Wartime Wife Read Online Free Page B

shillings.
    ‘You’d better go now.’ If she sounded rude, she didn’t care. She didn’t like Mrs Riley. She didn’t like her sort. She was only here on sufferance because she was in a pickle.
    Thrusting two half-crowns into Mrs Riley’s podgy palm, Mary Anne bundled the woman out of the door, pointing her towards the back gate. ‘Get out that way. I don’t want my husband to see you.’
    Mrs Riley waved a hand as though she were swatting a fly. ‘I knows what you means. That five bob ’uld be over the bar of the nearest pub. I used to ’ave one like that – drunk before dinner and sozzled before supper … Powdered glass – put that in his grub. That’ll calm ’im down,’ said Mrs Riley. ‘Killed mine stone dead.’
    ‘Be on yer way. I’ll mark you down and trust you without yer signature. You’ve got the five bob, now it’s five and six if you want the tablecloth back. You’ve got a week.’
    She wondered whether Mrs Riley really had used powdered glass to do away with her husband.
    ‘You know where to find me, Mrs Randall. Every woman around here knows where to find me …’ Hesitating, she grinned as though there was a secret bond between them that would forever remain that way – if she chose it to be so. ‘You might be needin’ to see me again, specially if the stuff don’t work.’
    Mary Anne replied through gritted teeth. ‘Well, let’s hope it do.’ Mentally, she promised herself she’d do all in her power not to allow the situation to arise again, though how she’d keep Henry Randall from claiming his ‘rights’ would be far fromeasy. He sulked if she refused him, his temper building up like a spoiled child about to throw a tantrum, although in his case it was normally a fist.
    The hammering at the front door intensified. He never came round to the back door – thank God. Slamming the ledger shut she hurriedly put it back into its hiding place.
    ‘All right, all right,’ she shouted, safe in the knowledge that he couldn’t possibly hear. ‘That door will be off its hinges going on like that.’
    She threw the tablecloth in the cupboard above the boiler. She had a sneaking suspicion Mrs Riley wouldn’t be back for it. She certainly hoped not. The vision of it sparkling on her parlour table wouldn’t go away.
    She hid the bottle behind the boiler with the ledger. No one must know she had it, and no one would. It was rare for her girls to help her with the washing, and then only under duress and later in the day when her clients had all done their business. Some husbands worked shifts. Few wives were inclined to let their other halves know that their wages had to be supplemented; men had pride. Still others didn’t want their husbands to know that they had vices. It was amazing what went on in Kent Street – some women drank, some couldn’t resist a flutter on cards or on the horses and still others couldn’t stop buying hats or shoes.
    Henry Albert Randall was still beating the hell out of the front door and singing in a deep baritone that must have all the neighbours hanging out of their windows. Her husband’s efforts to find the keyhole when he was drunk always attracted an audience, and her face reddened at the prospect. Why did she put up with it? She knew why. For her children.
    The sound of raucous singing …
    ‘
Onward Christian soldiers, Marching as to war …
’
    She pushed her hair back from her brow. At least she’d look respectable even if Henry were far from that.
    Muttering disapproval under her breath and adding a small prayer that he wouldn’t be too drunk but merely be merry, she pulled the door open.
    Her heart sank. Her stomach tightened. The brim of Henry Randall’s hat nestled around his neck, only the crown remaining on his fair wavy hair. Solemn-faced as a Sunday preacher, his hands were clasped before him as if in prayer.
    ‘I’m callin’ collectin’ for the church, madam,’ he pronounced, his voice sonorous though slurred.
    Despite not