Unforgettable

by Gloria Cook

  She would soak herself in the bath and call on her old expertise to make the most of herself. She would get out her hair curlers. She would ask Verity if she had a little spare make-up and cold cream. It was a lovely mild sunny day and she would cuddle her baby as she relaxed. And she would ask Dorrie if she could make the luncheon, her special vegetable omelette. There was no shortage of eggs from Dorrie’s hens. She chuckled as she pictured Dorrie’s delight. What a dear little woman she was. And Finn would be thrilled when he got back from the cottage with Greg, both dusty and gritty and ravenous for an hour’s break.

  Merrivale, our new home, Fiona thought optimistically, and this was going to be a good day, the best in ages, she just knew it. She would take a look at the curtain materials, a good choice thanks to Guy’s connections and generosity, brought over by the seamstress Jean Vercoe. The podgy mother was awaiting decisions, and Fiona would make them rather than leaving the responsibility to Dorrie. To top off this lovely day, when Guy returned with messages or even a letter from Aidan her new life would really begin. Aidan loved her, she had never doubted it no matter what he had done, and when he was reassured that she loved him as much as ever, he would reach out to her again.

  Guy arrived at Sunny Corner late in the evening. Dorrie showed him into the sitting room. ‘You speak to Fiona and Finn alone, Mr Carthewy. The rest of us will clear out and bring in coffee when you’re ready. We have saved some dinner for you. I’m sure you must be hungry after your long drive.’

  In the study-cum-library, Dorrie turned to Greg and Verity. ‘What do you make of his expression? It was a raft of emotions. Will Fiona be receiving the news she’s been longing for, I wonder?’

  Guy stood awkward and stiffly on the Oriental rug, massaging the tiredness squeezing his eyes.

  ‘Do sit down next to me, Guy.’ Fiona patted the red and cream striped, squab-cushioned sofa. ‘You are quite worn out. Please don’t beat about the bush. Tell us what Aidan said. Have you brought anything from him?’ She glanced smugly at Finn. Her belief in her husband had been growing all day. After cuddling Eloise and tending to her all afternoon following cooking her much appreciated lunch, she was in no doubt Aidan would find his daughter as beautiful and as irresistible as she now did.

  Guy sighed, working his shoulders to unravel some of the tension. He was also furious over Aidan Templeton-Barr’s blasé attitude towards him. After being bodily searched and his gifts for the criminal pulled apart, he had waited among some shady-looking male characters and foul-mouthed, or weeping, or downtrodden women for the afternoon visiting time to begin. The atmosphere was rank with sweat, disinfectant and despair, broken intermittently by an ironic joke. He had sat and waited again where he had been stationed across the iron grid to face Aidan. He had tapped his fingertips together and blew out his frustration as the minutes had ticked by and then some more. Bloody cheek of the man; he had agreed to see Guy, and at the very least he should have the decency to face him on time. Then he wondered if Aidan was well – perhaps he had been beaten up. That wasn’t unlikely; he had a big brash mouth on him.

  Finally a warder came to him. ‘Templeton-Barr is refusing to come out of his cell. He says to give you this and that you might as well clear off. Sorry you had a waste of time, sir, but that’s what most of the inmates are, a waste of time.’

  ‘Aidan didn’t want to see me. All I’ve got for you, Fiona, is this.’ Guy put his hand into his inside breast pocket. He handed over a prison-issue envelope. It had been censored and resealed by the prison, but Guy wouldn’t have dreamed of reading it. He had seen how Aidan had addressed the envelope, to Mrs Fiona Templeton, not Mrs Aidan Templeton-Barr. Guy was gratified that he was getting the result he wanted, but he was anxious about how Fiona was going to react to her impending heartache. It was so good to see her dressed elegantly again and wearing a little make-up but he feared she would be about to take to her bed again and sink into a deeper despair than before.

  Fiona had read her name on the letter and was sitting up rigidly.

  ‘What does the letter say, Mum?’ Finn asked. He had a good idea by her stricken face and Guy’s embarrassed fidgeting. He clenched his fists, bracing himself for a fresh, fiercer bout of weeping and wailing from his mother.

