A Lesser Evil - Lesley Pearse [54]
Yvette had no illusions left about Molly or Alfie now. They were totally amoral in every aspect of their lives; they would steal anything from anyone, intimidate anyone who opposed them, neglected and hurt their children and lived in utter squalor. Each time the police came to the house Yvette prayed that whatever their latest crime was, it would be serious enough for them to be sent to prison for a long stretch. Yet this never happened. Somehow they always seemed to wriggle out of it, and they were getting worse as the years went by.
Yvette was stuck now with having to be on her guard all the time. She had to remember not just to keep the back door locked so one of the children couldn’t jump the back fence and steal something from the kitchen, but also never to confront or upset Molly in any way.
Back in the early years she had foolishly told Molly a little of what happened to her during the war. She knew that if she were ever to cross her, Molly would use this against her, and she just couldn’t take that risk.
This was why she didn’t dare go to the social workers and report Molly and Alfie for what they did to their children. She hadn’t even found enough courage to warn Dan that she’d overheard Alfie saying he’d get even with him for threatening him about Angela.
Yvette sighed deeply as she slipped the bodice of the dress she was making on to her dressmaker’s dummy. It was too hot to sew any more tonight, her sweaty hands might mark the fabric. She would turn up her radio a little louder and try to blot out the sounds from next door. Perhaps if she had a little brandy she’d fall asleep before things got really nasty.
Frank Ubley shut his window as the music blared out, picked up a book and went into the bedroom at the back of the house. He had only to see Molly and he got angry, but when he saw her dancing around to music, drinking, laughing and shouting, he felt murderous.
The bedroom was just as it was when June died. He hadn’t even had the heart to get rid of her clothes. They had bought the new divan in 1953, the day before Coronation Day, and they were so thrilled finally to get rid of the old one they’d inherited from June’s mother that they joked they were going to spend all day in it.
June was a real home-maker. With a pot of paint and a few yards of material she could transform any room, however dismal, into a little palace. She found this place when Frank was waiting to be demobbed from the Army. He came home briefly on a twenty-four hour pass, took one look at it and wanted to run out the door, just the way young Fifi upstairs said she had.
But June insisted she could make it nice, and by the time he got his demob three months later, she had. She’d painted and papered everywhere, even though no one else could get decorating materials for love or money. Green and white stripes in the front room, the bedroom pale pink, and the kitchen all yellow and white. But it wasn’t just decorating she was good at, she made things so comfortable and nice. A little table with a lamp on by his chair, a pouffe to put his feet on, and within ten minutes of getting home his dinner was always on the table.
If she hadn’t been such a perfect wife in every way, maybe he would have been able to admit what had happened with Molly. But he couldn’t hurt her that way, it would have broken her heart.
If only he hadn’t made out he was on guard duty at the camp that weekend when he was really in Soho. But all his mates wanted to celebrate the end of the war, and if he’d come home drunk in the early hours June wouldn’t have liked it. He didn’t think much of himself for having sex in an alley with the blonde who talked dirty; as soon as he sobered up he was ashamed. But all the lads got up to much the same, it was the combination of the drink and the thrill of the war ending.
He had been back with June three days before he discovered