Homecoming (42 page)

‘This time Brian and I have made all the plans that need to be made,' Judy countered, ‘and when it comes to our wedding, the one thing we've decided on is no fuss.'

‘That will please Roy.'

‘And you?' Judy asked, topping up the teapot.

‘A little bit of me still hankers to see my daughter walk up the aisle in a white wedding dress, but as long as you are happy …'

‘If I was any happier I'd burst.' Judy picked up the teapot and opened the door. ‘I have your blessing?'

Joy hesitated for the barest fraction of a second. ‘Of course, darling.'

‘And you promise not to worry about me?'

‘That I can't do. Perhaps you'll understand why, when you have children of your own.'

‘The sooner the better.'

As Judy walked down the passage and opened the door to the living room, Joy wondered if she'd heard her correctly.

Lily was lying in bed desperately striving to think calm thoughts. The doctor had warned her that the more upset she became and the more tears she shed, the greater the likelihood of miscarriage. Taking a deep breath she tried to imagine a quiet, green, sunlit woodland scene. But even as she visualised the clearing between the trees and set Martin and herself beneath a canopy of leaves next to a tranquilly flowing stream, she placed a pram close by. With a baby …

Maggie knocked the door and pushed it open. ‘The matron said that provided you're up to it, Emily and I can come and annoy you.'

‘I'm up to it,' Lily answered, grateful for the interruption, ‘but I have no idea where the two of you are going to sit. It's crowded enough with just me in here.'

‘I'll take the chair until Emily comes. She's on washing-up duty after supper and rumour has it the supervisor trained under Napoleon. No one will be allowed to leave the kitchen until every single little thing is gleaming, but I managed to cadge a cup of cocoa for you before they embarked on the blitz.' Maggie set it on the table, before pulling the chair closer to the bed.

‘Thank you.'

‘Are you feeling any better?'

‘Tired, but the matron said that's down to the drugs they are giving me.'

‘But you still have your baby.'

‘Yes.' Lily flushed uncomfortably before reminding herself, yet again, that she had to stay calm for her baby's sake. But she was intensely aware that Maggie was going to have to relinquish her child six weeks after she had given birth, no matter what.

‘There is nothing quite like holding your first child,' Maggie advised sympathetically.

‘If it is born all right,' Lily qualified.

‘The doctor thinks there'll be problems?'

‘He said it's impossible to be one hundred per cent certain at this stage but all the signs indicate that at the moment, my baby is healthy.'

‘Then I'm sure he will be.' Maggie produced a bundle of knitting from a bag she'd carried in. ‘Do you mind if I knit while we talk?'

‘You're knitting for your baby?' Lily asked in surprise, looking at the shape of a tiny bootee dangling from the needle.

‘We have to make layettes – for the adoptive parents.'

‘That must be hard.'

‘It is,' Maggie concurred. ‘At the moment I try to live day to day and not think about having to give up my baby when the time comes, but sometimes I can't help myself. Some of the girls say they can't wait to walk away from this place, and their baby and the birth and adoption can't come quick enough for them. I understand why they say it, but I'm not sure that any of them really believe it. And the girls who want to keep their babies but can't, think it will be easier for me to give mine up than it will be for them because I have other children to go back to. If anything, that makes it all the harder. I can't stop remembering what it was like to hold them after they were born. To feed and care for them, watch them grow stronger every day, to enjoy the excitement of their first word, their first step … I'm sorry …' She apologised. ‘I have no idea why I'm talking to you like this. I hardly know you, and you should be resting quietly, not listening to my problems.' She pretended to study the half-finished bootee. ‘I've tried to keep my emotions under control since I came here but as you see, I don't always succeed.'

‘I only stopped myself from crying at the thought of losing my baby now, because the doctor warned me that the more upset I became the greater the chance I had of losing him,' Lily confessed. ‘I would hate to imagine what I'd be like if I knew that I had to give him up after he was born.'

Maggie dropped her knitting on to her lap and locked her fingers together. ‘I've only myself to blame for getting into this mess.'

‘You do know that I'm married to Jack's brother.'

‘Helen said you were her sister-in-law and I did wonder if you were related through her brother, or Jack's.'

‘Martin's not at all like Jack.' Lily looked to the photograph of them taken on their wedding day that Katie had packed, and the matron had set on the table where she could see it. ‘He's three years older and when they were children he was always the more sensible of the two. But then you probably know that Jack had a reputation for being wild.'

