was married, but still worried that he was using her. Having broken through her hard shell, he was taking advantage of the soft, generous woman inside. He worried that he might hurt her, let her down, that she would become too dependent on him. If things ever improved between him and Alice, for instance . . . But – he sighed – things never would, particularly now that she was so deeply involved with that damned hairdresser’s.
The nightly visits to the pub were doing John the world of good. Alice only wished he’d gone before. He was nicer to the girls, and after tea he’d put Cormac on his knee and discuss the things he’d done that day at school. He’d even deigned to speak to his wife in a civil manner, suggesting he build bunk beds for the middle bedroom.
‘The girls are getting too big for three in a bed,’ he said and actually smiled.
Alice opened her mouth to say that Maeve had been sleeping with her since she’d occupied the double bed, but quickly closed it. ‘Them bunk beds sound the gear, luv,’ she said warmly. ‘The girls will be dead pleased.’
‘I’ll get the wood this weekend.’
‘John!’ She laid her hand on his arm and was dismayed when he quickly moved away as if disgusted by her touch. She regarded him sadly, thinking how much she’d once loved him, then felt even more dismayed at the realisation she didn’t love him now. He had spurned her too often. He had driven her away.
‘What?’
Alice sighed. ‘Oh, nothing.’
Chapter 4
CHRISTMAS 1951
‘Who’d like another mince pie?’ Alice cried.
‘Me!’
‘Apart from you, Fionnuala Lacey. I thought it was your intention to lose a few pounds. Any minute now and you’ll need a bigger overall.’ The overalls were lilac nylon – ‘lilac’ sounded so much nicer than ‘mauve’, Alice thought, more tasteful.
‘Oh,
Mam
!’
Alice virtually danced across the room to pass the plate beneath the noses of the three women under the dryers. They each took one.
‘You look happy, luv,’ Mrs Curran remarked. ‘Did you make these yourself?’
‘I was up till midnight baking,’ Alice said cheerfully. ‘It’s home-made mincemeat too. I managed to get a pound of sultanas in Costigan’s. I think it’s disgusting. The war’s been over six whole years and the country’s still on rations. Do you fancy a drop of sherry with the pie?’
‘Ta all the same, luv, but no. Drink plays havoc with me gallstones. I wouldn’t mind a cup of tea, though.’
‘Fion, make Mrs Curran a cup of tea, please.’
‘On the Empire, she was,’ Patsy O’Leary was saying as she combed out Mrs Glaister’s wet hair ready for Alice to set. ‘All the dancing schools in Liverpool took part, but our Daisy was the star of the show. Wasn’t she, Alice?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Alice dutifully lied.
Fionnuala looked at her mother and winked. Alice must have been asked the same question a hundred times since the concert last week. Daisy had been good, but a few other girls and one or two boys had been better.
‘Poor Myrtle, she wouldn’t recognise this place if she saw it now,’ Mrs Glaister said sadly.
‘Do you ever hear from her, luv?’
‘No. I always send a Christmas card, but I haven’t had one back for years. I still miss her, even after all this time. She was a good friend, Myrtle.’ Mrs Glaister’s old eyes grew watery. ‘I reckon she must have passed on.’ She crossed herself.
‘It happens to us all,’ Patsy O’Leary commented.
‘Fion,’ Alice called, ‘put a gown on Mrs Evans. I’ll be ready for her soon.’
‘Come on, Mrs Evans, luv,’ Fionnuala said in a sickly, sugary voice, and proceeded to help the woman, who was barely fifty and as fit as a fiddle, to her feet, and shove her arms inside the sleeves of the lilac gown as if she hadn’t the strength to lift the arms herself.
‘I can manage on me own, thanks,’ Mrs Evans snapped.
It was Alice’s turn to wink at Patsy. Fionnuala persisted in treating anyone over
Francesca Simon
Betty G. Birney
Kim Vogel Sawyer
Kitty Meaker
Alisa Woods
Charlaine Harris
Tess Gerritsen
Mark Dawson
Stephen Crane
Jane Porter