Homecoming (34 page)

‘Yes, you can.' Lily opened her handbag. ‘I brought a book.' She held up a copy of Wilkie Collins's
Woman in White
that she'd borrowed from the Central Library. ‘I've been trying to finish it for a week but I don't seem to get a moment's peace at home. Between Martin, Brian –'

‘And Jack.' Helen opened the car door. ‘You sure you don't mind?'

‘I'm sure.'

‘Here goes.'

Lily watched Helen ring the bell and walk into the house. Just as she was settling to her book, the door opened again and a girl she recognised walked awkwardly down the short flight of steps into the courtyard. Without thinking what she was doing, Lily opened the car door and shouted, ‘Emily?'

Emily turned in the direction of the car. When Lily saw her blush, she realised how indiscreet she had been, but she could hardly ignore her after she had called her name.

‘It is Emily, isn't it?' Lily asked.

‘Yes.' Emily dragged her step as she walked over to the car. ‘And you used to be Joe Griffiths' girlfriend.'

‘A long time ago. I've been married to someone else for two years. I'm sorry.' Lily looked back at the house. ‘I didn't mean to embarrass you.'

‘I rather think I did that to myself.' Emily looked down self-consciously at her bump. ‘Are you visiting someone here?'

‘Just keeping a friend company on the drive.'

‘It's a long way from Swansea.' Emily looked around at the hills. ‘In fact it's a long way from anywhere.'

Chapter Eighteen

‘You're sure that's Mrs Maggie Jones?' Helen asked the member of staff who had shown her to the residents' lounge.

‘That is Mrs Jones, Mrs Clay,' the woman confirmed. ‘But surely you know your own sister-in-law?'

‘We only met once and that was years ago,' Helen fabricated, wondering what other lies Jack had spun when he'd visited Maggie.

‘Are you better, Mrs Clay?'

‘Better?' Helen asked in confusion.

‘Your husband mentioned that you were in hospital the first time he visited Mrs Jones.'

‘Yes … yes, I'm fine now,' Helen stammered.

‘If you'll excuse me, I have to supervise the tea.'

‘Yes, of course. Thank you,' Helen watched the woman walk away before turning back to the lounge.

The image she had conjured of a beautiful seductive siren who had cavorted with Jack against the backdrop of a sun-drenched Mediterranean beach, faded as she stared at the plump, dowdy, middle-aged woman who sat knitting a tiny white garment. Her fair hair was more silver than blonde. Her skin was creased with wrinkles, sallow with a faded tan, and there was a defeated, beaten expression in her eyes. She looked more like a grandmother than a woman about to become a mother and, Helen realised with a start, probably was more of an age to be just that.

Grateful that Maggie had chosen to sit alone and in a secluded corner, Helen walked across the room and stood in front of her chair. As Maggie looked up nervously, Helen saw that she already knew who she was.

‘I hope you don't mind me coming to visit you.'

‘No, Mrs Clay, I don't mind you coming to see me,' Maggie answered apprehensively. ‘Please, won't you sit down?'

‘Are you sure you didn't give Sam his ring back just because you lost your temper with his mother?' Joy asked Judy bluntly. They sat facing one another across Joy's kitchen table.

‘No,' Judy asserted. ‘It's as I said to Sam, I should never have taken it in the first place.'

‘Roy and I agree the woman's an absolute nightmare and considering she had the gall to have those bridesmaids' dresses made up the way she wanted, after you paid for the pattern and material …'

Judy shook her head. ‘She is a nightmare and I was furious about the dresses, but it's not her, it's me. I don't think anyone would willingly opt for a mother-in-law like Ena Davies, but if I loved Sam I'd put up with her, and I won't because I don't love Sam. I realise now that I never did and I simply can't understand why I took so long to see it.'

‘Better you realise now than after the event, I suppose,' Joy said philosophically, lifting the teapot and topping up both their cups.

‘I'm sorry, it's going to cost a fortune.'

‘Whatever it costs, it will be cheaper than a divorce both financially and in emotional wear and tear.'

‘It would have been cheaper still if I'd never agreed to marry Sam in the first place.'

‘Money's not the issue, Judy. Your happiness is, and it's only a few lost deposits.'

‘Not to mention the dress, the veil, the accessories and those …' Judy only just managed to stop herself from swearing, ‘pink flock bridesmaids' dresses.'

‘Ena liked the material and Mrs Howells's daughter's pattern so much I'm sure she'll keep them until Sam finds himself another bride.'

Despite the guilt that gnawed inside her, Judy laughed. ‘I suppose I'd better go home and pack up the engagement presents.'

