Who's Sorry Now (2008) (44 page)

‘I expect you’ve got a boy friend. Several, I shouldn’t wonder, chasing after you,’ he added, giving her a broad wink.

She glanced at him sharply, sudden panic in her blue eyes. ‘Ooh, Mr George, I’m sorry Frank came round the other evening. He weren’t meaning to be no trouble. I’ve told him not to come near but he will insist on walking me home now the nights are drawing in.’

Chris was deeply embarrassed. She’d taken his little attempt at flirtation as some sort of criticism. ‘No, no, that’s not a problem. Quite right that he should walk you home when it’s going dark. I was just, well, I was simply making a compliment, that’s all. Thank you for the tea, Susie. Don’t worry about - about Frank. Get along with you now.’

And she fled. Chris put his head in his hands, his pride battered even more. Obviously the young girls who worked for him thought him too old and boring to see him as a man they might fancy. No wonder his wife was looking elsewhere.

Chapter Forty

There were days, like today, with its lowering skies and the threat of rain, when the market seemed perpetually dismal and dirty. The fish stalls stank, the walkways were littered with rubbish, the women appeared ugly in their thick coats and scarves, and the men rough and grimy. A scene which entirely suited everyone’s mood as Gina’s trial approached.

Some of the stallholders, like Jimmy Ramsay, Barry Holmes and Betty Hemley looked hollow-eyed and unusually bad-tempered, but then most of them had been on the go since the first flush of dawn, long before their customers even knew it was morning. Buying early was the only way to secure fresh produce at a good price.

Even Chris George looked like a man gone wild these days. Clearly young Danny was giving them precious little sleep.

Patsy too had suffered a sleepless night, several in fact, tormented by her suspicions, and whether she should mention them to Marc.

On impulse, she called to see Clara, her surrogate mother and business partner, and poured out her heart to her. Patsy spoke with anguish about the problems she and Marc had been experiencing recently. She also told how he kept asking her to look at flats with him but she was always too busy to go.

Clara listened carefully to this rush of confidences and smiled as she kissed Patsy’s cheek. ‘You’re very hard on yourself at times, love. You need to meet Marc half-way. Take more time off and give proper attention to your own personal life. It would be a mistake to take this nice young man for granted.’

‘You’re right, I know you are. He grumbles that we’ve lost the chance to rent two flats locally already because I wouldn’t take time off to look at them with him.’

‘There you are then. You have Amy coming in now, and I can help too.’

There was a small silence, then Patsy said, ‘One minute he’s trying to rush me into marriage and babies, the next he’s fretting over his sisters. It’s so difficult. But since we haven’t found anywhere to live, and there’s all this worry and fuss over Gina’s trial coming up, not forgetting Carmina’s wedding, I wonder if perhaps we should postpone our own for a while.’

‘You must discuss that with Marc, not me.’

Patsy chewed on her bottom lip. ‘The trouble is, marriage, babies and flats aren’t my only worry. I have serious doubts over this whole situation between Gina and Carmina. The question keeping me awake at night is whether I should voice my suspicions to Marc? He’s so infuriating, won’t hear a word said against her. Yet she’s evil, that girl, and I suspect she’s the one who has created this entire mess.’

Clara frowned. ‘I’m not sure I wish to hear this either.’

‘That’s all it is at this stage, a suspicion, a gut feeling which has grown while watching the way she behaves with certain people, one man in particular.’

Clara put up a hand. ‘Please don’t tell me who he is, I don’t want to know.’

‘All right, but tell me this. If you saw two people kissing, then the next minute she’s flirting outrageously with him while he’s finding any excuse to watch her, or be with her, isn’t that significant? And if they have a humdinger of a row, doesn’t that seem to prove that they must once have been very close? They say hate is very close to love.’

‘Leave it,’ Clara advised with a little shake of the head. ‘Say nothing. Let things be.’

