Missing the Moment

  They walked up Main Street and had just reached the taxi stand when Danny saw someone walking ahead of them. He said hurriedly, “Here, you and your Mam go on, I’ll catch you up, there’s someone I have to see.”

  “Danny, where are you going?” Charlotte called but Danny was running up towards the lane in pursuit of a man she did not recognise. She got into the taxi and, frowning, watched as both men disappeared into the distance. The rain thrumming on the roof of the car blocked out every sound, the raindrops distorting every sight. Cocooned within the small vehicle, they left the town and climbed the hill.

  “Who was it, did you see?” Harriet asked.

  “I don’t know. He seemed very anxious to catch him up.” She smiled a reassurance she didn’t feel. “He’ll be joining us in a while and I’m sure he’ll explain.” But Danny was very good at not explaining. she thought with a frown.

  * * *

  Danny ran after the man who was heading towards Bertha’s cottage and caught up with him not far from her gate.

  “Looking for me, are you?” he panted as he touched Jack’s shoulder and came threateningly close. “Got something for me I expect.”

  “Yes, I have something for you.” Jack spoke calmly, and seemed unperturbed by Danny’s hand pushing against his shoulder, making him step closer and closer to the river.

  “Let’s have it then.” Danny held his hand out.

  “I have words, not money. There won’t be any more money.”

  “Don’t kid me. You can’t risk my telling what I know about you, stalwart member of the community. The police won’t consider it too late to charge you for cheating Mam, mind. That Mr Hazel is still alive, he’ll remember it all.”

  “I’m not paying you for silence any more, Danny. I regret many things I’ve done but I won’t regret this.”

  “You think I won’t do it, don’t you? You think I’ll say nothing, that I’ve been having you on all this time. Well, you’re wrong.”

  “Oh, I believe you, Danny. You’d enjoy it. And in a way I can understand that. Pulling down someone who had no right to be standing upright, someone who should be grovelling and ashamed.”

  “I will tell.” Danny’s voice was losing its authority, he was no longer sure how to handle the situation. He racked his brains trying to think of something to add to his previous threats. He moved closer to the man, pushing so Jack’s feet were on the edge of the river bank, slipping and sliding on the wet grass and surface mud.

  “It’s no use trying violence either. I’m leaving Bryn Melinau. You’ve won that victory at least.”

  “Leaving are you? We’ll see about that. I’m going this minute to see the police.”

  “Go then. It doesn’t matter any more.”

  Danny shook the man by his lapels and walked off, then, his frustration overflowing, he turned and pushed Jack backwards into the river. He watched as the man swam to the bank.

  “I hope you choke on it, you stubborn old fool!” he called before running through the dark lane back to Main Street.

  As Jack slowly hauled himself further away from the muddy edge, a shadow emerged from the bushes.

  Lillian said: “We don’t like you,” and pushed the exhausted Jack into the water once again. “Danny doesn’t like you,” she called after him, before the splash had subsided.

  This time, Jack’s head struck a remnant of the old bridge as he passed. He was carried unresistingly downstream, under the road bridge, past the town and was brought to rest in the garden of the house that had once been Rhoda’s.

  Bertha returned from visiting Kath Thomas and sighed as she picked up a soaking wet nightdress and put it in the washing basket. Lillian had been wandering around in her nightie again! She began to fill hot-water bottles to put beside her; the poor child must be frozen. What was going to become of the girl?

  “In the spring, you can have some bantam hens, and a fine little cock. Beautiful they’ll be and something for you to look after,” she promised the next morning when, bleary-eyed and sickly, Lillian came down for breakfast.

  “Oh, Mam. I’d like that. Perhaps my Dad’ll come then, and make me a proper coop for them. Will he, Mam? Will he?”

  Bertha sighed. “No, lovey, I don’t think so. We’ll have to get some boxes from the greengrocers and make it ourselves, like we always do.”

  “Mam. can I take Danny’s breakfast up? It’s his last day.”

