by Anne Bennett
‘Anyway,’ Daniel put in, ‘I want to make sure my father makes an honest woman of you at long last. You both have waited long enough.’
‘Are you absolutely sure?’
‘Absolutely!’ Connie and Daniel said in unison, and Stan caught Angela around the waist. ‘We’ve been overruled, darling,’ he said. ‘Let’s give the children what they want.’
‘Oh yes, my darling Stan,’ Angela said, laughing. ‘And we have to get busy, for we have two weddings to organise now.’
As it was to be Angela’s wedding too, there were more people to invite, and many of them were old friends and neighbours that used to live in and around Bell Barn Road. She knew some might have died and others might be ill or just too frail to make the journey, but she felt she had to invite all those she could remember.
Angela was particularly glad to hear that Breda and Paddy Larkin were coming, for Breda had been a stalwart friend and confidante to Angela when she had needed one so much. Angela had told her things she didn’t feel she could share with anyone else, knowing Breda would never betray her. For many years the Larkins had been the licensees at The Swan, where Angela had been employed, and they were generally well liked. The Lampeters, the new licensees, were pleased when they heard the Larkins had been invited to the wedding. ‘I am so glad they felt they could it make it,’ Angela said to Muriel. ‘Breda said she wouldn’t miss it for the world, but you know her arthritis is very bad at times.
‘I owe the Larkins a great deal,’ continued Angela. ‘They are very fond of Connie, of course – they have seen her grow up. But when I wrote and told them I was getting married too, on the same day, Breda said they were beside themselves with joy for me. I hope Paddy will walk me down the aisle. I am a bit short of male relatives, and Paddy was almost a father to me, especially when I lost Barry.’
‘They must be getting on a bit,’ Muriel said.
‘Oh yes, they are,’ Angela said.
‘And they are travelling from the south coast?’
Angela nodded. ‘Yes, it’s a bit of a trek for them.’
‘It’s a lot of a trek, if Breda has arthritis, and going out in the cold night air makes it worse,’ Muriel said. ‘I know, for I have a touch of it myself now and again.’
‘I know,’ Angela said. ‘But there’s no way around it.’
‘There is though,’ Muriel said. ‘They can stay here overnight.’
‘That’s incredibly kind of you,’ Angela said. ‘Won’t you mind?’
‘Not a bit of it,’ said Muriel airily. ‘Tell you the truth, I have heard so much about them, I’d really like to get to know them myself. Broach it to them in your next letter.’
‘I will,’ Angela said. ‘And thank you!’
The build-up to the wedding sped by in a happy whirl of planning and excitement. Breda and Paddy said it was very kind of the Lampeters to offer them overnight accommodation, and Paddy was tickled pink when Angela asked him to walk her down the aisle. But Breda knew her husband well and saw there was something bothering him. And because she was the sort of woman who got to the point straight away, she looked him full in the face and said, ‘All right. What is it?’
Because Angela held a special place in Paddy’s heart, he had a few misgivings about the man she was planning to marry. Breda, though, was irritated when he voiced these doubts.
‘Who would you have her marry – Eddie McIntyre?’ Breda demanded.
‘No, I wouldn’t, as you know full well,’ Paddy said. ‘Stan’s a hundred times better than that ne’er-do-well. If Angela wanted to marry McIntyre, it would be a huge mistake. He’s the love-them-and-leave-them type of man.’
‘Well, Stan isn’t like that.’
Paddy shook his head from side to side and said, ‘I wouldn’t have said so either. But I can’t get it out of my head – the shabby way he treated her before. Look what she did for him – welcoming him into her home, connecting him with his long-lost son, even cleaning out the flat to give Stan and his son a place to live. They seemed good together, I will say that – and then suddenly Stan wasn’t in her life any more, making her ripe for a predator like Eddie McIntyre.’
‘Mmm, that was puzzling, all right,’ Breda said.
‘Well, what if he does it again?’
‘He wouldn’t.’
‘How can you say that so definitely, when he did it once before and neither of us knew why.’
