Free A Lesser Evil by Lesley Pearse Page B

him there would be no work for the rest of the week, and unless the weather improved dramatically, he doubted there’d be any the week after either.
    ‘Never mind,’ Fifi said comfortingly. ‘We can manage on my money.’
    ‘I’m supposed to provide for you,’ he said grumpily. ‘It’s not a very good start to the new year.’
    The bad weather continued for several weeks, with many more heavy snowfalls, and Dan’s spirits sank lower and lower when he couldn’t go to work. Fifi was very sympathetic at first because she knew it hurt his pride to live on her wages. But as time went on, and she had to battle her way through snow and ice daily while he was home in the warm flat, irritation began to set in.
    She didn’t care that he wasn’t bringing any money in, she just missed him being jolly and fun. There were no more Elvis impersonations, he had nothing to talk about, and each night when she got home, he had a glum face. He did all the shopping, cleaned the flat and cooked the dinner, but that only seemed to emphasize her shortcomings because he was far better at cooking and cleaning than she was, and an expert at economical meals.
    Whenever she suggested they went out for a change, he always pointed out how cold and miserable it was outside. He was right of course, but the real reason he didn’t want to go was because of the money. She ached to be in a noisy, lively pub, to see other people and have some fun, and she really missed her old friends.
    She wished she hadn’t been so hasty in dropping them all when she met Dan. She had always despised girls who abandoned their mates the minute they found a new man, yet she’d done just that. While it was true that a couple of them had made indiscreet remarks to their mothers, which had got back to hers, mostly she’d kept Dan all to herself because she didn’t want to share him with anyone.
    She realized now what a mistake that had been, for they could have been allies. Almost all their mothers were friendly with hers, and if they’d liked Dan, they would’ve talked Clara round. But by cutting herself off from everyone she’d inadvertently created the impression that there was something suspicious about Dan.
    Yet even though Fifi knew she alone was responsible for losing her friends, now that she was feeling miserable, she found herself blaming Dan because he hadn’t been welcoming one night when they all called round to the flat.
    It was just after they’d got married, and a whole gang of them, including Carol, the friend Fifi’d stood up the night she met Dan, turned up drunk, late one night after the pubs closed.
    She and Dan were just about to go to bed, and the flat was a bit of a mess. Dan said her friends were rude, and that it was obvious they’d only called round to check him out. He was curt with them because they were all staggering about, knocking things over and making a great deal of noise. Fifi was embarrassed when Dan asked them to leave, and she’d heard them making sarcastic comments about him as they lurched off down the stairs. She hadn’t seen any of them since.
    Even Patty didn’t drop by now. While Fifi knew full well that this was only because of the bad weather, not through ill-feeling, it still made her feel entirely marooned and friendless.
    Two weeks crept into three and four, still with no sign of Dan being able to start working again. Fifi found herself thinking wistfully about her old home, of Sunday roasts, of having her clothes washed and ironed for her. In bad moments she even found herself regretting rushing into marriage.
    Towards the end of February, after Dan had been off work for seven weeks, he had a letter from the building company telling him that they no longer wanted him when work resumed on the site. They stated that the long layoff had resulted in them needing to make cutbacks and the most productive way to do this was to offer their more senior men overtime when work commenced again.
    Dan was savage about