Chapter Text
Nell gazed with bleary and confused eyes at her day old wedding ring. She'd convinced herself when she'd woken up a few hours ago in a cold sweat to stumble across the landing that none of it had happened. Even as she wretched over the toilet in the pristine white indoor bathroom of her Auntie's house she had been convinced that it had all been a terribly bad dream, a cruel trick played on her by her worried mind.
She wasn't married. She wasn't even due to get married. It was all down to needless worry brought on by her impending exams. That and the cheese sandwich she'd had for her rushed supper after hours pouring over log tables and formula books. Oh, why, oh why had she ever decided that a maths A level was something she needed when all she wanted to be was an artist. Or, at least, an art teacher because the world doesn't take kindly to girls who aren't employed in some underpaid job until they take their proper place at home.
Tears sprang up in Nell's too tired eyes as her auntie called her name up the stairs. She wished so much that her mother hadn't gone home last night. She needed to see her but, of course, she did not have the fare for the train and bus to take her all the way to Whitby from here.
But, as Auntie Lydia rightly said, it was time to get up and drag her lazy arse downstairs and out to face her fate. Nell pushed herself up wearily, throwing the teddy she found sat on her stomach, giving her the beadiest of glares, across the room with a heaving scream. It hit her Brigitte Bardot poster with a growl and dropped to the floor. The silent room was filled with the sound of the poster's papery flutter until her name was called again.
"Yes, Auntie," Nell grumbled. "I'm getting up. I promise I'm getting up."
Regardless of her words, she in fact stayed in bed a minute or two longer, dreading the moment that she would have to push the covers back. It might be May, but it was not yet summer. And, though a cliché, it was certainly true that it was grim up North. More than that, it was fucking freezing.
Nell finally surrendered herself to the inevitability of it and heaved the heavy covers off herself. She might have sworn if she was that type of person. As it was, she hissed and leapt up, swinging her legs round. She was careful to step on the fluffy purple rug rather than the hard wood floor. She might be putting herself through a lot at the moment, but she was not that much of a glutton for punishment.
She dressed in record time. Socks went on first, pulled up to the knee, followed by grey pleated skirt and in the wink of an eye she'd whisked off her nightie and replaced it with the obligatory pale pink blouse and wooly jumper that was even greyer than her skirt. It really was a dull combination to add to the dull, dark haired girl who sported it. Still, at least it allowed the navy blue blazer to its job in a simple but rich splash of colour.
"You're looking smart," Auntie Lydia cooed approvingly as Nell stepped out of her room. She was already dressed in her usual neat navy blue, so was looking rather smart herself. The presence of her pink curlers spoiled the effect a little but that was nothing too terrible.
"Don't I always look smart?" Nell asked, standing to attention with her hands clasped behind her back.
She glowed with pride every time her auntie praised her or complimented her. It wasn't as though she was an unnecessarily cruel or particularly nasty woman, but she was truthful and Nell knew she meant every kind word just as much as every scolding nag.
"Usually at this time in the morning you look like the cat's dragged you through the hedge backwards and stayed around to tease your hair."
"Well, usually I get home much later and don't get as much sleep."
"Don't I know it. The hours I've spent waiting up for you. I'm lucky that young man of yours always makes sure you get the last tram home and doesn't keep you any later."
"Well, you won't have to worry before to long," Nell said with a sweet smile. "He's looking to get us our own place."
"I might not have to worry, but I still do. You tell him he's not to take you too far away from me. Your mother might be able to cope with you being a hundred miles away from her, but I don't feel the same way."
Nell whispered softly, "I know."
Auntie Lydia looked strangely as though she might have a tear welling in her eye, but Nell made no comment. She instead let herself be led downstairs to be treated with a surprise full cooked breakfast.
"I would have done this for you yesterday," Auntie Lydia told her kindly as she scraped the egg with the yolk that hadn't broken onto Nell's already overfull plate. "But it was so early and you were in such a state yesterday..."
Nell went straight for the egg with a triangle of toast and stabbed at the yolk with a corner. She crunched at the toast, licking a drip off her finger as she was reminded of just how perfect her auntie's breakfasts were.
When her mouth was no longer full, she said, "Oh, I definitely wouldn't have appreciated it yesterday. I didn't really want to eat much in the morning."
"I noticed."
"Thank you so much for this, Auntie," Nell said as she sawed at her bacon. The fat glistened on it as it came apart.
"Just you make sure you pay me back by doing well in that exam, young lady."
Nell promised she would and tucked into her breakfast. On a normal day she might have ventured to say hesitantly that she didn't think she'd do quite as well in maths as she felt she would in her other subjects. Auntie Lydia would, of course, say what she usually said: that'd she'd got such a high mark in her maths O level, that there was no reason that she couldn't fare as well in the A level exam. This always annoyed Nell because no matter how many times they had the discussion, Auntie never seemed to grasp that the whole point of the A level was to be harder than the O level. Too hard, almost.
As Nell finished off her food with a flourish, sweeping the last of the egg and bacon scraps up with her last piece of toast and wolfing it down, she was aware that her auntie had finished her own breakfast and was watching her carefully. Nell was careful to lay her knife and fork down together and flashed her auntie a winning but sleepy smile.
"You've got some colour back in your cheeks now, I see," Auntie said. "I thought you were looking a bit peaky before but not as much as yesterday at least."
