And broken Gina’s heart as a result.
Luc did not love Carmina. He loved Gina. That was clear enough to her, if not to the girl herself.
Carlotta groaned. Daughters, what problems they created. ‘Luc says he needs to explain something to you.’
‘I have heard all his explanations,’ Gina said, not lifting her eyes from the book she was supposedly reading, although she hadn’t turned a page in a good half hour, by Carlotta’s reckoning.
‘Sometimes explanations are difficult. Things happen between a man and a woman, and men are so weak.’ Carlotta spread her hands in a helpless gesture. ‘Look at your sister. Could any man resist her?’
Gina did now raise her eyes. They had dark bruises beneath each, and the coldness in them jolted her mother’s heart. ‘Quite! Would you really wish me to be involved with a man who cannot keep his hands off my beautiful sister?’
‘Momma Mia, that is not what I meant, oh my darling girl.’
Carlotta embarked on a string of rapid Italian and Gina leapt to her feet to avoid being swept up into her mother’s suffocating embrace. ‘It’s all right. I can cope, so long as people don’t feel sorry for me all the time.’ And she limped swiftly from the room before her defences crumbled away entirely.
From her bedroom window Gina watched as Luc walked away, hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched. He looked so utterly dejected and miserable she ached to run after him. She almost felt sorry for him. To be compelled to marry her volatile, selfish sister was not a comfortable prospect for any young man.
When he reached Lizzie Pringle’s Chocolate Cabin, he half turned to look up at her window and Gina stepped quickly back behind the bedroom curtains, rather as she had done on the fateful day when she hadn’t gone to the dance and he’d betrayed her. If only she’d slipped out to speak to him then, had somehow found the courage to challenge him about the lies Carmina had told about him. If only she’d explained that she did indeed care and desperately wanted to be with him.
Instead she’d hesitated and foolishly trusted Carmina to deliver her letter, afraid of upsetting their parents. Although that hadn’t been her only reason.
Gina knew she’d been filled with insecurities and fear, half believing the poisonous words her sister had poured into her ear. After all, why would he want to take her, a person with a handicap, to a dance? What handsome young man would want to be seen out with a girl with a limp? Doubts had assailed her, her inferiority complex coming to the fore. Gina had believed Carmina must be right when she’d said that she really didn’t have the experience of life or men to fully appreciate how he was using her. Rightly or wrongly, these concerns had made her reluctant to defy her parents, and she’d lost him as a result.
Now, as Luc finally disappeared from view, Gina felt restless, quite unable to tolerate staying in the house a moment longer. She reached for her coat and hobbled down the stairs then slipped out to find Amy, not even telling Momma where she was going. Gina felt desperate for someone more her own age to talk to, someone who wouldn’t preach or lecture, or regard her with sad, pitying eyes.
Carmina, working on the ice cream cart, had been watching Luc for some time. She’d made it her business to follow him everywhere and keep track of what he was up to. Today, she’d spotted him talking to her mother, noted how he gazed up at her sister’s bedroom window. Then as he crossed the street she begged Allessandro, who happened to be around, to take over serving for ten minutes, claiming she needed a break. He complained, as he always did, but she was already rushing after Luc.
She fell into step beside him, slipped her arm into his as if she had every right to do so.
‘Hiya, how are you on this lovely sunny day?’
Much to her irritation, he shook her off. ‘This isn’t going to work,’ Luc growled.
‘What isn’t?’
‘This stupid plan of yours. Whatever little scheme you’ve got bubbling away in that clever head of yours is a complete waste of time. How can it when you and I both know the truth. We didn’t have sex and you aren’t pregnant.’
Carmina chuckled. ‘I think we’ll be married long before that can be proved.’
‘You’d only regret it. You’d hate being married to me. It wouldn’t work.’
‘It’ll work if I say it will,’ Carmina airily assured him, pouting provocatively. ‘You surely aren’t going to do the dirty on me and leave me to bring up an illegitimate child all on my own, just like the notorious Dena Dobson?’
