It was easy to be nice to Eddie because he was so easy-going and he soon recognised the extra warmth in Angela’s voice when she spoke to him over the next few days. However, he was more cautious this time and waited until the bar had nearly emptied one night before approaching her as she was washing out glasses and asking if she would consider going for a walk with him the following day.
‘Now Angela, I have asked you out before but you have refused me.’ He had a challenge in his voice when he spoke and those eyes of his were dancing.
‘Well I didn’t really know you then.’
‘Isn’t that why people go out together initially, to get to know each other better?’
‘I suppose, but you see, I’m not really looking for a new man.’ Angela felt a pang in her heart as she remembered Stan and his earnest eyes as he declared his feelings for her. But she pushed them away; it was no use going over old heartaches, that was done and dusted now.
Eddie smiled. ‘Maybe you don’t think you are, not consciously, but I’d say you are missing something because you seem a little lost and unhappy a lot of the time now and you have never been like that before.’
Angela felt guilty when Eddie said that because she knew she had no right to bring her troubles to work. So when he said, ‘How about it then, do you fancy the two of us taking a walk out together tomorrow?’ she nodded her head and smiled coyly, feeling shy despite being a woman of the world.
‘That’s grand,’ Eddie said. ‘Then you can find out all about me and I can find out all about you.’
‘Yes,’ Angela said. But she knew there would be no way she would tell Eddie everything about her life for there were certain things best kept hidden. She didn’t feel guilty keeping it from Eddie as she would Stan, so there was no earthly reason to tell Eddie of the rape she had endured or the child she had abandoned.
Unbeknown to her, Eddie was thinking similar thoughts, for he knew that he would be giving Angela only a very selective history of his life. He had far more of his past to hide than she had, but she was unaware of that. She told Connie that she might be a bit late the following night but didn’t say why, knowing Connie would assume it was something to do with more work at the pub. Angela let her think that, for she had no desire to share anything about Eddie yet with her daughter.
Angela still did the lunchtime shift but Breda had given her the evening off so she left early and it was half past three when they set out walking side by side. Angela wondered if Eddie was as aware as she was of the curtains that twitched in the windows of many houses they passed down the street, or of the women standing chatting on their doorsteps craning their necks to see who Angela McClusky was stepping out with.
She decided to take no notice of them. She was harming no one and she was a free agent anyway and could please herself, but she said to Eddie, ‘We’ll be the subject of gossip in many homes today I think, judging by the interest we are generating.’
Eddie gave a shrug of his shoulders. ‘If they’re talking about us then they’re leaving someone else alone. I have broad enough shoulders to take it because I believe people only take such a curiosity in other people’s lives when they have nothing happening in their own, so I take no notice and advise you to do the same.’
‘I intend to but we better get a step on because there’s not that much light these late October days if you want to go all the way to Cannon Hill Park and back.’
‘That’s true enough,’ Eddie said. ‘But we needn’t head for home as soon as the sun goes down. I thought we might go for a drink. The pubs should be open on our way back.’
‘Oh,’ said Angela. ‘I know this sounds silly when I work in a pub, but I’ve never gone into one as a customer.’
Eddie was incredulous. ‘Haven’t you really? Well, we must remedy that.’
‘Well, women don’t, do they?’ Angela said. ‘I mean, how many women do I serve in the Swan?’
Eddie nodded. ‘I take your point.’
‘And I couldn’t go in on my own, not even into the Swan. Only one sort of woman does that kind of thing.’
‘It’s perfectly respectable if a woman is with a man, particularly if the man is her husband or the fellow she’s stepping out with.’
Angela frowned and said, ‘Maybe things have changed now and I will have to take your word for that. But I do know that before the war when my husband was alive, no women, unless they were of ill-repute, frequented pubs, even with their husbands. Women could go into teashops or coffee houses, but not pubs. Not that Barry and I went to any place very often for there wasn’t the money.’
‘You loved your husband very much?’
