Songbird by Josephine Cox Page A

that Alice might enrage him further, Madeleine stopped her. “Alice, don’t! He’s gone crazy.”
    “He’s always been crazy,” Alice said loudly. “It’s just that you’ve never believed it.” Taking her behind the bar, she ran the cold tap and with a clean bar towel, dabbed at the cuts until they were cleaned, then she went to the first-aid box and smeared them with antiseptic ointment. “Thank goodness they are only superficial,” she consoled her friend. “But they’ll take a while to heal, nevertheless. In a minute or two, we’ll get a taxi and go to University College Hospital, to get them seen to properly.”
    Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Drayton in his office, pacing up and down like a wild animal. “Whatever sent him off on the rampage like that?” she asked worriedly.
    Maddy blamed herself. “I should never have gone away for all those weeks. I thought it might make him value me more; instead, it made him think I had a lover.” She was shivering with shock; she was grateful when Alice took off her coat and wrapped it round her.
    “But that’s ridiculous! You’ve always worshipped the ground he walks on — though
why
, I’ll never know. Look! I’ll tell him how it was, that after the big row you had, it was me who persuaded you to put some distance between you for a time. I’ll tell him there was never any other fella, that there was nothing underhand going on.”
    Jerking away, Madeleine shook her head, and the pain made her cry out. “I don’t want you to go anywhere near him,” she said. “He wouldn’t listen anyway.”
    “Oh, he’ll listen to me. We’ve clashed many times, and he’s threatened to be rid of me — but I’m still here. That’s because I keep this club operating smoothly where previous people have almost run it into the ground, robbing him blind in the process.” She squeezed Maddy’s hand gently. “Unlike you, my girl, I’ve learned to stand up to him.” She dialed the local taxi firm. “A cab will be here in a minute.”
    Madeleine kept a hold on her. “No, Alice. Leave him be for now. It was my fault for telling him tonight, after me just turning up without warning. I should have told him tomorrow morning in the light of day maybe, when he might have been more rational.”
    Alice’s curiosity was growing. “Told him what? It must have touched a nerve, whatever it was, for him to blow up like that.”
    Madeleine was still dwelling on Steve Drayton’s reaction. “I hoped he might be pleased,” she said, and began to sob.
    Exasperated, Alice tried again. “So, what was it you told him?” Then the truth hit her like a ton of bricks.
“My God! You’re pregnant!”
She understood it all now. “I should have known, what with you refusing food and cutting out the alcohol. Yes, and the other week, Jack told me you’d been sick all morning.” She recalled the moment. “You’d been looking peaky of late, so I did wonder.”
    Sobbing, Maddy admitted that yes, she was pregnant, but, “Steve refuses to accept that he’s the father. He’s convinced I’ve been with somebody else… called me a dirty little slut.”
    “You’re well shot of him,” Alice said gently. “And don’t you worry, everything’s going to be all right.” Her face was wreathed in the widest smile. “Oh Madeleine, you’re going to have a baby — isn’t that wonderful?”
     
     
    At the Emergency department of the local hospital, a nurse cleaned the cuts again and removed a tiny sliver of glass from the biggest one. She warned Maddy to only wear her stage makeup for the shortest time — to take it off as soon as possible, to allow the skin to breathe and to heal.
    After a cup of tea and some biscuits, Maddy was feeling a lot better. Alice’s excitement was infectious, and by the time they’d taken another taxi to Whitechapel, where Alice lived, Maddy had promised herself that everything was going to be all right.
    Alice herself was not so sure. In spite of