Putting on the Style

by Freda Lightfoot

  She had her hands clasped tight around the iron bed rail, head thrown back, bare legs wide open and stuck up high in the air while the naked figure of a man pumped hard into her. Dena could see his skinny backside as it bucked rhythmically up and down, making the whole bed shake and bang and squeak. If it hadn’t been so shocking she would have laughed out loud.

  Perhaps he heard her sharp intake of breath for the head turned and Dena found herself looking straight into a pair of clear blue eyes, all too disturbingly familiar.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Dena was grateful that she had no time to think over the next few days as she was fully occupied nursing a grizzling child and a sick, grumpy woman. At least she was able to leave Joan in charge of Winnie’s stall, open mornings only since it was a quiet time of year and many other people were also off with ‘flu.

  Alice had packed her bags and gone, presumably to beg her brother to take her back. Dena really didn’t care if she never set eyes on her again.

  How could she? With Kenny of all people. Kenny Garside! With her own mother! How could he? How could she?

  Sex had never been something Dena would have associated with her puritanical, straight-laced mother. All that nagging about morals, all that hypocrisy and posturing, trying to make herself out to be whiter than white, while having her own daughter taken into care for being beyond control because of a few dates with Kenny Garside. And now Alice had slept with him herself. It was unbelievable! If she hadn’t seen them together with her own eyes she never would have believed it.

  Yet again Dena had found herself vomiting down the lavatory, just as she had done years ago after identifying the body of her little brother. Why was it that she’d been saddled with such a heartless, unfeeling mother?

  She would never treat Trudy so cruelly.

  Right now she was almost thankful not to have time to think as she was completely occupied with her own precious daughter who was really quite ill. To Dena’s great distress the little girl began hallucinating and she had to sponge her with cold water to bring her temperature down. It was so frightening. The doctor came the next day and gave out medicine together with a few crisp words of advice.

  ‘One spoonful, three times a day. Rub some Vic on her chest at night and hold her head over a steaming bowl of water with a drop or two of Eucalyptus oil in it, if she can’t breathe properly. Otherwise, keep her warm and give her plenty of fluids. Can you cope with all of that? You’re really far too young to be a mother.’

  ‘I can cope. I have this far.’

  ‘Hm, that’s a matter of opinion. You should have listened to my advice the last time I gave it, Dena, and finished your education, but no, you did as so many silly girls do and got yourself into this pickle.’

  ‘I got myself a lovely child,’ Dena tartly replied and showed him out.

  Nursing her patients allowed her no time to speak to Carl, or any opportunity to tell him what had happened as she spent most of her time running up and down stairs with warming drinks, cough medicine and hot water bottles.

  Joan Chapman popped in from time to time to do shopping for her, as well as keeping Winnie’s stall going.

  ‘Oh, Joan, I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

  ‘What are friends for? I’ve finished those razzle-dazzle skirts, what shall I make next?’

  Dena was so grateful for Joan’s help and whenever she could find five minutes to sit down, she found great consolation in keeping herself occupied stitching her new designs for the planned fashion show. Ideas which were progressing well.

  ‘Have you seen Carl lately? I wonder if you’d give him this letter. It’s about Kenny. It’s very important, please do see that he gets it?’

  Joan took the note and slipped it into her pocket. ‘Course I will, love. Now I’d best be off, or we’ll lose what few customers we have left.’

  Carl wasn’t at his stall when Joan passed by later. Leo, who was keeping an eye on it from his neighbouring toy stall said he’d slipped across to a warehouse but he’d give him the letter as soon as he got back.

  Leo was sneezing quite badly, his long face smothered in a large khaki handkerchief he’d had since his army days.

  ‘You sound just like Winnie Watkins. You should watch that cold of yours.’

  ‘Don’t I know it. I’m shivering like a virgin on her wedding night.’

  Unfortunately, before Carl had returned, Leo had succumbed to the dreaded influenza, packed away his stall and gone home to be nursed by his wife. He forgot all about the letter in his jacket pocket.

