34. THE SIDE EFFECT

After visiting the fertility clinic, Greenwood goes off on his own.

Ursula was distraught and she’d shut the village store early. There it was, the shop in darkness as she walked away as afternoon started to give way to evening, and she didn’t care one hoot.

She knew that her mother Dolly would be home, and maybe her father, Bert, too. She needed their support now, more than she’d ever needed it.

Suddenly, out of the blue, Greendale had left her and with his going he’d turned her whole world upside down, and she didn’t know why. And she needed someone with a bit of life experience and wisdom to explain to her what might be going on because for the life of her she couldn’t work it out, and every time she tried to think about it she ended up in tears..

She’d tried asking Primrose, but her daughter merely shrugged her shoulder, said but he’s a man, what do you expect, a philosophical question based solely on a row she’d had with her latest boyfriend last night. She’d wanted to go into Brumpton to see a new band, the Beatles, and he’d said not over my dead body! So her life-experience was stuck at not far above zero, and she couldn’t help her distraught mother.

In the end Ursula decided to ask her mother, almost wheelchair-bound but still mentally wise, and here she was, on the road to her mother’s house, the little terraced cottage where she’d been born and spent her childhood.

Dolly was sitting in her chair by the fireplace and didn’t get up to greet her daughter because her arthritic joints didn’t allow her too much movement, and Ursula understood.

“He’s gone and left me, mum,” she said through a flood of tears crafted by the god of self-pity.

Dolly had always rather liked Greendale. He was a steady lad and then had grown into an even steadier man, and on top of that he was a war hero amongst other accomplishments, like being warm and kind and generous. So,

“He’s a good man, our Ursula,” she said.

“But he’s gone and left me!” repeated Ursula’s tears.

“And why might he have done that? Have you had a row?”

“We never have a cross word...” Ursula tried to explain, “… and you know all those tests I’ve had, to see why Primrose is my only baby…?”

“She’s a grown woman now, and one to be proud of,” pointed out Dolly.

“Anyway, there’s no reason I can’t get pregnant again, but time is running out for me, and Greendale went to a clinic a couple of days back to see if it’s something wrong with him, and he’s been so quiet ever since...”

“I’ve heard of those tests,” nodded Dolly, “I wouldn’t mind being a fly on the wall while they do them, either...”

“I think they told him it’s his fault… but it doesn’t matter, mum, it really doesn’t matter if it is … we’ll just have to accept it, that’s all, and get on with the rest of our lives.”

“Does he know that’s what you think?” asked Dolly, suddenly sure she knew what was behind the rift, and being the experienced one when it comes to life and its problems she was sure she was probably right.

“I told him,” said Ursula, “I told him what I just said to you. I said it would be nice to have another little one while we’ve still got time but if we can’t that’s life, and he just went off, didn’t say anything, took a few clothes and his toothbrush...”

Dolly shook her head slowly. “You should have said a great deal more than that,” she said after a moment. “It’s men, duckie, men. The moment they start thinking there might be something wrong with their plumbing they behave as if life’s over. But it isn’t. If you ask me, it’s only just beginning when you haven’t got nappies to wash or school homework to try and get your head around, and not ending!”

“What will I do, mum?” asked Ursula, wringing her hands, but before her mother could think of a suitable non-painful reply Bert, Ursula’s father, pushed the back door open and they could hear him pulling his work boots off and slurping water over his face.

“Well, this is a rare treat,” he said, rubbing his hands dry on a towel. “What’s our Ursula doing here when she might be selling Police Sergeant Plodnose his next ounce of Vintners shag?”

“It’s that man of hers,” began Dolly.

“He’s gone and run away,” wept Ursula, tears never so far away whenever the reality of her situation exploded into actual spoken words.

“Why, what’s the matter, lass?” he asked, suddenly serious in a fatherly way.

“She thinks he’s like that ram on the farm, and sterile,” explained Dolly, “and he’s gone and had tests and lo and behold he’s found out that he’s been firing blanks all these years...”

“But there’s your Primrose...” muttered Bert, “if he’s got no ammo to speak of, where did she come from?”

“That’s it!” exclaimed Dolly as a possible truth hit her like a bolt from the blue, “Where did Primrose come from? Were you playing away from home twenty years ago, our Ursula?”

Ursula looked at her, horror on her face. “Of course not, mum!” she shouted, “as if I’d ever do any such thing!”

“There was that youngest Snootnose lad always hanging around...” her mother said.

“And that’s all he did! Hang around!” protested Ursula.

“Just a minute, just a minute, just a minute, don’t get carried away in a womanly way,” put in Bert, “your Greendale had that bad do when he was shot down during the war, and all the trouble that gave him,” he said slowly, “and Primrose was before then. It’s likely that the bullet as shot his Spitfire from under him did more than break a few bones...”

“He had the other trouble, but that was sorted,” sobbed Ursula.

“He told me about it back then, man to man…” murmured Bert, “how he couldn’t get, how shall I put it? Aroused...”

“Aye, it was sorted all right. With one of old woman Entwhistle’s bottles of stuff,” agreed Dolly, “but what if that tincture, working as it did for one aspect of his flesh, had a side-effect on another. What if it did for them swimmy things men reckon to have in their you-know-what, the bits that go on to make babies?”

“Crikey...” breathed Ursula, “I hadn’t thought of that...”

“Then the big question arrives,” said Bert, struggling to find the right words without sounding filthy, “which is what you wanted when you saw the woman? Was it a lifetime of fun and games or a lifetime of remembering what it was like, but only that, remembering?”

“Bert!” admonished Dolly.

“Either way I don’t get a brother or sister for Primrose...” sighed Ursula, “if you’re right it’s like the only choice has nothing to do with me getting in the family way.”

“If it is that Entwhistle stuff,” added Dolly, “it might be summat else, maybe to do with his accident, who can tell?”

“But he’s still gone,” moaned Ursula, “and I want to get him back.”

“He’ll be back in his own good time, when he’s worked it out,” assured Dolly, on firmer ground when she made that kind of prediction.

“And we so wanted another baby,” whispered Ursula.

“Just you count yourself lucky that you had the one,” Dolly told her. “Now, is that shop of yours still open? I want a bag of sugar or Bert here will have to put up with only half a spoon in his tea, and you know what a sweet tooth he’s got...”

“What shall I say to Greendale if he comes back?” asked Ursula.

“Just say as he’s not to be such a silly boy, the world ain’t ended, the night lies ahead, so come to bed,” grinned Dolly.

“Mum, you always know the right thing to say,” whispered Ursula, “and that’s what I’ll say. That’s exactly what I’ll say. If he comes back.”

“When,” said Dolly.

© Peter Rogerson 13.08.18