Unspoken: A story of secrets, love and revenge, page 1
Unspoken
A story of secrets, love and revenge.
T. A. Belshaw
Copyright © 2020 T.A.Belshaw
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Cover design by: Cover design by: J.D.Smith Design http://www.jdsmith-design.com
Many thanks to my editor, Maureen Vincent-Northam without whom this book would never have been completed.
For Doreen. I miss you.
Chapter 1
Jess
‘Darling, I’m home.’
Calvin’s cheery voice wafted across from the front door through the passage and into the open plan lounge/diner where Jessica Griffiths was just finishing washing up last night’s dinner plates. She heard the cupboard door in the passage slam shut as Calvin deposited his golf clubs. A few moments later he breezed into the lounge.
‘I made two over par today.’
‘Well done!’ said Jessica with more enthusiasm than she really felt. ‘You’ll hit that level par score before too long.’
Calvin almost purred.
‘That bloody Liam Watt put me off by coughing on the last tee or I might have made it today.’
A look of searing anger appeared across his face. ‘I’ll get my own back next time. Two can play at that game.’
He stood behind Jessica, put his arms around her waist and nuzzled her neck.
‘Perfume?’
‘It’s only a dab,’ said Jessica defensively.
‘What are the rules, my darling?’ Calvin’s voice dropped an octave.
Jessica held her breath.
The rules?
‘I don’t wear perfume unless we’re going out together,’ she replied.
‘That’s my girl.’ Calvin’s hands ran over Jessica’s stomach and up to her breasts. He kneaded them softly.
‘Come on, love, on the sofa, let’s have some fun.’
Jessica broke free and turned to face him.
‘I don’t have time for that, much as I’d like to. I have to go out.’
Calvin stared hard at her, his voice stern.
‘Out? Where is out?’
‘It’s Wednesday, Calvin. I always go to Nana’s on Wednesday. You know I do.’
His face softened.
‘Ah, of course, got to keep on the right side of the old gal eh? She can’t have that much time left and she’s worth a small fortune.’
He patted her on the backside. ‘Go and sow the seeds, my darling. We might get the flat bought for us and a bit to spare.’
Jessica said nothing. She picked up her cardigan and car keys and walked across the lounge.
‘See you in a couple of hours.’
‘Oh, Jess,’ he called.
‘Yes?’
‘Wash off the perfume before you go.’
Jess drove across town wiping her eyes every few minutes. The tears were a mixture of embarrassment and anger. Why did she allow herself to be treated like this? She was, in every other aspect of her life, a strong, intelligent, independent woman. When it came to Calvin however…
She loved him, he was handsome, he was clever, he possessed a quick wit, in fact that was the thing that had drawn her to him initially. Nowadays though, he saved it for friends, strangers and acquaintances, and used it less and less in her company.
He was a narcissist; she was almost certain of that. Everything was always about him. Nothing was ever his fault. Every misfortune he suffered, no matter how trivial (the golf story from this morning for instance), was a personal slight on him, his character, or, it was an underhand attempt to make him look stupid or to stop him succeeding in life.
Jess tried to drag her thoughts away from her own personal misery and settled them on Nana, Alice, her soon to be Centenarian Great Grandmother.
Alice was, to an outsider, grumpy, self-centred and aloof, but Jess knew a different side to her.
‘We are two peas in a pod,’ Alice told her frequently. ‘My mirror image, my Doppelganger.’
It was true. They were extremely alike, when you took into account the generation gap. Alice had shown Jess some old black and white photographs from the nineteen-forties when she was in her early 20s, pretty much the same age as Jess was now, and the likeness was remarkable.
Alice, at ninety-nine and eleven months, was as age-worn as she should be but that classic beauty still remained. The bone structure, the smile (when it reluctantly appeared) and the eyes, flashing with annoyance or lighting up with a joyous glint, that she was sure, her own eyes couldn’t match.
