Swansea Summer by Catrin Collier Read Free Book Online Page B

of the stairs. ‘Your mother is waiting. What do you want me to tell her?’
    ‘That she can do whatever she likes, as long as she doesn’t expect me or Jack to talk to her.’
    ‘Thank you, John, don’t bother to call a taxi, I’ll do it.’ Esme went to the hall table.
    ‘It’s obvious Helen doesn’t want you to come.’
    ‘She’ll change her mind,’ Esme assured him glibly as she picked up the receiver.
    ‘And if she doesn’t?’
    ‘I’ll see her married, drink a toast to my daughter and her new husband, and leave.’
    ‘Without making a scene.’
    ‘It’s other people who make the scenes.’
    ‘Only because you push them, Esme.’
    ‘It’s Helen’s wedding day.’ She hesitated, as she looked him in the eye. ‘Can’t we at least pretend to be friends?’
    ‘You’re the actress.’
    ‘You won’t even meet me halfway,’ she murmured seductively.
    ‘Not any more.’ He went to the top of the basement stairs. ‘If you’ll excuse me I have to warn Joe that you’re coming to the wedding.’
    ‘How is he? I haven’t spoken to him in weeks.’
    ‘You find that surprising?’
    ‘Not when I consider he lives with you.’ Hearing John’s sharp intake of breath, Esme gave him a brittle smile. ‘Sorry, that wasn’t intended to sound the way it came out.’
    ‘One more comment like that, Esme, and it’s you who will be out. And for once I’ll have no compunction about making a scene.’
    ‘I promise I’ll be the soul of tact and discretion.’
    As John ran down the stairs, he was already regretting that he hadn’t ordered her out of the house.
    The ceremony in the Guildhall’s Register Office was brief and devoid of the emotion Helen had come to associate with the few church weddings she had attended. It was also very much smaller. Martin was best man, Lily bridesmaid, and apart from Jack’s friends and hers there were only her parents, her mother’s cousin Dorothy Green, who had closed her hat shop in Sketty for an hour so she could attend the ceremony, and Lily’s Uncle Roy, invited by Jack, because Roy had been more of a father to him than his own ever had.
    Expecting to, but feeling no different than she had done when she had walked into the room with her father ten minutes before, Helen kissed Jack, her father, Martin, Lily, Judy, Katie and Auntie Dot, while studiously ignoring her mother. At a prompt from the Registrar, who had his eye on the clock and the next party, her father led the way outside.
    Martin and Lily produced confetti, her father and Roy took a few photographs and she and Jack were showered with paper petals and shouted congratulations as they ran to the car Jack had booked to take them to the Mackworth Hotel where her father had reserved a private room for the wedding breakfast.
    Helen stood back in amazement. ‘A Rolls-Royce!’
    Jack kissed her cheek. ‘Nothing’s too good for my bride.’
    ‘It must have cost a fortune.’
    ‘Martin knows a few people in the trade.’
    ‘All the same, Jack …’
    ‘Mrs Clay.’ Jack squeezed her hand as he helped her into the car. ‘Happy?’ he asked, as they drove off.
    ‘I thought I’d feel …’
    ‘What?’ he asked anxiously, hoping he hadn’t done anything to disappoint her.
    ‘Different. More married.’
    He patted the inside pocket of his suit that held the certificate and kissed her ringed finger. ‘What more proof do you need, Mrs Clay?’
    She looked at him as though she were seeing him for the first time, slim, dark, impossibly handsome, with black curly hair and deep-brown eyes; as attractive as his brother Martin but with a sharper, more volatile edge. The first time he had asked her to dance he’d seemed dangerous, unpredictable, as befitted an ex-Borstal boy, but if there had ever been any danger outside her imagination, there was no evidence of it now. His eyes were calm, quiet and loving – so very, very loving.
    ‘I love you, Mrs Clay.’
    ‘And I love you, Mr Clay.’
    ‘That’s all