by Anne Baker
One afternoon after Elaine had gone home and Ida was sewing downstairs and looking after the shop, Nick came in and Leonie took him up to the sitting room and poured all her grief out to him. He put his arms round her and she wept.
‘It isn’t what I want,’ he said, ‘and it isn’t what you want either. Don’t stop me coming to see you. You’re having my child . . . Leonie, I want to stay near you. You might need my help over the coming months. I love you and I want to see this child safely born. Please don’t send me away until it is.’
‘Steve wants to believe it’s his.’
‘The truth is,’ Nick said sadly, ‘a child by me is not only your disaster but mine too. I wanted us to go on as we were, to be happy . . .’
‘We were happy, we were in love.’
He shook his head. ‘But I’ve brought you nothing but trouble.’
She said sadly, ‘Giving me a baby – it tells the world we’re in love. We’ve been caught out, haven’t we? It’s embarrassing for us and for Steve.’
Nick’s arms tightened round her. ‘It’s happened,’ he said. ‘We’re bringing another person into this world and there’s no way out of that.’
‘I wonder if it’s a boy or a girl. Odd to think it’s already decided.’
‘If it’s a girl,’ Nick said, ‘I’d like her to have your name. What could be prettier than Leonora?’
She tried to smile. ‘It’s too much of a mouthful and gets shortened to Leonie or Nora. It would be all right as a second name.’
‘What about Amy Leonora then?’
She pulled a face. ‘Sounds better the other way round, Leonora Amy.’
‘That’s it then.’
‘What I’d really like would be to name her Nicola after you but I can’t, and if it’s a boy, I can’t give him your name. For Steve, that would be like a red rag to a bull.’
‘I do understand, love.’ Nick paused. ‘Things have gone too far, haven’t they? We love each other too much to part now, especially when soon we’ll be a family.’
‘You mustn’t say that.’ Leonie shook her head. ‘Once this is over, when the baby is born and we are both well, you and I must stop seeing each other. You must forget about me and the baby.’
‘If that’s what you want, then I’ll try,’ Nick said quietly, ‘but I don’t know how I’m going to do it. I’ll always love you. You can change your mind at any time and come and live with me.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
WITH SUPPORT FROM THE Cliffords, Nick had started his own practice in an office in Chester and had taken one or two clients with him. He was painstakingly trying to attract more. He’d bought a house in the suburbs some months ago and Elaine had helped him furnish it. But over the next weeks he found it impossible to get on with his work, his mind kept churning. What problems he’d created for himself and Leonie!
He opened the file in front of him on his desk and tried to concentrate but yet again he was reading the same paragraph over and over and couldn’t make sense of it.
Tom’s family had brought him up to do what was morally right but in starting an affair with Leonie, he’d fallen from the high standards they’d set for him and he felt ashamed. He’d seen Leonie struggling with a difficult marriage. She’d seemed so vulnerable and he couldn’t stop his love for her growing. It had very soon been out of control but for her to bear his child now was a disaster for them all. When she decided the right thing to do was to stay with Steve, he couldn’t argue against it.
Elaine had told him openly that Leonie’s happiness lay with him. ‘Steve doesn’t appreciate her,’ she said. ‘She has a terrible life with him. Don’t let her do this.’
He couldn’t stop her.
He had so wanted what most other men achieve with ease, a wife and children of his own, but for him it was not to be. He’d lived through bereavement and loss once and it had been raw and agonising. In some ways this felt worse because he knew Marianne and her baby would be with him if they could, but Leonie had chosen not to be.
Leonie knew her future without Nick would be bleak, and the first months were indeed very painful. She was overwhelmed by a sense of loss and grief. She told herself she had to stop thinking about him and the best way to achieve that was to keep so busy that she had little time for herself.
After the baby, a girl, was born, she went back to work at the shop and took Amy with her. That way, she could look after both her child and her business. In fact Amy was not difficult to look after during the first six months. She slept a lot in her pram and Ida was more than happy to pick her up and play with her if she cried.
