Amy chuckled. ‘I don’t think it quite works that way, Patsy love.’
‘Pity. Well, maybe he could stay at home and look after them, then I can keep working on the hat stall.’
‘Wouldn’t you want to take time off to have children?’ Amy asked, puzzled. ‘I thought you wanted a family of your own.’
‘I do, but not yet. There are things I want to do first.’
‘Having a family is important too. You can always have a career later.’
‘Oh, don’t you start, I thought you were supposed to be my friend. Marc is becoming a positive bore on the subject. Where’s the hurry? I tell him. Though I must confess if I could guarantee to produce a baby as sweet as little Danny here, I’d be seriously tempted. Can I hold him?’
‘Course you can.’
Patsy held the baby on her lap for no more than five seconds before he started to cry, when she quickly handed him back. ‘Perhaps not.’
Amy laughed and admired the little romper suit Patsy had brought her, before tucking it in a drawer with half a dozen others. ‘Thanks for getting a larger size, he’s growing so fast he’ll be out of his first baby stuff in no time. Mind you, I think he has enough clothes to see him through till he’s four at least.’
Patsy admired what Amy had done to the house and told her about the changes she’d made on the hat stall. They chatted about Clara for a while and how she was coping, then Patsy admitted to some concern over the increase in shop-lifting she’d been experiencing lately.
‘It’s a real worry. I think it might be one of those new kids who have moved in below the fish market. Don’t know their names but they’re a bit rough, real troublemakers the lot of them.
They went on to talk about various snippets of market gossip, of how well Lizzie Pringle was doing with her Chocolate Cabin, and that Dena Dobson was having real problems with Trudy who’d recently been involved in an accident, which naturally led back to the endlessly fascinating subject of her own child. Amy described her weekly trips to the clinic where she collected Danny’s orange juice and cod liver oil.
‘He put on five ounces last week. The nurse was really pleased with him.’
‘Excellent,’ Patsy said, trying not to sound bored.
‘He’ll be due for his first injections soon.’
‘Make sure you give him the new polio vaccine. I’m quite certain Gina would be the first to recommend it.’
Amy nodded. ‘Too right she would. She pops in when she can, although still seems uncertain about whether she and Luc will make a go of it.’
Patsy pulled a face. ‘She’s playing it cool, and I don’t blame her. With a sister like Carmina you’ve got your work cut out keeping your man to yourself.’
Patsy wasn’t coping quite as well as she made out. Clara was still grieving and only turned up to help on the stall a couple of afternoons a week, which meant that Patsy had less time for her hat-making and clients were growing impatient. Marc, however, was unsympathetic.
‘Didn’t I tell you it would be too much for you.’
Patsy gritted her teeth and made a private vow never to grumble again, not within Marc’s hearing anyway. Whatever worries she had, she learned to keep them to herself.
And there were still items going missing. She daren’t mention that either. Certainly not to Marc, nor to Clara who had enough to depress her at the moment getting over the death of her sister, let alone fretting over what must surely be Patsy’s incompetence. If she kept a better eye on what was going on instead of working so hard on her hat making, she’d maybe be able to catch the culprit.
Talking it over with Amy had helped a little, but her friend’s only solution was to put up a mirror, which she’d already done.
But it simply wasn’t possible to sit staring into it all the time. Patsy often became distracted when she was serving, or busy sewing and wouldn’t immediately notice that someone was browsing. Nor was it easy to follow a customer’s every move, not without making it obvious you were suspicious. The result then would be that the person would just feel uncomfortable and go away without buying a thing.
Coping with the stall single-handed wasn’t easy so when one day Carmina called and offered to keep an eye on it for five minutes, Patsy was surprised but delighted. She was desperate for a coffee and a toilet break.
