Shameful Secrets on Coronation Close, page 22
‘Misapprehension,’ Doreen snarled. ‘What kind of word is that, you posh little tart?’
Inside, Jenny was fuming. It took a good deal of effort to rein in what she really wanted to say, but she had every intention of standing up for herself.
‘Robin is out delivering furniture. I’m only here part-time to serve in the shop and sort out the accounts. He has no one else.’
She emphasised the last words. Doreen could be here if she desired to do so.
Doreen sucked in her lips until they’d all but disappeared. Red spots appeared on her cheeks. The sucked-in lips suddenly pursed.
‘Well, don’t make yerself too comfortable. The way things are going ’e won’t be able to afford to pay you. Not once ’e’s paid me what ’e owes. We do ’ave two kids, you know.’
‘Precisely. And those children need to be fed and provided for. That’s why he needs to work and he works very hard. He pays me for what I do – which is purely helping out in the shop and doing the paperwork. Now, is there anything else I can help you with? If not, I am rather busy.’
‘I wants some money. There’s some in that cash drawer there.’
A cloud of powder left her chin as she jerked it towards the drawer just beside Jenny’s hip.
Jenny placed her hand protectively over the battered wood of the cash drawer. ‘I can’t give you anything without his permission. The money doesn’t belong to me.’
Doreen drew in her chin. Her eyes were blazing. ‘I’ve a right to what’s in there.’
‘No you don’t. You’ve only a right to what Robin gives you.’
‘I’m his wife. Hand some over.’
Jenny shook her head. ‘No. I can’t. What’s owing is between you and Robin. As I’ve just told you, I don’t have the authority to give you anything. You have to discuss it with him.’
‘You bitch! Give me my money.’
‘No.’ She was adamant. Nothing Doreen Godwin could do or say would make her budge.
A glove-covered finger pointed directly at her face. ‘You’ll be sorry. I’m warning you. You’ll be bloody sorry.’
‘I already am. Today started so well. Good day, Doreen. You know where the door is. Now, please leave.’
Doreen sucked in her breath. Perhaps she might have stayed longer, but Cath chose that moment to come in, her face cheery and a bag of shopping swinging in each and.
‘Thought I’d come in to keep you company. Any chance of a cuppa?’
Not at all aware what she’d interrupted, Cath was all smiles. A venomous look from Doreen wiped it from her face.
‘Is summut wrong? Am I interruptin’ somethin’?’
Cath glanced nervously from Jenny to Doreen.
Jenny set her face firm. ‘No, Cath, you’re not. This lady is just going.’
Doreen’s jawline waxed and waned as though she was chewing over the words. Her eyes glittered like chips of black jet.
Finally, she snarled, ‘I’ll be back.’
With a toss of her head and in a fume of loose face powder, she headed for the door. The bell clanged wildly above it as she tugged it open and sent it crashing against the wall.
Cath tucked in her chin and pronounced, ‘Well, she don’t seem very ladylike.’
‘You’re right about that.’
Cath cocked an eyebrow. ‘She didn’t seem to like you much. What ’ave you done to deserve that?’
Jenny sighed. ‘Took pity on Robin.’
Cath gasped, eyes round as gobstoppers. ‘Is that ’is wife?’
She stepped a fair pace as she followed Jenny through to the small kitchen at the back of the shop.
Jenny threw the fact that she was over her shoulder. In her estimation, Doreen Godwin didn’t deserve her attention, but goodness knew where things might have gone if Cath hadn’t come barging in.
The kettle went on the gas and the cups and saucers sat waiting on the draining board. The steam from the kettle misted the windows. Chair legs squealed across the cracked linoleum when Cath dragged it out.
‘I’m all ears,’ she said, waiting there, hands clasped tightly together on the table, leaning slightly and patiently, waiting for Jenny to tell her more.
Jenny clenched her jaw, determined to keep anything she said to the minimum.
‘She doesn’t like the fact that I’m working for Robin but doesn’t want to do anything to help him herself.’
