Who's Sorry Now (2008) Read online

  Who’s Sorry Now

  Freda Lightfoot

  Originally published 2008 by Hodder & Stoughton Ltd. 338 Euston Road, London NW1 3BH

  Copyright © 2008 and 2012 by Freda Lightfoot.

  All rights reserved.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. Nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-0-9570978-0-3

  Published by Freda Lightfoot 2012

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  ‘Another heartwarming tale from a master story-teller.’

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  ‘An inspiring novel about accepting change and bravely facing the future.’

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  ‘a fascinating, richly detailed setting with a dramatic plot brimming with enough scandal, passion, and danger for a Jackie Collins’ novel.’

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  Description

  Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters …

  Things aren’t quite that simple in the noisy, warm-hearted Bertalone family. Carmina is the glamorous one, the sexy extrovert who has the boys flocking like bees round the honeypot – all except Luc Fabriani, who for some unaccountable reason seems to prefer her sister Gina.

  Gina is quiet and shy, the apple of her over-protective parents’ eye, and much too young to have a boyfriend. Innocent and naïve, Gina believes her sister when she spreads malicious lies about Luc: what has Carmina got to gain by breaking her sister’s heart?

  But lies have a habit of being found out, and trapping the liar in a web of deceit, as Carmina is about to discover. Who’s sorry now?

  Chapter One

  1958

  It had been the worst Easter anyone could remember, a bitter Good Friday only brightening up as the weekend progressed. Wet, cold and miserable with even some snow in the south. Trade on Champion Street Market had been the worst in living memory with rain dripping from the pink and white striped awnings down people’s necks, forming puddles on the cobbles to soak the unwary. Temperatures were so low folk hurried to buy only the barest essentials before dashing home to their warm firesides.

  Today, the Tuesday following Easter Monday, many of the traders were in the process of packing up early for the day, with only the hot chestnut man doing brisk business.

  Certainly no one was interested in buying ice cream and Carmina Bertalone had been excused work and sent to buy bread and Parmesan cheese from Poulson’s. Papa issued a stern warning not to be late as the food was needed for supper. In any case, Momma liked all her brood to be present before she began serving the evening meal and he well knew how Carmina loved to dawdle and chat to the boys.

  Carmina sauntered along Champion Street, making sure the hood of her scarlet duffel coat shielded her long ebony hair from the relentless rain. Usually she liked to feel its soft thick curls drifting over her shoulders, but Papa didn’t allow this when she was working in the ice cream parlour so today she wore it neatly secured in a pony tail.

  She batted her eyelashes flirtatiously at Barry Holmes as he stacked boxes of apples and oranges in his van. Unfortunately, he was far too old to appreciate her charms. Jimmy Ramsay was old too but he still called out to her as she passed by.

  ‘You look a right bobby-dazzler in that coat, chuck.’

  Carmina purred with pleasure and rewarded him with a bewitching smile. She did so like to be noticed.

  A crowd of people were demonstrating outside the market hall. They were marching right around the city, gathering support for the New Peace Movement before delivering a petition to the Town Hall in Albert Square. Carmina paid them little attention, being concerned only in keeping her new black patent shoes dry. They had very high heels and were cramping her toes dreadfully but she wouldn’t be seen dead in anything flat and frumpy.

  She took a detour by Dena Dobson’s stall in the market hall, not only to escape the rain but also to check if she’d any exciting new skirts in stock. She lingered long enough to try on one or two, even though she had no money to treat herself until she got paid at the end of the week.

  ‘Save this red and black one for me, will you, Dena? I love these cabbage roses.’

  Big Molly Poulson was wrapping the huge yellow cartwheels of cheese in their muslin cloths preparatory to stacking them away in her cold store by the time Carmina finally reached her stall.

  ‘By heck, you Italians can get through enough Parmesan to sink a battleship,’ she said, as she carved off a large block, much as she said every week. ‘At least with your mam’s good pasta inside you, you’ll not slip down t’gutter in all this rain.’ Clearly referring to Carmina’s voluptuous curves, of which she was rightly proud.

  Carmina put down her head against the deluge and hurried over to George’s bakery to buy crusty bread to accompany Momma’s spaghetti. She was on her way back across Champion Street, dancing between puddles and trying not to slip on the slick cobbles in her high heels when she spotted her sister. Wiping the rain from her eyes she was about to call out to Gina to help her carry the load when she suddenly noticed she was not alone.

  Carmina stopped in her tracks, shock running through her like a bolt of lightening.

  She could hardly believe what her eyes were telling her. Her dull, stupid sister was talking to Luc Fabriani! How dare she? In an instant Carmina became oblivious to the rain; not even caring, for the moment at least, about her new shoes. Didn’t Luc belong exclusively to her? At least he would if she had any say in the matter.

