That'll Be the Day (2007) (20 page)

Terry gazed into her hazel eyes, his face oddly serious and wearing that wounded little-boy look that turned her heart over. ‘As if I’d think such thing. Why do you put yourself down in that way, Lynda? Don’t you know by now how I feel about you? That you’re very special to me.’

‘Oh, Terry, you’re special to me too.’ Lynda could hardly believe it of herself but despite her efforts to remain cool and detached she was falling for him, good and hard. She’d never met anyone so caring, so loving, and yet so exciting. She loved tearing around the countryside with him on the back of his motorbike, but was equally content to walk with Terry by the canal, or sit and watch him play his guitar. And even though she daren’t ask him over to her place, because of Ewan, she was welcome any time at his house, and called in regularly on a daily basis, if only to see his gorgeous face.

‘My word,’ Judy had said, when she’d told her all of this. ‘You have got it bad.’

‘I know, and it’s great. You don’t think he might be
the one
?’

Good friend that she was Judy had advised caution, urging Lynda not to rush into anything. ‘Marriage and all that stuff is such a commitment. Give yourself time. I wish I had,’ and such a pained, bleak expression had come over her lovely face that Lynda had reached out to hug her.

‘Yeah, I know, but I’m twenty-six now, not getting any younger.’

Judy laughed. ‘There’s plenty of time yet.’

‘I suppose so. Anyway if I ever start to get broody I only have to look at Mam and Ewan to see the mess marriage can bring. It’s hell on earth in our house at the moment.’

‘I thought you were happy to have your father living with you at last?’

‘It’s not quite so straightforward as it might seem,’ Lynda had said, and quickly changed the subject.

Tonight, Terry would have walked with her right to her front door but Lynda told him there was no need. ‘Look, this is your house here, and mine is just twenty yards away.’ Terry lived on Quay Street, along which they’d walked from the corner of Deansgate after they’d got off the bus.
 

‘More like a hundred yard dash along two more streets,’ Terry said. ‘I’m coming with you.’

She gathered his face in her hands and kissed him again, long and hard. ‘You’re a sweet boy but don’t fuss. I’m a big girl now. I can negotiate a couple of streets, do a hundred yard dash if necessary.’

‘Please don’t call me boy. I’m twenty, nearly twenty-one and I don’t care if there are a few years between us, I like you Lynda, and that’s all that matters.’

‘Oh, you’re right, it is. I didn’t mean to sound – well – so patronising.’

‘I know,’ he said, kissing her some more.

It was several moments later before Lynda finally broke away from him, her cheeks rosy and with not a scrap of lipstick left on her swollen mouth. ‘I’ve got to go. See you tomorrow. We’ll meet up for coffee in Belle’s caff at eleven as usual, right?’

‘Right.’

And with a cheery wave she turned and hurried away, aware of him standing at the bottom of Gartside Street watching her until she reached the corner of Grove Street. Here she turned and waved one last time, calling out that she was fine now before setting off to run the last few yards to Champion Street.

The night was dark with few stars and no sign of a moon to light her path, only the pale yellow glow from the old fashioned street lamps that had once been operated by gas but were converted to electricity before the war. Champion Street looked oddly naked with all the market stalls stacked away and a few stray chip papers blowing about. A chill wind made Lynda draw her coat closer about her and quicken her pace, though it didn’t quench the warm glow in the pit of her stomach.

But she felt less brave walking home alone than she’d expected. Maybe she was growing too used to having a regular escort? Lynda almost fell over her own front doorstep on a sigh of relief, pushed her key in the lock and flung herself inside. Home safe at last. What a softie she was!

Betty was waiting for her when she got inside, sitting with Queenie in her lap, and with her head in her hands. Ewan wasn’t in yet, and neither was Jake, no doubt off on the razzle together like a couple of daft teenagers.

‘What’s up?’ Lynda asked, but her mother quickly shushed her.

