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

the water was tepid, at best. I got dressed quickly and returned to the room where Frank sat with a grin on his face.

‘I couldn’t find anyone to ask, so I made it myself. We finally got something for free.’ He pulled half a dozen biscuits from his pocket. ‘I found these too. I’ll save them for the train.’

I folded up my dirty clothes and put them carefully into my case. Frank just stuffed his shirt and jumper into his bag before wrapping the stolen biscuits in a printed sheet of paper that lay on the shelf, informing us about the rules of the house. He placed the stolen treats carefully on top of his clothes and fastened the buckled straps.

Our train wasn’t due until two o’clock, so we stayed where we were as long as possible. We sat at opposite ends of the room, me on the bed and Frank at the table. We didn’t utter a word to each other.

The rules, that Frank had just packed into this bag, stated that customers must vacate their room by twelve PM so at three minutes to twelve, we got to our feet, checked we’d left nothing behind, and descended the stairs, Frank carrying my suitcase.

At one minute to twelve, we presented ourselves at the bar. Irene looked distinctly disappointed as we approached. She checked the clock twice, obviously hoping for it to magically jump forward by a couple of minutes.

‘Can I help you?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ Frank replied. ‘We’d like our five-bob deposit back please.’

‘It’s only refundable if there are no damages or complaints, and the rules of the house have been strictly adhered to,’ she reminded us.

‘There have been no complaints and there are no damages and we broke no rules that I can remember,’ said Frank.

‘What about all the shouting and screaming at one o’clock in the morning?’ she said.

‘There was no one else here to complain,’ said Frank. ‘We’re the only customers.’

‘Read the small print,’ smirked Irene. ‘Excess noise and the use of profanity, is a sub clause of Rule six.’

‘Come on, be reasonable,’ I said. ‘It lasted all of five minutes. It was me on the receiving end of the profanity after all, and I’m not going to make a complaint. We spent a fair bit of money too. Frank virtually emptied a barrel of porter by himself, last night. We’d really like to come back again in the summer with our friends, but we can’t really do that if you’re going to be so mean.’

Irene sniffed and dipped into the pocket of her overall. She fished out four, shilling coins and a threepenny bit, and tossed them onto the counter.

‘The deposit was five shillings,’ said a puzzled Frank.

‘You had extra tea, and took some biscuits from the tin on my shelf this morning,’ she said smugly.

I pocketed the change and we left the pub with an air of injured dignity. Once outside, Frank shouted, ‘We won’t be back, HA!’

A shrill, raised voice from inside replied. ‘We wouldn’t have you back anyway.’

Laughing, we strolled slowly towards the station. The weather had taken a cool turn. The sky was the colour of slate, and spits and spots of rain hit us in the face in a squally wind.

We turned up our collars and ducked our heads into the wind as we walked. There was precious little shelter at the station. As it was Sunday, the only building open was the toilet block. We sat on a long, slatted, wooden bench and waited. Neither of us wanted to start a conversation in case the events of the night before came up, so we sat in a tense silence for the best part of an hour before boredom got the better of us.

‘I spy with my little eye, something beginning with T,’ said Frank.

‘It isn’t bloody train, that’s for sure,’ I said.

Frank laughed. ‘No, it isn’t train.’

I shivered in the cold breeze, cupped my hands and blew into them. ‘Tracks?’ I said, thinking it was an inspired answer.

‘No, not tracks,’ said Frank.

Sober, he was nothing if not a gentleman. Hesitantly, he wrapped an arm around my shoulder. I accepted the gesture gratefully, and snuggled in to his chest.

‘Trousers,’ I guessed, my face stared directly at them as I shivered again.

‘No, not trousers,’ he said.

I couldn’t think of anything else, there were plenty of S’s. Seat, signal box, sign, shoes, shivers, but no more things beginning with T, at least not that I could spot.

‘Do you give in?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I said, then two seconds later. ‘Okay, yes, I give in. What was it?’

‘Toilets,’ he said.

‘Toilets? You can’t see the bloody toilets, they’re behind you,’ I said, more loudly than I meant to. The pensioner couple on the next seat looked at us quizzically.

‘I looked around before I asked the question,’ replied Frank.

I hit him in the chest. ‘Oh, you cheat,’ I said, and laughed along with him.

So, ice broken, we began talking about the farm and wondered how everyone had coped without us. It had never, to my knowledge at least, been left unsupervised before.

‘Miriam won’t take any nonsense. Not that I’m expecting there has been any,’ I said.

‘I bet Barney is clock watching,’ said Frank. ‘He’ll be counting the minutes until you get back.’

‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Barney can cope with any situation, work wise.’

‘I know, but he’ll be concerned about you, travelling all this way in your condition.’

‘All this way? It’s about thirty miles as the crow flies,’ I scoffed.

‘Yes, but to Barney, Sittingbourne is the other end of the country,’ Frank replied. ‘He’s only been outside the town twice in all the time he’s been alive, and both of those were visits to his father’s house in the next village along.’

‘You shouldn’t laugh at him,’ I scalded.

‘I’m really not. That wasn’t the point I was making.’ He stretched his arm to ease a cramp, then wrapped it around me again. ‘He thinks of you more as a daughter than anything else. He’ll be worrying about you all the