by Annie Groves
He was smiling at Trixie and she was smiling back at him. As she watched, Bella saw Alan go over to her, put his arm around her and then bend his head to kiss her.
Bella started to stand up, her face red with fury. Neither of them had seen her. They were oblivious to everything but what they were doing. And it was disgusting. Alan was fondling Trixie’s breast. Well, they wouldn’t be feeling so pleased with themselves when they found out that she’d seen what they were up to.
The bus started to move, throwing Bella back into her seat. Alan, her husband, was messing around with Trixie. Well, she’d soon put a stop to that. Just wait until he got home.
Until he got home? Why didn’t she go to the office now and confront them, and then let everyone know what a sly cat that Trixie really was? Kissing another woman’s husband and letting him do what he shouldn’t with her.
Bella was beside herself with rage, but eager as she was to confront Alan, something was holding her back. Perhaps she ought to tell her mother first. Yes, she decided, that was what she would do.
* * *
‘Oh, it’s you, Bella.’
Bella wasn’t used to her mother greeting her with such a lack of enthusiasm.
‘Mummy, something dreadful’s happened.’
‘If it’s those refugees getting on your nerves again, then all I can say is that it’s a pity that you aren’t expecting. No one would expect you to house the likes of them then. You’ll never guess what your aunt Francine’s had the cheek to do,’ she continued without pausing for breath or to allow Bella to say anything. ‘She’s only written to say that she wants to know where Jack’s been evacuated to. I’ll have to go over to Jean’s now, otherwise I’ll have Francine coming over here and your father won’t like that.’
Bella wasn’t interested in her mother’s anger with her younger sister. She had far more important things to think about, after all, and her mother’s comment about the benefits of her being pregnant had given her a wonderful idea.
If she were to get pregnant then that would really put that cat Trixie in her place.
Bella mentally visualised herself making the announcement in front of Trixie and watching the look on her face. There was a name for girls who carried on with married men the way Trixie was doing, and it wasn’t a name that came with the respectability of the title ‘Mrs’ in front of it. There’d be no more talk about Alan and Trixie having been an item before Alan had married her either, not once she, Bella, was having a baby. And when she showed Trixie up for what she really was it would be her that everyone sympathised with.
Not even Alan’s parents would be able to dote so much on Trixie then. Alan would have to change his tune as well, Bella decided with satisfaction.
She was glad now that she hadn’t tackled Alan. Far better to wait, Bella decided, as she made plans. Alan had probably only kissed Trixie because she’d encouraged him. Men were like that, after all. Her mother was still going on about Jack and Francine. Bella gave her an irritated look. She needed to get home. She’d got plans to make, plans that would put that plain-faced Trixie in her place for once and for all.
‘Hey, Frankie …’
Francine stiffened, ignoring the looks she was attracting from the people forced to avoid her, as she stood immobile in the middle of the lunchtime-busy pavement, wanting to turn round and walk away without acknowledging the greeting, but knowing that she must. If her time in Hollywood had taught her nothing else it had certainly taught her how to fake a smile. She pinned it to her face now as she confronted the man coming towards her, skilfully dodging his attempt to embrace her by sidestepping him slightly and putting her hand on his arm – to hold him off, not draw him close. It might have been ten years since she had last seen him but he hadn’t changed. He might be well into his thirties now, but a man like Con could carry an extra ten years and not look any the less handsome. Clark Gable and the others wouldn’t stand a chance against him as a swoon-inducing leading man if they were in competition. That mingling of Italian, Irish and heaven knew what other blood had given him the gift of outstandingly good looks, and of course he knew it and had always known it. Known it and used that knowledge without compassion or compunction to get what he wanted.
She should, she supposed, hate him, but here again Hollywood had taught her a lot. She had seen how far good looks and the ability to trade on them could take a person, and she knew how much Con would have relished the opportunity to cash in on his physical assets if he could have brokered it. But unfortunately for him Connor Bryant had tied himself into a deal with a contract without any break-out clause, the day he had sold himself in marriage to Emily Friar.