‘The ones that were given by Sam's family,' Joy agreed. ‘I certainly don't want mine back and I can't see Lily and Martin, or Katie and John taking theirs back either. It's just as well that the wedding presents hadn't started coming in.'

‘I'll write to everyone we sent an invitation to and tell them the wedding's been called off.' Judy finished the tea in her cup. ‘The sooner I start, the sooner I can post them.'

‘Why don't you move in here for a couple of days?' Joy suggested. ‘That way I can help you to organise everything that needs to be done. You know Roy and Billy would love to have you stay.'

‘No,' Judy refused, ‘but thank you for asking.'

‘You're afraid of seeing Sam in the street?'

‘I'm not afraid of seeing Sam anywhere now that I've finally said what I needed to say to him. I live on my own, I like living on my own, and I don't need to run home to mother every time something goes wrong.'

‘It wouldn't be like that, Judy.'

Judy left her chair and kissed her mother's cheek. ‘Thank you for asking, but I really am all right. In fact,' she gave her mother a tight smile, ‘I am more all right than I have been in a long time.'

‘This place is set in pretty countryside,' Helen observed lamely, as she removed her gloves, folded them into her coat pocket and draped her coat and scarf over an empty chair.

‘Yes,' Maggie concurred, ‘it's also isolated. How did you get here?'

‘I drove.'

‘You have a car?'

‘Yes, but it's not mine; it belongs to the warehouse where I'm a buyer in ladies' and children's fashion.' Helen made a conscious effort to stop talking. She felt that the conversation between her and Maggie was ridiculous given the circumstances, but she couldn't bring herself to mention Jack – not yet.

‘It sounds like an interesting job.'

‘It is.'

They sat opposite one another for a moment, both staring out of the window. Helen was surprised to see Lily walking with a pregnant girl in the grounds but she was too preoccupied to recognise Emily.

‘I …'

‘I …'

They both fell silent as they tried to speak at the same time.

‘You first.' Helen summoned enough courage to look Maggie in the eye. Maggie couldn't meet her gaze for more than a couple of seconds.

‘I was going to say I'm sorry, but that sounds pathetic in view of what I've done to you.' When Helen remained silent, she added, ‘I know how hurtful this is for you and how you feel.'

‘You can't possibly know how I feel!' As Helen's anger erupted, she realised that despite her initial pity for Maggie, she couldn't forgive her – or Jack for betraying her.

‘Yes, I do – a little,' Maggie divulged bleakly. ‘When Gordon received his posting to Cyprus, he went on ahead because I had just given birth to our fourth child. By the time I arrived with our children two months later, he was having an affair with a Greek woman fifteen years younger than him and ten years younger than me. I could have scratched her eyes out – and his.'

‘Did she have Gordon's child?' Helen enquired acidly.

‘No, but it was still devastating to discover that my husband had committed the most intimate and sacred act of married life with another woman.'

‘Yet, that didn't stop you from committing the same act with my husband.'

‘No. I'm –'

‘Very sorry,' Helen interrupted curtly, unwilling to listen to another apology.

‘Jack came to see me.'

‘So you wrote.'

‘He's been twice,' Maggie continued quietly. ‘If I'd had any idea of the damage my letter to him would do to your marriage, I would never have let him know that I was having his child.'

‘Then why did you write to him?' Helen questioned starkly. ‘From what both of you have said, it wasn't as if you had a long-standing affair or even meant anything to one another.'

‘We didn't have an affair and we don't mean anything to one another.'

‘But you do now.' Helen glared at Maggie's bump.

After another interminable silence, Maggie asked, ‘Are you religious?'

Taken aback by the question, Helen took a few seconds to answer. ‘Not especially. I used to go to church when I was younger and I still go now and again.'

‘Easter, Christmas, weddings and funerals.' Maggie deliberately omitted christenings.

‘That's about it.'

‘My father is a vicar. The first lesson he taught me was to be constantly aware of my human weakness and frailty because if I didn't fight the temptations of the flesh I would become a sinner in the eyes of God. He was right. If I hadn't defied God and broken one of his commandments, this would never have happened and I wouldn't have hurt you and Jack, sullied Gordon's memory, and risked my own and my children's reputations. And now all I can say is that I am truly sorry and beg your forgiveness.' Her eyes were tormented, tortured as she finally looked across at Helen. ‘Do you think that you will ever be able to forgive me?'

Not trusting herself to come up with a coherent answer, Helen shook her head.

