A Lesser Evil - Lesley Pearse [15]
He sighed deeply. As a kid he’d had plenty of that kind of treatment, which was worse than being given a good hiding. And, as he remembered, it worked. In a few weeks Fifi would be putty in her mother’s hands.
*
‘It’s only a shower. It’ll stop soon,’ Dan said optimistically. He wasn’t that worried by the heavy rain, but he was concerned that Fifi hadn’t said a word since they’d taken shelter under a large tree. He was afraid she was about to tell him that she didn’t want to see him any more.
The awful tea party was months ago, and there were times when Dan wished he’d stuck to his guns when he had tried to end it a few days later. He had felt then that it would be best for Fifi as her mother wasn’t ever going to accept him, and in the long run that would split them up anyway.
But Fifi had been adamant that her parents would come round before long, and that if they didn’t she’d leave home anyway. Dan had wanted to believe her on both counts, but it was the end of August now, and they were no further on. Clara Brown hadn’t budged an inch, and Fifi hadn’t moved out.
As far as Dan was concerned, as long as Fifi loved him and he could still see her, he was content. But as the weeks passed he could tell she was growing more and more unhappy, however well she tried to hide it.
He guessed, though Fifi made light of it, that her mother was constantly on her back. On several Sunday mornings when he’d met her she’d had puffy eyes and a blotchy face and he knew that there had been a row at home the night before.
He could see she wasn’t sleeping well as she often had shadows under her eyes; she picked at food and she had lost weight. He couldn’t bear the thought that she was suffering because of him.
She had cut herself off from all her old friends. While this was partly because she wanted to be with him rather than with them, the main reason was because she felt she couldn’t trust them. It seemed that one or two of them had passed a few confidences on to their mothers, and in turn they’d been repeated to Clara. Fifi felt betrayed by such disloyalty. Her brothers had accused her of causing trouble at home, and now the only person she had left on her side was Patty.
Today they’d come out to Leigh Woods for a walk. It had been bright sunshine when they got off the bus by the Suspension Bridge, but as soon as they entered the woods the heavens opened. Dan felt she was brooding now, almost certainly thinking that her whole life had gone wrong since she met him.
‘A penny for them,’ he said lightly, putting his arms around her and drawing her closer to him.
‘They aren’t worth a farthing,’ she said glumly.
‘That bad, eh?’ he said. ‘Can’t we try doing magic eyes and see what that does?’
‘I’ve tried that on Mum, but even if I could remove her snobbishness, tweak her suspicious nature and paint her dark soul sparkling white, I’d still be left with a carping dragon,’ she said, trying hard to smile.
‘I didn’t mean doing magic eyes on her,’ Dan said. ‘I meant the other possibilities, like you getting a flat with some other girls. Or you just thinking about getting a bedsitter again. Just think how good it would be if we had somewhere nice to be alone together.’
‘Umm,’ Fifi murmured, burying her head in his chest. There was hardly an hour in the day when she didn’t wish she was brave enough to throw all caution to the wind and get a room somewhere. She told Dan that her reasons for not doing so were because of the cost, because she was afraid of burning all her bridges with her family, and even that she was nervous of living alone. But while they were all considerations, they were also excuses, for her real reason for not leaving home was because she knew that the moment she was alone with Dan they would become lovers.
She dreamed of little else, she wanted him more than life itself, but she was afraid of what that might bring. Two girls from her school had had to get married because they were pregnant. She’d seen the hardships