The Emerald Valley (22 page)

Was she right? The singing in her veins told her she was and as she served and counted returns she felt alert and alive, looking up quickly and eagerly each time the doorbell jangled.

It was almost closing time when he came. She glanced out of the window and saw him standing on the road outside, lighting a Woodbine. The sun was catching his fair hair and turning it to molten gold and her heart turned over, setting her whole body a-tingle. It was all she could do not to run to the door and call his name, but somehow she controlled herself, waiting as she always did for him to make the move and come to her.

When at last he came in she looked up with a smile, feigning surprise.

‘Ted!'

‘Rosa! How are you doing?'

‘Fine. What are you doing home?'

‘You sound like my mother! She almost showed me the door.'

‘I'm not surprised. You love to give people shocks, don't you?'

‘Only nice ones, I hope. Busy?'

‘So-so. Nobody seems to have any money to spend these days. We shall be closing soon.'

‘Good, I hope you haven't any plans for afterwards.'

‘None that can't be scrapped. What did you have in mind?'

‘You want me to tell you now?'

‘Perhaps you'd better not,' she laughed.

‘We'll go for a walk and I'll tell you then.'

‘Sounds good.' Her heart was singing so that she could hardly speak. He waited while she packed up, leaning against the counter, and she could feel him watching her. He was as pleased to see her as she was to see him, she knew.

Perhaps this time, she thought. Perhaps this time it will be different.

In the fields above the village the grass was long, but not yet overgrown, filling the air with the sweet, fresh smell of summer. Because of the strike it was not tainted by pit smoke, but as Ted and Rosa climbed they saw white puffs of steam rising from a train on the railway embankment to merge with the fluffy clouds in the blue sky above.

The feel of the country she loved so much fused with the happiness of having Ted home once more, and there on the sloping field Rosa pirouetted.

‘Careful, you'll fall!' Ted warned with a laugh, but she was sure-footed as a mountain goat. He reached for her; she twisted out of his reach. The early summer sun had already darkened her olive skin to a rich, blackish brown and the tanning enhanced the slimness of her legs and arms and made her eyes shine black as bits of newly-hewn coal; she looked to him like a bewitching stranger.

‘Come here, Rosa,' he said, his voice thickening though he was still laughing.

‘Why?' She twirled away again but this time he shot out a hand as she passed, grabbing her slender wrist.

‘Got you!'

She laughed again, delight gurgling in her throat, but as he pulled her close the laughter died and the quick, flaming magic lit her body to trembling awareness.

‘Rosa Clements, has anyone ever told you you're beautiful?' His mouth was close, his eyes smiling into her.

She tossed her head, her lips curving, teasing him. ‘What do you think?'

‘
I
think you're beautiful.'

He kissed her and they stood for a moment pressed close so that the shadow they threw on the sunlit field was of one, not two. Then slowly they sank until they were kneeling, then lying in the fragrant, scratchy grass.

Beneath his touch her body was soft and yielding, her breasts thrust with a sigh into the cup of his hand, her legs parting at the caress of his fingers. Her thighs were as smooth as her breasts, giving pleasure that drove out pain and her lips clung to his with the desperation born of weeks, months of waiting and longing. As he took her she moaned, deep in her throat, but it was as soft as the wind in the grass and as her body rose to meet the thrust of his the tide ebbed and flowed between them, waves breaking gently on a beach at the start, then building to the cacophony of the deepest, most tumultuous ocean.

She sobbed at the end, unwilling to let him go, wanting to hold him within and around her, but after a few moments he rolled away to lie beside her, and though the sun was warm on her face and on her bare arms and legs it did nothing to diminish the chill of loss.

He had gone from her already. She knew it even before they began to talk quietly, conversationally, like two friends rather than lovers. And she felt the sorrowful shaft of parting even before he confirmed he was leaving again the next day to look for seasonal work in one of the South Coast resorts.

But Rosa knew better than to let her feelings show. Frighten Ted off and she might lose him forever. What they shared was too precious for her to risk destroying it.

