Mill Town Girl Page 4

  ‘Enjoy life? What do you mean? Don’t I enjoy it now?’ she demanded, her voice again going high, defensive. ‘My father taught me to put Jane and my Christian duty first.’

  ‘You still obey your father? He’s been gone all these years.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to live any other way,’ she said, ‘and it keeps coming to me. What he’d think of this.’

  ‘Oh, Carrie girl, don’t put too much into this,’ he said, pulling her towards him again. ‘Don’t make this – this thing that we do – your only pleasure.’

  ‘It’s not! Not my only pleasure.’ She pushed him away and drew back. ‘I like other things you know.’

  ‘What other things?’

  ‘I enjoy singing,’ she answered, ‘at chapel. I used to do a bit of tapestry. Until my eyes got bad.’

  ‘What about dancin’? D’ye never go to the dancin’ parlour, Carrie? Never do the two-step? There’s young women dancing every afternoon. There’s tea-dances—’

  He was grinning as he said it, knowing it would annoy her, knowing that she didn’t hold with dancing, cavorting, worldly pleasures and displaying yourself. And why should he want her to go out, dancing, meeting men? ‘You say all these things on purpose, don’t you?’ she said. ‘You like to see me gettin’ mad?’

  ‘Sure and ye’re lovely when ye’re mad, Carrie,’ he answered. He took hold of her wrists playfully, pulling her back on to his bed, pretending to have to hold her down. ‘You always strike out, don’t you, girl? You struck me before you’d kiss me.’

  Now he was leaning over her, pulling the dressing-gown away, his mouth moving towards her breast. If she let him carry on, he’d start it all again, and she’d let him. Even now, when she was annoyed with him for teasing her, her body was obeying the touch of his hands, of his mouth; her insides were turning to water as his face buried down on to her. And she wanted to. Again she wanted to.

  She fought down her need this time and pushed him, quickly, away from her. ‘I have to fight meself – fight off the guilt every time I let you near me,’ she said, meaning it and yet knowing that he would laugh at her.

  He was smiling and shaking his head at the same time; looking at her with an expression in his eyes of – of what? Was it love? Or pity?

  ‘What gave you pleasure before?’ he asked. ‘Before me?’

  It upset her when he spoke that way and she turned her face away from him, looked at the curtains as she answered. ‘We’re not put here for our own pleasure, Patrick Kennedy. We are here to please the Lord. It’s the way I was brought up. That’s what Father taught me.’ She stood and tightened the cord of her dressing-gown, feeling with her toes on the cold linoleum for her slippers.

  ‘Is that why you’ve denied yourself all the things a girl would want? Is that why you’ve given them to Jane?’

  ‘What are you talking about? Given ’em to Jane?’ She faced him again, her questioning eyes fixed on his handsome face.

  ‘It’s Jane that’s had the schooling, Carrie. It’s your sister you’ve sent for the lessons in music, the talking lessons. What d’ye call them?’

  ‘Elocution. I wanted her to talk nice. Better than I do.’

  ‘And she does. She does, me girl. It’s a bit pedantic, but it’s nice. She’s a credit to you. But what about yourself? What about you, Carrie?’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘Oh, ye’re a fine woman, Carrie. But ye see it all wrong. Ye’re denying the truth to yourself.’

  ‘What truth?’

  ‘That ye’re a woman driven by your senses. You’ve strong, powerful senses.’

  He wasn’t laughing at her now. He was beside her, his blue eyes holding hers, wanting her to admit to all the things he had in his own head. She was not one for talking about such things.

  ‘When your eyesight’s going, your hearing’s sharper,’ she answered.

  ‘It’s not just your hearing, woman. It’s all the rest. You think you’ve a sensitive skin, you think you’re easily upset by smells. But it’s these – these are instincts in you and ye’re denying them. You’re denying that they drive you.’

  ‘And what drives you then? You seem to know a lot about me . . .’

  He had a funny look in his eyes, as if he were apologising for something. ‘I’m a weak man,’ he said softly. ‘And you’re beautiful, Carrie. A beautiful, passionate woman who leads weak men astray.’