‘No, I didn't, because although it sounds peculiar considering the condition I'm in, I hardly know Jack. You surprise me. My husband, Gordon,' Maggie's eyes glowed as she mentioned his name, ‘used to say that Jack was one of the most mature and level-headed National Servicemen he'd ever had under his command.'

‘Jack married just before he was called up and it changed him. Made him more thoughtful and responsible …' Lily faltered, realising how ridiculous it was to tell the woman who was having Jack's child that he was thoughtful and responsible.

‘I told his wife that I wish I'd never written to him.' She looked up at Lily. ‘I wouldn't have if I'd known that they couldn't have children.'

‘Helen told you?'

Maggie nodded. ‘Did Jack tell you that he wanted to adopt the baby?'

‘He told my husband he wanted to try.'

‘It's impossible of course.'

‘Helen and Jack were thinking of adopting a baby before this happened.'

‘And I ruined his marriage,' Maggie added miserably.

‘I think Jack has to take equal share of that blame.'

‘The old witch finally let me go.' Emily breezed into the room, as much as anyone in the third stage of pregnancy could breeze. ‘You wouldn't believe what she had us doing. I'll be smelling of washing soda, disinfectant and bleach for a month.'

‘Chocolate as a consolation prize.' Lily offered Emily the box.

‘Thank you.' Emily perched on the end of Lily's bed. ‘So what have you two been gossiping about?'

‘A bit of this, a bit of that,' Lily prevaricated, glancing at Maggie. ‘Nothing important.'

Chapter Twenty-two

Judy leaned in the doorway of her living room watching Brian. He was sitting in one of the armchairs next to the fireplace, his head on his hand, his eyes unfocused.

‘Penny for them.' She took possession of the chair opposite his.

‘That's a lot of money for one man's thoughts.' He smiled and she felt as though her heart was turning somersaults.

‘The casserole won't be ready for another half an hour.'

‘I can wait.'

The preoccupied look on his face troubled her. ‘If you're thinking about what Sam said in the café …'

‘I'm not thinking about anything that idiot said.'

‘I'd rather we discussed it, than pretended I was never engaged to him.'

‘I wasn't thinking about Sam, I was thinking about life. How my entire future hung on one incident that I cursed as sheer bad luck at the time.'

‘When you were wounded in London?' she guessed.

‘If I hadn't been invalided out of the Met, I might never have considered returning to Wales, much less Swansea, but when Ronnie and Will asked me if I'd like to manage a garage here for them, the first person I thought of was you.'

‘You say the nicest things.'

‘I told you, I was carrying a whole bundle of regrets over the stupid way we parted.'

‘Why didn't you write to me?'

‘The same reason you didn't write to me.' He turned up the gas fire. ‘It would have cost me my pride. Besides, whenever I pictured you, there was always a man close by, faceless, nameless, but definitely there. I knew a girl like you wouldn't be alone for long. And although I kept writing to Martin, he never mentioned you in any of his letters, so I presumed you'd found someone else and he was too tactful to mention it.'

‘Martin never told you I was engaged?'

‘Not a word,' he confirmed. ‘For all I knew, you could have been married with half a dozen children.'

‘In two and half years?'

‘Two sets of triplets.' She laughed and he settled back in his chair, looking at her. ‘So, I headed back here thinking about you, when I should have been thinking about the garage, all the while hoping to see you and refusing to admit it, even to myself. Then, when you walked in on Jack's homecoming party I took one look at you and knew that I had to get you back.'

‘Funny way you went about it. Teasing me …'

‘The first thing I found out about you was that you were managing eleven salons, the second that you were engaged to Sam. I thought I'd lost you for good.'

‘Sam was rather possessive that night. I was angry with him. I even had a row with him about it when he took me home,' she confessed.

‘And that left me trying to pretend that I didn't care about your engagement. Then, just as I'm wondering if I can bear to live in the same town as Mr and Mrs Sam Davies, he tells me you broke it off with him.'

‘And you came running.'

‘Literally.' He opened his arms. ‘Here, woman.'

She crossed the hearthrug, curled at his feet and rested her head on his knee. ‘I love you, Brian Powell.'

‘And I love you, soon-to-be Mrs Judy Powell, but only because of a string of coincidences that could have broken anywhere along the line and that terrifies me.' He stroked her hair, loosening it from the French pleat she'd clipped it into. ‘I could so easily have lost you. Possibly for ever and that doesn't bear thinking about.'

‘I had no idea what love was until I met you.'

‘The first or second time?'

