If Quinn had done nothing more than post a bit of dog mess and a poisonous letter through his letter-box, she wasn’t getting value for money. Which wasn’t good news. Not good at all.
Molly had only made the first payment so far, of course. Later that afternoon, around the time she knew Quinn called in the Dog and Duck to pick up another round of bets, she took him the second.
‘Haven’t seen much for me money yet,’ she casually remarked as she handed the envelope over.
He stared at her for a second, blue eyes hard as chipped ice, his expression unfathomable. Transactions such as this were carried out in a private room at the back of the pub. Molly attempted to soften her words with a smile, knowing she was on unfamiliar territory. But somehow the smile came out a bit shaky and her jocular tone sounded forced.
Quinn sat, perfectly relaxed, in a wing chair, eyes half closed against the spiral of smoke rising from his cigarette, his slouch cap draped over the arm. ‘Is it a complaint you’re wanting to make?’ His spoke in that soft Irish accent which entirely belied the ruthlessness of his nature.
She swallowed. There wasn’t much Big Molly was afraid of, but she was keenly aware that she’d met her match in Quinn. She felt entirely out of her league. ‘No, course not. I were just wondering when you were going to do the deed, that’s all. I want that rat to regret taking up with my girl. He needs a good seeing to.’
Quinn counted the notes she had given him with punctilious care, before sliding them into a tin box which rested on a small table beside him.
When he had carefully locked the box and slid the key into his waistcoat pocket, he raised his head to smile at Molly, a smile that transformed his grim features, making him look almost benign. It clearly revealed how handsome he must have been when he was young, still was in a way. She very nearly gasped, and could certainly see why he’d always been considered one for the ladies.
‘He will be dealt with, Molly, all in good time. Don’t worry. Have I ever let a client down? I shall keep my side of the bargain, so long as you keep yours. I shall expect the final payment by the end of the month. Is that convenient?’
Molly swallowed, wondering how the hangment she could put her hands on so much money so quickly. Hell, worry about that tomorrow. Now she beamed at him, feeling happier for having discovered there was more punishment to come for that arrogant, philandering, no-good piece of work, Davidson. Much, much happier. ‘Aye, perfectly convenient. No problem. I look forward to hearing from you when the job’s done, then.’
Quinn’s penetrating blue eyes were expressionless as she smiled and nodded and hastily backed out of the room. Once outside, Molly leaned against a wall and drew in great gulps of cold night air, the sour taste of the canal in her mouth seeming infinitely more pleasant than the one she’d experienced in Quinn’s office.
Now all she had to do was find the rest of the bleeding money and the job was as good as done.
‘This must be the one,’ Fran said, stopping at the front door of an end-terrace house just beyond the railway arches.
‘Are you sure you want to go through with this?’ Patsy asked, struggling to disguise an involuntary shudder. ‘It’s not too late to change your mind.’ The house looked blank, as if nobody lived within, or whoever did had no wish to be disturbed, with dark green curtains drawn across grubby windows.
‘I’m sure.’ In Fran’s mind she really didn’t see any alternative. If she couldn’t have Eddie, and it seemed he’d turned against her completely, she certainly didn’t want his child - his leavings - in which he would show no interest.
What was it about society’s obsession with marriage that made it necessary for her to go through with this barbaric practice? Why was it so shameful to be an unmarried mother? It took two to make a baby, so why was it only the girl who was considered immoral? It wasn’t fair.
Except that she didn’t want the kid anyway.
Even so, a back-street abortionist had not been her first choice. Fran had braved possible scandal and gone first to her own doctor who had been utterly shocked at the very idea of agreeing to what he termed a ‘therapeutic abortion’, as if she had deliberately got herself into this mess in order to enjoy the benefit of one. He’d then gone on to lecture her on her morals till she felt like screaming; telling her in no uncertain terms that marriage was created specifically for the purpose of procreation. This, he explained, was woman’s true role in life, and no other, as if she were nothing more than a womb without a brain attached, didn’t have any wishes and aspirations other than to marry and have children.
