Across the Mersey - Annie Groves [127]
Grace was touched when, despite everyone’s growing concern about what was happening, Hannah still managed to find time to catch up with her as she left the dining room to ask how Teddy was.
‘It still upsets him that he can’t do more,’ Grace answered her.
Alan was sleeping in the spare bedroom, thankfully empty again now that Jan had left to rejoin his fellow Polish pilots at Northolt in Middlesex, where the Polish squadron was based.
Bella was at her mother’s, sitting in the garden and enjoying being fussed over. Her mother had already assured her that it had now been agreed that there was to be no divorce.
‘Daddy has told Mr Parker how shocked we are by Alan’s behaviour, but that we understand that in times of war young men do things they would not normally do, especially when unscrupulous young women encourage them to do them,’ she informed Bella, blithely disregarding the fact that Alan wasn’t involved in any way with the war.
‘But what about Trixie, Mummy?’ Bella pressed her mother. ‘She means to have him, I know she does, and now with me having the baby to worry about …’ Theatrically Bella placed her hand on her still flat stomach.
‘Well, naturally that young hussy won’t be able to work for the Parkers any more, and I said as much to Mrs Parker at the WVS meeting yesterday. One or two of the other ladies who happened to overhear me came up to me afterwards to say how dreadful it was that she had behaved so disgracefully. It was very noticeable that that mother of hers wasn’t there lording it over everyone like she normally does. Alan’s mother didn’t have much to say for herself either, especially when I said how the doctor had said that he wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t the shock of finding out what was going on that caused you to lose one of your babies.’
Mother and daughter exchanged a complicit look. Of course, Bella’s doctor had said no such thing, but Bella certainly wasn’t going to object to her mother rubbing Mrs Parker’s nose in it a bit, after the way the woman had favoured and fawned over Trixie.
‘I think those parents of hers should be ashamed of themselves, and it’s no wonder they’ve sent her away to stay with relatives in Scotland,’ Bella told her mother virtuously.
‘I agree. Someone like that shouldn’t be allowed to mix with respectable folk. Like I said to Mrs Parker, I feel sorry for her, really I do, for having been so taken in by her. It’s shameful the way that Trixie behaved.
‘I shouldn’t be surprised if your father’s right when he says that the Parkers being so friendly with her parents could mean that Mr Parker won’t be re-elected to the council. People don’t like women who go round breaking up marriages. It’s like I said to the other ladies at the WVS meeting, you’ve nothing to blame yourself for. You’ve been a perfect wife, and with Daddy being generous enough to buy that house for you, and Alan not even having to worry about being called up or pay a mortgage, he should be grateful he’s in such a fortunate position. Mind you, as Mrs Nicholls said, sometimes it’s a matter of having too much of a good thing and some young men need a taste of army discipline and doing their duty to make them appreciate how lucky they are.’
Bella nodded as she listened to her mother. It was just as she had hoped it would be. When she had arrived on her parents’ doorstep in tears after Alan’s demand for a divorce, she had told her mother everything, apart from the fact that Alan had already been violent towards her once and she had been afraid he might be again. Men who hit their wives and the women who were married to such men did not live in Wallasey. They lived down by the docks and off Scotland Road in the slum areas of the city. There was something too shameful about that kind of violence to discuss with anyone, and now that she was safe, and Alan was being forced to behave as he should, Bella wanted to forget that horrible