Wartime Sweethearts (3 page)

He had believed that Ruby had fallen under his spell, that she was ready and willing to let him have his way with her. Even though it might have seemed otherwise, Ruby’s belief that he would ask her to marry him had come as no surprise. If there was one thing Gareth Stead could do it was to sow the right seeds in a young mind, entice them with words and actions to make them believe one thing, when in fact he was feeding them lies. That these simple little girls misinterpreted his intentions amused him. The fact that he’d left broken hearts, broken lives and the odd bastard scattered around, didn’t worry him. Men ruled this world; women were the weaker sex. They were there to be enjoyed and kept in their place.

He decided to give it one last shot.

‘We could be good together,’ he shrugged. ‘I tried marriage. Don’t rate it much. You could move in if you like, but I ain’t marrying you. And no babies either. Get pregnant, you get rid of it. There are ways and women who can do it.’

Shocked by this pronouncement, Ruby raised her eyes. Those amber-flecked green eyes seemed positively devilish now; how often had she dreamed of those eyes. In her dreams he had been warm and charming, making her feel as though she were a princess. In this last half hour or so he had made her feel like something far sleazier.

‘Don’t you ever want children?’

‘No. I want sex. That’s all I want.’

There was an air of finality to the way he answered. Gareth, Ruby realised, was not a man to be persuaded. He’d made up his mind as to what he wanted from women and from life. She wondered why she hadn’t seen that before? The old saying jumped into her mind. Love is blind. Had she been blind? Was she still blind? She wasn’t quite sure. Nobody got over things that quickly.

She sucked in her lips, a childish action that would take off her lipstick, but was something she did when she felt chastised, and she certainly felt that now.

‘Do you need me behind the bar today?’

‘No.’

The single word response was like a slap in the face.

‘Then I’d better be going.’

‘Yes,’ he said, turning his back. ‘You’d better be going.’

She paused, seeing him toss a glass cloth over his shoulder as he sauntered to the bar. It was terribly tempting to rush at his back, slide both her arms around him and ask his forgiveness. To say, yes, have me. Have me now. Whatever you want. But a warning voice that came from inside her but wasn’t quite hers advised caution.

Ruby avoided Gareth’s eyes as she listened to the voice inside her head that she knew belonged to her sister.

It was a well-known fact that twin sisters were closer than ordinary sisters. Sometimes they thought the same thoughts; sometimes they did the same things, though miles apart. They were like two sides of the same coin, though not even heads and tails. They were a double-headed coin, something rare and very special.

Even though Mary wasn’t in the Apple Tree with her, Ruby could feel her presence, that warning voice telling her not to be stupid. They looked out for each other. They knew when one of them was worried or frightened.

‘Yes. I think I should go now and I won’t be coming back.’

She said it abruptly so he would be in no doubt that she wouldn’t change her mind. It seemed that he wouldn’t be changing his.

‘Well, it was fun while it lasted. If you change your mind, I might consider having you back.’

In between sips of a half pint of beer he’d poured himself, he smiled the old smile that had seduced her in the first place.

She turned her back swiftly and headed for the back door, forgetting that she’d come in the front one.

The back door was at the end of a passage connecting the bar to the outside and the draughty old toilets, one for men, one for women. The plain plank doors had a gap at the top and bottom. A zinc bath hung on a nail between the two of them, grating against the uneven brickwork when the wind blew.

In the winter the toilets were freezing. A small lamp was left burning in the corner of the wooden rectangular seat; it was meant to help stop the pipes from freezing but it didn’t always work. In the summer the flies buzzed in and out of the gaps at the top and bottom of the doors. The waste pipes led to a cess pit at the far end of the untidy garden at the rear. When it rained heavily the cess pit overflowed and stank. The toilets stank most of the time, despite Mrs Burns and her trusty bottle of chlorus.

The handcart was still there but it was now empty.

A sudden bang came from the direction of the pair of wooden doors through which barrels were rolled down into the cellar. Whatever had been delivered on the cart had gone down there. Someone was down there.

She managed to squeeze out through the gap. Just as she’d guessed, Gareth had followed her out, thinking perhaps that she might have to come back in and go out the front door. Nothing would make her do that!

