Read Online A Family Affair by Janet Tanner - Free Book Online Page B

David said as they ate breakfast next morning.
    â€˜Did you?’ Heather pushed away her plate of half-eaten toast. She was feeling decidedly bleary this morning – on top of the late night, excitement had kept her from sleeping.
    â€˜What Polish chap is that?’ Carrie asked, bustling in from the kitchen with a fresh pot of tea. Her tone was sharp – she didn’t miss a thing, Heather thought.
    â€˜Steven,’ she said.
    â€˜Steven who?’
    â€˜I don’t know. It’s a funny name. I can’t remember.’
    â€˜Steve Okonski,’ David supplied. ‘He works at our pit.’
    â€˜A miner,’ Carrie said, faint disapproval in her tone.
    â€˜What’s wrong with that?’
    â€˜And a foreigner.’
    â€˜A Pole,’ Heather said. ‘They were on our side in the war, remember?’
    â€˜Maybe so, but you still don’t know where you are with foreigners.’
    â€˜Oh, Mum …’
    â€˜You can’t be too careful,’ Carrie went on, refilling the teacups. ‘He could have a wife and half a dozen children at home for all you know.’
    â€˜In Purldown?’
    â€˜In Poland. And there’s no need to be sarcastic, Heather. You know very well what I meant.’
    It might almost be funny, Heather thought, if she didn’t know the reason for her mother’s overcautious interfering.
    â€˜I’ll find out, Mum. I’m seeing him on Saturday.’
    â€˜Bit soon, isn’t it?’
    â€˜What do you mean?’
    â€˜To be seeing him again. You don’t want to appear too keen, you know.’
    Heather ignored this.
    â€˜I’ll find out what I can, Mum, if that will satisfy you.’
    â€˜It’s not me that needs to be satisfied. It’s you.’
    â€˜And I will be,’ Heather said wearily. ‘I’ll find out all about him, I promise you.’
    But that was more easily said than done. Steven, quiet on most subjects, was almost totally uncommunicative when it came to talking to himself. Heather didn’t think it meant he had anything to hide, simply that he was what the paper novelettes she liked to read called ‘the strong silent type’. She didn’t mind that. In fact she rather liked it. And it had its advantages. He never questioned her either, never probed for more information than she was willing to offer. Because she had become so emotionally close to him so quickly, there were times when the things she had left unsaid felt like a leaden weight inside her, a burden on her heart. She couldn’t yet bring herself to share it, and the fact that he did not seem to think the past important for either of them was comforting. So she chattered in the open sunny way that was her outer nature, her protective shell, and what silences there were were comfortable ones.
    She couldn’t help being curious about him, though, wanting to know all about him, but as she prised certain nuggets out of him she began to suspect that perhaps there were things – not things he wanted to hide, as in a wife and children, but things he didn’t want to think of, much less talk about.
    She didn’t press him. All in good time he would tell her the secrets of his past and she would tell him the secrets of hers. In the meantime she would simply enjoy his company and enjoy falling in love.
    â€˜Heather, I want a word with you,’ Carrie said.
    It was a Sunday afternoon, quite pleasant for November. Whilst Joe had retired to bed for a ‘snooge’ – his usual treat after Sunday dinner, and well earned too, Carrie thought, considering he was up at five in the morning every weekday and rarely in bed before eleven – she had gone for a walk to the site of the new houses. She was anxious to see how they were progressing and eager to find out where exactly Number 27 Alder Road would be.
    The four-bedroomed houses were almost finished, she discovered, even to the point of doors