The Factory Girl (42 page)

It was only when an elderly woman entered to enquire about her missing dog that the benign smile returned and he came to life to jot down the particulars being given concerning the animal, this time with far more meticulousness than the information from the previous woman.

When the lady with the missing dog had departed, he looked again at the uncompleted sheet concerning Mrs Hanford, Mrs Anthony Hanford, then with a slow, knowing smirk, he took the sheet and, folding it carefully in four, slipped it into his breast pocket before continuing with his desk work. Rather than being sent for police information this was destined to reach entirely different hands.

For the second time this week Geraldine sat on Alan's sofa, his arm about her shoulders. He had told her exactly what she'd expected him to, but coming from him rather than her own mind, it gave masses of comfort.

‘I couldn't go through with it,' she sighed yet again. ‘I thought I could. I thought I could be tough, but I can't. I'm hurt, desolate, I feel betrayed, wronged, but in the end I wasn't able to do something like that.'

‘I know,' came the whisper. ‘You just ain't got that sort of heart.'

His lips were buried in her short fair hair where the waves fell gently over her forehead. ‘You ain't got a vindictive bone in yer body.'

She allowed the lips to remain where they were. ‘But I can't just stand by and let him go on making a fool of me. I felt I had to do something.'

‘P'raps now 'e knows you know, 'e might give 'er up. Come back.'

‘I don't want 'im back!' The words burst from her and she sat up suddenly. Turning her face towards him, she knew her expression was one of appeal. ‘It's done, our marriage broken. It'll never be the same again. I just couldn't, not now, knowing what he'd been up to. It's not as if he went off the rails just the once or even twice. You know, his head turned by a ravishing face and he made a mistake. This has been going on for nearly two years and after he's been with her, he's been coming back to our bed …' She couldn't say it. ‘And knowing he's been lying to me all this time,' she went on. ‘Me kept in the dark while he … while …'

Visions of it all contorted her face and she sank back into Alan's arms, felt them tighten about her as she let herself weep against his chest. ‘I feel so powerless. I feel so hurt, and so angry because there's nothing I can do. I hate him. How could he be like this towards me? I feel shunned and ugly and unwanted.'

If it was possible, Alan's hold tightened still more. ‘You ain't at all ugly, Gel. You're—'

‘He always told me,' she cut in, ‘that he thought I was the most beautiful girl he'd ever known. He'd loved buying lovely clothes and things just to show me off to everyone. I want to know, when did I start becoming plain and miserable? For a couple of years he's been saying I'm miserable and making myself ugly by it. It was because we lost Caroline. I tried to—'

‘Listen,' Alan interrupted. ‘You're the most beautiful girl in all the world. Don't listen to what he says, you are ter me. Always 'ave been. Always will be. Don't ever let anyone tell yer that you ain't. You take my breath away sometimes.'

His lips had slid to her neck exposed by the scooped neckline of her dress, her hat and coat discarded when they'd entered his house. The touch felt so tender, so comforting, she reached up a hand to lay it on the nape of his neck. How warm it felt.

She heard him murmur against her flesh. ‘And I love you, Gel, yer know that. Always wished yer'd choose me.'

‘I should of.' Her voice too was a whisper. Had she chosen Alan she wouldn't be in this mess. She wouldn't have been any the wiser about the life that was now hers. By now she might have had children, never have had a baby die, the baby she'd called Caroline not known to her and thus not grieved for. How strange was fate. She would have been moderately well off with Alan, he now with his own business, not as excessively well off as she was with Tony, but there would have been contentment, she knowing no other life. What a fool to have been blinded by Tony's fine prospects, those promises of them going places, living the high life, how empty they were. Mum was right. She'd got out of her depth and now look at her.

With all these thoughts flashing through her mind, she only slowly became aware of Alan's lips, having travelled to rest against her cheek, were moving towards her lips. Feeling so betrayed and forsaken by others, and so very much in want of honest affection, she let them rest on hers, lightly at first but her hand still on the back of his head was pressing down, strengthening the contact with a sudden, desperate need to know herself loved.

