Free Wartime Wife by Lizzie Lane Page B

here.’
    Stanley was like a statue, stiff in her arms, though unlike something made of marble or clay, his eyes were not unseeing. He’d seen it all, and although he was not knowledgeable about what bestial act his father had been committing, he saw and reacted to his mother’s distress.
    Fixing his eyes on his father’s face he addressed his mother. ‘Why is he hurting you? Why is he hurting you?’
    ‘It was nothing,’ she said, her tongue flicking across her lip where a droplet of blood had burst through the bitten skin. ‘Just a game,’ she said, her heart racing at the incongruity of her lot. ‘Just a game.’
    With her son weighing heavy on her arms, she made her way back downstairs to the front bedroom.
    ‘I’ll kill him when I grow up,’ said Stanley.
    Mary Anne wrapped him in her arms, tears squeezing from the corners of her eyes. She kissed his forehead, her voice faltering and her vision blurred as she attempted to reassure him. ‘You were having a nightmare and it woke you up.’
    She felt him tense as her tears turned into sobs.
    ‘He hurt you. I know he hurt you. I hates him, Ma. I hates him.’
    Mary Anne held her child more tightly to her chest, narrowing her eyes against the anger brooding there.
    ‘So do I,’ she whispered softly against Stanley’s hair. ‘So do I.’

Chapter Six
    For days afterwards, Lizzie felt mortified for even considering that anyone could tell by just looking at her that she’d committed ‘original sin’. As if she were wearing a placard around her neck! Eventually, she gave herself a good talking to.
    Are you the first? she asked herself. Hardly. It was Eve that started it all in the Garden of Eden.
    There was small comfort from that fact. Eve wasn’t her and Kent Street was far from being the Garden of bloody Eden! She was Elizabeth Anne Randall and there was only one of her – at least as far as she knew.
    Her gaze kept wandering to her sister Daw. Had she done it with John?
    ‘What are you staring at?’ asked Daw as she undressed for bed in the room they shared.
    ‘Oh, I was just thinking how different your side of the bedroom looks to mine. All those toys and dolls you’ve kept.’
    Smugly, Daw took in her collection of every toy she’d ever been given. The teddy bears and the golliwogs were handmade by their mother when they were children in the wee small hours after they’d gone to bed. The dolls were bought and dressed; every bit as good as the ones she could have boughtin the shop. They all sat in a row on the chest of drawers on Daw’s side of the bed.
    Lizzie also had a chest of drawers on top of which there was only a mirror, a hairbrush and a photograph of Lizzie as a baby, taken at a Christmas bazaar. In the photograph she was chuckling, yet she distinctly remembered being determined not to laugh, until someone had made funny faces. Funny what you remember, she thought.
    When they were children they had willingly shared secrets. Lizzie was still willing, telling Daw about Peter and how they sneaked out to see each other under Mrs Selwyn’s nose. So far she hadn’t told her about giving in to him. It was like crossing a bridge, but only wanting to go halfway, wanting Daw to admit to the same sin; sharing it would make her feel better.
    ‘Don’t fiddle with them,’ said a frowning Daw, snatching a small golliwog from her sister’s hands. ‘You know I don’t like you touching my things.’
    Lizzie swallowed a sharp retort. She didn’t want to send Daw into one of her sulks. Finding out whether she’d surrendered to John’s urgings was more important. She had mentioned John wanting to, but so far there had been no sign of her giving in. Perhaps in time she might, but Lizzie was desperate to know.
    ‘Will you miss John if he gets called up?’
    Daw looked hurt, as though her sister had implied something quite insulting. ‘Of course I will. And he’ll miss me.’
    ‘No doubt.’ Lizzie sat on the bed, one leg crossed over the other