Coronation Wives (55 page)

Colin shook his head. His voice was gentle. ‘You’ve got Susan to contend with and I’ve got a business to run. God knows I’ve neglected it lately. Let’s hand the matter over to someone who knows about these things.’

Edna’s eyes glistened with tears. ‘Thank you, Colin.’

He kissed the top of her head, just as he had done so with Susan a week or so ago. ‘Thank
you
, Edna. Thank you for being who you are.’

When he got to the factory, Charlotte was there with her car boot wide open. Ivan was loading it up with toys for the sanatorium.

‘I want to talk to you,’ he called from beneath the white Perspex canopy supported on a wooden frame above the front door.

Dusty and dull as it was, his office seemed like a palace this morning as Colin told Charlotte of how he had inadvertently opened a letter addressed to Edna.

‘And in that regard, I want to ask you to arrange things,’ he said. ‘It may seem a bit daft, but I think it might cure or, at the
very least, help Edna get back to her old self. I’ve read this letter and want you to handle matters.’ Charlotte took the letter, noted the postmark and looked at Colin a little warily.

Colin was amused. ‘Blimey, Charlotte. We don’t often see you lost for words, do we?’

‘What does Edna have to say?’

Still smirking as though he were a small boy, had climbed the tree and picked the best conkers, he said, ‘She keeps looking at me as though Cary Grant’s just walked in the door and no one told her he was coming.’

Charlotte had known Colin for a long while and had always admired his big-heartedness and his down-to-earth sensibility. Her curiosity was aroused. ‘Why are you doing this?’

Folding his hands in front of him, he carefully outlined his reasons. At last he said, ‘Susan has become more than the apple of her eye. It’s not going to do any good in the long run. Somehow I had to divide or, perhaps, expand Edna’s loyalty and love. Sherman – or Carlos as he is now – should do the trick. One child will compensate for the other.’ He grinned thoughtfully. ‘I’m kind of glad that we let all them Poles into this country. Some of them are real good apples.’

‘It all sounds very logical,’ said Charlotte, at a loss to say anything else, though logic didn’t really figure in his decision. This was about love, and Colin was full of it.

‘I’ll leave you to arrange the time and the place,’ he added. ‘I know you’ve got other things to do.’

‘Indeed I have,’ said Charlotte ruefully. ‘Some of which are connected to very bad apples.’

In a moment of extreme need Polly had given into Mickey O’Hara’s sexual advances. Now she baulked at the very thought of it, yet she must not show that his presence now sickened her. All she wanted now was revenge.

Charlotte had told her that fingerprints would be useful, but that it would go some way to assuaging her guilt if she could get into the circular cocktail cabinet that held his personal papers. In the meantime she’d pretend that nothing had changed.

Tonight Ginger was driving and they’d called for her at home.

‘If I’m not back by dawn, call Charlotte,’ Polly had whispered in Aunty Meg’s ear before leaving.

‘Can we go to the house?’ she asked Mickey.

‘Sure.’ He grinned. ‘I’ll give you a guided tour.’ He was aware how much she liked the house he lived in, but she fancied his comment had a double meaning.

At present Mickey sat in the back with her using a clipper on his nails. Both the sound of the clipper and the shavings landing on her black pleated skirt disgusted her, but she held her tongue – just in case she bit it off! Tonight was too important to mess up and she did her best not to appear nervous.

As he put the clipper away, he looked at her thoughtfully. ‘Are you feeling all right?’

She forced herself to bubble. ‘Yeah! Why shouldn’t I be?’

‘You just seem a bit quiet this evening. I thought someone might have said something to upset you.’

She sensed he was studying her closely, but did not look at him, preferring to stare as if entranced by the cluttered shops that ran the length of Gloucester Road. Most had already closed for the evening though some still closed at midday. Not everyone had changed to all day Saturday opening.

He pulled her closer, the heat of his breath moist upon her neck. Earlier on in their relationship, she had found the smell of the eau de cologne he wore incredibly attractive. In the light of what she now knew it made her feel sick. Charlotte had told her a terrible truth that had opened a door in her mind.
Now
she remembered him.
Now
she recalled the emotions she had felt at
that time, Aaron’s irresistible charm and the things he had told her about the prisoners, and about the man who had made his life hell.

