Esme smiled, a sad little smile of pathetic triumph that reminded John just how seldom he had seen her happy.
When he left the nursing home Dot walked John to his car. As he turned to her to say goodbye, she kissed his cheek. ‘I’ll be honest with you, John, there is no way I would be able to afford to move to Bath if you weren’t buying a place for Esme. My flat and the shop are heavily mortgaged. When I cash in all my assets and add them to what I inherited from Esme’s mother, I’ll have barely enough to buy myself into a new business venture I’m trusting to provide me with a living.’
‘And if it doesn’t work out?’ he asked, sincerely concerned for her.
‘I’ll be in trouble. But’ – she smiled wryly – ‘don’t worry. I won’t come running to you to bail me out. My business partner has more than enough capital to keep us afloat until the profits start coming in.’
‘Are you sure, Dot? I’m fond of you and not just because of what you’re doing for Esme,’ he said awkwardly. ‘You’ve always been kind to me and Helen and Joe. I’d hate to see you get hurt.’
‘I won’t – financially, that is,’ she qualified. ‘Emotionally is another matter. You’ve probably guessed my partner isn’t just my business partner.’
‘I’m in no position to judge anyone.’
‘He also has a wife he has no intention of leaving.’ She paused, waiting for him to say something and, when he didn’t, added, ‘No one can accuse me of going into this venture wearing rose-coloured glasses.’
‘I’ve never been able to understand why a kind, caring, compassionate, beautiful woman like you isn’t happily married with a dozen children.’
‘The answer to that is simple. I made the mistake of marrying the wrong man and then the even bigger mistake of divorcing him before my twenty-fifth birthday. People in Swansea don’t forget a divorce, or forgive a divorcee. I count myself lucky that I was able to sell hats to them for as long as I did.’
‘You could have married again,’ he suggested.
‘I might have, if anyone had asked me,’ she said briskly. ‘Esme has one thing right. Decent people don’t socialise with divorcees and decent men don’t marry them. They make passes at us, because they assume that every woman who’s lost her man to the courts has to be panting for attention of the bedroom kind. But no matter how much they may protest they like a woman in private, if she has a broken marriage they take care never to be seen in public with her.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You’re not to blame for the faults of Swansea society, and Bath is far away enough for Esme and me to make a fresh start. We’ll tell everyone we’ve lost our husbands to the graveyard, rather than the divorce courts. That will make us marginally more respectable. Then we can embark on new careers as hard-working merry widow businesswomen.’ She smiled optimistically.
‘I can’t see Esme working, let alone hard. And certainly not at the kind of thing that brings in money.’
‘You never know, but then, with what you’re paying her, she doesn’t need to. And I have heard there is a very good amateur dramatic company in Bath.’
‘You’ve done your homework.’
‘I thought I should, as I intend to live there a long time.’
‘Have you gone as far as picking out a house?’ He opened the car door and leaned on it.
‘Apartment. On the ground floor of a Georgian town house with a well-proportioned, high-ceilinged drawing room, two large bedrooms and bathroom. The kitchen is small, dark and poky but then as neither Esme nor I is a cordon bleu chef, we’ll make do with cold meat, salads and sandwiches on the days we can’t afford to eat out.’
‘How much is it?’ Leaning forward, he slotted his keys into the dashboard.
‘Less than you would get for the shop and flat in Mumbles if you put it on the market. I’ll ask my solicitor to send you details.’
‘Richard Thomas?’
‘My business is too insignificant to warrant his attention.’ She stood back as he stepped into the car. ‘Do you want an actual figure?’
‘If it’s too much I’ll let you know.’
‘I won’t rook you.’
‘I never thought you would.’ He held out his hand. ‘I wish you – and Esme – well, Dot.’
‘Esme was a fool.’ She held on to his hand after she shook it. ‘If she’d had any sense she would have taken good care of you and your marriage after the way you came to her rescue.’
‘I wasn’t aware that I was rescuing her at the time. If I had been, I probably wouldn’t have married her.’
‘She told me you never once reproached her.’
