‘IF YOU keep on picking her up every time she cries, she’ll never learn,’ Ricky’s mother said, not for the first time.
‘She’s hungry,’ Scarlett said.
‘Well, she’ll have to learn to wait, won’t she? She won’t starve to death.’
From the big pram in the hall, the wailing grew louder, making Scarlett’s guts clench and her breasts ache. It was only a couple of hours since the baby had last been fed and if Ricky’s mother hadn’t been there, Scarlett might have rocked the pram to get her off to sleep again. But having her mother-in-law tell her to do something was enough to make her do just the opposite.
‘Poor little scrap. I can’t just leave her. She’ll get herself in a right state,’ she said, and went to pick the baby up.
Her daughter’s small face was screwed up and her body trembling. Scarlett laid her gently over her shoulder and touched her soft fluff of hair with her cheek. For a few beats the baby stopped crying, comforted by her mother’s body. Scarlett was overwhelmed by the rush of love and tenderness, fear and terrible responsibility. This perfect creature was hers to care for. It was both wonderful and terrifying.
‘You’ll spoil her.’
Ricky’s mother was glaring her disapproval from the doorway.
Scarlett glared back over the baby’s head. If that woman thought she was going to take charge, she was mistaken.
‘She’s two weeks old. She’s hungry,’ she said.
And she’s mine. Mine, not yours.
‘She’s old enough to learn,’ Ricky’s mother insisted.
Scarlett walked past her and went into the bedroom. Sitting on the sagging double bed with its pink candlewick bedspread, she undid her blouse. This was something else her mother-in-law disapproved of. Breast-feeding was old-fashioned and mucky. The baby should be on a nice clean bottle, where you could see exactly what she was getting.
‘The midwife says breast-feeding is best,’ was Scarlett’s killer argument. Ricky’s mother tried to dispute even that, but Scarlett simply wouldn’t listen.
The added advantage was that Ricky’s mother found the whole process embarrassing, and never followed her into the bedroom when she was feeding. She had her daughter safely to herself for as long as she stayed in here. She put the baby to her breast, gasping as the hard little gums seized her sore nipple. She gazed in awe at the tiny face, so fierce in its concentration. Though still soft and undefined, the nose, the chin, the shape of the forehead, were all hers. The blue eyes with their fringe of dark lashes already had a touch of brown to them. Her daughter was going to be a mirror image of herself. It was strange and breathtakingly wonderful.
‘You’re so beautiful,’ she murmured. ‘How did I manage to make something so perfect?’
She could hear her mother-in-law clattering around in the kitchen, no doubt finding something that needed cleaning. Since Scarlett had come home from her ten days in hospital, Mrs Harrington had been round every day. She said she had come to help, but Scarlett looked on it as interference. It was hard enough learning to cope with motherhood without having that old bag sticking her nose in and finding dust and dirt to tut over. At least having the baby had resolved what Scarlett should call her. ‘Mrs Harrington’ was too formal, but ‘Betty’ was out as being too informal. Scarlett refused to call her Mum or even Mother. As far as she was concerned, that title was reserved for her own darling mother. But now the baby was here, Mrs Harrington was Nana. It was a title that everyone was happy with.
Scarlett stayed in the bedroom for as long as she could, but she had to come out eventually to change the baby. Her mother-in-law was waiting for her.
‘I can’t find much food in the place,’ she said. ‘What are you giving Ricky for his dinner today?’
‘I’m going out to the shops now,’ Scarlett said.
It was already gone eleven o’clock and Ricky would be back for his main meal of the day at twelve-fifteen. He only had a bare hour for dinner, so it needed to be on the table and waiting so that he could eat and cycle back to work for one o’clock. What with all the feeding and changing, Scarlett hadn’t had time to do much else.
‘Now, if you were to keep to a routine with the baby, you wouldn’t be in this fix,’ Mrs Harrington said.
