B is for Bella (Sixpenny Cross Book 2) Read online

  B

  is for

  Bella

  A story from the village of Sixpenny Cross

  ~ Inspired by Life ~

  Victoria Twead

  New York Times and Wall Street Journal

  bestselling author of the internationally

  acclaimed Old Fools series.

  With thanks to

  Julie Haigh, Zoe Marr and Avril Druce

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  June Tait’s Cinnamon Hazelnut Biscotti

  Also by Victoria Twead

  Chickens, Mules and Two Old Fools

  Contact the Author and Links

  Chapter One

  When I was younger, I used to amuse myself in the evenings by sewing patchwork quilts. That quilt you are sleeping under now was made for your mother. Sometimes I blink when I see you curled up in that crib because you, my dear, are the spitting image of her.

  Now I have arthritis in my hands, and I can scarcely hold a needle in my crooked fingers. My poor old eyes can’t see the stitches either, so I’ll sew no more patchwork quilts. Heaven allowing, I’ll teach you, little one, when you’re older.

  My own mother used to make patchwork quilts, as did her mother before her. Our quilts were washed so often that they became faded and threadbare. But we never threw them away, even when holes began to appear.

  No.

  Everybody knew who would be grateful for them.

  Bella Tait.

  Sweet Bella Tait couldn’t bear to see any animal in need and cared for so many creatures that she needed all the old towels, quilts and bedding she could lay her hands on.

  B is for Bella.

  I’ll tell you the rather unusual story of Bella Tait while you sleep, little one. It’ll keep my mind busy, now that I have no quilting projects on my lap.

  You see, Bella Tait and Christine Dayton were born within weeks of each other. And though they were almost neighbours, they were never friends.

  Chapter Two

  In the heart of Sixpenny Woods is a curious rock. Nobody knows how old it is, or how it got there. Some say it’s made of granite, but there are no traces of natural granite in that part of Dorset. How and why that huge rock came to be resting in the woods is a mystery.

  Plenty of guesses have been hazarded. Some suggest that it is the remnant of some giant rock that struck our planet countless years ago. Some say it was transported by Druids, to serve as an altar. Others whisper that aliens were responsible for the appearance of a rock so out of character with its surroundings. Gypsies camp around the rock, believing in its magical qualities.

  Whatever their opinions, most agree that the rock possesses supernatural powers, and since time immemorial, the inhabitants of Sixpenny Cross have called it the Wishing Rock.

  The rock is nearly as tall as some of the trees around it. It is weathered and smooth, with little holes and crevices, inviting one to climb it. Ivy fights to take hold, its tendrils creeping over the surface.

  In 1954, Bill Haley & His Comets recorded Rock Around the Clock, and Roger Bannister ran the first under four minute mile in Oxford.

  That same year, a married couple were enjoying a Sunday walk through the dappled light of Sixpenny Woods.

  “Hey, I’d forgotten all about the Wishing Rock!” exclaimed the young man, running up to it and pulling away the ivy to reveal the dark stone beneath. “Why don’t we climb it?”

  “Don’t be silly, Don, it’s far too hot for climbing. You climb it if you want to.”

  “Oh, come on! We should climb it and sit on the top, then we can both make wishes.”

  “Knowing me, I’ll fall and break a leg.”

  “No, you won’t, I’ll help you.”

  They scrambled up and sat close together on the narrow summit, legs dangling. Don draped an arm around his wife’s shoulders. The trees were green, thick and silent around them.

  “Go on, then. Make a wish,” said Don.

  “You know what I’m going to wish for,” June answered, a faraway look in her eyes.

  “Yes, I do, but don’t tell me or your wish won’t come true.”

  June squeezed her eyes shut.

  Please, Wishing Rock, no more miscarriages, no more stillbirths. Let me have a healthy baby. I don’t mind what it’s like, a boy or a girl, fat or thin, ugly or pretty… Just one healthy child.

  Beside her, Don was also wishing.

  Please help me to take June to Italy to see her grandmother’s village. I’d give my life to see her exploring the place where her family came from.

  bbbbb

  On the other side of Sixpenny Cross, another husband and wife stayed indoors, oblivious to the beautiful day and the sunshine streaming through their dirty windows.

  “You stupid woman! You’re pregnant again? For gawd’s sake, what do we need another brat for?” The man leaned forward, eyes narrowed to slits, his finger stabbing her shoulder. “Get rid of it! Did you ’ear me? I said get rid of it.”

  His wife stared at him as he emptied a beer bottle down his throat.

  Maybe I will get rid of this one, she thought bitterly.

  He belched.

  Or maybe I won’t. That would teach Mr ’igh and Mighty.

  She raised her own beer to her lips and drank deeply.

  bbbbb

  Months passed. It was April the 5th, 1955, and Britain was shocked, but not surprised, to hear the following radio announcement.

  The Right Honorable Sir Winston Churchill had an audience with the Queen this evening and tendered his resignation as Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury, which Her Majesty was graciously pleased to accept.

  The man who had led Britain throughout the war was eighty years old and his health was failing.