It was a question and Angela answered emphatically, ‘I did, but Barry was more, he was my soulmate and my big brother as well as a husband. Both Barry and then my daughter, Connie, were my reasons for living. And when Barry died it was like a piece of me had broken off, as if I was no longer whole and probably never would be again.’
Eddie was taken aback by Angela’s words and he said, ‘Very few people love with that intensity, so his death must have hit you especially hard.’
Angela nodded. ‘It did,’ she admitted. ‘And his mother who lived with us had a heart attack when we got the telegram and she almost died too. She didn’t die, but was frail ever after it. Mind you, we were both proud of Barry too because he won a medal for bravery for he died trying to save the life of another.’
‘Did he succeed in saving the person?’
Angela gave a brief nod.
Eddie looked at Angela keenly. ‘Did you blame the man your husband saved for his death?’
‘Of course not,’ Angela said candidly. ‘We were at war so Barry’s life hung in the balance on a pretty much daily basis anyway and I would say that throwing yourself over someone when you see a shell sailing in the air above you is a pretty instinctive thing to do. The point is, Barry didn’t have to enlist at all.’
‘Oh. How come?’
Angela explained that because Barry worked in a foundry, and they produced many war-related products, it meant he was in a reserved occupation. By now, they had reached the entrance to the park and, as Angela had said, the day was nearly over. It was becoming dusky already, with thick, grey clouds hanging ominously low and a keen wind sending ripples across the lake.
As they walked together, Eddie had taken her hand and she hadn’t removed hers because it felt so nice. Now he dropped her hand and put his arm around her instead.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked in surprise.
‘Cuddling you because you are cold,’ Eddie said.
Angela couldn’t deny it, for she was shivering. Her coat wasn’t that warm and she felt a lot more comfortable with Eddie’s arm around her so, though it was rather an intimate gesture, she said nothing more about it. She had no time to anyway because Eddie was asking, ‘So why did your husband end up in the army then? What changed?’
‘Oh, it was understandable in a way, their loved ones out in the thick of it in France and Belgium and Barry, a big, fine, strapping chap, as safe as houses at home,’ Angela said with a slight hint of acrimony. ‘But Barry was also beginning to feel guilty. Like most firms they had lost most of their male workforce when war was declared and their jobs had been taken by women. In the beginning Barry was needed to instruct the women on the use of the new machines they installed to make things for the war, but he had to admit they picked it up quicker than he had ever thought they would and soon he felt surplus to requirements.
‘Meanwhile we were all getting snubbed by friends and neighbours we had known for years. It was hard to cope with at the time because it even happened at church, but the final straw for Barry was when he was sent the white feathers.’
‘I’d heard of that sort of thing happening but didn’t believe it really did,’ Eddie said.
‘Oh, it happened all right,’ Angela said bitterly. ‘There were three in the one envelope.’
‘Do you know who sent it?’
Angela shook her head. ‘It was pushed under the door but, as Barry said at the time, we would be spoilt for choice as to who sent it. It could have been anyone in the neighbourhood or anyone at the church or anyone else upset because Barry wasn’t in uniform. Anyway, the feathers finally made his mind up to enlist. And when he told people that he was going to fight in the bloodied fields of France, joining with their loved ones in the carnage that had already claimed far too many young lives, all of a sudden he was a “fine fellow well met”. Men who had crossed the road to avoid him were now falling over themselves to shake him by the hand and wish him God’s speed – even the priest was at it. And so he marched away and I never saw him again.’
As they continued to walk through the park and round the lake in the deepening dusk, Angela told Eddie of the death of her parents and how the McCluskys had taken her in and raised her. She explained that Barry had always been her protector from as far back as she could remember. She told how two of her foster brothers had died on the Titanic trying to reach their two older brothers in New York and how that tragic event, plus the severe illness of her foster father, prompted her early marriage to Barry.
