Amanda suffered no ill effects from her night on the mountain. She was fully recovered the following day when Philip came to ask after her.
‘As you see,’ she smiled, ‘I am perfectly all right. But I don’t know if I would be if you and Rhys hadn’t found me. I wouldn’t have found the way to cross that stream, would I?’
‘Of course you would, a resourceful young lady like you. You’d have followed the banks until you reached the ford.’
‘Thank you for all you did, Philip.’
‘Get on with you, it’s Rhys who guessed where you were. Though what made him realise you’d be daft enough to go clambering about collecting cameras in a storm like that, I don’t know. As soon as he knew you were missing he sensed where you were. He must have very strong feelings for you, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Just an intelligent guess, that’s all.’
‘What possessed you, Amanda?’
She shook her head. ‘I really don’t know. It was the end of term and with no plans and feeling a bit fed up, I just wanted to fill the day. It was Roy who put the idea into my head, suggesting that Rhys might be pleased that I’d bothered.’
‘You mean he sent you up there on a day like that?’
‘No! I didn’t think of it until after I’d left him. He just thought that I might collect the stuff as a surprise for Rhys when he got back.’
‘He put the idea into your mind? That’s all?’
‘That’s all.’
‘Pity he didn’t remember and let someone know where you might be.’
‘He didn’t know I was missing, did he?’
‘Yes,’ Catrin said. ‘Gillian phoned at about ten o’clock to tell me you’d forgotten a headscarf. I told her you weren’t back and we were getting worried. She didn’t mention anything about where you might be.’
Philip said nothing more but there was a strange look in his eye. He would be asking a few questions as soon as he could get to see Roy Clifford.
Rhys called several times to make sure Amanda was all right but he only glanced at her as if she were a part of the furnishings, questioned Catrin about her progress, and left.
Amanda wondered what had happened to change his attitude so dramatically. There was no doubting his genuine relief at finding her safe, or the warmth of his concern as they travelled home. But the moment the car stopped outside Firethorn Cottage, there was that sudden coldness, which hadn’t thawed since.
One day during a warm spell in late August, Amanda and Catrin set off for a leisurely drive around the villages of the beautiful Vale of Glamorgan. They stopped to eat at a small tavern specialising in fish and sat for a while looking out over the calm blue sea. In contrast, they then went on to Barry Island where trippers flocked in their thousands and covered the warm sand with a cheerful patchwork of family groups colonising the beach for the day. Mums and dads, children of all ages plus uncles, aunts and grandparents, all enjoying a typical seaside day out. Sandcastles were built and flattened into tables on which fresh white cloths were spread, and there was the usual assortment of food, games and paddling causing laughter and contentment.
They were just leaving when they saw Philip carrying a couple of ice-creams along the promenade, staring at them with concentration as if willing them not to melt before he reached his destination. They continued to watch with mild curiosity as he reached a group and pushed his way through, to hand one of the piled-up cones to a young woman.
‘So Philip has a friend, I see. And about time too,’ chuckled Catrin. ‘Shall we go and say hello, or wait until later so we can tease him?’
‘I don’t think we should do either.’ Amanda stared at the couple in shock. ‘Look who it is.’ The young woman was Heather James.
They hurried back to the car as if guilty of snooping. When they were moving away, Catrin said, ‘I wonder how long that’s been going on?’
‘Nothing’s going on. How could it be? She and Haydn are so happy together. Heather and Philip must have to meet sometimes to discuss things. Helen and Jane are still Philip’s children, even if he has agreed never to become involved.’
‘But all the way out here? Haydn has been telling Rhys how pleased he is that Heather has started going out again. First into Cardiff to buy the latest records and the odd item of clothing. I wonder what he’d think of this? Meeting Philip, hiding away in a place where she’s unlikely to be seen by anyone from Tri-nant. Big hat and sunglasses in case she is!’
‘We mustn’t judge,’ Amanda said. ‘Not without knowing the facts.’
‘Poor Haydn. She wouldn’t do it to him again, would she? Not even Heather could be that cruel.’
‘Rhys told me Haydn was intending to marry her, then she left him for Philip.’
