Winnie Watkins and Sam Beckett did a knees-up to All The Nice Girls Love a Sailor, and everybody joined in, laughing and clapping at their antics. The Bertalone girls danced too, looking a picture in their rainbow of dresses, their mama and papa looking on with proud smiles.
The food was excellent: ham sandwiches, sausage rolls and huge stacks of Big Molly’s home made pork pies, even some fancy vol-au-vents filled with shrimps in a pink sauce, tiny cocktail sausages and cubes of cheese and pineapple on cocktail sticks. Fanny Craddock would have been proud of them. Champion Street had never seen the like.
Best of all, the bride and groom were clearly in love and happy together, hardly out of each other’s arms all evening, smooching away to It’s All In The Game, and the Everly Brothers Dream Lover. Rocking and bopping, and generally having fun.
And nobody could miss the interest Marc Bertalone was showing in Patsy Bowman either. He kept asking her to dance and she kept on refusing, till in the end Barry Holmes called out, ‘Go on, lass, give the lad a chance. He only wants to hold you in his arms. Don’t be so mean.’
Blushing furiously, and to stop the chorus of agreement which this remark provoked, Patsy was forced to give in.
‘You can take that grin off your face,’ she hissed at him, slipping easily into his arms, just as if she were meant to be there.
‘Oh, no, it’s staying right where everyone can see it. And why shouldn’t I look happy? Haven’t I got the prettiest girl in the street in my arms at last.’
Patsy felt a powerful urge to talk to him, for things to be as they had once been between them, yet couldn’t think of a thing to say. Was it really her that he liked, or Fran Poulson? If only she could be certain. Patsy remembered his fear when she’d been set on climbing that great crane, and finally thanked him, rather stiffly and awkwardly, for helping to tackle Quinn.
‘For God’s sake, Patsy, you don’t need to thank me. I wouldn’t have let you face him on your own. I thought you were so brave. Still my little lion-heart. And how is it with the sisters?’
Patsy almost smiled. ‘Better. Even Annie has mellowed.’
They both glanced across to where the Higginson sisters were sitting on stools talking to Winnie. They were drinking nothing stronger than best Yorkshire tea but they looked happy enough. Patsy waved to them, and Clara waved back. Annie gave what might pass for a smile, and Patsy giggled. ‘See what I mean?’
‘If you can’t win her round and make that frozen heart of hers melt, nobody can.’
Patsy cast him a sideways glance, struggling to read what he meant by this remark, but his eyes were hooded, their expression unfathomable.
They danced two dances together, both slow waltzes. Patsy was just starting to relax and allow Marc to rest his cheek against hers while she happily breathed in the familiar scent of his skin, the vanilla of his father’s ice cream, the incense from his mother’s parlour, the fresh tang of his soap, when Fran appeared at his elbow.
‘This is a ladies’ excuse me, so excuse me, please? It’s my turn now.’
‘We’re not done yet,’ Marc told her. He’d been hoping to take Patsy for a bit of a stroll later so that they could be alone to talk, and maybe she’d let him kiss her again.
Fran elbowed Patsy to one side and wriggled herself into his arms. ‘Course you’re not done yet, not by a long chalk. The night is young. Move over, Patsy, love, and let a real woman show him what’s what.’
Patsy stalked away, head high, not even listening to Marc begging her not to go far. Alec Hall noticed her obvious distress and quickly asked her to dance with him instead. ‘Come on, Patsy, love. Nobody sits out tonight.’
Patsy was glad of his offer, which made her feel so much less conspicuous, but her heart was aching. Why hadn’t Marc refused to allow Fran to separate them? Why didn’t he care enough to do that?
Alec answered her unspoken concern. ‘He’s only being polite, and it really is an excuse-me. You can always go and get him back in a minute.’
‘Over my dead body!’
‘Aw, come on, Patsy, I’ve seen you two together often enough. Don’t let pride spoil things for you.’ After a few moments, Alec said, ‘Go on, Fran has had him long enough. You go and excuse them now.’
Patsy decided it might be worth a try. Why let Fran win so easily?