‘There is no child, and I don’t love you, Carmina. I never did. Once, months ago, we had a bit of fun, nothing more. I should never have believed your lies, never let you worm your way back. I‘m damned if I’m going to spend my life paying for a moment’s weakness. All I did was kiss you, and that was just a stupid mistake.’
‘Ah, but some mistakes have to be paid for. And it was rather an important one, after all.’ She smoothed a hand over her flat stomach.
Luc stopped walking to glare down at her, a cold hard glint in his dark blue eyes. ‘Now you’re coming to believe in your own fantasies. Okay, so you’ve managed to get both families on your side, but what good will that do? Even if you succeeded in forcing me to marry you, holding the proverbial shot-gun to my head, as it were, you can’t force me to love you. I’ve no intention of ever sleeping with you, Carmina, married or no.’
Carmina laughed, her luscious brown eyes wickedly teasing. ‘Oh, I think you will. You wouldn’t be able to resist.’
Luc was appalled by the mess he found himself in. How could people believe her lies? How had he allowed her to lead him by the nose, like some stupid stud instructed to perform on demand? But he hadn’t quite, had he? There’d been no performance. He must keep reminding himself of that important fact.
He used to wonder why it was he’d fallen for the quiet sister, and not the gorgeous, adventurous one, particularly when he’d been a bit of a rebel himself, once upon a time. He didn’t ask himself that question any more.
Carmina Bertalone was poison, as dangerous as an unexploded bomb.
‘I can resist you Carmina, and will continue to do so,’ he coldly informed her and strode rapidly away, calling back to her over his shoulder. ‘Accept it, Carmina, I’d always be pining for my lovely sweet Gina.’
Carmina stood in the middle of the street, rage running through her like molten fire, furious that he’d rejected her yet again. She was humiliatingly aware of people watching her, of sniggers from his friends hanging around on the street corner. Bitter disappointment churned in her stomach, making her feel violently sick. Why wouldn’t he accept that it was she he really loved, and not Gina at all? Gina was boring, pathetic, a cripple for God’s sake!
If her sister had appeared, right at that moment, Carmina wouldn’t have held herself responsible for her actions.
Luc had to be made to see where his best interests lay.
‘Don’t I just love it when you play hard to get,’ she shouted after him, then winked provocatively at his mates and flounced off in the opposite direction, just as if it were nothing more than a lover’s quarrel.
Amy listened in silence as Gina poured her heart out. ‘You don’t have to say anything,’ Gina warned, when her story was told. ‘I don’t want you to say how sorry you feel for me, how sad it is, how much Luc loves me or any of that rubbish. If he really had loved me, properly and faithfully, my sister wouldn’t now be carrying his child.’
‘Oh, Gina, I don’t know what to say. It’s so awful. I can’t imagine how you must be feeling. I’d kill Chris, if he did that to me. But then, Carmina is not someone anyone would welcome as a rival. Once that sister of yours has her claws in a man, she’s like a tiger and never lets go.’
Gina sighed. ‘I wish I’d a gold sovereign for everyone who’s said that to me, in one form or another.’
Amy was perched on an upturned packing case in her new living room that looked more like a war zone, its walls stripped of plaster and piles of bricks and tiles everywhere. Chris a
nd Thomas having gone over to the Dog and Duck to wet their whistle on a welcome pint, as Thomas put it. Gina paced the room, too strung up to be able to sit still for a moment.
‘Do you want him back?’ Amy quietly asked.
A moment of silence before Gina finally let out a trembling breath. ‘I don’t know. I really can’t decide how I feel about Luc right now. I feel very muddled.’
Amy chewed on her lip, which she often did when she was thinking hard. ‘Look, what you need is something to take you out of yourself. Keeping busy, I find, may not solve problems but certainly helps to keep one’s mind off them.’
