because Reggie would be helping her. But it still seemed a shame – seemed all wrong that once it was off, it was all over. That you only got to wear something so beautiful for a single day.
‘It’s just gorgeous,’ Flo said, planting a kiss on Annie’s cheek. ‘And I’m so happy for you. And I bet you can’t wait to get carried over that threshold later, too, Annie. Imagine that, eh? Annie McArdle with her own corporation house!’
‘Annie Hudson now, Florrie, remember? I’m not a McArdle any more. Thank God,’ she added with feeling, glancing across at her parents, and seeing them already engaged in one of their regular angry rows, probably about nothing in particular. It wasn’t going to be that way with her and her Reggie. She wouldn’t let it. She’d have him dancing to her tune before he even realised.
She looked at him again, not quite believing her luck. He was a catch, was her Reggie. There was no doubt about it. With his coal-black hair sleeked back so he looked like one of those film stars, his dad’s posh suit fitted him perfectly. He wasn’t a tall man, but he was built well, with muscles in all the right places, and looks that could melt a girl’s heart.
Oh yes, Annie thought, she would have to keep an eye on this one. Right now, though, she would cut him some slack. It was supposed to be a party after all.
And it was a party that went on till midnight. One minute the house was full and it seemed the next it was suddenly empty, and Annie realised her dad was passed out on the floor while her mam was busy shoving the last remaining guest out. ‘Go on, bugger off!’ she was shouting, all the niceties obviously over with. ‘You’ve all got homes to go to, haven’t you?’ she barked.
All but one, it seemed. The guest who’d bagged the one decent armchair and who was slumped in it, only just awake.
Her husband. ‘Are you ready then, Reggie?’ she asked him, shaking his shoulder. But he merely grunted and shook her arm away. ‘Reggie!’ she said again more sharply. ‘It’s time to go now!’ He at least opened his eyes at this, but what Annie saw wasn’t encouraging. He looked boss-eyed and could hardly keep them open.
Now sure quite how she was going to rouse him, let alone manhandle him to their house, she called Queenie over to help. ‘Mam,’ she called, ‘come and see if you can get him up for me, will you?’
Queenie looked at him and smiled, then she shook her head at her daughter. ‘You could throw a pan of water over him,’ she suggested, ‘but it wouldn’t do you much use. No, you go on and get yourself home, girl. He’s going nowhere, is he? Any more than your ruddy father. No, leave him here to sleep it off – best thing for him, really. And for you, love,’ she said more gently. ‘It’s not often you’ll have a night off, so if I were you I think I’d make the most of it.’
‘I can’t do that!’ Annie exclaimed, mortified. ‘It’s my wedding night! Come on, Mam – help me at least get him on his feet.’
But her mother just looked at her sleeping son-in-law of not quite a day, tutted at Annie and shook her head again. ‘You really want to take that lump home with you? Really? Trust me, love, even if you do manage to stagger home with him, what then? When they get into that state, it only means one of two things – either a good hiding or a bit of the other. You’ll enjoy neither tonight, so go on – enjoy this last night of peace, girl, because it’ll be a long time before you can enjoy another.’
Dejected by this unexpected turn in developments, yet without the energy to argue, Annie suddenly felt overcome by weariness. So she simply hitched up the hem of her dress, grabbed her mother’s shawl from the door knob and made her way out of the house and towards her new home. Have I been expecting too much? she wondered as she traipsed through the empty streets. Was her wedding day over now? Done? Was that it? Because it wasn’t the end to the day she’d envisaged at all. She was a bride and she was supposed to be carried over the threshold. That was the rule. Instead, she was going to have to carry herself over it – not to mention the dress she’d been so looking forward to Reggie helping her out of – and go to bed, in the cold, all alone. He might be drunk but at least he’d have made a half-decent hot-water bottle. Not to mention the rest of it, as well.
All those dreams she’d had about what was going to happen tonight, where were they now? They were going to dance around the house together – and as they danced, he was going to sing to her. Mouth her favourite song – ‘I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles’ – into her ear. He was going to sing that and then he was going to sweep her off to bed, just as he’d swept her off her feet when she’d first met him. Then they’d cuddle up together under the covers, on the lovely horsehair mattress that her dad had got for them specially, and watch the light of the moon from their bedroom window.
But not now! she thought angrily as she stomped across the grass, the moon above her shining brightly as if to spite her. She was all alone, and it was all wrong, and it wouldn’t be happening again. You’re a bloody shower, Reggie Hudson! she huffed to herself as she approached the dark house. This bloody marriage was going to see some changes. That was a promise.
1923
Annie stretched out her spine, pressing her palms against her hips and groaning. Trying to scrub her step, even from a squatting position, was really the last thing she should be doing in her condition. Not right now. Not with this niggle in her back all the time. And given how much of an effort it had taken even to get down on her haunches, she decided, it would be as nothing compared to the effort it would take to pull herself back up.
Her lower back was hurting now, really quite badly, and a ripple of anxiety ran through her. She was ten days past term now and something told her that the baby inside her knew it. That it was just waiting, the little bleeder, for the worst possible moment, which, given she was out the front, attempting to get down far enough to scrub her front step, might just be now.
She bent back to her task again, scouring swiftly, anxious to finish now. Anxious to have everything ready for when this little one came into the world. Would she be blessed with a boy this time? She hoped so.
Not that she didn’t love her little Margaret, her precious daughter, who had probably saved her. But she really wanted a boy this time. For Reggie.
She’d been punished. She knew that. They both had. Punished by a vengeful God, for their wickedness before they’d married. He’d taken their firstborn, their dear little son, Frank, conceived out of wedlock and born just eight and a half months after. Snatched him from them before he was even a year old.
She could hardly bear to bring the pictures of that day to mind, even now. If she so much as thought about it – and she couldn’t help but think about it, what with a new baby imminent – the images would tumble in, swirling round and round her head, making her feel so sick and panicky that it was all she could do to try and shoo them away again. And it wasn’t like it had been a disease that had taken him, either. It had been an apple, just a ruddy piece of apple, that was all, that had done for her cherished firstborn. Choked him dead – killing him even as she watched. There’d been nothing anyone could have done – they’d all said that to her, everyone. Reggie too, but Annie still felt he blamed her.
Didn’t matter anyway. She’d been punished, and that was all there was to it. Reggie could never blame her as much as she blamed herself.
Annie gave up, puffing as she rose again, and glared at her next-door neighbour. It was always the same: Agnes Flanagan, queen of the perfect ox-blood doorstep, happily scrubbing away at hers with a stiff wire brush, getting a right lather on it with her trusty bar of soap. ‘You’ll scrub the bloody paint off if you carry on,’ Annie said, feeling an irrational amount of irritation that, right now, at least, she couldn’t have a nice, sparkling step too.
But she couldn’t – not with a belly the size of a baby hippo. With a belly, in fact, full of this bloody baby – where was it? Hopefully on its way, she thought, feeling her