With no one to open the hairdressing shop apart from themselves, Jennie and Lucy braved the comments about their ravaged faces, prepared their lies and opened as usual. Mr James was horrified when he saw the full extent of bruises already showing a variety of colours. They told their prepared story tearfully, Jennie adding embellishments to the more prosaic descriptions from Lucy, thereby receiving more sympathy.
‘Don’t ask us to go to the police, Mr James, we’ve had all that from our parents and we aren’t going to make ourselves look fools. We were going out through the back door, through the kitchens, see, to get to the bus stop first, and it isn’t allowed. So it’s our own fault really.’
‘You shouldn’t be here, you need rest after such a shock. I’ll go round and tell the clients that you’re unable to open.’ he said, guiding them to chairs. ‘Sit there for a while before you go home and I’ll get you a cup of tea.’
Bravely, Jennie choking back tears, they insisted on carrying on as usual. The last thing Jennie wanted was to be at home. Looking after her mother could so easily become a habit. Dad was quite capable, albeit untrained and undomesticated, but he’d have to learn to cope.
At nine o’clock their first client arrived and they had disguised their damaged faces with make-up and were ready to begin. The sympathy and extra tips made it well worthwhile.
They closed at a quarter to one and when Jennie reached home, hoping to find at least a snack waiting for her, she was pleased to see her sister there, mashing potatoes to accompany sausages and tomatoes.
‘Thank goodness, our Marie, I’m starved.’
‘Best you enjoy it because tomorrow it’s your turn.’
Jennie ignored that fearful reminder. While they ate she talked about her morning, making them laugh at some of the comments she and Lucy had received. She stood up and hugged her father. ‘You’ll cope, won’t you, our Dad?’ You won’t expect me to give up my job and let Mr James down, not while Miss Clarke is on holiday. Pity ’elp his customers if he did their hair, eh?’
‘I’ll make a couple of sandwiches for your tea,’ Marie said. ‘Then you’re on your own. I’m working tomorrow all day and in the evening.’
‘Don’t worry about sandwiches for me. Lucy and I will be going to the pictures straight from the shop. Save me some supper, though, I’ll be starving when I come in.’
‘As usual,’ Belle said fondly.
Marie was irritated by her sister’s selfish attitude. ‘Jennie! You’ll have to come straight home tonight. Mam can’t manage without help.’
Jennie spread her arms to encompass the tidy room. ‘What’s there to do?’ She winked at her father. ‘I don’t think Mam and Dad want me moping about with a sympathetic face, do you? Make the place untidy, wouldn’t I, our Dad?’ She put on a freshly ironed cardigan, grabbed her handbag, patted her hair and, with a chirpy wave, left the room.
‘We’ll manage between us, love,’ her father said as he walked with her to the door, but he looked full of doubts. ‘Getting older we are, Belle and me. And so lucky to have you still at home.’
The words stayed with her all the way back to the shop, terrifying her with their implications.
Marie and Jennie both finished work at five thirty and, a few days later, when Marie left Ladies Fashions, her sister and Lucy were waiting outside.
‘How long before Mam’s better?’ Jennie asked at once. ‘It’s been a while and she’s still not able to do much around the house.’
‘I don’t know. Weeks rather than days. She won’t be able to lift anything for a while, even after the plaster’s removed. Why?
‘It’s what Dad said the other day about them getting older, things like this might happen more often.’
‘What, breaking her arm? Don’t be daft!’
‘Falls do happen, and there are other things, illnesses. I can’t leave my job to look after them, whatever they think. You don’t know what it’s like being the youngest. So much is expected of you.’
‘I hope you don’t think I can do more. You know what Ivor’s like these days. I need my wages to keep us fed. I’m responsible for five of us, remember, not just myself.’
‘I hope you don’t think I should give up my job? Hairdressing’s valuable work. Morale and all that. Besides, you’ve got a husband.’
‘Who isn’t supporting us!’ In her exasperation Marie was shouting. Lucy was standing uneasily near by.
‘Perhaps if you weren’t so damned clever and efficient, and left more to Ivor, he’d be more inclined to take responsibility!’ Marie was startled by the reprimand and she stared at her sister’s face, a pretty face that so rarely showed such anger. ‘A man doesn’t like to be bettered by a woman. I might not be married but I do know that!’ Jennie went on. ‘And if it was me, I’d—’
‘Stop! Now, this minute! You know nothing. How long d’you think we’d last if I left everything to Ivor? He tells lies and he gambles money his family needs. Do you have any idea what that means?’
‘If you trusted him to look after you, and not go gallivanting off working for strangers, showing him up, making him feel a failure, he might stop.’
‘You’re talking nonsense. As usual!’ They were both raising their voices. ‘I didn’t do extra work to keep the bills paid until he let us down.’
‘Always right, aren’t you, Marie? It’s never you in the wrong.’
‘Are you all right, Jennie?’ a voice called, and Mr James appeared. ‘Not feeling worse, are you?’ He was wearing a dark suit and a trilby, his black shoes shone impeccably. He looked older than his forty-eight years, partly because of his pale skin and heavy eyes, and partly because of his formal dress and manner. ‘Once Miss Clarke gets back you and Lucy can have a few days off, one at a time of course, she can’t spare you both at once.’
‘Thank you, Mr James. It’s just our Mam, broken her arm she has and we have to share responsibility for looking after her.’
‘I’ll leave the appointments to you, so you can arrange them to do what you have to at home.’ He lifted his hat politely and walked away.
