Christmas Wishes (39 page)

Opposite her she heard Keith sigh and then take a drink of his tea before speaking again. ‘All right, if that’s the way you feel I’ll have to talk to someone else. But honestly, Joy, I know your sister very well and she wouldn’t want what I was going to tell you to be bruited abroad. So it’s your decision really; either I tell you and we keep it in the family, so to speak, or I tell someone else.’ His hand reached out and patted Joy’s. ‘Well?’

Joy frowned. ‘You’ve got me in a cleft stick,’ she observed ruefully. ‘I promise I won’t tell a soul, then, so long as it won’t hurt Gillian.’

‘I wouldn’t hurt Gillian for the world,’ Keith said indignantly, and there was no doubting the sincerity in his tone. ‘Dammit, I love the girl!’

‘Sorry, sorry, sorry,’ Joy said at once. ‘Forget I spoke; it was a stupid thing to say. Fire ahead then.’

‘Okay, here goes. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but several times since I got home I’ve suggested outings of one sort or another to your sister and she’s been unable to come, having some sort of previous engagement …’

‘What’s wrong with that?’ Joy said rather more sharply than she had intended. Goodness knows, she had suffered from the same treatment, but she could not bear to hear her twin criticised. ‘Remember, Keith, you’ve been miles away for weeks and weeks; did you think Gillian would sit around waiting for you? She’s a very popular girl and has heaps of friends.’

‘Yes, yes, I appreciate all that,’ Keith said quickly. ‘I’m not suggesting for one moment that she should cast her old friends aside just because I’m home for Christmas. But today we’d agreed to go out together; a shopping expedition, lunch and then a visit to the cinema. I was really looking forward to it, especially as I meant to watch Gill very carefully … no, no, don’t frown, I meant make a note of anything pretty she admired because I’ve not bought her gift yet and this seemed an ideal opportunity to find out what she would like … do you understand, Joy? As I said, I was really looking forward to it, arrived at your house ten minutes early … and Gillian answered the door, all dressed up to the nines but full of apologies, saying that she had just received a letter from an old friend announcing that she was coming into Liverpool this very day on a Christmas shopping trip and she wanted Gill to meet her at Lime Street, since she doesn’t know the city at all well.’

‘Oh dear,’ Joy said in a hollow voice. ‘Did she – did she give you the name of the person she was meeting?’

‘Oh
please
; I’m not a complete idiot, you know,’ Keith said reproachfully. ‘Don’t get angry with me, Joy, but I simply didn’t believe her. First of all she couldn’t meet my eyes and then she was talking far too loudly. And there was no sign of a letter … Well, anyway, I suggested I might go with her to meet this friend off the train and she said that she didn’t know which train her friend meant to catch but would stay indoors to wait for a telephone call. She asked me very prettily if I could bring myself to put off the shopping trip we had planned until tomorrow or the next day, and naturally I said that would be fine. I waited for her to invite me in, but she didn’t do so. I won’t say she shut the door in my face, but it was perilously like it.’ He paused, and Joy could imagine his furrowed brow and hurt expression. For the first time she felt really angry with Gillian for causing such pain, but when she would have spoken Keith’s hand came out and covered her own. ‘No, no, let me finish. I walked up to the fire station feeling puzzled and hurt … dash it, I felt all the emotions one would expect. But I decided I’d have to have it out with Gillian the very next time we met, and was turning back to catch a tram to the city centre when your front door opened and Gillian came out.’

‘I expect she’d decided to make her way to Lime Street after all,’ Joy said rather wildly. ‘Or perhaps her friend had rung the very moment you left the house …’

‘I followed her,’ Keith interrupted flatly. ‘And you’ll never guess where she went.’

Joy shook her head. ‘I can’t imagine,’ she said truthfully. ‘Go on, tell me.’

