The Hills and the Valley Read online

  ‘I should bloody well think he is!’ Alec exploded. ‘I wish I could get my hands on the bastard!’

  ‘No!’ she protested violently. ‘You mustn’t say anything, please!’

  Her eyes were huge in her thin face and she laid a trembling hand on his arm. Alec felt the pit of his stomach fall away.

  ‘For Christ’s sake …’ he muttered.

  And somehow she was in his arms.

  For long moments suspended in time he held her. Then it was over. She drew away and he let her go, standing awkwardly, still stunned by the strength of his emotions. Her head was bent, eyes downcast behind a curtain of hair that almost hid her face. She could not look at him.

  ‘I’d better be going,’ he said roughly.

  She moved then, looking up quickly.

  ‘Don’t go! Stay and have a drink – we always keep a bottle of beer in the house. Unless of course you’re busy …’

  He did not need asking twice.

  ‘No, I’m not busy. There’s nothing left to do in the cottage really.’

  ‘You’ll be moving in soon, I suppose. You’re getting married at Easter, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Supposed to be.’

  She was bustling about now, trying to behave normally, fetching the beer, a bottle opener and a glass. Alec watched her, feeling a little as though he had already drunk more than was good for him and wondering why Joan never had this effect on him.

  Bryda spread a freshly laundered shirt out on the table and took a flat iron off the gas ring, handling it carefully with a thick crocheted holder.

  ‘It’s funny really. I don’t know a lot about you seeing we’re going to be neighbours,’ she said.

  ‘No. We went to the same school though, didn’t we?’

  The awkwardness was still there but as they chatted it lessened. Bryda worked steadily at her ironing. Alec broke into a second bottle of beer.

  When the clock in the living room chimed ten she became anxious again.

  ‘P’raps you’d better go. If Eric were to come home and find you here …’

  Let him! Alec thought recklessly, emboldened by the two pints. Then I could tell him what I think of him and perhaps give him a taste of his own medicine into the bargain! But he knew that he would not be the one to suffer. It would be Bryda who would taste Eric’s revenge when he was not there to see fair play. He got up.

  ‘I’ll see you again then.’

  ‘Yeah. See you again.’

  ‘Thanks for the beer.’

  ‘Thanks for doing the light.’

  He hesitated in the doorway wishing he could take her in his arms again. From the other side of the table she smiled at him and it seemed the smile lit her face, blotting out the marks beside her mouth and the dark shadows under her eyes. He felt as if the pit had dropped out of his stomach.

  ‘Night,’ he said.

  ‘Night.’ He went out into the clammy darkness and closed the door behind him.

  Chapter Seven

  Harry was in his office at the Miners’Welfare Building. On the desk in front of him lay a file of legal papers relating to an appeal against dismissal by one of his members, to his left a pile of correspondence awaited his attention, at his right elbow a cup of coffee cooled and congealed.

  There was a tap at the door, and Elinor Vranch, his highly efficient secretary, popped her head in.

  ‘Mr Eddie Roberts to see you, Mr Hall.’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Busy as he was, Harry put the cap on his fountain pen and laid it down on the blotter. ‘Show him in please, Miss Vranch.’

  Not a flicker of surprise showed on the carefully made-up features.

  ‘Very well, Mr Hall.’ She went out and Harry heard her say: ‘Mr Hall will see you now, Mr Roberts, if you would care to …’

  ‘It’s all right. I know the way.’ The door opened and Eddie Roberts came into the office. ‘Afternoon, Harry. What did you want to see me about?’

  Eddie Roberts, Amy’s brother-in-law, was a big man. Physically, he closely resembled his dead brother Llew – he had the same brown hair springing from a deep ‘widows peak’, the same clear blue eyes and good strong features which looked boyish in spite of the scattering of lines and paunches which had come from approaching middle age – and a liking for a little more whisky than was good for him. Here the resemblance ended. Llew’s face had been characterised by openness while Eddie had a slightly shifty look; Llew’s eyes had been frank and friendly, Eddie’s were narrow and calculating. He had put on weight around his middle so that he was now solid rather than whippy but curiously it gave him no substance. Harry did not like him.

