CHAPTER 12
I had left Arris with some instructions and a spare key, and true to her nature she rang me at about one thirty to say all was ready.

I had asked her to do a run up to the supermarket at Whitfield, and as my part of the weekend’s events I was hoping to entrap the three others remaining with a proper roast dinner. The match was a morning event, and as usual was followed by pie, peas and beer for the players. I was impressed by Tony; either he was staying sober for the safety of his little boy, or he was terrified of his mother, but he only had two pints after coming out of the showers.

Once in the bar, I made my offer. It would obviously be an evening meal, but Enid and Arris were both staying till Monday morning, so that would be fine. I asked Jim a question, knowing that Arris was still at the shop.

“Little man, if we have a big dinner tonight, what would you like for pudding?”

“Daddy, can I have pud tonight? Can I have ice cream and jelly?”

Tony looked down at him. “You can ask Sarah yourself, son. She is a nice lady”

“Sarah, can I have jelly and ice cream please?”

“I think so. Now, we are having roast pork. Do you like roast pork?”

“Will there be apple sauce?”

“I think it is against the law to eat roast pork without it! Hang on, I will call my maid”

I rang her on her mobile. “Parry, further instructions. Raspberry ripple ice cream, apple sauce and strawberry jelly. No, not for the same plate. And a good wine? Great, I’ll start peeling and stuff once you’re back. Kettle’s on”

Enid looked a little concerned, and as Tony took Jim to the bar for another round of drinks she collared me. “Are you sure you are up to this, my dear?”

“Enid, this is something I wish I had ‘been up to’ a decade and more ago. Tony didn’t waste his life, he helped make his little boy, but I wasted mine. All that fear, all that bitterness, just because I couldn’t see past one piece of shit. Sorry…”

“Sarah, if shit is the worst word you come out with I think we can cope. Jim seems to like you. He’s not been very at ease around women since his mother went.”

“I hate to say it, but I am more worried about what Tony thinks of me! Jim is sort of a surprise. I mean, his welfare overrides mine, but I hadn’t thought about a child in tow behind any man I found”

“You really need to sort your eyes out, my girl. If you can’t see what Tony thinks of you….”

“Yeah, I scrub up well, but face facts, what is in my knickers is not exactly normal, is it?”

“And you can’t change that?”

“I really don’t know…look, it got me beaten badly, but since then I have stayed out of trouble. If I had had a change there, I would have been tempted to look at other men”

“And you haven’t?”

Oh god, if she only knew. I was healthy, still young, full of dreams and hopes and randy as a teenager, yet my secret was something that could get me killed.

“Yes, I have. Think about it: suppose I had the op, suppose I found ‘the man’, we get close, we get really close because I have nothing physical in the way, it comes out, and I end up beaten again, or possibly dead.

“Enid, safer by far to not give myself the temptation”

“Tony knows all about you. You think that of my son?”

I adore your son….the tears started.

“No, I don’t, but it is all too late now to make up for all my mistakes”

She handed me a tissue. “Can I suggest you see what he thinks before you decide? They’re coming back now. Please give him a chance”

Give HIM a chance? It was me that needed the leeway. Unformed, incomplete, my moment of surrogate motherhood holding Jim’s hand suddenly hurt me deeply. I could never achieve completion, never be whole. He was at the table.

“Why the tears, Sar?”

“Can I tell you later? Come on, time to get back to mine. I have a lot of preparation to do. Jim, Arris has got the pudding, and has also found a couple of videos. Nana can make cups of tea for the workers, and Daddy, I know you have had a shower, but would you like a proper soak in a bath to ease some of those bruises?”

“Ooooooooh yes! Got any bath salts?”

“I know a girl who might have bought some if she can read a list”

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Arris was unloading as we walked back across the sports fields to the flat. I started by soaking the skin of the pork joint for a while, as Enid attacked the potatoes and Arris sorted the sprouts and carrots. Once the main vegetables were prepared and sitting in water I put the kettle on to make us all another cup of tea and started the bath running for Tony, who was stiffening up slightly after the game. In with the muscle-soak mixture, and a couple of candles lit. I love lying in the bath, just by the light of a candle or two, with some music playing outside the door and a scented bath bomb fizzing away. It is my little retreat from the world, the antithesis of thrashing the Kwak or pushing myself on the road bike. Often, I wake up to cooling water and wrinkled skin, and it is one way of sleeping when I find that hard.

Tony settled himself in the bathroom once it was ready, and I returned to the kitchen to sort the tea. Enid looked at me, a little nervously it seemed.

“He likes a cuppa in the bath, Sarah”

I stared at her. Was she serious?

“Are you suggesting…?”

“I am indeed. I think I understand you, at least a little. You are a coward, that is how you see yourself. Am I right?”

“Yes”. A very small voice, but she was so right.

“How many years of life have you lost? Too many. I can’t believe I am saying this about my own son, with his little boy in the house, but I really think you need to jump in with both feet, and right now. I have seen how you look at him, and I have heard what he thinks of you, and I have watched my boy very closely around you. For god’s sake, girl, do something for yourself for once!”

I giggled a little at this, and she gave me a sharp look before the realisation hit her.

“No, not both feet into the bath, silly! Here…”

She handed me a cup of tea and pushed me towards the bathroom. I took a couple of deep breaths and opened the door.

Tony was stretched full length, his head resting on the end of the bath, and unfortunately for Arris’ curiosity a raft of bubbles covering…that. He was still solid, just a little bit of excess at the sides of his waist, a reasonable mat of dark hair covering his chest. There were bruises there, a couple of stud marks. He realised I was there, and his hands dropped to cover what was already underwater. I put the cup down next to him, trembling with fear. Coward….no, not today.

“Sit up, Tone, I’ll do your back”

He slid up the bath to a sitting position, back bowed forward, and I caught just a glimpse, and realised that Joe had been short-changed indeed. Tony’s back was covered in welts from boot studs from where he had been on the ground in rucks, and as I soaped it could feel little nubs and lumps where ribs had cracked and healed.

This was erotic. All of the fumbling with Joe, all the hasty blow jobs, had been exciting, in the way that teenaged lust can be, but this was erotic in the true sense. I could feel the muscles move under the skin and under my hands as I changed my soaping into a proper neck massage, and then Tony simply turned his head and kissed me, gently but deeply, and I put my arms around him, as my blouse got wetter, and my nipples ached and my stomach churned with nerves and desire, and he thumbed one of my breasts and I moaned softly into his mouth and I realised that sometimes mothers do know best.

And some time later I slipped into my bedroom to change my top as Tony dried off, and as I returned to the kitchen Arris just smiled and asked how wet the other blouse had got. Enid said nothing, but hugged me tight, and we three women got back to making my crackling-special roast pork dinner.