‘But he’s her husband?’ Cath gasped. Devoted to her husband Bill, she sounded shocked to the core. Jenny had no doubt she would work her fingers to the bone if Bill required it of her.
‘She doesn’t quite see it that way,’ said Jenny as she placed the teapot next to the cups, covering it with a knitted tea cosy.
Whilst pouring milk into the cups, she listened to Cath hold forth about how she couldn’t believe that any woman could refuse to support her husband in whatever he did.
When Jenny told her they were separated, Cath’s jaw dropped.
‘No!’
Like most people, Cath was of the opinion that marriage lasted forever. Grin and bear it was the predominant attitude.
‘Is she gone ’ome to ’er mother?’
Jenny shook her head and sipped her tea. Should she tell her some semblance of the truth, or the whole truth. She decided to keep it short and simple, though truthful.
‘I don’t know for sure, but I think she’s got another man in her life. Perhaps more than one.’
If Cath was shocked before, she was doubly so now. ‘Well I never!’
She sat back in the chair, face cupped in both hands, metal curlers rattling as she shook her head from side to side in disbelief
‘She wanted money,’ said Jenny. ‘According to Robin, she only turns up when the alimony is due – housekeeping,’ she explained, on seeing Cath’s questioning frown. ‘He has to give her so much a week to keep her and the two children.’
‘Does he ever see them?’
‘Yes. But mostly he must visit them. She only occasionally allows them to come here and then only for the day. She insists they stay for just a couple of hours and then come home. He must stop work and take them back to her in the van. As if it’s not hard enough on him…’ Her voice petered out and she realised how it must sound. ‘I feel sorry for him. That’s why I agreed to help him out.’
Cath shook her head dolefully.
‘She wants him but doesn’t want anyone else to have him. Not that it’s anything like that,’ Jenny said quickly. ‘As I said, I just feel sorry for him. Oh well,’ she sighed. ‘There’s nothing I can do. I’ll tell him when he gets back, but I really should get back to work.’
‘Then I’ll leave you to it. I’m off to Rigby’s now,’ said Cath. ‘I want a couple of skeins of double knit to make Bill a new jumper.’
After she’d gone, Jenny stood with her back leaning against the draining board musing about her feelings. Did she feel genuinely sorry for Robin or was it more than that?
Whatever her feelings, one thing was for sure. In her heart of hearts, she knew this would not be the last visit of Doreen Godwin. Doreen would keep Robin dangling on a hook, demanding money whilst taunting him with access to the two children. What would the next visit be like? Jenny didn’t know. All she could do was cross that bridge when it came.
On Robin’s return from a delivery, she told him all about it.
His look soured, eyed fixed on the floor. On raising them, he looked directly at her. ‘I should never have married her. If I hadn’t been on the rebound, I never would have.’
‘You were on the rebound?’
A new softness came to his eyes. ‘Yeah, Jenny. But I don’t think the girl noticed.’
His smile was sad and his eyes held hers.
Feeling her face warming, she turned away, knowing she was the girl he was referring to.
Doreen was livid. She remained livid all the way home on the bus and her temper hadn’t improved by the time she got back to the rooms she rented in Dover Place, Stokes Croft. It was further exasperated when her son, Simon, asked when he could next visit his father.
Her first reaction was to clip him around the ear and threaten to send him to bed with no supper. Her second was to rub at his reddening ear, kiss the top of his head and tell him that she would think about it.
A plan was forming. The presence of an attractive woman running the shop in her husband’s absence had unsettled her. To put it mildly, she was jealous. The fact that she played the field – and was paying no rent to the landlord in lieu of services rendered – was beside the point. Gerald was her uncle, but even when she was younger, he’d always had a soft spot for her. She could play him like a piano, knowing the right keys to press in a man with a big ego and money in the bank. The kids had known other uncles, but this one really was related by blood, though Doreen chose to overlook the fact. He had money, treated her like a queen and that was all that mattered.
