‘Norma doesn’t really know me, and it won’t take Pattie and Tommy long to forget me.’
‘So that’s us finished, is it?’ she asked, wistfully.
‘That’s us finished, and it’s all your own doing. It was your jealousy and spite that brought us to this. I’m leaving now, Elsie, and as Hannah herself might have said, may the good Lord have mercy on you.’
He turned towards the door, wondering where he would go at this time of night, but Elsie, said, ‘Wait, Peter. I know I’ve been a bad wife to you, and you could never think kindly of me after this, but please bide. This is your house, your home. Go and see your bairns and then tell me you can leave them for good.’
Knowing full well what the sight of his two sturdy sons and sweet wee daughter would do to him, he nevertheless tiptoed in to look at them, and the flushed angelic faces were enough to convince him that Elsie was right. He couldn’t bear to leave them for ever.
When he went back to her, he said, ‘I give in, but before I come back I want you to buy some kind of folding bed I can put up in the kitchen. The parlour’s always freezing, and the couch is too short. And from now on you’ll be my wife in name only, and we’ll have to keep up a pretence of being happy in front of the kids.’
‘Thank God for that. I didn’t want folk to be laughing and saying my man had walked out on me.’
This proof that it was still only herself she was considering made him snap, ‘They’d say a lot worse than that if they knew what you’d done.’ He hadn’t meant to cast it up. He had committed himself to keeping her secret, and it was best never mentioned again. ‘You haven’t said if you agree to my terms.’
‘Oh, aye. Anything you say, Peter.’
He went down to lie on the couch, knowing he would keep thinking about the dreadful crime he was sure she had committed, the crime he should have reported to the police, but without proof …?
What a bloody mess his life had turned out. With seeing so many ships blown up lately, he had become increasingly conscious of his own mortality. With no Lizann, there was nobody left to mourn if anything happened to him. He wondered if Elsie had learned a lesson tonight. Should he try to salvage something from his marriage? Not yet, though. What she’d done was too fresh in his mind. He’d be best to leave it till he was home for good. Maybe he would see things differently. All he had to do now was to get through the next two days peaceably.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Peter having left on the early morning train, Elsie spent the forenoon, unusually for her, wrestling with her conscience. He likely thought she would turn over a new leaf after being found out in her lies, but surely he wouldn’t expect her to be faithful when he was away for so long at a time? She loved her three bairns, but they would drive her up the wall if she had no diversions to look forward to. Maybe she should ask Jenny how she coped when Mick was away.
‘Lonely already?’ Jenny smiled, when she opened her door. ‘Me too.’
Setting Norma down beside wee Lizann on the mat, Elsie began, ‘Does Mick … does he make love to you every night when he’s home?’
Jenny flushed. They had never talked about intimate matters, but she could see her answer was important to Elsie. ‘Yes, did Peter not …?’
‘Oh, aye,’ Elsie prevaricated. ‘Do you not miss it when Mick’s away?’
‘I miss him, but I wouldn’t dream of taking another man, and neither should you.’
‘But if you think about Mick making love to you, do you not want …?’
‘You’ve gone far enough, Elsie. I’ve hated thinking you’re unfaithful to Peter, for next to Mick he’s the nicest man I know, but I can’t stop you if that’s what you want. Just don’t tell me about it.’
‘Aye, you’re right, Jenny. You see, Peter got me all fired up when he was home, but I’ll not do anything. It wouldn’t be fair to him.’
‘No, it wouldn’t.’
Elsie kept Jenny’s lecture in mind for only three days, then, unable to bear being parted from Paddy any longer, she decided to let him know the coast was clear by giving him the prearranged signal.
After settling her children in bed, she lit the fire in the parlour, then made herself ready for her lover, painting her face, splashing herself with the 4711 cologne he had given her for her birthday, and putting on a gossamer-thin nightdress. Her juices were boiling as she sat down to await his arrival and when he knocked she jumped up to let him in, flinging herself into his arms as soon as he was inside.