For the present, it had to be enough.

In years to come when she looked back on the summer of 1926, Amy Roberts was able to see it not only as a time of grief in her life and things coming to an end, but also as a time of new beginnings.

‘I expect you were under the planet Uranus,' Dolly – who had become interested in ‘the stars'when she and Cook worked together for Captain Fish – told Amy one day when they were reminiscing. But at the time, such frivolity was far from Amy's thoughts. There was simply no room for it, even if it had been in her nature to interest herself in what she privately dismissed as nonsense.

As the first numbing grief and disbelief began to disperse a little, allowing periods of coherent thought, Amy realised that there was far more to Llew's death than simply a personal tragedy.

There was the legal side to be sorted out, for foolishly Llew had never got around to making a will, and there was the business to plan a future for.

It was Eddie Roberts, Llew's brother, who first raised the subject of the business with Amy.

‘Have you thought what you're going to do with it?' he asked her.

She looked at him blankly.

‘The haulage business,' he said, speaking slowly as if to a child. ‘Llew rented the yard, there are two lorries and a couple of employees who have to be paid. Something will have to be done about it.'

Get rid of it? Was that what he was saying? A muscle tightened in Amy's stomach. Oh, she never wanted to see the yard or the lorry again, it was true. For the rest of her life, she felt, she would continue to relive the nightmare of that morning whenever she looked down across the valley to the quiet spot where Llew had died. But get rid of it? It was Llew's creation. He had lived and breathed it, built it up from nothing by his own endeavours, died for it in the end.

‘Amy?' Eddie was looking at her with those eyes that were exactly the same colour as Llew's, yet somehow managed to have a slightly cunning glint to them.

‘I don't know,' she said impatiently. ‘I can't think yet. Give me a chance, for goodness'sake, Eddie.'

‘All right, all right!' he soothed her. ‘We'll say no more about it for the moment. But the best thing you can do is to go and see the solicitor as soon as possible – put everything in his hands.'

Amy nodded dumbly. That was the only thing she could do, she supposed.

‘Shall I make an appointment for you with Mr Clarence?' Eddie pressed her.

Amy hesitated. She was not fond of Arthur Clarence. He was fussy and frowsty and his office intimidated her. For a moment she thought wistfully of Winston Walker, who had helped Ted when he had been charged with murder. But Winston was a barrister, not a solicitor, and anyway she had not seen him for years. No, if she needed a solicitor it would have to be Arthur Clarence.

‘I'll make the appointment, and I'll pick you up and run you down to his office in the car,' Eddie went on.

‘Thank you,' Amy said flatly, wishing that Eddie would leave her alone. She disliked him calling on her and poking his nose into her affairs, but it seemed ungrateful to say so, especially when he was offering not only his support but also the services of his smart new Model T Ford which was grand enough to be confused with the doctor's.

‘I'll be in touch then, Amy,' Eddie promised and when she had seen him to the door, her thoughts returned briefly to what he had said about the business.

She would have to come to some decision, she supposed, if only for the sake of Herbie and young Ivor Burge. They had not been paid since Llew's death and they wouldn't go on working for nothing for ever. But she couldn't think about it now, she
couldn't.

Next day Eddie Roberts was back, tapping on the back door and letting himself in. Amy was upstairs making the beds and when she heard someone in the kitchen and came hurrying down, she stopped dead for a moment to see him there, for in the light blue suit that was identical to Llew's he looked so like him it might have been his ghost there in the kitchen.

Then, as the first shock subsided, Amy felt a stab of annoyance. What right did he have to come barging into her kitchen? She could have been undressed and washing at the sink for all he knew.

‘Oh, Eddie – I thought you were a burglar,' she said coolly. ‘What are you doing here?'

The irony was lost on Eddie as he leaned his tall frame comfortably against the stone sink.

‘You'd better get changed. You're going to see Mr Clarence in half an hour.'

‘I am?'

‘There was a free appointment and so I grabbed it. The sooner you get things moving the better.'