By the time he was done with her Fran had felt dirty and sordid. He made it only too clear that abortion was immoral, unnecessary and illegal unless she could get written agreement from two doctors, which, in her case, was quite out of the question.
‘It’s not as if having a child would damage your health, so you must pay for your foolishness. You should have thought of the consequences before.’
Quite, Fran thought, with pragmatic honesty. The sad truth was that he was right. What she was about to do was dreadful, cruel, wicked. Nevertheless, she stepped forward and rapped loudly on the door with the backs of her knuckles, knowing that if she hesitated she’d be lost, and might never find the courage to go through with her plan.
Fran and Patsy sat awkwardly together on an old sofa, its worn chintz once a swirl of leaves and roses that had long since faded, no doubt due to the restless shifting of many other callers such as themselves on exactly the same mission.
They’d been led along a grim hall, its walls painted a shiny dark brown, which didn’t help to lighten their mood. Fran had duly handed over a sum of money to the girl who’d let them in, and now they were patiently waiting to be called.
The furniture in the small, cluttered room comprised a table covered by a chenille fringed cloth, four velvet-backed chairs, and an old-fashioned sideboard stacked with a miscellany of plates and cups. An armchair stood by the hearth, empty on this warm summer night, and beside it stood a small side table and lamp featuring a crinoline lady base. The rosy glow from the latter served to disguise the squalor of the room but could do nothing to mask the pervasive smell.
Patsy and Fran glanced at each other, noses curling in distaste as they each tried to identify the cause. In amongst the more obvious sweet-sour odour of poverty and decay was something more, something that set Patsy’s teeth on edge as it reminded her of the rusty taste in her mouth after a trip to the dentist to have a tooth pulled.
Fran sat with her hands clenched between her knees. Had she been able to, this would have been the moment she prayed, though for what she didn’t know. Divine deliverance from this mess, perhaps.
A part of her longed to turn tail and run, yet if she didn’t go through with it she would be vilified and spat at, the child labelled a bastard for its entire life. She’d seen the way other girls had been treated. That Dena Dobson, for instance, when she had her baby daughter. Nobody would speak to her, yet to her credit Dena had stubbornly hung on to her child.
Fran was honest enough to realise that she didn’t have what it took to do the same. Mainly, she supposed, because she didn’t possess the right sort of maternal instincts. She longed only to be rid of her problem, to be free to get on with her life.
When she heard the door of the front parlour open and the whispered order to the young girl to say all was ready, she cursed the day she’d ever met Eddie Davidson. He should be the one suffering, not her.
She grasped Patsy’s hand. ‘You’ll come in with me, won’t you?’
‘It’s not allowed,’ said the girl, in the kind of bored tone used by one who has seen and heard this scene enacted too many times and simply wants to get it over and done with as quickly as possible. ‘Your friend can wait here, so’s she can see you safely home afterwards. You don’t want her keeling over at the sight of a bit of blood, now do you? Then we’d have two patients on us hands.’
Patsy, relieved that she was to be spared from stepp
ing into what she viewed as the jaws of hell, promised faithfully to wait.
Fran didn’t say a word, instinctively shying away from the images these words had created in her terrified mind. She shot Patsy one last anguished glance, then on a great shuddering breath, got to her feet and obediently followed the young girl into the other room.
She obediently stripped off her panties behind a screen then lay down on the table. She could feel herself shaking.
‘Don’t worry, girl,’ the woman named Maureen told her. ‘I’ve done this scores of times. You’ll be fine and dandy in a trice. Everything’s scrubbed down and clean as we can make it. You’ll get no infection here if I can help it. Now, are you ready?’
Fran intended to say she was as ready as she’d ever be, but her throat closed up and all she managed was a brief nod. Looking about her, wild-eyed, she struggled to focus on the woman’s face which seemed to swim and blur before her eyes. She focused on the room, the green curtains, anywhere but on the frightening-looking instrument Maureen held in her hand.
