Free Dream On by Gilda O'Neill Page A

stark bollock naked. Now come on.’
    â€˜But why d’you even bother with her, Ted? Why—’
    â€˜Look, don’t give me earache about it again, Dilys. She’s me old woman. Right? And while it suits me to have her live here, have me shirts washed, the place kept nice and be looked after—’
    â€˜But if you got rid of Ginny, I’d look after you.’
    â€˜Yeah. Right. Course you would.’ Ted snorted in contemptuous disbelief. ‘You can’t even look after yourself. Now, come on, Dilys. Play the game, girl. Get yourself dressed and get moving.’
    What Ted didn’t add was that he wanted her out of there before her brothers got in from work. Sid and Micky might have been a good ten years younger than Ted, but they had earned themselves reputations for being a tough pair of bastards and Ted wasn’t about to start messing with them.
    They now both worked in the docks, with George, their dad, who had managed to wangle them in there. And the boys couldn’t have been happier. The physical work suited the pair of them well; not only were they built like a pair of muscled-up oxen, but doing dock work had meant that they could avoid the threat of conscription – something that preoccupied most young men and their families now that the war was over and joining up all seemed such a complete waste of time.
    No, Ted definitely wasn’t interested in upsetting those two. He always liked the odds to be very much in his favour whenever he got a bit rough with someone. So he wasn’t going to start advertising the fact that he was knocking off their big sister. Especially as the arrangement suited him so very well just the way it was.
    Ted was a man who had developed quite a need for women. Not a liking for them, definitely not that, but a real need to have them do as he said, a need to have them submit to him. He was only interested in women who kept very much in their place – and that could be the bedroom, or the kitchen, he didn’t mind which – and Dilys popping over of an afternoon suited him very nicely. For the moment at least. He got his end away whenever he fancied it – which was most of the time – and his old mum got a bit of help round the house. Not much help, it had to be said, but enough to keep her quiet until Ginny got in of a night.
    Ted reached out for his jacket again and fumbled around until he had found his wallet. He slipped two pounds from a fat wad of notes and handed them to Dilys, who took them without protest. ‘Now will you shut up and get dressed? And take
one
pair of stockings and
one
bottle of scent. And then get your arse down them stairs and peel the spuds for me mum, or whatever it was you was meant to have been doing all afternoon. And then bugger off and be indoors when your family gets in like a good little girl.’
    Dilys scowled sulkily. Peeling spuds! She’d have to get things better organised than this or he’d have her scrubbing the bloody floors next.
    As Ginny turned into Bailey Street, the sight she always dreaded confronted her. There, in a pool of light from the gas lamp, she saw Ted, all booted and suited and rubbing the early evening dampness off his windscreen. He was going out again. And it was Friday. She’d be lucky if she saw him again before Monday morning. And that was being optimistic. If only she could handle him a bit better. Make him care more for her. Make him less angry with her. Try and get him to share her dreams . . .
    She pinned on a smile and broke into a trot. He hated her to be miserable and was likely to accuse her of nagging if she wasn’t grinning from ear to ear whenever he saw her. If she could at least have a quick word with him, maybe he’d stay in.
    Maybe.
    â€˜Ted!’ she called with a cheery wave.
    â€˜All right?’ he said, straightening up. He tossed the cloth he had been using into the passenger side of the car and wiped