‘Practically on the eve of their wedding, dear. They went to live in London, Philip and Heather. But she couldn’t cope with the life of wife to a travelling newspaper reporter. She loved London and having plenty of money at first, but then Helen came along, and being forced to stay in was hard for her to take, with Philip away so much. There was no one she could to go to for help. Heather isn’t very good at coping, I’m afraid.
‘Philip was offered the job of Far East correspondent, you know,’ Catrin went on, ‘and he turned it down. Heather told him she couldn’t live anywhere but London. Then she persuaded him to give up his career, threatening to leave him if he didn’t… After messing up his life she left him anyway. She came back here and fell into Haydn’s arms once more. Now it seems she’s off again.’
‘She probably can’t help it,’ mused Amanda. ‘She’s helpless in some ways, isn’t she? Just not good at coping with what life throws at her.’
‘Weak and helpless, afraid of her own shadow? Perhaps. Yet she has a remarkable skill at getting what she wants, and for landing on her own two feet. Poor Haydn,’ she said again.
Amanda groaned, the irony of the situation becoming apparent. ‘Just when Rhys and Philip are talking with some civility to each other, this is going to start the war all over again!’
The day had ended on a solemn note and they were both relieved when Philip didn’t appear that evening.
Philip had travelled with Heather as far as Cardiff and put her on the train back to Tri-nant, then he had gone to see Roy and Gillian.
‘I’m trying to sort out the facts for Amanda about you and your family,’ he explained. A fussy little Mrs Harris, covered with shiny jewellery and dressed as if for a summer ball, invited him inside and began to prepare a tray of tea and cakes. Sitting in the small ‘best room’ which was overcrowded with highly polished furniture, he talked to Roy. He gave out a little information, hoping Roy would fill in the rest.
When he realised Roy was not going to be forthcoming, he said with a sigh of impatience, ‘Roy, you know damned well you aren’t Amanda’s brother. Why keep up the pretence?’
‘What? Of course she’s my sister. Brought up separate, but that’s only because of the Children’s Homes’ rules. Close we are, always have been. What a lot of ol’ rubbish to suggest different!’
Silently, Philip handed him the details he had copied from the register. After Roy had read them, he said, ‘Convenient, wasn’t it, to go on pretending, so she’d help you and support you in between your prison sentences? Wanted a share of the cottage, did you? Afraid she’d find out you aren’t her brother before she’d been persuaded to give you half? Is that why you sent her off up into the mountains hoping she wouldn’t come back?’
‘What you talking about? Slander that is and I’ll damned well report you for that!’
Philip could see Roy was shaken.
‘Why else did you suggest it?’ he demanded.
‘Because she was on about how Rhys was cold and didn’t seem to want to know her no more. I only said that if she did that for him he’d at least be a friend and that was better than nothin’. That’s all I said, honest. I didn’t dream she’d go off there and then with them clouds gathering up for a storm. Where was her sense, man? Where was her sense?’
‘I believe you,’ Philip said. Then, ‘I just had to be sure.’
‘You’re right about the other thing, mind,’ Roy said. ‘I did find out she wasn’t my real sister. And I did hope for a share of the cottage. Not saying what I knew, that’s all I’m guilty of, man. I’d never have sent her into danger like that. She isn’t my sister but she’s the next best thing.’
‘And you’ve no objection to her being told?’
Roy shook his head sadly and asked, ‘Tell her you’ve only just told me, eh? Nothing lost by that. I’d hate her to think bad of me.’
When Philip got home that night he heard the usual coded knocks on the wall and went in. Amanda was holding a flimsy airmail letter in her hand.
‘It’s from Jessica,’ she told him. ‘She says Roy isn’t my brother. Oh Philip, I’ve been so stupid. I should have worked it out. If she was fifteen when I was born she’d have had to be very precocious to have had Roy eighteen months earlier.’
‘Actresses are notoriously unreliable when they talk about their age, but in this instance she’s been honest. Roy was the son of the couple who adopted you, Gareth and Frances Clifford. They died soon after you arrived and you were both put into care under the name Clifford.’ Philip handed her the paper on which he had written it down. ‘I’ve told Roy and he’s upset,’ he added.
‘He’s still my brother. We can’t forget each other after being brother and sister all our lives. I’ll write and tell him nothing has changed.’
