Anyone Who Had a Heart (20 page)

The sweet bouquets of hand-picked flowers arrived dewy fresh on Mondays and Wednesdays. Daisy Chain was busiest at the end of the week. Those were the days when Marcie helped out. Both Carol and April looked at her expectantly for updates on her exciting love life.

‘You’re still going out with him?’ April asked incredulously.

‘I am.’

‘Two weeks? You’re the longest ever,’ Carol added.

She burst out laughing. ‘You cannot be serious!’

Carol coloured in the details. ‘Nobody lasts longer than three dates with Nicholas Roberto Camilleri. It all depends on what the sex is like. If a girl doesn’t come over, then he dumps her. If she’s good in bed he sees her more than once.’

She couldn’t believe they were telling the truth. Roberto had not demanded what every man demanded sooner or later. The truth of the matter was that he did nothing more than kiss her good-night, though sometimes it was obvious he wanted to go further.

Her own need for sexual fulfilment surprised her. She was young. Seventeen, going on eighteen years of age. She’d enjoyed making love with Johnnie but since then there’d been nobody. She refused to dwell on Alan Taylor’s vicious attacks. Roberto had reawakened her, made her realise she missed having someone to hold, someone to kiss. Of course she wanted sex, though no more babies. Or at least, not yet. Not until she was married.

She talked to Carol and April about contraception.

‘The pill,’ stated Carol.

‘The pill,’ April echoed.

‘But then –’

Marcie stopped in her tracks. She had been about
to
say that taking the pill meant she would end up throwing caution to the wind. Getting to sleep with someone was easy, but how about if having sex became just that? Easy. How about if it was the sex she wanted not the person she was having sex with?

At least next time she knew enough to ensure any pill came directly from a doctor. Much as she loved her daughter she did not wish to make the same mistake twice.

‘Partnerships and marriages could become obsolete in no time if you go on thinking like this,’ she stated.

‘So we all save ourselves for marriage! How dull.’ Carol’s tone was mocking. ‘Unless it’s Roberto Camilleri. I’d certainly wait to be wedded and bedded by him!’

Marcie was glad of the laughter that followed. It stopped the moment from becoming too serious. Afterwards she thought of how pompous she sounded. After all, it wasn’t as if she was a virgin. She was an unmarried mother. Even so, she knew she’d never be as casual over relationships as the other shop girls. I should be more careful, she thought to herself as she sat with her arms resting over a sewing machine.

He’s saving you for marriage
.

The voice was right. Carol and April had said the same thing. Thinking like a true Sicilian or Italian,
Roberto
intended marrying a virgin. And she was it. Why hadn’t she realised before?

He’d hinted at getting engaged.

‘I will buy you a ring with a ruby the size of a crow’s egg encircled with diamonds.’

‘That sounds very flash,’ she’d responded.

‘Very Italian,’ he’d countered.

She hadn’t said yes or no. She knew enough about her grandmother’s culture to know that Italians, Sicilians and even Maltese were very much the same. Nice girls were for marrying. As far as Roberto was concerned, she was a nice girl. My God, she thought, closing her eyes, what am I going to do? When do I tell him – if at all?

It was at times like these that she badly missed having someone of her own age to talk to. The girls at Daisy Chain were fine, but April’s pills had got the better of her. Mrs Camilleri said she’d been transferred to another job where the stress would not weigh her down.

Marcie remarked that she’d thought April had enjoyed her job. ‘She didn’t seem stressed,’ she added.

‘Nevertheless …’ said Mrs Camilleri, with a casual wave of her beautiful hands. ‘It was for the best.’

It was difficult to read the look on Gabriella’s face, but Marcie detected a worried frown.

‘Is everything alright, Mrs Camilleri?’

Gabriella Camilleri was fiddling with bits of
pattern
, shuffling the pieces over a length of dark-purple material. She wasn’t actually achieving anything by the process, leading Marcie to believe that her thoughts were elsewhere.

‘None of your business,’ snapped Mrs Camilleri.

Carol had also left. She’d confided in Marcie that she wanted a job in a nightclub. ‘Roberto pulled strings,’ she told Marcie with undisguised glee. ‘I’m going to be a showgirl.’

