Unspoken: A story of secrets, love and revenge by T. Belshaw (i want to read a book .TXT) 📕

as he gripped the steering wheel like it was about to fall off.

‘There’s nothing in it, Frank. He’s married, he’s in his late thirties, I just wanted to thank him for all he’s done for me and the farm.’

‘Paying him isn’t enough?’

‘He didn’t’ ask me to kiss him, Frank, I just did it on the spur of the moment. Haven’t you ever done anything on the spur of the moment?’

‘Not like that I haven’t,’ he snarled.

‘Oh, what about my birthday night. That was more than a bloody kiss, wasn’t it?’

Frank was silent for the rest of the way home. He parked the truck in the yard, called Benny Tomkiss from the barn, and grumpily ordered him to help him offload my purchases. They carried the cooker into the kitchen, then went back for the rest.

When Miriam saw the cooker, she clasped her hands together in a prayer like motion.

‘Does it work, can I cook dinner on it… in it, tonight?’

‘I’ll have to call your friend, Mr Hart, to get his plumber to fit it. It shouldn’t be too big a job, we’ve got a gas supply in here.’ I put my hand on her shoulder. ‘You can cook him a Sunday roast though. Invite him over.’

‘Oh, I will,’ she replied. ‘I’m seeing him on Saturday. There’s another tea dance.’

Frank came back in, carrying pieces of the dismantled cot. ‘Where’s this going?’ he asked.

‘Put it in one of the spare bedrooms for now, but leave the box of baby clothes, I want to show them to Amy, tonight.’

I wheeled the pram up the back steps, and into the kitchen myself. Miriam nearly swooned when she saw it.

‘A Silver Cross, and in blue. I had my heart set on one of those when I was expecting my first, but I’d still be paying it off now if I’d bought it. How much was it if you don’t mind me asking?’

‘I got the lot for seven pounds ten!’

‘Seven poun… the pram that I wanted was more than that and that was years ago. This one looks brand new.’

‘It isn’t new, but it’s been well looked after,’ I replied.

Miriam stroked the coachwork. ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘Well, Miriam, seeing as how you’ve hankered for one for so long, how about you take Martha for her first walk in it.’

I thought Miriam was going to explode with pleasure. She rifled through the box of cot-bedding, found a nice, crocheted coverlet, a white cot sheet and folded them up so they would fit the pram mattress, then she picked up Martha from her Moses basket, laid her gently down in the pram and covered her with the crocheted blanket. I helped her down the back steps and she set off, talking constantly to Martha. She was gone a full hour.

At six, I decided to walk up to Amy’s to show off my new pram, so I loaded it up with Martha, and a bottle, in case Amy and I got into super-chat mode. I had only just turned onto the lane when I saw her coming down from the opposite direction, pushing a pram, identical to mine.

We stopped, five yards apart. ‘Snap!’ we said, together.

Amy walked forward and examined my pram.

‘It’s as good as new, the same as mine,’ she said, laughing.

I looked around hers, it was exactly the same model.

‘What do we do now? Do we go for a walk, go back to yours, or mine?’ I asked.

‘I’ll park mine up, then we’ll walk Martha,’ she said.

‘Let’s walk both prams, that will get people talking,’ I replied.

‘Not on your Nelly. I’ve got enough people gossiping about me as it is,’ she said with meaning.

We parked Amy’s pram in the porch of her house, and walked up the lane chatting about our individual days. Amy told my why she had the pram.

‘I went there after work, as it was my half day. She said I could have it, straight away. She’s selling the shop, so she’s getting rid of a lot of stuff. Her name is Gloria Chambers, she said I could bring the pram to show you, but she wants it back by tomorrow if you aren’t interested. She wants six pounds for it. She told me to leave it at the back of the shop after work if you don’t want it, so I’ll park it up there tomorrow night.’

I shook my head. ‘Don’t worry about that, I’ll make sure it’s taken back tomorrow. Leave it where it is and I’ll get one of the lads to pick it up in the truck.’

I gave Amy the low down on my lunch appointment with Godfrey, how he had managed to wangle me the bargains and how Frank had suddenly turned up to ruin it all. Amy stopped and looked at me with her head tilted to the side. She sniffed the air twice.

‘There’s romance in the air. I can smell it.’

‘Don’t be daft, Amy, he’s married. Frank reckons he’s old enough to be my father.’

‘So is Frank, just about,’ said Amy.

‘I told him that when he had a go at me,’ I replied with feeling.

‘Did he start on you again? Wait until I see the nasty… so and so.’

‘He wasn’t drunk or anything, he’d taken the truck to register Martha’s birth and my father’s death, which reminds me, the certificates are on the dashboard of the truck, I’ll have to remember to get them out when I get back.’

‘So, how did he know where you’d gone? You said he was there waiting, when you bought the pram.’

‘I don’t know, I think he must have followed us,’ I replied.

‘That’s creepy. Remember that film we saw where the man was obsessed with the woman and he ended up killing her?’

‘Frank’s not like that,’ I said, wondering why on earth I was defending him.

Amy leaned over the pram to make cooing noises at Martha.

‘So, why was he angry, because you’d had lunch with your gangster man, or because he knows this Godfrey bloke, fancies the pants of you?’

I didn’t answer.

Amy squealed.

‘He