For a few moments, Tommy had felt as though his life was slipping away, but then had come the blessed relief of air. He had drawn in a lungful, then another, his chest heaving while Amy clung to him, crying with relief. His head was all over the place, yet the words Jeremy had said while pushing the pillow down on his face kept going around in his mind like a loop. He’d said that Bobby was his; that he was his father – but it couldn’t be true, it just couldn’t.
There was the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and then Phyllis appeared, holding Bobby in her arms, her expression fearful until she saw him. ‘Oh, Tommy, thank goodness. When I saw Jeremy driving off like a maniac, for a moment I thought … well … that something had happened to you.’ She paused then, taking in the scene before saying, ‘I found Bobby in his pram, uncovered, mewling, and you’re crying too, Amy. What’s going on?’
‘Oh, Mum, I had to put him down quickly,’ Amy sobbed. ‘I heard something going on, dashed up here and … and saw Jeremy trying to smother Tommy with a pillow.’
‘What! But why?’
‘I … I don’t know,’ Amy replied.
Still reeling with shock, Tommy croaked, ‘Can … can I have a drink of water?’
Amy poured it, her hands shaking as she held it out to him, and as he drank some she said, ‘I think I should ring the doctor.’
‘No … no, there’s no need. I’m all right now.’
‘I still don’t get it,’ Phyllis said. ‘Why did Jeremy try to smother you, Tommy? Was it some sort of game, the pair of you larking around or something?’
‘Some … something like that,’ Tommy replied, unable to believe that Jeremy had meant him any real harm, yet the things his brother had said still tumbled round in his mind. Bobby began to wail, and with his head thumping, Tommy wanted time to think, to make sense of it all. He wanted to be alone.
‘I think Bobby needs changing,’ Phyllis said. ‘I’ll take him downstairs and sort him out.’
It was a relief when she left, and wanting rid of Amy too, Tommy sought an excuse. ‘Amy, I could do with a cup of tea.’
‘Yes, all right,’ she said, bending down to pick up the shards of broken china on the floor before leaving.
Tommy sank back, and though he didn’t want to believe what Jeremy had said, he began to work out the dates. He’d come home from convalescence in May and Bobby had been born in January, early because Amy had fallen down the stairs.
There was a twinge of doubt then, but Tommy fought to push it away. Amy would never betray him, never; and anyway, he would never forget how he’d felt when Bobby was first placed in his arms, the overwhelming love and joy as he’d gazed in wonder at his son. Surely it wouldn’t have been possible to feel like that if Bobby wasn’t his?
Yet still there was that niggling doubt. Why did Jeremy think that he was Bobby’s father? Why would he think that if there had been nothing between him and Amy? It just didn’t make sense.
Amy went downstairs, still shaking with shock. Tommy had denied it, but she was sure that Jeremy had intended to kill him. She would never forget the horror of thinking that she’d been too late when she’d dragged the pillow from his face. She had cried out in fear, but only seconds later Tommy had heaved in a huge lungful of air, life returning to his body as she had clung on to him, sobbing her relief.
‘It still seems like a funny business to me,’ her mother said as she deftly changed Bobby’s nappy. ‘And how did that cup and saucer get smashed?’
‘I … I don’t know, Mum,’ she said, ‘but for now Tommy wants a cup of tea. Do you want one?’
‘Yes, all right,’ Phyllis agreed.
As Amy put the kettle onto the gas ring, her stomach was churning. She had seen the madness in Jeremy’s eyes, and what if he tried it again? What if in his obsession to possess her and Bobby he made another attempt on Tommy’s life?
With the tea made, she gave a cup to her mother and then carried one up to Tommy. His eyes were closed and as she placed the drink on his bedside cabinet, her eyes alighted on his prescription as she said softly, ‘Tommy, here’s your tea.’
He was asleep and didn’t respond so Amy picked up the prescription and crept out again, unaware that as soon as she left the room, Tommy’s eyes snapped open.
For the next half hour, Amy just watched, her mind still tangled with thoughts as her mother bathed then dressed Bobby. She’d insisted on taking the day off, and Amy was too emotionally drained to argue, just relieved to let her mother take over for a while.
‘There, now who looks like a proper Bobby dazzler,’ Phyllis said as she held Bobby out for inspection before putting him in his pram. ‘It’s gone nine fifteen and the chemist will be open now. I’ll take Bobby with me, as a bit of fresh air will do him good.’
The telephone rang and Amy rose to answer it, hardly recognising Celia’s voice. She sounded hysterical, babbling, her words disjointed, but upon hearing them, Amy’s knees almost collapsed from under her.
Somehow she managed to respond, and when someone else came on the line to say that Celia needed someone with her, Amy knew that with Tommy too ill to go, it would have to be her. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can,’ she said, and then replaced the receiver.
‘Amy, what’s going on?’ her mother asked anxiously.
Somehow Amy managed to say the words; saw her mother’s face drain of colour, and then with her feet dragging she went upstairs, knowing that before making arrangements to leave, she now had to tell Tommy that his brother was dead.
Celia had at last stopped crying, but there was a knot of pain in her stomach, as though a part of her had been ripped out. She didn’t look up at the sound of footsteps, but then heard Amy’s voice as her daughter-in-law said softly, ‘Come on, let’s get you home.’
Like a child Celia held Amy’s hand and allowed herself to be led outside to a waiting taxi, her eyes barely taking in her surroundings as they drove off. There was no sense of time passing, or distance, and Celia only became aware that she was still clutching Amy’s hand as they drew up in Lark Rise. Had Amy spoken to her in the taxi? Celia didn’t know, and then the next thing she knew she was in Amy’s front room.
‘Celia, I’m so sorry.’
It was Amy’s mother talking to her, but Celia found that she couldn’t respond. She walked past her and up the stairs, but then seeing Thomas the tears came again, flowing unchecked down her cheeks as she sat on the side of the bed. She leaned into Thomas and his arms wrapped around her.
‘Mum, how did it happen?’ Thomas asked when she was at last slightly calmer. ‘I only know that there was a crash.’
Celia saw that his cheeks were wet too and said, ‘I know little more than that; only … only what the police told me, that … that it seems Jeremy drove into the path of a lorry.’
They held each other again then, and Celia could feel Thomas shaking with emotion. He was all she had left now, her only son, and she clung to him as though she was drowning.