‘When I discovered I was pregnant, I was appalled. My one consolation was that at least I'd moved out of military circles so Gordon's fellow officers wouldn't find out that I'd betrayed him so soon after his death. But there was my parents' friends, neighbours and family, and I was terrified of having society's damning finger pointed not only at me, but my children.' She knotted her fingers together and stared down at her hands. ‘I am ashamed to admit that I tried to kill myself. My only excuse is that I thought my death would be preferable to my shaming Gordon's memory and blighting the lives of our children. If I hadn't been living with my parents, I probably would have succeeded in doing it.'

‘What did you do?' Helen wasn't sure why she was asking, but it seemed important.

‘The doctor prescribed sleeping pills for me after Gordon was killed. I waited until I was due to pick up a new bottle from the chemist, then I took them all. I didn't realise that my mother had been worried about me since my return from Cyprus and was watching everything I did. It wasn't until I was in the hospital having my stomach pumped that I discovered she had spoken to the doctor and there wasn't even enough in the bottle to kill me, just make me ill. Then it all came out, although my mother had already guessed that I was having a baby and it wasn't Gordon's.'

‘But she stood by you.'

‘As you see.' Maggie glanced around the sterile lounge. ‘She and my father were disgusted and disappointed with me, but my father prides himself on practising Christian forgiveness and charity, even when it comes to his own errant daughter and a scandalous sin that could have adverse repercussions on his career.'

‘That must have been hard for you to take.'

Maggie gave Helen a sharp look. ‘Yes, it was. But along with exacting my gratitude, he and my mother also made me see that it was not only Gordon and my children's lives I should consider, or even my own, but this child who has a right to life. How did my father put it?' She pursed her lips as she tried to recall the exact phrase. ‘The fruit of transgression who might still live a useful life provided the sin of his conception is kept from him.'

‘By lying.'

‘Basically,' Maggie agreed wearily. ‘But it was easier to allow my parents to take control. I have four other children to consider. They are taking care of them and they arranged my admission here. And it was only when I arrived here that I had time to think about the father of my child. Until then I hadn't even considered him, only my children, Gordon's memory and myself. It was easy for me to find out Jack's address. The doctor who looked after him in the military hospital had been a friend of my husband. He knew how devastated I was by Gordon's death and it was he who suggested I meet Jack, because Jack was the last person to talk to Gordon …' She blinked hard in an effort to stop tears from forming in her eyes. ‘I talked it over with a vicar who calls here and he persuaded me that Jack had the right to know that he had fathered a child.'

‘“If only to pray for its well-being”,' Helen quoted.

‘Jack said you'd read my letter.'

‘Jack gave it to me.'

‘I would never have written it if I'd known that Jack would take the responsibility of the child so seriously.'

‘Then you don't know Jack very well.'

‘I don't know him at all,' Maggie conceded.

‘He hasn't told you that I can't have children?'

Maggie stared at Helen, horror struck. ‘I had no idea. Jack talked about you, of course. That day he came to see me when he was released from hospital. He said how much he missed you and how he couldn't wait to go home and be with you again … I am so sorry, so very, very sorry …'

‘I look at those hills after living on the cliff above Caswell and I feel as if they are hemming me in,' Emily confided to Lily, as they walked along the path that marked the border between the garden and the fields behind the house. ‘I'm used to great big open spaces, the sea, the beach …' Lily stumbled. ‘Are you feeling all right?'

‘Just a bit faint,' Lily confessed, lagging behind. ‘I forgot to eat breakfast this morning.' She took a deep breath and the world wavered around her. There was a bench in front of her. She reached out, intending to grab it, then fell headlong into a grey-black, buzzing world.

‘There's a commotion in the garden.' Helen rose to her feet and looked through the window.

‘Probably one of the girls going into labour. Jean is due this week.' Resting her hands on the arms of her chair, Maggie heaved herself up. ‘I'll walk you to the door.'

‘There's no need.'

‘Mrs Clay!' One of the staff burst through the door. ‘Your friend has been taken ill outside.'

Helen ran headlong through the door and up the corridor into the hall in time to see Lily being wheeled into the house by a girl she vaguely recognised and a member of staff. Lily's head was lolling at an uncomfortable angle in the wheelchair and it took a moment for Helen to realise that she was unconscious. Then she looked down at Lily's legs and saw blood trickling down her stockings.

‘Mrs Jones, go into my office and call an ambulance. Then call the doctor. His number is pinned on the board to the right of the door. If he's home, he'll get here before the ambulance,' Matron shouted. ‘You,' she snapped her fingers at the member of staff. ‘Wheel her into the treatment room. Now!'