The Unwanted Bride by Guy Sheppard

Author:Guy Sheppard [Sheppard, Guy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-01-31T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-EIGHT

Whoever follows me also watches my house.

He turns up the collar on his khaki trench coat and shields his face under his hat and scarf – he’s stamping his cold feet on the pavement right opposite 18A Edwy Parade. It’s a bleak November evening, yet my keen observer is disturbingly persistent. I can’t say for sure if it’s the police or not.

Every so often he sucks a sweet from a brown paper bag in his pocket.

Anyone else might think he’s my guilty conscience.

If you were here I’m quite certain you would go straight outside and confront him, dear Sidney. You wouldn’t stand for this uncertainty and fear I’m feeling right now. What does he want? Why won’t he say? It’s definitely me he’s tracking, but he walks off whenever I try to go near him.

Bella whines and goes to sit by the front door. It falls to any dog to read their owner’s mood and respond accordingly. She guards the entrance with devotion, or she might have a yawn. Next minute she sticks her nose high in the air and sniffs repeatedly – that could be another mouse gnawing holes in the wall.

Jacqueline has finally fallen asleep on my arm and I put her to bed in her cot on the floor beside me. You’ll be interested to know that she is still teething, after all, poor thing. I’m a bit all over the place at the moment. That’s because I can’t buy rubber knickers for her any more – one minute they’re stocked in the shops and next minute they’re gone. The same goes for rubber teats. We’re even being told that rubber is uncomfortable and that our babies don’t need nearly as many clothes as we think. But if we don’t have proper nappies we have to cut up perfectly good clothes to make do.

I’m not about to question our love’s worth, my darling, I won’t let doubt worm its way into my soul. Housework at midnight helps. All this washing and cooking goes a long way to calming me when my mind is on fire. It’s doing something physical, I suppose.

I’ve finished banging homemade, boiled nappies on the wooden washboard in the scullery, I’ve just rolled each one through the mangle to press out the water. I’m leaving them to dry next to my bras, girdles and slips on the wooden clothes horse near the gas-heated copper.

I’m running low on coal for the fire and it promises to be freezing. If you were here with me right now, I know you’d keep me warm. I did everything I could to save you, my love. It’s NOT my fault you’re gone.

Well, not exactly.

Truth is, there’s a strange ache in my head and my chilblains hurt horribly. The district nurse did visit me once after I gave birth in hospital but since then, nothing! At least I’m in the Milk Scheme now for free milk, ever since I applied to the Gloucestershire Food Controller’s Office. The Vitamin Welfare Scheme

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