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

‘It’s cleaner than his, thank goodness. She won’t poo for a day or two yet, so less smelly too,’ she said, wafting her hand under her nose.

‘I’d have done that, Miriam,’ I said.

‘You rest up, I don’t mind changing her. I love the feel and smell of a new baby’s skin.’

‘You’re looking after all three of us. It’s like a hospital here. How’s the front room patient, Nurse Miriam?’ I asked.

‘He’s awake and quite lucid, for him at least. Now might be a good time to take the baby in to show him.’

‘Let her go back to sleep first, Miriam. She’ll scream the house down if I pick her up when she’s awake.’

Miriam put the baby into the wicker Moses basket that she had brought with her when she moved to the farm. All five of her babies had slept under that hood, and she was reluctant to part with it. She sat on the floor with her hand on the baby’s shawl and sang quietly to her. Within two minutes, she was asleep.

Fifteen minutes later, I lifted my daughter out of the Moses basket, and rearranged her shawl so that her face was completely visible. I waited for a few moments to make sure she wasn’t about to wake up, then I tip-toed across the kitchen floor, Miriam opened the door to the front room, and I stepped through, being careful not to trip on the curled up edges of the faded carpet strip that lay on the bare boards, just inside the door.

My father didn’t look up as I came in. He appeared to be concentrating on a large spider that crept along the skirting board in front of his chair. I crouched down as low as I could go without suffering too much pain, and held the baby in front of him. He seemed surprised by my presence. He twisted his neck and tilted his head, his pale blue eyes narrowed to slits. He scowled and made a growling noise at the back of his throat. I stood up and took a quick step to the side in case he made an attempt to get hold of her.

His eyes followed the baby as I pulled her away. His face became a mask of sheer hatred.

‘You killed her,’ he snarled.

‘Mr Mollison!’ Miriam came alongside me, and prepared to intervene if the situation got any worse.

‘You killed her!’ he repeated. ‘It’s your fault.’

I wasn’t going to let him get away with that, sick as he was. I handed the baby to Miriam and once again tried to crouch in front of him. I tried to hide the anger that welled up inside me. I took a deep breath and when I spoke, it was in a soft, friendly tone.

‘It’s your new granddaughter. She only arrived today. Wouldn’t you like to say hello to her?’

It was a real effort for him to raise his skeletal head on that scrawny neck. His eyes eventually focussed on me and once again his bony, yellow-tinged face, scowled at me.

‘It should have been you,’ he slurred. ‘You should have died, not her.’

I refused to listen to any more. My eyes filled with tears of frustration. My emotions had been all over the place all day and his reaction hadn’t helped them level out. I hadn’t expected him to jump out of his chair and dance around the room at the news of his granddaughter’s birth, but I didn’t expect us to be greeted in such a hate-filled manner either. I thought he loved me. I had always thought he loved me, despite everything that had happened to my mother since my birth. Had it all been a cruel act? Or was it the whisky that had addled his brain, leaving him unable to think rationally. I decided that was his fault anyway. He didn’t care about me or the farm when he took to the bottle. He had been so selfish. He didn’t give a damn about me. He left me to run the farm on my own, with all the responsibilities that came with it. He didn’t care about the workers either. What if I had messed up and they all had to be laid off? He didn’t even care for the memory of my mother. She would turn in her grave if she could hear his accusations. She loved me, despite her troubled life. Terminally ill or not, he’d picked the wrong day to spit his venom.

‘You miserable old swine,’ I hissed. ‘Her death was nothing to do with me. I wouldn’t even be here if you hadn’t got her pregnant in the first place. So, you’re the one who should take the blame for everything that happened to her, not me. Think on that while you’re sitting in your own shit, waiting to die.’

I turned on my heels and stormed out of the room leaving both Miriam and my father in tears.

At ten-thirty the back door almost came off its hinges as it burst open and Frank staggered into the kitchen. I groaned, not just because of the pain I was in either.

He swayed across the kitchen, arms outstretched.

‘Where is she, where’s my daughter. Let me see her.’

I picked up the baby and stepped away from the stove. I adjusted the shawl so that Frank could see her face. He leaned forward and put both hands on the table to support himself. Tears ran over his cheeks. He blinked twice, shook his head to help him focus, lifted an arm and wiped his sleeve across his eyes.

‘She’s beautiful.’ He leaned forward again. ‘Beautiful. She looks just like my mother.’

I thought he meant that she had a wrinkled face. I came immediately to her defence.

‘All babies have wrinkled-up faces,’ I said.

‘Her nose and her eyes, not the screwed-up face.’ He seemed to be insulted by my explanation. ‘I want to hold her. Give her to me.’ Frank straightened up and lurched towards me.

I moved across to the other side of the