Who's Sorry Now (2008) (29 page)

‘Men in the labour ward? I never heard of such a thing. Utterly preposterous! It would never have been permitted in my day. They would only get in the way, be fainting all over the place. It’s not right for a man to be present. Having babies is women’s business. Men have nothing at all to do with it.’

‘I think I did play a bit of a part in the process, Mother,’ Chris teasingly reminded her, making her blush.

‘You’d be useless,’ Mavis snapped. ‘Tell him to stay away, Amy. And think what a mess you’ll look. You don’t want him to see you like that, do you?’

Amy grasped her husband’s hand very tight. ‘I don’t mind at all. I want him by my side when our child is born.’

And so he was. As his son emerged into a bright new shining world, Chris found he had tears rolling down his cheeks and his pretty young wife had never looked more beautiful.

Bringing the baby home to their little terraced house was exciting and scary all at the same time. Chris collected Amy from the nursing home in the bakery van and it felt very strange to be moving into the house at last, and with this new little creature absolutely dependent upon her.

Amy barely slept a wink in those first few days, for fear of something going wrong. What if he should stop breathing? What if he fell off the couch or banged his head, or put something into his mouth that he shouldn’t? She suddenly became aware of all the hazards around her, in this her wonderful new home, in the street, the market, the world, the very air that he breathed.

His first bath-time was a nightmare. Compelled to use the kitchen sink for want of a bathroom, Amy was terrified in case he should slip out of her wet hands. He seemed so small, so fragile, how could he possibly survive her inadequate, clumsy efforts?
 

‘I can’t cope,’ Amy wailed.

‘Yes, you can. You’re doing fine. What we need is a proper baby bath on a stand,’ Chris said. ‘I’ll go and buy one right now.’

No, you won’t. I’ll get it,’ Mavis told him, stopping him in his tracks with a firm hand. ‘You’d be sure to buy the wrong thing.’

‘I’m not certain there’s much money left in my purse,’ Amy worried.

Big Molly said, ‘Ask the Bertalones. No doubt Carlotta has one she could lend you. Why go to the expense of new?’

Mavis was outraged. ‘I’m not having any grandson of mine using someone else’s cast-offs. Who knows where it might have been? Quite unhygienic.’

Thomas said, ‘Nay, you could eat your dinner off Carlotta’s floor, it’s that clean. Don’t talk daft, woman.’

‘Who are you calling daft? It’s all a matter of standards, something you might not appreciate.’

‘Look, it doesn’t matter,’ Amy said, ‘I’m quite happy to bath him in the sink. I just need a bit of time to get used to it.’ And less of an audience, she thought.

But Mavis went out, there and then, and bought one in blue, with pictures of teddy bears stuck all around the rim, together with a stand to rest it on. Mahogany, of course.

Relations between the grandparents was not good. They seemed to be engrossed in a competition, vying with each other over who could buy the most garments, equipment, and toys for the new baby. Rarely a day passed without either Big Molly or Mavis turning up with something they’d just happened to see on the market.

Following the incident with the bath came the squabble over a cot. Mavis wished to buy one which would convert into a single bed one day, which Amy thought too big and unwieldy for a small baby. ‘I’d lose him in it and he might get smothered or lost in the sheets.’

‘Don’t be foolish, it would make excellent sense.’

But Amy insisted it was too big as a cot, and possibly too small for a bed later when he grew. And then Big Molly arrived, followed closely by her long-suffering husband, Ozzy, carrying a pretty little crib with two angels dangling on a blue ribbon from a frilled hood.

Amy wasn’t too sure she wanted this either, but the deed was done, the purchase made. Nor did it meet with Mavis’s approval who considered the crib far too fussy and totally inadequate for a growing child.

Next came the issue of the pram. Amy and Chris had looked in shop windows, and, being somewhat strapped for cash, been shocked by the prices on display. So they were secretly relieved when Mavis offered to buy one for them.

‘It’s our prerogative, as grandparents, to help provide for the baby,’ she insisted. ‘And I’m sure your own father couldn’t manage to find such a large sum, Amy.’