‘No, it was odd, that,’ Breda admitted. ‘Angela never did discuss what went wrong. I mean, she’d always been so open with me before that, but she fair bit my head off when I asked her about it one day.’
‘Well, let’s hope Stan Bishop does the decent thing and marries Angela this time,’ Paddy said. ‘Nothing we can do about it now but turn up and support her.’
‘That’s all,’ Breda said with a sigh. ‘And don’t you go round saying anything like that and upset her on her wedding day.’
‘You might credit me with a bit of common sense now and again, Breda.’
‘I might, if you showed any, a time or two,’ Breda retorted, and before Paddy was able to reply to that, she went on: ‘And I’ll tell you something for nothing. If that slime-ball Eddie McIntyre should come back from America and pop his head up anywhere, I shall hit him with something heavy.’
Paddy chuckled and said to his wife, ‘You might have to join a queue for that.’
There was another dilemma facing Breda that she wasn’t going to share with Paddy yet, and that was the identity of the second bridesmaid. It was fair lovely meeting up with Angela again, Breda thought, and both women had tears in their eyes as they embraced. Noel and Muriel Lampeter were more than welcoming when the Larkins arrived the day before the wedding. Breda could see Angela had a lot already organised, but still asked if there was anything she wanted her to do. ‘You could see to the bridesmaids, if you would?’ Angela asked.
‘Course I would,’ Breda said. ‘You know what I think of Connie, and she has made a remarkable turnaround after such a nasty experience in that disused factory. I was sorry to have missed the party in thanks for her recovery, but the old arthritis flared up and put paid to all that.’
‘How’s the arthritis now?’
‘Not so bad,’ Breda said. ‘It’s always better in the warmer, drier weather. But tell me how the party went.’
‘I was sorry you had to miss it, but she had a lovely time,’ Angela said. ‘And you’ll never guess who turned up!’
‘No, who?’
‘Eddie McIntyre!’
Breda’s lips drew back in almost a snarl as she hissed, ‘McIntyre! That slime-ball! He has a nerve to even show his face here. What’s he doing this side of the Atlantic?’
‘Oh, that’s the best bit yet,’ Angela said. ‘He lost all his money in the Wall Street Crash. You must have read about it in the paper.’
‘I did, but when I realised it was in America, I didn’t take much notice, for it’s a country I have never had a yen to even visit. So he’s lost all his money, has he?’
‘Apparently,’ Angela said. ‘He was here to drum up new business and revive contacts he made the last time he was in England. Probably his uncle insisted on him coming here, because some say it wasn’t his money he lost, but his uncle’s.’
‘Uh huh, bet that didn’t go down well when McIntyre’s uncle found out.’
‘Shouldn’t say it did.’
‘Mind you, it’s made my day to think he’s lost all that. And if his uncle takes him to court, I hope they throw the book at him. He deserves all he gets! Bad news that he’s back over here, though. He’d better not be out to cause trouble.’
‘He tried to cause enough at Connie’s party,’ Angela said, ‘making rude and suggestive remarks about me.’
‘And Stan was there? Didn’t he trounce him?’
‘No, he promised not to, in case the police got involved and McIntyre started spreading vile rumours about me. Not that I’m worried about Stan hearing them, because I have told him everything.�
��
‘Everything?’
‘Everything,’ Angela repeated. ‘Connie convinced me that I had to do it as soon as we knew McIntyre was back, and I’m so glad I did!
‘Anyway, McIntyre’s appearance didn’t spoil the party at all,’ Angela continued, ‘because Muriel put McIntyre out before there was any trouble, and with him gone, we all had a great time. Stan did fight McIntyre later, because when Stan walked us home after the party, we found that McIntyre had got in the entry door and was sitting in my house – can you believe it?! He was waiting for me, and when he started shouting filthy abuse at me, Stan, who was in the entry, heard everything. He followed McIntyre after Connie and I had pushed him out of the house.’
‘That man is like a bad smell.’
‘I agree,’ said Angela. ‘You can just imagine how pleased I am that there isn’t the remotest chance he will try to scupper Connie’s wedding or my own.’
‘You sound very sure of that.’
