‘I can’t, Jeff. You know I can’t,’ she said. She teetered on the edge of telling him the real reason, but his whipped puppy-dog look stopped her. Instead, she prevaricated. ‘Your parents—they’d go mad—’
Jeff waved this aside. He clasped her hands again, shaking them slightly as he spoke, gazing into her eyes as if hoping to hypnotise her into agreeing with him.
‘I don’t care about them. We don’t need their permission. We’re both over twenty-one. We could get married straight away. We don’t have to wait for anything. We can just get married and be together. I’ll work so hard once we’re together, Annie. I’ll look after you, you’ll see. I’ll look after everything.’
That just tipped the whole situation over into comedy. Jeff looking after her? Jeff doing a full day’s work? As far as she could make out, he was out of the factory more hours than he was in it. It was only because he was working for his father that he got away with it. Any other employer would have sacked him years ago. Annie had to press her lips together to stop herself from laughing.
‘No, Jeff. It’s lovely of you and I’m flattered and all that, but no. It won’t work.’
‘It will,’ Jeff insisted. ‘It will work. I’ll make it. I won’t take no for an answer, Annie. I’ll ask again. I’ll keep on asking till you say yes.’
Annie pulled her hands free and picked up her knife and fork. ‘You’re going to have to wait a long time, then,’ she said.
‘I’ll wait for ever,’ Jeff declared, ‘but you’ll say yes in the end, you’ll see.’
After a long wrangle, she had to insist that they drop the subject.
‘All right,’ Jeff agreed, the sulky boy expression settling over his face. ‘But I’ll ask you again another day. I’ll keep on asking until you see sense.’
It was a tense journey home. For the first time since they had been going out together, Annie was glad to get home.
She found it impossible to sleep. The events of the evening chased round her brain. Jeff Sutton had actually proposed to her! Her, Annie Cross the Unmarried Mother. She imagined what the Suttons’ reaction would have been if she had said yes. Mrs Sutton would be coldly furious. Beryl would hit the roof. To have her as a sister-in-law! She could even have threatened to have the wedding before Beryl’s, and steal the thunder from Beryl’s Big Day with the scandal of having a fallen woman marrying into her family. She smiled to herself, thinking of just how incandescent Beryl would have been.
But then the cold reality began to dawn. She would have to stop going out with Jeff, which was quite a shame, really. She enjoyed going to all those nice places and, when he wasn’t being spoilt and sulky, he was good company. But she couldn’t carry on letting him pay for all those outings now that he wanted her to marry him and she had no intention of doing so.
And that was the end of the matter.
Except that it wasn’t. Because the alternative was lurking there in her head, and it wouldn’t go away. What if she were to become Mrs Jeffrey Sutton? She could be respectable. She could build up Silver Sands. She could be a Somebody in Wittlesham. But it always came back to the same thing. She didn’t love him. She didn’t love him the way she loved Tom, had loved him from almost the moment she’d met him, and loved him still. She didn’t even feel for him the way she had for Bobby Joe, which had been a sort of madness, an animal need, a wild bid for escape into all things American. She liked Jeff. He was fun to go out with. But she didn’t even respect him, so it was out of the question that she should marry him.
‘You look pale, dear,’ her mother remarked over breakfast the next morning. ‘You’re not sickening for something, are you?’
‘No, no—you know me, I’m never ill,’ Annie said, imagining what the reaction would have been if she’d announced her engagement to Jeff. Her mother would have been absolutely flabbergasted. To be connected with the wonderful Suttons was beyond her wildest dreams.
‘I’m never ill either,’ Bobby said, tucking into his scrambled eggs and bacon.
‘That’s right. You’re growing into a big strong boy,’ Annie said proudly.
What would Bobby have said? He was never very happy when she went out for an evening with Jeff, but that was just because she was going out, not because she was with Jeff. He’d not really seen much of him. He would have got used to it all right. There was nothing about Jeff for Bobby to dislike, really. He’d almost be a big brother to him.
Throughout the day, and the most of the following days, and a good deal of each night, she worried and worried at the problem until she felt hollow and jagged and didn’t know which way to turn. It was such a big decision. She could totally change the course of her life. And as usual there was no one to turn to, no one to advise her. It was her choice alone. She dreaded seeing Jeff again and avoided all the places where she might run into him, but she couldn’t avoid the caravan site, and it was there that he waited for her.
‘Annie, Annie—’ He came bounding up to her and hugged her. ‘Have you changed your mind yet? No, no, don’t say anything, just listen. I’ve got such a good idea. It came to me this morning, when I was at the golf club. How about a crazy golf here? Or at least, not here, but in the field next door there. When we’ve got the new vans, that is. Can’t you just see them, all lined up across the field? And we could build that clubhouse you’re always talking about. Everyone will be flocking to Silver Sands! We’ll be bigger than Butlins.’
She let him ramble on. Anything was better than having to put him off again.
At last he looked at his watch and yelped. ‘My God, look at the time! I was supposed to be picking the sprog up from school and taking him to the dentist in Colchester. Mother will have my guts for garters. She can’t do it because she’s doing some wedding stuff with Beryl. Oh, darling, just think how wonderful it would be not to be at her beck and call any more! Now, listen, you are coming out with me tomorrow, aren’t you? It’s our regular night, after all. You won’t let me down, will you?’
