In sheer panic, Jennie called and called for Ernie to let her in. She pleaded and sobbed but the window didn’t reopen and the doors remained firmly closed. After what seemed hours, when she became aware of the cold seeping up from the ground and chilling her and there was still no sign of Ernie relenting, she turned away, her sobs loud in the silence of the late hour. She went to call on Lucy. She would have a key to the door of the hairdressing shop and from there she would be able to get into the main part of the house.
She gave a garbled explanation that was nothing like the truth. She’d forgotten her key and she didn’t want to disturb Ernie, and could she borrow the one from the shop, was the gist of it. Not waiting to explain further and not caring whether or not Lucy believed her, she grabbed the offered key and hurried as fast as her injured leg would allow back to the shop.
Thank goodness Ernie hadn’t thought of the shop. The key turned and she went inside. But as she opened the door to the rest of the house a light came on and Ernie stood at the bottom of the stairs. He guided her firmly back through the door.
‘You can stay in the shop but only until tomorrow morning. Then I want you out of here.’
The words were spoken slowly and clearly but the sense of them hardly reached her brain.
‘Ernie, what are you talking about? Has some gossip upset you? If it’s unpleasant and concerning me it must be untrue, dear.’
‘Untrue? I saw you with my own eyes.’
He stepped back into the hall, pushed the door closed and she heard keys rattle before one of them turned, locking her out.
‘What am I supposed to have done? Ernie, please let me in.’ Fear and panic turned swiftly to anger. How dare he treat her like this? She felt aggrieved, affronted, because what he must have seen was herself and Bill saying goodbye. In her recently renewed innocence, the unfairness made it automatic for her to put the blame for the whole situation on Ernie.
She picked up a towel to wrap around her for extra warmth and went out, slamming the shop door behind her. Her leg ached dreadfully and now she faced another long walk, but there was no alternative. She wasn’t going to sleep in the hairdressing shop like a slapped dog. She made her way back to Marie’s house, and even though it was late a light shone in the kitchen. Thankfully, she pushed open the back door and went in, sobbing and begging for something for the pain in her leg.
The pain was genuine but the tears were not. She was past the time for tears. Marie made the inevitable pot of tea and listened to her sister’s story without comment. When the words of outrage ended and only tears remained, she said, ‘You must stay here tonight, and tomorrow I’ll come with you and we can hopefully sort this mess out.’
‘You don’t understand, Marie. I’ll never go back to him. Not now. He didn’t even demand an explanation, he saw us together – nothing happened apart from a kiss – and he locked me out. I was tried in my absence, found guilty and sentenced without me saying a word. How can you expect me to go back to a man like that?’
‘I can’t give you a bed but you can share mine if you like.’ Marie said, afraid to comment, not wanting to have her words thrown back at her at some later date when things had settled.
‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’ Jennie demanded.
‘Tomorrow. We’ll talk it through tomorrow. Come to the shop at lunchtime and we’ll go to a café and talk about what you should do. Right?’
‘Wrong! I can’t believe this. I’ve been thrown out like some abandoned animal and you’re going to work tomorrow as though nothing has happened?’ She gathered the coat she had thrown off and headed for the door.
‘Jennie, sit down.’ Marie tried to stifle an impatient sigh. ‘Where d’you think you’re going at this time of night?’
‘Mam and Dad will take me in. I’ll get some sympathy there.’
After trying and failing to persuade Jennie to stay, Marie put on her coat. ‘If you insist, I’ll come with you. But you shouldn’t be walking any more today. That leg isn’t fully mended.’
‘Damn my leg. It’s my heart that’s broken, sis. I’m so sorry I’ve hurt Ernie. He didn’t deserve any of this. His wife letting him down and his son.’ Jennie seemed genuinely upset. Then remorse vanished as she said angrily, ‘But he shouldn’t have locked me out. That was the act of a spoiled child not a grown man!’
‘Come on, stay here and we’ll go to see Mam and Dad first thing, before I open the shop.’
