‘No, he won’t, darling. You’ll always have scars as a reminder of what happened but you’ll still be just as handsome. If anything, the scars will make you look more manly.’
‘That’s what one of the doctors said,’ Matt sighed ruefully. He gingerly touched his nose. ‘I lost a couple of teeth but at least they didn’t break my nose.’ He couldn’t smile but a twinkle came into his dark eyes. ‘I wish I could make love to you.’
‘So do I. We’ll be able to soon.’ Hannah gazed down at the rug on the floor. She didn’t want to spoil Matt’s good spirits but she had to tell him some of the news she’d been holding back. When she looked at him he was gazing out of the window at the sea which was just visible from this room.
‘Wind’s getting stronger all the time,’ he said. ‘Must be rough for the boats out there today. I expect they’ll be back early. Looks like a gale’s blowing up. Will you ask Jeff to come and give me a report on the…’ His mind went blank for a second. ‘On the, um, Misty when he gets back? With me being laid up for so long and the expenses we’ve had, I’ll have to sort out our finances.’ He sensed a heavy quietness in Hannah and began to panic. ‘What’s the matter? Nothing’s happened to the Misty, has it?’
‘No, and I’m not worried about money. We’ll get by. I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you. I’ve waited until you were home to tell you.’ She swallowed heavily to stop the tears lurking dangerously behind her eyes. ‘Matt… I–I lost the baby.’
He stared at her blankly for a minute then looked down at her middle. ‘You mean… I hadn’t noticed… I…’ Suddenly he groaned so loudly that those below looked up over their heads in anguish. ‘My God, Hannah, when did it happen?’
She clasped his hand tightly in both of hers and now she couldn’t stop the tears from falling. ‘It was on the day you were attacked. You were so ill you didn’t realise that I wasn’t able to be with you for nearly a week.’
Weeping angry, frustrated tears, Matt cried, ‘I was looking forward so much to our new baby. I’m sorry, Hannah. Sorry I wasn’t there for you.’
They couldn’t hold each other but she crept up beside him and placed her face against his shoulder.
‘That bastard Kittow has a lot to answer for,’ Matt muttered after a while. ‘He struts around like he’s got the world by the throat while ruining other people’s lives.’
‘Let’s forget him for now,’ Hannah said, drying her eyes. ‘Let’s just enjoy being like this together.’
A little later when Matt had fallen asleep, Hannah looked out of the window at the new house down the street. Hatred was burning in her heart.
Chapter 19
The night was lashed by a fierce south-easterly gale and torrential rain. It battered the boats against each other and the harbour wall. Huge waves thundered into the cove. The howling wind, like a demented, vengeful spirit, gusted through the narrow streets and alleys, whipping tiles off roofs, blowing off shutters, bringing down chimney pots, electricity and telephone lines, rattling windows and doors, demolishing chicken coops and scattering loose objects about the village.
Matt slept fitfully and Hannah cradled his head against her breast. Nathan woke up crying and she brought him into bed with them and he slept in the crook of her arm. She wasn’t comfortable but having her two men close against her body at long last brought balm to her troubled soul.
Further down the street, lying fearfully in her bed as the storm raged, Melanie screamed when the door of an outside closet somewhere close by was wrenched off its hinges and sent crashing to the ground.
Grace hastened to her room and searching about in the darkness found her curled up in a tight ball under the covers, clutching her comfort blanket ‘There’s nothing to worry about, sweetheart. It’s only the wind.’ Grace felt about to see if she’d wet the bed. It was dry. ‘I think you’d better pay a visit to the bathroom before you settle down again.’
‘Here, I’ve got a light,’ Daniel said from behind her, holding up his lighter.
‘Thank you.’ Grace shivered. She was nervous herself, having never experienced weather like this before, and she was heartily relieved Daniel was home. With Melanie gripping her nightdress, she led her to the bathroom.
When they were out on the landing again, a sweep of grit hit the long narrow window on top of the stairs and Melanie screamed in terror. Grace picked her up and whispered, ‘I’m frightened too.’
