Blood Brothers (6 page)

‘I was in the barn.’

‘In the barn? What were you doing in the barn?’ He smiled proudly. ‘Looking for me, were you?’

‘No, well yes…I mean, I
was
looking for you, but then I saw Joe go into the barn, and I asked him where you were and he said you should be back soon, and then I saw the falcon.’ When she realised she was gabbling, she took a breath. ‘Oh, Frank, the falcon is so beautiful!’

Frank noticed how excited she was, and he began to wonder. ‘Oh, yes, the falcon. I was told about that. So, is it doing all right, or what?’

‘Joe thinks he’s doing just fine,’ Alice informed him eagerly. ‘At first Joe thought his wing might be broken, but it’s only damaged. Anyway, Joe says he might be able to fly away soon.’

‘That’s good news. So! You were in the barn, were you? I’m surprised you didn’t see me go by.’ All he could think was that she had mentioned Joe’s name three times in less than a minute.

‘I expect I didn’t see you because I was holding the falcon,
but then I gave it back to Joe and came to the house to see if you’d got here yet.’

Tickling her under the chin, Frank smiled broadly. ‘Well, I’m here, and you’re here, and it’s good that the bird is repairing.’ Deliberately holding his smile, he teased. ‘Though I’m not sure I like the idea of you being in the barn with
a strange man.
’ He emphasised the last two words by widening his eyes and pretending to frighten her.

Alice laughed. ‘Joe is not a strange man. He’s your brother.’ Again, she recalled how she was drawn to Joe on that first meeting.

Keeping up the pretence, Frank kissed her long and slow on the mouth. ‘You’re right. So he is!’

When he saw the light go out in the barn, he ushered her inside. ‘Come on. We’d best get back inside before Mum throws the entire dinner out the window!’ Keeping her extra close, he escorted her into the kitchen.

He had a great deal to think about, because now it seemed he had a new and unexpected worry. This growing friendship between Alice and Joe had to be nipped in the bud.

Already irritated by Alice’s obvious excitement, Frank vowed that if he ever suspected Joe of making a play for his future wife, it would be the last thing Joe ever did!

‘Oh, here you are at last!’ In the kitchen, Nancy was already dishing up the food. ‘Where’s our Joe?’ Stretching her neck, she looked towards the door.

‘He’ll be here in a minute,’ Alice volunteered. ‘He’s just bedding the falcon down for the night.’

‘How
is
the bird?’ Tom asked eagerly, still chomping at the bit for his evening meal.

Before Alice could answer, Frank chipped in. ‘Joe reckons it’s almost ready to take off.’

Tom was pleased about that. ‘Ah well, he always did have a way with stray creatures, did Joe.’

‘Off upstairs, Frank. You need to wash and change before dinner,’ Nancy ordered.

‘Oh, I was hoping to beg a cuppa before I go up and change.’

‘You’d best make it yourself, ‘cause me and Alice have the dinner to serve,’ Nancy reminded him. ‘Oh, and try not to get under our feet.’

Frank took offence at being ordered about like a little boy. Smiling to himself, he wondered what his parents would say if they knew Joe had been in prison. The very thought of it made him feel good.

While Frank got himself a mug of tea, Alice and Nancy went about setting the table.

Tom got his fingers rapped for picking at the peas, while Nancy saw to the gravy and juggled dishes of steaming, juicy vegetables, she assailed everyone with stories of Joe and his boyish escapades. ‘D’you recall the time Joe scampered up that huge old tree to rescue that ginger cat?’

She chuckled. ‘The cat jumped down and left Joe stranded. We had to get the big ladders out and help him down. As if that wasn’t enough, the very next morning he found a badger caught in a trap.’

Stealing a carrot, Tom picked up the story. ‘Ten year old he were, and would you believe he turned up here with the badger still in the damned trap! The badger’s leg was almost off, and it was half crazed.’

While Nancy checked there were enough places set at the table for Alice’s parents Tom went on, ‘I gave Joe a right talking to. I mean…as we all know, badgers are bad-tempered at the best of times, and this big divil was in terrible pain. Snapping and snarling like a mad dog it was. I don’t mind telling you, it’s a miracle he didn’t have Joe’s fingers off at the bone!’

Out the corner of her eye Nancy caught Tom dibbing into the peas. ‘Get your mucky fingers outta them peas!’ Catching him across the knuckles with the ladle, she gave him one of her frosty stares. It was enough to send him scurrying for his raggedy old newspaper again.

