That'll Be the Day (2007) (34 page)

In that instant she felt so alive, and yet so at peace with the world that she could have wept with happiness.

Leo explained how he’d been born and brought up in the town, and as a small boy had loved to hear tales of the Civil War, of Prince Rupert coming by way of Manchester and Bolton to marshal his forces in Clitheroe before marching over the Pennines to Yorkshire to fight the battle of Marston Moor. Of Cromwell taking refuge at nearby Stonyhurst Hall, yet unable to take to his bed because he feared assassination in the house of a Catholic.

Beguiled by his charm, just as Tom was, Judy listened entranced to Leo’s tales, smiling as Tom peppered him with questions.

‘Who won the battle? Was Prince Rupert killed? Who knocked down the castle?’

Ruth, less interested in history, adopted a bored expression. She refused to explore the keep, watched in disgust as Tom raced about the swathe of green lawns and scrambled over crumbling stone walls. Nor would she speak to Leo, or even walk beside him, sulkily trundling along several paces behind them all.

Judy observed this behaviour with increasing anxiety, but then the girl had been against the trip from the start, had pointedly asked her mother if she thought it such a good idea.

‘What will Daddy say if he finds out?’

‘Perhaps he won’t.’

Ruth had been appalled. ‘You aren’t seriously asking us to keep it a secret, are you, because Tom couldn’t keep a secret to save his life.’

‘No, of course not. We’re not doing anything wrong. In any case, I’m free to do as I please now. Leo is just a friend being kind. He wants to give us a day out of the city as a treat. It’s just a picnic, a summer outing. Where is the harm in that?’

But Judy could tell her daughter was unconvinced. ‘You fancy him, don’t you?’

‘Don’t be silly. I’m not even going to answer that question.’ But Judy had been unable to meet her daughter’s penetrating gaze as she gave the lie.

Now Ruth scowled and complained of being hungry. ‘I’ve seen enough old stones, thanks very much, aren’t there any decent shops in this little village?’

‘Of course. How about an ice cream?’ Leo suggested, which catapulted Tom back to his side in seconds.

Judy couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Never misses that word, even at fifty paces.

The children got their ice creams while the adults enjoyed tea and cakes, the four of them seated at a table in a small tea shop just like a real family.

Tom said, ‘Daddy never takes me to see castles, does he, Mummy?’

Ruth answered before Judy had collected her wits. ‘That’s because Dad wasn’t born in a posh town like Clitheroe but in Salford, and then he was in the war for years and years. Were you in the war, Mr Catlow? Did you fight for your country?’ Ruth challenged him, a hint of sarcasm in her tone.

‘I did, yes. I flew aeroplanes.’

Ruth looked almost disappointed. It was clear she would have preferred him to have done something much less heroic, then she could have found a real reason for her scorn. Tom became more excited, wanting to know all about what sort of planes he flew while Ruth took her ill temper out by crumbling a cream cake all over her plate without eating a scrap of it.

Judy didn’t resent her daughter’s loyalty to Sam, or regret bringing her and Tom along, even as she ached for some time alone with this man. There was no shame in her now. Leo wasn’t happy in his marriage, and hers was over. So if this was their chance of happiness, where was the wrong in it? They meant to see each other somehow, any way they could, no matter how difficult the circumstances. Today, Judy was happy simply to be near him.

Later they took their picnic in the lee of Pendle Hill, that massive hump which overlooked the pretty village of Downham while Leo regaled them with the myths and legends of old Mother Demdike and Anne Chattox, the so-called Pendle witches.

Even Ruth became interested in this tale, listening closely to how through gossip, ill fortune, dubious evidence and the malice of one young girl, these two women, along with many other innocents, ended up in Lancaster jail where they were hanged by the neck until dead.

‘The moral of the story being one should never listen to gossip, or fall out with your neighbour,’ Leo said, attempting to strike a note of good humour.

‘Or believe in witches,’ Judy added with a smile, and their glances had met, danced deliciously together for an instant before each had turned quickly away.

If they’d hoped for a few private moments while the children paddled in a nearby stream they were to be disappointed. Tom was eager enough to take off his sandals and dabble, but Ruth remained steadfast in her refusal, sitting between them with arms wrapped about her bare knees and an expression of black misery on her young face, as impenetrable as a brick wall. All they could do was sit and smile regretfully at each other over the child’s head.

‘Not perhaps quite as successful a day as I’d hoped for,’ Leo whispered to Judy later as they stood at the foot of the stairs by the open front door, the children already upstairs and under strict orders to get ready for bed. ‘I didn’t mean to give a history lesson but felt surprisingly nervous with your children.’

‘Tom loved it.’ Ruth felt suddenly shy and awkward, noting how the lamp-light burnished his dark brown hair almost to a fiery red. ‘I’m sorry about Ruth. She’s a bit mixed up at the moment, not surprisingly.’

‘I’m sure she is, as are we all. I wish I could wave a magic wand and make all these problems and difficulties disappear.’ He gazed at her then with such a solemn expression on his handsome face that Judy’s heart seemed to turn over. ‘I hope
you
enjoyed the day, at least. You caught some sun, I see. Your cheeks are all pink.’ He brushed one finger against her cheek, setting the fire in them to an even greater heat.

‘That’s because you are staring at me. You’re making me blush.’

‘I can’t take my eyes off you. Don’t you know how very attractive you are? How very beautiful?’

‘You mustn’t say such things.’

‘Why mustn’t I, when it’s true?’

He cupped her face with his hands, gazing into her eyes with such intensity it made her blush still more. ‘You know that I’m falling love with you. I never meant to, but I am.’

And before Judy could even think how to react to this whispered confession, he’d pulled her gently into his arms and kissed her. The kiss consumed her, being both tender and demanding all at the same time. She didn’t want it to end and when he put her from him neither could think of a thing to say. Judy couldn’t ever remember feeling so confused, so utterly glorious and happy inside with not a shred of remorse.

