Unspoken: A story of secrets, love and revenge by T. Belshaw (best reads of all time .TXT) 📗

She was fair-skinned, blue eyed and had (in my opinion and many of the village boys) the best figure of any girl/woman for miles around. She was unaffected by it too and just laughed as the boys, and men, wolf whistled or called out some innuendo laden comment to her as they passed on the other side of the road.

She was a fun, happy go lucky girl. If she ever suffered on her period, she never let it show. I had never seen her in a bad mood. She loved life and helped me enormously through the weeks after my mother’s death. She could make me laugh in an instant. Her impression of our old teacher, Mrs Blount, used to have me in hysterics. She could even do a passable impression of the landlord of The Old Bull, a man who never missed the chance to sell a pint. He knew exactly how old Amy and I were, but he allowed us to sit in the snug and drink port and lemons if no one else, such as a courting couple, wanted to use it. She was my favourite person on earth.

It didn’t take much to get us tiddly and well before closing time we’d be on our way home laughing or singing one of the tunes we’d heard on the radio show, Bandwagon. Amy had a wind-up gramophone that I was insanely jealous of. Her uncle sold sheet music and records imported from America. These things would have been prohibitively expensive but Uncle Maurice, like everyone else, was totally captivated, and her collection grew every birthday and Christmas. We would regularly sit in her front room singing with Al Jolson, Bessie Smith and Bing Crosby.

Some nights in the summer, Amy would walk down to our farm and we’d drag a couple of chairs out onto the back yard overlooking the fields and imagine our futures. I always said that Amy would end up being a film star but she’d laugh that off and call me Rita Hayworth, an American actress who would become a major film star during the war years. We had seen her in one of her early roles at a rare visit to the cinema in nineteen thirty-six. Amy had nearly got us thrown out by exclaiming, ‘What are you doing up on the screen?’ when she appeared in her first scene. She kept looking at me, then the screen, open-mouthed throughout the movie. I started out giggling but quite enjoyed it when a young man in the seats behind, leant forward and agreed with her.

Rita’s hair was, in fact, dark red, not chestnut like mine, but the rolling, shoulder length curls looked identical when seen in black and white.

One warm night, as we sat under a star strewn sky, drinking lemonade, I told her that she’d end up marrying Clarke Gable. Amy laughed, looked at me seriously, studied me for a moment or two and said that she didn’t think I could ever give myself to just one man for a lifetime. She said she’d stake her beloved record collection on the fact that I’d never marry.

As it turned out, her collection was safe.

On the night of my birthday I pulled on my favourite floral-print frock and my only pair of going out shoes. They were a black Oxford style with a laced-up front and a pretty bow at the top.

For one night only, according to the landlord of The Old Bull, we were allowed into the public bar. Several of my friends were invited and we had a wonderful time, laughing, and dancing to Amy’s gramophone that her father had set up for us on a table near the bar.

As the night progressed, we escalated from tiddly, to drunk, to very drunk and I began to flirt with some of the men in the bar. One man in particular took a real shine to me. He was a lot older, about thirty or so with untidy hair and a day’s worth of stubble on his chin, but he had a rugged charm and a quick smile. He was funny and complimentary in equal measure. We danced, we laughed and towards nine-thirty, after I had staggered drunkenly back from the Ladies, almost clearing a table of empty glasses, he took me to a quiet corner and we sat down and chatted.

Amy’s father twice came over to see if I was all right. The second time he had a quiet but stern word with Frank, as I now knew him to be.

Frank assured Mr Rowlings that he was a friend of my father and had done some work for him on the farm. I was way too out of it to contradict this wanton lie and when I was asked to verify the story I just smiled, nodded and he went back to the party and left us alone.

When the landlord bellowed ‘Time’ the party broke up and Frank took my arm; we stood in the small pub garden saying goodnight to everyone. Amy, who was as drunk as me, leaned on her father for support. He asked me if I wanted to stay over but I remember muttering something about ‘cows’ and declined. I brazenly took Frank’s arm and we all walked together for a few hundred yards until we reached Amy’s house. Once again, a worried Mr Rowlings asked if I wanted to stay, but again I declined and we left them waving to us, and Frank half walked, half carried, me along the lane that led to the farm.

About half way along was a gap in the hedge and as we reached it Frank stopped and said he’d like to give me a birthday kiss. I was all for it. I’d never kissed a man properly before and I was desperate to try a movie style snog.

I tipped my head upwards (he was a good foot taller the me), and Frank pushed his stubble strewn face onto mine. Our lips collided, rather than