Queen of the Mersey (38 page)

Roddy’s blue eyes narrowed. ‘If it turns out Mary really is pregnant, you have three choices: the first is to run away and never come back; second, you can deny the child is yours and tell her to get stuffed; lastly, you can get married, live happily ever after, and break my daughter’s heart. Which is it going to be, Duncan?’ he asked bitterly.

When Roddy arrived home, very late, Laura looked at him suspiciously. ‘Are you drunk? Is that why you couldn’t get your key in the door?’

‘I’m exceedingly drunk, darling,’ Roddy said carefully. He was having difficulty forming words. ‘Drunker than I ever got in the Army. I’ll tell you why in a minute. First of all, where’s Hester?’

‘She rang earlier. Apparently, Duncan called her at work and cancelled tonight’s date, so she’s gone to the pictures with some of the girls. Gus is at a friend’s.’ Laura folded her arms and regarded him severely. ‘Now can you tell me why you’ve got yourself almost legless?’

‘Because Mary Monaghan is pregnant and our daughter’s fiancé is the father. He told me tonight in the Wig & Pen.’

‘What?’ Laura flinched, as if he’d struck her.

‘The little bitch seduced him – honestly, darling, that boy is an innocent abroad. I knew more about women when I was twelve. He’s never even heard of condoms.’ oddy sat down suddenly with a thump. ‘Christ Almighty! Do you think he’s been screwing Hester?’

‘Probably, but a few weeks ago, I took her to a birth control clinic. She’s got a Dutch cap.’

‘Sensible girl, but you should have taken her a few months ago, not weeks. If he’d had our daughter to screw, he mightn’t have looked twice at Mary.’

‘There’s no need to be so crude,’ Laura said thinly. ‘Anyway, what does that matter now? Does this mean the wedding’s off? It’ll kill Hester!’

‘It’s killing Duncan. He’s made the biggest mistake of his life and he knows it.’ Roddy sighed. ‘And yes, the wedding’s off. I suggested several choices and he picked the only honourable one, marrying the damned girl.’

Laura must have noticed the television was on without the sound. She turned it off. ‘What do you mean, she seduced him?’ she asked, puzzled.

‘They went to Southport, to the fairground. She said something about they must do it again, so they arranged to meet the next week, but he regretted it straight away. He was relieved when the day came and it was raining and he didn’t have to go.’ Roddy went over to the cabinet where they kept the drink and helped himself to a glass of whisky. ‘I feel as if I want to drink myself senseless as well as legless. Do you want one?’

‘No, I’ll make tea in a minute.’

‘Anyway, Mary only turned up that afternoon, soaking wet, and proceeded to entertain him with a bloody striptease. She beguiled him, he said. Beguiled!

Have you ever heard anyone use that word in your whole life? I asked if she was a virgin, and he wanted to know how you could tell. It turns out she was his first woman, and it was nothing to do with love, just sex.’

Laura was close to tears. ‘Oh, Lord, Roddy. This is awful. And it’s all my fault! It was my idea they go to Southport together. I wanted Mary out of the way so I could get on with the timetable.’

‘Darling,’ Roddy said in a voice that was becoming increasingly slurred, ‘you couldn’t have expected to happen what did happen – does that make sense?’

‘But I knew what Mary was like. She always had to go one better than Hester, have the things she had. Now she’s got Hester’s fiancé.’ Laura drew in a deep, ragged breath. ‘Does Vera know about this?’

‘I’ve no idea who knows. Neither does Duncan. After he left me, he went to meet Mary. You know what he said before he went? “I love Hester. I love her more than life itself.” ’

Mary had never meant things to go so far. Hester was as close to her as a sister, though they’d drifted apart when Duncan came on the scene. The same thing probably happened with real sisters when one started courting, but she’d resented not being the first. For some obscure reason, it didn’t seem fair.

Hester always managed to sail through life without even trying. People only had to look at her to like her. She didn’t even have to open her mouth. At dances, Hester, in her neat, unfussy clothes, no jewellery, hardly any make-up, her hair brushed smoothly back from her face, not in any particular style, was nearly always asked up first, while Mary, who’d taken ages getting ready, was left to hang about, though not for long. Sometimes, her partners would ask, ‘Who’s your friend?’ as if they would have preferred to dance with Hester but hadn’t got there in time and Mary was their second choice.

‘I would never forget you,’ Duncan had said on the way to Southport, and she was convinced there was an invitation in his eyes. He fancied her! It wouldn’t hurt to egg him on a bit, see what happened. She wouldn’t feel so bad about Hester courting, if she could convince herself that Duncan might have preferred her if he’d met her first.

