Love Changes Everything (28 page)

Trixie looked worried. ‘Andrew probably hasn't asked me out lately because he thinks that I can't be bothered to make the effort to go out with him and that's not true,' Trixie said quickly, her cheeks flushing.

‘It's also probably because he has a lot of new friends these days. He knocks around with chaps and girls from work so I don't see as much of him as I used to either.'

Trixie nodded unhappily. ‘I like Andrew, though, so next time you see him, Jake, do you think you can try and find a way of letting him know that?'

Andrew didn't take it at all well. When she saw him leaving the bank the following Saturday as she was on her way to the park he looked quite annoyed.

‘Jake explained the situation and made your excuses,' he greeted her abruptly. ‘It would have been much better if you'd told me yourself instead of using him as a messenger. I really think you should try and speak up for yourself, Trixie, and not be so self-effacing,' he added in a disparaging tone.

Trixie hated it when Andrew criticised her. It always made her feel so inferior when all she wanted to do was please him and not have him look down on her.

She still loved him with all her heart, but recently he seemed to have changed. He was so smartly dressed, even when he wasn't at work, that it made her feel shabbier than ever. She always made sure that her clothes were pristine clean and well pressed but she wished she could afford something new occasionally. It was quite impossible to buy anything out of the couple of shillings she was given as pocket money each week.

‘Surely it's time you left home and found yourself a decent job,' he commented sharply as if reading her mind.

‘I did try but I needed to go to night school and there was no one to look after Cilla—'

‘Or Jimmy!' he interrupted. ‘Jake said that his mother would have looked after Cilla, she has a soft spot for her, but she can't cope with Jimmy as well because he's such a little devil and into everything and won't do as he's told.'

‘It's because Daisy spoils him all the time. She's so wrapped up in her new life and reorganising everything at home that she gives in to him completely and lets him do whatever he wants.'

‘She couldn't do that if you didn't let her. I keep telling you that you've got to stand up for yourself. Don't ask if you can go out, simply tell her you're going. Heaven's above, Trixie, you're eighteen and it's time you grew up and stopped being so timid and letting people push you around,' he said vehemently.

He sounded so cross with her that she found her heart pumping like a sledge hammer. She was so afraid he was going to say that he wasn't going to waste time trying to see her any more.

Jake had said he didn't see very much of Andrew these days so she suspected that, like Jake, she wasn't really all that important in Andrew's life any more. Yet he did still seem to be fond of her, she reflected, even if it wasn't the same overpowering love that she felt for him.

‘How about coming to the pictures with me next Saturday night?' he asked suddenly.

From the tone of his voice she was sure he was testing her to see if she had the strength to stand up to Daisy and she was determined to let him see that she could.

‘All right.' She took a deep breath because she wasn't at all sure what sort of reaction she would get when she asked at home if she could go out. Saturday night was their favourite night for the pub. ‘What time shall we meet?'

‘Half past seven, outside the Rotunda. Don't be late and don't you dare make any excuses for not turning up. You've got a week to tell Daisy that you'll be going out next Saturday night, plenty of time for her to make arrangements for someone else to take care of Jimmy if she doesn't want to do so herself.'

The week went by in a haze. One minute the days seem to be flying because she was desperately trying to find a way of telling Daisy she was going out. The next, every minute was dragging because she couldn't wait to be with Andrew and on their own.

When Saturday came she knew she'd have to say something, otherwise it would mean that Andrew would be stood up and that really would be the end of their friendship.

She waited till after Daisy and her dad came home from their midday session at the pub and had eaten their meal. She'd made sure that it was cooked to perfection and that the children were playing happily in Jimmy's bedroom so that there would be no distraction when she broke the news to her dad and Daisy.

‘What do you mean, you're going out tonight? Who's going to look after the kids?' Daisy demanded.

‘I thought perhaps you and Dad would like to have a night in for once,' Trixie said tentatively. She hated herself for being so timorous but she was anxious not to provoke them in any way.

‘What the hell makes you think that?' Daisy asked derisively. ‘We always go to the boozer on a Saturday night; it's the best night of the week, isn't it, Sam? There's usually a sing-song or sometimes even a knees up,' she added with a suggestive laugh.

‘Surely you wouldn't mind, just this once,' Trixie said disgusted by the wheedling tone of her own voice.

‘That's where you're bloody well wrong,' her father announced with a humourless smile. ‘You can't just spring something like this on us at the last minute and expect us to take any notice. Not that we would stay in no matter when you told us,' he added scathingly.

‘Looking after the kids is your job,' Daisy pointed out. ‘It's not much to ask. After all, you don't have to go out to work. We provide the ackers and you live in the lap of luxury. All you have to do is make sure the place is tidy, keep an eye on the kids and cook some food for us.'

‘I need to go out with my friends now and again,' Trixie pointed out stubbornly.

‘Then do it during the day,' Daisy shrieked, her mouth screwed up petulantly. ‘You do as you like all day so you've plenty of time to meet them then.'

‘I've arranged to go out with Andrew and he works all week,' Trixie stated as she cleared away their dirty dishes.

‘Andrew? You mean that cocky young upstart who works at the bank?' her father said in a derisory tone. ‘You want to watch your step with him, my girl. He thinks himself a cut above us so he's only going out with you for one thing.'

‘And we don't want any more unwanted brats around the place, there're enough problems with that half-wit sister of yours,' Daisy said nastily, lighting up a cigarette.

‘Cilla is no trouble at all, but I can't say the same for Jimmy,' Trixie flared, stung by Daisy's comments. ‘He's a right little terror and it's because of the way you both spoil him.'

‘If he is, then it's more likely because of the way you're looking after him. He was as quiet as a mouse and barely said a word when I first brought him here,' she stated, blowing a cloud of smoke in Trixie's direction.