So now she had nobody of her own age around. Her weekly leisure time was spent with Roberto; her weekends at home with Joanna and her grandmother. The loneliness lingered and Roberto was questioning why she insisted on going home at the weekends. Surely her grandmother didn’t need that many visits …?

She’d brought a few precious things from home, most notably a walnut jewellery box in which she kept objects that were precious to her: a knitted bootee, worn by Joanna when she was only a month or so old; a pressed flower she’d put between the pages of a book. There was also an earring she’d found buried close to where the old chicken coop used to be. She liked to think it had once belonged to her mother. She didn’t ask anyone if they recognised it. She didn’t want to be disappointed.

This was also where she kept precious letters. One of them was from Allegra, one of the two girls she’d
met
at the home for unmarried mothers. Enclosed with that letter was the address of Sally, the other girl who she’d shared a room with. She couldn’t be certain that they would answer her letter, but she lived in hope that they would.

There was a new addition to her treasure box; Roberto had bought her a ring. ‘For you,’ he’d said, kissing her on the forehead while sliding the ring onto her middle finger.

She’d stared at it in wonder, knowing it was gold and that the red stone had to be a ruby.

‘Is it real?’

He’d told her that it was.

‘But not an engagement ring,’ he’d added and smiled. ‘Not yet.’

Normally it was her father who came home with her or failing that she’d catch the train. It was on a Friday morning and she’d arranged to meet him for a coffee when he told her he couldn’t make it.

‘I’ve got business to attend to,’ he said in his boyish, shifty manner.

‘Dad, you’ve never played poker have you?’

Tony Brooks looked at his daughter as though she’d sworn on the Sabbath.

‘I don’t like cards. Not even Snap. You should know that, Marcie. As a kid you used to ask me to –’

‘Shut up, Dad.’

At one time she would never have dreamed of telling him to shut up. That was when she was just his daughter. Now she was the mother of his grandchild his attitude had changed. More often now he looked at her for a lead – as though she knew more than him. With a pang of regret she wondered whether he’d looked at her mother in the same way.

It was becoming noticeable that her father’s visits home were becoming less frequent. Each time Marcie arrived home without him Babs’ would be waiting at Endeavour Terrace, sometimes with the kids, just as often without. She’d never been one for dragging the kids around behind her; never been that much of a one for kids at all for that matter.

She recalled her last weekend home. Babs had been there and the obvious had been stated.

‘He’s got another woman! That’s it! Well? Is it?’

Babs screeched the accusation and even Rosa Brooks assuring her that his family would always come first to her darling Antonio began to pale.

The truth was that Marcie didn’t know whether her father was having a fling or not. Nobody had seen him with another woman. There were no rumours that he was seeing another woman. But on the third week in a row of not wanting to go home to Sheppey, Marcie had to admit to herself that there was no smoke without fire. He had someone, though who the hell it was, she didn’t have a bloody clue!

So here he was sitting across the table from her in a run-of-the-mill Wimpy Bar where the wet weather outside and the warmth within caused condensation to mist the windows.

Marcie went straight for the jugular. ‘Have you got another woman?’

He stared at her at first, almost as though she’d just stepped on his toe with a spike-heeled shoe.

He recovered quickly and was suitably indignant. ‘Course not!’

‘I don’t believe you.’

He raised his voice. ‘Now steady on …!’

‘Babs misses you. So do the kids.’

Mention of the kids brought a more positive response, though not enough to make him promise to come home.

It occurred to her that her father was involved in something shady that he couldn’t talk about. What did he actually do for Victor Camilleri? How beholden was he to the Sicilian, who had a way with words and eyes as sharp as a fish eagle? She asked him outright.

‘What kind of hold has Mr Camilleri got over you?’

For a moment he looked at her with his mouth open. ‘Nothing. Nothing at all.’

Judging by his expression, he was telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Still, it was a well-known fact that Tony Brooks could lie to
the
devil and be believed if he had to. And it could very well be the truth. Perhaps it’s just me, she decided.

The fact of the matter was that Mrs Camilleri was indeed a very good judge of fashion and loved almost everything Marcie designed. But that was the moot point as far as Marcie was concerned. Her coming to live at the delectable flat in Chelsea had been Victor’s idea, not that of his wife.

