She looked up at her husband with pity in her eyes. ‘I know who wrote this, and you aren’t going to like it one little bit.’
She was absolutely right, Chris didn’t like it. He’d never really had a major row with his mother, always backing down at the last moment from real confrontation, but he did so now and it was terrible to behold. Mavis sobbed and begged for forgiveness, Thomas stood by white-faced, one minute backing up his son, the next defending his poor broken wife.
‘Tell him to leave me alone, he’s making me ill,’ Mavis cried, weeping into her husband’s shoulder.
‘I can’t believe you would send me such malicious, nasty letters. Have you gone mad?’ Chris shouted.
It was Amy, in the end, who called a halt to the devastation. ‘That’s enough! I’m calling time on this argument.’
‘
I
shall decide when this discussion is over,’ Mavis screamed, instantly forgetting her grovelling apology the moment it was made. ‘Chris has no right to speak to me like this.’
‘I have every right, because you deserve it, you interfering old bag,’ Chris yelled right back. ‘You almost ruined my marriage.’
‘Hey up, hold on, son,’ Thomas shouted at his son. ‘She might have made some bad mistakes but it were your welfare she cared about.’
Amy stood before them all, her child in her arms and a very determined expression on her young face as she calmly addressed them all. ‘I said, that’s
enough
! This subject is now closed. We’ve all made mistakes. Mavis clung on to her son far too long. Maybe, one day, I might want to do the same, although I hope I’ll have more sense.’ She rubbed her cheek against Danny’s head. ‘It must be hard to let go, and suddenly stop being a mother. As for you, Thomas, you made the mistake of leaving it too long before you stood up to your wife’s bossiness.’
Mavis again started to protest but Amy silenced her with a look.
‘And even then you chose to run away and hide in your shed while Chris sat on the fence and tried too hard to please everyone. As for me, well, I foolishly started to keep secrets from my lovely husband, and was then forced to tell lies to cover them up. And lies are a terrible trap that grow and grow. So we’ve all made mistakes and we’re all sorry for them. I suggest we never refer to this matter ever again and behave much better towards each other in future.’
Chris came to stand beside her, his arm protectively about his wife and son. ‘I want everyone to know that I’m the luckiest man on earth to have Amy and I’ll not hear another word against her, ever. I know things aren’t perfect, Mother, that the house is still a mess, but we’re going to carry on loving each other, caring for our lovely boy, and working hard to save up for a better one.’
Then smiling into his wife’s eyes, he finished, ‘Things can only get better.’
Mavis cleared her throat and everyone looked at her with something like trepidation. It was a great deal to ask of this difficult woman that she never again boss her husband, give orders to her daughter-in-law, or fuss over her son.
She looked at her husband and Thomas gave a barely discernable nod, then she gave what might have been a smile. ‘You don’t have to save up to buy another house. You can have this one. Your father has bought us a nice house in Thornton Cleveleys. You can move in here any time you like now you’ve taken over the bakery. There’s a sum of money deposited in the bank to help with the business, and to do the place up to your liking. You can, of course, choose your own furniture, Amy. I shall be taking mine with me, fitted carpets and all. You might also like to help your husband by working in the business with him. I used to once upon a time, until we could afford more staff. You might find you enjoy working together, as we always did, didn’t we, Thomas?’
‘Aye, love, we did,’ Thomas said, with a gleam in his eye.
‘Perhaps I missed being involved more than I realised. Anyroad, retirement beckons and we shall be content now to walk on the prom and listen to the band. We might both take up bowls. I hope you’ll come and visit now and then but what you do with this house, this business, is entirely up to you. We won’t interfere. We’ll keep our noses out in future, won’t we, Thomas?’
‘I certainly will, though I think yours is growing a bit longer already, like Pinnochio’s did when he told a lie,’ Thomas said, and they all laughed.
Hearing their merry laughter, young Danny decided to join in with a chuckle, which was such a thrill to them all they forgot their differences at last and became what they should have been all along: a united happy family.