Suddenly overcome with tiredness and the realization that tomorrow the town would be buzzing with gossip, she sat down and agreed. She needed a bolt-hole for a few days and it would be better to tell her parents later, when she had prepared her story. The truth of her own stupidity was not what she wanted them to hear.
It was October and the hours of daylight were few. Taking advantage of the dark streets the following evening, hoping to avoid meeting anyone she knew, Jennie knocked on the door of the house that had been her home. Ernie answered and stood firmly, preventing her from entering.
‘Ernie, dear, we have to discuss this. I think you’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick,’ she said, an attempt at a smile resulting in a quivering lip and a nervous tic on her cheek. He was standing in front of the light from the hall, so she couldn’t see his expression. The harshness of his voice was enough for her to guess it wasn’t welcoming.
‘I have seen my solicitor and he will be contacting you with details of our separation. I have told him to address the letter to your sister, as I imagine you’ll want time to decide what you will tell your parents.’
The door closed as she took a breath to argue.
Two more days passed and Jennie stayed at Badgers Brook.
Sometimes she was bright, with anger being the strongest emotion, and at other times she was unable to hold back tears. She’d been such a fool, losing a comfortable and easy life for a passion that now, in retrospect, in the chaos of the remnants of her marriage, seemed almost childlike. But gradually she relaxed, the calm of the old house working its magic and easing away her tension. She slept and awoke rested and peaceful.
There was no news of Bill. ‘I doubt that he’ll be at home,’ Jennie told Marie. From Ernie’s angry mood he wouldn’t be forgiven any more than she would, even though he might have received some sympathy. People automatically blamed a woman, particularly other women, believing that it was the woman who needed to be strong in these circumstances, the man being less able to control his urges. ‘Old fashioned,’ she mused sadly, ‘but still endlessly repeated.’
Instead of waiting for Marie to bring a cup of tea each morning, then sitting while her sister prepared breakfast, she rose at the same time and lit the fire while Marie dealt with the early cups of tea and began to prepare food. She helped Violet to find her clothes and her school books and seemed to enjoy being a part of the busy household. Marie said nothing, afraid a wrong word would restore her sister to her previous spoiled self.
Rhodri and the children accepted her unexpected appearance without too many questions and she began to help more and more with the household routine in a way that surprised and pleased Marie. There had been no gossip so far as Marie knew and, apart from Geoff, she had told no one. Their parents would have to know but until other people began making comments and asking questions, she and Jennie had agreed to say nothing.
It was on the fourth day, when Jennie was half seriously discussing her need for money, that the idea came to Marie.
‘I’ll have to make some decisions fairly soon.’ Jennie had said. ‘I need to find out what my financial situation is, and until I hear from the solicitor – oh how serious that sounds – I have no idea how I stand. No money and no job, and with no word from Ernie, I don’t know how to deal with that problem.’
‘I could go and see Ernie on your behalf,’ Marie offered. ‘He wouldn’t be rude enough to refuse to see me.’
‘No, not yet. I don’t think he’ll talk to you in any useful way, but he doesn’t appear to have told anyone what happened, so there’s no fear of people gossiping about me – I couldn’t stand that, Marie, I really couldn’t. So long as no one knows what happened I can cope. I need to get a job, though.’ She looked hopefully at Marie. ‘I know you haven’t really got the room, but can I stay for a few weeks, until I’ve got something sorted? Perhaps, if I can earn a good enough wage, I can persuade Lucy to share a flat with me again.’
Marie looked hesitant. Was this new character for real or was it only a matter of time before Jennie reverted to her usual demanding self?
‘What is it, do you know of a job going?’ Jennie asked.
Her mind made up, Marie said, ‘There is something you might consider. I was planning to ask my friend Judy Morris if she would leave old misery Harries at the dress shop and come to work with me but I’ve done nothing about it. I doubt whether I’d persuade her, I can only offer a part-time post, less money than she’s earning at present, and she’s unlikely to consider that. The thing is, I need an assistant, so would you like the job?’
Jennie leaped out of her chair, said ‘ouch’ as the sudden movement caused a pain to shoot through her leg, then hugged her sister repeating ‘thank you’, over and again. ‘Thanks, sis, that really would be perfect.’
