The Factory Girl (21 page)

Anthony regarded her as best he could through the haze of the cigarette he had just lit. The baby. Coming up to five months, fortunately she wasn't the sort to show her condition too much and had taken to wearing loose, flowing frocks, but soon she would and that would put a stop to their social life for a while. A couple of months from now she wouldn't be able to kick up her heels as she did at the moment. He wasn't unhappy about a baby and they could always get a nanny for it once she'd had it. He made enough to afford one. So long as Geraldine didn't go all motherly on him – he liked her just as she was.

She'd lit up too, one of her favourite Abdulla cigarettes, having fitted it clumsily into its ivory holder and even more clumsily lit it, blowing out a cloud of fragrant smoke to waft all over the room. He loved seeing her tipsy. It turned him on no end. It was turning him on now.

‘Let's go to bed,' he suggested and getting the message instantly, she stubbed the Abdulla out into a figured glass ashtray, drained her brandy glass and got uncertainly to her feet, laughing as she staggered.

‘You'll have to carry me, darling,' she murmured, which turned him on even more.

After it was over, he heard her whisper into his ear, ‘We will start looking for somewhere nicer to live soon, won't we?'

He nodded into the darkness and felt her turn over, contented, ready for sleep, leaving him more sober now to think over what she'd said.

They did need to find somewhere more fitting than over this shop. It would be difficult though, because this was where he was known, becoming more known by the day, the people he dealt with knowing where to find him. He would pick the best from the stuff they bought to his back door, discard the rest, pay them and get down quickly to the task of breaking the stuff up before it could be traced to him, if indeed it could be. Precious metals melted down into less traceable ingots, jewellery suitably parcelled up for trading on to one of the several dealers he knew and had become friendly with, like the one at whose party they'd been this evening – he was becoming well respected by them – he would await the next caller.

He told no one where he lived. His card bearing an address of some nondescript jewellery shop in Bow was all they had to go on – maybe a false address – so no one had any inkling that he actually resided above it, and let them continue to think of him as someone who lived well but preferred privacy.

Since starting up this game he had become something of a mystery. He liked that. A couple of years ago people had begun to ask about him and his beautiful wife with the somewhat strange accent. He could sense the inquisitiveness as to what shadows the two of them melted into after leaving a party, a dinner, the theatre or nightclub. It was better that way, safer.

But now he was beginning to sense a different atmosphere: was he after all not as kosher as he'd led them to believe? Had he merely come into a bit of money, maybe by unsavoury means? Not that such a thing bothered the sort of people he mixed with but did this mystery of where he lived mean he couldn't be trusted? The time had come to find a good address to invite his friends to, and Gerry's request had come at the right time. Tomorrow he'd start putting out feelers, perhaps look at one of the nicer London squares to see if he could afford it. Of course he would have to step up his other business as the shop wouldn't provide. That had become a mere front. It was just as well to move, keep Gerry away from where she wouldn't need to ask questions for it was only a matter of time before she did. He'd have to be there in the evenings, of course, which meant being away from home, but if she wanted to live somewhere nice, she'd have to make some sacrifice.

‘We'll be moving, Mum, about two weeks' time.'

Mum eyed Geraldine's thickening midriff with some scepticism, quite unaffected by the news itself. ‘Yer around seven months, ain't yer? Not a good time ter go moving 'ouse. Yer won't do yerself any good, strainin' yerself an' getting all churned up. You 'ave ter be careful around seventh months. Don't want ter do 'arm to yerself or the baby.'

Geraldine had told her early in June that they had begun looking for somewhere better to live and that too had been received with the same indifference as now. She had expected a more ready response such as ‘About time too,' or even ‘That'll be nice for you,' but Mum had merely nodded and got on with brewing up the usual cup of tea she'd give any caller.

It was now July and having found a suitable place far quicker than Geraldine had expected, one she had instantly fallen in love with, it seemed Tony couldn't wait to move in.

‘I can let everyone know where we are, have parties, invite everybody.'