‘That’s not to say I didn’t want to.’
‘Really?’ she murmured in surprise. ‘You never gave me the impression of being bitter.’
‘I wasn’t about Joe. The anger and the bitterness came later, after Helen was born and we stopped sharing our lives and a bedroom.’
‘I’m surprised you’ve waited this long to divorce Esme.’
‘Perhaps it’s taken me this long to realise that a marriage doesn’t necessarily have to be for life.’
‘I hope you find happiness, John,’ she said earnestly. ‘You deserve it, although I can’t begin to imagine the woman who would be good enough for you. Do you know that if I’d got to you before Esme she wouldn’t have stood a chance?’
‘Now you tell me.’
‘Take some advice from a woman who really messed up her marriage. Try to concentrate on the good things. You’ve done a wonderful job of bringing up Joe and Helen.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Give them my love and tell them they’re welcome to visit their mother in my place any time they want to before we leave for Bath – and afterwards. I’ll make sure there’s a bed settee in the drawing room.’
‘I will.’ He gunned the ignition.
‘Just one more thing.’ She leaned in through the car window. ‘Tell Joe to be careful around Richard Thomas.’
‘Then he is …’
‘I spoke to Richard earlier. He told me what Esme said. He took the precaution of warning the staff in the nursing home about her accusations in case she made them again. He threatened to sue anyone who repeats them. If you or Joe mention it he might do worse than sue.’
‘He asked you to warn me.’
‘He didn’t have to. I know Richard just as well as, if not better than, Esme, and in exactly the same way. Now do you understand why I’m so eager to leave Swansea?’
John drove towards the gates of the nursing home and stopped the car. If he turned left he could be in the warehouse in fifteen minutes. He glanced at his watch. It was three o’clock, plenty of time to take his new secretary in hand and show her how to use a dictionary but to his right the road snaked over Fairwood Common and down the Gower. Cliffs – sea – beaches – rolling hills and countryside – green farmlands bordered by woods … He had to do some serious thinking and the office was no place for that. He turned right.
He didn’t stop until he reached the end of the peninsula. Parking the car above the steep cliffs of Rhossilli Bay, he limped down the path that led towards the causeway and the promontory of Worm’s Head. Although the sun shone from a clear sky, the wind that blew in from the sea was cold and cutting. He stopped and looked around, breathing in what felt like the first real air he’d inhaled in months.
Sheep grazed everywhere, finding footholds on precarious narrow ledges. Gorse bloomed yellow against the pale, coarse coastal grass. Below, to his right, gulls circled, crying above the skeletal timbers of the wreck of the Helvetia that thrust upwards through the sand, reminding him of the ribcages of the dinosaurs he’d seen in the Natural History Museum when he’d taken Joe and Helen on a trip there over ten years ago.
He had always loved Rhossilli. It was one of the most inaccessible beaches and consequently the least frequented. His disfigurement had led him to seek out solitude until first Esme, then the children had come into his life. And Katie …
He
walked on, gradually sinking deeper into his thoughts until he became impervious to both the wind and the beauty around him. In a few months he would, if Esme kept her word, be free. She had promised to contact Richard Thomas that afternoon, sign the divorce papers and grant him his freedom. The decree could be finalised in a month or two. And then?
It was what he wanted, but where did that leave him with Katie? He came up with all the reasons why he shouldn’t be optimistic. Esme had proved fickle before; she might prove so again despite all her assurances. And Katie had come to terms with the way things were between them. It hadn’t been easy for her, but she was forging a fresh life for herself. She’d begun a new job, she’d be meeting new people, perhaps even someone nearer her own age, who could offer her more than he could. Someone younger, without health problems who wouldn’t need nursing through a decrepit old age when she was still a young woman.
It would be best not to tell her what had happened with Esme. To leave things as they were, rather than run the risk of disappointing her a second time. If and when his divorce was final he would see her again. That shouldn’t prove too difficult as she was moving in with Helen. Then he would find out if she had built herself another life. One in which there was no part for him to play.
‘Where do you want this, Helen?’ Martin shouted as he and Sam manhandled an enormous trunk into the house.
