* * *
Johnny knew something had upset her almost before he opened the door. He sensed her moods as he approached the house these days. He saw the car parked outside the house and increased his pace to get home. As always the first sight of her thrilled him. Then his joy took a nosedive as his fingers touched the door handle and found it locked. That usually meant she had come home early having had a bad day.
He took out his key and at once smelt the bath essence Fay used. That confirmed his guess. When things had gone badly she would come home, bath, then spend the evening searching through her notebooks and files, looking for additions to her round for the following days. Sales must always be up, never down on previous months. She took her work so seriously and was content only when things were going well.
She was sitting in the lounge with the curtains barely parted. She wore her dressing gown although it was only four o’clock. He slipped off his shoes, pushed his feet into slippers and went over to kiss her.
‘Hello, my lovely, there’s good to see you when I expected hours of my own company. I love you, Fay.’ He kissed her unresponsive lips again. ‘Would you like something to eat? Or what say we go out for a meal. Like that, would you?’
‘I’m not hungry, Johnny. Get something for yourself, will you?’
‘I’ll leave it for a while. Too early for food. Perhaps later on you’ll change your mind and eat with me.’
‘No I won’t.’
‘You aren’t ill are you, lovely? You look a bit green around the gills, like.’
‘No, I’m not ill, I just don’t want anything to eat.’
She spoke calmly, not as she would if she were trying to start an argument, and Johnny moved towards the kitchen door and studied her face. She was pale. No doubt she was unwell, but what could he do to help without making her angry? He sensed the tightness about her and decided to wait for a while in the hope she would tell him what was wrong.
Whistling cheerfully he put the kettle on to boil. He was cutting himself a piece of seedy cake, one of his favourites that his mother still made for him, when she came out and leaned on the door-post.
She took a deep breath and for a moment he felt panic, afraid of what she was going to tell him. She was leaving him? She had become utterly bored with their marriage? When she did speak he did not believe what he had heard. He was hallucinating, imagining things. ‘What did you say?’ he breathed.
‘I’m going to have a baby, Johnny, and I don’t know what to do.’ She moved towards him then, and at last he could take her in his arms and comfort her.
His head spun with wild thoughts. She was going to have his baby. She was not happy about it and she wanted him to sort things out. She was here in his arms and the sweet scent of her was driving him crazy with fear that he would lose her. He did not speak for a long time. He knew that what he said next was desperately important to them both.
‘I love you, Fay, and I want only what you want,’ he said at last. And he felt her arms tighten around him and knew the first hurdle was over.
She allowed herself to be led back to the lounge and together they sat on the armchair. Fay nestled against him and soon, to his surprise, she slept. He sat unmoving, facing the windows over which the curtains were still drawn. Outside, birds sang and the weak September sun shone but it was as if they were cut off from the rest of the world and Johnny was in a cocoon of happiness.
She woke after fifteen minutes and appeared rested and calm. He eased his stiffening arm from around her and kissed her gently. She smiled at him, her blue eyes drowsy with sleep and asked, ‘Will you get me a drink, Johnny? Not tea. Anything but tea.’
‘Troubled by sickness, are you, lovely?’
‘Morning sickness but it lasts all day.’
‘Now there’s a funny thing. Mam said the same. Perhaps it will be a boy? Although I hope for a girl. Just like you, perfect.’
‘Johnny, I don’t want a baby. There are so many things I want to do first.’
During the brief time she had slept, Johnny had considered how he would treat the news. He decided that an acceptance of the situation without even discussing the alternatives was best. Give Fay no choice, not even hint at anything but the perfect solution, that she would give up work and care for their child.
‘I know, it’s a shock, and there’s no doubt it will change our lives and our plans for the future. Not abandon our plans, mind, only shelve them for a while. Lovely mother you’ll be, Fay. Show them all round here how it should be done.’
Fay was subdued for the rest of the evening and Johnny was careful not to say too much about the baby. They listened to the radio and it was not until they were going to bed that Fay broached the subject again.
‘I don’t want the baby, Johnny.’
He forced himself to sound calm as he replied, ‘Of course you don’t. Had great plans for us, you did. I know that. But your life doesn’t have to be anything you don’t want it to be. Once the baby arrives we can replan the next few years together, can’t we? Nothing we can’t achieve together, lovely.’
She slept in his arms and in the morning he had to wake her to ease himself out of bed to get to work. He watched anxiously as she opened her eyes, hoping to see contentment shine in them and was unable to hold back a wide grin as she smiled and said, ‘Hello Dadda Johnny.’
They agreed not to tell anyone until they had savoured their secret for a while and it was more than a week later that they went to tell Netta that she was to be a grandmother.
‘Oh!’ she said, her round face beaming as she hugged Fay. ‘Oh, how happy I am! But just think of all the knitting I’ve given to the sale of work! I’ll have to get busy now, catching up, won’t I?’ She was busy sorting through patterns of baby clothes before they closed the gate.
* * *
On Sunday morning Nelly was cleaning the shop for Amy. As she gave the steps a final wipe with her cloth, she was surprised to see George walking towards her.
