curled up in the big wide bed, all warm and snug. Soon she was dreaming of Billy Witts.
Henzey happily fell into the routine of seeing Billy Witts about three times a week. She had met most of his family, who were very nice to her. At weekends they went dancing at The Tower Ballroom in Edgbaston; one night in the week they usually went to the cinema and twice already he had taken her to posh restaurants. On Saturday mornings, while she was at work, Billy liked to play golf and, on summer Sunday afternoons, he usually played cricket for St. Thomas’s church team. She had accompanied him to a couple of matches. Those of his friends she had met seemed to like her as far as she could tell, and a girl-friend of one of them, Marjorie Lycett, told her how glad she was that Billy had finally ditched that snotty Nellie Dewsbury.
When Billy brought Henzey back home to the dairy house at night he would swing his Vauxhall through the wide entry and into the yard and stop the engine while they said goodnight. And sometimes it would take them a whole hour. Henzey knew that it would have been so easy to get carried away with Billy, for he always left her longing for him, breathless and tingling all over; but happy, for he wooed her with fine words.
She wanted him. He lit her up like a firecracker whenever he touched her, but she dare not make the running and he certainly seemed in no hurry, however passionately they kissed. But she never allowed herself to become preoccupied with such thoughts. Rather, she enjoyed being in love, with all the attention and sweetness it brought, and was content to let such physical matters take their course. Besides, she did not want to get into trouble, like Rosie Frost. She wanted no guilty conscience that she had gone against her mother’s wishes. Sex should be confined to the marriage bed; and she was happy to wait.
Then one Wednesday in the middle of May, when Henzey had come home from work, she went upstairs to change. Her mother was half-undressed in her bedroom, posing in the cheval mirror at the side of her dressing table. The door was open and as Henzey walked by she caught sight of Lizzie in profile. She stopped to talk, leaning against the door jamb, and saw how much weight Lizzie had gained.
‘I was just trying on this new frock,’ Lizzie said, pointing towards a heap of floral patterned voile. ‘Jesse and me have been invited to a Masonic do on the first of June. He reckons they might invite him to join. It’s his life’s ambition now to be a Mason.’
‘Coming up in the world, eh? Come on, then. Let’s see your new frock. I bet you’ve had to have a bigger size again. You’re really putting weight on, Mom. It must be contentment.’
Lizzie took the dress and slipped it over her head, adjusting it as it fell around her body.
‘Mother, it looks like a maternity frock,’ Henzey commented innocently. ‘You’re not that fat.’
‘No, not yet I’m not,’ she sighed. ‘But I soon shall be.’
‘Not if you watch what you eat.’
Then it dawned on her.
‘God! You’re not pregnant, are you, Mom?’ Henzey sat down on the bed and looked at her mother.
Lizzie turned away self-consciously. ‘Yes, I am, our Henzey.’
‘But you shouldn’t show yet.’
‘Henzey, I’m four months.’ Lizzie walked over to the window and stared out across the field behind the house and the vast industrial landscape that was spread out before her.
‘But you’ve only been married a fortnight…You mean you got married because you had to?’
Lizzie did not reply.
‘And all the time you’re preaching to me to mind what I’m doing? That I’m only seventeen…My God!’
Henzey felt ashamed of her mother, but she’d said enough. Never before had Henzey spoken to her like that, and she half expected a slap across the face for her trouble. Yet no slap came. For long seconds Henzey was silent while she tried to collect her thoughts. Abruptly, she stood up and turned away from Lizzie, biting her bottom lip in anger and distaste. Then, just as abruptly, she sat down again. Her mother – her own mother – had been having sex with Jesse before she was married…And at her age…It was disgusting. It was absolutely disgusting. It came as such a shock that Henzey felt she’d been punched in the stomach.
Lizzie remained at the window, looking out.
Henzey shook her head slowly in disbelief, then spoke again, quietly, composed. ‘What am I supposed to say, Mom, when folks start making jokes about my mother and the milkman?’
Lizzie remained silent.
‘And how d’you think our Herbert’s going to feel when his mates start laughing behind his back, making sarcastic comments?’ Henzey continued. ‘Dear God, what sort of an example d’you think you’ve set our Alice and Maxine? Come to that, what sort of an example d’you think you’ve set me, after all your preaching and finger wagging? Good God, Mother! I can hardly believe it.’
Lizzie continued to look outside with glazed eyes. Everything Henzey said was true. Every example she cited, as to the consequences for the family, she had herself considered. It was as if their roles had been reversed, as if Lizzie was the errant, wayward daughter and Henzey the fraught and angry mother. Now Lizzie felt ashamed –thoroughly ashamed. She had no wish to alienate her daughter over this, nor any of her family. What she needed above all was their understanding and their support, but particularly from Henzey.
Henzey saw her mother’s shoulders shaking and, at first, she thought she was laughing in defiance till she turned round and saw tears streaming down her agonised face. Lizzie took a handkerchief from a drawer in her dressing table and wiped her eyes. Then she sat on the bed by Henzey’s side and turned to face her, taking her daughter’s hands.
‘Don’t be judge and jury, our Henzey,’ she wept. ‘But for the grace of God it could be you pregnant.’
‘Then, Mother, for the grace of God I’d have to call the child Jesus,’ Henzey replied indignantly, ‘because it’d be another virgin birth.’
‘Oh, our Henzey, I knew it’d be like this when you found out. I wanted to tell you from the outset, but like a fool I decided against it.’ She wiped away another flush of tears. ‘I hoped you’d understand. It’s not as if Jesse and me are kids. We love one another and we wanted one another. We haven’t stalked out like a tomcat and a tabby to do it behind the miskins and then run off. It’s meant something to us – try and understand that. Don’t forget, either, that we aren’t too old for that sort of thing, even if you might think we are. We would’ve got married whether or no. My being pregnant has only made it happen sooner.’
‘Maybe I shouldn’t have expected you to be a saint,’ Henzey said quietly, ‘but I never dreamed you’d get pregnant. My own mother. It’s so damned stupid…And at your age.’
‘Well, I confess I hadn’t counted on it, our Henzey. And I’ll confess to you that at first I didn’t want the child. But I’m stuck with it, nevertheless.’
‘Does Jesse want it?’
‘Oh, he’s happy about it. He’s like a dog with two tails. Can’t you tell? He reckons we won’t get a look in when it’s born. He reckons you girls’ll bring it up.’ She looked up at her daughter beseechingly, tears again filling her eyes, which now were showing signs of puffiness. ‘Henzey, I don’t need your condemnation, I need your support.
