by Rosie Harris
‘Is this the man who grabbed hold of you, sonny?’ PC Walters asked in a kindly tone, speaking directly to Benny.
‘No! That’s Steve and he’s Vera’s friend.’ Tears filled Benny’s big blue eyes as he violently shook his head and held on tightly to Vera’s hand. ‘It wasn’t him, it was another man.’
‘You’re not going to take a young kid’s word for it, are you?’ Michael Quinn laughed.
‘Well, he has confirmed what Mr Frith told me.’
‘Oh yes, what was that? Some cock and bull yarn I imagine.’
‘Mr Frith has told me that he’s a very close friend of your daughter and that they are going out together.’
‘And you believed him?’ Michael Quinn said scornfully. Then he spun round and faced Vera. ‘Go on, tell him it’s not true?’
Vera hesitated. She knew the predicament she was in and that unless she was careful she would antagonise her father. Yet Steve’s good name, and perhaps even his freedom, was in jeopardy if she said what her dad wanted her to say.
‘Well?’ Her father’s keen blue eyes glinted sharply.
Vera took a deep breath. ‘Steve is a friend, a very special friend,’ she pronounced, her voice shaking.
‘So it seems highly unlikely that he was the one who grabbed young Benny, or that he dropped the betting slips that seem to incriminate you, Mr Quinn,’ PC Walters commented as he walked towards the door.
He paused briefly. ‘You’ll be hearing more about this,’ he called back over his shoulder.
Michael Quinn waited until the shop door slammed behind PC Walters before turning viciously on Vera, his face livid.
‘Why tell trumped up lies to save that sod’s neck?’ he snarled, nodding towards Steve Frith. Without waiting for her to reply, he went on, ‘You’re to stop seeing him right now. Understand?’
‘You know very well that Steve had nothing to do with what happened to Benny, so how could you be so wicked as to imply that it was him?’ Vera railed. ‘Do you know the trouble he could have been in?’
‘A few months inside the Waldorf Astoria would have kept him out of our way,’ her father muttered, glowering at Steve.
‘Ruin his life, more likely!’ Vera said bitterly.
‘It would have kept him away from you, though,’ her father retorted grimly. ‘I don’t want to see him around here again and I don’t want to find out that you’re meeting him on the sly either, so he can piss off, right now,’ he added savagely.
‘Why don’t you want us seeing each other?’ Steve questioned. ‘I have a good job, and I’ve never been in any trouble in my life.’
‘Don’t give me any of your lip, I saw the way you were all over my daughter at the party,’ Michael Quinn roared. ‘You’ll put her in the family way and then sod off before any of us know what’s happening. That will be another mouth for me to slug my guts out trying to bring up,’ he railed.
‘Stop it, stop it!’ Vera clamped her hands over her ears. ‘Stop saying such dreadful things.’ She reached out and took Steve’s hand. ‘I love him!’
‘That’s right and I love her. We’re getting married as soon as Vee’s old enough to do so without having to ask your permission.’
‘Certainly no point in you asking because you wouldn’t get it,’ Michael told them scathingly.
‘There’s nothing to stop us eloping,’ Steve declared. ‘Isn’t that right, Vera?’
As she opened her mouth to reply, her father’s eyes narrowed.
‘If she clears off with you then I’ll stick Benny into some sort of home or orphanage the very next day,’ he warned.
Caught up in a new dilemma, Vera looked from one to the other of them beseechingly.
Steve Frith shook his head in disbelief. ‘He wouldn’t do that, not with his own little kid.’
Vera shivered as she looked up at her father and saw the cold challenge in his eyes as they met hers. ‘He would,’ she said in a dull whisper. ‘He’d do it all right. I can’t condemn Benny to a fate like that.’
Steve stood his ground. ‘He doesn’t mean it, he’s only bluffing,’ he insisted.
‘Steve, much as I want to be with you I could never let that happen to Benny,’ she said dispiritedly.