‘Even if this whole shot-gun wedding thing is based on a lie? Even if Luc is innocent and losing him breaks Gina’s heart ?’ Patsy asked her adopted mother.

‘Even then. Concentrate on yourself, on your own future, Patsy, and leave the Bertalones to sort out their own problems. If you were to say something and Marc disagreed or took offence, you could lose him. You know how close that family is. He’d be bound to put them first, even the treacherous Carmina.’

Amy also agreed with Clara’s assessment of the situation when she and Patsy got together for their usual Friday afternoon chit-chat over coffee and cake in Belle's Café.

‘But what about justice for Gina?’ Patsy asked.

‘Leave that to the solicitors and her family.’

Mind your own business seemed to be the advice from her friends, which Patsy was beginning to get the feeling she must follow.

‘And pay more attention to your own life,’ her friend gently scolded her. ‘He’s a lovely man is Marc and, as Clara says, you don’t want to risk losing him. You can’t solve everybody’s problems, love, much as you might like to. Put yourself first for a change.’

Patsy thought of Gina, locked up in that prison cell and firmly shook her head. ‘I don’t see how I can do that until Gina is free.’

On Saturday afternoon Patsy finally, and reluctantly, agreed to close the hat stall early and go with Marc to view the new flats he’d mentioned, which were being built at Kersal. As they sat cosily side by side on the upper deck of the bus he told her they were going to be eleven storeys high. ‘How do you fancy that? You’d be able to see right over Manchester.’

She looked at him, an apology in her eyes. ‘I’d prefer to stay close to Champion Street and the market.’

‘You may change your mind when you see them.’

Patsy shifted her gaze to the wilderness of streets through which they were passing, trying to imagine travelling this journey every day. It did not appeal. Besides, she loved the hustle and bustle of the market, she always had. She couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

‘Are there going to be shops too? If so, I suppose I could always try renting one of those and branch out a bit,’ she said, without too much enthusiasm.

‘I thought the idea was for you to take a break from work?’

Patsy said no more. They got off the bus and went to look at the flats, and the site for the shops, although it would be several months yet before they’d be completed.

‘Well?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so.’

Without a word they climbed back on to the next bus and returned to the city centre, getting off at Whitworth Street. They remained silent throughout the journey, seeming to have nothing left to say to each other. In deep gloom they crossed over Albion Street Road Bridge and headed for the towpath, walking on past an old textile warehouse and Albion Mill with its façade of decorative cast iron window frames.

It was almost dusk and Patsy could hear the distant hum of city traffic, a clock striking the hour, and she couldn’t help but think of Gina and how each minute must feel like an hour to her. They made their way back towards Champion Street, bought fish and chips which they ate looking out over the Rochdale Canal, their own future suddenly seeming as bleak as the landscape.

Chris couldn’t quite pluck up the courage to confront Amy and tell her that he’d followed her and seen her with her fancy man. He hadn’t even mentioned the anonymous letter accusing her of cheating on him, and the reason for his reticence was perfectly simple. He was terrified of what her answer might be. He had no wish to hear her say the words that she no longer loved him, that she’d found someone else. Even to contemplate a life without his lovely wife was unendurable. But he couldn’t go on like this. He had to do something.

Unable to decide between his many possible choices, Chris opted for the lot.

His intention was to become a more dynamic, interesting person, particularly in the bedroom. At the same time he was so hurt, so angry by her betrayal, that he thought he might punish her by having a bit of a fling himself. Of course it was really Amy he wanted, not some other woman, but she clearly didn’t give a fig about their marriage vows and the love they’d once shared, so why should he?

All he had to do was spruce himself up and find a likely candidate, although he was a bit nervous about how he would proceed should he actually find one.

Chris began the new regime by telling his mother not to call at the house unless invited, indicating that they found it inconvenient having folk popping in and out whenever they fancied. And although her jaw dropped, she surprised him by making no real protest. In fact, she seemed far more interested in herself than her son, for once.

