Homecoming (15 page)

Chapter Eight

‘That's the wedding booked for eleven-thirty on the first Saturday in July, banns to be called for three weeks before, when we'll have to be in church for at least one service a day and six meetings booked with the vicar starting mid-May.' Sam noted the dates Judy had scribbled in her diary and put them in his own. ‘Why on earth does the vicar want to see us so many times before the wedding?'

‘You heard him.' Judy sat back as the waitress set a bowl of tomato soup in front of her. ‘To discuss the gravity of the step we're taking.'

‘It's enough to make me wish that we'd opted for the register office.' He crumbled his bread roll over his soup.

‘You were the one who insisted on a church wedding.'

‘It's what my family will expect. My mother was thrilled when I told her we were setting a firm date today. I'll write to her to tell her we'll be up on Sunday. Do you think your mother and Roy will be able to come?'

‘I'll ask them.'

‘I'll also ask my mother to check around my family so she'll be able to give us a rough idea of the number of people who'll be coming from my side.' He blew on his soup as he spooned it to his lips. ‘And I still say twenty is optimistically low for your side.'

‘There's only Roy, my mother, my real father if he wants to come …'

‘What about his family?'

‘I've only met them once and I'm sure they wouldn't expect an invitation.'

‘You must have other relatives.'

‘None alive and that only leaves close friends, Helen, Katie and Lily, Martin, Jack and Mr Griffiths, and perhaps one or two of my old school and college friends.'

‘The girls from the salons,' he reminded.

‘Invite one and we'd have to invite them all, and I'm not closing the salons on a Saturday, it's our busiest day.'

‘There were two hundred people at my brother's reception when he married five years ago.'

She paused with her soup spoon halfway to her mouth. ‘I hope you don't expect my mother and me to pay for two hundred of your relatives to lunch in this place?'

‘No, there were only a hundred from our side of the family.'

‘A hundred! That is ridiculous, Sam. No one has a family that big.'

‘I do.' He finished his soup and pushed his bowl aside. ‘But you can talk it over with my mother on Sunday. The manager said he didn't need definite numbers until eight weeks before the wedding.'

‘Which barely gives us five weeks.' She was alarmed at how imminent the wedding suddenly seemed.

‘I thought I'd ask Martin to be my best man, if that's all right with you.'

‘Of course.'

‘Are you going to ask Lily to be matron of honour?'

‘It might be an idea if Martin is the best man.'

‘In the meantime, you have to buy a dress and veil, and I'd better get measured for a morning suit.'

‘You want me to wear a white wedding dress?'

‘What else?' He looked at her in amazement. The waitress cleared their bowls.

‘I haven't –'

‘Had time to think about it,' he finished acidly.

‘We also have to decide where we're going to live.' She deliberately changed the subject.

‘I could put in for a police house.'

‘We'd have people knocking at the door day and night if we move into one of those. Couldn't you move into the flat?' She looked down at the gravy smothered pork chop, mashed potato, cabbage and apple sauce the waitress had set in front of her. Breakfast had been half a slice of toast five hours before, and she was ravenous.

‘I'm not sure I want to live in your flat.' Sam took his plate from the waitress, almost dropping it as it burned his fingers.

‘Why not? Emily will have moved out by then. It's perfectly comfortable …'

‘For someone who is not married,' he interrupted brusquely. ‘It's hardly a permanent home.'

‘I'm not expecting it to be. Eventually we'll buy a house.' Cutting a slice from the eye of the chop, Judy dipped it into the apple sauce and popped it into her mouth.

‘So it will only be a stop gap?'

‘Until we find the right place, yes.'

‘All right,' he agreed, ‘but we'll still have to get some new furniture.'

‘Why? It's fully furnished.'

‘In a rented-flat-style.'

‘It has everything we need.'

‘You're talking about our first home, Judy.'

‘Only until we find a house.' She looked from him to his meal. ‘If you don't start eating, it will get cold.'

He finally picked up his knife and fork. ‘Then you think we should start looking for a house straight away?'

