by Maggie Hope
‘I’m hungry,’ Richard protested, and she dragged him round the corner and another corner and away from the front of Seaburn to get as far away from Ken as possible.
‘I’ll have another cup of tea,’ she said to the waitress, and watched as Richard puddled a chip round and round in his egg yolk, making her feel slightly nauseous. ‘Stop making a mess and eat it up, Richard.’
His bottom lip jutted out. ‘I wanted to stay and play with Flora,’ he said, looking mutinous. ‘Why couldn’t I?’
‘Because,’ she said, sounding like a cross child herself.
What Theda wanted to do was go home now but she had promised the boy they were there for the weekend and it was only Saturday, Whit Saturday at that, and what was she going to do until Monday? How was she going to avoid Ken until then?
It wasn’t the fact that Richard had embarrassed her by thinking Ken might be his father, although he had right enough. But Richard was looking for his father everywhere nowadays. No, it was the way her body had responded to Ken, her treacherous body. Why, she had been ready to make a fool of herself over him all over again. If Richard hadn’t come to the door just then she would have done. And Ken . . . he seemed to think he just had to kiss her and put his hands on her and she was his for the taking. As she almost had been.
‘Would you like to go and see Uncle Joss and Aunt Beth?’ she asked Richard out of the blue, and he looked up at her reproachfully.
‘You said we could stay here till Monday.’
‘I know. But really, I have to go to see Uncle Joss. And it’s not going to be any good on the beach, is it? It’s raining too hard.’
Richard sighed. ‘It might not rain tomorrow,’ he pointed out. ‘And if we stay in Ken’s house we won’t get wet, will we?’
‘Look,’ she snapped suddenly, ‘I have to go to Sunderland and you have to come with me. I’m your mother and you are just a little boy. So no more arguing, we’re going. Or else we go straight home.’
‘It’s not fair!’
It wasn’t fair, and she knew she wasn’t being fair, but she had to go. She paid the waitress and hurried the boy out of the cafe. At the Britannia she settled her bill, not even protesting when the landlady insisted she pay for the extra two nights.
‘You booked them, Mrs Wearmouth,’ she said. ‘This is a bank holiday weekend. I could have let the room over and over.’
‘Well, don’t let the room again for the two nights. I’ve paid for it and I might come back,’ was her parting shot as she banged the front door behind her. It opened almost immediately.
‘An’ another thing,’ said the landlady. ‘This is a respectable place. I’m not having men hanging around the place after such as you!’
Theda stopped and turned round to face the woman who was standing, arms akimbo, in the doorway. She opened her mouth to demand what she meant but decided against it. She hadn’t the heart for that sort of argument, not in front of Richard. So she took the boy and put the hastily packed cases in the boot and they got in the car and headed down the road for Sunderland and Laburnum Avenue, only ten minutes away.
Ken was walking up the promenade away from the beach when he saw the car heading south. He waved his arms, jumped in the air, but unluckily there was a Co-op van going past and it obscured his view for that vital moment and then she was gone. All he could see were her tail lights as she stopped for the crossing, too far down the road for him to run after though for one insane moment he started to.
He was stamping with frustration, and soaking wet with the rain for he hadn’t even stopped to put on his mac. He had raced to the Britannia to catch her but the landlady had told him she wasn’t there.
‘May I wait for her?’ he’d asked.
‘Certainly not,’ was the frigid reply. ‘You’re not her man, are you?’ And when he admitted that, no, he wasn’t her husband, ‘This is a holiday boarding house. We can’t have men hanging around waiting for young women.’
Theda’s car was there, parked on the road. She must have taken the boy back on the beach, maybe to the fun fair, however unlikely in the rain. Ken hurried round the small resort looking everywhere, or so he thought. He had just decided to wait by her car since she must be coming back to it sometime; he would just sit on it until she did. But he was too late, though not too late to see her go.
