Who's Sorry Now (2008)

by Lightfoot, Freda

  ‘If necessary, but I don’t think it will be, do you?’ He jerked her into his arms, pressing her body hard against his so that she could smell the onions and rice on his breath from one of those strange Korean meals he liked to cook.

  ‘You and I also know who the thief really is, don’t we? It certainly wasn’t pretty little Gina who rummaged through my records. I’ve fought in and survived two wars, do you really imagine that I sleep that soundly?’ He laughed, a coarse, bitter sound. ‘Sadly, I have too many dreams, too many nightmares, for that to be the case. Soldiers learn to sleep with one eye open, particularly when young girls are ransacking their room, or their shop. I didn’t greatly care, not until the full facts of this little game you’re playing became obvious. So if you don’t want to take your sister’s place in that miserable little prison cell, you’d better start considering a change of plan, such as a different groom to stand by your side on that happy day. Do you understand what I’m saying, Carmina?’

  Sadly, she did, and although Carmina didn’t like what she heard one little bit, she was struck speechless. For once in her life her mind was a complete blank. She could see no way out.

  And within ten days it was all settled. The marriage took place, as arranged, at the local Register Office. Carmina wore a pale blue suit since she could no longer squeeze into her ballerina length wedding gown. She carried white lilies for her bouquet although they looked rather stark and funereal rather than exotic, and there was no orange blossom available at this time of year. Nor did her sisters act as bridesmaids. Carlotta was too ashamed to even allow them to attend.

  Worst of all, the groom standing by her side was not Luc Fabriani.

  In order to secure her freedom, Carmina had been compelled to submit to Alec’s blackmail. Instead of marrying into one of the richest Italian families in the neighbourhood, to a man who had occupied every waking moment of her life for over a year, she became plain Mrs Hall. She was now the wife of a man nearly twice her age who owned nothing more exciting than a little music shop on Champion Street Market. A man she didn’t even love.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Despite Patsy’s suspicions having been proved entirely correct, she hadn’t seen much of Marc lately. They’d attended the small civil ceremony together but relations between them had remained cool ever since, almost as if he blamed her for the situation. He certainly didn’t seem willing to apologise for disbelieving her.

  This irritated Patsy, but at the same time she was sympathetic over his confused state of mind. They agreed on one thing at least, a refusal to accept Gina’s fate and he was entirely caught up in furious discussions over the possibility of an appeal.

  She was surprised and pleased when, late one morning, he suddenly popped his head around the curtain of the hat stall, as he used to do so often in those blissful first months together. Patsy had been stitching a beaded silk ribbon around the rim of a velvet beret but happily set it aside to allow him to place a tender kiss on her brow and then full on her lips.

  ‘How’s my favourite girl?’

  She smiled. ‘Do you have many?’

  ‘Only you.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. So, how did it go?’ she asked, referring to the latest meeting with Gina’s solicitor.

  Marc rubbed the flat of his hands over his face. He looked tired, she thought, and desperately sad. ‘Not good. He sees no grounds for an appeal, claims she was given a fair trial. He can’t seem to see the disparity of a two year sentence when she is so clearly innocent.’

  Patsy put a hand on his arm. ‘The problem is proving it.’

  ‘I know. I just wish I could get my hands on the real culprit. Do you think it could be one of that new family who’ve moved in below the fish market?’

  She hadn’t planned to speak her mind. Patsy had already learned to her cost the result of interfering in Bertalone matters. They closed ranks, leaving her on the outside. Perhaps it was the pain in his tortured, beloved face, or her fondness for Gina that made her once again recklessly jump in with hob-nailed boots on, heedless of how they might muddy the water.

  ‘Of course, there is one way to get Gina released, and that is to persuade Carmina to confess she is really the guilty party.’ The words came out of her mouth quite of their own volition.

  Jerked out of his gloomy thoughts Marc stared at her in silence for several terrifying moments. His eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘Have I heard you correctly? Are you seriously suggesting that Carmina was in fact the thief?’

