Summer of secrets, p.1
Summer of Secrets, page 1
Summer of Secrets
Cover
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
About the Author
Also by Grace Thompson
Copyright
Title Page
Cover
Table of Contents
Start of Content
Chapter One
Bettrys stood at the window of her London flat and stared along the street as far as she could see, stretching her slim elegant body across the armchair, unconsciously hoping that by doing so she would catch sight of Brett more quickly. The road was empty of people. The evening light was fading, gilding the row of houses opposite with the beauty of the dying sun and casting shadows deeper and deeper as she watched. She spared a second to glance at her watch. She whispered his name, “Brett,” willing him to appear. He wasn’t coming. But she still stood waiting, hope fading but, like the sun, not quite gone.
At the distant corner, the road joined a busy thoroughfare along which traffic was heading out on the Friday-night nose-to-tail exodus. The pavements on the main road at the end of her row were filled with people hurrying towards the District Line station a couple of hundred yards to the left of the corner. Somewhere among that mass of humanity was Brett. But was he walking towards her? Was he bringing her hope of a return to the exciting and loving relationship they had enjoyed for the past months? Or was he hurrying away, putting as much distance as he could between them? Off to search for someone new, someone who wouldn’t put a sister with a drinks problem before him and what he offered.
Her slow, gentle manner and her kind heart had, in the past made Bettrys Hopkyns many friends. But since the death of her parents and the arrival in her contented life of her sister Eirlys, she had gradually drifted into a life almost devoid of social contacts. That was why Brett was so special.
He had blown into her life one day when he came in answer to her advertisement for a buyer for her car. He stayed to talk and brought with him a breathless excitement, a zest for life which she had almost forgotten.
Bettrys was tall, three inches under six feet, but he was taller, and as dark as she was fair. What she lacked in confidence he more than compensated for and together they laughed their way through the whole of that Spring and Summer. He had never once called for her at her flat. And he had refused her repeated invitations to come for a meal and meet her sister, Eirlys.
“Let’s eat out instead,” he would say, patting his wallet pocket. “Live, laugh and love while we can, eh?” As she prepared to protest, he would add, “Plenty of time for staying in and meeting family and all that stuff when we’re bored with each other. You aren’t bored with me yet, are you, Bettrys?”
The fear that he might think so quickly settled any further attempts at persuasion. He was often away on business, about which he was very secretive. All she knew was that he was a Property Developer called Brett Cavendish. He had borrowed money on three occasions, and so far had not returned it. Not that she minded. He had spent so much on her with his extravagant treats she had no regrets at helping to pay for them.
When he was in London they met often, and ate and danced and went to the races and learnt to ice skate, and he taught her to manage at least the easy slopes on the dry ski runs. Something new every moment. She had never known what to expect when he phoned her and arranged for them to meet.
He took her to Paris for a weekend of sight-seeing, to York for breakfast, to Scotland to sail around the Western Isles, where he amused her by developing a fine Scottish accent. They once went to the summit of Snowdon, in North Wales, where he developed an accent that varied from North Wales to that of the South, depending on whom they were with.
His fascination was endless and when she thought he could spring no further surprises, he told her he had tickets for Greece and promised her six weeks of utter bliss. In a haze of happiness she bought new clothes, ordered her travellers cheques and made all the necessary arrangements.
Then Eirlys started drinking again and she had to tell him she couldn’t go with him.
Her sister’s recurring problem began in the usual way with a lack of interest in anything, a refusal to go out even to work at the local school, where they were both teachers. Then the aggression grew, and questioning, pleading and reasoning developed into desperation and frustration, then anger.
Every time she entered the flat, Bettrys searched it for hidden bottles. As hiding places were exposed, more were found by Eirlys, who was terrified at the prospect of not having a drink available at any hour of the day and night. She had to know it was there and her agitation if her last bottle was discovered and poured away was pitiful, but the look on her sister’s face did not prevent Bettrys from doing what she knew was right. But, for Eirlys, the need to know she had a bottle secreted away was a constant anxiety which led to her hating her sister with an intensity that was frightening for them both.
Bettrys found brandy behind the fire, under the imitation coals, and in Eirlys’s bed, at the bottom of the wardrobe, in shoes, in pockets and behind pictures. There was a time when she thought there was not an inch of space she didn’t know about and then found two bottles on the meter cupboard high up where she needed a ladder to reach.
The binge would slowly end and then would come the remorse and the promises and things would settle back to normal. Eirlys seemed to really believe she was strong enough never to touch alcohol again and each time, Bettrys began to hope that this time it was true. Then it would begin all over again. The lethargy, the lack of interest, the refusal to go to work, the money missing from Bettrys’s purse, the search for hidden bottles and the lies. Her beautiful sister changed in days into a vicious stranger.
Now she was standing at the window, waiting for a man who would never return, while her sister slept an ugly, noisy sleep, sprawled on a stale, foul-smelling bed. Self-pity threatened and she moved away from the window and stood staring at her own reflection and wondering how it would all end. Was her whole life to be spent dealing with Eirlys’s disgusting bouts or waiting for the next?
