Wartime Wife (18 page)

She stood directly in front of him.

‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked, knuckles resting on her hips – they were small and not likely to do him much damage, but she did look battle ready.

‘Why are
you
doing this,’ he retaliated.

She felt trim and in control when she straightened herself to full height. ‘You’ve got no rights stopping people going round the back lane.’

‘I am not stopping anyone from passing as long as they are not doing business with you.’

‘You have no right to do that!’

He jammed his knuckles on his hips, his stance echoing her own. ‘And you have no right taking the bread out of my mouth. I have a shop to run, taxes to pay. You are affecting that.’

‘How dare you! You, a foreigner here …’

His face darkened. ‘I did not ask to be here. The war forced me to come here. You are not at war yet, not really. It is just
words. You do not know how it is, what is happening. A few skirmishes at sea, an army sent over to France all sitting on their backsides waiting for the Germans to face them. Does no one in this country realise that the Nazis prefer to stab in the back?’

Although her chest heaved with indignation, something in the way he spoke filled her with fear. But she couldn’t possibly relinquish what she did. Her family were the best dressed and fed in the street, but wouldn’t be without the money brought in by the business. Even the blackout curtains had been bought with money she’d earned from her ramshackle pawnshop.

‘Then if war is so terrible, why are we arguing? Surely there’s room for a small operation such as mine?’

‘I cannot allow it. I have responsibilities. I have a duty to my dead uncle to ensure that the business survives.’

A cold breeze lifted her hair, exposing an unlined throat. She wrapped her pale-blue cardigan more closely around herself, tucking her chin into the deep collar.

Michael had the impression she was hiding in it, trying hard to survive in her small domestic world, at the same time attempting to ignore the wider issues. People, especially women, did that, he’d noticed. His mother hadn’t necessarily believed in what his stepfather had believed in, she’d merely appeared to. Living through those she loved was more important than living her own life.

Eyes unblinking, she studied his face, saw the hardness, but couldn’t help sensing it was only a barrier between the world and the man within. He spoke eloquently and in other circumstances she might have enjoyed listening to the melodic precision of his voice. As it was …

She shook her head, her grey eyes dark with thought. ‘No. You cannot do this. It’s not fair. Not fair at all.’

‘Not fair?’ His voice raised an octave, echoing between the terraced houses lining both sides of the street.

The men putting the finishing touches to the air warden’s hut at the end of the street stopped what they were doing and looked in their direction.

‘This is England,’ Mary Anne said. ‘Foreigners can’t just come here and tell us what to do.’

Her voice carried to the workmen, just as she’d intended it to. Shouldering shovels and pickaxes, they came in her direction.

‘You all right there, luv?’

Arms folded across her chest, she smiled triumphantly up into the pawnbroker’s face. ‘You see? This is England. It’s a free country and I can do what I want.’

He looked over her head at the advancing gang. The shadow of his brow receded and she saw the fear in his eyes, sweat bursting like dewdrops from his forehead and finally all over his face.

There was no way she could possibly know the secrets of his past, at least, not specifically, and yet she knew there were bad things. Could that be because there were bad things in her life too? The thought of them having something in common was alien, but would not go away.

‘Did you say he was a foreigner, missus?’ asked one of the men. ‘Can’t be too careful, you know.’

The others brought their tools down from their shoulders as they gathered round, as though ready to beat anyone not home grown.

The thought of it made her sick. The dizziness threatened to return. She looked over the heads of the grim-faced men to the women beyond – standing in doorways, cleaning windows, sweeping pavements – all still now and looking her way, wondering what the noise was about.

No! She mustn’t faint. No one must suspect. No one.

Grabbing the pawnbroker’s arm, she shouted at the workmen. ‘Just a long-lost cousin – from Australia,’ she added.

Judging by their expressions they didn’t believe her.

Without a backwards glance, she pushed the eloquent young man through the archway and out into the alley.

‘This way. You can go through the house and out the front door once they’ve cleared off, and pray that’s before my old man comes home.’

‘Your old man?’

‘My husband.’

She pushed him through the garden gate, past the rows of potatoes, cabbages and carrots.

‘I didn’t mean for that with the workmen to happen,’ she said. ‘But there, they were only trying to protect a good, honest Englishwoman, weren’t they?’

