Homecoming (45 page)

‘Mr Clay.'

Martin and Jack both jumped to their feet as a doctor dressed in a surgical gown approached them.

‘Lily,' Martin stammered thickly, staggering and hitting the back of his knee against a chair.

‘Sit down, Mr Clay, before you fall down.' The doctor, who was twice Martin's age and half his size, took him by the elbow and pushed him back on to his chair. Jack remained standing, hovering at Martin's side.

‘Your wife has lost a lot of blood, she is very ill.'

‘But she will recover?' Martin looked up, willing him to say yes.

‘We'll know more in the next twenty-four hours. All that we can do for her, has been done,' the doctor assured him.

‘Can I see her?'

‘She is very ill. She needs absolute peace and quiet.'

‘Just for a few moments,' Martin pleaded.

‘The baby is still viable, Mr Clay.'

‘Viable?' Martin repeated the word vacantly.

‘Your wife is still pregnant.'

As comprehension dawned, Martin blurted, ‘You're not trying to save the baby at the cost of Lily's … ?'

‘It's not like that, Mr Clay,' the doctor explained patiently. ‘Your wife's haemorrhage was caused by complications in her pregnancy, but we have stopped the bleeding. It would be more dangerous for us to operate and remove the baby than it would be to leave things as they are. She is stable for the moment. If she remains stable, she may continue to carry the baby, but it is far too early to make any prognosis concerning the pregnancy or her future condition. We simply have to wait and see how things will develop.'

‘There is hope,' Jack pressed. ‘I mean, there has to be hope – for both of them?'

‘Yes,' the doctor confirmed cautiously, ‘but as I said, the next twenty-four hours will be crucial for Mrs Clay and her baby. Why don't you both go home and get some rest?'

‘Not before I see Lily,' Martin broke in insistently.

‘That is quite out of the question.'

‘I am not leaving here until I see Lily.' Martin reiterated. He spoke softly but the doctor recognised his resolve.

‘You can look through the door, but only for a few seconds and we'll have to watch out for the ward sister. She'll skin me alive if she sees me bringing a relative into her ward at this time of night. And your brother has to stay here.'

Lily was lying in a small room at the end of the ward, a bewildering array of tubes going in and out of her body beneath the bedclothes, a bottle of blood on a stand next to her.

‘We're trying to replace the blood she has lost,' the doctor explained.

‘Can I hold her hand?'

‘I'm afraid not, Mr Clay.' The doctor led him back to the room where Jack was waiting. ‘You can telephone first thing in the morning.'

‘I can't leave …'

‘We're not anticipating any change one way or the other in your wife's condition before then.'

‘Does Lily know she's still pregnant?'

‘We'll tell her as soon as she regains consciousness.' The doctor nodded to Jack. ‘Take your brother home, Mr Clay. And don't telephone before eight in the morning or the night sister will bite your head off.'

‘Come on, Marty.' Jack tried to pull his brother away, but Martin continued to stand and stare. He couldn't help feeling that Lily would have had a smooth and uneventful pregnancy, like his sister Katie, if only he'd been sensible and accepting from the outset, instead of so stupidly and viciously proud.

Jack turned to look at Martin's house and switched off the car engine. The curtains hadn't been closed over the living-room window and he could see Joy, Roy, Brian and John sitting around the coffee table.

‘Looks like everyone's waiting for us to come back.'

‘I can't face anyone. You'll talk to them for me.'

Jack nodded, locked the car and followed Martin to the door. Before Martin had time to slip his key into the lock, Katie opened the door and fell sobbing into his arms. As Jack tried to prise her away, Martin shook his head.

‘Give us a moment.' He sank down on to the stairs taking Katie with him. ‘You go and tell everyone.'

‘Lily?' Katie drew her head back from Martin's shoulder.

‘They're doing all they can.'

‘The baby?'

‘Is viable – for the moment.' As Martin repeated the doctor's words, he looked up and saw Jack watching him with an expression almost as bleak as the one he had worn when he had told him that Helen had lost their baby.

‘Stay here for the night, or if you don't want to do that, stay in your mother's house,' Brian tried to persuade Judy, as he walked her to the door.

She shook her head. ‘I have to work tomorrow and if I start with the Mumbles salon I can come into town early and see if there's any change with Lily.'

‘I wish you wouldn't go. It's one o'clock.'

‘And the streets will be empty and quiet. Ten minutes drive and I'll be home. Besides,' she opened her car door, ‘we should all try to get some sleep.'

‘Fat chance of that tonight. If only there was something I could do!' he exclaimed vehemently, closing one hand into a fist and punching his palm.