‘Well, it was the weirdest thing,’ Keith said, his tone puzzled. ‘She hopped on a tram and as soon as she had settled herself downstairs on one of the front seats, I ran across the pavement and jumped aboard. I was sure she was going to meet someone and found myself praying it would be a girl. I won’t go through all the intricacies of the journey, but we ended up in Rodney Street. It was just about lunchtime and there are no cafés or restaurants on Rodney Street, but apparently your sister was not interested in food. She simply strolled up and down that exceedingly long street for about an hour and then she dived down a side street. I’d been keeping well out of sight as you can imagine, which wasn’t easy, but I’d turned up my coat collar, wrapped my scarf round the lower half of my face and didn’t walk so much as slouch. The truth is, she glanced neither at me nor at any other passer-by, to the best of my knowledge. She seemed to be concentrating on the houses themselves and I could tell from the droop of her shoulders that she was becoming discouraged. Yet what had she expected? If she’d had a rendezvous, why on earth choose Rodney Street? As I said, there are no shops or cafés, just medical consultants and specialists. It really is a very boring street …’ he chuckled suddenly, his voice lightening, ‘as I can tell you, having spent the better part of the morning and early afternoon parading up and down it.’ He sighed deeply. ‘I know it was sneaky of me to follow her, but what else was I to do?’ He reached across the table once more and took Joy’s hand. ‘What would you have done in my position? And can you explain her behaviour, because I’m damned if I can?’

‘I dare say, in your shoes, I’d have done just what you did,’ Joy said at length, after the silence between them had begun to stretch uncomfortably. ‘As for her behaviour, there’s only one person who can explain it, and that’s my twin. If you think she was really meeting someone, then it’s your right to ask why she lied. But I fear if you do so …’

‘. . it might ruin our relationship,’ Keith said miserably. ‘Have you
no
idea why she told me such fibs? It would have been understandable had she met someone, but I’m very sure she didn’t. Can’t you find out for me, Joy? If the same thing happens again and you follow her …’

Joy, who had just taken a mouthful of tea, spluttered and fished a hanky out of her bag to mop up. ‘Of course I can’t! I can’t
see
to follow anyone,’ she said impatiently. ‘And without giving away the fact that you did follow her and then confided in me, I can’t possibly help.’

Once again, Keith’s hand reached across the table, but this time it was to smooth down her cheek. ‘I’m really sorry; you must think me a great fool,’ he said penitently. ‘The fact is, you don’t
look
blind; you don’t even act it most of the time. You’ve got so clever at disguising your disability that some folk don’t realise the significance of the white stick and behave as though you can see. I do the same – treat you as I treat Gill.’

Joy laughed. ‘I think you should rephrase that remark, since I’ve heard you and Gillian canoodling in the back yard before coming into the kitchen,’ she said. ‘But actually I’m really thrilled that you say you’re not aware of my disability and I’ll do my best to help you to find out just what is going on. But Gillian may guess that you know. Will that be all right?’

‘Oh … but suppose she
is
meeting someone, and gives me the elbow?’ Keith said. ‘She can’t want us to split up or she would have been honest … oh hell, what am I to do?’

‘I don’t want to say too much because it would only be conjecture, but if you ask me she’s playing a – a very silly game,’ Joy said carefully. ‘Look, I promise to try to keep you out of it, and as soon as I have definite information I’ll get in touch. Will that do?’

She felt her hand being seized and wrung heartily, then felt Keith’s lips on her cheek and told him, with mock wrath, to ‘Gerroff!’

Keith laughed and squeezed her hand. ‘You’re a sport, Joy Lawrence! If I can just keep my Gillian, I’ll be grateful to you for the rest of my life,’ he said breathlessly. ‘And so far as I know, she was only out of my sight for about ten minutes; that was when she dived down the side street and I couldn’t follow her because she would have spotted me, since that street was deserted.’

‘When she came out of the side street, did she seem flushed or excited?’ Joy asked curiously; she had not forgotten her twin’s obvious exhilaration after her encounter with the young man in the grounds of the new cathedral. But surely that one encounter could have nothing to do with her twin’s behaviour? She hated to think that Gillian might have been deceiving not only Keith but herself also, but it had to be faced. Gillian had never mentioned their trip to Rodney Street again, nor her meeting with the doctor’s son, but now Joy remembered every detail of her twin’s story. Would she tell lies and hang about the doctor’s surgery just to see the chap once more? But Keith was drumming his fingers on the table, clearly thinking, so she repeated her question.

Though Keith gave the matter more thought, he was unable to answer her satisfactorily. ‘She came out of the side street like a rocket and hurried off down the road at such a pace that it was all I could do to keep her in sight,’ he said. ‘In fact she turned on to Mount Pleasant and jumped aboard a tram before I could catch up, leaving me to follow on the next, which was at least seven or eight minutes behind the one that Gillian had caught. But if you and I are to find out what’s going on we must arrange to meet on the quiet, because we don’t want her getting suspicious.’

‘Why not?’ Joy said, smiling to herself. ‘It might do her good to be just a touch jealous and to see that you are not always available. I gather you’ve agreed to a day out with her tomorrow? I think you ought to mention Rodney Street; just see what her reaction is.’

