Love Changes Everything (27 page)

Both children were overtired and somewhat subdued. Trixie helped Cilla to get ready for bed while Jake put Jimmy into his pyjamas. There was no rough and tumble or games and both children settled down straight away and didn't even ask for a story.

‘Poor little devil, he looks lost in that big bed all on his own,' Jake remarked when he came back downstairs.

‘I know, but Daisy can't be bothered to get a cot for him. She says they've managed all this time without one and that he's too big for one now.'

‘You don't like Daisy, do you?' Jake smiled. ‘I can understand why; she looks a right floozy with her bright red lips and the black around her eyes and that brassy-looking blond hair. Anyone can see it's artificial, so why does she bother?'

‘You'd better ask her,' Trixie laughed. ‘And while you're at it ask her why a woman of her age tries to dress like a flapper with her short skirts and high heels.'

‘No fear!' Jake exclaimed in pretended horror. ‘She might clock me one. Or if your dad was around and heard me asking questions like that then he might do it for her.'

‘Fancy a cup of tea?' Trixie asked as she cleared away the dishes her dad had been using for his meal when she'd gone out. ‘I'm afraid there's nothing stronger.'

‘Tea and a chat will be fine.' He smiled. ‘I've been wondering if you've started making any plans for the future?' he said as he drank his tea.

‘Not yet, but I did intend to do so. I brought home an instruction book from the library to try and learn typing and shorthand, but I didn't get very far with them. Practising typing on a paper keyboard wasn't very easy and I couldn't make head nor tail of those funny little squiggles in the shorthand book. I suppose you need to have some proper lessons to start you off.'

‘Can't you manage to go to night school?' Jake frowned. ‘That's the best way to learn.'

‘I did think about it but then Daisy moved in and that put paid to the idea because there was the problem of needing someone to be here to give Jimmy some supper and put him to bed . . .'

‘That's Daisy's responsibility, not yours.'

‘Yes, I know, but Dad seems to expect me to do it, and to keep the peace I just went along with it. I didn't want any shouting or fights because it upset my mum so much.'

‘That's all very well, but it's your future that's at stake. You hated it in the factory.'

‘Well, I don't suppose I'll be going back there again in a hurry, not now that Mum's taken a turn for the worse. I'll be needed here to look after her and Cilla, won't I?'

‘And to continue to look after Daisy's kid as well, by the sound of it,' Jake said angrily.

After Jake had gone home Trixie thought a lot about what he'd said and she knew he was right. Unless she stood up to her father and Daisy and told them she couldn't look after Jimmy, she was going to find herself responsible for him for ever.

She wouldn't waste any more time thinking about it, she told herself, she'd wait up and tackle them both when they came in from the pub. They probably wouldn't be late tonight because her dad would be worried and want to know how her mum was.

It was well after midnight when Daisy and Sam came home, and both of them were unsteady on their feet. Daisy was laughing so much that she was crying and her make-up was streaked all down her face. Trixie took one look at them both and knew it was pointless trying to discuss anything with them while they were in that state.

She felt so angry that her dad had gone out and got so drunk while her mother was lying desperately ill that she went off to bed without a word and left them to sort themselves out.

Next day when she went to the hospital the news was not good and when her dad came home that night all thought of night school went out of her mind.

Maggie hovered in a semi-conscious state for almost a week before dying in her sleep. Trixie was heartbroken and Cilla utterly bewildered by it all. If it hadn't been for the support she received from the O'Malleys, especially from Jake, who seemed to be constantly helping her, she didn't know how she would have got through the next couple of weeks.

Her dad made arrangements for the funeral and for a few evenings even managed to stay away from the pub, but once it was all over he returned to his normal ways.

Every evening, the moment they'd finished their meal, Daisy tarted herself up and she and Sam went out for a bevvy. It was often almost midnight before they returned home and they were usually so tipsy they could barely stand up.

Trixie felt devastated by his behaviour because it was callous even for him, but she decided to leave it till the weekend and then she would tackle them about the situation and point out that she needed some free time to go out.

She rehearsed what she was going to say over and over in front of her mirror and kept reminding herself that no matter what her dad said, or what interference there was from Daisy, she would remain calm and not lose her temper.

As it happened her father forestalled her. When he didn't come home on Saturday when the pubs closed after their midday opening Trixie wondered if he'd had an accident of some sort.

It was a lovely summer day and she'd planned to take the two children to St John's Gardens to play but had felt too anxious to do so.

It was almost six o'clock before he finally turned up. Daisy was with him. As usual she was dressed up to the nines, only this time she'd gone even further than usual and was wearing a new bright blue dress and a matching straw cloche hat which was trimmed with a mass of pink roses at one side. Trixie noticed that her dad also had an enormous rose in his buttonhole.

‘Sit down, Trixie,' he told her, and she could smell that he'd been drinking. ‘Me and Daisy have something important to tell you. We've been along and got spliced.'

He started laughing, a big belly laugh, a sound that Trixie hadn't heard from him since she'd been a small girl. It was as if he was extremely amused about something. Daisy joined in, screeching noisily in unison with him, as if sharing some huge joke.

‘I'm your bleeding stepmother now,' she chortled. ‘You'll be doing things my way from now on, not any old how like you did when Maggie was alive.'

Trixie was shocked into silence as she stared from Daisy's highly painted face to her father's bleary eyes. She tried to tell herself that this couldn't be happening, that her dad couldn't mean it.

‘You can't have done, Dad. It's only a month since Mam's funeral,' she gasped, the colour draining from her face with shock.

‘It's been long enough for us to give notice at the Register Office, hasn't it, Sam?' Daisy defended boastfully, looking up at him with a knowing smile.

‘What can you be thinking of, Dad?' Trixie persisted. ‘What on earth will people say?'

