A Different Kind of Love

by Jean Saunders

  “No government was ever ashamed of itself, dear lady,” Thomas said.

  “Then it’s time we got ’em out! It’s up to people like us to vote for the other lot when the time comes, ain’t it? The Tories have had things their way long enough, always on the side of the toffs and not the workers.”

  “Providing you think the other lot would do things any better, Mrs W,” Luke said, as she got into her stride.

  “They couldn’t do no worse, could they?” Mrs Wood retorted. “We always did differ on this one, Luke, and I daresay we always will, and I ain’t going to spend the rest of the night arguing about it. So who’s for cocoa and a piece of my seed cake?”

  “That sounds a marvellous idea, dear lady,” Thomas said soothingly. “And I’m sure things will go ahead in the way it’s been ordained. What do you say, little lady?” he asked Kate.

  She jumped as he directed his penetrating gaze on her. He had such a theatrical presence, she thought fleetingly, she could see just how he would captivate an audience, but she hardly knew how to answer him.

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” she murmured.

  “Oh, come along, I’ll bet my Hamlet boots that you believe in destiny and fate and a greater order of things beyond our understanding! You’re a far deeper-thinking girl than our twittery young things upstairs!”

  “I’m not sure whether that’s a compliment or not,” Kate laughed. “It makes me sound pretty dreary!”

  “You’re anything but that, sweetie. Right, Luke?”

  “Oh, Kate knows what I think about her,” Luke said with a smile. “And I refuse to be drawn on that, you old rogue.”

  “Well, if you’ve both finished sorting out my character, I think I’d like to go to bed,” Kate said, pink-faced. “And I’ll see you tomorrow, Luke.”

  She fled from the room, hearing Mrs Wood chide the pair of them for making her feel embarrassed and chasing her away. But Kate knew it was more than that. It was what Thomas had said about believing in destiny and fate.

  In her more receptive moments she definitely believed that fate had sent her to Bournemouth on the day she had been jilted. Fate had sent Luke Halliday there at the same time, and destiny had brought them together. And that was where the fantasy ended, because her own stupid conscience wouldn’t let it go any further.

  If she was a different sort of girl – maybe the sort of twittery young thing in the way Thomas had described Doris and Faye – she would do as Vi Parsons had suggested. She would concoct some story about how she was no longer a virgin because of a horse-riding escapade or accident. She could blame it all on nature.

  But she was too honest for that. Her mouth twisted at such a bizarre thought, when she was guilty of such lies and deceit. Even letting Walter go on believing she was pregnant, when she wasn’t. But she was more than thankful that he’d never lived up to his promise of sending her any money after he had deserted her. She could never have used it, despite the fact that his failure to provide for her and the child just proved what a rat he really was.

  She undressed quickly and crawled into bed, shivering. She had never thought her association with Walter would have such far-reaching effects. He had ruined her life, but she had naively thought it could be put together again, and that one day she would find a kind, honourable, loving man. Now that she had, she was too afraid to let him love her, because she couldn’t bear to see the shock and disgust in his eyes if he ever learned the truth.

  She turned her face into her pillow, feeling the tears squeeze through her tightly closed eyelids. Wishing for the hundredth time that she could change the past, and most of all that she had never met Walter Radcliffe.

  Walter was contemplating his third jug of ale in the hostelry he was staying in and deciding what to do with the knowledge he’d obtained that evening.

  All around him there was political talk, with loud-voiced Londoners putting the world to rights, some for, some against, the imminent strike.

  It was all getting out of hand in the public house, just as it had done in the park, and he was tired of it all. His plan had been to get out of London before it all began. He’d done enough business to see him right with his boss, and he’d far rather be back in his own territory than stuck in a city where nothing was going to move for God knew how long.

  But all that was changed now. He’d got a glimpse of Kate Sullivan, and he was damned if he was leaving here until he knew what she was up to, and what she was doing with his kid. He felt a unexpected spurt of filial pride at the thought, wondering if it was a boy or a girl. He had to know, and the more he thought about it, the more he knew he had to find her.

  “What about these special constables, then?” he asked loudly, when there was a small break in the other drinkers’ conversation. “Can anybody volunteer?”

  “Course they can, brother,” one of the men said. “You just report to any police station and they’ll issue you with an arm band and baton to say you’re now a special going about official business. You’ll report back to them and they’ll let you know where there’s trouble to be sorted out.”

  Walter wasn’t interested in sorting out trouble. He’d kept well enough out of it in the trenches, and he didn’t aim to be in the thick of it now. But it could be useful in finding his way around London and having a legitimate reason for staying here. It seemed unlikely that even street traders would be welcomed if the strike went on for any length of time, so he might as well be seen to do his bit.

  He discovered his mistake once the strike began to take effect. Anyone trying to do an honest day’s work was blackballed by picketers, and those trying to get into their regular places of business were called scabs and worse. After a week of chaos, troops and volunteers were being stoned by regular workers thinking they were taking their jobs, however temporarily. Walter decided that London was not the place to be after all.

  He’d had his car put out of sight in a lock-up, so at least that was safe. But after he’d got hit in the face at one demonstration, he’d had enough, and he told his group of volunteers he had urgent business elsewhere. The leader looked at him sourly, menacingly slapping his baton into the palm of his hand.

