Victor walked Amy and Margaret back to their house, pushing his bike beside him for the ride home. For part of the way, Margaret, still clutching the book David had lent her, sat on the saddle while he pushed her.
‘If anyone can sort out that unhappy son of mine, perhaps your Margaret can,’ he whispered to Amy as he kissed her goodnight.
* * *
Sheila was nervous when she closed the door and allowed Maurice to relieve her of her coat. The house was cold but she quickly put on the kettle, and added logs to the living room fire to revive it to at least a blaze. She leaned forward into as provocative a pose as possible when she added the logs. Then she stood straight to give a full view of her figure in the tight-fitting jumper. She widened her eyes as she asked if he preferred tea or coffee and wondered if, somewhere deep inside him, there was an echoing response to her desire. His first words gave her little encouragement to hope.
‘I came home to start clearing up the mess we made of everything.’
‘How d’you propose to do that, Maurice?’
‘End the farce that was called a marriage, as soon as we can.’
She hoped the shock she felt charge through her didn’t show. She held the teapot in her hand, intending to take it into the kitchen to fill, and suddenly it was too heavy to hold. Hiding her face, she placed it on the table.
‘I’ll just go and make the tea,’ she whispered.
‘Damn the tea.’ He reached out to touch her arm but she pulled gently away.
‘Sit down, Maurice. I need a cup even if you don’t.’
He sat, still wearing his brown overcoat, and with the trilby on his knee. She left him there, seeing in the drooping shoulders the unhappiness he felt. If only she could persuade him to stay. Just one night would do. At least there was a slight chance then of people believing the baby was his, born in wedlock. She took in the tray of tea and stood, her eyes looking at him with such a depth of sadness that he stood up and came towards her. With a few ladylike tears, she clung to him.
‘Oh, Maurice, I’m sorry for all this. I was so innocent, so lacking in knowledge. If I’d been more worldly, less of a child, things needn’t have ended the way they did. I loved you enough to say goodbye to you, to have given you up to someone who you loved more than me, but with the baby, I—’
‘If Delina had loved me enough, we could have worked something out,’ he said, moved by her declaration. ‘I thought she did, and I certainly believed I loved her enough for two of us.’
‘Is she why you came back, Maurice?’ Sheila asked, snuggling a little closer into his arms.
‘I thought of her all the time. To say I felt homesick sounds like the confession of a child, but I was. I dreamt night after night of seeing her again, walking down the familiar roads and lanes, have her teach me the names of the beautiful birds and wild flowers that grow in our valley.’
Sheila pretended it was herself he had missed, and her lips moved to touch his neck, just the slightest touch but it was enough.
‘You don’t have to tell me about loneliness, Maurice,’ she whispered, her breath in his ear.
‘Sheila, I must go, this wasn’t what I planned, I—’
‘Don’t leave me again, Maurice, not tonight, please.’
‘I can’t stay. It wouldn’t be right.’
‘But you want to, don’t you? And I want you to. Who will know?’
His head turned slowly, he stared down at her; young, desirable and unbelievably willing. After all he had put her through she was able to forgive him and share her love with him. As their lips met and their bodies moved to seek contact, Sheila gave a tiny squeal of triumph.
Chapter Twelve
Amy couldn’t decide whether to tell Freddy of Maurice’s return or let him discover it for himself. Any mention of Sheila created a barrier between them. She was unable to hide her dislike of the girl and whenever she spoke of her had great difficulty avoiding words of warning like some old gossip. Eventually she put a few words in a letter to him and hoped that the bald statement, ‘Maurice arrived home last week’, would be sufficient to at least prevent him walking in and finding them together.
She wasn’t even sure they were together. Seeing them go off home in a taxi didn’t mean anything and from what she learned from Phil-the-post – self-appointed purveyor of news – Maurice was still living with his mother.
The response to the letter came swiftly via a telephone call to the shop.
‘What’s happened, Mam?’ he demanded, and Amy knew what he referred to.
