Fools Fall in Love

by Freda Lightfoot

  Molly screeched with laughter. ‘Lawful? You Georges don’t know the meaning of the word. How many innocent girls has that no-good brother of yours interfered with since then, eh? Free to do as he pleases for all these years in some foreign land.’

  ‘I’m not going to stand here defending my brother.’

  ‘No, because you can’t. He’s indefensible.’

  A tug at her sleeve and Winnie’s voice in her ear. ‘Don’t take on so, Molly. You’ll get yourself all worked up for nothing. Leave it be.’

  Molly snatched her arm away. ‘It isn’t nowt to me. As for that son of yours, if you aren’t man enough to control him better, then I’ll do it for you. He leaves my girl alone, understand, or I’ll have somebody fix his wedding tackle so’s it won’t be any further use to him. Pity that brother of yours didn’t suffer the same fate.’

  Thomas made a low growling sound deep in his throat, but making no reply, he brushed right past her and headed for his cake stall.

  ‘Here, don’t you walk away from me when I’m talking to you. I asked you a question, are you going to control that son of yours or not?’

  Still Thomas George ignored her. As he reached his stall, he meticulously fastened back a loose canvas flap, murmured a few quiet words to his anxious looking wife then turned with a smile to his first customer. ‘Your usual granary, is it, Mrs Marsh? And a couple of custard tarts, right you are.’

  If there was one thing Molly couldn't abide above all else, it was being ignored. ‘Here, you, listen when I’m speaking to you! You get that son of yours off my back, right? Stop him keep coming round to mine moaning about wanting to wed our Amy. It isn’t going to happen. I’ll lock her up till doomsday sooner.’

  ‘Aye, you do that,’ Thomas George shouted right back, leaning over his cakes and wagging a furious finger at her, oblivious to his wife murmuring something about his blood pressure and doing her best to calm him. ‘The last thing I want is for my lad to be associated with any cheap little tart you might have produced.’

  That was all the spark Molly needed.

  Grabbing the nearest thing to hand, which happened to be a lemon meringue pie, she flung it in Thomas George’s face. It splattered most satisfactorily down his large bulbous nose, all over his prattling mouth and right down the front of his clean white overall. Molly punched one fat fist in the air and cheered. But her triumph didn’t last long. Thomas George struck back with a strawberry pavlova.

  In seconds, custard tarts, vanilla slices and apple crumbles were flying everywhere. Customers ran for their lives while the stall holders abandoned their pitches and gathered round to watch Molly Poulson enter into armed combat with the Georges, her sworn enemies. She hadn’t entertained them half so well in years, not since she’d chased Ozzy home with a frying pan after he’d been seen chatting up that floozy in The Crown.

  ‘Eeh, if Ozzy were watching this, he’d be taking bets on his missus winning,’ said one wag.

  It ended, predictably enough, with Big Molly grabbing hold of the front of the Georges’ bakery stall. With one heave from those massive shoulders of hers, she flipped it over, demolishing any remaining stock in a glorious puddle of custard, cream, and pastry.

  Then she walked away with a wide grin on her face. She felt much better now. Quite perked her up, that had.

  Amy cuddled close in Chris’s arms on the park bench, weeping softly into his shoulder. The golden warmth of a May evening bathed them in its soft light, gilding the fire in her auburn curls. There was the sound of children’s voices as they played on the swings and roundabout close by. An old man strolled by happily whistling on his way to the pub, a courting couple wrapped in each other’s arms, a family laughing and joking together as they took the dog for it’s evening walk. Ordinary people going happily about their ordinary, everyday lives.

  How Amy envied them. Everyone, but Chris and herself, seemed to be happy.

  ‘That’s it then, our last hope, the end of all our dreams of being together. What a fracas! Brawling in the street like that, like a – like a – oh, I can’t even find a word to describe it, it was so awful. I can’t believe Mam would do that.’

  ‘Can’t you? I can.’

  Amy bridled. ‘It takes two to make a fight. If your father hadn’t provoked her. . . ‘

  Chris smoothed a hand over her cheek, his eyes gently pleading. ‘Let’s not get involved in this. It’s their quarrel, not ours.’