  Fiona tore open the envelope and let it fall to the floor. She held the prison notepaper before her eyes and scanned it, then said in a disembodied voice, ‘You want to know what it says? What I should have known it would. I’ll read it to you.’

  Finn wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it now, remembering his father had once been a good father to him really. There had been boys at his school who had been beaten, ignored or cruelly ridiculed by their fathers. There had been orphaned or fatherless boys, and one with a stepfather who bitterly resented him and had made his life hell.

  Fiona began to read, one hoarse word at a time. ‘“Fiona, I thought you might have taken the hint by my long silence and broken off with me. You haven’t, so I’ll put this to you straight. It’s over between us. You were a good and loyal wife to me but it’s not enough for me to want to return to you. I met someone else months before my arrest and she is waiting for me. We will be setting up home in a secret location. I feel bad about the mess I left you in but you have Carthewy looking out for you now. Be sensible and take advantage of it. There is no point in me seeing the baby, but I’ll treasure the snaps of her. Finn has made it plain that he’s finished with me, so it is best I make a clean break from all of you. I am glad to know you have help from your new friends. Lean on them. Make your future with them. There will be no point in you writing to me again, accept that you would only be flogging a dead horse. I wish you well. A.”’

  Her eyes seething, Fiona crumpled the letter and threw it down. Finn was glad. Guy was glad. They were both thinking it good she was angry with Aidan. It would help crush her yearning for him, help heal her heartbreak. Without looking at Guy, she said tightly, ‘Thank you for making that wasted journey, Guy.’

  She got up and went robot-like to Finn. ‘Well, you must be happy. You got exactly what you wanted. Aidan would never have wanted to come back to me with his son showing him such disrespect as to shun him.’

  Swinging back her hand she smashed it violently across Finn’s cheek making his head lurch to the side. ‘I hate you for it and I’ll never, ever forgive you!’

  Ten

  Verity thanked the driver of the rattling old coach, stuffy in the hot murky day, as she got off at the stop just past the Olde Plough. She had been to Wadebridge where she had been window-shopping, just for something to do. She had to be careful with her money. She had enough to last the summer then she must look for a job. She might find a secretary’s post or something in the town that she could travel to daily. One thing she was certain about, while still weighed down under the hurt of her parents’ unjust rejection and with her confidence taken a battering over Julius Urquart’s mocking remarks: she needed the security of living with her doting aunt and uncle. The soothing experience of living in what she now considered her home was wearing off a little, however, and doubts as to whether she could make something of her future were sticking uneasily in her mind. She also had less to occupy herself with now the Templetons had moved back into Merrivale.

  Fiona had insisted on returning there before all the finishing touches were done, saying she would not impose on Dorrie and Greg any longer than need be. After her husband’s cruelly blunt letter, everyone had expected her to plunge again into the dark murk of depression, but while there were times Fiona had cried wretchedly for hours, she had risen every morning and dressed well from her small collection of stylish clothes. She shunned make-up and pinned her hair back in a simple bun. She was, in Greg’s words, ‘Valiantly soldiering on, and good for her.’ She tended to Eloise quietly and with little emotion, willingly relinquishing her to others, but she took her for long walks along the lanes in her pram, avoiding the village. Until she had moved out of Sunny Corner she had shared in the cooking and housework a
nd in the evenings read a wide selection from the eclectic study-library. Guy had now supplied her with a bookcase crammed with books of every subject.

  Having agreed to Guy’s generous suggestion that she become Merrivale’s housekeeper and receive a wage for the care of his (further clever suggestion) country retreat, she had selected the curtain material and bed linen for the cottage and made a list of the furniture she thought would suit its more charming new look. Fiona insisted her wage would be modest, enough to live on without her relying on Finn to bring money in. ‘He must lead his own life,’ she had remarked without emotion. ‘I won’t be responsible for dragging him down.’

