A Lesser Evil - Lesley Pearse [19]
Fifi wondered if she’d cry when she got the call to say her daughter was now Mrs Reynolds and wouldn’t be coming home any more. It was odd that the thought of her mother being angry didn’t bother her at all, but she couldn’t bear the thought of tears.
‘You’d better get a move on, Fifi, or you’ll be late,’ Clara said, for once without her more customary sharpness. ‘You look a bit pale this morning. Are you feeling all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ Fifi replied, drinking the last of her tea and getting up. ‘Thank goodness it’s not raining this morning, I’ve got to work wet every day this week.’
She felt guilty now. She wasn’t going into the office at all. First she was going to the hairdresser’s, then to pick up her corsage of flowers, finally to the flat to change into her wedding clothes and wait for the taxi she’d ordered to take her to the registry office in Broadmead. Her father ought to be in that taxi with her, and Patty too, wearing a new dress. Could she really do it all on her own?
‘I’m going to make a steak and kidney pie for dinner tonight, so for goodness’ sake come straight home instead of hanging around to meet that worthless article.’
At that spiteful order from her mother Fifi snapped out of her sentimental mood. ‘Why did you have to spoil the day by saying something so nasty?’ she asked.
Clara looked at her contemptuously. ‘You spoil every day for me by lusting after a piece of filth like that. But believe you me, the moment you tell him you’re carrying his child, you won’t see him for dust.’
For a second Fifi was tempted to slap her mother’s face. But she resisted; what she intended to do later would hurt her far more. Besides, she didn’t give a damn about this house or her parents any more. She was glad she would never have to spend another night here.
‘You are so wrong about Dan,’ she said, her eyes filling with tears. ‘It makes me wonder what kinds of filth you mixed with before you met Dad; you seem to know an awful lot about it.’
‘Only you would jump to that conclusion,’ her mother retorted haughtily. ‘Now get off to work or you’ll be late.’
Later at the hairdresser’s Fifi was nervous that someone who knew her would come in and ask why she wasn’t at work. She painted her nails pink while she was under the dryer and tried very hard to think only about the night ahead with Dan. But her thoughts kept straying to Patty.
She would be very hurt that Fifi hadn’t confided in her. She would probably never understand that it was because Fifi didn’t want her in the firing line of her parents’ anger.
At half past one, with just fifteen minutes until the taxi arrived, Fifi had stomach cramps with nervousness. Alone in her new flat, everything seemed so strange. She’d had a bath, put on her new outfit and makeup and pinned the pink rose spray to her jacket. But now, completely ready, her pink ‘Jackie Kennedy’ pill-box hat secured firmly to her hair, stockings and shoes on, she had suddenly become frightened.
The double bed, made up with new bed linen, and covered with a dark blue candlewick bedspread, seemed almost threatening. What if she didn’t like sex? Suppose Dan did something to her that she didn’t like?
She could remember a woman at work telling her and the other girls that on her wedding night her new husband wanted her to put his penis in her mouth. All the girls had laughed because she said, ‘It wasn’t his thing I minded so much, but all the attachments.’
Yet even through the laughter Fifi had felt disgusted that a man would want his wife to do that. She was sure she’d be sick.
Growing up with two brothers, Fifi had always known exactly what the male anatomy was like, and there had been several men, Dan included, who’d got her to hold their penises, so it wasn’t going to be shock and horror when Dan stripped off. But suppose it wasn’t lovely, as she imagined now? What if it really hurt?
To take her mind off such things, she