  ‘Don’t talk like that. I’m not beautiful. I’m plain.’ She knew what he was after. He was trying to make it look as if it were all her fault. ‘You can’t make me feel better by flattering me, Patrick Kennedy. You don’t know me at all.’

  He had taken her in his arms then and held her fiercely and said in a tight, strangled kind of voice. ‘Don’t trust me, Carrie girl. I’m a wandering man. I’m no good for you.’

  That book about marriage had never mentioned how you felt, how your body could leap into life when your lover touched you, how you’d let him do whatever he wanted to do, even when you knew you were bringing down the wrath of God on your head. And how you were as bad as him, wanting more all the time, like a ravenous creature, so that you could think of nothing else.

  Was that a sound? No. She told herself she’d imagined it.

  He’d told her that Danny didn’t know, that Danny hadn’t guessed. She couldn’t bear to think that Danny might know. What did Danny think when his brother left the building site on Wednesday and Friday afternoons? Did Danny believe that Patrick was seeing his friend, Douglas McGregor? Or did he guess that Patrick spent the afternoons in her bedroom, making her take her clothes off and walk around the room for him, making her say things she didn’t mean, about her loving him and wanting him? And him saying that it was love, telling her, like the devil himself, that it was the only kind of love that mattered.

  It wasn’t true. True love was different. Married love was all about respect. If she’d ever married it would have been to a man she’d have respected – a man like Walter Stubbs, decent, hard-working and respectable. A good man, like her father, a man who wouldn’t have known lust if he’d tripped over it.

  She always asked for forgiveness for the lust, at chapel, silently, and when she said her prayers. But she’d never gone up to the front to give a testimony and declare herself a sinner. If she did she’d have to stop. She’d have to send him away. Or marry him.

  She couldn’t marry a Roman Catholic. And he hadn’t asked her. But that was because he was Roman Catholic. He’d know she’d refuse. Wouldn’t she?

  And tonight, once again, she went down to his room. Her heart was going like a sledgehammer. She turned the door handle. He was in the room, standing there in the moonlight, broad and hard, tanned and strong, pulling her towards him, smiling down at her, knowing by the look in her eyes, by the breath that was coming fast, that she wanted his loving.

  ‘And is me lovely girl ready for me, then?’ He had his left arm around her waist and with his right hand he unbuttoned the silk chemise, exposing her firm, full breasts to the touch of his roughened, workman’s hands, now kissing them, feeling them firming against his mouth, making her head light, her body liquid with longing.

  ‘By all the saints, ye’re a beautiful woman, Carrie Shrigley,’ he said as he drew her hard against his eager body. ‘Ye’ve the figure of Venus and a fire inside you.’

  He shouldn’t talk like that. It was wrong. But she was making those soft sounds that came into her throat unbidden, betraying her own urgent need of him.

  ‘And you are aching for me, are you not?’ he asked, breathing the words hoarsely whilst his scratchy face raked against her neck and his hands slid down, over her thighs.

  ‘Yes,’ she moaned, dropping on to the bed, pulling him down on top of herself, needing the weight of his body on hers.

  He was making her wait, he liked to do that, make her wait, until she could bear it no longer, until she reached for him and gave a little gasp as he went into her and she heard him say, ‘You can’t stop yourself, now,
can you Carrie?’

  But his need, she knew, was as great as hers and he could pretend all he liked but he could no more stop than she could. And his mouth was on hers and she had her hands on his back, holding him into her, her ankles locked together around him and, as her insides quickened in time with his, she heard her own voice, catching, repeating over and over, faster and faster, ‘I love you, love you, love you, Patrick’, until at last her abandoned cry came and he grasped her hips tight against his own in his last forcing push into her, groaning yet laughing at the same time.

  And their bodies were stilled, and with his weight heavy on her and him still inside her she looked up and smiled into his lovely face in the moonlight.

  He stroked her face and planted little kisses all over her and in another minute they would be aroused again yet able to take their pleasures slowly until dawn and the sounds of a waking town would drive her back to her room.