‘The baby has to come first,’ Scarlett said, taking off the rubber knickers, unpinning the bulky terry nappy. Such a lot of fabric round such a little body. The baby seemed to like it with the air on her. Scarlett put the soiled one with the others in the bucket under the sink to soak, cleaned the baby up, smothered her bottom with petroleum jelly and folded a fresh nappy.
‘It’s neater if you do it the way I used to with Ricky,’ Mrs Harrington said.
‘This is how they showed me in hospital,’ Scarlett said.
‘I don’t know. These modern ways—’
Scarlett carefully pinned the nappy together, putting her fingers next to the baby’s body so as not to jab her.
‘There!’ she said. ‘All nice and dry. Now, we’re going out in the pram to get Daddy’s dinner. Say bye-bye to Nana.’
‘He can always come round to us, if it’s too much for you,’ Mrs Harrington said. ‘Just until you get into a routine.’
Scarlett went into the hall and laid the baby in the shiny coachbuilt pram that the Harringtons had bought for them. She covered her with a sheet and a pink satin quilt and straightened up. She looked her mother-in-law in the eye.
‘I’m Ricky’s wife and this is his home. He comes here for dinner,’ she stated.
Without waiting for a reply, she picked up her purse and key and a string bag and put them in the zip bag attached to the pram, then started manoeuvring the big vehicle out of the front door and down the step. Mrs Harrington could do nothing other than follow her.
‘I’ll come round tomorrow and make sure you’re all right,’ was her parting shot.
‘I’m fine,’ Scarlett said, and set off up the road.
Once away from her mother-in-law, she felt the tension slip away from her.
‘That’s got rid of the old bag,’ she said to her sleeping daughter. ‘Now, what are we going to get for dinner? It’s got to be something quick.’
She ran over the contents of the larder in her head. As far as dinner ingredients went, there were eggs and a few tins of stuff. She glanced at her watch. She really did have to get a move on. Then, as she neared the corner, she caught a whiff of frying from the chip shop.
‘That’s it!’ she told the baby. ‘Eggs, chips and peas.’
And there it was, ready for Ricky as he came in the door. He was not impressed.
‘Call this dinner?’ he said, poking the chips with his fork. ‘Where’s the meat and gravy?’
‘I didn’t have time, what with seeing to the baby,’ Scarlett told him.
‘My mum always does a proper dinner.’
‘I bet she didn’t when you were a baby.’
‘And you know I don’t like these peas. Why don’t you get the marrowfat ones?’
‘I’ll get some, all right? And I’ll go out again this afternoon and get something to cook for tomorrow. If your parents had only bought a fridge instead of that great big pram, I’d be able to keep fresh stuff longer.’
‘You don’t buy a fridge for a baby.’
‘Well, maybe you could buy one instead of a new guitar.’
‘I gotta have a new guitar. It’s for my career.’
‘And I gotta have a fridge if you want meat and gravy dinners.’
They glared at each other across the table set in the front bay window.
‘Well, ask your flaming father to buy it.’
For once, Scarlett was silenced. Her father was living with them in the flat. The theory was that he paid them for his room and board, which helped towards the rent of the flat. In practice, Scarlett was lending him money out of the housekeeping halfway through the week, because she knew that if she didn’t give it to him, he would borrow it from someone else or run up a slate at whichever off- lice
nce still didn’t know he wasn’t to be trusted.
Ricky pushed the last of his chips into his mouth.
‘You finished it, then,’ Scarlett said. ‘It can’t have been that bad.’
‘It fills a gap,’ Ricky admitted. ‘No pudding, I suppose?’
‘No. If you want pudding, you’ll have to go back to mummy.’
Ricky did one of those lightning changes of mood that always took her by surprise. He stood up and reached out to her.
‘Hey, babe—’
Glad not to be at odds with everyone, Scarlett snuggled into his embrace.
‘I don’t half fancy you when you’re angry,’ Ricky said.
He closed a hand over her breast. Scarlett flinched.
‘Bloody hell! I forgot. I dunno whether I can stand this, babe. I thought when the baby was born I’d get your body back again.’