Nana lived in a two-hundred-year-old farm house that nestled snugly in an acre of overgrown land.
The farm had once covered a hundred acres but Nana had sold plots off over the years to builders, the council (for a football pitch), and some individual buyers who fancied a self-build.
All of this had brought in plenty of money but had also brought suburbia into what was once an expanse of greenery. Alice would have been condemned by the environmental lobby for enriching herself by such means and indeed, Jess herself would not have been happy with the result, but this was all history. Nana wouldn’t give a damn for the Green lobby anyway. She appeared, on the face of it at least, to be an old-fashioned woman, with outdated views. Not that they had ever discussed modern day concerns. Jess thought it might be time they did.
She left the main road that ran through the town, turned left down a narrower road with bungalows, the sports field and a few larger, modern family houses and pulled off the road onto an asphalt drive. She sat silently for a moment then gave herself a mental slap.
Come on, Jess, pull yourself together. Happy face for Nana.
She got out of the car, took in a deep breath, put on her best smile and headed for the front door.
Chapter 2
Alice
The ray of late autumn sunlight eased its way through a narrow crack in the vertical blind and reflected itself via a polished, metallic likeness of Marylin Monroe, onto the sleeping face of Alice Mollison.
The old woman screwed up her face, blinked a few times, then called to her carer, Gwen, who was busying herself making sandwiches for Alice’s lunch. Gwen called in twice a day; morning, to get Alice out of bed, dressed, watered and fed, and in the evening to get her tea and into her night clothes.
Alice slept in a bed in the corner of the room, the stairs being a mission too far nowadays for the soon to be Centenarian.
Gwen came through from the kitchen.
‘What is it, my lovely?’
‘Can you shut that bloody sunlight off? It’s burning out my corneas.’
Gwen stepped across the room and adjusted the blind.
‘How’s that? We shouldn’t really be complaining about the sun coming out. We’ve had weeks of rain. I’m taking my Gareth out for a walk in the park this afternoon. You don’t know when we’ll see it again. I think—’
‘It felt like a laser beam on my eyelids,’ Alice interrupted. ‘It’s still hot now; here, feel.’
Gwen went back to her sandwich making.
‘Jessica will be here soon, won’t she? It’s Wednesday.’
Alice brightened. Jessica was her great granddaughter, a kindred spirit. She was a clone of Alice when she was that age. She always looked forward to her company. She was bright, engaging, and an aspiring novelist to boot. She read pieces of her work in progress to Alice at least once a week. Sadly, the novel that Jessica knew was inside her had yet to surface. Her laptop was filled with half-finished manuscripts, story ideas and plotlines. She liked to be called Jess but Alice wouldn’t comply with her request.
‘Jessica is the name on your birth certificate, so Jessica, you remain,’ she had said.
Alice turned to her left and took a small make-up mirror from the drawer in the narrow, walnut, side table. She studied her face intently.
‘Not bad for almost a hundred,’ she mused. She turned her head this way and that. ‘If you can see past the folds of wrinkles and liver spots.’
In her youth, Alice had been a beauty. Everyone said so. Not the filler-assisted beauty of the present day, more of a classic beauty, like the wartime film star Rita Hayworth, with whom she had been favourably compared.
‘Good legs, good bust, nice arse and a face to die for,’ as Ada Blunt, the landlord’s wife of The Old Bull, had once described her. ‘She’ll come down to earth with a bump,’ she had added, as though she was a clairvoyant.
Alice still had a good head of hair, albeit an almost translucent white. It fell to just below the nape of her neck and was swept back at the sides, held in place with hairpins. She patted it into shape and returned the mirror to the drawer.
She sighed. She hated old age and everything it brought with it, even though she had been extremely lucky with her health. There had been no major illnesses, no cancers, no eye problems, not since she had had the laser surgery at least. There had been no hypertension, no real problems with osteoarthritis, and thankfully, best of all, no Alzheimer’s or Dementia. Alice’s mind was sharp as a tack. When she was awake that was. Her ‘forty winks’ were becoming more
She eased herself up in her chair, reached behind and adjusted the two cushions that had become a permanent feature as Gwen returned to the room carrying a plate of sandwiches and a flask of tea.
