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

I didn’t reply. I hated lying to her.

‘Charlie Chan is closing in on the answer to the riddle,’ she said, her eyes narrowing. ‘Is this when you kissed?’ she asked.

‘Yes. All right, yes, it was when we kissed.’ I looked away, thinking that was the end of the interrogation, but I was mistaken.

‘Alice Hussy. Did it stop at a kiss, or did you…?’

I blushed, my cheeks were burning. I wouldn’t have lasted thirty seconds under the frightful stare of the real Charlie Chan.

‘YOU DID IT! YOU DID IT!’ she cried.

‘Shh. Don’t let the whole world know,’ I replied, pushing both hands down in a calming motion.

‘Oh, my God, Alice. You sneaky little thing. You’ve done it with your gangster and you weren’t going to tell me about it.’

‘You’d have got it out of me anyway,’ I said. ‘You always do.’

‘Because I am the master sleuth,’ she replied. Amy looked me up and down as if the experience might have changed me somehow. It had, but not in a visible sense.

We sat down at the round table and I told her all about it, leaving out the bit where Frank caught us. I wanted to delete that grisly thought from my memory banks, and just remember the beauty of it all.

‘How did it feel? Oh, Alice, it’s usually me that gets to do stuff first, and explain to you how things are done, but you’re one up on me now… two up, as you’ve had a baby too. I’m not counting the first time with that disgusting creature, Frank. What was it like with the gangster man?’

‘It was perfect. You know when you have those dreams, the really explicit dreams, and you wake up wet through and red-faced? Well, it was like that, only better. He was slow, gentle, then quicker and harder, then slow and steady again, but it was never anything other than glorious. It felt like the entire energy flow of the earth was running through me. It was electric, it was poetic. You know how we used to laugh when we read someone say that the earth moved for them? Well, it doesn’t seem that silly to me now. It didn’t move, exactly, but I felt part of the universe, part of everything, all at once. It’s hard to explain, Amy. It’s like a tingle, that starts in the centre of your body and it just radiates outwards until it consumes you. You reach a point where you feel so tense that you don’t think you can bear it any more, then a flood of contentment washes over you and you feel as floppy as a boneless fish.’

Amy had hung on to my every word. She sat, wide-eyed as she listened. ‘Oh, I’m so jealous,’ she said, eventually. Then she reached forward and grabbed both of my hands. ‘I’m so glad you had this moment, Alice. You deserve it so much. You sound like you are in love. Are you?’

‘No, at least I don’t think so. I doubt it will happen again. He’s working away for the next couple of weeks, and he is married, don’t forget. I’d feel guilty if we went on to have a proper, lengthy affair. I’m happy with what I got. I know what making love should feel like now. I hope it hasn’t spoiled me for anyone else. This will take some living up to.’

Amy went home at nine, and I fed Martha while Miriam made up the bottles for the night. I can’t say Martha had taken to me, if I’m honest. She much preferred Miriam’s company, or Amy’s, if she came around. She was still liable to scream the house down if she wanted another shoulder to burp on, but by and large, we got on. I think she saw me as someone she had to put up with now and then. That never changed, even as she got older. There ought to be something special between a mother and daughter, an invisible bond that can stretch, but never break. I wondered if I’d ever have that with Martha.

Frank didn’t go to the pub, none of them did. They were working late, preparing for the threshing machine, where the wheat seeds and chaff would be separated. The latter used for feed, and the stalks for bedding. Nothing was wasted. We didn’t own our own steam-driven thresher, none of the local farmers did. We would all book the man who did own one, for certain dates, and hope the crop was ready when he turned up. Ours had been cut over the last couple of weeks and was stacked in neat piles to dry out thoroughly. The thresher would arrive on Saturday, at dawn.

This is where more extra sixpences would be earned by the local kids. We would have more people than animals on the farm by sun up and all the seed would be separated before sun down.

Frank came in at midnight and must have gone to bed without eating the meal that Miriam had left in the oven for him, as it was still there the next morning.

I was up at four to greet the thresher, when he arrived. He would not only be paid for his services, he would eat well and drink his fill, for the whole day.

Frank came downstairs while I was making a pile of sandwiches to keep our own men going over the long day. I had crates of ale stored away, and our workmen would receive those at regular intervals. Frank snarled as he passed me on his way out.

‘Slut!’ he spat.

Chapter 75

August 1938

At one o’clock on Saturday lunchtime, Michael arrived to pick Miriam up for their trip to Southend on Sea. She had been acting like a child, waiting for Santa Claus to turn up, all morning. She asked advice on which clothes she should travel in; did I think he would stop on the way for a toilet break and how to pronounce the name