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

truck, Barney asked me whether I would be employing someone to take Frank’s place.

‘Do we need someone permanent, Barney? I thought Frank was surplus to requirements during the quieter times of the year.’

‘He was a good worker, that was for sure. A bit up himself at times but he could do a shift with the best of ‘em. The Merchant Navy has a grafter there. I was, err, surprised to hear he was leaving so suddenly though.’

‘He’s coming back for two weeks at the end of August; you can give him whatever work you decide on. There won’t be any more of this charge hand, nonsense.’

Barney assessed the situation in seconds.

‘We’ll need someone full time for the harvest, plus the usual part-time locals.’

‘Do you have anyone in mind, Barney? Frank will be working for his keep, so the finances will stand another full-time worker, for a while at least. I wouldn’t want to have to pay out through the winter to have someone standing idle.’

‘My brother is looking for some seasonal work, Missis. He does what Frank’s doing, but he’s getting tired of the sea. He’s done harvest work before, so he won’t be a burden to the rest of us.’

‘Tell him he’s hired for the harvest, Barney, don’t let anyone else get him first.’

Chapter 71

August 1938

In early August I received a telephone call from Edna, asking me to pay her a visit. I assumed it was to give me a ticking off for not taking Martha to see her, but as it turned out, it wasn’t anything to do with that.

Edna was dying. Ovarian cancer had gone undiscovered and untreated for too long. When she began to show symptoms, it was already too late. She had known about her condition for months, but hadn’t mentioned it, because she didn’t want to spoil the joys of Martha’s birth.

We sat in her front room while I sipped tea and she held Martha. The change in her since late June had been dramatic. She looked even more washed-out and wasted than either my father or mother during their illnesses. When she was sitting with Martha, it was hard to tell where her breasts ended and her stomach began, but when she stood up, her bloated stomach was easy to spot, especially sat atop a pair of legs so spindly, it was hard to see how they supported her.

She told me that she only had a few weeks left, and when Martha fell asleep, I laid her on a chair, and Edna and I sat on the sofa where we hugged and cried until there were no tears left.

I was the piggy in the middle for sure. She didn’t want Frank to worry about her while he was at sea, and Frank didn’t want to see her wasting away. He always was a selfish man, but now I could see him for the coward he was too. Apparently, he had known about her condition for weeks. She had told him when she was first diagnosed, in early June. He had continued to live and work at the farm, and apart from the Friday night pub sessions he hardly went anywhere. She had to ambush him as he walked into The Old Bull, to tell him of her imminent death, but instead of wrapping an arm around her and taking her back home, he took the news like she’d just wished him a good evening, and left her standing at the door of the pub while he went inside for the night.

She pushed a few pounds into my hands and begged me to sort out her funeral when the time came.

More tears came from somewhere. I hugged her again and promised her that I would.

I never saw her again.

Chapter 72

August 1938

The wheat harvest started a week earlier than usual. Barney’s brother arrived from Essex on the day he had promised he would, so we had a full complement of workers from day one.

The work went well, we employed a number of locals on temporary eight-week contracts, and in the evenings and the weekends, a lot of the local pensioners, wives and children, turned up to help for a few shillings pay at the end of the week.

The corn crop was coming on well, and it looked like being a September harvest for our main crop. That would only leave the root vegetables, which my own men could manage easily in October and November.

Frank came back, as promised, in mid-August. I can’t say we didn’t need him. During the first two weeks of the month we had suffered thunder storms and intermittent rain, but the sun came back with Frank at the start of the third week.

He slipped back into farm life as if he’d never been away. His skin had always had the brown hue of an outdoor worker, but the few weeks of sea air, had faded the tan and brought out a few laughter lines around his eyes and mouth. His skin looked rough, he had the beginnings of a sailor’s beard, and his body, always so lean, looked a little fuller. They had obviously fed him well.

We worked into the darkness throughout the harvest. We lit lanterns around the fields so that the workforce could see what they were doing on the moonless nights. It was back-breaking work and the participants always celebrated when it was all over. The culmination came with a Harvest party at the farm, after the last ears of corn had been pulled in late September; we almost always finished in the middle of the week, before the Harvest Festival service at the church.

Bessie, our shire horse, worked hard during harvest. She was spoiled rotten at the end of every day by both our own men and the locals. She needed to plod those fields, to work off the amount of sugar lumps, dried apple, carrots and peppermints, she was fed.

The sun wasn’t the only thing Frank’s arrival brought back. The day he