Pleased with her enterprise, Big Molly Poulson sat back to wait on events.
It was only a day or two after Molly’s secret delivery that the daughter in question was rolling in long grass, giggling and gasping and begging her lover for more. There was a faint hint of spring in the air on this cold February day, not that Fran cared about the weather. She only had to look at the sexy little smile playing at one corner of Eddie’s mouth and she went all funny inside.
They’d taken a drive out into the Yorkshire Dales, enjoying a picnic by a gushing stream, now she happily spread her legs and encouraged him to get on with it.
Eddie wasted no time in obeying.
He peeled off her clothes, one by one, her batwing sweater and cotton skirt with its layers of flounced petticoats which might be pretty but was a nuisance as it got in the way. Next he stripped off the pink satin knickers and black suspender belt, which excited him. Eddie had objected to the girdle and Fran had never worn it again. He had very fixed ideas on how he liked his women to look.
Finally, he rolled down each stocking, smoothing her shapely legs and pretty feet, desire rising in him as he did so, making him instantly hard, so that by the time they were bare and she was stroking his chest with her toes, the agony in his groin was almost unbearable. He longed to slam her down and drive into her with all he’d got but valiantly managed to hold back, wanting it to be good for her too, which was generally to his advantage. And they had all afternoon, after all, since Josie was at her mother’s.
He stroked the soft cushiony flesh of her inner thighs, parted her legs and touched the secret cleft, caressing and tantalising, hearing her soft moans, and as he slipped his fingers inside he heard her breath quicken, saw her eyelids flicker closed in ecstasy. He paused, to fumble with his flies.
‘Ooh, don’t stop now, do it some more. Please, please. Put your fingers here, no, further down. Oh, God, Eddie, you’re so clever with your hands.’
‘All engineers are good with their hands, sweetheart. Part of the tools of our trade.’
‘Go on, show me what other tools you’ve got handy,’ she urged, letting her mouth fall slack as she ran the tip of her pink tongue over her lips.
That’s what Eddie liked most about Fran, her eager passion. So unlike his wife, who never refused him but was only really keen to have sex at the time of the month which she believed offered the best chance for her to get pregnant. That was all she ever thought about these days. Babies! Eddie was sick of the whole subject.
It wasn’t that he didn’t adore Josie, and she was a good wife to him in a lot of ways. Never made any demands or the slightest fuss, no matter what time he came in at night. But she’d got this bee in her bonnet about having a kid, and nothing would shake it. Eddie didn’t even know if he wanted one, but he certainly didn’t want the getting of one to stand in the way of pleasure. Seemed odd somehow that it should. Most of all he hated seeing her in tears every month when she’d failed yet again, despite all his best efforts. It was frustrating and humiliating.
Fran knew nothing about any of this, of course. She believed his marriage to be chaste, that he’d quite lost interest in his boring little wife.
‘Go on, go on, don’t stop!’ She brought his straying attention back to the task in hand and Eddie obligingly applied himself, kissing every tiny part of her, devouring all those secret places and bringing her to a pitch of near madness.
Fran flung back her arms in apparent surrender, although Eddie knew that the moment he entered her, as he was doing now, she’d grip him like a tiger, clench him tight with her cunny, and nothing on God’s earth would separate them then until he was thoroughly spent. God, she was good! One of the best he’d had, and he’d enjoyed quite a few.
Afterwards, as he lay exhausted beside her, she licked his ear and whispered, ‘I want that all over again.’
Eddie laughed, a coarse, smoky sound. ‘You’ll have to wait a minute till I get my breath back then I’ll be only too happy to oblige. Though I’m not sure I’ve brought enough johnnies with me, not if we go on at this rate.’
‘You don’t have to worry,’ Fran told him. ‘I’ve a little treat for you today. I’ve had myself fitted with a Dutch cap. It will be so much better, so good not to have them rubbers in the way.’ She nibbled his ear lobe. ‘Why don’t we try it? I’m sure you’ll spot the difference.’