Gina couldn’t help but smile at her friend, who looked positively blooming with her rosy cheeks and gleaming hair, bright eyes and hands moving protectively over her swollen stomach and the baby she carried. ‘What possible problems could you have?’
‘Oh, believe me, living with Mavis is no picnic, far more dangerous than a nuclear bomb,’ and both girls giggled. ‘But I’ll admit my problems are as nothing by comparison. Still, there must be something you can do to take your mind off Luc and allow yourself time to heal.’
‘Perhaps that’s part of the problem, I don’t have anything to do. Momma has never let me have a job, or even help in the ice-cream parlour. Now I’m not sure what I could do. I’m certainly not trained for anything, and my education was virtually non-existent.
‘What about hobbies?’
Gina shook her head. ‘When I was ill with the polio I was in quite a lot of pain, or going through some difficult treatment or other. I wasn’t really in the mood for hobbies. There were times when even reading or doing a jig-saw exhausted me. I had a lot of physiotherapy to flex my muscles which is quite painful and hard work, and exercises at the swimming baths. They even put me in a funny sort of machine to warm my muscles and help prevent cramps. Then there were a couple of operations on my feet, which required long stays in hospital. Difficult, but it was all worth it in the end, of course. They got me walking again, and I’ve had hardly any problems for months now. So long as I never want to run the four minute mile, I’ll be fine. But all I can really do is help Momma with the sewing, fairly basic stuff at that.’
‘Can you operate a sewing machine? I mean – if you don’t mind my asking - do you have problems with the treadle?’
Gina shook her head. ‘No, that’s not a problem, so long as I don’t do too much.’
‘Then there’s your answer. Go and see Dena Dobson and ask her if she’s in need of a new machinist?’
Hope lit in Gina’s sad, cinnamon eyes. ‘Do you really think she might be?’
‘You can but ask. What have you got to lose? Dena is lovely, and knows what it is to be up against things, having gone through torment herself over the death of her brother. She might be able to give you a few hours, at least.’
Dena instantly offered Gina three morning’s employment a week. ‘It might be more some weeks, if we’ve got a big order in, or we’re coming up to a fashion show. If you feel up to it, that is, Gina. I recommend you start with just a few hours and lets see how you get on. Joan Chapman usually organises the team so talk to her if you want to increase or change your hours. Welcome on board, love, I reckon I’m going to need all the help I can get in the coming months if trade carries on as good as it is.’
Even Momma was pleased, kissing her on both cheeks. ‘Splendid! We can see the light at the end of the tunnel now, si?’
‘Not quite, Momma, but it’s a start, isn’t it? It’s a reason to get up in a morning. Dena says I can start first thing tomorrow.’
Carlotta clutched her daughter to her bosom and hugged her tight. ‘I would like to smack that little madam’s silly face. She’s brought shame and disgrace upon us all, as well as heartbreak for you, my lovely girl.’ She cupped Gina’s cold pale face between her warm hands. ‘But you will survive, my little one, because you are strong. Stronger inside than out, si? And there are other fish in the sea. You will find another young man.’
‘I don’t think so, Momma. Who would have me?’
‘You mustn’t say such things, child. Carmina isn’t the only one who is beautiful, you are too.’
‘But it’s Luc that I love.’
Carlotta’s soft brown eyes filled with tears. ‘I make bad mistake keeping you two apart.’
‘Don’t Momma, you’ll have me crying too,’ and mother and daughter quietly wept in each other’s arms.
Chapter Twenty-One
The CND meetings, dry as they so often were, had been a welcome relief, representing an escape from Mavis’s tyranny and litany of complaints. Amy had sometimes struggled to understand what the speakers meant by their convoluted arguments, or to show proper interest in news of the latest rally or protest vigil. She’d found their vision of infinite destruction and the ultimate abolition of man a trifle depressing, particularly in her current condition. Nevertheless, she’d felt as if she were taking part in the birth of an important new political movement and had readily agreed to stand on street corners and hand out leaflets.
