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

arrived; I started my first period since I had given birth. My monthlies were never a real problem for me. I didn’t get particularly miserable, or moody like a lot of the girls I went to school with, I can’t say I sailed through them like Amy did though. Nothing ever seemed to get to her.

My breast milk production had ceased in July. I wondered if I would bother even trying to breast feed another child if I had one. The formula milk had performed miracles with Martha.

Frank came in at midnight, and was out of the house again for five. We hadn’t spoken a word since his return. I heard him muttering to himself as he crept up the stairs at night, but he didn’t even hesitate outside my bedroom door for a second. I began to breathe easier. It looked like the Merchant Navy had done him some good.

I waited for my period to end, before I tackled my own job of feeding and cleaning out the pigs again. I was nervous of going in with the twin boars, Horace and Hector, so I spent a few minutes, three times a day, standing outside their pen, or sitting on the rails, scratching their hairy backs.

The acid test came on the Sunday of the third week in August. I donned my old dungarees only to find that I could have put someone else inside them with me, and they’d still be loose.

Miriam offered to take out all of the inserts she had stitched in over the months, while I searched my room for the spare pair that hadn’t been altered for my pregnancy.

I finally found them stuffed under the bed with a couple of my father’s checked, work shirts.

It was a strange feeling, sitting on a chair, in my unaltered overalls pulling on my rubber boots. It seemed an age since I had last done it. Benny, who had been looking after the pigs in my enforced absence, watched over me as I opened the safety gate to allow the pigs in the first sty to be corralled into the holding pen. When I began the process of the clean out, I worked too quickly, and had to go through the sty a second time to remove all the detritus. The stench was incredible, I knew I would get used to it again soon, but I wished to God that I’d put some scented cream on my nose before I set out.

By the time I’d done pen three, I was fully back in the swing of it. I was cleaning and sluicing almost as fast as I ever had. When I got to the last pen, the scene of my trauma, I told Benny to get back to the harvest, as I’d be fine. Benny was obviously under orders from Barney to do no such thing, and he hung around the fence of the new pen, as I tentatively opened the safety gate to the holding pen so that Hector and Horace, the huge brothers, could get at the whey treats, a by-product of Miriam’s small butter and cheese operation. Not only did it give us as much fresh cheese and butter as we needed, it gave the animals some tasty, extra protein. My pigs loved it.

As soon as the gate was open, Horace led his brother and the sows into the holding pen. I stepped into the sty with my brush, disinfectant, hose and shovel, and began to clean. I was so engrossed in my work that I didn’t hear the shout from Benny, until it was too late.

In my haste to get the boars into the holding pen, I hadn’t shut the latch properly and both Horace and Hector were now standing directly behind me. Horace nudged the back of my thigh. I closed my eyes tight, expecting the worst, but all I got was another nudge. I turned around nervously, but the boars were just impatient for the daily back scratch I provided with the aid of the stiff yard brush.

I was in the pen with them for a good twenty minutes, making sure each of the twelve porkers got a hefty scrub with the brush. By the time I got out, Benny had gone. I punched the air with elation. My boars were the friendly, loveable creatures they had always been.

Frank came back early on the Friday with a cut across his forearm. Miriam washed his arm with disinfectant and put a bandage around it. Before he left, I asked him to spare me a couple of minutes in private.

‘You do know what’s wrong with your mother, Frank, don’t you?’ I said, more an accusation, than a question.

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ he replied.

‘Frank, it’s your mother, you only ever get one, and she’s dying, you should at least see her before you go back. You might not get another chance.’

‘Thanks for the advice, but I’d prefer it if you kept your nose out of my business,’ he snarled.

‘Frank, she telephoned me, she wanted to see Martha. She told me all about her diagnosis. Honestly, Frank, she’s only got a few weeks left. Just say goodbye to her before you go back. It won’t bloody kill you.’

He pushed my shoulder to move me away and walked out of the door.

‘Bloody women. You’re all more trouble than you’re worth,’ he said as he walked across the yard.

Because of the help of the locals, plus the added bonus of Frank, and Barney’s brother, Raymond, the wheat crop had been cut on time and we were now ready for the threshing machine. We had beaten the bad weather at the start of the month, and caught up by the fourth week. It would cost me extra in payments to the part timers, but handing out a few sixpences to the children who were learning the value of work, was always a delight to experience. The look on their faces when they received their first shiny