An artillery barrage started pounding them. The sound of the relentless mortar attacks echoing in his ears.
He furiously fired his machine gun into the black darkness, hoping he’d hit something, or that the enemy would simply get tired and go away.
There it was again, the smell of fear, the whine and crump of bullets. He didn’t hear the one that nearly killed him.
Now he was lying in a frozen paddy field listening to the Chinese looting the dead and executing the wounded all around him. He could hear a young corporal screaming for his mother. Alec lay motionless, face down in the mud, eyes closed, barely breathing, playing dead.
It was so cold. He’d never known anything like it. Fingers going black with frostbite, his own breath turning to ice on his lips, a slick of something black beneath him that could only be his own blood, pouring from some wound he couldn’t even feel. But then his friends around him were colder still in death. A part of him died too as he lay in that mud, praying the enemy couldn't hear his heart pounding.
It was pounding now and Alec jerked awake, sat up abruptly in the bed, a slick of sweat cooling on his brow.
‘What is it?’
He reached for the girl beside him and buried himself in her warm soft body, ever his cure for a nightmare. What good did it do to remember? Best not to think, not to talk about it.
They’d made love the first time without bothering to undress, now his appetite seemed insatiable. Alec encouraged her to strip off for him while he lay back on the bed to watch; lust and open admiration on his face.
Carmina shook back her long glossy hair and laughed, arching her body so that her breasts peaked delightfully and she heard his low groan.
‘You are amazing, sweetheart. Absolutely amazing!’
It made her feel so powerful and grown-up to have a man appreciate her beauty in this way. What would her friends say if they could see her now? What would Luc say? He’d surely be jealous.
‘You’re like a luscious cherry ripe for the picking. I want to nibble every precious bit of you and eat you all up.’
Carmina laughed delightedly. Nobody had ever spoken to her in this way before, certainly not any of the young men she’d dated, not even Luc.
She loved the way his hands smoothed over her breasts, as if he cherished them, moving over her slender waist, caressing every part of her as if she were made of Dresden china.
‘I don’t deserve you, I really don’t. You know I’m just an old roué, and twice your age. A rake. I’ve had two wives, and lost track of the number of girl friends I’ve enjoyed. But then I’ve always thought that’s what women are for, to be enjoyed and savoured like a satisfying meal or a good bottle of claret.’
Carmina wasn’t too sure she cared to be compared to anything so mundane as a meal or a bottle of wine, and it flickered across her mind to object. A meal was over in minutes, after all, while a beautiful woman should be loved and appreciated for life. But then he pushed her down on to the bed and made love to her all over again so that her thoughts blurred and vanished in a haze of desire.
She couldn’t get enough of him, felt the hunger burning her up inside, needing to be assuaged. He made her do quite shocking things but Carmina was so entranced by the whole adventure, she did whatever he asked of her.
When finally he lay flopped beside her, his gentle snores indicating that he had at last fallen asleep, she slid out of bed and began to idly examine the room. She opened drawers and rummaged through a jumble of old photographs, one of a Chinese girl, or perhaps she was Korean. She might even be one of the wives he’d spoken of, judging by the way they were wrapped in each other’s arms. She found a gold watch, and a selection of jewelled tie-pins and cuff-links. Clearly Alec Hall wasn’t short of money. His wallet was there too, packed with notes.
Carmina quietly opened his wardrobe door, breathing in the scent of his masculine after-shave as she riffled through the pockets of his jackets, finding nothing of any interest. He was evidently the kind of man who emptied his pockets before he put his clothes away. There was the famous velvet jacket, the pink dickie-bow tie, several of them in fact, all lined up in a mahogany tray. The shoes too were in a neat line, and shining with polish. Everything neat and tidy.
She glanced across at him, still sprawled face-down on the bed and felt a burst of fresh desire, but it was growing late and Papa would be expecting her home.
