by Cathy Sharp
‘What’s wrong, Kathy?’
Billy was staring at me, waiting for my answer.
‘I’ll come and have a cup of tea with Maggie,’ I said. ‘Maybe I’ll marry you in three weeks, Billy Ryan, and maybe I won’t.’
‘That’s my Kathy,’ he said and grinned. ‘You haven’t changed. For a minute there I thought you’d gone posh on me – thought yourself above the likes o’ me.’
I gave him an old-fashioned look that hid my thoughts. If only Billy knew the truth. I wasn’t too good for him. It was true what they said, I was no better than my mother was and I had almost decided to do the same to him as she had to Ernie Cole.
Six
‘It’s what I’ve dreamed of for months,’ Maggie declared and hugged me. ‘Real good news, Kathy. The best! I’m so excited I don’t know whether I’m on me head or me heels.’
Billy told his mother as soon as we went into her kitchen that afternoon that I’d agreed to marry him, and Maggie went into raptures of delight. She’d had the wedding planned for months and as she started to tell me all the things she’d put aside for us, I knew I was trapped. I couldn’t hurt Maggie or Billy by drawing back now and I was still too confused and upset to think clearly.
Besides, if I couldn’t have the man I really loved, why not marry a man who loved me? Billy had been after me since I was at school and he was looking as pleased as a dog with two tails. Yet my conscience told me that I was doing a terrible thing. I ought to have at least told him that I was having another man’s child. If I’d done so at once he might have understood. Now, after seeing his pleasure because I’d more or less consented to marry him, I couldn’t bear to see the happy glow turn to hurt and disappointment in his eyes.
There were a dozen reasons why I should have confessed the truth to him that afternoon, but a mixture of pride and fear held me silent and then it was too late. I felt as if I were caught up on a roller coaster ride and couldn’t get off without falling.
‘You were a bit quiet,’ Billy said as he walked me home later. ‘If yer want things different I’ll tell Ma. We shan’t live with ’er long. It’s just until I get a job and earn some decent money.’
‘I don’t mind living with Maggie. It’s better than living at home.’
‘Yer don’t ’ave ter go back there unless you want.’
‘He may not be my father, Billy – but perhaps I do owe him something. I’m going to get things sorted between us. But if I’m worried I’ll come to Maggie’s later.’
‘Do you want me to sort him for you?’
‘No!’ The last thing I wanted was for Billy and Ernie to have a row. ‘I’ll be all right. I promise you.’
‘Well … if you’re sure. But remember you’ve got me ter look out fer yer now, Kathy. If he lays a finger on yer, I’ll beat his ’ead in!’
‘Billy! Don’t say things like that. You wouldn’t be much good to me if they hung you for murder.’
‘I didn’t exactly mean it – but I’ll make him sorry if ’e ’urts yer, love.’
‘He won’t. There’s no need to worry. I know exactly what to do with Ernie – whether he’s my father or not.’
‘That’s my offer,’ I said facing Ernie across the kitchen table a few minutes later. ‘I’m going to marry Billy Ryan, but if you keep your mouth shut about Jamie O’Rourke, I’ll come every day to tidy the house and your tea will be ready when you come in.’
‘So yer ’avin’ a kid then.’ Ernie’s eyes narrowed craftily as he looked at me, and I knew my face had given me away. ‘Does Billy Ryan know? I’ll bet a bleedin’ shillin’ yer ’aven’t told ’im. Yer as bad as yer mother.’
I felt my cheeks burn with shame. He was right to accuse me. It didn’t matter how many excuses I made about not wanting to hurt Maggie or Billy, or that I was doing this for Tom’s sake and the child. The truth lay like a stone in my breast. I was cheating Billy. I was deceiving him.
‘What I do is my business. If you breathe one word of any of this to Billy or anyone else I’ll leave you to rot in your own filth.’
‘I’ll keep me mouth shut as long as you do your duty by me. Don’t think you can come for a start and then stop. Do that and I’ll tell Billy and the whole street what a dirty little slut you are.’
