21

Gloria was sitting at a breakfast bar trying to think up a present for Greg, when she saw the article in the Yorkshire Post.

‘Look at this! You read it…Maddy’s got herself in the news. She’s opened up the Old Vic for refugees…look,’ she said.

Greg was shoving toast in his mouth, whilst searching for his car keys. ‘No time,’ he said. ‘Can’t stop…must dash. I’ll be late tonight. We’ve got a new site to view…Bye, Bebe!’ He pecked his little daughter on the cheek and rushed out of the back door into the double garage.

Gloria slammed down the morning paper with a sigh. Once she’d taken Bebe to school, that would be her whole day until hometime. She looked around her kitchen with satisfaction. It had fitted cupboards and Formica surfaces, Marley tiles on the floor and a built-in washing machine, a pantry stocked with tins of meat, fruit and salmon. It was like something out of Ideal Home.

‘Come on, Bebe,’ she called to the little girl with a mop of red curls, sitting in her expensive green school uniform. ‘Where’s your panama hat?’ It was lovely to see the child looking so smart.

‘I’ve got a tummy ache, Mummy. Do I have to go to school?’

‘Again? Have you been to the toilet?’ Gloria ignored Bebe’s usual morning complaints. ‘Hurry up!’

Gloria was the only wife in Sunnyside Drive to have her own car, a Triumph Herald with an open top, and a double garage. They had the corner plot with an acre of garden, an ornamental pond with a heron statue, a big swing and slide for Bebe, and a huge rockery in the front garden that Mr Taylor, the gardener, kept up to scratch.

Gloria grabbed her pink duster coat and straw hat as she might nip into Harrogate and do a recce round the shops, have lunch in Betty’s and spin out the day until it was time to pick up Bebe again.

‘Do I have another name?’ asked Bebe in the car. It was strange seeing her own green eyes staring back at her.

‘No, just Bebe. Why?’

‘Belinda says it’s a silly name, Bebe Byrne. Haven’t I got another name?’

Gloria shook her head. Greg had wanted her to be Beatrice Prunella, and make Mrs Belfield her godmother for old-times’ sake, but Gloria soon knocked that one on the head. Bebe was so feminine–short and different, to her thinking. It made Bebe stand out too. ‘You tell Belinda Pike you’re named after the famous actress Bebe Daniels. There’s no one else in Yorkshire with your name.’

‘Why couldn’t I have been Susan or Carol?’

‘Susans are two a penny, but you’re special.’ That seemed to shut her up. Bebe was so full of questions and into everything. She’d been a sickly baby and difficult to feed. Greg had wanted to try for a boy later but Gloria said she was never going through that agony again. She’d got herself fitted with a Dutch cap and made sure it was in on the few times they did make love.

As she sat in a café sipping coffee, she stared around at all the other well-heeled ladies in hats chattering to their friends. Why hadn’t she got any chums like that? The mums at school were stand-offish, a posh bunch who kept together and ignored her. The girls in Sunnyside Drive were older and stick-in-the-muds: they were all into the WI, church and coffee mornings that she never got invited to.

Somehow she didn’t fit in. Perhaps it was her expensive carpets and curtains, and modern G Plan teak sideboard and room dividers, table and chairs and velvet sofa, or the fact that she didn’t do church or have family to visit. Greg was always off at weekends rallying. There was ballet class for Bebe and the occasional birthday party but not much of a social life. The Afton family gatherings didn’t count. There was no smoking or drinking at their dos. A little part-time job might have been good, but Greg wouldn’t hear of it.

‘No wife of mine need go out to work. Bebe needs you to be around for her.’

The one chink in his tough armour was Bebe. Sometimes she felt as if their child was the only sun in his sky. Every time he went away he brought her back expensive dolls and clothes.

Now she was at school all Gloria’s days were the same, at the weekend the routine was the same, and holidays were spent in hotels in Bournemouth, or else she took Bebe to stay near the farm where Sid was working in the Dales. She drove many miles out of her way to avoid Sowerthwaite, just in case she bumped into Maddy and her cronies. Sid was always glad to see them both but they lived in different worlds now.

