Across the Mersey - Annie Groves [113]
The other girls had tried to tell her but she hadn’t listened because she hadn’t wanted to hear what they were saying. It had taken a visit from his wife and her contemptuous and mocking information about how far down the long line of girls just like her, who Con had picked up and then put down, she actually was, to make her see the brutal reality of their relationship.
That poor kid with him, she really did feel sorry for her, but as Francine knew from experience, she’d have to learn the hard way that he was a liar and a cheat. Funny how now she could look at him and simply feel nothing at all for him apart from irritated contempt.
She wouldn’t tell Jean that she had seen him, though. Her sister would only worry and there really was no need for her to do so. It seemed laughable to Francine now that she could ever have been taken in by such a cardboard cut-out of a man. What a little fool she had been. No man would ever be able to deceive her and hurt her now. Sometimes Francine wondered if there were in fact any decent men in the world – or at least in her world – and the honest truth was that she wasn’t prepared to risk trying to find out.
SEVENTEEN
Well, it had just better work, that was all, Bella thought fiercely. Six times now she had had to put up with ‘doing it’, Alan panting and grunting on top of her. The first night, after he’d said he wanted to listen to the wireless and then fallen fast asleep the minute he’d got into bed with her, had been the worst.
First she’d had to wake him up. Then when she had, he pushed ‘it’ into her hand and made her touch it, his breath stinking of beer as he moaned and groaned. And then as if that hadn’t been bad enough, when he’d finally ‘done it’ inside her, he’d made a funny sort of noise and shouted out Trixie’s name at the top of his voice before rolling off her and then falling back asleep before she could say anything.
The horrible unwanted Polish refugees she was forced to have living with her were bound to have heard him. In fact, she knew they must have done because the daughter had given her such a smug look in the morning.
Bella didn’t know which she hated the most, Alan or what she was having to do. One thing she was determined on, though: Trixie was going to be put in her place and her nose very firmly rubbed in the dirt. Alan was her husband, and she intended to make sure that Trixie was forced to accept the public shame of what she had made herself.
Once Bella had set her mind to something she didn’t give up easily and so every night since she’d seen Alan kissing Trixie, she’d waited for him to get into bed and then she’d made sure that he did ‘it’.
Men were supposed to do anything you wanted them to do once you’d let them do it, but instead of being grateful to her, Alan had been even worse-tempered and horrible than normal. It was all right for Trixie, sitting there in that office, thinking she was something special because Alan was kissing her. Bella was ready to bet that she wouldn’t be making up to him the way she was if she knew how rough and horrible he could be. Bella had bruises all over her body from him grabbing and pinching her.
When he was doing it he looked at her as though he hated her, and wanted to hurt her, his face hard and angry. Well he’d be sorry for the way he’d behaved when he found out she was going to have a baby. They all would. She could see herself now, pushing her smart new pram, and getting admiring and envious looks from everyone who saw her. She’d insist on Alan’s father getting rid of Trixie, of course. At first she’d just drop a few hints to Alan’s mother about it not being right that Trixie was there, and then she’d come right out and tell her why – and in front of Trixie and her parents. Oh, she was looking forward to that, and to the humiliation that Trixie would