Who's Sorry Now (2008) (38 page)

He ripped open the envelope to read it and she saw at once that something was wrong. His face went white, ashen to the lips, and his jaw set tight, the way it used to when they were hiding in Gretna Green with no food to eat and no money in their pockets.

‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘What’s wrong?’

Chris looked at her as if she were a stranger, and his voice, when he finally spoke, was cold as ice. ‘I’m going out.’

‘Don’t you want to help with Danny’s bath?’

‘No, not tonight. I need a pint.’ He needed time to think, to consider the implications of this letter.
 

She stared at him, wide-eyed. ‘Are you sure there’s nothing wrong, Chris?’ She wanted to ask him who the letter was from, since they didn’t get much post at their house, but there was something in his manner which held her back. Perhaps it was some worry over the business which he wanted to talk over with his father.

He was reaching for his jacket, making for the door. ‘I’ll see you later.’

‘All right, don’t be late.’

He swung round on that. ‘At least you would know where to find me,’ he said, and marched out slamming the door behind him.

Amy added a jug of cold to the hot and tested the water with her elbow, a slight frown on her face. Now what was all that about?

Chris didn’t go to the Dog and Duck, or to see his father at the allotment, he went straight round to the Higginson’s house and knocked on the door. Clara answered and he bluntly asked if he could speak to Patsy, without even exchanging the usual pleasantries.

‘I’ll fetch her, Chris, or would you like to come in?’

‘I’ll wait here, if you don’t mind. What I have to say won’t take long.’

Patsy came. ‘I just wondered,’ Chris began, filled with a rush of uncertainty now that she was standing on the doorstep smiling agreeably at him.

‘Yes?’

He decided not to be too blunt or Amy might find out that he’d been checking up on her. They were good pals these two. He wondered if they were friendly enough for Patsy to lie for her friend. ‘When my wife - when Amy came to see you the other evening, was it before or after she’d been to see my father?’

Patsy frowned. ‘Er, I really can’t remember. What night was that, exactly?’

‘Thursday.’

She thought some more. ‘No, I think you must have got the date wrong. She popped over on Friday afternoon. I remember we had a cup of tea together and gossiped a bit, as we usually do. But no, the last time I saw her wasn’t on Thursday, and it wasn’t evening. Why, is it important? Is there something wrong with your father?’

Chris was backing away now, desperate to be alone, to think. ‘No, there’s nothing wrong with Dad, except my mother who never stops going on at him. They’ve had a bit of a spat and he’s camping out at the allotment for a bit.’

Patsy said. ‘Oh, dear, I’m sorry to hear that. Nothing wrong with Amy either, I hope?’

‘No, nothing wrong. Thanks anyway. I got something wrong, that’s all. Bye, Patsy.’

Patsy called after him. ‘Let me know if there’s anything else.’

‘Aye, I will, thanks.’

She was still frowning as he disappeared round the corner.

Chapter Thirty-Five

 
Security, discipline and good order were, apparently, the priorities of prison life, or so Alice informed Gina. The practical application of which she found chilling in those first few days. She witnessed one young woman being dragged to her cell by two officers. Her ‘crime’ being that she’d made too much fuss over not being allowed to have her children come to visit her.
 

Another day Gina could hear the girl in the adjoining cell vomiting violently but nobody came to her aid. When someone called out to the women officers to help, their cries were met with an order to shut up and mind their own business, although not quite so politely worded.

The next morning the girl was apparently found with her arms and legs covered in deep scratches, an injury she’d carried out with her own blunt nails.

‘The poor lass is filled with anger,’ Alice explained. ‘She’ll be put in the padded cell next, wrapped in a strait-jacket and locked up in solitary for her own good, or so they’ll say, till she learns to control herself better.’

‘But it’s not her fault she’s ill,’ Gina objected.

‘They’ll say it was. They’ll say she forced her fingers down her own throat just to get attention, like the injuries the poor lass inflicts upon herself. The screws either don’t care or think what the hell does it matter, she’s only a flamin’ prisoner.’

‘Something should be done to help the poor girl.’

Alice shrugged. ‘None of our business. Like I say, love, keep your head down.

Gina resolved to do her utmost to follow the advice advocated by her cell-mate. She swore that she would keep her own counsel and remain calm at all times. She would not engage in conversation with the other inmates, do her utmost, in fact, to keep out of their way and avoid the possibility of trouble at all cost. Her aim was to be an exemplary prisoner in the hope that good behaviour would lead to the authorities realising their mistake, which would surely result in an early release.

But it soon became evident that making such a decision was one thing, carrying it out quite another.

On the second day as Gina stood in line to collect her soup, the woman serving her asked: ‘Are you Italian?’

Thinking she was meaning to be friendly, Gina smiled and agreed that she was.

The woman spat in her soup. ‘My husband were killed in Italy during the war trying to protect you lot, and all you did is join the side of our enemies.’

Gina was appalled and quickly pushed the dish away. ‘Why blame me? It’s not my fault. I’ve never even lived in Italy. Can I have another soup, please?’

 
‘What’s this, being fussy over your food, Bertalone? What do you think this is, the Ritz?’ Allenby, the reed-thin woman officer with the sorrowful eyes who’d dealt with Gina that first day, suddenly appeared at her elbow.

‘This woman spit in it. I can’t possibly eat it now.’

‘Eat it or do without. We don’t tolerate fussy, toffee-nosed folk in here.’

‘But ...’

‘She’s not hungry,’ Alice said, pushing Gina away from the counter.

‘But I am, I’m starving,’ Gina protested. ‘It’s not fair that that woman should ruin my soup.’

‘This is prison, love, nothing is fair in here.’