They dutifully sent cards to Plum, and to old Mrs Batty at the Brooklyn. Fancy Mrs Plum going off to New Zealand. Maddy was now queen bee there. Sunnyside Drive was no match for Brooklyn Hall and Gloria was still jealous of her old friend, and had followed her career, perturbed why she should given it up to return north.

Gloria couldn’t forget that look on Greg’s face when she’d seen them in that café in London, all aglow with excitement. Once they’d got home he was on the phone every hour, working late, restless, checking his sites as if she hardly existed.

It wasn’t as if they weren’t content together. He made a great fuss of Bebe, but he was hardly at home, too busy making money. If only he’d spend more time with them. He was talking of them moving up again to a Victorian villa in town, one of the huge ones off the Ripon Road. ‘It’ll be closer to the shops,’ he laughed. He seemed to think money was all she was after, but all she wanted now was his attention

They’d got every gadget you could wish for and yet Gloria was fed up, dissatisfied, empty, and she didn’t know why. Her days were always the same in a life of leisure her mam could have only dreamed of. They’d lost touch with each other years ago. She wanted no reminders of Marge Conley’s life. No friends, no family, no job, Gloria had nothing to do but housework, and she had Mrs Handley to do that.

If only Greg would share things with her, take her with him on trips, surprise her once in a while, but he spent most of his spare time with his mechanic under that blessed rally car, tinkering until all hours while she sat in watching television: Coronation Street. Emergency Ward 10, What’s My Line: anything to while away the evenings.

All her dreams were coming true. They’d never had it so good, and yet…

Gloria was lonely at times, bored and disappointed, and she’d still got to think of something for Greg’s birthday. As she had headed towards the car park in town, she noticed a new photographic studio, The Yorkshire Portrait Gallery. There were some pretty shots of girls in party dresses with sashes, smiling from gilded frames, hand-tinted to show off the colours, and it gave her an idea.

She darted to the reception desk and made an appointment for one Saturday morning. This would be a surprise for Greg’s birthday, gilt framed like a portrait to hang on the wall. But first Bebe would need something pretty to wear. She dashed back to Marshall and Snelgrove, snatching a selection of party dresses on approval so they could try things on in secret. She’d have her own hair set, a new dress and make-up on, and Greg would be delighted with such a novel present.

‘I can’t be thirty,’ Greg sighed out loud. ‘Where’s the time gone? Making all this happen, he thought, staring at the forecourt where his beautiful red Jaguar sat in the sunshine. On the coat rack hung his Crombie overcoat, as the weather was still chilly. His oak desk, cluttered with bills and diaries, was solid and antique, and in a silver frame was a photo of Bebe as a baby.

He could still recall the thrill of holding her in his arms for the first time, red-faced, with a fluff of ginger hair. She flickered her eyes at him and he was lost, besotted, her slave. Every working hour was worth it just for her arms round him when he came home at night.

He’d snatched a glimpse of that article about Maddy in the Post when Gloria wasn’t looking and had cut it out. It was locked in his desk drawer. Then memories of birthdays in the Old Vic came flooding back: up the tree, throwing balloons, and those wonderful parcels of stuff from America, with all those comics.

He was glad the hostel was still being used. Trust her to think up a scheme. He’d sent some cash to the Hungarian relief appeal straight away.

Sometimes he lingered late in the office, putting off the moment when he must leave for Sunnyside Drive and Gloria, who would be made up to the nines, waiting eagerly to dish up supper, all airs and graces. Poor girl, she spent money like there was no tomorrow on contemporary wallpaper, rugs, fancy standard lamps, and then she’d spoil the effect by putting wax flowers in the window when they’d got a garden full of plants.

He’d suggested she go to flower-arranging classes, but was given one of those pained looks he knew so well and changed the subject.

Was this it? Was this all there was to marriage: a gleaming house, a pretty child, net curtains, and sex on Saturday night if he was lucky? What could have happened to make life so predictable?

Sometimes he felt as if he’d been trapped by his own ambition and drive. He wanted a wife and family to care for, but when he turned into the driveway his heart sank with dismay. That was unfair of him; to be disloyal to Gloria who’d never done him any harm.