Carmina quickly pulled on her rumpled clothes, and, in stocking feet, shoes in hand, she crept back to his bedside drawers, took a fiver out of the bulging wallet and slipped it into her pocket. With so many he surely wouldn’t miss one. And didn’t she deserve it?
Then she picked up her bag, and without disturbing him, crept downstairs.
Once in the shop she paused to put on her shoes, glancing idly through the stacks of records as she did so. It was hard to see what was what with only the dim glow of the street lamp shining in through the frosted glass of the shop door, but if she carried them to where a pool of light fell, she could just make out the words.
She read -
Little Darlin’
by The Diamonds - a record she’d been wanting for quite some time. Carmina tucked it under her coat, putting the others back in the rack. Sitting on a display shelf was a delightful little transistor radio in bright red plastic. She slipped that into her pocket too.
Glancing around one last time, a smile curling her full lips, she let herself out of the little shop and ran home. All in all, it had been a most entertaining evening, and really quite profitable.
Lying in bed that night, hugging herself with glee at her daring, Carmina knew, in her heart, that it wasn’t going to be easy to drag Luc along to that altar. He would be shocked when he learned that she was indeed pregnant, no doubt attempt to deny the baby was his. But if she held her nerve she could get everyone on her side, the wedding back on track.
It was unfortunate that he was still pining over Gina, still grovelling for her forgiveness. As long as her sister was around, Luc would stick by her. Carmina accepted this as a fact now, although she saw the reason as more to do with guilt and loyalty rather than any love he might feel for the stupid girl. And he probably also thought Gina’s saccharine sweetness would appeal to his parents rather more than her luscious, beautiful and dangerous sister. Gina would seem like the perfect daughter-in-law in their eyes, proof that their once rebellious son had been brought to heel.
In Carmina’s opinion, however, it was time Luc stopped worrying about what would please his father and think about himself for a change. She was the one for him, not her sanctimonious sister.
He’d let her down badly but Carmina was determined to retrieve all she had lost. She’d make Luc regret he’d ever let her down, make him thankful she was willing to welcome him back into her arms. The moment her parents learned that the baby was indeed a reality, they’d rush her to the altar. All Carmina had to do was make sure it was with the man of her choice.
But first she must deal with Gina.
Chapter Thirty
Having offloaded her outworn pieces on to her daughter-in-law, Mavis relished choosing and buying new furniture. Her taste did not run to the jazzy colours and abstract prints which Amy so favoured, but she’d bought a sleek G-Plan sideboard with matching dining table and chairs, a comfy three piece suite in leaf-green moquette, and a nest of coffee tables. When she had her friends from the Ladies Luncheon Club round for coffee they were most impressed. She also purchased a new carpet in a swirling gold and green pattern which she had fitted wall to wall as current fashion dictated.
Yet Mavis wasn’t happy. She should have been, but the initial excitement soon evaporated, leaving her feeling restless and irritable.
The problem, of course, was Thomas. While she loved to polish and dust her new furniture, he would thoughtlessly place his tea mug on it, leaving little rings on the glossy surface.
Mavis would whip the mug away and almost hit him with it. ‘How many times have I told you to use a mat?’
‘I can never find one.’
‘They’re in the top drawer, here.’ She pulled out the drawer to reveal a stack of table mats each depicting some idyllic rural scene.
‘Well, why aren’t they where I can see them, where they’d be of some use? What do we want with a fancy new sideboard, anyroad?’
‘
I
wanted a fancy new house but all I got was a few decent pieces of furniture. And you. So do try not to be too much of a liability and treat things with respect.’
She’d also bought a television set, although viewing was strictly limited to the kind of programmes of which Mavis approved. She liked
In Town Tonight
and
What’s My Line
, the latter because she rather admired Gilbert Harding. She quite enjoyed
Dixon of Dock Green
and
Emergency Ward 10
, particularly that Australian Doctor Tingwell. But she heartily disapproved of raucous humour, the sort supplied by Benny Hill, Alfie Bass or Tony Hancock; exactly the kind of programmes that Thomas would have liked to watch. Mavis was not strong on humour.
