Homecoming (31 page)

‘If you raise your voice a few decibels, Katie will be able to hear you next door.'

‘You are –'

‘If you're not careful, you're going to drop those plates,' he warned, as she snatched three from the dish drainer at the same time.

‘It would serve you damn well right if I did.'

‘They're Lily's plates.'

‘I wouldn't be here if they weren't.'

‘If running eleven salons winds you up this much, Judy, shouldn't you consider selling one or two of them?' he suggested airily. ‘There's no shame in admitting that not all of us are cut out for business.'

‘Like you?' she bit back acidly.

‘I have no idea if I am up to running a business or not.' He lifted a bundle of cutlery into the water and swished it around before mopping each piece individually. ‘But I have no intention of giving myself an ulcer finding out.'

‘And if it gets too much for you?'

‘I'll tell my cousin and brother-in-law that I'm not up to the job and walk away from it.'

‘To live on the dole, I suppose.' She continued to dry dishes angrily, wiping each plate in turn as if she was punishing it.

‘To find something less taxing,' he prevaricated, realising he'd pushed her a little too far. ‘So, you girls making any headway with Helen?' He deliberately changed the subject. ‘As you see, Martin's and my efforts to talk to Jack have been a dismal failure.'

‘As I said earlier, I haven't seen Helen since she kicked Jack out.'

‘So you don't know if there's any likelihood of them getting back together?'

‘No.'

‘To go back to what I said about Martin still wanting to spend time alone with Lily …'

‘You can't compare Martin and Lily with Jack and Helen,' she argued, still furious with him for his comments about her salons. ‘Jack and Helen hadn't seen one another in two and half years.'

‘All the more reason for Helen not to throw him out.'

‘She wouldn't have without good reason. And while we're on the subject of happy marriages, what about Katie and John?'

‘They're both saints.' He immersed the frying pan in the sink.

‘And that means what?'

‘Just that, they're saints,' he echoed, turning to look at her.

‘And Jack and Helen aren't?'

‘I didn't say that.'

‘You implied it.'

‘Can you imagine Katie throwing John out of the house?' he asked evenly, rinsing off the frying pan and running a fresh sink full of hot water.

‘That would depend on what he'd done.' She jerked open the cutlery drawer, picked up a bundle of knives and tossed them in one after the other as she dried them.

‘She'd forgive John anything short of murder and, depending on who he killed, probably even that. And, I'm not sure that Lily will thank you for scratching her knives.'

‘I am not scratching her knives.'

‘No?' He washed the last frying pan and set it on to the drainer.

‘As you obviously think that I am drying the cutlery all wrong, you can do it yourself.' She dumped the tea towel and the cutlery it still contained on to the sideboard.

‘I wasn't criticising …'

‘No?' she challenged.

‘Want another cup of tea?'

‘No.' She felt her resentment and anger dissipating under the steady gaze of his deep brown eyes. ‘I should be going.'

‘You haven't finished.'

‘There's hardly anything left.'

‘What's the matter?' he goaded. ‘Sam likely to call in on you after his stag party and play Pop if you're not there to open the door to him?'

‘If he is, it's hardly any of your business,' she answered frigidly.

‘No, Judy, it's not,' he muttered, as she grabbed her coat from the stand and slammed the front door behind her.

The clock ticked loudly into the silence that settled over Helen's living room when Lily finished speaking. Helen leaned back on the sofa and stared into the fire.

‘Is that what Jack told you?' Lily asked eventually.

‘Not quite.'

‘Are you going to reply to Maggie's letter?'

‘I don't know.' Helen looked across at Lily. ‘What I would like to do is go and see her.'

‘Do you think that's wise?'

‘I don't know whether it's wise or not, but at least if I see her, I'll have a real woman to hate and torment myself with instead of the Deborah Kerr image I've created.' She fumbled in her skirt pocket for a packet of cigarettes. ‘Would you come with me tomorrow?'

‘To the home?'

‘Please. I'll drive there, but I'm not sure I can walk in there alone.'