  ‘We’ll have to do something about this, Carrie,’ he said at last, easing himself off her. ‘I try to stop meself in time. But it’s getting harder. And tonight . . . I’m sorry, girl.’

  It was the devil and all his works, talking about their sin together as if it were something to be proud of – his not being able to stop in time. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

  ‘I mean, love, that ye’ll find yourself with a child on the way.’

  ‘Oh, that. I can’t have children,’ she told him, pulling up the sheet to her chin, cold now, wishing herself gone, not wanting to explain.

  ‘What’s wrong with you? Why can’t you?’ he asked with a sharp edge of questioning in his voice.

  ‘I’m not made like other women,’ she answered quietly. It always upset her to think that nature had deceived her. Women were supposed to bleed every month, all the books said so. But she didn’t. She hated the very word – the proper word. She couldn’t bring herself to say menstruate out loud. She’d never even told the doctor.

  ‘Oh, but you are, me girl. You’re made exactly like the rest. Only fuller, riper,’ he was saying. He was smiling now and trying to tease her, trying to pull the sheet down and look at her again. ‘What makes you think you’re different?’

  She let go of the sheet and watched his face as desire flamed in his eyes again. ‘I only have my courses now and again,’ she told him.

  ‘Like, how often?’ he asked, playing with her again, making her respond again under the probing of his hand.

  ‘Once a year,’ she said. ‘I had one about last August. I’ll not have another until summer.’

  ‘Oh, Carrie. My beautiful goddess! I love you girl,’ he said as he lay back and, laughing softly, pulled her across to lie on top of himself.

  Chapter Three

  The house was ready in June; the baby was weaned and in need of a nanny and Douglas was faced with a short, sturdy woman of indeterminate age. He had not asked her age when she’d applied for the job, though since she’d brought up three sons of her own he guessed it to be between forty and fifty. She seemed energetic and kind and would be easy to live with, he decided, choosing her over the droves of younger women who had come in answer to his advertisement.

  Mrs Tansley had white hair, a broad, happy face and an almost square body. She scurried rather than walked, and this she did in a purposeful manner, making an impression on Douglas of a woman who knew what she was about.

  She smiled at Douglas as he held out his hand to her but her eyes had already fixed upon the black pram where it stood in the back parlour of the Swan and her face broke into a wide smile as she went towards it. She lifted the baby gently but firmly, seated herself on a low chair, placed the child on her ample lap and began to talk to him as only motherly women can, bringing a chuckle from the delighted infant.

  ‘Ee! He’s a proper little darling.’ She beamed at Douglas but returned her attention immediately to the baby. ‘Who’s Nanny Tansley’s little bit o’ sunshine then?’ she said. Alan laughed his first real laugh and began to kick his legs with the excitement of it all and Douglas made up his mind to look no further.

  Nanny Tansley supervised the move. They would only need a live-in housemaid, she told Douglas. If he liked plain food, she’d cook for them.

  It was going to be a costly business, but he was building up a good reputation for a well-run inn and a thriving bar trade. If he worked even harder, opened up the four top-floor bedrooms for letting to travellers, and asked his cook’s husband to help out when they were busy, giving him a few nights a week at home with his son, he could do it. There was plenty to do and he did not want to give himself too much time for reflection.

  He had no wish to remarry. He was a devout Catholic, not narrow in outlook or disdainful of those with different needs, but for him there would never be another wife. He’d not expect the kind of love he’d shared with Jeannie without wedlock so he’d devote his life to bringing up his son and to the business that would provide for them.

  He made friends with Jack Cooper, the farmer Dr Walker had introduced him to, finding him to be a man of quiet manner and great understanding. He visited Jack and his wife, Martha, at Rainow Farm whenever he could.

  Douglas was energetic and practical. He loved the farm. It was good to be able to swing your arms without smacking anyone in the face and the wide-open spaces gave him the same feeling of freedom that the sea had done.

  He had thought that love had died in him. But gradually, as the days passed and his son grew, Douglas found delight in his child’s company and his hopes once more were turned to the future.

