‘I don’t want to hear any more. Just look at you. How many months gone are you? And you have the gall to stand there and tell me you didn’t know what was happening? Get up those stairs, get yourself dressed and go and let that stupid oaf know that he’s going to be a dad any day now. Tell him he’d better face up to his responsibilities or he’ll have me to deal with and …’

  ‘But, Mam …’

  ‘Sort this mess out before the rest of Paradise Place knows what’s been going on. Do you hear me? Does that Maureen Murphy know about this?’

  Patsy shook her head, too choked to speak.

  ‘Right! That’s something, I suppose. You’d best go down on your knees to Father O’Brian. Billy Grant and his lot aren’t Cat’licks, but nevertheless you’ll marry him, my girl, I’ll make sure of that.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  PATSY’S EYES WERE still red and swollen when she went to work on Monday morning. Several times while they were fixing Samson’s harness she saw Billy looking at her questioningly, but each time she avoided his eyes and quickly turned her head away.

  ‘What’s wrong with you today?’ he asked jokingly as they hitched the horse up to the cart. ‘Too many late nights over the weekend?’

  ‘Something like that,’ she mumbled. ‘I think I might be going down with a cold.’

  ‘Perhaps you ought to take the day off, then. Why don’t you go home and go back to bed, Patsy,’ he suggested, his voice full of concern. ‘You certainly don’t look too good.’

  ‘Perhaps I should,’ she agreed.

  He sounded so solicitous, so caring, that she had to rub the back of her hand across her eyes to brush away the tears. She wondered what he would say if she told him the truth about exactly why she was not looking too good.

  She wanted to tell him and to warn him about her mother’s reaction, but she was afraid to do so in case Billy turned against her and then she would have no one to confide in.

  She had been stunned by her mam’s attitude. It wasn’t as though Maeve was strait-laced or particularly moral herself. Patsy was so dog-tired at night that her mam could have taken umpteen men up to bed and she wouldn’t have known. Since she’d found Bruno in with her she’d never opened her mam’s bedroom door ever again. What she didn’t see didn’t bother her.

  So why had her mam been so outraged? Patsy wondered. Was it because she feels I should have told her sooner, or was it really because of what she thinks Dad would have thought if he was still alive?

  She knew he would probably have regarded it as a heinous sin, because he’d been such a good Catholic, but her mam wasn’t. She never goes to Mass these days, Patsy mused, and she never checks on whether I do or not.

  The way her mam assumed that it was Billy’s baby bothered her. What would she have said if I’d told her that Bruno Alvarez was the father? Patsy wondered.

  In the end, Patsy came to the conclusion that her mother was so incensed by the news because the truth had been kept from her for so long and some of the neighbours might already know. Patsy felt guilty about that, but one of the reasons why she hadn’t spoken out before was because deep down she wasn’t sure whether her mother and Bruno were still seeing each other. It was something she tried to blot from her mind because she had no idea how to handle the situation if they were and she was still so much in love with Bruno that she didn’t want to lose him, even though things were far from right between them.

  If he noticed that she had put on weight he never mentioned it. They hadn’t made love for ages because of the cold weather and since she was always heavily wrapped up against the biting winds that came in off the Mersey her changing shape was well hidden.

  She blamed it all on the miserable winter weather. On Sundays there was nothing for them to do except go for a cup of tea in one of the few cafés that remained open in Victoria Street. Having nowhere to go took away all the glamour and excitement.

  Sometimes he seemed to be almost indifferent to her. The fire had gone from his kisses; she no longer thrilled to his touch. It was this as much as anything else that made it so difficult to tell him about the baby.

  ‘If you hadn’t decided to change your plans then we would both have been in Spain by now,’ she said wistfully when they met one Sunday. Bruno had been grumbling about the cold and seemed to be in a more surly mood than usual.

  ‘I had no choice but to stay. My animals are here and there was a show at Christmas time,’ he reminded her.

  ‘We could have left for Spain as soon as that was over. The show only lasted for two weeks,’ she pointed out.

