For Better For Worse (12 page)

‘He wanted to leave his mark in the world and to have a son to carry on his name,’ she explained. ‘He said he planned to do something amazing in his life, so amazing that he would make the front pages of the newspaper when he died.’

There was a muffled titter in the courtroom until the judge brought down his gavel. ‘Carry on, Mr Collingwood.’

Kaye began to cough.

‘Are you all right, Mrs Royale?’ asked the judge.

‘I’m sorry,’ Kaye spluttered. ‘I’ve got a tickle in my throat.’

The judge asked the usher to bring a glass of water and they waited as she settled down. With Mr Collingwood’s encouragement, Kaye went on to say that when Henry had left their marital home she had made no attempt to find him. She had been content to leave things as they were. After the war, her personal circumstances had changed and she had traced him to Horsham where she had eventually discovered that he had gone through not one but two forms of false marriage.

‘I planned to confront him, but when I saw that the girl he was living with was pregnant, I couldn’t do it,’ she said, sipping from the glass again. ‘So instead I went to the police and made a formal complaint.’

After Kaye stepped down from the witness stand, it took a while to sum everything up and then the jury went out.

As the courtroom emptied, Kaye sat on the bench in the corridor to have a cigarette. If someone had asked her to put her feelings into words, she would have struggled to do it. Part of her felt numb. The whole messy proceeding seemed so unreal – like one of her own radio plays, only this time she was one of the main characters and Henry the villain. She hadn’t seen him for ten years. He looked the same. Older of course, but he still had that suave, debonair look about him. He was still self-assured, although now that she was older and wiser herself it seemed more like cockiness. His face had a few more lines but the good-looking man she had loved after Bunny Warren died was still there. Even after all these years, her heart constricted when she saw him again, but the love was gone, most likely washed away with every tear she’d shed when he’d walked out on her. She’d made up her mind to make a new life for herself and so she had. Henry seemed like someone from a far country, occasionally in her thoughts but never close by. She’d fallen in love again eventually, but because it had taken so long to find Henry or even to discover if he’d survived the war, she hadn’t been sure whether she was a widow or needed a divorce. In the meantime, her new love moved on and she lost her chance of happiness. That made her angry.

The usher called them back in and, quickly repairing her lipstick, Kaye went back into the courtroom. The sight of Annie and Sarah sitting dejectedly on the benches aroused another emotion. Poor kids. She wasn’t the only one whose life had been ruined. How could Henry do this?

The jury returned and the court was silent as the verdict was given. Henry Royal was found not guilty on the charge of theft but guilty of bigamy. He was given six months.

*

Malcolm Mitchell said nothing as he took his wife and daughter to the Whispering Gallery tea rooms nearby. He had decided that they should have some sort of refreshment before beginning the journey back to Worthing and ordered tea and cake. Annie knew she would find it hard to swallow anything but she didn’t argue. Her mother seemed to be in a daze, simply following her father and keeping her eyes downcast. Annie felt confused. She had wanted to believe that everything those women said in the witness box was all lies, but Henry hadn’t told her the whole truth either. Everything was so jumbled up now. Henry was a lot older than she’d thought. He’d told her he was thirty-six but it turned out that he was forty-four, practically an old man. That whirlwind courtship which had been so romantic at the time seemed tawdry and cheap now. Gradually, lots of other things began to fall into place. She understood at last why he hadn’t wanted her parents to come to the wedding and perhaps he had even engineered everything to make sure they never got their invitation. He didn’t want her writing letters either. Perhaps that was why he wasn’t too keen that she should make new friends either. It hadn’t occurred to her until now how isolated she had become. She looked down at her bump. With a father like that, what hope did her baby have? But then she remembered how he’d told her he loved her as she’d gone into the witness box and how he’d shouted out, ‘Look after my son, Annie. I’m coming back,’ as they’d taken him down. He’d looked so broken, yet so sincere, and now she didn’t know what to think.

Looking up, Annie noticed there was a small commotion in the street outside. With a shock, she realised that Sarah Royal had stumbled on the pavement and fallen. As soon as she saw who it was, Annie leapt to her feet.

‘Sit down,’ her father growled.

Several people ran to help, including the first Mrs Royale. When they hauled Sarah to her feet and dusted her down, she looked pale and disoriented. The door of the café was pushed roughly open and the group of people staggered inside, helping Sarah to a table.

