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

‘Hello, Cranstone two-eight-six.’

‘Erm, hello, Mrs Parsons, it’s Edwin, from next door, is your Kath there?’

‘Edwin, do you have a telephone now? Wouldn’t it be cheaper to just nip round?’

‘I’m at work, Mrs Parsons. In the ticket office. Is Kath there?’

‘She’s just this minute come in. She looks like a snowman…woman…girl.’

‘Could I speak to her please?’ Edwin could feel Colin’s eyes burning into the back of his head.

‘Hello, Edwin, it’s Kath, isn’t the weather foul? Hope you’re nice and dry where you are.’

‘Kath, I need you to get a message to Amy. Can you tell her that the homing pigeon has returned to the loft?’

‘Is he back?’ asked an excited Kath. ‘I’ll go now, shall I? It is snowing though; Mum might have something to say about it.’

‘Tell her you forgot something,’ said a panicking Edwin. ‘Please, Kath, hurry.’

‘Shall I tell Amy’s dad. He’ll be pleased to know—’

‘NO! the message is for Amy’s ears alone, Kath. Have you got that? It’s important, our secret.’

‘Righty ho,’ said Kath, conspiratorially. ‘Message received and understood.’

Edwin put the receiver down and thanked Colin for the use of the phone.

‘That call cost more than tuppence,’ Colin moaned. ‘You owe me, lad.’

Edwin nodded and looked past the ticket master to the station entrance. Frank was still there, leaning on a pillar reading a newspaper he hadn’t yet paid for. Two other men were waiting to be served. He stuck up a thumb to Colin as he opened the door for him.

‘Afternoon Post,’ he yelled as he ran across the stone tiles and back to his pitch.

When Kath told her mother that she had left a glove at Amy’s house and she wanted to return immediately to retrieve it, she was more than a little confused.

‘Didn’t you have them on when you came in?’ she asked. ‘I’m sure I saw them.’

‘I had one on,’ said Kath feeling seriously guilty. She hated lying to her mother but her gang came first. This was an emergency.

‘Didn’t you feel the cold when you left… and I thought it was Rita you were going to visit.’

‘I did, but I called in at Amy’s on the way back. I kept my hands in my pockets,’ she said.

‘Amy’s house isn’t on the way back, it’s further away,’ said Mrs Parsons, suspecting something was awry.

‘Not much further,’ Kath replied. ‘Can I go to get it? they’re my favourite furry ones, the pair you got me last Christmas.’

Mrs Parsons gave in. Amy only lived a couple of hundred yards away. ‘Be quick then.’ She looked out of the window at the thickening snow. ‘And come straight back once you have it.’

Kath stepped out of the house onto a path covered in six inches of snow. She looked back to see her mother watching her from the kitchen window, so she waited until she was out of site before pulling her gloves from each pocket of her coat. She was glad to put them on; her hands were already feeling the cold.

She arrived at Amy’s house a few minutes later and knocked on the door. Amy answered.

Kath cupped her hand to her mouth and said quietly. ‘I have a message from Edwin. The pigeon has returned to the loft.’

Amy made a fist and punched the air. ‘Thank you, Kath, and thank Edwin if you see him before I do. Please, don’t tell anyone about this. It’s our little secret.’

‘Guides honour,’ said Kath, making the three fingered salute. ‘Got to go, Mum’s watching out for me.’

Chapter 24

1938

The news that Frank Mollison was back in town sent shivers down my spine but also made me determined to seek him out and see what he had to say for himself. Amy thought this should be done at the point of a knife, or the farm’s shotgun but I was slightly more down to earth about it all.

There would be talk in the town, especially in The Old Bull and amongst the market shoppers, but that was inevitable. I was already four months’ gone, if I had got married at that stage no one would have believed I’d only carried for five months when I gave birth. It would die down eventually and I could live with it. Had my father been well, or my mother still alive, it would have been a different story, but as it was, I thought I was strong enough to bear it.

We decided to stake out The Old Bull.

Amy and I wrapped up against the cold and trudged our way up to the town through the deep carpet of snow.

The lane was still covered, as hardly any traffic used it. Even the main road only had a few tyre tracks running along it and there was very little by way of footprints, until you got around the area of the pub. It would take more than a blizzard to keep the working men from their beer. On the way home there would be many a slip and fall, but they wouldn’t feel much pain in the state they were in.

We were lucky, as it happens. We’d only been there for about twenty minutes when we saw him plodding towards the pub from his mother’s house on Elm Lane. He was with an older man I’d seen before, but couldn’t place. When they were close enough, Amy nudged me but I found I couldn’t speak, so being the best friend she is, she spoke for me.

‘Scuse me, Frank, have you got a minute?’

The old man with him smirked and offered to help Frank out if he couldn’t handle both of us.

Frank forced a smile and the old man went into the public bar entrance.

‘What’s up?’ he asked, looking guiltily at me.

‘I think you know what’s up, Frank.’ Amy stood, legs slightly apart, and stared him down.

‘Can you remember back to last September? Alice’s party night?’

Frank looked abashed. He nodded but said nothing.

‘Well,’ Amy continued. ‘Alice would like a word with you about that, wouldn’t you, Alice?’

I