Homecoming (37 page)

Brian looked in the mirror above the sink and examined the damage to his face. ‘This is a clear case of grievous bodily harm, Sam.'

‘And what would you call what you did to me?' Sam countered antagonistically.

‘I've done bugger all to you.'

‘Only taken my bloody fiancée.'

‘Judy.' Brian stared at Sam's reflection in the mirror.

‘Don't come all wide-eyed innocence with me. She broke off our engagement today.'

‘Judy finished with you?' Brian whirled around.

‘As if you hadn't bloody put her up it!'

‘I haven't seen Judy since the last time she was here.' Brian blinked hard as blood seeped down his face and dripped on to his pullover. As he clamped the tea towel back over his cheek, he realised his right eye was already closing up.

‘You expect me to believe that?' Sam challenged.

‘Believe what you damned well want.' Brian lurched unsteadily, leaned over the sink again and retched.

‘You need to get to hospital,' Jack advised, twisting Sam's arm even higher in an effort to stop him from struggling. ‘If I release you, Sam, will you go downstairs and stay there?'

‘I'll kill the bastard …'

‘That's what I was afraid of.' As Brian ran the cold tap again, Jack frogmarched Sam into the hall and yelled, ‘Mike,' at the top of his voice through the open door that led to the basement.

‘He's on duty,' Sam crowed.

‘Then I'll call the station.'

Jack's threat to telephone the police brought Sam to his senses. ‘I had every right to be angry …'

‘You had no right whatsoever to attack Brian,' Jack lectured coldly. Freeing one hand, while keeping the other firmly clamped on Sam's arm, he held open the basement door. ‘Go downstairs and stay there, or I will call the police.' As Sam stepped on to the stairs, he slammed the door behind him and slid the bolt home. ‘Next time you want to come up here, try ringing the front door bell. Although if Martin and Lily have any sense, they'll give you notice to quit the minute they come back.'

‘I'm all right,' Brian protested irritably when Jack prised the tea towel from his hand after he had finished telling him the news about Lily and Martin.

‘I'm taking you to hospital.'

‘No, you're not. Where're the spare keys to Martin's car?'

‘He keeps them in the drawer in the hall table. Now where do you think you're going?' Jack shouted, as Brian struggled to his feet and left the kitchen.

‘Out,' Brian called back, taking the keys and slamming the front door behind him.

Although the pub Martin had booked into was closed, as all the pubs in that area of West Wales were every Sunday, he spent most of the evening in the bar, sitting as close as he could physically get to the telephone. The landlady made him a pot of tea and a round of fatty ham sandwiches as a special favour after informing him that she didn't usually cater on a Sunday. But he discovered her generosity came with a hefty price tag when she presented him with a bill for one pound ten shillings that included the tea she had made for him, Brian and Helen earlier. He had thought the room was expensive at twenty-five shillings a night and, as he emptied his pockets to pay for the food and drink, he reflected that it was just as well Brian had insisted on paying for the room by cheque, in case he needed his cash for something later. If Lily had to remain in the hostel for more than a few days, he'd be making a serious dent in their savings just to remain near her.

The telephone rang twice during the course of the evening and, heart pounding, he jumped to his feet both times, not knowing whether to wish it was the hostel or not. From what the doctor had told him, there was no chance that he'd be able to take Lily home for a couple of days even if she did make a remarkable recovery, and the alternative reason for the matron to contact him was too horrible to contemplate.

Yet he couldn't stop thinking about it, or blaming himself for being pig-headed about the overdraft facility Lily had organised. What if she died? Or survived and lost the baby? A baby that now he knew existed, he wanted to be born healthy and perfect almost as much as he wanted Lily to be well again.

For the first time he understood what she had been trying to tell him, that it was the people in life that mattered, not the material possessions. Even if the garage failed – and if the first week of business was an indicator, it wasn't going to do anything of the sort – he would find another job. And with the rents coming in, they could manage without Lily's salary from the bank. If he hadn't been so stubborn and prickly, she might have confided in him and told him about the baby from the very beginning. Then they could have made plans and looked forward to the birth from the outset of her pregnancy, as his sister and John Griffiths had. Instead, he had behaved so badly that Lily had been afraid to tell him that he was about to become a father. His own wife, afraid of him!

