The Back of Beyond Read online

  ‘Auntie Marge has gone away to get a baby,’ David confided loudly, when they were all seated at the table. ‘I don’t know why she wants one, though. They’re noisy smelly things, aren’t they?’

  Gwen summoned up a smile. ‘Not all of them. Some of them are really beautiful …’

  ‘Auntie Marge’s will be beautiful,’ Leila observed dreamily. ‘I’m looking forward to when she brings it home. A real live baby’ll be better than a doll.’

  ‘Soppy!’ David glowered at her. ‘All girls are soppy! All they think about’s getting married and having babies. Yeugh!’

  Ivy chuckled as she stood up to clear the table. ‘You’ll change your mind about things when you’re a bit older. Once a boy really falls in love, all he wants is to marry the girl and have babies with her.’

  ‘Not me! When I’m grown up we’ll be back in London and I’m going to go in for motor cycle racing. Vroom! Vroom!’ He turned the throttle on his pretend steed and looked defiantly round the others.

  Deeming it best not to rise to the challenge, Gwen said, ‘I hope you behaved for Auntie Marge while I was away?’

  ‘I always behave!’ He looked put out that she could doubt it.

  ‘He did behave, Mum,’ Leila put in. ‘She wasn’t feeling well enough to bike to the shop, so we’ve been getting the groceries for her. Miss Fraser said we were very good messengers, but Auntie Ivy did the shopping on Monday.’

  ‘I wanted to see the village,’ Ivy explained, not wanting to admit that it had been the shopkeeper she had wanted to see, having heard about her from Marge. ‘It’s quite a nice little place, and I love this house, but it’s a bit far away from everything for my liking.’

  ‘When we came here first, Marge said it was at the back of beyond,’ Gwen smiled, ‘but you get used to it.’ And it had been ideally situated for the conspiracy that was now taking place, she thought. But it would soon be over, and things would be as they were before … with the addition of a new baby.

  When Marge’s allotted fourteen days were up, Ivy went to Aberdeen to collect her and her ‘son’, and Gwen, to take her mind off it, cycled into the village. ‘My aunt’s gone to fetch Marge and the baby,’ she informed Lexie.

  ‘They’re all right, are they? Dougal’ll be pleased when he comes home. I bet he’d given up hope of having any children. It’s twelve years since they married.’

  Gwen did wonder why she was so sure of that, but presumed that Marge must have mentioned it. What worried her was the peculiar way Lexie was looking at her. It was almost as if she suspected something, some wrongdoing, but surely she couldn’t have any idea …? No, of course she couldn’t.

  ‘Are you keeping better yourself?’ Lexie enquired, suddenly. ‘Your sister said you were in London having an operation. No complications?’

  Having practically forgotten this reason for her being away, Gwen felt flustered, but said, steadily, ‘None. Everything went smoothly, and I don’t have to go back.’

  ‘That’s good. Have you heard from Alistair lately?’

  ‘Not for a few weeks, but I suppose no news is good news.’

  ‘So they say.’

  Lexie didn’t move for some time after Alistair’s wife went out. The woman certainly looked better than she’d done before the operation, but she herself still wasn’t convinced about that. She’d been sure it was Gwen Ritchie with the soldier at the tower, and the length of time was right for her to have had a baby, yet it was Marge Finnie who was bringing home a son.

  There was something dashed fishy going on. If Gwen had been in London giving birth – though maybe she hadn’t gone as far as London – the child would be illegitimate, and maybe she’d had it adopted? But she shouldn’t get away with it. It wasn’t fair on Alistair. If she, Lexie, could plant even a tiny grain of doubt in his mind when he came home from the war, she would be doing him a service … though Alistair Ritchie wasn’t as gullible as Doodie Tough. It wouldn’t be easy to make him believe ill of his wife.

  Even David fell under little Nicholas’s spell. ‘Look at the size of his nails,’ he crowed. ‘His hands are so small, I wouldn’t have thought there was room on his fingers for nails at all, but they’re the same as everybody else’s.’

  ‘What did you expect?’ Marge laughed. ‘Babies are the same as everybody else, just a lot smaller.’