‘You’ll have to work, though. It isn’t a hidey-hole while the gossip comes and goes,’ she warned.
‘I’ll even wash the front step, there, how’s that?’ Jennie grinned. ‘So long as no one’s looking, of course! I have my reputation to keep!’
Marie marvelled at how much her flighty sister had changed. Just weeks ago she wouldn’t have considered employing her for a moment. The previous Jennie would have stipulated all the things she wouldn’t do, complained loudly and left the boring tasks to someone else. She’d have expected her to cheat on any work she deemed arduous, refuse jobs she disliked.
But the end of her marriage to Ernie and coming to live in Badgers Brook had changed her. The mellow house had that effect, even on visitors, calming them in some inexplicable way, making them happier people.
Telling their parents was the most dreaded result of the separation and Jennie and Marie agreed that Sunday tea-time would be the best time to break the news.
‘We can’t wait much longer, someone is bound to find out and tell them. They have to hear my version before one larded with innuendo and spite,’ Jennie said. ‘Most people can’t help enjoying a story like this and adding a few embellishments to make it more spicy – well, I’ve done it myself, haven’t you?’
‘Few of us can deny the pleasure of being first with news, pleasant or otherwise,’ Marie admitted. ‘Although lately we’ve been the subject more often than most, haven’t we? Ivor leaving me and the children and now you leaving your husband after only a few months of marriage. We’re a gift to the gossips.’
‘And we’re always being accused of pretending to be better than everyone else,’ Jennie added, a smile widening on her face.
‘Well, we are,’ her sister replied and they both broke into nervous laughter.
Belle and Howard took the news surprisingly well. Belle told them she was relieved that her darling daughter was no longer with that sad old man and Howard asked her amiably if she wanted any changes made to her bedroom before moving back in.
Jennie glanced at Marie, and after a nod of agreement said, ‘Mam, I won’t be coming back. Not yet anyway. Marie has a spare room and I like living there on the edge of the wood.’ The expression on her parents’ face was so comical both sisters laughed. ‘Yes, I know, countryside, long walks to the bus stop and no shops, feeding birds and looking for badgers and foxes, it doesn’t sound like me, does it?’ She looked thoughtful then went on, ‘The strange thing is, I love living in Badgers Brook. I feel safe there, and when I walk along the lane and get my first sight of it, solid and strong and welcoming. I – I feel a sense of peace coming over me.’ As though embarrassed by her words she thumped Marie’s arm and said. ‘There, now I’m sure you think I’ve gone daft.’
‘I don’t.’ Marie said. ‘That’s exactly how I feel about Badgers Brook, and when we moved in, and faced all that filthy mess, I knew even then that underneath the chaos there was a happy home. I still feel that, even though Ivor no longer lives with us. I feel sure that one day, when he can talk about what worries him, he’ll be back and the house will perform its magic for him, too.’
‘And what about his father?’ Belle asked, somewhat embarrassed by the strange conversation. ‘Is he keeping well?’
‘Rhodri’s happy, although he does get a bad day occasionally when he is confused. It’s noticeable when he goes to the hospital for checks and sometimes an overnight stay. Then he shakes and shivers and can hardly hold a conversation, yet as soon as he gets back to the house he’s fine. I know it sounds daft, our Mam, but Badgers Brook has an atmosphere of such tranquility that troubles are eased away.’
Lightening the strange mood, Jennie said brightly, ‘Now, what’s to eat, Mam? We’re starving.’
If Belle noticed the ‘we’, when Jennie normally only spoke for herself, denoting a togetherness her spoiled daughter rarely showed, she said nothing, but she was humming happily when she went into the kitchen to bring in the sandwiches and fatless sponge cake she had prepared.
‘That went well,’ Jennie said as the sisters walked back to Badgers Brook in the gradually deepening dusk.
‘Only because you didn’t tell them the full story,’ Marie replied. They joked about the various ways they could have imparted the news about Jennie’s affair with her stepson and their parents’ imaginary responses and arrived home with laughter in their eyes, their faces glowing with good humour.