  Down in the south of England, in the Tait household in the village of Sixpenny Cross, nobody heard the announcement. The radio wasn’t even switched on.

  A new life was beginning. And from the second that June and Donald Tait’s newborn baby took her first gasp of air and yelled, she was adored.

  “It’s a girl!” said the midwife. “A beautiful baby girl with an excellent set of lungs. Let me just give her a little wash, and then I’ll pass her to you and call your husband upstairs before he wears out the linoleum with his pacing up and down.”

  June lay exhausted but numb with happiness. After all the miscarriages and two heartbreaking stillbirths, they finally had a perfect, healthy baby.

  “Do you know what you’re going to call her?” asked the midwife.

  “Yes. She’ll be named Bella. After my Italian grandmother. Bella means ‘beautiful’ in Italian, you know.”

  “A lovely name,” said the midwife. “A beautiful name for a beautiful baby.”

  To be fair, only a midwife or the baby’s parents would have described this baby as beautiful. Little Bella’s face was scarlet, screwed up and furious.

  Donald had heard the cry and didn’t need calling; he raced up the stairs and charged into the bedroom. Standing at his wife’s side, he clutched her hand.

  “Is the baby okay?” he asked the midwife.


  “Bless you, she’s perfect! Here you are, I’ve wrapped her up. Meet your brand new little daughter.”

  Oh so carefully, Donald took the precious bundle from the midwife and sat down slowly on the edge of the bed. He gazed at his daughter’s angry little red face, her toothless mouth wide open in a howl.

  “Hello Bella,” he whispered, “I’m your daddy. How beautiful you are! Believe me, whatever you want or need, for the rest of my life, I’ll move heaven and earth to get it for you.”

  Baby Bella stopped crying and fell asleep. The midwife smiled.

  bbbbb

  On the other side of Sixpenny Cross, another baby was crying. The man slurped the last of his beer and dropped the bottle on the floor.

  “Oh, for gawd’s sake shut that brat up!”

  “I can’t help it if she cries all the time,” his wife protested. “I ’aven’t got time to see to her every minute.”

  “I told you, you shouldn’t have ’ad it.”

  “Too late now.”

  “Well, call Mary then. I swear if that brat don’t stop bawling, I’m outta here.”

  “Mary! Mary! Go and see what your baby sister wants, I’m tryin’ to get your dad’s dinner ready.”

  “But Mum, why does it always ’ave to be me?”

  “Because I said so. Rock the pram a bit, see if she’ll go to sleep. If she doesn’t, dip ’er dummy in a drop of your dad’s whiskey. Then just shut the door on ’er so we don’t ’ave to listen to her bawling. And get me another bottle of stout from the cellar when you’ve done that. I’m parched.”

  Mary stamped out and they heard her speaking to the baby.

  “For gawd’s sake, what’s the matter with you? Why are you always crying? When I’m older, I ain’t going to ’ave kids, they’re too much work. And I ain’t going to live in Sixpenny Cross. I’d rather be back in Yewbridge, this place is a dump!”

  She rocked the pram for a while, but the baby didn’t stop crying.

  Chapter Three

  “Perhaps you’d like to pass her back to your wife and we’ll see if Bella will take her first feed?”

  June Tait smiled into her husband’s eyes and took her baby daughter, holding her close. Still half asleep, Bella latched on immediately and the room fell silent as everyone watched her suckle.

  “Well, she certainly likes her food!” laughed the midwife.

  That was true, and Bella never lost her love of food. When she was tiny, June and Donald marvelled at her appetite but delighted in giving her the food she so enjoyed. If anything upset her, they’d placate her with a slice of pizza or a few spoons of homemade gelato. She was a smiling baby who grew into a chubby, happy toddler, enveloped in the adoration of her parents.

  Bella loved everything and everybody. If anybody asked her what she loved most, food and animals came high on the list. Only her parents topped them.

  One day, when June was cooking macaroni in the kitchen, Bella toddled outside into the backyard. June caught sight of her daughter through the window. She was squatting on the path.

  “Donald, are you there? Bella is in the garden doing something. Could you check on her, please, and bring her in? I’m just about to serve the macaroni.”

  Donald strolled outside and crouched down beside his little daughter.

  “What are you doing, la mia bella Bella?”

  “Worm!” said Bella, holding up a large, wriggling earthworm for her father to admire.

  Donald recoiled a fraction, then smiled at his earnest little daughter.

  “Oh! He’s a beauty, isn’t he? Shall we put him down and go inside and have some macaroni?”

  “No!”

  “Willy the worm likes to dig in the garden. He doesn’t want to be inside with us.”

  To his consternation, the little girl burst into tears.

  “Want worm, want worm!”

  Donald thought quickly.

  “Don’t cry, la mia bella Bella. I’ll tell you what, we’ll find a jam jar. We can fill it with soil and put Willy the worm in there, and take him inside to watch us eat our dinner.”

  The tears stopped, and serious brown eyes regarded him.

  “Well, la mia bella Bella, what do think? Shall we do that?”

  The little girl nodded.