Tomorrow evening. In a way, that made it better. If she had a deadline, then she would have to make her mind up and not keep going over and over it until she thought she was going mad. She would see him tomorrow evening, and she would tell him once and for all.
‘All right,’ she agreed.
‘Darling Annie!’ Jeff hugged her again and kissed her. ‘I love you so much. I can’t live without you, you know that, don’t you? Till tomorrow! I’ll pick you up at seven. We’ll go somewhere special!’
Annie watched him as he roared off down the track in the MG, bouncing over the potholes. One small corner of her mind noted that she would have to get the holes filled, even if she couldn’t afford to have the whole thing properly surfaced.
That night she lay sleepless again. How were things going to be if she sent Jeff packing? Much the same as they were now. She looked down the long years ahead with no husband and little money, and no way to provide a better future for Bobby. For, however hard she worked, without investment the site was only ever going to grow very slowly. It would be years and years before it got anywhere near the vision she had for it. She wanted Bobby to have everything she’d never had, but at the moment he had less, for at least she had been born of parents who had been married. Nobody had called her those horrible names that poor Bobby had to endure. If she had money, that would make all the difference. People respected money, and they respected the Suttons. If she was one of them, Bobby would be drawn in as well.
Unable even to lie down any longer, she pulled on her dressing gown and padded downstairs. There was still some warmth in the range. She opened the front and sat down in front of it, notebook on her knee. She drew two columns—For and Against. The Fors made the most sense.
It was getting light. Annie walked through to the parlour and looked across the fields. In the half light the caravans were silvery against the darker grey of the sea wall. The sea wall that had burst to kill Gwen and her father. The sea wall where she had met Tom, where she had last seen Tom, where s
he had realised that she loved him now and for ever. But Tom was married, just like Bobby Joe.
She made her decision.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
‘I SUPPOSE you’re working this evening again,’ Moira said.
She was standing in the tiny kitchen, her arms folded across her chest, an expression of contained exasperation on her face.
‘As a matter of fact, I’m not,’ Tom told her. ‘I’m letting the new man do it. So we can go out if you like. Is there anything on at the pictures you’d like to see?’
‘Oh, well, you’re a bit late telling me, aren’t you? I’d assumed you’d be working, so I’ve already arranged to go to the pictures,’ Moira said. She turned away and started stacking the dirty breakfast things prior to washing them up.
Tom felt irritated. He had especially organised it so he could have Saturday evening off, thinking that if they went out together more like they used to, then things might improve between them.
‘Who are you going with? Joan? If they could get a babysitter, then we could go as a foursome with her and George,’ he suggested.
‘No—not Joan. Someone from the Young Wives. You don’t know her. Her husband’s away a lot and she doesn’t get out much, so I can’t let her down,’ Moira said, running water into the sink. The rising steam made her face flush.
‘Well, there’s no need to change it, she could still come along with us. It’s not as if we’re a courting couple any more,’ Tom said.
Moira clattered plates around. ‘No, no, that’s no good. She doesn’t know you and she’s quite shy. She’d be embarrassed. No—I’ll just run over and tell our Vera we don’t need her to babysit, and you can stay in with Michael. You’re always saying you don’t see enough of him.’
‘You’re always saying we don’t go out enough,’ Tom pointed out.
‘No, I’m not. I never complain if it’s work,’ Moira retorted. ‘Don’t you go making me out to be a nagging wife.’
‘I’m not,’ Tom said.
He picked up the tea towel and began drying the plates. He tried to remember when last they had been out together other than to visit his family or hers and realised that unless he arranged it well in advance, Moira was always reluctant to go. It all added to his general unease about just what she was up to while he was out of the way.
‘In fact,’ Moira said, interrupting his thoughts, ‘if you want to take one of these weekend trips you and your dad were talking about, I shan’t mind. It’s not as if it will make much difference to Sundays.’
‘Right,’ Tom said. ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’
He set off as usual for work, accompanied by Michael on his trike to the end of the road. It was a beautiful summer’s morning with areal promise of warmth in the air. Roses glowed in the flowerbeds of the neat front gardens and rival blackbirds were singing on the chimney pots, but they failed to raise Tom’s spirits. He kissed his son goodbye at the corner and paused to watch him pedal back towards home, his head down and his little legs pumping round as if he were racing for a gold medal.
‘That’s a grand little lad you’ve got there,’ an elderly voice remarked.
It was the lady who lived opposite them, a widow who kept her eye on everything that was going on in the street. Her equally elderly Pekinese dog glared at him with its bulging eyes from the shopping basket on wheels that it travelled in.
‘Thank you,’ Tom said, his foot on the pedal ready to go. He didn’t want to start a conversation.
‘Takes after his daddy, riding his tricycle like that.’
‘Yes, he certainly does. Must get off to work. Mustn’t be late.’
His neighbour fixed him with a stare as uncompromising as that of her dog. ‘It doesn’t do to spend too much time at work, young man. Remember that other people are at home when you’re away.’