He grabbed her and steered her into the parlour, where the fire was burning up nicely. ‘I’m desperate,’ he moaned. ‘I’ve been watching your window every night for two weeks.’
‘I was trying to be a good girl, but I can’t.’
‘Thank God for that. The worse you are, the better I’ll like it, and I can’t wait a minute longer.’ His mouth came down on hers now, draining away the tiny seed of guilt that she hadn’t realized was there, and in a few seconds they sank naked on to the couch, so frantic with passion that Elsie forgot to close the curtains.
Lenny Fyfe had been in the Harbour Bar since the doors opened at half past five, and with quite a few whiskies and beers inside him by half past eight, his mind had turned to Elsie. She had told him to keep away, but he had to have her and he knew Peter had gone back off leave.
Going along Main Street he saw a light at her front window, and was surprised that the warden hadn’t been round knocking on the door. Then it dawned on him that it was the flicker of a flame and, thinking that the house was on fire, he sprinted forward to save his paramour. When he came closer and saw that it was only the fire in the grate, he wondered who Elsie was entertaining; only honoured visitors were ever taken into parlours.
His mission aborted, Lenny decided to have a peep inside. If it was the minister he wouldn’t stay long – she would be free in half an hour or so. He let out a horrified gasp when he saw that it wasn’t the minister, and though his heart, and his desire, had sunk like a stone, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the nude bodies on the couch. The bitch! The bloody bitch! No wonder she had told him to stop coming to see her; she was having it off with another man!
Blind fury boiling up inside him, he edged the door open and tiptoed inside. He meant to wait until they finished the act before he made his presence known, but the ecstatic moans and animal grunts were too much for him. ‘You bloody whore!’ he screamed.
Elsie’s astonished face, blood-red with lust, turned towards him, but the man was beyond stopping. Giving one massive thrust, he shuddered for a few moments before he slid off her on to the floor. ‘What in the name of Jaysus is he doing here?’ he demanded, scrambling to his feet with his hands over his genitals.
‘What in the name of Jesus are you doing here?’ Lenny countered.
‘Please, Lenny,’ Elsie begged, her hands jumping from her breasts to her pubis in a vain effort to cover herself. ‘It’s not what you think.’
‘What am I supposed to think when he’d his prick inside you?’
Struggling to get on his trousers, Paddy snarled, ‘What business is it of yours?’
‘She’s mine! That’s what business it is! She’s been mine for years!’
Paddy burst out laughing. ‘For years? You’re just a kid. You don’t know what you’re speaking about.’
‘Ask her!’ Lenny screeched. ‘She’ll tell you!’
His hands fumbling with his trouser buttons, Paddy turned angrily to Elsie. ‘Is that true?’
Wishing Lenny in hell, she shouted, ‘Get out, get out!’
‘Tell him it’s true!’ Lenny yelled.
Slipping on his shirt, Paddy roared, ‘I don’t give a monkey’s damn if it’s true or not. I’m finished with you, you tramp!’ Lifting his jacket, he made for the door.
‘Don’t go, Paddy!’ Elsie pleaded. ‘I didn’t mean you!’
He looked at her contemptuously as he went out, and she jumped to her feet and punched Lenny in the chest. ‘See what you’ve done, you stupid young
bugger?’
At that moment a shrill voice outside called, ‘Put out that light!’
Lenny collapsed on to the couch in a fit of uncontrollable laughter, but Elsie went to the door and gave the warden a mouthful of curses as well as a full view of her bare body. As he reeled back in amazement, she banged the door and went in to yank the curtains together. Turning to face Lenny, she spat out, ‘D’you really think I wanted a half-grown idiot when I had my pick of anybody I wanted? I only fooled about with you because Peter had stopped touching me, but Paddy’s a real he-man and … now I’ll never see him again.’
Her tears made Lenny get up to put his arms round her, but she shoved him away. ‘Get out of my sight, for God’s sake!’
He stood for a moment, then walked slowly towards the door, but as he opened it he looked at her again. ‘You’re an evil bitch! I’ll not let you get away with what you’ve done to me.’