It was with a strange mix of emotions that she returned home. In the taxi these emotions had refused totally to come together into one whole, and even when she'd let herself into her empty flat, still they didn't fuse into any solid decision but persisted in bouncing off each other.

What she and Alan had done was totally out of character, he normally so decent in his behaviour towards her to such an extent that she had laboured under the idea that he hadn't ever fancied her in that way despite professing love for her. Today had proved otherwise. He'd been masterful, decisive, taking her with a strength that still shook her. But she had been the one who'd allowed it to happen, hadn't protested, if she could rightly remember, though those more fraught moments only came hazily now to mind, had begged him to make love to her.

Afterwards she had lain limp in his arms on the sofa, incapable of thought. Normality returning only slowly, they'd got to their feet, not looking at each other as they'd adjusted their clothing. She'd said something about having to get home, though why, she'd had no idea except for a need to put distance between them, not because she'd been ashamed of what they'd done – she still felt that way – but that she'd had a need to think about the fact that she was no longer quite the innocent party in this broken marriage of hers, having done exactly what Tony had been doing this past couple of years behind her back. Except that he'd seen fit to let it go on, even planning his meeting with his mistress whereas what had happened today with her and Alan had been entirely unexpected.

Almost in shock she and Alan had avoided each other's eyes as she got ready to leave, their words stilted, she half expecting him to whisper how sorry he was to have let it go that far and how could she ever forgive him.

He'd not mentioned it at all and had driven her to Mile End station where she could get a tube train home, chiefly in silence with her finding it hard to think of anything to say to him and suspecting he felt the same. Once he had asked if she was all right. She'd merely nodded confirmation and he'd grunted acceptance of that. The short hop to where she had decided to get a taxi had seemed endless.

When they finally stopped, he'd said, ‘There'll be one along in a minute. I'll hang about until you're safely in one.'

Making ready to get out of the rickety old van, she'd hesitated, had looked at him, silently begging some word beyond the few he had offered and when he remained silent she'd fumbled with the handle that would open the door, but he had reached across and covered the hand.

‘I want ter say somethink.' His eyes held hers as she looked at him. ‘I'm not a bit sorry about what 'appened. Per'aps I should apologise but I ain't going to, because I love you. Maybe I shouldn't of let it 'appen but it seemed right and I think you felt the same. And I'm going ter say it again, I love you, Gel.'

She'd leaned back into the seat, her gaze downcast. When he asked, ‘Do yer love me too, Gel?' she had nodded fiercely, unable to speak and, not knowing what to make of her emotions, had escaped his grip and moving forward had pushed open the door in her haste letting her flat, envelope-shaped handbag slip from her grasp to fall under the scuffed seat.

As he bent to retrieve it she gazed at the mass of dark hair and suddenly found her voice. ‘I do love you, Alan. In a way I'm glad what happened, but in another I'm frightened. We mustn't do it again.'

He'd glanced up at her, the handbag caught between his fingers, and the stunned protest on his face had all but torn her apart. She had made an effort to explain herself, though not a terribly successful one, it seemed to her.

‘I don't want what happened today to ruin things between us. I want to keep on seeing you, but two wrongs don't make a right. Just because he's been cheating on me don't mean I have to do the same on him. But at the same time I don't want you to think that what happened between us happened just because I wanted to get back at him.'

‘I know that,' he'd said simply as he handed back her bag but it hadn't struck her as that convincing and she'd striven to enlarge on it.

‘If we're caught, he could divorce me.'

‘As you can divorce 'im now, at any time. Ain't that what someone in your position would want, seeing what he's done?'

‘But I've committed adultery too now,' she'd said and because that sounded so stupid, added, ‘Besides, I can't give him the satisfaction of getting his freedom at the drop of a hat. I've been hurt, Alan, two-timed. I can't take that lying down, have him rubbing his hands, laughing at me. I want him to squirm. I want to see him beg.' Venom had crept into her voice, she recalled. ‘I want to see his face when I say I'm not prepared to give him his divorce, no matter how much he asks.'