When the telephone rang right beside him he almost leaped out of his chair. ‘Noisy damned thing. I wish we’d never had it put in!’ Tom hated all things new.

‘Don’t be so miserable!’ Nancy chided. ‘It’s bad enough you made us wait till everyone else in the village had one, before you gave in. Anyway, you can’t deny it’s been handy.’

With the telephone still ringing and no one seeming prepared to answer it, Alice grabbed a tea towel and wiped her hands. ‘I’ll get it!’ she said, and was across the room in no time at all.

Snatching up the receiver, she said, ‘Hello? This is Brook Farm, who’s that please?’

She listened for a moment or two, quietly answering in between, ‘What’s happened? Yes, we’ve just got dinner on the table. Oh, I’m sorry. Tomorrow? I will, Father. Yes, if that’s what you want, all right, but what’s happened?’

There was another pause while she paid attention to what her father was telling her, then, ‘Oh, I see. Yes, all right. I’ll tell them, yes. No, they’ll understand I’m sure. Well, I don’t know, but don’t worry. I just hope everything’s all right when you get there. Give them my love. No, Father, it’s okay. Yes, I know. I expect so. Yes, I will. Bye then.’

As Alice replaced the receiver, Nancy was curious. ‘That was a strange conversation,’ she commented. ‘I take it that was your father?’

Even Nancy would never dream of addressing the dignified Ronald Jacobs as Alice’s dad. ‘So, what did he have to say then?’

‘I’m sorry, Nancy.’ Coming back to the table, she began
taking up two of the place sets. ‘I’m really sorry,’ she said disheartened, ‘they said to give you their apologies but they won’t be able to come tonight after all.’

‘Oh, that’s a shame.’ In truth, having already once met Alice’s mother, she was greatly relieved. ‘A problem, is there?’

‘They’ve gone to Hampshire to see Uncle Larry. Apparently he needs to see them urgently.’

‘Oh, dear. I hope everything is all right.’

‘I expect it is really,’ Alice promised. ‘It’s Uncle Larry again. He’s not ill or anything, but it seems he and Aunt Sheila have had another of their awful rows. This time though, it’s more serious than before.’

‘Really?’ Nancy was curious.

Alice paused, before going on to explain, ‘They’re always having rows and fights…I remember one time when my parents were away on business and I was taken to stay with my aunt and uncle.’

She had never forgotten. ‘It was awful! I woke up and there was all this screaming and yelling, so I crept down and sat on the stairs and I saw them…going mad at each other they were. Then Aunt Sheila threw a shoe at my uncle and it knocked him clean out. She’s got this vicious temper, you see.’

Tom and Nancy were shocked. ‘I’m not sure you should be telling us all this, luv.’ Nancy had never heard the like.

Alice confided, ‘This time it sounds bad. Father didn’t go into too much detail, but from the little he said, I understand that they had a really bad fight, and Aunt Sheila packed her bags left. And now, Uncle Larry is in a bit of a state.’

After Nancy reassured her, Alice continued, ‘Father says it’s all gone a bit too far this time, and that it was all to do with Uncle Larry seeing another woman.’

‘Hmm!’ Nancy squared her shoulders. ‘If any man of mine played about with other women, I would never leave!’

‘Aw, you must really love me then?’ Tom teased.

‘Not that much,’ she retaliated. ‘Like I said…
I
wouldn’t leave, but
you’d
be out that door on the end o’ my toe!’ She gave Tom another derisory glance.

‘Don’t you look at me like that!’ Tom was indignant. ‘For one thing, I have never played about in my life, and for another, I’m a burnt-out, balding man with weak eyes and a gammy leg. Who in their right mind would want to be lumbered with
me?
’

‘Are you saying I’m not in my right mind, Tom Arnold?’ Nancy squared up for a fight.

Recognising the danger, Tom tried to make light of it. ‘Well, if the cap fits…an’ all that.’ He might have gone on, but with a well-aimed, wet tea towel landing over his mouth, he found it difficult to speak.

Snatching away the tea towel, Nancy wagged a finger at him. ‘The sad thing is, I’m stuck with you, whether I like it or not. As for your weak eyes that’s because you’re forever staring at the small print on the racing page.’ She gave Alice a cheeky wink.

‘Sorry, luv. You know full well, I wouldn’t swap you for the world.’

When Tom saw her quietly smiling, he reached over to hug her. ‘How could I not keep you,’ he chuckled. ‘You make the best apple pie a man could ever want.’