‘Upstairs, in the front bedroom,’ she called back from the depths of the cupboard under the stairs.
‘What you got in here, dead bodies?’ Sam stopped and propped the end of the trunk on his knees so Martin could negotiate the first few stairs.
‘Six. All boys I killed for not working hard enough.’
‘The way you’re driving us, I believe it,’ he retorted acidly.
‘I could make it seven.’ Helen adjusted the scarf she’d tied corner-wise over her hair with a bow on top, as she emerged from the cupboard with her aunt’s ancient carpet sweeper.
‘Just as well we borrowed the largest van your father has, Helen. You girls don’t half accumulate some stuff.’ Adam walked into the living room with a suitcase. ‘This is the third one I’ve taken up for Lily. ‘When Martin and I were in the army we were allowed one kitbag …’
‘You also wore the same clothes all the time.’ Lily emerged from the kitchen with a tray of tea and biscuits.
‘You make it sound as if we never changed them.’ Making a valiant effort, Martin bent his knees, straightened his back and heaved the trunk upwards, high over the banisters.
‘When you did, it was only for exactly the same outfit, so there was no point in you carting around a dozen when three would do. Who wants chocolate biscuits?’ she asked.
‘That’s not fair; we’re in no position to grab our share,’ Sam complained, as he and Martin finally hauled the trunk on to the landing.
‘Tell me how many you want and I’ll keep them for you.’ Lily sugared Martin’s tea and stirred it.
‘I’ll have half a packet and Martin will have the other half,’ Sam gasped as he took the full weight of the trunk for a moment.
‘Just as well I bought two, then, isn’t it?’
‘You little darling.’
‘Hands off my girl, Sam,’ Martin warned, not entirely humorously.
‘It’s beginning to look like home. Don’t you think?’ Helen asked, seeking reassurance.
‘If by that you mean it looks chaotic and lived in, I’ll agree with you.’ Lily opened the door to the dining room and shouted to Katie and Judy. ‘Tea up.’
Helen burst out laughing as they walked in.
‘What’s funny?’ Katie pulled a face as she brushed a cobweb from her nose.
‘You two couldn’t be blacker if you’d been down a pit.’
‘I feel as if I’ve been down a pit. That china pantry of your aunt’s is unbelievably filthy.’ Judy wiped her hands on her overall before reaching for one of the mugs.
‘China cupboard of ours,’ Helen corrected. ‘The china is all right, though, isn’t it? When I checked it, I didn’t find any chipped or cracked pieces.’
‘It’s fine, or rather it will be when it’s been washed,’ Judy agreed. ‘The peculiar thing is, it didn’t look that dirty until we lifted it out.’
‘We should have spent a few more evenings cleaning this place before we moved in.’ Lily handed Martin his tea as he walked down the stairs.
‘Everything was clean and tidy last night,’ Helen protested.
‘It was,’ Lily granted. ‘But it would have been clean in all the hidden places if some bright spark hadn’t suggested that we leave the downstairs cupboards until we moved in.’
‘We wouldn’t have moved in for another week if we had. What with the hours those two work …’
‘I’d like to see you set up a new hairdressing salon.’ Judy checked the state of her hand before taking a biscuit. ‘Between old age pensioners coming in with the cut-price perm vouchers my mother had printed to drum up trade and the crache checking whether I can do the latest Shirley Eaton style, I don’t know whether I’m coming or going.’
‘And you can imagine the impression I’d make in Lewis Lewis if I tried to skip off early after I’ve only been there a month.’
‘There’s a world of difference between early and putting in an hour’s unpaid overtime every night,’ Helen lectured Katie. ‘I still don’t see why you had to leave the warehouse. My father doesn’t say much, long-suffering soul that he is, but everyone I spoke to the last time I was in there said the new girl isn’t a patch on you.’
‘You had me to order around, Helen.’ Lily gave Katie a sympathetic look of commiseration as she handed round the biscuits.
‘Only when you weren’t spooning with Martin.’
