‘What did you do to her?’ He placed Helen’s tea on her bedside cabinet.
‘Have a midnight – or rather a two o’clock in the morning – feast.’
‘Is that all?’ He handed her a cup of tea.
‘You expected more?’
‘Not from you and Martin.’ He grinned cheekily.
‘You …’
Helen sat up suddenly in bed. ‘I’ve just had a fantastic idea.’
‘Whatever it is, I think you should settle down,’ Jack frowned.
‘Now that Mrs Hunt and Constable Williams are getting married, Judy, Katie and Lily can move into the house in Limeslade to keep me company while you’re away.’
‘What house?’ Lily shifted the stool so Jack could sit on the bed.
‘A house I’ve inherited from my grandmother.’ Helen threw back the bedclothes. ‘We’ll go and look at it right now.’
‘We most certainly will not.’ Jack rescued the tea from Helen’s bedside table before she knocked it over.
‘Yes, we will.’ She stuck out her tongue at him.
‘And how are we going to get there?’ he asked.
‘Joe can go down to the warehouse and borrow Dad’s car. He can drive us there and Lily will help me dress. You will, won’t you,’ Helen demanded, as Lily looked helplessly from her to Jack.
‘I …’
‘And you’ll be able to see it before you leave tomorrow, so you’ll know what you’re coming back to, Jack,’ Helen continued excitedly.
‘There’ll be plenty of time for me to see it when I get leave, after my training,’ Jack protested.
‘But I want to see it now,’ Helen countered.
‘And the flat?’ he asked, in an attempt to distract her.
‘It’s stupid to live in a flat when we own a house.’
‘Helen, this is madness.’ He steadied her as she staggered out of bed.
‘Go down and tell Joe to get the car.’
‘He’s studying.’
‘He won’t mind. Go on …’
‘If I’m going anywhere, I’m telephoning the doctor.’
‘Then I’ll get a taxi to take me to Limeslade before he gets here.’ She glared defiantly.
‘You’re bloody impossible, you know that?’ Conceding, he opened the door. ‘You’ll look after her, Lily, while I talk to Joe?’
‘As much as anyone can when she’s in this mood.’
‘I’ll wear my Aran sweater and green slacks, Lily, that way I don’t have to worry about stockings and suspenders.’
It was John, not Joe, who drove Jack, Helen and Lily to Limeslade. Joe volunteered as soon as he heard that Lily was going, but finding the atmosphere of Katie’s last day in the warehouse and the endless procession of people who trooped up from the shop floor with small gifts for her more than he could bear, John insisted on driving. Much against his better judgement, as he told Helen when she categorically refused to listen to his and Jack’s pleas that she remain in bed.
The weather couldn’t have been more idyllic as John turned off the narrow coast road and in through the gates at the side of the house. The sky was a pale, washed blue, there wasn’t a cloud in sight and the sun shone down, sprinkling the crests of the waves in the bay below with glittering prisms of reflected light.
Clutching the door key, Helen looked eagerly out of the car window as the house and garden came into view. ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ she asked no one in particular.
‘It will be just as beautiful in a week or two,’ John agreed drily.
‘I can’t wait to show it to you, Jack.’
‘Why don’t you and Jack go inside first,’ John suggested tactfully, ‘while Lily and I look over the garden.’
‘Thanks, Dad.’ She opened the door and stepped out before Jack had a chance to walk round the car to help her.
John shook his head and exchanged worried glances with Jack, as Jack offered Helen his arm. ‘I wish she weren’t so headstrong,’ he murmured, as much to himself as Lily.
‘With Jack going away, this house may be just what she needs to keep herself from brooding, Mr Griffiths.’
‘I hope you’re right.’ He turned to Lily. ‘Right, young lady, would you like a tour of the garden?’
‘Yes, please.’ Embarrassed, she turned away as he clambered awkwardly out of the car. It wasn’t simply his crippled leg and scars. Ever since Katie had confided that she loved him and they’d had an affair, she hadn’t been able to stop herself from picturing her friend and John Griffiths together and although she couldn’t explain why, it made her feel uneasy – and a little afraid for Katie.
