A Family Affair (54 page)

‘I'm home, Gran,' she called.

No reply.

‘Gran?' She pushed open the living-room door with her foot.

Charlotte was sitting in the big armchair.

‘Oh, Helen, I'm glad you're home.'

‘What's the matter, Gran?' Helen asked, alarmed.

‘I had a bit of a funny turn.'

‘What sort of funny turn?'

‘I came over giddy and the next thing I knew I was on the floor.'

‘You fell down, you mean?'

‘I suppose I must have done. I haven't done anything about your tea, Helen. I didn't feel up to it.'

‘Never mind the tea,' Helen said, dumping her bag and files on the table. ‘You'd better let me have a look at you.'

‘Oh, I'm all right now.'

‘If you're having giddy turns and falling down there's a reason for it,' Helen said briskly. ‘I'm going to find out what it is.' She looked more closely at her grandmother. There was something not quite right about her mouth, which was slightly drawn, and the corner of one eye was drooping slightly and allowing a trickle of moisture to run down on to her cheek.

‘Show me your hands,' Helen said.

Charlotte raised one; the other, the same side as the twisted mouth and drooping eyelid, remained in her lap.

‘It's gone to sleep,' Charlotte said. ‘I've been sat here too long, Helen.'

Helen said nothing. She knew, and Charlotte knew, she was sure, that it was more than that. Charlotte was just making light of it because she didn't want to face the truth. Helen unclicked the clasps of her medical bag and took out her blood pressure gauge.

‘Can you roll your sleeve up, or do you want me to do it for you?'

‘You do it.' For the first time since she had moved back to Greenslade Terrace, Charlotte sounded unsure of herself and frightened. ‘What's the matter with me, Helen?'

‘I think, Gran,' Helen said, ‘that you may have had a slight stroke. But you already know that, don't you?'

There would be no skittles for her this evening. But that wasn't important. All that mattered was being with Charlotte and looking after her. A bit of a busman's holiday it might be, but Helen had known when she had asked Charlotte to come and live with her that it might come with the territory. All she was glad of was that she, and not some stranger, was in a position to help.

When Billy Edgell was released from prison it never occurred to him to go anywhere but home. He arrived back in Alder Road in mid-June, when the red clay gardens were full of spindly French marigolds and the children were using the circular road around the Green as a cycle racetrack.

Joyce welcomed him home with a cup of tea, a lecture on mending his ways, and a running commentary on recent events in general and her own doings in particular.

‘It's been all go, really,' she said. ‘I hope you've noticed we've got a television now.'

‘Yes, I saw.'

‘Oh yes, we've come up in the world! Unlike some. There's something funny going on over at Number 27 if you ask me.'

‘Who's Number 27?' Billy asked in a bored voice. He wasn't the least bit interested in gossip about his neighbours.

‘The Simmonses, of course. Carrie Bloody Simmons, who thinks she's a cut above everybody else. Her Jenny's disappeared off the scene and there's something fishy about it if you ask me. She looked as if she was putting on weight just before she went. So putting two and two together I reckon she's got herself into trouble.'

‘Jenny!' Billy said, surprised and a bit shocked. ‘In the club?'

‘Jenny,' Joyce repeated with satisfaction. ‘It's always the quiet ones, the ones that look as if butter wouldn't melt in their mouths. I can see her now when she was a little girl – fat and plain but full of herself. Carrie used to put white ribbon bows in her hair. You remember, I expect. The others were always poking fun of her.'

Billy was silent. It was the other Jenny he was thinking about, the Jenny who had turned into a stunner, the Jenny who had made him look a fool in front of his mates that summer day at the swimming pool. So somebody had got inside her knickers, lucky sod, and she wouldn't even give him the time of day. The rejection was a slow sullen anger burning away at what mattered most to him – his male ego.

‘I bet Carrie's doing her nut,' Joyce went on, enjoying herself. ‘It's prize, really, when you think about it. Her precious daughter in the club!'

‘Well, it won't be the first time, will it?' Billy said maliciously.

