side of her face.

‘Ow! Naughty Pooch!’ she exclaimed, dropping the cat, which ran off with a howl. ‘Bad kitty!’

Stacy stomped along the corridor to the bathroom, holding her face. She glanced in the mirror. It was only a little nick but it had left a spotted trail of blood, sliding towards her chin. She dabbed at the blood with some toilet paper. Pooch probably hadn’t meant it. He’d be skulking in the lounge now, fearful of another telling-off. But she had to get her wet clothes off first and get sorted.

However, turning from the sink, she could see some of her other cats – Ebony, Chater, Melanie and Dingle – leaping around in the bath playing with the shower extension. They were having fun. She didn’t particularly want to disturb them. But then she breathed in smells she didn’t really want to smell, either. One of them had probably weed and they were all in it now. Damn. The bath would need cleaning before she got in and used the shower attachment. But Chater was currently problematic and skittish following the incident with the toilet lid falling on him yesterday. Maybe shooing them out of the bathroom wouldn’t go down too well with him at the moment, either. She certainly didn’t want him hissing and clawing her again this afternoon.

Sighing, Stacy took her cardigan off and dropped it by the sink. She needed to see if Snowball looked any better. But the yowling was louder in the lounge when she opened the door. She sidestepped their climbing frames and empty tins of cat food, overflowing litter trays and unfortunate ‘accidents’ all over the lounge carpet. It really needed cleaning in here. John, her next-door neighbour often banged on her door to complain about the noise and smell. How, she wondered, could he possibly smell anything when they lived in separate flats? He was such a Moaning Minnie!

‘Snowball, my little – oh! Snowball!’

Stacy gently picked up the tiny limp body from beside the radiator and held it like a baby in her arms. A tear slid down her cheek and plopped onto the little lifeless black kitten.

Casper tried to jump on her lap and sniff Snowball as she sat down on the sofa. She pushed him off. But he jumped back on again. So, that’s why they’re concerned, Stacy thought.

But what should she do now? She knew she had to get the kitten out of the flat. Maybe the odd-sounding mewing would stop then. She’d have to find a sealed plastic container to put him in, ready for burying somewhere. That would probably calm the others, too, she thought. Their mewing was constant. If only she could switch that noise off, sometimes! She needed her shower, yes, but her priority was to get Snowball away from the others because she could see the tiny kitten looked somewhat scraggy and when she turned him over – oh no – he’d been mauled!

She went into the kitchen, stepping over Rover the ginger tom – narrowly missing treading on Canterbury her pregnant cat. How had Canterbury got out of the bedroom? Had she left the door open, by mistake? And was Rover bothering Canterbury now?

‘For God’s sake, guys!’

She pushed Canterbury along the corridor with her foot, as gently as she could, and finally got her pregnant cat back inside the bedroom. But she’d had to put Snowball on the floor whilst she kept Canterbury just inside the bedroom door, with one hand, and then shut the bedroom door with her other. Unfortunately – quick as a whip – Rover spotted Snowball and went to paw him.

‘Stop it, Rover! Was that you before? Get into the lounge! Now stay in there, naughty boy!’

Stacy was always stressed with the effort of trying to keep them all separated or stopping fights. She often got badly scratched for her efforts. It was partly the reason she always wore long-sleeved clothes, even in the summer; to cover her unsightly sores! She realised keeping all the cats in her one-bedroom flat had probably not been her best idea. And whilst she knew that cats tended to grieve a dead companion, both Rover and Chater had become unpredictable animals of late. Probably being cooped up in her small home meant their behaviours weren’t as they should be. Yet her obsession with cats hadn’t started off like this.

Stacy loved cats. They were her kind of animal. They weren’t as needy as dogs, even though she knew dogs were loyal. As a child she’d lived on a farm with her parents and brother, so she was used to animals. However, the cats her father had kept were for ratting only. She’d never been encouraged to pet them, although she had done sometimes.

‘Never know what germs they carry, so leave them be,’ her father used to say.

So it was a complete joy to her when she was able to leave home and buy this flat with her half of her grandmother’s inheritance. Having her own place meant living by her own rules and also meant she could have as many cats as she liked! So she’d started off by buying a couple of kittens from a pet shop. Then people had wanted her to take their cats when they moved house or if someone found a stray. She knew about the Cats Protection society but they always seemed to be terribly busy with their own intakes. So Stacy had thought she was helping everybody out by taking cats in herself.