Eddie allowed himself a little smile, though he was careful not to let Angela see. He knew, despite her love for Barry, she was almost as sexually naïve as a child. She had fallen into marriage with Barry because he was there and probably to please everyone, but she had never been courted and desired, lusted after by a man. She had never been brought to the pinnacle of desire, the point where nothing matters but stilling the ache inside her, and he looked forward to that because he was determined to be the man to light her sexual fire.
But it got better still and he went on, ‘So you have a daughter, what age is she?’
‘Fourteen,’ Angela said. ‘She will be fifteen next May and still at school because I have put her down for matriculation, which she does when she’s sixteen.’
‘Bright girl then?’
‘Bright enough I think.’
‘And who does your daughter resemble?’ Eddie asked. ‘You or your husband?’
‘Oh, people say she is the spit of me,’ Angela said.
‘Another beauty then,’ Eddie said, and then with a short laugh added, ‘Don’t blush and don’t try telling me you’ve gone through your whole life with no one telling you how beautiful you really are?’
Angela flushed, unable to answer. Barry had adored her, she knew that, but they had no need to speak of such things as they knew each other inside out. No one had ever complimented her or looked at her in the way Eddie was looking at her now.
‘Angela, believe me when I tell you that you are gorgeous, exquisite, and you’ll have to get used to me using endearments like those. I want to shower you with them.’
‘Oh I hope not,’ Angela said fervently. ‘I would be so embarrassed.’
Eddie gave a throaty laugh and swung Angela into his arms, holding her tight. Though she tensed, he only kissed the top of her head.
‘You darling girl, he said fondly. ‘Now if we’re going to take a dander around this park, we’d better get going before darkness overtakes us altogether.’
They walked on arm in arm and Angela felt her heart lighten and a tentative happiness which she had thought she might never feel again flow through her body.
Angela enjoyed her time at the park with Eddie, who made her feel so special in a way no one had done for a long time. On their way home from Cannon Hill Park, Eddie bought them both fish and chips. Angela didn’t allow herself the pleasure of fish and chips often and she thought them delicious, and eating them from the paper with their fingers as they walked somehow felt deliciously daring. They had just wiped their hands on the paper and thrown them away in a bin when they came upon The Trees public house.
Eddie consulted his watch with the help of a street light and said to Angela, ‘The pub’s just open, I thought it would be by the time we were making our way back. So how about washing the fish and chips down with a couple of drinks?’
Angela hesitated. ‘Ah no Eddie, I’d really rather not.’
‘Come on,’ Eddie said reassuringly. ‘It’s completely all right. Times have changed and we will look as upright and sensible as it’s possible to be.’
Angela shook her head. ‘I’d be uncomfortable, Eddie.’
Eddie placed his hands on her shoulders and looked deep into her eyes. ‘Would I ask you to do something wrong?’
‘Um, I … I suppose not.’
‘Definitely not,’ Eddie said. ‘Now link your arm through mine and we will go in together with our heads held high.’
Angela allowed herself to be led inside, although her insides fluttered with nerves and she kept her head lowered.
Once inside, despite feeling very uncomfortable, Angela peeped a look around but it wasn’t that much different to the Swan. The bar was lit by hissing gas lights, though it was still very dim. The smoky grey windows let in very little light, as she knew from experience, and none at all once the sun had set. It was now dark outside and getting cold so the windows were misted up on the inside anyway.
The floor, she noticed, was made of wooden blocks, and wooden tables and leather studded chairs were scattered here and there. Before the gleaming polished bar was the almost obligatory brass pole and bar stools. Against the bar were the line of pumps, the optics at the back and on the shelves above were the pint glasses. Set into the wall was a fireplace, with a fire laid but not yet lit, and across the ample mantelshelf were many toby jugs.
It was all very familiar to Angela, as was the smell of the various drinks served and the blue fug of cigarette and cigar smoke that swirled in the air. Angela took in all this and also the fact that, despite Eddie’s assurances about it being quite respectable if a woman was taken there by a man, she saw no other woman in there. But she told herself she was in a similar establishment nearly every day and no one thought any the worse of her for it, and it wasn’t as if she was going to drink anything alcoholic. However, despite the spirited words she told herself, she couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable and Eddie caught the look and drew her closer and whispered in her ear.
