Jack
A Father’s Concern
Jack Fellam closed the last of the stable doors just as Sarah’s car pulled in through the gates. There was no sign of Megan following behind; it was just wishful thinking that he’d expected her to, when she’d warned she could be late home.
Sarah didn’t alight from the car immediately, but hung her head over the wheel. Jack looked away; he’d not intrude, even though when Sarah – his only living child – hurt, he hurt. Poor lass, it couldn’t be easy for her, having the man she loved locked away, as Billy was. Her pain was natural, and it was bound to visit her more when she’d had to part from Billy after visiting him. There was nothing he could do to lift that pain from her, or to make things better for her. Not that he wanted to make everything better for her, because although he let Sarah think he was happy with the situation, deep down he wasn’t, and he wished she wasn’t in love with Billy.
He had to console himself with the fact that there no longer seemed to be any harm in the lad now, though Billy’s actions in the past still visited Jack in the wakeful hours of the early morning and filled him with dread.
Pulling himself up, Jack told himself that he had to move on; after all, Billy had only been ten when he’d committed the first heinous crime that had changed their lives, and he’d suffered terribly at his father’s hand. Had seen things, too, that no lad should see – things that had turned his mind and made him think it was right to deal with anything you didn’t like by using violence. Then there was Megan, his own lovely Megan, who had been part of the violent past Billy had witnessed, as she’d been beaten near to death and raped by her then-husband, Billy’s father. The memory of this clutched painfully at him.
Sarah lifted her head and looked over towards him. She didn’t return his wave but got out of the car, turned from him and hurried towards the house. Jack’s heart lurched. He couldn’t bear anything to trouble his lovely Sarah. He hesitated, wondering if he should go after her, but thought better of it and busied himself picking up the horses’ feeding buckets.
‘I’ll see to them, Jack. I’ve another half-hour to kill before I knock off.’
Glad of the distraction, Jack glanced over at Gary, his head trainer. ‘I’ll take you up on your offer, Gary, lad. I’m supposed to check on my ma-in-law to make sure she’s coping when it comes to cooking the meal for us all. She’s not getting any younger.’
‘Eeh, you’re under the thumb good and proper, Jack. Go on with yer. By, I’m glad my Jenny don’t work like your lassies do! At least I don’t have to get stuck into women’s work when I get home.’
Jack laughed at this. He didn’t mind the banter. He and Gary had known each other for years, having worked together for Laura Harvey. Gary often ragged him about having a working wife, but he’d have it no different. It wasn’t the done thing, but it made Megan happy, and that was his main reason for living: seeing her and his ma-in-law and Sarah happy. His worries about Sarah revisited him. She’d acted strangely; it wasn’t like her not to greet him when she returned home, and she’d always have a word with Gary or any of the lads around the stables whenever she came into the yard. The niggling within him turned to deep concern.
As he went through the gate leading to the path that would take him through the beautiful gardens at the back of his house, Jack felt the usual disbelief. This grand house, with its six bedrooms and two parlours – or ‘withdrawing rooms’, as top-drawer folk called them – was far beyond his own and Megan’s beginnings. He looked up at the building. The sun, now low in the sky, reflected back a golden light from the many windows. His heart jolted with pride. To think that he and Megan owned and lived in such a place!
In the end, they had a lot to thank Laura Harvey for. He could think of her now without guilt. He and Laura had been two lonely young folk drawn to each other. Their affair had taken place two years after Cissy died, and before he’d woken up to realize that the feelings he had for Megan were more than those of just good friends. What Laura’s jealousy had caused, once she knew he’d fallen for Megan, wasn’t easy to come to terms with. Nor what it led Billy to do. But Megan had forgiven him, and had forgiven Laura in the end, so that helped.
‘Take them boots off, Jack Fellam!’
‘Eeh, Ma, let me in the door afore you start. By, woman, a man ain’t a man in his own house these days.’ He crossed the kitchen and tugged at the bow tying Issy’s apron. Once loosened, the pinafore hung from her neck and drooped around the front of her. Her reaction wasn’t as quick as it would have been in years gone by – he’d have been in for a clout then – but still he dodged out of her way as, wielding a floury rolling pin, she turned towards him.
‘Jack Fellam, you’re worse than having a babby around. Give over, or you’ll find your lugs reddened with this.’