‘So, dear, you’ve found your family. Now you can relax and forget all about who you were and enjoy who you are,’ Catrin said.
‘I still don’t know who my father was,’ she said.
‘Does it matter? He hasn’t shared your life so far. Even if we found him, he wouldn’t take on the role of father now.’
‘I was called Clifford; d’you think…?
‘No, I don’t think Gareth Clifford was your father. You aren’t even half-sister to Roy, best to face it,’ Philip said.
‘I still feel that Roy is my brother. We’ve shared so much over the years.’
‘He feels that too,’ Philip assured her. ‘He and Gillian are coming down at the weekend to talk to you.’
‘Instead of finding a family I’ve lost the only member of it I had.’ Amanda tried to smile at the irony.
‘And what about you, Philip?’ Catrin asked with a slight tilt of her white head. Her blue eyes looked piercingly into his. ‘Have you got any news for us?’
Philip stared from Catrin to Amanda in surprise. ‘News? Me? My life is as dull as the proverbial ditchwater and far less interesting.’ He looked ill at ease though, and after another glance at the sharp-eyed Catrin, he left.
When school began again, Amanda was no longer Jane’s teacher as she had moved to a higher class, but she saw her often and quickly realised that all was not well.
Once more, Heather was over-protective to the point that Jane was never allowed out of her sight for longer than was absolutely necessary. Heather would be at the gate long after school had begun and again twenty minutes before school ended. From Jane’s teacher, Amanda learned that the child spent a lot of time looking out of the window waving to the lonely figure standing just outside the gate and Amanda realised with a jerk of anger that it was five-year-old Jane reassuring her mother, and not the other way about, as most would presume.
Resolving to go and visit Heather after school in the hope that she could persuade her to talk, she told Catrin at lunchtime that she would be late.
‘I thought I’d call and see Heather and talk about how Jane is getting on in her new class,’ she said.
‘Not to find out if Heather and Philip are meeting in secret?’ Catrin queried.
Amanda put down the sandwich she was eating and said, ‘Well, I do feel there’s something wrong. Heather is back to her old possessiveness where Jane is concerned. I want to find out why, if I can.’ She told Catrin about Heather waiting at the gates as she had before, and Catrin frowned.
‘Then you think there might be something going on between Heather and Philip?’
Amanda shrugged. ‘I just want to see if I can help Jane before she slips back to her previous withdrawn state. I don’t want to pry, but it is part of the job as you know, solving any problems that affect the child’s progress when you can.’
‘Be careful, dear. Concern can easily be misconstrued.’
When Amanda had finished tidying the classroom after the afternoon session, she ran to the gate in time to catch Jane and Helen with their mother. Helen was talking animatedly, Jane was walking with her head hung low and Heather seemed unaware of either of them. What a sorry little group they make, Amanda thought as she caught them up.
‘Hey there,’ she called. ‘Any chance of a cup of tea at your house?’
‘Mam, can I put the biscuits out?’ Helen said at once. Heather turned and smiled.
‘Lovely. We haven’t had a chat for weeks.’
Amanda took both Helen and ]ane’s hands and talked to them as they walked to the house next to the Cwm Gwyn Arms.
The house wasn’t in its usual state of orderliness. A pile of washing covered one armchair, waiting to be ironed, and toys had been left where they had fallen. A bowl of flowers drooped miserably, long dead, and the grate was filled with the ashes of a previous fire.
‘Sit down, Heather,’ Amanda said. ‘Jane, Helen and I will make the tea.’ Going into the kitchen she found the same disorder. Unwashed china, potatoes and vegetables cut and left, with stale cabbage filling the air with its pungent and unpleasant smell. She didn’t say anything to Heather, who had come to the doorway and was surveying the chaos, she just found a teapot, washed a few cups and set a tray. She handed a plate to Helen and asked her to arrange the biscuits as prettily as she could.
‘No biscuits,’ Heather said wearily. ‘I forgot to go shopping today.’
‘Bread and jam then!’ said the capable Helen.
‘There’s so much to do,’ Heather excused.
‘Because you’ve let things slide. Jobs pile up if you don’t keep on top of them, don’t they?’ Amanda said rather sharply.