  ‘He’s so small, I’m afraid to touch him,’ Leila murmured.

  ‘You can hold him, if you like. He won’t break. Just be careful.’

  The girl sat down in one of the armchairs and let her aunt hand her the infant, who burped loudly. ‘Is he all right?’ she asked in alarm.

  ‘Of course he is,’ Marge assured her. ‘It’s natural for babies to burp more than we do.’

  Nicholas’s next breaking of wind had David doubled up with mirth. ‘I didn’t know he could do it from that end as well!’

  ‘Just like you!’ Leila said, dryly, which made them all laugh.

  Everyone was sorry when Ivy said she had better go home. While she’d been there, Benview had been a place of love, of laughter, of a general feeling of satisfaction with life, and the sisters were afraid that her departure would change everything. But she suggested that Gwen and her children should see her on to the train at Aberdeen, and David was excited at the thought of spending an afternoon in the city. Gwen, of course, was a bit apprehensive at leaving Marge alone with Nicky, as David had called him and it had stuck, and Marge, too, wondered how she would cope, but all went well.

  Life soon returned to normal, with Nicky a well-loved addition. A large bundle of letters arrived for Gwen, though they contained little but assurances of love for them all. Marge got letters from Dougal at irregular intervals, and it was several weeks before she received the one saying how he could hardly bear to wait to see his son.

  ‘I thought we’d never manage,’ he wrote, ‘but we must have done something right that last night we were together.’

  Marge showed her sister this letter. ‘I said it would be OK. He’s sure Nicky’s his.’

  Gwen nodded, but remained uncertain. Once Dougal saw the bright ginger hair and green eyes, would he be so sure?

  Chapter 21

  Life in Benview was not quite as joyful as it might have been. The two older children were, naturally, delighted that the war looked to be almost over and they would soon see their father again, yet the prospect of leaving the friends they had made at Forvit School was quite depressing. As for Gwen and Marge, they were becoming more and more apprehensive about their return to London, although neither admitted it to the other. Their personal D-Day would soon be upon them, or, as Gwen had come to regard it, her Armageddon. As soon as hostilities were over, they would have no excuse to hibernate in this isolated cottage, and their mother, with the uncanny knack of knowing when they were keeping something from her, would do her best to ferret it out.

  The summons came at the end of April. ‘This is it, Gwennie,’ Marge observed as she folded up Rosie’s letter ordering them home and asking what they thought they were playing at staying away when there was no danger now. ‘Last hurdle coming up!’

  ‘Not the last,’ Gwen sighed. ‘After her, we’ve still got to face Dougal and Alistair.’

  ‘We don’t have to worry about them. Dougal’s going to be hooked on Nicky the minute he sees him and he’ll spoil him rotten, and Alistair’s not likely to question my son’s parentage, is he?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Gwen tried to sound positive.

  Marge went to bid Lexie Fraser goodbye before they left. They owed her that for the help she had provided. ‘We really enjoyed our stay in Forvit,’ she gushed. ‘It was so peaceful after the bombing in London, but Alice and Sam will want their house back. Besides, my mother’s desperate to get all her chicks under her wing again.’

  Trying not to show her sadness at the thought of not seeing him again, Lexie said, ‘But will Alistair not want to come back to the peace of Forvit?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’ Marge shrug
ged then held out her hand. ‘It’s time I was going, but thanks once again for all you did for us.’

  Lexie smiled. ‘You’d a pretty rough time for a while, what with you expecting and your sister having to go to London for whatever kind of operation it was.’

  Marge had to do some quick thinking. She had blithely mentioned some woman’s trouble at the time without specifying which, and the village gossips had likely spent hours speculating over it. None of them had ever gone out of their way to be friendly. She had even heard one calling them ‘stuck-up Cockneys’, but she hadn’t bothered to correct her, and perhaps she and Gwen had kept themselves too much to themselves. They had never really felt as if they belonged, that was the trouble.

  ‘Gwen didn’t want anybody to know,’ she said at last. ‘It was an ovarian cyst, as big as a melon, the surgeon told her. It wasn’t cancerous, thank goodness, but she still hasn’t recovered properly.’

