Issue 4: Hidden Voices

Chuck and Di

Lisa Blower

DI IS IN HER KITCHEN PEELING POTATOES AT THE SINK. IN FRONT OF HER IS THE KITCHEN WINDOW WHICH LOOKS OUT ONTO A SMALL BACKYARD.THERE IS A SHED, TOO BIG FOR THE YARD, AND IT STOPS THE KITCHEN FROM GETTING ANY LIGHT. BEHIND HER IS A TABLE WITH TWO CHAIRS: THE TABLE SET FOR ONE.

I found it in his shed. Sat on his good toolbox it was with the price tag left on. Minton. Grasmere. 40 pieces. Five hundred quid all boxed up never used. Not ever going to be either. 

Course, there was no way I could’ve said anything. I shouldn’t have been in there in the first place. I could’ve said I was getting the emergency chairs out ready for Sunday, what with his sister and her brood coming for their dinners. And we all know what Chuck’s sister’s like when she’s sat on my three-piece airing her views after a couple of her afternoon sherries. Chuck won’t be able keep his trap shut when he’s got the chance to play the martyr. But there was no point going down that road when I’d been promising Monica I’d turned a corner.

I still called Monica to tell her what I’d found. She told me to breathe - breathe, Di, in, out, in, out - then asked me where he was.

                I said – ‘You know where he is. I should kick the bloody door down.’
                She said - ‘Blind eye, Di, and keep your fists in the suds.’
                I said - ‘Monica, it’s a spare room is that. Not a bloody museum. And that’s another 40-piece dinner service he’s just bought.’
                She said - ‘I’d be careful about who you’re telling when you call it a spare room. If the council get wind you’ll have to find yourself a lodger.’
                I said - ‘I’m already a housekeeper to a landlord.’
                She said - ‘Well just remember what happened last time. You meet him halfway.’

Because last time this happened there was no halfway. Wedgewood Florentine Blue it was. Beautiful to look at but it cleaned us out and broke my heart.

                I said - ‘What the hell were you ever thinking Chuck buying that lot?’
                He said - ‘Di, however hard you cherish them you’ve got be prepared for discolouration in a dinner service. And trends. Grasmere. Persian Rose. Florentine Blue. They’re in and out of fashion like a dipper’s drawers. You need replacements just in case.’               
                I said - ‘Doulton, Minton and Wedgwood, Chuck. No-one gives a damn about men like you anymore or for what you made. And whilst we’re on the subject, cherish me.’

He went all doe-eyed on me then. His big left eye watering as he started wittering on about some article in The Telegraph he’d read about how a generation of collectors were dying off; everything royal losing its sparkle.

                ‘No respect anymore,’ he said. ‘Even Cameron was late seeing our Queen.’

And because I’d upset him, he went and spent the whole day with his collection, dabbing at their faces all tender with that rubbery chamois he’d paid the earth for, wrapping them up again, putting them away. Then he came out of his room, all sunshine and smiles with newspaper print and somebody else’s stories all over his hands, except he was heading for my armchair.

I said - ‘Whoa, daddy, whoa! Not on my cream armchair you don’t’ - because his hands were as black as the night.

He sat down anyway, all defiant, strumming his fingers on my cushions. It was no wonder I saw red.

But he’d started it.

He always does.

DI PUTS THE POTATOES INTO A SAUCEPAN AND PLACES THEM ONTO THE STOVE. IT IS ONLY 4 O’CLOCK BUT THE KITCHEN IS DARK. SHE WIPES HER HANDS ON A TEA TOWEL, FLICKS ON THE LIGHT AND GOES TO SIT DOWN AT THE KITCHEN TABLE.

