Putting on the Style

by Freda Lightfoot

  Dena pushed herself up into a sitting position, feeling her head swim as once it had before after a severe beating. Her new lemon linen suit, she noticed, was smeared with mud, there was no sign of her hat and shoes; her knees were bleeding and her nylon stockings scarred with ladders. Not that it mattered. She didn’t care about the state of her clothes, all she wanted was to go home.

  A nub of fear was growing inside her. At one time she would have laughed at the very idea of being afraid of Kenny Garside, but no longer. He had done too many terrible things. Nevertheless she must strive to appear brave.

  ‘Kenny, what is this all about? Why are you still angry with me? I’ve told you a thousand times that it’s all over between us. What more can I do to convince you?’

  He got to his feet and strolled over towards her, smoothing his breast pocket with one hand as if checking its contents. ‘Dena, what you don’t seem to understand is that this isn’t your decision to make. How many times must I make it clear that I am the one who will say whether or not you’re still my girl. Do you understand? That’s because I’m a man and you’re only a woman.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. That attitude went out with the ark.’ Dena gave a little laugh, which was perhaps foolish in the circumstances.

  Kenny crouched down beside her, his face coming to within inches of her own. She could see the curl of his upper lip, the sweat on his brow, every pimple on his chin and the deep anger in his vivid blue eyes. His tone was quite matter of fact and Dena wondered if this was a good thing or a bad.

  ‘Carl doesn’t want you any more. You and my brother are history. He realises he should have kept his nose out of my affairs, so you can stop lusting after him.’

  ‘It’s not lust, I love him. I can’t help how I feel, Kenny, although I agree Carl may not want me now after I accused him of – of killing our Pete.’ She looked up into his eyes. ‘But that was you, wasn’t it? I can remember seeing your eyes glaring at me from out of that balaclava.’

  ‘I’m right sorry you’ve remembered that, Dena love. It’s a real shame. Now I’m going to have to do something about that.’ He was on his feet again, towering over her as he drew out his bicycle chain and began to swing it menacingly close to her face like the bully he was.

  Dena ignored it, was on her feet in an instant, every nerve ending tingling, all her senses alert and suddenly she wasn’t afraid any more.

  ‘You don’t scare me, Kenny Garside, not one little bit. You can follow me around like Mary’s flaming little lamb as much as you like, you can rip every dress I ever make, smash my machines time and time again, do your worst, but you can’t make me love you! I don’t even like you any more. In fact, all of that stuff you do has quite the opposite effect. Did that never occur to you, you stupid lad?

  She thumped him hard in the chest and he staggered back, almost losing his balance.

  ‘You bullied my little brother. I know you did. Carl knows it too. You tried to shift the blame on to him and I almost believed you, went along with it for a while despite the fact that I love him. Now he won’t even speak to me. You beat up my little brother and threw him away in the cut as if he were nothing more than a piece of rubbish!’

  ‘I didn’t like the little bleeder and he got what he deserved.’

  ‘You’re the one who’s rubbish. You’re the one who is nothing but a piece of shit! Do you know that, Kenny Garside? You’re no better than the muck I used to knock off me boots when I was a kid. Well, I’m not a kid, I’m a grown woman and you can’t bully me, even if you did bully my little brother!’ She was jabbing him in the chest with her finger while she issued these accusations.

  ‘Don’t you talk to me like that, you whore! I had a harder time than you when I was a kid. You don’t know how well off you were. Haven’t I told you already what I had to suffer?’

  ‘Oh, shut up. Stop your whining and complaining. You’re a born liar and a bully, Kenny Garside. I don’t believe a word you say any more.’

  ‘It’s true. If Barry flipping Holmes had played fair by my mam and married her instead of chucking her over, she would never have gone off with all them other chaps, including the one who hurt me.’

  ‘Look, Kenny, I’m sorry for what happened to you as a boy, if it really did, but you can’t let that sort of bitterness scar you for life. You can’t take revenge on everyone else for something they aren’t responsible for. That’s why Alice is the mess she is. You’re a good pair, both wallowing in self-pity.’ She spread her hands in despair, pale face etched in pain. ‘But why hurt our Pete, for God’s sake? What had he ever done to you? Just tell me that. Why did you do it?’

  ‘He was one of Barry’s favourite, always winning trophies in the ring.’

  Dena stared at him, wide eyed. ‘You were jealous of our Pete? Just as you were jealous of me when I made a new life for myself, and of Trudy, and even Carl, your own brother.’

  ‘Particularly Carl, my flaming Holy Joe brother. Anyway, it wasn’t just that. Your Pete saw me nick something from Woolies and threatened to tell.’

