“Lovely to see Basil and Eleri together and so happy,” Janet whispered.
“And our Caroline so content in spite of circumstances. With baby Joseph to care for and enjoy she’ll never be lonely.”
“There’s lucky we are,” Janet sighed.
“Pity them other two, our Frank and our Ernie, don’t find something useful to do, mind,” Hywel grumbled.
“Oh well, that’s another story, that is,” Janet said. “But, you never know. Who’d have thought to see our Basil doting on a wife and drooling at the prospect of being a father, and helping the police. Eh?”
* * *
Barry hurried around to seven Sophie Street to tell Rhiannon. As he expected she did not welcome him warmly and was clearly still smarting over his accusation. But with the story of Basil with a gun up his trousers chatting to the policeman as embellishment, she, at least, listened to the story.
“I shouldn’t have accused you of carelessness. I was so upset at losing my stuff and besides that, it’s an eerie thought that someone you don’t know has been snooping about in your home,” he said.
“I must confess Barry, that I find it easier to stay away from you if I can blame you for something,” Rhiannon said sadly, responding to his pleading expression. “I try and pretend that what your mother and my father have done to my family is down to you, when I know perfectly well you wouldn’t have wanted it to happen.”
“It happened long before you or I were born, love.”
“I wonder why they didn’t marry? If they’ve loved each other all these years, why did they marry other people?”
“Mam is older than your father and at the time she thought marriage ties would have spoiled their happiness. She was wrong, wasn’t she?”
“Perhaps. The sad thing is they’ll never know. Being a mistress is different from being a wife. Infidelity can add the spice that a marriage sometimes loses. Perhaps their love wouldn’t have survived the trials of a normal family life.”
“Ours will. I know it,” he said impulsively, kissing her on the mouth. For a moment Rhiannon knew her attempts to keep Barry at bay were futile.
“What will we do, Barry?”
“Wait. There’s no other way. I know you wouldn’t live with me while I’m married to Caroline, for her sake as well as our own. So, we wait.”
“I wonder if Mam and Dad will still go through with the divorce?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps they’ve called it off. Two divorces in my family, mine and Mam’s, I find that strange. But no, probably not in yours.”
“Such a lot has happened in a corner of a small town. It seems so sad, that after all the upheaval of Mam finding out about your mother and my father, and the shock of learning the truth about her baby, it’s all come full circle and everything is as it was before. Mam and Dad living in the same house while Dad meets your mother whenever he can. The gossip will die down and it will be as if nothing’s happened, yet all around us there’s the mess of it all.”
“But we’ll come out of it. Time passes and if you and I have found each other it won’t have been for nothing.”
She smiled. “Building a good life together won’t justify all the rest, though.”
“Won’t it? You wait and see!”
ALSO OUT NOW
The Weston Girls
Beautiful, rich, and popular: the Weston Girls seem to have it all… until they fall in love with the wrong men
First published in United Kingdom in 1996 by Severn House Publishers Ltd
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2016 by
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
57 Shepherds Lane
Beaconsfield, Bucks HP9 2DU
United Kingdom
Copyright © 1996 by Grace Thompson
The moral right of Grace Thompson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781910859537
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Corner of a Small Town Page 24
