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

could see her face was ashen. She wiped away tears as she heard Alice’s words. She put her arm around her again.

‘I know you’ll always be watching over me, Nana,’ she whispered.

Chapter 29

Alice

By the time Gwen arrived, Alice had calmed down.

‘Hello, Lovely,’ she said, removing her coat. ‘I’ve got a treat for you tonight seeing as how I’ve got two to cook for. It’s my speciality,’ she preened. ‘Spag Bol, in my own recipe sauce.’

‘That sounds right up my street, Gwen,’ said Jess.

Alice nodded with what she hoped looked like enthusiasm.

‘Double helpings for me,’ she said.

Alice ate sparingly, despite her boast about seconds. She wasn’t as tired as she thought she might be. She was pleased about that because she wanted to take Jessica through the next part of her story and she didn’t want to nod off in the middle of it and have a heart attack or something worse. She hoped that Jessica would sit up late with her tonight, so she could get the double helping of dinner she couldn’t manage, out in story form.

When Gwen had washed the dinner plates, she took off her apron and came into the lounge.

‘Shall we get you washed and into bed, Lovely?’

‘I’ll do all that tonight, Gwen,’ said Jess. ‘Get yourself off home early. Give your family a treat.’

‘Oh, they won’t notice if I’m there or not,’ said Gwen with more feeling than she meant to display. ‘I really don’t mind staying, Jessica. I like to care for Alice.’

‘I know you do, Gwen, and bless you for it,’ said Jess. ‘But, if you don’t mind, I’d really like to do it myself on the nights when I stay over. Come in late in the morning, I’ll get her showered and dressed.’

‘You’ll be putting me out of a job, soon.’ Gwen forced a smile. ‘Right, I’ll be off. I’ll see you in the morning for breakfast, Lovely.’ She dropped her head and let herself out.

‘What time do you normally go to bed, Nana?’ asked Jess, when Gwen had closed the door.

‘About now, usually,’ replied Alice. ‘But, as you’re here, I’d like to stay up a bit later tonight.’

‘Of course, Nana. I’ll help you into bed whenever you’re ready to go.’

Alice smiled and her whole face lit up.

‘Break out the booze then, Jessica, we’re in for an all-nighter.’

Jess grinned. ‘No booze, Nana, you’ll be on the commode all night.’

‘I don’t mind that,’ replied Alice. ‘I’d welcome it.’

‘Tea will have to do for now, although I’ll make you some cocoa before bed,’ said Jess. ‘We’re not at a student’s party, you know?’

When the tea had been poured, Alice took a sip, then placed the mug on the small table at the side of her.

‘How far had I got in the story, Jessica?’ Alice asked as Jess set up the voice recorder.

‘Frank had just moved in, Nana.’

‘Oh, yes. There was fun and games on the farm after that.’ Alice looked at the ceiling while she collected her thoughts. ‘The farm hands didn’t take kindly to Frank moving onto their turf. Not in the beginning at least.’

Chapter 30

1938

I sometimes forgot that I was still only eighteen and getting more and more emotional as my pregnancy progressed. On the Monday after Frank moved in, I ordered the first man to arrive, to ask his workmates to wait in the yard because I had something important to say to them. I had often seen my mother and father address the men when some project or other was beginning, or the prospect of a shortage of work required a comforting, reassuring speech. In my teenage arrogance, I thought I had the same magic touch. I was wrong.

I had the respect of the lads, I knew that. I had often heard one or another of them say, ‘she’s her father’s daughter all right,’ and that sort of throwaway remark gave me the false belief that I could do, or say, anything I liked and they would accept it.

This was going to be a tricky one, however I approached it. I should have thought a little deeper about how my father would have handled it, after all, I was about to add a newcomer to the workforce at a time when there wasn’t enough work for the men we already had, and the younger ones among them might well have thought that layoffs were imminent.

The older men wouldn’t have seen it that way. After my father kept them on during the early years of the Great Depression, they would be fairly confident that layoffs were not about to happen. They knew that just as the days were short in the winter months, work was too. But they also knew they would be paid, even if they were sent home mid-morning. I was my father’s daughter after all.

I stood in the kitchen with Frank, watching them gather. In my own mind they would just accept the situation and get on with the day’s meagre work allocation. I had an idea for the summer that meant a square of land would need to be cleared in readiness for a new section of the piggery. I wasn’t sure the ground could be dug in these snowy conditions but we could try.

Barney was always the last to turn up – being the foreman, he felt he had the right. I had seen him hiding in the front garden on a few occasions waiting for the stragglers to arrive before he put in an appearance.

When my entire workforce was gathered, I looked at Frank and tipped my head towards the back door. We stood on the top step, side by side as the men muttered among themselves.

‘Good morning, lads,’ I began.

‘Who’s that?’ asked Simon Humphreys, one of the younger workers.

‘I’ve seen him in The Old Bull,’ shouted someone from the back of the crowd. ‘What’s he doing here?’

I allowed my arrogance to get the better of me. My mother would have calmed them with soothing words. My father would have just