‘Not straight away, I'd like to concentrate on the salons for a while.'

‘Not the bloody salons again, Judy.' Sam only realised he'd sworn when two middle-aged women sitting behind them started tutting. He turned to them. ‘I'm sorry,' he apologised contritely.

‘I should think so too, young man. It would serve you right if we complained to the manager and he called a policeman.'

‘I said I'm sorry,' he reiterated testily, seeing the irony in the threat. Turning back to Judy, he propped his elbows on the table and looked at her.

‘For the second time, eat your meal before it gets cold.'

‘Is that your way of telling me that you intend to keep on working after we're married?'

‘Of course I'm going to carry on working,' Judy hissed indignantly. ‘Who else do you think is going to run the salons?'

‘Your mother.' He finally cut into his chop.

‘My mother has to look after Billy.'

‘And you have to look after me.'

‘You're looking after yourself now. Most of the time.'

‘Most of the time?' he reiterated icily.

‘When you can't persuade Lily to cook, bake and generally run around after you and Mike. And before you say another word, Lily and Helen both work, and Katie did until a few weeks ago.'

‘In her husband's warehouse.'

‘So, what's the difference between Mr Griffiths' warehouse and my mother's salons, they're both family businesses.'

‘The difference is Helen, Lily and Katie's husbands don't work shifts. You know full well that sometimes I need my meals at odd hours and there's my laundry …'

‘Carry on like this and you'll find yourself going back to see the vicar – alone – because I will have called the whole thing off,' she warned.

‘You really intend to keep on working?'

‘Yes.'

He looked over his shoulder and saw the two women were still watching them. ‘We need to talk about this.'

‘Yes, we do,' Judy agreed, ‘and I mean just that, talk and nothing else. When you come round for a meal tonight might be a good time.'

‘I can't make it tonight.'

‘You said you'd call after your shift. I've bought steak, potatoes, salad and a cake.'

‘Martin invited me to the White Rose to wet Katie and John's baby's head. Everyone's going, even Jack.'

‘I see.' She pursed her lips.

‘It's no different to you spending yesterday with Emily and your mother instead of me.'

‘You hadn't bought food specially.'

‘Feed it to Emily,' he bit back childishly.

‘Finish your meal,' she ordered sharply.

‘You were in and out of the bank in no time.' Lily set two brown paper and string carrier bags on to the hall floor and closed the door.

Still dressed in the oil-stained jeans, old shirt and pullover he wore to work, Martin replaced the telephone receiver. ‘I had to get back to the depot.'

‘I was hoping we could have had lunch.' She folded her gloves into her coat pocket.

‘Did the manager tell you that he wouldn't give me a loan?'

‘He's not allowed to discuss clients' business, it's confidential.' Her face fell. ‘Oh, Marty …'

‘Not even allowed to discuss it with the client's wife when she works in his bank?' he broke in cuttingly.

‘Especially when the client's wife works in the bank,' she confirmed. ‘Marty, I'm so sorry. I really thought there wouldn't be a problem. We grant loans every day and bigger than the one you asked for. I'll have a word with him.'

‘You most certainly will not.'

‘Why not? He's not allowed to turn down a loan application without good reason. We can appeal to head office.' She hung her coat on the stand. ‘Did he say why he refused you?'

‘Yes.' Martin leaned against the stair post.

‘And?' she looked at him expectantly.

‘I wouldn't allow him to use your house or investments as security.'

‘That's stupid …'

‘Now I'm stupid,' he challenged icily.

‘Not you, your pride. The house isn't mine, it's ours, as are the investments,' she corrected quickly, sensing an uncharacteristic anger. She crossed her fingers behind her back, hoping that he hadn't found out about the baby. Then she realised he couldn't have. No one knew except her and the doctor, and the doctor had assured her that he hadn't the right to tell anyone, not even Martin.

‘So I discovered today. Why didn't you tell me that you'd put everything in our joint names?'

‘Surely you're not cross about that? I asked you to sign the papers just after we were married.'