Jennie became easily accustomed to walking along the quiet lanes, the darkness no longer held fears for her. For a while after being knocked down she had been afraid of a repeat, with Geoff and Marie voicing suspicions that the so-called accident had been deliberate. Now the accident was far from her mind, and when it was suggested that she took extra care she laughed away any concerns.
She was walking home alone one evening, when Marie had arranged to call on Nerys Bowen, and experienced a sudden return of the fear. The night was very dark, with no moon, myriad stars like pinpricks in the velvet sky not giving a glimmer of light.
She didn’t bother with a torch apart from shining an occasional beam to make sure she was far enough away from the ditch at the edge of the grassy path. The car, parked in a lay-by on the narrow lane, was invisible at first, then the dull gleam caught her eye and she became aware of the low murmuring rhythm of its engine.
Her legs weakened, her heart raced and a fear she thought forgotten roused her to the pitch of wanting to scream for help. Why hadn’t she waited for Marie? She slowed her steps; there was a worsening of the ache in her damaged leg – a reminder of what had happened.
She stood there wondering what to do, trying to remember how far away she was from a house. The properties along the lane were few and it was impossible to relate to them in the dark. Then she heard footsteps and cried out in relief. ‘Hello?’ she called. ‘Is that you, Marie? Come quick. Please hurry.’
She heard a woman’s voice and faster footsteps, which were drowned by the sound of the car accelerating fast, its lights appearing over hedges until it was lost from sight. She stood, sobbing nervously, and when a neighbour came and introduced herself as Kitty Jennings. Jennie explained briefly what she had feared.
‘I’ll walk the rest of the way with you.’ Kitty said, putting a comforting arm around her. She waited until Roger opened the door. Jennie’s sobs brought Rhodri to see what had happened and Kitty smiled and said. ‘Hello, Rhodri. How are you?’
Jennie didn’t wait to hear any more. Thanking the kind neighbour, she ran to her room and sat tearing at a handkerchief until she felt calm enough to go back down, by which time Kitty had gone.
‘It was probably a courting couple and I ruined their evening,’ she said after telling Marie what had happened.
‘In future we’ll always walk home together,’ Marie promised. ‘You’re probably right and it was nothing to worry about, but we won’t risk upsetting you again.’
The following evening, Kitty called to ask if Jennie was recovered and, when she came in, she at once began talking to Rhodri. ‘I knew them both years ago,’ she explained as she was leaving, ‘long before he became ill.’ She asked about Ivor and Marie told her the truth. It was common knowledge anyway so there was no point being coy and inventing a more acceptable story. To her relief, Kitty was sympathetic and didn’t apportion blame.
Effie was curious. She couldn’t understand what had happened between Jennie, Ernie and Bill. It was several days, watching and following the sisters, before she worked out that Jennie was living with Marie at Badgers Brook and was working with her at the small clothes shop in Steeple Street. She and Ivor rarely shared a conversation, even though she often contrived to be passing when he left work or when he reached his lodgings.’
‘Your father was busy helping Geoff clear the overgrown bushes yesterday,’ she called one morning as he was about to go into the office. At once she regretted saying it. She didn’t want him worrying about his father living with Marie and the children. The last thing she wanted was for him to be sufficiently concerned about them to go home. ‘Only visiting, mind,’ she added. ‘He was helping Geoff burn all the branches they’d removed. Having a good tidy-up they are.’
‘Was Violet with him? Near the fire?’
‘No, she was watching from inside and Rhodri went in to watch with her once Geoff and Marie had the fire going.’ She tilted her head on one side and asked. ‘What are you worried about? I thought it was your mother who was the fire raiser?’
‘It was, but having seen the result of setting a building on fire, the speed of the destruction, how quickly it becomes out of control, I’ve always been a little afraid.’
‘They work well together, Marie and Geoff. Lucky she is to have him, eh?’
He was turning away and she called, ‘Fancy coming for a meal tonight? I’ve made a rabbit stew and I’ve even got some dumplings made with a gift of suet from a friendly butcher.’ He thanked her but declined.