‘See you on Saturday. Hope you win. If you do I’ll help you celebrate.’

Gareth was referring to the village fete and sounded as though he was back to his old self, perhaps even thinking it wouldn’t be long before he could wear down her resistance. There wasn’t much chance of avoiding him at the village fete, but at least it would be crowded. Whether she won or not was a different matter. Competition was fierce and her greatest rival would be her sister.

A dry stone wall separated the pub from the orchard next door. Nobody knew who owned the orchard, so everyone harvested the apples that hung low on the ancient trees. Some of its branches scraped against the side wall of the pub itself. The local kids built dens in there and played cowboys and Indians in the long grass.

Everything that was so familiar today seemed tired and ugly. Gareth had made it feel that way. Suddenly she wanted to leave this place that had been home all her life. She wanted something new and different far away from the village where gossip was rife and old wounds took a long time to heal.

As she passed close to the wall just before it joined the main road, she heard somebody calling her name.

‘Ruby?’

She came to a halt as leaves and ripe apples bounced around her feet. The deluge was followed by her cousin Frances who was extremely good at climbing trees.

Ruby had hoped to get home without seeing anyone, and that included her cousin.

‘Have you been scrumping?’ she asked though there was little doubt what her cousin had been up to. Still flustered and red-faced from her ordeal with Gareth, Ruby feigned annoyance. ‘Look at your knees! They’re filthy. And you’ve ripped your dress.’

‘I know.’

Ruby watched Frances scooping up what rolling apples she could catch, darting around then tossing them into the sack she was carrying with the others she’d scrumped. ‘It’ll mend easy though.’

‘Easily. You mean easily,’ said Ruby impatiently.

Frances, the daughter of Sefton Sweet, her father’s brother, had lived with them since she was four years old when her mother had left her and a note with the local vicar. Sefton’s wife had been determined, so she said, to start a new life. A child, she’d declared, would only slow her down and she had no intention of fading into a frump in a village where the high spot of the year was the village fete.

And so Frances had come to live with them.

Like her three cousins, Frances had glossy dark hair. Unlike them she had velvet-brown eyes fringed with dark lashes. Mary, Ruby and Charlie, their brother, had inherited their father’s blue eyes.

‘I thought you’d be pleased,’ she piped up. ‘I’ve got enough for you to make apple turnovers, apple pies, even baked apples with custard for our Sunday tea,’ she declared. ‘Our Mary will be happy.’

‘I dare say,’ Ruby said grimly.

She resumed walking, her stride quickening in the vague hope of leaving Frances behind. She was still smarting from her ordeal with Gareth and could not quite believe that all her hopes and dreams of marriage were now over so quickly. Should she have given in to him? No. She should not.

Heaving the sack over her shoulder, Frances kept pace with her.

‘Have you done the cleaning already?’ she asked innocently.

‘I haven’t been doing any cleaning. I’ve been to the post office,’ snapped Ruby, her jaw firmly set, her cheeks still rosier than any of the apples Frances had in her sack.

‘So why did you go into the pub?’

‘I didn’t.’

‘Yes, you did. I was up in the tree. I saw you. That was after the man with the big sack went into the cellar. I think it was Mr Herbert. What did he have in his sack?’

Ruby stopped so abruptly that the two of them collided.

‘I don’t know what he had in his bloody sack. Were you spying on me?’

‘Not really. I told you. I was up the tree. I saw you.’

Ruby gripped her cousin’s shoulders and gave her a shake.

‘You
were
spying on me!’

‘I couldn’t help seeing you. Or Mr Herbert.’

Ruby felt herself growing even redder, alarmed that Frances might have been able to peer through the pub windows from her perch up in the apple tree.

She glanced back at the pub. Its four brick chimneys stabbed at the sky. Its windows were small and square and set into stone mullions. Those in shadow looked black, nothing of the inside to be seen. Those in sunlight reflected the old wall, the trees, herself and her cousin.

All the same, Frances might have seen something. ‘You’re not to tell anyone I was in there this morning. Do you hear me? You didn’t see me. Do you understand?’

‘But …’

Ruby eyed the puzzled expression. The child’s black eyebrows were arched, her rosebud lips slightly parted. The brown eyes that looked up at her were as glossy as melted chocolate.

