Wives at War by Jessica Stirling Read Free Book Online

stolen motorcars Jackie had brought her the pale peach housecoat.
    Jackie was forever buying her things – jewellery, clothes, perfume, daft little ornaments for her dressing table. He was nothing if not spendthrift, her Jackie. All that had stopped when Dominic Manone had overreached himself, and the coppers, Rosie’s husband among them, had come snapping at his heels. Jackie had never been mixed up in the big-money rackets, however, and whatever deal Dominic had done with the forces of law and order, Jackie and his brothers had escaped without a stain on their characters. Lucky? Oh yes, Babs thought, very lucky. Bad enough having a husband away in the army, far worse having him banged up in Barlinne Prison; explaining that to the children would have been no fun at all.
    As it was, she was doing all right – well, moderately all right. She received a slice of Jackie’s army pay every week and civil service wages weren’t bad, even for a woman. She paid a shilling a day for April’s nursery school. Polly had volunteered to meet the cost of keeping the other three at Blackstone. Babs had accepted her sister’s offer with alacrity for, war or no war, Polly, being Polly, was doing more than all right for herself.
    She knew bloody well that Polly had told Rosie about the lodger, though, and Rosie had nagged poor Kenny into ‘dropping in’ to see what was what, and that the whole damned lot of them disapproved of her taking a stranger into her house. And, she thought, what about the soldier boys out there in the great unknown? What the heck do you think they’re doing, half of them? Sitting about the NAAFI every night sipping tea and playing ping pong? I’ll bloody bet they’re not. Besides, she told herself, as she parked herself on the toilet seat to shave her legs, this is nothing, a cheap thrill, if you like, that won’t get out of hand.
    â€˜Hi,’ Babs said.
    â€˜Hi yourself.’
    He was over by the wireless at the window, twiddling the knobs, a glass of whisky – Scotch, she must learn to call it Scotch – in one hand, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his lips. The wireless whined and whistled and then, responding to Christy’s delicate manipulations, released a voice jabbering in a foreign language, a voice that almost instantly melted into Monte Rey crooning ‘South of the Border’.
    â€˜I thought you’d gone to your room,’ Christy said.
    He was wearing the cable-knit sweater; so far she hadn’t seen him in anything else. He had rolled up the woollen sleeves, though, and she noted how muscular his forearms were, and how hairy.
    â€˜Not without my nightcap,’ she heard herself say.
    The bottle on the coffee table was half empty. Christy had a puffy heaviness about the eyelids that suggested he’d been tippling steadily since she’d left the living room a half-hour ago. It was late now, coming up for eleven. After Monte wandered off down Mexico way there would be a news bulletin and that curious beeping that signalled the end of broadcasting for the night.
    â€˜We could both use a snort, I guess?’ Christy said.
    â€˜Pardon?’
    â€˜Neat, or with ginger ale?’
    â€˜Oh – eh – neat.’
    He poured a shot of whisky into a chunky glass and carried it across the living room. He walked with a rolling gait, like a seaman, toes turned in. She wondered what it would be like to dance with him. He gave her the glass, took the ciggie from his lips and held out his glass for a toast.
    â€˜Here’s to family,’ he said. ‘Here’s to Kenny.’
    â€˜What d’ you mean?’ said Babs.
    â€˜You didn’t expect him tonight, did you?’
    â€˜Well, no, I didn’t,’ Babs admitted.
    Glasses touched, clinking. He lingered close for a moment, looking directly into her eyes and not down the neck of the housecoat, which is what most men would have done under the