Nell's smile weakened as she remembered how worried she'd been that she'd be sick or faint during the wedding. Luckily, that had all happened before they were supposed to set off. Well, actually, just after they were supposed to set off and Nell had to be rushed back into the house with her mother shouting after her that they'd be late. She'd had to listen to her mother and auntie arguing with each other outside as she'd stood hunched over the kitchen sink in tears. Her auntie had eventually come in and cleaned her up and redid her makeup. Luckily Grandma's white dress remained spotless and unharmed by the incident. Mum sorted out Nell's hair and veil as she sat fidgeting in the back of the car.
The wedding itself had gone about as well as one where the only guests to speak of as the bride's mother, aunt and gran and the only person around to support the groom being the manager of the record shop he spent most of his time in. All the same, it was a relief to leave even those few relations behind and escape to York for the day.
A generous relative had given Ian a hundred pounds by and most of that had gone on a stack of records for himself and several stacks of books for Nell. The cups of coffee they ordered with lunch were spun out as long as possible as they chatted at length about those first tense weeks of winding each other up over the wall, the surprising smoothness of the wedding and how they were both utterly knackered from the early start that morning.
Outside the rain pounded the pavement but the tearoom was mostly empty for the moment. Nell picked up one of her bags and started looking through it with great excitement. She thanked Ian for buying her all these new treasures. He smiled at her with what might have been a bit of a blush in his cheeks. Unlike some of the boys who'd come before him, he did not shrug and mumble that they were just books. What he did instead was lean over and stroke her cheek while he said, "I love you."
The future was touched upon with mutual promises to give 'Our Kid' a family with a proper Mum and Dad and not to foist him off on any uncles, aunties or random strangers before the lady came over to collect their cups. She asked pointedly if they'd be wanting anything else. The tea room was being steadily invaded by groups of wet families and pensioners, so they told her no thank you, smiling politely as they left her a tip as they each dreamt up an insult that they'd never say to her face.
As they left, Nell's eye had been caught by a pair of elderly ladies who were deep in conversation. She'd spotted them when she'd first come in and the younger looking one, who was facing the door, had looked up at Nell and Ian and smiled warmly. Unlike herself and her brand new husband, these two had ordered again. They were each seeing to their steaming teacups with one hand. Nell watchd the older, slightly frail lady stirring a lump of brown sugar into her tea while the younger broke her free biscuit in half and dipped the smaller piece into her own. Their other hands, Nell saw as she passed, were laid across the table so that they almost looked like they were holding hands.
On glancing back, she realised with a jolt that they were. The younger of the pair was gently stroking her friend's blue veined hand with her thumb.
She was saying, "But the house is still in your name. You know how much I worry about it all. They won't care about our agreement or my contribution to the mortgage or 30 years of memories..."
Nell's breath caught as she heard this. She wanted to hear more, though she couldn't quite explain why. She was prevented by the arrival of a couple who didn't seem to be much older than Ian and herself who were trying to coax their twin toddlers through the door. The two ladies were also distracted by this scene and so heard Nell's comment to Ian that that would be them in two years time. The older lady shook her head and told Nell that she was talking nonsense and two young people as nice as them would almost certainly raise their child to be a lot better behaved than that. Nell thanked her earnestly while Ian cheered up the other couple's twins by making hideous faces that the two boys found hilarious.
When the young family were safely through the door, Ian returned to his wife with a quick kiss and a grin as he told her to hurry up with their kid because he'd really enjoyed that. Nell laughed and the two of them bid goodbye to their new friends, the elderly friends to the right and the young couple and their boys to the left before decamping to the cinema down the round for a double feature of Brigitte Bardot. The next few hours were happily spent alternating between snogging and gazing lustfully and admiringly at the ever gloriously blonde and beautiful Brigitte. This had been her very favourite way to spend a drizzly afternoon ever since her old friend from over the wall had asked if she'd heard of this French actress who all the boys of a certain age were currently mad on...
"Are we ready, then?" Auntie Lydia asked with a smile, snapping Nell out of her daydream.
"As I'll ever be," Nell said resignedly.
She stood up and smoothed out her jumper self-consciously. The school jumpers had always been too big for her but then again that might prove a blessing by the time she escaped in June. Apparently two months could make a lot of difference and she might need to start being careful about what she wore. At least her paint covered smock would help disguise anything suspicious by the time her final art exam began.
"Don't be blue. You're a married woman and married to a decent bloke which is more than can be said for some unfortunate girls these days."
"I suppose so," Nell murmured.
Auntie Lydia picked up her case that she kept her lesson plans in and ushered Nell towards the door, "So you cheer up and just you keep reminding yourself that Mrs Helena Price doesn't do any worse at mathematics just for having been married the day before."
Nell managed another smile, not as bright as earlier but all the same not quite as despondent as it might have been. She took a deep breath and sat back down briefly to slip on her mary janes. Auntie Lydia placed a light kiss on her head as she hugged her goodbye.
Her backpack clutched in her hand, Nell ventured blinkingly into the sun. As she took her bike out of the garden shed, she repeated her new name to herself under her breath in as many different voices and intonations as she could dream up. No matter how it came out sounding, it still didn't sound quite right.
She tried one more time as she wrestled the gate open. "Mrs Helena Price. Nah, can't be me. Surely?"