‘No buts. I don’t want to hear you speak of this.’

‘Did Mr Stead do something bad?’

Ruby frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Did he put his hand up your skirt?’

Ruby felt a huge rush of embarrassment. ‘Frances, you really have to stop going around with that gang of yours. They’re filling your head with naughty things.’

Frances frowned. ‘They didn’t fill my head.’

Ruby totally disregarded the child’s accusation – certainly with relation to Gareth Stead. ‘Did one of those Cooper boys try to put his hand up your dress?’

‘No,’ said Frances, shaking her head and turning away, something she did when she was deciding whether to tell the truth or not. ‘Not them. He did. Mr Stead. He climbed over the wall into the orchard with a big sack. He dug a hole and buried it. Then he tried to put his hand up my skirt, but I kicked him and ran away. He told me not to tell.’

‘Liar!’

The sound of the slap she gave Frances brought her to her senses. The child was talking about the man she loved – or had thought she loved. She held out her hand, the one that had left a vivid red mark on her cousin’s face.

‘I’m sorry, Frances. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to …’

Frances backed away, her eyes filling with tears, one hand rubbing at the red mark on her cheek. However, Frances was very capable of standing up for herself. Her little jaw firmed up as the hurt expression was replaced by one of anger.

‘I am not a liar,’ she shouted. ‘Gareth Stead stinks of beer and he buried something in the orchard. I’m not a liar!’

Ruby felt mortified. She had never ever slapped her cousin before. Inwardly she groaned. This is all your doing, Gareth Stead, and somehow I have to mend what I’ve broken.

She began to run after Frances, but her court shoes had quite high heels and were not made for running. She called out instead. ‘Frances! Come back. I’m sorry.’

Her voice was taken by a sudden breeze which sent leaves flying and the sound of windblown apples landing on the ground on the other side of the orchard wall.

Frances kept going, the sack of apples bouncing against her back, her long legs kicking out behind her.

Ruby clenched the hand that had slapped her cousin’s face. She deeply regretted it, though still could not bring herself to believe that Gareth, the man she’d thought to marry, had done such a thing. Frances was just a child, she thought as she headed for home. Children fantasise and liked to shock their elders. That was it. That had to be it.

Sweet’s Bakery occupied a large corner site at the top of Cowhorn Hill on the opposite corner to the Three Horseshoes public house, which was run by a widow who was in the envious position of owning both the freehold and brewing her own beer in a shed to the rear of the property. Even so, the Three Horseshoes was in competition with the Apple Tree and a number of other hostelries in the village.

There was only one bakery and Stan Sweet often commented that he preferred to own a bakery rather than a pub.

‘At least I’ve got no competition,’ he declared while slamming down a pile of dough and kneading it this way and that with big meaty hands.

Good wholesome loaves were displayed on glass shelves in the shop window at the front of the property. Above the door, the sun glinted on a sign saying S. Sweet & Sons, picked out in gold lettering on a green background. The S in the name referred to Sefton, Stan Sweet’s grandfather. There had indeed been two sons, but Stan’s brother Sefton, named after his grandfather and father, had died some time back as a result of bad health caused by injuries sustained during the Great War.

Behind the shop was the bakery itself which was dominated by a big black oven with two arched doors, the higher one, used to bake every loaf of bread they made, closer to the main furnace than the lower one which was mostly used to make pies, pasties and cakes.

Built in Victorian times from locally quarried stones Sweet’s Bakery had been established by Stan Sweet’s grandfather back in 1877. The bread had originally been baked in wood-fired ovens, but Stan’s father had had the foresight to install a gas-fired oven just after the war.

‘No more wood piled roof-high out in the yard,’ he’d announced to Stan and his brother. Stan had given thanks to God that he no longer had to feed the old oven. Turning the tap that let in the gas and putting a match to it was far easier. He didn’t even mind the harrumph the gas made when he lit it. Anything was better than going outside on a cold dark wintry morning, hours before the rest of the village was awake, trundling in and out with fuel and trying to diligently set light to a pile of kindling. Even though the embers from the day before were kept in overnight, if the kindling and the wood was damp, it could take an age to get the oven up and running.