When the children had been given a snack of toast and marmite – there having been no jam – they went to play in the garden and Amanda sat beside Heather and put an arm on her shoulder. ‘Now, are you going to talk about it or would you like me to go home?’
‘I want to go back to Philip,’ Heather said.
‘But what about Haydn? What’s gone wrong?’
‘Nothing’s wrong. I just feel trapped with the wrong man. The girls should be growing up with their father. I want to move to Cardiff, with Philip.’
‘Why move to Cardiff?’ Amanda asked. ‘The children are settled in school and with their friends. You too are surrounded by friends. So why leave?’
‘I couldn’t live here with Philip after living here with Haydn. They all think Haydn’s my husband but we’ve never married, and Philip and I have never divorced.’
‘But you can’t do this, Heather. You can’t disrupt people’s lives like this. Haydn doesn’t deserve it and what about the girls? They look on Haydn as their father. Where is Haydn?’ she asked.
‘Staying with his mother for a couple of days while I think things out.’
‘Think about this carefully, Heather. About what it will do to Haydn, who’s been good to you. Think how it will affect little Jane to leave everything she knows, including the man who has been such a wonderful father to her. You can’t leave Haydn.’
‘I belong with Philip. Philip loves me.’
In what Amanda took as a dismissal, Heather leaned over and started the radiogram. Touching the edge of a record with the needle, the room was quickly filled with the lively sound of Frankie Laine singing ‘Sugar Bush’.
Walking down the road the sound followed her as Heather increased the volume.
The following day Amanda was surprised to see not Haydn, but Philip waiting outside school with Heather. She gathered her things and hurried out as soon as the children had gone, curious to hear an explanation.
‘We thought now the children are older they should know who their father is,’ Heather explained hurriedly. ‘Haydn understands.’
‘Oh I see.Yes. Probably a very good thing. Nice for you all.’ Amanda thought she had better shut up, she was babbling mindlessly.
In the hope of being able to help, and out of concern for the family, Catrin called on Heather when the children were at school. Presumably because she had telephoned first, she found the place in its usual neat state. Heather was playing for a few different audiences it seemed. Pathetic and helpless to some, efficient and misunderstood to others.
Heather said very little and Catrin did not stay long. She admired the garden, said what a pretty little cottage their home was and left in time to meet Amanda from school. She did learn, to her regret, that Heather and Haydn no longer shared a bedroom. Things seemed to be getting worse, she reported to Amanda.
Apart from talking it over with Catrin, Amanda didn’t discuss it with anyone, wanting to stay out of what was bound to become a difficult situation.
Over the following weeks Philip was frequently seen with Heather, Haydn and the girls, and if it worried Haydn he seemed not to show it, although, Amanda confided in Catrin, he didn’t seem quite as relaxed as usual.
‘Bound to be afraid, dear. She’s left him before and I doubt he’s ever felt secure. Pity they haven’t had another child. That might have made them legalise it all.’
The usual loud music was playing when Amanda called one evening with some photographs she wanted enlarging, and the door was open. She called, but there was no sign of the children, who were usually in the garden. She called again then went inside, intending to leave her photographs on the hall table. Haydn and Heather walked in immediately after her, unaware of her presence, and they were quarrelling.
‘If you love the children you can’t do this to them!’ Haydn was saying.
‘I haven’t any choice. He’s their father and they need him.’
‘I thought I’d provided all they needed in a father. Have I failed you? Or them?’
‘No, Haydn, but Philip belongs with us.’
Horrified and dreadfully embarrasssed by her unintentional eavesdropping, Amanda slipped out of the kitchen door and scuttled around the house out of sight, hoping she hadn’t been spotted. Running past the Cwm Gwyn Arms she saw Philip with Helen and Jane, all on bicycles, heading towards Heather and Haydn’s house. She hid around the corner of the building, feeling more like a criminal by the minute and when they had passed her, ran on. A nervous chuckle escaped her lips, as she remembered a similar situation in Rhys’s bungalow.
She heard Philip call her but she ignored him and hurried on. She didn’t want to speak to him. If what she had heard was confirmed, and he was taking Heather and the girls away from Haydn, then she had nothing to say to him.
Slipping through the front hedge, damaging the firethorn in her haste, she almost fell through the kitchen door.