  Patsy quailed before his steely gaze but desperately held on to her nerve. ‘Actually, I’ve been wanting to discuss this with you for a while, Marc. I backed down from saying what I thought the last time we talked about this, and perhaps that was a mistake. I should have gone for broke then. The fact is, I don’t believe for a minute that Gina stole those things, any more than you do. But I do suspect that Carmina did.’

  Marc’s tone was glacial. ‘On the grounds that Carmina must be guilty of everything, is that it? You’re accusing her of deliberately getting her own sister locked up so that she could steal her boy friend? How many B-movies have you been watching lately?’

  ‘The plan very nearly worked, didn’t it? She almost succeeded in catching Luc. Would have done so had I not - interfered - and told Alec about the baby she was carrying. Okay, I should’ve kept my nose out of it, but I couldn’t sit back and see Gina’s heart broken for no reason, or Luc’s for that matter. And Alec certainly seemed to agree with my assessment of the situation, didn’t he?’

  Marc was silent once more, his brow creasing into a deep frown.

  Patsy let out a heavy sigh. ‘Maybe Carmina didn’t plan the shop lifting, maybe it all came about by chance, or accident. I accept that I could be wrong that it was deliberate, but Carmina is most definitely the guilty party.’

  ‘You certainly are wrong if you believe my sister capable of planning something so horrendous.’

  Too late, Patsy recalled telling Clara how infuriating Marc could be for refusing to see any wrong in Carmina, or any of his sisters for that matter. Furious would be a more appropriate word now, Patsy thought, as she met his livid gaze.

  Marc was on his feet, spitting out words as if he hated her. ‘How can she be guilty? I could just about come to terms with the fact Gina might, after all, be guilty. We all know how secretive she was, how she loves to squirrel things away and look at them in private, as she did with her china animal collection. And she’s been ill for a long time, so she might have become confused, obsessed.’

  ‘Gone wrong in the head you mean, because she once had polio? Don’t be ridiculous!’

  ‘Well, I won’t accept that it was Carmina. Do you think she’d stand back and do nothing while her innocent sister is arrested for something she’d done? For God’s sake, Patsy, what’s got into you? I know the pair of you don’t get on, but you must be sick in the head to even suggest such a thing.’

  Patsy picked up her sewing with trembling fingers and made an effort to get on with it. ‘I found it hard to believe too, at first, but I think that’s exactly what she did.’

  ‘Why?’ The snap of ice in his tone should have warned her to say no more.

  She let the sewing fall to her lap with a resigned sigh. ‘Because she’s manipulative. She’s certainly selfish, and wants everything she claps eyes on, whether it be boys, a pretty scarf, bag, trinkets, whatever. Particularly if it belongs to someone else. She’s a greedy little magpie. And she would love to get one over on me by stealing something from the stall right in front of my nose. She’d think it funny, I expect. I noticed she was wearing a blue chiffon scarf in church the other morning, and I remember now where I saw it before. Hanging on a clip on my stall, from where she must have stolen it. She certainly didn’t pay for it, and I didn’t give it to her.

  ‘The rest of it, the thieving from Alec Hall, well, she certainly had the opportunity if she and he were embroiled in an affair. And as for the goods found in Gina’s wardrobe? I’d say the
y were all carefully staged to implicate her. Oh, I’m quite certain that Carmina is the guilty party. It all adds up. She wanted Luc, and was prepared to do anything to get him. The girl is evil!’

  Marc gave an ominous growl deep in his throat. ‘You think my sister is evil?’

  Patsy looked him square in the eye. ‘Yes, I do. And an inveterate liar.’

  She thought for one terrible moment that he might be about to hit her, but he was far too much of a gentleman to ever strike a woman. To Patsy’s mind, he might just as well have done so for his next words hit her with the kind of rage she would never forget as long as she lived.

  ‘I don’t think you and I have anything left to say to each other, do you?’ Then he turned on his heel and strode away.

  So far as Alec Hall was concerned his decision to marry Carmina was proving to be the worst mistake of his life. Almost overnight she had turned from a sexy little minx into the wife-from-hell.

