The Cobbler's Kids (17 page)

The thought of being made to marry Bill Martin haunted Vera. She had nightmares about the situation and woke in the middle of the night, sweat pouring from her as she imagined that she was already committed to him. It was as if she could feel his rough, unshaven face pressing against her own, and smell his beery breath. She could even feel those cruel thin lips pressing down on hers, taking possession of her mouth and stopping her breathing, preventing her from screaming out for help.

Even during the day, he played on her mind. She became nervous and jumpy. She kept seeing men she thought were him in the street, or reflected in shop windows.

As she waited in trepidation for Bill to ask her to marry him, as her father had said he would, she planned what she would say to him, rehearsing the words in her head over and over again. She wanted him to know she meant it when she said that her mind was made up, and that she would never even consider such a proposition.

Bill Martin was too astute to fall into that trap, though. He had the tenacity and patience of a wily old fox. He knew how tense Vera was and he intended biding his time. He resolved to pick his moment, and when he did ask her it would be at a time when it was the most difficult for her to turn him down.

He was waiting for the right opportunity. It would come, he told himself. It would result from some good turn he did for either young Benny or Michael Quinn, something that put Vera into his indebtedness. When that happened she wouldn’t be able to refuse his proposal.

He knew Eddy was watching him like a hawk, but he considered him to be of no importance. Old man Quinn was on his side, and that was half the battle. He didn’t mind waiting.

He took special delight in seeing Vera as often as possible and watching her every movement, knowing that one day she would be his. She was a prize so well worth waiting for, he gloated, since she was growing more attractive by the day.

One of the reasons he was so confident that she would soon be his was because he knew she wasn’t seeing anyone else. Her old man was making sure of that. She was the prize Michael Quinn was bestowing on him for not squealing to the police about the betting slips. Instead he’d gone one better, he’d tipped them off with the name of another bookie’s runner and the poor sod had ended up being arrested.

It gave Bill Martin a warped feeling of power to see how nervous Vera was whenever he was around. When she and Benny set out each evening to do the deliveries he would sometimes follow them. He kept at a distance and chuckled to himself as he saw how she looked back nervously every few hundred yards to check where he was.

He never approached her, or even spoke to her in the street, only tailed her. He liked to be near enough to watch the fear on her face when she looked over her shoulder. He made sure, though, that he was never close enough that she could call out to a passer-by, or a scuffer, and say that she was afraid of being molested.

His intention to scare Vera began to pay off. She became increasingly jittery, began to lose weight, and was short-tempered, even with Benny.

Michael Quinn noticed the changes in his daughter, but he put it down to disappointment that Bill hadn’t popped the question. The delay worried him, he wondered if Bill Martin had gone off the idea, or whether he had hinted about marriage to Vera and she had turned him down.

Bill was a useful ally, and he could foresee a great many lucrative deals they could do together once they were both certain that they could trust each other completely.

If Bill became a member of the family, Michael reasoned, there would be no possibility of him squealing if things ever went wrong again. Once he and Vera were safely hitched then he’d take him into his confidence. He was pretty sure that Bill also had some interesting sidelines he’d be willing to share with his new father-in-law, so the outcome could be beneficial all round.

Impatient to start developing some of the schemes he’d already hatched in his mind, Michael finally asked Bill if he’d broached the subject of marriage with Vera.

‘Not yet! Don’t rush things.’

‘What’re you playing at, you silly bugger. Ask her now while she’s still missing that Steve Frith, that way you’ll have no trouble getting her to agree.’

‘I’m not so sure about that, she’s a strong-minded little bitch. Leave me to my cat and mouse technique.’

‘Cat and mouse technique? What the hell’s that?’

‘Tail her, frighten her, break her spirit, then strike when she’s at her lowest ebb.’

‘Christ! You sound as if you’re game hunting, not courting.’

Bill Martin laughed sourly. ‘I want her to be docile on our wedding night. I don’t want a kick in the balls the moment I get her into bed.’