  Later that same afternoon Kenny happened by his brother’s household goods stall and wondered if he should mention how Dena had surprised him by coming home early the previous afternoon.

  He was completely unfazed by having been discovered in what he termed ‘a moment of indiscretion’ with Alice. Serve Dena right if she was jealous. She’d had her chances in the past. She surely couldn’t expect him to turn into a bleeding monk. And what if it was with her mam? She was a right little mover, that Alice. Knew all about how to shake, rattle and roll.

  But what a ding-dong row had followed. She’d stormed off into the night, flinging all her goods and chattels into the back of a taxi, yelling at him in her whining, complaining voice that he was useless, didn’t even have a car to give her a lift back to her brother’s house in Chorlton. Kenny had felt quite affronted by that. Wasn’t his mam going to buy him a Ford Zephyr, just as soon as he’d got her elected on to the market committee, only a week or two away now.

  Eeh, but what a lark! The tale might give Carl a laugh. ‘Hey up, have you heard the latest? Want a bit of a giggle?’

  ‘I’m not in the mood for your jokes today, Kenny. I do want a word though, if you’ve got a minute.’

  It occurred to Carl that this was as good an opportunity as he was likely to get. Far better, he decided, to tell Kenny in public, in between serving customers. That way they might avoid coming to blows. He really had no taste for scrapping with his own brother, and once he started down that road Carl was aware that he didn’t know his own strength. Barry Holmes had trained him well in the amateur boxing ring. Too well!

  Much safer, he thought, to tell him out in the open. Even Kenny wouldn’t risk a scene in the middle of the market.

  He was wrong.

  Carl said what he had to say, albeit with some hesitation and apology, but as kindly and diplomatically as he could, with all due regard to Kenny’s feelings. Nevertheless it was the most difficult thing he’d ever done in his life. Always, before, he’d tried to protect his younger brother, now he had to say things he knew would hurt him.

  Almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth he could see the fury building behind his brother’s eyes.

  In the silence that followed his halting announcement, Carl waited, hardly daring to breathe. Should he explain further, or had he said enough? Too much, perhaps. Before he had time to decide, Kenny went into action.

  He let out a great roar and with one sweep of his arm cleared the front of Carl’s stall, sending pans, buckets, toasters, cake tins, brushes and mops flying everywhere. The din was tremendous. Carl had never heard or seen anything like it. Folk stopped to stare in horror, were forced to duck or flee for their lives when pots and pans were sent hurtling in their direction. A packet of Omo smashed onto the cobbles, sending soap powder scattering over everyone like a shower of blue snow.

  But even then Kenny wasn’t satisfied. He picked up the trestle tables and heaved them upwards as if they were no more than matchwood, sending the stuff stacked up at the back of the stall crashing to the ground.

  Only then did he turn his attention to Carl, his face twitching with fury, upper lip curled back in a scornful sneer as he drew back one fist preparatory to punching him.

  ‘Don’t even consider it!’ Carl held up a staying hand and for one long timeless moment the two brothers glared at each other in silent rage. Kenny seemed to relax, dropped his stance and half turned away as
if he’d thought better of it, before suddenly whirling about and flinging the punch right at Carl’s jaw.

  Carl ducked, missed the blow by a whisker and, catching Kenny off balance, grappled him to the ground. Within seconds the pair of them were sprawling amidst the dust and the Omo, Kenny desperately throwing punches, Carl doing his utmost to defend himself.

  They might well have killed each other had not Mr Ramsay and Alec Hall heard the commotion and come running. Even then it took the assistance of several onlookers before they managed to drag the two brothers apart.

  ‘So help me I’ll see her dead before ever she lies with you,’ were Kenny’s parting words as Alec hustled him away.

  News of the fight was brought to her by Joan, and it upset Dena greatly. Strangely, her first instinct was to rush to Kenny and apologise for having hurt him and to beg his forgiveness, but then she remembered how much he had hurt her. If he’d taken no for an answer months ago, none of this would have happened. And she was quite sure that he looked on sleeping with her mother as some sort of perverted revenge.