‘It’s perfect, isn’t it, Jack,’ Helen enthused. ‘I mean, we could move in here right now, this minute …’
He sniffed. ‘It smells musty.’
‘The smell will go as soon as we open the windows.’
‘Is the furniture yours as well?’ He looked at the solid, old-fashioned pine pieces in the kitchen, and the Victorian mahogany dining set and Rexene-covered sofa and chairs.
‘Ours, together with two hundred and fifty pounds and some stocks and shares,’ she corrected blithely, walking from the kitchen into the dining room, into the living room and back. ‘Come on, I want to see upstairs.’ She dived into the hall, only to pause before the stairs.
‘Grip the banister with one hand and take my arm with the other,’ he ordered, seeing her blanch.
Reluctantly, she took the arm he offered. ‘Can’t you just see us living here?’ she gasped, as she climbed the stairs.
‘You’re in pain.’ His forehead furrowed in concern.
‘Niggles, not pain.’
‘Helen …’
‘You haven’t said anything about the house.’
‘It’s in a pretty spot.’
‘And you can see us living here?’
‘I’ve never imagined living in anything like this.’
‘And now you will.’ She smiled triumphantly as she reached the landing.
‘I’d rather we were moving in together than just you with the girls.’
‘But as we can’t be together for the next two years, it makes sense. I’ll have company and …’
‘You won’t have to face the flat.’
She opened the first door they came to, walked into the room and sank down on the stripped mattress of a double bed. ‘You understand.’
He nodded.
‘We planned the flat for us and the baby …’
He saw a tear welling in the corner of her eye. ‘The musty smell is worse in here.’
‘Probably because this room has been shut up longer than the downstairs. I dread to think when it was last used.’ She pressed down on the cover with the palms of her hands. Jack followed suit.
‘It feels damp.’
‘And the suite is hideous.’ She grimaced as she looked at the shiny maple dressing table, wardrobe and tallboy. ‘But it will be all right to start off with. Won’t it?’
‘Of course, sweetheart.’ Wrapping his arm round her shoulders, he pulled her close and they left the room.
‘I’m amazed my aunt got a double bed in here,’ she commented, as they opened the next door on the landing and looked in on a room that appeared to be bed and nothing else.
‘The house was probably built around it. I doubt there’s room for a stool, let alone a chair.’
‘But there’s room to sleep. If Katie, Judy and Lily do move in with me, two of them will have to share the wardrobe in the other room.’
They walked past a third bedroom furnished with a suite identical to the first, then Jack opened the door on a small room that held an enormous roll-top bath, Belfast sink and toilet with high cistern and chain. The walls were banded in white tiles and mahogany dados.
‘An indoor bathroom – my first.’ Jack smiled.
‘The flat had one.’
‘Looks like I’ll never get to live in it.’
‘And a master bedroom. Oh, Jack, just look at that view.’ She sank down
on the window seat and stared out over the cliff and beach to the sea and beyond it the coast around Port Talbot, and even further out the smudge on the horizon that was Ilfracombe in Devon. ‘Can you imagine waking every morning to that?’
‘I’d rather wake beside you.’ He kissed the back of her neck.
‘You’re going to have both.’
‘I wish.’
‘Like you said, two years will soon go.’
He couldn’t help contrasting her present attitude with her earlier depression. ‘And there’ll be leaves.’ He fell in with her positive mood.
‘I’ll have this place all ready for you when you come home after your training, you’ll see. All the smells will have gone, it will be shining clean, freshly painted, papered …’
He turned her round to face him. ‘Don’t you dare go overdoing it.’
‘I won’t.’
‘Promise?’
‘Promise,’ she echoed, looking down into the garden where her father and Lily were examining an overgrown border. ‘I wish we could stay here tonight.’
‘In your present state you’ll catch pneumonia. Come on, sweetheart, it’s time to go home.’
‘Not home. This is home now, Jack. For both of us.’