Michael Quinn frowned. For one brief moment he wondered if he was doing the right thing in telling Vera she was to marry this man. Vera was his daughter, after all. He thought back to the days before he’d gone in the army, when Vee had been a sweet little toddler, with a rosebud mouth that would suddenly expand into the sweetest of smiles. She’d been a little beauty with her dark hair and the biggest and brightest blue eyes he’d ever seen.

She was still a looker. Tall and slim, with a good shape to her. She was a grafter too. She doted on young Benny, and had been a real little mother to him since Annie died.

He knew he was hard on her sometimes, but his life had been full of frustration since he came back from the war so it was only natural that he took it out on her. Things would have been different if Annie was still alive, but since Vera was the only woman in his life it followed that she had to bear the brunt of his moods.

For all his criticism of her, he thought Vera was worth two of Eddy. She had guts, whereas Eddy had always been a wimp. She was taller and more spirited than her brother. He had to admit, though, that Eddy had broadened out a fair bit, as he’d found to his cost during their last tangle.

Vera waited on tenterhooks for Bill Martin to ask her to marry him, but when he didn’t do so she began to think that it was all some kind of evil threat on her father’s part.

Gradually she resumed her normal way of life. She continued to go on deliveries with Benny, but that was because she was concerned about his safety. It wasn’t Bill she worried about, but the children of the man who’d finally been sent to prison for six months over the betting slips.

Things came unexpectedly to a head in September, on Benny’s eighth birthday. Vera had put on a special tea for him, but it was only to be her, Eddy and her father there. She’d hoped that Rita would have come as well, but she still staunchly refused to set foot in their house since the evening their father had molested her.

As she laid out the spread – jelly, blancmange and a sponge cake with white icing that had chocolate grated over the top – she wondered if her dad had bought Benny a present like she’d begged him to do.

The moment Eddy arrived home from work, and had given Benny the football he’d been longing for, she made the tea. She knew her father wouldn’t want to join them and she suspected that Eddy would want to get their party over as soon as possible since it was his night for seeing Rita.

She was quite taken aback when, within minutes of Eddy leaving, Bill Martin came through from the shop with a present for Benny. When he saw the clockwork train, complete with rails and a set of carriages to run on it, Benny was overawed. He’d never had a present like it. Excitedly, he thanked Bill and asked if he could play with it right away.

‘Of course you can, whack,’ Bill told him. ‘Come on, let’s clear a space on the floor and I’ll fix the rails for you … that’s if it is all right with Vera.’

Vera wanted to say no, to ask him to leave and take his present with him, but she realised that her father had followed Bill into the room. She felt as if her privacy had been invaded. Seeing Bill Martin in the shop was bad enough, but she resented him coming uninvited into their living room. She bit back her refusal, though, as she saw the ecstatic look on Benny’s face as he helped unpack his new present.

‘Perhaps you should finish your tea first, Benny,’ she suggested.

He shook his head. ‘I’ve had enough,’ he said dismissively, his entire attention focussed on the train set.

An hour later, Michael Quinn had finished reading through the
Liverpool Echo
and was impatient for his own meal.

‘Come on, Vera, pack young Benny off to bed and do me and Bill a fry-up,’ he ordered.

Benny objected. He wanted to go on playing with his new toy, but their father was tired of him being underfoot. Vera knew the signs, knew her dad’s expansive mood was about to revert to a skull-thumping session.

‘I’ll take him upstairs while you see to the food,’ Bill suggested.

Vera hesitated. Benny was used to her putting him to bed, she wasn’t sure how he would react. She also wanted to avoid Bill invading their home any further, or getting even closer to Benny.

‘It’s all right,’ she said quickly. ‘Leave him to play, I’ll cook something for you two and then I’ll take him up.’

‘What’s wrong with you, girl, are you deaf?’ her father muttered irritably. ‘It’s his bedtime … NOW! Go on, you take him upstairs, Bill.’

‘No!’ Vera laid a hand on Benny’s shoulder, propelling him towards the stairs. ‘I said I would see to him. If you want him in bed first then you can wait for your fry-up.’

Bill leaned against the door and pursed his lips in a silent whistle, then at a nod from Michael he quietly followed Vera up the stairs.