‘Well, love, all I can tell you is that after Maurice wrote to say he wouldn’t be coming after all, something happened to change his mind and he’s here. Other than that, I know nothing.’ She didn’t want to volunteer the information that so far as she knew he wasn’t living with his wife, although she hoped every day to have news that he was. It would cheer and encourage him to know they were still apart, but she couldn’t tell him.
‘Where, I mean, where are they?’ Freddy asked.
Deliberately misunderstanding, Amy said, ‘I don’t know, love, Sheila will be working I expect.’
‘Where are they living, Mam?’ He began to sound angry, guessing her reticence, knowing the reason for it. ‘Are they together, you know what I’m asking.’
‘I don’t know, love,’ she insisted. ‘The last time I saw them they were going home together in a taxi. There, does that answer your question. It’s the best I can do.’
‘Find out for me will you, Mam?’
‘All right, Freddy love, I’ll try,’ she promised sadly.
When Billie came into the shop a while later she was sitting staring pensively into space and she hardly looked up when he pushed open the door and filled the shop with his substantial size.
‘Is something wrong, Amy?’ he asked.
‘Oh, sorry, Billie, I was day-dreaming.’
‘Of something sad by the look of you.’
‘Not really, I was thinking of how trouble-free children are when they’re small, yet at the time I remember thinking that it must be the worst time of all, that everything would smooth out once they were over their childhood. But then the problems were mostly solved with a kiss, a cuddle or a dab of ointment. Now, well, everything that happens seems impossible to sort out.’
‘Freddy.’
‘Yes, Freddy. And that Sheila Davies. D’you know what’s happening there? I wonder if Mary would know. Ordering an extra pint of milk can be a clue to lots of goings on, can’t it?’
He chuckled.
‘Will you ask her for me?’
‘Everything from an unexpected visitor to a children’s party, it’s all there in the notes left out for Mary. What d’you want to know?’
‘If Maurice and Sheila are together or not. I promised Freddy I’d find out and I can’t ask them upstairs, can I?’ she pointed her finger above her, to where Mavis and Ralph Powell sat watching the window for sight of their daughter returning from work.
‘I’ll ask. Now, will you come to the farm on Sunday – bring Victor as well, if you must,’ he added quickly as she raised her fair head to protest. ‘You and Margaret and Victor, and those boys of his as well if you like, bring an army, but come. Margaret and I have a surprise for you. Oh,’ he grinned, ‘and in case you still fear to be compromised or have Victor wild with jealousy, we want Oliver to come as well.’
‘Billie Brown, you’re daft,’ she laughed.
‘That’s me,’ he agreed. ‘Daft – about you.’
‘And you’ll find out…?’
‘I’ll find out. See you Sunday?’
‘See you Sunday.’
* * *
Oliver and Margaret often spent Saturday afternoon at the farm, and recently they had been making some boxes for the villagers to place on their window sills and on specially made benches. These would be filled with flowering plants in May, to add to the effort of beautifying their village.
Margaret was not very successful. The nails bent one way t
hen, after being straightened by Billie, would bend the other way. Her box was finished, but as she only too willingly admitted, it needed a bit of support to keep it upright.
‘You are much cleverer at this than me,’ she told Oliver.
‘I’ve helped Grandad and Uncle Billie lots of times,’ Oliver said.
‘It’s only practice, like your piano. If you’d helped as often as me, then you’d be able to do it. Probably better than I can, too.’
The others who came and went at the farm – Victor, Johnny, Bert, Tad, Phil, and Billie himself – teased Margaret about some of her efforts, but Oliver never did. He’d suffered too much criticism himself to be able to enjoy dealing it out to another, even in fun.
There were several places in the village where work went on making the wooden structures needed for the display, but Billie and Mary’s farm had become one of the most popular. Firstly because of the space in the barns he had placed at their disposal, and secondly because of Mary’s food. The long walk down through the fields and back again seemed well worth the effort and for her part Mary enjoyed baking platefuls of tarts and cakes and watching them all disappear.
