Homecoming (41 page)

‘I haven't given up on it, but without a house and wife, and a divorce in the offing, I don't think I stand much chance of succeeding.'

‘I'd say you stand no chance.' Martin predicted bluntly, squashing his cigarette butt into the ashtray.

‘It just seems so bloody unfair, not for me, for the kid. I mess up and he or she gets strangers for parents.'

‘That's not necessarily a bad thing. They could be perfect strangers and perfect parents and, for the moment at least, you still have a wife.'

‘Meaning?'

‘That if I were you, I'd turn up on Sunday dressed in a hair shirt, prepared to eat humble pie or anything else Helen's prepared to dish out to you. You and Helen are good together, kid.'

‘Were good together,' Jack muttered gloomily. Turning his back on Martin, he stared out of the car window.

Sam sat back on the bench seat and glared, pale-faced from Brian to Judy. ‘So you two are together.'

‘Judy decided that you should hear it from her first and, after what you did to me last night, I thought I should be around when she told you.' Brian moved closer to Judy. The waitress brought their coffee. Sensing the fraught atmosphere, she set the cups on the table and retreated behind the counter.

‘You –'

‘Careful, Sam,' Brian murmured. ‘It looks bad for the force if an officer is heard swearing in public, even when he's off duty and out of uniform.'

‘How long has this been going on?' Sam demanded of Judy.

‘As Brian said, only since you hit him last night.'

‘You went to her flat after I hit you?' Sam turned to Brian.

‘Yes.'

‘And you let him in!' Sam challenged Judy.

‘Yes.'

‘And you agreed to go out with him …' Sam's face contorted in disgust. ‘You went to bed with him, didn't you?'

‘Sam …'

‘Didn't you?' he reiterated, drowning her out. ‘You climbed into bed with him,' he snapped.

‘You've said more than enough,' Brian advised.

‘She has been to bed with me, you know,' Sam taunted. ‘Allowed me to do whatever I wanted.'

‘Given the way you're shouting it to the world, I can understand why she gave you back your ring!'

Judy gripped Brian's arm. Outwardly he was in control, but his hands had clenched into fists and his knuckles were white with strain. ‘What I have or haven't done with Brian is nothing whatsoever to do with what happened between us, Sam.' Judy deliberately pitched her voice low in the hope of lessening the tension.

‘But you're not denying you slept with him.' Sam's mouth curled in contempt. ‘There aren't many men who will take on damaged goods. But then perhaps you only want a common tart to play around with for a couple of weeks until something better comes along, Brian. But you'll need patience. Judy's frigid, but then perhaps you've already found that out …'

‘Please sit at another table, Brian,' Judy begged. Fists still clenched, Brian rose to his feet. ‘Please,' she reiterated when he hesitated. ‘This is between Sam and me.'

Brian glared at Sam. ‘Out of respect for Judy, I won't be listening but I will be watching every move you make, Sam. Raise your hand to her like you did me yesterday, and you won't know what hit you.'

‘You think I'd hit a woman?'

‘Wouldn't you?' As Judy gave him another imploring look, Brian moved to a booth from which he could watch Sam.

‘Don't you think it would be best for both of us if we admit we made a mistake and go our separate ways, rather than trade insults?' Judy suggested when Brian was out of earshot.

‘You'd like us to be friends, is that it? All sweetness and light, no blame, no recriminations.'

‘I'll take the blame, but yes, I would like us to remain friends, if that's possible.'

‘After what you've done?'

‘I'm sorry if I hurt you, Sam. I didn't mean to.'

‘If …' He dropped his voice as he caught sight of Brian sliding to the edge of his bench seat.

‘I had no right to accept an engagement ring from you and my only excuse for doing so is that I thought I loved you at the time.'

‘So, are you saying you never did?'

‘I cared for you,' Judy said slowly, ‘but not enough. I should have realised how unsuited we were from the beginning. We were always quarrelling, even over what type of wedding we wanted and where we were going to live.'

‘Is that surprising when he,' Sam sent a disdainful look in Brian's direction, ‘was sniffing after you the whole time we were making plans.'