‘Routine paperwork, you said. Joint bank accounts, wills leaving everything to one another, sensible precautions,' he taunted.

‘They were, and if you'd taken the time and trouble to read the papers you would have known what you were signing.'

‘Oh, I will from now on,' he snapped caustically. ‘I'll read every single thing you give me twice over, don't you worry.'

‘But, Marty, it's not as if we'll be risking anything,' she asserted. ‘Brian has all the figures worked out.'

‘And going by those, we stand to lose two and half thousand pounds if the garage folds.'

‘Which is the exact amount of the investments my aunt left me. And we won't lose it. Brian has the backing of the biggest garage chain in South Wales so the sales side is certain to take off, and the repair, service and maintenance side is bound to be profitable soon afterwards. So why not use our money to finance a business that will secure our future and the future of our family?'

‘As if we can possibly consider having a family when I can't even raise a loan to go into business,' he bit back resentfully.

‘But you can, Marty,' she murmured persuasively. ‘There's no point in us owning this house and having investments if we don't use them to make a better life for ourselves, and if you go for the overdraft option, we may not even need all the money. What can possibly go wrong?'

‘Nothing,' he informed her curtly, ‘because I've just told Brian that I can't raise the money.'

‘Marty –'

‘I've said all I am going to say about it.' Turning, he climbed the stairs. ‘I'm going up for a bath.'

Knowing Martin too well to try arguing or winning him over when he was in a stubborn mood, Lily picked up the carrier bags. ‘I'll have tea on the table when you come down,' she called after him and she walked into the kitchen. She unpacked the sausages, onions and carrots she'd bought on the market and set them on the draining board before returning to the hall. She waited until she heard the sound of the bath taps running. Opening the drawer in the hall table, she took out her address book. Flicking through until she came to P, she checked the telephone number Brian had given them, lifted the receiver and began dialling.

‘So.' Joy passed Judy a tureen of Welsh cawl. ‘You and Sam have finally fixed the date.'

Judy spooned a small portion into a bowl for Billy before helping herself to the lamb stew. ‘He's writing to his mother to tell her we'll visit her on Sunday. Do you think Roy will be able to come?'

‘I believe he's on nights, so if we're invited for late afternoon or early evening it should be fine. But I thought you said Sam was on afternoons?'

‘He is, but Mike's agreed to swap with him.'

‘Poor Mike, he seems to do more of Sam's shifts than Sam does.'

‘So he does,' Judy mused, not quite suppressing the thought that Sam always seemed to get people to do things he wanted them to. Her, Mike …

‘Have you any thoughts on a wedding dress?'

‘Sam wants the full white wedding, the dress, the veil, morning suits for the wedding party, the church, bells, choir, a reception in the Mackworth …'

‘And you, of course, always do what Sam wants?' Joy teased, as she diced half a slice of bread and sprinkled the cubes on top of the stew in Billy's bowl.

‘No, if he'd had his way, we wouldn't have had an eighteen-month engagement.'

Joy tied a bib around Billy's neck, lifted him into his high chair and wheeled it closer to her own. ‘Most girls dream of their ideal wedding dress from the age of six. You only have to look at Lily, she knew exactly what she wanted.'

‘Yards and yards of lace over gleaming white satin.' Judy smiled at the memory. ‘Now you mention it, I think I'm more of a costume girl, like Helen and Katie.'

‘Helen had no choice, she could hardly have worn virginal white when everyone knew there was no way that her father would have given his consent to her marriage at eighteen if she hadn't been pregnant. And with John being divorced, Katie had little choice either, but people will think it extremely odd if you walk down the aisle of St Mary's in a costume.'

‘Sam did warn me that there may be as many as a hundred expecting invitations from his side of the family.'

‘What?' Joy dropped the ladle back into the stew, splashing her blouse. ‘Please tell me you're joking.'

‘He comes from a large family, but I warned him we're not made of money. No, pet, you're supposed to eat it, not hit it.' Judy turned Billy's spoon around in his chubby fingers and helped him scoop up a helping of potatoes, bread and meat.