‘I should think you are capable of protecting yourself. In fact, I know you are.’

Blushing, Mary Anne recalled their first meeting when he had surprised her hanging out the washing.

‘You’re right. I was going to brain you with a garden spade.’

‘Brain me?’

‘Hit you over the head. You did startle me.’

‘I am sorry. I did not mean to. I only wished to tell you I was not happy that you were stealing my trade.’

‘So you said,’ she said with a grimace, pushing open the door to the washhouse.

Biddy had pulled up a stool and was sitting with her back against the copper, which still held heat from an early wash load. She looked up, her face radiant with welcome.

Biddy’s jaw dropped as she suddenly recognised the pawnbroker, the man who’d been standing in the archway. ‘Hello, young man.’

Michael nodded a casual greeting but looked wary.

Noticing his discomfort, Mary Anne hid her grin. Obviously he knew a tart when he saw one and had good reason to concern himself. The fact that she was married had no effect on Biddy’s love life. She took it wherever and whenever it came.

Lizzie fancied that the glassy eyes of the fox fur eyed her accusingly as she entered.

‘This is …’ Mary Anne began.

‘Michael. My name is Michael Maurice.’

Biddy tittered like a young girl. ‘Pleased to meet you, I’m ever so sure.’

Mary Anne raised her eyes to heaven. ‘Biddy doesn’t get out much and meeting strangers is as good as meeting royalty to her.’ She turned back to Biddy. ‘Michael and I have business to discuss.’ It was all she could say by way of explanation.

Michael’s smile was like a warm glow melting a frozen pond, the cracks racing off in all directions. They exchanged a look of understanding.

‘It was getting ugly out there,’ she said. ‘The workmen,’ she added in response to Biddy’s blank expression. ‘They don’t like foreigners.’

‘Ooow. Where are you from?’ asked Biddy, eyeing Michael with renewed interest.

Michael trotted out the same lie. ‘Holland.’

‘I quite like foreigners, especially them from Holland.’ She grinned widely, like a cat about to pounce on a trapped mouse.

Michael responded by choosing the furthest corner to stand in.

It amused Mary Anne to see their behaviour. She doubted that Biddy had ever met a foreigner in her life, but made no comment, merely explaining what she intended to do.

‘I’ll take Mr Maurice through the house and out the front door as soon as they go to tea.’

‘They go about four,’ said Biddy, her pink cheeks bunching like roses. ‘I’ve made it for them meself sometimes.’ She blushed to the roots of her hair. ‘Nothing in it, of course, just being friendly.’

‘Yes,’ said Mary Anne, ‘and the whole street knows how friendly you can be.’

An alarm clock sitting on the top shelf chose that moment to chime four.

‘It’s later than I thought. Come on. I’ll let you out the front door,’ said Mary Anne, throwing Biddy a warning look to behave herself.

‘You are pushing me around again,’ said Michael, though he obediently allowed himself to be pushed.

‘What about my fox fur?’ Biddy wailed.

Mary Anne gritted her teeth. She’d hoped Biddy would wait until she’d got rid of Michael Maurice. But that was the way Biddy was. Her eyes and face were as round as her body and just as soft. Spaniel brown eyes looked innocently up into Mary Anne’s face, like a child determined not to be overlooked.

‘It’s for my Brian,’ she murmured, her bottom lip quivering. She turned to the pawnbroker. ‘He’s joining the navy. He’s doing his bit for his country and he’ll look a right picture in uniform, but I’ve got to give ’im a decent send-off. Poor lamb deserves it.’

Biddy’s Brian was as far removed from a lamb as you could get, mused Mary Anne. He stood at six foot three in his socks and had shoulders as wide as a barn door.

Recognising there was no way Biddy was leaving until she had exchanged the fox fur for some money, Mary Anne resigned herself to fixing a price.

‘Here,’ she said taking her tin box from its hiding place behind the copper. ‘Here’s fifteen shillings.’

Biddy’s eyes turned round as saucers as she took the money. ‘Oooow. I never expected so much.’