Joyce's beady little eyes narrowed. ‘What are you talking about?'

‘The chap I was banged up with knew them in Bristol. He reckoned somebody got their leg over Heather when they were at school. Well – he reckoned quite a few did, but one of them must've shot their bolt and knocked her up. He didn't know what had become of her, of course, because according to him the whole family did a vanishing act.'

‘Well I never!' Joyce was cock-a-hoop. ‘When did you say this was?'

‘I don't know exactly. In the war sometime. When Heather was about thirteen or fourteen. How old would she be now?'

‘The war,' Joyce said, thinking. ‘That's when they came here. I remember Carrie starting work down at the canteen. What a stuck-up cow! Well, she's got her comeuppance and no mistake! Both her girls getting themselves in trouble! And fancy you finding out about it, Billy. It's a small world, all right.' She chuckled. ‘Oh my goodness, she'd have a fit and die if she thought anybody round here knew about it! You've made my day, Billy.'

‘I'm glad I've done something to please you,' Billy said, grinning. If he knew his mother, she'd make the most of this. Well, it served Jenny and her snotty family right. She wouldn't be making a fool of
him
again in a hurry.

Billy wasn't far wrong. Already Joyce was turning the information over in her mind and relishing it. From the window she could see Carrie's house on the opposite side of the street, neat as a new pin, but hiding goodness-only-knew-what secrets behind its prim lace curtains. Well, at last she had the ammunition to take her down a peg or two. And how she was going to enjoy doing it!

Helen was feeling uncharacteristically down and she couldn't really put her finger on the reason for it.

Charlotte was recovering well from her stroke – Reuben, whom Helen had called out for a second opinion, had confirmed it had been slight, and between them they had decided on a course of treatment to help her along and lessen the likelihood of a recurrence. It remained a possibility, of course – if someone had a tendency that way, the chance of having another, more serious stroke, was considerably increased. If that should happen and Charlotte was really incapacitated then it would throw up all sorts of problems about her care. But Helen had never been one to worry about what might never happen – there was enough of the phlegmatic Hall about her to make her feel the future was best left to look after itself.

She hadn't made any more serious errors at work either, nothing that Reuben could hold against her, and her position as assistant was beginning to look more secure again. Goodness only knew how much damage she'd done to her chances of being offered a partnership, of course, but here too she was hopeful of rebuilding the trust that would one day mean that Reuben would decide she was the right person for the job.

She hardly thought about Guy, which was good, and when she did it was with anger, not mourning. She regretted that she had wasted so much of her life on him, but it was over now, and she could look forward to the future without constantly wondering if she had done the wrong thing in cutting loose from him. As for Paul – they were on friendly terms. There had been a distinctly frosty nip in the air immediately following the missed skittles match, but when she had explained the circumstances, he had been kind and concerned. Of course she couldn't leave Charlotte alone any more than was absolutely unavoidable for the time being. But for all his protestations to the contrary she couldn't help wondering if he thought she was glad of the excuse and she regretted too the fact that they couldn't go out alone together and give themselves a chance to rebuild their relationship.

Even so, none of these things was really enough to bring about the sense of impending disaster which haunted her. When she felt apprehensive for no good reason, it worried Helen. She felt apprehensive now, and it hung over her like a storm cloud waiting to happen.

One Friday evening in late June Joyce went across the Green and knocked on Carrie's front door.

Ever since Billy had told her about Heather she had been mulling over various ways she could use what she knew to get at Carrie. She could, of course, simply spread the story around, adding her suspicions about the reason behind Jenny's absence, but that wasn't quite satisfying enough for her. She couldn't be sure the gossip would get back to Carrie and even if it did she wouldn't be there to see her discomfort. Joyce hadn't waited all these years to get her own back to waste the opportunity now it had arisen. She wanted to make the most of her moment of revenge.

It was when she saw Carrie going from door to door that Friday that the idea came to her. She knew what Carrie was doing – collecting her catalogue club money. She had used to do it every week, now it was once a fortnight – Joyce had no idea why and could only suppose that Carrie had been granted some kind of high-grade credit.