‘Brian didn't visit me until after you told him that I'd returned your ring.'

‘So, the same day you finish with me, you get engaged to him.'

‘We are not getting engaged.' Judy took a deep breath and braced herself.

‘Just as well,' Sam sneered, ‘given the time you need to make decisions, Brian will be drawing his old age pension before you get around to marrying him.'

‘Brian and I went to the register office this afternoon. We're getting married three weeks today.'

Sam jerked back against his seat as if he'd been punched in the stomach. ‘That's before we would have been married …'

‘It will be a quiet wedding, Sam,' Judy interposed. ‘Nothing like the one we had planned.'

‘My mother always said a hole in the corner register office affair was more your style.'

‘She was right,' Judy answered evenly, drawing courage from Brian's presence behind her.

‘I have nothing else to say to you.' Sam left the table.

‘The letter?'

‘Do what you want, you always do anyway.'

‘And the announcement in the
Evening Post?'

‘You can leave that to me.'

‘They won't print it unless we both sign it,' she warned, not trusting him in his present vindictive mood.

‘Then to hell with putting it in the
Evening Post.'
He shrugged on his coat. ‘I could sue you for breach of promise.'

‘Why make one another miserable? It's not as if you've incurred many costs. Most of the expense of the cancelled wedding is going to fall on my mother and me.'

‘There's the ring and my suit.'

‘For pity's sake, Sam,' she pleaded, ‘I've given you back your ring and I'm sorry about your suit, but it didn't cost anywhere near as much as my dress or the material for those damned bridesmaids' dresses, which your cousins are welcome to keep, and that's without the lost deposits and I'm not expecting you to foot the bill for those.'

‘I should think not, when you were the one to call off the wedding.'

Tired of argument, confrontation, but most of all Sam's bitterness, Judy said, ‘Goodbye, Sam. I'm sorry for hurting you. If there was anything I could do to make it right for you, I would, but I can't. I realise that you hate me now, but perhaps some time in the future we can be friends.'

‘Friends!' He hurled the word back at her as if it were an insult. ‘No, Judy, we can never be friends.'

‘I'll drop your family's engagement presents off at Lily's house. You can pick them up from there.'

‘Mind you don't forget any.' Turning on his heel, he strode out of the café.

‘I hate leaving you here like this,' Martin whispered, as he glanced back through the open door of the treatment room.

‘They are taking good care of me,' Lily assured him. ‘The staff are brilliant and they won't let me do a thing.'

‘But you must be lonely.'

‘No, not lonely. I miss you, of course,' she smiled, ‘but the staff call in every quarter of an hour or so, and the matron said that Emily can sit with me for half an hour of her free time tonight, if I feel up to it.'

‘Who is Emily?'

‘She was Judy's flatmate. She's here.'

‘I didn't know.'

She linked her fingers into his. ‘I'm lucky to have you. Emily's boyfriend broke off their engagement as soon as she told him she was pregnant.'

‘You're not that lucky.' He squeezed her hand lightly.

‘I should have told you I was having a baby.'

‘Yes, you should, but we'll do all our talking and saucepan throwing when you come home.'

‘On Friday.'

‘Mr Clay, you are going to tire your wife out.' The matron entered the room, the blood pressure gauge tucked under her arm.

‘Can I visit her tomorrow evening?'

‘No, Marty,' Lily declared, ‘it's too far for you to drive every night after working all day.'

‘It's barely an hour.'

‘That's two here and back to Swansea.'

‘May I suggest that you telephone here night and morning, for a progress report on your wife, Mr Clay. If there should be a change in Mrs Clay's condition outside of those hours, I will get in touch with you right away, on either the home or work telephone numbers you have given me, and, as you just said, you can be here in an hour.'

‘It's much more sensible, Marty,' Lily insisted, ‘and that way I'll get all the rest I need, and you'll have time to get everything ready in the house for when I come home.'

‘And what happens if you need anything in the meantime?'

