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

princely sum of one shilling and eightpence in it as things stand. I’ve never earned enough to save anything regularly.’

I bit my tongue and decided not to mention how much he spent at the pub every Friday night. Instead, I listed a few of the benefits he had accrued whilst living here.

‘You get free board here, Frank. You don’t pay rent. You get your food, your laundry done, you don’t have to pay for electricity, you don’t pay for gas or water, and you get to keep every penny of your wages, none of the other lads can say that. They all have families to keep and rents to pay out of the money they earn. As for the new things I’ve just bought. You can use the telephone, free of charge, whenever you like, you can have a bath whenever you like… providing I’m not in it of course.’ I laughed, hoping he would too. He didn’t, he just pulled a face and let out a deep sigh.

‘When you put it like that, I am better off than the lads I work with, but I still think we ought to discuss things like a normal, married couple would. We share a bed, we share our meals, by the end of this week, if your Mr Wilson has done his job, we’ll share a name. Would it hurt so much to let me in on things, sometimes?’

‘No, it wouldn’t, Frank,’ I replied, ‘and if anything comes up where I think a joint decision needs to be made, anything to do with the baby, for instance, I’ll ask for your opinion. If any issue crops up about the running of the farm that I’m unsure about, I’ll ask your opinion, as well as Barney’s, but that is about as far as I can go, for now at least. Think about it, Frank, you’ve got it good here, don’t go and spoil it.’

He returned to bed and lay with his arms on the outside of the eiderdown. I patted his left hand.

‘It will work out, Frank. We’ve hardly got to know each other yet. Let’s not rush things.’

At lunchtime on the following day, Michael proudly showed me around the new bathroom. I’d had a sneaky peek a couple of days before, but since then, he had put a lock on the adjoining door from the parlour to give everything time to dry, and the fumes from the plaster, paint and lino glue, time to disperse.

He opened the door with a flourish, allowing me to step inside first.

The room had been tiled white to just above bath height with the top half of the walls painted hospital green. The lino was a light grey. There was a sink on a pedestal, with a shiny, oblong mirror on the wall above it. There was a porcelain toilet with a wooden seat, and a cistern with a flushing handle, built onto the wall at the back. Previously the cistern was a cast iron monstrosity, hidden behind a large wooden box, high on the wall, the flushing mechanism controlled by a rusty, pull chain. The bath, oh, my goodness, the bath, looked big enough for me to stretch out in. No more hunching up in the tin, hip bath, or stretching so that my calves and feet hung over the end. Best of all, it had a plug in the bottom, allowing me to empty the bath by merely pulling a thin chain.

I did a double twirl, grabbed hold of Michael and danced him around the bathroom.

Before he left, I went to the front room and opened a small safe in the corner cupboard. I took out six of the ten, five-pound notes that had been paid out by the National and Provincial Insurance Company on my mother’s death, and took them through to Mr Hart with the invoice he had provided. He signed the bottom, wrote ‘paid in full’, and I handed over the money. Frank watched the transaction, rubbing his chin thoughtfully as each note was counted.

I could have attempted to withdraw the money from the bank, or have them prepare me a banker’s draft, but that would have meant a trip to the next town where our branch was situated. It would also have meant me spending a frustrating hour at least, explaining to the bank manager why I needed to withdraw such a large sum, and why my father, the owner of the business, hadn’t come in person. The chances were, I’d have come away empty handed. Bankers didn’t believe women could be responsible with money.

So, at one PM. I eased into my first soak in the new bath. As I had promised myself, I stayed in it for an hour, topping up the hot water as needed. When I got out, I looked like a cross between a newly boiled lobster and a wrinkled prune, but I didn’t care. I was clean, I had bathed in complete privacy, and I felt more relaxed than I had done in months.

As I stood on the damp lino, I noticed an envelope behind one of the sink taps. I picked it up to see it had Miriam’s name written across it in a very neat hand. I fought off the almost irresistible urge to open it and instead, pulled a bath towel from the rack on the wall and once again looked around to admire my new, favourite room.

I dried off and walked back through the new door into the parlour, drying my hair.

‘Who’s next?’ I asked. ‘Run your own water, you can’t jump in to share mine; it’s all gone down the plug hole.’

Miriam put up her hand. ‘Could I try it next? I missed my hip bath last night too.’

I knew she had; we were playing Gin Rummy with Frank for matchsticks until nine-thirty. She was almost as excited as me about the new bathroom, but that excitement had been tinged with disappointment when Michael left without saying goodbye.

‘Try out the new