He knew when he married her he’d get a simple girl from a rough background, thrown on a train by a selfish mother. She’d pulled herself up by the ankle straps, made a cosy home, dressed smartly. There was nothing about her he didn’t know. He’d rescued her when she was down and she’d been so loving to him.

They rushed into marriage too quickly, and Bebe was a honeymoon baby. Gloria had had a terrible delivery, the doctor said. If only there was a little lad to hand on the business to somehow. He didn’t see Bebe as a managing director. Nothing was turning out as he planned.

It was late and dark, the last of the guys had left the storerooms. But someone had forgotten to put the light out in their cubbyhole, the makeshift den that smelled of sawdust, axle grease and Swarfega, dirty towels and manly sweat from oily dungarees. It was not a place he went to, unless invited. There were pint mugs of tea with rims of stale milk waiting to be washed, newspapers and girly mags; the usual male clutter.

On the wall was one of those calendars that came in brown paper envelopes, by courtesy of tyre companies, exhaust fitters and car accessory companies.

What was it this time? he smiled. The calendar was years old. Wasn’t it bad luck to have one of those up on the wall, or was it bad luck to open next year’s too early? He flicked over the pages, glancing through the pictures of the poor cows posing, arms aloft, bums and tits on show. Nothing was left to the imagination.

Imagine having to do that for a living, he thought, but he thumbed through it just the same. Some of the poses were a bit close to indecency–Miss May…Miss June…and then his eyes stuck to Miss October. There were a few dried leaves covering her complete nakedness, but her ginger pubes and glorious red hair were decorated with berries.

Greg’s heart was thumping at the picture before him. It just couldn’t be…Gloria must have a double, but that sexy, knowing look he recognised so well…His wife’s face was staring up at him. It made him want to throw up. How could she have done this? It couldn’t be his Gloria, it just couldn’t. He tore the calendar off the wall, rammed it into his briefcase and headed for home via the Black Horse.

Bebe was staying up late to give her daddy the present. She was so excited and kept dashing to the window to see if the car was coming. Gloria kept looking at the clock, having made his favourite roast with all the trimmings, bought a fancy Victoria sponge cream cake, especially iced, and put candles on it. The parcel was wrapped in fancy paper, and the bird was getting dry in the oven.

Come on, come on, she thought, what’s keeping you? Had he had an accident? But someone would have telephoned. It was not like Greg to be late for his own birthday party. It was a school day and Bebe would have to go to bed soon. Then she heard the roar of his Jaguar, and Bebe jumped on the sofa.

‘He’s here! Shall I hide?’

‘Behind the sofa, quick, or he’ll see!’ laughed Gloria, relieved that the dinner was still salvageable.

She rushed to the door to greet him. The whisky fumes hit her as soon as it was opened.

‘Happy Birthday, Greg! You’re late; you know what day it is?’

‘Of course I bloody do! Thirty years into my life sentence,’ he snapped.

‘Don’t be like that…What’s up? You’re not that old,’ she replied, trying to reassure him.

He brushed past and stomped into the kitchen in a strop.

‘We’ve got the party all ready. Bebe’s been helping me,’ she added, seeing thunder on the horizon. What had gone wrong at work now?

‘I hope she’s in bed, that’s all I can say.’

‘No, she is…what is it? What’s got into you?’

‘This is what’s got into me!’ he yelled, producing the calendar, a grubby motor tyre annual calendar. ‘Look at Miss October. Do you recognise anyone?’ He shoved it into her face, dropping it on the floor, open. ‘You cow, you deceitful cow.’

‘Stop this…I don’t understand.’ Then she saw her face staring out from the floor, her body bedecked with leaves, and began to shake.

‘It is you, isn’t it?’

What could she say? ‘I can explain it…It was a long time ago,’ she whispered.

‘I can see that. You must have been barely out of school, and it was hanging in the lads’ den for anyone to see. The boss’s wife naked for all to see like a tuppenny tart!’

‘Greg, please, shush!’ Gloria pointed to the sofa through the dividing doors.

‘I’ll not shut up. You made a right fool of me. I thought you were different from all the others. All that innocence was window dressing. This is Ken’s work, isn’t it? How many more are there floating around?’

‘I don’t know! Oh, please, Bebe will hear. She’s listening.’

