The Evacuee Summer: Heart-warming historical fiction, perfect for summer reading. Katie King

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СКАЧАТЬ line that was aging and distinctly unattractive. Peggy narrowed her eyes as she tried to think of the most hurtful retort she could make, and the mirror-Peggy frowned threateningly back. It wasn’t a pleasant sight.

      ‘Be a man, Bill. You owe me that at least, surely? No true man would keep me guessing at anything else you need to say to me.’

      It wasn’t very strong as insults go, but it was the best that Peggy could come up with at that moment.

      Peggy would never have believed even a few minutes ago, before she picked up the telephone to Bill, that she could experience such an emotional chasm stretching and growing between them, or that it could feel so treacherous or so cavernous.

      It was hard to credit how once they had been so very close that Peggy had occasionally felt as if one took in a breath, then it would be the other one who would expel it.

      There had been hiccups between them in recent years but probably not more so than most couples had to endure, Peggy had told herself on more than one occasion. But with her much longed-for pregnancy, she had wholeheartedly believed that she and Bill had safely navigated choppy waters.

      Bill rallied. ‘Maureen works, er, worked, at the NAAFI as a volunteer, an’ we’d ’ave the odd drink an’ then that became mebbe a bit o’ a laugh on the odd evening in the local pub. I didn’t see any ’arm in it at first, ’onest I didn’t, Peg – yer ’ave ter believe that.’

      With a vehement shake of her head, Peggy didn’t think she did have to believe that at all.

      Bill couldn’t see her reaction, of course, and so he ploughed on. ‘But one day ’er sister were away an’, er, well, I took the opportunity of mitchin’ off camp an’ then – an’ I still don’t know how it really ’appened – I found myself stayin’ over wi’ ’er as she was very persuasive,’ he said very quickly in a voice now higher pitched than was usual.

      ‘When was this?’ Peggy made sure her words remained low and slow, and she fancied she could feel Bill’s answering wince racketing down the telephone cord straight to the old-fashioned Bakelite handset she was grasping so tightly. She felt compelled to know all the sordid details of what Bill had been up to.

      ‘She were fun, an’ ’er ’air reminded me of yours, Peg. An’ she fair set ’er cap at me, all the lads ’ere said so. It were first on Bonfire Night that we, er, um, um, yer know, Peg … yer know! An’ I suppose that I then jus’ kept on seein’ her as mebbe I thought I could get away wi’ it as I were missin’ you right badly. But it were only if I could wrangle time away from the camp – yer know wot I mean – an’ she were ’ere and you weren’t, an’ yer know that I never liked sleepin’ alone.’ Bill had to feed some more pennies in at this point, and Peggy took the opportunity to wipe under her eyes.

      His voice rang out again, ‘I didn’t want to as such— ’ Peggy snorted with contempt at this point ‘but she were insistent, although when I got back from ’ers on Christmas morning to find that yours an’ my little love ’olly had been born, and you’d ’ad such a fright, I thought enough’s enough, an’ I didn’t wan’ ter see ’er any more, an’ I told ’er so. But Maureen wouldn’t let me go, an’ then she threatened ter telephone you “to put you right”, an’ so then it were easier ter go along with it fer a while at least, while I made up my mind what to do. Er, you weren’t there an’ anyways I thought you’d never find out.’ Bill sighed dramatically as if he was in physical pain, and as if by mere chance life had dealt him a bad set of playing cards.

      And then finally he confessed in a very small voice, ‘An’ now she’s ’avin’ my baby.’

      If Peggy had thought the news of Bill having sexual relations with another woman was the worst thing she could hear, it was now hideous to discover that with the news of his forthcoming bastard offspring came a new depth of hurt and despair. She couldn’t believe that Bill could have been so stupid or so cruel.

      Suddenly Peggy felt even hotter than she had before, and then deathly cold. Her belly slid icily lower, and for a fleeting but nonetheless terrible moment her mouth flooded with saliva and she thought she might vomit. She struggled to regain her equilibrium.

      This was the worse of all possible outcomes.

      Of course she had grasped already that sexual relations with another woman was what Bill had been up to. But to hear him actually put into words that he had made another woman – his floozy! – pregnant provoked a totally animal response from somewhere deep within her that was unlike anything Peggy had ever experienced.

      She thought about what her husband had just told her, and then she realised with a huge jolt so powerful that it was as if she had just stuck one of her fingers straight into a live electric plug socket, that she and Bill had only been apart for a mere two months before he had given into temptation despite the wedding vows they had solemnly made to each other, vows she had always been proud to hold dear.

      How could he?

      She would never have done that to him.

      How could he, the rat, the pig?

      She hated Bill right at that moment. Loathed, and detested, and – well, she couldn’t think of any other word to describe what she felt at that moment – just absolutely hated him.

      It was a hatred that felt pure and strangely fortifying.

      If Bill had been standing in front of her, Peggy felt almost as if she might have leapt at him and tried to hurt him physically with her bare hands, marking indelibly the body that in the dark she had once enjoyed running her hands over so much, such was the abject rage that immediately began to thrust furiously up and down and through what felt like every cell of her own body, her pulse thumping with a beat faster than it ever had, surpassing even its most delicious throes of passion.

      Peggy knew she verged on the unhinged as she began to shout, but she was suddenly beyond caring. ‘Did you not for one moment think about your own wife and baby, who have both been missing you and longing for you, Bill? The woman – me! – whom you made a solemn vow, standing before our friends and families in church, to honour each other come what may, or our child who was conceived after such a long time, a baby that you said that you were so happy about and that was the light of your life? Is this how you want someone to treat your own little girl, our dear Holly, when she is all grown up? Is what you’ve done the sort of behaviour and the type of person you wish for her to marry, a shallow and selfish man who is unable to keep his trousers done up? I was reluctant to come to Harrogate, but I did it because you were insistent and I wanted to keep you happy, and now I wish I’d just stayed at home as keeping you happy clearly isn’t worth a bean.’

      Peggy paused and looked downwards towards the quivering hem of her skirt caused by her trembling knees, and then she continued bitterly before Bill could say anything in his own defence. ‘That little tart. That horrible stupid little tart. Maureen? Maureen… Maureen! What sort of name is that? And you’re no better than she! You’re a pathetic excuse for a husband, Bill Delbert. What could that trollop Maureen have ever seen in you? And what did I see in you? You tell me now, this very minute, Bill Delbert, precisely when that stupid strumpet is having your baby?’

      Peggy was close to screeching, unable to control her emotions in any way, although in this maelstrom of feeling she remembered guiltily for a split second that once she’d actually had a very nice friend at teacher training college called Maureen and so actually really she had nothing against women with the name, other than this particular piece of work, of course.

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