Life with Steve never did settle back to the way it had been. She knew she’d destroyed the relationship she’d had with him for ever. He remained angry and suspicious and couldn’t forgive her. If she was late coming home, he’d remind her that she’d promised never to leave him. He tried to ignore the baby, but Leonie could see him watching closely while she fed her. She knew Steve no longer trusted her, but eventually, they seemed to achieve an uneasy truce.
Leonie told herself life wasn’t all bad, and if she could put her grief behind her there were compensations. She had her children, she had her business, she had her friend Elaine and most of all she had baby Amy. She mustn’t forget that Amy was part of Nick and if she couldn’t have him, then his child was the next best thing and a great comfort to her.
She knew Nick still regularly visited Tom and Elaine. Elaine said, ‘He can get you a divorce, Leonie, if that’s what you want. He’d do anything to have you as his wife. Being together would sort you both out.’
Leonie shook her head. ‘I know but I can’t walk out on my two older children and I can’t strip Steve of everything.’
Elaine had been more interested in furthering her career in the fashion world when she was first married but Leonie knew she and Tom were now trying for a baby, so when a few months later, Elaine told her she was pregnant, she was delighted for her. Elaine sought her advice about pregnancy, childbirth and childcare and she was glad to help where she could.
Three months before the birth, Elaine’s pregnancy was diagnosed as twins and to start with that made her anxious, but when Dulcie and Lucas were born, she was over the moon that she had a boy and a girl.
‘We’ve got our family now,’ she told Leonie. ‘We wanted two children and I feel lucky I don’t have to go through another pregnancy to get them.’
But she found looking after two babies very hard work and had to find a live-in nanny to help her. Nanny Bridge was a capable middle-aged spinster who had built her life round caring for other people’s children. Elaine continued to spend a good deal of her time working in her room above the shop and she couldn’t help but notice that as Amy grew older and slept less, it was not so easy for Leonie to care for her there.
One lunchtime, as they were having a cup of tea and a sandwich on the sofa in the living room, Amy was learning to walk and kept pushing her dog on wheels into their legs.
‘Do you think it would be a good idea to let Nanny Bridge look after her as well as the twins?’ Elaine suggested.
Leonie’s sandwich was suspended halfway to her mouth while she thought about it. ‘An excellent idea,’ she said, ‘but would she not find three children too much for her?’
‘I don’t think so. The twins sleep most of the time. I think she’d probably enjoy having a toddler to look after too.’
‘We could share the cost,’ Leonie said. ‘I’d get a lot more work done while I was here, and it would be better for Amy. She needs to be able to run about more.’ Leonie was relieved because Amy had reached the stage when she was active and needed a lot of attention. Her fingers were into everything. Instead of getting on with their work, everybody spent time talking to her and playing with her, even the customers did, and it took longer to produce the finished work.
Leonie found it a long walk to take Amy to Elaine’s house on her way to work, but it was worth it and sometimes the nanny took the children out for a walk and
delivered her back to the shop late in the afternoon.
A week or two later, Elaine told her that Nick was insisting on paying her share of the nanny’s salary. She said he felt he should do more to help with the support of his child.
‘Has he seen her while she’s been there?’
‘No, he comes for dinner when work is over for the day. Except sometimes he comes on Sundays, but Amy isn’t with us then.’
Despite her efforts, Leonie had not been able to stop thinking of Nick and often wondered how he was getting on. She’d had to school herself not to ask Elaine about him. Occasionally, though, Elaine dropped snippets of information about Nick. He was well and had settled down in Chester. He’d bought a new car.
On Amy’s first birthday Leonie wrote Nick a long letter about her health and how she was growing. She had Amy’s photograph taken to send to him. He replied to thank her and said he’d like to send Amy cards and little gifts but thought it wiser not to, that Steve would not want her to know of him. It would be better for Amy if he left the fathering to Steve for the time being. Perhaps when she was grown up and able to understand, she could be told about him. Leonie thought that very unselfish of him.