The creeping of Mickey’s hand up her skirt brought her back to reality and she couldn’t help almost jumping out of her skin.

‘No!’ She gripped his hand just as it got to the top of her stockings. The thought of it going any further made her flesh creep.

He clenched his jaw and she half-expected him to hit her. Mickey O’Hara didn’t like rejection and she was treading on thin ice. Deep down she now knew that if something was not freely given he’d take it anyway. There would be no tenderness, no exchange of words meant to soften and excite.

Mickey’s voice, all tenderness extracted, brought her back to the present. ‘You don’t regret what happened the other night, do you, Polly? It would upset me no end if you did.’ He was being sarcastic and she heard Ginger snigger. But she mustn’t upset him.

She managed to smile, but it felt tight and alien across her mouth. ‘Of course not.’ Her gaze shifted to Ginger, who had adjusted the rear-view mirror. She could see his grin and the mockery in his eyes.

‘Not with him looking.’

‘You don’t want him looking?’ Now it was Mickey who was mocking her. ‘I can’t say I mind meself, but then, we’ve all got our own personal tastes, isn’t that right, Polly? Some women prefer fair men, some women prefer dark men, some women prefer them the darker the better. Is that not so?’

Polly managed to maintain her smile under the intensity of his stare. The statement was delivered with menace. It seemed Mickey was referring to her relationship with Aaron. Yet she couldn’t let him know that she understood, that she remembered him from the time she’d gone to see Aaron at the camp. Mickey
Noble – now called O’Hara – had been the sergeant who had told her he’d been shipped home. He was dangerous, deadly.

He pulled her tightly to him. ‘And tonight, honey, you’ve got me.’

‘Please don’t.’ She struggled to untangle herself from him, annoyed that Ginger was chuckling to himself in the front seat.

‘Please,’ she said again and purposely ran her hand down his chest, down further to the warmth of his loins. There was a hardening beneath her hand. Suddenly it was easier to smile because that meant she still had some control. Well, that was a turn up for the books! Polly Hills still had the power to arouse and, perhaps, just for a while she would make him forget to be too vigilant and could find something to destroy him.

Aunty Meg was at her friend Bridget’s and both were bent over a copy of the local sporting paper, checking their football pools.

Bridget had made herself comfortable. Her teeth sat in a saucer next to another saucer in which she’d poured her tea. Corsets the colour of tinned salmon had been discarded and tossed onto the sideboard. Due to this noticeable lack of support, her stockings nestled around her ankles like circular sausages.

Overcome by the knowledge that, yet again, she’d only thrown good money after bad, Meg sighed and sat back on the decrepit dining chair that must once have belonged to Bridget’s grandmother, if the state of the springs and the picture of the large fat lady over the mantelpiece were anything to go by. The chair had been worn down with weight a long time ago.

‘I’d have bought a house if I’d won,’ said Meg. ‘And a van for our Billy, a pony for our Carol, and a bedroom suite for our Polly. What would you buy?’

Bridget looked round her as though assessing what she did have and wondering whether it was worth replacing at all. ‘Nothing.’

‘Not a new house?’

‘What’s wrong with this one?’

‘It belongs to the council. Wouldn’t you like one of yer own?’

Bridget thought about it for a minute, her diverse eyes seeming to focus on two different aspects of the room at the same time. Did she think different thoughts at the same time too?’ Meg wondered.

‘No,’ said Bridget at last. ‘I’d pay off the rent arrears, then, just for the hell of it, let it all mount up again.’

Bewildered, Meg blinked at her and waited for an explanation.

Bridget grinned. ‘Got to ’ave me fun. Every time the rent man knocks on that door …’

As if on cue the front door knocker was banged and banged again.

‘Blimey, Bridget. Someone’s trying to knock yer door in!’

Bridget went back to studying the football pools. ‘Let ’em knock.’

Whoever was outside had no intention of waiting. A loud grating sound followed as if someone was lifting the letterbox.

‘Aunty Meg!’

Meg lurched to her feet. ‘It’s our Carol.’

Bridget went to the door and Carol came tumbling into the room. ‘He’s home!’ she shouted excitedly.

Meg’s mouth dropped open. She didn’t need any explanation about who it was and her face lit up with glee even before she clapped eyes on him.

