Carmina’s eyes glimmered behind the stray curls that hung over her ashen face, her voice little more than a whisper. ‘I suppose so. What will you do though, if he chooses me? Will
you
still love
me
? I couldn’t bear it if we weren’t still friends.’
Gina’s heart swelled with pity, as it always did at sight of any distressed creature, let alone her own beloved and misguided sister. She put her arms about Carmina and rocked her in her arms, as she had done many times before over the years. ‘We’ll never stop being friends. How can we? We’re joined by birth, you and I. No matter what happens, you are, and will always be, my very dear sister.’
The very next evening Gina and Luc were walking down Oxford Road. They were going to see Elvis Presley in
Jailhouse Rock
and Gina was looking forward to it, having heard the music was terrific. She was a great fan of Elvis, even though she thought him rather dangerous. Besides, she liked going to the flicks, loved everything about it: the anticipation as you stood in the queue, the popcorn, the British Gaumont News, even the awful B-movie, followed by the excitement of the big picture.
Watching the stars on screen made her feel as if she were entering an exciting new world of glamorous people who all wore beautifully immaculate clothes. Doris Day was never short of a witty retort, John Wayne always beat the baddies and Rock Hudson always got the girl.
Luc was saying, ‘I know I’ve hurt you, Gina, and I want, more than anything, to put things right between us.’
‘I don’t want to talk about it, not tonight.’
He gave a gentle sigh. ‘I miss you so much.’
Gina looked up at him, surprised. ‘I don’t understand. How can you miss me when I’m here, right beside you?’
He stopped walking to hold her gently in his arms. ‘Ah, but you’re not here, are you? You’re a million miles away replaying that stupid mistake I made, going over and over it in your mind like a stuck record. I can’t bear it.’
When she said nothing to this, he laced his fingers in hers and they continued walking.
Was he right? Gina thought. Was she deliberately tormenting herself by trying to imagine what had gone on between Luc and her sister? Would that be the first step towards forgiveness, if she could stop thinking about them together? Hadn’t she said to Carmina that he must be the one to choose? Shouldn’t she at least allow him that chance?
‘Amy says I’ve to stop pretending that it doesn’t hurt, that I should be honest with you about how I feel. Perhaps I should scream at you, or thump you.’
‘Do that, if you want, I don’t mind,’ Luc said, his voice filled with shame. ‘I probably deserve a good battering.’
Gina cast him a sideways look through her lashes. ‘Screaming is more Carmina’s style. I don’t usually go in for high drama.’
He grinned at her. ‘That’s why I love you, because you’re so sweet and gentle, so loving and kind.’
‘I’m not always either sweet or kind. Sometimes, when my younger sisters and brothers are being noisy or a nuisance, I can get quite bad tempered with them. I don’t exactly sulk, as Carmina does, when I don’t get my own way, but I’m very independent and just hate it if people try to help me do something I’m quite capable of doing myself, of if they pity me.’
‘I would never do that,’ Luc said. ‘Anyway, I can’t really say why I love you. Because you’re you, I suppose.’
This answer brought a slight flush of pleasure to her cheeks and no further words were exchanged between them but for once Gina did not remove her hand from his. She was content to allow him to hold it for the entire length of Oxford Road, and all through the time they queued outside The Regal for a cinema ticket.
When they were let in she headed for a seat in the front. Usually Gina loved sitting on the back row in the dark so that Luc could kiss her. At one time such precious moments together had been far more important to her than the actual film. Now she felt a little shy with him, and in all these long weeks since she’d discovered his transgression, she hadn’t allowed him to kiss her at all. Not once.
Tonight as they sat together sharing the popcorn, their fingers sometimes touching if they both chose the same moment to dip into the bag, Gina ached to return to how they’d once been together, so content and happy. She knew what he meant, suddenly, by saying that he missed her. She missed him too.