  ‘Oh, Chris, yes, you’re right. This is what they’ve reduced us too. Making us take sides in their stupid feud. And if your family won’t even discuss it with you, there’s absolutely nothing more we can do. Did they even admit that he existed, this Uncle Howard? Did he go to Australia?’

  Chris’s expression was grim, his pallor answering her question even as he shook his head. ‘I asked them that. My mother took refuge in tears, as always, my father said he thought he’d already made it clear that the subject was closed, then ordered me to my room as if I were still a schoolboy.’

  They were both silent for a moment, digesting this.

  Amy said, in a small voice, ‘But you aren’t – a schoolboy, I mean.’

  ‘No, I’m damn well not! I can please myself what I do.’

  The anger in his tone frightened her and she began to weep again. ‘But I can’t please myself. I’m not of age yet.’

  ‘Don’t cry, Amy, please don’t cry. I love you. I can’t bear to see you so upset. I’m sorry I shouted. It’s just that it’s all turned out so – so awful!’

  ‘You weren’t shouting. Mam’s the one who shouts, not you. It’s a wonder I didn’t hear that fight from our Robert’s kitchens. I wish I had seen it in a way, the battle of the custard tarts.’ Amy almost giggled, though it was more from nerves than amusement. ‘Everyone’s talking about it. It’s so embarrassing. I can’t look people in the face.’

  He held her close, kissed away her tears. ‘There has to be something we can do, and I’ve been giving the matter a great deal of thought. Do you love me?’

  Her mouth curved into a shy smile that seemed to soften and blur her features. It brought a naked vulnerability into eyes still red from weeping, revealing the depth of her emotion, her fear of losing him, and making him want her all the more. ‘I was thinking that maybe I do.’

  ‘And you still want to marry me?’ He tenderly tucked a curl behind her ear.

  ‘I’m trying to think of a good reason why I shouldn’t.’ Amy rolled her eyes upwards, her rosy lips pouting in a delightful mockery of deep thought. Unable to resist, Chris captured her mouth with his and kissed her fiercely.

  ‘Stop teasing me, woman, this is serious. We have to concentrate.’

  ‘I know, I know, and I can’t bear it.’ All pretence gone she flung her arms about his neck and for several long moments neither of them spoke, being far too busily engaged in exchanging more kisses, and fresh avowals of love and devotion.

  After a while Chris disentangled himself. ‘I want you to listen to me very carefully, Amy. But first you must answer one more question. Do you trust me?’

  ‘Of course I trust you, I love you. I’d trust you with my life.’

  ‘Then this is how I see it. You’re absolutely right, they’re never going to agree to us getting married. My father says this so-called feud has nothing to do with me and yet it clearly does because when he’d calmed down today, after he’d cleaned off all the custard and cream, and remembered I was twenty-two and not twelve, I asked if I could bring you round to meet him, so that he could judge for himself. And he was off again. Absolutely hit the roof! He’s barely spoken to me since and Mum has that look in her eye, as if I’ve let her down in some way.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, I have every sympathy with your mam’s grief, Amy. It must have been terrible losing her sister like that, but clearly my family have suffered too. Dad must have lost a brother, in a way. Now he refuses even to mention his name, maybe looks on him as some sort of black sheep. Or perhaps Dad thinks he was hard done by. I
don’t know. Since it’s never to be discussed, how can I ever know? And why should it matter now? The important thing is, that it all happened nearly thirty years ago, and has nothing at all to do with us!’

  Amy had wiped away her tears, listening avidly to every word of this assessment, even though she knew it already in her heart. ‘So where does that leave us? What can we do?’

  ‘We can elope. In Scotland you’re old enough to marry at sixteen so we wouldn’t have a problem there.’

  ‘Oh, Chris!’ Her eyes were shining now with new-found hope. ‘Would you do that for me?’

  ‘It won’t be easy. They might come after us. Could contact the newspapers or the police. Say I’ve kidnapped you.’

  ‘I don’t care!’

  ‘Even when we get there, to Gretna Green, we’d need to lie low for two or three weeks before we could marry before the anvil. Would you mind sleeping rough, beneath the stars?’

