still really early, Shirl. It won’t be dark for hours yet. Please say we don’t have to go home just yet, eh? The Lister’s is only a ten-minute walk away, after all. Let’s go have a drink, eh? You’re a single girl again now, don’t forget.’
Yes, she was that, and she was determined to enjoy the freedom. Well, as much as she could; no, she didn’t have a boyfriend stopping her from going out and having fun, but there was still her dad constantly on about her every frigging move – where she went, who she went with, when she was home.
It was all right for Anita. Her mam and dad were different. With two older brothers and a younger sister, she could get away with so much more, not least of which was the freedom to go out with who she wanted. And she did, too – she seemed to have a different boyfriend every week. But mostly Shirley envied her the freedom to stay out till she wanted, or at least a lot later than ten frigging p.m. How lovely it would be not to have your every move scrutinised. To be free.
Well, she was free in one way, at least. Free to daydream again. About marrying Cliff Richard and having a big house and lots of babies with him, even. She smiled to herself. You never knew, did you? And she was sure he’d caught her eye once or twice. No, she definitely wasn’t ready to go home. She felt much more like dancing. Like Anita said, it wasn’t even dark yet. The night, as they always said, was young.
She nodded. ‘You’re right. Why not? After all, I am single, aren’t I?’
‘Exactly. So you can do what you like,’ Anita said, grabbing her hand and almost tugging her along the street.
‘Well, sort of,’ Shirley cautioned. ‘Though we can’t stay too long, Neet. You know what my bloody dad’s like. He’ll be on that doorstep, winding the clock up and threatening to bloody strangle me if I’m so much as a minute late.’
‘Don’t worry. I promise,’ Anita said. ‘We’ll have you home on time, Cinderella. Can’t have your dad turning into a pumpkin, can we?’
Shirley wasn’t so sure that wouldn’t be the best thing for him. He could certainly do with softening up.
For all that she railed against him being so ridiculously over-protective, Shirley had never really been one to disobey her father. Disgruntled as she’d been when he’d suddenly appeared in her young life, with all his funny ways and his rules and regulations, she’d soon realised home was a much more agreeable place if she came round to his way of thinking. She’d done this at first simply because she didn’t want to get in his bad books but as time went on and she’d matured a bit, it was because she’d grown to love him. Yes, he was strict and orderly, and yes, he did have this idealistic image of her that she was always going to struggle to live up to, but he adored her and would go to the ends of the earth for her if she asked him to, and she loved that. In fact, sometimes, though she’d never have confessed it to anyone, she thought she loved him even more than her mam.
Not that Shirley didn’t love her mam too, but Mary could be scary. She had a temper on her that was legendary both with the family and the neighbours. And once the family had been reunited, it soon became clear that, whatever went on before Shirley’s dad went off to war, theirs was not the happiest of marriages. Her dad, it turned out, though always strong and determined, really wanted nothing more than a quiet life. But he didn’t often get one, because Mary was not only very fiery, she was also insanely jealous. Shirley had never really understood why (and still didn’t – particularly now she was older, and understood more about all those ‘uncles’) but it was as if her mam was constantly on guard against her dad being lured away by another woman.
Raymond wasn’t even safe at work, it seemed. Once demobbed he’d got a job as a boiler firer at a big factory in Listerhills, but it seemed there was no peace for him there either. A regular occurrence in Shirley’s childhood had been her mam constantly spying on him – she’d often turn up at the factory unannounced (Shirley herself sometimes in tow) to check if there were any women anywhere near making eyes at him. And if she got it into her head that he might have set his sights on someone, she’d think nothing of setting about him physically – either with her fists or anything else she could lay her hands on.
Shirley had spent much of her childhood not really understanding how it worked being a grown-up. As far as she’d been able to tell, her dad only loved two girls in the world: her and her mam. And her mam, in return, was always so horrible to him. How did that work? How could you love someone and be so horrible to them at the same time? Perhaps you couldn’t, she’d come to realise, because, as the years went by, there were never any of the brothers and sisters they’d promised her when she was smaller – the one thing she’d always wanted more than anything in the world.
Yes, she’d had her dollies, who she’d loved and cared for with a passion, pushing them along in their shiny pram and dressing them in clothes she’d stitched for them herself. She also had her friends – and she’d make clothes for their dollies too – but at the end of every day no dolly could make up for going home alone; for being an only child in an unhappy home.
That was all she wanted as a child – a special friend, someone to play with, someone to go with on adventures, but mostly someone to be with when she was at home, who was in the same boat and could take her mind off the endless, endless arguing.
As it was, she’d spent her childhood stuck in the middle of a war that seemed almost as long and horrible as the one her dad had returned from. Every weekend, almost without fail, her parents, having gone out for a few drinks in the local, would come home and have the same old arguments: her mam accusing her dad of looking in the direction of another woman, and her dad telling her she needed her eyes testing. On and on it would go, usually till Raymond passed out drunk on the kitchen floor, at which point Mary would then yell for her from the bottom of the stairs.
‘Shirley,’ she’d screech up to her, loud enough to wake the dead, ‘come down and help me get his head in the gas oven!’
Shirley never would, of course. She’d just cry and cry, and plead for her mam to leave her poor dad alone. ‘That’s it!’ Mary would say then, dragging her coat round her shoulders. ‘We’re leaving home. And we’re never coming back!’
Shirley remembered walking the streets with her mam for hours sometimes, however cold or wet it might be, and all she could hope was that when her mam finally sobered up enough to take her home, her dad would have taken himself to bed, so the whole cycle didn’t start up again.
But at least it didn’t last for ever. When Shirley was ten they’d moved to Clayton, on the outskirts of Bradford. It was the kind of village where everyone knew everyone else and looked out for one another as well, and Shirley soon became friendly with all the local children, as well as becoming popular with lots of young mums due to her love of helping out with their little ones.
But it was mainly better because she now had her Granny Wiggins living on the same street, and her Auntie Edna also living just a few doors further along – both places that provided a much-needed means of escape from the chilly atmosphere at home.
It was escape of another kind that had begun to occupy Shirley’s mind as she’d entered her teens, however. She was counting the days till she could escape into her own life, which was going to be so different from the way it was now. She’d have her own home, her own husband and lots and lots of children. She would make her own wedding gown, and would float along the aisle in it, and have a ring put on her finger by a wonderful, loving man – Pat Boone or Elvis, perhaps, or that dreamy Tab Hunter. Or even – she sighed inwardly now, as his voice filled her head again – of her latest crush, the beautiful Cliff Richard, who could serenade her as he swept her off her feet.
The Lister’s Arms was at the bottom of Manchester Road, and was currently the place all the young people went. She’d been a few times with John, her ex, but she always felt a little out of place there. It could be a rough place; lots of the lads from the Canterbury estate went there, so when she did go – with John, and latterly with Anita – they always tended to keep themselves to themselves.
‘You go to the bar, Neet,’