‘No excuses. Better she knows what sort of mother she has. You’re as bad as Marge. Blood will out. They always say redheads are hot for it!’

‘Gregory, please, calm down. I was desperate. I thought I was doing catalogue work. I was young and silly, and Ken Silverstone persuaded me to do things for fun and then he started to blackmail me and I was scared. I did what he told me. That’s why I left him. Please believe me, it’s the truth.’ She saw the look of hatred in his face and cowered from him.

‘Get out of my sight! You wouldn’t know the truth if it jumped up and bit you on the nose. Leave me alone!’

‘Daddy?’ Bebe poked her head up from behind the sofa. ‘Happy Birthday. We bought you a present. Come and open it. It’s a surprise.’ The child looked at him, puzzled. ‘Why are you so cross?’

‘I don’t feel like a birthday tonight, poppet. Perhaps tomorrow.’

‘But I made this card all by myself. Daddy, don’t be angry with Mummy. We want you to see our present.’ Bebe took his hand and dragged him to the parcel.

Gloria quickly stepped in to hide it. ‘Let Daddy wait until he feels better. We’ll save it for another day, Bebe. Time to go to bed now, come on.’ She had to avoid any more rows while the child was in the room.

‘But you said I could stay up and I want Daddy to have his birthday.’ Bebe was stamping her feet in a paddy of frustration.

‘Oh, let me open the damn thing then!’ Greg snarled, tearing at the paper.

‘Now’s not the right moment. Let’s leave it, Greg,’ Gloria pleaded but it was too late. He opened the cardboard to reveal the staged, posed portrait of Bebe and Gloria in all their finery, smiling in a gilded frame. Madonna and child it was not.

For a moment there was silence, and she hoped he’d be pleased, but Greg stared at it, and then with one roar of fury he put his fist right through the glass. ‘Take it away!’

Bebe was howling but Gloria was strangely calm. ‘Daddy’s not well. He’s upset. He didn’t mean to frighten you, love. Better go upstairs now, up the wooden hill to dreamland.’

In one act of defiance she turned on her husband. ‘How could you? That was so childish,’ she said, but there was no response. He was too busy looking for something to wrap round his hand.

Bebe was distraught at the sight of blood.

‘You can sleep in my bed tonight as a treat. Daddy will go in the spare room,’ Gloria ordered.

Greg was not going to sleep in their bed tonight, not stinking of whisky and with his bloodied knuckles.

When she came downstairs to face his fury she heard the roar of the engine and the front door was open. It was a relief to know he’d gone to cool off. Tomorrow she would try to explain again and then he’d see things in a different light.

Greg sped down the drive. It was late and he was drunk, heading onto the moor road. It was a clear starlit night with frost listening on the tarmac. He wanted to drive into the hills and forget those images forged into his brain. He wanted to burn the engine until she smoked. He wanted to punish the metal, to test his own strength and stamina.

Speed and timing, the perfect harmony of mind and body and machine, this was the holy trinity of rallying. Not tonight, though. Now he just wanted to race into the wind and forget all the mess down there, lose himself in the pure act of driving this beauty. Faster and faster, he drove through the night as if in a trance. This was the only way to release his fury, by taking it out on the metal, burning through the white-hot rage he was feeling.

He thought he was a man on top of the job but everything was built on shifting sand. How could he have been such a dunce? Gloria was never his princess, but now he knew her for little more than a common tart and in his rage he hated her for making a fool of him. He would not let her antics disturb his concentration. It was as if for the first time in years there was just him and speed. He smiled, thinking of his go-karts, jumping from that railway bridge, tearing around on a motor bike during the war. He was at his happiest when attached to wheels, not women. Wheels may puncture but they could be mended. The heart was not so easily repaired. Why were women so faithless, so deceitful? First Maddy, and now Gloria. Drive on…Don’t think about that now…Drive on!

Nothing compared to the simplicity of speed. Nothing could reach him here, just one man and the open road. It was perfect, the engine was powering and he could go on like this, forgetting all the night’s terrible revelations.

Then he saw the deer leap over the stone wall into his path and there was nothing he could do but pray.