‘George, what’s wrong? I thought you was working?’
He showed her the hand he had been hiding behind his back. On two fingers were snowy-white bandages.
‘Only cuts, nothing serious. But Mr Leighton insisted I went to the hospital and have it checked. He also insists I have the rest of the day off. Where shall we go?’
‘Let me finish doing Amy’s back room an’ we’ll go ’ome and decide,’ she said after reassuring herself the injuries were slight. George agreed to wait while she finished her work.
The dogs, tied up in the yard, were barking frantically, aware that George was there and wondering why he hadn’t come to release them. Nelly locked the doors and went through the yard and around to join George in the street.
He was looking at a motorbike propped against the kerb and discussing the merits of that particular model with the constable.
‘Do you know much about them, George?’ Harris asked.
‘Not really, I used to have one years ago and the only thing I remember was someone showing me how to disconnect the exhaust to give the impression that it was unusable, when my brother wanted to borrow it,’ George laughed.
‘Really? And how was that done?’ The policeman looked interested.
‘Oh, there’s bolt, about here.’ George bent down and pointed. ‘If that’s unscrewed and pulled out, the exhaust system comes away from the frame and falls down.’
‘Fascinating, George. Thanks very much.’
‘You haven’t got a motorbike and a brother wanting to borrow it, have you?’ George laughed.
‘Something much more intriguing than that, George,’ Harris smiled as he walked away.
PC Harris went first to the owner of the garage where Pete and Gerry worked, then he spoke to his superiors.
‘There might be nothing in it,’ he explained. ‘Perhaps the boys are avoiding repairing the bike for some completely innocent reason of their own but it’s definitely something to check. And I have a feeling, only a feeling, mind, that it might be the
father rather than those boys.’
‘Oh, by the way,’ the officer called as Harris was leaving. ‘Those leaves you found on the site of the burglaries weren’t privet, they were honeysuckle.’
Harris smiled his satisfaction.
* * *
Sheila had been meeting Nigel regularly for several weeks but had still not invited him to meet her parents. He had not invited her to the dance to meet his friends either and she wondered if their relationship would ever be close enough for her to tell him the truth about herself. She could not suggest going to meet his friends or family. That was up to him and he was probably waiting for her to invite him home first. It seemed a situation that could go on unresolved for ever.
She tried to imagine taking him home and shuddered at the prospect of her parents’ inquisition. It would be worse than a police investigation! No, things would have to stay simmering for a while. Fate, she decided would eventually give things a push in the right direction. It seemed very romantic to await the kindly hand of fate. They went to the cinema most weeks and he would slide his arm around the back of her seat, squeeze her shoulder and nestle his face against hers, even stealing an occasional kiss when the film was particularly sentimental.
She would put her hand in his and feel his strong caressing fingers and desire for him would grow. But his show of affection and love never went further than the kisses he showered on her when they were alone on some dark corner of the street as they walked to the bus station and said goodnight.
She constantly thought of Maurice and, in rare instances, of Freddie, who at least made her feel desired and adored and very much a woman. Nigel was a gentleman and she loved to be seen with him, his smart clothes and fashionable trilby hat, his tall, lean figure making heads turn in admiration. He was like a knight-errant, guarding her from the passers-by who might, by the slightest touch, disturb her comfort. But he was not as exciting as Maurice, nor as infatuated as Freddie and she found that she looked forward to his company less and less.
One evening they were coming out of the cinema and hurrying to the bus station, when Sheila saw her parents who were obviously intent on catching the same bus as herself. She stopped, then, as Nigel looked at her for an explanation she pointed to them and said, ‘Those two, they’re my parents.’
‘That’s great,’ he surprised her by saying. ‘I’m longing to meet them.’ He proceeded to hurry her along and be introduced.
He was his usual charming self and Sheila noted that her parents were impressed by his polite manner and his precise speech. They did not speak for long, but when Nigel’s bus left before their own they waved Nigel off as enthusiastically as herself. The comments that followed made Sheila more dejected by the minute as the bus lumbered its way along the narrow roads and through the small villages on its way to Hen Carw Parc.
‘Such a nice boy,’ Mavis beamed. ‘And you can see straight off he’s a gentleman.’
This remark made him sound so dull and unadventurous that Sheila went home and cried herself to sleep thinking of Maurice Davies. If only there was some way to get to Australia and be sure of finding him. She went downstairs in the early morning and took out an atlas. Australia was enormous and such a long, long way. Six thousand miles. That evening she had arranged to meet Nigel and, remembering how delighted her parents had been when they had met him, she did not go.
He was waiting at the staff door of the shop the following evening and without asking for an explanation for the previous evening at once apologised for not inviting her to meet his parents sooner.
‘I’ve told them all about you, Sheila and they’re longing to see you, but I didn’t want to rush you. The death of your husband must still be difficult to cope with. But, will you come for tea on Sunday?’
Sheila stared at him. For the moment she had forgotten what story she had told him to explain her wedding ring and no husband. Then she remembered. She had told him nothing, but had allowed him to presume she was a widow.
