It was a dull, damp Monday morning. Daphne was the post office buying and sending off her postal order when a woman she half recognised came in. Daphne knew she’d seen her before but couldn’t place her. She stood just inside the door, brushing the rain from her coat, and was greeted with a cry of delight from behind the counter by Nancy Bright.
‘Jane!’ she cried. ‘Jane Shepherd, is that you? Lovely to see you, my dear. Home for a few days, are you? Your poor parents! They will be pleased to see you.’
‘Just for a couple of days, I’m afraid,’ answered Jane when she could get a word in edgeways. ‘Have to go back to Bristol before the end of the week.’
‘Well, they’ll love having you even if it is for such a short time.’ Hardly pausing for breath she went on, ‘I don’t s’pose you’ve met Mrs Felix yet, have you? Just moved into the manor, she has.’
‘Well, not just,’ Daphne corrected her. ‘We moved in just before Christmas.’ An eternity ago, she added silently.
‘Well, Mrs Felix, this is Jane Shepherd, you know about her poor brother Billy, of course—’
‘I just wanted some stamps,’ said Jane abruptly cutting off the flow of Nancy’s gossip.
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ Nancy said, and pulled open the counter drawer before turning to Daphne and saying, ‘Of course it was your husband what found him, wasn’t it, Mrs Felix? Dreadful, dreadful thing it were.’
‘Thank you, Miss Bright,’ Jane said frostily as she almost snatched the stamps before handing Nancy the money, and with that she turned on her heel and left the shop, allowing the door to slam shut behind her.
Daphne had by now slipped the postal order into its prepared envelope and she passed it across the counter, saying ‘For the post bag, please, Miss Bright,’ before she, too, hurried out of the door. Nancy looked with interest at the address before she put the envelope in the bag. She’d seen letters going there before and wondered who Mrs Higgins was.
Daphne found Jane standing outside, sheltering under an umbrella. ‘I’m sorry,’ Jane said, ‘I didn’t mean to be rude to you, but I can’t stand the woman and I certainly don’t want to talk to her about Billy. She’s a dreadful gossip, as I expect you’ve already discovered. Hope you haven’t got any secrets, because if Nancy Bright finds out, you may as well tell the whole village yourself!’
‘No, none,’ Daphne laughed and holding out her hand, said, ‘Daphne Bellinger. Pleased to meet you. Isn’t it a miserable day... again?’
‘It is,’ agreed Jane, and then she smiled and on impulse said, ‘I say, shall we go for a cup of tea at Sally Prynne’s?’
Daphne had not yet been to Ye Olde Tea Shoppe. She’d seen the sign but had thought it wasn’t the sort of place where the lady of the manor should be seen. However, she liked the look of Jane Shepherd, and she thought, well, if she wants to go there, why not?
‘All right,’ she said and they began to cross the green, but as they did so, they saw Caroline Masters going in with Charlotte and her children, and Jane turned away. ‘Perhaps not,’ she said. ‘It’ll be noisy with the children in there.’
‘Come home with me then,’ suggested Daphne. ‘Felix is out somewhere, so we’ll have the place to ourselves. We can light the fire and have tea and toast in front of it.’
‘Sounds heavenly,’ Jane said, and with their umbrellas bobbing above them, they hurried up the lane towards the welcoming warmth of the manor.
‘Felix!’ Daphne called as they came into the hall and shed their raincoats. But there was no reply. She’d been pretty sure he was out somewhere on the farm, but wanted to be certain before they settled down in front of the fire. It was ready laid and Daphne put a match to it before going out into the kitchen to put the kettle on. Jane followed her, eager to see the inside of the house. She had been there before, to a meeting with her mother, but only into the drawing room; she’d never penetrated the nether regions. As they waited for the kettle to boil, she looked round the kitchen, taking in the dresser fuller of crockery, the large scrubbed table, the shining copper pans hanging along a shelf and the range on which the kettle was beginning to whistle. There were a few breakfast dishes stacked up on the draining board of a deep Belfast sink, obviously awaiting attention.
Daphne caught her eyeing them and said, ‘I’ll do those later. I’m certainly not going to waste time with them now.’ She opened a bread crock and pulled out a loaf. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘I’m hopeless at cutting bread, you do it. Cut us a couple of slices each, we’ll toast them by the fire.’
As Jane did as she was asked, Daphne found the butter and some jam. She made the tea and then they put everything on a tray and carried it through to the drawing room, where the fire had taken hold nicely and was snapping and crackling, its flames leaping up the chimney. Daphne set the tray down on a table and picked up the toasting fork that stood at the fireside.