‘The first, I was an idiot …'

‘Last night we agreed we both were.'

‘I still think we should talk about Sam.'

‘How would you like me to tell you in detail about my relationship with …' He paused for a moment.

‘With?' she prompted.

‘I'm looking for the right words.'

‘Words? You had a harem?'

‘I refuse to discuss numbers on the grounds that you may discover something you can use against me at a later date. Let's just say, those I have philandered with.'

She burst out laughing again. ‘You make it sound like you went out with three-quarters of the girls in London.'

‘Probably more.' He sounded serious, but she glimpsed a mischievous glint in his eye.

She considered his initial question. ‘I don't think I want to know the details of you and those you have philandered with.'

‘Then you should understand why I don't want to talk about you and Sam.'

‘Your ex-girlfriends aren't likely to turn up and say anything quite as horrible about you as Sam said about me this afternoon, are they?'

‘Hopefully not.' He caressed her neck. ‘Forget Sam, Judy. I have.'

‘Truthfully?' She linked her fingers into his.

‘I won, I have the girl.' He slid down the chair and sat on the rug beside her.

‘It's important to me you know that I didn't make love to Sam until after we set the date for the wedding on the night of Jack's homecoming party and only a couple of times after that,' she blurted breathlessly.

‘After an eighteen-month engagement?'

‘It was disastrous,' she added, before she lost her courage. ‘I couldn't bear Sam touching me and he knew it. I think that's why he said the things he did.'

‘I'm glad you didn't tell me that before last night.'

‘Why?'

‘It might have cramped my style. I would have been too afraid to,' his smile broadened, ‘kiss you – and more.'

‘Now you know the truth, we'll never mention it again.'

‘We have better things to talk about – and do.' He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulled her close and kissed her. ‘Poor you and,' his smile turned from mischievous to wicked, ‘poor Sam. No wonder he loses his temper so easily.'

‘He was mad at us this afternoon.'

‘Yes, he was,' he mused. ‘And that's why I don't like the idea of you living here alone.'

‘That's ridiculous. I've lived alone for years.'

‘You lived with Helen until Jack came home and you had a flatmate when you moved in here. Can't you get someone to come and stay with you?'

‘For three weeks?'

‘I can move in …'

‘There's no way that I'll allow you to move in here before we're married. I'd lose what little I have left of my reputation. And that won't be much after Sam spreads his version of how I broke our engagement around the town.'

‘You could move into Lily's,' he suggested. ‘Martin would jump at the chance of you being on hand to help look after her when she comes home.'

‘In the same house as you and Sam!' she exclaimed in disbelief. ‘Are you mad?'

‘Why not?' he cajoled. ‘Jack bolted the internal door on the basement after Sam hit me, and I have a feeling that it will remain bolted. And there are two spare bedrooms on the first floor. All I'd have to do is creep down the stairs from my attic in the early hours and even if we're caught, Lily, Martin and Jack will never tell.'

‘No,' she said determinedly.

‘Then move into your mother's house for three weeks.'

‘Absolutely not.'

‘I'll worry about you every night and every minute we're apart.'

‘I know Sam,' she dismissed. ‘He's always been more of a talker than a doer. Besides, he's a policeman. He'd never risk his job by trying to get back at me. He's harmless.' She ran her fingers through Brian's hair and looked into his deep brown eyes. ‘In the meantime I can turn the oven down. The casserole will take longer to cook, but the room is warm, this rug comfortable and I can dim the lights …'

As he returned her caresses, she accidentally brushed her hand over the cut on his cheekbone. As it throbbed painfully to life, he only wished that he, like her, could believe that Sam was harmless.

‘Bedtime, ladies.' The matron opened the door to Lily's room.

‘Can we visit Lily tomorrow, Matron?' Emily heaved herself from the edge of Lily's bed, but not before the matron had seen her.

The matron appraised Lily with a professional and critical eye. She appeared tired, but there was a smile on her face. ‘For half an hour in your free time, but not if you sit on her bed again, Davies.'

‘Thank you, Matron.' Emily smiled victoriously at Lily and Maggie.

‘Lights out in ten minutes.'

As the matron walked away, Lily looked to Maggie. ‘The suitcase my husband brought is behind the door. Could you open it please, and hand me the writing case in it? You can't miss it, it's red leather.'

‘I can, but you heard Matron, lights out in ten minutes.'

‘If I start a letter now, I can finish it in the morning. You can post letters from here?' Lily asked anxiously.

