Homecoming (26 page)

‘It must be.' He watched her struggle to keep her voice on an even keel.

‘My parents always said that they wanted a houseful of children. I think they were disappointed when they had to settle for just me. I miss them,' she said earnestly, ‘not just the children, my parents. Even if I wanted them to, they couldn't visit me here. I don't know if I wrote that they've told everyone I have tuberculosis and can't receive visitors.'

‘You did.' He clenched his hands. ‘I really messed things up for you.'

‘I'm dreading this one being born,' she said softly, as if she hadn't heard him. ‘Having the others only makes it worse. I remember how I felt the first time I held them. How they suddenly seemed the most precious and important beings in the universe. It's going to be hard …' She choked back her emotion. ‘If not almost impossible for me to give him up. But I have no choice.' She looked to him, seeking reassurance.

‘Of course you don't,' he agreed.

‘It's not just me, my father's in the church, gossip could ruin his life and my mother's, and destroy his career. And there are the children. I couldn't bear for them to be hurt by the knowledge that they have a bastard brother or sister and with Gordon dying a hero's death everyone will remember the date.'

‘You said in your letter that they choose the adoptive parents here carefully,' he reminded, trying to find something positive they could talk about.

She nodded. ‘We see them sometimes. When you have your baby here, you are moved to a room at the back of the house in the old servants' quarters. There's only one connecting door between the two halves, so we rarely see the babies, or the girls once they've given birth, except in the garden. But we do see the adoptive parents arriving and they are always well-dressed couples in cars. They look so pleased and happy when they take their baby away …' Her voice tailed off. What she didn't tell him was that she had also heard the cries of the birth mothers after their babies had gone.

‘I have a new address.' He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pen and his diary. Tearing a page from the back, he scribbled down Martin and Lily's address and telephone number. ‘If you need me for anything – anything at all, just phone or write and I'll come.'

She took the paper from him. ‘You moved so soon after going home.'

‘In with my brother.'

‘You said you were married.'

‘I am.'

‘Oh God!' Her hand flew to her mouth. ‘Your wife read my letter?'

‘I showed it to her.'

‘Jack, how could you?'

‘I couldn't lie to her.'

‘And she can't forgive you?' Jack's silence told her everything she wanted to know. ‘I was afraid that something like this would happen if I wrote to you. I really shouldn't have …'

‘Mr Clay, I did say ten minutes. You have now been here for fifteen.' The matron appeared in the doorway.

Hoping that the matron hadn't overheard any of their conversation, Jack pushed his chair back and rose to his feet. ‘I'll write and I'll come to see you again.'

‘You don't have to.'

‘Yes, I do,' he contradicted flatly, as he walked away.

Chapter Fourteen

Helen glanced out of the kitchen window and pushed most of the scrambled eggs Lily had made her to one side of her plate. Darkness had fallen early and the beach was shrouded in misty rain that blurred a car's headlamps into ghost lights as it drove past on the coast road.

‘Can't you eat anything?' Lily pleaded, as Helen set her knife and fork down on top of the eggs.

Tearing her attention away from the wintry darkness, Helen said, ‘It was good of you to cook for me today. I'm just not hungry.' She checked the time on her watch. ‘It's almost five. Martin will be wanting a meal.'

‘Martin and Brian aren't incapacitated,' Lily said lightly. ‘They can cook their own food for once.'

‘They won't thank you for saying that to them after a hard day's work.'

‘Sometimes, I think we women run round far too much after our men.'

‘I'd agree with you, if I still had one to run round after.'

‘I'm sorry,' Lily stacked their plates, ‘that just slipped out. It was thoughtless of me.'

‘No, it wasn't. You can't watch every word you say from now on just because I've thrown Jack out.' Preoccupied, Helen left the table and walked to the window. ‘Thank you for coming. I don't know how I would have survived the day without you, but you don't have to stay any longer. I'll be fine, I really will.' After taking one last look of what little she could see of the beach in the grey-black mist, she closed the shutters.

‘I hate leaving you alone like this.'

‘You want me to sign a paper to say that I won't kill myself?' Helen grimaced as Lily paled. ‘Sorry, bad joke.'

‘We could go down to Judy's …'

‘No,' Helen broke in abruptly. ‘It's not that I don't want her to know that I've thrown Jack out. I simply can't face talking about it any more today. All I want to do is crawl into bed, pull the blankets over my head, and shut out the world.'

‘I can understand that.'

‘Can you?' Helen asked earnestly.

‘Yes.' Lily couldn't help thinking how much Helen had changed in one short day. Dressed in a plain black skirt and polo-necked sweater, her long hair scraped back into a bun, her face devoid of make-up, she looked ten years older than the laughing, smiling girl who had walked into her father and Katie's house the night before with Jack.

‘But you were about to say, life has to go on.' Helen returned to the table and picked up a packet of cigarettes.

‘No, to be honest, I've been trying to imagine what I would do if Martin cheated on me.'

‘What would you do?'

‘I have no idea.'

