Family Drama 4 E-Book Bundle

by Pam Weaver

  Thrilled to bits that Mariah was going to trust her with something so lovely, Dottie was determined to prove she could do a fantastic job. Mariah usually had her curtains and other furnishings done by Bentalls, so this was Dottie’s big chance. Mariah had discovered Dottie’s talents about six weeks ago when she’d popped round to the cottage to collect a couple of jars of jam she had been promised for her mother. Dottie invited her in, and Mariah had been amazed by the transformation in Aunt Bessie’s cottage.

  ‘Where did you buy these curtains?’ she’d exclaimed. ‘And that bolster cushion … and the fire-screen …?’

  When Dottie confessed to making them, Mariah had found it hard to believe, but now she was confident enough in Dottie’s abilities to ask her to refurbish Miss Josephine’s old room. The only trouble was, she wanted it finished in time for her brother’s yearly visit at the end of September.

  ‘I’m afraid it will take a bit longer than that,’ Dottie told her firmly.

  Mariah had threatened to go elsewhere, but Dottie was no fool. Sending away for the job would mean they would have to send someone around to measure up (these big firms never believed your own measurements), and relying on the post. All that would take twice as long and probably cost her three times as much. In the end, they’d agreed that the room would be finished by October 11th at the latest.

  Once the master bedroom had been cleaned, Dottie left the linoleum along the landing. There seemed little point in polishing it. The decorators were coming in tomorrow to start on the yellow walls and they’d be tramping back and forth.

  When she got back downstairs, Dottie glanced at the clock. 10.35. The morning surgery must be nearly over. She’d make a start on the windows downstairs and then she could keep an eye on the waiting room at the same time. The doctor would want his morning coffee before he went out on his rounds.

  The waiting room for the surgery was on the side of the house, so there was no need for patients to come to the house itself. They could walk up the driveway and go straight into the waiting room. The doctor would call in the next patient as the previous patient went out. It was up to Dottie to guess when surgery was finished, but before she went in she would also have to take the added precaution of listening at the connecting door between the house and the surgery to make sure no one was still in there having a consultation.

  She was outside washing the windows when she saw old Sam Taylor coming down the driveway. Dottie smiled at the aged road sweeper. Out in all weathers, old Sam was a regular visitor to the surgery, especially in the winter when his cough got bad.

  ‘Glad I seen you, m’dear,’ said Sam cheerily and Dottie came down the small stepladder. ‘Will you thank your Reg for me?’

  Dottie was puzzled. ‘What for?’

  ‘For the tatters. He left a bag on my doorstep.’

  Reg often did things for people. It was his one redeeming feature. ‘Yes, yes of course.’

  The old man patted Dottie’s hand. ‘Good man, your Reg.’

  ‘Any more left in the surgery, Sam?’ she smiled.

  ‘Just Mrs Reid,’ said Sam touching the front of his cap politely. ‘She be the last.’

  Dottie put down her cloth and walked indoors. She’d already poured some Camp Coffee into a cup and the milk was in the saucepan. Trying to ignore the growing tightness in her stomach, she watched it boil and then poured it onto the dark liquid, stirring vigorously. He had one sugar – she’d worked there long enough to know that – but she put the sugar bowl onto a small tray covered with a tray cloth rather than adding it herself.

  As she waited outside the connecting door, she heard low voices before Mrs Reid said, ‘Thank you very much, Doctor.’

  The surgery door closed and Dottie knocked softly.

  ‘Come in.’

  Brisk and business-like, Dottie swept in with the tray.

  ‘Dottie!’ She was a little unsure of the tone of his voice but her throat tightened as he rose to his feet, pen in hand. Dottie laid the tray on the desk in front of him and stepped back smartly.

  ‘I think you should know, someone saw you trying to kiss me on the night of your daughter’s wedding,’ she said coldly.

  She saw the colour drain from his face and he glanced anxiously at the waiting room door. He was obviously worried that Mrs Reid might overhear them but Dottie wasn’t too concerned. Mrs Reid was as deaf as a post. He looked back at her and seemed surprised by her boldness.

  ‘Dottie, I want to explain …’ he began, his voice soft and his eyes lowered.

