CHAPTER 14
Dad was a rock for the next few weeks. Siân took her parents’ rejection hard, which in one way I found surprising. After all, she had surely expected nothing really different?

“Lainey, Lainey, yes. I know. They said all that years ago. It was just, well, I hoped, I thought… I thought they’d see you, and it was like I thought about Vicky, aye? How could anyone not love you as soon as they met you? I thought that would be the difference, that would make them think!”

“Aye, cariad, but look at what happened to Vicky. Some people are just, well, stupid. Can’t learn, can’t change, aye?”

We were at her place just then, snuggled on the sofa with hot soup and fresh bread, and steaming mugs of tea. It was lashing down outside, and I was due off on late shift in less than an hour, so I was getting my warmth and comfort before I left.

“Lainey… your Dad, Mam, aye? They really meant what they said, didn’t they? Giving me a family?”

I kissed her cheek. “Set Dad on a course, he sticks to it, aye? Thinks it was all his idea. Different this time, though. This isn’t something Sar and I sold to them, this is all their own thing from the start. My Mam and Dad, they’re very deep people. Not like his brother, is it? Uncle Arwel, he’s about as open to new ideas as a lump of rock. That’s what makes me proudest of Mam and Dad, you know. Neither of their children fits into what they themselves were brought up believing, aye? Yet they throw it off, adapt”

She nodded. “That’s what hurts the most about mine, isn’t it? That they can’t do that, can’t think for themselves”

“Indeed. So we do what we can. Er… you may want to slap me”

“Why would I do that?”

“I spoke to the Registry Office, I checked with the family, and I already know your shifts…”

She put her bowl to one side and sat up straight. “When, cariad?”

“Er… six weeks on Saturday…”

She kissed me. “And I get a dress when?”

“WE get dresses, woman. Dad’s got the catering sorted, Mam’s got a friend who sews, we can trim or altermmmmmffff”

She let me go and smiled. “I will see you later”

What a wealth of meaning in that simple sentence. The shift couldn’t go fast enough.

A few days later, three of us went round to see Arris, who was cooking for us. It was a chance to push Sar along and stop her moping in that shitty little one-bed flat she had, Arris had been keeping in touch as Sarah had recovered, and again I felt a glow of pride in my parents as they had all but made her a member of the family. Siân parked up, and I noticed a motorcycle at the kerb, a big Moto Guzzi with enough padlocks and chains on it to secure a battleship. The owner was sitting in her flat, and he was enormous, with long blonde hair and moustache. A memory rose from Joe Evans’ witness statement: “Then the very big one, the one with the blonde moustache…”

No. I neither needed nor wanted to know. He smiled gently and went to embrace my sister. “Sar, love. So good to see you. You should come round more often”

Siân looked round at the clutter in the room, and pointed to a small pile of very large shoes. “And how often do you come round, big man?”

Sar switched to Welsh. “Four times when they first met, wasn’t it Arris?”

The dark girl blushed, and went back to English. “Steve VISITS as often as he can. We sort of clicked, yeah?”

Sarah laughed, and that was a welcome sound. “What are your intentions towards my friend here, Steve? The ones suitable for polite conversation, that is? Now you have your feet under the table, that is?”

Siân muttered “Ac yn y gwely…” (and in the bed) and Arris blushed again. Steve smiled. By his accent he was from somewhere in Eastern England, so he was unlikely to have caught the meaning.

“I get across whenever I can. This girl, we seem to have clicked”

He took Arris’ hand. “Early days for me and her, but it’s nice to meet a girl with no bullshit about her. Met too many women who have a fine eye on what is in it for them. This one, she runs to others first, looks after them first, worries about herself after. Rare quality, that”

I nodded. I remembered a distraught girl at the door of our house. “Aye, she does that. Now, to avoid embarrassing her any more, we, Siân and me, have an announcement. Steve, well, looking round here, we’ think we should include you, aye? We are getting wed, six weeks from Saturday, and we haven’t yet sorted out a guest list and stuff, formal invitations and that, but you would be most welcome. Er… there was another lad with you when you two met, aye? What’s he up to?”

Sarah gave me a sharp look, and I could read her mind. Stay out of it, leave me alone, but all I could see was showing her there were more people in the world, better people, than Joe Evans and his entourage. Steve, though, just shook his head.

“Bit awkward, that one. He’s sort of seeing someone at the moment. Seems to be going well. Don’t know if it would really work, you know, bringing girlfriend along to an old flame’s sister’s wedding”

Sarah spiked up again. “One weekend doesn’t make me an old flame, aye?”

Steve just looked at her for a while, then sighed and shook his head. "Where are you having this do, then?”

Siân laughed. “I’ve just realised that I’d like to know the answer to that one! Sneaky cow only told me on Monday!”