‘Well, if your imagination comes up with anything constructive in the next day or two, I'd be interested to hear it.' Helen opened the packet with trembling fingers. Like Judy she enjoyed the odd cigarette, generally after a meal, but she had smoked her way through most of Jack's weekly ration in less than a day.

‘Will you divorce Jack?'

‘Not if it means I'll have to see him again. I'd be sick if I had to sit in the same room as him at the moment. Frankly I just wish he'd go …' Helen clicked her fingers. ‘Somewhere – anywhere, so long as it's not near me.' She struck a match and snapped it in two. When she splintered the second, Lily took the box and lit her cigarette for her.

‘Want some coffee?'

‘Please.' Lost in thought, Helen forgot that she had been urging Lily to leave. ‘Do you think Jack went to see that woman today?'

‘It would make sense of what he said to me about other people besides you and him being involved.'

‘It would, wouldn't it?' Helen flicked her ash into the overflowing ashtray on the table. ‘He might even take her out of that home and live with her. Then he'll have her and his baby.'

‘I still can't believe Jack did this to you,' Lily broke in fiercely. ‘He loves you.'

‘Evidently not enough to stay faithful to me, but then, my mother used to constantly warn me that all men are after the same thing and when they get it, they dump the girl. Perhaps I should have listened to her.'

‘I can't … don't want to believe that,' Lily amended, as Helen gave her a sceptical look. ‘It's obvious that Jack loves you from the way he looks at you. He would never have set out deliberately to hurt you.'

‘Who knows, perhaps after two and half years he couldn't even remember me. And now there's this baby.' Helen gazed at Lily through grief-stricken eyes. ‘I can't have any.'

Unsure she'd heard Helen correctly, Lily stared at her. ‘I don't understand …'

‘The doctors told Jack and me that we wouldn't be able to have any more children after I lost our baby,' she explained impatiently. ‘Ironic, isn't it, having to get married at eighteen because a baby's on the way, then losing it and discovering there won't be any more.'

Lily's hands closed instinctively over her stomach. ‘Oh God, Helen …'

‘My father knows,' Helen broke in, unable to accept sympathy for her childless state, even from Lily, ‘and Jack told Martin before he went to Cyprus. But I couldn't bring myself to tell anyone. Not even you and Judy, and especially Katie. She's so happy with Glyn.'

‘Helen, I am so sorry.' Words had never seemed so inadequate. She was terrified what Martin's reaction might be to the news of their baby, especially in view of the overdraft she had arranged, but the thought of never being able to have any children at all was unbearable.

‘It's been hard, especially when people like Judy's mother constantly harp on about you and me having babies. Jack said we'd adopt, but then he doesn't need to, not now.' Helen ground what was left of her cigarette into dust, spilling half the contents of the ashtray on to the table.

‘I wish there was something that I could say.'

‘There isn't anything anyone can say. And for someone who didn't want to talk any more today, I haven't stopped, and you were going home.'

‘I could stay the night.'

‘No,' Helen refused adamantly. ‘There'd be nothing for you to do even if you did. I'm going to bed.'

Lily picked up their plates and scraped the eggs into the bin. For all that either of them had eaten she may as well not have bothered to make them.

Helen rose from her chair. ‘But first I have to change the sheets. I can't bear the thought that Jack … that he slept …'

‘I'll give you a hand,' Lily offered. ‘It will be easier with two.'

‘Thank you, then I should drive you home.'

‘I'll enjoy the walk.'

‘It's raining.'

‘I won't melt.'

Helen fastened the shutters and closed all the curtains in the downstairs rooms before leading the way upstairs. As Lily followed her, she couldn't help feeling that Helen was shutting herself in, rather than closing out the night.

‘Something smells good.' Brian sniffed the air as he hung his coat in the hall. ‘Your Lily is a cracking cook.'

‘Not, Lily, me.' Jack opened the oven door as Brian and Martin walked into the kitchen. ‘I found some mince in the fridge so I made a shepherd's pie. I hope that's all right.'

‘Where's Lily?' Martin asked.

‘She wasn't here when I came in a couple of hours ago. I assumed she'd gone to the garage with you.' Jack turned down the oven and closed the door.

‘She went to see Helen.' Martin went to the sink and washed his hands.

‘When?' Jack asked urgently.

‘Just after you left this morning.' Martin reached for the towel. ‘I think I'll drive over there and check she's all right.'

‘If she's on her way home, you'll miss her,' Brian pointed out.

‘There's hardly any buses on a Sunday.' Martin went into the hall to get his coat. ‘She'll get soaked in this if she walks home.'

‘Helen has the car.' Jack followed Martin into the hall.

‘And Helen might not be in a fit state to drive,' Martin retorted.

Chastened, Jack fell silent. The front door opened and Lily stepped on to the doormat, dripping a stream of rainwater. Her nylon mac was drenched, her hair soaked under her sodden umbrella.

‘Good evening, Lily, did you swim across the bay?' Brian quipped from the kitchen.

‘It might have been quicker if I had.' Lily dropped her umbrella into the stand.