Ken was in a lather, not a panic exactly but a lather. He dashed for his own car and raced after her, catching the lights on green so that in a very short time he was near enough to see her turn into the small estate of prefabricated houses and on to Laburnum Avenue. He saw her park the car and go up to one of the houses, and, from a short distance away, saw the petite blonde who had been with her brother at the funeral open the door.
He waited, considering what to do, but in the end drove up to the house and got out of the car and marched up to the front door and rang the bell.
If Beth was surprised to see them on her doorstep she was also welcoming and took Richard through to the kitchen to give him a bowl of homemade icecream.
‘Joss is working this afternoon,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t very happy about that, it being bank holiday weekend, but now the weather has turned out so bad I don’t care. Come on into the sitting-room. We can sit round the fire and have a proper gossip. What’s wrong? I can tell something’s upset you, so come on, you can tell me all about it. I would have thought you were having man trouble except that you don’t bother with men.’
‘Well,’ Theda began, sorely tempted to pour it all out to her sister-in-law, ‘you won’t say a word to Joss, will you? It’s . . . it’s about Richard’s father.’
‘What?’
Beth was shaken. In all the years she had known Theda she had never heard her say a word about who the father was or anything about him. But Theda was white-faced and obviously distressed.
‘Are you sure you want to tell me? I mean don’t, not if you’re going to regret it tomorrow. What’s brought this on, anyway? I thought you were over him, whoever he is. You haven’t met him again have you?’ Uncannily she’d hit on the truth.
‘I have. I did. And he’s just as big a bastard as he always was.’ And Theda burst into tears.
‘Howay now,’ said Beth, putting an arm around her shoulders and leading her to the sofa where they both sat down. ‘Don’t upset yourself, pet – they’re not worth it.’
Theda had just opened her mouth to start her story when there was a knocking at the door and Beth swore under her breath.
‘Sit still, I’ll go and see who that is. Probably the milkman, he hasn’t been for his money yet. I’ll soon get rid of him.’
But it didn’t sound as though she had got rid of him, Beth saying, ‘No, you can’t go through,’ and a man’s footsteps in the hall. Theda jumped up in a panic as the door opened and there stood Ken. Beth was close behind him but he took one look at Theda and turned and took Beth’s arm.
‘You don’t mind leaving us alone for a few minutes, do you?’ he said, and led her out of her own sitting-room and closed the door firmly behind her.
‘What . . . how did you get here? You have no right,’ said Theda. Her chest felt tight, breathless.
‘I followed you. I wasn’t going to let it happen all over again. I want to know what I’ve done wrong. All right, I shouldn’t have rushed you like that. I’m sorry. No, I’m not sorry, damnit! I wanted to make love to you. Why shouldn’t I? Did you want me to ask your permission first?’
‘Yes! You take too much for granted. You go off and leave me without a word all those years ago, don’t even bother to keep in touch, and now, just because you’re at a loose end or something this weekend, you think it amusing to take up with me again. I was just handy, that’s all – handy!’
‘It wasn’t like that! I was looking for you, I told you. I was going to come down to Durham to try to find you.’ Ken crossed the room to her and she backed away until the wall stopped her retreat.
‘Of course you were,’ she said. ‘Why should I believe anyt
hing you say? You just want to get back to the way we were before, me here just for your convenience when you feel the itch!’
Ken looked so angry she quailed for a moment. He took hold of her by the upper arms and pulled her to him. ‘So that’s what you think, is it? That’s your opinion of me?’ He pulled her to him and held her so that the length of her body pressed against his. ‘And what about you, eh? Tell me you don’t care, tell me this doesn’t affect you. And if you do, I won’t believe you. I can feel you responding, see it in your eyes! I was fool enough to think you cared in 1945 but it didn’t take you long to find someone else, did it? Once I’d gone.’
‘Let me go, do you hear? Let me go.’ She struggled ineffectively. ‘What was I supposed to think anyway, when you went without a word? You weren’t in love with me. Go on, tell me you were and I won’t believe you. In lust, that was what you were, not love.’
Ken still held her against him, his face set. Then, gradually, his grip lessened, he let her go and stepped back. When he spoke it was quietly, almost unemotionally.