I smiled round at them. “That’ll be a yes from the two of them, then? Wedding—“

I held up a hand. “Yes, I know. It’s not a wedding in the eyes of the law, or in the eyes of a lot of people”

My lover winced, and I took her hand. “I don’t care what arseholes think. Well, obviously I DO, but I won’t let them run my world. I love this woman, she loves me, and we are getting married. They can call it what they like, but Dad is calling it a wedding and Mam is talking about bridesmaids and wedding dresses. You up for that, Arris?”

“Absolutely! Is it going to be meringues and all that?”

Simultaneously, I replied in the negative just as Siân gave a very affirmative “Yes”

I raised an eyebrow, and she gave two back. “I’m a girl and I will do a girly wedding and it will be in a dress that I can keep and take out and look at years later and smile with the memories, innit?”

Arris laughed out loud at that one. “Not put a lot of thought into it, then? Seriously, all girls have their dreams, don’t they?”

I made a snap decision just then, but I really felt it was absolutely the right one.

“We have Sarah here, and there will be two cousins, Ellie and Karen, aye? That’s the bridesmaids sorted. Siân, I suspect you will be asking Vicky to stand by you? Aye?”

My lover nodded. “I know what you were thinking, Lainey, but he deserves it”

Arris was clearly puzzled. ”What?”

Siân smiled at me. “I think Lainey here was going to ask you to stand with her at the wedding. Am I right?”

I nodded. Siân grinned. “I wouldn’t be marrying you if I didn’t know you so well, my darling. Arris is part of our family now. That’s how you see her, isn’t it?”

Sarah was nodding in agreement. “Makes sense to me, and you don’t have family doing best woman, best man thing, aye?”

Siân took her hand. “Exactly. Lainey, it has to be Kevin. Sorry, Arris, but you’ll have to settle for bridesmaid”

I coughed. “Don’t I get a say in this?”

Siân laughed. “Not if it is going to be saying the wrong thing, cariad”

Steve gave the most theatrical of sighs. “Not even wed yet, and already they’re having a domestic. Come on; let’s get dinner on and drag this conversation back to the original bloody question. Where are you getting married?”

That brought a laugh from everybody. “Wedding at the office in the town hall in Abergwaun, aye? Reception at the rugby club. Dad’s got their big room sorted out. Just got to get suited and booted. My sweet woman, if you want to go all floaty white, that is what you shall do. I am doing it in uniform. It’s a day for Dad and Mam as well, and I want them to be proud of me. If, well, if Kev is going to be next to me, it makes sense as well”

Neatly outmanoeuvred by my friends and family, we settled down for the meal, and later, as we left, and Steve hugged me, I just whispered a quiet thank you.

Sarah dropped the next bombshell, though, a few days later

Dad was clearly not happy. “Canterbury? Why there, girl? Why so far away?”

She looked up at him, eyes steady. “Because it IS so far away, Dad. Look, you know I’ve been under the doctor a few years now, aye? All on course, all starting to work, at least, well…”

She waved her hands around her chest and grimaced. “I go there, I go as far away as I can, and maybe I can start fresh, lose the idiots who come into the shop just for the freak show. I was talking to that lawyer your Kevin took us to, and he says we should go ahead, sue the police, aye? Can’t hurt giving it a go”

Mam snorted. “And you would want yourself in the papers again? More men to come and stare, is it?”

I sighed. “Not what the Federation man said, Mam. They won’t want it in the papers, that’s the whole point. Imagine the headlines: police officers sell story of rape victim to gutter press, see pages one, two, three, continued pages whatever”

I held a hand up. “Call it what you like, it was rape. Sarah, when do you take this new job?”

“Three months, Lainey. Just in time for the Millennium. Someone is retiring, and they have me set to drop straight in. New life, new century, aye?”

“At least we have some notice, then. Make me a promise, chwaer fychan, just one: stop doing all this on your own, aye?”

My sister nodded, but I held absolutely no faith in her promise. I squeezed a day’s leave in when I knew she was off, and all but dragged her to Kev’s brief. Within three days, he had issued an initial statement of claim, which got me another carpeting from the inspector. This time, though, he was clearly on the defensive, and after he had finished and I was leaving I just caught his near-whisper.

“For what it’s worth, I hope she gets a good settlement”

I had just put my hand on the door when he raised his voice again.

“Constable Powell, you may not be aware of this, but Messrs Pritchard and Evans are having a joint leaving drink next week, at the Tudor Rose. I do not expect you or your friends or your family to be anywhere near the pub. Is that understood? Thank you for your time. You may leave the door open”

There were hidden meanings in that one, the most obvious being a warning-off from any of us returning favours, but there was a deeper hint. Wait and watch, Elaine.