The look on Alan's face had given her a fright, a sort of crushed look. It still tore at her heart to remember that look of disillusionment.

‘I don't see why I should be the little woman ready to fade into the background,' she'd gone on. ‘I'm made of more than that. It's why I went to the police. If he was caught and convicted it would give him the shock of his life. He doesn't think he's ever going to get caught. Well, this time he's gone too far thinking he can get away with everything, including adultery. The only way I could see to get even was to make sure he suffers for what he's done to me. Only …' Her voice had then begun to tremble and she had felt her face pucker. ‘Only, I couldn't go through with it.'

Alan had stared at her like a rabbit mesmerised by the light of a torch and it came to her that she could so easily drive him away. She'd bent towards him, near to tears that she must try to heal the injury she'd caused.

‘I'm talking like a fool. I don't know why I went to the police. I wish I hadn't now, but I couldn't think straight. It's because I didn't know what to do.'

‘I can understand that,' he'd said simply. ‘It must be terrible for yer. I'm glad yer came to me. An' I'm glad of what we did. I'm glad. But don't do anythink stupid. 'Ave a good think about what yer've told me. I can't tell yer what ter do. I don't think I'm the right person after what's gone on between us terday. But I know what you're saying. I think I'd feel the same. In fact I did when me wife did the dirty on me. So I do know.'

He'd pulled her gently down on the seat, his arm going about her. ‘Just one thing, best ter steer clear of the police. You might regret it. What I mean is it could be there on yer mind all yer life, what yer did, and yer don't want that. As for what you intend ter do about divorce, whatever yer decide, Gel, remember I'm 'ere if yer need me and I'll stand by yer, no matter what. I love yer. I'll 'elp yer in every way I can. But please think before yer do anythink crazy, that's all.'

He leaned towards her to kiss her before letting her go. ‘I'll wait 'ere till you've gone,' he'd said and she had nodded wordlessly, got out of the van, and too distraught to look back, had hurried on into the underground station, forgetting taxis.

Now home, she recalled that not once had he said, ‘I want to marry you.'

Did he want her only for what he could get and to hell with the responsibility of marriage? That wasn't his character. Perhaps what they'd done today would be the first and last time, an accident he'd rather not repeat. But surely a man in love as he said he was would want it repeated. If only he'd spoken of marriage. But to marry again, first she must end her present marriage. That in a way was like breaking off a limb, for until a few days ago she had thought of herself and Tony as a loving and contented couple.

Real contentment for her, of course, would have been having a child. But she seemed incapable of conceiving since losing Caroline, or was it more that Tony wasn't particularly interested in a family, cramping his society style maybe?

Sitting in the living room, Geraldine remembered the many excuses made not to make love: too tired, had to go out soon and no time, the coming in late and never waking her, the nights when he never came home at all, and he too busy working during the day to indulge in even a short time off to be frivolous and indulge in a spot of making love.

Contentment in her marriage had also been its advantages: material things, society friends, good times – all this would go if she left him. But what did they matter if all she could do was pine for him aware that he no longer cared for her? Yet the love she'd known prior to discovering his infidelity must still count for something no matter how she hated him, that love dying on its feet at this very moment. This strange desire to cling on, to win him back, knowing she'd never now want him back, was more a sort of primitive instinct for self-preservation.

And then there was Alan. But Alan hadn't mentioned marriage.

In a dilemma, Geraldine sat brooding. She was still sitting there, still in her hat and coat two hours later, the afternoon sun sinking fast, when Tony's voice floated up from the shop below talking to Mr Bell.

Instantly she stiffened. He would be up here at any moment. Swiftly she ripped off the hat and coat, went and hooked them on the hall stand and hurried to the bathroom to wash her face and apply powder to hide all sign of tears. When he entered the flat, she was sitting waiting for him, this time determined to have it out with him.