Keith laughed. ‘Righty-ho, Miss Lawrence,’ he said. ‘And you’ve reminded me of something. I don’t suppose you’ve ever met Paul Everett, who was in my class at school. He’s one of Gillian’s many admirers and he’s got a kid brother, Stevie, who’s just had his tonsils out. I’ll tell Gillian that I met Paul and we took Stevie to see a doctor in Rodney Street and spotted her through the window of the waiting room, but when we came out she had disappeared.’ He chuckled delightedly. ‘Howzat!’

‘Brilliant,’ Joy said. ‘See what she says when you tell your story and then we’ll decide what to do next, if anything.’

Keith agreed that it might well do the trick. They caught the next tram and arrived home before Gillian, though Alex and Mrs Clarke were already in the kitchen, Alex laying the table and Mrs Clarke frying cold potatoes from the previous night and slicing onions into the sizzling fat. She turned and beamed at the pair of them, then said placidly that supper would not be long. ‘Did you have a good shopping trip?’ she asked. ‘Oh, Gillian dear, did you buy Joy’s present?’

‘No!’ Joy yelled, then began to giggle. ‘Just because I came in with Keith doesn’t make me Gillian!’

‘Oh, Joy, I’m so sorry …’ Mrs Clarke began just as the back door opened again and Gillian entered, already apologising for being late. She asked Joy if she’d had a good day at the office, came over and gave Keith a quick kiss on the cheek, and then began to help in the preparation of the meal.

When they were all seated with plates of food before them, Keith plunged in. ‘Went and met your sister out of work, seeing as how you were busy with your friend, and we came home together,’ he said easily. ‘Did you have a good shop, Gill? Oh, and I met Paul Everett. Do you remember him?’

‘Of course,’ Gillian said impatiently. ‘He’s got gingery hair. He’s back from Oxford, I suppose?’

‘That’s right. He was taking his kid brother to see a doctor on Rodney Street.’ Keith continued with his apocryphal story, his voice lacking conviction to Joy’s ears, though she was sure no one else doubted his words. He finished his tale and must have turned to look at Gillian, seated beside him. ‘Odd coincidence, wouldn’t you say? I mean, there aren’t many shops in Rodney Street …’

‘Oh, my friend wanted to see how the new cathedral was getting on,’ Gillian said airily. ‘So we went there first. Any more spuds? We didn’t have lunch so I’m starving.’ She turned to her sister. ‘What about you, Joy? If Keith met you out of work you must have done a bit of shopping. You were going to go halves with me over something a bit special for Dad …’

Hastily, Joy said she’d not got out of Wittard’s until six o’clock and turned the conversation, observing half-admiringly that Gillian could certainly think on her feet. Because of her sister’s quickness, she and Keith had not found out anything, though Alex suddenly cleared his throat uncomfortably a couple of times, making Joy wonder whether their father, too, had been aware of a certain atmosphere. Then he got up and served his daughter with more fried potatoes. ‘When we’ve finished eating, why don’t Auntie Clarke, Gillian, Keith and myself have a hand of cards, whilst Joy plays one of the books the Listening Library have sent?’ he said. He turned to his younger daughter. ‘Will that suit you, sweetheart?’

Joy smiled; once she would have enjoyed a game of cards, but now it was impossible, and anyway she loved listening to stories. ‘That’ll be fine, Dad,’ she said. ‘Only I’ll get on with my knitting at the same time. I’m on the last sleeve, so if I’m lucky I’ll finish it by Christmas.’

After that one occasion, Gillian made no attempt to sneak off and seemed to be her usual loving self and Joy thought, hopefully, that whatever her twin had been up to was clearly a thing of the past. Probably she had just wanted to glimpse the young Dr Slocombe again for her own satisfaction, and having ascertained that he was nothing special had resumed her relationship with Keith.

Christmas Day passed uneventfully, though it was bitterly cold. Keith and Edward, as well as various members of Blue Watch, were invited round on Boxing Day to help the family finish up the cold turkey, and after lunch they played childish games – Chinese whispers, musical chairs, charades and postman’s knock – and had a grand high tea, the visitors gazing with awe at a table upon which Mrs Clarke’s genius was displayed to great advantage. ‘Auntie Clarke works miracles,’ Joy assured everyone. ‘Not only is she the best cook in the world, but she will go miles to buy an ingredient she needs if it’s not available nearer at hand.’