On Sunday, after lunch, Oliver arrived at Amy’s house and walked to the farm with Amy and Margaret. Phil was already there. He and his brother Sidney had made containers for Ethel and some for the end of Sheepy Lane. Even houses like Ethel’s which were unlikely to catch the judges’ eyes, wanted to be a part of the display.
‘Look, Mam,’ Margaret said proudly.
In the small utility room, that served as a porchway to the kitchen, was a long trough made of wood and in it were several geraniums that Mary had overwintered in her hall. ‘I made that and I helped Auntie Mary to fill it with flowers.’
‘Margaret, you didn’t! I bet Billie did it for you.’
‘All by myself, Mam, except Uncle Billie had to keep straightening the nails.’
Amy walked around with Billie and was surprised at the amount of work already achieved. They were laughing at Phil’s idea of garlanding the neck of Archie Pierce when Victor arrived. With him were his sons and Delina, Tad and Dawn. Amy saw Margaret’s disappointed face and she at once hugged her and reminded her that she was the youngest to have made something, and also the first to display some flowers.
Oliver came to stand beside them as if supporting Margaret and reminding Dawn that she was the latecomer, and Amy chuckled inwardly at the early start to Margaret’s romantic perplexities. Amy left them then and went to greet Victor. She noted with relief that there was no unease between Billie and Victor. The crowd was good-natured and the work kept them all occupied.
The weather was cold: there had been a fall of snow on the previous day and remnants of it lay like abandoned sheepskins against the walls and hedges and in hollows on the hills. The February day was short, with clouds darkening the hills and threatening further falls. The afternoon ended early with a chill gloom. But inside the barn Billie had fixed up lights and the interior was bright and cheerful as the men went on with their tasks. When Mary called to say the third offering of tea and cakes was ready Amy thought it was time to take Margaret and Oliver home, but when she went into the large farm kitchen she saw that Sheila had arrived with Maurice. She was so relieved at seeing them together she gave the girl an unexpectedly warm greeting.
‘Sheila, love, how are you? Still enjoying working at the gift shop are you?’
‘I’m fine, Mrs Prichard,’ Sheila said warily.
There was an anxious look in Sheila’s fine blue eyes as she looked at Amy. She dreaded Amy mentioning that she and Freddy had been… friends: the euphemism came into her mind with practiced ease. Lying, even to herself, was necessary to prevent Maurice finding an excuse to leave her again.
They were still living apart, but Maurice had twice called to see her and on both occasions she had ended up in his arms. Precarious as the relationship was, she had hopes that lifted each day and made her heart sing. He was so handsome and his loving so satisfying. They were so good together that it had to be the same for him, it had to.
Seeing Delina there was a shock and at once she regretted coming. She knew that Maurice and his ex-fiancée had not yet met, although Maurice still spent some time at the Honeyman’s gate, hidden in the shadows, watching her but not speaking. Now, in the enforced intimacy of the small gathering, caught in the oasis of light in the workshop on the dark winter evening, they would have to acknowledge each other.
Her hand crept up to take Maurice’s arm but she forced it back down again. Now was not the time to make a move, remind him she was there. It had to be after Maurice had faced his previous love and, hopefully, found the reality less perfect than the memory.
Delina walked towards them as Mary, Margaret and Dawn entered with trays of food. Sheila decided to be bold and not allow the girl to make her lose her nerve.
‘Hello, Delina. Hello, Tad. Dawn’s busy I see,’ she said, her high voice making everyone stop and listen. Phil coughed to cover the sudden silence and tried to call Tad over to check on something he had been attempting, hoping to ease the tension of which everyone was suddenly aware. But his attempt to talk only made his cough more apparent and he could only watch as Maurice and Tad faced each other.
‘It’s like a flaming cowboy film, with the handsome hero and the bulky baddy, meeting with guns slung at the ready!’ he whispered to Billie.
Everyone began to busy themselves with the food and there was an air of exaggerated jollity as Phil and the others watched with sideward glances as the two men met and tried at the same time to appear not to be looking at each other. The talk grew louder, and the tea cups rattled. But not for long. Maurice handed the empty cup to Phil and said to Tad, ‘I hear you consider yourself engaged then?’
