They went on to talk about various snippets of market gossip, of how well Lizzie Pringle was doing with her Chocolate Cabin, and that Dena Dobson was having real problems with Trudy who’d recently been involved in an accident, which naturally led back to the endlessly fascinating subject of her own child. Amy described her weekly trips to the clinic where she collected Danny’s orange juice and cod liver oil.
‘He put on five ounces last week. The nurse was really pleased with him.’
‘Excellent,’ Patsy said, trying not to sound bored.
‘He’ll be due for his first injections soon.’
‘Make sure you give him the new polio vaccine. I’m quite certain Gina would be the first to recommend it.’
Amy nodded. ‘Too right she would. She pops in when she can, although still seems uncertain about whether she and Luc will make a go of it.’
Patsy pulled a face. ‘She’s playing it cool, and I don’t blame her. With a sister like Carmina you’ve got your work cut out keeping your man to yourself.’
Patsy wasn’t coping quite as well as she made out. Clara was still grieving and only turned up to help on the stall a couple of afternoons a week, which meant that Patsy had less time for her hat-making and clients were growing impatient. Marc, however, was unsympathetic.
‘Didn’t I tell you it would be too much for you.’
Patsy gritted her teeth and made a private vow never to grumble again, not within Marc’s hearing anyway. Whatever worries she had, she learned to keep them to herself.
And there were still items going missing. She daren’t mention that either. Certainly not to Marc, nor to Clara who had enough to depress her at the moment getting over the death of her sister, let alone fretting over what must surely be Patsy’s incompetence. If she kept a better eye on what was going on instead of working so hard on her hat making, she’d maybe be able to catch the culprit.
Talking it over with Amy had helped a little, but her friend’s only solution was to put up a mirror, which she’d already done.
But it simply wasn’t possible to sit staring into it all the time. Patsy often became distracted when she was serving, or busy sewing and wouldn’t immediately notice that someone was browsing. Nor was it easy to follow a customer’s every move, not without making it obvious you were suspicious. The result then would be that the person would just feel uncomfortable and go away without buying a thing.
Coping with the stall single-handed wasn’t easy so when one day Carmina called and offered to keep an eye on it for five minutes, Patsy was surprised but delighted. She was desperate for a coffee and a toilet break.
‘Oh, that would be marvellous. Thanks, Carmina. I’m starving hungry. Haven’t had a thing since breakfast. I even missed dinner as I forgot to pack myself some sandwiches and I can’t afford to close for lunch which is often my busiest time. I won’t be longer than ten minutes, I promise. Just long enough for me to grab a cup of coffee and a sandwich.’
‘Take as long as you like,’ Carmina airily told her. ‘Pop in and see Amy, why don’t you? No need to rush back. Can I try on some hats?’
Patsy chuckled. ‘Course you can, if you’re careful. Bless you,’ and went off quite happily, leaving Carmina in charge. Maybe they were going to get on after all.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Carmina saw no reason not to enjoy herself while she put her latest plan into action. So when Alec Hall invited her over to supper in his flat above the music shop, telling her his son Terry was out for the evening, she decided she’d nothing to lose. What harm could it do? The damage, as you might say, was already done. And if she hadn’t yet managed to get her hands on Luc, then Alec, she decided, would do very nicely in the meantime. He was, after all, an exciting man to spend time with.
Carmina couldn’t seem to stop thinking about what they’d got up to in his cold, damp MG. So how much more exciting to be in the warm privacy of his flat. It almost made her feel sick with anticipation at what it must feel like to actually go to bed with a man. She’d really be a grown-up then.
He served her with a dish of what looked like stewed vegetables but were actually quite spicy. Alec called it a kimchi, and said it was made from cabbage mixed with ginger, garlic, pickled shrimps and green onions. This was followed with thin strips of beef cooked with mushrooms, onions, peppers, more garlic, and herbs and spices which Carmina could not identify, together with lots of rice. She thought it the strangest meal she’d ever tasted, and did little more than push the food about her plate to pretend she was actually eating it.