Chapter Forty-Five
The atmosphere in the once lively, noisy Bertalone household could have been cut with the proverbial knife. No one spoke as they all took their seats around the big dining table. Everyone was on their best behaviour. Papa sat at the head, of course, with his wife opposite. The children arranged in between according to age: Alessandro, Antonia, Lela next to Papa, as she so loved to be, then Marta and the twins. They were all neatly scrubbed and brushed, strangely silent with their hands in their laps, evidently under strict instructions to behave.
Patsy took her usual place next to Marc, although he didn’t so much as glance in her direction, let alone pull out the chair for her, as he would normally have done.
Looking around her, the one thing that hit Patsy most forcibly was the vacant chair where Gina would be seated. There it stood, empty of its occupant. In Patsy’s eyes it represented a testimony to jealousy and sibling rivalry.
Not only was Gina not present, nor was Luc. Sadly, there was no reason for him to attend Bertalone family functions, now that he wasn’t about to marry either daughter.
An unwelcome thought which brought Patsy’s gaze finally to Carmina, seated opposite, her new husband beside her. At six months pregnant she didn’t appear to be exactly blooming, although her face was fuller and flushed by the wine she was drinking. Nor was she exactly bubbling with the kind of joy one would expect from a new bride. Patsy guessed this must be the first time Alec Hall had joined a Bertalone family gathering since the wedding, as he too was looking decidedly uncomfortable, even a little nervous. She didn’t blame him. She felt very much the same herself. The sad thing was that it could all have been so very different.
She and Marc should be married by now, the young Bertalone girls allowed to parade and show off in their specially made bridesmaid’s dresses on what would have been a joyous occasion.
Gina and Luc could have been quietly courting and getting to know each other, perhaps with a view to an ultimate engagement and marriage. Carmina herself, the architect of the disasters which had befallen this family, certainly in Patsy’s mind, could still have been enjoying life as a single girl. Instead of which she was pregnant, and married to a man twice her age whom she clearly did not love.
Patsy had a theory on why the girl had agreed to marry him, but again, had no proof.
Jealousy and lies had led them to this place of distress and misery. She’d broken her mother’s heart and sent her sister to jail. But poor Carlotta was doing her utmost this evening to rouse her family into some sort of celebratory mood for the sake of her husband’s birthday.
They ate chicken liver paté with home-made ciabatta bread, pasta shells with a salmon cream sauce, followed by lasagne alla Bolognese, and naturally some of Papa’s finest ice cream. They managed a little desultory conversation, all excessively polite. Carmina never once glanced at, or addressed Alec, although he fussed charmingly over her, placing food on her plate which she neither asked for, nor ate.
‘I don’t want any salmon,’ Carmina hissed at him.
Alec smoothed a curl behind her ear, as if trying to calm her. ‘Remember you’re eating for two now, my love. You must think of what’s good for the baby.’
‘I don’t give a damn about the baby,’ she snapped right back, a remark which caused Momma to click her tongue severely at Carmina, and even the children stopped eating to stare at their sister wide-eyed. Patsy could sense Marc’s tension as he seemed to stiffen beside her.
‘Raise your glasses to darling Papa,’ Carlotta announced into the midst of the ensuing silence, and obediently everyone did just that.
The entire meal was so stilted, so very difficult and embarrassing that Patsy couldn’t wait for it to be over when she could escape back to the blessed peace of Number 22 and Clara. Marc hadn’t spoken a single word to her all evening. Patsy could hardly bear it, could hardly do justice to the wonderful food as her throat felt choked with emotion.
But now Carlotta was bringing out a cake with lighted candles and the children were cheering and singing, not perhaps with their usual vigour, but doing their best to show their love and loyalty for their beleaguered parents.
Alec glanced at his wife’s flushed cheeks and said, ‘I think you’ve had enough wine, darling. You know you aren’t supposed to be drinking at all really, although I don’t object to your having one glass, since it’s your father’s birthday.’
‘I’ll drink as much as I wish,’ Carmina retorted, oblivious to the shocked glances her parents and siblings were exchanging.