They both started at a knock at the door.

Lily left her chair, walked to the curtains and opened them a fraction. ‘It's Martin, he's earlier than I thought he would be.' She draped the edges back together. ‘It might be easier for both of you if he didn't come in. It's not that he's taken sides …'

‘Jack and I have put quite a strain on both of you. And we're still asking for more. Will you come with me tomorrow?'

‘Yes,' Lily answered decisively. ‘Yes, Helen, I'll come with you.'

‘You won't have to ask Martin?'

Lily shook her head. She knew Martin and he, like her, would do anything to help resolve the miserable situation between his brother and Helen …

Judy opened her eyes as her doorbell rang for the second time in as many minutes and peered at the luminous hands on her alarm clock. It was a quarter past ten and she had only been asleep for half an hour, but exhausted by her long morning and afternoon in the salons, Sam's anger and Brian's aggravating, she hadn't felt up to anything except a hot bath and an early night when she returned to her flat. As the bell rang a third time, she fumbled for her dressing gown and went to the window. Seeing nothing unusual, she stumbled down the stairs.

‘Who is it?' she demanded from behind the chained, bolted and locked door.

‘Don't be sshtupid, Judy, it's me,' Sam slurred.

‘I'm asleep.'

‘Yoush can't be ashleep if you're on the shtairs.'

‘I can and will be one minute after you leave.'

‘I want to talk to youssh.' His speech slipped into incoherency.

‘I don't want to talk to you when you're in that state.'

‘Issh only shad a few drinksssh …'

‘Call a taxi, go home and go to bed, or we'll never get to your mother's for Sunday dinner tomorrow,' she shouted.

‘Five minutessssh,' he wheedled.

‘No, Sam.'

He banged the door. ‘Damn issh, Judy, open thish door or –'

‘Not until tomorrow, Sam.' She switched off the light but remained, standing on the stairs, as he slammed against the door again and put his hand over the bell. ‘If you don't go away, I'll call the police,' she threatened. ‘And if Mike's on duty, I don't think he'll enjoy arresting you for causing a disturbance of the peace.'

After an interminable ten minutes she heard Sam's footsteps echoing back along the pavement in the direction of the square. Darting back upstairs in the dark, she groped her way into her bed and pulled the covers over her. Lily was right, she did have to talk to Sam, but she also had to think out what she was going to say. And she was tired. So tired, all she could see was Brian's irritating smile every time she closed her eyes.

‘You sure you won't have a sherry?' Martin picked up Lily's empty orange juice glass along with his pint mug.

‘I'm sure. Helen and I drank the best part of half a bottle between us earlier,' she lied.

‘It's not as if you do it every day. I can't remember the last time we went out for a drink together like this.' Martin went to the bar and returned with a pint of beer and another orange juice.

‘It is good to have you to myself for half an hour.' Lily took the orange juice. ‘Between Brian and Jack eating with us and the hours you've been working in the garage …'

‘And Sam and Mike walking in on us at all hours of the day and night.'

‘You're getting fed up with them, aren't you?'

‘They push it sometimes.' He sipped his pint. ‘Perhaps we should bolt the door on the stairs down to the basement.'

‘They might take it the wrong way.'

‘What wrong way is there to take it? We'd like more privacy and that's one way to get it.' He made a wry face. ‘There's something else you should know before you hear it from Judy. She called tonight and we both got more than she bargained for when she saw me walking from the bathroom into our bedroom.'

‘You didn't have any clothes on,' Lily guessed.

‘You know me so well.'

‘That will teach you to walk around in the nude,' she smiled. ‘Did Judy say why she called?'

‘To see you, but that didn't stop her from joining us for tea. Brian cooked, so be warned we have nothing for breakfast tomorrow.'

‘I promised to spend the day with Helen and you can make yourself porridge.'

‘That's not worth climbing out of bed for,' he grumbled. ‘And much as I'd like my brother and Helen to get back together, I think it's a cheek of her to commandeer you on my one day off a week.'