‘Thank you, Mr James,’ Jennie said, with a slight bend of the knee.
‘Thank you, Mr James,’ Lucy echoed, the chant similar to the responses of children at school.
‘Stuffed shirt,’ Jennie whispered to Marie. The sisters stifled laughter and their quarrel, like so many others, ended as quickly as it had begun.
Marie collected Violet from her parents, went home to change her clothes and put out food for Royston and Roger and Ivor, fed her ever patient daughter, then went straight out to prepare a floor for staining. Sanding was hard work and, once the job was finished, nothing showed for all the effort. Vi sat with the owner of the house and read ‘Sunny Stories’, the Enid Blyton magazine for children, reading out pieces occasionally to her mother. Marie thought about her sister’s words and wondered. If she hadn’t asked Geoff Tanner to find her some extra work, what would have happened? If she’d allowed them to reach the point where they couldn’t pay the bills, would Ivor had been less willing to gamble away his wages? Somehow she doubted it. They would have been in such debt by now that there would have been no way out. There wasn’t now, if she stopped accepting the work Geoff Tanner found for her, unless Ivor miraculously returned to being the devoted family man he had been for almost nine years. Since his sudden transformation from loving husband to stranger, she no longer believed in miracles. What had gone wrong? Why hadn’t he been able to talk to her?
Even after these difficult weeks had turned to months without an end to their problems in sight, Marie occasionally had dreamlike moments when she forgot them.
One morning she woke early. The late-August sun creeping into the bedroom spread around the room and touched her face. She was glad she had opened the curtains before getting into bed. At this time of the year it was a joy to be woken by the sun. She stretched out a hand, but Ivor wasn’t beside her. Sleepily she roused herself, stretching, enjoying the few moments of peace before starting her hectic day. He was probably downstairs, drinking tea, smoking and listening to the wireless. Idly she imagined him coming up the stairs with a cup for her.
Then the shock of memory hit her. That was a fanciful dream. Ivor wasn’t that sort of husband. Not any more. He had forgotten all the loving and caring he had lavished on her. Ivor was a stranger, sharing their house but no longer the focus of their life, their home. No, he would walk up the stairs soon, but only to remind her that he was hungry and demand his breakfast.
She pulled on a dressing gown and, shivering in the early morning air, went downstairs. To her surprise Ivor wasn’t there and the kitchen was as she had left it the night before. Where on earth could he be? He wasn’t the type to go for a walk, however wonderful the morning. She prepared a tray for tea, her mind sleepily going over explanations for his absence. While the kettle boiled she opened the back door and stood for a moment or two listening to the calming sound of birdsong. They were quieter than in the spring, hiding their shabbiness as they began their moult, and it seemed to her they too were subdued by the unhappiness that had taken over her life.
As she poured milk into a jug and waited for the water to reach its irritable boiling point, she heard voices. Going outside again, she saw Royston and Roger coming across the field towards the house. She waved then took two more cups from the dresser. They had been fishing again, walking across the fields to the beach, where they would have fished the incoming tide.
‘Morning, Mam,’ Royston called as he threw his rod and bag on the floor.
‘It isn’t fair,’ Roger complained, throwing his equipment to join that of his brother. ‘He gets all the luck.’
Royston laughed and began teasing. ‘Casting into a tree won’t catch many fish. Fancy, our Mam, he’s so hopeless he lost yards of line, bait and a good hook, all tangled in the hedge.’ Too late, his brother pushed him to shut him up. ‘What am I talking about, trees? I mean an old boat on the beach.’
Hands on hips, Marie glared at them. ‘Poaching you’ve been!’
Both boys took the tea she had poured and hid their faces in the breakfast-sized cups.
‘Don’t think I’m paying your fines if you’re caught. You’ll have to pay out of your wages. And,’ she asked as an afterthought, ‘where’s your father?’
‘He wasn’t with us,’ Royston said. ‘We went out at five o’clock. Had to catch the tide, see.’
‘Did you catch anything, except the tide? Although what tide there is in Farmer Jones’s river I’d like to know!’
‘Only a couple of trout too small to bring home,’ Roger admitted.
‘Sorry, Mam,’ his brother added.
‘Did anyone see you?’
‘There was someone down there, near the old barn. Some ol’ tramp sleeping rough probably. I don’t think he saw us. In fact he seemed anxious for us not to see him. Creeping about, hiding behind the hedge he was.’
‘If you land up in court I won’t pay your fine. You’ll have to do that.’
‘We can’t, we lost our job on Friday.’
‘Again?’ She glared at them. ‘My first day off for weeks and this is how it starts. Where’s your father?’
‘Here I am, love,’ a voice called and Ivor stepped out of the hall doorway and reached for the teapot. ‘Damn me it’s cold. Make another pot will you, Marie? Gasping I am.’
‘Where have you been?’
‘Nowhere! What you talking about, woman? Only now this minute I’ve come down, to a smell of fishy clothes and cold tea.’
‘You weren’t in bed,’ she accused. ‘Where have you been?’
‘In the lavatory.’
‘You weren’t. I went in there.’
‘Looking in on our Vi then. Stop making a mystery when there isn’t one, for heaven’s sake!’
‘Catch anything?’ he asked the boys as Marie turned to reboil the kettle.
‘Nothing. The river’s too flat. Rain we want to liven it up a bit. We saw a water vole, though. Pretty little thing. I bet he had better luck than us.’