  If he asked her to do anything useful such as clean the house, which had become increasingly untidy and filthy since he’d dispensed with his housekeeper, she would fling her clothes on the floor, leave dirty plates in the sink, burn the food she was supposed to cook for him and generally be as uncooperative as possible.

  Like a spoiled child she was lazy and selfish, and all she seemed to want to do was spend his money, lie in bed all morning, laze about all afternoon and go out every night. He soon put a stop to that, although she flew into a tantrum when he locked the door and refused to allow her out of the house.

  ‘You can’t keep me prisoner!’ she screamed at him.

  ‘I can do as I please. You’re my wife, and I choose not to have my wife making an exhibition of herself on some dance floor with other men. I need you to stay home and be nice to me.’

  ‘I never asked to be your damned wife, so why should I do anything to please you?’

  He smiled at her. All of this high drama was simply because she hadn’t got her own way. Alec realised now that he had been but a pawn in her plan to trap Luc. A plan that had badly back-fired. ‘Because the alternative is a real prison, not a locked door, which is surely far worse? Think of your poor sister behind bars, and all because of you.’

  ‘I don’t give a damn about Gina, I care about me and what you’ve done to me. You’ve robbed me of my one chance of happiness.’

  ‘Would you like some kimchi?’ he asked, setting a plate of rice and spicy stewed vegetables in front of her.

  ‘No!’ Carmina picked the dish up and threw it at his head, hating him all the more when he ducked and the missile fell harmlessly to the floor. Then she flounced off to bed and sobbed her heart out in a lather of self-pity.

  Later, when Alec joined her, he really had to be quite firm with her to make the girl understand what a wife’s duties were. No longer did she respond to his kisses and teasing as she had before the wedding. She absolutely refused to remove her clothing in front of him so that he was compelled to rip them from her body.

  When he slid a hand over her inner thigh, she didn’t moan and sob for him to take her as she once did. She fought like a tiger, bit and scratched and clawed at his face in a vain attempt to prevent him from having her.

  Alec found this all rather titivating, and laughing in her face he simply spread her legs, captured her flailing wrists and took her anyway. She was his wife, for God’s sake, whatever other useful purpose did she have?

  He found himself thinking more and more of his lovely Joo Eun, his silver pearl. Why had he ever deserted her? He hadn’t really expected her to follow him when the army had withdrawn from Korea. He’d left her in tears without a second thought. He must have been mad. Was it a flaw in him that once he’d had a woman he soon grew bored with her and started looking around for another? If so, then his other flaw was to marry far too many of them. Marrying this one had been the worst mistake of all.

  Patsy was distraught. Marc wasn’t even speaking to her. She hadn’t set eyes on him in days, except at a distance across the market when he would look at her coldly and walk away in the opposite direction.

  There was no talk now of an autumn wedding, nor even a spring one. So far as Patsy could see, it was all over between them and she was heartbroken. She’d lost everything she loved and valued simply because she’d had this great urge to save other people from their misfortunes.

  At least, unlike Amy, she wasn’t trying to save the world.

  Weeks went by and she continued to visit Gina in prison. She was painfully thin, positively gaunt, with lank hair, pallid grey skin and finger nails chewed to the quick. The laughing girl with the glorious eyes who had battled with and defeated a devastating illness was now a mere shadow of her former self,

  Trying to make conversation with her across the table in the visitor’s room was heartbreakingly difficult, if not well-nigh impossible. Patsy wanted to hug her, and did take her hands to give them a little squeeze only for a large, formidable prison warden to bark at her that contact with a prisoner was not allowed.

  Gina seemed locked in her own private world so Patsy would chat about some inane nonsense, such as how Terry Hall had bought one of those new Isetta bubble-cars, or the fact she’d acquired a new line of nylon stockings in jazzy pinks and blues to sell on the stall, but Gina never responded. She wasn’t in the least interested, and why should she be? She wasn’t able to ride in such a car, or wear a pair of powder blue nylon stockings herself.