  When she described to Carl what she’d seen in the bedroom, he was incandescent with rage. Dena feared for a moment that his anger might spurn another fight. But they both realised that there was nothing more to be said, nothing to be done. Like it or not, Kenny and Alice were adults and could do as they pleased. And Kenny must now face the mess he’d got himself into.

  But Carl, who had nurtured and cared for his younger brother all his life, found it hard to let go. ‘He has to learn that he can’t use and abuse people in this way. He can’t just take, and have everything he wants like a kid in a sweet shop. He has to learn responsibility and care.’

  ‘It’s not our place to teach him though, and how can we if he doesn’t want to learn? Anyway, what he does with Alice isn’t important. Not any more. It’s you and I that count.’

  ‘We’re still OK then, you and me?’

  And when she simply nodded, he took her in his arms and they held each other close.

  Dena no longer cared about Alice, refused to even call her mother. Any chance of healing the cracks in their relationship had long since been lost. Now relations had broken down between Carl and Kenny too. If only he’d accepted that what Dena had been saying was true, that she wasn’t his girl. It was all too clear now, that she was Carl’s.

  Dena arrived at the market hall at nine as usual the following morning, calling out a cheery hello to everyone as she happily ran up the stairs. Her arms were full of the previous night’s sewing that she’d done at home while Trudy was sleeping, and she was at first unsurprised to find the stock room door wide open, thinking that Joan must have got there before her. But then she saw that it was hanging half off its hinges and a strange smell hung in the air. Someone had forced the lock and she didn’t even need to step inside to know that disaster awaited her.

  The room looked as if it had been hit by a tornado. All the beautiful new dresses, blouses, skirts and jackets she and Joan had so painstakingly stitched; weeks and weeks of work, had been torn to shreds. They lay scattered everywhere like a rainbow of scrap paper, all trampled underfoot by somebody’s muddy boots.

  Not only that but the two Singer-Jones sewing machines had been smashed to pieces. Someone had taken a hammer to them both. They would never work again.

  The dressmaker’s dummy stood forlornly in the midst of it all, the lovely cobalt blue satin evening gown they’d so carefully tacked into position the day before, now slit to ribbons with a thousand cuts.

  In one sickening moment of revelation, Dena recognised who the culprit must be, and in that same instant, knew she was ruined. She couldn’t see how she could possibly recover from this. How could she find the time, or the money, to start again and remake every garment in time for the show.

  Kenny had taken his revenge. Her dreams were as dust, ripped apart along with her new designs.

  ‘You did this! You’ve ruined me.’ Dena stood, hands on hips, and confronted Kenny, her normally soft brown eyes a blaze of gold and hot with rage.

  Kenny smirked, as if she’d said something really rather amusing.

  ‘Well, aren’t you going to say anything? Aren’t you at least going to tell me why?’

  ‘You know why. You’ve been two-timing me, you little whore.’

  ‘How dare you call me that? I’ve been telling you for months that you and I are finished. But would you listen? Would you hell! I’m amazed you’ve the cheek to even say such a thing after what you did with my mam.’

  ‘She was more than willing.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear. If you must know, Carl and I only got together at the New Year’s Dance and I have tried to tell you it was over between you and me, any number of l times. Leaving you standing at the altar should have been a big enough hint. But you just kept right on pestering me, trailing after me everywhere, being an absolute nuisance. You never seemed to leave me alone.’

  She half turned away, then went back to him, jabbing her finger in his chest, unable to control her anger as a new thought occurred to her. ‘Before you went upstairs to screw my mother while my child, your daughter, lay sick in the adjoining room, did you rummage through my personal belongings? Was it you who scattered my plans and designs all over the floor?’

  ‘What if it was? I needed to know what you were up to. What you were doing that was so much more important than seeing me.’