Tom went cold. He did not want to know what she was on about, and yet he had to ask. ‘What do you mean?’
The woman pursed her lips and looked at a point somewhere over his shoulder. In the tree above their heads, a robin sang.
‘Just that you should be careful, that’s all.’
And that was all he could get out of her.
‘I’m not a gossip, Mr Featherstone. Other people’s business is their own, that’s what I always say. Good day to you.’
And she went off down the road, trundling the basket before her.
Tom was left in a state of confusion.
When he got to the yard, he was disappointed to find that yet again there was nothing from Annie. He hadn’t heard from her for three weeks now. He dashed off a quick note to her, asking if she was all right, but even that hardly distracted him from the suspicion that gnawed at him. He had to settle it once and for all, he decided. It was no use simply confronting Moira. He had to prove it. The process sickened him, but he put it into motion all the same. He had to know if there was something going on behind his back. If he was just imagining it, then he would make an extra effort to put things right between him and Moira. If he was right … He did not let himself think about that. The implications were too enormous.
‘I’m taking that trip to Scarborough,’ he told Moira when he came home that evening. ‘I hope that’s still all right with you? Only it’ll save us a fortune if I do it.’
‘Oh—right—yes. Well, I said so, didn’t I?’ Moira said.
There was a continual belligerence about her these days, it seemed to Tom. Whatever he said, however trivial, seemed to get the same aggressive response. Now, however, she was too intent on getting out to make an issue of the matter. She disappeared upstairs to get ready, leaving Tom crawling round the dining room floor with Michael putting the train set out.
‘I’m off. Don’t wait up,’ she called from the hall.
Tom heard the front door open and hurried Michael out into the hall to say goodnight. A waft of perfume met him. Moira had a light mac on so he couldn’t see what she was wearing, but her hair and make-up were perfect. There was an air of suppressed excitement about her.
‘You look nice,’ he said.
‘Just because I’m going out with a girlfriend, I don’t have to look a frump,’ Moira told him. ‘Night-night, Mikey.’
She bent down and touched Michael with her lips, leaving a bright red mark on his cheek. Then she was off out of the door and away.
Tom found it hard to settle. He kept Michael up way beyond his bedtime, but that still left plenty of time to fill. The television failed to hold his attention. He tried to go over some of the drivers’ rotas but couldn’t concentrate. He made cocoa and scanned the newspaper but the print blurred before his eyes. Was Moira really out with this mystery girlfriend? When she arrived home, at exactly the time it took to get back from the last showing in the town centre, he studied her face. Her cheeks were glowing from the cool air outside. She did not have a hair out of place and her lipstick was still fresh.
‘You smell of cigarettes,’ Tom said.
‘People were smoking all round us. It gets in your hair,’ Moira said, and added with heavy sarcasm, ‘Did you have a nice time, Moira? Yes, thank you, Tom. The film was a bit feeble, but my friend enjoyed it. I think I’ll go straight up.’
Tom was left none the wiser.
The next few days went far too fast. The knowledge of what he had put into motion weighed heavily on him. It was not a pleasant thing to set a trap for your wife. Part of him hated himself for doing it. The other part had to know the truth. On top of this, there was still no word from Annie. He was worried that she might be ill. He could think of no other reason why she would not write to him for so long.
On Saturday morning, Moira handed him the overnight bag she had packed for him. ‘Drive carefully,’ she said, and actually kissed him on the cheek.
Tom hid the bag beside a filing cabinet and went through the motions of working. Several times, people had to speak to him twice before he heard them. His father asked him if there was anything wrong. Tom assured him that he was fine, and hoped
that it was true. In the evening, he ate tucked away in the corner of a café then whiled away the time at the pictures. He left before the end of the main feature.
He felt sick as he walked along his street. It was nearly half past ten and there were some lights on in upstairs windows as people prepared to go to bed. He glanced at the house over the road from his and thought he saw the curtain fall back. His own house was in darkness. With feet that seemed to be weighted with lead, he trod soundlessly up the front path and slowly, carefully, let himself in.
He stood in the hall, listening.
At first the house was silent. If he had not been so suspicious, he would have thought that Moira had simply decided on an early night.
Then he heard it—a soft, low laugh from Moira and the deeper rumble of a man’s voice. Anger exploded through him. He snapped on the landing light, pounded up the stairs two at a time and flung open the door to the front bedroom, reaching for the switch. Everything happened at once. Light flooded the room, Moira screamed, a naked male figure came charging straight at him, head down, flattening him against the wall and making a break for the stairs. In a split second, Tom was after him. With Moira’s cries ringing in his ears, he raced down the stairs and caught his rival as he tried to open the door. He got him by the throat and slammed him into the corner. The desperate crimson face that confronted him was that of the young man who lodged with the people a few doors down.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Tom shouted.
‘It’s not—what you think—’ the man managed to croak, raising his hands in submission.
‘You mean you weren’t in bed with my wife?’
‘Yes—no—’
‘I’ll have your bloody balls off!’
The man was sweating now, his eyes staring with fear.
‘No—please—’
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