Once, she’d painstakingly addressed a couple of hundred envelopes to MPs and newspaper editors; working on them secretly in their bedroom while Chris was at the bakery and she was supposed to be resting.
She’d been glad of the distraction, anything which took her from under Mavis’s thumb, if only for a short time. Amy had looked forward to the meetings for that reason alone, irrespective of any higher moral reasons. But now that she was so near her time she’d been forced to call a halt to the activity and was missing them badly. Not least the new friends she’d made.
‘I’ll be back later,’ she’d assured them. ‘I’ll probably be glad of the diversion after a month or two of dirty nappies, but for now I can’t walk to the end of the street without needing a crane to first hoist me out of the chair.’
Jeff and Sue had laughed, told her she exaggerated and that she looked marvellous, but they’d understood her predicament and promised to keep her informed of progress.
So here she was, like a beached whale, confined to sewing curtains for their new home. But the thought of being entirely free from Mavis in the near future filled her with excited anticipation. It would be so wonderful to have Chris all to herself at last, and not be lectured or criticised by her mother-in-law over every little thing she did.
She’d bought some cheap cotton off-cuts from Winnie’s stall, and taken careful instructions on how to make them. Amy didn’t possess a sewing machine but as this was her first attempt at curtain-making she was content to sit and hem and stitch the ruffle-tape on by hand. At least that way she felt in control.
Sometimes Gina came round to help and the two girls would sit and quietly sew together, sharing problems and secrets.
‘Have you spoken to Luc yet?’ Amy would ask, and Gina would shake her head.
‘What is there to say? If he prefers Carmina to me, so be it. I can’t blame him for that, can I? She’s my sister so I should be happy for her. What about you, are you looking forward to moving into your new home?’
‘Can’t wait.’
Then Mavis came in and hovered over Amy, issuing instructions. ‘You aren’t leaving enough heading for the tape. Have you measured the window properly, allowed for fullness in the curtains?’
‘Yes, Winnie explained all of that to me.’
‘Cheap fabric never looks good. You should have spoken to me first. I could have leant you my winter curtains, a lovely plush velvet.’
Amy tried not to wince, remembering the dusty brown curtains they’d recently taken down. ‘I didn’t want anything too dark. I want it to look all bright and cheerful,’ she explained, admiring the orange and blue maze-like pattern of the cotton sateen.
‘They’re lovely and bright, aren’t they, Mrs George?’ Gina said.
‘Some people really don’t have any taste,’ Mavis replied with a disapproving sniff. And the two girls stifled their giggles, put their heads down and kept on sewing.
Patsy had never wo
rked so hard in her life. This morning, as on every other, she’d swept all around the stall, then got on with dusting and tidying her stock. It was important to keep it clean and bright, and displayed in a way which was attractive to the customer.
She knew every hat and hat-pin, every scarf and marcasite brooch, every bunch of shiny silk cherries or pair of kid gloves.
Patsy had spoken to the bank manager and arranged a small overdraft to enable her to expand her lines. Since then, she’d visited any number of warehouses, plus one or two fashion fairs, where she’d ordered a small range of gloves, stockings, scarves, some neat little clutch bags, and other accessories. She was even trying a few beads and bangles.
Oh, and she was so excited. It was such fun to feel that she was in charge of her own business, free to do as she pleased without Annie breathing down her neck. And Clara seemed happy for her to get on with things, issuing only a sensible warning that she should fix a budget and stick to it.
‘Never be afraid to try something new, so long as you feel it’s right for your customers. But try out one or two samples first to test the market. And never over-stretch yourself by attempting to expand too fast. Since we buy only in cash from wholesalers and not the manufacturer, you can always go back for more if something sells well, but you can’t send it back if it doesn’t.’
All good advice which Patsy took on board.
Clara hadn’t even made any protest when Patsy had suggested they re-organise the central workroom, perhaps add a curtained alcove to offer the customer a little privacy for trying hats on.
Who's Sorry Now (2008) Page 16