Chapter Twenty-one
‘All it needs is a good clean and clear-out, and Lily, Katie and Judy can help me with that. I’ll rope in Martin and Joe to do the heavy work; we’ll soon have it looking great. And travelling to work won’t be a problem for any of us, a quick run down the hill and we’ll be in Mumbles. We’ll get the train into town every day. Just think, start the day with a ride along the beach …’
‘Try stopping for breath between words, Helen.’ John parked the car in Carlton Terrace.
‘I’m excited.’
‘We noticed. Now, back to bed …’
‘Bed!’
‘Bed,’ Jack reinforced. ‘If only for a rest. Then we can spend the evening together.’
‘You coming in, Lily?’
Lily looked from Helen to Jack, not wanting to muscle in on their day together any more than she already had. ‘I have to make Uncle Roy’s tea.’
‘And tell him about the house. You and Katie will move in. And you’ll ask Judy …’
‘I’m sure we will, but we’ll talk about it later. Thank you for taking me to see Helen’s house, Mr Griffiths.’
‘My pleasure, Lily.’
‘You will talk to your uncle tonight,’ Helen pressed.
‘I will.’
‘And we’ll move in next week …’
‘Bed, Helen,’ her father repeated, seeing her stick out her tongue at Jack.
It would solve a lot of problems, Uncle Roy,’ Lily coaxed as she made a pot of tea.
‘I can see it would, but Helen has what we call in the force “a chequered history”.’
‘She is now a respectable married woman. And Katie and I are almost nineteen …’
‘Not until the end of the summer.’
‘And as Helen is married, she is the perfect chaperone.’
‘With Jack away for two years, who is going to chaperone her?’ he enquired drily.
‘We’ll chaperone one another. You should see the house. It’s beautiful, practically on top of the beach. We’ll be able to swim every day in summer.’
‘And this house? Have you thought what you’ll do with it?’ He reached for his pipe and pulled out his tobacco pouch.
‘After you marry Mrs Hunt and go to live in her house, Martin and Sam could move up here and we could look into that basement conversion you talked about.’ Taking the kettle from the stove, she filled the teapot.
‘This is a big place for just Martin and Sam.’
‘If we rented out all the bedrooms, we’d soon finance the alterations to the basement and then we could rent that out as well.’ Heaping three spoonfuls of sugar into his tea, she added a dash of milk, stirred it and handed it to him.
‘There is no “we”, love,’ he contradicted. ‘This house is yours.’
‘I’m having trouble thinking of it that way.’
‘Not that your idea isn’t a good one,’ he mused. ‘You’d have no trouble renting the rooms with the housing shortage and there are always young coppers looking for good accommodation. But there’s also your Auntie Norah’s treasures.’
‘We could lock off one of the attic bedrooms and store them in there if you don’t want them.’
‘Norah left them to you, love.’
‘There must be some things you’d like to have.’
‘I’m not sure.’ He looked at her. ‘We can’t put off going through them much longer.’
‘I could make a start tonight.’
‘You and Katie aren’t going out?’ he asked in surprise.
‘No.’
‘In that case Norah’s room can wait until my day off next week. If Helen’s well enough, why don’t you invite her and the boys round.’
‘You mean it?’
‘Why not? Mrs Lannon isn’t likely to walk in on you and I think I can trust you to have them out by half past ten; not that there’s anything you can do with them after half past ten that you can’t do before. Joy and I are going to the pictures, but she’ll be back by then to sleep over.’
‘Thank you, Uncle Roy.’
He looked up at her as he lit his pipe. ‘It’s going to be strange not seeing you every day.’
‘You’ll always be my favourite uncle.’
‘I’ll always be there if you need me.’
‘I know that.’ She kissed the top of his head. ‘I’ll go and ask Jack if he wants to come round with Helen.’
He sat back in his chair and watched her leave. It seemed such a short time ago that she’d toddled around in smocked frocks, with her arms full of picture books, constantly demanding they be read to her. He was happy he was finally marrying Joy, but Lily was very special – the filthy, half-starved toddler he’d found wandering the streets in the blackout who had wormed her way into his affections until he simply couldn’t imagine living without her. Limeslade was more than three miles away. What if she got into trouble, had an accident, needed him and he couldn’t get to her? He could almost hear Joy laughing at him. ‘Children grow up and move away, Roy. It’s what they do.’