‘Well, there you are. You can never tell,’ said Mary Anne. The truth was that the fox fur wasn’t really worth that much, but Biddy loved her kids even though rumour had it she did a turn on a street corner now and again just to keep her head above water and, as a mother, Mary Anne understood her wanting to do her best by her son.

A couple of fleas jumped out when she gave the fur a shake. Michael noticed too, but Biddy was already billing and cooing at the money, listing the things she would buy in order to give her son a good send-off.

Mary Anne pointed at a nail close to the ceiling and way out of her reach.

‘If you could hang it up there,’ she said to Michael. ‘A good airing over the steam will do it good.’

Michael’s veiled smile echoed her own. ‘I think so too.’

‘I’ll poke my nose out and make sure they’re gone,’ said Mary Anne, jerking a thumb towards the back of her house.

‘I’ll keep you company, dear,’ said an effervescent Biddy to an alarmed Michael, her fingers fondling the sleeve of his jacket and her eyes glinting with more cunning than the fox hanging on the nail.

‘No doubt,’ said Mary Anne.

She whispered at Michael on the way out, ‘I’ll have to leave you to look out for yourself.’

She saw a glimmer of helplessness pass over his face before she left. Now who was the poor lamb?

Before going to the front door, she pressed her ear against the door to the front parlour where Stanley was sleeping, but heard nothing. The familiar panic set in. Was he still breathing? Fear spurred her towards the bed. He was her beloved son, her youngest, and although she’d been assured that he
was better, she wasn’t entirely trusting of anyone’s diagnosis but her own.

‘Stanley?’ she called softly, fearing that he’d overexerted himself. ‘Stanley?’

She felt for his head and found only the pillow.

‘The little …’ She swore under her breath. The bed was empty.

She’d have to go and look for him, but first she had to check that the workmen were gone for tea.

The blue and red of the upper glazed half of the front door made patterns on the lino. Pretty, she thought and smiled because the red reminded her of Biddy’s cheeks – and how Michael’s might end up if Biddy had her way.

Now, if she could just get him out of the house, she could search for Stanley before Henry came home. The November air was damp and bad for his chest and she had to stop him going out without telling her.

‘Enough to give anyone a heart attack,’ she said to herself.

A heavy hammering at the door swiftly dispelled her thoughts and confirmed the worse. The patterns on the floor trembled, and so did Mary Anne. For the second time that day, she opened the front door, only this time it wasn’t inoffensive Biddy Young wanting to flog her fox fur. It was Henry and he was full to the brim with drink.

‘I’m collecting for the church,’ he said, his speech slurred and the brim of his hat nestling around his shoulders.

Her heart lurched. ‘You’re early.’

He grinned and spread his arms so that his hands rested on either side of the doorway. It made it seem he was holding the house up.

‘I wanted to come home and see me loving wife. I thought we could have a quiet ten minutes to ourselves before the tribe of bloody Israel get home from work.’ A sudden thought
seemed to strike him. ‘Work? Work? They don’t bloody know the meaning of the word.’

Pushing her to one side, he continued to mutter all the way along the passageway, then stopped by the stairs, the leer on his face and the glint in his eyes leaving her in no doubt of what he had in mind.

‘Time to perform yer wifely duties,’ he said, the leer spreading over his face in a series of deep furrows.

Mary Anne winced as his beery breath wafted over her face. She thought of Biddy and Michael out in the washhouse. They had to be warned. She attempted to push past him. ‘I’ve got to hang out our Harry’s shirts.’

His fingers dug into her shoulders and one shoe went flying off her foot as he spun her backwards, slamming her against the wall.

‘Damn Harry’s bloody shirts. Big nancy boy. That’s what he is. Likes to look nice but don’t want to fight for his country.’

His face reminded her of the gargoyles high up on the cathedral.

‘Henry …’

She liked neither his attention nor his insinuation about her beloved Harry, and tried to wriggle free, but he held her tight.

‘Get up them stairs.’

She fought to control her expression as her thoughts turned to Michael being kept company by the overblown Biddy. Stiff with protest, she closed her eyes. Pray God Biddy doesn’t bring him through the house.

She didn’t want to do this, but Henry must not discover that she was hiding a man in the washhouse. Adopting a smile and a smooth voice as though she really welcomed his amorous attention, she said, ‘How about you go on up and I bring you a cup of tea.’