Marc gave an ominous growl deep in his throat. ‘You think my sister is
evil
?’
Patsy looked him square in the eye. ‘Yes, I do. And an inveterate liar.’
She thought for one terrible moment that he might be about to hit her, but he was far too much of a gentleman to ever strike a woman. To Patsy’s mind, he might just as well have done so for his next words hit her with the kind of rage she would never forget as long as she lived.
‘I don’t think you and I have anything left to say to each other, do you?’ Then he turned on his heel and strode away.
So far as Alec Hall was concerned his decision to marry Carmina was proving to be the worst mistake of his life. Almost overnight she had turned from a sexy little minx into the wife-from-hell.
If he asked her to do anything useful such as clean the house, which had become increasingly untidy and filthy since he’d dispensed with his housekeeper, she would fling her clothes on the floor, leave dirty plates in the sink, burn the food she was supposed to cook for him and generally be as uncooperative as possible.
Like a spoiled child she was lazy and selfish, and all she seemed to want to do was spend his money, lie in bed all morning, laze about all afternoon and go out every night. He soon put a stop to that, although she flew into a tantrum when he locked the door and refused to allow her out of the house.
‘
You can’t keep me prisoner
!’ she screamed at him.
‘I can do as I please. You’re my
wife
, and I choose not to have my wife making an exhibition of herself on some dance floor with other men. I need you to stay home and be nice to me.’
‘I never asked to be your damned
wife
, so why should I do anything to please
you
?’
He smiled at her. All of this high drama was simply because she hadn’t got her own way. Alec realised now that he had been but a pawn in her plan to trap Luc. A plan that had badly back-fired. ‘Because the alternative is a real prison, not a locked door, which is surely far worse? Think of your poor sister behind bars, and all because of you.’
‘I don’t give a damn about Gina, I care about
me
and what you’ve done to me. You’ve robbed me of my one chance of happiness.’
‘Would you like some
kimchi
?’ he asked, setting a plate of rice and spicy stewed vegetables in front of her.
‘
No
!’ Carmina picked the dish up and threw it at his head, hating him all the more when he ducked and the missile fell harmlessly to the floor. Then she flounced off to bed and sobbed her heart out in a lather of self-pity.
Later, when Alec joined her, he really had to be quite firm with her to make the girl understand what a wife’s duties were. No longer did she respond to his kisses and teasing as she had before the wedding. She absolutely refused to remove her clothing in front of him so that he was compelled to rip them from her body.
When he slid a hand over her inner thigh, she didn’t moan and sob for him to take her as she once did. She fought like a tiger, bit and scratched and clawed at his face in a vain attempt to prevent him from having her.
Alec found this all rather titivating, and laughing in her face he simply spread her legs, captured her flailing wrists and took her anyway. She was his
wife
, for God’s sake, whatever other useful purpose did she have?
He found himself thinking more and more of his lovely Joo Eun, his silver pearl. Why had he ever deserted her? He hadn’t really expected her to follow him when the army had withdrawn from Korea. He’d left her in tears without a second thought. He must have been mad. Was it a flaw in him that once he’d had a woman he soon grew bored with her and started looking around for another? If so, then his other flaw was to marry far too many of them. Marrying this one had been the worst mistake of all.
Patsy was distraught. Marc wasn’t even speaking to her. She hadn’t set eyes on him in days, except at a distance across the market when he would look at her coldly and walk away in the opposite direction.
There was no talk now of an autumn wedding, nor even a spring one. So far as Patsy could see, it was all over between them and she was heartbroken. She’d lost everything she loved and valued simply because she’d had this great urge to save other people from their misfortunes.
At least, unlike Amy, she wasn’t trying to save the world.
Weeks went by and she continued to visit Gina in prison. She was painfully thin, positively gaunt, with lank hair, pallid grey skin and finger nails chewed to the quick. The laughing girl with the glorious eyes who had battled with and defeated a devastating illness was now a mere shadow of her former self,
Trying to make conversation with her across the table in the visitor’s room was heartbreakingly difficult, if not well-nigh impossible. Patsy wanted to hug her, and did take her hands to give them a little squeeze only for a large, formidable prison warden to bark at her that contact with a prisoner was not allowed.
Gina seemed locked in her own private world so Patsy would chat about some inane nonsense, such as how Terry Hall had bought one of those new Isetta bubble-cars, or the fact she’d acquired a new line of nylon stockings in jazzy pinks and blues to sell on the stall, but Gina never responded. She wasn’t in the least interested, and why should she be? She wasn’t able to ride in such a car, or wear a pair of powder blue nylon stockings herself.
Patsy said nothing about her own problems with Marc. Where was the point? Dreadful though they might be, they were nothing by comparison to Gina’s troubles.
It was one Friday after she’d returned from such a visit that Carlotta came hurrying across Champion Street to gather Patsy in her arms and press her to her warm breast.
‘Patsy, at last I find you. Where have you been hiding yourself? I not see you for ages!’
‘I’ve been a bit taken up with the hat stall, as usual,’ Patsy said, by way of excuse.
‘I know you still go visit my girl.’ Tears stood proud in Carlotta’s lovely brown eyes as she pressed her hands to her trembling mouth. ‘I thank you so much for your loyalty and kindness. We all do. If we cannot get her out of that place, then at least she know she not forgotten, eh?’
Patsy couldn’t meet the other woman’s eyes. How she longed to tell Carlotta what she suspected but knew she could never do that. If Marc had believed her, then he might have been able to discuss the matter with his parents, but he insisted that Patsy was only out to make mischief. How could he even think such a thing of her? Despite claiming he loved her and wanted to marry her, Marc would still allow her no say on family matters.
Patsy kissed the older woman on the cheek, told her that she’d just left Gina and she was well, considering, then made to walk away. Carlotta stopped her.