‘Did you say “without a word”? What about that note I left you at the hospital?’
‘I didn’t get any note. Nothing. Do you think I didn’t look for something? I couldn’t believe you’d gone without at least trying to get in touch. You knew where I would be, where my parents lived even—’
‘But I left a note. I was short of time and asked someone to put it in your pigeon hole.’ Incredibly, he couldn’t remember who he had asked. Another doctor, was it?
Theda sighed and sat down heavily on the sofa. She felt tired, really weary, to the extent that her bones ached. She put a hand up to her forehead, rubbing the spot where a headache was forming, just beginning to throb.
‘Well, it doesn’t matter now, does it? It’s too late,’ she said.
‘I know who it was,’ he said as though she hadn’t spoken. ‘Koestler . . . that’s who it was. Major Koestler!’ He sat down beside her and they looked at each other.
‘Bloody Koestler,’ said Ken. ‘There was another letter too . . . What sort of devious game was he playing?’ And Theda remembered the interest the Major had shown in where Ken had gone, it had seemed strange at the time.
‘Bloody war,’ Ken went on. ‘Messed up everyone’s lives.’ He took hold of her hand and sat, looking down at their two hands joined together.
Theda nodded, a great sadness coming over her. ‘Wars are hell,’ she agreed. They sat for a while saying nothing while the day darkened and another storm sent the rain thudding against the window.
‘Shall we go back to Seaburn?’ asked Ken. ‘I’m on call tonight, I have to be near the phone.’
‘I don’t know. It’s too quick,’ she said.
‘It needn’t be. We can start all over again. It’ll be all right.’
They went out to the kitchen where Beth was playing snakes and ladders with Richard. The boy jumped up and ran to Ken and was instantly chattering excitedly to him. Beth watched him before gazing at Theda anxiously.
‘Are you OK?’ she mouthed behind Ken’s back, and Theda nodded.
‘Yes. We’re going back to Seaburn. Ken has a house there and we’re booked into a small hotel. We’ll get things sorted, one way or another.’
Beth wasn’t so sure. ‘But he left you before—’ she began in her normal voice, and Ken turned swiftly to her. But before he could speak, Theda intervened.
‘No, it’s all right, Beth. Look, thanks for all you’ve done. Tell Joss I’m sorry I missed him, but we’re going now. I’ll be in touch.’
While Ken was getting into the Rover she had a few more words with Beth in the doorway of the prefab. ‘Don’t worry, I’m older now, and wiser. We’ll sort things out, as I said. There are two days before I have to go back to Durham. There’s time.’
‘I do worry, though. I don’t know what Joss will make of it either. By, he’ll be that mad, Theda, you know he will.’
‘Don’t tell him, Beth. I’m asking you not to.’
Theda went down to the cars, the Rover parked behind her Morris. She got into the driver’s seat of the Morris beside Richard and waited while Ken pulled round her. Then, waving to Beth, she followed him back to Seaburn.
Chapter Thirty-Four
She would have to tell Ken about Richard, she thought as she drove along. She glanced down at the boy, huddled in the seat beside her, his head drooping as he struggled to keep awake. She pulled into the side of the road and put him in the back seat, stretched out with a cushion under his head.
‘I don’t want a nap, I want to go on the beach with Flora,’ he murmured, but before she had the back door closed he was off, sound asleep. She started the car but before she could pull away, Ken was back, doing a U-turn in the road and pulling his Rover up behind her.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.
‘Nothing, nothing’s wrong. I just had to make Richard comfortable. He was asleep.’
‘I thought the car had broken down, or even that you’d changed your mind,’ he said, bending over to speak to her through the car window. ‘Follow me now and try to keep up with me. It worries me when I can’t see you in the mirror.’
‘You follow me then,’ she said, and pulled away, leaving him standing. But she had a warm feeling. He worried about her and she had gone too long without a man worrying about her, a man she cared about. Except for her brother Joss, of course, she reminded herself, but that was different.