Peeved with the way her life had turned out, that she was in fact no better off, Fran felt filled with a determination to do something radical to put things right. It was long past time she took her revenge on Eddie Davidson. She’d lost her child, lost her lover, almost been attacked and abused by Quinn’s heavy mob. Somebody, she decided, needed to pay for all that, still not recognising her own role in this litany of misfortunes.
What was worse, she’d seen an announcement in the paper that the awful Josie had given birth to a healthy son, and she still had her husband. It just didn’t seem fair.
Why couldn’t she find herself a decent chap? Fran asked herself. Marc Bertalone would do nicely. Good looking, with steady employment, and she always had quite fancied him. Patsy Bowman must be wetting herself, she wanted him so much. But in order to work her charms, Fran needed to get him on his own, up a dark alley.
‘I need to post a letter,’ she told him now, gazing at him with huge, amber eyes. ‘I forgot to do it earlier and it’s important, but I daren’t walk down the street on my own in the dark. What if Quinn’s bully boys are lurking up a dark alley, just waiting to grab me again, like they did our Amy?’
Marc considered this unlikely, and said as much as he glanced about, seeking Patsy. She was dancing with Alec Hall, laughing at something he’d said, obviously enjoying herself. She wouldn’t miss him for a few minutes, and the post box was only a few yards down the street. Out of politeness, and just in case Fran had a point about Quinn, he agreed.
They walked together down the darkened street, Fran popped the letter in the box, and then jumped as if startled. ‘Did you hear that? Someone’s following us.’ And she flung herself into his arms.
‘I didn’t hear a thing.’ Marc tried to extricate himself from her grip, longing to get back to the dancing, and to Patsy.
And then Fran burst into tears. She put her head on his shoulder and sobbed. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Marc, I just can’t help it. I keep on crying like this, all the time. My nerves are in shreds. How will I cope? No decent bloke will ever want to know me now. They’ll think Quinn had his wicked way with me, that I’ve been ruined. You think that too, don’t you?’ She gazed up at him out of liquid eyes.
‘No, course I don’t,’ Marc stammered, awkwardly patting her shoulder and wishing he was anywhere but here, alone in the dark with Fran Poulson. Patsy would never believe in his innocence after this. He was done for. He thought he heard her coming and glanced up hopefully, saw what he imagined to be a fleeting shadow, heard the tinkle of breaking glass. ‘I heard something then, did you?’
Fran lifted her ruby lips to his, so thick with lipstick, he noticed, that they glistened in the lamplight. ‘It was only a cat.’ As if to confirm her words, there came a loud howling and caterwauling, like tom cats fighting. Marc half turned away, listening carefully.
‘You’re repulsed by me, aren’t you?’
‘Why would I be repulsed?’
She wriggled closer in his arms, pressing her plump breasts against his hard chest, managing to undo a couple of buttons on her blouse as she did so as to reveal a fine cleavage. ‘Show me then, prove to me that you’ve not been turned off by Quinn’s attentions. You came to save me, and I can never thank you enough for that. Never! Though I wouldn’t mind giving it a try. What do you say, Marc love? One for old time’s sake, eh?’
Marc saw the pit opening up before him. One more tentative, polite step on his part and he’d be in it. Taking a firm grasp on both Fran’s wrists, he unclasped her hands from around his neck and set her a little distance away from him.
‘Stop this right now. It’s time you got a grip on yourself. We don’t have that kind o
f relationship, Fran, not any more, though there are plenty of blokes who’d be happy to be seen out with you. You were saved from Quinn’s unwelcome attentions, thanks to Patsy. It’s her you should be grateful to, not me. Now stop putting on this silly helpless act and behave yourself.’
He looked into her eyes and saw the flash of anger in those amber depths, watched as her expression hardened from seductive and sensual to something he could only describe as ice cold rage.
Then she pulled her hands free and slapped him across the face. ‘Wait till I tell dear, darling Patsy what you just did to me, Marc Bertalone!’
‘I did nothing.’
‘Ah, but she doesn’t know that. I’ll make sure that l screw up any last chances you might have had with her.’
