“He was here a minute ago, all wide-eyed and upset, then he vanished. I don’t know what’s happened to him.”
“Gone for a pee for sure,” Charlie whispered, “most of the men have done that, mind.”
“Some of the women too,” Rhiannon confided, trying to help Charlie cheer her mother. Sam took out the picnic basket and shared the contents while they waited for the police and ambulances to arrive. “Carbohydrate is good for shock,” he told them as he offered cakes and pasties to them all, coaxing them to eat. “I’ll see that your husband has some,” Charlie said quickly, when he saw Mrs Francis going towards her car. “You just sit and wait quiet. Leave it to me.”
“Where is Mr Francis?” Rhiannon asked.
“He looks in a bad way and I’m afraid to move him,” he said. Best not to say more than that. He might be wrong and either way there was no point upsetting her any more than necessary. He held out his arms. “Come here my lovely girl and give me a hug.”
Dora became frantic as Lewis did not reappear and the rest of the victims were taken by ambulance to the hospital for checkups. Jennie held Mrs Francis as the body of her husband was removed from the car and taken away separately from the rest. Peter watched as the vehicle drove away, staring after it in disbelief. “How could such a thing happen?” he kept asking Jennie, who tried to hush him, pointing at the distraught figure of his mother. Mrs Francis pulled away from Jennie’s arms and stood up, her body trembling as though her legs could no longer take her weight.
“I should have gone with him,” she said. “Why did you stop me? I should be with him. He’ll wonder where I am. You shouldn’t have stopped me, you wicked girl.”
“Mam,” Peter said soothingly. “You heard what the ambulance men said, he’s past our help, all we can do is let him rest in peace.”
“He isn’t dead! Don’t talk as though he’s dead! D’you hear me?” Mrs Francis said angrily.
Dora and Rhiannon were refusing to go to the hospital until they had found Lewis. When Charlie pleaded with Dora to help him persuade Rhiannon to go, she seemed unaware of the situation.
“Where’s Lewis? I can’t lose him now. Where is he, Charlie?”
It wasn’t until Charlie held her by the shoulders and spoke sharply to her, and reminded her that Rhiannon was eight months pregnant, that she came out of the confusion of the accident and the loss of Lewis and grasped what he was telling her. She knew that her daughter might need help.
She managed to tell her daughter, in brief moments of clarity, that she owed it to Charlie and Gwyn to go and have a check-up with the rest.
“Come on, Mam, come with us, please.”
“I can’t, love. Not yet I can’t. Where’s your dad gone?” She looked around at the slowly changing scene: cars being pulled out of the way to allow approaching traffic to pass, people sitting, limbs still shaking, waiting for their turn to be taken to hospital, and from all directions, men, women and children gathering from the nearby houses, coming across the fields and down the lanes to see what had happened.
Several times Dora thought she recognised Lewis, and she would begin to run, only to slow down and stop, disappointment painful as she realised her mistake.
When everyone else had gone, the ambulance men insisted on her going with them.
“Most probably find your husband there, Mrs Lewis. Taken there by a passer-by maybe. Let’s go and have a look-see, shall we?”
After an examination, Dora went home, taken there by a concerned Basil and Eleri and the children, who had all been declared unharmed, apart from a few bruises. An hour passed and another and at five o’clock, Dora refused their entreaties to stay and wait for Lewis to return, and announced she was going out to look for him.
“Where will you go?” Eleri asked. “If Lewis comes back we don’t want him going out to search for you, do we?”
“I’ll come with you,” Basil insisted.
“No, I’ll go up to the cemetery, I think he might be at Lewis-boy’s grave. If you need me that’s where I’ll be. You wait here and we’ll have a cup of tea when I get back.” She pulled a face. “Sick of tea I am, that’s all we seem to have done today is drink tea, but I’ll have one when I get back.”
They let her go and Basil watched as she set off along the road, running a few steps and then slowing again to a walk. “I’ll soon find her if Lewis gets back first,” he told Eleri. “Go on the bike I will.”
“It’s in the van,” she reminded him, “and the van’s in the ditch.”
“Our Dad’ll kill me,” he said.
* * *
Dora was hurrying as she went up the hill towards the cemetery. There were several figures there, bending over graves, attending to flowers, and she felt guilty, remembering that she hadn’t been to change the flowers for poor dear Lewis-boy for several weeks, not since Easter Sunday in fact. Then the cemetery had been so busy it looked like a picnic outing, children in best clothes, flowery dresses besides the flowery bouquets for the dead.
There was no one beside her son’s plot and she walked over to stare down at the bedraggled blooms and the dead foliage of her most recent offering. Death was so final. Sobbing for Lewis-boy and his father, she removed the debris and tidied the area, pulling out a few determined clumps of grass and one or two daisies that were able to root, sprout, flourish and flower in such a short time. Then she just sat and thought about Lewis. Where would he have gone? Then she knew.
She went to the bus stop, thankful she had remembered to pick up a purse, and caught the bus up to Chestnut Road, where Lewis had lived with his other love, Nia. That was where he would have gone, she was sure of it. The realisation didn’t anger her, she felt a deep sadness, but not for herself. Her sadness was for Lewis, and for Nia who had died. Death was so final.
* * *
Glory and Sam were allowed out of hospital and they left with Jack and Victoria. They went by taxi, first to Jack and Victoria’s house in Philips Street, not far from Sophie Street, then on to Chestnut Road.