‘Don’t go. Come to supper tonight. The children miss you.’
Patsy was embarrassed. ‘Er, I can’t, sorry, not tonight.’ How could she when Marc still wasn’t speaking to her?
Carlotta dismissed her protest with a flap of her hands. ‘I know there is big problem between you and Marc. He is like bear with sore head for weeks now. Don’t tell me what it is, I don’t want to know. But he love you. You love him. It time you make up. You come to supper tonight. It Papa’s birthday and I will have no more pain, no more sulks. Carmina is coming too, with her new husband. Tonight, we want all our family round us. Seven o’clock, no excuses.’
Chapter Forty-Four
Amy set off for Albert Square on the night of the planned rally, as planned. Chris deposited young Danny with Aunty Dot, as usual, and set off after her. He was determined, once and for all, to confront the bloke who had stolen his beloved wife and deal with him, man to man.
When he arrived at the square, dominated as it was by its neo-Gothic Town Hall, and the gloomy monstrosity that was the Northern Assurance Building, he didn’t, at first, appreciate what was happening. It was a cold October evening, already quite dark and the entire area was packed with parked cars, buses, and people dashing to a cinema or to the Lyons Corner House. He paid little attention to the huddle of people gathering by the railings, all carrying something that looked like placards or banners. Nor did he pause to admire the fine spire above the monument to Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s consort, for whom the square was named.
His gaze was fixed upon Amy, his heart full as he watched her run over to a young man whom Chris instantly recognised as the one he’d seen her with on that previous occasion. She didn’t kiss him, he noticed. Nor did he touch her, as he had done before. But then there were other people around this time, one of them a young girl who was leaning against him. Could that be the young man’s wife? Had she been equally betrayed? he wondered, feeling a rush of sympathy for the poor girl.
He began then to take more notice of the rest of the group. They seemed to be a mixed bunch, comprising people of all ages. They were organising themselves into some sort of orderly fashion, with lines two or three deep to form a procession while the neighbouring statue of Gladstone gazed stonily down upon them, holding aloft an admonishing finger.
Chris began to grow curious. What was going on? He realised he was very far from alone in his interest. The number of spectators had grown to a sizeable crowd, some of them quite noisy.
The procession suddenly brightened as torches were lit and he saw then what it was all about. He read the words set out in bold print on the home-made banners. ‘Ban the Bomb’. ‘CND’. ‘Save our children’.
The young man suddenly put an arm about Amy, and one around the other woman too, urging them both forward as the procession began to slowly move. Chris moved much quicker. He crossed the short distance between them at a run, reaching the group just as they climbed the steps around Albert’s monument.
‘Hey, you,’ Chris shouted, ‘Keep your hands off my wife.’ And lunging straight at the young man Chris socked him one, right in the jaw.
Chris and Amy were back home in the safety of their own living room, a fire blazing and the kettle singing as Amy put Germolene on Chris’s skinned knuckles.
‘I can’t think what came over you. Whatever possessed you to think such a thing? Me having a love affair with Jeff Stockton indeed, the very idea. He’s an old school chum, that’s all, soon to be married to Sue. If you hadn’t lunged at him you might have noticed she was flashing an engagement ring. They’re very happy together, as I thought we were.’
Shame and relief flooded through Chris in equal measure like a rush of hot breath. He didn’t mind how much she berated him, how foolish he’d been, all that mattered was that Amy wasn’t having an affair at all. All she’d done was join the Peace Movement. She’d become a radical, a member of the CND, and hadn’t dared upset him by admitting to it.
Unfortunately, the rally had ended in something of a fracas, with the trouble-making elements of the crowd taking his blow at Jeff as a sign for a free-for-all. Within seconds there’d been utter mayhem. Things had turned a bit nasty and when they heard the sound of police whistles and running feet, the Peace Movement members had been forced to take to their heels and run for it, Jeff and Sue, and Chris and Amy included. He was sorry for wrecking their rally, but so very glad that he hadn’t lost his wife.
‘I thought we were happy too, till I got that letter.’
Amy sank to her knees at his feet to gaze up into his face, her own puckered with fresh anxiety. ‘What letter?’
‘The one that told me you were having an affair. It came ages ago. It wasn’t signed.’
Amy blinked. ‘You mean you preferred to believe a malicious, anonymous letter, rather than the word of your own wife? Why didn’t you tell me about it? Why didn’t you ask? Why didn’t you at least give me the chance to defend myself?’
Chris hung his head in shame. ‘I suppose I was too afraid of what I might hear.’
‘So you didn’t trust me? You’d rather take the word of a nasty letter.’
Chris shook his head, grasped her hands in his. ‘It was hard not to believe what it said. Whoever it was who wrote it seemed to know so much about us. Let me show it to you?’
He pulled the letter from the inside pocket of his jacket and passed it to her. It had clearly been well read as it was falling apart at the folds. Amy read the cruel accusation, printed in large capitals, her heart thumping painfully in her chest. Someone had seen her talking to Jeff on the market, on more than occasion, seen him chuck her chin or ruffle her hair, and jumped to the worst possible conclusion.
Chris then handed her a second note, and this time her eyes grew wide with shock, the words seeming to leap off the page.
‘Your wife has been seen entertaining her lover in your own house. She’s a shameless hussy! Are you really going to put up with that?’
Jeff Stockton had set foot in her house only once, the day he’d called for a sample handbill which his uncle was going to print up for them. And only one person could have seen Jeff standing in the hall. Mavis! Her busy-body mother-in-law had taken it into her nasty little head to get her own back for all the imagined slights she’d suffered at Amy’s hand. Presumably because she’d grown in confidence and independence, obstinately resisting all interference and daring to remove Chris from his mother’s suffocating care. This was her revenge for Amy stealing her beloved son.