Angela gave a brief nod, ‘As sure as anyone can be about anything,’ she said. ‘Eddie McIntyre is dead, Breda.’
Breda’s mouth dropped open in astonishment and then she said with a rueful grin, ‘That’s wishful thinking, I’d say,’ and added, ‘you are joking?’
‘Am I likely to joke about that man’s death?’
‘No, I suppose not,’ Breda conceded. ‘But are you absolutely sure?’
‘Sure as I’ll ever be about anything,’ Angela said. ‘I identified the body.’
Breda’s eyes were wide and bulging out of her face as she blurted out, ‘You did what?!’
‘Identified his body,’ Angela repeated. ‘D’you remember the dead body that was pulled out of the canal a while ago? It was in all the papers.’
‘Yes, and the police didn’t know who he was.’
‘And if the police and coroner and anyone else who dealt with that body hadn’t been half asleep, they may have noticed something that might have identified the man sooner.’
‘What?’
‘McIntyre had an extra toe on his left foot.’
‘Never!’
‘It’s true,’ Angela said. ‘He showed me when he was last in England, and on his skeleton that extra bone was still there. All I felt, looking at that corpse, was relief that he could hurt no one any more.’
‘Well, that’s true,’ Breda said. ‘I could dance a jig on his grave. Has he any relatives?’
‘Only an uncle and a mother, I believe,’ Angela said. ‘They’re both getting on and the uncle is quite frail, I believe, but it’s up to them what they do with the body. There’s something else, and it’s not been in the papers. Before he came to England that first time, he had killed a man. A reliable witness saw it all and was willing to testify. If they had found McIntyre, he was going to be arrested for murder.’
‘So, did someone push him in the canal?’
There was no hesitation in Angela’s voice as she said, ‘The police think it was an accident, that he stumbled in after drinking heavily.’
‘Well, he surely did know how to sink those pints,’ Breda said. ‘So your Stan had nothing to do with it?’
‘Nothing at all,’ Angela said firmly.
‘Fair enough,’ Breda said, ‘though none would blame him.’
‘The police would blame him if they thought he had anything to do with it.’
‘But he didn’t, so we don’t have to bother the police,’ Breda said. ‘It isn’t as if we have anything new to tell them, is it?’
‘No, we don’t,’ Angela said, and in an effort to change the subject she said, ‘Before you go, let me show you the girls’ dresses for tomorrow. Mine is more or less the same, except mine is cream satin and the girls’ are peach.’
The satin dresses were overshot with lace caught up at intervals and fastened with blue and pink rosebuds. Clusters of lace also decorated the sleeves and the necklines, and they all had silver satin slippers to wear on their feet.
‘Ooh, they are beautiful!’ Breda said, slightly awed by them. ‘Truly, truly beautiful.’
‘Aren’t they just?’ Angela said in satisfaction. ‘It was a friend of Maggie’s made them, and I think they will look magnificent.’
‘They will indeed,’ Breda said, ‘but why did she make two?’
Angela hesitated before answering, but realised she had to tell Breda the truth about Chrissie. Her daughter was fed up with all the subterfuge about her origins, and had told Angela that the time for keeping secrets was passed. So she looked Breda full in the face and said, ‘They are for my two daughters – Connie and Chrissie.’
To say that Breda was shocked would be putting it mildly.
To her knowledge, Angela had one child, and that was Connie. There had been that unsettling business with McIntyre, but she had thankfully miscarried his child, and never in all the letters she’d written did she mention any other relationship – and Breda knew this was not another immaculate conception!
It was as Maggie came into the room that Breda thought she had solved the riddle, for Michael and Maggie had brought their three adopted children with them: baby Harry, astride Michael’s broad shoulders, and three-year-old Jenny and two-year-old Grace holding Maggie’s hands.
They had adopted all three when their parents had been killed in a traffic accident. Angela had been worried that Maggie might be worn to a frazzle, but she had flourished and the children were delightful. The two girls were going to be bridesmaids at Connie’s wedding. So Breda was convinced that was what Angela had done – she’d adopted a young girl, probably as a companion to Connie.
