‘Have you told James?’ And then, when Abby didn’t immediately reply, Clara said, ‘But of course you’ve told him. I would have told Jed if the boot had been on the other foot.’
Abby looked into the great sad eyes and her heart felt as if it was breaking. Clara stared back at her, holding her gaze. ‘Don’t take on, Abby. What’s done is done. I want him and he wants me and nothing in the world can change that. Jed’s always had a hankering to travel a bit and I wouldn’t mind seeing new parts of the world. Every cloud has a silver lining.’
‘Will you wait and come to our wedding next week before you go?’ Abby asked quietly.
‘Of course. It’ll take time to sort out all the necessary travel documents and things anyway. We . . . we shan’t marry in England though. Neither of us could face a family do. Jed wants me to go back with him so we can see Wilbert and Lucy face to face and put their minds at rest that they had nothing to do with Mam’s going. We’ll tell them it all but there’s no reason for Leonard and Bruce to know anything. I’ll come back before the wedding but I’m taking some of my things now.’ She raised her head, a touch of the old feisty Clara in her voice as she said, ‘I shall stay with Jed and if anyone says anything I’ll tell them to mind their own business.’
This last was for her as much as anyone, Abby thought wryly. She wanted Clara to be happy but not this way. Jed was their brother and these things didn’t ought to be. But they were two adults and their birth certificates gave them every right to marry. She nodded. ‘I won’t come down again but tell Jed to drive carefully,’ she said shakily. ‘You both must be exhausted.’ She was losing her; she was losing her but she had to let her go.
They clung to each other for a second and then Clara left, closing the door behind her.
Chapter Thirty-one
I
t was eight days later and the morning of Abby’s wedding. Clara hadn’t returned to the house like she’d said she would, and when Abby and James went to 14 Rose Street at the weekend, no one came to the door. They called in on Wilbert and Lucy who said they hadn’t seen anything of Clara and Jed since the night they’d called to tell them about Ivor and Nora. It was clear to Abby that Wilbert was confused and upset, both by the sudden knowledge forced upon him about his paternity and by the decision Clara and Jed had made to be together. Abby couldn’t blame him for feeling like this, but when Lucy whispered that Wilbert had refused to kiss Clara when she left, Abby was deeply saddened.
Because of the circumstances, Abby and James had decided to marry very quietly at the local register office, with just the children and her three friends present. Mario was staying behind to take care of little Enrico and any customers, and Joy had kindly offered to help him. They had discussed the matter of James’s divorce with the priest from the local church and he had been very understanding. Although unable to marry them, he had privately expressed the view that he felt the Church’s teaching would have to change to keep pace with the modern world, and that he wished them every blessing.
Abby’s worry about Clara and Jed meant she hadn’t even thought about a wedding dress, deciding to wear one of her newest frocks instead, but when the household were having breakfast - Abby and the children having joined the others - Winnie and Rowena presented her with several boxes.
The first held a perfectly beautiful pale peach dress and jacket, the second an exquisite little hat complete with a veil of fine netting, and the third a pair of court shoes in cream suede and a bag to match the shoes. Henry and John hadn’t been forgotten either. Two small crisp white shirts with little bow ties and two pairs of smart black trousers were produced for the children.
Abby was overcome and burst into tears which promptly set the other three women off. Mario hastily muttered something about one of the greenhouses needing attention and disappeared, Henry and John trotting after him. They liked nothing more than pottering about with their little trowels and spades with Mario, but whereas John always returned as spick and span as when he went, Henry managed to cover himself in dirt.
Winnie, aiming to comfort but in fact making things worse in her own inimitable way, launched into an attack on Clara. ‘I don’t hold with what she’s done and I shall tell her straight when I see her,’ she announced, her face red with concern for Abby. ‘I’m heart sorry for Jed about his da of course, an’ your mam,’ she added as an afterthought, ‘but it still don’t make it right that they haven’t been in touch. It’s all this talk about teenagers and such, that’s what’s started the young people of today thinking they’re different to the rest of us. Teenagers! A new word to excuse all sorts of goings-on which wouldn’t have been allowed in our day.’
Rowena, in her own, equally inimitable style, said, ‘I think I sense a slight case of the pot calling the kettle black here.’
Winnie ignored this. ‘And these Teddy boys, what’s that all about?’ she went on. ‘They look ridiculous if you ask me, with their drainpipes and brothel creepers. Why can’t they just call them trousers and shoes, and get clothes that look as though they fit? And do you know what they call that stupid hairstyle they’ve all got nowadays?’
‘A duck’s arse?’ supplied Rowena in her upper-crust accent.
‘Exactly. I mean it’s not a respectable way of going on, is it?’ Winnie cast a sidelong glance at Joy who was listening to the conversation with some interest. Winnie’s daughter had recently discovered pop music and with the first of the weekly Top Ten charts being published at the beginning of the year, Joy and all her friends were quickly becoming besotted. Abby knew Winnie was worried to death. Joy was now twelve years old and showing all the signs of becoming a beauty.
‘Jed’s quiff is just a small one,’ Abby protested mildly as she wiped her eyes and blew her nose. She had explained her sister’s sudden departure by saying Clara had decided to go and keep Jed company for a few days, him being so distraught about his father doing away with himself because he couldn’t cope without his wife. She knew the others had been a little shocked to hear that Clara was staying with Jed in the house alone, which was pretty funny, Abby thought, considering both her friends had been free with their favours in their youth.