‘A burglar, but a clumsy one I think,’ Rhys’s voice announced as he offered a hand to steady her. ‘What’s happened? You look as if you’ve had a nasty fright.’
‘I was in Heather and Haydn’s house thinking it was empty. I was only going to leave some photographs,’ she defended, when he began to frown in disapproval. ‘Well, they followed me in and from what I overheard before I ran out of the back door, Heather is leaving Haydn and going back to Philip!’
‘What!’ Rhys looked around as if searching for a weapon and Amanda tried to calm him.
‘Rhys, it’s nothing to do with you or me. It’s for Heather, Haydn and Philip to sort out.’
He relaxed and nodded. ‘But if I see Philip I’d want to attack him for what he’s done to Heather and Haydn.’
‘And what’s that then?’ Philip’s voice announced his presence and they both turned to the doorway where he stood, panting, looking huge and dangerous, his face a trifle red after his fast cycle ride back after depositing the girls. ‘Well Rhys? What d’you want to attack me for?’
‘For messing up Haydn and Heather again. That’s what!’
Amanda backed away from Philip’s anger and tucked herself into Catrin’s armchair. But Philip was unaware of her, he only saw Rhys.
‘For your information, I have no intention of getting back with my ‘devoted’ wife. She has been using the girls to try and persuade me. Her life is in a rut and, as with several times before, she doesn’t mind who she hurts to change it. She left me once before, you know. For a man who ran the local grocer’s shop. She came back fast enough though, when she realised she was expected to help him run it. Then there was Haydn, and he, poor fool, promised her a life of comfort.
‘Heather is selfish and devoted only to her own comfort,’ Philip went on, ‘so you can give over making excuses for her and blaming me! This is the tragedy of a silly woman who can’t make up her mind. She’s psychologically incapable of staying true to a commitment. This time I won’t be a part of it. Right?’
He walked forward in a crouch, his arms hanging loose but looking dangerous. ‘You’re so high and mighty, Rhys Falconbridge, always knowing what’s best, always judging others, usually when you only know half the facts. I didn’t ruin Haydn’s life, he did that on his own, by believing he could make Heather happy. I tried once and I won’t try again. I know when I’m wrong!’
‘I’ve always believed the reason Heather left you was because you didn’t want Jane,’ Rhys said quietly.
‘It was Heather who couldn’t cope with another baby. Little Helen had spent a lot of her time with people who would mind her for the afternoon or the odd evening while Heather went dancing or just listened to her records. She knew she wouldn’t get away with it with two children. The girls only had a play session or had a story read to them when I or someone else was there to do it. Heather blotted everything out with music.’ He continued to glare at Rhys. ‘There, now you have it. So, what are you going to do about it? Eh? Sort me out for being a wicked husband?’
Amanda sat there, white-faced, expecting at any moment that the shouting would become a fight, but Rhys’s voice was low and apologetic when he spoke and she felt the tension leave her body in a long slow breath.
‘I’m going to say I’m sorry,’ Rhys said. ‘I really believed Heather’s story.’ He looked across at Amanda still cowering in Catrin’s chair. ‘I remember Amanda telling me that there was a danger of believing the first version you hear and refusing to listen to the other side. She was so right. I really am sorry, Philip and, well, I’m impressed by your loyalty. You didn’t even try to convince me otherwise, you kept faith with Heather and took the blame.’
‘I did try to talk to you once or twice,’ Philip said dryly. ‘Pompous old sod that you are, you wouldn’t listen.’
‘Am I a pompous old sod?’ Rhys asked later that evening when they were discussing all that had happened with Catrin.
Amanda and Catrin answered in chorus, ‘Yes!’
Summer passed and autumn came rolling in with mists and extravagant colours transforming the area with a different scene each day. The time for Catrin to leave Firethorn came and went without anything being done. Amanda began to think once more about the preparations for Christmas at school.
Heather and Haydn were still together, but now Philip visited and occasionally took the girls out. The gossip this caused went round and round, changing form as frequently as the clouds, as people tried to fit what they knew into some sort of story, but the truth, that Haydn and Heather weren’t married, seemed to elude them all.‘
One day in late November, Roy and a noticeably pregnant Gillian came to Firethorn Cottage. Amanda was enchanted to see how attentive Roy was to his bride, and not only when someone was watching, either, she noticed with pride. He was genuinely caring. And, from the way he spoke, he was looking forward to the baby with great excitement.
