by Kitty Neale
‘I liked it,’ said Tommy with a wicked look on his face. ‘With one particular married woman anyway.’ Suddenly he knew this was the moment. He’d always thought it would be a perfectly planned occasion, yet here was the chance he needed. He paused and grew serious. ‘In fact I liked it so much I want to do it again.’
Mavis shot him a look, puzzled.
Tommy smiled gently and kissed her again. ‘Sorry, I’m talking in riddles. I’ve waited so long to say this that it’s coming out all wrong.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Now you’re free … what I wanted to ask you was … oh Mavis, you know how I feel about you. Will you marry me?’
For a moment there was silence. Mavis gave a little gasp, and then she beamed at him, happiness radiating from her. ‘Oh, Tommy,’ she breathed. ‘Of course I will. I’m the luckiest woman alive to have you. Let’s do it as soon as we can.’
Tommy swept her off her feet and danced with her, twirling her around the kitchen. ‘For richer, for poorer,’ he chuckled. ‘Then you won’t have to have his name anymore either. You can be Mavis Wilson.’
‘Mavis Wilson. Yes. That sounds much better. I never did like the name Pugh.’ She hugged him tightly around his neck. ‘Rich, poor, none of that matters as long as we’re together.’
Tommy set her down and held her close. ‘That’s exactly how I feel too. I’ll never hurt you, Mavis. I’ll do everything in my power to keep you safe. I’ll never let the bad times come for you again,’ Tommy said firmly, meaning every word.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rhona had wondered what sort of reception she would get when she went back to work, thinking perhaps everyone would assume she’d been skiving. So she returned to the factory before her head wound had properly healed and still bearing signs of the bruising, wanting to get back into a normal routine as soon as possible and to forestall any trouble. Her worries were unfounded. When she got there, everyone greeted her like a hero.
‘You’ve done me a favour,’ beamed Jean. ‘Getting that slimy Andy Forsyth arrested was the best thing you could have done.’
‘No! I didn’t give them his name!’ Rhona cried, horrified. She’d been careful to say that before she had seen her attackers, she’d been hit on the head from behind and hadn’t mentioned anything about coming to before they’d left. She knew only too well what happened to snitches and she didn’t fancy the repercussions. Being beaten up once was bad enough.
‘Sorry, that came out wrong,’ said Jean, still grinning like the cat who got the cream. ‘That barman cracked under police questioning and confessed everything. My fiancé heard all about it. The police raided Andy Forsyth’s place and as the daft sod hadn’t had the sense to hide the money, he didn’t stand a chance.’
‘I hope they put him away for a long stretch. Prison’s too good for the likes of him,’ Rhona said as she rubbed her head where it still hurt.
‘But that’s not the best bit,’ Jean went on. ‘It was all too much for our foreman. He’d boasted about Andy getting on in the world and looked down his nose at us, so when he heard what had happened to you he went crazy. He barged into the manager’s office and started shouting, accusing you of putting Andy up to it and demanding your dismissal. The manager was none too happy and sacked him on the spot.’
‘What? You’re kidding.’ Rhona couldn’t imagine the pompous foreman losing his temper like that. He’d been deliberately mean to her, but had never shown any signs of doing anything to jeopardise his own job. ‘I can’t believe it. He was always such an arse-licker around the boss. Has he really been sacked?’
‘Yes he has. He had to empty his locker and go.’ Jean held out her arms. ‘And guess who the new foreman is now?’
Rhona shrugged. She had no idea who the boss had chosen for promotion. It would be one of the men from the other shifts. She looked across to Alma, who had been standing watching them, a smile on her face. Rhona frowned. What was she missing here? ‘I haven’t got a clue.’
‘It’s me!’ Jean exclaimed. ‘They’ve put me in charge! What do you think of that?’
Rhona gaped. ‘But you’re a woman!’
Jean snorted. ‘Well, I know that. So what? Just because they haven’t had a woman foreman before, doesn’t mean they can’t change. Aren’t you pleased for me?’
Rhona nodded hastily. ‘Of course. It’s fab. You were more or less in charge anyway. Old Forsyth was in the canteen more than he was with us, except when he wanted to pick on me.’