All afternoon, she’d kept pressing herself against him, clinging to him on the rides, pretending to be terrified. When he’d wiped her mouth, she could tell he would have very much liked to kiss her.

‘We must do this again sometime,’ she’d said, and he’d jumped at the idea. She’d been quite pleased the following Wednesday when she discovered it was raining.

They could go to the pictures, have a good old neck in the back row, Mary would have proved something to herself, and Hester could have her boyfriend back.

When she’d come out of Freddy’s, she’d been seriously narked to find Duncan wasn’t there. She knew where he lived and had gone to Waterloo to tear him off a strip, but when he’d opened the door, he’d looked so terrified, she realised she scared him. It could only be for one reason; he found her irresistible. He didn’t want them to be alone.

In his room, things had got out of hand. She hadn’t meant to go so far, but had been quite turned on when she noticed he was peeping while she took her stockings off. What followed had been a disaster; he’d come straight away and looked dead embarrassed, and she’d felt dead embarrassed too, as well as a bit ashamed.

She’d hurried away, wishing it were possible never to see Duncan Maguire again.

Not long afterwards, one Sunday afternoon, a starry-eyed Hester arrived at Glover Street to show off her lovely engagement ring and to say she and Duncan were getting married next July on her twenty-first. Duncan would have come with her to break the news, she said, but the night before he’d eaten something that had disagreed with him and felt quite poorly. He sent his apologies instead.

‘You’ll be my bridesmaid, won’t you, Mary?’ Hester had asked, and Mary had no choice but to say she’d be thrilled.

‘Duncan’s sisters will be bridesmaids too, least we hope so. He’s not sure if his father will let them. Something to do with the church.’

At least it was a relief to know she hadn’t spoilt things for Hester. The episode in Duncan’s flat she put to the back of her mind in the hope she’d never think about it again.

Then her August period was late. Every morning, she woke up and prayed frantically to God that she’d started during the night, only to find she hadn’t.

At Freddy’s, Mrs Prymme became so cross with her frequent trips to the lavatory to check if the longed-for period had arrived that she reported her to Mr Appleby, who reported her to Queenie, who requested her presence in her office.

‘Have you started smoking?’ Queenie wanted to know. ‘That’s usually the reason why staff visit the lavatory a dozen times a day.’

‘No,’ Mary said sullenly.

‘Then you must have developed a weak bladder. You should see a doctor about it, Mary.’

At that point, Mary had burst into tears and told Queenie she had a horrible feeling she might be pregnant. ‘I’ve never missed a period before,’ she sobbed, ‘but I’m three weeks late and it’s almost time for the next one.’

‘Oh, dearie me!’ All of a sudden, Queenie was no longer the elegantly dressed businesswoman, ‘friend’ of Mr Theo, and the source of much gossip in the store, but the Queenie who’d taken them to Caerdovey and looked after them so tenderly.

She dried Mary’s eyes, gave her a hug, asked someone to fetch tea, and made her sit in a more comfortable chair.

‘Would you like to take some time off?’ she asked.

‘No!’ Mary shook her head vigorously. ‘I wouldn’t know what to do with meself and Mam’d only want to know what was wrong. I suppose you think I’m awful,’ she sniffed.

‘I’m hardly the person to pass a judgement like that, am I?’ Queenie said drily.

‘Look, it’s a bit soon to get so worked up. The time to worry is if you miss the next one. Until then, come and see me every day for a little chat in the lunch hour, but please cut down on the visits to the lavatory, dear, or Mrs Prymme will only start complaining again.’

Mary wasn’t all that surprised when September came but her period didn’t. By now she was convinced she was pregnant, a belief only strengthened when one morning she had to rush to the lavatory to be violently sick. Some of her sisters-in-law had suffered from morning sickness so she knew this was a sign.

Later, she presented herself at Queenie’s office, shaking with fear.

‘Right,’ Queenie said briskly. ‘I haven’t asked before, but who’s the father?’

‘Some chap I met at a dance.’ She couldn’t bring herself to tell the truth, not even to the understanding Queenie.

‘Does he know you’re in the club?’

‘I haven’t told him, no.’

‘Is he the sort who’ll marry you, or the sort who’ll run a mile?’

‘I think he’ll marry me.’ A feeling of nausea swept over her at the idea of marrying Duncan Maguire, not because of who he was, but what he was; Hester’s fiancé. She imagined all the ripples it would cause.