‘Tomorrow?’ he asked, his voice low and thick with emotion. ‘At the coffee shop, as usual?’

Judy glanced back up the stairs, then smiled at the pleading in his voice. ‘If I can.’

After he’d gone Judy stood leaning against the closed door, heart racing, for some long moments, till finally she asked herself the one question she’d avoided thus far: ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, girl?’

No answer came.

She was grateful that Ruth had turned off the light when she got back up the stairs to the bedsit. Judy sat in the darkness going over the day again in every minute detail, reliving every precious moment they’d spent together. Hugging herself with happiness she gazed wide-eyed at the moon, far from sleep and reluctant to allow the day to end. It had been truly wonderful and whatever happened next, she would never regret having accepted the invitation.

However unwise it might have been, and despite Ruth’s sulky rebellion, Judy didn’t feel the least bit sorry, not in the slightest, and she wasn’t going to stop seeing him. Leo Catlow had lit a spark of rebellion within her and whatever the risk, she had no intention of ignoring it.

Unaware that her husband had at last betrayed her, Helen was happily continuing with her own sordid little affair with Sam, still revelling in every grubby little moment. Her dalliance with Barford was also progressing quite nicely.

The fact that men other than Leo wanted her brought a glorious sense of triumph, proof that she was the one who held all the cards, the one in the position of power in the marriage because she was the one with the exciting secrets. She knew everything about Leo, but he didn’t understand her at all.

Helen glanced impatiently at her gold watch. Sam was late and she was none too pleased. Since it was a warm, summer’s evening with the scent of honeysuckle in the air Helen was down by the canal, but she’d long since grown bored of watching the brightly painted barges glide slowly past. Helen wasn’t a woman who enjoyed being kept waiting. She wanted him here. Now!

In a way it was really Leo she wanted but her husband was at the warehouse. He’d been there all day despite it being a Saturday and really she was growing tired of this obsession he had with work. But then he’d been increasingly distracted lately, hardly noticing she was even in the house. Sometimes he would seem surprised to find she was actually speaking to him, and would jerk out of some private reverie.

‘What is it?’ she would ask. ‘What were you thinking about that you even forgot I was here?’

‘Nothing.’ Then he would shake his head and walk away from her.

Helen hated Leo to have private thoughts. He should think and do only what she told him to. Not that this was easy, not with a man like Leo Catlow. He was his own man, which was perhaps what she loved most about him, and the reason she so enjoyed trying to manipulate and control him.

How Helen loved to see him squirm when she’d made some particularly cutting remark. In her view a comment couldn’t be considered cruel if it struck home, and it surely only did that if it were true. She’d so often seen her own mother reduced to tears by the casual neglect of her husband. Helen sincerely believed that if her own beloved father could treat marriage with such contempt, what hope was there for anyone? Right from the start of her marriage with Leo, she’d been determined to protect herself. No man would make a doormat out of her.
 

Men were not to be trusted or relied upon. Women could depend only upon themselves. Her mother had taught her that much and Helen agreed. She certainly had no wish to end up like her sister Harriet, all her clothes ruined by breast milk and with huge tired bruises beneath her eyes.

Leo could take his pleasures where he chose, but she would take more,
and
win any verbal battle between them every single time. Leo was too much the gentleman, a natural pacifier, and would always withdraw from an argument when it began to get nasty, which Helen found highly amusing. She never saw this as a tactical retreat, only capitulation.

‘Have it your own way,’ he’d told her only this morning at breakfast when she’d accused him of attending that party Lynda Hemley had thrown the other evening. That blithe look of innocence he wore irritated the hell out of her. Why couldn’t he simply admit that the woman was his mistress?
 

‘The whole street could hear the noise they were making, and you certainly weren’t at home, or at the office. I rang your secretary to check if you were working late and she didn’t think you were.’

‘I don’t tell my secretary everything. Jean left at her normal time of five o’clock. I returned later, after she’d gone.’

‘So you say.’

‘Believe what you will, Helen.’

She waited for him to apologise, to come and put his arms about her and assure her that she was the only woman in the world he truly loved, that she should stop fretting about other women. He made no move to do so. ‘Is that all you’re going to say? This Lynda person is the woman you were drooling over in the pub that time. Don’t think I’ve forgotten. Aren’t you going to even deny it and plead with me to believe you?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

Rage boiled in her, hot and sour. ‘Because you don’t care that you hurt me?’

‘Because there’s little point when you don’t believe a word I say.’ And he’d lapsed into that unshakeable, impenetrable silence, surely proving that she’d caught him out in a lie yet again. He must imagine she was stupid or naïve to believe him innocent.

Now she sighed and glanced at her watch again. Where
was
Sam?

Recognising herself as a domineering woman, it was a constant surprise to Helen that when it came to sexual romps she was quite the opposite. She longed to be owned, to be possessed. It was an interesting quirk of her personality. David Barford was something of a disappointment to her in this respect, being rather unimaginative and really rather clumsy in his love making. Probably because he was nervous of his wife discovering that their secret little meetings had nothing to do with politics at all.

Sam was always much more adventurous.

At that moment she saw him striding towards her. He never walked, always strode or marched, a typical soldier. The very sight of those broad shoulders and narrow hips set her pulses racing.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ She was wearing a strapless red floral sundress and Helen smiled as his gaze slid over her in open appreciation. He almost licked his lips.

‘Busy,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t get away earlier. Some of us have work to do,
Mrs
Catlow.’

‘Ooh, been that sort of a day, has it? I love it when you sound so grumpy and formal.’ She leaned against him, sliding her hand between his legs to cup him. ‘Shall I make you feel better?’