Nameless by Jessie Keane Read Free Book Online Page A

along, he never bothered to paw over her any more, and that was a relief in a way. But it still left her feeling rejected, less than a woman. It was like she was a slave, a nothing, kept to do the housework, raise the kids, run the shop . . .
    ‘You want to stop that bloody racket!’ bellowed Ted suddenly, making her jump.
    The music stopped.
    The spell was broken.
    ‘Let’s get off to bed,’ said Ted irritably.
    Alicia followed him indoors. She only glanced back once.

12
     
    When Betsy next met up with Charlie she didn’t tell him about what Vi and Ruby were up to. Friends were friends, she wasn’t going to drop Ruby in it. And anyway, she didn’t want to say a single thing that would upset Charlie or make him mad at her. She was already beginning to realize that Charlie could get mad at the drop of a hat.
    She and Ruby had been friends all through school and beyond. They met frequently and sewed and made cakes together when they could get the rations to do it. It was Betsy who had explained to a panicking Ruby that she wasn’t dying when she got her first period at the age of twelve, that it would only last for a week and then she’d be fine again. It had been Betsy who explained the facts of life to Ruby – that the man put his thing inside the lady and then they had a baby. Ruby hadn’t believed her, she said the whole thing sounded crazy.
    Betsy felt sorry for Ruby, in a superior sort of way. Ruby couldn’t help the fact that she had no mother, that she was . . . well, coloured. Although how that could be, given the whiteness of Ted, Charlie and Joe, she couldn’t even guess. But Ruby couldn’t help it that her father was a drunk and a religious nutter. She couldn’t help it if people talked about her brothers because they’d avoided the draft and were into all sorts of dodgy dealings. She couldn’t help coming from a bad family.
    Betsy was magnanimously determined to help Ruby, to continue to be her friend forever, and it galled her – just a little – to see how star-struck Ruby was becoming around the older and more glamorous Vi. She was Ruby’s best friend in all the world. But the way Ruby was starting to hang around with Vi, you wouldn’t think it.
    If Ruby was giving Betsy cause for concern, at least Charlie was not. She loved being out with Charlie. People had begun to defer to him, tipping their hats. He would shake their hand, pat their shoulder, and she was impressed. He was a big man in the neighbourhood, and she was his girl.
    Betsy loved Charlie. Every time she saw him her heart nearly stopped in her chest, she was so stricken with love for him. And she knew he felt the same about her. She was the luckiest girl in the world. Soon they would get engaged, then married; Charlie would look after her and there would be babies, loads of them, dark-haired little boys like Charlie and pretty little blonde girls like her. She was so happy she could burst.
    Charlie had acquired a flashy motor, something a bit similar to the one Tranter used to roar around the bomb-battered streets in. Betsy wondered if it actually was Tranter’s old motor; Charlie seemed to have taken over everything else that had belonged to him.
    One night he drove them down to the Mildmay Tavern in the Balls Pond Road at Dalston. Charlie said he had a bit of business to do there, which was fine with her. She liked to see him doing well, being the big man; he was soon to be her fiancé. She was proud of him.
    When Joe and one of the other toughs who always seemed to be hanging around the Darke boys got in the back though, she pouted a bit.
    ‘But, Charlie, I thought it was just going to be you and me . . .’ She hadn’t expected a mob-handed outing.
    ‘Shut up, darlin’,’ said Charlie, and it was said fondly – but in such a way that she thought she better had.
    The pub was busy, people out trying their best to enjoy themselves even though Hitler was giving them all a bit of a bashing one way or another. They all