‘I've only just got in myself.' Martin ran to peel her sodden mac from her back. ‘I was coming to look for you. You should have telephoned the garage. I would have driven over and picked you up.'

‘I'm fine, Martin.' Lily looked at Jack. Unable to meet her gaze, he joined Brian in the kitchen.

‘Go on upstairs. I'll run a hot bath for you while you get out of those wet clothes,' Martin offered, as she sat on the bottom stair and slipped off her shoes. ‘Jack's made tea so there's nothing for you to do.'

‘I'm not hungry. But a bath sounds like a good idea.'

‘Here, give me those shoes, I'll stuff them with newspaper so they'll dry in shape.' Martin left them on the doormat together with her mac and ran up the stairs ahead of her. Pushing the plug into the bath he turned on the hot tap. As water gushed in, clouding the bathroom with steam, Lily joined him, swathed in a towel.

He closed the door behind her and slid the bolt home. ‘How is Helen?' he whispered, although he was certain that neither Jack nor Brian had left the kitchen.

‘Devastated, upset, trying hard not to show it. She insisted she wanted to be left alone to sleep. I told her I'd telephone her in the warehouse tomorrow. If she changes her mind about going in, I'll take a bus over there after work.'

‘Did she say why she has thrown Jack out?'

‘Yes.' Lily tested the water and threw in a handful of bath salts. ‘And if you had done what he did, I'd never want to see you again either.' Dropping the towel, she stepped into the bath.

‘You're not going to tell me what he's done?' Martin sat on the edge of the bath.

‘Ask him yourself. It's something you should hear from him.'

‘Want me to wash your back?'

‘Please.'

He soaked a sponge in the bath, wrung it out and rubbed soap on to it. ‘I'm tempted to climb right in there with you, rose scented bathwater and all.'

She studied him. ‘You look cleaner than you were yesterday.'

‘I am.' His mouth went suddenly dry. The two years they had been married had been the happiest of his life and had done nothing to diminish the heart-stopping effect she had on him every time they were alone.

‘Then why don't you?' she invited.

‘Because Jack's made tea and Brian will tell me that I smell like a Turkish brothel if I wash in that scented water, and knowing him, in front of any customers we get tomorrow.'

‘A what?'

‘A Turkish brothel, it's one of his favourite expressions,' Martin explained. ‘God knows where he got it from.'

‘Perhaps he's been in one.'

‘I doubt it,' he answered casually.

‘Have you?'

‘What?' he murmured absently, rubbing the sponge between her shoulder blades.

‘Been in a brothel?'

‘What?'

‘Been in a brothel? You were in the army.'

‘I have never been a brothel,' he denied emphatically. ‘I wouldn't even know what one looked like.'

‘Then how would you know whether you'd been in one or not?'

‘Is that what Jack's done?' he asked suddenly.

‘All I've done all day is talk about Jack and I don't want to, not any more. But as you brought up the subject of brothels, I wondered if you'd been in one.'

‘I only mentioned brothels because of one of Brian's crazy sayings, and I haven't, nor do I want to go near one of those places. You're all the woman I'll ever need or want.'

‘You don't have to say such a nice thing in such a furious manner, Marty.' She held his gaze as he rose reluctantly from the side of the bath.

‘If I stay here any longer, I'll be tempted to carry you back into our bedroom and we'll go to sleep hungry.'

‘What did Jack make?'

‘Shepherd's pie.'

‘Provided it's covered when it's reheated, it won't dry out.'

‘You're a temptress, but as he's taken the trouble to cook, we should make the effort to eat it. That way he might make tea for us again.'

‘I ate in Helen's.' She conveniently forgot that neither she nor Helen had eaten much.

‘But you'll come downstairs.'

‘Yes, I'll be down.' She slid down in the water and ducked her head under, soaking her hair. ‘I want to ask Jack how long he intends to stay.'

Despite Brian's attempts to stimulate the flagging conversation with talk about the garage and some of the more outrageous ideas he had to attract customers, most of the meal was eaten in silence. When Lily joined them in the kitchen, dressed in slacks and a thick pullover, her long hair wrapped in a towel, Jack and Martin were washing the dishes and Brian was making coffee. Accepting Brian's offer of coffee, Lily sat down.

‘You must come over to see the garage soon, Lily.' Brian took the milk jug from the fridge and set it on the table. ‘Everything looks fantastic, especially the workshops. Martin's spent so much time polishing the floors I think he intends to let the place out as a skating rink. Rumour has it he will never allow them to be dirtied by car tyres.'

‘Watch me pull in the first car that needs servicing as soon as it drives within grabbing distance.' Martin washed the last plate and set the pie dish into the sink to soak.

‘A couple of months and they'll be queuing up to buy their cars from us,' Brian predicted optimistically. ‘And get them repaired,' he added in response to the sombre expression on Martin's face.

‘You do know that the builder's coming tomorrow to make a start on your kitchen, Brian,' Lily reminded as she poured milk into her coffee.