‘Aren’t you hungry?’ he asked.
‘I’m trying to lose weight,’ Carmina lied, which brought forth the expected compliment. ‘I never imagined you’d actually cook for us. I thought you’d pop out for fish and chips or something.’
‘I learned to cook in Korea, though I accept this sort of thing might be an acquired taste.’
Carmina wrinkled her nose and examined the heap of food on her plate. ‘What were you doing in Korea?’
‘There was a war on,’ he patiently reminded her.
‘Oh, so there was. Where is it, Korea? Is it in the east?’
Alec looked at the young girl and felt a burst of something like contempt for her ignorance. Yet why should it surprise him? What did this stupid girl know of such things, living her comfortable, selfish little life, her empty head concerned only with boy friends and pop tunes?
Cooking in camp had consisted chiefly of self-heating cans of Scotch Broth or beef stew that sounded like the crack of a gun when you activated them. Eating hadn’t been about pleasure and appealing to the taste buds, not at the front. It had been about staying alive, and keeping warm. That was all that mattered. Survival.
He didn’t bother explaining any of this to her. ‘It was cold in Korea and winter set in early with freezing north-east winds. Hot food was important. You dug yourself a deep hole in the ground, or ‘hoochie’ as we called it, although if it was frozen solid a pack of explosives might be necessary to blast it deep enough.’
She looked at him, wide-eyed. ‘You slept in a hole in the ground? Why didn’t you sleep in a proper bunk in a cabin or something?’
Sexy she might be, but nobody could accuse Carmina Bertalone of either sensitivity or intelligence.
Alec could recall many miserable hours spent huddled beneath a damp blanket, when several layers of clothing from ‘Long Johns’ and string vest to hooded parka, thick woollen socks and heavy boots failed to keep out the freezing temperatures. When having to remove your gloves to load a rifle could lead to serious frostbite.
But then he hadn’t brought her here to listen to his old war stories.
‘I’ve got bread and butter pudding for afters, one I made myself from a Philip Harben recipe. Is that British enough for you?’
Carmina pushed her plate away. ‘Why don’t you put on a record then you can teach me more of those dance steps you’re so good at. A slow fox-trot, or a sexy waltz.’
Alec smiled. That’s why he liked her, the one thing they had in common. Sex! He’d felt a bit wary about inviting her over, knowing she was only half his age, little more than a child at eighteen, or so she claimed, particularly following his clumsy over-eagerness that first time. But then he always found young girls hard to resist. And the encounter in the car had been interesting. She’d been like a wild cat, rampant for him, which led him to hope there might be other such episodes.
If she was woman enough to enjoy his love-making, why worry about her age? And he did find her utterly fascinating. Even if she didn’t care for the food he’d prepared, or know where Korea was or why he’d been there. She had other attributes.
They danced to Kisses Sweeter Than Wine, a Jimmie Rodgers number. Carmina thought Alec was a sexy dancer, holding her close in his arms and whispering things he really shouldn’t in her ear. After that came Remember You’re Mine, Alec singing along with Pat Boone and making little shivers run up and down her spine.
Carmina thought a
bout telling him that she wasn’t really his at all, that she belonged by rights to Luc, but he’d started to kiss her by then, his hands doing interesting things with her breasts beneath her sweater, and she really couldn’t concentrate.
Later, sprawled on his bed with a tangle of sheets on the floor, there was no time for thinking at all, or much in the way of small talk for that matter. She felt oddly shy at first, being in a man’s bedroom, in his bed, but then he pulled her to him and began to kiss her, quite gently at first, before deepening the kiss to explore her mouth with his tongue.
He took her by the shoulders and pushed her down on the bed, slowly unbuttoning her blouse, smoothing his tongue over each rosy nipple. He licked and suckled each one, making them spring to his touch and Carmina gave little gasps of astonishment. She strained to pull him closer, her body heavy with desire, anxious for him to get on with it. He laughed at her eager response.