This wasn’t the only property he owned, though was probably the one in the best condition. Some of the others were rank tenements where residents put up with crumbling plaster, draughty window frames and vermin of every description.
Gerald doted on her and she’d liked their arrangement, the children with her and her husband at a distance. However, she hadn’t allowed for jealousy. She’d told herself that she had no affection for Robin and didn’t want him anywhere near her. However, she had not counted on Jenny Crawford helping him run the shop. She remembered her when they were younger, the strings she’d pulled to get Robin away from Jenny – not that the silly girl had seemed to notice. She’d been besotted with Roy Crawford.
Choosing the right moment, she’d tuned into Robin’s desire for Jenny. She’d manipulated him at the right time. In the throes of strenuous lovemaking, she knew that, in his heart of hearts, he hadn’t been making love to her, but Jenny. Not that she cared. Claiming to be pregnant, she’d got him to marry her. The fact that their daughter hadn’t been born until much later than nine months was neither here nor there. She had a ring on her finger and was married to the man she’d thought she’d loved.
Over time, both her tastes and her aims in life had changed. She wanted everything that money could buy and didn’t want the humdrum existence of a wife and mother. She wanted glamour, nights out and a steady stream of money. She didn’t really want Robin, but when Ethel, who’d also been at school with them, had mentioned seeing him and Jenny together, her blood had boiled.
Gerald took care of her, provided a roof over her head and a small amount of housekeeping. Robin supplied the rest.
Whilst Gerald was shaving, getting ready to take her out to the pub, she contemplated the plan that had so visibly formed in her mind.
Having made the decision, she told her children to sit down and, with great deliberation, divided a Fry’s Five Boys between them.
‘I’ve got something to ask you,’ she said, smiling and feeling pleased with herself. ‘How would you like to stay with yer dad for a few days. He’s got two spare beds. How would that be, do you think?’
She already knew what their answer would be and couldn’t help congratulating herself at the deviousness of her plan.
Their response was ecstatic, their faces bright with enthusiasm. Their voices rose in unison. ‘Yeah! Yeah!’
The smile on her face was as lean as the one in her eyes. She had purpose in what she was doing.
‘I’ll get in touch with yer dad and tell ’im you’ll be staying for a few nights. Are you very excited?’
They nodded their heads vigorously, the dear mites seemingly unable to believe their luck.
‘Just one thing,’ she said, her tongue gliding over the thick lipstick she had only latterly applied. ‘I want you to tell me all about how it was when you get back.’
‘Yeah, yeah!’
‘Is that a promise?’
The same response.
‘Cheers,’ Doreen said later when she was in the saloon bar of the Black Cat with Gerald.
‘You look like the cat that got the cream,’ he said to her. ‘What’s to celebrate?’
‘A few days to ourselves,’ she replied, cosying up to him, her smile full of promises.
Yes, they would have some time to themselves, but most of all if she played her children right, she would know all that she needed to know about Robin and Jenny Crawford.
28
The woman peered at her from beneath a pile of unruly hair as fine as thistledown, as ragged as a bird’s nest. A scruffy hat, long past its best, crowned the whole lot. Around her neck, she wore a knitted scarf, its ends tucked into the pockets of a hand-knitted cardigan of the same sludge-brown colour.
‘Are you looking for someone?’
‘Just walking,’ Thelma replied and continued walking rather than get into a conversation about her purpose being there.
She had circled the same small crescent a few times. Until now, she’d not noticed that she was being watched.
The layout was like old villages surrounding a green. The council much favoured the concept. The front doors of each house were painted corporation green. To the side of the door was the living-room window. Up above were a large and a small window of the front bedroom.
Most of the front gardens boasted nothing more than a patch of overgrown grass and the ragged growth of privet hedges tumbling between tidier hedges. Some showed signs of being tended by a confirmed gardener, flower beds full of summer blooms. Only one had a selection of stone garden gnomes. Whatever colour they had once been was long gone.
Three times her steps had faltered outside the house she believed was the home of the man who had attacked her back in January.