They began to discuss the wildlife to be seen around the river until Marie interrupted.
‘Tell your father about losing your jobs again. And perhaps you’ll explain what happened.’
‘Lost your jobs again, have you?’ Ivor asked almost conversationally. ‘What happened this time?’
‘Mam got us separate jobs and we hated it.’
‘So it wasn’t fighting?’
‘We mitched off to go fishing, didn’t we?’
Marie saw the glimmer of a smile on Ivor’s face and said, ‘I keep telling you, Ivor, they’ll have to find jobs far apart from each other. I understand that being twins and close they want to work alongside, but they can’t spend every moment together and we have to face the truth, that individually they stand a better chance of keeping a job. Trouble they are, one leading the other into scrapes. I’ll go to the employment exchange with them and make sure they are separated. One each end of the town, if necessary, if that’s the only way they’ll keep a job.’ She glanced around and saw the wink he gave the boys. Irritated she banged the teapot on the table and asked, ‘Ivor. When are you going to take this seriously? Employers are crying out for workers, ’specially in the building trades, and these two idle their way through the weeks and there’s us keeping them. Fourteen they are, not four!’ She poured tea and pushed it towards Ivor. ‘Why are you wearing your best suit? Where have you been? You don’t wear that first thing in the morning.’
‘It’s for work. I’m going to see a supplier. I’ve just been up to change.’
‘But I didn’t see you upstairs, and you came in from the garden.’
‘Oh, don’t keep on, Marie. Give it a rest.’
The door to the hall pushed slowly open and Violet stood there. ‘Stop shouting,’ she said, tearfully. ‘Always shouting you are.’
‘Sorry, Vi, love. It’s your lazy brothers that’s the trouble. Out of work again and that’s the fourth job they’ve been given. Mitching from school day after day and now they’ve left and can’t keep a job.’
Ivor held out his arms and Violet climbed on to his lap. He offered a sip of his tea, tipping some into a saucer to cool for her.
‘And I still want to know where you were,’ Marie demanded of her husband.
‘All right, I was very late. A card game at Trevor Williams’s if you must know.’
‘If I must know? Don’t you think I’m entitled to know?’
‘We had a few beers and I fell asleep.’
‘How much did you lose this time?’
‘Now come on, why presume I lost? Here, buy yourself something.’ He fished in his pocket and gave her a ten shilling note.
They were interrupted by the back door opening and Marie’s sister walking in.
‘Jennie? What’s up?’ Jennie’s face looked pale, the bruises still visible, and the lack of make-up making them more alarming. Her blond hair was wildly untidy, as though she had just risen from bed. Her eyes were wide with shock. ‘I just heard, there was a road accident last night and Emily Clarke was killed.’
‘Emily Clarke?’ Marie queried.
‘Our Miss Clarke, manageress of the shop. There’s been talk that she and Bill, Mr James’s son, were getting engaged at Christmas and now she’s gone! Dead on the road she was, tucked up in her coat all tidy, and pushed under a hedge. The car didn’t stop. Someone called an ambulance but didn’t give a name and didn’t wait for the help to arrive.’
‘Oh, the poor woman. Poor Bill. And Mr James will be devastated,’ Marie exclaimed.
‘And what about me?’ Jennie wailed. ‘Mr James will probably close the shop and I’ll have no job and there’s only the enamel factory and I can’t stand the thought of working in a place like that. An artiste I am, not a factory hand!’
Marie flinched at the selfishness of her sister. She loved her, but there were times when she wanted to slap her.
‘You’ll have to go to work as normal until you find out what is going to happen to the shop,’ she said, biting off the retort that sprang into her mind. Her sister had always been self-centred. She shouldn’t have been surprised that Jennie’s first thought was how the poor woman’s death would affect her. ‘And don’t talk nonsense. Work in a factory? When have you ever done something you didn’t want to do? If you have to find another job it will be as a hairdresser. You do dramatize everything. Think of poor Bill.’
‘What d’you mean, poor Bill? He’ll get over it, this will be his third “real thing”, and once the girls start filling their bottom drawer, planning a wedding, they quietly fade away.’
Ivor began cutting bread awkwardly, the slices thick at one end and tapering off to nothing at the other. Marie took it from him. She saw him give Jennie a sympathetic glance and pat her shoulder comfortingly, putting Marie in the role of unreasonable sister.
She lit the grill on the gas cooker and asked Jennie to stay. They ate toast as they talked, using a loaf and a half, a pot of home-made blackberry jam and most of the margarine ration with it, while Jennie complained about the lack of butter.
‘This is awful, our Marie, eating margarine instead of decent butter,’ she sighed, taking another slice and spreading it liberally with margarine and jam. ‘The war’s been over almost a year and there’s us still being told we can’t have any more than two ounces of butter.’ All concerns for the death of Miss Clarke were forgotten.
When Jennie had gone, Marie went up to make the beds and noticed for the first time that Ivor’s side of the bed was unruffled, the pillow smooth and obviously unused. He hadn’t been late; he hadn’t come home at all.
It wasn’t the first time he had stayed out late recently playing cards. Gambling was his life now, and when he played, or followed the horses or dogs, nothing else mattered. Thank goodness it had been a Saturday night. At least she’d got some money from him. If he went out on a Friday before she got back from work, she risked having to cope without a penny for housekeeping.