  “No you can’t. He’ll come down and get it. This isn’t some posh hotel!”

  * * *

  Jack had been found late the previous night by the new owners of Rhoda’s house.

  His recovery was slow and steady but there was about him an air of sadness, of utter defeat. He seemed no longer to care whether he got well or not. Once, when Gaynor visited him, he whispered, “How would you feel, Gaynor, if you knew someone hated you enough to kill you?”

  “What d’you mean?” she asked. “Are you saying someone pushed you into the river? Jack! Who was it? I’ll speak to Constable Hardy now, this minute. Oh, Jack!”

  Gaynor had defied her patient husband, who did not want Jack back, and prepared a room for his convalescence. He never used it. On the third day he developed a temperature which led to a fever. That night he died.

  “We didn’t like him, did we, Danny?” Lillian said, when Bertha had told him the news of Jack’s accident, and he was amused at the thought of the man being in hospital after floating down the river like a log.

  A few days later, when further news reached him of the man’s death, the joke turned bitter and Danny’s mouth filled with bile. He was convinced it was he who had caused the man’s death. He was shocked and very afraid.

  “I didn’t know the man very well. I met him at Mill House a few times, that’s all.” he said to Bertha. “Fell in the river you say?”

  “Didn’t like him, did we?” Lillian insisted. “Pushed him.”

  “Who pushed him? Talking rubbish you are, Lillian!” Bertha said, hushing her daughter. She tutted at Danny. “Too much imagination and not enough sense, this one, for sure.”

  Making the excuse that he had to see Charlotte, Danny went straight out. He was in a panic. He couldn’t have killed him! He couldn’t have! He remembered seeing the man swimming strongly towards the bank. He remembered looking back and seeing him standing there, dripping, spluttering, coughing water out of his mouth: remembered calling back “I hope you choke on it, you stubborn old fool.” Whatever had put him back in the river had happened after he left; Jack’s death was nothing to do with him. But the feeling of dread wouldn’t go away.

  * * *

  When Jack Roberts’ will was read it caused quite a stir in Bryn Melinau. When Charlotte walked into the house with Danny, she realised that something momentous had happened.

  Her mother was cuddling Petula, her father sitting beside her with Louise and Isabelle on his knees. Rhoda was on the floor between them, Miranda was there too, nursing Matthew and listening to Ellie read her school book. Her parents looked stunned.

  “Danny, we’ve been waiting for you.” Miranda stood up, gave the baby to a startled Charlotte and hugged her brother tearfully.

  “What’s going on?” Danny demanded of Harriet, who said nothing. Danny turned to Eric for explanation.

  “It’s the will, you see.” Eric said. “Jack left all his money to us.”

  “What d’you mean, us? Who’s ‘us’?”

  “He left it for me to use to make a home for you all.”

  “There can’t have been enough to do that.”

  “Several thousand pounds,” Harriet said. “Apparently he had a large bank balance as well as owning six houses, in Barry and Cardiff. They are to be sold and apart from a few small bequests, the money is to be used to give Eric and the children whatever they need.”

  “Several thousand!” Danny gasped. Damn me, he thought, with a wave of anger. I could have been set up for life with some of that money.

  “What bequests?” he asked, dry-mouthe
d. God, he needed a drink.

  “Charlotte is to receive some money and with it goes the hope that she will continue to rebuild the family business. The church and the youth club gets a mention too.”

  Charlotte hugged her mother. “Mam, why the long face?”

  “I’m tired, that’s all; funerals at this house seem to be becoming a habit. If you’ll all excuse me, I’ll go to bed.” She gently kissed Petula before handing her to Miranda, and left the room. After a while, the others went to their own part of the house and Charlotte went up to her mother.

  Harriet was in bed, sitting wrapped in a frilly shawl, a book in her hands. Charlotte guessed she was not reading, from the angle it was held.

  “What’s the matter, Mam? Don’t you want them to leave? Is that it?”

