You'll Never See Me Again Read online

  As she passed the end of the lane, she glanced sideways towards Tern Cottage. She imagined Martin moving his chair closer to the fire, trying to block out the roar of the wind and the sea. She was certain his mother would be laying the table for tea and pretending to show some concern that Betty was taking so long.

  Betty smirked at the mental picture. She didn’t want to trudge for miles, cold and wet, but she had no choice. If she wanted everyone to believe the sea had swept her away, she must keep going until morning and then invent a new story about herself.

  ‘You’ll never see me again,’ she said aloud, looking towards Tern Cottage. ‘May God forgive me for doing something so wicked. But you are to blame, Agnes Wellows!’

  2

  As the first weak strip of daylight appeared on the horizon, Betty staggered up a narrow-rutted lane towards a dark shape she hoped was a barn. The rain had stopped about an hour ago, but she was soaked through and the wind was whistling through her wet garments right to her skin. It felt like she’d walked a hundred miles, yet she knew it couldn’t be more than twenty. She didn’t know the road very well, but she hoped she was near Totnes.

  She had never been so exhausted or cold, and she was starving too. The last thing she’d eaten was a slice of bread and dripping, not long before Agnes goaded her into going down to the cottage. She’d passed a horse trough earlier and drank from that, but the cold, hunger and her wet clothes were not as important as being able to rest. She felt as if she was on the point of collapse.

  The only way she’d managed to walk the last mile or two was by working on a story about herself in case anyone questioned her.

  Saying she was a widow, her husband killed at the Somme, was what she’d decided on. It wasn’t very original, but then almost every family in England was mourning someone killed in France. She knew enough about Martin’s regiment to carry this off too, and she thought she would say she was making her way to Bristol to look for work.

  But she was very aware she would need far more detail ready in her head: where she’d come from, her relatives, and the kind of work she was used to doing. If she accidentally let slip about Hallsands and fishing, someone might remember that a young red-headed woman went missing from there recently and had been presumed drowned.

  Betty had been brought up to be truthful, so lying wasn’t going to come easy to her. She wasn’t sure whether faking her own death was a crime, but it was certainly wicked to leave a sick husband, even if her mother-in-law had provoked it. Yet she was determined to get over her qualms and embark on a new life.

  Thankfully, the dark shape was a barn. To her joy it wasn’t locked, and was full of bales of hay. The sweet, warm smell as she opened the door was a welcome reminder of happy times as a child, helping with the haymaking. She climbed up the bales, took off her wet outer clothes and spread them out to dry. Then, after slipping on an almost dry dress from her bag and wrapping herself in her spare shawl, she burrowed into the hay bales and fell asleep almost instantly.

  She woke suddenly when something touched her face. To her shock she realized it was a rat – and judging by the squeaking there were many more, close by. Rats and barns went together, everyone knew that, but the thought of one touching her made her skin crawl, and she jumped to her feet, stamping to make any further rodents scurry away.

  When she’d arrived at the barn at daybreak, she could see the interior quite clearly as there were thin, narrow slits in one of the walls, up by the roof. But to her surprise the barn was now in total darkness, which meant she’d slept all day.

  Gathering up her things, which although not quite dry, were not sodden any more, she felt remarkably cheerful. She fumbled for dry stockings in her bag, put them on, laced up her boots, dragged a comb through her hair and retied it with a ribbon, then picked up her bag, cloak and shawl and cautiously felt her way down the bales.

  Agnes came into her mind. She had been terrified of rats; she liked to tell horror stories of them biting babies’ faces while they were in a crib. Betty wondered how Agnes would have coped with a rat touching her. Even now, she was probably regaling neighbours with tales of how she’d begged her daughter-in-law not to go to the cottages one more time. No doubt she would practise being grief-stricken at the tragedy, but Betty suspected that many of the neighbours would see through her act. They’d be kind to Agnes, purely because of Martin and his grandfather, but Betty could imagine what they’d be saying behind the woman’s back.

  Perhaps it was as well the rat had woken her; it was better to walk on by night, to remain unseen. But her stomach was so empty it hurt, and she had no idea what time it was, or how long it would take to reach a shop where she could buy some food.