‘That’ll be enough to keep me on the straight and narrow, eh, Mand? I wouldn’t want to miss a day of him growing up. More special for people like you and me, not having a home when we were small.’
‘Thank goodness for that!’ Amanda laughed. ‘I’d begun to think nothing would cure you!’
‘It’s still hard not to take something when it’s asking to be nicked,’ Roy confessed. ‘Seeing a shopping bag with the purse perched on the top, or seeing an open window with a wallet on the window sill like I saw the other day. Or when I see someone picking up a mat and taking out a front door key, something clicks into place in my brain and I start planning to use it and go and see what I can find.’ He looked a bit embarrassed, pushing his fingers through his thick blond hair, looking away from them. ‘You don’t know how hard it is to ignore all that, you really don’t.’
The beautiful Riley was parked outside. The road was narrow and the cottage was near a corner, so there was no room for Amanda’s Ford Popular when someone else parked there. Today she had moved her car further along the road in readiness for her visitors. When Roy looked outside he saw an old man leaning on his walking stick, admiring it.
‘I had one of these once,’ he called, seeing Roy’s face at the open window. ‘Beautiful they are. Can’t drive no more but I often think about it.’
‘I’ll take you for a ride one day,’ Roy promised. ‘Go on, sit inside, she isn’t locked.’ He opened the door and walked down to where the man was getting into the driving seat with some difficulty, being obviously a little lame.
‘Who is it?’ Catrin asked and looking out, said, ‘Oh, it’s Mel Griffiths. You know, Philip walks his dog, Ben.’
As they watched, the old man stared at Roy then raised his stick to him and beat Roy across the shoulders.
‘Whatever’s happening?’ Amanda and Catrin ran out as Roy managed to get the stick out of the old man’s hand.
‘What’s got into you, you silly old fool?’ Roy demanded.
‘It was you! You’re the one who broke in and took my electricity and rent money! Saw you I did and I’m going to call the police now this minute! Got your fingerprints I have, so you won’t get out of it!’
In vain they tried to reason with him. He went into Philip’s house and a few moments later, Philip came to tell them Mr Griffiths had identified Roy as the man who had stolen from him and insisted on calling the police. ‘I tried to stop him,’ Philip said. ‘Told him about Gillian and the baby but he was so furious. Strong man he was once and I think he was humiliated that he couldn’t stop the burglar that night. It’s rankled ever since.’
‘What’s happening?’ Gillian asked, and when she was told she collapsed.
The ambulance arrived at the same time as the police and Roy just managed to get inside the ambulance to go to hospital with his wife before the police could ask him to accompany them, in their politely-phrased demand, to the station.
The baby was born that night, a little girl they planned to call Sarah. Two hours after the birth, Roy was arrested.
It was Rhys who came to tell Amanda. At eleven o’clock that night, when she was undressed and ready for bed, having heard the glad news of the safe arrival of Gillian’s daughter, she opened the door to be greeted with the other, devastating news.
‘It’s Roy. You’ve got to be brave, Amanda, Gillian will need your support. Roy’s been arrested for the burglaries in Tri-nant last summer.’
‘But he wouldn’t! Knowing I live and work here he just wouldn’t be so stupid or unkind. It isn’t true. He wouldn’t break in. There has to be an explanation of him seeing that sculpture in your house.’
‘We’ve both known for some time it was he. He couldn’t have known about the sculpture. He’s guilty, Amanda. I’m sorry.’
‘And you’ll give evidence?’
‘Of course not!’
‘Thank you.’
‘What will you do?’
‘Nothing, I’ll deal with it just as before, but this time I’ll have Gillian to look after as well. Nice really, having a sort of sister-in-law. And a sort of niece.’
Rhys put his arms around her. ‘Amanda, I’m so sorry.’
‘It won’t make much difference. I’m used to it.’
But it did. The first thing that happened when the news reached the school was that someone else offered, rather firmly, to hold the money being saved for the Christmas Pantomime outing.