Some innate sense of caution made Eddie uneasy. He didn’t care for the idea of losing control of this most intimate situation. He never had been one to court danger, not even when he was serving his time with the Royal Navy. He’d happily seen out the war working in stores, though he could tell a good tale and embroider reality with a bit of adventurous fiction, should anyone ask. Making out he’d been bombarded with shells and suffered a near death experience was always a turn-on for women. Which, in his view, was what life was all about. Sex. Pleasure. Why else would women have been invented, if not to please men?
But he said none of this to Fran. And he knew that she liked things just as they were between them. She had no greater wish than he to court trouble, nor did she expect commitment from him. That had been agreed between them from the start, so if she said she’d taken care of it, he’d no reason not to believe her. Fran was a canny lass. And so sexy! Oh, God, and he definitely wanted it again.
‘You’ll be the death of me, woman, you will really. You’re the sort of crumpet who drives a man demented.’
‘Ooh, Eddie, what a thing to say!’ And as Fran pushed his trousers down to his ankles with her agile toes, then wrapped her plump thighs around his waist, she was telling him, between gasps, how she would, in fact, be the making of him.
‘Ooh, what power you have, what zest and energy. I’m the one who can’t keep up with you. A real man you are.’ And she let out a great squeal, sobbing as he thrust into her over and over again, tuning her rhythm perfectly to his. ‘Oh, yes, yes! You’re wonderful, Eddie. Absolutely incredible!’
This time it was Fran who slept, or appeared to, her mind busy with delightful plans, wondering if she could ever manage to sneak Eddie into her bedroom via the wash house roof without waking her mam. Think of it, a whole night alone with him in her bed! No, she’d never get away with it, not with British Gaumont News, the eyes and ears of the world, for a mother.
The frustration of having to live at home under Molly’s gimlet gaze, made her want to weep with despair. The sooner she left home, the better.
It was only later, when Fran was getting ready for bed that she realised she’d forgotten to take the Dutch cap with her. It was still in its blue box in her knicker drawer.
Chapter Ten
One Friday afternoon, when Annie handed over two one-pound notes and one ten-shilling note as her wages, a pitiful sum in Patsy’s opinion for yet another boring week, she went straight over to the music stall to rifle through the records and see if she could spot Too Many Heartbreaks, or Istanbul, Not Constantinople, which were two of her favourites. She’d already bought Green Door, even though she still had no way of playing it.
‘Don’t much care for Frankie Vaughan myself. Obviously, all you girls think he’s a dreamboat.’
The masculine voice speaking in her ear made Patsy jump as if she’d been stung. Spinning round, she found herself facing the most beautiful pair of brown eyes she’d ever encountered, rich as chocolate and alive with merry laughter. They belonged to a tall, strong, good looking young man whom she recognised in an instant. One of the Bertalones, the demi-gods she watched in secret from behind her bedroom lace curtains. Her heart started to race and since she couldn’t think of one sensible thing to say, Patsy was glad that he kept on talking.
‘I quite like Johnnie Ray. Here I am - Broken-hearted is a good one, and Cry, of course. My favourite though is Rock Island Line by Lonnie Donegan. I got pig iron, I got pig iron, I got all pig iron,’ he crooned.
When still she didn’t speak, he laughed. ‘I’m Marc Bertalone, by the way. I reckon I shall be broken hearted if you don�
��t at least say hello. So, which are you going to buy?’
His dark hair was neatly cut and slicked back, a crinkled sea of waves, although some curls sprang stubbornly forward on to a brow framing the kind of classically oval face you would expect an Italian to have, lean and with high cheekbones, completed with a perfectly straight Roman nose.
Patsy loosened her dry tongue from the roof of her mouth. ‘I – I don’t have a record player.’ Now why had she said that? How stupid! She sounded like an idiot, one of those boring people everyone called square.
‘You don’t have a record player? I don’t believe it! Whyever not?’
She cleared her throat, striving to sound casual and unconcerned. ‘Matter of fact I do have a record player, course I do, only not with me. I’ve only been here a short time and, um – haven’t sent for my stuff yet.’