She frowned deeply as she wondered again what could have happened to change him so. Was there a debt he had to repay? Or had he borrowed money and was trying to pay it back? When Airborne had won the Derby and they’d spent that wonderful day on Barry Island’s golden sands, that was the last time they had been truly happy. At the time there had been no shadow over their lives, no hint of what was to come.
Later that day, as she began preparing the dirty washing ready for the following morning, putting it into piles, some for washing in the big galvanized bath Ivor carried into the kitchen and another for boiling, she found his jacket. The front was stained and to her untrained eye it looked at first like oil. Then, finding a similar stain on his shirt, she realized it was blood. She looked again at the jacket and found several holes, torn as though it had caught on something and had been dragged free, tree branches perhaps.
That kind of damage didn’t happen during a card school. She called Ivor, wanting an explanation of what really happened the previous night, but he didn’t reply. Her mind filled with what she would say to him when she found him. She went to pick some vegetables for supper. If she didn’t have a decorating job to do they ate late on Sundays to make the day easier.
Ivor was in the garden, reading the paper in the last of the sun.
‘There’s blood on your clothes,’ she said in a hoarse whisper so the children couldn’t hear. ‘What happened last night? You have to tell me. I can deal with anything as long as you’re truthful. Heaven knows I’ve had plenty of experience in dealing with things, living in this family recently!’
‘My shirt got messed up when I was chopping firewood, that’s all. A splinter sprang up and cut my arm and I wiped the blood on my shirt. Sorry, love, but I couldn’t find anything else. Not a bad cut, though, don’t worry, it soon stopped bleeding.’ He looked to her in the hope of seeing a sympathetic expression.
‘What about your jacket? There’s quite a lot of blood on that, too.’
‘No, that’s grease, sure to be. I drive the firm’s van sometimes, remember. Give it to me and I’ll clean it with some white spirit.’
‘But you don’t wear those clothes for the office.’
‘I did yesterday. I knew I’d be getting a bit messed up and didn’t want to spoil my good suit.’
‘And the scratches and tears? Was that chopping wood too?’
‘Walked home through the fields, didn’t I?’ His explanations were slick. Not so long ago she would have believed him, wouldn’t have given the situation a second thought, now the glib replies filled her with dread. She sat on the ashbin and felt her whole body droop in despair.
‘Tell me what’s wrong, Ivor, please. Once we were a normal family, now we’ve no money, the boys are encouraged the break the law, losing their jobs is a joke. Why won’t you tell me why everything has changed? I’ll listen, Ivor. If you tell me what’s wrong I’ll listen and do all I can to help, whatever it is.’
‘There’s nothing wrong, you’re imagining things. I just need a bit of fun now and then, that’s all, a bit of male company.’
‘Fun? Stealing from your family?’
‘It’s my money too, I can decide how I want to spend it.’
It was such a stupid remark she didn’t try to answer it. She dug a root of potatoes for their supper, and when she went to find the jacket, it was gone. Something stopped her asking Ivor its whereabouts, she had again that inexplicable feeling of unease. Without understanding why, she washed her hands repeatedly as though washing away the memory of the stains that weren’t grease, and denying the violence shown by the torn fabric.
All the time in the back of her mind was the news about the accident that had killed Emily Clarke, the hairdresser. Apparently no one saw the accident and whoever was responsible had dragged the poor woman into the hedge and hidden her, presumably to allow himself time to get away and build an alibi. Could Ivor have been involved? Common sense told her no, that if he had hit someone he’d have sought help, called the police, not dragged a body away from the road and hidden it. Rumours hinted that the woman had been alive when she had been hauled off the road and placed under the hedge; that a call for an ambulance might have saved her. To have become an obsessive gambler, someone who could steal from his own family, didn’t mean Ivor was also capable of such a cold-blooded act.
Bill and his father were talking about the accident to a couple of policemen, one of whom was taking notes. When they were told the woman might have lived had she not been moved, Bill gave out a wail of distress. The policeman looked at him. ‘Did you move her, sir?’
‘I wasn’t there. I knew nothing until you knocked on my door this morning. She was just back from Tenby and I hadn’t seen her since she got back. I was going to marry her. She was precious to me. If I had been there I’d never have moved her. I know it’s the wrong thing to do.’ He combed his fingers through his hair, a gesture of despair. ‘I can’t imagine how you’d think I’d have risked moving her. I loved her.’
‘I’m not accusing you of anything, we just need to know all the facts. Perhaps you thought she would be safer off the road while you ran to the phone box for help. Another car might have come around that rather nasty bend and—’ He allowed the thought to hover. Bill stared into space as though seeing her lying there, utterly still, then being carried to the grass verge and, later, as Jennie had described, being tucked under the hedge.
‘I didn’t move her. I didn’t know she’d been hurt until you came and told me.’
‘Another of your fiancées lost her life in an accident, didn’t she, Mr James?’
‘I was in London at the time, on a training week, and I could account for my whereabouts then as now.’
‘An amazing coincidence, though. And I’m a man who doesn’t like coincidences, Mr James.’
They took away most of his clothes and left him sitting as still as a statue, his father trying to coax him to drink some brandy. He regretted lying to the police but it was too late to change his story now.
He had been waiting for her to arrive and, impatient, he had walked a part of the way to meet her. He had a ring in his pocket in a jeweller’s velvet-lined box, and wanted to suggest they didn’t wait until Christmas before announcing their engagement.