Now she was alone again, she knew that Brett had tired of her loyalty to her sister and was on his way to the airport, heading for a dream of a holiday she had been looking forward to so much. Surely her parents hadn’t really meant to burden her with all this? To expect her to give up everything she wanted to look after a sister who was determined to destroy herself?
Downstairs, a door slammed shut and she watched as a young girl left the building carrying a rucksack and headed for the underground station. At the corner, the girl stopped and waved at a group of people who were obviously waiting for her. Just as Brett would have been waiting for her if Eirlys hadn’t ruined everything.
Leaving the window, she went to the bedroom where her sister lay sleeping. Taking a deep breath, she looked inside. The room was over-warm and smelled unpleasantly of vomit, even though the bed had been changed that morning. A fact most people didn’t consider when thinking about caring for heavy drinkers – sickness and other symptoms of too much alcohol and not enough food. The excessive smell of the body’s varied functions was not something Bettrys had been prepared for.
She called her sister’s name, then frowned. The hump in the bed where her sister lay sleeping looked odd, illshapen. She had been snoring, flat out on her back when she had left for school that morning and apart from rolling her onto her side, Bettrys hadn’t disturbed her, knowing from bitter experience that if she woke her she would have a difficult few hours before settling her again. After a bout of drinking she was better left to sleep it off. But now, something about the shape on the bed puzzled her. She investigated and found the bed empty. She sighed. Once again Eirlys had given her the slip.
Hardly caring, thinking only of Brett and the holiday, both lost to her, she went back to the window. Brett might still come. He must come. She wanted to hear him say he would be back, and everything would be as wonderful as before. Even though, in her heart, she knew that by choosing to support her sister instead of going away with him, she had effectively told him goodbye. The words, the formal words, were all that was left.
She pushed her long, honey-coloured hair back from her face and stared at the corner from where he would appear, but there was nothing to see but her own reflection. Her eyes glazed, gave up trying to see beyond the glass and she remembered instead the expression on his darkly handsome face when she had told him she wouldn’t be going with him. Disbelief, a half smile as if expecting to be told it was a joke. Then resentment, then a cool, hard tightening of his mouth and the instantaneous disappearance of the loving look that had been a part of his expression every time their eyes met. The love she was used to seeing was gone as if a door had slammed, shutting off a light from within.
The flat was in a quiet corner in London, in a street filled with busy commuters during the week but emptying quickly on a Friday evening and remaining comatose for the two days of the weekend. The house had been divided into three flats and two bedsitters which were let mainly to students from the nearby college.
Below her she could hear the sounds of people busily preparing to go out for the evening, or entertain friends. The students had already gone, off on holiday, or to vis it mum and dad probably with a bag of washing and an appetite, each of enormous proportions. The sounds increased Bettrys’s loneliness.
She pulled the heavy curtain across the window, turned on the imitation fire and filled the kettle for a cup of coffee. With Eirlys off on a bender it was going to be another long night. The knock, when it came, startled her. She hastily switched off the kettle and ran to the door, a smile of welcome, a forgiveness for his lateness already on her lips. If only he would talk to her, perhaps, after all, there might be a happy outcome. If only she could make him understand.
The sight of a young policeman standing there startled her and at once she felt fear rising. Her thought was not for Brett Cavendish, but her sister.
“What’s happened?” she gasped breathlessly. “Is it my sister, Eirlys? Is she ill?” Eirlys tried to keep her drinking private but occasionally drank to excess outside the flat. She had twice fallen in the street and been taken to hospital.
“I’m sorry, but you didn’t give me a chance to speak. No, there’s nothing wrong. I’m very sorry I startled you. You must be Bettrys.” He held out a hand. “I’m a friend of your sister, Eirlys. We had an arrangement to meet after I finished my shift and she didn’t turn up. I just wondered if you knew where she might be?”
“I’m sorry. I thought – a policeman knocking – silly of me. Please come in.” She stood back and gestured to an armchair. “I’m just making coffee, will you have one? Eirlys will be back soon.” She hoped that was not true. Eirlys wouldn’t want a friend to see her in the state she was in!
He followed her into the kitchen, watched her put coffee in the cafetiere and stood with her while the kettle began to make encouraging noises. He was an inch or two above her own height, strongly built, his hair was almost black, matching the thick brows and the dark outline of a beard showed strongly, suggesting he had a problem keeping himself neatly shaved.
Bettrys searched her mind, trying to remember if her sister had mentioned this young policeman. There were times, she thought with a stab of guilt, when she did not listen too closely to her sister’s chatter.
“Eirlys has told you about me?” the young man said rhetorically. Then he frowned at the lack of response in Bettrys’s blue eyes. “I’m Jonathan Crawley.” Still no sign of recognition. “We’ve been going out together for more than two months,” he said, slightly dismayed at the lack of interest. “In fact, we were going to meet my parents, staying the weekend. She must have told you?” he added doubtfully, as the frown on Bettrys’s brow deepened. “I’m Jonathan,” he added stupidly, unwilling to accept that Eirlys had not talked to her sister about their growing romance.