  ‘What are you saying? That you killed my little brother because he saw you shop lifting?’

  Kenny avoided her accusing gaze. ‘That was the trouble with your Pete. He was a blabbermouth, always up to something yet forever coming up smelling of roses. Barry Holmes could see no wrong in him, and I knew once Pete started blabbing to Barry I’d never hear the last of it. Barry would tell Mam, and then where would I be? Me and Chippy got a few of the lads together to give him a going over and teach him a lesson. We never meant it to go that far, but the lads started to enjoy themselves a bit too much. They weren’t supposed to touch you at all. You were expected to run for it. And we thought your Pete could swim.’

  ‘He was unconscious, so how could he swim? They – you - knocked him senseless! Beat him to a bloody pulp.’

  Kenny looked at her. ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

  ‘You’re sorry! You think that makes it all right because you’re sorry!’ Of their own volition her hands began to slap at him. She couldn’t seem to stop herself. Dena slapped and slapped at him, all around his head and shoulders, sobbing as if her heart would break, reliving all the pain and hurt of that terrible time.

  ‘And I couldn’t save him! Why the hell would I run away when you big bullies were attacking my little brother? I was supposed to protect him and he drowned because of you! So why don’t you do the same to me? Why don’t you try? Go on, show me how big and clever you are.’

  Dena fully expected him to rise to the challenge and make a grab for her, to pick her up and toss her in the canal as he had done with Pete. She mentally prepared herself for the shock of hitting the cold water while reminding herself that she could swim, that she’d surely be safe, but then seeing the bicycle chain still in his hand, realised he could hit her, or else beat her senseless with his knuckle-duster as his mates had done once before.

  But he didn’t touch her. He didn’t hit her with the bicycle chain. He didn’t do any of those things. Kenny sank to his knees and began to cry. He sobbed like a child, although more out of self pity for himself, she was quite sure, rather than guilt over his crime.

  She looked down on him with contempt. ‘No wonder I love your brother and not you. What the hell am I going to do with you now, you snivelling coward?’

  A voice came from out of the darkness. ‘You call the police, Dena, that’s what you do.’

  ‘Carl!’ Dena swirled about as he stepped quietly out of the shadows.

  ‘I’m sorry to startle you, Dena, only everyone was concerned about your non-appearance at the pub and I came out looking for you. Someone told me they’d seen our Kenny helping you along the street. They’d assumed you weren’t feeling well, and he was taking you home.’

  Carl likewise looked down on his brother. ‘I’ve protected you all your life, but I can’t save you this time. You’re going to have to face your punishment like a man, and perhaps by doing so, learn to be one.’

  Dena k
new she had one last hurdle to face. Alice. Consequently, she asked the social worker if she would be the one to tell Alice what had really happened to her son.

  ‘She’s not going to like it, and it would be better coming from you, rather than me.’

  Miss Rogers gave a wry smile. So that if she shoots the messenger, I get all the flack?’

  ‘Something of the sort. Tell her I’ll call and see her sometime. If she wants me to. She is still my mother, after all.’

  Miss Rogers shook her head in disbelief. ‘She really doesn’t deserve you for a daughter.’

  Days later when the furore over Kenny’s arrest had died down somewhat, and Belle had come to terms with it, greatly assisted by the hope that the charge was likely to be one of manslaughter, rather than cold blooded murder, Dena and Carl at last found time to talk. She felt unaccountably nervous, fearful of saying the wrong thing and losing him for good this time.

  ‘How long had you been standing there, listening to our conversation, before you intervened? Long enough to hear me tell Kenny about my reason for preferring you?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘It does to me.’ Dena drew in a shaky breath. ‘I can’t deny it, I still love you.’

  He looked at her, his expression solemn. ‘But you didn’t trust me, did you?’ Carl reminded her. ‘You didn’t believe in my innocence. Your first reaction when Kenny told you that I was the one guilty of your brother’s death, was to believe him, despite everything he’d done, all the harassment and trouble he’d caused you.’

  Dena hung her head in shame, tears choking her throat. He was going to walk away, she could feel it coming. How would she live if he did?

  ‘I can’t explain how shocked and confused I felt in that moment. I was still reeling from the destruction of my work room and all my dreams. But that’s no excuse.’ She looked into his eyes, her own pleading with him to understand and to forgive her. ‘I tried to laugh it off when I told you, but you didn’t react as I expected. You were too concerned with protecting your own brother to own up to the fact that you too suspected him. Even when you refused to speak to me I swear that I continued to believe in your innocence. Ask Barry, I told him that all I had left was hope, that I would hold on to my faith in you.’ Tears hung on her lashes and Carl brushed them gently away with the tip of his little finger.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dena. I felt so ashamed, not only of the fact that my brother was probably the one responsible for the death of your own brother, but that I’d done nothing to stop him. I should have controlled him better, brought him up better, somehow prevented it from happening.’

