My Choice

Synopsis

Tired of society girl Claire’s bad behaviour, her parents give her a choice, get out and go your own way or go to live with a family in a remote part of Wales and serve as a builder’s labourer during the rebuilding of their holiday cottage. The builder didn’t want her either.

My Choice

by obohobo

Warnings

Please take note!

The text in this story contains erotic material and is expressly written for adults only.

MF Rom.

If you are underage or offended by such material, or if viewing this file is illegal in your locality, then leave, close or delete this file-story now.

This is a work of fiction, any resemblance to persons living, dead or otherwise is purely coincidental. The ideas and thoughts that follow are pure fantasies. In real life, at the very least they would be unpleasant and probably illegal. Fantasies are like that; daydreams where we can contemplate and imagine the sensations without suffering or inflicting the pain, despair or humiliation.

“How dare the bastard humiliate me like that? Treat me like a common servant? Me, Claire Summerfield! Just because I told him I’d done enough work for one day and threw the trowel, handle first into the sloppy mortar and ran off, he thought he had the right to spank me. Of course running only delayed my punishment for it didn’t take him long to catch me but I did get a punch into his face before he sat on that low wall, where everyone walking the coastal path could see him pull my trousers and knickers down, and watch while he pasted my arse with his hard bloody hand. Utterly disgusting and degrading; I was never meant to be a builder’s labourer and wouldn’t be one now if it wasn’t for my sodden father and mother. How could they do this to me? Their only child, and pretend it was for my benefit?” Tears streamed down my face as I lay on the bed muttering curses at the people I was forced to live with, and at my parents and the choices they gave me.

*******

I should start this tale several months earlier. Stupidly I tried shoplifting an expensive designer trouser and jacket outfit from a well-known, high-class London boutique, a store that adhered strictly to their policy of prosecuting all thieves. The store detective arrested me and, after a humiliating trial, the court fined me £1,000 plus costs and by the time Daddy added the expense of a lawyer to my bill, the total came to over £3,000, which almost cleaned out the little I had in my savings account. Perhaps the worst part of the whole affair came later. After being found guilty, the magistrate asked for reports on my character before sentencing me and two weeks later the interviewing probation officer gave about the bleakest report that she could. “Claire is a promiscuous, idle, rich girl, trying to keep up with the jet set, attending parties, getting drunk, and sponging on her parents and others,” she told the judge. While it may have been close to the truth, she painted it in the blackest colours and I’m pretty sure she wanted me under her control for a while and expected me to spend a considerable number of hours on community service. At least the lawyer wangled me off that, but daddy had a scheme his own.

After dinner that Wednesday evening, he ordered me into the lounge and I expected another of his speeches abhorring my behaviour and saying that he expected me to mend my ways, but mother and he had decided enough was enough. They were ready to kick me out. Already they’d confiscated my credit cards and with a balance of less than two hundred pounds in my savings account, I would have money enough for only a few days unless I could get work and a place to stay.

“Sorry Claire, this is the last straw as far as we are concerned. You have brought our good name into disrepute and the publicity has made us the laughing stock of our friends, therefore, your mother and I, have decided that you will not remain here as part of this family and we will no longer support you financially. At twenty-six years old you should be making your own way in life or be married and bringing up a family. However, we’ve decided to give you a choice. I admit it is not much of a choice but it is time you learned to make your own way in life even though it may involve some hardship, and we hope that, in the end, you will see the error of your past behaviour and lead a better life. The choice is a simple one between two options, either you leave and find your own way in life, whether that be as a working girl or on the street,” that shocked me, “Or you can go and live and work with Ted Jones on his farm in Wales and be a labourer when they start building our holiday cottage on the Pembroke coast. There you will be in a safe environment, have a roof over your head and food in your stomach but…” He paused for emphasis. “You will have to work and it will be ordinary, physical work. Workman type work; work you have abhorred and despised in the past but have no experience of. Once the house is built, we will let you stay there for a nominal rent and the payment of the taxes and utilities. Those are the choices. You have until Sunday night to make up your mind. Monday morning you will leave this house with what you can take in the car and you can arrange to collect the rest of your stuff when you’ve found a place to live. If you decide to go to Wales, we’ll see your car has a full tank of petrol but apart from that don’t expect any other favours from us.” Daddy and Mummy both looked grim as he made he announcement.