‘I’ve no time, anyroad, to be running round after you and Amy any more,’ as if she ever had done such a thing. More often than not it had been the reverse. ‘Your father and me are planning a little holiday, and then we have a few other plans on the go.’

‘So Dad’s not thinking of coming back to the bakery then?’ Chris asked, his expression bleak.

‘You must ask him that yourself. I can’t speak for your father.’ Thereby denying a lifetime’s habit.

Thomas confirmed that his retirement was indeed permanent, and that if it became necessary Chris should employ another baker, or train an apprentice. His only son would be entirely in charge of the bakery from now on, which meant he would also need to learn how to do the accounts.

Chris bought himself a book on the subject, also one on modern politics. He read it under the bedcovers when Amy was asleep, using a torch, or while he was waiting for the dough to rise and he should really have been mixing the next batch of tea cakes.

What amazed him most was his wife’s general air of innocence. She seemed not to notice how upset he was, how miserable, but carried on exactly as before, humming and singing to herself as she went about her chores, chattering away as if she hadn’t a care in the world. He came dangerously close to hating her for this casual disregard for his feelings.

But how could he ever hate his lovely Amy, no matter what she had done? He loved her to bits. Loved the bones of her. It was that bloke he hated, the one who had stolen her from him.

He would just have to try harder to be a better husband.

He stopped buying the Daily Express and bought the Financial Times instead, although it wasn’t nearly so interesting, and didn’t give the football results. Then he tried out a few random remarks on various topical issues in the hope of livening up their conversation of an evening. Chris would say how much he agreed with the philosophies of Martin Luther King. He would air his views on the troubles in Cyprus, or Fidel Castro, or comment on the new bank loans being made available. He even voiced an interest in who might be the new pope since Pope Pius XII had died following a stroke.

‘Why would it matter to you?’ Amy asked. ‘You aren’t even a Catholic.’

‘I’m entitled to my opinion, same as anyone else. Like you spouting consumer capitalism or nuclear disarmament.’

Amy frowned, listening bemused to this new side to her husband, more accustomed to his views on the test match, or who would win the cup. But his mood was so black, his tone so cold and distantly sarcastic that she wasn’t able to take this new interest in current affairs as a good sign.

Next, and quite at odds with the image he was developing of himself as a man of affairs, he bought himself a pink shirt, a maroon Slim Jim tie, and a green sports jacket that had a long draped jacket which fastened with a single link button. He even bought some dark brown trousers that tapered at the ankle. Amy looked at him aghast when he first put them on.

‘By heck, are you turning into a Teddy Boy?’

An angry flush stained his neck and jaw. ‘I thought I’d brighten up my wardrobe a bit.’

‘Well, you’ve certainly done that. They’ll see you coming a mile off. I thought you didn’t like pink shirts?’ Referring to the time when they’d used to giggle over her habit of mixing pink socks with the whites in his mother’s wash boiler. ‘I’m sorry, no, don’t look like that. I didn’t mean it. I quite like the shirt, now that I come to look at it properly. I would’ve come with you though, if I’d known you were wanting new clothes.’

Chris could see, by the little pucker of anxiety between her eyes, she was hurt that he hadn’t thought to ask her, and troubled by this new show of independence. But he didn’t apologise or explain. He simply told his wife that he was off out for a pint with his mates, not even saying which pub that might be. Let her worry where he was for a change.

But he was making no progress on the romance front. He might now look the part of a lothario but he couldn’t quite pluck up the courage to actually chat a woman up. He certainly didn’t fancy any of the women in the bar of the Dog and Duck. They weren’t a patch on his lovely Amy. And if one should come near while he was enjoying a pint, he would be overcome by panic. His tongue would cleave to the roof of his mouth and his brain would empty of any witty or flirtatious remark. He’d want only to tell the woman to go away and stop bothering him; that he was a happily married man, thank you very much, and not interested.