  Dena stretched out a hand, but then withdrew it before it quite touched him. ‘How could you do that? You can’t watch him every minute of the time. Kenny has a will of his own and must make his own choices in life. But I can understand the guilt that you feel. Somehow we’ll both have to learn to live with the fact we let our brothers down, not out of malice or inadequacy on our part, but because we’re young and only human. We did our best.’

  There was a silence. ‘I still love you, Dena. Is it possible that despite everything, we could start again? Could we make a go of it, do you think?’

  Her eyes blazed with the passion of her emotion. ‘Oh, I do hope so, Carl. I’m willing to give it a try if you are.’

  He grinned at her then, a wide, generous smile that filled her with joy as well as new hope. ‘Barry tells me that he’s going to ask Winnie if she’ll name the day?’

  ‘What?’ Dena’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Winnie never said anything to me.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s quite plucked up the courage to propose to her yet, but he fully intends to. Says he’s never been so happy in his life as he has since he became more friendly with you and Winnie. That goes for me too. I expect she’ll be asking you to design her outfit. Then perhaps you could get round to making that wedding gown, after all, the one you didn’t get time to make for the fashion show.’

  ‘You were there, weren’t you? You must have heard me say that.’

  ‘I was hiding in the kitchen, peeping through a crack in the door. Wouldn’t have missed your big event for the world, Dena. So how about it, are you going to make it, that special wedding gown?’

  Dena frowned. ‘Why would I do that?’

  ‘Well you can’t walk down the aisle in sackcloth and ashes, now can you? And I really don’t care whether it’s white, ice blue or sky blue pink, but I reckon you should you choose your own gown and style of wedding this time, and not let Mam have any say at all.’

  Dena gazed at him, her heart in her mouth. ‘Are you saying what I think you’re saying?’

  ‘Come here. Maybe you’ll believe me if I show you.’

  Also by Freda Lightfoot as ebooks

  The stall-holders and customers of Manchester’s Champion Street market are a lively bunch. Find out more about their lives and loves in Putting on the Style, Fools Fall in Love, That’ll be the Day, Candy Kisses and Who’s Sorry Now.

  Fools Fall In Love

  9780956811974

  When Patsy talks her way into a job on their Champion Street market millinery stall, the Higginson sisters get more than they bargained for. Coping with a rebellious teenager is far from easy. Riddled with insecurities, Patsy’s impudence and chirpy personality win her enemies as well as new friends. And her determination to solve the riddle of her own past soon starts to unravel secrets Annie and Clara would much rather keep hidden.

  Fat and jolly, Molly Poulson hasn’t a care in the world until her two daughters both fall in love with the wrong young man. Molly is determined that Fran and Amy see the error of their ways, but the more she interferes, the more complicated it gets, bringing yet more trouble to her door in the shape of the notorious Billy Quinn.

  That’ll Be The Day

  9780956811981

  ‘Husbands, so demanding of wives and yet so flawed themselves. Useless lumps the lot of them, in Betty’s opinion.’

  Working on her busy flower stall in Champion Street Market, Betty has lots of opportunities to observe her customers, and to speculate on their lives. Sam regularly buys bouquets for his wife, Judy, so why does she always look so worn out and miserable? Leo comes every week for flowers for his mother, but has never bought so much as a rosebud for his elegant wife. Betty’s own husband went off long ago, so is it any wonder if she and her daughter, Lynda, have such a dim view of men? But all that is about to change…

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  Putting On The Style

  Fools Fall In Love

  That'll Be The Day

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  Who’s Sorry Now

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  About Freda Lightfoot

  Born in Lancashire, Freda Lightfoot has been a teacher and bookseller. She lived for a number of years in the Lake District and in a mad moment tried her hand at the ‘good life’, kept sheep and hens, various orphaned cats and dogs, built drystone walls, planted a small wood and even learned how to make jam. She has now given up her thermals to build a house in an olive grove in Spain, where she produces her own olive oil and sits in the sun on the rare occasions when she isn’t writing. She’s published 40 novels including many bestselling family sagas and historical novels. To find out more about, visit her website and sign up for her new title alert, or join her on Facebook and Twitter where she loves to chat with readers.

  http://www.fredalightfoot.co.uk/

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  If you find any faults with this ebook please do contact the author so that it can be put right for future readers. mailto:freda@fredalightfoot.co.uk