  Father and daughter found a suitable jar in the shed. Donald punched holes in the lid and together they filled the jar with soil.

  “Pop him in then,” said Donald, and Bella dropped the worm into the jar.

  Donald sprinkled some more soil on top, screwed the lid on tight, and the pair returned to the kitchen, just as June was pouring homemade tomato and basil sauce over the steaming macaroni. They put Willy the worm on the counter to watch them eat.

  Later, Willy came with them to the bathroom to see Bella have her bath. Willy listened to the bedtime story that June read to her daughter, and he stayed on the shelf when Donald turned off the light.

  “I’m not sure about Bella keeping a worm in a jar,” said June later. “It might not survive and Bella will be so upset.”

  “I can fix that,” said Donald.

  He took an old shoelace from the kitchen junk drawer and snipped it to roughly the same length as Willy. Then he tiptoed into his sleeping daughter’s room, collected Willy’s jar and emptied the contents into the garden, giving Willy back his freedom.

  Then he refilled the jar with soil, dropped in the shoelace, and added more soil.

  When Bella woke up in the morning, her first thought was for Willy.

  “Mummy, where’s Willy?”

  “He’s in the jar, darling. He’s dug right down but you can still see a little bit of him if you look carefully. He can see you, too. Do you want to bring him to the table to watch you eat breakfast?”

  For the next few weeks, ‘Willy’ went everywhere with the little girl, and she never suspected that she was carrying part of a shoelace around.

  Willy the worm was the first of Bella’s pets but by no means the last. By her fourth birthday, she was the proud owner of several guinea pigs, two hamsters, a budgerigar and five white mice.

  It was only a matter of time before she asked for a kitten, but actually, the kitten found her.

  bbbbb

  Visitors who drove through Sixpenny Cross couldn’t help but admire the village green and the cottages with their neat front gardens. In summer, window boxes were crammed with scarlet geraniums, and the Dew Drop Inn was decorated with hanging baskets stuffed with multi-coloured petunias.

  These visitors probably wouldn’t have noticed one particular street at the edge of the village. Springfield Road was a cul-de-sac flanked by new redbrick semi-detached council houses. Each one was identical in structure to the next. Some were well cared for, others not so much.

  The villagers had fought Yewbridge Council when it was announced that these homes were to be built, and that the new residents would be ‘difficult’ families rehoused from Yewbridge council estates. But to no avail. The houses were completed and the ‘problem’ families moved in.

  At the police station, PC Arthur Cooper groaned when he heard the news. He was close to retirement and looking forward to the day when he could hand over all duties to his son, Stan, who was following in his father’s footsteps.

  “Let’s hope these new families don’t bring trouble with them,” he said to his wife.

  Arthur changed the route of his beat to take in Springfield Road, just in case. He decided that a police presence couldn’t do any harm.

  To be fair, the new families hadn’t really caused any problems yet. When Arthur cycled up the street every day, some of the residents even greeted him. But already the front gardens looked untidy, particularly the Dayton family’s. The grass was overgrown and weed-filled. An old fridge lay on its side, and broken toys and a threadbare sofa sat in the drive.

  Young Christine Dayton was often around. Arthur guessed that she’d been told to play outside, and he smiled at her. She stared at him, her ratty little face devoid of expres
sion. Then she poked her tongue out, and turned her back on him.

  Charming, thought Arthur and pedalled away.

  He didn’t see what Christine was doing. She’d found a green cricket in the long grass, and she was pulling its legs off, one by one.

  bbbbb

  The Tait’s cottage in Sixpenny Cross was quite near the village green. One afternoon, June and four-year-old Bella walked over to the pond to feed the ducks. On their way home, Bella tugged at her mother’s hand.

  “What’s that?” she asked, pointing at something in the gutter.

  “Oh no,” said June. “Don’t look. I do believe it’s a tiny kitten. I think it must have been hit by a car.”

  Bella froze, wide-eyed, then burst into tears.

  “We have to help it!”

  “I think it’s too late, darling,” said her mother. “I don’t think it’s alive.”

  Before June could stop her, Bella wrenched her chubby hand out of her mother’s and crouched down. She lifted the mangled body of the kitten out of the dirt. A green eye cracked opened and gazed at her.

  “Mummy! We have to help it!”

  June jumped into action. She tugged the knitted woollen hat from her head and held it out.

  “Quick, put it in there, that’ll keep it warm. We’ll go home and ask Daddy to take us to the Animal Hospital in Yewbridge.”

  Mother and daughter raced home, trying hard not to jolt the kitten nestled in the hat.

  “Daddy! Daddy!”

  “What’s the matter, la mia bella Bella?”

  “We got a kitty wot’s been in a accident!”

  The urgency in his daughter’s voice stopped him correcting her English.

  “We have to take it to the hostibal!”

  Donald peered at the scrap of fur in his wife’s hat and immediately grabbed his car keys.

  “Quick, I don’t think we have any time to waste.”

  Donald’s car ate the few miles to Yewbridge in record time. They ran into the building and were immediately attended to by one of the vets. She carefully lifted the broken little body out of the hat.