‘Hold your head up high, Angela. You are worth twenty of them and have a perfect right to be here. So sit yourself down and stop worrying about every blessed thing and tell me what you want to drink because my tongue’s hanging out.’
Angela was a little nonplussed by this because, although she’d served behind a bar for years, she had rarely tasted alcohol and the smell in the pub had put her off seemingly for good.
‘Lemonade, I suppose,’ she said.
Eddie stared at her in amazement, for working in a pub as she did he had expected her to be a drinker. But he didn’t want her to be satisfied with lemonade that night because in his experience women and girls were usually much more compliant with a drink or two inside them.
‘Don’t you want anything stronger?’
‘Better not,’ Angela said. ‘It might go straight to my head as I’m not used to it. Anyway I don’t like the smell of alcohol, never mind the taste. Lemonade will be fine.’
‘Leave it to me,’ Eddie said and the drink he brought to the table a little later was light red. She took it from him uncertainly and sniffed and it smelled nothing like anything she’d ever served either.
‘What is it?’
‘Port and lemon,’ Eddie said. ‘It’s what all the ladies drink.’
‘Is it?’
‘Oh yes,’ Eddie said with some authority. ‘Have a sip. I think you’ll like it.’
Angela loved the port and lemon and she thought nothing so deliciously purple could be that strong, especially as Eddie said ladies drank it.
‘I’ve spent all the time we’ve been out talking about me,’ Angela said. ‘Now it’s your turn, Eddie.’
Eddie, however, was rather sketchy about his life, which he said was very uninteresting. Angela knew that men didn’t talk as much as women and she asked him instead about America and he painted a picture very like the one she’d imagined reading her brothers’ letters.
‘I’ll tell you more when I get us both another drink,’ Eddie said. ‘Your glass is empty and I could do with another. Do you want the same again?’
Angela nodded her head eagerly. She liked it very much and this time when Eddie handed to her he said, ‘Now listen Angela, you’ve got to take it a bit steady drinking alcohol or you’ll be falling over. You can’t knock it back like you do lemonade and it will affect you quicker because you’re not used to it.’
‘I know.’
‘Do you feel all right?’
‘I feel wonderful,’ Angela said, for she did feel as light as air and without a care in the world. The worries she carried all the time wedged between her shoulder blades had shifted and she felt freer than she had for years.
‘How did you end up in America?’ she asked.
‘Well, like you, we had to leave Ireland to save us all starving to death. Once in England my father found it hard getting any sort of regular work, but my mother had an elder sister, Minnie, who’d married a man called Sam Winters and gone with him to America years before. With the help of a rich benefactor, Uncle Sam had been able to open a business. However, they’d had no children and Minnie had died two years before and, knowing the dire straits we were in, he wrote for us to join him. My mother was so upset for she’d had to leave her parents and sister behind in Ireland knowing she would never see them again.
‘I remember I was very ill with seasickness on the journey, and so was my mother, and we both felt pretty wretched. But the others, who avoided sea-sickness, caught cholera and by the time we arrived in New York, my father, two elder brothers and young sister were at the bottom of the ocean and there was just my mother and me. My mother looked after the house for my uncle and he sent me to a good school and made me work extremely hard. He was incredibly strict and if I misbehaved at home, or in school, or didn’t get good enough grades for homework or in exams, he would whip me with a horse whip he kept in the study. Huh, I’ll tell you I felt the sting of that whip a fair few times when I was growing up.’
‘Did you hate him?’
Eddie shook his head. ‘D’you know, I didn’t. I sort of respected him and he said he would train me up to take over the business if I could show him that I was intelligent enough.’
‘And were you?’