‘I don’t understand,’ Tad replied, stepping closer to Delina who stood white-faced and still. ‘Delina and I announced our intention to marry on Christmas Day at your mother’s house, actually. Aren’t you going to congratulate us?’
‘I don’t think so.’ Maurice turned his back and began to talk to Phil about the plans for their mother’s house.
Tad felt rage fill his body, twisting inside him, desperate for release. Delina sensed it and pulled him away.
‘Tad, let’s find Dawn and the boys and go home,’ she said firmly. ‘I don’t want there to be any trouble, do you?’
‘The man is so damned ignorant. He can’t turn his back on you like that!’
‘I didn’t expect anything else, and you aren’t angry for me, you’re angry for yourself. Come on, please. Look there’s Dawn carrying the cups back to the kitchen, it’s late enough.’
He turned with her and even managed to smile and wave as she called cheerio to everyone. Dawn complained at having to go but pulled her coat around her and admitted that it was getting a bit cold. As they walked away towards the road Tad heard some whispered comment and Maurice’s voice swelled to fill the air with derisory laughter. The words ‘the little chappie’ were all he heard and if it hadn’t been for Delina’s firm grip on his arm he would have turned and smashed his fist into the man’s face.
‘I’m going to have a bit of fun with that little fella,’ Maurice said loudly, and although he appeared to be talked around by his brother, Phil, the look on his face was proof that the idea still appealed. If Delina was lost to him then he would make sure the little chappie was humiliated enough to lose her, too. One day he would be free and then he wanted Delina to be free as well.
* * *
Nelly was listening to the radio. She and George had enjoyed Ring For Jeeves earlier in the afternoon and were now laughing at Life With The Lyons. Amy and Margaret and Victor heard their laughter before they had opened the gate and set the dogs barking. They went into the warm, friendly room and sat and listened with them until it ended, with Nelly interspersing a few necessary explanations about what had gone before.
George didn’t get up as he usually did to offer the visitors the chair closest to the fire.
He smiled at Margaret and offered his knee for her to sit on. His breath was sounding in his chest and she slid to the floor and sat between his feet, afraid her weight would make him feel worse.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked him in her rather prim way and he hugged her shoulders and nodded.
‘Better for seeing you and your mother, young Margaret.’
‘There seemed a bit of a sparking between Tad and young Maurice,’ Amy told them when the programme had finished. ‘Tad seemed ready to take on Maurice. His fists were tight and it was as if they were both just waiting for a wrong word to be spoken to start them off. It was only Delina’s calming influence that made him hold back.’
‘Blimey! We don’t want no wars breakin’ out ’ere,’ Nelly said, brown eyes rolling heavenward. ‘Enough trouble with Bert Roberts trying to organise the flowers I’d ’ave thought!’
‘Was it serious?’ George asked. ‘I’d have expected some glaring and a show of disapproval. It will probably blow over.’
‘Simmering is how I’d describe it,’ Victor said, pouring the water from the kettle to make a cup of tea. ‘And simmering, like this kettle, sounds calm and almost peaceful. But the water is bubbling just the same.’
‘Good heavens, we are getting poetic,’ Amy laughed.
‘I’m afraid that if that particular kettle boils over, my Delina will be scalded, love,’ Victor said. ‘Still, let’s hope it won’t happen, eh? What about a cup of your tea, Nelly. Like one would you?’ He reached over to the cupboard where the cups were stored and brought out sufficient for them all.
‘Sorry I made light of the rivalry between Maurice and Tad,’ Amy said as they walked home down the dark lane. ‘I really didn’t think it was that serious, love.’
‘Mam,’ Margaret said, taking an arm of each of them, ‘I didn’t like today. Not one bit.’
‘Why, love?’
‘Tad and that show-off Maurice Davies quarrelling frightened me. And George, he isn’t well again, is he?’
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