  ‘Oh, Chris, no, not if I was in your arms.’ She was in them now, clinging tight to him, determined never to let him go. ‘When do we leave?’

  ‘I thought tomorrow night, after dark. I’ll be waiting for you at the end of Champion Street. Once everyone is asleep, I want you to sneak out, but don’t bring much with you, just pack a few things in a bag. I’ll see to the rest, food and stuff.’

  Amy shook her head. ‘No, I can’t do that, Mam watches me like a hawk. And our Fran sleeps in the same room, I’d never manage to get away. Can you meet me after work, as you did the other day? I could take a bag with me in the morning, with just the barest essentials.’

  ‘I’ll be there on the dot.’

  And so it was arranged. Amy could only hope and pray that she’d get through the next day without giving anything away, or arousing her mother’s suspicions.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Taking Fran’s advice, Patsy started to pay more attention to her hair and nails, this time painting them all one colour in an attempt to look elegant and sophisticated. She also bought some lemon shampoo and Annie was heard at times to complain that Patsy was never out of the bathroom, constantly washing her hair, not to mention that her nails were growing into talons.

  Clara would laugh and say, ‘She’s a young girl, having fun. Leave her be.’

  Patsy reminded herself of this fact the very next time Marc Bertalone sauntered by as she walked through the market, and had the gall to wink at her. Especially when her heart did that little acrobatic flip, leaving her short of breath for a moment.

  ‘Have you succumbed to my Latin charms yet?’ he teased.

  ‘Has hell frozen over already?’ Patsy said, glancing up into the bright blue heavens. But then it was far safer to study the puffy white clouds than the muscles on his bare arms, or the way he stood, legs astride, like a great colossus. So vain, she thought, so proud of himself. How could a man be so beautiful? It shouldn’t be allowed.

  ‘Tammy and the Bachelor is on at the Gaumont. Cool song. In the hit parade. Do you like Debbie Reynolds?’

  ‘I’m sure you do, since you’re woman mad.’ His melting brown eyes came alive with merry laughter, the long curling lashes sweeping upwards as he chuckled.

  Marc shook his head in despair, wishing he could learn to ignore her, but despite all her put-downs, her obstinate refusal even to speak to him in a civil fashion, he found Patsy utterly irresistible. She was the most infuriating girl he’d ever met yet he had to keep trying. Why couldn’t she see that he only wanted to get to know her better? ‘Can’t bear for me to look at another woman, huh? I knew it.’

  ‘Don’t flatter yourself.’

  ‘So that’s a no, is it?’

  ‘You’re so bright.’ Patsy turned to walk away.

  ‘Hey, you ask me next time, all right?’

  ‘Keep watching for that freeze.’

  Following her own advice about not becoming involved with the market folk, was proving to be harder than Patsy had anticipated. For all she’d made a few enemies at the outset, people seemed more accepting of her now.

  ‘Hiya, Patsy!’ they would call, as she passed by. Or even, ‘Like the outfit,’ if they saw her in something new and rather daring. She bought a pair of canary yellow Capris which turned heads whenever she passed by.

  Winnie Watkins was heard to note, ‘I may be interfering but I must say that with your colouring, you really suit yellow. It makes you look like a little ray of sunshine.’

  Patsy beamed her thanks as this was high praise indeed, coming from Winnie. With summer approaching she bought a couple of circular skirts from Dena’s rack that stood by Winnie’s stall. She absolutely loved them, one was patchwork, the other had a pair of cherries appliquéd just above the hem. Even Annie approved, which must be a miracle.

  That’s a pretty skirt,’ Clara said one day as Patsy helped her with the washing up. ‘Much nicer than those dreadful toreador pants.’

  Patsy bristled. ‘I love my toreadors, and my Sloppy Joe sweater. Didn’t you wear crazy clothes when you were young?’

  ‘Oh, I expect I did. I can’t really remember. It was different in those days, with a war on. There weren’t so many exciting things around to wear.’

  ‘I suppose not.’ Patsy took the next plate and began to wipe it, wondering if this might be an opportunity to do a bit more digging. ‘So what did you do during the war? Were you in the ATS or something?

  ‘No, nothing so – so sensible. Annie and I were in Paris when war broke out.’