‘You’re so right, Nigel.’ She smiled wanly and touched his hand. ‘It comes over me some days as if it happened minutes ago. That was why I didn’t come yesterday, as we’d arranged.’ She pleaded a headache and went home on the early bus.
She thought about Nigel all the way home. Was he a better prospect for the future than hanging around Hen Carw Parc, or going to join Freddie Prichard in Devon? Coldly, she compared the three options. Financially, and so far as status was concerned, Nigel was the best. But still the memory of Maurice intervened. Besides remembering Maurice as her lover, there was the inescapable fact that Maurice was her legal husband. It would be an age before she was free to marry anyone else, although Freddie seemed not to worry about this unalterable fact. She decided, as she walked up Sheepy Lane, that she would face Nigel with the truth and leave any decision until she knew what his reaction would be.
Instead of Sunday tea with his family he met her at the bus stop and took her to the park. It was drizzling and she complained that she had spent good money getting her hair set specially and didn’t want to arrive at his house looking like a scarecrow.
‘We aren’t going,’ Nigel said.
She looked at him and saw the tension on his face and guessed something was wrong. ‘Has something happened, Nigel?’ she asked, stopping, forcing him to look at her as she widened her eyes. ‘I hope your mother isn’t ill or anything like that.’
‘Mam is fine. But I met a friend of yours yesterday, Pete Evans. He told me you aren’t a widow but you have a husband in Australia who married you because you were going to have a baby, then ran out on you.’ He gulped for breath after the long sentence and Sheila noticed with distaste that his adam’s apple was quite large.
‘Oh, he told you that, did he?’ she said to give herself time to think. ‘Fancy.’
‘It isn’t true, then?’ He gave a weak smile. ‘I thought it couldn’t be.’
‘Oh, it’s true all right. In fact, I had decided to tell you today. Now you are becoming more and more important to me, Nigel, I wanted you to know everything about me. I didn’t tell you at first because,’ she thickened her voice and went on quietly, ‘because it’s hard to talk about what happened to me. Seduced the very first time I found a boyfriend and then left alone to face having a baby and the sneers of everyone in the village. It’s been hard for me, Nigel. I don’t tell everyone I meet. How can I go through that with every new acquaintance? I try to forget it but now, now we are becoming so close, I’d decided to tell you exactly how it happened. Then you’ll be able to judge how badly I was used and we can forget the whole sorry episode.’
She looked up at him through her lashes and saw that he was not softened by her words. They walked in silence across the soggy grass towards an area where swings and roundabouts stood silent and sad in the gloom of a wet Sunday afternoon.
‘Do you want to know the truth, Nigel?’
‘A divorce. It would take years,’ he said blankly.
‘Yes, that’s what he did to me. Tied me to him for years and left me to face everything on my own. I don’t know anyone else who could have brought me to the point where I can feel affection again, except you.’ With a catch in her voice, she went on, ‘Thank you for that. Thank you for making me feel human again.’
She walked away from him, convinced he would follow. She was devastated when he did not. Crossing to the far side of the park, where summer flowers lay beaten to the ground by rain and water ran down the path at her feet, she risked a glance back and saw that the park was empty. Away from the protection of his umbrella she could not be bothered to get out her hat, but allowed the rain to wash over her and soak her until she was shivering with the damp coldness.
Reaching the bus station, she climbed to the top deck, hoping to avoid seeing anyone she knew. Choosing the front seat she slid down low as she heard heavy ringing footsteps coming up the metal stairs. A voice she knew called her name and she turned to see Freddie standing beside her, big, powerful and so obviously concerned at h
er distressed state. He opened his arms and she clung to him sobbing.
He took her straight to his mother’s, refusing even to allow her to go home and change while she was so obviously upset. On the bus journey where they were mercifully undisturbed, he had forced the story from her and sympathised, adding his conviction that she would be better to move right away from everyone who knew her. Then he began to describe the little market town in Devon where he would install her in a comfortable room and take care of her while she fully recovered and waited for her divorce papers to proceed through the early stages.
‘Once things have started to move you’ll feel different. At the moment there seems no end to it all,’ he told her. ‘Now you’re tied to a man who doesn’t love you and who treated you worse than Farmer Leighton treats his dogs. Once we start to untangle the mess, you’ll start looking ahead again. Trust me, Sheila, you know I would never do anything to harm you, never.’
Chapter Nineteen
Prue came home again that weekend and this time insisted on going to her house alone. At first Amy tried to dissuade her, but seeing the determined light in Prue’s eyes and after a brief phone call to the hospital, she agreed. She accepted that her sister was recovering and able to deal with this next step. Prue tried to take baby Sian with her but bile rose in Amy’s throat of the thought of her far-from-well sister taking the helpless child to the house that must still hold such fearful memories.
She held the baby in her arms as she watched Prue set off for her walk to the village. She wished she had taken a taxi or waited for the bus but Prue was determined to do this her own way. Uneasily, Amy began to prepare tea for when Margaret came out of church.
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