‘We do not spoon.’ Slipping his arm round Lily’s waist, Martin reached for a biscuit. ‘But if you don’t think we’ve been pulling our weight, I’ll give Lily a hand to scrub out the kitchen cupboards as soon as we’ve brought in the last load from the van.’
‘Oh no, you don’t pull that one. You can help Sam clean the windows while I work with Lily in the kitchen.’
‘What do you have in mind for me, sergeant major?’ Adam ignored Judy, who moved pointedly away from him as he returned from upstairs, and smiled at Helen, giving her a look that set Martin’s teeth on edge; Adam was getting far too familiar with his sister-in-law for his liking.
‘You can scrub out the food pantry,’ she ordered.
‘He’s allowed in the kitchen and I’m not!’ Martin exclaimed.
‘The food pantry’s not the kitchen, Martin. Come on, another hour and we’ll have it finished.’
‘Have you thought of a career in the police force, Helen?’ Sam griped. ‘The sergeant down the station is only half as pushy as you. He’d probably welcome some pointers.’
‘I thought we were never going to finish.’ Martin grabbed Lily’s hand as they crossed the road and ran down the path to the beach.
‘Only because you wanted a swim.’
‘I wanted some time alone with you,’ he said seriously. ‘I didn’t think it was a good idea for you to move out here before Helen’s house started eating up every minute of your spare time. It seems months since I’ve really seen you.’
‘Try last night.’
‘I don’t call a quick kiss outside your uncle’s front door after we finished cleaning Helen’s living room seeing you.’
‘It’s all finished now.’ She smiled. ‘So you can do as much of “really seeing me” as you like from now on.’
‘You mean it?’ He looked sceptical.
‘What’s this? “Poor, hard-done-by Marty week”?’
‘You don’t feel in the least sorry for me, do you?’
She laughed at his attempt at a soulful expression. ‘No.’
‘Why did I have to pick such a hard-hearted girlfriend? Ah.’ He smiled. ‘I remember.’
‘What?’
‘She buys two packets of chocolate biscuits at a time. Hey … th
at hurt,’ he protested, as she hit out with her plastic beach bag.
Dropping the bag that held her own and Martin’s towel on to a rock above the tideline, she stripped off the old cotton dress she’d worn to clean the kitchen.
‘Good God, Lily!’
‘Do you like it?’ Desperate to appear unconcerned, she checked that the straps on the brassiere top of her scarlet two-piece swimsuit were straight.
‘I’ve never seen so much of you.’ He glowered at a couple of boys who turned their heads in her direction.
‘I saw it in Lewis Lewis’s window when I went there to meet Katie one night from work last week. She dared me to get it and I told her I would if she would.’
‘Katie’s bought a two-piece like that?’
‘Not like this, hers is blue.’
‘I’m amazed they put it in the window. If Mrs Lannon had seen it, she’d sue Lewis Lewis for indecency, not to mention what she’d do to you for wearing it.’
‘It’s not that revealing, is it?’ she asked, perturbed by the way he was looking at her.
‘The honest truth is yes.’
‘You don’t like it.’
‘If we were alone I’d love it. But we’re not alone,’ he qualified, as more boys turned their heads in Lily’s direction.
As she followed his line of vision a wolf whistle rent the air. ‘Last one in the sea is a wimp.’ She ran down the central sandy strip of beach into the water.
‘Wait!’ Almost falling over his jeans as they entangled themselves round his ankles, he charged after her, pushing a couple of boys who’d followed her aside as he plunged into the water.
‘That was cold.’ She glared at him, debating whether to splash him back after he had splashed her and risk getting even colder, or retreat out of reach.
‘Can you swim?’ he asked.
‘Of course. You?’
‘Regimental champion.’ Catching her hand, he pulled her out into deeper water, kicking his feet up when it reached his waist.
‘I might be able to swim but I’m not a fish,’ she gasped as the water came up to her chin.
‘Now who’s a wimp?’
‘Me. I hate the cold.’
‘Then come here.’ He opened his arms and she swam into them. ‘You’re a heat leech,’ he complained.
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