It was only when Fran felt the piercing pain and then everything being sucked out of her that she thought, No, and wanted to scream at the woman to put everything back. But it was far too late.
Eddie was not having a particularly good day either. He’d come home from the gas board at his usual time of five o’clock, parked his car in the drive then gone into the garage to find a chamois leather to wipe it down, which he always did before putting it away. He certainly didn’t want his pride and joy going rusty.
He never saw who hit him. Afterwards, he remembered being extraordinarily surprised that someone should be in his garage at all, apparently waiting for him. He didn’t have time to see who it was. One minute he was startled by the dark shape of a man emerging from the shadows as he opened the double doors, the next he was aware of a huge explosion of light in his head. Then he was lying on the ground with ample time to pray for unconsciousness as steel capped boots kicked him in the sides and back, but it was a long wait before it came.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Patsy took Fran straight to her own room at number twenty-two, where the poor girl spent the afternoon bleeding into towels and worrying that she might be about to peg out. She stayed there all night, alternately groaning in pain or weeping, though more from fury at her situation than shame.
Patsy explained to Clara, who already had enough on her plate looking after Annie, that Fran was too ill to move, even though she only lived next door at number twenty-four, and that she, Patsy, would look after her. Clara was naturally concerned and offered to send for a doctor, which Patsy hastily assured her wouldn’t be necessary.
‘But if she’s too ill even to walk next door, she must be bad. What exactly is wrong with her, Patsy?’
‘Nothing more than a bad stomach upset, but she’s had some violent cramps and vomiting, and now she’s asleep at last. Surely you don’t object to her staying over? I don’t mind looking after her.’
Nothing more was said as Clara had no wish to be seen as uncharitable, although she did insist on popping next door to explain all of this to Big Molly. Patsy was thankful Clara hadn’t asked her to do that. There were only so many times she could repeat this lie.
Fran was half afraid her mother would come tearing round at once, demanding to know what was going on, but, strangely, she didn’t.
The bleeding and the fierce cramps began to ease a little during the night, and dawn found Patsy stuffing the spoiled towels into a neighbouring dustbin, so that they wouldn’t ever be found by Annie or Clara. How she would explain the missing items she had no idea, but nor did she have any clue how to get them properly clean again either, so she’d just have to think of some excuse or other. Yet another lie. Her nose really would be growing as long as Pinocchio’s soon.
Patsy instructed Fran to stay in bed until she felt well enough to get up, all day if necessary. ‘You can stay here as long as you like, as long as you need to, but I have to get off to work since I’m in charge of the stall while Annie is ill. Clara pops back and forth, dividing her time between looking after Annie and helping me on the stall, so she doesn’t have much time either. Will you be okay on your own?’
Fran gave a weak smile and assured Patsy that she would. She was quite certain that if the cramps started up again, she’d be dead by tea time. Drat Eddie Davidson.
Fran received the very best of care, despite there already being one invalid in the house. Clara would pop upstairs after she’d washed the breakfast things, tapping lightly on the bedroom door and bringing in a cup of tea on a tray.
At first she would say, ‘I didn’t prepare you any food, Fran dear, since it’s a stomach bug you’ve got, and we should starve it out. Fasting is generally the most effective method. But I thought you might appreciate a cuppa. Do you think you could keep one down?’
‘That’s very kind of you, Miss Clara. I could murder a cup of tea.’ Fran was ravenous but had no choice but to keep up the fiction of the stomach bug.
‘You look very pale still. Stay right where you are, dear, then when you feel up to it, help yourself to a bath. There’s plenty of hot water. Annie has hers first thing so leave yours till later, which should suit you. Give you chance to get a bit more sleep.’
Fran thanked her and some time in the late morning when the house seemed quiet, decided to do just that. The hot water felt wonderful against her skin and the more sore parts of her anatomy, and she lay back on a blissful sigh.
Everything was going to be all right. Apart from being half starved with hunger, Fran was beginning to feel decidedly better. Maybe she wasn’t going to die, after all.
