Down an English Lane (38 page)

‘It’s a wonder you didn’t get caught before,’ observed Maisie, a little self-righteously, because she couldn’t help how she was feeling. ‘With Brian…’

‘Oh no, he was careful,’ said Audrey. ‘He took precautions…you know.’

Maisie nodded. She didn’t know, but she guessed what Audrey meant. She was being made, regrettably, to change her view of her friend, and she didn’t like it. But Audrey, come what may, was still her best friend and she knew that she had to help her now. But she prayed, how she prayed deep inside her, that she would change her mind about what she intended to do tomorrow.

‘We’ll go when you’re ready,’ she said. ‘I promised I wouldn’t be too long away from the office. It sometimes gets quite busy on a Friday afternoon, and I’m supposed to be in charge.’

‘Yes, I’m ready,’ said Audrey. ‘What shall I do? Shall I meet you when you’ve finished for the day? I can have a look round the shops, not that I feel much like shopping at the moment.’

‘No,’ said Maisie. ‘I’ll give you the key, then you can get the tram back to my place and make yourself at home. I’ll be back as soon as I can; OK?’

‘Yes, thank you… You’re being very kind to me,’ Audrey said as they made their way down to the ground floor. ‘What about tomorrow? Will you be able to take the time off?’ She looked pleadingly at Maisie once again. ‘I do need you to be with me…’

‘Mmm…yes,’ she replied. ‘We close at twelve o’clock on Saturdays, so I’m sure Olwen and Barry can manage on their own for half a day. Don’t worry; I’ll be there for you, Audrey…’ Her friend would need her to be there to give her moral support, whatever might happen.

Olwen and Barry were very willing to run the office on their own for the three hours on Saturday morning. Barry, as the other full-time member of staff, had a key of his own and Maisie knew he would feel quite important being left in charge. He was shaping up well in all aspects of the work, but this would be the first time he had opened up the shop. She explained to them that her friend was quite poorly and was relying on her, Maisie, to go with her for an urgent doctor’s appointment. She did not go into details and they did not enquire.

She arrived home to find Audrey ensconced in an armchair reading a magazine; she appeared to be much calmer. At least she had set the table for tea – she had visited Maisie several times and knew where everything lived – but it was up to Maisie to
set to and make a meal. Bacon and eggs with fried bread would be quick and tasty, she decided, and she was pleased to see that Audrey ate it with enjoyment. Maisie guessed she was trying – and succeeding, it seemed – to put tomorrow’s ordeal out of her mind; as though, having unburdened herself to her friend, she was now able to turn her thoughts to other matters.

She did not mention the thing that was uppermost in her mind, and surely must be in Audrey’s too, although she was managing to conceal it very well. But she knew that before they retired to bed she would have to broach the subject again. They talked instead about events that were taking place back home in Middlebeck…

At the end of the previous month Archie Tremaine had been elected as the Labour Member of Parliament for the district of Middlebeck and Lowerbeck, unseating the Conservative businessman who had held the seat for many years. Not, however, by a tremendous majority. The election, throughout the country, had been something of a cliff-hanger, and although a Labour government had been returned to power, with Clement Attlee still at the helm, it was with a considerably reduced majority.

‘My father said that Archie was very lucky really to be elected,’ observed Audrey. ‘Apparently it was a close run thing.’

‘Still, he got there, didn’t he?’ said Maisie. ‘I’m
glad for his sake, and I’m sure he’ll do a lot of good work for the constituency. He will have to live down in London though, won’t he, for a lot of the time? I wonder if Rebecca will go with him? It will be a big change for them.’

‘Have you heard anything of Bruce lately?’ asked Audrey. ‘I heard that he was thinking of leaving the RAF.’

‘No, I haven’t heard anything,’ replied Maisie. ‘Not a dicky-bird… Oh, that reminds me, I must tell you something. You’ll never guess who came into the shop a couple of weeks ago…’

‘Go on, who was it? Not Bruce, obviously.’