‘Look away,’ her father said again. ‘Take no notice.’

Annie turned her head but she could still see what was happening on the other side of the room by looking at the reflection on the windowpane. She watched everybody settle Sarah into a chair as they fussed over her grazed knee, and all at once Annie understood why the café had such a strange name. She could hear everything being said at the other table as if they were sitting right next to her. It really was just like a whispering gallery.

‘Could you bring us high tea please?’ Kaye asked the waitress. ‘Mrs Royal hasn’t eaten all day and is feeling rather faint.’

‘No, no,’ said Sarah. ‘I’m all right, really.’

‘I insist,’ said Kaye. ‘This has been a ghastly day for all of us, and apart from the fact that you must be starving, I think you may have a touch of shock.’

Annie glanced back and saw Sarah looking at her through tear-filled eyes as she reached for a handkerchief. Malcolm thumped his daughter’s arm to remind her not to look.

The tea came and Kaye poured her a cup, loading in two spoons of sugar before passing it to Sarah. ‘How will you get home?’ she asked.

‘I came on the train. I have a return ticket.’

The waitress brought a plate of sandwiches and a cake stand. ‘I am so sorry about all this,’ Kaye said as she left. ‘If there had been another way …’

‘It’s not your fault,’ said Sarah. ‘I had no idea he was still married to you. In fact, until I telephoned the police, I didn’t know you even existed.’ She sighed. ‘I feel like my whole identity has been stripped away. I don’t know who I am anymore.’

Annie’s mother looked up. ‘That’s just how I feel,’ Annie told her and her mother reached for her hand on the table to give it a squeeze.

‘That’s quite enough of all that mumbo-jumbo,’ her father hissed.

‘You said in court you’re living in lodgings in Worthing?’ Kaye was saying to Sarah.

Sarah nodded.

‘I live in Worthing too.’

Sarah regarded Kaye for a few seconds. ‘What?’

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ said Kaye, lighting up a du Maurier. ‘That didn’t come out well. It has to be a coincidence, but I live at Copper Beeches in Church Walk. That’s East Worthing. You must come and visit me sometime.’

‘What?’ Sarah repeated.

‘In fact,’ said Kaye, ‘why don’t I take you home? My car is just outside.’ The kindly tone of her voice prompted Annie to turn around and look at them directly.

‘Annie,’ her father hissed angrily. He stood up, scraping his chair noisily on the bare boards. ‘Come on, we’re going.’

When the three wives of Henry Royale looked at each other, it was as if the rest of the world faded into the distance. Sarah simply stared, while Kaye took a long drag on her cigarette as Annie blinked back at them both.

‘Come along,’ said her father, pulling at Annie’s arm painfully and hauling her to her feet.

The waitress appeared with the bill. ‘Please pay at the counter, sir.’

‘Wait outside with your mother,’ Malcolm Mitchell growled as he reluctantly let go of his daughter’s arm and reached for his wallet. Annie gathered her things, her eyes still on Kaye and Sarah.

The three of them stared at each other as if in the frozen frame of a film until Annie’s father, having paid the bill, dragged her towards the open café door.

‘Good luck, darling,’ Kaye called as Annie’s father propelled her onto the street.

*

Bear had asked to see his Super.

‘Good result, Truman,’ said the Superintendent. He was taking his outer garments off and hanging them up. Outside, it was raining hard. ‘Six months should cool his ardour a bit. Pity we couldn’t have got him sent down for a bit longer. The man’s a bloody menace.’

‘Quite right, sir,’ said Bear, ‘and for that reason I should like to carry on doing a bit of digging.’

‘On what grounds?’ said the Superintendent, flopping down into his chair and wiping his wet face with his handkerchief.

Bear looked ahead, deliberately not meeting the Inspector’s eye. ‘My nose is itching.’

His superior grinned. ‘I’ve heard about that nose of yours, Truman. All right, come and tell me when you’ve got something.’

Had the circumstances been different, Sarah would have enjoyed the drive back to Worthing with Kaye. Although she was far above her socially (she could tell that just by looking at her clothes), Kaye was ever so nice. She didn’t put on airs or graces and she didn’t talk down to Sarah either. She treated her as an equal. She was, Sarah guessed, about ten years older than herself, handsome rather than pretty, but very elegant. She was wearing a grey two-piece suit with a pink blouse, a plum-coloured hat and matching gloves, and she carried a black bag. Her court shoes were plain, but a glance at her legs convinced Sarah that she was wearing silk stockings. Her nails were well manicured and she wore some of that new Revlon pink nail varnish. Her hair under her hat was neatly coiffured and as she moved, Sarah caught the whiff of an expensive perfume.