At first, he had been aware of a slowly approaching vehicle, then, as the small figure appeared around a bend in the lane, the engine revved, the brakes squealed, making him jump out of its path, then the vehicle had raced past him, swerved and hit her. Up in the air she had flown, before landing, with a sickening thump he kept reliving, in the centre of the lane.
Ivor had been coming home from a card game. He heard the car and the squeal of brakes, but hedges hid the scene from view. Fearing an accident he ran to where Bill was bending over the still figure in the middle of the lane. He could see from the unnatural angle of her neck that she was dead.
‘Oh no,’ Bill had chanted repeatedly. ‘It can’t be happening again.’ He called Emily’s name, whispering to her, telling her it would be all right, but he knew there was no hope of her coming back to him.
Ivor placed fingers on the pulse point but shook his head, she was quite dead. ‘We can’t leave her here, Bill,’ he said. ‘Another car might come along, and…’ Ivor’s sentence remained incomplete as the horror made Bill wail in distress. They lifted her as gently as they could on to the kerb.
‘I’ll go to the corner, there’s a phone box there. I’ll dial 999. We need an ambulance and the police,’ Ivor told him.
‘Who’ll believe I’m innocent this time?’ Bill whispered. ‘It’s happened again. In exactly the same way. First Gloria and now Emily. They won’t believe me.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Ivor asked, thinking the man was in shock. ‘Sit there beside her while I call for help.’
‘I was engaged before, to Gloria, and she was killed by a hit and run driver too. Just like now. How will I convince them I’m innocent a second time?’ he wailed softly. Then he took off down the road, leaving Ivor staring after him in disbelief.
Finding himself alone with the dead woman, Ivor panicked. He pushed her further into the hedge and neatened her clothing in a respectful gesture before running away in the opposite direction from the one Bill had taken. He paused only to make the emergency call.
As he left the lane and hurried across fields, pushing through hedges, he knew he was being foolish, leaving the scene of an accident, knowing the woman was dead and he had witnessed or at least heard it, and had seen Bill there immediately afterwards. Out of breath, he slowed down, bent forward with hands on his knees and asked himself why he was running away. Panic was contagious and Bill’s fear had trapped him, caught him in that unthinking instinct for survival that was stronger than the needs of the poor woman he’d left, lifeless, under the hedge.
Too late now to change his mind, the police would be there and he was best out of it. If he told them he’d seen Bill and Bill denied it he’d be accused of covering up the truth, and if he said he wasn’t there and Bill told them different the result would be the same.
He was shaking with the shock of it, unable to consider going home, and some time later – he had no idea how long – he went to Bill’s house and, seeing a light burning, knocked on the window. They didn’t stay together long, just enough time to agree to say nothing at all.
Bill felt he was living through a nightmare. Now, with his father putting the brandy glass to his lips, it all seemed like a dream, something he’d half imagined, made up of bits of films he’d seen, not really true. In moments of sanity he knew that by moving her, running away, not calling at once for an ambulance, he had created trouble for himself and Ivor that might be serious. All this was racing through his mind and it was several minutes before he spoke to his anxious father.
‘Dad, why did she die? What happens to make becoming engaged to marry me such a risk? Two engagements and both ended in death. You see, I don’t believe in coincidences either.’
Marie usually visited her parents at least once a day. Sometimes she would call on the way to or from work and occasionally, when there wasn’t shopping to do, she would use her lunch hour. Today being Sunday, during late afternoon she left the small roasting joint in the oven. She put the water for the vegetables on low and ran to 1, Rock Terrace with Violet.
In her parents’ house the table was laid for tea, with a few thin slices of bread and butter, the ration being a Sunday treat, and dishes of jams, a fruit cake and some cheeses. Six years of war hadn’t altered her mother’s insistence on a properly set table. There were hand-crocheted doilies under the cakes and sandwiches, a napkin beside each plate, all a bit worn but neatly ironed. A second tablecloth was across a corner where Belle usually sat, with a tray set with tea cups and sugar and milk, awaiting only the filled teapot.
‘Will you and Violet stay?’ her mother asked. ‘I wish you would. I’m that worried about our Jennie. Up in her bedroom she is, crying.’
‘Because of the accident?’ Marie asked, surprised. ‘I didn’t think she was that fond of Emily Clarke. She complained about her most of the time.’
‘Different now she’s dead.’
‘You mean she suddenly realizes she liked her after all?’
Her sarcasm caused her mother to frown. ‘Don’t be so unkind, Marie. Jennie’s sensitive, you know that.’
Stifling a sigh, Marie asked, ‘What can I do?’
‘Talk to her, cheer her up. Get her to eat something. She hasn’t eaten a thing all day.’ Marie declined to tell her mother about the rounds of toast Jennie had enjoyed when she had come with the news. Instead she said, ‘I’ll try, Mam.’
She went upstairs to see Jennie and as she entered she mimicked her sister’s voice, saying, ‘Oh, Mummy, I haven’t eaten a thing all day, I’m so distressed about poor Miss Clarke.’
Jennie tried to look offended but the humour was too strong and the girls hugged each other and gave in to it.
Bill James sat staring at the photograph of Emily. How could she be dead? She was only thirty, the same as himself. Yesterday she was on her way back from holiday filled with stories about her visit to Tenby. A car driven by a mad man and in moments she was gone.
He had visited her while she was in Tenby. Working shifts on the railway it was easy to go there for half a day, using his father’s car, and spend time with her. They had talked about their wedding and planned their future.