During the same week, the offer she made to collect a few pence each week from the children towards the school party was also refused. It came to her with a horrifying rush that she was no longer trusted to hold other people’s money. Having even a reformed criminal for a brother was affecting her life once more.
‘I intend giving in my notice at the end of this term,’ she told Catrin.
‘Please don’t,’ Catrin urged. ‘It will all blow over. I suspect that one or two people with loud voices have convinced the rest that you are a criminal by being related to one. How ridiculous people are. As if having a doctor for a brother would make you naturally good at first aid! Or a brother who’s a singing policeman would mean you’d go around singing and arresting people!’
Amanda laughed but it was forced and died quickly. No matter how Catrin tried to cheer her, her mind was made up. She couldn’t possibly work with people who didn’t trust her. ‘I’ll open a nursery school,’ she said. ‘It’s something I’ve often thought about. Then only those who trust me would come. I’ll stay in the village though, they won’t make me leave.’
Over the next few weeks she pored over catalogues to decide what equipment she would need to buy. Premises would be difficult but with the church hall and an ex-army hut both being possibilities, she was confident she would find something when the time arrived. She had no intention of leaving before finishing the school year. She owed the children that.
She bought several large toys, a swing, see-saw, prams and bikes, and, with Philip’s help, repaired and re-painted them. The garden was more like a park playground until they were dry and packed into the shed. One swing was erected at Catrin’s request, and she often sat on it to read her morning paper when winter offered up one of its mild, sunny days.
Rhys was away but he arrived home as Christmas approached. He walked into the garden to find Philip and Amanda dressed against the chill, covered in red paint and trying in vain to finish the final coat on a tricycle by reaching underneath to places Amanda had missed.
‘Next time you’d better leave all the intricate painting to me,’ Philip was laughing. ‘Slides and pedal cars, yes, bicycles definately no!’
‘What’s going on?’
‘Hello, Rhys. Philip is helping me get this ready for when I open my nursery school. What d’you think?’ She spread an arm for him to admire their work.
‘Nursery school?’ he queried.
‘I’ll leave you two to talk,’ Philip said reaching for a cloth and the bottle of paint thinner. ‘I’ll come back this evening and finish the rest, right?’ He slipped through the hedge into his own garden, where he was building a small frame with steps and hand rails, for children to learn to climb in safety.
‘I’m going to leave Mill Lane School,’ Amanda told Rhys when they went inside to make some tea. ‘I don’t feel happy there any more.’ When she told him why he looked at her quizzically and told her she was an idiot.
‘Call a meeting of the teachers and the Head, together with any of the parents you think would be on your side. The ones who started this nonsense must be known, so invite them too. I’ll come and chair a meeting and we can bring it all out into the open. I don’t think the parents or the teachers would like you to leave. Will you give it a try?’
She was doubtful. ‘It’s been spoilt irreparably, in my opinion. The edge of distrust will never completely leave me.’
‘Nonsense. Now, I’ll go at once and talk to the Head. He’ll agree, I’m sure.’
Roy was remanded in prison awaiting a trial and his Probation Officer’s report. Amanda went every weekend to see Gillian and baby Sarah. Gillian was philosophical about it, prepared to wait for Roy to be released and convinced that he had spoken the truth and had given up crime for her and the baby’s sake.
‘It was such bad luck, that man recognising him,’ she told Amanda sadly. ‘Roy had told me about the robberies in Tri-nant. He told me about the man trying to stop him too, and how he could have pushed him out of the way like a matchstick but he didn’t. Whatever you say about him, he has never been violent, even then, when he was faced with being recognised.’
Eventually, Mel Griffiths gave evidence to that effect, and together with the fact that he had not offended since and was apparently going straight, with a job, a wife and a child, his sentence was limited to the time he had already served on remand. He came out a chastened man and hugged Gillian until she thought she would break.
‘Thanks Gill. I’ll never let you down again, never,’ he promised.
‘You don’t have to say it any more, Roy,’ Gillian smiled happily. ‘I believe you. So, shall we go and see Amanda this weekend? I’ve had the car checked over and filled with petrol all ready for you.’
‘I don’t deserve you,’ he muttered into her hair.