That was a setback. She had hoped to borrow his car keys again, but when they had meet by chance, once in a café and once as they went into the pictures, she’d had no opportunity to reach into his pocket and retrieve them.
Borrowing someone else’s car turned out to be easier than she’d expected. It was a quiet neighbourhood with few cars. Men often left them in the street or parked on waste ground not far away. They were never locked and it was not unusual to find the keys still in them. So few people could drive, mostly the higher paid or reps and travelling salesmen who needed transport for their job, or those who worked a long way from home and could afford one. There wasn’t much risk of them being stolen.
She drove off in a Morris Minor, slowly at first until she accustomed herself to the slight differences, then as confidence grew she picked up speed so she didn’t attract attention and headed for Cwm Derw.
Jennie had been determined not to see Bill again. Her brief affair had caused so much distress both to herself and her family and to Ernie, who really didn’t deserve it. She had no idea where he was but presumed he was somewhere in London as he had once planned. A note came from him, the postmark confirming that he was indeed there, and she handed it to Marie to burn unopened. A second came and they wrote ‘please return to sender’ before slipping it back into the post box, and hoped that would end it.
When she left the shop to take some letters to the same post box. Bill was standing in front of it. At once she turned to go back to the shop, but he ran across the road and held her arm.
‘Wait, Jennie. I understand you don’t want us to meet, but I need to talk to you. It’s about Dad. He won’t talk to me and I’m worried about him.’
It was the only thing he could have said that would change her mind.
‘What d’you want me to do?’ she asked sadly. ‘I’ll do anything to make him forgive me. Anything.’
‘I feel the same, but we need to discuss it all and work out the best thing to do.’
They agreed to meet that evening at the end of the lane leading from the road to Badgers Brook, and it was there that Effie saw them.
They walked close together and at the end of their conversation they wrapped their arms around each other and kissed.
‘Another goodbye,’ Bill said sadly.
‘We were seen last time by your father,’ Jennie said with a shiver of apprehension. ‘Surely we can’t be unlucky enough to be seen again?’
They looked around as though a silent watcher would reveal himself, before surrendering to a final slow, loving kiss.
‘This really is goodbye,’ Jennie said, moving away from Bill’s persistent embrace. ‘We can’t meet again. If we’re to persuade your father what he saw was innocent, we’ll have to avoid each other permanently.’
‘That’s why I took the job in London,’ Bill said.
‘It seems so far away, but making it final is a good thing I suppose.’
‘I’m working on one of the big London stations. It’s interesting, and having a new job and a new neighbourhood to explore should occupy my mind and ease our parting.’
‘We have to try and convince your father he was mistaken,’ Jennie said. ‘I hate the thought of him being hurt.’
‘All right, we’ll prepare a story on the lines of what I’ve already tried to tell him, that I was upset after my girlfriend told me she didn’t want to see me again. You were listening and comforting me.’
‘True in a way.’ Jennie smiled ruefully.
Bill stood and watched as Jennie went back to the house, and for several minutes he didn’t move. He appeared to be expecting her to change her mind and run back to him.
Effie stared in disbelief, talking to herself tearfully as she started the engine. ‘This shouldn’t be happening. It’s all over, they shouldn’t be doing this. Why are they still together? Why didn’t she die when that car hit her? Why?’
When Ivor left the office the following day she ran up to him and said, ‘I saw your Marie yesterday. Did you know Jennie is living there? She’s been having a ding-dong with Bill James, would you believe. Married to the father, staying at Badgers Brook and having a ding-dong with the son. What a carry-on, eh?’
Ivor’s first thought was not what Jennie was doing, but why Effie was interested enough to get to Cwm Derw and back just to report on his family.
‘I’m sure there’s a better explanation than Jennie and Bill having a “ding-dong”,’ he said, to give himself time to think. ‘Perhaps the house is being decorated and both Ernie and Jennie are staying with Marie. Because you didn’t see Ernie doesn’t mean he wasn’t there. Or Jennie might be planning a surprise for her husband.’
