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

rule by letting you stay here at all. We don’t usually allow unmarried couples into our rooms.’

I pulled the extra shilling from my purse and handed it over. I leaned forward myself and whispered. ‘Where do you and Robert sleep then?’

Irene stuffed the money into a pocket in her apron and looked smug.

‘We don’t sleep here,’ she said.

We gave up arguing and went for a walk up to the town.

The High Street was a mix of Victorian and Edwardian buildings with faded, washed out shop fronts, but for someone like me, who lived in the country, it was a treasure trove of modern consumerism. On the High Street was a Boots store and behind it, a brightly painted clocktower that stood out vividly alongside the dull expanse of grimy, red brick and mortar.

We stopped for tea at a café in the town centre, but we had to drink it in a breezy garden at the back, because the café itself was under renovation. A waitress, wearing a uniform better suited to Lyons tea rooms than a tiny, underused little café in Sheerness, took our order and apologised on behalf of the café owner. The tea was well brewed and the waitress helpful, explaining to us the quickest way to the sea front. I left her a threepenny tip for her trouble.

After tea, we retraced our steps until we came to Broadway. A few minutes later we arrived at Sheerness beach, which was empty apart from a couple of dog walkers and two children hunting for shells. We walked along the Marine Parade until we reached the pier which the people walking just in front of us had called ‘the jetty’. It was built as a place for boats to unload passengers, but at this time of year there would have been little in the way of business for the boat owners. At the end of the pier was a pavilion. We never found out what entertainment it provided because it was closed, and wouldn’t open again until May Day.

We walked back along the pier to the Marine Parade, past the silent, unoccupied bandstand and headed towards Minster. The sea air had really worked on my appetite, so we bought fish and chips and sat down on the sea wall to eat them. A chilly wind came off the sea and seagulls raided inland looking for easier pickings than the hard to find fish in the Medway Estuary.

It was only about two and a half miles back to Sheerness, but it seemed more like five. Although it was March, we both removed our coats and allowed the shrill wind to cool our bodies. I was tired, even though I was a fit eighteen-year-old farm manager, who worked a fourteen-hour day, month in, month out. Babies tire you out even before they are born.

Frank didn’t even get out of breath. At one stage he jokingly asked me if I wanted a piggy back ride.

Back in Sheerness, Frank led me to a shabby-fronted jewellers with a torn, washed-out, awning that flapped about in the stiff breeze.

There were a number of new and second hand rings in the window.

‘You have to be wearing one when we go back or we won’t get away with our little subterfuge,’ said Frank, who surprised me at times with his intelligent conversation. He’d been well schooled by his mother, that was for sure. I was pretty well educated myself; I’d been awarded the National School Certificate when I was sixteen, and I had achieved credit passes in Mathematics and English, but I had never heard of a ‘subterfuge’. I assumed it meant a crafty plan.

Inside, the shop was dimly lit. The stock was displayed in smeared, glass cabinets along one wall. We walked along them slowly, examining the price labels on each of the worn velvet pads that the rings were seated on. He finally spotted one priced at one pound, seven shillings, and eleven pence.

Behind a desk, at the far end of the shop, sat a white-haired, bespectacled jeweller who had been watching us like a hawk, presumably in case Frank produced a hammer, or worse, a gun.

Frank called him over and asked to look at the ring we had picked out. The man produced a bunch of about ten small keys and immediately found the right one. He passed the ring to Frank who lifted my left hand and slipped it easily onto my ring finger. It felt strange, I had never worn a ring in my life. it was slightly too big, I could spin it around quite easily, but I doubted it would fall off.

‘I’ll give you fifteen shillings for it,’ said Frank.

I thought the jeweller was going to have a heart attack. ‘The price is on the label,’ he said.

Frank tried again. ‘Seventeen and six,’ he offered.

‘I can’t take anything less than twenty-five shillings,’ said the man.

Frank screwed up his face and shook his head. ‘It’s tarnished,’ he said. He held up my hand to show him. ‘I’m beginning to wonder if it’s brass, not gold.’

The jeweller produced his little magnifier and offered to show Frank the hallmark on the inside of the ring. He pointed to my bulging stomach. ‘You’ll need it quite soon by the looks of her, so you shouldn’t quibble too much about the price.’

I thought Frank would take umbrage at that remark, but when he spoke again, his voice was calmness personified.

‘A guinea… Twenty-one shillings. My final offer.’

‘I can’t, I paid more than that for it.’ The old man wrung his hands. If he was looking for sympathy, he’d picked the wrong man.

‘Sorry, love,’ Frank said, softly. ‘It looks like we’ll be using that brass curtain ring you found at your grans.’ He turned his back on the jeweller, pulled a sad face, and pointed at mine. I got the idea straight away.

I slipped the ring from my finger, and wiping a fake tear from my eye, I handed it back to the jeweller. As we walked slowly