Unspoken: A story of secrets, love and revenge T. Belshaw (good books to read for beginners txt) 📖

years ago. I gave them short shrift. NINE HUNDRED POUNDS A WEEK! I’d be flat broke inside a month.’

Jess shook her head.

‘Nana, I saw your bank statements don’t forget. That time you thought you were being overcharged for gas? You could pay for a full-time carer for the next ten years and still not have to sell the house to pay for the care.’

Alice sniffed.

‘That’s neither here nor there. I didn’t need a full-time carer then, and I don’t need one now. Gwen’s hours are quite sufficient. Especially on the days when you come around.’

She bent her knee again and relaxed.

‘Which reminds me. I’d like to talk to you about that. Time’s running short, Jessica. The light is getting ever closer and brighter. Do you think you could add another day or two to your visits, or stay longer when you do come around? I’m worried that we won’t have enough time to get through my story. We’ve hardly started yet.’

Jess nodded.

‘Yes, I’m sure I can, Nana, I can definitely do Monday as well as the usual Sunday, and I could come around one or two evenings too perhaps, but please, don’t talk as though this is the last few days we’ll ever have together.’

‘What about Calvin?’ asked Alice.

‘What about him?’ replied Jess. ‘He’ll just have to put up with it.’ She looked at Alice closely. Her confession that she felt she was fading a little more every day had worried her. She was looking frailer, a little weaker, her voice didn’t have the strength it held a few short weeks ago and her skin was taking on a paper-like appearance.

‘I’ll see about sleeping over a couple of times a week too if you like?’

Alice smiled and stuck up a thumb. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

She leaned back into her cushions and, deliberately ignoring the clock, focussed her mind on the past.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘Nineteen thirty-seven. Now, hurry up and pour that tea before it gets cold.’

Chapter 9

Calvin

Calvin climbed into his BMW and drove through the town and out into the countryside, past the Mollison farm, then turned around to face the way he had come at a gravel-strewn passing point, about fifty yards beyond the farm, on the narrow lane, the hedgerow protecting him from view.

He pulled on the handbrake and settled back to wait.

Twenty minutes later he spotted Jess’s car pull into Alice’s drive. He waited ten minutes, then pulled out and drove back into town, stopping at the off-campus Uni building where the IT lecture was to take place.

He looked at his watch.

‘Thirty minutes to go. May as well grab a coffee.’

Calvin walked across the campus car park, crossed the road and pulled open the door of Coffee Express. There were a few customers littered about, sipping on lattes or tending to business on their laptops.

In the corner, by the window, was a blonde girl, idly stirring her coffee as she gazed out of the window. Her short skirt showed off a pair of athletic looking legs.

Calvin ordered an espresso and sauntered across to look out of the window himself. His eyes lingered on her legs for a second too long.

‘Haven’t you seen a pair of legs before?’ the girl asked, a smile flickering across her lips.

Calvin’s hand swept through his immaculately groomed hair.

‘Not like those I haven’t.’ He smiled, showing off his perfect teeth. ‘I’m Calvin,’ he said, with all the charm he could muster. ‘Do you mind if I join you?’

The girl smiled again and opened her hand, aiming it towards the seat opposite.

‘I’m Tania, and I’m bored witless. Take a seat, I could do with some entertainment.’

Calvin pulled out the chair and sat down.

‘I can do entertainment,’ he said.

She smiled again and sipped her coffee, the tip of her tongue ran over her lips.

‘Don’t you have something better to do?’

He flashed his teeth again. ‘What could be better than this,’ he said.

Chapter 10

Alice

1937

I was still mourning my mother’s passing by the time my birthday came around in the September. I had been busy through the summer looking after the farm. In July we lost the other half of the barn roof in a storm that was almost biblical. Luckily, this time, the gale was early and there wasn’t a lot of stored hay or crop seed to lose. We didn’t lose any sheep this time either, although three of the pig sties flooded pretty badly.

The farm lads repaired the barn roof so we didn’t need to get any outside companies involved, thank goodness. It had been a pretty dreadful year so far. The news from abroad wasn’t so good either. Hitler was threatening everyone in sight and the Spanish were fighting each other to the death. Never had I been so grateful to live on an island.

My father’s depression was worse than ever as he sank further and further into his alcohol addiction. As we approached my birthday, he became increasingly agitated and fixated on those awful days, seventeen years before. Even in his almost paralytic state, he assigned my birth date to the beginning of my mother’s decline.

‘But for you, she’d still be here,’ he slurred one night as I took him a meal of stew and dumplings that I knew he wouldn’t eat. I left without saying a word.

I passed a lot of the spare time I did manage to snatch, with my best friend, Amy, who lived about half a mile away on the outskirts of what used to be a large village, but was now increasingly becoming a small town.

Amy was a year older than me but as in most country schools of the day, we sat in the same classroom with the same teacher, learning slightly different subject matter. I missed her terribly when she left education at fourteen to join her mother at the cotton mill on the river about a mile outside of town.

Amy was a pretty girl with hair the colour of flax. Girls today could never get that shade in a bottle.