‘Oh, that would be marvellous. Thanks, Carmina. I’m starving hungry. Haven’t had a thing since breakfast. I even missed dinner as I forgot to pack myself some sandwiches and I can’t afford to close for lunch which is often my busiest time. I won’t be longer than ten minutes, I promise. Just long enough for me to grab a cup of coffee and a sandwich.’
‘Take as long as you like,’ Carmina airily told her. ‘Pop in and see Amy, why don’t you? No need to rush back. Can I try on some hats?’
Patsy chuckled. ‘Course you can, if you’re careful. Bless you,’ and went off quite happily, leaving Carmina in charge. Maybe they were going to get on after all.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Carmina saw no reason not to enjoy herself while she put her latest plan into action. So when Alec Hall invited her over to supper in his flat above the music shop, telling her his son Terry was out for the evening, she decided she’d nothing to lose. What harm could it do? The damage, as you might say, was already done. And if she hadn’t yet managed to get her hands on Luc, then Alec, she decided, would do very nicely in the meantime. He was, after all, an exciting man to spend time with.
Carmina couldn’t seem to stop thinking about what they’d got up to in his cold, damp MG. So how much more exciting to be in the warm privacy of his flat. It almost made her feel sick with anticipation at what it must feel like to actually go to bed with a man. She’d really be a grown-up then.
He served her with a dish of what looked like stewed vegetables but were actually quite spicy. Alec called it a
kimchi
, and said it was made from cabbage mixed with ginger, garlic, pickled shrimps and green onions. This was followed with thin strips of beef cooked with mushrooms, onions, peppers, more garlic, and herbs and spices which Carmina could not identify, together with lots of rice. She thought it the strangest meal she’d ever tasted, and did little more than push the food about her plate to pretend she was actually eating it.
‘Aren’t you hungry?’ he asked.
‘I’m trying to lose weight,’ Carmina lied, which brought forth the expected compliment. ‘I never imagined you’d actually cook for us. I thought you’d pop out for fish and chips or something.’
‘I learned to cook in Korea, though I accept this sort of thing might be an acquired taste.’
Carmina wrinkled her nose and examined the heap of food on her plate. ‘What were you doing in Korea?’
‘There was a war on,’ he patiently reminded her.
‘Oh, so there was. Where is it, Korea? Is it in the east?’
Alec looked at the young girl and felt a burst of something like contempt for her ignorance. Yet why should it surprise him? What did this stupid girl know of such things, living her comfortable, selfish little life, her empty head concerned only with boy friends and pop tunes?
Cooking in camp had consisted chiefly of self-heating cans of Scotch Broth or beef stew that sounded like the crack of a gun when you activated them. Eating hadn’t been about pleasure and appealing to the taste buds, not at the front. It had been about staying alive, and keeping warm. That was all that mattered. Survival.
He didn’t bother explaining any of this to her. ‘It was cold in Korea and winter set in early with freezing north-east winds. Hot food was important. You dug yourself a deep hole in the ground, or ‘hoochie’ as we called it, although if it was frozen solid a pack of explosives might be necessary to blast it deep enough.’
She looked at him, wide-eyed. ‘You slept in a
hole in the ground
? Why didn’t you sleep in a proper bunk in a cabin or something?’
Sexy she might be, but nobody could accuse Carmina Bertalone of either sensitivity or intelligence.
Alec could recall many miserable hours spent huddled beneath a damp blanket, when several layers of clothing from ‘Long Johns’ and string vest to hooded parka, thick woollen socks and heavy boots failed to keep out the freezing temperatures. When having to remove your gloves to load a rifle could lead to serious frostbite.
But then he hadn’t brought her here to listen to his old war stories.
‘I’ve got bread and butter pudding for afters, one I made myself from a Philip Harben recipe. Is that British enough for you?’
Carmina pushed her plate away. ‘Why don’t you put on a record then you can teach me more of those dance steps you’re so good at. A slow fox-trot, or a sexy waltz.’