Betty shooed Queenie gently on to the floor then went to make hot cocoa for them both. They sat sipping it side by side on the sofa, the biscuit barrel between them. ‘He’s been at it again,’ Betty eventually confessed, her round face creased with anxiety.

‘At what?’

‘Me purse. There’s a five pound note missing. Last week it was two pounds and the Friday before that one pound ten shillings. I thought happen I’d miscounted, but there’s no mistake this time because I kept a careful note. He’s nicked it.’

‘Oh, Mam, you can’t be certain it’s him.’

‘Aye, I can, if only by the way he laughed for no reason when he saw me totting up the day’s takings. I work, and he steals and drinks, that’s how it’s allus been. I’m scared he might find my secret hoard, you know - me tin box what I keep under the floorboards?’

Mother and daughter both stared down at the green rug which hid Betty’s hoard.

‘Shouldn’t you move it then, if you’re worried?’

Betty frowned, looking deeply concerned, and Lynda put her arms about the soft cosy shoulders and hugged her beloved mother close. ‘We’ll think of something, somewhere safe to hide your stash. Don’t you and me always solve our problems in the end? Remember that time our Jake started stuttering in order to get attention. We tried everything under the sun, then we threatened him with some nasty tasting medicine and it stopped overnight.’

Betty chuckled at the memory. ‘But Ewan Hemley isn’t a seven year old child, and getting rid of him will take more than a spoonful of cough mixture. He’s got to go, Lynda, or there’ll be blue murder done in this house, and then where will we be?’

Next morning, at eleven, Lynda was waiting as promised in Belle’s caff but it was Alex Hall and not his son who came to meet her.

‘Terry asked me to come and apologise for his absence but he’s had to stay home today. After you left him last night someone jumped him and gave him a real going over. Beat him up so bad the poor lad is covered in bruises. He looks like he’s gone nine rounds with Tommy Farr.’

‘Oh, my God, is he all right? Who would do such a thing?’

‘I don’t know,’ Alex said, a frown of anxiety etched into his face. He sat down opposite her and thoughtfully sipped his frothy coffee. ‘Probably some nasty little tyke out of his skull on booze. But when I find him, Terry won’t be the only one seeking retaliation.’

‘Are you sure he’s all right?’

‘He’ll live but he’s got some badly bruised ribs. I’ve told him to go to the doctor but will he listen?’

‘Can I go and see him during my dinner hour? Maybe I can persuade him to go.’

Alex grinned at her. ‘You seem to have got it as bad as him.’

‘Maybe I have,’ Lynda admitted, a sheepish smile hiding her concern. ‘And when you find out who did this terrible thing, give him one for me too, will you?’

Lynda spent as much time as she dared with Terry, promising she’d buy herself a packet of crisps later to make up for missing her dinner. She couldn’t stay nearly as long as she would have liked as she was working on the chocolate stall this afternoon, to give Lizzie Pringle a break.
 

‘Who was it, did you see who hit you?’

Terry shook his head. He was strangely quiet, clearly not keen to talk about the experience which Lynda could quite understand. ‘I thought he might not stop, that he’d go on till he killed me.’

‘Oh, Terry, don’t say such a thing. You must have been terrified. I can’t bear to think of it.’

‘Why, would you miss me if anything happened to me?’ He gazed up at her with such hope and adoration in his eyes that she chuckled softly at him.

‘If you weren’t covered with such horrendous bruises I’d think that maybe you were deliberately trying to make me feel sorry for you.’

He grinned then, a rather crooked, one-sided sort of smile but at least with some warmth to it. ‘You could kiss the bruises better, and I’ll kiss yours. I’d have no objection to that.’ Lynda readily did as he asked and they both felt considerably better by the time she got up to go.

Terry held on to her hand for a long, telling moment. ‘No matter what, Lynda, nothing and nobody can change the way I feel about you.’

Lynda failed to pick up on the hint that the beating up might have something to do with their seeing each other. She was too keen to ask another question entirely, a teasing note in her voice. ‘And how
do
you feel about me, exactly, Terry Hall?’
 

