Tony spun on her, and she winced at the look on his face. Bobby had only seen him look so utterly overcome with emotion one other time – the night Lil had been in labour, and they had so nearly lost her. She still remembered Tony, almost brutish in his grief, muttering angry prayers demanding God take his worthless life instead of his wife’s.
‘Ask your sister,’ he growled.
Lil flushed. ‘He found my coat. The one Geor— that Captain Parry gave to me.’
‘So you knew too, did you?’ Tony said to Bobby, in the same voice of strangled rage. ‘Well, of course you did. Thick as thieves, you two, aren’t you? You’ve been covering for them, I suppose. Pete told me what he’d seen. The two of them coming out of some teashop in Skipton.’
Bobby turned to her sister. ‘What?’
‘I met George there to break it off, like I told you I was going to,’ Lil said in a low voice. ‘That’s all.’
‘Break it off?’ Tony turned to face her again. ‘So there was something. How long has it been going on?’
‘It hasn’t. I swear to you, Tony, that man has never so much as touched me.’
Tony gave a grim laugh. ‘Right. He dresses you up in fur coats as a token of appreciation for making such a good cup of tea, I suppose.’
‘He gave me the coat because I was pregnant and miserable and he thought it might make me smile. It was damaged stock from his shop.’
‘And you accepted it. You, a married woman. Afur coat, Lil! You know what people would think if they knew, right?’
Lil flushed. ‘I know, it was wrong. It was so long since I’d had anything really nice to wear that I couldn’t help it.’
‘The clothes I slave away earning money for you to buy aren’t good enough, are they?’
‘I never said that.’
‘And what did he want in return for this fur coat, as if I couldn’t guess?’
‘He never asked me for a thing, Tony,’ Lil said quietly. ‘I’ll swear to that on my daughter’s life. He’s never asked me to go to bed with him. He’s never tried to kiss me. He’s never even held my hand. He was just kind to me when I needed kindness, and…’ Her blush deepened. ‘…and occasionally we’d go to the cinema. That’s all there was to it.’
‘To the cinema?’ Tony shook his head darkly. ‘I don’t bloody well believe this.’ Something seemed to dawn on him. ‘That’s who you named her for, isn’t it? The other baby.’
‘Georgia,’ Lilian whispered. ‘Yes. He was there that night my labour started. He brought help – saved my life.’
It was this, even more than the fur coat and cinema trips, that seemed to knock Tony reeling. He stared at his wife with a look of impotent horror that was as piteous as it was frightening. Bobby almost thought for a moment he might strike Lilian, he looked so wild.
‘You’d even take her from me,’ he whispered. ‘Even her, Lil.’
All the while, Annie had been crying at the top of her lungs. Florrie jiggled the little thing helplessly, white and scared, while Jessie lurked by the door as if preparing to flee.
‘Tony, can you please stop?’ Bobby begged him. ‘You’re upsetting the children.’
‘Nobody asked your opinion,’ he snapped. ‘Go home, can you, Bob? This doesn’t concern you.’
Bobby approached Florrie and held out her arms.
‘Here, my love, give me the baby,’ she said gently. ‘I think you girls ought to wait outside for your father. You shouldn’t be listening to this. Florrie, take care of your little sister please, and don’t wander off.’
Florrie nodded soberly and took Jessie’s hand to lead her outside.
Tony showed no sign of calming down. He was pacing in long strides from one end of the room to the other, hands over his ears, as if to shut out the sound of his thoughts.
‘My mam told me you were no good,’ he was saying. ‘And me, I told her to shut her mouth. Took your part while all the time you were…’ He turned to face Bobby. ‘You’re no better either.’ He sneered. ‘My friend, eh? And all the time your sister’s running around like a tart while you lie through your teeth to me.’
Bobby didn’t answer. She couldn’t trust herself to say anything that wouldn’t make matters worse.
She supposed she shouldn’t be here during this intensely private confrontation, except that there was no chance she was going to leave her sister alone with Tony in this mood. So she just shushed the poor baby, whose cries had settled to a dull whimper, pressing Annie’s soft cheek against her own.