  As soon as Alan was old enough they’d go up to the farm together. The Coopers had a son, Nathaniel, seven years old, born to them late in life. Alan would like it out there when he grew up, Douglas was sure. He laughed at himself for making plans so early – the baby was only nine months old. He’d teach his son to sail, too, on their summer holidays in Scotland.

  And, despite the losses some were suffering in the post-war slump, the Swan was prospering and the town of Macclesfield growing. Lincoln Drive no longer had open country at its back. Patrick, his old friend from the navy, and his brother Danny were building a row of semidetached houses behind the high walls of Douglas’s half acre. The row was to be named Wells Road and the houses were small but respectable with long, narrow gardens. They’d not even be seen when his fruit trees matured and formed an orchard.

  But he wished that his own house was paid for. He wished they would sell to him for he could borrow from a building society. And he worried about the Kennedy brothers for, good builders though they were, they seemed not to have much head for money. They were building houses and putting them out for rent. It would take them many a year to get a return on the money. When Patrick and Danny came to see him, and they seldom visited nowadays, he’d advise them, tell them to sell a few houses off. They were always short of capital.

  September came in with strong winds that stripped her lilac tree of leaves. Carrie swept them up in the mornings and put them in the compost bin that Patrick had made for her out of cedar wood. Next spring she’d get someone to dig the little patch of earth that was not really a garden, just a strip under the wall that separated her yard from the Potts’s. She’d grow wallflowers and roses; scented flowers.

  She was going to give the lodgers stew for their supper now it was autumn, and rice pudding to follow. She liked rice pudding. She’d had Maggie Bettley light the range in the living room so there were two ovens to make use of, one hot and a cooler one. She’d ask Mrs Bettley to bake some bread in the hot oven this afternoon. She’d taught Maggie Bettley to bake.

  She couldn’t stand peeling onions though she liked the taste, and here she was, head averted, eyes streaming when Patrick came into the kitchen.

  ‘What are you here for?’ she asked, a bit sharpish. It was Tuesday. He knew she wasn’t free on Tuesday afternoons. The bedroom girl did the ironing on Tuesday afternoons and Mrs Bettley came in. They’d think something was up if they came in and found one of the lodgers.


  ‘Not what you think, Carrie,’ he answered. ‘I want to talk to you.’

  ‘Well, you’ll have to wait. Till I’ve done this.’ She pointed to the heap of vegetables. ‘I can’t waste time in talking until the stew’s in the oven,’ she replied, giving him a watery-eyed, cross look.

  He looked a bit dejected, standing there saying nothing. He usually had plenty of backchat. She’d become used to it, laughing at his talk sometimes. But only in private. She kept up the appearance of cool indifference in front of everyone. ‘Are you sickening for something?’ she said, concern in her voice. ‘You look a bit pale.’

  She had not a great deal of sympathy with illness. She was never ill. Her father had been the same. Only he had been ill. He’d known he was dying but never said a word until right at the last. Her father, though, would have had nothing to fear. He’d have been ready to meet his maker. She doubted if Patrick would dare face his. But then, he’d told her, Catholics either went to purgatory first or straight to hell. She’d probably finish up there too, if she didn’t marry him and make it all above-board.

  ‘I’m a worried man, not a sick one,’ he said. He turned away and went down the hall towards the parlour.

  Carrie went on peeling the onions. He’d have to wait until she was ready. When she’d done and cleaned round the sink and emptied the peelings into the dustbin she put glycerine jelly on to her hands and went to the parlour. He was sitting in the leather chair, by the fire, his head in his hands, elbows resting on his knees. He didn’t even look up when she closed the door. ‘Well?’ she said. He didn’t move for a moment then, just before she lost patience with him he lifted his face and she saw that he was on the point of tears. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I’m ruined,’ he said in a dead, dry voice. ‘The money’s all gone. I can’t finish the houses.’

  What was he telling her for? What could she do about it? ‘You should have sold some then, shouldn’t you?’ she answered. ‘You’ll have to stop building and get some sold off.’

  ‘I can’t sell them before they’re finished. There’s no more money, Carrie.’ He’d put his head back in his hands again.