‘Huh, I had to be,’ Eddie said. ‘I knew if I was to fail I would be out on my ear because he was that kind of man. He would have probably have kept my mother on because she could be of use to him keeping house and warming his bed, for we hadn’t been there a couple of months before she had jumped into bed with him.’
‘Ugh.’
‘I didn’t blame her,’ Eddie said. ‘She probably had little choice in it, but whether she did or not, she probably enjoyed it as much as he did. They always seemed on very fond terms and if they gave each other a bit of pleasure there was no problem as far as I was concerned.’
Angela thought there was a great problem with being so sexually free, but could hardly criticise Eddie’s mother.
‘What do your brothers do out there?’ Eddie asked.
‘They went into the car industry,’ Angela said. ‘No one could really understand it in Birmingham, for we didn’t have that many petrol-driven vehicles at the time. But their sponsor said it would be big business before that long and so it’s being proved, at least from what they say.’
‘Yes,’ Eddie said. ‘England’s been falling behind somewhat. Investment fell because of the war, but it has been building up steadily since then.’
‘What d’you do then?’
‘We deal with imports and exports,’ Eddie said. ‘For our manufacturing industry we need iron ore, steel and mineral oil which we get from Great Britain. In return we export wheat, tea, sugar, cotton and machine tools.’
‘Oh, and when your business has been concluded will you return to America?’
‘Don’t know,’ Eddie said. ‘I have been going back and forward for a while now and Uncle Sam has been talking about setting up a base here in England. I’m here to drum up as much business as I can to see if it would be worth our while, so this trip anyway I might be here for some time. Would you like it if I was?’
‘It really is none of my business.’
‘That isn’t what I asked you,’ Eddie said, nudging her elbow and giving her a knowing look. ‘If I was to stay we could see more of each other. Would you like that?’
In the early days when Angela first began working behind the bar she had got a lot of attention and been asked out by a fair few regulars. In the main, though, they had been married men, and not only that but neighbours, so their wives were known to her. So she had not only refused them but berated them too, though in a bantering kind of way, gently making fun of their suggestion so that few were offended by it. They were, after all, just chancing their arm, and were left in no doubt where Angela stood and what she meant, and very few asked again. But with Eddie it was different. True, he was a regular at the Swan now, but he had no wife or children and was quite exotic, coming as he did from the States.
She had never been asked such a question in such a way by anyone and she blushed as she found herself saying, ‘Yes, I’d miss you very much if you were to go away and I would like to see more of you.’
Eddie saw the blush, which only made Angela look more gorgeous than ever and somehow naïve. He knew that she blushed through embarrassment for she would probably think it fast to tell a man how she really felt. Ladies didn’t do that, certainly not at this stage in a relationship, and he guessed it was the unaccustomed alcohol that was loosening her tongue. That suited him but she was having no more: he wanted her malleable and compliant, not staggering about the place and throwing up all over him.
So he put his hand over hers, which caused her heart to hammer in her chest and her blush to deepen. She lifted her head and her eyes were held by the look in his and he said, ‘You must know how I feel about you, Angela. I have longed for this moment. I thought it would have to stay in my imagination when you refused to come out with me.’
‘I know,’ Angela said in a low voice. ‘I was silly.’
‘So we’ll do this again?’ Eddie said as a question. ‘I don’t mean go to Cannon Hill Park every time of course. I mean, would you like to go out with me?’
And Angela heard herself saying, ‘Oh Eddie, I’d love it. I’d just love it.’
Eddie lifted her hand and kissed it gently and the blush flooded back into Angela’s face again. She was so excited for that had never happened before and she felt she might die with happiness.
‘Drink up, darling,’ Eddie said. ‘Time to get you back home.’
Angela glanced on the clock on the wall and exclaimed, ‘But it isn’t quite half seven yet.’
But Eddie knew to leave a girl still wanting more and he said, ‘It’s better not to be too late. Your daughter …’
‘Will not even miss me,’ Angela finished for Eddie. ‘I warned her I would be late and she is quite old enough to get a meal for herself and she will have her head in her books by now. She has mountains of homework.’