  “Of course I want them to leave. Rhoda, you and I will be glad to get back to normal. Such a lot of work and muddle their presence has caused us all.”

  “You can talk to me, you know.”

  “There’s nothing to say! Your father and his brood are leaving Mill House and I’ll be thankful to forget they’ve ever been here. Now go and get me a cup of tea, will you? I need to take my tablets.” She dug around in a drawer, searching for the sleeping tablets she hadn’t needed for weeks and glanced at her daughter. “Go on then, fetch my tea or I’ll be asleep before you make it.”

  * * *

  Downstairs, Danny confronted Eric. “Was he really that rich?” he asked Eric. “I wonder how many others he cheated to get it?”

  “Miranda agrees with me that before we do anything else, we’ll instigate enquiries about the previous owners of the houses, in case there were others who had been fraudulently deprived of their homes.” Eric said solemnly.

  “That could cost a lot of money.”

  “It would be well spent.”

  “What will there be for Miranda and me?” Danny asked.

  “Miranda will share in whatever I do, but you, Danny, you are not included.”

  “That’s not fair.” Danny spoke reasonably. smiling as he added, “I’m more entitled than your children, aren’t I? I was the one thrown out of my home, me and Miranda. I’d have turned out different if it hadn’t been for that.”

  “Making excuses now, Danny?”

  “Its the truth. He owes me.”

  “There was a letter for me, held by the solicitor to be handed to me after Jack’s death. In it he asks me to make certain you do not benefit in any way.”

  “And you’ll do that? Cut me out of money that would set me up with a job and a place to lay my head?”

  “I think you’ve had your share, don’t you? Jack believed you were capable of taking care of yourself, Danny. I think you ought to leave Bryn Melinau, don’t you? Rumours and talk of someone pushing the man into the river haven’t faded. Ned Hardy is an intelligent young officer… he wouldn’t need much of a hint.”

  “You believe I killed him?”

  “I think he was pushed into the water that night, yes, and there’s no one else who’d want to, is there?”

  “Gaynor’s old man, that’s one for a start off!”

  “He doesn’t have your barely contained violence, Danny.”

  “You’re threatening me now! You’re no better than me, you aren’t.”

  “If I believed that,” Eric said quietly. “I’d shoot myself.”

  * * *

  Harriet didn’t take the tablets and she didn’t sleep. She lay against the pillows wondering how soon they would leave and how she could persuade them to stay without losing her pride completely.

  One of her worries was that, moving to a place where she was not a part of his life, Eric might find someone else. He didn’t want her, that was clear, but he did need her. But the situation was precarious. Not wanting her meant there was a chance he would meet someone he did want. Thank goodness the government had withdrawn their plan to make a seven year separation grounds for divorce. At least she still held that advantage.

  When Charlotte went down to make her mother’s cup of tea, Danny was dressed, ready to leave.

  “Oh, Danny, you aren’t leaving? I need to talk to someone about all this.”

  “Tomorrow, Charlotte. I’ll meet you tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be at the factory all day.”

  “I think I’ll go to Bristol tomorrow then and see if I can find myself a job.”

  “In Bristol? But why not here?”

  He glanced at the dividing door and whispered, “Best you get away from your Mam while there’s still a chance, my lovely one.”

  “No, Danny. I’m needed here, both at the factory and, if my father leaves, Mam will need me at home.”

  “Then this might be goodbye.” He walked out and Charlotte gave only token protest. In truth she felt only relief. It was over and she hadn’t had to say the difficult words after all.

  Chapter Fifteen

  At Bertha’s cottage, the oncoming of spring had told its own story. Eventually Bertha took Lillian to the doctor and had her fears confirmed. Lillian was only weeks away from giving birth. She blamed herself bitterly for not having noticed Lillian’s condition, her burgeoning stomach concealed by her vastness. Gentle questioning failed to reveal who was responsible for her pregnancy and Bertha didn’t know what to do. She kept the girl in, refusing to allow her to go further than the hen coop, where she sat for hours each day watching the birds and dreaming of when she would have her own family of bantams.