  She was just about to the leave the barn when she smelled apples. Groping her way in the darkness towards the smell, she found some crates. As she ran her hands over the apples’ smooth skins, she sensed how much care had gone into storing them for the winter. She took only four, sure the owner wouldn’t begrudge her. As she walked back down the rutted lane, far more nimbly than she’d staggered up it the night before, she bit into one.

  It was sweet, juicy and delicious. The taste, feel and smell of it brought back a sudden and unexpected memory.

  She was fourteen, going off to the Harvest Festival at the chapel with her father. She was wearing her best dress, moss-green wool, with a hair ribbon to match. Mrs Holdway, a neighbour, had made it for her when she noticed Betty’s clothes were all getting too short for her. It felt good to be dressed up, and the Harvest Festival was always a jolly service. Betty had made a large plaited loaf, identical to the ones her mother had always made for such occasions when she was alive. Her father was carrying a basket of potatoes and some carrots that he’d grown on his allotment about a mile out of Hallsands. Many of the men had allotments there, one of which belonged to Ted Wellows, Martin’s grandfather.

  Betty had heard how Ted had invited his widowed daughter-in-law and her son to stay with him until they found a place of their own. Word had it that the daughter-in-law was a tartar, and Ted was already regretting his kindness. But so far Betty hadn’t seen these new additions to the village.

  As they approached the chapel a young lad came rushing over to them. ‘You are Mr Grainger, aren’t you?’ he said breathlessly, looking up at Bert. ‘I’m Martin Wellows, and Grandpa said if I asked you politely you might take me out fishing with you.’

  Betty remembered thinking how nice Martin looked; he was fair-haired, with sea-blue eyes and clear rosy skin. He was well dressed too, in a brown tweed jacket and dark grey trousers, his shoes so well polished she could see the October sun glinting on them.

  ‘I’ll give you a try,’ Bert said with a smile. ‘You are the image of your father. We used to fool about together when we were your age.’ He turned to Betty then and introduced her to Martin. ‘She might be a girl, but she’s got the sea in her blood too. You two will get on right well.’

  Martin grinned at Betty and shook her hand. Then he had to rush back to his mother, who was coming up the hill.

  ‘Nice lad, so like his dad,’ her father said thoughtfully as they went into the church. ‘It’s cruel how nature takes the good ones first.’

  Betty knew he wasn’t only referring to Martin’s father but to his own dear wife, Betty’s mother, and she resolved to ask more questions after church.

  As they filed out of the little church after the service, to Betty’s surprise, Martin sidled up to her and pushed something into her hand. It was a bright red apple.

  He put his finger to his lips to warn her to say nothing. ‘Four o’clock, up here,’ he whispered.

  Betty was amused at this secrecy. Much later, of course, she was to learn that poor Martin couldn’t speak to anyone freely without risking his mother’s wrath. But the gift of the apple touched her, and later, when she ate it, she found it was the sweetest, juiciest one she’d ever tasted.

  That was the day they become friends. She was fourteen, he was sixteen, throw
n together by circumstance, or was it fate? Two years later, in 1911, they were married.

  ‘If only he hadn’t enlisted,’ Betty sighed, as she polished off a second apple. He didn’t have to; as a fisherman he was in a reserved occupation. But at twenty-two, he said it was his duty to king and country to go. Betty understood he really wanted adventure, and had a fierce need to see places beyond Devon, but she gave him her blessing – believing, as everyone did then, that it would soon be over.

  Ted, his grandfather, became ill just two months later, while Martin was still doing basic training. He managed to get some leave, but even then Agnes berated him for staying with Betty, and not with her, at Ted’s cottage.

  Betty remembered Martin’s response to her. As always, he was calm and measured. ‘Mother,’ he said, ‘Betty is my wife. We made our home together with her father when we got married. I feel sad you have Ted to care for now, but you owe him that for taking us in when we had nowhere else to go. My place is with my wife now. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it has to be.’