  ‘Come in, Eddie,’ he said easily, concealing his feelings. ‘Have a seat.’

  Eddie glanced at the watch which he wore on a chain across his waistcoat.

  ‘I can’t be too long. I have some calls to make. Business, you know.’

  Once upon a time Eddie had set up as an estate agent in the town but it had not been a success. Now he made his living selling insurance door-to-door.

  ‘I won’t keep you long, but I thought it was best to ask you to call in when you were passing. It’s a bit more private here than most places.’

  Eddie’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why should we want privacy?’

  ‘Because I’d rather no one overheard what I have to say to you.’ Again Harry indicated the chair. ‘For goodness sake sit down man. I can’t talk while you’re bobbing about there.’

  Eddie sat. ‘Go on then. It’s about this business of you being put forward as a candidate for prospective Labour member, I suppose.’

  ‘Well no, actually, it’s not,’ Harry said. ‘It’s about you, Eddie, and since you’re in a rush I’ll come straight to the point. I have reason to believe that you have been taking backhanders in exchange for contracts we arrange on the council.’

  Eddie’s jaw dropped. If Harry had had any doubts that his suspicions were correct they were dispelled in that moment; Eddie’s guilt was written all over his face. Then he quickly recovered himself.

  ‘What a bloody awful thing to say!’

  ‘It’s true though, isn’t it?’

  His directness disconcerted Eddie once more. A dark flush rose in his cheeks. ‘And what proof have you got, I’d like to know?’ he demanded.

  Harry sat back in his chair, the leather patched elbows of his sports coat resting on the rounded wooden arms. ‘At the moment, none.’

  ‘Well then, I ought to have you up for libel!’ Eddie blustered.

  ‘I dare say if I did a little investigation I could come up with the proof without too much trouble,’ Harry continued smoothly. ‘Take that load of stuff you’ve had delivered to build yourself an air raid shelter for one thing. It shouldn’t be too difficult to discover whether that was paid for, and if it wasn’t the fact that it was you who swayed the council to give a contract to Thorne Sand and Gravel would look decidedly fishy. Then there’s the business about Welsh’s drainage system up at Riddicks Cross. And they are just two instances. I could name others, but I won’t. I’m sure you get the gist of what I’m saying.’

  ‘I can have an air raid shelter if I like! Nothing wrong in that!’

  ‘Not if you pay for it like everyone else, no. But I don’t think you did. Notice I say “think”. The point is, Eddie, if I knew I’d have to do something about it and that would be very embarrassing for all concerned. Which is why I’m having a quiet word with you about it rather than going out for the proof I’m sure I’d find if I did.’

  Eddie’s face turned an even deeper shade of red.

  ‘What are you going to do about it then, Harry?’ he asked.

  ‘At the moment, nothing. I don’t want to cause a scandal. It wouldn’t be good for the council or for the party. But if ever I have cause to suspect again that you’re doing your eye good I shall have no alternative but to ask for an investigation.’

  ‘I see.’ Eddie blundered to his feet. ‘You Halls are all the same, aren’t you? Too damned big for your boots.
’

  ‘There’s no need to be offensive,’ Harry said steadily. ‘And I hope you’re not about to bring my sister into this because if you do I shall feel a good deal less charitable.’

  Eddie snorted, on the point of saying more, then thought better of it.

  ‘I won’t detain you any longer,’ Harry went on. ‘I’ve said what I had to say and I hope that will be the end of it.’

  ‘It won’t be the end because I shan’t forget this in a hurry!’

  ‘Well, that’s up to you, Eddie.’ Harry stood up. ‘I’ll see you at council. Close the door on your way out, will you?’

  For a moment Eddie glared, then turned and stormed out of the office. As the door slammed after him Harry sat down again, sighing. He rather thought that when Eddie Roberts had had time to cool down and think things through he would see sense. There would be no more suspect contracts and payments in kind through the back door. But Harry was in no doubt as to one thing. Like Amy before him he had managed to make a dangerous enemy.