  ‘I try to tell you that I need the big money. And now I am getting things ready for the new season,’ he said curtly. ‘It cost too much money to go running back to Spain for a couple of weeks, yes?’

  ‘I thought we were going to be married and we were going to live in Spain,’ she reminded him, tears of disappointment welling up in her eyes.

  Bruno said exasperatedly, ‘The plans, they have to change. It is the money that is important.’ He shivered and turned his coat collar up around his ears. ‘Next year, perhaps, yes?’

  ‘Next year, the year after, who knows,’ Patsy argued miserably. ‘You say next year, but what if you change your mind again?’

  ‘I go when my pockets are full and not before.’

  ‘We don’t have to wait until you are ready to go back to Spain in order to get married,’ Patsy pointed out querulously.

  When he spread his hands wide in a dismissive gesture, Patsy felt uneasy. She was alarmed by his apathy. She desperately needed to tell him about the baby, but wasn’t sure if this was the right moment to do so. Her thoughts were so jumbled that she couldn’t find the right words.

  ‘I’m beginning to think you already have a wife in Spain,’ she blurted out.

  He laughed dismissively. ‘If I have a wife in Spain what would I want with another one here?’

  ‘That’s the point I’m trying to make,’ Patsy said uncomfortably. ‘You don’t seem to want a wife here. All you want is someone to make love to while you are in England.’

  His dark eyes narrowed and he stared at her calculatingly. ‘I cannot understand what your words mean,’ he prevaricated. ‘You say too much, you confuse me,’ he told her as they started to walk up Victoria Road to the café.

  Patsy stopped. ‘I am not feeling well, I’m going home,’ she stated and felt resentment well up inside her when his only reaction was to give one of his infuriating shrugs.

  ‘You have the headache?’

  It was the first time since she’d known him that she had ended their meeting early and he showed such little concern that her anger spilled over.

  ‘Headache, backache, my legs ache and so do my feet.’ She wanted to add: and my heart aches most of all, but she felt too unhappy to carry on talking to him. Although they had barely spent more than half an hour in each other’s company she told him she was going to get the next ferryboat back to Liverpool.

  He didn’t try to stop her. Merely raised his eyebrows, then turned and walked back with her towards the landing stage where the Royal Daffodil was about to leave.

  Patsy had thought he was going to come with her, but he simply stood at the bottom of the gangway and waved farewell as the boat pulled away. He hasn’t even kissed me goodbye, she thought bitterly.

  All the way back to Liverpool she had felt annoyed with herself that she hadn’t told Bruno that she was pregnant. She had to do it and the sooner it was out in the open and he knew, the better.

  ‘Go on then, Patsy, off with you,’ Billy’s voice cut into her thoughts and brought her back to the present with a jolt. ‘Home to bed! Perhaps if you nip this cold in the bud you’ll be feeling all right in the morning. If you’re not, then stay tucked up where you are.’

  She wondered if she dared take Billy up on his offer. She wouldn’t go home to bed. If she took the day off she’d go over to New Brighton, find Bruno and do what she should have done yesterday: explain the situation to him. He was a Catholic and once he knew she was pregnant she was confident he would want them to be married before the baby arrived.

  ‘Are you sure you’ll be OK on your own?’

  ‘You watch me!’ Billy grinned. He put an arm round her shoulder. ‘Go on, push off. Of course I can manage without you. There’s only a couple of local deliveries to do, not enough to keep us both occupied. I must get going though because the first load has to be picked up from Edge Hill before nine o’clock.’

  Patsy decided not to waste time going home to change out of her working clothes. Her mother might be up by now and she didn’t want to face another row. She waited until she heard Samson clopping down the road and knew Billy was out of the way then headed for the ferry and New Brighton.

  Easter was only a few weeks away and then the season would be opening so there was a great deal of activity in the fairground. It took her some time to find Bruno.

  He stared at her for a moment as if he didn’t know who she was. ‘You are dressed for work so you are feeling better again,’ he greeted her. ‘Today I not have time to stop and talk with you.’