Even if he hadn’t been standing outside a theatre, most people would look at him and know that he was connected with the stage, Francine acknowledged. His clothes, his manner, and yes, his good looks as well were all somehow larger than life. He had been calling himself ‘West End show producer’ when she had first met him. She had been as green as grass, anxious to impress and please, anxious to be something more than a girl from the chorus who could sing, but vulnerable about her ability to make it big. Of course, Con had sensed that vulnerability. That was what men like him specialised in, attracting the vulnerable to them like moths to a flame. She had been totally taken in by him and by his talk of making her a success on the London stage. She had been such a fool, but she knew better now, Hollywood hadn’t just provided her with somewhere to escape to, it had taken her naïvety and beaten it into awareness. Con was, as the saying went, flash and foolish, all show and no substance, handsome on the outside, but with nothing behind that façade except hollow emptiness. It amused her to see the telltale way in which his eyes widened slightly as he took in her polished appearance. Hollywood had ‘made over’ the girl who had known nothing whatsoever about how to dress or present herself. But not even Hollywood had been able to remould her completely into its preferred image of a Hollywood star in the making. Francine preferred cool elegance to lush sexuality, which was why she was wearing a smart coat and a matching hat, the coat open over a toning cashmere sweater and a slim-fitting brown tweed skirt. New clothes she had bought in New York before sailing home. In Hollywood you never knew who you might bump into, which was why you learned quickly to dress your best.
No city on earth could rival New York for the variety of its affordable and stylish women’s clothing, least of all perhaps a war-ready city like Liverpool, and Francine’s oatmeal tweed coat with its dark mink collar had already caused a lot of envious female looks to be directed her way.
She could see Con assessing her, his gaze, he being the man he was, lingering on the curve of her breasts beneath the cashmere. No doubt he was comparing her appearance now – her hair sleekly styled, and her clothes a perfect fit – with the teenager he had known in her ill-fitting clothes and with her untidy tangle of wild curls.
Being Con, though, he wasn’t likely to acknowledge that change, and she wasn’t surprised when he didn’t, attempting instead a casual, ‘I thought you were in America.’
‘I was,’ she agreed. ‘I was working with Gracie Fields and she wanted to come home.’ No harm in letting him know she was working with one of the world’s top names.
‘Aye? Well, I’m putting on a new review if you’re looking for work.’
Francine was hard put not to laugh. Did he really think she was fool enough to fall for that a second time?
‘I’ve already signed on with ENSA,’ she told him calmly, ‘and in fact I’d better go otherwise I’m going to be late for rehearsal.’
‘ENSA? You wouldn’t catch me wasting time on that. You’re a fool to come back. It’s America where the money is, not entertaining the troops.’
A girl plastered in makeup, beneath which Francine suspected she couldn’t be a day over fourteen, came tottering out of the theatre behind Con to put her hand possessively on his arm and glower at Francine.
Francine felt sorry for her and smiled at her, despite her hostility.
/> ‘Another of Mrs Friar’s nieces?’ she asked Con drily whilst the girl pouted and scowled and Con’s handsome face turned an unhandsome shade of dark red. Not that he would be angered by her comment; Con didn’t have the backbone to be angry about anything.
‘Leave it out, Frankie,’ he muttered, trying to step closer to her, only to be yanked back by his companion. ‘She’s just one of the girls out of the show.’
Like she had been, and probably just as smitten and stupid as she had been too, Francine thought wryly. What hurt her more now was not that Con had lied to her and led her on with promises of love and happiness and marriage, but that she had actually been daft enough to believe him.
The other girls had tried to tell her but she hadn’t listened because she hadn’t wanted to hear what they were saying. It had taken a visit from his wife and her contemptuous and mocking information about how far down the long line of girls just like her, who Con had picked up and then put down, she actually was, to make her see the brutal reality of their relationship.