On the journey, they talked as friends. ‘So,’ Kaye asked. ‘What do you think about the new plans to revitalise Worthing?’

Sarah had to confess she hadn’t really thought about it. ‘I did catch a glimpse of the front page of the
Herald
in the newspaper shop,’ she told Kaye, ‘but I never buy papers.’ It felt too personal to admit that she had little time for reading and that she didn’t buy newspapers because money was tight. The picture on the front of the paper had showed some of the proposed, sweeping changes, with whole streets obliterated and wide boulevards taking their place. There was talk in the town of another bridge over the railway, but people couldn’t see where the money was coming from to pay for all this. Even though the Allies had won the war, the country was on its knees and the most pressing need was housing.

‘The one thing that worries me,’ said Kaye, ‘is that they’ll sweep away everything that’s old. I notice that the council is trying to get that lovely old Regency house on the seafront pulled down.’

‘Are they?’ said Sarah. There was a short pause and Sarah guessed that Kaye knew she wasn’t really interested. Who cared about run-down old buildings when people needed somewhere to live?

‘What do you do?’ Kaye asked, changing the subject.

‘Most of my time is taken up with providing for my girls,’ she said.

‘Sadly I never had children,’ said Kaye. ‘How old are they?’

‘Jenny is six and Lu-Lu is not yet two.’

‘Lu-Lu?’

‘It was what Jenny called her when she was born,’ Sarah smiled fondly. ‘Her name is Louise, but she couldn’t manage to say that and it kind of stuck. They’re very fond of each other.’

‘They sound lovely,’ said Kaye. She wriggled in her seat. ‘Excuse me. My girdle is pinching.’ Sarah was sympathetic. She’d had her own experience of pinching and badly fitted girdles. ‘Why do we women put ourselves through all this?’ said Kaye with a sigh.

‘Why indeed,’ Sarah smiled.

‘How long were you with Henry?’

Sarah looked away. It was inevitable that the subject would come up, but she was embarrassed. ‘We got together in 1938,’ she said, ‘but I would never have gone with him if I had known he was married.’

‘I’m sure you wouldn’t have,’ said Kaye. ‘We both know what a skilful liar Henry is.’

Sarah nodded. ‘And how difficult to live with.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Kaye, gripping the steering wheel more firmly. ‘So the bastard left you to bring up your girls on your own?’

At first Sarah was a little shocked to hear Henry being called a bastard. It was strong language from an educated woman like Kaye. ‘It’s hard,’ she acknowledged, ‘but we manage and I wouldn’t be without them for all the world.’

A bus pulled out onto the road, but Kaye didn’t slow down. Sarah closed her eyes as she accelerated and overtook it. Pulling in front of the bus, Kaye ignored the driver’s honking horn and sped on. ‘What work do you do?’

‘All sorts,’ said Sarah, trying to sound casual, despite the hair-raising ride. ‘Mostly I clean but I also sew baby clothes. Anything which will give me a bob or two.’ She paused. ‘And you?’

‘I’m a writer,’ Kaye went on. ‘After Henry left, I hated being on my own, but in my line of work you get used to being solitary.’

‘You’ve no relatives?’

‘No, my mother was killed in the Norton Fitzwarren rail crash.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry. I remember that,’ Sarah remarked. ‘The beginning of the war, wasn’t it?’

‘November 4th, 1940,’ said Kaye bitterly. ‘She’d been visiting an old school friend in Taunton. The wartime restrictions meant it was so dark the driver misread a signal and the train was derailed. Twenty-seven people died, including my mother.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Sarah.

‘It was pretty awful,’ Kaye agreed, ‘and I thought I was completely alone, but just recently I’ve discovered that I have a maiden aunt living near Chichester.’

‘Strange how we lose touch,’ Sarah observed.

‘But you and I mustn’t,’ said Kaye. ‘I know the circumstances are a little odd but it would be nice to keep in touch, don’t you think?’

Sarah smiled. ‘Yes,’ she said uncertainly.