Happiness for Hazel

by Pearl A Gardner

  She reached the local pub where a few stragglers were milling around outside. They were obviously talking about the incident. She caught a few words as she ran past them.

  “Poor lad was doing nowt to them,” an elderly man said. “I think they robbed him.”

  “Does anyone have an idea who they were?” someone asked.

  “They should bloody swing for what they did,” another voice added his opinion.

  Hazel shuddered and hurried on, but she suddenly remembered Glenn’s words when he left her at the Parish hall tea dance, and her blood ran cold. Surely Glenn wouldn’t have had anything to do with this, she thought. What did he say to her about not allowing anyone to dance with her or they’d be sorry? What did he mean? She hadn’t thought about that day in weeks, but now his words came back to haunt her. Had his threat been serious? Was it him? Did he carry out his threat? Was Glenn responsible for thrashing Raymond so hideously?

  But Ray had only been teaching her the dance steps, she reasoned. There was nothing for Glenn to be jealous about. Surely her sweetheart wouldn’t really want to hurt Raymond, she thought.

  Her heart was racing when she reached the doctor’s house. She quickly explained what had happened and told the older man where to go. “I’ll be right behind you when I catch my breath,” she said, clutching her side.

  She had an awful stitch, and her mind was running away with her as she stood panting in the street. She watched the doctor hurrying away with his bag and felt her world closing in around her.

  She was carrying Glenn’s baby and would have to marry him, but did she want to tie herself to a man who could do something like this to her friend? She argued with herself. She didn’t have any proof that Glenn was involved. She only had the incriminating words he’d said to her. She would have to confront him about what happened to Raymond. Would she be better doing that before, or after, she told him about the baby?

  She had to remind herself that she had no evidence to suggest Glenn might have had anything to do with hurting poor Raymond, but her instincts were telling her to listen to her heart. Glenn had shown he was the jealous type. He’d used threatening words. The circumstantial evidence condemned her sweetheart, but she couldn’t blame him without proof. She would have to ask him outright.

  When the pain in her side diminished, she set out to walk back to her friend’s house. She needed to see Raymond again and make sure he was going to be all right. The doctor will have examined him by now, she told herself. He’ll be able to tell us more by the time I get there, she reasoned.

  A whistle caught her attention, and she glanced into the shadows on the other side of the road. “Who’s there?” she called.

  Glenn stepped out and tossed a cigarette butt into the gutter. He swaggered over the cobbles to join her.

  “Fancy seeing you here! Where are you going in such a hurry?” he asked.

  “I’m on my way back home.” Hazel wondered why her sweetheart was loitering in her part of town but didn’t dare ask. Her legs shook as she began to suspect why he was there. Perhaps he’d been one of the three men who beat Eunice’s brother. She glanced at his hands, but they were clean and unblemished. He couldn’t have punched anyone with those hands.

  “Can I walk with you?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “I suppose so, but only as far as the end of my street. I don’t want anyone seeing us together.”

  “Still ashamed of me, are you?” He began to walk beside her.

  “You know it has nothing to do with me being ashamed of anything.” Her stomach was in knots. She was ashamed of many things since she’d started seeing Glenn Bradshaw, but couldn’t admit that to him. “We have to wait for the right time to introduce you to my parents. I thought you understood!”

  “Why are you out so late?” He fell into step beside her. “I can’t believe you are actually here in the street. I missed you last week.”

  “I, err, had to fetch the doctor.” She realised she couldn’t lie about where she’d been or why. “Someone beat Raymond to a pulp. He’s in a bad way.”

  She watched his face for some kind of response.

  Glenn raised his brows slightly. “Is that so?” He didn’t seem too concerned. “I wonder who would do a thing like that?”

  Hazel thought she detected a note of scorn in his voice, but couldn’t be sure. She tried to keep her suspicions under control. “Mr Simpson is going get the police to find out.”

  Glenn nodded but said nothing.