That poor kid with him, she really did feel sorry for her, but as Francine knew from experience, she’d have to learn the hard way that he was a liar and a cheat. Funny how now she could look at him and simply feel nothing at all for him apart from irritated contempt.
She wouldn’t tell Jean that she had seen him, though. Her sister would only worry and there really was no need for her to do so. It seemed laughable to Francine now that she could ever have been taken in by such a cardboard cut-out of a man. What a little fool she had been. No man would ever be able to deceive her and hurt her now. Sometimes Francine wondered if there were in fact any decent men in the world – or at least in her world – and the honest truth was that she wasn’t prepared to risk trying to find out.
SEVENTEEN
Well, it had just better work, that was all, Bella thought fiercely. Six times now she had had to put up with ‘doing it’, Alan panting and grunting on top of her. The first night, after he’d said he wanted to listen to the wireless and then fallen fast asleep the minute he’d got into bed with her, had been the worst.
First she’d had to wake him up. Then when she had, he pushed ‘it’ into her hand and made her touch it, his breath stinking of beer as he moaned and groaned. And then as if that hadn’t been bad enough, when he’d finally ‘done it’ inside her, he’d made a funny sort of noise and shouted out Trixie’s name at the top of his voice before rolling off her and then falling back asleep before she could say anything.
The horrible unwanted Polish refugees she was forced to have living with her were bound to have heard him. In fact, she knew they must have done because the daughter had given her such a smug look in the morning.
Bella didn’t know which she hated the most, Alan or what she was having to do. One thing she was determined on, though: Trixie was going to be put in her place and her nose very firmly rubbed in the dirt. Alan was her husband, and she intended to make sure that Trixie was forced to accept the public shame of what she had made herself.
Once Bella had set her mind to something she didn’t give up easily and so every night since she’d seen Alan kissing Trixie, she’d waited for him to get into bed and then she’d made sure that he did ‘it’.
Men were supposed to do anything you wanted them to do once you’d let them do it, but instead of being grateful to her, Alan had been even worse-tempered and horrible than normal. It was all right for Trixie, sitting there in that office, thinking she was something special because Alan was kissing her. Bella was ready to bet that she wouldn’t be making up to him the way she was if she knew how rough and horrible he could be. Bella had bruises all over her body from him grabbing and pinching her.
When he was doing it he looked at her as though he hated her, and wanted to hurt her, his face hard and angry. Well he’d be sorry for the way he’d behaved when he found out she was going to have a baby. They all would. She could see herself now, pushing her smart new pram, and getting admiring and envious looks from everyone who saw her. She’d insist on Alan’s father getting rid of Trixie, of course. At first she’d just drop a few hints to Alan’s mother about it not being right that Trixie was there, and then she’d come right out and tell her why – and in front of Trixie and her parents. Oh, she was looking forward to that, and to the humiliation that Trixie would suffer.
Then she’d tell those wretched refugees that they had to go. She couldn’t be expected to have strangers living with her when she was having a baby. Where was Alan? If he was letting that Trixie make up to him … Bella didn’t like the feeling that thinking about seeing Alan kissing Trixie gave her, so she decided to ignore it. Alan would have to start giving her more housekeeping, of course. She would have to buy lots of things for the baby – and for herself.
Francine looked anxiously at her watch.
‘Vi said she’d be here at two and it’s half-past now.’
‘She’s probably been delayed,’ said Jean. She was every bit as anxious as Francine, although she was trying very hard not to show it.
‘If she doesn’t come I’m going to go over there and see her.’
Jean’s anxiety grew as she heard the desperation in Fran’s voice. ‘She will come, Fran, I’m sure of it,’ she tried to sooth her.
‘It certainly put the wind up her when I telephoned her and told her that if she didn’t I’d be over there. Edwin’s probably told her not to let me into the house. He never liked me, and he certainly doesn’t approve of me.’