‘I think we all feel that way. But wearing ourselves out and getting angry isn't going to help Lily or Martin or their baby.' She kissed him. ‘'Night, darling, see you tomorrow.'

‘If you come past the garage at lunchtime, I'll have sandwiches waiting.'

‘Thank you.'

He stood breathing in the night air and watching while she drove away. The door opened again and Jack stepped out. He turned and gave Helen a hand to lift Glyn's pram over the doorstep.

‘You're leaving?' Brian asked in surprise.

‘Katie's insisted on staying with Martin,' Helen explained, ‘and my father won't leave her so I volunteered to spend the night with Glyn next door.'

‘Katie and Joy are making up beds in the spare rooms and John and Roy are sitting with Marty. I'll be back as soon as I've given Helen a hand to get the pram inside.' Jack took the keys Helen handed him and jumped over the wall while she wheeled the pram down the short path and around to her father's door.

‘As someone has to open the garage tomorrow, I'm going to bed, but if there is any news …'

‘You'll probably reach the telephone before us.'

‘Not from the attic floor, I won't,' Brian demurred.

‘I'll take my bike into the garage tomorrow, in case I'm needed back here in a hurry,' Jack said shortly.

‘You don't have to go into work.'

‘Yes, I do,' Jack answered. ‘Whatever happens here, I've a feeling I'll need to be kept busy.'

‘And Martin?' Brian asked.

Jack looked through the window. ‘He has Roy.'

Judy parked her car outside her flat, picked up her handbag from the passenger seat and opened the door. She jumped back as a dark figure loomed over her.

‘I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you.'

‘You almost gave me a heart attack,' she accused Sam, getting out. ‘What are you doing here?'

‘As you see, I'm in uniform and on duty.'

‘You're more likely to find criminals on Mumbles Road than the side streets.'

‘The side streets are where most burglaries take place and there's been a spate of them around here lately.'

‘I haven't heard anything.'

‘You obviously didn't read tonight's
Evening Post.'

‘I haven't had time to read anything this evening.'

‘Which is surprising, considering how late it is. Been somewhere special with Brian?' he sneered.

‘No.' She turned to face him. ‘I'm tired, Sam.'

‘And you have a busy day in the salons tomorrow,' he taunted.

‘Yes. Goodnight, Sam.' She couldn't help remembering Brian's concern, as she opened her front door, and shut it quickly behind her.

‘No, don't come in, Jack.' Helen blocked his path, as he tried to follow her into John and Katie's house. ‘I'm going to try and settle Glyn in his cot.'

‘You might be better off leaving him in his pram until morning.'

‘I'll think about it.'

‘We'll talk tomorrow.'

She nodded. ‘If there's any news …'

‘I'll let you know.' He stepped outside and she closed the door softly behind him.

Katie had fed and changed Glyn before Helen had taken him from Martin's house, and although Katie, Jack and John had warned her that it might be best to leave Glyn in his pram, she felt he would sleep better in his own cot in his own room. Lifting him carefully out of the pram, she set him against her shoulder and carried him up the stairs, marvelling at how heavy he had become since the last time she had held him.

He rubbed his eyes sleepily and she laid him gently on his side in his cot, covering him with his blanket. She hovered expectantly. At his first whimper she lifted him out and sat in Katie's wooden rocking chair. Tucking a shawl, Welsh fashion, around both of them, she rocked gently, cradling the sleeping child and trying not to think about Lily, or how she was fighting to keep her baby. But no matter how hard she tried to concentrate on other things, she couldn't stop herself from picturing Lily lying in the same hospital bed, in the same ward she had been in after she had lost her baby.

Resting her cheek against Glyn's, she absorbed the scent of baby talcum powder, felt his velvet skin brush against her own, rested her hand lightly on his back as he breathed softly in and out, and was overwhelmed with a desire to protect and care for this tiny brother cum nephew of hers. He was small, helpless and vulnerable, yet capable of generating so much love.

Did that apply to all babies, or just to Glyn because she loved her father and Katie and knew how precious he was to them? Could she ever feel what she felt for Glyn for another baby? Could she love, care, protect and bring up a child that she knew was Jack's – and another woman's?

Mixed thoughts and emotions crowded in on her, most of them generated by the letter Lily had written to her from Cartref. As Lily had said – a baby in need of a home and loving parents was simply that, an innocent baby. Did it matter who its parents were? And despite everything, she couldn't help liking Maggie and feeling sorry for her …

Couldn't Lily see that her solution was too neat, too easy? It didn't allow for her feelings. Jack had betrayed her by making love to another woman. How could she ever forgive or forget that betrayal if she tried to bring up the child that had resulted from his unfaithfulness, as her own?