  She didn’t want to have the confrontation with him right now. She wasn’t prepared for it. She didn’t have her questions ready. She didn’t know what to ask him or how to phrase her doubts about him. Thinking she should keep her anger at bay, and say as little as possible for now, she kept her mouth closed. She had to get back to see how Raymond was. She would have time enough after that to raise her suspicions.

  “Mr Simpson will need a lot of luck if he’s going to rely on the police to help him find who did this,” Glenn sounded smug. “I overheard some men outside the Crown. They were talking about some poor bloke getting beaten, but didn’t say who it was. They reckoned the attackers got clean away.”

  Glenn’s high-and-mighty attitude was beginning to make Hazel feel uneasy, and her simmering anger boiled over. “What do you know about this, Glenn?” she blurted, throwing caution to the wind. “If I find out you had anything to do with hurting Ray, I’ll, I’ll—.”

  “What will you do, Petal?” Glenn took her arm and spun her to face him. “Would you go to the police?”

  Hazel’s breath caught in her throat, and she couldn’t answer him.

  “But you couldn’t blame me if I had done something to good old Ray, could you?” Glenn continued. “I told you not to dance with anyone else that day, didn’t I? But you just couldn’t help yourself, could you? Then last Saturday when you stood me up, you made sure he was the one to tell me you weren’t coming. How do you think that made me feel?”

  “No!” Hazel felt an icy trickle of sweat run down between her shoulder blades. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Please tell me it wasn’t you!”

  Glenn looked into her eyes and shook his head. “Oh, come on, Hazel! How could you think that of me?” He pulled her against him. “I wouldn’t hurt a friend of yours, now would I? You don’t really think I’d do something like that, do you? I was only saying you couldn’t blame me if I had, but I haven’t! I swear it!”

  She resisted his embrace, holding herself stiffly in his arms. “I hoped you wouldn’t, but after what you said at the dance, I couldn’t help thinking you might have had something to do with it, and now you’re here, near the very place it happened.” She wondered, again, why he was here. “What are you doing here?”

  “Well, I came on the off chance of catching a glimpse of you, Petal. It’s been so long and I missed you last week. Hand on my heart, I had nothing to do with what happened to your friend. I never touched him.”

  She watched him place his hand on his chest but drew away from him. His words somehow didn’t ring true. Why would he think he might see her at this time of night? He would know she wouldn’t be walking the streets so late unless she had a good reason.

  She blurted the questions that were ringing in her mind, “Why would you think you might see me tonight? You’ve never been here before, have you?”

  “How would you know that, Petal? For all you know, I might come here regularly to try to catch a glimpse of you. I know where you live and I like to be close to you even when I can’t be with you. Especially when it’s been such a long time since I’ve seen you.”

  “That’s just plain silly!” Hazel couldn’t understand his logic. “I don’t believe you!”

  “I can see you’re upset, so I’ll let that go for now. It’s not nice to be called a liar, you know.” He lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles as they continued to walk along. “But I’ll forgive you.”

  His affectionate gesture threw her for a few seconds, but she quickly r
emembered why she was out so late. She pulled her hand from his. “I have to get back. They’ll start to wonder where I am.”

  “From what you’ve told me, the Simpsons will have enough on their minds. They won’t have time to worry about you, will they?” His smile was as charming as ever. “Stay with me a few minutes. What harm would it do? Nobody will know, and it’s been so long since I kissed you…”

  The temptation in his eyes almost won her over, but she took a deep breath. “My mam will worry. The whole street will know what’s happened by now. I wouldn’t be surprised if my dad hasn’t organised a search party to find the thugs.”

  “Just how badly was Simpson hurt?” Glenn asked, the invitation in his eyes fading quickly.

  “He’s bad enough to need a doctor!” She shook her head and started to walk away, but Glenn fell into step with her again. She decided to tell him as much as she knew, hoping to get some sympathetic response from him. “His face is a mess. He’s bleeding from some nasty gashes to his head, and his dad thought he might have some broken ribs.”