But as she’d tried to explain to Amy, she wanted to trust him, longed to forgive and forget, but found it too hard. She still nursed the fear that Carmina only had to pout her pretty lips and Luc would go running to her sister’s side.
She’d told him all of this and he’d vehemently denied that he would do any such thing, but how could she be sure? How could she be certain that he wouldn’t leave her or cheat on her again?
Resting a finger under her chin, Luc turned her to face him. Gina could see the glitter from the flickering screen reflected in his dark eyes. He was looking unusually serious.
As if reading her mind he murmured, ‘You’ve no reason to think I’d ever leave you for Carmina. I can’t begin to imagine how I would feel if I lost you, Gina. I want to spend the rest of my life taking care of you, proving to you how much I love you.’
It was then, just as Elvis launched into his jailhouse rock number, that he kissed her. Gina didn’t attempt to resist, couldn’t have done so if she’d tried. His lips were soft and tender, yet compulsively irresistible, making her believe that perhaps he did love her a little, after all. Later, she was to remember this moment with a poignant longing.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Buying furniture and actually moving in was proving to be yet another nightmare for Amy. She bought a yellow formica-topped table for the kitchen, a fluffy new hearthrug and a bathroom cabinet.
She’d been buying pots and pans, baking tins, cutlery and all sorts of household bits and bobs for weeks now from Carl Garside’s kitchen stall. She’d bought other things off the market too: towels, bed linen, a second-hand radio from Alec’s Music Shop, plus any number of scraps of fabric from Winnie Holmes to make the cushion covers and curtains she was endlessly sewing.
She’d dreamed of being able to choose something new for the living room but Mavis seemed set on unloading some of her old fashioned pieces on to her son and daughter-in-law: a worn out, moth-eaten old sofa, a scratched chest of drawers and a Victorian-style dresser, a rickety gate-leg table with plush-seated chairs that had seen better days, and of course the three-quarter bed with the rattling headboard.
‘It’s long past time I bought myself some new furniture,’ Mavis decided, casting a venomous glance at her silent husband as he stood drinking the tea Amy had made him, almost more paint on his overall than on the actual walls.
For some reason Amy didn’t quite understand, relations between man and wife had fallen to a new low and the pair were scarcely speaking.
‘I deserve a little spoiling with what I’ve had to put up with all these years. But there’s plenty of wear left in these things yet, quite adequate for your needs, Amy dear. I’m sure you’ll be glad of them. Chris and his father can carry them round later, then we won’t need the expense of a moving wagon.’
Chris gave her the kind of apologetic look which told Amy that they really couldn’t afford to refuse, money being as tight as it was.
And so the shabby old furniture was carried along Champion Street by father and son and set in place. Amy tried to suggest they put the Victorian dresser in the front parlour but Mavis pooh-poohed the notion.
‘You haven’t a stick of furniture in this middle room, and this is where you’ll be living for most of the time. With the dresser, table and chairs it will be quite cosy.’
It’ll look like something out of a Victorian novel, Amy thought, her heart sinking, dreams of a modern sideboard shrivelling to dust in her mind. She wondered if she could paint everything cream, with touches of Wedgwood blue, once the baby was born, as well as sew some bright new seat covers for those moth-eaten old chairs. Perhaps not, Mavis would be sure to disapprove.
‘Don’t stand there gawping, take those drawers up to our Chris’s room,’ she instructed her husband, just as if Amy didn’t exist.
Mavis giving all the orders, as usual.
‘We’ll buy some new furniture, I promise, love. Just as soon as we can afford,’ Chris told Amy later as they lay together in bed, a note of sad apology in his voice. ‘Right now, beggars can’t be choosers.’
Amy cuddled up to him, savouring his warmth, his strength, and tried not to let her mother-in-law’s interference spoil things for them. ‘There’s no stopping your mam once she gets the bit between her teeth, is there?’