The thing about my Chuck is that, once upon a time, he had a hand in making all those crocks. He used to bring them home - ‘porcelain babes’ he’d call them - and they’d be as warm as rock cakes out the oven. He’d show our boys, tell them how it’d been made from clay to oven from dip to glost - I can see him now on his whirly stool with his magnifiers, that pencil-thin brush of his steady-as-she-goes as he enamelled around the rim. He was a fine looker back then, all dapper and natty, shirt, tie and waistcoat every day of his life - flashing me a wink with his big left eye as I went for my break with the girls.
                ‘He’s got his eye on you again, Di,’ nudge, nudge, wink, wink. ‘Never lets you out of his sight.’

Should’ve known then. Shouldn’t I?

Course, he’d only have to pass me on the stairs and I was pregnant. And in them days being a mother was your job so I never went back the factory after we were wed.

Anyway, we ticked along until Charles and Di went and tied the knot. And believe me when I say it, it was a true fairy tale for the likes of us. That much work on we nearly went Tenerife for us holidays. Except Chuck went and fell. Patch of black ice down the Dividy Road. Broke his right wrist and snapped the bone that bad it mended with a kink that used to shiver when he held a brush. Shop steward offered him no end of jobs. You could do this Chuck. You’d be blinding at that. He said, ‘I were blinding at bloody gilding,’ and he were on the sick for the best part of a year. Couldn’t get out of bed. Wouldn’t see a soul. Then they stopped his money. I started losing my temper because folk were talking and I’d be making meals out of onions.

‘You can fix a broken wrist, Di,’ he’d say. ‘But not a broken mind.’

And I’d look at Lady Di’s face on his mug of tea and think - I hadn’t a clue for what I was getting myself into either duck, though it’s written all over my face in the wedding photographs; Chuck’s sister aside of me wearing her bloody claret and all mouth. It was a bit too crowded even then. My mother said - ‘I don’t like the look of her, Di. Face like a bag of spanners with one eye on her brother all the bloody while. They’re watchers that family. On the lookout for themselves.’

But that was my mother for you. Never saw the good in no-one. Like I said to her as me and her watched Chuck overanalysing the gilding on our wedding crockery - ‘A true potter flips over a plate and checks where it’s been born. Rare breed my Chuck. One in a bloody million.’

‘Then keep your fists in your pockets and your kicks in your head if you want him kept,’ my mother said, tapping her nose like she did. ‘And don’t give up work either. Because men like that won’t keep a woman like you for all the crocks in bloody China.’

Pause.

Chuck was just shy of his 65th when his brother-in-law went and died out of the blue. Carked it on the bathroom floor from a fatty liver. Course, Chuck’s sister was over the moon because he was that much in debt she was having to take blood pressure tablets. Liked a flutter, you see. He had a tab that big down the Bookies it took all his insurances clean his slate. He’d have been buried in cardboard if it wasn’t for us. Not a single hymn, of course. One of them humanist affairs. Robbie Williams on cassette. Angels. Volume turned up like it was a disco.

                I said - ‘I’m sorry Nora. I know you didn’t love him but he was your husband.’
                She said - ‘Husband? We’ve lived separate lives for over thirty years. Not all of us got as lucky as you.’

Except Chuck took it real hard. Disappeared from the funeral and didn’t come home ‘til the Saturday. Three days he was gone. I’d almost got the police dredging the canal.

                I said - ‘If I wanted to live with a lodger I would’ve advertised for one. Where the bloody hell have you been?’
                He said - ‘I’ve been ruled by us past for far too long now Di and let you get away with blue bloody murder.’

And straight off he took charge like I’d never seen. Told me he’d retired early, walked away with what pension was in the pot and spent a bit of it already.

                I said - ‘You’ve done what?’
                ‘Computer,’ he said. ‘I’ve retired and bought a computer.’

He took over the spare room. Wires going all up my walls, Argos lorry outside the house ferrying in cabinets. That’s without mentioning the credit cards.

                I said - ‘What fool has given you those?’
                He said - ‘Banks like you spending Di. It’s how they make their money.’

But when I went down the bank to have a word I got told that the cards weren’t anything do with me. No payments coming from our account - I’m sorry Mrs Windsor. But your husband must’ve opened a separate account.

So I tackled him that night.