‘Yes, I suppose so. It's just that …' She floundered and hated herself for it. She was not usually like this – so weak, and indecisive. But Llew's death seemed to have knocked all the stuffing out of her.

‘What about the children?' she asked. ‘Can we take them with us in the car?'

Eddie's face fell. ‘Couldn't they go with one of your neighbours? If you have to wait a bit they'll get bored and get sticky fingers and dribble all over my seats …'

‘All right, I'll see,' Amy agreed meekly.

It took the best part of twenty minutes to change her dress and tidy her hair, make arrangements for Barbara and Maureen to go next door with Ruby for an hour and lock up the house. As she pulled the front door shut behind her and walked down the path, Eddie looked impatiently at his watch.

‘I'm sorry, Eddie, but I couldn't come any faster,' she apologised.

‘It's all right. Just as long as we don't keep Mr Clarence waiting. And I don't want to have to push the engine too hard,' Eddie said, omitting to mention that from Amy's house to Arthur Clarence's office was all downhill.

The solicitor's office was on the first floor above one of the shops in Hillsbridge's main street and as she climbed the steep flight of stairs Amy was feeling unaccountably nervous. It did not help when, perched on a hard chair in the glorified cupboard that served as a waiting-room, she heard him muttering to his aged clerk about the problems of intestacy. And when at last she was facing him across the large, leather-topped desk with its litter of musty, pink-tape-tied files, his unsmiling expression – ‘fit to turn the milk sour'as Mam would describe it – did little to restore her flagging confidence.

‘It's a great pity Mr Roberts did not make a will,' he said accusingly. ‘Things are so much easier with a will.'

‘I don't suppose he expected to die yet a while,' Amy apologised, her voice made tart by nervousness. ‘You don't, do you, at twenty-six?'

Arthur Clarence fixed her with a disapproving stare.

‘We none of us know when our time is going to come, Mrs Roberts. That's the point. And if we are only
prepared
…' He broke off, nodding and sighing both at the same time. ‘Ah well, it's no use crying over spilt milk. What is done is done – or rather
not
done. Now you wish to apply, I understand, for Letters of Administration.'

‘Do I?' Amy said helplessly.

‘That's the procedure when there is no will. The estate will have to be divided up according to the intestacy rules. In order to set all this in motion I shall need all the relevant documents – deeds of the house, insurance policies, investments of any kind, accounts … Have them delivered to me and I can get things moving. There is really no need for you to bother your pretty head about any of it. In fact, I'm sure if you allow him, Mr Edwin Roberts will go through everything with you.'

Amy bristled, not liking the thought of anyone poking through Llew's ledgers and correspondence – certainly not Eddie. ‘That won't be necessary,' she said coolly. ‘I'm sure I can manage.'

‘Well, yes. I simply thought that as he will be taking over the business …'

Amy's eyes widened. ‘I beg your pardon?'

‘The business. Mr Edwin Roberts will be running it once everything's settled …'

‘Whatever gave you that idea?' Amy demanded.

‘Well, I naturally assumed … a thriving business … you would want to keep it in the family …'

‘Yes, that's true enough …'

‘And Mr Edwin Roberts does have some experience with haulage. Weren't he and your late husband partners at the outset? I should have thought he would be the ideal person …'

Amy's surprise was turning to anger. She thought of Eddie bamboozling her to see Arthur Clarence, making the appointment, barging uninvited into her kitchen and now sitting smugly outside in his precious Model T Ford while the solicitor outlined the best course of action to her – that her brother-in-law should take over the business Llew had worked so hard to build – Eddie, whom Llew had bought out because they could not agree on how things should be run. He had put Mr Clarence up to this, not a doubt of it. No wonder he had been so keen to get her here!

‘No, Mr Clarence, I don't want Eddie involved,' Amy said. ‘And he certainly won't be running the business.'

Her tone held echoes of her old, firm manner and Arthur Clarence pressed his fingertips together disapprovingly.

‘Well, Mrs Roberts, you will need someone.' His lips curled slightly. ‘You surely don't propose running the business yourself?'