  ‘Touch me again,’ she glared, ‘and me and my witness will be round to see PC Kipling.’

  He stared like a startled rabbit caught in the glare of a car’s headlamps and swallowed hard.

  She turned on her heel and, head held high, she swept back out of the room, and closed the door quietly. Once outside in the corridor, however, her knees began to shake and she was trembling all over. She waited a second or two until her rapid heartbeat calmed a little. A slow smile crept across her face and she closed her eyes with relief. There, that should do it. Crisis over. The dirty old basket valued his reputation in the village too much to try it on again.

  ‘Seventy pounds!’

  Reg’s brow was furrowed yet again. Dottie sighed. Earlier, with Michael Gilbert’s wedding less than a week away, she’d asked him if Sylvie could come, but she’d obviously chosen the wrong moment. Just as she’d feared, he’d flatly refused.

  They were out in the garden in the warm evening and Reg was gathering the last of the runner beans; he planned to leave the rest to mature into seeds for next year. He had just been saying that it had been a reasonable year for the garden, despite the weather, and Dottie chose this moment to say what else was on her mind.

  ‘That’s what I said, the fare to Australia is seventy pounds.’

  Dottie was picking the first blackberries from the wild branches which grew at the very end of the garden. The ground beyond the brambles was kept fallow because years of using the same few feet of land over and over again had made it unusable.

  Reg stopped picking the beans and came from between the rows to stand in front of her. ‘Have you been talking about my business with someone?’ he challenged.

  ‘No …’ Dottie protested. He moved his head on one side and she knew he didn’t believe her. ‘Reg, I promise you I haven’t said anything,’ Dottie continued, ‘It’s just that in her letter Sylvie was talking about a friend of theirs who is going over to Australia on the ten-pound passage. She was saying what a brave thing it was and how it was a wonderful opportunity to go all that way for just ten pounds, so when I wrote back, I asked her how much the real fare was and she said seventy pounds.’

  Reg looked at her, expressionless. He said nothing so Dottie ploughed on. She had to make him see how impossible his dream was going to be. ‘It’s going to cost us that much to get Patricia over here.’

  ‘Then we’ll save for it,’ he said.

  ‘And how long is that going to take us?’ she cried desperately.

  ‘It’ll take as long as it takes!’

  As she watched him striding back up the garden with the beans in his arms, her heart sank. She didn’t know what to feel any more, she was so mixed up. She could see his frustration and there were times, like now, when she felt a twinge of sympathy for him, but nothing altered the fact that she didn’t want this child in her home. She sighed. She’d have to talk to him again … make him understand how she felt. It had taken a lot of courage to stand up to Dr Fitzgerald, but she’d done it. She smiled to herself as she recalled the look on his face. Well, if she could stand up to a man like him, she could stand up to Reg. He wouldn’t like it, and it wouldn’t be very easy, but she’d have to try. Full of determination, Dottie picked up her bowlful of blackberries and followed him back to the house.

  Reg was a man of few words; he always had been. Sylvie always said he was ‘all buttoned up’ but up until now Dottie had accepted that talking about things wasn’t his wa
y. At times he seemed to relish being awkward. She could put up with his moods – they didn’t happen too often – but it was harder to deal with the silences and the sulks.

  As she reached the back door she could see him through the kitchen window, sitting at the kitchen table with his head in his hands. She paused and all at once it hit her. This was breaking his heart. He’d had so little in life before she met him. He’d been abandoned as a child, he’d told her. He’d never known a mother’s love. When Dottie had said she’d go out with him, he’d been the perfect gent. Even though Aunt Bessie never liked him, he always treated her right and he was keen to be part of the family. Look how excited he’d been on their wedding day, running around the whole house and telling her this was the first time he’d had his own home. As they lay in bed in that little guesthouse in Eastbourne, they’d talked about having children. She was being selfish, wasn’t she? Just because she couldn’t have children didn’t alter the fact that he had a child, a child without a mother on the other side of the world, and it was breaking his heart. How could she do this to him? Just because she couldn’t have what she wanted, should she deny her husband the one thing that would make him happy? All right, it upset her to think about Elizabeth Johns with Reg, but she could get over it and perhaps he was right. If Patsy came, they’d be a family at last.