‘Here,’ she said, ‘you start toasting while I pour the tea.’
They sat companionably by the fire, drinking their tea and taking it in turns with the toasting fork.
‘I’m very sorry about your brother,’ Daphne ventured. ‘I saw you at the funeral, of course, but didn’t like to introduce myself there.’
‘Thank you,’ Jane said. ‘It was awful.’
‘Very difficult for your sister-in-law, being left with two small kids.’
‘Yes, but she’s not the only one. People seem to think of her and forget about my poor parents... and me.’
Jane was not quite sure why she’d opened up to Daphne, she’d only known her for half an hour, but somehow she wanted her to know. Felt that she could trust her.
‘Poor you,’ Daphne sympathised. For a moment companionable silence fell round them, each comfortable in the company of the other.
‘Are you quite settled in here?’ asked Jane as she spread her piece of toast with butter and jam.
‘Sort of,’ replied Daphne, ‘but I do miss living in London. Apart from during the war when I was posted to all different RAF bases, I’ve always lived there and I find the country too quiet by half... specially in this dreadful weather.’
Jane laughed. ‘This is only rain, Daphne. Wait till you’ve been here when it’s snowed! The whole village gets cut off!’
Daphne pulled a face. ‘Let’s hope it doesn’t snow then,’ she said, ‘or I’ll go mad, cut off from civilisation!’
‘Well, you can always come and visit me,’ Jane suggested. ‘I could show you round Bristol, what’s left of it after the air raids.’
‘Was it badly bombed?’ asked Daphne, with interest.
‘Some of it was,’ Jane says. ‘I work at the BRI, and some of it was very close.’
‘BRI? What’s that?’
‘Bristol Royal Infirmary.’
‘Bristol Royal Infirmary,’ echoed Daphne. ‘Wasn’t that where they took...’ She hesitated, realising that she was on delicate ground.
‘Billy,’ supplied Jane. ‘Yes, they brought him in and that’s where he died. Only,’ she added bitterly, ‘my sister-in-law didn’t bother to let me know he was there, in the hospital where I work, until it was too late.’
‘But that’s dreadful!’ sympathised Daphne.
‘Typical of her,’ shrugged Jane. ‘Thinks she’s the only one who loved him. Still,’ she said, changing the subject back to her earlier idea, ‘why don’t you come and visit me in Bristol one day when I’m off duty? I could show you round and we could do a bit of shopping.’
‘I’d love to,’ enthused Daphne. Anything to get out of this godforsaken village... though she didn’t put that particular thought into words; after all it was where Jane had been brought up, and Daphne was learning to think before she spoke. And anyway, she did like the idea of going to Bristol and having a look round the shops. Nothing like London, she thought, but there must be some worth visiting. ‘I’ll get the car and drive in one day. Felix won’t mind.’ She didn’t actually care if Felix minded or not, but she still liked to maintain the appearance of being a good wife.
It was about ten days later when Jane rang and said she’d got a day off the next day. ‘I know it’s short notice,’ she said to Daphne, ‘but if you’ve nothing else planned, we could go out for lunch somewhere... have a look round the shops?’
‘I’ll be there,’ Daphne said, and the next morning saw her setting off in the Standard.
They both enjoyed their day out. Jane took them to a small café in Whiteladies Road where they ate fish pie for lunch and then they wandered through the shops at the top of Park Street. Daphne had no money to spend and she looked longingly at the new fashions that were finding their way into the shops now that you no longer needed coupons for clothes, but she’d enjoyed Jane’s company and when she finally drove home again, she felt somehow invigorated by her breath of Bristol air.
It was the start of a new and unexpected friendship, but one Daphne was pleased to have made. Jane lived outside the tight community of Wynsdown, but she knew all about it, knew the people with their failings and their foibles, and she seemed happy enough to share these with Daphne. It was soon clear that she had little time for Charlotte. She had never liked her sister-in-law and had made no real effort to get to know her. She had resented the place Charlotte had taken in Billy’s heart, and felt shut out from his affections by their obvious devotion to each other.
‘And now he’s dead, it’s my parents who are having to step in and fill the breach,’ Jane said bitterly. ‘Charlotte this, Charlotte that. Babysitting the children so she can have some time to herself.’
That actually seemed quite reasonable to Daphne, she would expect the same if not more if she were in Charlotte’s situation, but it didn’t seem the moment to say so.