               Said - ‘What are you doing having your own bank account? I thought me and you shared everything?’
                He said - ‘My pension Di. I’ll spend it how I want.’ Then says I’ve done ‘nowt more with my life than live off him. Said I’d have his wages spent before he even got them home. Cleaned him out with my fancies and what-not.
                I said - ‘If it were left up to you Chuck, I’d have lived a sparse little life with not so much as a dolly peg to call my own.’

But that’s the thing about peacocks. They don’t flash their feathers to mate. They’re just reminding you who rules the roost.

DI TAKES OUT A BAG OF FROZEN PEAS FROM THE FREEZER AND REMOVES A MEAT AND POTATO PIE (HOMEMADE) FROM THE FRIDGE. SHE SETS ABOUT PUTTING THE PEAS INTO A PAN, THE PIE IN THE OVEN. SHE THINKS ABOUT HALVING THE PIE, HOVERS OVER THE CRUST WITH A KNIFE.BUT THINKS BETTER OF IT, PUTS THE WHOLE PIE IN THE OVEN AND SITS BACK DOWN.

He put locks on the door of the spare room. Bolt on the inside. Yale lock on the outside. I hardly ever saw him. Months went by. I packed a bag in the end. Told him a fib. Said I was going in the City General for some tests.

                I said - ‘This secret life of yours Chuck. It’s making me ill.’
                He said - ‘It was meant to be a surprise.’
                I said - ‘Only surprise I want is to know I’m not dying and you’ve not lost your marbles.’
                He opened the door then. ‘Nest egg,’ he said. ‘What do you think?’

It took me quite a while to tell him that I couldn’t believe my bloody eyes.

Most of it was Charles and Di memorabilia, ashtrays, thimbles, commemorative plates and mugs, but there were other pieces, prize pieces, that he’d bid for on the computer. And then there was the rest of it: Anything that’d been fired in Stoke. It were like a car bloody boot sale in there all laid out. I thought - I’ve given this man 41 years of my life and three sons, hot dinner every night, kept the house nice, never once thought about leaving him, and he wants me to appreciate this?

                ‘This is our destiny,’ he said.
                I said - ‘I’ll give you bloody destiny and ram it where the sun doesn’t shine.’
                And that’s when it went and happened.
                The bit when I didn’t feel very lucky at all.

Pause.
               
                Afterwards, he sat me down and told me that it was the last time.
                I said - ‘I know.’
                He said - ‘I mean it, Di.’
                 I said - ‘I know. I heard you the first time.’
                ‘Because next time I don’t want to do something I shouldn’t.’
                I said - ‘Alright Chuck. You’ve made your point.’
                He said - ‘Have I Di? Because I don’t want it to happen again.’
                I said - ‘Alright, don’t keep on.’
                He said - ‘I’m not on about you. I’m on about me. What I did.’
                I said - ‘I know. Do you want a cup of tea?’
                He said - ‘Because I can’t live with myself Di if it happens again. Do you understand?’
                I said - ‘Yes. Now go and wash your face. There’s some plasters in the cupboard.’
                He said - ‘I don’t know what you want, Di, but I can’t keep on like this.’
                I said - ‘A holiday would be nice. Somewhere abroad. So I can send postcards.’
                He said his sister knew someone - Monica he thought her name was - friend of the family - ‘You should go see her,’ he said.  ‘Have a word.’
                Except he’d already made me an appointment. Every Tuesday, 10 o’clock, for 10 weeks.
                I said - ‘What’s that costing us?’
                And he said - ‘Exactly Di. You’re costing us.’

DI IS WEARING RED OVEN GLOVES. SHE CHECKS THE PIE, TURNS DOWN THE HEAT. THE PEAS ARE STILL SIMMERING, THE POTATOES ARE DONE. SHE DRAINS THEM, FETCHES MILK AND BUTTER OUT OF THE FRIDGE, CHECKS THEIR LABELS FIRST TO CHECK THEY’RE HERS, THEN BEGINS TO MASH.