It was simply too much to ask of any woman. She looked at Glyn again and, as she smiled instinctively at the sweet, scrunched expression on his face, all the misery and anger that welled inside her subsided. It was too much to ask – wasn't it?

‘I have to open the garage.' Brian handed Martin a cup of tea, which he set on the coffee table next to the two untouched cups of coffee that Roy had made for him in the night.

Martin nodded.

‘Jack said he'll stay with you until you telephone.'

Martin glanced at the clock and rose to his feet.

‘It's only half past six, Marty,' Jack warned. ‘They told you to leave it until eight o'clock at the earliest.'

‘What's the worst they can do to me?' Martin didn't expect Jack to answer him. ‘I can't wait, not any longer.' Walking into the hall, he picked up the receiver and dialled the telephone number he had spent most of the night staring at.

Jack, Brian and Roy hovered awkwardly behind him. His voice was low but there were tears in his eyes when he replaced the receiver and turned around. ‘She woke two hours ago. They say she's stable, and she still has the baby,' he breathed.

‘She is going to be all right.' Jack wanted more assurance than Martin was able to give them.

‘She is stable,' Martin repeated, ‘and I can see her tomorrow.'

Brian slapped Martin's shoulder. ‘It's going to take time but she's going to be all right, Marty, and so is the nipper. I can feel it, but just to make sure I'll light a candle for both of them.'

‘I didn't know you were Catholic,' Jack said.

‘I'm not,' Brian answered. ‘But there's nothing wrong with hedging your bets, is there?'

Chapter Twenty-four

‘I couldn't leave Martin to face the last two weeks by himself,' Jack whispered down the telephone after glancing over his shoulder to check that no one else was in the garage office. ‘But he had a call from the hospital this morning and Lily's doctor told him that she won't be able to leave the hospital until after the baby's born.'

‘But that's months away!' Helen exclaimed.

‘It could be as long as five months,' he confirmed.

‘Poor Lily,' Helen commiserated, with all the sympathy engendered by her month's incarceration on the gynaecological ward.

‘Martin's trying to put a brave face on it. He's telling everyone that she is in the best place, and they are allowing him to visit her four evenings a week for half an hour and an hour on Sunday afternoon, which is better than the twice weekly visits they allowed me when you were in hospital.'

‘They won't get much privacy in a crowded ward.'

‘She's in a cubicle because she needs to rest.'

‘That's something, I suppose.' Helen fell silent for a moment. ‘If you want to stay with Martin …'

‘We discussed it after the doctor telephoned this morning. Martin insists there's no point in my staying with him. He's working long hours in the garage, as much to keep busy and take his mind off Lily as to build up the business, so we've scarcely seen anything of him the last couple of days, and as Katie insists on both of us eating our meals at her house I can't really do very much to help.'

‘As long as you know that nothing's changed from the last time we spoke. You'll still be in the spare room.'

‘I know, but as you also said, at least we'll be under the same roof, so we'll be able to talk – and it will be one less worry for Martin and Katie.'

‘I saw Katie yesterday. Although she's putting a brave face on it, she's really upset about Lily – and Martin.'

‘We all are. Is there anything you'd like me to pick up on the way …' He searched for a word that he could use instead of home.

‘No, I told the grocer and the greengrocer to deliver my usual weekend order.'

‘I thought they did it automatically.'

‘Not since you left. I haven't been eating at home.'

He suspected from the way she looked that she hadn't been eating anywhere, but he refrained from telling her. ‘I'll see you tonight then, Helen.'

‘Yes, see you then.'

Jack replaced the receiver.

‘I had to come in for this.' Martin wiped his hands on an oily rag that he stuffed back into his overalls pocket before picking up a box from Brian's desk. ‘But I couldn't help overhearing. Helen's agreed that you can move back in with her tonight?'

‘Of sorts. Do you mind?'

‘As I said to you earlier, most definitely not, and once you're through her door, may I suggest that you pull out all the stops.'

‘You can take that as given.' Jack sat on the edge of the desk and looked at his brother. ‘But if you need me for anything …'

‘How about to drive the getaway car when I break Lily out of hospital.' It was a poor attempt at a joke, but it was the first light-hearted comment Jack had heard Martin make since Lily had been taken ill.

‘You want to break her out?'

‘Of course. The last three weeks without her have been hell. I also have to admit that she's in the best place, and with you eating and doing your washing and ironing in Limeslade, Katie's extra workload will be halved.'