  She stood stock still, dazed with shock, the hood of her duffel coat falling back so that her hair was drenched in seconds but Carmina didn’t even notice. Then someone bumped into her.

  ‘Eeh, sorry, chuck, I didn’t see you standing there. I nearly run you over.’ It was Dorothy Thompson, more fondly known as Aunty Dot, rushing along wheeling a big pram with one of her foster babies tucked up inside. A small boy was perched on the end, and an older girl hanging on to the handle.

  ‘We’re trying to get our errands done as quick as we can afore we get washed away.’ Aunty Dot grinned. ‘Not that
I’m complaining mind, since the Good Lord chose to let the sun shine on us on Easter Sunday. It were a miracle. Lizzie and me took these nippers to Blackpool. Eeh, it were grand. We’d been saving up for months and thought for a while we were going to be drownded, didn’t we, love?’ she said, addressing the question to the small girl. ‘But it all turned out champion.’

  Carmina didn’t trouble to reply to the silly woman, she was too busy watching Gina with Luc.

  Fists clenched, teeth gritted, she watched in mounting fury as her pathetically timid younger sister openly flirted with the boy she wanted most in all the world. No, not a boy, a man! Twenty years old and absolutely gorgeous!

  ‘We saw the clowns and built sand castles,’ the girl, whose name was Beth, told Carmina, bright eyes shining at the memory of such joy.

  Then her little brother piped up with some tale about riding in a big train and Carmina rudely ignored him too as she itched to escape their chatter, to run over and tear her sister away from her man.

  Why a woman would willingly foster other people’s children was quite beyond her understanding. Momma had produced ten, plus one who’d died, which she couldn’t understand either. Carmina wasn’t in the least interested in babies. She’d had more than enough of their noise and smells to last her a lifetime.

  Desperate to escape, she made some inane remark about being pleased the children had enjoyed their holiday and stepped back into the nearby pawn shop doorway, leaving sufficient room for Aunty Dot to give a cheery wave and go on her way.

  Carmina couldn’t believe this was happening to her.

  She needed Luc. How dare Gina steal him from her?

  Hadn’t she been practically throwing herself at him for weeks now, ever since the day he’d callously told her it was all over between them and chucked her? So far none of her usual tricks and wiles had worked, and yet Carmina had convinced herself that this coldness he exhibited towards her was merely temporary, that she could win him back given time and persistence. All that was required was the right sort of inducement on her part. Carmina’s velvet brown eyes glittered wickedly. And how could she fail to persuade him, given her attributes?

  Carmina freely admitted that she was passionate and quick tempered, her head constantly filled with wild schemes and dreams and forbidden deeds which she would impulsively put into effect without pause for thought. Her slanting, velvet brown eyes blazed with wilful determination yet could melt a man’s soul in seconds. Her wide seductive lips were eminently kissable and she had the kind of face which could transform itself in seconds from playful and sweetly kittenish to archly sophisticated or enticingly passionate.

  Gina might be reasonably pretty, in a bland, uninteresting, skinny sort of way, but she had none of Carmina’s voluptuous Latin charm. Without question the whole Bertalone clan agreed that Carmina was the beauty of the family.

  So how could Luc possible resist her?

  There had been a time a few months back when the two of them had been practically inseparable. The Fabriani family were one of the many rivals of the Bertalone’s, but far richer. Much to Carmina’s disappointment, however, Luc was showing no signs of joining the family business. He worked on a building site, labouring on a development in Salford and each day at five-thirty precisely, she used to wait for him at the bus stop.

  He would get off the bus, haversack swinging over one shoulder, all dusty and dirty in his working clothes, dark hair awry and grubby smears on his handsome face. Despite the grit and grime he had still looked incredibly sexy, acknowledging her presence with a non-committal grunt.

  He would curl one arm about her neck, or capture her chin in his hand and give her a long passionate, tongue-in-her-mouth kiss right there at the bus stop before everyone. His mates would laugh and heckle and cheer him on but Carmina hadn’t minded one little bit. She’d loved all of that. It had made her feel wanted, as if she belonged to him.

  He’d never actually said that she was his girl, but she’d known it in her heart. Why else would he have made love to her? Admittedly, Luc wasn’t the first boy she’d allowed to go ‘all the way’ but he’d certainly been the most exciting.

  His kisses were very nearly as passionate as the ones Burt Lancaster gave to Deborah Kerr in that movie From Here to Eternity which Carmina had seen at least three times when it came out a few years ago.

  Now he was kissing her sister.

  She saw how Gina shyly turned her head away when he tweaked a lock of damp brown hair, how she dipped her chin as he bent his tall, lean body to peep into her eyes. Gina had lovely eyes, they were her best feature: large and trusting, the colour of cinnamon, although she would beguilingly mask their beauty with a sweep of long dark curling lashes.