Michael laughed cynically. ‘My daughter knows that when I say something I damn well mean it. She knows I’m not bluffing.’
‘Come on, Vera? You’re not going to let him bully you like this are you?’ There was deep anguish in Steve Frith’s voice as he pleaded with her.
Vera shook her head in despair, tears making rivulets down her ashen cheeks. ‘It’s no good, Steve. I could never desert little Benny.’
‘What about if we take him with us …’
‘Take him! Take him with you? What do you think he is, a bag of potatoes or a sack of coal that you can pick up and take without so much as a by-your-leave. I’m the kid’s bloody father …’
‘And such a caring father that you’d stick him in a home rather than look after him yourself,’ sneered Steve.
Michael laughed harshly. ‘Our Vera’s made her choice. She wants to stay put so the best thing you can do is sling your hook. Don’t come round here ever again because you’re not welcome,’ he pronounced triumphantly. ‘Now bugger off and leave me and mine to get on with our lives.’
Chapter Seventeen
Vera tried hard to hide her tears and despair over losing Steve Frith from her friends and family. She stubbornly refused to let her father see how upset she was, although she deeply resented his callous interference.
She missed Steve dreadfully. Surely he could see the predicament she was in! He loved her, so he must understand how important it was that she made sure Benny was safe. She didn’t blame him for staying away, not after the way her father had treated him, and the things he’d said to him, but they could always have arranged to meet somewhere else, he didn’t have to come to the house. They’d been so close that she was deeply hurt that he had simply walked away.
At work, Joan Frith wasn’t exactly hostile, but she was certainly very cool. Vera wanted to talk to her about what had happened, why she and Steve had broken up, but she couldn’t find the right words to do so. She couldn’t explain without disclosing things about her father that she preferred to keep private.
She loved Steve and now that she knew he loved her too she felt devastated, but she simply couldn’t abandon her little brother. Benny was so vulnerable. Although he’d grown up in Scotland Road he wasn’t nearly as tough as most of the children of his own age.
That was her fault, she thought sadly. She had probably been too protective after her mother died, but she had felt it was necessary to show him all the love and affection she could. As a result, he was far more dependent on her than he should be.
Night after night Vera cried herself to sleep with tears of frustration and despair. She found she was missing her mother more than she would have believed possible. She longed to be able to confide in her about her love for Steve Frith. She needed her not only to console her, but to tell her how to face the future without him.
At work, an even deeper rift developed between her and Joan Frith when Joan told her brusquely that Steve had packed up his job in Liverpool and gone off to Australia.
‘Mam cried buckets when he told her what he was going to do. She tried her best to get him to change his mind, but he wouldn’t listen to a word she was saying,’ Joan said bitterly.
Vera was heartbroken by the news. If Steve had truly loved her, as much as she loved him, she thought sadly, then surely he wouldn’t have done such a thing. He would have stayed close and waited to see if her dad would change his mind, not only about them going out together, but about them getting married, too.
Australia was on the other side of the world. It would be years before Steve would have enough money to come home again. No matter how hard she saved, she’d never be able to afford to go and find him.
It was all so permanent. It meant that their relationship was completely over.
She knew that the only thing she could do was dry her eyes and get on with her life, but it was easier said than done. Seeing Joan and Liam Kelly together constantly reminded her that it was all over between her and Steve and made her feel more desolate than ever.
She spent more and more time with Benny. She went somewhere with him every evening, whether there were boots to be delivered or not. She refused to let him out on his own in case he came to some harm.
‘You’re making a right nincompoop out of that kid,’ her father told her scornfully. ‘Let him stand on his own two feet! He’s almost eight, old enough to do things on his own without you holding his hand.’
Vera ignored him. When her father grumbled about the dirty dishes in the sink, or that his shirt wasn’t ironed properly, or anything else, she simply shrugged and took no notice.
His constant bickering, and his anger, washed over her. It was as if there was a wall between her and the rest of the world, one that only Benny could penetrate.