  “Oh yeah? Getting lily-livered, are you? Well, you ain’t getting out of it that easily, boy. We’ve had a call to get round to Lombard Street to break up a fight. We ain’t losing one of our number now, so get moving, you yellow bugger.”

  He was pulled along with the rest of them. They were passed by a food convoy on its way to Hyde Park escorted by troops, and Walter dearly wished he could have leapt onto the truck and got away from these bloodhounds.

  Once they reached Lombard Street he was again in the thick of it, and it took a good hour before they were able to break up the demonstration that had been blocking the streets stopping vital services getting through. By the time order was restored, there were several men lying on the ground with bleeding heads.

  “They ain’t hurt bad,” one of the specials growled. “Somebody get ’em onto the pavements and off the streets, and the rest of you come with me.”

  Walter began to drag the wounded men into the nearest shop doorway. All the shops were closed, and no business had been done here or anywhere else for a week. All the same, it seemed as if support for the miners was beginning to fade, and everybody said the static situation couldn’t last much longer. People were simply tiring of the incovenience. By now the trains had begun to run again, the timetables announced on the wireless. If all else failed, Walter thought savagely, he’d get on a bloody train and get back where he belonged.

  And then, just as surely as a moth was drawn to a flame, his eyes were drawn to a wire display stand inside the shop where he was standing. A display stand holding birthday cards and postcards. And there, staring out at him on a postcard demonstrating a luxury motor, and smiling the voluptuous smile he remembered, was Kate Sullivan’s face. The shock was so great that Walter almost staggered over the prone shape of the one wounded man left in the doorway now. The
man groaned in protest, but since he wasn’t dead Walter didn’t give him another second’s attention.

  “Bugger me!” he said out loud. “The bitch has got it made all right. First I see her living it up in some fancy man’s Bentley, and now she’s making a mint of money, I’ll be bound, from some motor firm paying her oodles of cash for this lark. She don’t look like no innocent no more, and Walter, lad, this takes some thinking about.”

  His eyes narrowed as he studied several more postcards showing Kate Sullivan posing against different motor cars, her eyes lustrous and wide, her curvaceous shape shown to best advantage. He felt the lusty urges stir in his crotch, remembering … he heard the man at his feet groan again, complaining that the least he could do was to get him to a hospital.

  “You’ll not be hurt that much. It’s no more than a scratch,” Walter snapped. “But I’ll give you a few coppers if you’ll tell me what I want to know.”

  The man perked up a little. “Make it the price of a pint and I’ll tell you anything you want. I’ve had enough of demonstrating for a lost cause, and I’m off home to my missus as soon as I can stand,” he muttered.

  “Well then, what do you know about these motors?” Walter said, stabbing his finger against the shop window.

  The man looked at him as if he was daft.

  “Do I look as if I’d know anything about motors like that? I ain’t got two ha’pennies to rub together on a Sat’day night, let alone owning a fancy motor or any other kind. If you want to know more about ’em you’d better go to one of them car showrooms once they’re open for business again.”

  Walter could hear the bitterness in his voice, and he flung him the coppers anyway, watching him tip his cap in gratitude and slink away. His type probably didn’t even know what he’d been demonstrating about, but at least he’d given him an idea. Tomorrow, he’d find a car showroom and knock up the proprietor.

  Or better still, he thought suddenly, he’d come back to this shop or some other newsagents, and persuade the shopkeeper to open up so he could buy a couple of postcards. It would be easy enough to show the armband and pretend he was here on official business, warning shopkeepers of potential trouble in the area. There’d surely be some detail about the motors or the model girl on them, or even the firm printing the things, and then he could track Kate down. It would be a laugh to have her picture in his wallet – providing he remembered to keep it well out of sight before he got home to his old woman.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The general strike lasted all of nine days before it was called off, although the miners doggedly refused to give in, and declared their intention to remain on strike for the foreseeable future. But London and all the major cities breathed a collective sigh of relief, and got back to normal.

  “What disruption it caused, and for what?” Mrs Wood observed over the evening meal with her lodgers. “The poor devils are no better off now than before. Lord knows how long they’ll have to stay out without the support of the country.”

  “They must feel the country has let them down,” Kate said.

  “More likely the government, as usual,” the landlady said keenly. “Still, you and Luke will be glad to get back to proper work, I daresay. I wonder you didn’t take the chance to go home to your folks for a while, Kate.”

  “I couldn’t do that while the trains weren’t running,” she pointed out, “and I wouldn’t have asked Luke to take me. Besides, there was plenty of work we could do at the studio, even though we were officially closed.”

  “Oh aye, in that mysterious darkroom of his, I’ll bet,” Faye put in jealously.

  “That’s right,” Kate said, deliberately leading her on. “You’d be surprised what wonders go on in there.”

  “Now then, you two,” Mrs Wood said. “I’m sure it’s all perfectly innocent and above board, and I won’t have my Lukey’s name slurred, miss,” she added to Faye.

  “Nor Kate’s neither,” she added as an afterthought.

