‘It’s been three years since your Michael died,’ he went on quickly. ‘You must have needs, Grace.’ His hand was on her knee again. ‘I have needs too.’
She jerked his hand away. ‘You have a wife!’
‘She doesn’t give me what I want, Grace.’ He was giving her that hangdog look of his.
‘For God’s sake!’ she snapped. ‘I’m not sixteen any more. If that’s all you’ve got to say, take me back.’
It was obvious he wasn’t ready to give up. ‘We could come to some arrangement. I really want to be with you, Grace. You’ve still got your looks and a bit of powder and a new hairdo would do wonders for you.’
‘How dare you!’ She was furious. Mostly with herself for believing he had anything honourable to say but also for being stupid enough to get into his car. She should have known where this was leading. ‘I want to go home.’
‘I could make your life so much easier,’ he went on. ‘How about I set up an account for you in the new Hubbard’s? It’s a lovely modern store and you could buy any dress you like.’
Grace grabbed the car door handle, but he held her back. ‘If you won’t do it for yourself, think about that girl of yours. I could get her into secretarial college. If she passes the exam, she could get a really good job, something with prospects. You’d likeyour girl to get on, wouldn’t you, Grace?’
‘Now look here, Norris,’ she said coldly. ‘I’m not going to be anybody’s tart. Me and mine are not for sale.’
His hand went up her skirt and groped for her knickers. ‘Come on, girl,’ he said huskily. ‘You know you’d like it. You used to be a little firebrand when you were young. I reckon I could relight that fire again.’
She flung her hand at his face and her finger caught him in the eye. He sprang back into his seat with a howl of pain and lashed out with his arm, hitting her on the side of her head. ‘You stupid cow,’ he spat. Now Grace wasn’t sure what to do. The most sensible thing would be to get out and walk but he had brought her at least three, maybe four miles from home. In the split second before opening the door and getting out, she heard voices. Grace glanced behind them and saw a woman and her three children heading in their direction. Up ahead was a little thatched cottage. There were no other houses in the lane. The woman most likely lived there.
‘Norris,’ she said as firmly as she could despite the sickening feeling gripping her whole body, ‘are you going to turn this car around and take me home or am I going to scream blue bloody murder and let that woman call the police?’
Without another word, he started the car. They drove back in silence but as he dropped her near the crossing, he snatched her arm again. ‘Think about it, Grace. I could cut your rent if you prefer. I’ll wait to hear from you.’
‘Then you’ll have a bloody long wait.’
As she slammed the door, he pointed a finger at the glass and shouted, ‘I’m warning you, Grace Rogers. You’d be a fool to make an enemy of me.’
Five
When Grace got back home, to her surprise, Rita still wasn’t back from school. She wasn’t unduly concerned. Rita had probably stayed on in the gym for netball practice or something. Grace set about getting the tea ready. She didn’t have many potatoes left in the enamel bin. She had seen some seed potatoes in Potter and Bailey’s but if you bought them, you had to sign a paper to say you were going to use them for planting. Grace supposed they would come round to your house and check up on you in the spring so she didn’t chance it. She only peeled two. That would be plenty for her and Rita. Bonnie was the one with the big appetite. She sighed and bit back her tears. This was almost as bad as the feeling she’d had when Michael was killed. Almost but not quite.
The loss of her husband was final, she’d known as soon as she’d got the telegram that she would never see him again, but the ‘loss’ of her daughter was cloaked in hope, the hope that one day she would walk through that door again. She sighed. She didn’t want to think of Bonnie ill or, worse still, lying in a ditch somewhere, but sometimes the darker thoughts crept in uninvited. She cleared her throat and swallowed the aching lump that had formed. Be rational, she told herself. There was no reason to think that any harm had befallen her. She had to accept that Bonnie had run away, that was all.
Seeing Norris had unsettled her again. Whatever women saw in the man now she couldn’t think, but when they were young, he had been a lot better looking and he could charm the birds from the trees with that silver tongue of his. He’d made no secret of his desire for her when they were youngsters but why now? Why did he still want her when he could have the pick of any girl in Worthing? The years hadn’t been kind to him. These days he was a thickset man with large jowls and a paunch. The richer he became the less attractive he became but he didn’t seem all that bothered. He really thought money could buy him anything and he was ruthless. The business with the rent had been going on for years and because people were reluctant to talk about money it had taken ages for them to realise that they were all paying different amounts. There was no doubt that if he cut Grace’s rent, it would make life a lot easier, especially now that Bonnie’s wage wasn’t coming into the house, but she wasn’t going to succumb to him – even if she had to wear frayed jumpers and eat half a potato for her dinner for the rest of her life. She still had her pride and her good name, for God’s sake.
As well as the potato shortage, there was a paper shortage and the butcher had said there was little hope of poultry being on the menu for Christmas, unless, of course, she wanted to use the black market. Grace had never done that. She didn’t want to do it on principle and besides, they charged such high prices.
Rita burst through the door in a state of high excitement and, hardly stopping to draw breath, she blurted out that she’d been to Hubbard’s.
‘Whatever for?’ Grace wanted to know.
‘I thought someone might be able to tell me something about Bonnie, Mum.’
Grace stiffened. ‘And did they?’
‘Not exactly,’ said Rita. ‘When I got there, the girl in the office thought I had come for an interview.’
Grace lowered herself onto a chair. ‘We always said you would leave school at Easter.’
‘I know, Mum, but hear me out, will you? This woman – she had tightly permed hair and a big tummy like you wouldn’t believe – she rattled off so many questions, I could hardly think straight. She looked such a sight, Mum.’ Rita waved her arms and strutted about, mimicking the woman and making her mother smile, in spite of herself.
‘What sort of questions?’
‘Was I punctual, did I have a clean bill of health, did I have clean habits, was I teachable and how would I treat a difficult customer. By the time I cottoned on to what was happening, Mum, I felt too embarrassed to say anything. So I ended up being marched up to the ladies’ fashion department.’
By this time, Grace was laughing.
‘It’s so different now,’ Rita went on. ‘There’s no trace of the fire and it looks really classy.’
The whole town had been stunned by the fire which ripped through Hubbard’s in the early hours of Wednesday 22nd August. The upper floors had been totally gutted and the damage below was extensive. The fire itself was put out in less than an hour but it took no less than twenty fire crews to do the job, some coming from as far away as Crawley. The family firm reopened the store in time for Christmas, just, and although they had paid their staff since the fire, it was rumoured that they were already short-staffed.
‘I was only there five minutes when I was introduced to Miss Bridewell, the manageress,’ Rita went on, her eyes dancing with excitement. ‘“Would you consider being a Saturday girl, Miss Rogers?”’ Rita mimicked her affected accent. ‘“The