Chris chuckled, and, well aware of his mother’s idiosyncrasies, thought how fortunate he was to have such an understanding wife. ‘The bakery is going from strength to strength, and with Dad taking a back seat I’ve more freedom to experiment. Things can only get better. We just have to be patient.’
He said this every day and Amy believed him. How could she not when she loved him so much?
‘Can we at least avoid taking this grotty old bed? I would so like us to start our new life together in a new and decent sized double bed, with a modern headboard that doesn’t rattle. I don’t want this antiquated monstrosity.’
Chris kissed her in an abstracted sort of way, a small frown puckering his brow as he did a quick sum in his head that didn’t quite please him. He’d been saving up in his Post Office Savings Account for over a year now, but money was pouring out of it faster than water from a leaky drain.
But he wanted Amy to be happy, and she surely deserved something new as they started life together.
‘We’ll buy one first thing tomorrow, even if it has to be on the never-never, and make sure it’s delivered by the end of next week. All the paintwork should be finished and dry by then and the last of the papering done. I hope we can move in by next weekend and be on our own at last. As for the rest of the furniture, we’ll just have to make-do and mend until we can afford to replace it with something more to our taste.’
‘Something modern,’ Amy agreed. ‘We need to buy a cot too, but I can’t bring myself to shop for the baby until he or she is actually born. I’m too afraid of tempting fate.’
Chris kissed her again, more tenderly this time. ‘Don’t worry, sweetheart, everything is going to be fine.’
Clara Higginson was adamant that she had no wish to sell the hat stall. ‘Why would I? And with you taking the lion’s share of the work, Patsy, and all your youthful energy, I can relax a little more. Although I’d be happy to take over Annie’s job with the accounts, if that would help.’
Patsy agreed that it would and together they reviewed all the changes she’d made since becoming a partner, the new lines, the reorganisation of the stall itself with a much-improved fitting area.
Clara said that she approved of the new round mirror high up on the wall, which allowed them to keep a watch on what customers were up to round the back of the stall. ‘But we also need a better mirror in the fitting room? That one is looking a bit fly-specked, don’t you think? It must be fifty years old if it’s a day, which doesn’t give a good impression.’
Carmina came in while they were chatting and waved cheerily at Patsy. ‘Don’t worry, I’m only browsing. Just taking a five minute coffee break. You carry on with whatever it is you’re doing.’
Clara paid the girl little attention, being far too used to seeing Carmina around, and continued with what she’d been saying. She was suggesting they repaint the sign over the stall. ‘Perhaps we should change it from Higginson’s Hats to Patsy’s Hats, or else something new and catchy.’
Patsy shook her head. ‘No, leave it as it is.’
‘Wouldn’t you prefer to have your name on the board?’
‘No, everyone knows this stall as Higginsons. I think it would be a mistake to change it, and certainly not just because Annie has died. You’re still here, and a Higginson, after all. And I’ve no idea what my real name is, having only been fostered, so lets leave things exactly as they are.’
‘So long as you’re happy with that, Patsy, love.’
‘I am.’
Patsy caught a glimpse of Carmina through the round mirror. She was round the back of the stall and she called out to her. ‘Let me know if you want to try anything on, Carmina?’
‘No thanks, I must get back to the ice cream cart now or Papa will have my guts for garters. You know how he is.’ Giving them another cheery wave, she swung away smiling quietly to herself, one hand clenched tight over a pair of pretty earrings which she’d tucked into her pocket. Patsy would never miss them.
‘You will be there with me, won’t you?’ Amy said as the day of her confinement drew near. ‘They said at the hospital that you could be, if you wanted.’
‘Of course I will, nothing would keep me away.’
Chris hadn’t been too sure about being present at the birth when Amy had first suggested it, but he’d gone with her to some of the ante-natal classes, although not to the one where they showed a film of an actual birth. That was a step too far for him. But maybe if he just sat and held her hand and didn’t watch, it would be all right. He felt he could manage that.
His mother, of course, was horrified by the very idea.