‘Talk to me like that and I’ll run off like my mother did. If I don’t marry Billy you won’t see me again.’
He stared at me, then scowled. ‘No need for us to speak at all. Just keep your side of the bargain, that’s all.’
I stood like a stone statue as he went out, slamming the street door behind him. What had I done? Could I trust him to hold his silence? And for how long? I was caught in a trap of my own making and I couldn’t see a way out.
After many tears and false starts I managed to write a letter to Tom that evening. I said that I still cared for him as a friend but had decided I did not want to marry him. It was hard to write the lies that I knew would hurt him – and yet if he really loved me he would surely have tried to heal the breach between us long before this.
Perhaps Tom wasn’t truly in love with me. Ally had doubted him from the beginning. She had said he would let me down. Tom said she was jealous of all my friends, but he didn’t like her much. Perhaps he no longer liked me as much as he had. It might be that he had deliberately exacerbated our quarrel because he wanted to break it off with me. Or perhaps I was just telling myself that to ease my feeling of guilt.
I did not dare to think about any of it too deeply. If I had I should not have liked what I saw. I did not like what I was doing or myself very much. Deep inside myself I was ashamed.
I was ashamed and my conscience told me I should confess to Billy and then go away somewhere I was not known to have my child. I knew it was what I ought to do, but I also knew that I would not do it. I had always thought I was brave enough to do anything, but faced with the prospect of bearing an illegitimate child I discovered that I was afraid of the disgrace. Like many other girls before me, I was going to take the easy way out. I was going to marry Billy for better or worse.
Bridget insisted on coming to the house on the morning of my wedding to help me dress. We were getting married at the registry office because I wasn’t a Catholic and neither of us wanted to wait until I had been accepted into the church; it just seemed easier to have a civil ceremony.
‘I should’ve liked to see you wed in church.’ Maggie Ryan had been regretful when we told her our decision. ‘But you can have a blessing later if you decide you want to – and we’ll have a good do afterwards just the same.’
Bridget had seemed surprised when she’d congratulated me on the news. I knew she had sensed something between her brother and me after the funeral, but she didn’t mention Tom. She just insisted on buying me some lovely things for my trousseau and said she would be round on the morning of my wedding.
‘I’ve always thought of you as almost a daughter, Kathy. You’ve got no mother to be with you on your special day, so I shall take that privilege for myself – if you will permit me?’
‘You’ve always been good to me. It will be lovely to have you there, Bridget. Thank you for your kindness.’
Her kindness had brought tears to my eyes, making me even more aware of what I had done and what I had lost.
Ernie Cole had taken not the slightest interest in my wedding. He was drunk most of the time he wasn’t at work and I seldom saw him. Joe Robinson was to stand up with me as my witness at the ceremony and he and Bridget had been generous in so many ways.
I had wondered if Tom might come to the lanes to try to persuade me to marry him, but I hadn’t heard from him. There was no answer to my letter – no word of any kind. I wasn’t sure what I would have done if he had come, but it seemed that he was no longer interested in me.
That hurt me more than I dared to acknowledge even to myself, but it was what I deserved. I had behaved badly and it was my own fault if I was unhappy. Several sleepless nights were my punishment, nights during which I alternated b
etween running away and impossible longings that left me weeping into my pillow.
Yet come the morning I did nothing. For all my pride and determination I couldn’t find the courage to walk away from a marriage I knew was wrong. Instead I comforted myself by making myself believe it would all work out for the best. Billy loved and wanted me, and I wanted to be safe from the shame of bearing a child out of wedlock.
I had made up my mind that I would be a good wife to Billy. Somehow I would make up to him for what I’d done. If I could make us both content simply by trying then I would leave nothing undone. Billy would have no reason to complain about his marriage.
‘You make a lovely bride, Kathy,’ Maggie said when she popped in to see me just before we were due to leave for the ceremony. ‘Doesn’t she, Bridget?’
‘Kathy always looks lovely – and that dress she chose suits her a treat. That pale grey wouldn’t be everyone’s choice for a wedding dress but it looks wonderful on her.’ Bridget smiled at me fondly. ‘Where is Billy taking you for your honeymoon, – or hasn’t he told you?’