‘That's only because he hadn't started talking,' Trixie reminded her. ‘I don't suppose you noticed, though, because you spent so little time with him. Pity you didn't leave him with his father; that's if you know who he is . . .'

Before she had finished speaking her father's hand had caught Trixie across the side of her face sending her toppling backwards. ‘Don't you ever let me hear you say anything like that again,' he said angrily. ‘In case you're unaware of the fact, Jimmy is my kid! I'm his dad and that means he's your brother.'

Trixie stared at him, wide-eyed with shock. ‘He can't be,' she argued. ‘He was almost two when you brought him here. Anyway, it's only been a few months since Mam died and you've only been living with Daisy since then, so how can he be yours?'

‘It's high time someone told you the facts of life,' Daisy sniggered. ‘Anyway, your dad and me are old friends and we were having an affair a long time before he brought me back here to live,' Daisy added triumphantly, stubbing out her cigarette.

‘You're lying,' Trixie exclaimed in a shocked whisper. She turned to look at her father. ‘Tell me it's not true, Dad?' she begged in an anguished voice.

‘What the hell does it matter whether it is or not?' Sam blustered, ‘Jimmy's my kid and they're both living here now and if you can't stomach it then you know what to do, otherwise we've all got to get on with one another.'

‘And I've got to have a life of my own,' Trixie insisted.

‘We'll think about that; we all need a bit of time to simmer down,' her father told her truculently.

‘I've already told Andrew that I'll meet him tonight and I can't let him down,' Trixie persisted.

As she saw the scowl that darkened her dad's face she thought for a moment it was all going to blow up into a full-scale row, and then to her surprise he simply shrugged his shoulders.

‘In that case, then you'd better go. We'll manage somehow, won't we?' he said turning to Daisy.

Trixie could see that Daisy was on the point of arguing, but a warning shake of his head from her father stopped her. She didn't look pleased but she made no attempt to say any more. Instead, she patted her blond hair, shrugged and averted her eyes.

As she began to get ready Trixie felt full of gratitude to Andrew. He'd been so right. The only way for her to handle the situation was to stand up to them both.

She made mugs of hot sweet cocoa for Cilla and Jimmy and gave it to them with a couple of biscuits. She explained that she was going out and they seemed to accept the situation quite happily.

Before she left she made sure they were undressed and in bed and as she tucked them both in she told them that they must be good for Daisy. They were both so tired that she felt sure they would be asleep in next to no time.

‘I'm off, then,' she said, going into the living room where her dad and Daisy were sitting close together on the new settee. ‘They're both almost asleep and I won't be very late.'

‘We won't be waiting up for you,' Daisy told her tartly. ‘The door will be on the latch so just make sure you come in quietly and don't disturb us.'

‘I'll remember,' Trixie agreed with a smile. ‘I promise I'll be as quiet as a mouse.'

Inwardly she was laughing to herself, thinking of the noise the pair of them usually made banging into the furniture, falling up the stairs, laughing and shouting when they came in after being out on one of their late-night drinking sprees.

She still felt both uneasy and shocked by her father saying that Jimmy was his. She wondered if it was really true or whether he had been saying that to please Daisy.

Once again she thought back to the day he had brought Daisy home. Jimmy hadn't been with her – well, not till later on. Surely if he was Sam's child, then her father would have said something to them before he and Daisy went to collect him and her belongings.

Yet how could he have said anything at the time? she reminded herself. If he'd claimed Jimmy was his then it would have broken her mother's heart and she certainly would have objected to Daisy moving into their home.

Still, for the moment, none of that really mattered, she told herself as she hurried to the Rotunda.

She was free and going out with Andrew on her own for the first time in more months than she cared to remember. He was taking her to the pictures, so what more could she want from life?

Chapter Twenty-Five

The visit to the pictures was everything Trixie had dreamed it would be. It was magical from the second she arrived and found Andrew waiting outside the Rotunda for her, looking so handsome in his smart grey flannels and navy blue sports jacket, to the moment when he took her in his arms and kissed her goodnight.

The film was so very romantic; it was
The Sheik
and starred Rudolph Valentino and Wilma Banks. The Pathe newsreel was also romantic because it was all about Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon who had married the Duke of York – one of the Royal Princes – in 1923.

There was also an item about the Charleston, the fast and furious new dance which was becoming hugely popular even though some people considered it to be immoral. Trixie thought about the time when she had gone dancing with Andrew and wished that she could be in his arms, dancing with such crazy abandon.

For the moment, though, it was sheer bliss to be sitting next to him in the cinema, his arm around her, his handsome face so close to hers that she could feel his breath fanning her cheek.

She felt almost cheated when the picture ended and the lights came on; the organ rose out of the pit and music streamed forth as people stood up as the ‘National Anthem' played and they prepared to leave.

They made a detour of St John's Gardens as they walked home and Andrew drew her towards a bench so that they could sit down. For a moment she felt so nervous that when he put his arm around her she pulled away from him.

‘What's the matter?'

‘I . . . I don't know,' she whispered uncomfortably. ‘It . . . it doesn't seem right.'

‘You are a little goose!' He pulled her into his arms, nuzzling her neck, uttering tender sentiments of love, while all he time his hands roamed so suggestively over her body that she was unable to resist his embraces.

His passion alarmed her but she felt thrilled that his feelings for her were so intense. She became aware of every movement, every nuance; his touch sent ripples down her spine. Even so she was frightened that he might go too far, but thankfully he seemed to sense this and managed to restrain himself.

She was both relieved and disappointed when he pulled away and began straightening his clothes.

‘We must go. It's time I took you home or else you won't be allowed out again,' he said, kissing her briefly as he pulled her to her feet.