‘There you go, my lovely. That should see you through to this evening. I’m sure Jessica will get you anything you need in between.’ She pointed to the commode that sat in the corner opposite the bed. ‘Would you like to go before she gets here?’
Alice grimaced. The commode was the thing she despised most about old age. She’d give half of what was left of her life to be able to use a proper flushing toilet. She had a stairlift to get upstairs but no longer had the strength in her legs to get her there, even with her walker.
‘Have you ever seen me on the commode, even once in all the time you’ve been coming here?’ she asked.
‘No, but I just thought I’d ask. Just in case. There’s a first time for everything,’ Gwen replied.
‘I’m neither immobile nor incapable,’ Alice retorted. ‘Even Jessica doesn’t get to see me defecate or urinate. I do have some private moments, few as they are.’ Alice continued as though Gwen hadn’t spoken.
The carer picked up her bag and walked to the lounge door.
‘See you tonight then. I’m off to see old Mr Hathersage now, bless him.’ Ben Hathersage was bedbound. Gwen always added the epithet whenever she spoke about him. ‘Bed bath today.’ She shuddered. ‘That won’t be pleasant, he’s incontinent.’
‘Well, you always seem to want to watch me poo,’ said Alice, with a little glint in her eye.
Gwen turned away. ‘See you later then.’
She stopped and turned as Alice called her name. The old woman smiled a short smile and nodded to the carer. Gwen winked, nodded back in acknowledgement and walked along the passage towards the front door.
‘Cranky old bugger,’ she said, chuckling to herself.
Alice adjusted the cushions again and looked up at the clock. She despised that almost as much as the commode. All too frequently these days, she’d sit and watch it tick her life away as she listened to Classic FM on the new DAB radio that Jessica had bought her for her ninety-ninth.
‘Damn clock. Damn time.’
The clock was saved from further abuse when Gwen suddenly appeared again.
‘Look who’s here,’ she announced, her voice full of surprise.
‘Clark Gable?’ Alice asked.
‘No, silly.’ Gwen gave a little laugh. ‘It’s Jessica.’
Gwen backed away and Jess appeared in the doorway. Her chestnut curls fell around her shoulders. She wore mid-blue skinny jeans, a black top covered with a thigh-length cardigan. On her feet were open toed sandals, and a large canvas shoulder bag sat against her hip.
Her face was clear of make-up. Not even a hint of mascara. Alice noted that her eyes were puffy. She had been crying. Again.
When she smiled her blue eyes lit up. She turned her head back as the front door closed. ‘Bye, Gwen,’ she said, and waved.
Jess almost bounced into the lounge, dropped her bag at the side of an old-fashioned, lion’s-foot, coffee table and stepped quickly to Alice’s side. She put her arm around her shoulders and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
‘Mmmm, you smell of lavender. How’s my favourite Nana,’ she asked.
‘I’m the only Nana you have, dear. The other one couldn’t last the distance.’
Jess laughed. ‘You’re a wicked old hag. Would you like some tea, I’m parched.’
Alice pushed herself up from her chair and grabbed at her walker. ‘Close the kitchen door behind you and give me ten minutes, will you, Jessica. I’m desperate for a pee.’
Ten minutes later, Jess tapped on the door and eased it open an inch.
‘Have you finished?’
‘For now, but I’ll be going again soon if you keep forcing all this tea down me.’
Jess pushed open the door with her knee and carried in a tray holding a flowered china tea pot and a matching china cup, milk jug, sugar bowl and a brightly coloured mug. She set it down on the table and sat in the arm chair opposite Alice.
‘I’ve never once heard you refuse a cup of tea,’ she said. ‘I think you have PG Tips in your veins, not blood. That’s why you’ve lived so long.’