  “Shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, I know.” Bertha sighed one morning when she had rather reluctantly confided in Bessie Philpot. “It isn’t a punishment, she doesn’t know what she’s done, poor dab. I can’t let her wander about in her state, the doctor says she has only a few weeks to go.”

  “She might lead you to the one responsible if you let her go out, mind,” Bessie suggested.

  “She’s been wandering off a lot lately, there’s no doubt she’s been meeting someone. With hindsight, it’s very clear she was meeting a man, but all hindsight does is make you feel very stupid! I must have been stupid. There she was, wandering around at night after I’d put her to bed, and me thinking it was just her usual dreaming about her father coming home.”

  “Wandering at night yes, but she was always on her own,” Bessie excused. “You had no reason to think she was seeing a bloke.”

  “Out there in the freezing cold, standing watching the path, wearing nothing more than her nightie. Danny found her on the river bank frozen and soaking wet one night and brought her home.”

  “He didn’t see anyone with her?”

  “No, she was quite alone. Waiting for someone, she told us. All this time she’s been talking about waiting for ‘him’, and I thought she meant her father. She was talking about this man, and if I’d been sharper I might have found out who he was. Bessie, who can it be?”

  “Just the once Danny brought her home, was it?” A quirked eyebrow added suspicion to the question.

  “Give over, Bessie! You can’t think that Danny would want to bother with a poor thing like our Lillian!”

  “Crafty he is for sure, whoever he is. Seems to have made certain he wasn’t seen.” Bessie poured another cup of tea for her friend and asked. “Can’t you remember her mentioning a name? She must have talked about him sometimes.”

  “All she talks about is her father coming back and about the bantams I’ve promised her.”

  Lillian came in and Bessie held out her arms for the girl to come and sit beside her.

  “Tell Auntie Bessie Philpot who you’ve been – er – fooling about with, Lillian,” Bertha pleaded. “You’ve been doing naughty things, haven’t you?” Lillian lowered her head and began to cry in a crooning tone, but she said nothing.

  “Naughty girl. That’s what you’ve been,” Bertha said, her voice raised in her distress. Lillian began to wail louder.

  “Will I still have the bantams, Mam? Even if I’ve been naughty? I won’t be naughty again.”

  “Who w
as it, girl? You must know who you spent – naughty times with.” Bertha racked her brain for a better way of saying it but failed. She had constantly warned her daughter against being “naughty” but without explaining what she meant by that versatile word.

  If she had used the word “cuddle” she might have seen a reaction. Cuddling was something Lillian understood. Naughty was when she forgot an errand or lost money or fell asleep and allowed food to burn: not something she associated with the precious moments she and Danny had shared. She continued to cry, worried that this unknown naughtiness of which her mother complained might mean she didn’t have the hens and the fine bantam cock in the spring.

  “When will it be spring, Mam?” she asked, a sob pouting her lips. “When will I have my hens and the beautiful cockerel?”

  * * *

  Danny had, himself, realised Lillian’s condition; her persistent attention meant he noticed more about the girl than her mother, her patience worn thin, did. Now that Bertha knew, Danny had to leave his comfortable lodgings. Every moment he was there was like living with a time bomb. He had to get away from Bertha and Lillian before the fact of his involvement was revealed. He knew it would. Lillian was too innocent to be clever. If someone asked her the right question she would answer truthfully. He had to stay calm though and not move out too soon. That might give the sharp-witted Bessie something to dwell on. No, he’d find work too far away, just as he’d told Charlotte. That would clearly make staying on at Bertha’s impractical.

  He wished Charlotte was more keen to marry him. If she wore his ring proudly he would be even less likely to be considered as the father of Lillian’s child.

  He went up to see Charlotte one lunchtime when he knew Eric wouldn’t be there. She was surprised to see him, hoping that he had gone from her life, but she smiled brightly.