  ‘I hope she improves once she’s back with her mother. Say goodbye to her and the bairns from me. I got quite fond of Leila and David, you know.’

  As Marge cycled back to Benview, she congratulated herself on remembering what had happened to one of her neighbours in Woodyates Road a year or so before the war started. Etta Smith had been a widow for many years, so when a bump appeared on her stomach, the rumour went round that she’d been having a secret affair with a married man and been left to have the baby on her own. The bump had grown as the months passed, as such bumps do, and when Etta’s sister Vi turned up to look after the house and feed the cat, the sniggering gossips told each other that Etta had gone to hospital for her confinement. Then Vi had mentioned one day that her sister was having an ovarian cyst removed, which had made them all feel rotten. It would be best, Marge decided, not to let Gwen know the story she had spun about her ‘operation’. This final, unnecessary lie would only worry her.

  Lexie couldn’t help wondering about Marge’s version of her sister’s trouble. She had seemed a bit put out at being asked, and she’d obviously had to invent something on the spur of the moment … not all that convincing, either. Gwen Ritchie wouldn’t have had to go to London to have an ovarian cyst removed when the Royal Infirmary in Aberdeen was classed as among the best in Britain. She had definitely had a baby, but it was anybody’s guess who was the father, and whether it had died at birth or been adopted. Still, Lexie mused, what did it matter now? It was a shame, though. Alistair would go back to London when he was repatriated, to the wife he believed had been faithful to him, and live in happy ignorance for the rest of his life.

  Poor Alistair!

  That evening, probably as a result of the frustration of her earlier thought, Lexie was beset by a memory she had done her best to ignore any time her mind touched on it, but this time it refused to go away. It had happened a few months ago, and was the last time she had gone out with any man. Ernie Paul was an old schoolmate, a cheeky devil, he’d once put his hand up her knickers when they were climbing the wall bars in the gym. He’d been quite keen on her, but at the time, she’d only had eyes for Alistair Ritchie. Ernie had got a job in Aberdeen as soon as he left school, and some years later, like most of the other young men she knew, he’d been called up.

  He had come into the shop once or twice on each of his leaves, the same bantering lad he’d always been, but there had been a change in him the last time he was home … more serious, more intense about things, although there was still the occasional twinkle in his eyes. She had found herself warming to him, and when he asked her out, she had agreed to meet him after she shut the shop. He had taken her by bus to the Capitol Cinema in Aberdeen, and though she half-expected him to slip his hand up her leg while they were watching the film, he had been a proper gentleman, even when he saw her home. He wasn’t cheeky any more, and it was only after their third date that he kissed her good night at her door.

  Completely at ease with him now, she had asked him in the next time he saw her home, and as soon as she closed the door behind them, he put his arm round her waist and drew her towards him. This kiss was different from the first, a kiss that made her whole body quiver. He had pulled her down on the sofa beside him, and she had given herself up to the thrill of his caresses. His kisses had become more urgent and she hardly noticed that one of his hands had slipped down until she felt his fingers touch her most private part – she grew hot at the memory of it. Then for some inexplicable reason – for she had wanted him to go on – she had shoved him away and burst into tears and screamed at him as she jumped to her feet. ‘Get out! Get out! Get out!’ She couldn’t stop herself, and had even lashed out at him with her feet.

  ‘Good God, Lexie!’ he had shouted, standing up and stamping to the door. ‘I wouldn’t have touched you … honest, but I thought you wanted it.’ He had slammed out.

  Ernie had been the only one who had ever got as far as that. She had never let any of the others, over the years, touch her in an intimate way … not even Alistair. She had encouraged him, yes, but if his hands wandered below her waist it was as if she froze with fear – and what had she to fear from him, for goodness’ sake? From anybody, for that matter? It was only natural for men to try, and for girls to try to stop them. But her reaction wasn’t natural. It was violent, intended to hurt. Why?