‘Shock more like,’ Effie said. ‘As if there haven’t been enough shocks in that family: Bill’s mother dying of a heart attack, then Bill’s fiancée knocked down and killed, now this mess. D’you think he should be told? Ernie, I mean, in case he doesn’t know?’
‘No, I think it’s best not to interfere.’
He tried to edge away but Effie touched his arm, tightening her grip as she said, ‘Geoff is at your house quite a lot.’
‘Good. Marie needs all the help she can get, working all day, running the home and trying to deal with the garden.’ Every word seemed like a dagger in his heart. Instead of idling his life away, filling in hours walking aimlessly, reading or watching boring films, he should be with Marie, helping her, taking care of them all.
‘Don’t worry about the garden,’ she said airily. ‘Roger and Royston are working hard with Geoff’s guidance and it’s looking great. They still go fishing to help out the food ration but they’re proper licensed now. Geoff sees to that for them. Good boys they are by all accounts.’
‘I didn’t think the boys were interested in gardening.’
‘Oh, they seem to like it. Royston is building a sort of greenhouse with windows taken from a bombed house that’s been left in ruins since the raid that all but flattened it. Geoff’s encouragement again, I suppose.’ She turned to him and asked, ‘Why don’t I cook us something and I can tell you all that’s been done. Very observant I am.’
Almost unconsciously he followed her back to the room he had once shared and he sat on the solitary chair while she chattered and prepared a simple meal of tinned oxtail soup and meat paste sandwiches.
‘Tell me, Effie, why do you go to see what my family are doing?’
‘Concern for you, of course,’ she said, biting enthusiastically into a sandwich. As she chewed, she spoke in disjointed sentences, explaining that she knew he was worried and her observations were intended to reassure him.
‘It’s a long way to go, Effie.’
‘Not really. There’s a bus to the Graig and another to Cwm Derw then it’s only a short walk.’
‘Still, it takes a lot of your time.’
‘I don’t mind. I wish I could drive, though. It’s only about twenty minutes in a car. Not that I could afford a car. After paying the rent of this room and buying food, there isn’t enough money to save up, or even run a car. Poor me, eh?’ There was no criticism in her tone but he winced just the same. Another woman whose life he had messed up.
He left after he had eaten, vaguely agreeing to Effie’s suggestion that they meet again soon. He was puzzled by Effie’s interest, but something was not adding up. She obviously hoped that they would become more than friends, even though he had done nothing to suggest it – apart from his stupidity in agreeing to share a room. That had been a serious error. If word of that got out he’d be found guilty without trial. Anyone hearing of it would automatically believe they had been sharing a bed. How could he have been such an idiot?
Twice during the following week he saw Effie waiting outside the office, and each time he waited until she had gone, hiding like a child in the dark office until he felt it was safe to leave. He would have to find the words to tell her kindly and firmly that they had no future apart from friendship, and even friendship was at risk if she persisted in forcing herself on him. No! That wouldn’t do! But how could he word it to sound strong and at the same time let her down gently?
Sometimes, after staying late to avoid her, he didn’t go back to his lodgings but went to the pictures instead, staring at the screen with no attempt to follow the story. When he came out into the dark streets it was too late for supper, which was served at nine thirty. He wasn’t hungry anyway.
Most of the cafés were closed by five thirty, and the only one still open served unappetizing, and often stale, food. If only he could go home, back to Marie and the children. A bus came along, and in the same unthinking way he had gone back with Effie a few days previously he got on and made his way to Cwm Derw.
Approaching the end of October the woods smelled of dampness and that evocative, earthy scent that accompanies the approach of winter. In several places there was the cone-like shape of a bonfire in preparation for Guy Fawkes celebrations just over a week away. The thought of fires reminded him of his childhood: the fearsome memories of a school burning, and the attempt by his mother to set fire to the house of a neighbour who had offended in some way. Bonfire night was not something he enjoyed. The reminder of his mother’s mental state was always with him but never more so than on the night when people commemorated the attempt to blow up parliament in 1605. His mother’s penchant for starting fires in retaliation for some offence and his father’s inability, his unwillingness even, to stop her was why he was living alone, outside his family, hoping and praying that whatever madness he had inherited would not develop or, worst of all, reveal itself in his beloved daughter, Violet. Staying away was the only way he could help, a faint hope that not seeing his decline might make her own less likely. Foolish, unfounded, but it was all he could do.