When Michael found that his repetitive grumbling and shouting at Vera had no effect, he craftily tried a different ruse to bring his daughter to heel.
In the weeks that followed, when she came home from work Vera found he was rarely on his own in the shop. A chap called Bill Martin, one of his drinking companions, was usually there with him.
Vera didn’t like the man who had suddenly become so friendly with her father. He was thickset, of medium height, and had a pockmarked face and small dark eyes. His scant brown hair was receding, and he had a thin, pencil moustache, which she thought not only looked ridiculous, but drew attention to the cruel twist of his thin lips.
Vera hated the way he leered at her and the suggestive compliments he made about her appearance. Even more, she disliked the fact that he continually tried to curry favour with Benny, and win him over with gifts of sweets and toys.
Encouraged by Michael, he would even offer to accompany her and Benny when they went off to do the deliveries.
‘Could you give them a hand, Bill,’ her father would suggest. ‘Rather a load for the two of them to manage.’
‘There’s no need, I’ll take Benny’s old pram,’ Vera would say quickly, hoping to discourage him.
‘You don’t want to be seen out pushing that,’ Bill would laugh. ‘People might start getting the wrong idea,’ he’d add as his eyes raked over her from top to toe.
She knew it brought the colour rushing to her face and she resented his smug laugh in response.
Vera found that the more she tried to snub Bill Martin, the more persistent he became. It worried her that her father encouraged him so much and seemed to find nothing wrong with his attitude towards her.
Soon it led to rows between the two of them. Her father became angry when she constantly rejected Bill’s help, and told her to mind her manners.
‘Manners? My manners?’ she questioned angrily. ‘He’s the one who needs to mind his manners. I don’t like him, in fact I can’t stand him, and the sooner he realises that and leaves me alone the better.’
‘You’ll have a long wait then you silly bint because Bill Martin wants to marry you. What’s more to the point, I’ve told him he can.’
‘You’ve done what?’ The colour drained from her face and she felt herself shaking. ‘Me, have Bill Martin as my husband! I’d sooner die.’
Her answer infuriated Michael. ‘You’ll do as you’re bloody well told, so tell him “yes” when he asks you to marry him, and do it with a bloody smile on your face or I’ll …’
‘Thump my bloody skull?’ she sneered. ‘You can thump it all you like, but it won’t make me change my mind.’
The thought of being made to marry Bill Martin haunted Vera. She had nightmares about the situation and woke in the middle of the night, sweat pouring from her as she imagined that she was already committed to him. It was as if she could feel his rough, unshaven face pressing against her own, and smell his beery breath. She could even feel those cruel thin lips pressing down on hers, taking possession of her mouth and stopping her breathing, preventing her from screaming out for help.
Even during the day, he played on her mind. She became nervous and jumpy. She kept seeing men she thought were him in the street, or reflected in shop windows.
As she waited in trepidation for Bill to ask her to marry him, as her father had said he would, she planned what she would say to him, rehearsing the words in her head over and over again. She wanted him to know she meant it when she said that her mind was made up, and that she would never even consider such a proposition.
Bill Martin was too astute to fall into that trap, though. He had the tenacity and patience of a wily old fox. He knew how tense Vera was and he intended biding his time. He resolved to pick his moment, and when he did ask her it would be at a time when it was the most difficult for her to turn him down.
He was waiting for the right opportunity. It would come, he told himself. It would result from some good turn he did for either young Benny or Michael Quinn, something that put Vera into his indebtedness. When that happened she wouldn’t be able to refuse his proposal.
He knew Eddy was watching him like a hawk, but he considered him to be of no importance. Old man Quinn was on his side, and that was half the battle. He didn’t mind waiting.
He took special delight in seeing Vera as often as possible and watching her every movement, knowing that one day she would be his. She was a prize so well worth waiting for, he gloated, since she was growing more attractive by the day.