  Betty was proud of him for standing up to his mother; she was a formidable woman, and only the very brave dared cross swords with her. But that act of courage and defiance hardened the woman’s heart even further against her daughter-in-law. She had taken against Betty at first because, as she saw it, the girl and her father had lured Martin into fishing when he was supposed to be a carpenter, like his father. She had been very fond of saying Martin’s father would be turning in his grave at his son’s betrayal. Then she blamed Betty for her son enlisting, claiming she’d made him think that war was exciting.

  Ted Wellows confided in Betty’s father once that he hadn’t wanted to take Agnes in when his son died of lung disease. He’d even suggested Agnes went into service and left Martin with him. But along with being a shrew, Agnes was also a snob. Her husband, Frank, had been a fine cabinet maker, well respected as a craftsman in Plymouth, and until he become ill, they’d had a good standard of living. But two years of sickness had depleted all their savings and, come the end, Agnes was selling her furniture just to eat and pay for Frank’s medicine. But hardship didn’t have a mellowing effect on her – she still had no intention of being a servant to anyone.

  Maybe she believed her father-in-law had enough money to pay for the apprenticeship she wanted so badly for her boy. But Ted too lived a hand-to-mouth existence, as almost everyone in Hallsands did.

  Agnes ought to have been grateful to Ted for taking her in, and should have made the best of the situation she found herself in, but her sour face and sharp words alienated her from her new neighbours.

  Yet however much of a come-down she thought Hallsands was, Martin loved it. He had his grandfather to help him through his grief at losing his father, he quickly made friends with other boys, and then he met Betty and her father and took to fishing as if he’d been born to it.

  Fishing was virtually the sole occupation in Hallsands and everyone, from the youngest to the eldest, did their bit to help. Children were sent up on to the cliffs to watch for shoals of fish and to give the signal for men to sail their boats out to cast the huge seine nets. Everyone in the village rushed to the shore to help pull in the nets and sort the catch.

  The best fish was packed into boxes to be sold, others would be eaten by the villagers, and the poorest quality were put aside as bait for crabs. The crabs and lobsters were caught in baskets made from withers, and then kept alive until they could be taken by boat to the London markets.

  Of all the children in the village Betty Grainger was the one people smiled about the most. With her tousled mop of red curls, her sparkling green eyes and a smile as wide as Salcombe estuary, she was beguiling.

  Even as a little five-year-old she could beat bigger children in the race to the cliff top to act as lookout for shoals of fish. She was never afraid of the sea, and thought nothing of wading in up to her chest in even the coldest weather to help pull in the nets. When her mother died of blood poisoning after a miscarriage, she was sad, but stoic, and although only eight years old she took responsibility for household chores and looking after her father without ever complaining.

  So when the villagers saw Betty and Martin becoming friends, two youngsters who had each lost a parent, they were happy for them.

  Agnes didn’t dare voice her feelings aloud when her son and Betty began courting, but her face gave her away anyway. She once said to a neighbour that she couldn’t see what her son saw in ‘that impudent, carrot-haired tomboy’. That remark went right around the village, and it only served to make Agnes even more unpopular.

  Betty and Martin were married on a sweltering day at the end of May in Stokenham church. Although they had the chapel in Hallsands and went there on Sundays, most people were true to the Church of England and so went to Stokenham church for weddings, funerals and christenings. But after the wedding service it was back to Hallsands for the celebrations on the green outside the chapel. Miss Evans, the retired schoolteacher from Huckham school, where Betty had gone, made her a wedding gown from an evening dress she’d had as a young woman, and the neighbours pooled together to get the ingredients to make a wedding cake.

  The celebrations went on till it was dark. Jack Farmer, an itinerant musician, came and played his fiddle, and everyone – from the youngest to the eldest – danced till they dropped. Bert arranged to sleep at a neighbour’s cottage for a few nights so the young couple could have the house to themselves.

  Everyone in the village wanted ‘happy ever after’ for the young couple. But in December of the following year, Bert was washed overboard from his boat in a horrific storm.