Amy wanted to protest that Ozzy would give her his last penny, which was true in a way, were there any pennies left in his pocket after he’d finished paying his debts to the bookie.

But while Amy had opted for something modest in cream, Mavis purchased a Silver Cross carriage pram in burgundy with a navy hood. It looked absolutely superb, a Rolls Royce among prams. Amy’s five foot two form was hardly visible behind it.

But Amy and Chris had no intention of objecting or making a fuss. All they wanted was to accept these gifts with good grace so that their respective in-laws, Mavis in particular, would then leave them in peace to enjoy their baby, and married life together in their own home.

In this they were to be sadly disappointed.

With her first grandchild tucked up in a pretty crib, albeit one provided by Big Molly, Mavis resolved to keep a very close eye on what went on in her son’s house. At least being situated so close she could visit every single day, and indeed fully intended to do so, even if it was next to the pawn shop.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Out in the market there’d been a shower of rain earlier, now it was basking in hot sunshine. Somewhere there was music playing. Pat Boone singing
Love Letters in the Sand
. Belle Garside had set little tables outside her café to give it a continental air on what promised to be a lovely June day. Papa Bertalone had been rushed off his feet since he opened the ice cream parlour a couple of hours ago. Now, during a short lull in trade, he was leaning on the counter happily engrossed in his favourite topic: the making of ice cream. He was telling Winnie Holmes how it had been an Italian who’d first invented the wafer.

‘Before that we used to wrap the ice-a-creama in the paper which we call the hokey pokey.’

‘Well, that would be a bit more hygienic than them little glass dishes they used to have round here. Eeh, I remember those licking glasses,’ Winnie said, eyes glazing over with reminiscences of her girlhood. ‘It’s a wonder we didn’t catch some disease or other from those who had used it before us. We only had the ice cream man’s word for it that he’d washed the glass properly. I don’t know how we survived before the war, I don’t really. Not in these streets.’

Papa smiled as he switched on his ice cream maker, its gentle hum seeming to purr with pleasure as it mixed the magic ingredients together. ‘Good hygiene is essential, that is true. Making ice-a-creama is a skilled task and takes mucha time. It not easy. It must be smooth and creamy when eet freeze, and not separate when eet melts. We heat the ingredients to a high temperature and then freeze it
rapidamente.
Very quickly, you understand? Churning it with the rotating blades to make sure the ice-a-creama is evenly frozen.’

Winnie struggled to pay attention as she licked her lips in anticipation.

Marco smiled. ‘What’ll you have, Winnie? The peach melba? Coffee or chocolate gelato? Or perhaps the Strawberry Sundae? We whip in the air to make the ice-a-creama all creamy and light. That is
molto importante
! Then the mix is pumped over coolers at a strict temperature, and finally stored in these sterilised steel buckets. Of course, we must sell it quickly, you understand? Good ice-a-creama doesn’t last…’

‘I’m quite happy to help out there,’ Winnie said, interrupting him as her mouth was watering. ‘Usually I settle for a sixpenny wafer but the ice cream cart is all shut up this morning, so I came over here instead. Happen I’ll have a Knickerbocker Glory as a treat, and take the weight off me feet for half an hour.’ So saying, she sat herself down at one of the small round marble-topped tables.

Papa gaped at her, ‘Not open? You are saying the ice-a-creama cart is not open for business? But Carmina should be there. Where is she then?’

Winnie shook her head. ‘Nay, how would I know? I’m not surprised the lass is allus late for work, Marco, with all the gallivanting she’s been doing lately, off dancing every Friday and Saturday night, or so I hear. How these so-called teenagers can think above the din of that rock ‘n’ roll is beyond me. Do my head in, it would.’

‘Ah, daughters, Winnie. Who can possibly understand them? Not a father, I assure you.’

The sun was shining, sparkling on the wet cobbles and making the pink and white striped awnings over the stalls look as translucent as candy floss as Patsy made her way to the hat stall after her coffee break. She was thinking how much she missed Annie and her caustic tongue. Champion Street Market didn’t seem the same without her.

Yet Patsy had made many friends on this market since the day she’d arrived as a homeless orphan.