  ‘What I have to say will only take a minute,’ Patsy told him, ‘but there is something I must talk to you about.’

  ‘If it is about marrying or going to Spain we must leave such talk for another time. I am busy, yes?’

  ‘No, you are not too busy to hear what I have to tell you,’ she insisted stubbornly.

  He frowned darkly. ‘Come quick and spit it out then.’

  This wasn‘t the way she wanted to tell him her news, Patsy thought. She’d imagined that at least they could find somewhere private. She didn’t want to tell him here in the middle of a busy fairground with workmen all around them.

  ‘Can we go somewhere quieter, where there is not so much noise and banging?’ she asked.

  He took her to a far corner of the fairground. ‘Now what is this news that is so important that you must come and interrupt me?’ he asked curtly.

  She bit down on her lower lip, not sure how to break it to him. ‘It is news to make you happy, to make us both happy,’ she told him quietly.

  He looked puzzled. ‘Go on!’

  ‘I … I am pregnant, Bruno. I am expecting your baby. It will be born very soon now.’

  He stared at her in stark disbelief. ‘I do not understand?’ His heavy dark brows drew together in a ferocious frown. ‘What is this that you are trying to tell me?’

  ‘I am expecting your baby, Bruno.’ She pulled aside her jacket. ‘Look, see for yourself. Surely you must have noticed that I was putting on weight,’ she added crossly.

  He drew back, shaking his head in dismay. ‘I do not understand. This cannot be so,’ he said harshly.

  ‘It’s quite true, Bruno. I wouldn’t have said so otherwise, now would I?’

  He stared at her as if she was a stranger. ‘Why now? Why you not tell me yesterday, or the week before, or even the month before. Why now at this busy moment?’

  ‘Bruno!’ She was taken aback. She’d not known how he would react to her news, but she had certainly not expected it to be like this.

  He spread his hands wide and shrugged. ‘What is it you want me to say?’

  ‘I want you to tell me you are happy that we are having a baby. To agree that we must be married as soon as possible.’

  He shook his head, his dark eyes unfathomable. ‘Pleased, I am not. Shocked, yes! I must have time to do the thinking.’

  Patsy stared at him, nonplussed. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing, or understand his hostile attitude. She couldn’t think of anything else to say. Not unless she pleaded with him to marry her, and her pride wouldn’t let her do that.

  Re-fastening her coat over her bulky figure, she turned away. ‘Very well, I will give you time to think,’ she said dully. ‘You know where I live, so come and see me when you have decided what we are going to do.’

  Without waiting for him to reply she walked away. When she reached the main road she turned and looked back, half hoping that he would be running after her. There was no sign of him.

  In a daze Patsy walked the short distance back to the pier. As she waited for the return boat to Liverpool she deplored her own foolhardiness. Perhaps Billy was right after all when he said foreigners didn’t think the same way as they did. If Bruno refused to marry her, what was she going to do? She felt bitter and confused. First her mam and now Bruno seemed to be against her.

  Patsy was so engrossed in her morbid thoughts that when she came off the boat at Liverpool she didn’t notice the horse and cart at the top of the floating roadway. She was jerked out of her reverie when a familiar voice said, ‘You might as well have a ride home with us as catch a Green Goddess.’

  ‘Billy! What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’ve finished the last delivery for today and was on my way home. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw you coming off the New Brighton boat. I thought you said you were going home to bed,’ he commented as she climbed up beside him.

  She shook her head. ‘No, there was something else I had to do that was more important.’

  He flicked the reins and concentrated on the road ahead. ‘More important than getting yourself fit for work tomorrow?’

  She shot him a sideways glance. ‘It was very urgent. Something I had to do.’

  ‘Well, are you going to tell me what it was?’

  ‘I’m pregnant.’

  The words hung in the air between them like a ship’s pennant.

  ‘I had noticed,’ Billy said quietly, ‘and I wondered when you were going to tell me.’

  Patsy’s jaw dropped. ‘You knew!’

