Unforgettable (Gloria Cook) - By Gloria Cook Page 0,6

forget it was in all the newspapers – we’d be the subject of spiteful gossip. People will look down on us like they did in our old neighbourhood and I couldn’t cope with that.’

Finn was beginning to feel like he was a faint drawing, gradually being rubbed out. He realized then just how scared he was to face the future with his mother so feeble and in a month’s time a new baby brother or sister would be depending on him.

‘I don’t know what to do, Finn,’ Fiona groaned, tears welling up in her throat.

‘Don’t, Mum,’ Finn sighed, but he sat down close to her and reached for her hand. ‘Look at it another way, what is it that you want?’ Guy Carthewy had counselled Finn that this might be a good question to ask her when Finn considered it the right time, to get Fiona to face up to the future. It was a critical time. Finn had no choice about leaving her alone for considerable lengths of time, and he didn’t have the slightest idea what to do about the baby when it was born. He was more scared now than when the police had swooped at an ungodly hour to arrest his father.

‘I–I just want your father back,’ Fiona whimpered, her voice watery and frightened. ‘I know things will never be the same as before but I don’t care about that, I just want Aidan. I love him so much.’

Her plaintive longing made Finn’s guts turn over. He had always had a good relationship with his father – not matey, for they had shared little of the same interests, but they had engaged a mutual pride in each other. Now he loathed his father, saw him for the cunning crook that he was. Aidan Templeton-Barr was an unprincipled, smooth-talking bastard. Finn thanked God he had managed to shield his mother from the most malicious taunts and gossip, and that she was unlikely to find out about it now they were several miles away from their old home. He didn’t want to talk positively about his father but he had to use him to coax Fiona out of her crushing misery. ‘Well, Father wouldn’t want to see you like this, would he? He’d said he was looking forward to the baby’s birth. Think about it, Mum, if we work together to get this place more presentable you can write to him about it and give him somewhere to look forward to living in when he’s released. You can send him photos of the baby; show him you’re making the best of it. A good thing for all of us, don’t you think?’

For the first time in weeks Fiona had managed to look thoughtful. ‘I suppose you’re right, Finn.’

‘Of course I am. Now how about getting up and helping to sort me out a shirt? And eat something, Mum. You’ll feel much better. I won’t be away long, I promise. It’s a nice warm sunny day. When I get back we’ll sit out in the garden and make some simple plans, one step at a time, eh?’

‘All right, Finn,’ Fiona had said wearily. Finn wasn’t a bit heartened; she still looked as if all she wanted to do was to curl up, sleep and forget she existed.

To hide his impatience with her he had left the room. Like all the good things before his father’s arrest the natural affection that had flowed between him and his mother was gone.

Now he was back from The Orchards having failed to get work there, shouting up the stairs and crushed that Fiona wasn’t up and about. ‘Mum, for goodness sake will you answer me!’

‘Finn . . .’ He heard her strained breathless groan from her room and knew at once something was seriously wrong. He took the stairs three at a time.

Three

Dorrie and Corky were back at the crossroads. Both were satisfied and at ease after their gentle amble under the canopy of trees that merged together from the long hedgerows either side of Shady Lane. Corky had taken his regular drink of sparkling water from the stream. Dorrie had composed some poetry – for the first time a nursery rhyme, about a comical young rabbit playing tricks on his meadow friends. She wrote all sorts of stuff, often loving messages to Piers. Some of her poetry she read at parties and when requested at village events. Most she kept in an ever-growing stack of journals. For years she had belonged to