The late-afternoon sun was shining through the coloured glass of the vestibule as Ken carried the boy in and took him through to the sitting-room and laid him on the couch.
‘Quiet,’ he growled as the dog hurled itself at the door between the back porch and the kitchen, whining and giving excited little yelps. ‘Don’t wake him.’
Theda sat at the kitchen table while Ken filled the electric kettle and made tea. She watched him spoon tea into the pot and pour over the water. He reached up to the cupboards for cups and saucers and she told herself she had to keep her head, had to be sensible, she couldn’t let herself be overwhelmed by the attraction which threatened her. All right, he was attractive, sexy even. But she was older now; she would wait until she was sure. At the back of her mind was the nagging thought that not even now had he said he loved her.
Ken brought the tray to the table and poured tea. She saw that his hands were trembling slightly and looked up quickly. She caught his eye and saw the uncertainty there and somehow felt reassured.
‘Sugar?’ he asked, and she shook her head.
‘No, thank you.’
He stirred his tea and put the spoon back in the saucer then reached across the table and took her hand in his.
‘It was my fault, you know,’ he said. ‘I mean, that we lost touch.’
‘No. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now.’ Theda shook her head. She didn’t want to think of that time, once she found she was pregnant.
‘If I’d written to your home, not the hospital. If I had come home sooner from Germany. If I’d tried—’
‘Such a lot of ifs,’ she said. The tea lay cooling between then, unnoticed, undrunk.
‘I mean, perhaps you would not have met your American – not have had the heartache of being deserted by him.’
‘Do you mean you think I wouldn’t have had the boy? You’re wrong.’ She almost told him then that Gene was not Richard’s father. How could a doctor be so dense, she thought?
‘No, I didn’t really mean – I know you would not be without him.’ He had misunderstood.
‘As it happens, I wasn’t deserted by Gene. He wanted to marry me. I couldn’t marry him. I didn’t love him.’
Ken rubbed his thumb up and down her palm. He looked perplexed for a minute and then said, ‘I don’t want to pry, I have no right. If you don’t want to talk about it, fair enough.’
Theda thought back to the episode with Gene but it seemed so unreal she couldn’t remember how she’d felt about him at the time. Then something struck her.
‘How d
id you know about Gene?’ she asked.
Ken looked uncomfortable. ‘It was just that Uncle Tucker said he thought you were going out with an American. And then, when I heard you had had a child . . . well, I suppose I jumped to conclusions. Sorry if I was wrong.’ He looked at her, a question in his eyes which she ignored. She didn’t feel ready to tell him the truth even if it meant he thought Gene must be Richard’s father.
The moment was interrupted by the boy himself, wandering into the kitchen rubbing his eyes, still sleepy and fretful.
‘Mam, you left me on my own,’ he wailed. ‘And I want to go to the bathroom and I don’t know where it is.’
It was just the distraction she needed. She rose to her feet but Ken was there before her.
‘I’ll take you,’ he said. ‘It’s just at the top of the stairs.’
‘He doesn’t like anyone else but me when he first wakes up,’ Theda began, but Richard had taken Ken’s hand and stopped whingeing and was heading for the door.
‘I’m too big for you to go with me now,’ Richard said. ‘Boys go together.’ She was left on her own for a minute or two and for something to do she took the cups of tea and tipped them down the sink and rinsed out the teapot. The dog watched her, thumping its tail on the linoleum whenever she glanced down.
They took Flora for a walk afterwards, Ken and Richard together in front with the dog and Theda following on behind. They crossed the road on to the promenade and the beach. The tide was on the turn, the sands washed clean in its wake. Richard threw sticks into the waves and Flora obligingly retrieved them, barking furiously, looking suddenly skinny as her thick coat got wet and stuck to her sides.
Theda was glad of the respite, of the fact that there was no need to think or try to work things out, no strong emotions to battle.
She could just wander along behind Richard and Ken and smile at the antics of the dog and the boy. Sometimes Ken turned and shared an amused glance with her; most of the time he gave all his attention to Richard.