Patsy was intercepted on her way over by Jimmy Ramsay offering her a hamburger. He was frying them on a griddle, he said, American style, and would she like to try one?
Patsy politely declined, but by the time she reached the spot where Marc and Fran had been dancing, there wasn’t a sign of them. They’d vanished.
Winnie saw her looking helplessly around. From her chair set next to Jimmy Ramsay’s stall where she could enjoy the smell of frying onions, she shouted across, ‘He’s just nipped to the post box with a letter. He’ll be back in a jiffy.’
So that was the tale he was telling, was it? Yet Patsy could see that Fran too had disappeared, and it didn’t take a genius to work out why. She spotted a couple of figures disappearing into the shadows of the side alley that led round to the back of Marc’s house, and her heart plummeted. She’d been right all along about Marc Bertalone. Flirt with anything in a skirt and didn’t mean a word he said. Girl mad!
Winnie Watkins saw her expression and followed the direction of her gaze, a puzzled frown on her face.
Convinced she must be the only one not having a good time, Patsy could bear it no longer and walked away from the market, the sounds of the music and laughter fading as she strode along Champion Street, turned left on to Hardman Street and kept on walking.
How long she walked, she’d really no idea, but having done a complete circle she came back up Champion Street from the direction of Lower Byrom Street. The first person she met was Big Molly.
The bride’s mother was sitting glum and silent on a kitchen chair just by her own front door, an untouched plate of food in front of her, Ozzy with a full pint of stout he clearly hadn’t even tasted was seated at her side. Unheard of for Big Molly and Ozzy not to eat and drink, let alone sit in such close proximity to each other.
Mr and Mrs George, the groom’s parents, hadn’t turned up at all.
Patsy went and sat with them for a while, then Clara came over to say that she and Annie were ready to retire for the night, and Patsy went home with them. She was in bed by ten thirty, worn out and drained of all emotion.
Back at the party, Marc looked everywhere for her but found no sign. Winnie told him she’d walked off down the street, and later, when he couldn’t find her there either, that she’d gone home with the sisters. He was filled with regret for the lost opportunity, angry for stupidly allowing himself to be put into such a vulnerable position by Fran. How would he ever get out of this one?
Afterwards, no one could deny that the party to celebrate the young couple’s unconventional, romantic wedding at Gretna Green had been great fun. A happy evening with plenty of laughter, good food and booze, singing and dancing. A night to remember.
But as an attempt to breach the chasm between the two families, it had failed miserably. The feud wasn’t over, not by a long chalk.
And following this failure, Chris and Amy had their worst row yet. Amy was desperately disappointed and upset that his family hadn’t even bothered to turn up.
‘We went to all that trouble. It was a special party to celebrate our wedding, and they didn’t even send their apologies. At least my mother baked cakes and pies for us, and she’s accepted you.’
‘Amy, stop kidding yourself. Molly has not accepted me, not for a minute. She sat in a corner all night in a sulk. Ozzy too. I’m still the son of Thomas George, her sworn enemy. She hates me.’
‘That’s not true!’ Tears were rolling down Amy’s cheeks, but Chris was angry. He hated to see his young wife treated so badly, by his own family as much as her own. First their wedding wasn’t exactly as he’d planned it with no money left to pay for a honeymoon, then she’d nearly been killed as a result of her mother’s meddling, and now even their party had been ruined too.
‘She doesn’t give a shit about me, nor you neither. If Big Molly cared half as much as she claims to, she wouldn’t go on hurting you like this.’
‘Don’t say such things about my mother.’
‘Why not? It’s true! I’m not saying she doesn’t love you, in her own idiosyncratic way she probably does, but she certainly doesn’t care a jot about your happiness. She’s too wrapped up in her own feelings even to consider yours. She doesn’t give a thought to your safety.’
‘How dare you say that?’
Amy gazed frantically about their tiny bedsit, the cramped living conditions overlaid by the smell of the fish market, a bitter reminder of their lack of money, of decent employment or hope for the future. And then her gaze fell upon the double bed, the symbol of their failed marriage.
‘I’ve had enough, Chris. It’s over! I can’t go on like this any longer. This feud is never going to end. The whole thing is tearing us apart and I can’t bear it.’