Alec said, ‘I don’t think you will,’ and removed Carmina’s glass from her hand. Alessandro snorted with laughter and Antonia nudged him in the ribs, which made him laugh all the more.
‘Children, children, behave,’ their father remonstrated with them.
‘You see how cruel he is to me, Papa? See how you’ve forced me to marry a bossy, cruel man.’
Marco gave his daughter a measuring look but addressed his remarks to her husband. ‘You do well, sir, to keep her under control. I’m afraid I never could.’
Whereupon Carmina burst into tears, although how real these were Patsy couldn’t quite decide. They seemed more temper than genuine distress. Then reaching beneath her chair Carmina drew out her bag, took out a hanky and began to mop up the tears, manufactured or not. The children watched, goggle-eyed. Seeing their open curiosity Carmina gave a cry of anguish and fled to the bathroom.
Patsy was feeling fairly goggle-eyed herself. She sat for some long moments in stunned shock. That bag. Red satin with a silver clasp, she would have known it anywhere. Hadn’t she stitched those sequinned flowers on herself? The last time she’d seen it was when she’d put it out on display, and within hours it had vanished, as had the chiffon scarf and the earrings before it.
When Carmina returned, Patsy excused herself and also left the room. But she didn’t go to the bathroom, as everyone assumed. She crept quietly upstairs to the room Carmina had most recently shared with her younger sisters.
It took less than three minutes for her to find a box of nylon stockings of the very same brand Patsy sold on the stall, together with two pairs of silver earrings, several records and a small red plastic transistor radio, secreted away in the bottom of the big wardrobe. She’d clearly not wished to part with these things yet perhaps hadn’t quite known what to do with them when she left to get married. She could hardly take the records and radio into her new marital home, from whence she had stolen them.
Patsy gathered all these things together, took them downstairs and laid them out on the table before Carmina for everyone to see. Of course, she was interfering yet again, but Patsy was beyond caring now. She’d lost Marc anyway, so what did it matter any more? Gina had tried, and thankfully failed, to take her own life, but was still serving two years for a burglary she didn’t commit. She, at least, deserved to know the truth.
‘I believe these are some of the items you stole from my stall, Carmina, as well as that red satin bag you have there, which I stitched with my own fair hands.’
After the silence came the noise, like the build up of a great storm, the kind the Bertalone family were only too familiar with. Papa was shouting, Momma was weeping and wailing, Lela was crying and Carmina herself was screaming at the top of her voice. The children clung to their parents, bemused and white-faced, in great distress, until Patsy had the presence of mind to shoo them into the front parlour to play Sorry! or Happy Families, whichever seemed more appropriate.
Marc was the only one who sat unmoving in stunned silence while mayhem erupted around him. When he finally did speak, his was the voice which broke through the hubbub, the one everyone listened to.
‘What did you do, Carmina?’
Silence.
‘I want you to start at the beginning and tell us the truth for once.’
Carmina turned her face away, folded her arms and ignored him.
‘Is it true what Patsy says?’
Carmina threw Patsy a venomous glare. ‘That little whore should learn to keep her nose out of my affairs.’
Marc got to his feet in a rush of anger. ‘Don’t speak to Patsy in that way.’ And while his shocked parents looked on, Marc persisted with his questions. ‘Tell us, Carmina, did you lie about this pregnancy at first in order to trap Luc into marriage? Did you steal this bag, and other things, from Patsy’s stall and from Alec’s shop? Did you deliberately set out to get your innocent sister arrested? Answer me, Carmina, did you?’
‘
Yes
!’ Carmina screeched at the top of her voice. ‘
Yes, yes, yes
! Are you satisfied now?’ And she lunged at Patsy, may well have struck her had not Alec and Marc leapt to prevent her. It certainly took both of them to force the near-demented girl back into her seat while Carlotta rushed for a damp cloth to cool her daughter’s brow, urging her to think of the baby she carried, as if Carmina were capable of caring about anyone but herself.