No matter how much her mother tried to poison her mind, she knew that the woman who could lure Pat away from her for any length of time had not been born yet.
When they went out together she saw the way he was treated and she knew the temptation that was under his nose on a daily basis. Lily had the same sexual drive as her husband and so she appreciated that he had the opportunity to take advantage of it by the very nature of his business commitments. Men like Pat Brodie needed to take advantage of their freedom because they never knew when it was going to be taken away from them.
Ignoring it all was, she knew, a mindset. She just had to accept it as something that was part and parcel of his lifestyle and she was not about to throw away the best thing that had ever happened to her over something that was so trivial to her, and so unimportant to him that he forgot about it within minutes of it happening.
She had decided that she would rather live with him, and all that entailed, than be without him. She had also realised that she had to be more to him than just his wife, than just the mother of his children. She had to make a connection with him that would give them something other than their shared children in common. She was determined to become an important part of his life in her own right.
He was going to be unfaithful to her, it was something she expected and accepted. It was inevitable. She was a realist, and she hoped that her honesty would not be rewarded by her breaking her heart over his disloyalty. At least his forays into the world of strange were not a regular occurrence; unlike most of his contemporaries.
The first time it happened she had felt as if her heart had been ripped out of her chest; now she felt contempt for a woman who would allow herself to be used like that, even as she pitied her, because the life the girl lived ensured that encounters with men like her husband were a foregone conclusion.
Lily had an innate kindness that allowed her to see everyone in the best possible light. Once she had seen the inside of a club she had not seen the women as whores, or rivals in any way. Instead, she had seen them as victims. Victims of men in that they were forced by circumstances to utilise the only asset they possessed. If she had daughters, she was determined that they would be educated enough to make different choices if their life went pear-shaped.
She had once gone to one of the hostess clubs to relay a message after one of her prison visits and been witness to a punter causing World War Three over a bill. She had watched as the doorman tried to calm the situation and seen how the bill had finally been paid in full, without the hostess getting her fee. She had stepped in, and before the punter had left the premises she had seen to it that the girl was also paid in full. The doorman was left in no doubt that the hostesses were to be his priority in future as they were the ones who brought the men into the club in the first place.
Without the girls, why would the men pay the inflated prices? Why should a girl spend the best part of the night talking the man out of his money for the club and then be left out when the punter was asked to weigh out at the end of the night?
To Lil, it was ludicrous, but then she was too young to realise that the girls in the clubs were ten a penny. Pretty girls were commonplace and women willing to sit on the meat seats were legion. Men walked away from their kids without a backward glance; women, however, were not afforded that luxury, nor would they want to anyway. But they still had to earn a living so they could feed and clothe their kids, which was why the clubs were inundated with women.
The doorman, however, had humoured her that night and the girls had fallen in love with her.
It had been a difficult situation for Patrick Brodie when he listened to Lil; he had never in his life been expected to see a brass all right. But the brass in question had been an acquaintance of Lil's in the cigarette factory. Seeing her reduced to hostessing because her husband had gone on the trot, leaving her with three kids and a mountain of debt, had made the now-powerful and fair-minded Lily Brodie angry. And she let Patrick know it in no uncertain terms.
She liked the feel of the clubs anyway; she enjoyed the camaraderie of the girls, it reminded her of the cigarette factory and how she had finally felt a part of something. She found that she liked being outside the home with other women, and it brought her closer to her husband. Like any young girl, Lily craved excitement and suddenly she had it in abundance.
Now that Pat wanted her to do more in the clubs she was realising just how hard the life was for the women who had to live it. She didn't yet understand that it was the kindness inside her that her husband was exploiting because he saw the way the girls reacted to her, and how she dealt with them. Lil was a natural head girl, and she was not averse to seeing a punter slaughtered if he was not feeling inclined to pay his hugely inflated bill.
Pat was thrilled that his Lily, his heart, was willing to work for him and take the burden of the girls off his shoulders. She was now going from club to club, keeping an eye out and making sure that things were run in an orderly fashion. She had a knack for it and she also had a nose for trouble-makers, both male and female. She was good with money and tallied the takings up quicker than he ever could. She was an asset and he was pleased and amazed that she was willing to work with him, even after finding out first-hand what he was involved in. Unlike the other wives, Lily was a real asset; in the days when women were either used or exploited, she was making use of her acumen for both their benefits.
He had thought that the prostitution would have gone against the grain, she was so prim and proper in many ways. But she seemed to understand better than he did what made the women tick, and what made them sell themselves on a daily basis.
She was making her mark and she was also making sure that the clubs ran smoothly and that gave him more time for his other businesses. Some of the people he dealt with were not impressed. They saw him as being pussy-whipped but he always pointed out, when they dared say so to his face, that at the end of the day, if he couldn't trust her, who the fuck could he trust?
Lil was putting the boys to bed. She was already dressed up to go out and she was trying unsuccessfully to blot out her mother's voice.
Since her marriage, her mother had made herself busy. At first, she had been a dream, although it had taken Lily a while before she had trusted her enough to let her into her new life.
After the birth of Lance though, her second son, her mother had reverted back to her old ways. Finding fault, making remarks and it was getting more and more difficult to pretend that all was well with them.
Annie loved her first grandson, Patrick Junior, but Lance, she was absolutely besotted with him. Since the day he had emerged from her womb, a month early, kicking and screaming, she had been like a woman demented. It was as if she had birthed him herself.
Now, as Lil looked down at her boys, she wondered why she didn't feel the same way. She loved her second son, but he was such a strange child, he stared at her as if he was sizing her up. Waiting for her to make a rick of some sort. He was a handsome child, with a shock of dark hair like his father, and with Annie's pale-grey eyes. He was striking, and people had remarked on his colouring since the day he was born. But Lil's guilt over this child stemmed from the fact that she found touching him slightly distasteful. She had stopped breast-feeding him as soon as she could, reverting to the bottle with what her mother saw as unseemly haste, even though it meant she could nurse him for hours on end. Lance's skin always felt clammy to the touch, and unlike young Pat, he had a big-boned feel to him that made her uncomfortable. He was also very well endowed, which gave his father cause for ribald comments, yet made her feel uncomfortable with him. He lay there at three years old, legs splayed and still in nappies, making her mother comment that here was a boy who would do things in his own time. But Lil thought it was laziness that kept him in nappies, nothing more. Lance let Pat Junior do everything for him, and it felt wrong. He manipulated everyone around him, especially Annie. And he did it without any effort on his part at all. Even Patrick was enamoured of him but, as bad as it made her feel, and no matter how much the guilt ate at her, she couldn't see this child as everyone else did.