  ‘Paris!’ Imagining dull, mousy Clara in Paris was quite beyond her. not to mention tight-lipped disapproving Annie. ‘What were you doing there, for goodness sake?’

  ‘My sister was a teacher of English, at the university. I stayed with her for a while, to keep her company, you know.’

  Patsy frowned at the plate, slowly went on wiping it. Did this fit in with what she’d learned? The gossipy neighbours had mentioned that Clara might have gone abroad to have the baby, so possibly it did. ‘Were you a teacher too?’

  Clara laughed. ‘Goodness, no, I’m not clever enough. I think that plate is dry now.’

  ‘Oh, sorry.’ Patsy set it in the rack, picked up another. ‘So when did you come back to England?’

  ‘It wasn’t quite so easy getting out. Any hope of escape became increasingly difficult as the enemy advanced. Once Germany invaded France in June, 1940, many anti-Nazi refugees were in danger of being arrested by the Gestapo. They were the German secret police, in case you didn’t know.’

  Patsy said that she did know, and showed proper concern. ‘So you were in danger of becoming trapped?’

  Clara paused, soap suds popping on her stilled hands in the washing- up water, a faraway expression in her grey eyes, seeing again some remembered horror. ‘We were in very grave danger at times. You had to have the right papers, reach the Belgian coast without being spotted, then find a ship to take you. All extremely difficult to achieve. We were not the only ones, you understand. The Jews, they suffered the worst . . . and the children. Some of our friends we . . . we never saw again.’

  Patsy’s eyes opened wide. She knew that Clara was referring to the death camps, to the holocaust, but didn’t dare ask about that. Who would wish to speak of such horror?

  ‘Sometimes you had to resort to forged papers, and secret routes with the help of what became known as the Underground. It was expensive - we had to sell our possessions to pay for – for the necessary help and required documents. We got out in the end on the back of a pig lorry. The animals were supposedly being taken to market. Annie and I hid under a tarpaulin right in their midst, terrified of being trampled underfoot, but the lorry driver did the best he could by getting us about halfway to the coast. After that, we walked. Miles and miles. Can’t remember how far or how long it took. Days and days. We were young then, of course, and reasonably fit, but bone weary nonetheless, dirty and bedraggled, and stinking of pigs.’

  ‘Weren’t you stopped by the Germans?’

  ‘There were one or two close shaves. We had to lie
low for a while and . . . well . . . anyway . . . we got back to England eventually. I can’t quite recall when exactly. We were lucky.’

  Patsy would have liked to have heard the bits of the story she’d left out, but it seemed rude to ask, since remembering was clearly painful for Clara. ‘You must have been scared.’

  ‘Terrified! They were difficult times.’

  Her hands jerked into action once more, scrubbing a pan with renewed vigour. ‘Enough about me,’ Clara said. ‘Now it’s your turn to tell me something about yourself.’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell.’ Patsy felt ashamed. Her problems seemed insignificant after hearing what the sisters had gone through during the war. And she suspected there was much more, that Clara had no wish to recall.

  ‘You’re sixteen years old and . . .’

  ‘Seventeen now.’

  Clara looked at her in surprise. ‘You’ve had a birthday and not told us?’

  Patsy shrugged. ‘It’s not important. I never have celebrated my birthday. Who would care?’

  There was a slight pause while Clara digested this piece of information, feeling sad deep in her heart that someone so young could be so cynical, and sorry that she hadn’t thought to ascertain this simple fact before. ‘You were born in 1940, though you aren’t sure where. Can you at least tell me where you slept the night before you came here?’

  ‘Why? What does it matter?’

  ‘I’m interested. Where did you live? You must have had a home, a school, a family some place. These foster parents of yours, tell me a little about them.’

  This was far too intrusive so far as Patsy was concerned. If the sisters found out about the Bowmans, their address and so forth, wouldn’t they send her right back?

  She put the plate in the rack and set down the dish towel. ‘There are only two things you need to know about me. One, I don’t answer questions. Two, I don’t do housework.’ And with this, she walked out of the kitchen.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ Clara said to herself. ‘It really isn’t getting any easier.’