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

‘You won’t pay anything, and you’ll get your food included.’

‘I don’t want to burden you like that,’ she sniffed.

‘Miriam, believe me, you’ll earn it. First there’s my father, he’s getting more and more needy. Then there’s the job you do here already.’ I put my hands on my swollen stomach. ‘Then, of course, there’s the small matter of the new arrival, who will need your expertise when I bring it home. I have my work on the farm, I’ll need a nanny, and I can’t think of a better qualified one. You’ve looked after five already.’

Miriam did a little jig. ‘Oooh, a baby to look after. I’ve not held one since our Rebecca was little.’ She grabbed hold of me in a squeeze so tight that it nearly forced the baby out of me, there and then.

‘Move in whenever you’re ready,’ I gasped. ‘That bed will need airing though.’

And so it was agreed, Miriam was coming to live with us, Frank had already moved in. When the new baby arrived, the house would seem almost overcrowded. That was a bonus as far as I could see it. I used to feel so alone at times and now I’d have another woman to talk to in the evening, especially on bath night when Frank was at the pub. Miriam was an Agatha fan, like me. Two against one on the Monday night sleuthing.

As another plus, we now had a very nice three-bedroom cottage to rent out. I toyed with the idea of letting Barney have it, but he was settled where he was, and he would just see it as charity anyway. I could probably have persuaded him, but it would have been a long hard fight.

I decided to get in touch with the local newspaper and advertise the cottage. That meant a trip to town. I might also drop in on a solicitor if I could find one. I wanted to get my head around how a trust fund worked and whether I could get the farm added to one. I also needed to get my name changed before the baby was born. That was a must.

Lying in bed that night I made an executive decision. All the running backwards and forwards to town would soon become a real nuisance and I didn’t want Frank getting wind of what I was doing, so I decided to get our farm put onto the local telephone network. We could afford it now, and after all, the two farms closest to us had had one for a couple of years. It made complete sense. The bloody council officials could telephone us instead of coming out to moan about the state of our yard and I could order stuff from the seed catalogue and farm suppliers without having to post order forms that took a couple of weeks to fulfil.

I heard Frank come in about midnight. He wasn’t singing and he wasn’t stumbling around the kitchen so I knew he hadn’t been to the pub after his mother’s.

He called goodnight to me before he went to bed. I didn’t reply.

Chapter 46

Jess

Alice had only just settled back into her cushions to continue with her story, when her chest was convulsed by a fit of coughing. Jess was at her side in an instant, but no amount of rubbing, or patting her back, helped. She hurried to the kitchen, ran water into a glass and brought it back to the lounge. The coughing gradually subsided but Alice’s breathing was irregular. Every few seconds she would tilt her head back and take three or four short breaths, but as soon as her lungs were partly filled with air, the awful, rasping, wheezing, noise returned.

Jess put the glass of water to her lips, and Alice sipped at it, gratefully. Another coughing fit followed, not quite as violent as the first, but it left her distressed, ashen-faced and struggling to get enough oxygen into her lungs.

Jess continued to rub Alice’s back and give her occasional sips of water until she was able to breathe more easily.

‘I’ll call the doctor, Nana, his number is by the phone isn’t it?’

Alice laid her right hand flat and waved it across her chest.

‘But you need to see him, Nana. That cough was awful. You might have an infection of some kind.’

Alice shook her head. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she spluttered, and began to cough again.

Jess rushed to the bathroom and came back with a bottle of cough linctus and a double ended medicine spoon. She measured out five mm into the larger end. Alice swallowed the syrup and leaned back into her cushion.

‘I… really, don’t feel-too-well,’ she said. Her voice was weak, not much more than a whisper.

‘Let me help you to bed, Nana, you’re better off in there.’

Jess moved Alice’s walking frame to the side, then she stood in front of her armchair, took hold of her hands, and stepped backwards, pulling Alice to her feet. When she was steady, Jess moved the walker in front of her and they made their way over to the bed.

At the bedside, Jess helped Alice remove her shoes and cardigan, then she pulled back the sheets, and eased her into bed.

Alice seemed to shrink into the pillows. Jess was amazed at how much her condition had deteriorated over the last twenty-four hours. Her face was ashen; she was still struggling to breathe properly, her eyes, usually so bright, now seemed grey and cloudy. Jess was dismayed. Why hadn’t she noticed? Had she been more concerned with her own problems? with the story? Was this just what happened when you were close to the end? Maybe it was. Maybe the decline sped up dramatically over the last few hours. Jess gave herself a mental slap.

Pull yourself together, Jessica. Let’s hear what the doctor has to say before you allow panic to set in.

She shook her head to clear her thoughts. ‘I’ll call the doctor now, Nana. No arguments please,