Benny was overtired and sulky. He wanted to stay and play with his new train set and he resented being sent to bed. Vera did her best to calm him down, but she knew she wasn’t being as patient as usual because her own nerves were on edge. She blamed it all on Bill Martin gate-crashing the party and buying Benny such an expensive present.

‘While you’re getting undressed I’ll go down and fetch you a glass of milk, and another slice of cake, and you can sit up in bed and have them,’ she cajoled.

‘And can I look at the new book you bought me?’

‘Yes, I’ll bring it back upstairs with me,’ she promised.

As she walked out onto the landing, Vera almost jumped out of her skin when she found Bill had followed her upstairs and was standing there waiting for her.

Before she could cry out he’d clamped his hand over her mouth and roughly pushed her into one of the other bedrooms.

She struggled wildly as he tried to overpower her, his eyes gleaming. She screwed up her eyes, trying to shut out his hideous leering face, as he thrust her backwards onto the bed and pinned her there with the weight of his own body.

Her heart thundered and she could hear her own breath rasping as she tried to twist free. One of his hands remained clamped over her mouth, with the other one he tore at her clothes.

She felt bile rising, burning and bitter in her throat as his calloused hand explored the soft flesh of her inner thigh. She knew that something terrible and irrevocable was about to happen.

Although she managed to fight him off, Bill’s brutal attack as he tried to rape her left Vera on the edge of hysteria. For a minute, after he released her and moved away, she remained lying prone, trying to calm the fearful churning in her head. Benny was in the next room, so for his sake she had to try and act calmly.

Trembling, she scrambled from the rumpled bed and straightened her clothes as best she could. With tears streaming down her face she headed for the stairs. Bill followed her, straightening his own clothes as he did so.

Her father guffawed loudly as she entered the living room and she felt sickened as she saw the smug look on his face.

Bill flopped down onto one of the chairs. ‘So what about that fry-up?’ He smirked. ‘I hope when we’re married you’ll treat me a damn sight better than you seem to treat your old man,’ he went on. ‘If I ask you to see to my meal I’ll expect you to do it right away, not keep me waiting half an hour.’

‘Me marry you, after the way you’ve just treated me?’ Vera exclaimed scornfully.

The sharp slap across her face from her father’s open hand sent Vera reeling.

‘Hey, steady on! I don’t want her marked before I take delivery!’ Bill laughed.

Cowering back against the table, Vera looked from one to the other. The loathing she felt for both men choked her. Defiantly she held her head up.

‘I wouldn’t marry you Bill Martin if you were the last man left in Liverpool,’ she told him contemptuously. ‘You’re so uncouth it turns my stomach just to look at you!’

‘Then we’re quits!’ Bill Martin snarled, his face livid. ‘I don’t want to marry a snooty bitch like you!’

In anger, he kicked his foot out and smashed up the train layout, then he ground his heel on the train and its carriages. As he left, he slammed the shop door behind him so hard that the glass in the upper half splintered into an unsightly crack.

The atmosphere between Vera and her father reached an all-time low after Bill Martin walked out of their lives.

‘Do you know what you’ve done, you stupid bint,’ he railed.

‘Of course I do,’ she told him with a show of bravado, struggling to hold her tears in check. ‘He tried to rape me! He’s the most hateful person I’ve ever known. I wouldn’t marry him if he was the last man Liverpool. I don’t know what gave you the idea that …’

The rest of her sentence ended in a scream of pain as Michael, his face mottled with fury, seized her by the hair.

The severe beating that followed left her bruised, breathless and terrified. He’d often threatened her, but a beating that left her in such pain that she was almost unable to move not only horrified her, but filled her with foreboding.

She knew that her dad had changed over the years, that he had been partly responsible for her mother’s death, that he had no time for Eddy and generally ignored Benny. Right up until a few months ago, though, she had always thought that she held a special place in his heart. That belief had stood her in good stead when his bad moods made life difficult for all of them.

Although she would never forgive him for driving Steve Frith away, she understood his reason for doing so. She realised that he didn’t want her to marry Steve because it would mean that he was left with no one to run the home and take care of Benny.