  ‘How dare you? And how did you even get into the house? Did Alice let you in?’

  Kenny’s lip curled into that all too familiar sneer. ‘No, I got in with a key, what else? I’m no common burglar. I’m clever, me. I borrowed your key from your bag behind the stall when you were busy serving a customer one day, and had another one cut. I’ve got several, as a matter of fact. One never knows when they might come in useful.’

  Dena was shocked to the core. It would never have occurred to her that anyone, even Kenny Garside, would stoop so low. What a slimy toad he was. How many times had he sneaked in to the house before, during all these long months of following her? The thought made her feel sick.

  ‘I shall have the locks changed first thing in the morning, and I shall tell everyone else to do the same, just in case. You’re worse than a burglar, Kenny Garside, you’re a sneak thief.’

  ‘I didn’t take nothing.’

  ‘You stole our privacy. You took away our sense of security in our own home. And now you’ve ruined my workshop. Not only weeks of work but you’ve destroyed my future, my relationship with my mother, my life!’ She was very nearly in tears by this time and Dena struggled to harden her heart, knowing she must get away from him before she broke down completely. ‘You’re despicable! Is it any wonder I chose your brother instead of you. I regret the day I ever clapped eyes on you.’

  As she turned to go, he grabbed her by the arm and held her in a vice-like grip. ‘Don’t think he’s so innocent either, that brother of mine, because he isn’t. He’s the one who killed your little brother.’

  Chapter Forty-Five

  ‘Why won’t you trust me? Why don’t you believe what I say? I had nothing to do with your brother’s death.’

  ‘Why should I believe you when you’re being so evasive?’ They were sitting in the bus shelter beside the old horse trough at the corner of the market; had been there for a good half hour while Dena told him of Kenny’s ridiculous accusation. She’d expected Carl to laugh it off, to dismiss it instantly as vengeful nonsense, but he hadn’t done that at all. At first he’d gone strangely silent, and then started asking all manner of odd questions. He was still doing it.

  ‘What did he tell you exactly? Did he say what had happened, how it all came about?’

  Dena shook her head, tears standing bright in her eyes. This discussion was going worse and worse, and she simply couldn’t understand why. ‘He told me to ask you, so that’s what I’m doing. You tell me, Carl, “how it all came about.”‘

  ‘I can’t. I’ve already said that I wasn’t there.’
>
  ‘But you must be able to remember what you were doing that night.’

  ‘Are you saying I need an alibi?’

  ‘I’m saying give me some proof, otherwise I’ve only your word for it.’

  He turned to stare at her then and his dark blue eyes were strangely blank. ‘You’d rather take Kenny’s word than mine?’

  Dena began to feel desperate, her heart brimming with fear, sure she was about to vomit. Why didn’t he sound more certain, more reassuring? Why did he have that defensive, troubled note in his voice? ‘You say you weren’t the one responsible for Pete’s death but you won’t explain why Kenny would accuse you of such a terrible thing.’

  ‘Isn’t that obvious?’

  ‘Oh, come on, he may well be prepared to ruin my little business but this is all a bit far-fetched even for Kenny. I don’t believe he’d go so far as to accuse his own brother of murder, just because I’ve chosen you in place of him.’

  Carl’s reply came swift and sharp. ‘It wasn’t murder. It was never meant to go that far!’

  The silence which followed this statement was appalling, stretching endlessly between them as Dena stared at Carl in a state of numbed disbelief. She had told no one, not even the police, that any third person or persons were involved. No one knew that they had been attacked, only that Pete had drowned, and she had failed to save him.

  She could see, by the horror dawning in his eyes, that he had recognised his mistake. The implication was clear. He’d just admitted that he knew more than he was saying.

  Dena’s voice, when she found it, was dangerously soft. ‘Are you admitting that Pete didn’t simply fall in the canal and drown?’

  ‘I’m saying nothing.’

  ‘But you’re aware we were attacked?’

  ‘I heard a rumour.’