Alice thought they were a delight to watch.

She had never experienced such a family as this, and she told them so. ‘Mother is so fussy. Everything has to be in its place with every plate, cup and table cloth matching.’ She loved the way Nancy set out her table, with multi-coloured plates, old earthenware serving bowls and a blue table cloth, which she proudly confessed to making herself out of an old curtain. It was so perfect no one would ever have known.

This was a happy table, she thought. A real family.

The pleasure of sitting round a table with this family had
proved to be a new experience to Alice. ‘We’re not allowed to even
speak
at meal times,’ she revealed, to everyone’s surprise, ‘let alone tease and laugh with each other.’

Frank joked, ‘What with that and your mad relatives, I didn’t realise what I was letting myself in for.’

Alice laughed at that.

Draining the last dregs of his tea, Frank placed the mug in the sink. ‘Why do we have to wait for Joe anyway?’

After the showdown with Joe he was not in the best of moods. ‘If he can’t get here like the rest of us, let’s just start without him. After all, if he wants to spend his time with that flearidden bird, that’s up to him. The rest of us don’t have to eat a cold dinner, do we, eh?’

Believing that to be unfair, Alice protested, ‘We can’t start without him, Frank. It’s his first night back. Besides, he’s bound to be here soon.’

Nancy agreed. ‘My sentiments exactly!’

‘Suit yourself then!’ Frank went off in a sulk.

When Nancy went to look out the window, Alice followed her. At first she didn’t say anything. Instead she just stood beside Nancy, stretching her neck to peer out the same window.

Being older and wiser, Nancy was well aware that Alice had something to disclose. Drawing her close in a hug, she asked quietly, ‘When I’ve got a worry on my mind I find it’s best to tell somebody, so what is it, child? Are you worried about your family, is that it?’

‘No, they always manage to sort themselves out.’ Alice assured her; though she had never really known what a proper, loving family was like, until Frank brought her home to this wonderful place.

Nancy persisted. ‘Out with it,’ she demanded. ‘What’s troubling you? Was it something your father said?’

Ashamed of the position her parents had put her in, Alice explained, ‘You’ve been so kind to me…letting me stay last
night, and making me that lovely silk underskirt for my wedding dress.’

Nancy laughed. ‘That dress has been hanging in my wardrobe since the day I got married. When I offered to make you an underskirt out of the lining, I knew I would have to take it in by a mile, so it was just as well you stayed over.’

She regarded Alice’s slim figure against her own ample size. ‘Back then, when I was just a young kipper, I was never as tidybuilt as you are,’ she exclaimed. ‘Even after making you a long underskirt, there’s still enough of that material over to make a barrage balloon!’

Alice laughed. ‘That’s not true, I’m sure, but I really appreciate you making me that lovely underskirt.’

‘You’re very welcome, so now why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?’ Nancy asked.

Alice told her, ‘Just now, when Father rang, he had a favour to ask.’

‘From me, or from you?’

‘From you.’

‘Well then, luv, I have a right to know what it is he’s asking, don’t you think?’

‘Yes, but I don’t like to say anything because you’ve already been so good to me.’

She went on, ‘It’s just that…he wondered if I could stay here again tonight, because my sister Pauline’s gone to stay with her friend in Bedford. I don’t want to ask her not to go, because I know it’s a special visit, so her friend can help her choose her bridesmaid shoes. It means though, that I’ll be in the house without my parents.’

Nancy was worried. ‘So your sister Pauline still hasn’t got her shoes? Dearie me! She’s left it a bit late, hasn’t she?’ Nancy thought she had never known such a disorganised wedding, and there were Alice’s parents supposed to be high-flying business people. Either they didn’t care enough about their
youngest daughter’s wedding, or they had much higher priorities to manage.

Alice explained about the shoes. ‘Pauline and Mother have been arguing for days over who would choose them. In the end Pauline won. She always does, but there’s not much time left, so that’s why I can’t ask her to stay in the house with me tonight, instead of visiting her friend.’

Nancy put Alice’s concern to rest straight away. ‘Look here, child! You are about to become my daughter-in-law, and I couldn’t be more thrilled,’ she announced proudly. ‘My home is your home, and of course you’ll stay here, and that’s an end to it.’

Alice kissed her on the cheek. ‘It’s
me
that’s thrilled,’ she whispered, ‘’cause I’m about to have another mum…the best in the world!’ Nancy flushed with delight.

Just then Joe arrived. ‘Something smells good,’ he said rubbing his hands together.