Wishing and Hoping (11 page)

‘Is she asleep?' she asked as she stirred the boiling peas – as if they needed any stirring.

‘Both of them are dead to the world up there,' he said with a smile, moving in to give her a hug. Lifting her hair to one side, he kissed the nape of her neck as he'd done a hundred times before. This time it almost hurt. Had he done the same to Linda Bell?

Stop it! Stop it now!

The small voice in her head took her by surprise. It seemed a long time since she'd last heard it. But the voice – she liked to think it was Johnnie's – had always been right. She forced herself to fight back the feeling of betrayal.

She managed a light laugh into the steam from the peas. ‘I wish you wouldn't do that,' she said to him.

‘Why?' He continued to nuzzle her neck.

‘Because if you carry on like it I won't want to eat steak – I'll want to eat you.'

She turned round to face him entwining her arms around his neck. He smelled good and looked even better. Little creases appeared at the corners of his eyes when he smiled. She closed her eyes when he kissed her, tried to forget their recent troubles and focus on how lucky they were to have each other.

Even so, the confrontation with Linda Bell was still at the back of her mind. And there it is staying, she thought to herself. The girl was a liar. She felt it somehow. Michael was the best thing that had ever happened to her and she wasn't going to let a vindictive ex-employee get to her. Besides, she'd run away once Marcie had offered that they go together to see her husband and have it out. Surely that meant something?

She must have tensed while her thoughts ran riot, because Michael noticed.

‘Is something wrong?' he asked.

She shook her head. At the same time she pressed her hands against the nape of his neck so he could kiss her again.

‘I'm going to die in your arms,' she said suddenly.

The comment came unbidden and without warning. She'd surprised herself by saying it. Michael looked surprised too.

‘Where did that come from?' he asked her as she leaned against his hands, which were supporting the small of her back.

She shrugged. ‘I don't know. I just felt I had to say it. I just felt it mattered.'

The peas chose that moment to boil over and curtail further kisses and the possibility that they might forego dinner altogether and make for the bedroom.

‘Oh no! What a bloody mess!'

She turned the gas off immediately and dished out the steak, the chips, the salad and the peas as Michael poured the wine and lit a candle.

‘Here's to my lovely wife,' he said in the softly seductive voice he'd used on their wedding night.

‘And on a Friday night,' said Marcie. ‘And it's not even our wedding anniversary. Do you have any other reason for doing this?'

A look she had trouble reading flashed into his eyes and then was swiftly gone. His smile was wide and reassuring.

‘One year, six months and twenty-three days, six hours and forty-three minutes?' He closed one eye as though he really had calculated it to the very day, the very hour and the very second.

Marcie laughed. One year, six months maybe, but she'd need to put her thinking cap on with the rest of it. ‘And don't think for one moment that I believe you've worked it out that precisely,' she said, still laughing, still entering into the spirit of his behaviour. ‘How come?'

‘How come?' He looked taken aback, pretending to be found out and not wanting to admit to anything.

Marcie flipped a finger at his nose. ‘What brought on this sudden calculation of how long we've been together – and the fact that you're home on a Friday night?'

His expression changed in an instant. ‘Does there have to be a reason?'

She didn't want his mood to change and instantly regretted what she'd said. ‘No. Of course not. It's lovely having you here. The kids loved it too.'

She realised she was gushing, but if that's what it took to see him smile again, that's what she would do.

‘I'm glad,' he said.

Just as he reached across the table to take her hand and kiss her wrist, the phone rang.

‘Saved by the bell,' said Marcie.

Michael got up from the table. ‘I'll be right back. And then I'm going to take it off the hook and ignore it. Tonight is for us!'

She laughed and this time felt happy.

The phone was on a half-moon table with wrought-iron legs out in the hallway. Marcie sat with her hands folded beneath her chin listening to Michael's murmuring voice and knowing – absolutely knowing – what he was going to come in and say.