‘You’re like an excited little puppy, slow down, sweetheart. These things shouldn’t be rushed.’
Carmina tried to do as he told her, as she had no wish to be thought of as young and childish. Alec was so sophisticated, so experienced, like an older James Dean, hungry and dangerous. She wanted him to see her as a tantalising, seductive woman, not some silly young teenager.
But any protest died on her lips as he began to kiss her in other places, to pleasure her in ways she’d never even dreamed of. He did things with his mouth, his tongue, that set her senses reeling.
She expected it to be all over in seconds, as it usually was with the boys she knew. A quick bang, bang, then they’d light up a cigarette and go back to the dancing. Not so with Alec. He took his time, made her wait till she was almost screaming with frustration before spreading her hands above her head and taking her with more force than she’d expected, making her cry out loud.
The sensation of him moving inside her, the tremors in his lean body, the sound of his strange little grunts, even the smell of him, excited her beyond reason and she clawed at his back with her long nails, wanting more. She felt so alive! So needed and adored!
When it was over he asked if she was all right. Carmina was startled. No one had ever asked her that before. Of course, he’d used a johnny, he’d insisted on that.
‘Better to be safe than sorry,’ he’d said, smiling down at her. Carmina said nothing, merely smiled back. How could she tell him that it was already too late? He’d used one in the car too. But she couldn’t remember him using one when he’d taken her the first time, by the old Roman fort. Obviously he must have forgotten then, or not come prepared, perhaps not expecting their love-making to progress quite so quickly. Neither had she. His urgency had obviously taken them both by surprise on that occasion, overwhelmed by her charms, no doubt.
And now, as a result, she was what you might call - knocked up. Not that she cared, not if it got her Luc. She lay back on the rumpled sheets, privately making her plans, while Alec slept quietly beside her.
Alec did not sleep well. Whenever he closed his eyes, or attempted to sleep, the nightmare came; that night of terror fresh and clear in his head. The hills along the narrow, rutted road to Chipyong-ni were full of soldiers. Across the valley hundreds of Chinese communists gathered and he was going to have to kill as many of them as he could because they were more than ready to kill him. Kill or be killed, what kind of choice was that for a civilised human being? Yet it was a philosophy of life that had become as much a part of him as breathing in and out.
An artillery barrage started pounding them. The sound of the relentless mortar attacks echoing in his ears.
He furiously fired his machine gun into the black darkness, hoping he’d hit something, or that the enemy would simply get tired and go away.
There it was again, the smell of fear, the whine and crump of bullets. He didn’t hear the one that nearly killed him.
Now he was lying in a frozen paddy field listening to the Chinese looting the dead and executing the wounded all around him. He could hear a young corporal screaming for his mother. Alec lay motionless, face down in the mud, eyes closed, barely breathing, playing dead.
It was so cold. He’d never known anything like it. Fingers going black with frostbite, his own breath turning to ice on his lips, a slick of something black beneath him that could only be his own blood, pouring from some wound he couldn’t even feel. But then his friends around him were colder still in death. A part of him died too as he lay in that mud, praying the enemy couldn't hear his heart pounding.
It was pounding now and Alec jerked awake, sat up abruptly in the bed, a slick of sweat cooling on his brow.
‘What is it?’
He reached for the girl beside him and buried himself in her warm soft body, ever his cure for a nightmare. What good did it do to remember? Best not to think, not to talk about it.
They’d made love the first time without bothering to undress, now his appetite seemed insatiable. Alec encouraged her to strip off for him while he lay back on the bed to watch; lust and open admiration on his face.
Carmina shook back her long glossy hair and laughed, arching her body so that her breasts peaked delightfully and she heard his low groan.
‘You are amazing, sweetheart. Absolutely amazing!’
It made her feel so powerful and grown-up to have a man appreciate her beauty in this way. What would her friends say if they could see her now? What would Luc say? He’d surely be jealous.
‘You’re like a luscious cherry ripe for the picking. I want to nibble every precious bit of you and eat you all up.’