‘Even so,’ Eddie said. ‘It’s late enough for a first date and we don’t have to go straight home, but I can’t love you as I want in a pub.’
Angela gave a small gasp, but she withdrew her hand from Eddie’s and drained the port and lemon as he’d asked her to. She felt it trickle down her throat and a warm glow seemed to envelop her. She had a broad grin on her face when she turned to Eddie, feeling suddenly grateful that he had been so kind to her and given her a really nice time. She tried to say this but her words were a little slurred, but Eddie brushed her words aside anyway.
‘I enjoyed myself too, but there are ways of showing a man how grateful you are that are a thousand times better than words,’ he said.
Angela didn’t answer because she was having trouble standing up, her legs seemed to have a mind of their own. She was embarrassed, but Eddie knew what ailed her.
‘Come on, you old lush,’ he said good-naturedly and he hauled her up. She swayed slightly as he fastened her into her coat and tucked in her scarf around her, for he knew the night would be cold after the pub.
Eddie linked his arm through Angela’s and she wasn’t even aware of the looks of the other drinkers eyeing her and Eddie and shaking their heads. They made their way to the door, but when the night air hit Angela, she staggered and would have fallen to the ground if Eddie hadn’t grabbed her.
A man going into the pub looked at Angela’s vacant face and remarked, ‘She should take more water with it.’
‘Maybe,’ Eddie agreed good-naturedly. ‘She isn’t used to it.’
‘And she shouldn’t get used to it,’ the man said irritably. ‘Alcohol isn’t for the fairer sex. They should stick to tea and buns.’
Eddie turned away with a smile as the man went into the pub and thought of the cocktail-drinking women of America who populated the speakeasies springing up all over the place. Speakeasies were the only places in the whole damn country where a person could have a drink of any sort, and even these were raided periodically for there was Prohibition in America and alcohol was banned in the whole country.
Such a law was hard to enforce, however, and it gave rise to a great deal of smuggling. Many police turned a blind eye to what was happening behind the closed doors of a speakeasy and women loved their colourful cocktails in their sugar-crusted crystal glasses and the cigarettes they smoked in their slender holders.
Fortunately, the exchange had gone over Angela’s head and they began to make their way up Bristol Street, Eddie supporting Angela while she concentrated on putting one foot before the other. When they reached the warren of back-to-back houses, Eddie turned away from the main road and ducked down into the mean streets. When he came to an alleyway he judged far enough away from the main road, he turned down in the semi-privacy of the alley.
He had been affected by Angela’s nearness to him on the journey home and had a throbbing ache in his groin, but knew he had to bide his time to win her over. He took her in his arms and she resisted and pulled back, thinking it was too short an acquaintanceship to be so familiar. But far from letting her go, Eddie held her tighter against him so that she felt the bulge in his trousers. She felt a little alarmed, although the fact that he was aroused excited her too. She thought any sexual desire had been turned off in her body, for it was many years since any man had touched her, but she remembered the way she had always felt when Barry had taken her in his arms and she had shivered in anticipation.
But then she reminded herself she had been married to Barry, while Eddie shouldn’t be taking such liberties. She knew she should rebuff him and yet, when his lips met hers, she gave herself up to the kiss, despite knowing in her heart of hearts that this was wrong. When he teased her mouth open and she felt his tongue slip between her lips, she couldn’t stop the moan escaping from her any more than she could have stopped the sun from shining. She kissed him back with eagerness, feeling shafts of desire shoot through her body.
Eddie was surprised Angela had let him go so far on their first date. He had felt sure that she would be far more buttoned-up than that and could only assume it was the drink that had loosened her inhibitions. He wondered just how much Angela would let him do before she put the brakes on. She began to tremble, and he tore at the buttons of her coat in his haste to feel her breasts beneath his hands.