‘I’ll tell you some other time, when I don’t feel like I’ve been kicked all over by an elephant.’

‘See that you do. I shall hold you to that promise.’

Chapter Twenty-One

Helen was lying sprawled on the bed, one linen sheet only half covering her naked body, the curve of her breasts enticingly on view. Leo found he could hardly bear to look at her, as if for some reason he felt ashamed of what they’d just done together, and of her willingness to do it all over again. She’d been the one to initiate it, as was so often the case these days, taunting and teasing him until he’d been quite unable to resist.

No matter how prickly their relationship in everyday life, there seemed to be no problems between them sexually, and, knowing himself to be a good lover, powerful and demanding, Leo had never felt his manhood threatened in any way if Helen should choose to take the lead.

Today, however, had been different. He wasn’t able to concentrate on her needs at all, wasn’t really
with
her as his mind was elsewhere, seeing a different face altogether.

He even found himself half listening for his mother. Not that Dulcie would ever simply walk in upon them, being far too polite and middle-class for that, but she would often tap on the door and whisper through the pale oak panels as if wary of disturbing them even as she did so. It infuriated Helen to the point of distraction and made Leo jumpy, as he was now.

He was only too aware that relations between his wife and his mother were far from easy. Only the other day Dulcie had approached him, suggesting it was perhaps time she returned home to Lytham, but he could tell that her heart wasn’t in it.

She’d only moved there in the first place in an effort to force her stubborn husband into retirement. She was much happier here, in the city. He was delighted to see that she was meeting up with old friends again, had rejoined her church groups and was living a much fuller life. Why would he condemn her to life alone in a silent bungalow?

It certainly didn’t trouble Leo having his mother live with them, it was a large enough house for them not to intrude upon each other. Unfortunately he couldn’t persuade his wife to share this viewpoint. He’d suggested they make a separate flat for Dulcie, with her own kitchen built into the old conservatory, but Helen wouldn’t hear of it.

‘What, ruin our lovely home? Over my dead body.’

He was rarely allowed to forget the long-drawn-out war that was raging between the two women in his life. Mostly it was conducted in polite undertones, Dulcie treading on egg-shells with Helen cutting the frosty atmosphere with her famous barbed remarks. Occasionally tempers would erupt and he’d hear doors being slammed and voices raised, although rarely his mother’s. He was more likely to find Dulcie sniffing into her hanky while Helen was the one who had the tantrum. It was all very troubling.

Nevertheless he’d be fooling himself if he said that his mother was the only concern occupying his mind at present. If he was too preoccupied to be interested in their love-making today, the cause lay in quite another direction altogether.

Ever since that moment when he’d rescued her son from the bullies he couldn’t get Judy Beckett out of his head. Nor later when he’d talked to her at her stall and she’d made those enigmatic remarks about not disobeying her husband. He remembered how she’d first introduced herself by identifying herself through him. Yet she was clearly a talented artist so why did she have so little confidence in herself? And why should the woman matter so much to him anyway?

‘It’s all right, Dulcie is asleep,’ Helen was saying, guessing his thoughts, at least partially. ‘I heard her snores on my way back from the bathroom.’

‘She’s a very light sleeper, particularly since my father died.’

‘But
we
aren’t dead,
we’re
still very much alive, and I need you Leo. Don’t you need me?’

‘Of course I do, I’m just a bit down that’s all. Not only because I’m worried about Ma but I still feel swamped by grief, so sad that my father died before ever we’d bridged our differences. I can’t seem to properly relax.’

‘Utter tosh! That happened months ago and it’s long past time you got over it. Come here, I’ll soon make you feel
much
better.’

She rode him hard, bringing him to the peak of fulfilment, but then he flunked it at the last moment, hating himself for this show of weakness.

Desperate not to admit failure, Helen scrambled to her feet and stood above him on the bed, naked and proud, wanting him to see every inch of her finely toned body. ‘Don’t tell me this doesn’t set your blood pumping?’