TWENTY
The night before the wedding, Stan went with some friends to the pub for his stag night. Angela asked Breda, Eileen and Maggie to her house for the evening, and when she came in with the first pot of tea of the evening, Breda took up a cup gratefully and said, ‘Nothing beats a cuppa. You can keep all your wine and whisky and beer, you just can’t beat a cuppa at the end of the night.’
‘And that advice is from a publican’s wife!’ Angela said, and the women burst out laughing. And then Breda said to Angela in a stage whisper that everyone heard, ‘Is she adopted, your younger daughter?’
Angela gave a start and paused, and then said, ‘Chrissie is not adopted – she’s my natural daughter, conceived as a result of a brutal assault and rape against me one night as I came home from the shell factory during the war. Actually, that day I hadn’t been in the factory, I had driven to the docks with the largest truck we owned, because there was a ship leaving on the afternoon tide with space on it. I was scared stiff, because I had never driven the big truck before nor driven so far, but the man who used to do it had been taken ill and there was no one else.’
‘Took some courage, that,’ Breda said. ‘It’s one hell of a way to the docks in any case – and in a truck you had never driven before, packed with shells!’ Breda shook her head. ‘Even if I had learnt to drive, I don’t think I could have done that.’
‘When we were frightened of something or didn’t want to do something, we would remember our loved ones at the Front,’ Angela said. ‘I’m sure Barry was sometimes frightened or told to do things he didn’t want to do, but he had to cope with any fear and obey the orders he’d been given. Before any major battle the Allies would pound the enemy with thousands of shells. To run out of shells would be unthinkable and disastrous for our loved ones, and I owed it to them to get that consignment to the docks so it could be taken over to France as soon as possible.’
‘Mary was worried about you that day,’ Breda said. ‘I met her at the shops, and she said they were expecting too much of young women these days.’
‘But she didn’t know what I was doing that day.’
‘Yes, she did,’ Maggie said. ‘You didn’t know you were going to be asked to do that until we went in that morning, and you knew you would likely be very late home and didn’t want Mary worried, so I popped in on my way home from the factory and told her where you’d gone, and said you’d li
kely be much later home than usual.’
‘That’s right,’ Breda said. ‘I met Mary after Maggie had called. She said you were working incredibly hard and she was looking for something tasty for your tea.’
‘Well, I was late,’ Angela said, ‘but Mary was more worried about the state I was in than the time I came home, because by the time the soldiers had finished with me, I was beaten up so badly, I could barely make it to the house, for all it was no distance away.’
To say that Breda was shocked would be putting it mildly, and as Angela seemed incapable of speech too, Maggie put in, ‘Angela didn’t go to the police, even when she found she was pregnant, in case news of it got to Barry at the Front. And she was right – even Michael said she was right to keep quiet. He said, even though it must have been heart-breaking for Angela, if Barry had got to hear about it, he might have come home to see for himself what had happened to her.’
‘Could he just do that?’ asked Breda.
‘Course he couldn’t,’ Maggie said. ‘We were at war, it wasn’t some game. For some lads, even most of them, it was their first taste of battle. Do you think they could just decide to go home and say they’d changed their minds? They would have hunted Barry down and shot him as a deserter, and he would have been branded thereafter as a craven coward.’
‘That would have destroyed me,’ Angela said. ‘Barry was no coward.’
‘I know that, and probably with the thought of what might happen to Barry in your mind, you made the brave decision to not inform the police or make waves of any sort. Remember the people who snubbed Barry when he claimed exemption, the sender of the four feathers, and many others who might have written to Barry and told him what had happened to his beloved Angela.’
‘It was the only way,’ Angela said. ‘But for me, it led to heartbreak and sorrow. Help came from an unexpected source – a woman offered to hide me away till the baby was born, and put it up for adoption. I thought it would be easy, that I would feel nothing for this child because of the way it was conceived, but in actual fact I loved Chrissie almost as soon as I had given birth to her. I signed away all rights to her, thereby ensuring she was available for adoption, thinking it would be the best thing for her. But then the orphanage couldn’t take her because, since the war, the number of people willing to adopt had dropped off dramatically.’