‘You can make yourselves sandwiches for lunch and I'll cook the joint when I come back. I won't be late.'

‘It's not the cooking I'm thinking of. You all right?' he asked anxiously. The colour had drained from her face.

‘I feel weird, but it's probably too much orange juice on a practically empty stomach. Helen had hardly any food in and, as she wouldn't go out to eat, we shared a can of soup, some crackers and corned beef.'

‘If I'd known, I would have brought you some of Brian's fry-up in a paper bag. Want some crisps?'

‘I would but there's a restaurant upstairs.' She had a sudden and unaccountable craving for stodge. She felt she could eat a mountain of mashed potatoes or an entire loaf of bread.

He slipped his hand into his trouser pocket and pulled out some change.

‘They don't serve snacks at the bar, not even crisps.'

‘I could buy you a meal.'

‘They stop serving at ten.'

‘Damn Helen, if she's made you ill.'

‘I'll be fine. I'm just hungry.'

‘Tell you what, finish your drink, and I'll buy us pattie and chips in the fish shop round the corner.'

‘You're hungry after one of Brian's fry-ups?'

‘You know me, I can always eat pattie and chips. Besides, if we drive up on to the headland car park and eat them in the car, it will give us another half an hour of peace and quiet.'

Helen walked restlessly around the house, checking doors and windows that she had checked half a dozen times, straightening perfectly draped curtains, plumping up cushions that didn't need it.

Lily was a good friend and she was grateful to her for the unselfish support she had given her through every major crisis in her life, through childhood mumps, measles and chicken pox, the untimely pregnancy that had resulted in her early marriage to Jack, the subsequent loss of her baby and Jack's two and half year absence. Until that evening, she would have said that she trusted Lily implicitly, but the account Lily had given her of what had happened in Cyprus was so different from the one Jack had told her, she was no longer sure what or who to believe.

It wasn't at all like the picture her imagination had painted during the last couple of weeks. She had conjured up scenes of Jack cavorting with a beautiful siren on sundrenched Mediterranean beaches while she had been working hard on the house and in the warehouse. Working and waiting …

If he had only made love to the woman once, could she forgive him? Could she ever bring herself to trust him again?

But then, the question was academic when Jack hadn't tried to see her, much less asked her to forgive him or allow him to return to the house. And then there was the baby. Jack's child! Her face contorted in pain. How could either of them attempt to salvage their marriage when they were faced with the reality of a child he had fathered alive somewhere in the world?

A picture intruded through her grief and pain. An image no less real than that of the woman she had fabricated, of a small boy racing across a deserted, windswept cold winter beach on Gower; a boy with Jack's black curly hair and piercing dark eyes.

‘You two seem happy,' Brian commented, as Martin and Lily fell laughing through the kitchen door.

‘We are,' Martin grinned.

‘Want some cocoa?' Brian held up his cup.

‘Good God, the debonair, sophisticated Brian Powell drinking cocoa?' Martin teased. ‘Next thing you know, you'll be smoking a pipe, leaning on a walking stick, wearing a flannel waistcoat and walking to the shops in your bedroom slippers.'

‘Very funny, that's the last time I offer you cocoa. And in case you're wondering, the kitchen's immaculate and Judy left before it was finished, so I'm excused kitchen duties for the next three days.'

‘Jack not around?' Lily enquired.

‘He hasn't come down all evening.'

‘I'll look in on him when we go up,' Martin said in response to the concerned expression on her face.

‘How's Helen?' Brian asked.

‘Terrible,' Lily murmured. ‘Her father's really worried about her.'

‘So are you?'

‘Yes,' she admitted.

‘If you ask me, the pair of them need their heads knocking together.'

‘If only it were that simple.' Lily allowed Martin to help her off with her coat.

‘I'm only an uncomplicated bachelor who sees things in black and white,' Brian said flatly, ‘and after the work I've put in this last week, I'm looking forward to a lie-in until at least midday tomorrow. See you when I see you.' Taking his cocoa, he climbed the stairs.