  At eight o’clock on Good Friday evening the bar at the Miners Arms was already crowded. All the regulars were there but tonight it was Alec Hall, usually one of the quieter of the customers, who was the centre of attention. Tomorrow he was due to be married and everyone was anxious to buy him a drink, make a joke at his expense, or hand out a piece of advice.

  ‘Drink up, lad, and I’ll get thee another,’ Ewart Brixey said, draining his own glass. ‘This be your last night of freedom. You might as well make the most of it!’

  ‘I’m all right, Ewart, thanks all the same. I’ve still got half left.’

  ‘Drink up!’ Ewart insisted. ‘We don’t want you riding home on that bike o’yourn tonight. We be going to carry you!’

  ‘Leave the poor bugger alone,’ Stanley Bristow interjected. ‘Don’t you take no notice of’im, Alec. You’ll want a clear head when you walk down that aisle tomorrow morning.’

  ‘And all your strength tomorrow night!’ Tommy Clements joked. There was a roar of appreciative laughter but Alec found it impossible to join in.

  He had never felt so trapped since he was four years old and starting school, he thought. He’d hated it, hated the teacher, sour sarcastic Miss Williams, hated the smell of the coke-burning stove that gave out a great deal of smoke but very little heat, hated being made to lie down on a mat for three quarters of an hour every afternoon to have a sleep. He had run away several times but whenever he did his mother had taken him back; his mother, whom he had thought he could rely on to make things come right, dragging him along the street and saying firmly: ‘I’m sorry, Alec, you’ve got to go. They’ll put the attendance man on to me if you don’t.’ Trapped. Trapped. The glory of Friday afternoons, leaving the playground and knowing that for the whole weekend he would be free; the sick weight inside him on a Sunday night because tomorrow it would start all over again – at least until the holidays.

  But there weren’t any holidays in marriage. You were stuck with it for life. It was worse than going to prison when you came to think about it – there was no remission for good conduct. Alec took a swig of his beer, wishing he could drink himself into oblivion but it wouldn’t do any good. He’d just have a thick head tomorrow to add to his troubles.

  ‘You’ve got a good girl there,’ Stanley ruminated. ‘I always liked Joan.’

  ‘Nothing worse than being married to a shrew,’ Walter Clements said.

  The men were silent for a moment. They all knew Walter was thinking of Ada, his first wife. She had been a shrew and no mistake. And a slut into the bargain. But she was Tommy’s mother for all that and with Tommy sitting across the table it was not something you could mention.

  ‘Trouble is you’m stuck with’em,’ Stanley Bristow said. ‘That’s why I never married. Give me horses every time. You know where you are with a horse.’

  ‘You’d have a job getting a horse to keep you warm in bed at nights though!’ Ewart joked.

  ‘True enough. And there’s plenty of blokes landed with a woman they don’t want through looking for a warm bed afore they got married,’ Tommy put in.

  ‘More fools them,’ said Stanley.

  Alec pushed back his chair. Suddenly he couldn’t stand the ribaldry and innuendo any longer. It was choking him up, just as the thought of getting married tomorrow was choking him up.

  ‘Where be you going, Alec?’ Ewart asked. ‘You sit down. The drinks tonight are on us!’

  Alec drained his glass. The bar was swimming round him, the warmth and the noise and the smoke all part of the nightmare.

  ‘I’m going out for a breath of fresh air,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you later.’

  He went out. His bicycle was parked at the foot of the stone steps and he wheeled it across the road trying to make some sense of his chaotic emotions.

  I can’t do it! he thought. I can’t marry her. Stanley is right, she is a good girl, but I can’t spend the rest of my life with her. Not now. Once upon a time I thought it was just me, not wanting to be tied down. I thought perhaps everybody felt this way and got over it. Or if they didn’t then I was just peculiar, couldn’t have natural feelings for a woman.

  But that was before Bryda.

  You’re mad – bloody mad! he told himself but it made no difference. The feelings which had been missing where Joan was concerned were all there for Bryda. Yet the funny thing was that scarcely a thing had happened between them which was not strictly proper.