One of the reasons he was so confident that she would soon be his was because he knew she wasn’t seeing anyone else. Her old man was making sure of that. She was the prize Michael Quinn was bestowing on him for not squealing to the police about the betting slips. Instead he’d gone one better, he’d tipped them off with the name of another bookie’s runner and the poor sod had ended up being arrested.
It gave Bill Martin a warped feeling of power to see how nervous Vera was whenever he was around. When she and Benny set out each evening to do the deliveries he would sometimes follow them. He kept at a distance and chuckled to himself as he saw how she looked back nervously every few hundred yards to check where he was.
He never approached her, or even spoke to her in the street, only tailed her. He liked to be near enough to watch the fear on her face when she looked over her shoulder. He made sure, though, that he was never close enough that she could call out to a passer-by, or a scuffer, and say that she was afraid of being molested.
His intention to scare Vera began to pay off. She became increasingly jittery, began to lose weight, and was short-tempered, even with Benny.
Michael Quinn noticed the changes in his daughter, but he put it down to disappointment that Bill hadn’t popped the question. The delay worried him, he wondered if Bill Martin had gone off the idea, or whether he had hinted about marriage to Vera and she had turned him down.
Bill was a useful ally, and he could foresee a great many lucrative deals they could do together once they were both certain that they could trust each other completely.
If Bill became a member of the family, Michael reasoned, there would be no possibility of him squealing if things ever went wrong again. Once he and Vera were safely hitched then he’d take him into his confidence. He was pretty sure that Bill also had some interesting sidelines he’d be willing to share with his new father-in-law, so the outcome could be beneficial all round.
Impatient to start developing some of the schemes he’d already hatched in his mind, Michael finally asked Bill if he’d broached the subject of marriage with Vera.
‘Not yet! Don’t rush things.’
‘What’re you playing at, you silly bugger. Ask her now while she’s still missing that Steve Frith, that way you’ll have no trouble getting her to agree.’
‘I’m not so sure about that, she’s a strong-minded little bitch. Leave me to my cat and mouse technique.’
‘Cat and mouse technique? What the hell’s that?’
&nbs
p; ‘Tail her, frighten her, break her spirit, then strike when she’s at her lowest ebb.’
‘Christ! You sound as if you’re game hunting, not courting.’
Bill Martin laughed sourly. ‘I want her to be docile on our wedding night. I don’t want a kick in the balls the moment I get her into bed.’
Michael Quinn frowned. For one brief moment he wondered if he was doing the right thing in telling Vera she was to marry this man. Vera was his daughter, after all. He thought back to the days before he’d gone in the army, when Vee had been a sweet little toddler, with a rosebud mouth that would suddenly expand into the sweetest of smiles. She’d been a little beauty with her dark hair and the biggest and brightest blue eyes he’d ever seen.
She was still a looker. Tall and slim, with a good shape to her. She was a grafter too. She doted on young Benny, and had been a real little mother to him since Annie died.
He knew he was hard on her sometimes, but his life had been full of frustration since he came back from the war so it was only natural that he took it out on her. Things would have been different if Annie was still alive, but since Vera was the only woman in his life it followed that she had to bear the brunt of his moods.
For all his criticism of her, he thought Vera was worth two of Eddy. She had guts, whereas Eddy had always been a wimp. She was taller and more spirited than her brother. He had to admit, though, that Eddy had broadened out a fair bit, as he’d found to his cost during their last tangle.
Vera waited on tenterhooks for Bill Martin to ask her to marry him, but when he didn’t do so she began to think that it was all some kind of evil threat on her father’s part.
Gradually she resumed her normal way of life. She continued to go on deliveries with Benny, but that was because she was concerned about his safety. It wasn’t Bill she worried about, but the children of the man who’d finally been sent to prison for six months over the betting slips.
Things came unexpectedly to a head in September, on Benny’s eighth birthday. Vera had put on a special tea for him, but it was only to be her, Eddy and her father there. She’d hoped that Rita would have come as well, but she still staunchly refused to set foot in their house since the evening their father had molested her.