‘No… Christine with her new chap! They’ll be married by now…’ She told Audrey the tale of her encounter with them, with full details of what Christine had been wearing, and her flashy engagement ring. ‘She was as nice as pie, actually; I was really surprised.’

‘So Bruce is divorced now. He’s footloose and fancy free again…’ said Audrey, looking keenly at her friend.

‘Obviously…’ said Maisie, but she did not rise to the bait.

Later that evening they went on to talk about the plans that were afoot at the High Street premises owned by Arthur and Lily Rawcliffe. Lily had come into full ownership of the draper’s shop early in the previous year, when Cyril and Eliza Jenner had both died quite suddenly. Cyril had succumbed to the flu
in the January, and Eliza had died only two months later. Of a broken heart, folks said; at all events she had lost her will to live. They had been a devoted couple and life without Cyril must have seemed meaningless to her.

Lily was devastated by her death as she had been a very good friend over the years, and the fact that she was now the owner of quite a substantial property had meant very little to her at first.

The drapery business had not been doing too well. It had always been a somewhat old-fashioned shop, especially when Eliza Jenner had been in charge. Since Lily had taken over the management she had tried to bring their merchandise more up to date, but she had found as the years went by that she was up against more and more competition. Since the end of the war there were more readymade clothes on the market; synthetic fibres were all the rage and garments could be bought reasonably cheaply. She realised that many of her customers were now shopping further afield, making expeditions to the larger towns and cities now that goods were more readily available.

On the other hand, Arthur’s bakery business next door had been going from strength to strength, as had his outside catering business. The same idea had occurred, it seemed, to both Lily and Arthur at the same time; but it was Lily who first made the suggestion that she might close the draper’s shop, and that the premises could be made into a
restaurant… Only to find that Arthur had been considering exactly the same thing for quite a while, but had not wanted Lily to think that he was seeking to take over her own little enterprise.

Consequently, they had contacted a firm of builders, and work was now going on apace to convert the draper’s shop into a tearoom.

‘Well, rather more than a tearoom,’ Maisie told Audrey now. ‘It’ll be a restaurant really, but only quite a small one because it’s not a very big area. Mum thinks it’ll be popular with shoppers who want to pop in for morning coffee or afternoon tea, but Arthur is rather more ambitious. He wants to do lunches, and evening dinners sometimes, if they’re booked in advance. He’s got all sorts of plans, but they’ll just have to see how it goes.’

‘So when is it going to open?’

‘In a few weeks’ time, all being well. Arthur wants to open in time for Easter, certainly. They’re trying to think of a name for it at the moment. “Rawcliffe’s Restaurant” is OK, but I think they need something a bit more catchy…’

Maisie noticed that her friend was not listening as intently now. She had finished her drink of chocolate and was staring down at her beaker, twisting it round and round in her hands. It was ten o’clock, and if she was going to raise the dreaded subject again that night, Maisie decided she had better do it at once.

‘Audrey…’ she began. ‘How are you feeling
now? I mean…are you still in the same mind, or are you beginning to realise that it would be a foolish thing to do? Not only foolish, but very wrong as well. You must realise that…’

‘I do, I do!’ Audrey turned an anguished face towards her. It was clear she was still in a state of great torment. ‘I know all about that; I know it’s wrong. But I’d rather go through with it than have to tell my parents what I’ve done; that I’m pregnant… I couldn’t tell them, never, not in a thousand years. I couldn’t do that to them. They’ve been such wonderful parents to me, Luke and Patience, since my real mum and dad died. In fact, they are my real parents now, and I just can’t hurt them like that, Maisie… Don’t you understand?’