  Dottie smiled as a picture of Patsy formed in her mind. She’d be wearing a little gingham dress, blue and white with a pretty gathered skirt and white Peter Pan collar. She’d have white socks and a ribbon in her hair.

  Reg glanced up and saw her smiling. ‘What are you staring at?’ he said acidly. ‘Having a good laugh at my expense, are you?’

  She hurried inside. ‘No, Reg,’ she protested. ‘I was trying to imagine what Patsy looks like. Oh Reg, I’m sorry. I’ve been a selfish cow. We’ll save up for her. We’ll work all the hours God sends until we get the money.’

  He rose to his feet, his whole face enveloped with a smile. ‘D’you really mean it, Dot?’

  ‘Yes, dear, of course I do.’

  He took her into his arms and hugged her. Dottie snuggled into his wiry embrace. Why couldn’t it be like this more often? ‘But first we have to talk,’ she went on.

  He pushed her away, roughly. ‘Oh, I might have guessed there’d be a catch.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ she said, ‘but we’ve got to make a good story for the people around here.’

  ‘Story?’ he thundered. ‘What are you talking about? She’s my kid, simple as that.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Dottie, ‘but how’s she going to feel when everyone knows she’s Reg Cox’s bastard?’

  His face paled and he sat back down. She laid her hand over his. ‘We’ve got to make something up, something everyone can believe, but something that won’t hurt her.’ She sat opposite him and waited but he seemed to have been struck dumb. ‘I think the simpler we make it the better,’ she went on. ‘Let’s just tell people we wanted to adopt a child and a friend in Australia has found us one.’

  ‘What if the welfare people come snooping?’

  ‘Let them,’ said Dottie. ‘As long as you make sure they send over all her papers with her it’ll be fine. You’ll have her birth certificate with your name on it, won’t you? If anyone says anything, you’ll be able to prove she’s yours.’

  ‘Then it’ll still get out,’ said Reg gloomily. ‘One of them might talk and it’ll be all over the village in no time.’

  ‘I don’t see why,’ said Dottie. ‘The welfare people aren’t supposed to talk about other people’s private business and, besides, once you show them you’re her legal father, they’ll have no reason to gossip about her, will they? As long as you don’t show them our wedding certificate they’ll probably assume Elizabeth Johns was your first wife. We can tell Patsy the whole story as soon as she’s old enough to understand.’

  ‘You’ve got it all worked out, haven’t you?’ he said with a sneer.

  ‘I’ve done a bit of thinking, that’s all. One thing puzzles me though.’

  He looked up, startled.

  ‘Was she Australian?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Elizabeth Johns. Was she from Australia? I mean, what was she doing in Burma?’

  ‘She worked in the NAAFI,’ Reg said quickly. He turned away quickly and reached for his newspaper. Blimey, he hadn’t thought she’d start trying to work things out.

  ‘In the NAAFI?’ said Dottie. ‘What, in Burma?’

  ‘Leave it out, Dot,’ snapped Reg. ‘You know what those memories do to me.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry.’

  They sat for a moment without saying anything. Dottie watched him rubbing the back of his hand in an agitated way. ‘I met her in India, if you must know,’ he said. ‘I was taken there when I was ill, remember?’

  The explanation didn’t really satisfy her. She wanted to ask more. What was an Australian woman doing in India? How did he meet her? What was she like? But he’d put the paper up in front of his face.

  She touched his hand. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you, Reg. Everything will be fine.’

  ‘Course it will,’ he said, relaxing.

  ‘Good,’ said Dottie. ‘Now all we’ve got to worry about is getting the money together for the fare.’

  ‘I’ve already got that worked out,’ said Reg. ‘The pig can go to market. That’ll fetch a bob or two. Michael Gilbert says it might fetch a tenner if we leave it till Christmas, but we’ve still got to feed it.’

  ‘Reg,’ Dottie said, ‘we need seventy pounds.’

  His face fell again.

  ‘But you’re right. We’ll manage,’ she said quickly. ‘I’ve got a bit saved.’

  ‘You?’ He sounded really surprised.

  She nodded. ‘I’ve got seventeen pounds saved.’ And I would have had another ten bob, she thought ruefully, if I hadn’t had to pay Ann Pearce for her silence.