It was Grace Battersby who saw the notice in the Yorkshire Post. ‘That’s not our Greg, is it?’ She pointed to the News in Brief. ‘“Farmer saves rally enthusiast hit by deer. The managing director of Byrne the Builders and rally driver, Gregory Byrne, 30, of Sunnyside Drive, in serious accident on the Pateley Bridge Road late last night.” He always was a devil for speed,’ Grace added. ‘Don’t look too good does it, Maddy?’

Maddy couldn’t concentrate for the rest of the day, wondering what hospital he was in or whether he was in fact still alive. Was Gloria with him? How her heart ached to go to him. If only Plum were here they could go together, but to go on her own was not appropriate. Every time she paused, his face would come into her mind. She rang his office and a worried secretary said they were operating but Maddy didn’t leave her name just in case. Speed was his weakness. She thought of the story of how his friends had carried him back in the old pram when he jumped from the railway bridge and that was the reason he was sent to the Old Vic as an ‘awkward evacuee’.

What was he doing racing round the hills in the middle of the night? They’d not seen each other for six years but she could recall every detail of that meeting in London.

As long as Greg was in this world, he’d always have a piece of her heart. He’d been her friend, no matter what Gloria thought, and friends needed friends when they were in trouble.

She penned a brief note to Gloria and asked if she and Grace might be permitted to visit him in hospital. The reply, when it came, was equally terse, just the address and ward number of the local hospital, and that it was too soon for visitors. There was no mention of his progress.

Maddy replied saying she’d be in Harrogate and intended to go to the hospital. On the day of her intended visit, she dressed with care, not as a former mannequin but as a country lady in a dogtooth-checked suit and Hèrmes scarf. Grace was too busy to be spared, but they’d known that all along. This visit would be combined with shopping for provisions for Brooklyn Hall and extra sheets from the linen shop in Harrogate.

Her heart was thumping as she drove the Morris Traveller estate over the Pennines across Blubberhouses to Harrogate and the hospital.

This was all new territory to Maddy, the outskirts of town was Gloria’s area. She knew visiting hours were strict, so it was important to be on time. The thought of coming face to face again with Gloria made her nervous, on top of worrying about Greg. What if he was unconscious, paralysed or worse? What if he didn’t want to see her?

Gloria was waiting in the hospital entrance, white-faced in a smart suit and hat, but her make-up couldn’t disguise pinched cheeks. There was a hunted wary look on her face when she saw Maddy had come alone.

‘How is he? I’m not too late?’ Maddy asked. ‘What happened?’

‘He’ll live–but it’s going to be a slow job. He smashed his pelvis and his leg. He might have to lose it but I’m afraid he’s not fit to see anyone yet. Only family, of course.’ She didn’t look at Maddy as she spoke. Not a good start, but Maddy ignored the comment.

‘But I’m an old friend. It might cheer him up to see another face.’

‘So, you know better than the doctors then, do you?’ Gloria snapped.

‘You must be so worried and so tired, how is the little one coping?’ said Maddy. Time to try a different tack.

‘She’s with the Aftons and not allowed to visit. Rules is rules. Perhaps it’s for the best. Bebe will only get upset when she sees him all plastered up.’

‘Is there anything I can do to help? I’m going to the shops later.’

‘Can’t keep away from the shops?’ There was a hard edge to Gloria’s comment.

‘Nothing like that. Just sheets for the hostel.’

‘So you’re Little Miss Plum now, ministering to the needy. We read it in the papers. Charity begins at home, I say. You look well on it. Filled out a bit since I last saw you…’

‘Gloria! It’s not like that at all–we’re only trying to help. Plum sends her love, by the way. I rang to tell her and she will write to Greg once we have his address. How did it happen…you haven’t said?’ Maddy was determined to find out more. ‘If I can’t visit let’s go and have a cup of tea, we need to talk,’ she said.

Gloria pointed to her blue car, climbed into the Triumph. ‘Follow me,’ she ordered, and they drove out to a tearoom near Ripley, parking side by side.

Maddy knew that this was about as close as she was going to get to seeing Greg now, and her heart sank. All this way for nothing, but she would glean as much news as she could and write to him. Gloria couldn’t stop a letter.

They sat down like two matrons, removing gloves, eyeing each other up like strangers.

‘Well, what really happened?’ Maddy said. It was time for talking straight.