She leaned forward, poured the tea, added two heaped spoons of sugar, a dash of milk and handed it to Alice with a courtesy.
‘Tea is served, Ma’am,’ she said.
Alice took a sip and nodded approvingly. She looked over her cup at Jess.
‘Have you been crying, young lady?’
Jess bit her lip. Nothing got past Nana.
‘It’s just a silly thing,’ Jess replied. ‘An old song on the radio, I always get emotional when I hear it.’
Alice decided to let it go.
‘No story today? Weren’t we riding aboard an old tea clipper last week? I want to know what happens to Abel and his intended. They’ve been apart too long. It’s time they were wed.’
Jess studied her mug intently. ‘I’ve sort of shelved that. It wasn’t going to plan.’
Alice laughed and choked on her tea. Jess was at her side in an instant, hanky in hand, wiping the tea from her chin, the other hand reaching behind to pat her back.
Alice waved her away. ‘Don’t fuss, I’m fine.’
As Jess returned to her seat, Alice returned to the subject of the book.
‘That’s a shame, I quite liked Abel. You will have to finish one of these tales, Jessica. The publishers won’t print half a book.’
Jess sighed. ‘I know, Nana. I just keep thinking there’s a better story somewhere, one with utterly believable characters. A story that everyone can relate to.’
‘Most of us have one of those in our past,’ said Alice. She hesitated for a moment and then continued.
‘Who are you going to spend all of your Wednesdays making tea for when I’m gone?’ she asked.
Jess frowned. ‘What a topic of conversation, Nana. Gran says you’ll outlive us all.’
Gran was Martha, Alice’s eldest daughter. Alice was Nana, because Great Gran never seemed right and Nana was a lot more familiar. Apart from Gran there was Great Aunt Marjorie, Alice’s second daughter. Jess’s mother was Nicola, Martha’s only child. Alice had little if anything to do with any of them. Jess was Alice, reborn and they both knew it.
‘What a notion,’ said Alice. ‘I’d still be sitting on that blooming commode when I was a hundred and seventy, perish the thought.’
‘You must be looking forward to next month, Nana. Not too many people get a telegram from the Queen.’
Alice shook her head, her crystalline hair coming to rest a full second later.
‘I won’t get to read it, Jessica, I’m coming towards the end, a little bit more of me fades away every day.’
‘Oh, Nana, don’t say such things,’ said Jess, a tear sliding down her cheek. ‘You’ll still be here next Christmas, you’re as tough as old boots.’
‘I mean it,’ replied Alice. ‘When I sleep, I see the blackness now, there are no colours anymore. Every time it’s the same. It’s like I’m looking into a pitch-black tunnel. It was like that for weeks, but then, a few days ago, I saw a pinprick of light, only just bright enough to make out. Over the last few days, it’s grown larger. The light isn’t daylight or anything like that, it’s a brilliant white light, but it’s soft, if you see what I mean? The pinprick has grown bigger every day and now it’s about a quarter of the size of the tunnel. I’m being called, and I’m ready to go.’
Jess wiped her eyes with her tea-stained hanky. ‘Don’t, Nana, please. I don’t like you talking like this.’
Alice leaned forward and patted Jess’s proffered hand.
‘It comes to us all sooner or later, my dear, and now it’s my turn.’
She waved away Jess’s fretful protestations.
‘Listen, my sweetheart. I have something to tell you, a secret I’ve not shared with a living soul for eighty years.’
Jess wiped her eyes again and blew her running nose.
‘Not even Gran or Mum?’
‘Especially not your Gran or Mum,’ said Alice. ‘It would hardly be a secret if they got hold of it and, well, they wouldn’t be able to cope with the knowledge anyway. No one knows, Jessica. I’m the sole bearer of the secret, but I’d like to unburden myself of it before I go, a sort of confession if you like. Will you be my priest?’