“Eirlys sometimes chatters non-stop. At other times she says very little. You must know that,” she smiled. “If you’ve known her for more than a week you’ll have seen all her moods!” Except perhaps the one she’s presently enjoying, she thought with a feeling of guilt. There was no point in warning anyone about Eirlys. She only had to laughingly deny it and at once a suspicion of jealousy was attributed to Bettrys.
“I found her very lively, funny, joyful and very much a chatterbox. I can’t believe she didn’t tell you about us. But where can she be? I tried the school, but she left after her final lesson. The caretaker said she was carrying a suitcase and had ordered a taxi, so where can she have gone?”
“She was at school today?” Bettrys frowned. “I left her in bed this morning. She was – she was ill.”
“She arrived late apparently, but in spite of a severe migraine she took her afternoon classes.” He glanced at the phone and Bettrys nodded.
“Please, ring anyone who might know where she is. I want to know too.” She thought of the holiday and the love she had turned aside, while her sister went calmly off somewhere without a word.
After several calls Jonathan shrugged. “No one has seen her since she left school. She told none of the other teachers where she was going.”
“This really is a day for disappearances,” Bettrys said. “A – a friend of mine said he’d call before going abroad for the summer.” She didn’t think it wise to explain to this pleasant young man that the reason she hadn’t gone with Brett, was because her sister might need her, that she was drinking again and needed constant watching. Or that, because of her sister, she had lost the man she loved. Or that she was aching inside because he hadn’t even bothered to say goodbye.
Jonathan left after finishing his coffee, leaving his address and that of his parents. “I would appreciate your letting me know when she does turn up,” he said.
A day later, when Bettrys was sufficiently concerned by her sister’s absence to consider reporting it to the police, Eirlys telephoned.
“I’m all right,” she laughed. “Honestly I am. Stop fussing and allow me my privacy and freedom. I’m a grown woman. I’ll be home soon. Bye.” She hung up, having given Bettrys no clue as to where she was or whom she was with.
* * *
It was almost two weeks before Eirlys returned; laughing, glowing with happiness and unrepentant at letting Jonathan down.
“Oh, don’t be cross with me and spoil a wonderful ten days,” she said, hugging Bettrys and pushing a small gift into her hands. “I’ve been to Brighton, staying at a beautiful hotel, with a beautiful man and spending lots of beautiful money.”
“Who have you been with?” Bettrys demanded. “A young man called for you, expecting to take you to meet his parents, and you’ve been away with someone else? He was puzzled, to say the least, when you vanished without an explanation.”
“Explanations are best avoided, darling Sis. They only ruin everything with disapproval and guilt and they serve no useful purpose. What’s happened can’t be changed, so why go on about it? ‘The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on’ – you know how true that is.”
“But Eirlys, who have you been with?”
“As for who I was with, well, just imagine the most wickedly worldly and wickedly wealthy man you’ve ever met and that will be him. And that’s all I’m telling you!” She went into her bedroom and tipped out the contents of her suitcase and, leaving it as it fell, she went, singing cheerfully, stripping off her clothes and dropping them with the rest, to run a bath.
* * *
The sisters were not alike. Eirlys was small and extremely fair, her hair was almost white and her complexion flawless and milky. Her eyes, although the same blue as Bettrys’s, were larger and set wide apart. They indisputably promised mischief. She was slightly over-weight, but her plumpness had always brought admiring glances, which she fielded with her own, leaving no doubt in the eyes of the receiver that she was a woman for whom fun was a priority. The ravages of excessive drinking and poor nourishment were not yet apparent.
Besides her sister, Bettrys felt plain and unattractive, but never resentful. Eirlys’s attractions and her own poor copy of them were facts of life that could never be changed. Her sister’s brightness and beauty lost her in their shadows and she never attempted to compete. Until the drinking began she was proud of Eirlys and wanted nothing but to support her and bask in her reflected glory. It would only be until Eirlys married, then she would be free to develop her own life.
This latest adventure was different. She was treating people badly and it was no longer fun if others were hurt. She shivered at the prospect of a lifetime spent apologising for her beautiful sister and picking up the debris. That wasn’t what her parents made her promise, was it?
Bettrys’s dismay grew rapidly, until she was very angry, but she held back from shouting at her sister. She knew that only led to wilder and wilder laughter and, eventually, to guilt and the terrifying round of drink and remorse, followed by more drinking and yet further drinking until remorse was no longer important.
She bent to sort out the tangle of clothes and was relieved that she didn’t come across a bottle hidden away in the carelessly packed luggage. A man was one way Eirlys kept sober – for as long as the intense passion and deep physical attraction lasted. She wondered how long this affair would continue and whether it would be long enough to justify her own loss, of Brett, her lover, and their Greek holiday. She suspected not.