She’d determined to accost the man’s wife and tell her what he had done. But to what end? Would she tell the woman what had happened? Confronting her would not be easy. In her mind, she concocted the words she thought she might say – ‘Excuse me, but your husband raped me. Did you know he did things like that?’
She gasped when a cat suddenly ran across her path.
To her great relief, the raggedy woman who’d been watching her had disappeared.
Whilst catching her breath, she fixed her gaze on a profusion of red roses squeezing through the evergreen leaves of the customary privet hedge. This hedge was one of the neater ones – clipped into straight lines and box like. It was his garden. Or was it? Was he the keen gardener or was the neat hedge, the explosion of red roses, the wife’s particular interest?
‘Pretty ain’t it.’
Thinking herself alone, the voice took Thelma by surprise. She hadn’t thought there was anyone around.
The speaker suddenly appeared in the gap allowing for the gateway between the tall boxy hedges. The woman was barely tall enough to look over the gate. Her face and form were fragile and birdlike. Her eyes too reminded Thelma of a bird, brightly darting around like a robin or blackbird in search of a grub or a snail.
‘Yes,’ said Thelma with breathless enthusiasm. ‘They caught my attention. I do love red. Red roses, red berries, red dresses, red hair.’
The woman beamed. ‘I like colour all the year round. I’d let them take over the whole hedge if I could, but Sam, my husband, won’t hear of it. He likes privets, says it keeps our place private. Spends all his weekend keeping it in shape. Even in winter.’ She laughed a strange nervous sound. ‘He do like us to be private.’
‘Everyone likes their own privacy,’ said Thelma.
Suddenly she felt guilty about intruding. Not for its own sake, but because she was now getting a good look at the woman, Beryl Hudson. The urge to tell his wife all had been strong but that was before Thelma had seen her. At sight of her, at surmising her affliction, the anger she’d felt was somewhat subdued.
Thelma could now see that her first impression of the woman being small of stature had been wrong. The woman might once have been a little short, but nothing like she was now. Her spine was curved, the most severe form of dowager’s hump that meant she was bent almost double. Twisted fingers, like twigs laid on their side, gripped the top bar of the garden gate.
‘It sounds as though he keeps it all neat and tidy for you. You’re very lucky.’
An unreadable response flickered in the woman’s eyes and was gone.
‘Yes. He knows I don’t like people staring. They can’t see me behind tall hedges. He does most of the garden, though I do tend my flowers – seeing as I’m almost level with them.’ She laughed in a way that tugged at the heart, as if gazing at flowers was recompense for a curved spine.
‘You don’t get many visitors?’ Thelma forced herself to sound cheerful.
Beryl tried to shake her head but settled instead for saying that, no, she didn’t get visitors. ‘Besides my husband, you’re the first person I’ve spoken to in weeks. Except for the milkman and the baker.’
‘You don’t go shopping locally?’
Again, an attempt to nod. Thelma worked out that Beryl’s curved spine prevented her from nodding or shaking her head, but the habit of trying to do so remained.
‘No. He gets his sister to shop for us. She gets what we need and delivers it.’
‘Well, that must be a big help.’
‘I spend my time knitting. My fingers are all thumbs most of the time, but I still manage to do a bit of knitting. Only small items nowadays, like potholders, but it keeps me occupied.’
‘It must do.’
‘Are you married?’
‘Widowed.’ Thelma managed a woeful smile, determined it would be the only information she would divulge. To give more would be dangerous. ‘And your husband. Sam. Where does he work?’
‘The tobacco bonds down on the Cumberland Basin.’
The moment the words were out Thelma was overcome with the memory of his smell: raw tobacco and tobacco dust as much as chain-smoked cigarettes.
Her breath caught in her throat but was expelled with surprise when Beryl said, ‘Fancy coming in for a cuppa?’
The bird bright eyes were full of pleading and Thelma immediately felt sorry for her. Loneliness deserved her pity. Though common sense urged her to refuse, curiosity won the day.