Alec smiled. That’s why he liked her, the one thing they had in common. Sex! He’d felt a bit wary about inviting her over, knowing she was only half his age, little more than a child at eighteen, or so she claimed, particularly following his clumsy over-eagerness that first time. But then he always found young girls hard to resist. And the encounter in the car had been interesting. She’d been like a wild cat, rampant for him, which led him to hope there might be other such episodes.
If she was woman enough to enjoy his love-making, why worry about her age? And he did find her utterly fascinating. Even if she didn’t care for the food he’d prepared, or know where Korea was or why he’d been there. She had other attributes.
They danced to
Kisses Sweeter Than Wine,
a Jimmie Rodgers number. Carmina thought Alec was a sexy dancer, holding her close in his arms and whispering things he really shouldn’t in her ear. After that came
Remember You’re Mine
, Alec singing along with Pat Boone and making little shivers run up and down her spine.
Carmina thought about telling him that she wasn’t really his at all, that she belonged by rights to Luc, but he’d started to kiss her by then, his hands doing interesting things with her breasts beneath her sweater, and she really couldn’t concentrate.
Later, sprawled on his bed with a tangle of sheets on the floor, there was no time for thinking at all, or much in the way of small talk for that matter. She felt oddly shy at first, being in a man’s bedroom, in his bed, but then he pulled her to him and began to kiss her, quite gently at first, before deepening the kiss to explore her mouth with his tongue.
He took her by the shoulders and pushed her down on the bed, slowly unbuttoning her blouse, smoothing his tongue over each rosy nipple. He licked and suckled each one, making them spring to his touch and Carmina gave little gasps of astonishment. She strained to pull him closer, her body heavy with desire, anxious for him to get on with it. He laughed at her eager response.
‘You’re like an excited little puppy, slow down, sweetheart. These things shouldn’t be rushed.’
Carmina tried to do as he told her, as she had no wish to be thought of as young and childish. Alec was so sophisticated, so experienced, like an older James Dean, hungry and dangerous. She wanted him to see her as a tantalising, seductive woman, not some silly young teenager.
But any protest died on her lips as he began to kiss her in other places, to pleasure her in ways she’d never even dreamed of. He did things with his mouth, his tongue, that set her senses reeling.
She expected it to be all over in seconds, as it usually was with the boys she knew. A quick bang, bang, then they’d light up a cigarette and go back to the dancing. Not so with Alec. He took his time, made her wait till she was almost screaming with frustration before spreading her hands above her head and taking her with more force than she’d expected, making her cry out loud.
The sensation of him moving inside her, the tremors in his lean body, the sound of his strange little grunts, even the smell of him, excited her beyond reason and she clawed at his back with her long nails, wanting more. She felt so alive! So needed and adored!
When it was over he asked if she was all right. Carmina was startled. No one had ever asked her that before. Of course, he’d used a johnny, he’d insisted on that.
‘Better to be safe than sorry,’ he’d said, smiling down at her. Carmina said nothing, merely smiled back. How could she tell him that it was already too late? He’d used one in the car too. But she couldn’t remember him using one when he’d taken her the first time, by the old Roman fort. Obviously he must have forgotten then, or not come prepared, perhaps not expecting their love-making to progress quite so quickly. Neither had she. His urgency had obviously taken them both by surprise on that occasion, overwhelmed by her charms, no doubt.
And now, as a result, she was what you might call - knocked up. Not that she cared, not if it got her Luc. She lay back on the rumpled sheets, privately making her plans, while Alec slept quietly beside her.
Alec did not sleep well. Whenever he closed his eyes, or attempted to sleep, the nightmare came; that night of terror fresh and clear in his head. The hills along the narrow, rutted road to Chipyong-ni were full of soldiers. Across the valley hundreds of Chinese communists gathered and he was going to have to kill as many of them as he could because they were more than ready to kill him. Kill or be killed, what kind of choice was that for a civilised human being? Yet it was a philosophy of life that had become as much a part of him as breathing in and out.