Unspoken: A story of secrets, love and revenge by T. A. Belshaw

Author:T. A. Belshaw [Belshaw, T. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-07-22T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 52

June 1938

In the first week of June, feeling like a hippo and now unable to fit, or sit, comfortably in the galvanised hip bath for my Friday night dip, and becoming increasingly sweaty with the warmer weather and the extra effort I had to put in because of the state of my body, I made up my mind to make enquires into having the bathroom fitted in the parlour.

I had become quite an expert in using the telephone by now. So expert in fact, that at least two callers had taken me to be a receptionist and had asked to be put through to Miss Tansley. As I had based my telephone voice on my gangster lawyer’s receptionist, who I now knew was called Miss Johnston, the confusion was understandable.

I did get caught out once or twice by Amy calling for no other reason than to hear my posh telephone voice. She used to get me to use it in her bedroom when we were having a catch up. She would be Lady Agatha of Christie, calling to speak to her literary agent about her latest novel. I would pretend to be the agent Blossom Flowers, and we’d spend hours laughing as we invented characters and absolutely horrendous ways to kill them off. My favourite being arsenic used as an enema.

I picked out a local building firm called M. Hart and sons, firstly because they were local, and secondly because of a recommendation from Frank who had done some labouring for them in the past. Mr Hart was a difficult man to catch up with and I finally got in touch by ringing in the evening. He sounded a nice man, who told me he always prioritised local customers and after hearing my heartfelt plea about the reason I needed the work doing as quickly as possible, promised to visit on Saturday morning to assess the situation, and price up the job.

I can honestly say I had never been so excited about anything in my life, even the telephone installation paled into insignificance. I could see an end to sitting in a draughty kitchen during a freezing cold winter, or taking a bath in summer when the lads worked late and my father, along with Barney or one of the other workmen, could just walk in while I was stark naked. I took to locking the back door before I got in the bath but they would just look through the window and tap on it asking to be let in. It was amazing how many important discussions had to be made on a Friday evening before the lads went home for the night. I couldn’t bathe any later than nine, because it took an age to get my curls dry and I had to be up again at five the next morning. In the end I used to place four kitchen chairs around the bath in a square, and hang towels over them so that it was harder to see into the bath tub.

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