  “Sounds as if someone gave him a right pasting.”

  “Someone meant to harm Ray, Glenn, and they did a good job of it.” She dared to add, “If I find out who did this, I’ll make sure they pay for it!”

  “Brave words, Petal, but you’d be better off leaving this kind of thing to the police.”

  “Well, they’d better bring those brutes to justice, that’s all I’m saying!”

  “Perhaps I can help.”

  She couldn’t help thinking that his attitude had seemingly changed suddenly. He’d seemed unconcerned when she’d first told him about Ray, but now he was turning on the charm again. She decided to call his bluff. “What do you think you could do?”

  “I could ask around my pals and my brothers to see whether any of them know anything about this. You never know, someone might have seen or heard something.”

  Hazel wondered why he might think his pals or his family might know something but let it pass. She was wasting time. She stepped away from him. “Will you let me know if you hear anything?”

  “Are you leaving me without a kiss?” Glenn caught her and spun her back into his arms.

  “I can’t, Glenn!” She pushed him away. “We are too close to my home. My dad could be out here searching for those men, and if he were to see us, well, that would be the end for us.”

  “Stop panicking, Petal. I understand.” He stooped to snatch a hasty kiss. “Off you go on your mercy mission.”

  Hazel tossed her head with exasperation but clamped her jaws together to keep from saying something she might later regret. Glenn hadn’t convinced her that he had nothing to do with what happened to Raymond, but she couldn’t be absolutely sure he was guilty.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow at dinner time.” He started walking away, whistling softly.

  Hazel didn’t stay to watch him saunter into the shadows. She turned and began to run back to her street. Her head was a whirl of confusion. Poor Raymond was badly hurt, and she strongly suspected her sweetheart was somehow responsible. She was carrying Glenn’s baby and would have to marry him, but now, she wasn’t sure she wanted to. She was discovering that his appeal and good looks were nothing more than surface polish. She wasn’t sure she liked what he was hiding beneath the charm. The hidden, secretive Glenn was a man she wasn’t sure she wanted to get closer to at all.

  Chapter 19 – Confessions

  Raymond was recovering from his ordeal, but the police were no nearer to solving the case. The three men had seemingly come from nowhere to set about the defenceless young man and had disappeared just as quickly into thin air after the event. Kenny had been in the gents toilets, so had heard the commotion from inside the public-house. By the time he arrived on the scene, Raymond was already on the ground.

  “I saw one of them kick Ray’s head, and I went for him, but they were off before I could reach them.” Kenny had told them his side of the story many times, but Hazel and Eunice listened patiently, knowing the poor young man was weighed down by guilt. “I wanted to run after them, but I was torn. Ray needed help more than he needed me to get revenge for him.”

  “We know, Kenny.” Eunice took her sweetheart’s hand. “You couldn’t have done more.”

  “I wish I knew why.” Raymond glanced at Hazel, his face a colourful mass of yellow, fading bruises. “The police asked me to try to think who might have a grudge against me, but you know me. I don’t go around upsetting people!”

  “But they did take your savings, Ray,” Kenny pointed out. “Perhaps they overheard you talking about buying the bike. You said you had the money in your pocket.”

  “We were in the pub!” Raymond shook his head slowly. “I didn’t think anyone would be interested in our conversation. I was going to buy the bike the next day. I was excited, that’s all. I didn’t think a gang of thugs would beat me up for a few quid!”

  “You won’t be able to get the bike now, will you, Ray?” Eunice pointed out sadly.

  “I’ll save up again. I won’t let this stop me.”

  “The police know you were robbed, Ray. Perhaps when they find the thugs, you might get your money back.” Hazel couldn’t help feeling guilty. She’d had it out with Glenn again, and although he’d danced around the subject, she couldn’t be sure he was innocent.

  “I doubt it. Those kind of men will have spent it already, I’m sure.”