  ‘Seventeen quid,’ Reg gasped. ‘Where did you get that kind of money from?’

  ‘I sold some of my sewing.’

  ‘Somebody paid you for that stupid rubbish?’

  She willed herself to stay calm. ‘Well, they didn’t think it was rubbish when they bought it,’ she said indignantly, ‘and I got seventeen pounds for my trouble.’

  ‘Pah!’ he said scornfully. ‘Some people have more money than sense.’

  ‘Seventeen pounds is still a long way from seventy,’ she said, glad that she hadn’t told him about the fifty-four pounds she’d got in her Post Office savings bank.

  ‘What about your friend Sylvie?’ he went on. ‘Can’t you butter her up for a loan?’

  Dottie paused. ‘Well, I don’t know when I shall see her again, do I?’ she said cautiously. ‘It’s not the sort of thing you write in a letter, is it?’

  Reg shrugged and picked up his paper again, shaking it irritably. Grabbing the runner beans, she took them outside into the scullery to start preparing them to bottle.

  ‘All right then,’ he called out. ‘Tell Sylvie she can come.’

  ‘Thanks, Reg,’ she called back, willing her voice to stay level. ‘I can ask her about the money when she comes.’

  ‘Just for the one night, mind,’ he added acidly. ‘I don’t want her cluttering up the place for days on end.’

  Smiling to herself, Dottie licked the end of her finger and drew it down in front of her.

  Dottie one, Reg nil.

  Thirteen

  Dottie decided not to argue with Reg about Sylvie’s length of stay … for now. As soon as he’d gone off to the pub on Sunday evening, she sat down and wrote back to Sylvie, inviting her to come Friday 7th and stay over until Sunday afternoon. As she licked down the envelope, Dottie could hardly contain her excitement.

  Ann Pearce was leaning on the gate as Dottie came back from the post box.

  ‘My gas has gone out again,’ she said. ‘I wondered if you might have a couple of quid spare.’

  Dottie looked at her coldly. ‘No, I haven’t.’

  �
��My kids will go hungry if I don’t get some money,’ Ann called after her receding back. ‘I wouldn’t want to have to take them to the doctor, would I? And you never know, if they go hungry all the time, they might get ill.’

  Dottie stopped walking. This was getting beyond a joke. ‘No.’

  ‘I’d have no choice then,’ Ann went on. ‘I’d have to go to the doctor.’

  Dottie took in her breath as she turned around slowly. Ann was staring defiantly at her, her head up and a sneer on her lips.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ Dottie demanded. ‘If you want help, ask for it.’

  ‘I don’t need your charity,’ retorted Ann.

  ‘Fine.’

  Dottie turned away but plainly Ann wasn’t ready to see her go. ‘I’ll tell the whole world about you, Mrs Bloody Perfect who isn’t so perfect any more.’

  Something inside Dottie snapped. ‘If you’re trying to scare me,’ she spat, ‘you’re doing a pretty poor job of it. I’ve done nothing to be ashamed of.’

  ‘Paid up pretty darned quick last time, didn’t you?’ said Ann. ‘I’d hardly call that the actions of an innocent party.’

  ‘If you want to go to Dr Fitzgerald, that’s fine,’ said Dottie walking back. ‘I’ve just seen him off and I’ll do the same with you.’

  ‘Seen him off,’ said Ann. ‘Don’t make me laugh.’

  ‘You’ll not get another penny out of me.’ Dottie willed her voice not to quaver although her blood was already thumping so loudly in her ears, she felt as if the whole village could hear it.

  ‘You bitch!’ Ann shrieked.

  Dottie was caught by surprise as the other woman grabbed hold of her hair. Her bun disintegrated almost immediately as Ann tugged at it with all her might. The gate was still between them but Ann mounted the bottom rung as the two of them wrestled. The pain in Dottie’s head was almost unbearable. She desperately tried to prise Ann’s fingers away but they seemed to be becoming more and more entwined.

  By now the pair of them were screaming at the tops of their voices. Most of it was incoherent, but the occasional ‘Bitch!’ and ‘Sodding liar!’ came from Ann and ‘Let go, you cow …’ from Dottie.