  Since the night when he had changed the light bulb for her he had spent many hours in her kitchen but for the most part they had only talked of everyday happenings, Alec drinking a bottle of beer (which he now took with him in case Eric should notice his store being depleted), Bryda doing some of the interminable chores that came with running a home and looking after a family. Sometimes she ironed, sometimes she darned, once she had been baking – an apple pie and a treacle tart which filled the kitchen with a smell of mouthwatering sweetness. But apart from the occasional touch of hands which set Alec trembling with desire they remained behind the barriers of propriety. The unwritten rule was there between them – she had a husband, he had a fiancée. Whatever they felt for one another they were going to have to live as neighbours.

  Perhaps in his heart Alec had been nursing a dream that one day he would take her away from that brute of a husband of hers to a world where they could be together openly and he could banish the shadows from her eyes forever. But if so it had been just that – a dream, and one that was all the more impossible as the remorseless machine that controlled his life rolled along, sweeping him with it. He had agreed to marry Joan and that was all there was to it. He accepted it as a fact of life.

  Until the night before his wedding when he suddenly knew that he simply could not go through with it.

  The knowledge came to him like a bolt from the blue, frightening him into immobility. He stood in the centre of the road, his bicycle propped against him. He couldn’t go through with it. He couldn’t promise to love, honour and keep Joan as long as they both should live when the only person he wanted in the whole world was going to be living on the other side of a brick wall. But what the hell was he going to do about it? How could he pull out at this late stage? Everything was ready, even the bridesmaids’dresses which the dressmaker had sweated over late into the night. Some of the guests had already arrived, Uncle Jack and Aunt Stella had driven up from Minehead and were staying with his grandmother in Greenslade Terrace, and Joan’s cousin Betty had arrived from Yorkshire. Everything would have to be cancelled. He went cold at the thought. Yet the insistent demon was darting inside him now.

  You can’t marry her. It wouldn’t be fair to either of you. What sort of a life would you have, starting off like this, when all you want is to be with Bryda …

  A car hooted and he looked up, startled out of his reverie, to see a set of partially hooded lights approaching fast. Quickly, he skipped to the side of the road thinking that if he was to get knocked down and killed it would settle t
hings once and for all – and with no disgrace to Joan.

  If only there was someone he could talk to! Uncle Harry, for instance. He was a sensible type and used to sorting out men’s problems. But there was no time to go looking for him. And besides, without meaning to the men in the Miners Arms had told him all he needed to know.

  ‘There’s nothing worse than being married to a shrew,’ Walter Clements had said. Well, that was what Joan would certainly become when she realised he did not love her. He could see it now, the bitterness and the recriminations, the constant urging to change not his ways but his feelings, something which would not be dictated to even by the strongest of wills.

  ‘There’s plenty got themselves landed with a woman they don’t want through looking for a warm bed afore they got married,’ had been Tommy’s comment. True, very true, for him as for all the others. But mostly they had been trapped because there was a baby on the way. This was not so in his case. In the beginning he had thought there might be. But Joan had told him it was all right, she hadn’t fallen.

  Good Joan. Honest Joan. She could have made him believe otherwise and he would never have left her, unwed, to bring up his nipper. But she had told him the truth and now he was going to penalise her for it.

  No, not penalise. She deserves more than I can give her, Alec thought. And the sooner I tell her so the better. Filled with dread though he was at the thought of the scene ahead of him, for the first time for weeks Alec also felt elated – and in control of his own fate.

  He mounted his bicycle and pedalled along the New Road, the only flat road out of the centre of Hills bridge, towards Joan’s home.

  ‘I don’t believe it, Alec. I don’t believe what you’re saying!’

  Joan stood in the little front room surrounded by the trappings of her forthcoming marriage. Her dress covered with an old white sheet to keep it clean and hide it from the gaze of visitors hung from the curtain rail. On the table the presents were arranged, each topped with a gift card, while a sheet of wrapping paper, eagerly torn from one present and still forming the rough shape of the box it had covered, lay discarded in a corner.