‘Another four weeks yet, that’s what the doctor said,’ Scarlett reminded him.
She wished she’d lied and said it was longer. The last thing she wanted at the moment was Ricky anywhere near her. Her stitches had hardly healed.
‘I’m gonna explode if I wait that long, babe. I still want you all the time, even with all this fat on you.’
He ran his hand over Scarlett’s wobbly belly, just to prove the point. She put her face up to be kissed. This was where her power lay. Ricky might like his mother’s cooking, but he liked sex better. As long as she could get back to fancying him again, she was going to win every time.
‘No good getting excited now. You’ve got to get back to work,’ she reminded him.
Ricky groaned with frustration. ‘OK, OK.’
No sooner had he set off on his bike than the baby started crying again. Scarlett left the washing up and went to lift her out of the pram. It was time for another feed.
For the fourth time in as many weeks, Jonathan reached the top of Scarlett’s street. Try as he might, he could not resist the pull of the place. So far, he had not gone any further than the corner. From here he could see her house. He had counted the almost identical square bay windows in the long row of terraces and was sure he knew which one hers was. It was stupid to keep doing this, he told himself. He only had one day off a week, and he should be using it to catch up with old friends or make new ones. Anything rather than keep reminding himself of what might have been. The trouble was, it was all very well for his head to tell him that when his heart said otherwise. So here he was, staring down the road at where she lived yet again.
It was a nicer street than the last one she had lived in. The more charitable part of him was glad of that, while the jealous part hated her husband for being able to take her away from that last dreadful place. Husband. He still hadn’t got used to it. Scarlett’s husband. How could she do that to him?
This was it, he decided. He would go and have it out with her. If he didn’t, he was going to spend his life wondering why. With a new sense of purpose, he marched down the street and up her front path to the two doors set in one porch. The ground floor flat, she had said. He knocked on the door nearest to the bay window.
A shape could be seen through the obscure glass. His heart turned over. It was her. The door opened and there she was, as beautiful as ever, but white-faced with shock, staring at him open-mouthed.
‘Jonathan!’
‘Hello, Scarlett.’
For a long moment they just gazed at each other. She had put on some weight, but it suited her. Her face was softer and her figure more womanly. Jonathan clenched his hands, resisting the urge to hold her in his arms. He swallowed.
‘Aren’t you going to ask me in?’
‘I…yes…of course…come in…’ she stuttered, stepping back.
He walked past her into small hallway. The space was so restricted that he could feel the heat of her body as he passed.
‘Go in,’ she said, shutting the door behind him.
He went in to the front room. It was a standard sitting room with an old-fashioned three-piece suite, a dark oak sideboard and a matching dining set all crowded in. The only thing that obviously hadn’t been rented along with the flat was the television set in the corner.
‘You got the TV you wanted, then,’ he said, and cursed himself. It sounded vindictive.
‘The Riptides bought it for us.’
‘The what—?’
‘The Riptides. The rest of the band. Ricky and the Riptides. Brian works for a TV repair company. I think he got it cheap. It’s second-hand.’
Jonathan pounced on the relevant part of this statement. ‘And Ricky is—?’
‘My…my husband.’
‘Right.’
There was a brief, tense pause, then both of them spoke at once.
‘Scarlett, I can’t understand—’
‘I never meant for it—’
They both stopped.
‘You say.’
‘No, you.’
Scarlett stood biting her lip, looking acutely uncomfortable. Jonathan wasn’t sure whether he most wanted to kiss her or shout at her.
‘What happened?’ he asked.
In answer, she turned and walked out of the room, waving at him to follow her. They went down the hallway, through a minute kitchen where what smelt like mince was simmering on the stove and out into the rather overgrown back garden. A row of nappies were drying on the washing line and there, under an apple tree, was a big green pram. Scarlett leaned over it, smiling at the baby asleep there. Tenderness lit her face. There was no doubt that the child was hers.
Jonathan stared at them while a storm of emotions swept through him.
‘When—?’ he managed to ask.
‘Three weeks ago.’
