Part 1

Born at a time of some complacency, she tended towards complacency. And because, in those days, people were disposed to be hopeful, she met adversity with hope, despite the growing difficulties.

Reaching maturity at a time of some distress, she inclined towards caution.

Being trained in a religion which emphasises the goodness of god, the necessity of hope and the likelihood of pain, made these positions easy; and she became a content watchful young woman.

She danced. There was a lot of new music which excited her when she danced to it, which made her want to dance when she heard it. If her parents expressed concern, and they did, her mother did, she reassured them. She wanted them to be happy.

They were happy with each other. They had nothing else, each other and their child. Her father never recovered from the death of her mother; he aged.

Her mother's greatest concern at approaching death - after all, the suffering is in the dying; and then one is with god - was that she left her blessed husband alone in a cruel world.

Otherwise, they were not happy. Life is always hard, as if there were anything with which to compare it!, she'd say, as she blacked the grate; and those times were particularly hard. There was not enough money. And the child danced.

She danced every night; and sometimes, by arrangement, with agreement, all night. It was always possible. There was music everywhere and, she said, the streets were not as dangerous then as they are now.

When she was not dancing, she was dutiful, helping with the house and attending church. But there really was no harm in music. She loved music; and the pictures; and light reading: murder stories, especially, and the occasional romance, although the romances were silly, nearly always. She liked Sherlock Holmes. Well, he was readable. She didn't read much.

Work was fun. From work, one could go out. At work, one met people, with astonishing views. Work brought in the money and money was always needed. Life might be cheap, she said, but it seems to cost a lot.

She had looks and she had vivacity. She was funny and quick-witted. Men wanted to be near her. Once a woman did, maybe others; but that's another story, she'd say, and then twist her face up into what she called a butch expression, and laugh.

She didn't tell everything at home. Most of the motorbikes were left out; and a few experiences with those who were too keen. It was another world and age her parents lived in; and they couldn't and wouldn't understand; but it really was all right. Yet she told most of it; it really was o.k., you know. She knew what she was doing.

They didn't like her smoking, but they let it pass. It wasn't their world. It wasn't their city. She was doing better than they could hope to; even if they had hoped for more, at least for her. She wasn't foolhardy. She was a good girl. Very attentive, though she kept things back; one could be sure.

Her parents knew she had a lot of sense.

When she married, and her mother was dead by six years, it was to a very handsome, don't you think, and a kind man, who accepted her father as his family.

It was obvious the old man wouldn't live long. When she came home from the hospital, he wouldn't look at her. He stood up as she came through the door so that his back was to her as she entered the room. And he stood by the dresser, leaning on it, leaning over, letting it take his weight, though he hardly had any weight by then. And he said, for she hadn't spoken, but just stood there looking at his back and him not looking at her, "She's dead, isn't she?"; and then he opened a drawer of the dresser as if he were really doing something there. His accent was still quite strong, especially when he was a bit emotional. And she said, "Yes, she is"; and she was going to say something more, about it being peaceful or beautiful, or some white lie to make it easier for him; but he was putting his hands in among the knives and forks, the silver ones for special from their wedding, plunging his hands in and lifting them, heavy though they were, as if it were salt or grain in there; and he lifted his hands higher, and mixed them faster, obsessively. She said "Father." Formal. Normally it was "Daddy" or "Dad". It was "Father" only when respect were demanded; or, as now, great tenderness; though this was the first time there had been need of such tenderness. And, again, she said "Father!", a little more loudly, with perhaps a very little sharpness, to alert him. But he went on, faster and higher, twitchy, angry; and all the cutlery began to fall over the drawer edge on to the floor, banging on it and then clattering against itself... And that went on. It went on, a little while, till she stopped him; taking him by the stooped shoulders with her hands, lightly, till he turned, so that she could cuddle him, so that he could cry. She made him tea.

And her husband, good man that he was, cried when the old man died. By then, of course, they had both known plenty of death, death in every street, never knowing when one might die oneself. Not that it mattered. One dies when god chooses, she said, they both said, and she meant it, really. She loved both her parents and her husband, and they loved her. So when both her parents were dead and she had no one; also she had all she wanted; and it was becoming safe to start a family, though it was such a pity her father never saw the end of the fighting. He would have liked that. He was a good man. Now it was another life. She felt it herself and they said it at church. The old life, still there, remembered, but made new. A new life.