  Finn was still working on Merrivale and he spent his earnings on Eloise and things for his room. Sometimes he helped with the labouring of the village hall. When it was reported he had been in Newton Stores ordering art pencils and a sketch pad, Esther Mitchelmore had stumped up for him a box of artist’s requisites, including an easel, palettes, oils and watercolours and brushes. ‘Here boy, with the silly name,’ she had called, and thrust the box at him while arriving on the building site, in a siren suit, to ‘put her hand’s turn’ in on the building. ‘My late husband fancied himself a bit of a dabbler but he was not very good at it. You’re welcome to it. I’ll give you your first commission, landscapes of Nanviscoe for the village hall. They’ll only be on display if I consider them good enough, of course.’ She had smartly killed off Finn’s effusive thanks. ‘One thank you is sufficient. No good to me gathering dust. When this building is up and running, call at Petherton; I have a job for a pair of strong arms like yours, clearing out my cellars.’

  The awful thing was, although Fiona had apologized to Finn for hitting him so fiercely, marking his cheek for days, they were barely communicating, avoiding looking each other in the eye. Neither would reveal what they were thinking despite Dorrie’s gentle probing. Dorrie was worried. ‘This isn’t good for them or the baby. Eloise isn’t quite so settled now. Babies pick up on a bad atmosphere. Merrivale has lost its old gloom but Fiona and Finn will create a new one. It’s such a shame. Aidan Templeton-Barr has a lot to answer for.’

  ‘They have Guy,’ Greg had pointed out. ‘He’s a constant in their lives, and so are we. Fiona and Finn are going through a time of painful adjustment. With all our help they’ll come through.’

  Fiona may have given up moping in her bed all day but someone else had taken to hers: Delia Newton. The day she had yelled out in Faith’s Fare she would make the women there sorry for making jibes at her – wholly warranted jibes, the village as one had agreed – she had stormed home in hysterical tears and summoned the doctor. Soames had announced she was suffering a complete nervous breakdown, but by the cheery way he was now running the shop on his own he didn’t seem particularly concerned about his wife. Delia’s put-upon cousin, Lorna Barbary, had the unfortunate task of scurrying about to Delia’s whims and demands, no doubt, and listening to her constant whingeing. Few customers in the shop bothered to ask how Delia was faring and those who did were told by a shoulder-shrugging Soames, ‘Just the same. Now what can I get you?’

  Verity had heard nothing from Julius Urquart and was glad about it. If she ever saw his smug horsey face again she thought she might sink an axe in it. Sometimes she even thought she understood the need to murder, and she would go on to ponder the reason why a paid killer had been sent to slaughter Neville Stevens and Mary Rawling. The Stevens family had moved out of Nanviscoe but Mary Rawling’s widowed mother remained, mostly shut away in her tiny cottage further along By The Way lane. Verity had been struck at how her forays along the lane always stopped at the Vercoes. Did Mrs Rawling feel shunned, isolated and forgotten? Even Aunt Dorrie, who never left anyone out of her field of kindness, rarely mentioned her. As far as Verity was aware, if Mrs Rawling wasn’t seen out for a while no one bothered to wonder why. That wasn’t right, and Verity resolved to talk to Dorrie about it. If strangers like the Templetons could readily be given committed help then why not a villager whose family had dwelt there for generations?

  Verity set off for home, using a hand to fan her face and the bare skin above her dusty pink, short-sleeve V-neck cotton blouse. She longed to take off her ankle socks and canvas shoes and cool down her overheated feet. Once in Newton Road, she would soon pass the hall building, its foundation stone laid last month by Honoria Sanders. She would take a look at it and say good afternoon to the workers, a different batch with various skills. The road had a slight incline and the hall was being erected behind a hedge topped with elm trees. A break had been made in the hedge and the road was muddy with tractor tracks and cart ruts bringing building supplies. There were water splashes from the buckets and cans that had been filled at the village pump that stood near the school, and taken to the site by whatever means were available each day, usually wheelbarrows and handcarts.

  Carefully negotiating the entrance in case a vehicle was about to be driven out, she found a miscellany of villagers hard and happily at work. The older men were wearing caps or hats as their habit dictated.

  ‘Hey there, darling!’ Greg called out and waved, halting in sawing a long length of timber.

  ‘Don’t stop for me, Uncle Greg,’ Verity called back. ‘I’ve just come to take a quick look.’

