19. Spiteful, nasty words – 1981
‘In the dishwasher, please.’ Anton appeared as if from nowhere which was quite an amazing feat in a house with so few walls.
Anyone else would have jumped out of their skin, but Ursula had got used it.
He did it every morning at the exact moment she finished her breakfast, so the element of surprise had been lost ages ago.
About a month after their wedding, if she had to pin it down.
‘I was just going to.’ She gave him the filthy look he deserved and slung her empty plate and cup into the machine.
When they’d first moved in, the dishwasher had been the most exciting thing about her new home.
As far as she was concerned anyway. But she’d soon grown tired of it.
Or rather, she was tired of Anton reminding her to hide every dirty piece of tableware in it the second she’d taken her last bite.
Absolutely nothing was allowed to be left out in this house in case it messed up his precious clean lines.
It was another of his little quirks she’d stopped finding sweet. In fact, it was bloody irritating.
In the short space of time it took her to close the dishwasher door, he’d moved to the chair she’d been sitting on and pushed it in so that it lined up with the others.
Now he was looking at the spot on the table where her plate and cup had been.
Wordlessly, she ran a cloth under the hot tap and wiped away all evidence that she’d been there.
She counted the crumbs as she collected them in her hand.
Three. Yesterday, it had been four. She was improving.
He held her coat out for her to slip her arms into, the one he’d bought her on their honeymoon last year.
She took it from him. ‘Oh, it’s too nice for work, it’ll only get messed up.
I’ll wear the other one.’ Before he had a chance to complain, she was on her way upstairs to make the switch.
She didn’t hear his sigh in this house built for silence, but she could feel it which was bad enough.
‘Mum’s been asking about Christmas again.
’ Ursula waited until they were in the car to ask so he couldn’t dash off on the pretence that he had some urgent business to deal with, which was what he’d done all the other times she’d asked.
They’d gone to her mum’s last year and had the cosy kind of Christmas they always did.
Well, the kind Ursula and her mum always did.
It had been torture for Anton. He hadn’t said as much but it was obvious.
Obvious and embarrassing, because it was also obvious to her mum.
This year, she’d thought about inviting her mum to spend Christmas at their house.
At least that way Anton could hide away upstairs when it got too much for him.
There was one problem with that though. Their house wasn’t in the least bit Christmassy.
Anton with his clean lines again. Ursula could live with it, but she wasn’t sure her mum could.
‘I am afraid we have to be in Germany.’ His expression was completely unreadable. He was always banging on about her and her bloody veil smile, but he was the master at bringing down the shutters.
‘For Christmas? Are you having me on?’
‘No. It’s work. I must go there on the sixteenth for four weeks.’
‘But it’s Christmas. No one works over Christmas except doctors and nurses and people on the telly.’
‘I must. I have a lot of work to do while I’m there. It’s very important for the partnership. We will celebrate Christmas there.’
‘We? I can’t take four weeks off work. I can’t even take a day off. This is our busiest time of the year. And the sixteenth is next week. Why are you only telling me this now?’
‘I didn’t know until now. I will go alone then. You can spend Christmas with Gillian. She will like that.’
‘But I wanted us all to have Christmas together.’ Ursula dug her nails into her palms. This had to be the crappiest way in history to get out of doing something you don’t like.
‘We will do that next year.’
‘Unless you find some other excuse.’ She folded her arms. She was so angry she was about to cry. And she didn’t believe that rubbish about him only just finding out either.
Anton frowned, his eyes still on the traffic in front of them. ‘Now you are behaving like a spoilt brat. You cannot always have everything you want, Ursula. You’re not a child. Marriage is full of compromises, and the sooner you understand that the easier it will be for both of us.’
His words had hit her like a slap. She looked at him in astonishment. A spoilt brat? How could he say that to her, after all she’d been through with her father?
She jumped out of the car as soon as he pulled into the car park. She didn’t want to be with him a minute longer. In fact, she was glad he wouldn’t be here to spoil Christmas. She only wished she didn’t have to wait until next week for him to go.
‘I’ll wash, you dry.’ Ursula’s mum plunged the glasses into the hot, soapy water.
They’d given it a couple of hours after eating before tackling the mess that always came with Christmas dinner.
There were dirty dishes and pans on every surface and Ursula loved the chaos of it.
Although it had to be said, she was missing her dishwasher.
She’d come home the day Anton left for Germany, a bundle of confused emotions.
One half of her had been upset at the thought of him being away for a whole month, and the other half was glad to see the back of him.