The thought seared into his mind. He might not have hit Lily as his father had beaten his mother, but he had made her fear him. What kind of useless, pathetic husband did that make him?

At half past ten, the landlord and his wife went to bed, after telling him to answer the telephone, as any call in the early hours was unlikely to be for them. They had already informed him that if he needed to leave the pub, the back door was never locked, even at night.

At midnight he climbed the stairs to the room he had rented. It was clean, but that was about all that could be said for it. The furniture was old but graceless, rough and ready, heavy pine pieces that had probably been made for a farmhouse. The floor was planked with boards that looked as though they'd splinter into any bare feet that touched them, and the double bed was covered with a purple and green candlewick bedspread that clashed with the pale blue washed walls.

He had never thought a great deal about decor. His childhood home had been furnished with cast-offs, and the few essentials his mother hadn't been able to scavenge had been acquired as cheaply as possible. For the first time he realised just what an eye for colour and detail Lily had, incorporating the best of the furniture that she had inherited from her aunt with well-chosen new pieces to create a comfortable home for them, which, he was ashamed to realise, he had begun to take for granted.

Sinking down on to the bed, he shivered. The room was not only cold but smelled musty and damp as if no one had slept in it for decades. Kicking off his shoes, he lifted his legs on to the bed, pulled the candlewick bedspread over himself and strained his ears. Alert for a call that he hoped wouldn't come.

Judy checked the list of people to whom she had sent wedding invitations against the pile of envelopes she had stacked on the table. It had taken her most of the evening to address the envelopes. She had composed only ten letters and retreating into cowardice, she had begun with the people she knew were most likely to sympathise with her, like Lily and Martin, John and Katie. As she ran her finger down the seemingly endless list Sam's mother had provided her with, she wondered if it was etiquette to unload the responsibility for contacting Sam's friends and relatives on to him.

Unable to face writing another ‘I regret to inform you', she closed her writing case and screwed the top back on to her fountain pen. Stretching her hands above her head, she realised that the hot bath she had soaked in for an indulgent three quarters of an hour earlier, had relaxed her to the point where she could barely keep her eyes open. A cup of cocoa and bed would be wonderful, a glass of sherry and bed absolute luxury. Opting for luxury, she opened the sideboard and took out a bottle of sherry and a glass. She was screwing the top back on to the bottle when the doorbell rang. She pushed aside the curtains and saw Martin's car parked in the street. Furious at the thought that Sam had borrowed it, she dropped the curtains, determined to ignore him. When it rang for the fourth time she ran down the stairs and shouted, ‘Go away,' through the closed door.

‘I would but I'm dripping blood all over your nice clean doorstep and I think I should mop it up while it's still fresh.'

The voice was familiar but it wasn't Sam's, ‘Brian?' she ventured hesitantly.

‘Get me a bucket and a scrubbing brush, Judy.'

Acutely aware that she was wearing a thin, artificial silk negligee and nothing beneath it she replied, ‘It's late and you're being ridiculous.'

‘And bleeding.'

‘Is something wrong?' she asked urgently.

‘Lily's ill, but –'

‘Lily! What's wrong with her?' Her hand flew to her mouth as she wrenched open the door. ‘Oh my God, you are bleeding!'

‘I told you I was.' He looked down as she switched on the light. ‘But I lied about your doorstep.' He pulled deprecatingly at his sweater. ‘This has soaked up most of it.'

‘You're an idiot.'

‘Probably,' he granted mildly. ‘I'd like to say you should see the other fellow but as he took me by surprise, he hasn't a scratch on him.'

‘You said Lily's ill?'

He told her about Lily collapsing in the unmarried mothers' home, which led to details about Helen's trip to see the woman who was having Jack's baby, but before he could answer all the questions she hurled at him, much less explain everything to her satisfaction, he had to lean against the door post for support. Seeing him sway, she stepped back into the tiny hall.