  Luc was smiling at her, that lazy, cocksure smile he used whenever he sensed a new conquest. Carmina would have killed to be on the receiving end of such a smile.

  Then, to her complete horror, he planted a tender kiss on the tip of her sister’s small, snub nose, and another on her wide smiling mouth. Carmina felt physically sick.

  She knew, in that instant, that she hated her own sister.

  At just sixteen, fifteen months younger than herself and the nearest to her in age of the seven Bertalone girls, Carmina had always seen Gina as a rival.

  Shy, and with something of an inferiority complex, Gina was the one to whom her four younger sisters would be most likely to turn to if they had a problem. In Carmina’s opinion, she was her parents’ favourite too, since she was so loving and affectionate, so special in their eyes. She’d suffered, and fortunately largely recovered, from a bout of polio. Now she exhibited the patience of a saint, always sickeningly determined to recognise the good in people, and to see their point of view.

  Yet everyone marvelled at Carmina’s stunning good looks, particularly Gina, so how could her plain little sister possibly capture the attention of Luc Fabriani when she herself had so patently failed to do so?

  Carmina’s insides knotted with such jealous rage she could hardly breathe. If it was a sin to loathe your sister, then so be it. She’d say three extra Hail Mary’s at Mass on Sunday.

  Despite the damp chill, her soaking hair and the misery of witnessing what she saw as a betrayal, Carmina couldn’t tear herself away. There were several more sickeningly sweet and tender kisses in which Gina actually stroked the rain from Luc’s handsome, angular cheeks before laughingly pushing him away. Then the girl turned on her heel and, head down against the slanting rain, hurried along Champion Street as fast as her limping gait would allow, up the stone steps into the Bertalone’s tall Victorian terraced house.

  In cold rage Carmina broke off a piece of the deliciously fragrant bread, tearing into it with her sharp white teeth while she contemplated revenge.

  Chapter Two

  From where she stood on the corner of Champion Street, Amy George could see Carmina Bertalone splashing furiously through puddles as she followed in the wake of her sister. The younger girl’s face had seemed to shine with happiness, but Carmina’s was another story. Sisters, Amy thought with a wry smile, recalling similar problems of her own. Almost as bad as a mother-in-law.

  She shivered, soaked to the skin by the rain, auburn curls springing wildly out of control and a sneeze already tickling her nose. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to leave. She was far too fascinated by the protest marchers.

  The ‘Ban the Bomb” banners were garishly painted in blood-red lettering a foot high, declaring support for the Aldermaston marchers. These were the valiant souls who had walked fifty miles or more to make their protest. Some had started in Trafalgar Square, the rest walking from towns the length and breadth of the country to merge on the Nuclear Research Base in Berkshire, waving their home-made banners and singing to a skiffle band playing ‘When the Saints Go Marching In”.

  Amy had read all about it in the Manchester Guardian: how they’d collected more and more people as they walked, and any number of blisters; sleeping in school halls or on the floor of stranger’s
houses. Some people had given them food as they marched along, clapping and cheering them on, while others had heckled, jeered and booed them. It sounded so exciting, a real adventure.

  In her heart, Amy secretly envied them.

  Only once had she dared to rebel and that was when she’d run off to Gretna Green to marry Chris. What an adventure that had been! So romantic, even if they had come close to starving. Oh, but they’d been so much in love it hadn’t seemed to matter.

  Now, a mere few months later Amy rubbed her hands over her swollen belly and wondered just what she’d let herself in for. Chris was working in the bakery with his father now and she seemed to spend more time with Mavis, her mother-in-law, than her new husband: polishing the linoleum covered floor, cleaning out the new Baxi grate, ironing, or else sewing on endless buttons. Amy was not, however, allowed to darn Chris’s socks as her stitches were considered to be too large and clumsy.

  How had it all ended up like this? she wondered, giving a sad little sigh. Even their dreams of getting a home of their own had foundered. Chris insisted that the stress of moving was too much for her while she was pregnant. They seemed to be stuck with living over the bakery with his parents. Nothing ever turned out quite as one imagined.

  The noisy crowd began to make its way between the market stalls, singing and laughing in a happy, carefree sort of way. It seemed to comprise mainly students in college scarves and brightly coloured stockings, although there were some young mums pushing babies in prams. Many of the young men sported beards and the girls had frizzy hair and big round spectacles. Amy almost wished she needed to wear glasses or went to college so that she too could appear so cool and intelligent, and ‘with it’.

  They may well be idealist trouble-makers, but to Amy they seemed to be having such fun that she felt a strong urge to join in, despite her six month bump. What would Mavis say if she did? Perish the thought.