Missing the Moment Read online

  “Joe will be told,” Charlotte said firmly. “He has a right to know what goes on in the family that will be his one day.”

  “No! Not Joe Llewellyn. I don’t want Bessie Philpot to know! I’d die of embarrassment!”

  “Twp you are, Mam. What shame is there in all this for you? It’s Dadda who should be shamed! What have you done? It’s Dadda who ran off, and him who’s living over the brush with some woman, pretending to be her husband!”

  “Not Joe,” Harriet said firmly. Charlotte noticed that her mother’s hands were shaking again with shock.

  “At least talk to Jack Roberts. He’s trustworthy and he won’t tell anyone. You have to have help in this.”

  “Uncle Peter will have to be told,” Harriet sobbed. “It’s his own brother who’s done this to us.”

  “I agree with Charlotte, Mam, don’t you Bri?” Rhoda said to her husband who sat there swallowing his adam’s apple, afraid to say a word. “I think you should tell Jack Roberts and ask for his help. Church Elder he is, mind. Surely you can trust him?”

  It was late when they finally persuaded Harriet to have a few sips of brandy – for the shock – and go to bed. She was so exhausted by the day’s events that she slept almost immediately. Rhoda and Brian left a few minutes later and Charlotte looked at the clock, wondering if ten past ten on an April evening was too late to call on Joe. She had to tell him: there had never been any secrets between them.

  A few moments later, Charlotte was cycling down the hill towards the town. She was practically running when she passed through the gate and up the path to the front door where, mercifully, a light still showed.

  Joe listened to Charlotte’s story, his arms around her to comfort her. He guessed that while Harriet talked, Charlotte would have remained calm and strong, now, with no one to support, she could let her feelings show. It was her father they were talking about, someone on whom she should have been able to depend. Harriet seemed not to realise how this affected her daughters as well as herself, Joe thought grimly. Typical of the woman.

  “How could he do it?” Charlotte whispered. “There isn’t any reason for his behaviour.”

  “How can anyone ever know what goes on in another’s head? He and your mother might not have been as happy as she pretends. She’s hard work to live with, you must know that. Like your sister Rhoda.”

  “I’m sure Rhoda and I would have known if they were so unhappy that he had to leave.”

  “Your mother was probably right, had a breakdown he did, then couldn’t face coming back,” he soothed.

  Then Charlotte pulled herself out of his embrace and said angrily, “You don’t believe that! Don’t talk to me as if I were a baby, Joe Llewellyn!”

  “All right, I’m sorry. He must have been very miserable at home.”

  “He and Mam were perfectly content!”

  “Perfectly content? Were they?”

  “Well, there were plenty of rows. But we thought that was just the way they were, we never considered it was serious.”

  “Didn’t you?” Joe asked gently.

  Charlotte looked away. Of course the rows had been serious. She remembered lying in bed listening to them when they returned from some party or other, marvelling that the plaster didn’t fall off the walls.

  “They were deeply unhappy and you know it,” he chided.

  Hurt and angry with him for making her see how things really were, something she had covered with pretence, Charlotte stormed out, half running back along the lane to where she had left her cycle. Joe called after her but she ignored him and ran on, tripping, almost falling, tears blinding her, not stopping until she reached the road.

  * * *

  Harriet was persuaded, after hours of tears, to allow Jack Roberts to know that the missing Eric had been located. Peter was already there when they walked up the following morning and met in his office. Harriet held her temples against the noise of the machines, and ran a disapproving finger along the dusty desk. “What a noisy, filthy place to bring me to to discuss such a predicament,” she scolded Charlotte. “I don’t know why we had to come here.”

  “It’s Bessie’s morning for cleaning, the gardener will be there this morning too and the window cleaner comes after twelve. Too many ears altogether. If we cancelled them all, Auntie Bessie Philpot’s nose would vibrate and almost fall off as she ferreted around for secrets!”

  “She isn’t your auntie, she’s a servant… and I wish you wouldn’t call her that!”