‘Hold on,' she'd laughed happily. ‘By the time we're settled in it'll be nearly time for me to have this baby.'

She was beginning to feel her condition now, though not as big as she'd expected coming up to seven months. Tony had remarked last week that he wondered where she was keeping it. ‘I'm beginning to think you've got it in a case somewhere in a cupboard!'

The dry quip made her laugh, in fact made her proud of herself as though she and not nature had achieved something quite remarkable. She thought about Mavis whose missed period had indeed heralded the start of pregnancy, who was already as big as the half side of a barn and she a few weeks behind her. It meant having to suffer baleful glances at her own sylph-like figure with its little round football of a lump and the snide – and to her mind quite unreasonable – remarks that why should she have all the luck while her sister looked like a bag of doings, almost as if Mavis saw it as stemming purely from her sister's more comfortable circumstances.

‘If you 'ad ter put up with what I do, you wouldn't be so chirpy about lookin' like yer do', she said, again without foundation. It wasn't her fault that she was carrying better, nor that she was comfortably off where Mavis still struggled with Tom not yet in work. She hadn't planned it this way, it just happened to be.

She had stopped offering Mavis bits and pieces. All she ever got lately was a begrudging ‘Thanks' and downturned lips. Just a couple of weeks ago she'd made another attempt to help with a hat she'd had in a cupboard for ages, almost new but Tony had said it was out of date now; a neutral beige, large-brimmed, deep-crowned, just right for the hot summer weather and Mavis's face looking flushed and mottled from her condition. Again, her own skin had remained unblemished, pale but for a gentle glow that increased Mavis's jealousy, for that was all it was – jealousy.

Mavis seemed to delight in appearing shabby as though seeking to draw attention to her wretched life, wheeling her dilapidated perambulator almost with pride, a bold statement that cried out, ‘Look what I've got to put up with while my sister flaunts her money left, right and centre!'

‘I don't want your silly 'at,' Mavis had said, the unexpected venom of the refusal knocking Geraldine back a step or two. ‘What would I look like pushing this pram, me in clothes what's come off a second-'and market stall, and wearing an 'at what looks like it's come straight out of some fancy West End store like 'Arrods. People would laugh at me, say I've gone off me nut!'

The gift thus flung back in her face, Geraldine had vowed that Mavis could go to pot for all she cared, she wouldn't offer another thing to her.

Geraldine sat next to Tony in his car and watched the furniture van in front of them move slowly off.

‘Soon be there, darling,' murmured Tony as he pressed the starter button and they too pulled away from the kerb. ‘Excited?'

‘Mmm!' Geraldine accompanied the sound with an energetic nod. Her stomach was churning and it had nothing to do with the gentle kick she felt from the baby inside her. What a wonderful life she had. It occurred to her to feel thankful for just how lucky she was as she cast her mind ahead to the day Tony had taken her to see the house he'd chosen for them.

It was the most delightful house she had ever seen, much less ever hoped to live in, painted white, terraced, narrow but with four storeys, oval doorways set behind railings, and with lovely narrow Georgian windows to the second floor. Mecklenburgh Square off Grays Inn Road was wide, quiet and withdrawn from the London traffic and adjacent to some delightful gardens. Inside, the hugeness of the rooms had taken her breath away, coupled with something like alarm.

‘But the cost! What's the rent on this place?'

‘Let me worry about that,' he'd said without the flicker of an eyelid.

But alarm had refused to go away. ‘We can't possibly afford anything like this.' She'd gazed around the huge drawing room that would take a fortune to furnish, and had turned back to him in disbelief as though he'd lost track of his senses. ‘The shop can't possibly pay for all this. Even I know it doesn't earn enough to maintain anything near a place like this. Where are you going to find the money?'

‘I'm taking care of it, darling.' He cuddled her. ‘I shall take care of everything.'

Somehow his patronising got to her and she broke away. ‘Don't treat me as though I've got no brains, Tony! I know and you know we can't afford this on what the shop brings in. Where are you getting the money from?'