‘Do you want to marry him? What’s his name?’

Mary shuddered. ‘John, John Smith. I’ve no choice, have I, but to marry him?’

She’d have married any-old-body rather than have an illegitimate baby. Her name would be mud throughout Bootle and it’d kill Mam.

‘Then you’d better tell this John Smith straight away. The sooner you get married, the fewer eyebrows will be raised when the baby arrives early.’

Next day, she’d rung Duncan at his school and they’d met in the waiting room on Marsh Lane Station the same night. He arrived, as drunk as a lord, his green eyes, no longer guileless, sunk in their sockets, empty of all expression. He asked if she was quite sure she was pregnant and she said she’d already started to be sick and was quite positive.

‘It’ll have to be a registry office,’ she said, ‘because you’re not Catholic and the priest will never agree to marrying us in church.’

Duncan nodded numbly and muttered that he’d see about the licence.

‘You’d better make the date as soon as possible. Have you told Hester yet?’

‘I’ll tell her tomorrow.’ It hadn’t seemed possible for his eyes to look any emptier, but they did.

Queenie went through Freddy’s staff entrance and caught the lift straight up to the sixth floor.

‘Lovely day out there,’ Eustace said amiably, when they were on the way.

‘Perfect!’ she enthused. ‘Not too hot and not too cold.’ She wondered how he knew what sort of day it was when he spent all his time riding up and down in the lift. Perhaps the customers told him.

‘You know,’ she said, when she entered Theo’s office, ‘I think you should give Eustace a raise. That’s a terribly boring job he does, yet he’s always so good-humoured. How long has he worked here?’

Theo was smiling at her from behind his desk. ‘For ever,’ he said.

‘That’s even more reason for giving him more money.’

‘All right. How much shall it be?’

‘At least five pounds a week.’

‘There’ll be terrible ill-feeling if other staff find out.’

‘Tell Eustace one of the conditions of the raise is he mustn’t tell a soul.

Ifanyone finds out and complains, say they can have the same as soon as they’ve been here for ever.’

‘Right, that’s done.’ Theo made a note in his diary. ‘Eustace will be one of the best paid employees in the shop.’

‘Good!’ Queenie collapsed in the chair in front of his desk. She wore a cream, lightweight tweed suit, a cream hat, like an inverted plantpot. Her beige shoes, gloves and handbag all matched. ‘I felt terribly over-dressed,’ she said. ‘Me and Vera were the only guests. Poor Vera, she looked completely bewildered.

She’d always looked forward to their Mary getting married, the first and only time she’d be the mother of the bride. But that was a joke of a wedding. Duncan couldn’t have looked more miserable if he’d been on his way to the scaffold, and Mary came with a suitcase, worried he’d scarper back to his flat after the ceremony – if you could call it a ceremony – without her.’

She’d only gone for Vera’s sake, still cross with Mary, lying to the last, telling her the father’s name was John Smith when all the time it had been Duncan Maguire. Had she known the truth, she wouldn’t have been so sympathetic during the weeks Mary had been worried she might be pregnant. No doubt Mary had guessed as much and it was the reason she’d lied.

‘Imagine what the atmosphere in the flat must be like now?’ Theo said.

‘I’d sooner not.’ Queenie shuddered delicately. ‘It’d only depress me.’

Hester Oliver had forgotten how to breathe. At least, that’s how it felt, as if, ever since the day Duncan had told her they couldn’t get married and that he was going to marry Mary Monaghan instead, she had drawn in a quick, sharp breath, and waited for him to say it was a joke, if not a very nice one, and she could let the breath out again. But it hadn’t been a joke, and the breath was still there, like a big lump in her throat, waiting to be released.

Since that day, she hadn’t been to work. She didn’t care if she never went again. On the day her fiancé married her best friend, Hester lay on her bed, the lump in her throat throbbing painfully, torturing herself, imagining them together; touching, kissing, making love, just looking at each other. The thought was so dreadful, so completely and utterly unbelievable, that her brain felt as if it were actually breaking up in a vain attempt to accept that what had happened really had happened.

She clutched her head with both hands and began to scream. It was all right to scream. No one would come. Mummy had taken the day off school to be with her, but had gone to do some shopping, thinking Hester was asleep – she’d only pretended to be asleep – Daddy was at work, Gus at school. She screamed and screamed until her throat felt sore and her body ached all over, then began to cry, long, wretched sobs that made her heart break into even more pieces. Each time she cried, the pieces got smaller and smaller. Any minute now, she’d have no heart left.