‘I don't give a bugger what people think or what any of them say and that includes you as well, my girl. Daisy and me are shacking up together and if you don't like it, then you know what to do; get out and take your sister with you.'

Trixie stared at him dumbly, her eyes filling with tears and her throat constricting as she tried to hold back her sobs; her heart ached she missed her mother so much. It was hard enough to come to terms with her loss, let alone accept this new development.

She stared at Daisy with loathing, wondering how her father could possibly let this raddled harpy take her mother's place in their home and in their lives.

She looked across the room to where Cilla and Jimmy were playing together, oblivious of what was happening, and wondered how she was going to explain this to Cilla.

If only she could find a way to do so she'd like nothing better than to do as he said and get out, take little Cilla with her, and start a new life for them both somewhere else, but how could she when she had no money, no job and nowhere to go?

Her father and Daisy both knew this and that she had no option but to knuckle down and accept the situation whether she wanted to or not. From the smug smile on Daisy's face Trixie knew that from now on she would be at her beck and call and that it wasn't going to be easy because Daisy would be hard to please.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Trixie soon found her life becoming almost unbearable as Daisy revelled in her new role as Mrs Jackson. She made it obvious right from the start that she regarded Trixie as nothing more than a skivvy; someone there to do her bidding.

Usually Daisy and Sam wanted nothing to do with looking after Jimmy but now they both undermined Trixie's authority by spoiling him a great deal and because of this he was often naughty and disruptive. They were forever bringing home little presents for him or Sam would take him on his knee and feed him tit-bits from his own plate.

Both of them completely ignored Cilla. Daisy made it quite plain that she couldn't stand the sight of her. If Cilla went up to her she pushed her away and it upset Trixie to see the look of bewilderment on the child's pretty face.

The first change Daisy instigated was to move Jimmy into the small room that Sam had been using, which was no more than Trixie had expected. What she hadn't counted on, though, was that Daisy insisted that Cilla's little single bed should be moved in there for Jimmy to sleep in. This meant that whether Trixie liked it or not she was forced to have Cilla sleeping in her bed.

Jimmy didn't like being in a room on his own. He would try and creep into Trixie's room and into bed with Cilla but this meant that the two of them caused ructions and neither of them managed to get to sleep even when they were very tired indeed.

Whenever Trixie tried to put a stop to it by taking Jimmy back to his own room it usually resulted in Jimmy howling and crying so loudly that none of them could get any rest.

The other big change that both saddened Trixie and, at the same time made her blood boil, was that Daisy immediately began disposing of anything that had belonged to Maggie. It wasn't simply her clothes; Trixie could have understood that, but all her mother's favourite ornaments and even some pieces of furniture that had been part of their family home for as long as she could remember.

Daisy's taste was not what Trixie was used to. The garish colours and ornate bits and pieces that Daisy either bought new or picked up from Paddy's Market or second-hand shops jarred on her eyes and nerves. To her surprise her father seemed to like them and was forever saying how much brighter and more cheerful their home was since Daisy had moved in with them.

Trixie noticed that the only thing he did object to was when Daisy threw out the old but very comfortable black leather armchair that he'd always considered to be his special chair.

Daisy replaced it with a smart sofa that was upholstered in bright blue plush. It was reserved for her and Sam and no one else. Not even little Jimmy was allowed on it and if he so much as dared to touch one of the brightly covered, blue and black striped cushions with their ornate gold tassels which were piled up on it then he was shouted at or even smacked by his mother.

Daisy had also replaced the sturdy repp living-room curtains with floral cretonne ones which were in a jazzy pattern of blue, gold, black and white. In the bedroom that she now shared with Sam there was a rose-pink gaudily patterned artificial silk counterpane and matching frilled pillowcases.

Trixie wondered where all the money was coming from, but she knew better than to ask any questions, even when a tallyman started calling regularly each week. It was no longer any of her concern since Daisy had taken control of the purse strings.

Daisy was the one who now did all the shopping. She didn't go to the market, or wait till late on Saturday in the hopes of buying meat that the butcher knew wouldn't keep over the weekend at a bargain price. Daisy only bought the freshest meat and vegetables and seemed to be prepared to pay top price for them.

Trixie found that she was expected to make appetising meals for Daisy and Sam from whatever cuts of meat and assorted vegetables Daisy decided to buy.

They no longer sat down to eat as a family. Trixie was told to use up the previous day's leftovers to make a meal for her and the children. Then she was expected to cook something quite different for Sam and Daisy and serve them separately.

Their nightly excursions to the pub still went on and Trixie found that she was no longer able to go out in the evenings. The only time she ever managed to see Andrew was on Saturday afternoons or occasionally on a Sunday when she was taking Cilla and Jimmy for a walk to St John's Gardens.

He seemed to be pleased to see her but he always looked slightly annoyed when she turned down his invitations to go to the pictures with him during the week. Lately, she noticed, he hadn't even asked her.

‘Surely Jimmy's mother would keep an eye on him and Cilla for one night down the week,' Jake suggested when she asked him if he would explain things to Andrew.

‘Of course she could, but she won't. I even asked Dad if he would keep an eye on them so that I can go out now and again on my own, but he simply scoffed at the idea.'

‘Well, you didn't really expect him to agree to do something like that, did you?' Jake said in surprise.

‘Oh, I don't know; it's amazing how much he's changed in the last few months. If Daisy asks him, he does things about the place; things that he'd never have dreamed of doing for my mum when she was alive,' Trixie sighed.

‘Does he still go out boozing as much as ever, though?' Jake probed.

‘Oh, yes! They both go to the pub every night as well as at the weekends; he's well and truly under Daisy's thumb,' she admitted resignedly.

‘And you are under hers,' Jake commented despairingly.