‘Meg! Me old China!’ Billy rushed from behind Carol and threw his arms around her ample proportions.

Meg was speechless and blushing like a filly. ‘You’re home!’

‘You’re right there!’

‘But no one said …’

‘It was in the pipeline at a rate of knots once I ’ad that letter from our Carol telling me what’s been going on. But I wanted to be sure. I figured there were some people outside of prison in need of a surprise so they’ve gone in the frame and I’ve flown the coop.’

Meg gulped. The Irishman in the slinky car had picked Polly up earlier that evening. For some reason Polly had insisted that Meg see her off, and although she’d been loath to be party to what she regarded as a betrayal of Billy’s trust, she’d felt obliged to do so. But she told Billy that Polly had seemed nervous, had stated that if she wasn’t home by the following morning that she was to tell Charlotte and she would know what to do.

‘Do you know what her and Charlotte are up to? I reckon it’s got something to do with that bloke who sent his apes round ’ere … I think they’ve got it in mind to sort ’im out.’

Billy threw his head back and groaned.

Meg was frightened. ‘Will she be all right?’

Billy headed for the door. Meg grabbed his arm. ‘Well?’ she said, desperate for his answer. ‘Will she?’

His grin was tight and there was an earnest look in his eyes. ‘Depends on how quick I can get there. Got some pennies for the phone box?’

Meg gave him a handful from the gas money and watched him go, afraid for him and afraid for Polly.

Billy ran like a madman to the red phone box on the corner of Newquay Road, the pennies jingling in his pocket. He phoned Charlotte.

Once she’d got over her surprise that he was out of prison, Charlotte outlined what Polly was up to. In response Billy said, ‘I’ve shopped them, Charlotte. The coppers’ll be up there any minute. You have to help me. I have to be there. If O’Hara finds
out it was me and the police don’t get there in time, then he’ll take it out on Poll.’

Charlotte’s response was immediate. ‘I’ll be right there.’

Janet chose that moment to arrive back from Edna’s where she’d been outlining the details regarding Carlos. Just as she was about to remove her coat, Charlotte came rushing down the stairs looking as though the hounds of hell were snapping at her heels. ‘Is there a war?’

Her mother headed for the door as she answered. ‘You could say that.’

Janet held her arm. ‘Tell me!’

Grabbing her car keys and handbag, Charlotte explained things as quickly as she could.

‘You can’t go alone.’

Disturbed by the noise, Ivan appeared from the garden where he’d taken to growing plants in the greenhouse and spending a lot of time out there. He looked questioningly at both women. ‘What has happened?’

Janet explained quickly, then added, ‘She’s off to fight a war – single-handed.’

‘Don’t try and persuade me not to go,’ snapped Charlotte.

Ivan began stripping off David’s old gardening gloves. ‘I won’t. We’re going with you!’

Janet snatched Charlotte’s car keys. ‘I’m driving!’

Janet drove like a maniac. The tyres squealed all the way to Camborne Road where Billy was waiting by the phone box and piled into the back of the car as quickly as he could. Carol tried to get in as well, complete with her hockey stick.

Billy pushed her back and slammed the car door. ‘You’re too young. You stay here with Aunty Meg.’

Carol swore and flung the hockey stick into the privet hedge.

The tyres continued to squeal around every bend between Camborne Road and Melvin Square.

‘Just pray we get there in time,’ said Janet.

‘Preferably alive,’ said Ivan as Janet sped across Melvin Square and took a left into Clonmel Road.

Polly was nervous. She’d expected Mickey to fix drinks from the cabinet in the sitting room then perhaps use the bathroom while she sat innocently sipping at her drink. It wouldn’t have given her much time to investigate the cabinet, but perhaps just enough.

Unfortunately, he did not do that.

‘Up here,’ he said as he pulled her towards the stairs that swept upwards in wrought iron splendour from the open-plan sitting room, and she knew he wasn’t going to take her on a guided tour. In that instant, her courage failed her.

‘Just a minute. My shoes are killing me.’

She ran back down the stairs meaning to head for the door and get the hell out of there. But Ginger was between her and the door, smirking above his velvet-collared Teddy Boy coat.

As if it had been her original intention, she slipped off her shoes and flung her handbag onto the white leather settee.

By the time she got back up the stairs, Mickey had an impatient scowl on his face.