However, when he began to run his hands over her body, it stirred a memory in the recesses of Angela’s mind. The very last time a man, several men, had laid hands on her in that way, and in the same sort of place, had been the start of her nightmare that culminated in her doing something so heinous to a helpless child.
All she knew was she couldn’t let it happen again, and so when she began fighting Eddie with thrashing arms and screams to leave her alone she wasn’t fighting him, but her abusers. However, he didn’t know that and thought for a moment the unaccustomed drink had caused some sort of brainstorm.
Eventually he managed to capture the flailing arms and held them against her body with one hand, while the other covered her mouth lest someone hearing the screams might come and investigate who was being murdered. The one thing that Eddie hated more than anything was to be denied what he wanted and to be thwarted in his need of a woman and getting sex from her. He felt a hot anger rising in him, but his head was also working. He knew when he caught sight of Angela’s panic-filled eyes in the light of the hissing gas lamp in the street there was more to her reaction than her merely objecting to a bit of slap and tickle, especially when he remembered her response to the kiss.
So, despite the kicks she continued to aim which had caught his shins more than once, he pushed his anger down and tried to speak gently.
‘Angela, don’t be afraid. It’s me, Eddie, and I mean you no harm.’
Seeing that these words calmed her, he said the same words over and over again like a litany until suddenly Angela sagged against the bricks of the alleyway. Eddie took his hand from her mouth and she put her hands over her eyes. The tears came like a torrent that spilled from her eyes and dripped through her fingers while Eddie stood and waited for her to be calmer.
And when she was, he said, ‘Angela …’
‘I can’t tell you,’ she burst out. ‘I can tell no one and it means I can never have a relationship with anyone.’
‘Even me?’
‘Anyone.’
‘Oh Angela, no,’ Eddie said. ‘That’s not right. You are a young woman yet and you have so much love to give.’
Angela shook her head so violently the whole alleyway swayed before her eyes and she said, ‘Not physically.’
‘Can you tell me why?’
Angela continued to shake her head vigorously. ‘No, no. I can’t tell anyone.’
Eddie had an idea what had happened to her, but if she wouldn’t speak about it they were going to get nowhere so he said, ‘Whatever happened you can’t speak about, but what if I try and guess and ask questions and you just say yes or no?’
‘No. No one must know.’
‘You won’t get over this bottling it up,’ Eddie said. ‘No details, no names, just some idea of what happened. All right?’
The tears had begun to trickle down Angela’s cheeks again, but she gave a brief nod of the head.
‘Were you attacked?’ he asked.
Angela nodded and added through her tears, ‘By three men.’
Eddie knew that the more information he got from her the better. It might come in handy in the future. ‘Was it a bad attack? You know what I mean by that?’
‘I understand and it was as bad as it can be.’
‘Where did this happen?’
‘Here.’
‘Here?’ Eddie said incredulously and then added, ‘Or do you mean in an alleyway like this?’
Again there was a nod.
‘Was it a long time ago?’
Again there was a nod and then Angela added, ‘In the war and it was the last time anyone put their hands on me. Sorry, I can’t get it out of my mind. You better find someone else who can love you properly.’
‘No. I want you to get over this,’ Eddie said. ‘So I will love you as I want to and but I will stop the minute you tell me to. Then we will see if we can get over this barrier that stops you fully enjoying a relationship.’
Angela stared at him. ‘I can’t ask this of you.’
‘You’re not asking, I’m offering.’
‘Wouldn’t you like to go out with someone less complicated?’
Angela saw Eddie’s lips turn up in a smile as he said, ‘No, I really like a challenge. Now come here,’ he commanded her, ‘and give me a kiss. Those at least you don’t seem to mind.’
‘Oh no, Eddie, I will kiss you any way any time,’ Angela said, and as she melted into his arms and gave herself up to the kiss, waves of desire rose in her.
Eddie thought it wrong to push her after what she had told him and contented himself with tightening his arms around her, holding her so close she could feel his hard body against her own. She sighed for she felt protected and safe and happy and she hadn’t felt that way for many a year.