‘Ha, you’d never catch me! With you waddling like a duck, I’d be long gone. Here, give us a kiss and greet me as you should greet the head of the house.’
‘You may be head of the house, lad, but that don’t include me kitchen, so in here you’ll do as I say or you’ll find yourself as a filling for one of me pies. Now come here and stop taking me on.’
All his worries left his shoulders as she encased him in her warm embrace and planted a kiss on his cheek – his ma-in-law, Isabel Grantham, always known as Issy, had stood by him, no matter what. She’d taken him in as a lad just home from the last war. His brother and da had been killed in the trenches, and his ma had died with the shock of the news. He’d been a lost soul seeking a new beginning, and he’d found it in her home.
There he’d first met Issy’s daughter, Cissy, and her friend Megan. He’d fallen deeply in love with Cissy. They’d had a blissful marriage, marred only by the miscarriages poor Cissy suffered after having Sarah; but then along came Bella. Cissy had died giving birth to Bella, making Jack feel as if his heart had been ripped out of him.
He shook his head as he remembered the awful events of the following years. It all seemed like a lifetime ago. Bella – me little defenceless Bella. Hatred, never far from his bones, trembled through his body, and he knew that if Billy, his little girl’s killer, stood before him now, he’d strangle the life from him.
‘Eeh, lad, it’ll never leave you.’
He hadn’t spoken of it, but she’d known. It was like that, with Issy. She knew when you were troubled. He came out of her arms. ‘No, Ma, I don’t suppose it will, but like you’ve said many a time afore, we’ve to find a way to live with it.’
Brushing the flour from where it had rubbed onto his shirt, Issy retied her apron, then surprised him by echoing his own worries. ‘Aye, and to deal with it an’ all. It ain’t over, Jack, not whilst Billy’s still alive, it ain’t. Oh, I know I shouldn’t think like that, as the lad’s doing his time and has had help for his unstable condition, but the fear of him doesn’t leave me, and I worry for our Sarah.’
‘I know, but don’t say owt to Megan; she’s enough on her plate, with how Billy is. He’s started being a bit cutting with her of late, and Megan thinking as he didn’t blame her any more. By, it beggars belief how he could even think her responsible for everything in the first place.’
‘Well, his dad was responsible for him thinking that way. Bert Armitage was more than evil – he even had Megan thinking she was the cause of his violent ways towards her; so it’s not surprising a young ’un would take it as a truth. But what are we to do about Sarah?’
‘There’s nowt can be done. She loves Billy – always has done – so we’re to leave well alone. Where is she, by the way? Poor lass seemed very upset when she arrived back. Didn’t greet none of us, which ain’t usual.’
‘She didn’t come in this way. I heard the front door go, and then she called out that she’d see me in a bit, as she wanted to get a bath. By the time I’d gone through, she’d disappeared up the stairs. Oh, Jack—’
‘I know, Ma. I fear for her an’ all, but like I say, there’s nowt can be done. We just have to be here if she ever needs us.’
‘If only Sarah could return the love Richard has for her. How much better our lass’s prospects would be then. Eeh, that’d be the best thing as could happen, in my books.’
‘You’re an old romantic, Ma. Those feelings you think Richard has for Sarah are all wishful thinking.’
‘No, lad. They’re true all right.’ Issy touched her nose. ‘I know.’
Jack smiled to himself. Young Richard would be the perfect husband for Sarah. A long-lost brother of Megan, Richard was a handsome, well-set-up lad. He took after his father in wanting to become a doctor and was just beginning his training.
Bridget, Richard’s ma, had given birth to Megan when she’d been a lass of just sixteen. Her circumstances had been such that she’d had to give up her babby. When, by an amazing coincidence, mother and daughter were reunited, Megan found she had two half-brothers, Richard and Mark. And lovely lads they were, too. By, he’d love Richard and his Sarah to get together. But there was no use speculating about it. Sarah loved Billy and always had done, since they were young ’uns together. He couldn’t see that changing.
Jack shuddered as he thought this and, though he was not given much to praying, he directed a plea at the God that he’d often felt had let him down. Please look after me little Sarah. Let there be no more – please don’t send us any more to bear . . . But if you have to, then let it be on my shoulders, not Sarah’s, and not Megan’s or Issy’s.