‘The post is collected every morning from the hall table.' Maggie found the case and handed it to her. ‘Matron can sell you a stamp.'

‘I have stamps.'

‘Then just give the letter to whoever brings your breakfast and ask them to put it on the table.'

‘I will. Thank you for keeping me company.'

‘I never thought I'd envy anyone bed rest,' Emily sighed. ‘You have no idea how much of a luxury it would be for me to have a room to myself after weeks of sleeping in the same room as seven other women.'

‘Only a couple more months to go.' Maggie joined Emily at the door. ‘Goodnight, Lily.'

‘Goodnight.' As Maggie closed the door behind her, Lily opened the stud on her writing case. Resting it on her knees, she took her fountain pen from its holder in the spine and an envelope from the pocket stitched inside the case. Unscrewing the top from her pen, she laid the envelope on the blotter and began to write Helen's name and address.

‘With that eye and those bruises, you have absolutely no right to smile as if you've swallowed a banana sideways, but given the circumstances, I suppose I can understand it.' Martin slapped Brian soundly on the back as he joined him and Jack in the kitchen. ‘Jack told me the news about you and Judy, Congratulations.'

‘Thank you.' Brian glanced at the clock as he sat at the table. ‘You two are up late. Lily isn't …'

‘She's not out of the woods but the doctor is reasonably pleased with her and they've given me orders to stay away until Friday when I hope I'll be able to pick her up.'

‘That is good.'

‘Want some beer?' Jack held his bottle to the light to check the amount left in it.

‘I wouldn't say no to a half.' Brian lifted a glass down from the cupboard.

‘Sam's moved out,' Martin divulged.

‘I'm sorry, you and Lily are going to be out of pocket.'

‘No, we're not. He swapped digs with another officer.'

‘So the bad news is we still have two coppers living in the basement,' Jack joked. ‘The good news is that one of them isn't Sam.'

‘You can start advertising the attic as well. I'll be moving into Judy's in three weeks. And you can both wipe that look off your faces. It will be legal. We went to the Guildhall this afternoon and booked the ceremony for three weeks today.'

‘Good God!' Martin exclaimed.

‘Neither of us see any point in wasting time waiting when we've decided to go ahead. Frankly I would have married her today if they'd let me. It will be a quiet do, nothing like the one she had planned with Sam. I'd like both of you to be there but I won't close the garage on a Monday.'

‘And afterwards?'

‘Afterwards?' Brian frowned quizzically at Martin.

‘The honeymoon.'

‘We'll take that later when we can both get time off,' Brian replied carelessly. ‘The important thing for us now is that we get married and live together.'

‘That has to be the most unromantic statement I've ever heard,' Jack said flatly.

‘You're wrong, Jack,' Martin countered. ‘That has to be one of the most romantic things a man's ever said.'

‘Romantic or not, we have a garage to run in the morning.' Brian finished his beer.

Seeing Brian's frown deepen as he left the table, Jack asked, ‘Is your face troubling you?'

‘No, I'm not happy about Judy living alone. Sam said some pretty vicious things to both of us this afternoon. If he were still living here, at least I'd be able to keep half an eye on him.'

‘Literally,' Jack joked, looking at Brian's eye, which was still swollen shut. ‘You're worrying about nothing. Sam wouldn't dare do anything to Judy.'

‘Judy would agree with you. I only wish I could.'

‘He's a policeman,' Martin reminded them.

‘I know.' For all their reassurances, Brian still couldn't quell the uneasy feeling in his stomach.

‘Important letter, love?' John asked, as he saw Helen pull an envelope from her bag for the third time that morning.

‘From Lily,' she explained.

‘I saw Martin this morning. He said it's still on course for him to bring her home tonight.'

‘That's what Lily said. She's looking forward to it.'

‘Are you going to visit her?'

‘Yes. Yes, I am,' she said decisively. ‘Judy told me that she's arranged to meet Katie in Lily's at four to give the house a good going over so everything will be clean and perfect when Martin brings Lily home. I think I'll give them a hand.'

‘Martin told me that he, Jack and Brian have been keeping the housework under control. They might not appreciate your interference.'

‘Men's idea of “under control” and women's are two different things. Whether they appreciate our interference or not, we are going to clean Lily's house.'

‘That's exactly what Katie said, which is why she asked me to come home early so I can look after Glyn while she goes to help them.'

Helen lifted the last letter from her in-tray and slipped it into the filing tray. ‘I've finished the summer orders, and sorted the initial ones for the autumn stock, so do you mind if I leave for the day?'