Carmina laughed delightedly. Nobody had ever spoken to her in this way before, certainly not any of the young men she’d dated, not even Luc.
She loved the way his hands smoothed over her breasts, as if he cherished them, moving over her slender waist, caressing every part of her as if she were made of Dresden china.
‘I don’t deserve you, I really don’t. You know I’m just an old roué, and twice your age. A rake. I’ve had two wives, and lost track of the number of girl friends I’ve enjoyed. But then I’ve always thought that’s what women are for, to be enjoyed and savoured like a satisfying meal or a good bottle of claret.’
Carmina wasn’t too sure she cared to be compared to anything so mundane as a meal or a bottle of wine, and it flickered across her mind to object. A meal was over in minutes, after all, while a beautiful woman should be loved and appreciated for life. But then he pushed her down on to the bed and made love to her all over again so that her thoughts blurred and vanished in a haze of desire.
She couldn’t get enough of him, felt the hunger burning her up inside, needing to be assuaged. He made her do quite shocking things but Carmina was so entranced by the whole adventure, she did whatever he asked of her.
When finally he lay flopped beside her, his gentle snores indicating that he had at last fallen asleep, she slid out of bed and began to idly examine the room. She opened drawers and rummaged through a jumble of old photographs, one of a Chinese girl, or perhaps she was Korean. She might even be one of the wives he’d spoken of, judging by the way they were wrapped in each other’s arms. She found a gold watch, and a selection of jewelled tie-pins and cuff-links. Clearly Alec Hall wasn’t short of money. His wallet was there too, packed with notes.
Carmina quietly opened his wardrobe door, breathing in the scent of his masculine after-shave as she riffled through the pockets of his jackets, finding nothing of any interest. He was evidently the kind of man who emptied his pockets before he put his clothes away. There was the famous velvet jacket, the pink dickie-bow tie, several of them in fact, all lined up in a mahogany tray. The shoes too were in a neat line, and shining with polish. Everything neat and tidy.
She glanced across at him, still sprawled face-down on the bed and felt a burst of fresh desire, but it was growing late and Papa would be expecting her home.
Carmina quickly pulled on her rumpled clothes, and, in stocking feet, shoes in hand, she crept back to his bedside drawers,
took a fiver out of the bulging wallet and slipped it into her pocket. With so many he surely wouldn’t miss one. And didn’t she deserve it?
Then she picked up her bag, and without disturbing him, crept downstairs.
Once in the shop she paused to put on her shoes, glancing idly through the stacks of records as she did so. It was hard to see what was what with only the dim glow of the street lamp shining in through the frosted glass of the shop door, but if she carried them to where a pool of light fell, she could just make out the words.
She read - Little Darlin’ by The Diamonds - a record she’d been wanting for quite some time. Carmina tucked it under her coat, putting the others back in the rack. Sitting on a display shelf was a delightful little transistor radio in bright red plastic. She slipped that into her pocket too.
Glancing around one last time, a smile curling her full lips, she let herself out of the little shop and ran home. All in all, it had been a most entertaining evening, and really quite profitable.
Lying in bed that night, hugging herself with glee at her daring, Carmina knew, in her heart, that it wasn’t going to be easy to drag Luc along to that altar. He would be shocked when he learned that she was indeed pregnant, no doubt attempt to deny the baby was his. But if she held her nerve she could get everyone on her side, the wedding back on track.
It was unfortunate that he was still pining over Gina, still grovelling for her forgiveness. As long as her sister was around, Luc would stick by her. Carmina accepted this as a fact now, although she saw the reason as more to do with guilt and loyalty rather than any love he might feel for the stupid girl. And he probably also thought Gina’s saccharine sweetness would appeal to his parents rather more than her luscious, beautiful and dangerous sister. Gina would seem like the perfect daughter-in-law in their eyes, proof that their once rebellious son had been brought to heel.
In Carmina’s opinion, however, it was time Luc stopped worrying about what would please his father and think about himself for a change. She was the one for him, not her sanctimonious sister.
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