He looked at Norah’s photograph on the mantelpiece as he tried to shake off his mood. ‘I’m getting as superstitious as you ever were, girl.’ He spoke as if she were in the room with him. ‘But then, when it comes to our Lily, we always were over-protective. Weren’t we?’
‘I’m not happy with the thought of you and Katie moving out to Limeslade.’
‘Why not?’ Lily asked. She and Martin were alone in the kitchen, making a snack for the others who were playing cards in the living room.
‘Because it’s miles away and I won’t be able to pop upstairs and see you whenever I want.’
‘You haven’t been able to do that with Mrs Lannon living here anyway.’ She handed him a couple of bowls and packets of crisps.
‘But now you and Katie have been clever enough to get rid of her …’
‘We didn’t set out to upset her,’ she protested.
‘You expect me to believe that?’ He ducked as she threw a tea towel at him.
‘You two arguing again?’ Katie knocked and pushed open the door.
‘Marty thinks we set out to annoy Mrs Lannon and make her leave.’
‘Perhaps we should have. Then she would have left sooner. Have you seen the bottle opener? Adam’s just arrived with a couple of bottles of beer and some Babychams.’
‘It’s in the bottom drawer of the dresser.’ Lily handed Martin a packet of Cheeselets. ‘Make yourself useful; shake those on to a plate.’
‘It’s also going to be funny living upstairs,’ he said, as Katie left with the opener. ‘Do you realise, apart from my time in the army, I’ve lived out my entire life in the basements of this terrace?’
‘Below stairs, like a footman.’
‘More li
ke a bootboy.’ Kicking the door shut, he leaned back against it, pulled her close and kissed her.
‘Marty, the others …’
‘Can’t get in while I’m blocking the door. Want to go somewhere tomorrow?’
‘Every time we make plans for a Sunday …’
‘Something happens, I know. But I’m seeing Jack off at ten. He said I could borrow his bike, so I thought we’d jump on it and escape for the day. That way if the world does cave in, we won’t know about it until we get back. And I intend to be late. Very late.’ He held her gaze for a moment before moving his lips downwards and nuzzling the nape of her neck.
‘Katie, Judy and I promised Jack we’d stay with Helen tomorrow.’
‘If I persuade Katie to sit with her, can you spare me a couple of hours from, say, half past ten on?’
‘Only if Katie and Helen don’t mind.’
‘That’s a date. I’ve always been able to bribe Katie.’ Slipping his hands round her back, he squeezed her tight and kissed her a second time. She clung to him as his tongue moved into her mouth and his fingers slid upwards to caress her nylon-clad breasts.
‘Marty … we need to talk,’ she gasped when he finally stopped kissing her.
‘I’m going too far?’ he questioned seriously.
‘What do you think?’
‘Possibly, for the time and place.’
‘I’d say definitely.’
‘Tomorrow we’ll be in a different place.’ He touched his lips to hers again, lightly, so lightly they tickled tantalisingly over hers. Gripping the back of his head, she wove her fingers into his hair and kissed him back with a passion that bruised his mouth.
‘But we’ll still talk,’ she warned, as the living room door opened and he released her.
‘Whatever you want,’ he whispered, feeling he would do anything she asked of him, just as long as she carried on looking at him the way she was looking at him at that moment.
Outside in the back lane, Joe leaned against the garden wall, inhaled his cigarette and watched Lily’s kitchen window intently. His breath caught sharply when Martin lifted her sweater and moved his hands beneath it. A red haze blurred the scene as his imagination took hold and he visualised himself in Martin’s place. He felt the perfumed warmth of Lily’s body under his fingertips, listened as her breath whispered past his ear, tasted the sweetness of her lipstick on his mouth. Ran his hands over the smooth, padded contours of her breasts slipped his fingers beneath her bra straps …
Swansea Summer Page 36