Why had she died? The road was a quiet one and there had been nothing to cause the driver to run into her. He tried to convince himself it had been an accident, but remembered all too well the way the sound of the engine had increased, the vehicle speeding up, swerving towards her. Emily’s death had been deliberate.
The frightening thought, and one that was keeping him awake, was the similarity to the death of his previous love. Could there be a connection? Was there someone who hated him enough to ruin his life? He shook the fearsome thought away. What nonsense even to consider that for a moment. But he decided to talk to the police and see whether anything had been gleaned about the car or its driver.
He put down the photograph and wandered through the connecting door to the hairdressing shop. Nothing more than the front room of the house, but his mother and Emily had built up a successful business there. He smiled, remembering how she had tried to persuade customers to call it a salon, but it had never caught on. The hairdressing shop it had always been. What would happen to it now? His father could hardly sell the business and have a stranger running it, using a part of his home. He touched the pink overall hanging behind the door, the towels neatly stacked, all clean and ready for Monday. His mind drifted back to Emily. Trying to accept that she was gone was exhausting him. Trying to think of something else was impossible.
At one o’clock his father, Ernie, set the table for dinner, a scrappy meal which neither of them wanted. Cheese on toast was not the usual Sunday fare but Ernie’s housekeeper didn’t come on Sundays and they usually ate at an hotel. Today they were too stunned to think about it.
A knock at the back door startled them as they were about to eat, and Ernie stood to answer it. Barbara Lewis from next door was there, carrying a tray on which two dinners were steaming and sending out appetizing smells.
‘Thought you’d like a bit of a hand, just for today. Custard and apples for afters. I’ll send our Johnny round with it in a little while, right?’ Hardly giving them time to thank her she was gone. Appetites suddenly returned, they ate with gusto.
It was late afternoon when the front doorbell rang, the tenth time that awful day. Bill went to the door and invited their visitors in.
‘It’s Lucy and Jennie from the shop,’ he called.
‘So sorry we are, Mr James,’ Lucy said. ‘We called to tell you that, and to ask should we open the shop as usual once – once everything’s, you know, all over.’
Jennie said nothing. She smiled at Bill and wondered whether he could possibly become more than the son of her employer. She wasn’t really interested, she liked younger men with a stronger sense of fun, but couldn’t resist a bit of flirting, even at a time like this. After all, she was desperately looking for an escape from home. An excuse to get away from Mam, Dad and tedious domesticity. From the way Bill and Ernie lived, with a housekeeper and a cleaning lady, she might consider it one day. Tearing herself away to concentrate on Mr James, she listened to Lucy’s suggestion that they run the shop after the funeral, to give him time to make a decision.
‘Pity to let it all go, Mr James,’ Lucy was saying, ‘Nice little business it is. And valued by the local ladies. Miss it they would. We could manage, couldn’t we, Jennie?’
Jennie put on a brave smile and said, ‘It wouldn’t be the same, mind. Not without Miss Clarke, but we’d do our very best.’
As they left, it was Bill who showed them out and Jennie turned at the gate for a final wave, then winked at her friend. ‘Pity Bill’s so old, don’t you think, Lucy?’
‘Thirty he is, not much older than us!’
‘Hush!’
‘And don’t be so unfeeling, Jennie. Grieving he is. Terrible losing a fiancée like that.’
‘She was the third hairdresser he’d been courting, did you know that? There was a small, shy girl, can’t remember her name, but she vanished and no one’s heard of her since, then Gloria and then Emily, two who died on the road. Strange, eh?’ She gave a shiver of apprehension. ‘Ooer, thinking about it like that, perhaps I don’t want to be a fourth!’
‘Don’t frighten me, he asked me out once, remember.’
‘I like men younger than Bill. And so do you, which is why you refused his invitation.’
‘Thank goodness I did or I might have ended up under a car!’
‘Odd though, I’d forgotten about the one before Gloria. What was her name? I wonder what happened to her.’
‘You can’t open until after the funeral, Dad,’ Bill said, later that evening. Ernie nodded.
‘I know that and customers will understand. Will you write a sign for the front window to tell people the shop is closed for a week? Then go and tell Jennie and Lucy to come in a week from Tuesday. We’ve always closed on Mondays for half day, hardly worth reopening for a few hours. They can let people know. And I’ll pay their wages as usual.’
‘If I hurry I’ll catch them up.’ Bill grabbed a coat and ran into the street.
Bill James was a big man like his father, under six feet tall but powerfully built so people thought he was taller than he actually was. His features were large, a nose spread and slightly flattened as though by a blow, rounded cheeks and full lips that in repose made him appear bad-tempered. It was the calm expression in the eyes that took away the impression of an aggressive man.
He stopped when he saw Jennie and Lucy and called to them. He waited until Jennie walked back and instead of giving her his father’s message, invited her to meet him to discuss what would happen to the shop. ‘Dad doesn’t know much about the business and I need you to clarify a few things. He left everything to…’ His voice faded away as he tried to say her name.
‘A date?’ Lucy asked with a grin when Jennie explained. ‘With an old man of thirty?’
‘It might be, if I decide to make it one.’
‘You’ve got no heart, Jennie Jones.’
‘Neither has Bill if the looks he’s giving me are anything to judge by!’
Marie was at their parents’ house when Jennie returned home.
‘How is poor Bill? Marie asked.
‘More boring than usual,’ Jennie hissed so her mother wouldn’t hear.
‘What’s happening about the shop?’