‘We had a bit of a tiff. He drove off and hit this deer, rolled over and got trapped. It was late but Greg was always the lucky one. Some farmer came past and saw the mess and they got him out and over here quickly. He saved his life, but I never thought Bambi would make so much mess. You know how he likes to drive like a man possessed. He told everyone he was practising for the RAC Rally, but that’s not true.’

They circled around each other, eyeing each other up over the tea cups.

‘If there’s anything I can do…I only want to help.’

‘Oh, I know your game. You still fancy him, don’t you? I saw you at the Festival, all over him like a rash. Have you no pride?’

Maddy flushed. ‘What I feel or felt is none of your business. You didn’t hesitate to jump into my shoes, did you? You were the one keen for me to let him go. One guess why. Can’t I even be a friend to Greg now? What harm is there in that?’

‘I’m…’ Gloria hesitated, ‘…just jealous. You have a part of him I can never share. We’ve not been getting on lately…it’s my fault. I let him down. There, are you satisfied? There’s the truth of it. You know how he is when he gets mad; he takes out on the road. I drove him to it. Greg’s a strait-laced bloke, straight up and down, black or white. He sees things his way. He likes his women high on a pedestal like porcelain vases, unblemished, no cracks and faults. I did summat stupid, like you did…but with photos. Greg found a calendar with me on it and he went mad. I got given what I gave you. I know that now: what comes round goes round, Maddy. Now it’s my turn. I made a right mess of everything but I’m going to make it right again and I don’t want you interfering.’

They eyed each other as they sipped their hot tea.

‘I saw his face–when we met you on honeymoon. It crumpled when you left. I’ve never had him properly–his body, yes, but not his head. You will always be Miss High and Mighty to him. No matter what I do I can’t measure up, even though he thinks you chucked him. But there’s little Bebe to think of now.’ Gloria paused. ‘Go on, say it.’

‘Say what?’ Maddy replied, seeing fear in Gloria’s eyes.

‘I only got what I deserved…after what I did to you. They were lies I told you, lies I made up. If I tell you everything will you leave us alone?’

‘Tell me what?’ Maddy leaned forward, not believing what she was hearing.

‘Your baby was born dead…it never breathed. I panicked. I made it all up.’

There was a deafening silence as Maddy drank in her words.

‘And you let me go on believing I’d…? How could you? You blackmailed me, burdened me with the fear that I might have neglected the baby. How could you? I thought you were my friend. Why, Gloria?’ Maddy leaned over, wanting to punch her stupid face.

‘It was the only way to get what I wanted. Hadn’t you noticed I fancied the pants off him? When you brought him back I was so…jealous. You’ve got everything, Maddy Belfield, handed to you on a plate. I was young and I thought, all’s fair in love and war. I’m just like my mam after all. She’d told us lies to get shut of us…threw us on that train. She taught me to look after number one. I thought if I got Greg it would make up for everything.’

‘And did it?’

‘For a while, but then he found the smutty pictures and the look on his face…’

Maddy was too shocked to be sympathetic to this confession. ‘Have you any idea what you’ve done to all of us?’ she yelled, banging her cup on the table. The tearoom audience was silenced by the drama at table four.

‘Oh, yes, I have now. I’ve got everything and nothing. What’ll I do?’

‘Don’t ask me. You stole him for yourself and now you expect my pity? How you must have hated me, even when we were little. All those years you waited to pay me back for being a Belfield. I lost everything, or have you forgotten: my parents, my home, everything. How dare you? I trusted you. You were my friend and I was so ashamed of letting the family down. You knew I’d let him go, didn’t you? I couldn’t risk public shame. I thought you were my friend and all the time…Oh Gloria, what have you done? Well, now you have a beautiful home and a child, everything you wanted, and you expect me to feel sorry for you?’

The whole room was agog but Maddy didn’t care.

Gloria turned round, embarrassed. ‘It’s a house full of toys, not a home. Greg’s never in it,’ she whispered.

‘That’s not my problem,’ said Maddy, trying to contain her fury ‘Sort it out as best you can. I have my own life to live. It’s not the life I’d have chosen, but each day has its own rewards.’