‘If Clara and Jed do turn up at any point I don’t want you laying into them, Winnie,’ she said. ‘Now promise me.’ Not that she thought there was any chance of seeing either of them. The most she could expect was a letter from some far-flung place in due course, she told herself, ignoring the ache in her heart at her sister’s precipitous exit from her life.
‘Aye, I promise, lass, course I do.’ Winnie scrubbed at her face with a red flannel handkerchief which had seen better days. ‘You know me. All wind and water.’
‘You never are.’ They exchanged a glance which had years of tried and tested friendship as its foundation, before Abby said, forcing a bright note into her voice, ‘Gladys, I think I could eat another couple of rashers of bacon if there’s any going,’ which prompted one or two ribald remarks from Winnie and Rowena along the lines of keeping her strength up for the night ahead. Joy looked askance at the pair of them.
Rowena drove the little wedding party into town. Abby joined in the banter which went on but all the time she was thinking of Clara. She had left messages all over the place for her sister saying what time the wedding was, but if Clara didn’t contact Wilbert - which was highly likely after the way they’d parted - or Jed’s brothers, or return to Rose Street to find the note she’d pushed through Ivor’s letterbox, she wouldn’t know.
She wanted to see Clara so much. It had touched her greatly when she’d gone into Clara’s room after her sister had left and found that along with a few essentials, Clara had taken Milly. Clara might be twenty-two but she was still her baby sister. She needed to know Clara and Jed were all right, that they hadn’t done anything silly . . . And then she brushed the thought aside as she forced herself to do a hundred times a day. They were young, they had their whole future in front of them. They wouldn’t take their own lives, not Clara and Jed.
Henry was sitting on her lap and John was cuddled close into her side, both the boys awed by the occasion and their new clothes. Abby pressed her children to her, needing the reassurance.
James and herself and the two boys were going to a hotel in Bournemouth for two weeks after the wedding lunch he had organised for the small wedding party, and while the thought of becoming Mrs Benson at last was so poignant no words could express it, she still couldn’t help aching to see Clara.
By the time they drew up outside the town hall she’d prepared herself to expect nothing, so when John said animatedly, ‘I can see Aunty Clara and Uncle Jed with James, Mammy. Are they coming to the wedding too?’ Abby couldn’t take it in for a moment.
‘Praise God for that.’ Gladys’s heartfelt words were echoed in Abby’s own heart as she saw the young couple standing either side of James who had a big smile on his face.
James engulfed her in a bear hug and whispered in her ear, ‘They arrived a few minutes ago. They’ve been staying in a hotel in Gateshead. I don’t think either of them could face remaining in the house where it happened but Jed went to see his brothers a couple of days ago to find out when we were getting married.’
After kissing her hard on the lips he let her go and then Clara was in front of her, smiling faintly. Abby gathered her sister into her embrace in much the same way she would have done John and Henry, and they clung to each other for a moment, half laughing, half crying.
‘You look bonny,’ Clara murmured when they drew apart. ‘So bonny. Here, I’ve brought you this instead of a wedding present for the two of you. You’ve got everything you need between you anyway, in more ways than one.’ She pressed a small box into Abby’s hand.
Abby opened the box and stared down at the gold locket it held. She couldn’t speak.
‘Here, open it,’ Clara said and clicked open the tiny catch to display two miniature paintings, one of Abby and one of Clara. ‘I had yours done from a photograph I took with me,’ Clara said softly. ‘This is so you don’t forget about me.’
Again they were hugging, and then Abby said, ‘I want to wear it now. Put it on for me,’ and as she felt her sister’s hands gently fasten the locket at the back of her neck, it was with equal pain and joy.
It was done, they were man and wife, and outside the town hall the wedding party made up for the lack of numbers by positively deluging the bridal pair in confetti and rice, while Henry screamed with excitement and jumped up and down which added to the general furore.
When James had put the gold band on her finger a stillness had taken possession of Abby’s body for a few moments, a stillness born of a feeling almost too wonderful to contain. She was his wife. She had loved this man for nearly half her life and now at last she was his wife. They had come through all the twists and turns, all the devious routes life had led them along, and they had found each other again. They had been given a second chance.
When they had finished the meal at the hotel and Winnie, Rowena and Gladys had already left for home, Clara said softly, ‘Abby, I have to tell you something.’
She wasn’t going to like this. Immediately Abby looked into her sister’s face she knew what Clara was going to say, but still she said, ‘What is it?’
‘We’re leaving - leaving England, I mean. We . . . we’re going tomorrow. We sail at six in the evening from Southampton.’
‘Where to?’ Let it not be too far away.
‘Australia. Jed knows a family who moved out there years ago. They had some sort of assisted passage and now they’re doing really well.’
To hear her fear put into plain words was hard. Abby’s gaze moved from Clara’s face to Jed’s, and it was to him she said, ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right? You’ve thought everything through properly?’
‘Don’t worry.’ Jed’s voice was soothing. ‘I’ll look after her.’
He looked years older than the fresh-faced boy of a couple of weeks ago, the strain of the last days showing in his tired eyes. Abby’s heart was flooded with pity and her voice was too emphatic when she said, ‘I know you will. Of course I know that.’
An embarrassed silence fell on the four of them and it was a relief when Henry came rushing up, shrieking and laughing, with John right behind him. John had taken his younger brother to the cloakroom, and now he said to Abby, ‘Tell him, Mam! Tell him he’s naughty. He ran away from me again.’
After James had settled the bill for the meal and drinks, and Abby had had a word with him, she said to Clara, ‘Would you mind if we came to see you off? You don’t have to say yes and we’ll under—’