‘Three weeks?’ His bewildered brain battled with the maths. ‘So you were—?’
‘She was the reason I had to get married, yes.’
He wasn’t sure whether this made it worse or not. Either way, this really was the end of any tiny chink of hope he might have had. Scarlett married was bad enough, Scarlett married with a child was tied for life.
‘What’s her name?’ he asked, and was surprised to hear such an ordinary question come out of his mouth.
‘Joanne.’
‘Joanne?’
Their eyes met for a long moment.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
He turned away. He should never have come. He started towards the gate leading to the alleyway down the side of the house, but she ran and touched him on the arm. He stopped dead.
‘Please, Jonathan—don’t go—I can’t bear it—’
‘It’s no good, Scarlett.’
‘Just—don’t leave like this. Stay a while, please. Tell me what you’re doing.’
‘I shouldn’t.’
Nothing was going to make it better. And yet when she pulled at him he followed her and sat down with her on a rickety bench at the end of the garden. He knew it was dangerous, sitting there just inches away from her.
‘When…when did you get back?’ she asked.
‘Six weeks ago.’
‘You look very brown.’
‘Yes, well, it was hot there.’
This was bizarre, making conversation like this, as if they were chance acquaintances.
‘What are you doing now?’
‘I’m working at the Dorchester for the time being. It’s a big hotel in London.’
‘Do you like it there?’
‘Yes, they’ve got French staff so they understand good food. It’s nice to get back to restaurant cooking after doing all that bland stuff for the army hospital. And they’re a good crowd. We have a few laughs.’
‘Good, I’m glad. That you’ve found somewhere you like, I mean.’
There was so much he desperately wanted to ask her—when had she met this Ricky? Did she love him? What was so bloody wonderful about him? Above all, why hadn’t she waited for him? He would have waited for her till the end of time.
He stood up.
‘Oh, yes, don’t bother to worry abo
ut me. I’m just fine. Hunky-dory.’
Scarlett gasped. She looked as shocked as if he had slapped her face.
‘Jonathan, please—’
‘It’s no use, Scarlett. I shouldn’t have come. I won’t—’
‘Hello, and who have we got here?’
He heard Scarlett gasp again as he turned towards the newcomer. A young man a couple of years older than himself was strolling across the grass with his hands in his pockets. Everything about him was fashionable, shiny—and cheap. So this was the man who had taken Scarlett away from him. All his hatred seemed totally justified.
‘Oh—Ricky—you’re early—I wasn’t expecting—’Scarlett twittered. ‘This—er—this is Jonathan. A—er—a family friend.’
Ricky nodded. ‘Afternoon, mate. Scarlett’s not mentioned you before.’
‘I’ve been away. National service.’
‘Oh, right. It’s a bugger, ain’t it? Happiest day of my life when I got out. Did you get caught up in that Suez stuff?’
‘No, I was out in Malaya by the time it started up.’
‘Malaya?’ A nasty smile spread over Ricky’s face. He tipped his head back, looking Jonathan up and down. ‘So you’re the boyfriend who was in Malaya. Well, mate, I’m sorry but you’re a bit too late. She’s spoken for.’ He reached out for Scarlett, putting an arm round her waist. ‘My dinner ready, babe?’
Something snapped inside Jonathan. He hit out with all his force, punching Ricky square on the jaw. Then he turned and walked away, leaving them both in confusion.
CHAPTER TWENTY
SCARLETT woke up. It was pitch-dark and cold. She listened for the sound of the baby breathing. Yes, everything was all right. She was about to turn over and go back to sleep again when a thin wailing started up from the cot. Scarlett lay rigid. Would Joanne settle if she ignored her, or should she get up now and pick her up before Ricky woke up? Before she could make her mind up, the wailing escalated and Ricky stirred. Scarlett slid out of bed and made her way over to the cot.
‘Shh, shh, it’s all right, Mummy’s got you.’
She hauled the baby out of the cot and cuddled her. She was hot and fretful and snuffly.
Bye Bye Love Page 20