‘Get lost, little boy,’ she sneered. ‘Run home to your mammy and see what she thinks of you for interfering with a married woman.’
Lenny pulled the door shut quietly. Her last remark had made him feel like strangling her, yet remembering how beautiful she looked standing naked in front of him, he knew he would go running back if she crooked her little finger at him. But she wouldn’t have anything more to do with him now, and he would damned well carry out his threat. She deserved to suffer as much as she’d made him suffer tonight. He didn’t know exactly what he would do, but he’d think of something!
Jenny couldn’t believe her ears. The two women in the butcher’s had been saying some awful things about Elsie. ‘And it must be true,’ one of them had crowed gleefully. ‘Eck Stewart couldna mak’ up a story like that.’
Lifting the change from the ten shilling note she had tendered, Jenny walked out of the shop seething and strode home so fast that Georgie had to run to keep up with her, while her little daughter laughed with glee at the new game. When she spotted the ARP warden at the other side of the road, she crossed over to tackle him about the rumour he had spread.
‘It’s not a rumour, it’s gospel,’ he said, puffing out his chest. ‘I shouted to Elsie to put out her light, though it wasna really a light, just the flames from her fire, and help my bob, she comes to the door in her birthday suit, as bold as brass. I didna ken where to look. I’ve never seen a body like hers before, not without being well covered, and there she stood, swearing like a trooper. Not only that, I saw a man running out with his jacket in his hand a minute or so afore, and there was still a man in wi’ her. So what had she been up to?’
Feeling sick, Jenny said, faintly, ‘You must have imagined it, Eck.’
‘It wasna imagination that made my cock stand up … oh, I beg pardon, Jenny. I shouldna be saying things like that to you. But I thought I was well past it, and that proved I wasna.’
‘You shouldn’t go telling folk, though. Whatever she was doing, it was her own business.’
The warden was taken aback at this, but muttered, ‘I dinna think her man would look on it like that.’
Feeling a deep compassion for Peter, Jenny made up her mind to go and find out what Elsie was playing at. One lover would be bad enough, but two at the same time? Maybe when she knew it was being bandied about she would listen to her old friend … though it seemed she’d paid no attention to the advice she got before. Leaving her children with Babsie Berry, Jenny made for Main Street.
Elsie looked a mess when she came to the door, her face still bearing traces of make-up, black streaks where tears had made her mascara run, her bleached hair uncombed. ‘I can’t speak to you just now,’ she said.
Ignoring this, Jenny pushed past her. ‘What was going on in here last night?’ she demanded. ‘And don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m getting at, for Eck Stewart’s telling everybody.’
‘Eck’s got a dirty mind. I’d a bath at the fire, and I’d just finished drying myself when he knocked at the door and shouted something, and I opened it without thinking.’
Gullible Jenny was prepared to believe this, yet something was still bothering her. ‘Eck said he saw one man running out of your house and another man was still inside.’
Elsie threw back her head and let out a loud laugh. ‘That Eck! He got a right eyeful of me, and he’s made up a story to spice it up a bit.’
‘Are you sure, Elsie?’ Jenny wasn’t really convinced, but was prepared to give her friend the benefit of the doubt.
‘There was nobody here except me and the bairns. Even if I’d wanted a man, d’you think I’m as stupid as take two in together? What do you think I am? Depraved?’
‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have believed him.’
‘A fine friend you’ve turned out,’ Elsie muttered, looking offended.
‘Don’t say that. I was only wanting to save Peter being hurt.’
‘Peter? Are you after him now? I never dreamt …’
‘You know fine I’m not after him, but it was awful to think you’d been unfaithful to him.’
‘Well I haven’t been, so go home and think twice before you accuse me of anything again.’
‘Are you still friends with me, Elsie?’
‘I shouldn’t be, after what you said … but all right. Still friends.’
When Jenny wrote to Mick that night she did not mention the incident. Eck had been making as much as he could out of it, and that’s what she would tell anybody who asked her about it.