‘That was one of the waiters from Aldo's Trattoria phoning to tell me there's been trouble at the club. The poor bloke sounded so hysterical I could barely hear him.'

He moved smartly, grabbing his coat and his car keys, pausing only to peck at her cheek. Like a hurricane he whizzed down the hallway. At the door he
stopped to call out that he would be back as soon as he could. ‘And phone your dad. Tell him to get round there ASAP. OK?'

Marcie phoned her father as ordered. Knowing her father well, she phoned him at his favourite pub, the Black Dog in Lambeth. There was much raucous noise on the other end. Above it all she heard the barman shout for her father. When he came to the phone he sounded drunk.

‘It's my night off and I'm here with friends.'

‘Well, it isn't now. Michael said he needs you there.'

Her father wasn't happy about leaving the pub and grunted something about being ordered around like a dog before putting the phone down.

Not entirely convinced he'd do as requested, she sat down and finished her glass of wine before starting on the dishes.

‘Well, that's that,' she said to herself.

If things had gone according to plan – that is dinner then bed – she wondered whether she would have had the courage to mention Linda Bell to Michael. She couldn't make up her mind about that one. There was no doubting that the girls at the club fancied Michael; nobody in their right mind
wouldn't
fancy him. When she'd first met him she'd never really noticed how attractive he was. He'd been overshadowed by his more obviously
handsome half-brother. Michael's good looks were more subtle. She never doubted that she'd ended up with the better man, but discovering women found him very attractive had surprised her and she counted herself lucky that he was her husband.

The corners of her mouth turned down as her thoughts darkened. Linda Bell. What was she to Michael? And what was Michael to her? Perhaps they had meant something to each other in the past. Perhaps she was purely out for revenge. Was she really pregnant? And if so, was it Michael's?

She shivered. It wouldn't do any good to go there. The girl had been lying. That's all there was to it.

Tony Brooks was drunk and enjoying the company.

‘My daughter,' he said to the four men he was drinking with. ‘She's ordering me around like a bleedin' dog. I told her that you know. I told her that.'

‘Why don't you have another drink,' said the man he knew as Sean.

‘Your wish is my command,' Tony replied.

‘We'll put one behind the bar for you.'

His four new friends made ready to depart.

‘You're leaving already?'

They hadn't been his friends for too long. His mind was a bit addled as to when they'd actually met, but he did recall having one hell of a binge with them
the night before. They'd trawled a few pubs before making their way to the Blue Genie in the early hours of the morning.

‘Thanks for taking us to your club. You're a lucky man, Tony,' Gerry, one of the other Irishmen, said to him.

Tony didn't correct them as to the ownership of the Blue Genie. He boasted to a lot of people that he owned a nightclub. To his mind it wasn't that far from the truth. His daughter owned it, right? By being married to Michael Jones.

His smile was broad and fuelled with alcohol. ‘No problem at all. Any time you want, just mention my name.'

The four Irishmen left him standing there at the bar. He lifted his hand in a desultory wave and made it seem that he had no intention of leaving the pub just yet. Who did Marcie think she was ordering him around anyway? All the same, he wasn't as drunk as last night. His daughter had been urging and it wouldn't hurt to go along and see what the matter was.

Outside on the pavement the four Irishmen began the long walk back to their digs. The woman they were lodging with kept a tin bath in an outhouse where they were required to bathe one night per week. She also had an indoor bath in which she kept
the coal. The coal cellar itself was let out to a family of Jamaicans. Everyone wanted somewhere to stay and what did it matter if you piled them in?

‘Make hay while the sun shines, that's my motto,' she told them when they'd asked why she kept her coal in the bath.

They'd carped on to one of Rafferty's men about the conditions they were required to live in.

‘Nothing will come of our moans and groans,' Gerry had said, but he'd been wrong.

‘Lads, in exchange for a little job . . .'

Rafferty had given them an option. New lodgings or cash in hand. They'd gone for the cash and done the little job he'd asked them to do.