‘You’re staying with the Higginson sisters, right? Are they your aunts or something?’ He leaned back against the counter, hands in the pockets of his blue jeans, smiling at her. ‘I see you come and go when I catch the bus to the art college in the city. It is good to have a new pretty face around.’
Patsy felt the ground start to slip away from beneath her feet. He was an art student, sophisticated and worldly, and he thought her pretty! Oh, if only she didn’t feel so tongue-tied.
‘And you’ve certainly livened things up around here,’ he continued. ‘You seem to have caused quite a stir.’
She blinked. As always, Patsy’s damaged self-esteem was quickly on the alert, her ears pricked for any signs of criticism or put-down. Was he trying to score some sort of point? Make out it wasn’t her actual presence that interested him, or her looks, so much as the gossip attached to her, the things she’d said and done, like that flaming pie, the outlandish clothes she liked to wear, or not paying for a bacon butty. ‘Meaning what exactly?’ she snapped.
He shook his head, put up his hands in a defensive gesture. ‘Don’t blame me if the older generation are a bit set in their ways. They’re square, right? Love the pants by the way.’
Patsy relaxed a little, almost giggled. ‘Toreadors.’
‘Yeah, cool! Sweater looks good too.’ His eyes flickered briefly over her, as if he’d like to study more closely what was under the sweater. He edged nearer and Patsy held her breath.
‘Thought I’d introduce myself. Considered you might be in need of someone on your side, someone batting in your wicket, as it were. Why don’t we go for a coffee? I’ll tell you all about how I plan to spend my free time getting to know the prettiest girl on the street, and you can tell me how you came to be here, and if you’re really going to go on working at that dreadful hat stall. Oh, and you can explain why you have been avoiding me all these weeks, when I know you’re just dying to get better acquainted.’
‘I haven’t!’ Patsy was outraged as her cheeks fired up.
‘It certainly feels that way. Every time you see me, you hurry away in the opposite direction.’
Most normal people, those with safe, secure backgrounds, would take this show of natural curiosity in the spirit in which it was offered. Nothing more than mild flirtation as a way of making friends.
Sadly, Patsy had been hurt too often in the past to take anything or anyone at face value. In addition, she’d never had much to do with boys, having attended an all girl school, and certainly never had a boy friend. Nor did she have any intention of looking for one. Love and marriage, and all of that stuff, seemed too fraught with problems and pain for her to take the risk. It clearly hadn’t worked for her mother, so why would it work for her?
Patsy was determined to trust no one and to keep her private life just that; private.
Besides, now that she came to look at him, Marc was nothing special. Just a boy with a big mouth. Rather a nice mouth, actually. Full lips, wide and smiling. She half closed her eyes in an attempt to blot out his handsome features, and, heart still pounding in her ears, lifted her chin in a characteristic gesture of defiance and said, ‘Why would you want to?’ unconsciously imitating Annie’s tone as well as the words she so frequently used. ‘Can’t you find any other girls willing to go out with you?’
That was clever, she thought, instantly regretting her vow of eternal chastity. As soon as I get to meet a boy I quite fancy, I alienate him from the start. Why did she always have to say the wrong thing? Patsy stared miserably at the record in her hands, wishing for the floor to open and swallow her up.
But he seemed to think her comments highly amusing and laughed out loud. ‘I thought maybe we could be friends. Isn’t that good enough reason?’
She knew from bitter experience that friends needed to be made with caution. They always got too nosy, just as he was being now, pestering her with questions she really had no wish to answer. Then when you weren’t forthcoming, they got fed up and dropped you.
On the few occasions she had owned up to having no family, not even an adopted one, except foster parents who didn’t want her, the tentative friendships had quickly fizzled out. One of her so-called friends’ mothers had actually told her she really didn’t want her beloved daughter to mix with ‘people of your sort’. Just as if Patsy had an infectious disease.