  A tiny sliver of what may have been a possible explanation shot through her, but it was gone before she could make anything of it, and in any case, she wasn’t sure that she wanted to understand, after all. It was quite obvious that something so bad had happened to her at one time that she couldn’t bear to think about it. It had crossed her mind before that her father might have interfered with her and run away because of shame, but she couldn’t remember him ever touching her where he shouldn’t, not even accidentally. He had loved her as a father should love a daughter, nothing else. Yet there was still this awful sense of an impending revelation that would turn her world upside down.

  Rosie couldn’t get over how tall Leila and David had grown in the four and a half years they had been away, and she was moved to tears at the sight of little Nicky exploring her living room on his tottery podgy legs. ‘When Dougal came to see me last,’ she told Marge, ‘he said he wished he had a child to leave behind if he was killed, and now it’s all over bar the shouting, and he’s got a son! You girls will never know how often I prayed for your husbands to come home safely and for these three houses to escape the bombs.’

  ‘Yes, I know you had it pretty bad, Mum. I felt really guilty that I was up there when I’d no kids to worry about.’

  Rosie grinned puckishly. ‘But if you hadn’t been up there, you wouldn’t have had Nicky, would you?’

  Marge felt her stomach heave at the truth of this. ‘N … no, that’s right, of course.’

  Noticing the peculiar glance Marge gave Gwen, and knowing her daughters inside out, Rosie was sure that they were hiding something. What had happened in Forvit? Had one or both of them been misbehaving? No, she couldn’t think that of Gwen, but Marge had gone dancing there, and she must have met lots of servicemen. Had she had a fling? No, she loved Dougal. She wouldn’t have put her marriage in jeopardy. All the same, something was definitely not quite as it should be, and she would have to persevere until she found out what it was.

  Over the next week or so, Rosie watched and listened to her daughters, trying to pick up even the slightest hint that would put her on the right track, but although Marge talked freely about their time at Forvit, the gossips in the little shop, the strange way the people spoke, Gwen scarcely said anything, especially about the last year of their stay. She clearly found it too painful to speak about.

  Increasingly unsettled, Rosie puzzled over it constantly; positive that she wasn’t making something out of nothing. Then one afternoon, when the house was quiet – the family, including Alf, having gone to the Heath – it struck her, like a bolt of lightning, so devastating that she felt faint. She shied away from it and tried to read the morning paper, but the print jumped all over the page and nothing reg
istered, so she gave herself up to considering the awful suspicion.

  Was it possible that Dougal was not Nicky’s father after all? Had the monotony of Forvit made Marge have more than just a fling with another man? That must be what was wrong with Gwen. She wouldn’t have approved what her sister was doing, but even if she had tried to stop her, Marge wouldn’t have listened.

  Rosie found herself latching on to stronger evidence. Marge and Dougal were both dark-haired and brown-eyed, but little Nicky’s hair was the brightest red she had ever seen, his eyes a piercing green, both of which were highly unlikely in the normal run of things. She didn’t know much about that kind of thing, of course, so it could be possible, though she doubted it in this case.

  She kept her thoughts to herself when her family returned, and it wasn’t until the following morning, when Peggy came in to see how she was, as she did every morning before going to work, that she decided to test the waters. ‘Peg,’ she asked, carefully choosing her words, ‘does Nicky’s colouring strike you as odd?’

  ‘His hair, you mean? I think it’s a lovely colour.’

  Rosie lay back against her pillows with a sigh. Peggy wasn’t all that perceptive, so it wasn’t surprising that she hadn’t twigged.

  When she went downstairs at just after ten, the children were playing in the garden and Gwen was tidying up. Rosie decided that this would be a good time, with Marge still in her own house, to ask a few pertinent questions. ‘I expect you and Marge were bored up in Scotland, with Alice’s house so far from the village?’

  ‘It wasn’t too bad.’

  Gwen’s face, however, had a definite pink tinge, further proof to her mother that she wasn’t comfortable speaking about it. So there was something! ‘What did you do for entertainment?’ she pressed on, but at that moment, with Gwen clearly struggling to think of an answer, Marge opened the back door and took in the situation at a glance.

  ‘We ought to take the kids out for a while,’ she said, giving Gwen a warning look. ‘We’d better make the most of this lovely weather before David and Leila start their new school. Will you be OK on your own, Mum?’