  Patsy said nothing about her own problems with Marc. Where was the point? Dreadful though they might be, they were nothing by comparison to Gina’s troubles.

  It was one Friday after she’d returned from such a visit that Carlotta came hurrying across Champion Street to gather Patsy in her arms and press her to her warm breast.

  ‘Patsy, at last I find you. Where have you been hiding yourself? I not see you for ages!’

  ‘I’ve been a bit taken up with the hat stall, as usual,’ Patsy said, by way of excuse.

  ‘I know you still go visit my girl.’ Tears stood proud in Carlotta’s lovely brown eyes as she pressed her hands to her trembling mouth. ‘I thank you so much for your loyalty and kindness. We all do. If we cannot get her out of that place, then at least she know she not forgotten, eh?’

  Patsy couldn’t meet the other woman’s eyes. How she longed to tell Carlotta what she suspected but knew she could never do that. If Marc had believed her, then he might have been able to discuss the matter with his parents, but he insisted that Patsy was only out to make mischief. How could he even think such a thing of her? Despite claiming he loved her and wanted to marry her, Marc would still allow her no say on family matters.

  Patsy kissed the older woman on the cheek, told her that she’d just left Gina and she was well, considering, then made to walk away. Carlotta stopped her.

  ‘Don’t go. Come to supper tonight. The children miss you.’

  Patsy was embarrassed. ‘Er, I can’t, sorry, not tonight.’ How could she when Marc still wasn’t speaking to her?

  Carlotta dismissed her protest with a flap of her hands. ‘I know there is big problem between you and Marc. He is like bear with sore head for weeks now. Don’t tell me what it is, I don’t want to know. But he love you. You love him. It time you make up. You come to supper tonight. It Papa’s birthday and I will have no more pain, no more sulks. Carmina is coming too, with her new husband. Tonight, we want all our family round us. Seven o’clock, no excuses.’

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Amy set off for Albert Square on the night of the planned rally, as planned. Chris deposited young Danny with Aunty Dot, as usual, and set off after her. He was determined, once and for all, to confront the bloke who had stolen his beloved wife and deal with him, man to man.

  When he arrived at the square, dominated as it was by its neo-Gothic Town Hall, and the gloomy monstrosity that was the Northern Assurance Building, he didn’t, at first, appreciate what was happening. It was a cold October evening, already quite dark and the entire area was packed
with parked cars, buses, and people dashing to a cinema or to the Lyons Corner House. He paid little attention to the huddle of people gathering by the railings, all carrying something that looked like placards or banners. Nor did he pause to admire the fine spire above the monument to Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s consort, for whom the square was named.

  His gaze was fixed upon Amy, his heart full as he watched her run over to a young man whom Chris instantly recognised as the one he’d seen her with on that previous occasion. She didn’t kiss him, he noticed. Nor did he touch her, as he had done before. But then there were other people around this time, one of them a young girl who was leaning against him. Could that be the young man’s wife? Had she been equally betrayed? he wondered, feeling a rush of sympathy for the poor girl.

  He began then to take more notice of the rest of the group. They seemed to be a mixed bunch, comprising people of all ages. They were organising themselves into some sort of orderly fashion, with lines two or three deep to form a procession while the neighbouring statue of Gladstone gazed stonily down upon them, holding aloft an admonishing finger.

  Chris began to grow curious. What was going on? He realised he was very far from alone in his interest. The number of spectators had grown to a sizeable crowd, some of them quite noisy.

  The procession suddenly brightened as torches were lit and he saw then what it was all about. He read the words set out in bold print on the home-made banners. ‘Ban the Bomb’. ‘CND’. ‘Save our children’.

  The young man suddenly put an arm about Amy, and one around the other woman too, urging them both forward as the procession began to slowly move. Chris moved much quicker. He crossed the short distance between them at a run, reaching the group just as they climbed the steps around Albert’s monument.

  ‘Hey, you,’ Chris shouted, ‘Keep your hands off my wife.’ And lunging straight at the young man Chris socked him one, right in the jaw.