Rightly or wrongly she was a free woman again. Her problem had been solved, but she’d take more care in future, and she’d get her own back on that Eddie Davidson, see if she didn’t. He’d learn soon enough the meaning of the time-honoured phrase, ‘hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’. He’d certainly be sorry he’d ever used and then spurned her. In the meantime, she still had her mother to face.
‘Is it difficult to make hats?’ Patsy asked Clara a day or two later, when she once more felt free to concentrate on her own future.
Clara laughed. ‘Not in the least. You need the right equipment of course: blocks, straw cones and capelines - those are the shapes you can buy ready formed to start off your hat. Or you can buy the fabric, linen, raffia and sinamay, or perhaps synthetic straw which is popular at the moment, and form the shapes yourself over a block. Then you will need such items as glue, millinery braid and wire, even dye if you wish, in any shade you choose. You can wrap the crown and brim in chiffon or tulle, add a veil or dress the hat with an appropriate piece of trimming. The only limit is your imagination, and I can see you’ve already explored yours.’
Patsy pulled a face. ‘It’s boring just sitting here doing nothing. And some of the hats I trimmed have sold.’
Clara picked up an emerald green felt decked out with purple feathers and chuckled. ‘I’m not too sure about this one, but it might well be to somebody’s taste. Would you care to learn hat-making, Patsy? I could start you off by teaching you the little I know. And if you’re still interested after that, you could take a course at the local night-school.’
Patsy was suddenly filled with uncertainty, as if she’d been caught out doing something sinful simply because it gave her pleasure. Where would be the point in her doing such a course? She wasn’t staying. The market might not even be here a year from now, and it was unlikely she’d still be living at number twenty-two if it was. This was only a temporary job and she’d be unemployed again just as soon as Annie came back to work. Probably forced to move out of Champion Street Market altogether.
‘Naw,’ she said, scoffing at the idea with a forced laugh, as if it were really of no consequence. ‘Don’t really think It’s my thing,’ and then ripped off the purple feathers and tossed them to one side.
Don’t get involved, she told herself. The success of the hat stall was not her
problem.
Marc came round at lunchtime, as he so often did, casually asking if she’d like to come and have a coffee with him, or listen to the latest hits in Hall’s music booths. ‘Do you like Paul Anka? He’s got a new single out: Diana.’ She’d told him it was over between them, and Marc knew he should take no for answer, but somehow he couldn’t seem to accept it. He was quite certain that if he could just persuade Patsy to talk about whatever was bothering her, he’d breach this wall she’d built around herself.
‘Do you know a Diana then? Is that why you like it?’ Patsy sharply retorted, not even pausing as he spoke to her but keeping right on walking, nose in the air, aware he was striding after her. It was her lunch break and she liked to take a turn about the market. She paused idly to study a jig-saw on Leo’s toy stall, smiling sweetly at him.
‘Hiya, Leo. Busy?’
‘Can’t complain. I’m selling yo-yos like fun. Do you want one?’
‘Why not?’ Patsy handed over a few pennies and started practising with the yo-yo, rolling it up and down the string, throwing and tossing it in the air, much to Marc’s annoyance.
He felt a burst of frustration, a feeling that was growing all too familiar. Never had he known a girl more perverse, more difficult; part aggravating wild child, part fascinating woman. ‘Where you have got this idea from that I flirt with all the girls, I cannot think. Have you seen me with anyone other than you?’
‘I’m certain you’d make very sure that I don’t see you. In any case, you don’t belong to me, so why should I care?’ Oh, but she did care, very much. She half glanced at him, and wished at once that she hadn’t. His eyes were devouring her, robbing her of the ability to think straight. Why wouldn’t he leave her alone? Why did he keep pestering her? Hadn’t she made it very clear that they were finished? She flung herself back into showing off her yo-yo skills, so vigorously that it flew from her hand, skidding under a market stall and she had to scrabble after it to get it back. Most undignified.
Fools Fall in Love Page 23
