A Lesser Evil - Lesley Pearse [55]
As he walked down the street to the shop, she’d come out of her door. It was so strange that he thought he had no recollection of what the woman in the alley looked like, but the moment they came face to face, he knew it was her. But what was worse, she recognized him too.
Of all the women in London, why did that one have to be living right across the street? And why did she have to turn out to be the most evil bitch in God’s creation?
At first he thought his secret was safe as Molly was married too. But by the time she demanded money for her silence, Frank had been told by dozens of people that Alfie actively encouraged his wife to go with other men. He might give a man a kicking for doing so, but that was just part of the sport.
Frank was forty-nine in 1945. He landed a job as a mechanic at the bus station right after his demob, and he thought he and June were sitting pretty. Their only daughter Wendy was married to an electrician, and the couple had a home of their own and a baby on the way. Frank believed the years until he retired were going to be the best years yet for him and June.
Molly ruined all that.
It was like living with an unexploded bomb. A few weeks, sometimes months, passed between her demands for money, and he’d begin to think it was all over. Then she’d sidle up to him in the street and once again she was threatening to tell June. He wanted to move away, he tried desperately to find another flat, but with thousands of people homeless after the war, there was nothing. And June didn’t want to leave anyway; Dale Street suited her as Wendy and her husband Ted were only down the road in Elephant and Castle and of course she wanted to see John, their little grandson, frequently.
John was quickly followed by Martin and then Susan, and in 1953, Wendy and Ted decided to emigrate to Australia. Frank and June intended to follow them out there, but June must have told someone in the street and it got back to Molly. This time she demanded fifty pounds to keep quiet.
Frank boiled over every time he thought about it. June was already upset that her daughter and grandchildren were leaving England, and she was living on her nerves because she was afraid she and Frank wouldn’t be allowed to go too because of their ages. If Molly dropped her bombshell, Frank knew that would be catastrophic.
He had about a hundred pounds saved up, but they’d need that in Australia until he found a job and somewhere to live.
He tried to be tough with Molly, saying he didn’t have the money and that he’d go to the police if she persisted. But she just laughed at him and said he’d be sorry if he did. A couple of days later, while Frank was at work and June out shopping, they were burgled. They didn’t have much of value for anyone to take, just a few bits of silver that had belonged to June’s grandmother’s, and some odd bits of jewellery, but it was all gone when June got home.
Everyone suspected the Muckles. Who else but them would see June leave the house and know there was no one else about? But this was confirmed as far as Frank was concerned when June showed him that his Post Office savings book had been taken out of the drawer in their bedroom and left on the chest of drawers. He knew that was Molly’s way of telling him that she knew how much money he’d got and she intended to go ahead with her threat unless he paid up.
Nothing could be proved. The police searched the Muckles’ house and found nothing. Frank had to pay Molly, and it wasn’t long after that June became ill. They found she had cancer while performing a hysterectomy.
In the two years before June finally died, Molly slowly bled their savings dry, yet he had to keep her silence. He couldn’t bear the thought of June passing away knowing he’d been unfaithful.
He had to give up his job to nurse June towards the end. Too old now to apply for an assisted passage to Australia, and with no money left to pay his fare, through that evil bitch of a woman he’d never see his daughter and grand-children again. He