MARCIE WAITED UNTIL
gone three in the morning before she phoned the Blue Genie. There was no reply.

Following that she phoned her father. A woman's voice, which she presumed belonged to her father's latest girlfriend, answered.

‘Hello.'

‘Is Tony Brooks there? It's his daughter, Marcie.'

‘He's here, but out of it. Drunk as a skunk. No good to man nor beast – and certainly no good to woman.'

‘Who are you?'

‘Desdemona.' She gave a little laugh.

Marcie persisted. ‘I'm trying to find out where my husband, Michael is. No one's answering the phone at his club. Can you ask my father if he's seen him?'

‘Sure.'

She heard Desdemona ask and heard her father's grumbled reply.

‘He said to tell you that they were drinking half the night. He's probably out of it on that settee at the back
of his office.'

Marcie paused. Michael did indeed have a studio couch-style settee in the small alcove at the back of his office. He dossed down there when he was too tired to come home. It wouldn't be the first time her father had led him astray, though it was only very occasionally and usually the drink was aided by weariness.

‘Is that what my father said?' Marcie asked.

‘He grunted something about drinking. I'm assuming the bit about the settee, honey child,' said Desdemona.

It occurred to Marcie that Desdemona had personal knowledge of the settee. Nobody would know it was there unless they'd made use of it. An empty feeling as heavy as molten lead seemed to swirl in her stomach. Either Desdemona had heard gossip from other girls about the couch, or she'd knowledge of it herself – possibly introduced to it by her father. It wasn't entirely unknown that he took advantage of the club's facilities when it suited him.

‘OK. I'll leave it until the morning. You don't know what trouble happened last night do you?'

‘No idea.'

‘My dad never mentioned anything?'

‘Nothing at all.'

Marcie concluded that there was nothing to worry about seeing as her father was sleeping like a baby. Michael would be in touch once he'd slept it off. All the same she cursed her father for curtailing what
could have been a very romantic evening and passionate night.

Resisting the inclination to phone her husband was difficult, but Marcie was determined not to appear too needy. Michael might get suspicious that she was hiding something. She'd resolved not to make a fuss about the Linda Bell incident, and she would stick to her guns.

Even though he had not been in contact by the next morning, she went along to the sewing room as usual, taking the kids with her. Although she'd told herself she wasn't worried, the cracks were beginning to show.

The baby fell asleep and Joanna was playing with some buttons in a cardboard box.

Sally was telling her otherwise and kept asking her what was wrong.

‘Nothing,' snapped Marcie.

The cotton on the sewing machine snapped as she tugged a snakeskin gaiter too quickly and roughly.

‘From where I'm sitting it don't look like nothing,' said Sally. She turned to Allegra. ‘How about you?'

Allegra was sitting in a chair by the window facing the street. The light from the window cast odd shadows across her face. She didn't hear what Sally had said.

Sally raised her voice. ‘Allegra? Please come down to Planet Earth.'

Allegra looked round. ‘Did you say something?'

Sally rolled her eyes. ‘I said that Marcie seems to have something on her mind and should share it with us. One look at you and I see that she's not the only one with something on her mind. What the hell is this? Something contagious?'

Allegra apologised. ‘I'm sorry. My mind was elsewhere. What were you saying?'

Allegra Montillado was a different person than the one who'd been in love with Victor Camilleri. He'd seen her at church with her parents, had seduced her and made her his mistress. Things had gone wrong when Marcie had appeared. Torn between her friend and her lover, Allegra had found Victor out for the brute he could be.

‘Are you still mooning about Victor?' Tact never being her style, Sally was the one asking.

Allegra shook her head. ‘No. Not any more. I've decided that there are more important things in life than men.'

Sally's eyes opened wide and her hands went to her hips. She was the picture of shocked amazement. ‘I did not know that!' she exclaimed. ‘What have you found that's better?'

Seeing that she was being mocked, Allegra smiled gently and shook her head. ‘You wouldn't understand.'