Their argument had cut deeply, or rather his description of her had, and she’d hardly spoken to him for the rest of the week leading up to his departure.
Pride made her keep it to herself and say nothing to her mum or Andi, but that didn’t stop her going over and over it in her head and wondering whether she had been just a little bit childish in expecting him to refuse work just for her.
Especially when it was so important to the business.
It hadn’t taken long for her and her mum to fall back into their old routines and it was almost as though she’d never left.
And being at home had its advantages. Especially going clubbing with Andi, something she never got to do when Anton was around.
It was like being single again, without the added complication of getting off with men.
Andi was coming over later. She’d passed her driving test in October and had bought her brother’s old Ford Escort off him.
She was staying over. Amazingly, Cass had decided to close the shop until after new year, so they had some extra days off.
Wanda told her the Frys were going away somewhere.
That was as much as Wanda knew, and as much as Ursula wanted to know.
Cass had only told them about the closure the day before Christmas Eve, so it had been too late to make arrangements to go to Germany.
Not that Ursula wanted to go there anyway.
She’d much rather be sitting in front of the telly with her mum and a box of Quality Street.
‘Is Anton calling you today?’ said her mum.
‘Dunno. He gets carried away with work sometimes. He forgets.’ That wasn’t exactly correct; Anton hardly ever forgot anything. He hadn’t called her at all since he’d left though. Probably because he thought it wasn’t worth it if she wasn’t talking to him.
‘Are things all right between you two?’
‘Yeah, fine. We’re still adjusting to married life but that’s normal, isn’t it?’ Ursula picked up a plate and ran the tea towel over it.
Her mum filled the space on the drainer with another plate. ‘I’ve really enjoyed having you home. It’s been very quiet without you blasting my ears with music all the time. I don’t know how Anton copes.’
‘Oh I don’t put the radio on much these days. He needs quiet for work. It disturbs him. Honestly, you can literally hear a pin drop in that house.’
‘Sounds awful. I know what to buy you for your birthday then. One of those new Walkman thingies like Andi has.’
‘Oh you’ve seen that, have you?’
‘Yes. She comes over from time to time to do some sewing and keep me company.’
‘She never told me that.’ And neither had her mum before now.
‘Well, now that it’s come up, there’s something I do want to talk to you about. You probably know Andi’s parents are moving away from Birmingham in the new year?’
‘Yeah. She’s been looking for a flat.’
‘I’ve asked her if she wants to live here.’
‘Here? But where will she sleep?’
‘In your old room. That’s all right, isn’t it, love? You don’t mind, do you? It’s just that the extra money would be handy, and it would be company for me.’
‘No it’s fine. Honestly, it’s fine.’ Ursula picked up a dish and rubbed away at it.
She wanted to cry but that would have made her look like an idiot.
She didn’t even know why she wanted to do it.
Her mum was probably missing the company.
And it was great that Andi was going to be looking out for her.
So why was she being so stupid about it?
At that moment, the doorbell rang. Her mum put the last pan on the drainer and pulled the plug out of the sink. ‘That’ll be Andi. I’ll let her in.’
Ursula could hear them whispering in the hall.
No prizes for guessing what they were whispering about.
She carried on with the drying up. After a while, Andi came in and took out a clean tea towel.
Ursula noted that she’d gone straight to the right drawer, as if she’d done it a hundred times, although she couldn’t remember her ever doing that before.
That riled her a little bit. They carried on working away at the wet dishes until she couldn’t stand it anymore.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d been visiting my mum on the sly? ’
Andi stopped what she was doing. ‘She asked me not to. She didn’t want you to worry about her.’
‘I thought you were going to get your own place.’
‘I was, but I can only afford a shitty bedsit or a flat share. Gillian asked me last week if I wanted to move in. I haven’t said yes. I wanted to see how you felt about it first. I won’t do it if you don’t like the idea.’
Ursula kept her mouth shut knowing that if any words came out, they’d be spiteful and nasty and she didn’t want that.
‘She’s lonely, Urs. We both are.’
Her mum and Andi were filling the hole she’d left behind.
Ursula was being squeezed out and it hurt.
Her mouth opened and out they came, those bad words that she’d been trying so hard not to say: ‘You should do it. I’m a married woman now.
I’ve got my husband to think of. I can’t spend all my time keeping you two happy.
’ She threw the tea towel down, went to the bathroom and stared at her sullen, bitter face in the mirror.
And then it hit her. Anton was right. She was nothing but a spoilt brat.