‘We’re going up to the West End for a few days. The armistice is due to be signed on the 11th of the month and Billy says that’s the place to be for the celebrations.’
‘Yes, I agree.’ Bridget looked thoughtful. ‘It’s to be signed on the eleventh day of the eleventh month at the eleventh hour. Joe was saying we might go up West for the celebrations.’
‘I should’ve thought Billy would have chosen somewhere more romantic,’ Maggie said with a little sniff. ‘Like the seaside …?’
Bridget laughed and shook her head. ‘In this weather? You’re mad, Maggie Ryan. They would freeze at the seaside.’
Bridget and Maggie were the best of friends and Maggie smiled.
‘I suppose you’re right but I’ve always fancied a holiday in Blackpool. They say it’s real lovely there.’
‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘I didn’t want to go too far away. Billy is going to take me to the theatre and the music hall, and then we’ll come home after the armistice. He wants to start work as soon as possible.’ And I hadn’t wanted to go to the sea; the memories would have been too painful.
‘Well, start as you mean to go on,’ Maggie agreed. ‘Billy wants to get you a home of your own, Kathy – though you know you’re more than welcome to stay with me. There’s only Mick and me now. Our Billy was the last at home.’
‘He never would have budged if he hadn’t wanted to get married,’ Bridget teased. ‘You’ve spoiled him, Maggie.’
‘Things have been so much better for us since your Joe gave me that nice little job in the store, and we don’t have to worry about the rent these days. Besides, you should talk, Bridget Robinson! You spoil that girl of yours something rotten.’
‘Well, I am soft over our Amy.’ Bridget laughed. ‘The pair of us are as bad as one another, so we are.’ She glanced at the pretty silver wristwatch Joe had given her recently for a present. ‘We’d best get moving, Kathy love. If I’m not mistaken, Joe has just arrived with the cars.’
They had made such a fuss of me between the two of them, making me laugh with their banter and teasing. The time had slipped by and I hadn’t thought much about what I was doing.
I thought about it in the wedding car with Joe Robinson, and I was terrified. What on earth was I doing? Why was I marrying a man I wasn’t in love with?
‘Don’t look so scared, Kathy.’ Joe reached for my hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘Everyone is nervous on their wedding day. Billy is a decent lad. He loves you and he’ll do his best to look after you.’
I smiled my thanks at Joe. He was being kind but he didn’t know what I was doing. All my generous friends would be horrified if they knew the truth.
As the car slowed and I saw Billy outside the registry office waiting for me with all his family, I knew I was making a terrible mistake. Had I been braver I would have changed my mind then, but I was afraid – afraid of the disgust that would replace the smiles on their faces.
And so I allowed myself to be carried along by the momentum. We all trooped into the office, me hardly looking at Billy in his smart suit and polished black shoes. He was a good-looking man and seemed so happy it hurt. I was trying to tell myself everything was going to be fine and that marriage to one man was very like marriage to any other; trying to convince myself that it didn’t matter that I wasn’t in love with him, but of course it did. It ought to have been Tom standing beside me. Oh, why wasn’t it Tom?
My throat was tight with emotion but somehow I kept it inside. I answered the questions I was asked, felt Billy slip the ring on my finger and then we were back outside being showered with dried rose petals.
‘Well, Mrs Ryan, how do you feel now?’ Billy asked, grinning.
‘Bewildered,’ I answered truthfully. ‘That was so quick.’
‘Short and sweet – but now the fun begins.’
He looked so pleased with himself that I began to feel better. I hadn’t begun to show any signs of my pregnancy yet and the morning sickness had stopped. Perhaps everything would be all right after all. Perhaps Billy need never know the truth.
The reception was fun with all our friends laughing and joking, teasing Billy and making a big fuss of me. I had begun to feel much more relaxed now that the ceremony was over. It was done and there was no going back so I might as well make the best of things.