For a moment or two he studied her, his face tight, then it relaxed. ‘I'm borrowing it.'

‘From your father, I suppose.' She gave him no time to confirm or deny but ploughed on, angry at the time, angry and fearful. ‘How can you go on letting him support you? And how you let him go on financing you when we both know he and your mother have never liked me, believing that you married beneath yourself. Knowing that, how can you keep going to them cap in hand asking for support? Haven't you any pride?'

Her mind had flown to her own family who would never take a penny that wasn't theirs. Suddenly they soared in her estimation, they had more respect for themselves than he could ever have, and even though she loved him dearly she had felt oddly ashamed that he could take off his father so lightly.

‘It doesn't matter where I borrowed it from,' he'd grinned at her, pushing away her accusations. ‘Maybe from the bank.'

Obviously she'd judged him wrongly, but she'd still been unsettled by what she could only see as foolhardiness, trying blindly to impress her and going over the top about it, not realising how he was jumping in out of his depth. In all logic, she'd demanded, ‘So what collateral do they want?'

He continued to grin. ‘Or maybe from a friend.'

‘And when do they want paying back?'

‘Or maybe I've had it secretly stashed away.'

He'd been bent on teasing her, enjoying her anger. She'd told him to be serious, had asked again where the money was coming from and he'd replied, growing serious, that it was purely a business thing. When she'd asked what business thing, he had startled her with a glare, telling her that it was none of her affair.

‘Be content that I know what I'm doing, Gerry,' he'd snapped. ‘You're my wife and it's my job to conduct a transaction and not for you to stick your nose in.'

‘Tony!'

‘I mean it, darling. There's only one head of a family, one man to do the worrying, and I don't intend to explain myself to you. It's enough that I provide you with nice clothes, a decent roof over your head, and a social life you can be proud of. What more do you want?' When she'd fallen silent, he went on more gently, ‘Leave the business end to me. I'll do the earning, the supporting of you and the baby when it arrives. Isn't that enough for you?'

‘Yes, of course it is,' was all she could say, telling herself she was indeed a fool not to appreciate what he was doing. In future she would try not to question him but just be thankful for the pleasant life he was giving her. Silly to rock any boat that was on an even keel.

Now they were leaving their cramped little flat, going somewhere where she could hold up her head. Perhaps that was why Mum and Dad hadn't popped round to see them off but had stayed solidly ensconced in their own home. Perhaps she should forgive them – she was only moving a few miles away, not the other side of the world. Even so, she knew that for the few times they would ever visit her posh new home, it might well have been.

Why did they act this way? What was so wrong about having a bit of money? She'd been lucky, that was all, it wasn't a disease, yet they treated her as if she was a pariah. It was so silly, and it was hurtful, and there was nothing she could do about it. Try as she might, she had never been able to shake them off their lofty perch into which was forever burnt the indelible words ‘
Them and us
', still living in the era when the gentleman would not dream of mixing with the common man except to slum for fun. To Mum and Dad she was now ‘
Them
'.

Taking in a sharp, deep breath through her nose, Geraldine cast the questions from her and turned her thoughts to the life opening up before her. If that was how they wanted it, then sod them. She'd tried to do her best and her best had been spurned. So all right, then, sod them!

Life couldn't have been sweeter. With five weeks to go before the baby was due, Geraldine was happy to stay at home rather than socialise and her new house was so lovely she was as content as a pig in swill, as Mum would have put it. Roaming from room to room, gazing over and over again at all the lovely furniture and furnishings Tony had managed to fill the rooms with was pure joy from which she never tired.

Fenella came often to see her and they'd sit talking about babies and clothes over coffee and cake. And Geraldine nearly passed out when a letter came from Tony's mother, after months of silence following her letter to them saying she was expecting their grandchild. His mother hoped that her daughter-in-law would go through her delivery safely and without too much trouble, and though there was no invitation to visit, Geraldine wasn't as concerned as once she might have been, vowing to take it all with a pinch of salt. They were the losers, not her. She was ecstatically happy.