‘I think so,’ said Maisie. She went over to her and took the mug out of her hands, then put an arm around her. ‘I’ll be there for you, Audrey, I promise… Now, I think it would be a good idea if we went to bed, don’t you? You must have my bed – no, I won’t listen to any arguments – and I’ll sleep on the settee. And you’re going to take some aspirins to help you to get to sleep…’

‘Come on now, there’s a good girl,’ she said, returning with the pill bottle and a glass of water. ‘In fact I’m going to take two myself to settle me down. Off you go now and use the bathroom; it’s free at the moment, and the woman on the next floor sometimes takes ages. I’ve put a hot water bottle in your bed. See you in the morning…’

Audrey clung to her for a moment, then silently went off to prepare herself for bed. Maisie knew it was doubtful that her friend would sleep very much. She, too, lay awake for a long time, despite the dose of aspirin, but eventually her agitated thoughts diminished and she slept until the alarm clock wakened her.

She decided that there was no point in harrassing her friend any more. She had done all that she could. Maybe a night’s rest – if Audrey had been able to sleep – would have helped her to view things differently. At all events, it was up to Audrey now to make the decision.

It soon became clear that there would be no moving her from her resolve to go through with her plan. Audrey would drink only a cup of tea, with nothing to eat. She had been told to make sure she had an empty stomach. She seemed calm; too calm. At just after half past nine they boarded the tram and travelled the two stops to the other end of Woodhouse Moor, then walked to the house that Audrey had visited before.

Maisie was feeling sick at heart, and sick in her stomach too, so she could imagine that Audrey must be feeling ten times worse. She was slightly encouraged, however, when she saw the house. It was, as her friend had said, quite posh, both inside and out; and clean, too, which was far more important.

The door was opened by a woman in a white coat, the same woman, Maisie guessed, that Audrey had met previously. ‘Ah yes, Miss Dennison,’ she said. ‘We were expecting you.’

Maisie was a little surprised to hear Audrey give the name that she had had as a child, before she had been adopted by the Fairchilds; presumably because she wanted to safeguard her identity and, maybe, not to connect the name of the rector and his wife with the sordid operation she was about to undergo.

‘And this is…?’ The woman looked enquiringly at Maisie.

‘I’m Audrey’s friend,’ she said unsmilingly. ‘I’ll wait for her, if that’s all right with you?’

‘Yes, quite all right.’ The woman gave a nod and the briefest of smiles. ‘Come along in…’ She ushered them into a room at the front of the house which was furnished quite comfortably, but not lavishly, with easy chairs and low tables on which were copies of magazines:
Ideal Home, Yorkshire Life
, and
Amateur Gardening
amongst others. ‘I’ll leave you here for a little while, then I’ll come and tell you when my husband is ready for you, Miss Dennison.’

They both sat down uncomfortably on the edge of the armchair seats. There was an eloquent silence for a few moments, and then Maisie spoke. ‘Audrey…’ she whispered urgently. ‘It’s not too late, you know, to change your mind.’

Audrey shook her head. ‘No…’ she whispered back. ‘I’ve come this far, and it’ll soon be over. So long as I know that you’ll be here waiting for me.’ Her voice broke on a sob and she looked away, blinking rapidly. She clenched her hands together tightly. ‘I’ve got to get a grip of myself. It’ll soon be over…’ she said again.

After only a few minutes the door opened and the woman – Maisie had never discovered her name – was there again. ‘Miss Dennison, if you would come with me, please…’

Audrey walked from the room without a glance at her friend. If she had looked at her Maisie was sure she would have cried out, ‘Audrey, don’t! You mustn’t…’ But it had to be her own decision when all was said and done.

Maisie sat and waited, not knowing how long the wait would be. She was not sure, in fact, just what would be happening to Audrey. Would she have an anaesthetic, or would she be conscious of all that was going on? She shuddered, staring at the clock on the mantelshelf and watching the hands move round, so very lowly. It had a loud tick and it sounded, to Maisie’s ears, like a solemn harbinger of doom.

Nine-forty…nine-forty-two, nine-forty-three… When the hands of the clock had almost reached a quarter to ten the door burst open and Audrey dashed in. ‘Maisie…oh, Maisie!’ she cried, flinging herself at her friend. ‘I can’t do it! I can’t, I can’t…
Take me home, please, Maisie. I want to go home…’ She burst into tears.