She was American the woman who bought it. I got her number from one of Chuck’s collecting magazines. Randy her name was. Sounded like she kept cats. Said she couldn’t offer me what she’d offered a few months back because these type of collections were starting to lose their value and she could get it much cheaper if she bought from Canada.

                I said - ‘What do you mean a few months?’

She said her and Charles had been trading crockery collectables now for the best part of a year and she was sure that, genealogically speaking, we were all related to the royals one way or the other. I thought - that’d be right, duck. Remind me of the life I didn’t get because I wanted a man so tight he creaked. So I told her that some of the stuff was signed by the gilder himself, put the price up and wouldn’t budge. She had the lot.
Charles. Only time my Chuck answered to Charles was when that young parson came to see him on the ward after he’d had his stomach pumped. Charles.  Like I told him - ‘You need to pull your bloody socks up Chuck and remember you’re a dad.’

Pause.

A week on the QE2 is what Chuck’s crock collection bought me. Royal as you’ll ever be made to feel and the bed linen is beautiful. Though I did think it was a bit much changing your towels every day. Not that I ever saw them peg out, even with all that sunshine, and we docked these couple of times, Valencia someone said, then somewhere opposite the Canaries, but I never got off. I’d paid to be on that boat all week and there was enough sights keep me busy on board. All I’ll say is no quality control. Riff raff isn’t the word. Like I said to the bloke in the next-door cabin - flicking his fag butts into the sea - ‘There’s fish in there, sunshine. Endangered species. Lifetime conscription’s what you lot need, because a class like you doesn’t know the meaning of bloody work.’

And he started goading me - people like you? What about people like you? - so I chinned him up the chops shut him up. Told him to have some bloody respect: I’m a pensioner still paying her way and my Chuck was a gilder to royal crocks. Except his wife came out of nowhere and knocked me flying. I went down like a stack of plates.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt as lonely as I did when floored on that deck with everyone looking down on me. I cried my heart out actually.

DI IS SITTING DOWN AT THE KITCHEN TABLE WITH HER TEA IN FRONT OF HER: MEAT AND POTATO PIE WITH MASH AND PEAS. SHE HAS FORGOTTEN TO MAKE GRAVY. SHE CURSES AND MAKES A FIST WHICH SHE THUMPS DOWN ON THE TABLE. SHE DABS AT HER EYES WITH HER APRON. PICKS UP HER KNIFE AND FORK. PUTS THEM DOWN AGAIN.

Monica says that you might pop a pill and hope the headache will drift but you can’t sedate a past and hope it won’t remember you. I said - ‘I’m a lot of things, Monica. My hands have done a lot of things, but I’m not a bad wife.’
                She said - ‘Did you send any postcards?’
                I said - ‘No. Not a one.’
                She said - ‘Why?’
                I said - ‘41 years of marriage, three sons, hot dinner every night, I’ve kept the house nice, and never once thought about leaving him.’

Pause.

                ‘You’ve got a bit of colour in your cheeks,’ Chuck said, and I clocked the white tape straightaway. On the carpet it was, stretching between the rooms.
                I said - ‘What’s all this, Chuck? It’ll pull the pile.’
                He said he’d been doing some careful thinking, what with me being away, and he’d had to make a decision.
                I said - ‘Is that us now, Chuck? Split in two?’
                He said no. The council had been round. Heard a rumour that we’d got a spare room.
                I said - ‘What spare room?’
                He said - ‘That’s what I said. But I put down the tape all the same,’ and he went and shut himself in his room. 

DI BEGINS TO EAT HER MEAL. SHE HAS HER MOUTH FULL. SHE TALKS TOTHE PIE IN FRONT OF HER.

Course, we’re as right as rain now. All forgotten.

                ‘Still here then?’ I say when he comes out of his room of a morning looking old.
                ‘I am,’ he says. ‘And so are you.’
                And we meet halfway between the tape before going our separate ways.      

DI CONTINUES TO EAT HER EVENING MEAL. FADES OUT.

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