The years began to pass, at Christmas she sent him a card and wrote a few sentences about Amy’s progress on it. On her birthdays she always wrote him long letters about Amy’s development and tried to remember all the funny things she said and did. Nick always replied to thank her; he told her his practice was proving successful and that he still loved her and would welcome her if she changed her mind about staying with Steve.
Leonie’s business was also growing and she needed to take on another seamstress. Ida introduced Maggie, a younger woman she’d worked with for many years, who would work in the afternoons after Ida had gone home. Leonie enjoyed what she was doing and she was earning more than enough to cope with the household expenses.
Steve continued to have bad moods and at times he railed at both her and the children. Her relationship with him did not improve and that drove her closer to her children. They were growing up. Milo was very like Edward his grandfather; he was outgoing and had lots of friends, the sort of person who needed people around him. He enjoyed company and in this way he was the very opposite to Steve.
The family likeness was evident in the features of her older children but they had very different colouring. June was the beauty of the family with a perfect fair complexion and pink cheeks. Leonie envied her long curly hair. It was the colour of manuka honey and developed golden highlights in the summer. Milo’s hair had a reddish tinge, but a dark red, not ginger or carroty; it must be a family throwback because she’d not seen it in any living family member.
Milo was open about what was going on in his life, while June was not. In that way she was more like Steve, who rarely spoke of his interests. Leonie tried to get her to talk about her school and her friends but she revealed very little.
Amy was an altogether sturdier build than her half-siblings but she had lovely rounded limbs and a pretty face. Leonie couldn’t stop herself searching for a resemblance to Nick. Amy had inherited her own straight hair, and it was not a beguiling colour like June’s, but then Nick had straight hair too. Amy had dimples in her cheeks and they must have come from Nick. Leone knew she hugged her more than she had her two older children. Amy was her love child.
Most people found her delightful because she would smile up at them and talk to them; she’d even edge up to sit on their knees. Leonie had been half afraid Steve would take against Amy, but she watched her do that to him and he treated her with as much affection as he’d given Milo and June when they were very young.
Nurse Bridge and Mrs Killen were equally enamoured of her and very happy to take charge of her. She shared her sweets and toys with other children and expected them to share theirs.
From an early age, the children played outside and ran wild with their friends. Milo had always known there was a sailing dinghy in one of the two sheds in the two-acre garden.
‘I’d like to use it, Pa,’ he said one night over supper. ‘It’s called Dido and the sails seem fine, all they need is new ropes. They’re all there, Duggie Jenkins and I spread them out to see.’
‘It’ll be no use to man nor beast now,’ Steve said shortly. ‘It’s been lying there far too long.’
‘Duggie’s dad came to look at it and he says it can be repaired.’
‘What business has he got coming into our garden and what does he know about boats?’
‘Did it belong to Edward?’ Leonie asked to deflect his ire.
‘No, it was Raymond’s.’
‘Your Uncle Raymond was killed in the Great War, love,’ Leonie told their son.
‘There are times when I wish I’d been killed too,’ Steve said irritably. ‘It would be better than this.’
‘No, Pa, you don’t. Nobody wants to be dead,’ Milo said in disbelief. He put down his knife and fork. ‘Does that mean I can take over the dinghy?’
‘Miles, don’t you listen to what I say? If you put Dido in the river, it would sink. The wood must be rotten by now.’
‘Mr Jenkins says it is clinker built and all it needs is a couple of planks replacing and he could show us how to do it.’
‘Don’t expect me to pay him for that. It’s not safe, Miles, you could drown yourself and those boys. It would be better to leave it alone.’
‘But Pa, please look at the boat. If you talk to Duggie’s dad you’ll see he knows all about—’
‘No I will not. Your mother and I would be very worried if we thought you were out on the river in that. There are huge tides and strong currents, quite apart from the big ships out there.’