‘It’s been winding me up for ages,’ Jean said, ‘seeing that old fool lording it over us and not having the faintest idea what was going on half the time. I knew I could do his job better than him. The money will be better too so I can get married a bit earlier. I’m over the moon.’
‘Congratulations,’ said Rhona, and meant it. Jean would make a great boss – she was fair, she was straightforward, didn’t take any nonsense and knew exactly how everything worked around the factory. ‘It’s a real turn-up for the books and the best news I’ve had for ages.’
Jean smiled. ‘Thanks. So now, as your new boss, I suppose I should ask if you’re really well enough to start work this morning.’
‘You bet I am,’ said Rhona. ‘I’ve been stuck at home for long enough.’
‘In which case, get your skates on.’
Alma stepped forward. ‘Jean, aren’t you forgetting something?’ she asked. ‘That other thing that happened.’
‘Oh yes.’ Jean spun around. ‘Sorry, in all the drama of Forsyth getting the push and me getting promoted it slipped my mind. Penny was here.’
Rhona stopped in her tracks. ‘Penny? What did she want? I hope you told her to sling her hook.’
‘Not exactly,’ said Jean. ‘She wanted to see you, actually.’
Rhona raised her eyes heavenwards. ‘Did she indeed? Well she can go on wanting. I don’t want to see her, that’s for sure.’
‘We didn’t think she looked very well, did we?’ Alma said, turning to Jean. ‘She was always such a lively young girl when she worked here, but now she looks sort of washed out.’
Rhona pulled on her overall and said dismissively, ‘I’m not interested in what she looks like.’
Alma made as if to say something more, then seemed to think the better of it.
‘Right,’ said Jean. ‘Now you’ve caught up with everything that’s been going on, we’d better make a start. I’m telling you as your boss to get cracking.’
On Sunday afternoon Tommy gritted his teeth and forced himself to walk along the familiar pavement to his mother’s door. He knew he had to get this matter over with. She would be furious if she wasn’t one of the first to know about him and Mavis.
His mother opened the door with her usual lack of affection. ‘Oh, it’s you again.’
Tommy nodded. ‘Can I come in?’
‘I suppose so.’ She led the way down the dark hallway to the kitchen where the remains of her lunch sat congealing on the draining board: a fatty piece of a pork chop surrounded by a greasy gravy. Tommy looked away.
‘I can guess why you’re here,’ she scowled.
Tommy took out a small box wrapped in a brown paper bag which he’d been carrying in his pocket. ‘I brought you something.’
Olive looked at it scornfully. ‘What’s that? Something from Torquay?’
‘Yes, I thought you might like it.’ He held it out to her.
She took it and opened the paper bag, which she then carefully folded and tucked in between two jars on the dresser before looking properly at the present. ‘A souvenir from Devon,’ she read. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s fudge, Mum. You like fudge. You get a lot of it down there.’
‘That was before I got me false teeth. It sticks to them something awful.’ Olive pulled a face as she plonked it on the table. ‘Can’t touch it now. I hear there’s lots of things happening in Torquay by the sounds of it.’
‘Yes, there was lots going on. We went to the beach and visited—’
‘That’s not wh
at I meant,’ Olive interrupted. ‘You must have seen this piece of news.’ She picked up a copy of the News of the World. ‘Here. Have a read.’ She leant back and folded her arms, pitching up the sleeves of the old cardigan full of holes.
Tommy took it and realised it had been folded so that one article was uppermost.
DEAD BUSINESSMAN USED FALSE NAME
He read on. It had emerged that the body found at the foot of the cliffs was not that of Charles Collier. It had been an assumed name and the man’s real name had been Alec Pugh. The same photo smiled out at him. Tommy shook his head. Well, anyone from Battersea who’d seen the Wednesday papers would have known anyway. He noted that this headline was much bigger than the earlier ones, probably because despite the event being several days old, it added a whole new layer of mystery to the story.
‘Well?’ Olive fixed him with her beady eyes.
‘Well what?’
‘That man was married to Dumbo Jackson, wasn’t he?’