‘And I know you’re interested in me,’ Marc continued, ‘because I’ve seen you watching me from up in your room. Don’t think I haven’t noticed. You’re there most mornings, peeping from behind your lace curtains.’ He laughed again, as if he’d said something amusing.
Shame and embarrassment seared through Patsy like a flame, scalding her cheeks to crimson, scorching her pride. ‘I have not! Why would I watch you, for God’s sake? Who do you think you are that I should be interested in a twerp like you? And if you think I need your pity, you couldn’t be more wrong. As a matter of fact I don’t need anyone on my side . . . batting in my wicket, as you call it. I can manage perfectly well to look after myself.’
‘I’m sure you can. I just thought . . .’
‘That’s the trouble with you men. So damned full of yourselves! Think you only have to flatter a girl and she’ll roll over and think you’re adorable.’
‘Hey, I just wanted to buy you a cup of frothy coffee.’
‘And really, I don’t think I could be friends with someone who doesn’t like Frankie Vaughan. I doubt we’d have anything in common.’ Patsy half turned, ready to flounce away, then bounced back to say something more, just in case she hadn’t made her point clearly enough. ‘I expect you thought I’d be easy, one of those sort of girls who’ll open her legs for anyone. Well, I’m not, right? And even if I were, I certainly wouldn’t be looking in your direction.’
His eyes darkened, and there was no smile on his face now. ‘Don’t flatter yourself. I wouldn’t touch you if you were the last girl on earth and I was gasping for it, which I certainly am not. I’ve no trouble finding birds ready and eager to go out with me.’
‘There’s a fool born every minute.’
‘And from what I’ve heard, you’re nothing but a cheap little thief.’
At which point she smashed the record over his head. As Patsy stormed out through the door she heard Alec Hall shout, ‘Hey, you’ll have to pay for that.’
‘Get him to pay for it. It’s his head that broke it.’
Living with the Higginson sisters was not proving to be easy. If Patsy stepped one inch out of line they were on to her, lecturing and hectoring and ordering her to behave. They were so well mannered, so correct. They would ask her to join them for supper but Patsy would more often than not make some excuse, preferring to take a tray upstairs to her room where she could eat in private without being under constant scrutiny or bombarded with a litany of questions.
She only had to be alone with one of them for five minutes, five seconds, and they’d start. ‘Where did you say you were born?’
‘Under a gooseberry bush.’
‘And your parents, have you written and told them where you are living now? I could provide a stamp, or post the letter for you.’ And when Patsy
didn’t respond they’d start on about her school, asking if it was in Manchester, or Cumbria, or Yorkshire; if it was a private school.
‘No, anyone could go, so long as they could afford the fees.’
‘So your parents were quite well off then?’
‘They’d pay anything to get me out of the house.’
Light laughter. ‘I’m sure that’s not true.’
Patsy didn’t answer because she didn’t need their pity. She could cope perfectly well on her own, without help from anyone. Hadn’t she done so all her life? Which was why she’d walked out on the Bowmans, and how she’d come to find the sisters in the first place.
Patsy thought now that the day she’d walked out on her foster parents she must have been in shock. She hadn't even stopped to collect her things, pitifully few though they were.
Fortunately, she’d had enough money in her pocket to pay the bus fare to Southport, where this unknown grandmother had apparently lived, although not enough to pay for accommodation. She’d spent the last of it on fish and chips that first night, then slept on the cold, clean sands, a brisk sea breeze chilling her to the bone.
Finding the house had taken most of the next day. Patsy had walked for hours up and down wide streets, all of which looked exactly alike, lined with fine houses and tall trees.
Her grandmother’s old house, once she’d finally located it, was a tall Edwardian villa, locked and bolted, the windows shuttered. It looked surprisingly shabby and uncared for, the garden overgrown. Patsy had stood gazing up at those blank rectangles, at the closed door, unaware of the tears streaming down her cheeks, feeling close to exhaustion after her long search.
A woman appeared from the house next door. ‘Excuse me, but were you looking for Mrs Matthews? I’m afraid she recently passed away.’
Fools Fall in Love Page 8