‘There shouldn’t be any damage to this house,’ Daniel said confidently. ‘It’s new and strongly built. Get Melanie back into bed before she gets cold.’
Melanie had a vice-like grip on Grace’s neck and her face was buried in her shoulder. ‘She won’t be able to settle with all this noise going on, Daniel. I usually bring her in with me. I’ll sleep in her bed for the rest of the night.’
‘There’s no need for that. There’s plenty of room in our bed,’ Daniel said. Putting his arm round Grace, he led them into the master bedroom.
Grace was pleased at his thoughtfulness. He hadn’t ignored Melanie since he’d stalked out with Dumpy but he hadn’t been very friendly towards his daughter either; with Grace he’d alternated between indifference and hostility until she’d assured him she wanted him as much in bed as ever. One small incident stuck in Grace’s mind. Daniel had stretched past Melanie on the sofa to stop one of the kittens scratching at a cushion. Melanie had flinched and retreated to the floor, her little face dark and closed. Daniel had seemed appalled by her reaction to him.
‘I wasn’t going to hit her, Grace,’ he appealed to her. ‘Tell her I wasn’t going to hit her.’
‘Why don’t you tell her, Daniel?’ Grace replied warily. ‘Obviously the men in her mother’s life used to hit her. She doesn’t trust men.’
Daniel glared at Grace for a moment, then picking up Melanie’s sketchpad and pencils he held them out to her. ‘I’m sorry if I frightened you, Melanie. Will you draw a picture for Daddy?’
Melanie nodded and complied apprehensively, taking her pad and pencils away to a chair and sitting there while she drew a picture of the kittens sleeping in their basket. She showed Daniel the finished picture from where she sat.
‘Very nice,’ he said shortly, then sighing impatiently he had left the house.
The incident had not brought father and daughter much closer but Melanie did seem a little less in awe of him now.
Grace put Melanie in the middle of the large bed then they all lay down together. Melanie turned to her and snuggled into her body. All three listened to the wind whistling round the house.
‘I was afraid of the wind when I was a kid,’ Daniel said suddenly.
‘Were you?’ Grace was astonished. ‘I didn’t think you were afraid of anything.’
‘Old Rufus used to tell me the dead rose from their graves on stormy nights and took naughty boys back with them to be their slaves. One night the old bugger rattled on my bedroom door and put on an eerie voice, saying he was a spirit come for me because I’d put a pile of gull droppings on Mr Nunn’s doorstep. I was brave enough in normal circumstances but not with the wind threatening to blow the roof off.’ He caressed the back of Melanie’s head. ‘I’ve hated the thought of children being frightened in storms ever since.’
Melanie responded to his touch by moving on to her back. ‘Dumpy,’ she said feebly.
‘He’s all right,’ Daniel said. ‘I brought him off the boat when we battened it down. He’s in his bed in the kitchen.’
‘Dumpy fri-tened,’ Melanie whimpered.
‘She’s worried about him being all alone,’ Daniel said, getting out of bed. ‘I’ll go and fetch him.’
Grace didn’t like the idea of having the scruffy little dog in the bedroom but she didn’t dare protest.
Daniel lifted the covers and put Dumpy into Melanie’s arms. Then he got back into bed and stretched out his arm, cuddling her and Grace into him. ‘This is cosy,’ he said, sounding satisfied. Grace stroked the bulging muscles on his arm. ‘Yes, it is.’
‘Are you going down to see if the boat’s damaged?’ Grace yawned when he returned.
‘Wind’s still too strong to be able to do anything yet. Should blow itself out in a couple of hours. Then the village will need all hands to mop up. It’ll look like we’ve been in a war.’
Getting back in bed, he took Grace in his arms. She wrapped herself round him, revelling in the closeness of his hard, lean body. She expected him to make love to her immediately but he lay still for some moments. ‘I shouldn’t have taken Dumpy away from Melanie before. She likes him. He’s happy on the boat but I’ll bring him home when we’re moored up.’
‘Melanie will like that.’ Maybe he’d keep a check on his temper when he was at home, too. It had taken her four days to coax a word out of Melanie after he’d shouted that day and she was usually tense when he was around.
