The September Girls Read Free Page B

obsession with fast women. His once pampered, extremely resentful wife had been forced to move with their two children to a small house in Allerton. She never ceased to complain to anyone who would listen, ‘This isn’t what I’m used to, you know.’
    There was just about enough money left in the bank to live on for a few years if they cut out luxuries. Marcus and his elder sister, Georgina, had been removed from their private schools and thrust into local establishments where the education was abysmal and they had to mix with the children of the working classes.
    Their father had stuck it out at home for a year but, unable to stand his wife’s ceaseless litany of complaints, left and went to live with a woman who owned a millinery shop in Smithdown Road. On the rare occasions his wife and children saw him, he seemed exceedingly happy.
    When Georgina was eighteen, she made her own escape and married a purser on the Cunard Line. Marcus and his mother were left with only each other to protest to about the grievous injustice that life had meted out to them.
    Obliged to leave school at thirteen, he had gone to work for a firm of local accountants as a messenger and tea boy - at least it meant he had to dress respectably - and studied at night: bookkeeping, accounting, auditing, as well as the branches of maths he hadn’t touched at school such as algebra, geometry and calculus. The firm had the Financial Times delivered daily and he discovered stocks and shares and read about the vagaries of the stock market.
    By the time he was sixteen, he had become a junior clerk, but there was no chance of becoming a fully-fledged accountant without qualifications that he sadly lacked. Apart from which, even with qualifications, if the firm took him on as a trainee, he would have to pay a lump sum that would be returned to him in the form of wages. It was out of the question. His mother was getting frail and even more demanding. His salary was barely enough for them to live on.
    Upstairs, Eleanor screamed again and he wondered where the tea was that he’d asked for. He heard footsteps coming down the stairs and a male voice called, ‘Mr Allardyce?’
    It was Dr Langdon. Marcus went into the hall. The doctor beamed at him. ‘You’ll be pleased to know that you are now the father of a healthy baby girl. Your wife is as well as can be expected. She’s a delicate woman and having babies isn’t easy for her. She - and the baby - are waiting for you.’
    Eleanor looked as if she’d just given birth to half a dozen babies, not just one. She lay on the bed, her face waxen, hair limp, eyes barely open, as if every single bit of energy had been drained out of her. When she saw her husband approach, she tried to lift her hand, but it fell back on to the coverlet as if it were boneless.
    ‘We have a little girl, Marcus,’ she whispered. ‘I’d like to call her Sybil. Do you like it?’
    ‘It’s a pretty name.’ He didn’t care what the child was called. Dutifully, he looked down at the cradle beside the bed and saw a small, pale creature fast asleep under the lace covers. He touched the soft chin with what he hoped was a fatherly gesture, then, for appearances’ sake, kissed Eleanor’s wet, shiny cheek, murmuring, ‘Congratulations, darling.’
    ‘Tell Anthony,’ she whispered. ‘Tell him that he has a little sister. He must have been frightened by the noise.’
    Marcus nodded, although he had no intention of telling Anthony anything: the less he saw of his son, the better. He left the room as soon as decently possible - the doctor was muttering something about stitches - and returned to his study. On the wall behind his desk there was a large, framed photograph. He studied it thoughtfully. In the gap at the bottom, between the photo and the frame, in perfect copperplate, was written ‘ H.B. Wallace & Co. 1918 ’. Marcus was in the centre of the front row where the senior and office staff were seated: the under-manager and his