‘Sam reckons Edwin looks down on all of us,’ Jean told her, and then paused, wanting to warn Francine not to expect too much from Vi or to get her hopes up too high, but worried that if she did she might only make matters worse. ‘Vi’s changed, Fran. You’ll see that for yourself, you not having seen her for so long. I suppose it’s only natural, what with Edwin’s doing so well for himself.’
‘You always did defend her, Jean.’
‘She means well, but she likes having her own way. She always has, and she doesn’t take kindly to being criticised.’
Francine pounced immediately, demanding sharply, ‘You don’t think I should be doing this, do you?’
Her voice might sound sharp but Jean could hear the telltale emotional break in it. Her heart ached for Fran, but she knew what Vi could be like. The truth was that it was little Jack himself she was most worried about – and about whom she felt so much guilt. She struggled to find the right words to calm Francine down and yet at the same time acknowledge her own sympathy for her.
‘I didn’t think it was right them sending Jack away myself,’ she told her truthfully, ‘but you know what Vi’s like once someone gets her back up. She wouldn’t even give me his address so I could send him his Christmas presents. Said I had to give them to her and she’d send them. That did shock me, her not having him back home for Christmas,’ Jean admitted, ‘but—’
‘I know what you’re going to say,’ Francine stopped her. ‘You’re going to remind me that Vi is the one who has the right to say where he should go and what he should do.’
Jean looked at her, her heart filled with pain for her. ‘Vi and Edwin are his parents, love.’
‘Yes, I know that. And I’ve no room to talk, I know. It’s just—’ she broke off as they heard the front doorbell.
‘That will be Vi now,’ said Jean. ‘I’ll go and let her in.’
‘About time, Jean. I’ve been standing here for ages,’ said Vi sharply.
‘You’ve only just rung the bell,’ Jean told her twin mildly.
‘I really haven’t got time for this, what with all I’ve got to do. I’m the second in charge at our WVS now, you know, and I have responsibilities.’
Jean thought privately that no responsibility could be greater than the one a woman owed her child but she knew better than to say so.
Vi was on the attack the minute she walked into the kitchen, refusing to be parted from her expensive coat. She might be smartly dressed in her plum-coloured Jaegar skirt and toning tw
inset, but she had thickened out over the years, much more than Jean had herself, and in Jean’s eyes Vi looked nowhere near as elegant as Fran. Say what you liked, their younger sister stood out a mile as someone who had lived a different life, in her black woollen dress with its white collar and cuffs. Fran looked so bandbox smart she could have stepped right out of the pages of one of those expensive magazines that Vi boasted about reading.
Both Vi and Francine looked out of place in her kitchen, Jean thought. You’d never have imagined looking at the three of them now that they’d all grown up in the same shabby little terraced house with no proper bathroom. Not that she envied either of her sisters their material success, not one little bit. Jean reckoned that of the three of them she was the one who was the happiest.
‘It really is most inconvenient, me having to come here,’ Vi was saying crossly, ‘and it’s very selfish of you to carry on like this, Francine.’
‘All I want is the address of where Jack is staying. You could have saved yourself a journey if you’d given it to me straight off when I asked.’
For a moment Vi looked taken aback, and Jean guessed that her twin had still been thinking of Fran as the cowed sixteen-year-old she had last seen nearly ten years ago.
‘I don’t know why you should be making all this fuss anyway, Francine. What business is it of yours where Jack is? You haven’t seen him since he was born,’ Vi reminded her, then rounded on her twin. ‘This is all down to you, Jean, making trouble, because you haven’t had the good sense to evacuate your two.’
‘Don’t go blaming Jean, Vi,’ Fran answered. ‘It’s me that has asked after Jack and wants to know where he is.’
‘Well, you can ask all you like. I’m not telling you. I’m not having him upset when he’s settled. I’ll thank you to remember that me and Edwin are his parents.’