‘I suppose so.'

‘Frightened of messing up with Helen?' Martin asked intuitively.

‘She warned me that the next time she asks me to leave, it will be for good.'

‘All the more reason to give this opportunity everything you've got.'

‘That doesn't make me any less terrified.' Jack followed Martin out through the door. ‘Do you mind if I hang on to your spare front door key for a while?'

‘I don't mind, but you won't need it,' Martin replied confidently.

‘I only wish I could be as sure as you,' Jack muttered, forcing a smile as a potential customer walked in.

The first thing Helen did when she reached home was to open the back door and carry the two boxes of groceries that had been left in the shed into the house. She had almost finished stacking the last of the tins in the cupboard when there was a knock at the front door.

Determined to return the keys Jack had left when he had walked out, the moment he returned, she picked them up and ran to open it. To her amazement, Sam was standing on the step.

‘I hope you don't mind me calling,' he stammered, clearly unsure of the reception he'd receive.

‘No.' She remembered her manners as she recovered her composure. ‘Not at all. Come in.' She opened the door wider and showed him into her living room. ‘Sit down. Can I get you a coffee or anything?'

‘No, thank you. I only came to give you this.' He set a small parcel he'd marked ‘Fragile' in red ink on her coffee table. ‘It's a christening present for Glyn. It's not much, just one of those two-handled china bunny mugs and a bowl. The kind where you have to eat all the porridge to see the picture at the bottom.'

‘I'm sure Glyn will love it. But won't you give it to Katie and John yourself? They invited you to the christening.'

‘Judy and I were invited to Glyn's christening when we were engaged.'

‘I'm sorry. I heard what happened.'

‘I didn't doubt you had,' he said caustically. ‘No doubt she'll be going to the christening with Brian.'

‘They are getting married on Monday,' Helen informed him calmly.

‘They told me they'd set the big day.'

‘I wouldn't call it a big day, it's a really small affair.'

‘Yes, well, whatever. I'm sorry to drop in on you like this, but after what happened between Brian and me, I could hardly take the present over to Martin and Lily's house, or Katie and John's in case I saw him. So if you don't mind …'

‘No, Sam, of course I don't mind.'

‘Thank you.' He left his chair. ‘I have to go. I'm on duty in a couple of hours.'

As she turned to see him out, she looked through the window and saw Jack striding up the path. Suddenly, all the anger, resentment and bitterness she'd fought so hard to control erupted in a single blinding flash of rage. She had an overwhelming urge to hurt Jack as he had hurt her. To torment him with nightmare visions of her with another man, just as she had been tortured by the idea of him with another woman.

Stepping in front of Sam, she locked her arms around his neck, stood on tiptoe and kissed him.

Jack was almost at the front door when he glanced through the window and saw Helen with Sam. He turned aside almost immediately, but the image had already seared itself on his mind. All he could see was his wife in Sam's arms, her blonde head thrown back as Sam pressed his lips to hers, her arms locked around Sam's neck, his hands closed familiarly around her waist as they meshed their bodies sensuously together.

He wanted to walk away but, mesmerised by the unbearably painful scene, he simply couldn't stop himself from looking through the window again. As he stared, Helen opened her eyes. She held his look until he found the strength to finally turn and retrace his steps.

‘I can't say I expected this,' Sam smiled, ‘but I can say I'm glad I came.' As he closed his hand over her breast, the noise of a motorbike engine revving furiously shattered the atmosphere.

Helen pushed him away. ‘This is a mistake.'

‘The hell it is.'

‘You're hurting me,' she protested, as he gripped her upper arms to prevent her from moving.

‘Then come here.'

‘No. This is stupid. You don't care for me any more than I care for you. If we go any further, I'll be thinking of Jack and you'll be thinking of Judy …'

‘The last thing I'll be thinking about is that stupid bitch,' he cursed savagely.

‘She's all you'll be thinking about. You're still angry with her …'

‘Of course I'm bloody angry with her, but at the moment I'm a damned sight angrier with you. Bloody teasing bitch, you're no better than Judy. Winding me up …'

‘I'm sorry, Sam, I truly am. I didn't mean for this to happen. I don't know what came over me,' she lied, hoping that he hadn't seen Jack or connected the sound of the motorbike with him.

‘I know what came over you. The same bloody thing that came over me. Sheer frustration. You want it. You know you do …' As she succeeded in pulling away from him, he snatched at the collar of her blouse and a hail of pearl buttons rained down on to the coffee table. His face darkened. She clutched the edges of her blouse together and screamed more in anger than terror.