Big Molly Poulson, with an even bigger voice, still stood her stall happily selling pies, cheese and cold meats to a predictably long queue. Today was roast pork day, Patsy could smell its tantalising aroma.

She could smell fish and chips too, coming from the shop owned by Frankie Morris: a large, blubbery man in a soiled apron whose bald head gleamed as if greased from the fat from his own hands. He fried fish and chips crisp and delectable on the outside, piping hot and soft within. Everyone loved Frankie’s fish and chips

Patsy smiled and nodded to Mrs Gower, a regular customer at Higginson’s Hat Stall, who had a little boy she absolutely idolised. Even now she was on her way to Lizzie Pringle’s Chocolate Cabin to buy him a bag of jelly babies. She kept the child so well supplied with sweets he was as round as Billy Bunter. Why did parents spoil their children so badly?

Papa Bertalone had so spoiled Carmina the girl believed that she should have her own way in everything, even at the expense of hurting her own sister.

Patsy passed by the ice cream cart, surprised to note that it was still shuttered and not open for business, for all it was very nearly midday. Surely Carmina should be in there by now, serving sixpenny cornets and wafers to the many grubby children hovering hopefully around?

She couldn’t help wondering if she felt ready for all of that responsibility and family commitment? Little by little Patsy did seem to be weaning Marc off the idea of a summer wedding although he still wasn’t too happy about the amount of time she spent working on the hat stall. It was as she was entering the market hall that Patsy spotted her future sister-in-law, deep in conversation with Alec Hall.

The girl was pressed up against a wall, Alec leaning over her, his hands at either side of her head, imprisoning her between them. Carmina’s lovely face was inches from his, her eyelids half closed, mouth set in a tantalising pout.

He was speaking to her in urgent little whispers and Carmina was laughing softly. Patsy hung back, making sure they didn’t spot her. For one astonishing moment she thought he might be about to actually kiss the girl, but then glancing round he seemed to think better of it, and, pushing himself off the wall, walked briskly away.

Carmina stayed where she was, eyes gleaming, smiling to herself like a Cheshire cat who had very much swallowed the cream. Then she sauntered off in the direction of the ice cream cart as if she had all the time in the world.

‘The little madam,’ Patsy said, to no one in particular. ‘Now she’s teasing poor Alec.’

Patsy called in at the ice cream parlour, as she so loved to do, only to discover that Papa Bertalone had already learned of Carmina’s non-appearance at the ice cream cart. He was talking to Winnie Holmes about it and clearly upset, a crimson stain spreading up his neck, his jaw tight.

‘That girl, she so lazy. She will be the death of my business. Does she not know that competition is fierce?’

Muttering to himself, Marco expertly spooned a mixture of fresh fruit: peaches, pineapple and melon, into a tall glass, then added a few sliced grapes.

Patsy caught Winnie’s eye, giving the nosy old woman a fierce glare which said, ‘Why did you have to upset him?’ as Papa launched into his favourite complaint: the problems of running a small business.

‘Why Carmina not see we have to work in order to survive? Since the war, we have the influx of our compatriots flooding in, many from Sicily who are also anxious to make-a much money out of ice-a-creama. We have many vendettas, one family trying to outdo the other.’ He waved the ice cream scoop in the air, as if it were a machete. ‘Always on the rounds there are often two, three, or more vans all touting for business in the same street. It ees difficult to make the beeg profit,
si
?’

He dropped three scoops of ice cream into the dish, one each of strawberry, chocolate and vanilla, then rapped the scoop on the counter. ‘They steal my pitches all the time. And the worst offenders are the Fabrianis. Now my own daughter let me down.’

Marco was more than ready to vent his fury on this absent, recalcitrant daughter who had very nearly forcibly allied him to these hated rivals in marriage.
 

‘Carmina, she make-a me mad. She still carry the torch for Luc, I think. Gina is the same. What is a father to do?’ he begged of his listeners, eyes wild. ‘But if my empty-headed daughters imagine there can ever be an alliance with that family, they are very mucha mistaken. I would see them both dead first.’