‘I want to learn, Pa. I want to learn everything about boats. Can I ask Mum to have a word with Mr Jenkins?’
His father flared. ‘No, I said. Don’t argue. We need to eat our meals in peace. You’re giving me indigestion.’
Leonie turned to her son and surreptitiously put her finger across her lips.
‘Sorry, Pa,’ Milo said. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’
When the meal was over, the children helped Leonie to clear the table, while Steve went off to his study.
In the kitchen, Milo said, ‘Mum, we really want to try to put that boat in order. Duggie’s dad is a boatbuilder, he knows what he’s talking about. He thinks it would be a great project for us boys. He doesn’t want to be paid. He says it’ll be good for us all and we’ll learn a lot.’
‘But you’ll need wood,’ Leonie said, ‘and money for paint and things.’
‘Yes, and I’m going to get a job to pay for them.’
‘Milo,’ she cautioned. ‘You’re only fourteen.’
‘Lots of boys start work at fourteen.’
‘But not you, you have to stay at school.’
‘Mum, John’s auntie runs a fish and chip shop near Rock Ferry Station. They need a Saturday boy, I can get that job.’
Leonie pulled a face. ‘What would Pa say? You working in a fish and chip shop?’
‘He won’t like it.’
‘I’m not sure I like it, Milo.’
‘The work is cleaning up and potato-peeling. I only get to cook and serve when I’ve been there a while and they’ve shown me how. What harm is there in that, Mum?’
Leonie pursed her lips. Milo knew it wasn’t the sort of job a boy at a private school was expected to take. ‘But you go to school on some Saturday mornings.’
‘Only to play games and I don’t have to. When I get to serve, it’ll teach me to add up quickly and all that and I’ll be earning money to buy stuff to mend the boat.’
‘All right,’ Leonie said, drying her hands. ‘Perhaps I’d better take a look at this boat. I knew there was one there but I haven’t been near it for years.’
It was covered with thick dust but didn’t look too bad. Milo pointed out the planks that needed to be replaced. ‘Mr Jenkins says it would be quite easy and then the whole boat will need to be recaulked and
it’ll be as good as new.’
Leonie couldn’t see any harm in letting the boys do that.
After supper the following evening, Milo came running back from the shed while Leonie was preparing a meal for the next day.
‘Mr Jenkins is in our shed, Mum. Come and talk to him. He’s quite keen for us to do the boat.’
Leonie found two men waiting for her by the shed. One came forward, he was heavily built and wore rimless glasses.
‘Good evening, Mrs Dransfield, I’m Henry Jenkins, Duggie’s father.’ He put out his hand. ‘It’s very good of you to let the boys have the freedom of your premises. Duggie treats it like a club and loves to come and meet his friends here.’
‘I’m not giving them much freedom,’ she smiled, ‘only of this shed and a bit of the garden. Anyway, it’s a long way from the house and keeps Milo out of earshot.’ She learned for the first time that Duggie was in Milo’s class at school.
Mr Jenkins introduced the tall and slender man with him. ‘This is Oswald Hemmings, Gerald’s father. He has a sailing boat called Seagull and belongs to the Rock Ferry Yacht Club.’
‘I’ll teach them the rudiments of sailing, Mrs Dransfield, and how to stay safe.’
‘Dido is old,’ Mr Jenkins said, ‘and at sixteen feet, a bit heavy for the boys but it’s a classic design. Repairing it and putting it in the water is a practical proposition. Thank you for letting them do it.’
‘Milo couldn’t do this on his own,’ Leonie said. ‘It needs to be a shared project, so I should be thanking you. If you are willing to help them and teach them what they need to know, I’m sure the boys will learn a lot and have a lot of fun.’
Leonie could see only good in what Milo wanted to do. When he was going to bed that night, she said, ‘I’ll have a word with Pa but you must promise that your schoolwork won’t suffer because of the time you’ll spend on the boat.’
‘You let that boy do exactly as he likes,’ Steve said later. ‘I hope he doesn’t drown himself.’