  ‘Well, it had to be that or else you were getting ready to be the fat lady in the circus,’ he joked. ‘Come on, Patsy, I’m not blind, you know. You’ve been getting fatter and fatter ever since Christmas. Lately there’s been days when it’s as much as you can do to climb up and down into the cart.’

  ‘And yet you’ve said nothing!’

  ‘I was waiting for you to tell me. After all, I could have been wrong, you could have been putting on weight and then think how embarrassed you would have been if I’d been the one to mention it.’

  Patsy didn’t answer.

  ‘Have you told your mam yet?’

  ‘She found out yesterday. She went absolutely crazy … she thinks it’s yours,’ Patsy said awkwardly.

  Billy swung round in his seat to stare at her. The broad smile on his face vanished when he saw her expression.

  ‘So you’ve been over to New Brighton to see Bruno, and tell him it’s his, have you,’ he said in a cold, noncommittal voice.

  ‘Yeah. A lot of good that did me an’ all! He didn’t seem to want to know,’ she added bitterly.

  Billy faced her squarely. ‘It’s your baby, Patsy, no matter who the father is and you’ve only to say the word and I’ll marry you. We’d be happy together, I know we would.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  WHEN PATSY REACHED home and opened the front door she found her mam, her hair all over the place, her face red with effort, a half-smoked cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth, struggling down the stairs with a heavy sack.

  ‘Mam? What’s going on?’ Patsy frowned.

  ‘You can put that back on,’ Maeve told her sharply as she started to take off her coat.

  ‘Why, do you want me to take that sack somewhere?’

  Maeve drew heavily on her cigarette. ‘You can take the bloody thing wherever you like and yourself with it,’ she snapped, breathing out a cloud of smoke.

  Patsy looked bewildered. ‘What do you mean by that?’

  Maeve straightened her dress and smoothed her hair back into place. ‘Exactly what I say, my girl! Your clothes and your bits and pieces are all in there.’ She kicked disdainfully at the sack with the toe of her high-heeled shoe. ‘Now take it and get out of my bloody sight.’

  ‘You mean you are turning me out?’ The blood drained from Patsy’s face. She stared at her mother in shocked disbelief.

  ‘I’m not turning you out, kiddo, I’m bloody well throwing you out!’ Maeve took another drag at her cigarette. ‘I don’t want you here under my roof another minute.’

  Patsy felt frozen to the spot. She wondered if her mam had been drinking, then told herself that couldn’t be the reason for her being so belligerent. Her mam went out drinking most nights and when she came home again she was usually laughing and singing. If she brought someone home with her then sometimes she behaved in a silly manner, but Patsy had never seen her in quite such an aggressive mood as this.

  ‘Did you hear what I said?’ Maeve snapped. ‘I want you and all your belongings out of this house right now.’

  ‘Mam, be reasonable, I’ve nowhere to go!’

  ‘Then you’d better find somewhere, or ask that Billy Grant if you can shack up with him since he’s the one who’s got you into this mess.’

  ‘Billy has nothing at all to do with what’s happened. I told you that before,’ Patsy said wearily.

  ‘Oh no? Are you trying to tell me you’ve been playing the field?’

  ‘No, I leave that for you to do,’ Patsy retorted angrily.

  Maeve’s hand came up and made contact with Patsy’s face before she could move a muscle. The impact of the resounding slap sent Patsy reeling.

  ‘Mam!’ she gasped, her eyes filling with tears, her head spinning, as she staggered back.

  What on earth was happening to them both? she thought in alarm. She realised that her mother was upset by the news that she was pregnant so she’d expected to get a tongue-lashing, that was only natural. Once that was over, though, she’d thought her mam would help her and tell her what to do for the best.

  ‘Mam, don’t do this to me. I’ve never needed your help more in my life,’ she pleaded.

  ‘You might need it, but you’re not bloody well going to get it.’ Maeve came closer, breathing gin fumes into Patsy’s face. ‘I must have been blind not to see what was going on right under my nose. You think I’m a soft touch because I let you and that Billy run the business just as you like. You think you can trick me all ends up, don’t you? Well, you’re wrong.’

 

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