Carrie's customers were hand-picked, people she was friendly with and could trust to pay regularly even when their turn fell early in the twenty-week cycle. Joyce had never been approached and knew she never would be even if it hadn't been for the bad blood between them. That, Joyce thought, smiling to herself, was why her plan was such delicious irony. Not that Joyce used the word irony of course. It simply wasn't in her vocabulary. ‘Ripe' was the word she used.
Oh, that'd be ripe. Real ripe!
she thought to herself, and laughed out loud.

Sally came barking to the door and Carrie answered it wearing a flowered dress and cardigan that looked as if it had come straight from the pages of the catalogue. The skirt – unpressed pleats – did nothing for her big hips. In spite of it being quite a warm evening, she was wearing stockings with her flat sensible sandals. When she saw Joyce, she frowned, and Sally, who had never forgotten being almost kicked by Joyce, growled threateningly.

‘Can I have a word?' Joyce asked, ignoring the dog.

She, too, was wearing a cotton dirndl and a cotton top with three-quarter sleeves, but her legs were bare and her feet, with their bright-red varnished toenails looked none too clean.

‘What about?' Carrie asked suspiciously.

‘Aren't you going to ask me in?'

Carrie looked to be on the point of refusing, but manners got the better of her. She stood aside, letting Joyce into the hall.

‘Well?'

‘You run a club, don't you?' Joyce said. ‘Kays, is it?'

‘Yes, that's right.'

‘I'd like to join.'

Carrie looked startled. ‘You?'

‘I want some sheets and pillow cases but I can't afford to pay all at once. With the club you pay weekly, don't you?'

‘Yes, but all twenty turns have gone for this time around.'

‘When d'you start again?'

‘It's only about halfway through. Anyway, all my customers will want to go on again.'

‘What about Mrs Watson?'

‘What about her?'

‘She's moved, hasn't she? You won't want to go all the way over the other side of Hillsbridge to collect her money.'

‘I haven't decided yet,' Carrie said. ‘In any case, there's a waiting list.'

This was exactly what Joyce had expected; she was ready for it.

‘Are you making excuses, Carrie Simmons? Don't you want me in your club, is that it?'

Carrie, who hated scenes, refrained from saying that was exactly it.

‘There's no room on the list.'

‘Not good enough for you, am I?'

‘I don't want to quarrel with you, Joyce.'

‘You always did think yourself somebody, Carrie. Why, I don't know. Well, at least none of my children have let themselves down like yours.'

Carrie began to tremble.

‘What! With your Billy just out of prison?'

‘Our Billy's just a rascal. The police have got a down on him. But none of my daughters have got themselves into trouble. That's more than you can say.'

‘What are you talking about?' Carrie demanded, but her flaming face was all the encouragement Joyce needed.

‘You know very well what I'm talking about – your Heather. Oh, you might have thought moving out here from Bristol you could keep it quiet. But things have a way of getting out. Your Heather had a baby when she was still at school. And you've got the nerve to look down on me! But that's not the end of it, is it? That's where your Jenny comes in. And we all know about Jenny, don't we?'

She'd hit the nail squarely on the head. All the colour had drained from Carrie's face and she looked defeated and old.

‘You don't know anything, Joyce,' she said, her voice shaking. ‘You couldn't know about that. We were so careful! Jenny's
ours
, mine and Joe's …' She broke off, her eyes going wide with horror and in that moment Joyce knew. In a flash it all came clear. The big gap between David and Jenny. The reason they'd all moved here from Bristol. Carrie and Joe and Heather and David. And Jenny, just a baby when they'd arrived. A tiny little baby.

Unwittingly she'd uncovered far more than she'd expected, far more than she'd ever dreamed was there to be uncovered. It was all there in Carrie's horrified eyes. Joyce's triumph was complete.

‘Whatever is the matter?' Joe asked.

He had been in his garden, picking the tops out of the runner beans, when Carrie appeared, clearly distraught.