‘Get out!'

‘Not until I've taken what you offered.' He stepped towards her.

‘Get out!'

When he hesitated, she lowered her voice. ‘You'll hate yourself afterwards if you don't, Sam. We've both been hurt and as a result we're a little crazy.' She fell back on to a chair. ‘Please, Sam, just go. If you do, we can try to forget this ever happened.'

She was conscious of him standing, staring at her, but when she summoned the courage to look up, he was no longer in the room and the front door banged shut.

Trembling, she grabbed a cushion and, clutching it tightly, sank back in the chair. Thoughts whirled senselessly through her mind.

How could she have been so weak as to succumb to such a stupid impulse? The only thing she had proved was that she was low enough to sink to Jack's level, only she didn't even have the excuses of drink, shock and a brush with death. Just plain jealousy and resentment.

‘What do you mean there's been a change of plan?' Martin shouted, as Jack charged up the stairs with his suitcase.

‘Just that,' Jack called back. ‘I'm staying here.'

‘What's all the noise about?' Brian wandered into the living room, a teacup in one hand, a comb in the other.

‘It appears Jack's changed his mind about moving in with Helen. Either that, or she's changed her mind about allowing him to.'

‘I take it he didn't tell you why?' Brian set his tea on the mantelpiece and checked his reflection in the mirror over the fireplace.

‘He doesn't seem to be in a talking mood. Damn it, I really hoped that those two would settle their differences.'

‘An affair that's resulted in a baby? Perhaps too many differences for Helen to accept.'

‘I know,' Martin frowned.

‘You're playing the big brother again,' Brian warned. ‘Take some advice from Uncle Brian, other people's marriages are best left well alone.'

‘You're looking smarter than usual but then that's easy for you,' Martin commented, deliberately changing the subject as Brian put the finishing touches to his Tony Curtis-style quiff.

‘That's an odd sense of humour you're developing.'

‘It comes of working and living with you.'

‘Make the most of the last two days of living with me, not that I'll be here that much. I am taking Judy out to dinner in the Mermaid tonight. So don't expect me home early.'

‘You have your own flat, key and life, so I'm not expecting anything. All set for a bachelor party here, tomorrow night after the christening?'

‘I suppose I could get some beer in,' Brian said casually, ‘but I don't want to make a big deal out of it.'

‘I've never seen anyone quite so laid back about getting married.'

Brian lifted his undamaged eyebrow and stowed his comb into the inside pocket of his jacket. His damaged eye was almost back to normal, but there was still an ugly bruise and angry looking scar on his cheekbone. ‘I've got the girl, the last thing I need to do is get too drunk to know what to do with her.'

‘Saturday night in Mumbles. The dog end of policing in Swansea,' Sam grumbled, as he paced along the Mumbles Road with Mike. ‘Nothing but underage drinkers, kids who want to be teddy boys and think the best way to go about it is to look for a fight with the hardest nut they can find.'

‘And girls who are asking for trouble.' Mike eyed three girls who didn't look a day older than fourteen, dressed in skin-tight sweaters and straight skirts they could barely walk in. ‘What's the betting one of those will wind up some poor idiot to the point of indecent assault tonight?'

Mike's comment brought a flush of embarrassment and guilt to Sam's face. ‘I'm offering no odds. Not with tarts like those,' he added venomously. ‘Some girls just ask to be raped.'

Taken aback by the bitterness in Sam's voice, Mike deliberately kept his reply low-key. ‘Never mind, only another,' he glanced at his watch, ‘two hours to go until midnight and then we can go home – me to my bed, you to drown your sorrows.'

‘Bloody bitch,' Sam cursed.

‘You're better off without her.' Mike spoke with a sincerity born of tedious hours spent listening to Sam's endless complaints about Judy.

‘I know I am, but –'

‘Think of all the tarts – and nice girls waiting to make your acquaintance that you would never have known if you had married Judy.'

Sam looked in the direction of the sea – and Judy's flat. ‘Do you want to stay on the main road or check the beach for underage drinkers?'

‘I'll stay on the main drag.'

‘Meet you at the junction of Promenade Terrace.' Sam crossed the road and turned left. He stood and stared at the salon and the flat above it. All the windows were in darkness, but that didn't mean much. Judy had preferred to make love in the dark and if Brian was with her …

Angrily trying to put the thought from his mind, he paced around the block. When he was sure that Judy's car was nowhere to be seen, he slipped around the side of the salon.

‘Is that smoke?' Mike asked when Sam rejoined him.