Across the Mersey - Annie Groves [152]
When she had woken up this morning and known that the baby was gone, her own reactions had made her feel as though somehow she was different from the person she knew. Her emotions confused and frightened her. She wasn’t used to feeling things so deeply and painfully. She didn’t want to think about the baby and how she had not protected it as she should have done, and yet she couldn’t not do.
The fact that now there was nothing to tie Alan to her and he could walk away from her meant nothing. All the things that had seemed so important before meant nothing. All that mattered was her baby, and that was gone.
Her grief filled her completely, totally absorbing her. At some deep level she knew, even if she didn’t want to recognise it, that nothing could ever be the same as it had been now. Her life was changed for ever and she with it.
She put her hand on her flat stomach and the urge to howl like a wild animal in mortal agony filled her.
TWENTY-THREE
‘Well, thanks for letting me stay here with you, Jean.’
‘You know you’re always welcome, Francine.’
They were avoiding looking directly at one another, both of them knowing there were questions that must not be asked and answers that could not be given.
‘I bet this B & B the BBC are putting me up at in Bangor won’t be anywhere near as comfortable.’
‘What do you think you’ll do when you’ve finished doing these BBC programmes?’
Safer to talk about Francine’s singing than about the fact that she had broken her contract with the theatre to take on this nowhere near so well paid work where she wouldn’t even be the main act but would merely be supporting Vera Lynn, just because it was in Bangor, and because Wales was where Jack was. Safer too, Jean felt, not to mention either the letter that had come for Francine in Jack’s schoolboy handwriting. That way, if Vi should find out and object, she would be able to deny that she had been involved.
Outside the car the BBC had sent was waiting, its driver standing on the pavement smoking a cigarette.
‘You’ve got everything?’
Francine nodded. ‘I’ll write and let you know when I’m settled in.’
She hadn’t wanted to say anything but Jean discovered that she had to.
‘You … you won’t do anything silly, Fran, will you?’
Francine looked at her, and shook her head, bending down to pick up her case. She was only taking a few of her clothes with her, leaving the rest behind in her trunk.
The twins came rushing in just in time to see her off, hugging her and saying how much they were going to miss her.
‘You know why she’s doing it, don’t you?’ Jean said to Sam later as she poured him a cup of tea. ‘She’s doing it so that she can see Jack.’ She put down the teapot. ‘If Vi finds out …’
Sam reached for her free hand and held it tightly within his own. ‘You’ve got to let them sort out their own lives, love.’
The B & B in Bangor was every bit as dreary as Francine had known it would be, but the other entertainers billeted in the town were a cheerful lot, including in their number some of Liverpool’s most famous comedians such as Tommy Handley from the programme ITMA, but Francine’s mind was on other things.
Jack had written to her to tell her that the new couple he was living with were much kinder than the Davieses but that he wished he was still in Liverpool. He missed her, he had written, and Francine certainly missed him.
The first thing she had done – even before unpacking her case and introducing herself to the other entertainers billeted in the boarding house – had been to find out how far it was to the small Welsh village where Jack was staying and how easily she could get there.
She would be best driving there, she had been told, since it was too far to cycle and there was no direct route by train.
It hadn’t been easy finding someone prepared to lend her a car, but eventually Francine had managed to persuade a local garage owner into doing so, with the aid of an enormous sum of money.
Now, following the carefully written down directions that had accompanied his even more detailed