Homecoming Read Free

worries, it’s good worry about someone he loves very much. And now that Joe and I are off his hands, it’s just as well he has someone else to fuss over.’
    â€˜Have you heard from your brother lately?’
    â€˜Hasn’t Dad?’
    â€˜He had a letter last month. Joe seems to be doing well at the BBC and we listened to his last radio play.’
    â€˜So did I.’ Helen glanced sideways at Katie and they both burst out laughing. ‘Did you understand it?’
    â€˜To be honest, I preferred the ghost story and thriller he wrote.’
    â€˜So did I. Perhaps it’s just as well he’s living with all the other intellectuals in London and not with us.’ Helen sat back and stared into the fire. ‘I’ve been wondering if Jack will find Swansea and me boring after all the excitement of Cyprus.’
    â€˜I should think after being shot at, blown up and spending two months in hospital he’ll welcome a little peace and quiet.’ Katie closed her eyes against the memory of the telegram that had caused so much upset and worry.
    â€˜I wish I could have visited Jack then. His letters were strange around that time.’
    â€˜Is it surprising when three of the men he was with were killed?’
    As the coal began to glow, Helen knelt on the hearthrug, removed the guard again and layered small coal over the lumps she’d put on earlier. ‘I tried asking Jack about it but it was as though we were writing in different languages. There was me going into the warehouse six days a week, coming home every evening, hardly ever going out except to visit you and Dad, or Lily and Martin, or going to the pictures with Judy. And there was him, fighting terrorists, having bombs thrown at him …’ She bit her lip and hooked back the guard. ‘He’s bound to have changed. We were both so young, so crazy …’
    â€˜We all were.’
    â€˜Not you,’ Helen contradicted. ‘You were born sensible.’
    â€˜That’s not what people said when I married your father.’
    â€˜But you didn’t take any notice of them and you can’t get any more sensible than that.’ Helen glanced at her hands to check that they were clean, as she rose to her feet. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be dumping my worries on you, especially now with the baby due next week. It’s just that I can’t help thinking that if Jack had come home six months ago when he should have, instead of having his term extended because of a shortage of troops, everything would have been so much better. He was expecting to come home. I had everything ready. It was just so unfair that he had to stay on and get caught up in that attack –’
    â€˜He’s fine now,’ Katie reminded, ‘and he’ll be home in a couple of hours.’
    â€˜Yes, he will.’ Helen hesitated. ‘I don’t suppose you’d like to look over the bedroom and the rest of the house and tell me if I’ve done anything Jack will hate?’
    â€˜Bearing in mind that you know him better than me, I’m flattered you asked.’
    â€˜You grew up with him.’
    â€˜And you married him.’ Katie took the hand Helen offered to help her up.
    â€˜Not a word to Judy,’ Helen pleaded.
    â€˜I promise.’
    â€˜You sure you don’t want to unpack this lot?’ Lily carried the last box up the stairs and into the lounge of Judy’s flat above her Mumbles salon. ‘We’ve plenty of time before Jack’s train gets in.’
    â€˜I’m sure.’ Judy dropped her suitcase and vanity case on to the floor of her bedroom and closed the door. ‘Sam’s coming over later, he can help me. Besides don’t you and Katie want to get home to your husbands?’
    â€˜Katie has a casserole all ready to go in the oven for John and, as Martin won’t be home until after he’s picked Jack up from the station and