‘Her name’s Mavis, and like I said before, she’s not dumb. She just has word blindness.’
‘So you keep saying. So now the brats have lost their dad. How very convenient.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ Tommy tried to breathe steadily, reminding himself as he did on every visit that his mother was a lonely, malicious woman who had nobody else to take out her bad temper on. Still, he could feel his heart begin to pound.
‘I mean, you lot go on holiday to Torquay and he winds up dead. Bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?’
Tommy shook his head. Trust his mother to try to make something out of nothing, to create suspicion. He reminded himself that she hadn’t been there, she couldn’t have known anything beyond what was in the papers. ‘I didn’t know he was there. Mavis didn’t know either until she saw the papers in the week.’
‘You expect me to believe that?’ Olive asked indignantly. ‘You suddenly announce you’re off to Torquay, then while you’re there the husband of the floozy you’ve taken up with falls off a cliff and dies. It don’t take a genius to work out what went on. You better be careful. I won’t be the only one thinking what a stroke of luck it was for you.’
‘Are you saying it wasn’t an accident?’ Tommy could feel his temper rising despite all his good intentions and fought to stay calm. There was no point in saying something rash now, it could land him in really hot water.
‘I’m saying it’s all a bit fishy.’
‘Come off it, Mum. You know me. I’m not going to go round pushing people off cliffs just because I don’t like them.’
‘So you didn’t like him, then?’
‘I didn’t say that! Stop looking for the worst possible explanation. Alec Pugh was walking along a narrow cliff path and fell off the edge. It’s sad, but there’s no more to it than that.’
‘It’s going to take more than a bloody box of fudge to convince me of that,’ snapped Olive.
Tommy could have slammed his fist on the kitchen table in frustration. He’d wanted to share his news about his engagement, even knowing that his mother wouldn’t be happy, but he hadn’t expected her to all but accuse him of causing Alec’s death. ‘Mum, it was an accident. The papers don’t say it was anything other than that and at least it means Mavis and the children can get on with their lives. He made them a misery, you know.’
‘Yeah, well, I can’t say that surprises me. His mother was a stuck-up old bag,’ Olive mused. ‘Like mother like son no doubt.’
‘Yes, and after what she went through, Mavis deserves something better,’ said Tommy, steering the conversation back in the direction he wanted it to go in. ‘Mum, I came here to tell you the news. I asked Mavis to marry me and she said yes.’
For a moment Olive was lost for words. Her hands went to her throat and her eyes widened. Then she found her voice again. ‘Marry her?’ she shrieked. ‘Have you lost your bleeding mind? Dumbo Jackson? Her with those two little brats, and you tell me this just after they find her husband’s body? Have you gone stark staring mad?’
‘No, Mum, I’ve never been more serious in my life,’ Tommy said, keeping his voice level. ‘I love Mavis and she loves me. I’m sorry it took such a sad event to make it possible but I’ve wanted to ask her for ages. Can’t you make an effort to welcome her and the children into the family? After all, she’s going to be your daughter-in-law.’
‘God in heaven, in case you’ve forgotten, I’ve already had one,’ spat Olive, going red in the face as she ranted on. ‘You were just like this the last time, love this, and love that. Fat lot of good that did. Two shakes of a lamb’s tail and you’re splitting up with Belinda, bringing the disgrace of a divorce on the family. Now you want to marry that idiot whose mother is a right tart and take on her brats, while their own father isn’t even cold in his grave. That’s if there was anything left to bury after they scraped him off the rocks.’
‘Mum!’
‘Don’t you “Mum” me. Take a good look at yourself, Thomas Wilson, and ask yourself what people are going to be saying about you. Her husband dead, Dumbo marries again just after – what does it look like?’
‘It’s not like that,’ protested Tommy, but it was like banging his head against a brick wall. Once his mother had an idea in her head there was no shifting it – it didn’t matter if he was her son or not.