Gina lost her appetite following this unpleasant incident. She’d never felt victimised before and it was a deeply unsettling experience. Her hunger became a gnawing ache in her belly which she did her best to ignore. In her naivety she’d imagined that prisoners would support each other against the prison officers. Alice, however, constantly drummed into her the fact that this was not so, and that as a girl from a good home she was a natural target for malice and mischief.

But if the empty days seemed difficult and friendless, the nights were even more lonely and frightening. There would be the chilling echo of slamming doors and then would come the quiet sobbing. She’d think of Momma and Papa, her lovely brothers and sisters, of Luc, and then have to stuff the corner of the sheet into her mouth to stifle her own quiet sobs. How would she get through this? How would she survive?

Father Dimmock was willing to perform the wedding ceremony since he’d known Carmina from when she was a baby, and the entire Bertalone family were valued members of his flock. Her parents showed little interest in the arrangements, except to insist that it should be a simple affair with the least possible fuss.

‘Your sister is in prison, remember, so it wouldn’t be fitting to put on a big celebration.’

Papa asked if she had yet been to see Gina to explain to her what was happening. Carmina pouted a bit and huffed and puffed but finally admitted that no, she hadn’t. She hated the thought of even setting foot in that awful, smelly place. She was quite sure that it would smell, and be full of dreadful people, all doing horrible things to poor Gina, or so she hoped.

She wanted her stupid sister to suffer, as she herself had suffered.

What she hated most though was that her parents still couldn’t do enough for this precious daughter, while taking little, if any, interest in her own coming wedding, which was surely far more important. Even now that she had let them down badly, Gina was still the favourite.

‘You should go and see her,’ Papa was saying. ‘She needs you. She needs us all. You should tell her about what is going on between yourself and Luc. It isn’t pleasant being locked up in that place. She needs to know she’s not alone.’

‘It’s not my fault she’s in Strangeways,’ Carmina retorted. Another lie, but she was too used to telling them by now to even notice. Besides, being locked up surely wouldn’t greatly trouble Gina. Wasn’t her sister used to being confined to her room for long periods? And she deserved to be punished. She was still a thief, after all, if not quite the kind everyone thought.

Carmina was suddenly tired of being made to appear the guilty one. ‘Why
should
I go, Papa? Gina was the one who did the stealing. She didn’t just take those scarves and stuff, she stole
my
boy friend. I’ve no wish to go near. I’m not sure Gina and I have anything left to say to each other. Let her stew in her own juice for a bit, that’s what I say. Isn’t prison supposed to teach you a lesson?’

‘Carmina!’ Papa looked astonished and deeply troubled by this outburst. ‘I won’t have you blame Gina. It not-a right. She is innocent, remember that.’

Carmina gave a careless shrug, put the problem right out of her mind and got on with planning her wedding.
 

In the weeks following, Chris couldn’t stop himself from continually thinking about that dreadful anonymous letter. Who would send such a thing, and why? Somebody with a malicious mind. But could it be true that his wife was having an affair? It didn’t seem possible, and yet she had taken to going out on her own quite a bit recently.

And she’d changed.
 

She seemed ready to start up a debate about politics for no other reason than to be argumentative, so far as Chris could tell, even though Amy claimed it was no more than a desire to clarify her own thoughts.

‘Did you realise that the US, Russia, and ourselves are meeting in Geneva to discuss a ban on nuclear testing?’

‘No, I didn’t,’ Chris would mutter. ‘Should I?’

‘Of course. Every right-minded citizen should take an interest in current affairs. And it’s long past time they did put a curb on testing, although they’re moving with the speed of a snail.’

Or she would launch a tirade against traffic problems, the new parking meters, the lack of decent housing, the bank rate, a new drug called thalidomide that was having terrible consequences, and Chris could hardly keep pace with her latest passion.

She’d also changed her style of dress and adopted the beatnik look. She’d taken to wearing circular skirts in jazzy colours, black tights and ballet shoes. Chris did not approve.

‘I preferred the pastel colours you used to wear, the pretty pinks and blues. And what happened to all your print cotton dresses?’

Amy twirled before the mirror and told him they were quite out of date. ‘Really square. Anyway, what does it matter what I wear, so long as I look good? I’m saving a few pounds each week for our house fund, now that I’ve got part-time work, so I’m surely entitled to a bit of spending money.’

Chris assured his wife that he had no objection to her spending money on herself, only on the clothes she chose to wear. ‘And I don’t like that scarf tied round your neck. It makes you look cheap.’

Amy laughed as she kissed him. ‘What an old fuddy-duddy you’re turning into. Don’t be so old-fashioned. Anyway, I haven’t bought many clothes. I don’t need them. I’m dead against consumer capitalism. It will ruin everything.’

‘Will it?’ Chris asked, not quite certain what that was.

‘I feel the need to express myself, to be free to say and do whatever I choose,’ Amy explained.

She’d watched her friend Patsy taking on a partnership with Clara Higginson, Lizzie Pringle running her own business as she and Aunty started manufacturing their own sweets and chocolates. Dena too had her sewing room while Amy herself felt in danger of turning into a frumpish housewife before she was even twenty-one.

‘I thought you
were
free,’ Chris grumbled. ‘Are you saying that being married to me is tying you down?’ His tone was clipped, his hurt showing.

Amy didn’t notice his distress, she was too busy clasping a broad black elastic belt around her waist, thinking how well she’d lost the weight in the months following the birth. She was also thinking about the next CND meeting that very evening. They were planning a demonstration in Albert Square in a few weeks time, which was all very exciting. She supposed she really should have told Chris by now that she’d joined, but the longer she left owning up to it the harder it became.

Even the memory of the letter which had caused her young husband such distress had quite slipped from her mind. She’d assumed it to be business-related, something to do with the bakery. In any case, her own needs right now seemed to be taking priority in her thoughts.