People kept giving me drinks and I drank them, knowing full well that I was getting a little bit tiddly. Since most of it was port and lemon I didn’t have enough to make me drunk, but it certainly took the tension out of me.
By the time Billy and I left for our hotel up west I was feeling fine. He kissed me in the car and I responded enthusiastically. Billy had always been a good kisser and I’d made up my mind not to cheat him in that way. The least I could do was to be a loving wife.
I knew he was pleased by my response. He had bought me a string of seed pearls as a wedding gift and in the car he gave me five pounds.
‘That’s to buy yourself something nice from the shops, Kathy.’
‘You shouldn’t,’ I said. ‘It’s a lot of money, Billy, and I know you haven’t got the job you want yet.’
‘It’s the last of my army wages,’ he said. ‘I’ve enough to pay for the hotel and things but I’ll need to earn some pretty sharpish when we get ’ome. I’ve been savin’ fer this, Kathy, and Ma ’elped me. You take it and spend it on what yer like.’
‘Thanks, Billy.’
I tucked it safely inside my purse. I would spend a little of the money to please him, but I would save most of it for the future. With a baby on the way we were going to need more money than Billy yet realized.
He had booked us into a pleasant but inexpensive hotel near the tube in Oxford Street – so that we were nice and central, he told me. The room was a bit noisy and we had to go down the hall to a shared bathroom. It wasn’t as nice a hotel as the one Tom had taken me to that time, but I tried not to think about that.
Billy had gone for the best he could afford, and a lot of girls from the lanes would have thought themselves in paradise to be taken up to the West End for a few days. It was now the end of the first week in November and we were booked in until the twelfth – five whole days to enjoy ourselves.
I wanted it to be a good time for both of us, and when Billy made love to me later that night I returned his kisses warmly. There was no need to fake my responses, because Billy was sure and certain in his loving and I obviously wasn’t the first girl he’d been to bed with. It was easy enough to close my eyes and let myself dream.
I wept a little afterwards against his shoulder and he stroked my hair but didn’t say anything. I wondered if he knew it wasn’t my first time but my fears receded when he didn’t jump out of bed and accuse me of not being a virgin.
Billy made love to me again the next morning when he woke, but this time he wasn’t quite so bothered about pleasing me, merely taking his own pleasure. He was a bit rough and if I hadn’t been aw
are of guilt I might have complained. As it was, I accepted his behaviour without comment.
He was quiet during breakfast but then he suggested we go to the waxworks before having a meal out somewhere.
‘We could go shopping if you’d rather?’ he said when I didn’t answer immediately.
‘No – let’s go to the waxworks. It’s your holiday as well as mine.’
‘Honeymoon,’ he said and for a moment there was a steely glint in his eyes.
I didn’t answer. My heart was beating fast. I was almost sure that he knew the truth now and I felt sick inside. What was I going to say to him if he demanded to be told the name of my lover? I couldn’t tell him the truth, I just couldn’t! That would make nonsense of what I’d done to protect Tom’s good name and my child.
Billy was a bit moody as we left the hotel but at the waxworks he relaxed and really got into the spirit of things, lingering over the figures of some famous boxing heroes he admired. By the time we left he seemed more like his old self. We went to a nice little café for our lunch and then to an afternoon matinée at the pictures.
That evening Billy took me to the pub. We both had several drinks and when he made love to me later it was good between us.
‘Kathy …?’
I tensed myself in the darkness as I waited for the accusations.
‘Yes, Billy?’
‘I love yer, Kathy. No matter what, I love yer.’
‘I love you, Billy.’
I hid my face against his shoulder, my heart aching. I was so desperately sorry for what I’d done and wished that I could go back to the moment I met Billy after the quarrel with my father. If only I’d told him I was having a child then! I could’ve made up some story.
As Billy slept and I lay wakeful, the lie came to my mind. If my husband ever realized that the child I was carrying wasn’t his I would be ready with my story.
Billy’s moods alternated between cheerful and sullen over the next few days, his lovemaking either tender or selfishly urgent. When he was gentle with me I responded, clinging to him and telling him how good it was, but when he hurt me I turned away from him and said nothing.