  Finn was pouring water into a pool he had made in a pile of sand and cement and he began mixing it with a Cornish shovel to the right consistency for laying block. His movements were deft. He impressed everyone that a boy from a posh background was up to menial jobs, working at back-breaking speed and never complaining. He had accumulated a following of dreamy-eyed girls. Now the long summer holiday had begun they brought him drinks of lemonade, sherbet and tea, willingly sacrificing their precious sweet ration by offering him squares of chocolate and toffees. The fact that Finn kindly refused to take their offerings made them idolize him all the more. But Finn was apt to gaze far into space and stay silently in his own thoughts, and the men ribbed him that he was ‘sweet on some young maid’. Finn did not bother to deny it and flatly refused to be drawn on it, and Verity and Dorrie wondered if the girl concerned was Jenna Vercoe, although Finn took little notice of her and actually seemed to feed her in Sam Lawry’s direction, but that could be a ruse.

  Verity exchanged greetings with Finn and the other workers. Hector Evans, an erudite, sharp-witted little man racing up to his sixty-eighth birthday, stooped and pale from his decades spent down the coal pits of his birthplace, was laying blocks for the front wall with methodical skill. It had been his dream to settle in the Cornish countryside on his retirement, and as he had never married or smoked and was a light drinker, he had managed to save for the move to rent one of Jack Newton’s cottages. His good heart and generous hand had seen him accepted as a Nanviscan. He had a miner’s troublesome cough and joked that bronchitis or pneumonia could ‘put me in me box as quick as lightning’. ‘Hello, cariad, you’re a lovely sight to gladden an old man’s eyes, as usual,’ he said, his wise hooded eyes twinkling. Verity loved to listen to his soft, melodic Welsh lilt.

  ‘And it’s lovely to see you again, Mr Evans,’ she laughed in return. At that moment Verity knew for certain that she belonged in this village. Her parents didn’t want her but her aunt and uncle did, as did all the other inhabitants, with perhaps the exception of Delia Newton.

  Mr Walters, the middle-aged headmaster, was also there with his sleeves rolled up above his bony elbows, and with him was a willing line of his older pupils scything and hacking down a hedge and some younger ones clearing up after them. Verity knew that the children, including all the rough-and-tumble Vercoe youngsters, were excited about the village hall and eager for the sweets Mr Walters shared out to them.

  ‘Ah, more help on the way.’ Greg pointed to the entrance behind Verity.

  Glancing round, she saw Belle Lawry clutching four large Thermos flasks against her shapely chest with effortless grace in her posture. Belle must have come from Faith’s Fare. Her shining jet-black hair was swept back with
combs at her temples and the rest swayed luxuriously on her graceful shoulders. ‘The ravishing gypsy girl,’ Greg called her, adding, ‘I could see her living contentedly in the wild.’ Turning back, Verity saw Finn become board-still and stare at Belle with total admiration and longing. Verity smiled to herself. So it was Belle who he had a crush on. Then she was alarmed to see Finn’s face fall in undisguised disappointment and anger. Verity glanced round again. Charlie had joined Belle and he had slipped an arm round his wife’s trim waist. Oh dear, Verity thought, possible complications.

  ‘I’ve brought another willing pair of hands for a couple of hours,’ Charlie said, holding up his hefty mitts. Toned in the body and well muscled in the shoulders, his features reflected his cheerful nature. His tow hair was thick and wavy, his masculine attraction set for the rest of his life. His adoration for Belle shouted out of every inch of him. ‘Sam will do a stint tomorrow morning. Weather’s set fair for a couple days then we’re in for some rain, so the forecaster on the wireless said, but we can see that for ourselves. I hear Mrs Mitchelmore wants all work to stop here at the end of next week and all hands to be put to setting up for the Summer Fair.’

  ‘That’s right. I don’t suppose we’ll have any choice but to obey the Mistress of the Manor,’ Greg laughed.

  Verity took her leave and continued the walk to Sunny Corner, believing that if Finn didn’t keep his feelings for Belle in check he would make a dreadful fool of himself.

  A minute later she heard the familiar roar of a fast engine: Jack Newton’s Triumph Roadster. It paid to be cautious when he was bombing along the lanes and she squeezed in tightly with her back against the hedge.