Amy snatched up her coat and bag, and marched to the door. She could hardly see for tears, the pain in her chest cutting through her like a hot knife. ‘I’ll come back for the rest of my things tomorrow.’
‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’
‘Home.’
‘This is your home, dammit, with me. I’m your husband.’ In two strides he reached her, knocked the bag out of her hands and, grabbing her shoulders, gave her a little shake, just to make her cease her crying long enough to listen. ‘We have to stop worrying about our parents, Amy, and this damn’ feud of theirs. We need to get on with our lives in our own way. We have to stop trying to please your mam, or my father, and concentrate on our own happiness. If my parents choose never to speak to us, so be it. To hell with them. I have you!’
‘How can you say that?’ Amy was almost screaming now, beside herself with misery and disappointment and frustration. And a terrible, yawning fear that had her in its grip.
‘Because I love you! You’re the first person I think of when I wake in the morning, my last thought at night. All day I look forward to the moment I’ll come home to you, even here, in this awful flat, even when I know I shall disappoint you by once again admitting that I still haven’t found a job. You are the only reason my heart is still beating. Why else would I care whether it did or not? Amy, you are my very soul.’
‘Oh, Chris!’ She felt herself melt at his words, and an aching void opened within her. ‘I love you so much.’
‘And I love you.’
Then she was in his arms and he was kissing her with a passion she’d quite forgotten through all the trauma of the last months. His hands were in her hair, cupping her face, peeling off her clothes, and her own hands were tearing at his shirt, popping buttons in her anxiety to match flesh to flesh.
There was a roaring in her ears, as if the great barrier of ice that had separated them for so long had snapped apart deep inside her, cracked and shattered, leaving her overwhelmed by emotion. It flooded into her, searing every nerve ending, threatening to tear her apart.
She was clutching at him, grabbing his hair, opening her mouth for him to devour as he crushed her to him. She wanted, needed, him so much. Never had she felt such a powerful compulsion, as if she must somehow meld herself into him, make herself a part of his very being. She could feel his bare flesh burning beneath her hands, the pounding of his heart against hers. He lifted her, carried her over to the bed and together they fell on to the tousled sheets.
&n
bsp; ‘I love you, Amy. Oh, God, how I love you.’
He snapped open her bra and where her panties went she had no idea and really didn’t care. When he entered her, the fullness of him delighted her, making her his at last. Amy wrapped her legs about his waist, rocking, matching her rhythm to his, and as he pushed harder, turning her bones to liquid fire, she thought she must be the luckiest, happiest woman alive.
Chapter Forty-Five
There were many thick heads the next morning but the market was crowded, as always on a Saturday. Women picking over Barry Holmes’s vegetables, arguing over which apple or pear they were prepared to buy; little girls with pigtails handing over their Saturday pennies for a dressing-doll book; young boys getting yelled at for kicking a ball under the canvas of Jimmy Ramsay’s stall. One urchin eating chestnuts out of a paper cone, another licking an ice cream.
The stalls themselves were piled high with all manner of goods: pots and pans, bundles of firewood, second-hand clothing, cure-all medicines, sarsaparilla and winter warm woollies, stacks of books and Beano comics, military medals, stamp collections, and old sheet music of songs by Gilbert and Sullivan, and Kathleen Ferrier.
Marc, oblivious to it all, strode through the outdoor market without a glance to right or left. He had but one thought on his mind, to make it up with Patsy.
He neatly avoided a barrow loaded high with flowers being wheeled into position by the big double doors of the market hall, paid no attention to Big Molly’s bellow to another of her long-suffering customers.
‘Make your mind up, do you want tasty Lancashire or mild? It’s all the same to me, I’m not eating it.’
He pushed open the doors and headed for the hat stall. It was lucky that Saturday was his day off. The sooner he set things right between them, the better. He found Patsy busily stitching a figured veil on to a blue velvet Juliet cap. She didn’t even glance up as he entered. Clara, who’d been sitting beside her, excused herself and hurried off to Belle’s café in search of a cup of tea.
Fools Fall in Love Page 37