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

starting the next chapter, hoping to clear her mind of the vile events for a while at least.

At twelve-thirty, she let the book drop to the floor, knelt by Alice’s bed and kissed her on the cheek.

‘Bless you, Nana, I never imagined I’d be reading these awful things when you first mentioned your secret. I thought it might just be about having Martha out of wedlock.’ She fought back tears and sniffed to clear her nose. ‘That Frank, I wish I’d have met him. I’d have told him what I thought. I might even have thumped him too, the nasty swine. To think Martha believes he was a war hero. He was nothing of the sort, was he?’

Jess crept out of the room, put their cocoa mugs in the kitchen, turned out all the lights except the small lamp at the side of Alice’s chair, and went upstairs. She skipped the shower, got into her favourite PJs, and slipped into bed. Sleep didn’t come straight away. She lay awake for an hour, going over what had happened to Alice all those years ago. Times were different back then and kids had to grow up a lot earlier than they did now. She tried to put Frank’s attack out of her thoughts and concentrated on Godfrey, only the second man to come into Alice’s young life, and the second one to take advantage of her.

Jess tried to remember what she had been like in her late teens. She hadn’t known a man before Uni but she had been attracted to a lecturer who was pretty much the same age as Godfrey. He had been married too, although she hadn’t known it at the time. To her, he was intellectual, enthusiastic, and amusing, he seemed caring, eager to please, he treated her as an equal intellectually, and took part in serious conversations about world events. Most of it was a sham. She found out, too late, that not only was he married, but he had a daughter about to take her A levels, so would only have been a year or two younger than her. The split had been tearful and emotionally draining, it had taken her months to get over him, and she had to suffer the ignominy of having to watch him try it on with girls studying alongside her. She was glad that Alice had her light-bulb moment. She had found her inner self, the Rita Hayworth personality that she could turn on and off when required. Jess wished she had a character she could use to similar effect. She fell asleep searching for one.

The next morning, she found Alice propped up on her pillows with an empty breakfast tray in front of her. Gwen had, once again, come in far earlier than her schedule dictated.

‘She’s had her tablet, Jessica. She clenched her fists and pumped them. She seems so much better today.’ I touched clenched fists with her and walked over to the bedside.

‘Good morning, Nana. Did you sleep well?’

‘Like Rip Van Winkle,’ she replied. ‘I think I’d like to get back in my chair today, if that’s all right?’

At seven-thirty, Gwen helped Alice to dress while Jess had breakfast, then, using her walker, better than she had for many days, she crossed the room, turned around by herself, and dropped back into the familiar confines of her armchair. She patted its arms as she made herself comfortable, then she looked straight ahead at the big old clock.

‘It’s good to be back,’ she said.

Jess didn’t mention the assault. Nana looked happier than she had done for a good while and she didn’t want to risk making her ill again by bringing Frank or Godfrey’s names up.

Later that morning, after listening to Radio Four news together Alice seemed eager to carry on.

‘What’s next? Is it October?’

Jess picked up the memoir and began to read again.

October. 1938.

Chapter 79

October 1938

On the thirtieth of September nineteen thirty-eight, our Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, came back from Germany waving a piece of paper whilst proclaiming ‘Peace for our time’. On the same day, I received a letter from the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, informing me that my application for a grant to help build a cowshed-come-milking parlour had been approved and the cheque would follow within a week. So, in true Neville Chamberlain fashion, I lined up the lads in the yard at the end of the day and waved my own piece of paper in the air, declaring, Friesian for our time. My little joke referred to the purchase, or breeding of, extra cows to add to our small herd. Maurice Hepplewhite, of Middleton Dairies, the man I had met at my dad’s funeral, had planted the seed of an idea in my mind and after a couple of weeks thinking about it, I had applied for the grant. The new facilities would be a major upgrade on our old milking system and it would mean we could add a dozen or more cows to our herd. The new structure would be large, with the electric, pump driven, milking parlour at one end where we could milk up to four cows at once, and over-wintering stalls, running along both sides of the structure, giving us enough room to keep a couple of dozen animals, dry and fed in bad weather. I had to find some of the money myself, but the remainder of my parents’ insurance money, and the good yields from this year’s harvest, meant we could afford the expense without the need to borrow from the bank. The extra money from the milk and beef sales meant that it would pay for itself over time. We would also get all that extra straw and manure to spread on the fields.

I rang Michael Hart to ask his advice on whether we would need to hire a firm of specialist agricultural builders, but he said that as the winter was his quieter time, he could build it for us. He