Leaning over her, Daniel kissed her, his passion rising quickly. Grace returned his caresses and was eager for him. Suddenly he stopped and she opened her eyes to see a serious expression on his handsome face. ‘Are you still dead against us having kids?’
She ran her fingertip down his cheek. ‘I didn’t go back to the doctor, Daniel.’
‘Why not?’
‘I thought I’d leave it to fate.’ Despite his wickedness, Grace was so frightened of losing him she’d have a dozen babies to please him.
He grinned down at her. ‘So you could be pregnant now?’
‘I could be.’
He kissed her lips and muttered huskily, ‘Let’s make sure of it then.’
The wind turned and blew the heavy purple clouds out to sea, remaining in occasional spiteful gusts to re-distribute the litter and exacerbate the destruction it had wilfully created. There was little fuss as the villagers picked their way over the debris and surveyed their property for damage. The recklessness of the weather had left Porthellis looking like a battlefield many times before in even the youngest fisherman’s lifetime and no doubt would do so again. Neighbour began to help neighbour good-naturedly with the necessary repairs.
Windows had been smashed, including one in Grace’s shop. Leaving Melanie happily with Dumpy and Nan Trebilcock, she teamed up with her uncle and they went round the village making a list of people’s requirements for repairs – from those who could afford it. Then they drove to St Austell to buy the materials and report the loss of the electricity and telephone lines.
‘How will the other people manage, Uncle David?’ Grace asked as they navigated the roads strewn with foliage and branches, occasionally having to stop and clear the way ahead. ‘The ones who haven’t got the money for repairs?’
‘They’ll get by no matter how tight the fit but the villagers are very adept at knocking up chimneys and things,’ the minister replied as he looked cautiously upwards out of the windscreen for loose branches that might be about to fall on the car.
‘I could organize a fund-raising event for those who are really in hardship,’ Grace said. She was thinking particularly of the Rouse family whose lugger had been ripped free from its mooring and hopelessly smashed on Slate Rock.
‘The villagers won’t want charity,’ the Reverend Skewes said soberly, thinking how his flock wouldn’t countenance anything organized by Grace no matter how well-meaning; they were not hostile towards her but she was first and foremost Daniel Kittow’s wife. ‘We usually have a Christmas bazaar and social evening in the middle of December. We could bring, it forward. I’ll get your aunt on to it and I’m sure she’ll be glad of any ideas you can come up with.’
At mid-morning Daniel was walking home with Colville Penrose, his new engineer and father of the rest of his crew, to collect some tools from his garden shed.
‘I thank the Lord the Sunrise didn’t fare badly,’ Colville said in his deep accent. He was a short man with a solid look about him, squinting eyes, iron-grey hair under a flat cap and side whiskers. He compressed his thick lips as some people they passed on the quay bid him a gruff good morning but ignored Daniel. ‘Won’t take us long t’put her frights, I reckon.’ He stepped over a section of split wood, realised it was part of the Ship Inn’s sign board and handed it over to Maggie Curnow who was glaring at both of them.
‘Stupid mare,’ Daniel snorted. ‘She don’t like us because we don’t use the pub.’
Colville wondered why his skipper, who frequented all the pubs at Newlyn, spurned the local drinking establishment, but he didn’t question his employer.
‘The Sunrise is a fine craft,’ Daniel said proudly, pausing to pick up some sharp-edged broken roof tiles and put them safely against the barkhouse wall. Colville helped him. ‘Some of the others won’t be able to put to sea for at least a few days.’
‘Pity about the Rouses’ boat. Roy’s son’ll have to postpone his wedding. Me and the boys didn’t own the Prudence but ’twas a tremendous blow to we when she sunk off the Wolf a few weeks ago. The Lord delivered us from the sea then.’ Knowing Daniel’s amoral nature, the deeply religious Colville couldn’t bring himself to give the Lord the credit for what he said next. ‘Good job for we you offered us work straightaway. Wonder what the Rouses’ll do now.’
‘Who cares?’ Daniel shrugged as they carried on. He stepped into the doorway of Grace’s Gifts out of the strong wind to light a cigarette.