Sam’s sister Martha was surprised to see them back so soon. The plan had been an evening with Victoria and Jack. “What happened? You surely didn’t run out of food!” she joked. Then they told her about the accident.
“Oh, then that might explain him,” Martha said, pointing a thumb towards the big tree in the garden.
Sitting on the ground, his back against the thick trunk of the oak, was Lewis. Beside him was a tray of tea but it was untouched.
“He hasn’t moved an inch in the hours he’s been there,” Martha told them. “I tried talking to him but he seems lost in a dream. Asked about someone called Nia. I thought I’d call a doctor if he doesn’t move soon. D’you think we should call one now?”
“I think a doctor might be a good idea,” Victoria said. “When the accident happened, he was in a car with his wife and he disappeared. It’s obvious he’s in shock.”
Sam agreed and as Martha went towards the telephone, there was a knock at the door. She opened it and Dora stood there, her bright-blue eyes wild with anxiety.
“It’s all right, Mrs Lewis, your husband is here and he’s safe.”
Dora didn’t refer to the incident once Lewis was home and had been examined by a doctor. He had slept the clock around and a couple more hours besides and Dora sat with him, dozing a little herself, watching him and hoping that when he woke he wouldn’t tell her he couldn’t stay with her, that he still loved Nia, that living with her in 7 Sophie Street made him feel disloyal.
When he did wake it was nine o’clock at night. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, peered sleepily at the clock and demanded to know what was he doing in bed at such a time.
“There was an accident, love, don’t you remember?”
He frowned as he concentrated on her explanation. Then he gasped, “Hells bells, I do remember. Is everyone all right? What about Rhiannon?”
“We’re all fine.” She’d tell him about Mr Francis later, she decided. He didn’t mention Nia or going to
Chestnut Road and she hoped the memory would remain hidden for ever.
Once he was up, bathed and fed, she went across the road to tell Rhiannon that her father was all right, but there was no reply to her knock. At once panic set in. Rhiannon had been harmed, she was going to lose a baby again! She opened the door with the key given for emergencies and went in. The house was empty. Something dreadful must have happened. Then the back door opened and young Gwyn walked in.
“Congratulations, Gran,” he said, with a wide grin. “You’ve got a granddaughter and I’ve got a sister!”
* * *
Jennie and Peter worked together to deal with the Peter’s father’s funeral and all the time they wondered how they would deal with the bigger problem of Peter’s mother.
“Will you reconsider, Jennie, and come and live with Mam and me? We could be happy. Mam has changed, hasn’t she? She’s talking to you normal, now. No complaining at everything you do. Please, Jennie, let’s give it another try?”
“If I thought for one moment that you wanted to try again because you loved me, and wanted me, over and above your need to look after your mother, I’d say yes,” she said, calmly and quietly. “But all you want is someone to make sure the household runs smoothly. Well, your mother didn’t want me to have you and now she’s got you back. So let’s leave it at that, shall we?”
Peter told his mother that he had tried, but Jennie refused to come back.
Mrs Francis replied that he hadn’t tried hard enough. The following day she went to see Jennie in the sweetshop. It was just before lunchtime and she persuaded her to go with her to the Bluebird Café in town.
“I’m not here to persuade you, Jennie,” she began, when they had ordered their meal. “I don’t think I’m the person to do that. But what I want to tell you, is that now my dear husband is no longer with me, I can choose how live the rest of my life. I can go downhill and be utterly dependent on Peter, or I can start a new life. I’m free of most of my commitments, I have a house I can afford to stay in which I can manage easily on my own. I can go out and shut the door behind me and not worry about what time I get back. That’s exciting. I’ll probably visit some friends I haven’t seen for years, and I’ve always wanted to learn to play bridge and now, with no one else to consider, I can.”
“Peter thinks you still need him.”
“Then it’s up to you to tell him different, isn’t it?”
That evening, Jennie decided she would go and see Peter. His mother had explained that he would be on his own, that she was going out with a friend to see whether she could join a bridge club. Today might be a new beginning for them all.
She passed 7 Sophie Street as she left Temptations and heard laughter and shouts coming from the open front window.
* * *
Inside, Dora and Lewis were trying to feed Basil and Elerie’s family while entertaining Rhiannon and Charlie and Gwyn with the new baby, who was to be called, Mary Jane Bevan. The house was so full, Dora had to bend down and burrow her way through bodies to reach the kitchen where she had food cooking, enough for them all.
Lewis was happy. When he had woken on the day of the accident and found himself in Nia’s garden, he had expected Dora to be upset, but she had said nothing, presuming perhaps that he was unaware of what had happened to him. He was grateful for the happiness he had been able to recapture.
Filling the house had been a good idea. By the time Basil and Eleri were ready to leave, the new grandchild would be enough to keep Dora busy. Busy with family and friends was what kept Dora happy and it worked for him too. The baby began to whimper and at once Gwyn jumped up to see to her, to help Rhiannon by picking up Mary Jane to be fed. To make room for Rhiannon to leave the table, everyone moved like a party game, carrying their plates with them. Ronnie asked why the baby didn’t have a cup like he and his brother Thomas, and every one laughed. Dora and Lewis smiled at each other above the chaos and nodded. This was what 7 Sophie Street was built for. Loving families having fun.
First published in the United Kingdom in 1999 by Severn House Publishers Ltd
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2016 by
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
57 Shepherds Lane
Beaconsfield, Bucks HP9 2DU
United Kingdom
Copyright © 1999 by Grace Thompson
The moral right of Grace Thompson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781910859612
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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