‘My God, you’re dafter than I’d imagined,’ breathed Olive. ‘Here, take your blasted fudge and get out before everyone knows you’re here. All you do is bring trouble to my door. There’s going to be one hell of a palaver about this, just you wait and see, but go ahead, marry that fool of a woman. Just don’t come crying to me when it all goes wrong. You make your bed, you can lie on it. Now get out.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
Rhona was leaving the factory gates after her shift on Monday, her mind on the story she’d seen in the paper yesterday and what it meant for Mavis. She’d rushed over to check that she knew and if she was all right, but Mavis had been fine, more than fine in fact. She’d had a few extra days to adjust to the news, and the wonderful thing was she was now formally engaged to Tommy. Rhona couldn’t bring herself to feel sorry for Alec, and was delighted that Mavis was at last out of limbo. Even James and Grace didn’t seem too bothered; Grace had had a hard time understanding what someone being dead meant, but neither was sad at the idea of never seeing Alec again.
So Rhona was miles away when she caught sight of a figure leaning against the wall on the opposite side of the road. She groaned to herself. This was the last person she wanted to see, but there was no way of avoiding her, short of turning round and going back inside the gates, which would be stupid. Sighing, she decided to find out what the girl wanted.
Penny made her way across the road, huddled into a light coat, her expression miserable. Her hair was flat and looked like it hadn’t been washed in a while. Rhona thought that if she hadn’t known better, this didn’t look like someone who could steal their best friend’s boyfriend.
‘Hello, Penny.’
Penny looked up in what might have been relief at not being ignored. ‘Rhona. I came to see you. Actually I came last …’
‘Yeah, I heard.’ Rhona stood still and folded her arms. ‘What is it that you want exactly?’
Penny shuffled her feet and looked uneasy. ‘It’s a bit … well, I can’t quite …’
‘Spit it out.’ Rhona wasn’t in the mood to make things easy for the young woman who’d betrayed her so badly when she’d been in no state to do anything about it.
Penny glanced around, checking to see if anyone was close enough to overhear. Then she plucked up her courage and came out with it. ‘Rhona, I need your help.’
Rhona raised her eyebrows. ‘Blimey. You got a nerve. Why would I help you, when you went off with Gary?’
‘Please, Rhona. I haven’t got anyone else I can turn to,’ Penny gazed at her imploringly. ‘I can’t talk to Mum, and everyone at my new job down the fruit and veg warehouse is miles older so they wouldn’t understand. You
’re the only person who would know what to do.’
Rhona thought this sounded like trouble, but in spite of herself she was interested. She should send Penny away with a flea in her ear, but instead said brusquely, ‘You’ve got the time it takes me to walk home.’
‘All right.’ Penny said, but struggled to keep up. ‘Please, Rhona, slow down. Sorry, I’m just a bit tired.’
Rhona slowed her pace, noting that though Penny had always been fair-skinned, she now looked an unhealthy shade of white. She was also breathing heavily and a bit of Rhona’s hardness towards her softened. ‘You obviously can’t talk and walk, so when we get to my place you’d better come in.’
‘Oh, thanks, Rhona.’
When they arrived at the house, Rhona shoved open the door and headed for the kitchen where her mother looked up in surprise when she saw their visitor. ‘Penny, I didn’t expect to see you here.’
‘Hello,’ Penny said weakly.
Marilyn looked at her daughter, but Rhona just shrugged. Sighing, she said, ‘Cup of tea?’
‘Yes please, Mum, I’m parched,’ said Rhona at once.
‘No thanks,’ said Penny. ‘Could I have a glass of water?’
‘Yes, and I’ll make the tea,’ Rhona said, staring meaningfully at her mother, willing her to leave them alone.
Marilyn got the message. ‘Now you’re back I’ll just pop out to see if they’ve got anything at the bakery going cheap at the end of the day. You never know.’ She picked up her bag and went out of the back door.
Rhona handed Penny her glass of water and indicated the kitchen chair. ‘So, what’s up?’
Penny sat at the kitchen table and put her head in her hands. ‘I don’t know how to begin.’
Rhona made herself a cup of tea and sighed impatiently. She already had her suspicions, but said, ‘I can’t help you if I don’t know what the problem is.’
Penny raised her head and wiped away a tear that was trickling down her face. ‘Do you remember when I asked your advice about … about …?’