  Jack listened to Harriet’s story with spurious anger. He doubted very much if Harriet had really discovered Eric’s whereabouts. Surely the man would have had the sense to move further away from Bryn Melinau than Barry? But he knew from past incidents that, with Harriet, it was better to appear to agree. “If you think it best,” he said finally, “we’ll drive to Barry so we can check on the address.” In her misery, Harriet had failed to take note of it. “Then,” he went on, apologetically hushing her protests, “you and I will prepare a letter asking for him to meet you and discuss a divorce.”

  “I couldn’t,” Harriet meant she couldn’t divorce Eric. Jack thought she couldn’t face meeting the man.

  “We’ll be with you, Charlotte, Rhoda and me. I promise you’ll have our full support.”

  “I’m not afraid of meeting him, the scoundrel,” Harriet confided to Charlotte when they returned home that evening. “It’s the divorce. Couldn’t Eric and that woman take my home? It was my mother’s and now it’s mine, but I could lose it, couldn’t I?”

  “Don’t worry,” Charlotte said confidently. “I’m sure we’ll find a way around it. Relax and leave it to Jack and Uncle Peter.” But she was dreadfully afraid her mother was right. Mill House could be sold and the proceeds used to support her father’s second family, half-brothers and sisters she hadn’t known about just twenty-four hours ago.

  The consequences of a divorce were mind numbing as she thought them through. One of them being the postponement of her marriage to Joe for as far into the future as she dared to look. Blown like a seed before the wind, you are, Charlotte Russell, she told herself, blown by the wayward wind. When are you going to make a stand and choose your own route?

  Not yet, she thought sadly, not yet.

  * * *

  The drive to Barry was almost silent, each of the occupants of the Ford Prefect wrapped in their own thoughts. Jack parked Peter’s car in the street a few doors away from the house pointed out by a trembling Harriet. Several times the door opened and small children wandered in and out, and a few young women, including a nurse, Charlotte presumed they were friends of the woman her father lived with.

  At five o’clock Eric turned the corner, wearing a neat suit and carrying a raincoat over his arm. His hands held two carrier bags, from which vegetables and bread protruded. He obviously dealt with the family shopping. That the man really was her father she had doubted until this moment. Now, seeing him pause, look down the road and smile at a neighbour, her doubts faded. It left her with a sick feeling of half joy, half hurt and bewilderment.

  “It’s Dadda.” she blurted out.

  “I knew you didn’t believe me,” Harriet sobbed.

  Charlotte wanted to go and hug him, feel his arms around her, breathe in that special, well-remembered smell… the factory, pipe smoke, laundered shirt, tweed suiting and soap. They watched for a while longer and drove home more subdued than on the outward journey. There was no discussion concerning what they would do next. Jack drove without even looking at his passengers; Harriet sobbed quietly. Charlotte was eaten with regret that after seven years she had seen her father and had not been able to talk to him.

  * * *

  The following morning, Charlotte enjoyed a few hours alone. Uncle Peter was at the factory, her mother and sister had pushed aside their worries, put on forced smiles, dressed up in their most glamourous clothes and sallied forth to wander around the shops, stopping for coffee at Vi and Willie’s café and meeting friends. Charlotte ignored
the dusting and tidying and went up onto the hill.

  She sat on a fallen tree. Distorted by the wind, it had finally succumbed to the winds and lay on its side, already colonised by lichens and mosses and with a frill of dead grass along its edge. It moved as she relaxed her weight. The voice startled her so, she almost lost her balance on the precarious seat.

  “Hello. I hope I’m not disturbing you, miss.”

  Charlotte turned and saw a tall figure smiling down at her from beside a nearby hawthorn tree.

  “No, er, of course not. Good morning.” She looked at the tall stranger. He was young, about her own age, she guessed, and obviously a walker. He wore a weatherproof jacket, and corduroy trousers tucked into heavy boots. He had a rucksack carried casually across one shoulder; a woollen hat was pushed back from his forehead revealing curly brown hair. Uneasy, self-conscious, she moved away from him.