Unclear why he was there and not knowing what to do, he stood just within the wood for a while, taking in the moist earthy scents of the late evening, feeling the chill melancholy of the dying summer, imagining the warmth just yards away from him inside the house where all his doubts and anxieties had been so cruelly revived.
Until he had learned that his father was living in the vicinity he’d been able to pretend, convince himself that he was nothing to do with him, that he had no connection with the behaviour that had ruined his childhood. On realizing that he could deny it no longer, he had done the cowardly thing and walked away without any explanation, leaving his family hurt and confused and in financial difficulties; their misery caused by him.
The chance to tell Marie had been when their darling Violet was born. But how could he explain why he had feared for the baby? Tell her the illness that had tainted his childhood might come back to haunt him anew, revived in the innocent child? For almost ten years he had watched Violet develop into a wonderful, bright and happy child, but seeing his father had wiped away his confidence and he could no longer pretend the fear wasn’t there. He had reasoned that if he were to leave them, somehow the danger would be eased. If he had shown signs of illness such as his parents had suffered it might be contagious, like measles, and just having him there would be a catalyst and cause it to happen.
The curtains were drawn across the windows and only once, when one of the twins opened the door to take in a bucketful of coal, was there any sign of life. In the cold air a thread of smoke rose from the chimney, increasing into a sudden cloud as fuel was added to the fire within. His memory was touched by the smell of toast, a favourite bed-time snack, for which the children would be clamouring once the fire had taken up the fresh fuel and burned to a steady glow. He could picture it all so clearly. The warmth of it touched him and became almost real: sights and smells tormented him and the pain of being there made him turn and hurry towards the bus stop.
A bus loomed into view almost immediately, and as he jumped on a car passed him, the driver illuminated briefly in the light from the bus. A fleeting glance only, but the way she sat forward showed her clearly, her thick hair falling in curls around her face, and he was left in no doubt. It was Effie, who had told him on several occasions that she couldn’t drive.
Jennie received a letter asking her to attend a solicitor’s office the following week. She tried again to talk to Ernie. But even when she went into the hairdresser’s shop she found the house locked and there was no reply to her desperate knocking. She had told Lucy most of what had happened, but Lucy was careful to avoid too strong a comment; she wanted to keep her job now she had been made manageress.
Jennie tried to persuade her friend to give Ernie a note. There had been no reply to previous letters so she thought that if Lucy handed it to him he’d have to at least admit to receiving it.
‘Don’t ask me to get involved, Jennie,’ Lucy pleaded. ‘Whatever happens between you, I’ll be able to keep my job if I stay well out of it. My loyalty is to you, but it wouldn’t help either of us if I lost my job, would it?’
Jennie felt a worse rejection than Lucy realized. They’d had so many friends until she married Ernie and now there was no one. So she asked Marie to go with her to hear what Ernie had decided to do.
With the owner’s permission the shop was closed, and Marie dressed in a good quality mid-calf-length skirt and a jacket with padded shoulders in a soft green fabric, which she had bought for the occasion. Jennie dressed smartly but not outrageously, and her wild blond hair was pulled back and calmed with a green felt hat.
When they got off the bus, Jennie caught hold of the bus stop pole and bent over.
‘Marie, I feel awful. I’m shaking so much my legs won’t hold me. I think I’m going to be sick.’
‘Nerves, that’s all,’ Marie comforted, leading her to a seat. She watched as the colour returned to Jennie’s face. ‘We’re early so you can sit for a while. This is quite an ordeal for you. Hardly surprising that you’re upset.’
‘It’s the embarrassment that’ll be the worst. If it ends in divorce the papers will be splashing the story all over the town.’ She protested that she couldn’t go and begged Marie to telephone to tell them she was ill, but Marie persuaded her.
