harden. He forced himself to go slowly knowing that, despite all her wildness, Gloria would be a virgin.
‘Don’t worry, darling,’ he said huskily, ‘I will try not to hurt you at all,’ and he began gently to remove her nightdress.
Immediately Gloria slapped his hands away. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Didn’t your mother speak to you about what might happen tonight?’
‘A bit …’
‘What did she say?’
‘She said that you might ask me to do things I might find strange, but I must submit to them because I am married to you now.’
‘Is that all she said?’
Gloria shrugged. ‘Mostly. At least she said that men always seem to set great store by it, and that it’s really not so bad when you get the hang of it; that I might even get to enjoy it myself sometimes.’
Despite Joe’s frustration he laughed. ‘Did you understand one word of what she was talking about? And did she explain what “it” was?’
‘No,’ Gloria admitted. ‘She might as well have been talking double Dutch, but I felt I couldn’t ask anything because she seemed so embarrassed, but I do know she never said anything about taking my nightdress off. I have never gone naked to bed.’
‘Darling, how can I make love to you if you are keeping your clothes on?’ Joe asked.
He suddenly felt sorry for Gloria. He had held back during the courtship and wanted to hold back no longer, for, though he hadn’t expected Gloria to be experienced, he did think she would at least have been informed. But now he dampened down his ardour, cuddled her in his arms and told her what married men and women did in bed together.
She was shocked initially, there was no denying that, but she wanted to please Joe and so she allowed him to remove her nightdress and submitted to his kisses. At least she began by submitting to them, but then it was as if Joe’s kisses unlocked the passion Gloria had suppressed. Joe’s hands stroking her body, fondling her breasts, and his lips nuzzling at her nipples caused sharp shafts of desire to shoot through her and she moaned and groaned with ecstasy. When Joe’s fingers slid between her legs, she arched her back. Joe knew she was ready and he was smiling as he entered her.
The sudden sharp pain caused Gloria to cry out and then it was forgotten as waves of exquisite joy swept over her again and again.
‘All right, my darling?’ Joe asked as they lay still, entwined together. ‘Did I hurt you?’
‘A little.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Never be sorry for what we did tonight,’ Gloria said. ‘You have made me happier than I can ever remember being.’
And she was, for she felt as if she had been engulfed with total bliss and her love for Joe was greater than ever.
Gloria and Joe returned from their wonderful honeymoon to find that Brian had bought them a Cadillac as a wedding present. With Joe at work all week, Gloria had charge of the car to go into New York on shopping trips, or to meet her friends for lunch, and in the evenings and at weekends she and Joe would often take off in it somewhere together. They had thought to begin a family straight away but each month they were disappointed.
They assured each other that these things take time, and meanwhile there were any number of distractions to be had in New York, and they had good friends to visit at weekends. They told themselves that they were young and free, and maybe it was as well to stay that way for a while.
However, they were fooling themselves. Each month Gloria’s longing for a child grew greater and she dreaded feeling the drawing pains in her stomach that meant they were once more unsuccessful.
Then just after Easter, Brian had a funny turn at work and Joe drove him home and sent for the doctor. He advised Brian that he had to take life at a slower pace if he didn’t want his heart to give out altogether. Joe had seen his father have the same warning and not heed it, but he had been a younger man then with no authority to tell his father what to do.
With Brian the relationship was totally different. ‘You have to do as the doctor says,’ Joe said. ‘What’s the point of having him come to see you otherwise? After all, I am here now. Over the years you have taught me well and you will be near at hand if I need advice.’
Brian knew that Joe spoke the truth, but he growled, ‘And what will I do all day? Now if you were to do the business and give me a grandchild, which I thought you would have done by now, I would be as happy as Larry to stay at home more.’
‘You can play about with your stocks and shares,’ Joe told him. ‘It’s what you love to do anyway. And didn’t the doctor tell you to take more exercise? A brisk walk every day would use up some of your excess time.’
‘You are ducking the issue, man.’
‘What issue?’ Joe asked, though he knew full well.
‘I want a grandchild to gladden my heart and give me a reason for living long enough to see him or her grow up.’
‘Aye,’ Joe commented wryly. ‘Well, we can’t always have what we want.’
‘Why’s that?’ Brian demanded. ‘Is there a problem? Shall I ask the doctor to take a look at you both?’
‘There is no problem,’ Joe said. ‘Leave well alone. These things take time.’ And surely, he thought, there couldn’t be anything serious wrong. He was as fit as a fiddle and so was Gloria, and he saw no reason why they wouldn’t soon have a child of their own.
However, the years passed and each month Gloria was sunk in despondency, especially as she knew her parents were waiting anxiously. She had a wonderful, happy life, money was no object, and she could have anything for the asking. Added to that she had loving parents and an adoring husband, and yet the thing she wanted above all this, a child, eluded her.
In the summer of 1929, when Gloria and Joe had been married almost three years, she said to him, ‘Don’t you think it’s strange that there has been no sign of a child, Joe? Maybe I should do what Mother wants and see the doctor?’
‘What can a doctor do about something like that?’ Joe asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Gloria said. ‘But it wouldn’t hurt to have a word.’
Joe said nothing else, but Gloria knew he didn’t want her to go to the doctor and discuss their most intimate affairs with him, and so she said, ‘I won’t bother the doctor yet. Maybe I’ll go next spring, if it doesn’t all begin naturally.’
She felt, rather than heard, Joe’s sigh of relief as he said, ‘Your father at least has something else to occupy his mind for now. He is buying shares left, right and centre, by all accounts. He doesn’t have to come into the office each day, but he insists, but I don’t let him do much. Actually he seems to spend most of the day on the telephone to the Exchange, buying and selling shares.’
‘He’s always been the same with stocks and shares,’ Gloria said. ‘I don’t really understand it.’
Joe shook his head. ‘I don’t want to understand it,’ he said. ‘Seems like a mug’s game to me. Even Bert’s at it. I thought you had to be really wealthy, but apparently not. You buy on something called a margin, Bert said. First a person borrows the money and then uses that to buy stock, so he can put the stock up as collateral. The whole thing is decided by the value of the shares, which apparently go up and down continuously. When they rise, you collect the dividend. Then if they drop, as they did earlier this month, he said you raise some more cash and wait for them to go up again. He wanted me to go in with him.’
‘I’m surprised that he wasted his breath on you,’ Gloria said. ‘You don’t even trust banks. You have a stash of money in a biscuit tin.’
‘What’s wrong with that?’ Joe said. ‘I have