  “I can’t stop,” she said, rising and brushing her skirt with a nervous hand. “but if you want to know where you are, this is Bryn Melinau below us.”

  “Yes, I know. I’m walking up towards Breconshire, but I had to detour and look at this place. It’s in my guide book, see. Hill with the remains of seven mills. That right, is it?”

  She looked at the grinning face, the hint of mischief in his eyes and smiled. Something about him made a smile inevitable.

  “Don’t you believe the guide books then?”

  “I don’t believe anything until I check for myself. I do believe in luck, though. How else could I explain our meeting? Who’d believe I’d find someone like you on a lonely hill at this time of the day. Will you direct me to the nearest café and have a coffee with me?”

  Reluctantly, Charlotte shook her head. “You’ll find Vi and Willie Walters’ café next to the clothes shop, but I can’t go with you. I’m on my way to do a few hours work. My uncle’s factory is just down the lane.”

  “All right. but at least meet me later and show me where these windmills and watermills are. Please?”

  “I live in a house that was once a windmill,” she said, looking at him, trying to make up her mind. “All right, come for me at two and I’ll show you the ruins.” She explained where Mill House was situated and watched as he walked away.

  She didn’t go to the factory but went home instead. What had got into her? Inviting a complete stranger to call. Agreeing to show him the hill. She wondered if there was time to go down and ask Joe to go with them, suddenly afraid of where the afternoon might lead. But she didn’t.

  Explaining to her mother that she had offered to show some tourists around the area, she stood by the gate at five minutes to two, not wanting the man to knock on her door and meet her mother. She wanted this afternoon to be hers alone. She would tell Joe of course. Later.

  He strolled up in a leisurely way and waved when he saw her waiting. She had brushed her hair and added an alice band to keep it out of her eyes. Her clothes hadn’t changed from the morning, sensible skirt and jumper, strong shoes and short socks.

  “Where do we start then?” he asked, his eyes looking deeply into her own. He looked so pleased to see her she felt herself blushing under his stare.

  “We’ll walk to the top and work our way down.”

  She led the way, up paths that grew narrower and more overgrown, until they were threading their way through heather and gorse on what were little more than animal tracks.

  “The hill was home to a number of sheep before the war,” she explained to him, “but since we have more visitors, many of them with unruly dogs, the farmers no longer let them wander. So the heather and gorse have taken over. Doesn’t take long for a place to change, does it?”

  “No, but it’s fascinating to imagine the hill’s history.”

  She waved towards Mill House then showed him the ruins of the other mills. Clouds had gathered over the hills, dressing them in deep purple gauze, and it was already dark by the time they were back at the gates of her home.

  “Thank you for sharing the afternoon with me.” he said, offering her his hand. “I must go now. I have a night’s lodging booked with a Mrs Kath Thomas, just near the road bridge.”

  As she waved away his thanks, he took hold of her hand again and drew her towards him. He kissed her lightly, then walked quickly away, arm raised, hand waggling in salute, disappearing into the gathering gloom of the evening. It was as if a light had been extinguished somewhere inside her.

  She realised she was still holding his guide book. As if she had been given a gift of a few more seconds in his company, she shouted and ran after him to return it. As she reached him, Joe appeared, pushing his bicycle.

  “Charlotte? Where are you off to? Just coming to see you I am.”

  “Oh, Joe, this is, er –” She looked at the stranger. embarrassed to realise she didn’t know his name. “– a tourist. I’ve been showing him the ruins on the hill.”

  “Hi.” Joe said. “Staying long?” Then he frowned, something about the man’s appearance and voice suddenly familiar. “Say, weren’t you here a week or so ago? I seem to remember you asking me how to get to Barry.”

  “Not me, mate. I haven’t been here before and I know where Barry is. Just come from there on the train, haven’t I?”

  “Funny. I could have sworn…” Joe shrugged.

  “Got to be off. Nice meeting you both.” A wave and he was gone, his long legs taking him out of their sight in moments.

  “What did you want to see me about, Joe?” Charlotte asked.