Victor was not likely to elaborate on the matter. For the moment she had to take everything at face value. Mrs Camilleri valued her creativity and for now that would have to suffice.

‘You don’t need to get the train.’

Marcie tuned in to what her father was saying.

‘I can’t borrow the car, Dad. I don’t have a driving licence.’

Her father guffawed with laughter. ‘Neither do I.’

‘That’s hardly the point.’

‘No need to worry,’ he said chirpily while patting her hand. ‘I persuaded Roberto to give you a lift.’

Marcie’s blood drained from her face.

‘Bloody hell!’

Her father looked surprised at her exclamation. ‘You ungrateful little cow.’

Marcie fixed him with a hard stare, her teeth grating with the effort of keeping calm – just a little calm.

‘Dad! Remember he doesn’t know about Joanna.
In
fact, he thinks I’m the next best thing to the Virgin Mary. All the family does. Do you get what I’m saying, Dad? These are Sicilians. Wives are expected to be untouched virgins on their wedding night. That’s what he thinks I am.’

‘Shit!’ Tony Brooks buried his head in his hands. ‘I didn’t think. I only did what I thought was best for you.’

Marcie shook her head. ‘Have you any idea of what you’ve done? Roberto has set me up on a bloody high pedestal and when I fall, which surely I will, there’s going to be some explaining to do – thanks to you! Trust my dad to muck up my life.’

His eyes flashed. ‘Marcie! How did I ever do that?’

‘My mother for a start,’ she said grimly, not caring now where this conversation might be heading. ‘I would have liked to know her. I would have liked to have had some contact with her. But you would never discuss her. You blanked me out every time I mentioned her. So where is she, Dad? Where can I find my mother?’

He got up. ‘Sod it! Do you know what? You’re becoming a right little cow. Hard as nails. You’ll end up just like her. Just like your mother!’

‘Dad! What do you mean by that?’

He was angry and she’d overstepped the mark. That’s what she put that comment down to. He was just trying to hurt her.

She watched him go, hands buried in his pockets, shoulders hunched against the rain.

Roberto refused to listen to her reasons why he shouldn’t give her a lift home that weekend. Even when she said she wouldn’t bother to go, he insisted that she did.

‘Your grandmother will wish to see you. And there is no need to concern yourself with regard to my behaviour. Michael is coming along as chaperone.’

‘Michael?’

He laughed. Chaperones were usually women. ‘My mother hates driving fast. Michael offered to come. He is in love with you. Did you know that?’

She shook her head dumbly.

Roberto laughed. ‘He’ll hate doing the job, but I thought it would be fun.’

Yes. You would, she thought.

Michael did nothing except hand her a single flower. A carnation.

‘I think somebody dropped it,’ he said, then looked away.

Michael coming along upset her plan to tell Roberto that she was an unmarried mother, yet purely on instinct, she found his presence reassuring.

‘Did you like the flowers I sent you?’

Roberto’s question jolted her from thinking of Michael.

She beamed at him. ‘I don’t know how you sneak
into
the sewing room without me seeing you. And it looks as though you picked them yourself.’

She saw his eyelids flicker. ‘Darling, I bought them in that posh flower shop at the end of the King’s Road. Roses and stuff. That’s what I asked her for. I thought that was them my mother was taking to the tap in the kitchen.’

Marcie suddenly realised her mistake. Roberto was referring to the bouquet she’d initially placed in her bedroom.

So who was responsible for the sweet peas, carnations and other common garden flowers placed on her work table each day?

She sniffed the carnation. Michael. It had to be Michael. Roberto was right. Michael was in love with her.

Eventually Roberto’s shiny Maserati turned into Endeavour Terrace on Friday evening. The street lights were just coming on and a bank of grey cloud was rolling in from the sea.

‘Just here. Number ten.’

He rolled to a stop where she told him too. She glanced through the narrow gate and the equally narrow path leading to the front door of number ten.

She felt a great urge to apologise. ‘I’m sorry I can’t ask you both to stay, but it’s only a tiny cottage.’

Roberto shrugged. ‘You want to see your family
alone
. It’s understandable. You want to explain me to them before they meet me.’ He spread his arms. His sunglasses had pinkish lenses so it was hard to read whatever was in his eyes. ‘The clothes too – you’ll sure as hell want to explain the duds, won’t you?’