Colville’s long slanting eyebrows furrowed into a frown. ‘You shouldn’t think like that,’ he quietly admonished his skipper. ‘Mind you, Porthellis isn’t a very friendly place. Don’t matter too much to me and the boys, we’re working most of the time, but the missus has been getting a bit upset. She’s always been a good chapel woman but she feels out of place here. She hasn’t been invited to join none of the women’s groups. That woman Spargo next door can hardly put two civil words together to her.’ Mrs Penrose had argued strongly against her menfolk taking up Daniel’s offer of work and a cottage. Colville felt a pang of guilt at his insistence that they should; his sweet-natured wife pleaded constantly that they go back to Newlyn where they had friends and family.
‘’Tis nothing to do with you, Colville,’ Daniel told him. ‘You’re working for me and the whole village hates me. Prim Spargo is Matt Penney’s mother-in-law and they think I put my old crew up to attacking him.’
Colville felt like a man failing in his Godly duties as he recalled how he’d overlooked the rumours about Daniel’s involvement in the Matt Penney incident, rumours which he knew were probably true. He was concerned, too, about packages that had changed hands between Daniel on the Sunrise and an unfamiliar sailing yacht off the Dodman last week. Daniel had made it clear he expected his crew to keep silent about it. Colouring selfconsciously, Colville said carefully, ‘Aye, we heard that.’
‘Well, that’s all in the past now. At least the Misty wasn’t damaged so Penney won’t have nothing to worry about there.’
‘You think ’tis true he won’t never be able t’fish again?’
‘Sounds like it.’
‘That’s a terrible thing.’ Colville shook his head grimly.
‘Cut the bullshit, Colville,’ Daniel snapped, tired of his engineer’s subtle attempts to get him to see things his way. He began to walk up the hill. ‘You’ll never have any luck trying to convert me and you know full well I hate Matt Penney and couldn’t give a sodding damn if he’s down on his luck.’
Colville was quiet for some moments, then he risked, ‘The tide goes full circle, Daniel.’
Daniel wasn’t listening. They had turned into Cobble Street and just up ahead was Hannah, sweeping debris off her doorstep. He hadn’t seen her since he’d terrified her in her parlour, and his only thoughts about her had concerned his knowledge that Feena Opie was her natural mother and that he could cause her further torment whenever he desired it. He was shocked by her appearance. Her long blonde hair hung lankily on her shoulders. Her face was gaunt and bore a sickly
colour. She had a coat and scarf on but it was obvious she had lost a lot of weight and she didn’t seem to have the strength to finish her task. She looked as desolate as she had on the day of the boating tragedy, when as a ten-year-old girl, she had been thrown out of her home, and he had rescued her from a vicious beating from her father.
He quickened his step as she put aside her broom and stooped to pick up a long piece of splintered wood. ‘Hannah, let me help you.’
She straightened up rapidly with the piece of wood in her hand. Her expression was fiercer than the worst of last night’s gale. ‘Don’t you speak to me, Daniel Kittow,’ she hurled at him indignantly. Then suddenly the dam of hurt and hatred for him burst inside her and she strode up to him, wielding the piece of wood like a weapon. ‘How dare you speak to me after what you did to me and Matt, you evil callous swine! I know you ordered Brinley and the others to attack him and I begged the police to lock you up.’
As Daniel stood stunned, she lashed out with the wood and brought it down viciously across his shoulder. ‘I hate you with all my heart for that and for making me lose my baby. You said when you came out of prison you wanted revenge on me. Well, you’ve had it in full but now it’s me who’s going to get revenge on you! I’m going to make your life as miserable as I can. You and your threats can’t hurt me any more but I’ll do anything I can to hurt you, to bring you down to the gutter where you belong. I wish you were dead!’
Her next blow was aimed at Daniel’s head. He ducked just in time to escape it but he was trapped against the wall.
Colville tried to grab her flailing arms. ‘That’s enough of that. Calm yourself down.’
Hearing the shouting, Mrs Penney rushed outside and appealed to her to stop. Such was Hannah’s fury she shoved Colville away from her and brandished the piece of wood at Daniel’s face.
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