  “Oh, it’s nothing really, my pretty. Just to tell you the sale of the shop seems to be going through and I wondered if I dare ask you to help me do a stocktake. Boring ol’ job it is, mind, counting all the thousand and one things I sell. D’you think the Dragon will let you give a hand, say, on Sunday?”

  “Let’s ask her when Uncle Peter’s there. Better chance of her saying yes, then.” Disturbed by her few hours with the fascinating stranger, she hugged Joe to reassure herself that he was real, the visitor only a passing fantasy.

  * * *

  On Jack and Peter’s advice, Harriet wrote to Eric, marking the letter private and confidential. A response was immediate. To her chagrin there was no apology, no remorse, just a few sentences saying how surprised he was to hear from her and suggesting they meet at a fourteenth-century public house in the Vale of Glamorgan, this being what he called neutral ground. He promised to telephone and arrange a date.

  Eric intended to see his brother Peter before the reunion with his wife and daughters. He telephoned the factory and arranged to meet Peter there one morning.

  Peter wheeled his chair away from the desk that had been Eric’s and waited, watching the door for his brother’s arrival with some agitation. Eric slipped in through a side door without walking through the workroom and startled Peter with his unexpected appearance. Peter thought he was thinner and less well dressed than he remembered. His hair was greyer but still the same as it had always been, untidy and overlong. But the look in the dark eyes was one of contentment.

  “Eric, you old sod. How are you?” Peter said opening his arms for a hug.

  “Hello, long-lost brother,” Eric said, putting his arms around the thin shoulders, glad of the excuse to hold Peter and hide the shock he’d had at the man’s sickly appearance.

  “This is a bit cloak-and-dagger, boy, creeping through the goods entrance,” Peter laughed. “Why aren’t you in disguise? Someone will recognise you for sure and news of your visit will be round the town faster than Ianto’s bus!” Ianto’s bus was a local joke. The old man, long dead, had owned a bus that rarely travelled between one stop and the next without breaking down.

  “I hope I won’t be recognised. I wouldn’t like news of my sudden recovery from amnesia to get out before I’ve talked to Harriet and the girls.”

  “You know about that, then? Your Harriet pretending you had suffered memory loss, to save face?”

  “Yes, I know,” Eric said sadly. “Sorry I am that it was necessary.” He pulled
a chair around and sat facing his brother. “Heard about your accident too, Peter. But I couldn’t come back. I was well past the point of no return.” He seemed about to explain but changed his mind. “I just had to hope that you’d be able to keep things running here to support Harriet. That Jack Roberts is a good man, from what I’ve heard of him.”

  “Why did you leave so suddenly and without explanation?” Peter asked.

  The look in Eric’s eyes sharpened and he glared at his brother. “You know better than most!” He lowered his gaze and said more quietly. “I had to get away. It seemed pointless to stay. Harriet and I had nothing to say to each other. It was as if I were a fly on the wall watching two strangers prattling on, neither listening to the other.

  “Unperturbed about my grief she was, sucking the tragic situation for all it was worth, making sure everything fitted into place for her as if it was her right. Complacent, comfortable, demanding everything, giving nothing. And there was Gloria cheerfully struggling. Dealing with the death of her husband, coping with her children, losing her home after someone cheated her, then making a happy home out of the two small rooms she rented. She was so pretty, and so bright. Never complaining, always ready to smile. I thought she needed me more than Harriet did and I certainly needed her. I was miserable, Harriet was miserable. I didn’t think I could do anything about Harriet’s happiness but I knew that with Gloria I would be happy. Cruel I know, but –” He smiled then and his pale face lit up as he added, “– I was right about being happy.”

  “What will you do now Harriet knows where you are?”

  “I hope to persuade her to divorce me. Then Gloria and I can legitimize the children.”

  “Children? How many for God’s sake?”

  “A houseful. Beautiful they are.” He grinned again and in the smile his happiness clearly showed. “Two are Gloria’s and the rest are ours.” He opened his hands in a gesture of, what else can I do? “We owe it to them.”