‘This is a bit dry for me,’ he’d say, when
Panorama
came on, and he’d toddle off to the Dog and Duck, or to play cards with his mates at the allotment. Mavis would steadfastly sit through it, even though she didn’t understand a word either.
She hated him for leaving her on her own so much, but never stopped complaining when he was around.
Mavis objected to him wearing any kind of outdoor footwear on her new carpet, even if they were his best Sunday shoes and not the smelly old boots he wore at the allotment. She would slap his feet down if he propped even his stockinged feet up on the new sofa, remove his elbow from the arm in case he should rub the fabric bare. She crocheted an antimacassar to put behind his head to prevent Brylcream from his hair soiling the green moquette.
‘Why don’t you scrub me down wi’ Dettol then you’d know I was clean,’ Thomas said one day, only to receive a sour smile at his flippancy. He felt a bit at a loose end, his services no longer required now that his son’s house was all done up.
If he popped upstairs to use the toilet when he came back it was to find his newspaper folded and the cushion he’d creased nicely plumped up and neatly arranged. This morning she’d even tidied away his copy of
Sporting Life
into the new mahogany paper rack she’d bought. Thomas had had enough.
‘Nay, I reckon I’ll go for a walk,’ he said, retrieving the newspaper and tucking it into his jacket pocket to read later.
‘I suppose you’d rather be with your fancy woman?’ Mavis snarled.
‘And who might she be when she’s at home?’
‘Don’t play the ignoramus with me. I know what you’re up to with that Belle Garside.’
‘Nay, I were only having beans on toast in her café, not having me wicked way with the woman.’
‘Don’t be rude! I won’t have vulgarity in this house.’
Thomas gave a resigned sigh. There was no reasoning with Mavis, not at the best of times, but he’d never seen her as bad as this before. He tried to explain how hard he’d been working on Chris’s house, and at the allotment, which had fired up his appetite a notch, but that served only to make matters worse.
‘I know what sort of appetite is being fired up, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with
beans on toast
.’
She became well nigh hysterical, screaming and screeching at him that he was showing her up before everyone.
‘What, because I fancy a bacon butty now and then? Not against the law, is it?’
‘Because you’re bothering with that woman!’ Mavis slapped him over the head with the Radio Times till it was all in shreds and she was near to tears. ‘Now, look what you’ve made me do. Mess all over my new fitted carpet and I can’t even read it now.’
As he said to his pals as they discussed the general merits of bone meal or horse manure for the roses, ‘The house might look grand with all the new stuff she’s bought for it, but there’s no peace to be found in it, no peace at all.’
Amy was deeply grateful for Thomas’s efforts at DIY, but fond as she was of her father-in-law, he hadn’t done quite as good a job on the house as they might have hoped. Every time they shut a door, bits of plaster fell down from the ceiling. Mushrooms began to grow up the kitchen walls, and a creeping black mould spread across Amy’s jazzy wallpaper. The ‘bathroom’ he’d allegedly built was little more than a tin shack that incorporated the old lavatory onto the end of the scullery, with the addition of a wash basin. It hadn’t been possible to squeeze in a bath as well, so Amy still had to go round to her in-laws in order to have one.
Her own parents didn’t have a bathroom either and went round to the public baths once a week. Amy considered buying an old tin bath for herself and putting it by the fire as her mother used to do for her when she was a little girl. But apart from the indignity of doing such a thing in these modern times, it would take an age to heat up sufficient hot water in the old back boiler, let alone fill a bath.
Naturally, Mavis had little sympathy for her plight. ‘Didn’t I tell you that house would be a disaster? Anyway, I really don’t know what you’re complaining about. We suffered far worse during the war. I remember spending hours in that damp, bug-infested air-raid shelter with all those horrid smelly people.’