‘You'd better come up,' she conceded, allowing him to walk ahead of her. After she'd fastened the bolt and chain, she turned just in time to prop him up as he stumbled. ‘You should never have driven here and in Martin's car too,' she scolded. ‘What happened to yours? You haven't had an accident?'

‘My car's fine, Martin has it. This,' he pulled Lily's bloodstained tea towel from his pocket and pressed it against the side of his head to staunch the blood he felt trickling down his face, ‘is the result of a collision with Sam's fist.' He pulled a chair out from under her table and sat down.

‘Sam did that to you! What did you do to him?' She ran into her bathroom to fetch antiseptic and her first aid kit.

‘Nothing.'

‘He wouldn't hit you without a reason, he's a policeman, for God's sake.' As there wasn't a bowl in the bathroom she dived into the kitchen to get one.

‘He told me that you'd broken off your engagement.'

‘That is nothing to do with you.' She filled an enamel bowl with cold water. ‘I told him it was nothing to do with you,' she repeated angrily, as she returned to the living room and stood transfixed in front of him, clutching the bowl to her chest.

‘Is there a clean cloth in there?' He pulled Lily's bloodstained tea towel away from his face and studied it.

‘Yes.' Springing into action, she set the bowl on the table and took the ruined tea towel from his hand. ‘This is bad …'

‘Not that bad. Pull the edges together and stick a plaster over it.'

‘It should be stitched. If it isn't, you could have a scar …'

‘We'll tell our grandchildren it was honourably won.'

She met his gaze as she pressed the clean cloth over his cut. ‘What did you say?'

‘You heard.'

‘Brian …'

‘You love me,' he said simply. ‘Almost as much as I love you and I could kick myself for not seeing it before Sam did. But then Sam did the kicking for me. And he did us a favour. Left to our own devices I'm not sure that either of us would have said anything to the other. In fact I was hoping for an invite to your wedding.'

Still holding the cloth against his head, she dropped abruptly on to the chair next to his.

He closed his hand over hers and took the cloth from her. ‘The plaster,' he reminded. ‘Otherwise I'm likely to bleed all over your carpet.'

‘It's not a very good carpet.'

‘I agree, but it will look even worse with my blood all over it.'

She could feel colour flooding into her cheeks as she opened her first aid kit. Taking out a roll of plaster and a pair of scissors she murmured, ‘How big shall I cut it?'

‘How about as big as the cut?'

‘Brian …'

‘Yes,' he prompted eagerly when she fell silent.

‘I wish you'd let me drive you to hospital.'

‘You'd create a sensation dressed like that. They'd even walk out of the morgue to take a look.' He circled her waist with his hands as she stood in front of him and cleaned the cut.

‘Are you never serious?'

‘I am serious.' He winced, as she wrung the cloth out in fresh antiseptic and water and reapplied it. ‘You would create a riot if you went out in that. Want to try it and see?' he dared.

‘No, and I would put on decent clothes before I drove you to the hospital.'

‘That would be a shame, I prefer you in indecent outfits. Ow!' he cried, as she dabbed at the cut to dry it. ‘You're no Florence Nightingale.'

‘No one ever spoke to Florence Nightingale the way you've just spoken to me.'

‘How do you know some of her patients didn't fancy her?'

‘I read the history books. She never married and was too busy ministering to the sick to have a boyfriend.' After judging the length of his wound, she cut a piece of plaster and covered it.

‘That anyone knew about. She could have been a secretive lady.'

‘I doubt it.'

He slid his hands upwards from her waist. She could feel his fingers warm, burning her skin through the wafer thin silk as he caressed her back. ‘I like you in white silk and,' he grinned at the colour in her cheeks, ‘beetroot complexion.' He grabbed her and pulled her on to his lap before she could protest. Jamming her between him and the table, he covered her mouth with his and kissed her long and thoroughly. ‘Now tell me that you don't love me.'

‘Why did you walk away from me that day on Swansea station?' she asked soberly.