‘It’s only a few steps and were there, and today could see the end of the worst of it. Come on, get it over. I’ll be there and we’ll all help you.’ Slowly Jennie stood and walked arm in arm with her to the office of Harold J. Howells, Solicitor.
Ernie was sitting in the outer office, and she smiled and said. ‘Hello, dear,’ to which he gave the slightest of nods.
She only half heard what the solicitor said, waiting for the chance to say her piece. When he paused, she asked in her sweetest, most childlike voice, ‘Can I tell you what I think happened? My husband refuses to listen.’ The solicitor glanced at his client but Jennie didn’t give him a chance to refuse.
‘Bill’s girlfriend, of whom he was very fond, had told him she didn’t want to see him any more. He was devastated, and, being in love myself,’ she glanced coyly at the stony-faced Ernie, ‘I perfectly understood how he felt. I listened to him, offered sympathy, and,’ she paused theatrically, ‘I kissed him and told him his father and I would do all we could to help him get over it. It must have been this that Ernie saw and misunderstood.’
‘And that was all there was to it?’ The solicitor looked surprised. ‘No long-term, er, affair? Forgive me, Mrs James, but I have to ask – there was no adultery?’
‘There was not! I’m a happily married woman, Mr Howells! Or at least I was, until someone spread unkind rumours and upset my Ernie.’
Mr Howells coughed and said, ‘Mrs James, would you be kind enough to wait in the outer office? Miss Griffiths will make you a cup of tea.’
A few minutes later, after several biscuits and a cup of weak tea, Ernie came out and said, ‘You’d better come home with me. We have to sort this out.’
‘No dear. I’ll stay where I am for a while, just until you’re quite sure you don’t have any doubts about me. An affair indeed. And with your son. I don’t know whether I can forgive you, Ernie, I really don’t.’
‘Have you ever thought of acting?’ Marie said as they were leaving the austere building that held the offices of Mr Harold J. Howells.
Jennie threw off the hat she was wearing and pulled her hair out of its restraining clips. ‘I don’t know how I managed not to laugh,’ she said, her eyes shining with humour. ‘Poor man, he didn’t stand a chance of getting rid of me, did he?’
‘When will you go back to him?’
Jennie frowned as she concentrated. ‘In good time for my birthday I think, don’t you?’
They returned to reopen the shop, singing ‘They say that falling in love is wonderful’, cheerfully unaware of the irony of their situation in which love had been far from wonderful, bringing them nothing but sorrow. Marie thought it was a long time since she’d been as happy as since her sister had come to stay.
Ivor was puzzled by the obvious lie, when Effie again told him she was unable to drive. He knew she had been brought up on a farm, and one day he mentioned that many farm-workers learned to drive a tractor long before being allowed to drive on the roads.
‘My father wouldn’t let me, even though I pleaded to try,’ she replied to the remark. ‘If I had a child I wouldn’t hold them back from doing anything they wanted, so long as it wasn’t dangerous, of course,’ she added.
‘You did have vehicles though?’
‘A boyfriend I once had promised to teach me,’ she said. ‘But he left me for someone else when things became, you know, complicated, and I lost my chance.’
‘How complicated?’ he asked. He saw the frown of concentration cloud her eyes and she shook her head.
‘It’s all so long ago and I’ve forgotten,’ she said unconvincingly. ‘I hope he hasn’t forgotten though. He doesn’t deserve any luck after what he did to me.’
‘Let you down badly, did he?’
‘Us! He let us down badly – there was a baby.’
She said nothing more and Ivor wasn’t interested enough to encourage further talk.
‘I understand that Jennie is still with your ex-wife,’ she said one day when she went into the café where he was eating lunch.
‘Ex-wife? Marie and I are still married,’ he said with a frown.
‘Then why was she going to see a solicitor a few days ago?’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘She and Jennie had an appointment with that Harold Howells near the town hall. They came out laughing like children, so whatever they had gone there for the result must have been good news.’ She didn’t mention the presence of Ernie: that would have spoiled the story, given it a completely different slant.