Comng Home

 “Hello?”

There was silence at the other end of the line, then a voice started hesitantly.

“Hello, Mom. It’s Beryl.”

Margery stood silently staring at the phone.

“Beryl? … Beryl! … Oh, Beryl…”

She wanted to say all the things she had imagined herself saying over the past ten years, but nothing sensible would come out.

“Mom, I’m in Manchester. Would you like to meet?”

“Oh Beryl, yes of course. Why don’t you come here?”

“Will Dad be there?”

“Well… yes, he will. He’s retired now you know.”

“Gosh is he?” It had been ten years but it still came as a shock.

“He retired at sixty because they were laying people off. You must be, what? twenty-six now?”

“Yes, nearly twenty-seven. Mom, I’m getting married in June. Could we meet somewhere in town? Don’t tell Dad, not just yet.”

“Oh Beryl, how can I not tell him, after all we’ve been through?”

Of course Beryl didn’t know what they had been through since she had run away at sixteen. She could have no idea.

“Could you come this afternoon? Then you can tell him when you get back.”

That was typical of Beryl. Everything was urgent. You had to drop everything and come when she called. But Margery couldn’t make a stand now.

“OK, shall we meet at the Ivy Leaf in the Arcade?”

“Er, can you remind me? I’m not too sure where things are now.”

Margery gave Beryl directions and arranged a time. She was slightly shocked that Beryl had forgotten the centre of Manchester. As a child, she had loved going into town. It had been her treat on Saturday afternoons. They must have visited every coffee shop several times over during those shopping expeditions. Of course, the town had changed in ten years but still…

It was little things like this that reminded Margery of the extent of her loss. Her only daughter, her friend and constant companion had been suddenly ripped out of her life. Neither she nor Jim had ever recovered. After furious anger, then remorse, Jim had become withdrawn and morose. He never mentioned Beryl these days but he must have thought about her all the time. They had gradually settled down in their misery, no longer pestering the police or the missing persons agencies, grateful only that they had never received bad news.

Beryl had been Daddy’s little girl when she was small although she had often been difficult, always excitable and wilful. “Mommy, Mommy, come quickly” had been her constant cry or else it was: “Can I Mommy? Why can’t I Mommy? I want to. I want to.” It always ended in tears of frustration and anger.

Relations became more strained between Beryl and her father when she became a teenager. Jim was a cautious, old-fashioned man. He hated Beryl’s outlandish clothes and her friends horrified him. He said they looked as if they’d dropped down from Mars. Of course, no one would be good enough for Jim’s daughter but Margery thought he could have been a bit more tolerant. Then there were the confrontations: Where was she going (dressed like that)? Who was she going with? When would she be home?

Margery tried to talk to her sympathetically but it was usually too late. The fight with her father had put Beryl on the attack. Margery tried talking to her before her father got wind of a night out but Beryl got more and more suspicious and hostile. The problem was that Jim and Beryl had the same temperament: excitable, single-minded and uncompromising. When they set their minds on something they did extraordinarily well. Otherwise they could be so destructive.

The last row hadn’t been particularly violent at first. Both were used to their entrenched positions. Jim tried to get her to change her clothes. Beryl refused. Jim criticized the amount of make-up she wore. Beryl was rude. It was almost routine. Margery hoped they would just go through the usual weekend hullabaloo until they both got bored with it.

Then Jim found out Beryl was going to an all-night rave. He was furious. Beryl said he couldn’t stop her. He said she had to be back by midnight. She told him to f*** off. Jim hated her using bad language. He got more infuriated and called her some very unpleasant names. The last straw came when she lit up a cigarette on her way out. Jim snatched the cigarette out of her mouth. Beryl screamed and ran down the hall. Margery tried to restrain Jim from going after her. Beryl slammed the door in their faces. She never came back

Margery tried to calm Jim down and suggested he should talk to her without yelling. She had her own view of life and they needed to take a positive attitude to it, not always being so negative. This made things worse. There was nothing to be discussed or tolerated about smoking and swearing he said. In retrospect, Margery was sorry she had tried. She always failed and this time it turned out to be too late anyway. Jim probably blamed himself ever afterwards.

The wind went out of his sails and he took no interest in anything after that. They didn’t go out much or go on holiday anymore, they hadn’t the heart. When the time came, Jim gave up work as if it had been irrelevant. Nothing mattered anymore. They settled into an anodyne daily routine avoiding conflict at all cost. What he thought about, Margery could only guess. He never discussed anything of importance.

Margery waited in the hall for a few moments after the call. There was no sound from the front room. She fetched her coat and tried to slip out of the house without having to lie to Jim, but as she opened the front door he came into the hall.

“That was our Beryl was it?” he said flatly.

“Yes, it was… Jim?” But Jim went back into the front room. He had turned his head away from her so she could not see his face, but his shoulders drooped and he sagged at the knees like an old man.

Margery was nervous about seeing Beryl again. She didn’t think she could cope with a green Mohican or a safety pin through the nose or whatever young people did these days. It took several minutes to find her in the Ivy Leaf. In fact, Beryl recognized her mother first.

“Hello, Mom. You haven’t changed a bit.”

“Beryl, oh Beryl!” They hugged for a long time.

Through her misty eyes, Margery took in the short bob (hair a little lighter than she remembered it), discreet make-up, smart suit and plain court shoes.

“You look very smart Beryl.” Margery was delighted, relieved, overwhelmed by Beryl’s sheer ordinariness.

“I’m a PA now in an accountancy firm. Geoff, my fiancé, is an accountant.” She showed her mother the neat, solitaire diamond ring.

“Well, I am amazed.” Margery enthused and then wondered if she had been quite tactful. “I mean it’s wonderful to see you doing so well. How did it all happen?”

“I went to evening classes for a number of years doing word processing and administration skills. I have quite a few qualifications now you know.”

“You always did stick to something when you put your mind to it.” Margery tried not to sound rueful.

“How’s Dad?” Beryl’s chin wobbled a bit as she asked.

“I’m afraid he heard me talking to you on the phone. So he knows.”

“Does he still hate me?” Beryl tried to blink away the tears forming in her eyes.

“Oh Beryl, he never hated you! All that shouting and screaming was because he loved you! You don’t think he would have tried so hard if he’d hated you? With your father, you measure love in decibels.” Tears were trickling down their cheeks.

“He called me such awful things. I thought he despised me. He said I was a tramp and a slut. I never wanted him to think so badly of me but somehow his insults just provoked me, they were so unfair. The worse he thought of me, the worse I became or appeared to become. I wasn’t really so bad Mom.”

Neither could speak for a few moments. They were gripping each other’s hands. A waitress hovered and disappeared, too embarrassed to interrupt.

“Beryl, your father wants to see you, I know he does. He didn’t say a word when he knew it was you but he wanted to tell me he knew. Please come back and see him.”

“Oh Mom, I dread this. Can I come tomorrow?”

“No Beryl not tomorrow. You see I can’t take the risk. If your courage fails now I don’t know what it’ll do to your father.”

“But what shall I say to him after all this time?”

“I don’t think you will need to go over the past. Your father feels as bad about it as you do. Start from now, tell him what you’re doing now.”

“Well I look pretty respectable now, don’t I? To tell you the truth I put on my best work suit, just in case.”

“Beryl, why don’t you ask your father to give you away, you know at your wedding.”

Beryl smiled as she wiped the mascara from under her eyes. “That's a wonderful idea. He would do that wouldn't he?”