  The tragedy affected the entire village. Fishing was a dangerous occupation, everyone knew that. Each time a boat sailed out, there was always a chance that someone could be swept overboard. To make the tragedy even more distressing, his body wasn’t discovered for almost three more weeks, washed up further along the coast. Bert Grainger was one of the most popular fishermen in the village, and people really felt the loss of their friend and neighbour. He was hard-working, kind-hearted, generous with his time, a man who loved to sing and laugh, a good example to the young men of the village and admired by the older ones. As he’d lost his wife, and a baby daughter before, it was thought no further tragedy could strike him; in fact, on the day of Betty and Martin’s wedding, they’d teased him and said it was time for him to marry again.

  There was only one person who seemed unaffected by his death, and that was Agnes. She even tried to use his death to her advantage by saying she thought she should move in with the young couple. But Martin stood firm and refused to let her. Ted Wellows once again suggested Agnes went into service in Kingsbridge. He even said he wanted his house back for himself.

  But Agnes made no attempt to find work; she claimed Ted needed her to look after him, even if he denied it. As a result, Ted spent more time at the London Inn to get away from her. Betty remembered, when Martin enlisted, how he’d told his mother he could no longer support her on a soldier’s wages. She got very angry with him and said his father would have been ashamed of him. Betty felt she could easily slap the woman for being so idle and nasty. But to keep the peace, Betty told Martin she would give Ted half the money he sent home, for Agnes’s keep. Later, she got the job in Kingsbridge too. She did wonder how on earth she would have managed if she had found herself pregnant after Martin’s last leave.

  Thankfully, that hadn’t happened, and although Betty had missed Martin desperately, she liked her job in Kingsbridge. Mr Porter was an insurance man, his wife a little scatter-brained, but she had a sunny nature and appreciated Betty’s help running her house. To Betty, her employer’s house – a pretty villa with modern conveniences like a bathroom, inside lavatory, gas lighting and well-appointed scullery – was a joy to look after.

  When Martin came home from France with a severely damaged leg, it was clear he wouldn’t be able to get up and down to their own house, so Ted suggested he stayed with him and Agnes. They didn
’t know then that Martin’s mental damage wouldn’t heal along with his leg and other more minor injuries. Betty needed to keep her job too – she had to help provide for both Martin and Agnes – so Ted resigned himself to the fact that this was his lot now: a damaged grandson and a harpy who would never change.

  Ted had been out when Agnes ordered Betty to go to her home and rescue her belongings. Betty knew he would’ve been distraught when he got home and found she was missing. He would also be suspicious that Agnes was responsible.

  ‘Poor Ted,’ Betty murmured to herself. ‘As if he didn’t have enough to put up with.’

  Walking through the darkness didn’t seem half as awful as it had the previous night. The wind was cold, but it was dry. She heard the occasional owl hooting, cows moving around in the fields, and saw a badger crossing the lane right in front of her. There were cottages here and there, but no lights were on, and a dog barked at only one farmhouse. She plodded valiantly on, her mind on the new person she was going to become.

  ‘Mabel,’ she said aloud, and smiled because she’d had a friend when she was five years old by that name, and she’d always thought Betty a very plain name. ‘Mabel Brook. And I come from Plymouth. My husband, Peter, was killed at the Somme … but I can’t bear to speak about that, it’s too painful.’

  It had been too painful to talk about what was wrong with Martin. When he was first shipped back to England and she visited him in hospital in Plymouth, she imagined that once his body was mended, he’d be back to normal. His leg was mended now, but he remained in a chair, seemingly unable to understand anything.

  Even the doctor couldn’t suggest any remedies, and it became so bad that sometimes Betty wished he’d died in Flanders as a hero, rather than spending the rest of his life as he was now. Though that seemed a terrible thing to think, as if she didn’t love him.

  That love had never diminished, but it was love for the strong, funny and loving Martin who went off to France, not this broken shell of a man by the same name. She felt guilty that she cringed at the terror in his eyes when he heard a loud noise, and she was irritated that he appeared to have no knowledge of who she was, or how he’d felt about her. She hated, too, that people pitied her for losing a real man and being left with a deranged child.