Heather left Tri-nant, leaving Haydn behind and taking the girls. She had found a job as housekeeper to a man in Dinas Powys with a large house on the common where the girls could play, and with horse-riding stables close by owned and run by the same man. He promised lessons for the girls and offered a car for Heather’s use so she could take them to Barry Island at weekends. She wrote to Amanda and told her that this time she intended to stand on her own two feet and not depend on anyone.
‘Doesn’t sound very independent to me,’ Amanda said.
‘And she’s made sure Haydn has her address, in case it doesn’t work out,’ Catrin said sadly. ‘I don’t think he’s free of her or ever will be.’
‘Philip isn’t either. He’ll want to continue to see the girls now they know who he is,’ Amanda said. ‘And Haydn will want to keep in touch with them too.’
‘Two men attendant on her and a home in a beautiful place like Dinas Powys, what more can she need to keep her happy?’ Catrin looked at Amanda. ‘And what about you, dear. Are you going to arrange this meeting? Stay on at the school? I do hope so.’
‘We’ll see.’ Amanda was undecided.
The meeting lasted only twenty minutes. Everyone there – and the school hall was crowded – insisted she stayed. It was pointed out that only two people in the whole village had even mentioned a connection between Amanda and her brother. The reason for the removal of the money collecting was kindly done, it was because the other teachers had agreed she was doing too much. It was that simple.
‘What will I do with all the equipment I’ve collected?’ she asked Rhys. ‘I’ve collected enough toys to fill the shed.’
He looked at her strangely and said, ‘You’ll find a use for them, I’m sure.’
Nothing had been said about Catrin leaving Firethorn Cottage and as she brought out the Christmas tree and all the decorations were put up, Amanda hoped nothing would. On the few occasions when she thought Catrin was going to discuss it, Amanda quickly changed the subject.
It was Rhys who eventually made her talk about it, one Saturday morning, when he had called and invited himself for breakfast. He had just driven back from Cornwall, where he had been working on trials for filming advertisements for the newly approved independent television authority.
‘When is my aunt leaving Firethorn Cottage?’ he asked.
‘There’s no hurry,’ Amanda replied. ‘She can stay as long as she wants to.’
‘Philip’s lease is extended but he has to get out in April,’ Rhys added. ‘Are you going to take him in too?’
‘Hardly. I don’t intend making Firethorn Cottage a boarding house!’
‘You know that was her idea, don’t you? That you and I should marry and live in the bungalow so she could invite Philip to be her lodger?’
‘She told you that?’ She forced a laugh. ‘She told me too. What a preposterous idea. As if you and I could settle happily together.’
‘Once I would have agreed with that sentiment. My attitude was coloured by my belief that Heather had been treated shabbily, by having a husband who travelled frequently and was never there when he was needed.’
‘And now?’
‘Now I think we could, and should.’
She turned to stare at him, convinced she had misheard him. ‘Couldn’t and shouldn’t! Well yes, that just about sums it up,’ she laughed, deliberately misunderstanding.
She turned away thankful of the excuse of cooking breakfast, concentrating on the bacon and mushrooms under the grill and the eggs crackling in the frying pan. ‘Would you like fried bread?’ she asked casually.
‘I’d like you to marry me, Amanda. I’ll never be happy unless you do. Please, say yes.’
Slowly and deliberately putting the food onto a warmed plate, she reached over and put it in front of him. ‘Sorry, Rhys, I wasn’t listening. Did you say something?’
‘I want to marry you.’ He pushed his chair back and stood beside her. ‘Amanda?’ he asked, when she was slow in replying.
‘Oh, I see, and when were you thinking of arranging this little ceremony?’
‘Amanda!’
‘Yes?’
‘Will you marry me?’
Still she didn’t reply, but stood looking out of the window at the wind-blown garden, and the shed bulging with children’s toys.
‘Well, I suppose it would be better than wasting all those toys Philip and I have repaired,’ she said, still talking as if they were discussing next week’s milk bill.
Catrin burst into the room and said with what was for her high irritation, ‘Amanda. Answer the man!’
‘When he makes it sound more important than where we’ll park the car, I’ll answer him.’
‘I love you. I would never be happy without you. Your car is constantly blocking the road and my aunt wants the cottage,’ Rhys said and now he was trying hard not to laugh.
She turned and there was laughter and tears brightening her eyes as she threw herself into his arms.