‘I’m not out of a job. Yet! We offered to run it for him while he makes up his mind. After the funeral of course. Oh, why aren’t we rich?’ she sighed. ‘Lucy and I could buy the business if we could afford premises. I know we’d be able to buy the equipment cheap, but I haven’t a bean and neither has Lucy.’
‘I’d start looking around for another job if I were you, love. Or you’ll end up in the dreaded enamel works,’ her father teased.
‘Not on your nelly! Work in that noisy place? I’d get married first!’
‘We’re having tea as soon as the kettle boils. Will you stay?’ Belle Jones asked Marie.
‘Better not, Mam. I have to feed my lot soon.’
‘Not for me either, our Mam,’ Jennie said. ‘I’m going out.’
‘Where can you find to go on a Sunday evening?’ her father asked.
‘Not church, that’s for sure,’ Jennie retorted with a laugh. ‘Hang on, Marie, and I’ll walk with you.’
She went to her room and put on a new outfit she had bought. A skirt, the length of which made her mother frown, and a Hungarian-style blouse that was alarmingly transparent. The drawer string was loosened to reveal a great deal more than the designer intended, and with nylon stockings and high-heeled shoes she couldn’t have made more of a contrast to her sister. Belle said nothing but she tutted a lot.
Jennie was silent for a while as they headed towards Marie’s home. Marie was conscious of her glancing at her from time to time and was uncomfortably aware of her over-long coat and down-at-heel shoes. She could never dress like Jennie but she wished she were more presentable.
Then Jennie asked, ‘Marie, don’t you feel uncomfortable walking the streets dressed like that? And on a Sunday too? Everyone we pass has best clothes on, and there’s you, hair hanging down like an unironed scarf, not even a bit of lipstick, a coat that’s seen better days too long ago to remember what colour it was when it started out.’
‘Who cares?’ Marie said with a shrug.
‘You should. You need to make your husband proud of you, everything doesn’t stop once you get married, you know. Men can get tired of women who don’t seem to care.’
Visions of Ivor creeping back into the house hoping no one would be aware of his overnight absence flooded through her mind. What was Jennie trying to tell her? Was Ivor seeing someone else? Had he been with a woman? Had the blood on his clothes been the result of a fight with the woman’s husband? Her imagination went wild. The fact that he still had a ten shilling note to give her made her seriously doubt the ‘card school’ story. From the rumours that reached her he rarely gave up until he was broke. She stopped and turned to her sister. ‘You know something, don’t you?’
‘Know what? That my sister is dressed worse than some tramps I’ve seen and should do something about it? I certainly know that!’
Continuing to stare at Jennie, with her glamorous golden hair and blatantly provocative dress, her carefully made-up face, her slim feet in fancy summer sandals, Marie felt drab. She forced herself to ask the question to which she dreaded to hear the answer. ‘He isn’t seeing someone else, is he?’ Her stomach lurched as Jennie looked away before answering, unwilling to meet her gaze.
‘Your Ivor? Not as far as I know. Although he did try it on with me once. I soon told him what to do with his—’
‘Jennie! You’re lying! Ivor wouldn’t. Not with you!’
‘Oh, all right, I was joking, trying to lighten your life with a laugh. You rarely smile these days and – I’m sorry, sis, but you do look a mess. Men like to be flattered. They like being proud of their women, wearing them on their arm like a trophy. And what about poor little Vi? She can’t like seeing you like this. Children can tease and for those looking for an excuse you’re a gift.’
‘Don’t talk rubbish. She’s happy at school.’
‘Even if she isn’t being laughed at because of you, she’s bound to compare you with other mothers. Clothes rationing isn’t an excuse for giving up. Honestly, sis, you should look at yourself.’
‘I know I’m a mess,’ she retorted, fighting back tears. ‘There’s no need for anyone to tell me that! I’ve no money for clothes, even if I had coupons to spare. It’s all I can do to manage to keep our heads above water. I work all day at the shop selling beautiful clothes, and when I get home I take off my best things and change into these. Clothes for working. I spend evenings and weekends decorating other people’s houses, not going to dances and having fun. So what chance do I have of looking like you?’
‘Sorry, Marie. I really am. I thought I was being helpful. I thought you hadn’t realized how you’ve let yourself slip. Are things really that bad?’
‘Worse than you know.’
They were approaching Steeple Street where Geoff Tanner’s warehouse-cum-shop filled both angles of the corner. Marie had known Geoff all her life and had recently become a regular customer, buying paints and wallpapers and all the etceteras for her second job.
Geoff was washing his van as they passed.
‘I’ll be calling in the morning on the way to work to put an order in, Geoff,’ Marie called. ‘I’m papering a bedroom for Mrs Ricky Richards.’
‘Good luck, then. You’ll need it. Never pleased, that one, whatever you do for her.’
‘Another happy social evening. I wonder should I wear my fur?’ she whispered to her sister. She was self-conscious as she passed Geoff, Jennie’s words reminding her harshly of the contrast between her dowdy self and her glamorous sister. Just this once she wished she had worn her best coat, the one she wore to work.
She would have been surprised to know Geoff Tanner’s thoughts as they passed by. He saw Jennie as a flighty, over-dressed woman who was too old for the clothes she wore and the men she spent time with. Too much make-up gave her a harsh, almost brazen look, and many accused her of being worse than she actually was.
To his eyes, Marie was beautiful. Kind, caring, her expression was soft and gentle. She had a full, generous mouth that was always ready to smile – a smile that lit up her eyes. Yet, in repose, he could also see the sadness there. One lived her life for fun, the other had discarded all hope of fun when she had tied herself to a man who had become a gambler and a cheat.