‘So you don’t want him back, then? I thought you’d come to steal him away now he doesn’t want me. You can come again and see him, if you like,’ Gloria smiled, softening as if everything between them was all right again.

How childish the woman in front of her was, Maddy thought, this cheap stranger with her rouged cheeks and fancy earrings. How dare she suggest such a thing? It was hard not to walk out there and then. Maddy put on her gloves, making to go.

‘Oh, grow up, Gloria. Let’s get this straight. You’re his family now and I’m a stranger who will visit only by appointment. Why should I want him now? We can’t just turn the clock back and make everything hunkydory. At least you had the decency to tell me that I’m not a murderer!’

‘Hang on! I never said you were a murderer!’

‘You said I’d caused the baby’s death. It’s tantamount to the same thing.’

‘No, never. I just suggested perhaps…I had to make you let him go. You did the right thing, as I knew you would. You Belfields are so proper. We’ve been happy enough, Greg, me and little Bebe.’

‘Have you? Is that why he drove out and nearly killed himself?’ Maddy rose, knocking over her chair, wanting to be far away from those foxy eyes. ‘Tell Greg I was asking after him, and Plum will write to him, but I’ve heard enough!’

Every eye in the room was on them now. Gloria was blushing.

‘Sit down…sit down. How am I going to nurse him? What if he never walks again? What will it do to his business?’ Gloria was whining, her eyes wide with fear.

‘That’s your problem, not mine. Get off your backside and support him. That’s what real partners do in hard times. Take a lesson from some of my refugees. You should see what some of them are doing to help each other out, and they have nothing but each other. He’s your problem, not mine.’

‘Don’t be bitter, Maddy,’ Gloria said, putting on her gloves.

‘How dare you? You tricked me and now you have to live with what you’ve done and so have I. For better or worse, in sickness or in health, like Mrs Plum did all those years of putting up with Uncle Gerald’s cheating. At least she’s found Steve, and they’re such a team. Without their support I couldn’t have opened up the hostel again. Find your own way through, Gloria–you’re a big girl now. Get your friends to rally round.’

‘I haven’t got any real friends, just a few neighbours.’

‘You do surprise me.’

‘You were my forever friend,’ Gloria sighed.

‘And look how you treated me,’ Maddy sneered.

‘I’m sorry…’

‘It’s a bit late for apologies from you. We can’t go back, not ever. You told me I was the cause of my baby’s death. Wires crossed or not, how can I forgive you for that? At least you can tell me what really happened that night. Isn’t it time we squared this off once and for all?’ She stood waiting for the reply. ‘No more lies.’

‘The baby was born in a rush. It was too little, like a bird thrown out of the nest, glassy and still. I wrapped it in a teatowel and hid it. I was meaning to tell you but you were sleepy and sick, and I was scared. I wasn’t thinking straight.’ Gloria rose up to face her.

‘How do you live with yourself? All these years and here’s me thinking such terrible thoughts. It’s been like carrying a rock on my back, the fear that because I didn’t want this baby, it didn’t go to term…I threw it out of myself. That’s what I really feared. That I might do it again if I had another child.’ Maddy could barely contain herself.

‘I’m sorry. I just put it to the back of my head like you did. We both pretended it never happened. I didn’t know what real fear was like until Ken did the dirty on me and trapped me in a corner. It was a filthy place to be…now I know. I’m sorry.’

‘Words are easy to say. It’s what we do that shows the person we are. We both have to live with our mistakes as best we can. Being your friend was one of mine.’

‘But I didn’t mean to…don’t you see?’

‘Oh, don’t kid yourself. You must have envied me so much to tell me those lies. You took away my trust, my confidence. You ruined my chance of happiness…I have to go, I can’t listen to any more of this.’ Maddy rushed for the door.

‘Don’t go! Don’t you want to know what I did with the little one?’

Gloria chased after Maddy as she ran for the Morris, but Maddy didn’t stop to listen. If she turned round she might have killed the stupid woman.

‘Go away. Go back to Greg,’ she yelled from the car window. ‘He needs you. You need his forgiveness, not mine. He’s all yours now!’

‘But, Maddy, I have to tell you where I…’

Maddy was beyond hearing as she sped out of the car park, leaving Gloria shouting into the wind.