  The post had begun to be delivered again, after being held up all this time, and Kate had an anxious letter from her mother. The village of Edgemoor didn’t experience much day-to-day difference during the general strike. In farming communities cows still had to be milked and pigs and hens still had to be fed, and big business and trades unions were just words.

  But Alice was concerned for Kate’s safety, and she made it plain in her letter to Kate that her father wanted her to come home to the safety of the country. Even as she read the letter, and understood their concern for her, Kate knew she couldn’t go back, at least, not for ever. She would always think of Edgemoor as a haven, and she loved her family, but she had moved on and away from them. It was sad, but inevitable, she thought. Everybody had to establish a life of their own eventually. She wrote back to her mother straight away to reassure her.

  Dear Mother,

  We’ve all been perfectly safe here, and Luke and I have been able to continue working behind closed doors, getting the new batch of photos ready for the autumn set of postcards. It seems odd to think of autumn already, but in the advertising business you always have to be thinking of the season ahead and not the present one. I’ve learned a lot about it these past few months. Don’t worry about me. It’s pleasantly warm here in London now, and I’ll bet the country around Edgemoor is looking lovely.

  She paused in writing the inane words about the weather, but she knew how much Alice always wanted to know if the city was full of fog, even in summer. As she paused, Kate remembered with a burst of nostalgia just how lovely the countryside around the village would look now, with the summer blossom filling the hedgerows, and the fields and hills so green, busy with the hum of bees and the drone of insects. And the white-washed farm buildings and thatched cottages.

  She smiled ruefully, knowing that part of her would always belong to Somerset, no matter how far she travelled. It was home, and sometimes you had to go away from it to appreciate how much it meant to you.

  “What a profound thought for a Wednesday,” Kate said aloud. She continued with her letter, not wanting to let sentiment get in the way of what she had to tell them. It was something private as yet, but there was no harm in letting her folks know, since they were hardly going to spread the news, and they never gossiped.

  Luke had some important news this week, once the post got through again. He was approached by an American company, showing some interest in his skills as a photographer for some advertising postcards over there. It’s all hush-hush at present, and I’m telling you this in confidence. I don’t know whether he’ll do anything about it. It all came about because he sent our postcards to his American friend, who showed them to the company concerned, and this is the result.

  She didn’t tell them any more, because she didn’t really know any more, and Luke had been unusually casual in telling her. She had expected him to be over the moon with excitement at the prospect of such a commission, but he hadn’t seemed to be. Knowing him as well as she did, his reaction had puzzled her. It would be marvellous for him to be known internationally, but it had to be his decision, of course.

  She finished her letter, sending lots of love and kisses to her sisters, stuck the stamp on the envelope, and decided to go down to the posting box with it right away.

  Writing home had reminded her of walking in the country, where you could walk for miles without seeing anybody and just revel in the solitude. She found herself thinking she’d like to do that right now, and wished Mrs Wood had a dog she could exercise, since it always seemed less aimless than walking alone. But why not take a walk on her own? Plenty of people did on such a warm, mellow May evening.

  There was a small park not far from Jubilee Terrace. One of the things that had pleasantly surprised Kate when she first came to London was the number of small parks there were between the mass of buildings.

  With his knowledge of the city, Luke had told her it went back to ancient times, when London was as countrified as anywhere in England, full of lush meadows inst
ead of being packed with buildings. And many of the small, enclosed parks and copses remained. He’d shown her an illustrated book about London the way it used to be in times past, and she had been charmed by it all.

  There weren’t many people about now, but being alone had never bothered Kate. Once or twice lately, a few folk had stared quite hard at her as if they recognised her and it had made her more uncomfortable. She would rather be an anonymous face in a crowd. It was the price of fame, Luke had told her. It came from having her face displayed on all the postcards, and she should learn to accept it and enjoy it. She smiled ruefully, wondering if she ever would.

  Walter Radcliffe prided himself on having done a good bit of detective work. He had gone to the nearest newsagents and bought up all the postcards with Kate’s face on them, and studied them minutely at his hostelry lodgings. She had always been a good-looker, but by God, she was even better now.

  His idea of tracking down a few car showrooms to find out the origins of the cards was quickly abandoned as he discovered that it wasn’t necessary. All the statistics of the cars were on the reverse side of each card, together with the name of Luke Halliday, photographer. There was no mention of Kate’s name, but as far as Walter was concerned, there didn’t need to be. He’d have recognised her full, obliging mouth and that seductive, willing little body, if it was hidden inside a sack.

  He’d thought hard about what he was going to do. If Kate had come into money, he wouldn’t mind a sub. It might be worth it to her to keep him out of the picture, especially if the kid was calling some other chap daddy by now. He felt a surprising stab of jealousy at the thought. If she had a kid, then it was his, and he had a right to see it, at least. But he decided not to act hastily. That had always been his downfall in the past.

  He found Luke’s business address from the telephone book, and bided his time sitting in his car at a convenient vantage point from the studio, watching the comings and goings of the rich clients who frequented the place. He also knew the time that Kate arrived there each day, and when she left, either on foot or in the Bentley, and he frequently followed her back to Jubilee Terrace at a safe distance.