The police were searching for the vehicle that had hit Emily Clarke, and two constables went to the woodyard where Ivor worked and asked to examine the firm’s fleet.
‘Fleet?’ Ivor laughed. ‘One ancient van and two decrepit lorries.’ He pointed across the muddy yard to where men were loading the lorry with lengths of two-by-two timber. He glanced at his watch. ‘The second lorry will be back in about twenty minutes, fancy a cup of tea?’
The constables examined the van, taking photographs and measurements. Doing the same to the lorry, it was sent on its way. After they had drunk their tea the other lorry returned and was given the same treatment. Ivor explained that the lorries were used for heavy loads, and the van was a runabout, taking small orders and sacks of sawdust to the local butchers for them to use on their floors.
‘And you drive the van, Mr Masters?’
‘Sometimes, when I need to see a customer. And I move it around the yard when the lorries need a bit of space.’ That information was written down with the rest. After a thorough search they went away, giving instructions that the van was not to be touched until it had been properly examined. An anxious Ivor checked his keys and wondered whether the person responsible could possibly have been driving that scruffy old van.
He’d heard the engine and his blood chilled as he remembered it revving up before the squeal and the awful thud when the woman had been hit, but apart from guessing it hadn’t been as heavy as a lorry he had no idea what kind of car it had been. But surely not the firm’s van? It didn’t look reliable enough. And with the wire fence and the gate it wasn’t possible for someone to have stolen it and returned it without someone seeing them. There would have been better choices on any street.
As soon as Marie reached home after seeing Jennie to the bus stop she searched again for the bloodstained jacket, but it was gone. A bonfire in the garden smouldered and when she investigated she recognized part of the sleeve that hadn’t burned away. Harris tweed that jacket had been. Good enough for quite a few more years. Ivor was proud of it, so why had he burned it? She was frightened by the implications of his uncharacteristic act.
Honesty was something she had always taken for granted, hardly needing to give it a thought. But the new Ivor seemed to lie as a matter of course, and now this. Disposing of evidence, wasn’t it? Evidence of what? A fight? He showed no bruises. An involvement in something worse? A road accident and the death of a young woman?
Shaking the ashes with a stick to encourage the fire to revive and burn what was left, she went inside. She wouldn’t say a word. Tomorrow she would shovel up the bonfire ashes and carry them to the far end of town and put them in someone else’s ashbin. Ivor couldn’t have been involved in Emily Clarke’s death; she couldn’t, wouldn’t believe it, but she knew she had to cover his tracks in case she was wrong. She had to protect him and their family.
Jennie and Lucy had had what some would call a ‘good’ war. Plenty of young men around to partner them at dances, men far from home and grateful for someone to talk to and flirt with, and even, when they were in a mellow mood, someone to listen to them as they talked about their families and the girls they loved. With a camp not far away, there were still servicemen around the town. These young soldiers didn’t have much money, but a ticket to a local dance costing a shilling or two gave Jennie and Lucy enjoyable evenings, a few kisses, and a feeling of youth and desirable beauty.
Marie’s only benefit from the war years was more recent. The loss of local decorators who had been conscripted into the forces, some killed, others returning with plans to build a different career, had created a need and now gave her opportunities to earn money to compensate for Ivor’s inability to support them.
Geoff Tanner found work for her and promised to help if ever she was in difficulties. He had been widowed several years before and filled his time helping out wherever he found a need. She had thanked him but had no intention of accepting his help, although there were times when she would have been glad of it. Rushing from one job to another, fitting in housework and shopping when she could, she wondered how long she could keep it up.
The paint and paper she had ordered from Geoff Tanner were delivered to Mrs Ricky Richards and she went there as soon as tea had been eaten and supper prepared. Two coats of paint and the wallpapering meant at least three visits and she knew that Mrs Richards would find an excuse to delay payment and argue about the previously agreed sum.
Ivor wasn’t in when she got home. Violet was in bed and a surly Roger was sitting beside the fire. ‘It’s not fair, our Mam,’ he began.
‘When is it ever?’ she said with a sigh. ‘Did your father bring in some firewood ready for tomorrow?’
‘No, I did,’ he said, as though the task was huge. ‘He said that as we weren’t working we ought to help him.’
‘Help him? What about me?’ She laughed then. Tiredness and the futility of expecting anything better overcoming her anger.
She went to the sideboard, where the payment books were kept, intending to put the money into the insurance book ready for the collector the following morning, but she noticed the books had been rearranged. Staring in disbelief she saw that the books were all empty. Money for the gas and the electricity, the coalman, the milkman, the baker, it was all missing. There should have been more than one pound and ten shillings there.
‘Roger, have you touched these books?’
‘No, Mam. Not me, honest.’
‘But you know who did?’ It took a long time but Roger finally admitted that Ivor had ‘borrowed’ the money, ‘just till pay-day’.
Marie set her alarm for six o’clock. She might be able to do the second coat of paint before work. That way she could hang the wallpaper that evening if she was careful. The money would be paid a day sooner and might just save them receiving a final demand. She hated those, shaming they were.
She wondered why she didn’t hate Ivor. She longed to leave him, forget she had ever been his wife, but hate was never in her thoughts, even at times like this. Just disappointment. ‘For better or for worse’ had been the only time in her life she had gambled, and she had lost.