  Hazel didn’t know what to say to her friend. She’d seen Glenn every day for half-an-hour, during her dinner break that first week after the attack, and he’d been as charming and attentive as usual. He didn’t mention the assault on Raymond, and she hadn’t wanted to spoil their time together by bringing it up, but by the second week, she was feeling differently.

  She’d made excuses about her grandmother needing her so she wouldn’t have to meet Glenn on the next Saturday evening. Instead, she visited with Raymond over the weekend and saw how much he was suffering. Guilt had begun to eat at her conscience. She decided she had to ask Glenn outright whether he’d had a part in what happened.

  When Glenn arrived to walk her partway home on the Monday evening after work, as he usually did when he worked the day shift, she decided to raise the subject of Raymond’s assault again. She avoided his lips when he bent to give her his customary kiss of greeting and launched her confrontation, just as she’d been rehearsing it all day. “I’m going to ask you one more time, Glenn, and I want you to give me an honest answer.”

  “Not this again!” He’d sighed heavily.

  Hazel would not be put off by his annoyance with her. This was too important. “Did you have anything to do with Ray’s attack?”

  Glenn shrugged and didn’t give her any answers she could be happy with. In fact, he’d turned the tables on her.

  “What’s got into you lately?” he’d snapped. “Anyone would think I was the one to kick Simpson’s head in from listening to you carrying on about it!”

  “Well, did you?” she asked, determined to get some straight answers from him.

  “You’re no fun anymore, Hazel.” Glenn avoided her questions and went into a sulk. He’d shaken her hand from his in a childlike gesture of annoyance.

  “Don’t you dare turn this on me!” she’d tried to make him see reason. “You can’t blame me for thinking such a thing when you won’t give me a straight answer to a straight question.”

  They’d argued all the way through the streets, and he left her with the parting words, “If you don’t come out on Saturday, we’re done. I haven’t seen you in town for ages. I won’t be taking you to the summer dance. I won’t put up with a girlfriend who won’t believe me and who refuses to come out on a Saturday night.”

  She hadn’t answered him. She’d been too angry with him, and she walked the rest of the way home alone. Glenn usually left her a few streets away from her home, because she didn’t want her family to see him, but that evening he left her early, after issuing his ultimatum. She spent the rest of h
er short journey going over their conversation but still not being able to decide whether Glenn was hiding something. She thought perhaps he was angry because she hadn’t met him on the previous Saturdays, and just then, she wouldn’t let him kiss her. As she entered her street, she realised she still hadn’t told him about the baby.

  He didn’t come to walk her home from work after that. She didn’t go to meet him outside the town hall. She had ignored his ultimatum, and knew he would be angry with her. Now it was Sunday, and she was fretting that her sweetheart wouldn’t want her. Was her brief love affair over? What if she were wrong about him? If Glenn was innocent, he must think she was a terrible person for thinking him capable of such an awful crime. What if he never wanted to see her again? What would she do then?

  “You seem miles away, Hazel.” Raymond lifted his brows and winced. “Ouch, my eye still hurts when I do that!”

  “Then don’t lift your eyebrows, silly!” Eunice chastised him gently. “The doctor said you might have hairline fractures all over your head and they’ll take a few weeks to heal properly. You’re lucky you don’t have anything more serious to worry about!”

  “Are you saying this wasn’t serious enough?” Raymond cautiously smiled as if expecting each muscle to give a painful response.

  “No, silly!” Eunice grinned. “You look a right fright!”

  “Thanks, sis. You know how to cheer a lad up when he’s down, I’ll give you that!” Raymond’s voice dripped sarcasm.

  “Sorry, Ray, but she’s right.” Kenny glanced at Eunice and smiled. “Don’t go looking into any baby prams or you’ll get arrested for scaring the living daylights out of them!”

  All four laughed uneasily, and Hazel looked at Raymond guardedly. “It looks much better than it did, though. You’ll be right as rain in a few more weeks.”