She might have known Eck would clype on her, Elsie fumed, and all the old bitches in Buckpool would be watching her house every minute of the day now to see what they could see. It had been a piece of cake palming Jenny off, but some of her neighbours wouldn’t be so easily hoodwinked, so she’d better give them time to forget before she took another man in.
Lenny’s threat didn’t worry her. It was a natural reaction. If only he hadn’t walked past her house when he did, everything would have been hunky-dory, though it was her own fault for forgetting to shut the curtains – Paddy had driven that right out of her head. Of course, she shouldn’t have gone to the door starkers, that was her biggest mistake. She hadn’t been thinking clearly at the time. She’d only meant to shock the warden, but she’d ended up landing herself right up to the eyeballs in shit.
Always able to rise above her troubles, Elsie stood up and shrugged her shoulders. To hell with Eck Stewart! To hell with Lenny Fyfe! To hell with Paddy Flynn! And to hell with the whole lot of narrow-minded harpies that couldn’t stand to see a girl having a good time.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Lenny had asked a few girls out over the past six nights, but they had all been too young and innocent to satisfy him properly. It was like a man having skimmed milk on his porridge when he was used to cream. Lying in bed, frustrated because the girl he’d been with had slapped his face for putting his hand up her skirt, a way to punish Elsie suddenly came to him. He would go back to her – she’d have cooled down by now – and make her think he was still under her spell. He would lay it on real thick, swear he loved her, and then … as soon as there was any sign that she loved him – really loved him, not just pretending this time – he’d give her the dirty heave.
He should have known what she was up to before, just letting him see her in a forenoon. It had left her free to take another lover later on. So … he’d be the one to go in the evenings from now on.
The following day he got a loan of a sex book one of the older bakers had bought because his wife had told him she was fed up with how he made love, and spent the afternoon reading it in his bedroom. It was a revelation to him – all those different positions when he’d thought you could only do it with the man on top. His eyes widened at the diagrams, he’d never seen anything like them, and they almost fell out altogether when he came to the photographs – actual photographs of …
The fire in his loins reaching fever pitch, he slammed the book shut. It was a true saying that half the people didn’t know what the other half was doing, but he’d have to keep hi
s heat for Elsie.
Having told his mother that he was going out for a drink, he knocked on Elsie’s door that night. She didn’t look very pleased to see him, and stood with her hands on her hips. ‘What d’you want?’
‘I’ve come to say I’m sorry for … you know … last week.’
‘So now you’ve said it. Cheerio!’
He managed to stick his foot out to stop her closing the door. ‘Please, Elsie, will you not let me in?’
The pathetic, pleading way he was looking at her made her realize how much she had missed him … actually missed him. It hadn’t been his fault. ‘All right, come in and let Elsie show you she’s forgiven you.’
He needed no second bidding, and having seen how she liked the Irish navvy roughing her up, he let himself go as he worked mentally through as much of the sex-book as he’d read. After a couple of hours, when he was having a quick smoke to give his flagging desire time to kindle again, she leaned over him. ‘Oh, God, Lenny, if I’d known you could do things like that, I’d never have looked at Paddy.’
Congratulating himself on being so clever, Lenny blew a smoke ring past her ear. ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet,’ he bragged, not bothered that he had to start work at 2 AM.
It only took another two nights for him to be sure Elsie meant it when she said she loved him, for she was looking at him like she’d never done before. When he sprang his surprise on her – but not till he’d sampled a lot more of this abandoned sex – it would shake her to the dark roots of her hair.
Lenny’s idyll, however, was to be rudely shattered. When he went home from the bakehouse one forenoon just three weeks later, a long buff envelope was lying on the table. Opening it, he gave a loud gasp.
‘What is it,’ Mrs Fyfe asked in concern, for he’d been in a strange mood this while past and she was sure something was bothering him.
‘My calling-up papers!’ He’d had to register two years ago, but because he was a baker and his boss had put in an appeal, he hadn’t thought he’d have to go at all.
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