Jane, now qualified as a staff nurse, no longer lived in the nurses’ home. She had moved out to a tiny flat not far from the hospital, and it was there Jane and Daphne got to know each other properly, smoking and chatting over cups of tea and the occasional glass of wine from bottles that Daphne brought from Major Bellinger’s cellar. There were occasions, usually over a glass of the stolen wine, when she was tempted to tell Jane all about herself, about why she’d married Felix, about Janet and about her mother’s blackmail, but in the months she’d lived in Wynsdown, Daphne had been learning to keep her own counsel. So far she hadn’t given in to the temptation, but there were times when she felt such frustration living with Felix that she found herself biting back the words. Discretion, however, prevailed. She’d heard Jane dishing the dirt about others in Wynsdown and Daphne decided it was better not to divulge anything to her new friend yet... after all, you never knew, did you?
However, it was a friendship that was to grow and prosper over the coming months, and for different reasons was valued by each of them.
Jane had never felt anything for anyone as she felt for Daphne. From their first meeting she had felt a frisson of excitement. Daphne was so beautiful, Jane wanted to touch her, to touch her hand, her cheek, to stroke her hair. At first she’d felt a fool. She remembered the embarrassing crushes she’d had on one or two of the older girls at school, but then so had most of her classmates at some time or other. Being ‘cracked’ on someone was the usual expression used when discussing this.
‘Who’re you cracked on, Jane?’
‘Mary Broadbent, who’re you?’
‘Elspeth Rance, she’s just gorgeous!’
‘Elspeth Rance? Well, she is good at hockey, I suppose.’
‘Good?! She’s just brilliant... though Mary’s quite good as well.’
‘Who’s your crack, Annie?’
‘Beth Woods, I’d die for her!’
Conversations like these had been almost daily affairs when they were twelve and thirteen, but how, Jane wondered, could she feel the same about Daphne Bellinger at twenty-eight as she had about Mary Broadbent when she was twelve? It was ludicrous, but she did. Daphne had become her raison d’être. She had never had more than the odd casual boyfriend since she’d left school and had not enjoyed any of the intimacy to which such relationships led. She didn’t like being kissed or touched and now, suddenly, she ached for it. Daphne was the centre of Jane’s world and Jane longed for her love, because love it certainly was, to be reciprocated.
For her part, Daphne was fascinated by Jane. She was a strange mixture. She had an important job and clearly she was very good at it. She didn’t talk about the hospital much but you couldn’t be a staff nurse in a big hospital like the BRI, Daphne reasoned, if you didn’t know what you were doing. In other ways she seemed so forthright, so direct in her comments about her family and particularly about Charlotte, but all this, Daphne sensed, was a cover, a cover for something else, and she was intrigued.
As their friendship had deepened Jane had found herself fantasising about Daphne, wishing she could see her naked, run her hands over her body, wishing that Daphne would, in turn, touch her; touch her as she’d always disliked when it was a man who put his hand on her arm, let alone her knee, or worse, her breast. Now, the thought of Daphne’s hands on her breasts made them tingle in aching expectation. She longed to lie on a bed with Daphne, both of them naked, skin to skin; legs entwined, lips locked, hands roaming. She wanted Daphne to herself. She hated Felix for being married to her. Daphne obviously didn’t love him. It was clear to Jane from the odd comment that Daphne didn’t enjoy the physical side of their marriage, and Jane longed to put that right. She had never had a full physical relationship with anyone, man or woman, but she knew in her heart that if only Daphne would let her, she could bring her to life in her arms. She could stir her to the very core, as Jane was stirred simply thinking about it. When they were together Jane was as happy as she’d ever been in her life, when Daphne went home to Felix, Jane was left with an aching emptiness, with only her own fumblings to bring her relief.
As the time passed, Daphne could see that Jane wanted a deeper relationship than their original, simple friendship, but she held back. She was no novice to such ideas. During the war in the WAAFs, she had seen girls move on from friendship to love and sex. She tried it herself on occasion, but without any serious intent. She realised that some women found her desirable, but she hadn’t encouraged them; she’d been out to catch a rich husband. She’d set out to dazzle the men and she wanted no suspicion that she was anything but strictly heterosexual.
Now, however, she had caught her husband and found his attentions more and more distasteful. She didn’t want children, and their lovemaking became less and less frequent. She had no idea if Felix chose to take himself elsewhere for sex, she thought not, but she didn’t care one way or the other. What she wouldn’t do was release him from a sterile marriage. She didn’t want him, but she did want what came with him: a comfortable life, position and money. They were rubbing along well enough. With the aid of Mavis Gurney she ran the house and made sure Felix couldn’t complain about his everyday needs.
Daphne’s friendship with Jane gave her an escape from the confines of her marriage and from the village. An evening at the cinema or a shopping trip with Jane were a welcome return to what had once been reality, and their friendship flourished.