‘You've left me money, I can ask one of the staff to buy whatever it is for me.'

‘We are looking after your wife, Mr Clay.' The matron set the blood pressure gauge on the table and picked up Lily's chart.

Martin looked from Lily to the matron. He knew he was beaten. ‘What time can I pick Lily up on Friday?'

‘If everything goes well, after you finish work for the day seems like a good idea, wouldn't you say?' the matron answered.

‘Thank you for everything you brought and thank the girls for the flowers, chocolates and magazines.' Lily stretched out her arms expectantly, waiting for his kiss.

‘I will.' Knowing he'd been dismissed, he bent over the bed and kissed her goodbye. ‘See you on Friday, darling.'

‘This is ridiculously sudden, Judy.' Joy set a tray of tea of tea and biscuits on the coffee table in her living room. Brian and Judy were sitting side by side on the sofa, Billy ensconced happily on Brian's lap with a Farley's Rusk and a picture book.

‘Not really.' Judy poured the tea and handed her stepfather a cup. ‘Brian and I have known one another for years.'

‘At the risk of sounding tactless, most of which time you spent more than two hundred and fifty miles apart and I don't recall you mentioning any letters.' Joy took the tea Judy handed her.

‘I think I'll get more hot water.' Judy picked up the teapot and went into the kitchen.

Roy looked to Brian, as Joy followed her daughter out of the room. ‘You're remarkably quiet,' he observed.

‘Judy and I know our own minds and we're both of age.'

‘So you're going ahead with this wedding in three weeks no matter what Joy or I say?'

‘Nothing and no one can stop me from marrying Judy, Constable Williams, but that's not to say that I'll risk souring relations between myself and my future mother-in-law by arguing with her before she's even accepted the idea of me as Judy's husband.' Brian gently took hold of Billy's arm as he smeared his pullover with soggy rusk. ‘It does make a pretty picture, Billy, but it's better eaten than used as a crayon.' Billy promptly giggled and smeared another line to join the ones he'd already drawn.

‘But you'll let Judy do your arguing for you,' Roy suggested.

‘I know better than to stand in the firing line between mother and daughter. Besides I remember just how close those two are.'

‘They're different sides of the same coin.' Roy produced a bottle of whisky from the cupboard next to his chair. ‘Shall we turn the tea into a toast, or is it a bit premature?'

‘Not premature at all.' Brian snaffled the last of Billy's rusk and diverted his attention by turning the page of the picture book. ‘Do you mind if I skip the tea and just have the whisky?'

‘At this time of day?'

‘I'd hate to risk scalding Billy,' Brian replied artfully.

‘How can you possibly be sure that you're not marrying Brian just to spite Sam?'

‘Because I love Brian,' Judy interrupted, facing her mother head on.

‘And yesterday morning you thought you loved Sam.'

‘That's just it, I thought I loved Sam, but if I'd been honest with myself I would have realised I didn't and probably never had. When I told you yesterday that I was breaking my engagement, you agreed that I was doing it for the right reasons. I could never have been happy with him.'

‘And you think you can be happy with Brian?' Joy questioned.

‘I know I can be, in every and all possible ways.' Judy didn't even try to suppress her smile.

‘You …' Joy's jaw dropped as she sank down on a chair.

‘It happened last night. It was absolutely perfect and I finally understood why you couldn't explain what lovemaking is like. What was it you said about you and Roy?'

‘I can't remember,' Joy prevaricated. ‘But whatever happened between us, didn't happen on the day I broke my engagement to another man.'

‘It's not just the lovemaking, wonderful as that is. Brian and I have the same opinions on everything important. He doesn't care what happened between Sam and me, he doesn't expect me to give up work, he actually understands that I want to open more salons, and he doesn't mind where we live, as long as we're together. He's happy with us getting married in a register office with me in a costume …'

‘All this after only one night.'

‘I feel as if I've known him forever.' Judy sat at the table opposite her mother. ‘Be happy for me.'

‘It looks like you're not giving me any other choice. The kettle is boiling. Perhaps we should join the men and make some plans.'