“You can’t mean it Daddy! You’re disowning me. You intend to throw me out on to the streets, almost penniless or send me away to live and work like a common peasant, with a family of farmer builders in some godforsaken wilderness? Mother can’t you change his mind?”

“No dear, I actually suggested it. We think it will do you good to have to work to earn enough to keep yourself and being in a remote area, you will be less likely to get into any more trouble. The Jones’s are reliable hard working people who we are sure will keep you under control better than we can and will integrate you into their family. We had a long talk with them when we finalised the plans for the house last week while we awaited the probation report.”

All my further pleadings and promises, met with the same response, “Be gone by Monday,” and repeats of my misdeeds. I stormed off to my room. For the remainder of the week, I alternately sulked or pleaded with them to reconsider, but by Sunday morning, I knew there was no chance of that and I had to make the choice of taking off on my own and trying to get a job or taking a chance on the Jones farm and possibly being able to worm my way back in the near future. Knowing I now had a criminal record for theft, no previous work experience and no qualifications, the only work I could see me getting was that of a street whore and I wasn’t really prepared to demean myself that far. That only left the ‘Jones option’ unless I could find another person willing to take pity on me.

My mind vacillated from one option to the other until, at another meeting with my parents on Sunday night, I was forced to give them my answer and, when my further pleas for forgiveness were rejected, I opted to go to Wales. I’d tried to stay with friends but the resultant publicity following my court appearance, and I suspect quiet words from daddy, turned them against me and they’d given the feeblest excuses to refuse me.

I’d only met the Jones’s once when we went to buy the derelict old house on the cliffs overlooking the sea. In fine weather the site was idyllic and buying the house was the only way we could acquire the land ostensibly to restore the building. As our architect warned us, “That is not practical because there is too much structural damage, but the council will eventually sanction its demolition on the grounds that it was an unsafe structure, so we can build the house you want, subject to various regulations.” In fact we were limited to a stone walled three-bedroom, two storey house but at the moment, only the demolition and site clearance had been completed.

Ted Jones served for many years as the local builder and when he married Gwen, he inherited a small farm with fields that surround the house we bought. They had one son, Len, who I’d never met but who now did most of the building work.

Arriving at the isolated farm, weary after a long drive in the rain, Ted and Gwen greeted me quietly and welcomed me into their family. I tried to respond in a friendly way but inside I fumed that the place was plain and dull and more like a prison. Ted helped me with my cases and showed me to a country style bedroom with a single bed, austere by my standards but clean and with ample storage space for the stuff I’d brought. It would do until I found a way to escape and return to civilisation. “We eat at six and the bathroom’s just across the hall. You’d do well to use it straightaway otherwise Len will want to be in there to clean the mud off himself when he gets back in half an hour or so. The rain over the last week has made everywhere a quagmire and he’ll be in a mess.” The advice went unheeded and I unpacked first and had just started to shower when Len hammered on the door and yelled for me to get the hell out of there.” He cursed when twenty minutes later I emerged and gave him the ‘fuck you’ sign with my fingers. It signalled the start of our enmity.

I soon found that being part of the family involved doing chores. “Set the table please Claire and then strain the potatoes.” These were things I would never do at home but Gwen, in her quiet way, made it clear that I was expected to do my share of the housework and Ted suggested that next time I should heed any advice he gave me. Len came down late for dinner in a bad mood and glared at me but a look from his mother curbed any comments until later. Meanwhile I carried on a conversation with his parents, mainly about my journey and what I would be expected to do but my mind kept wandering to how I was going to free myself from this yoke of work and get back to a more normal life.

“I cooked so you two can do the washing up while father gets the fire going in the lounge,” Gwen ordered, “Len knows where things belong.”

“And she doesn’t belong here,” Len muttered sourly as he threw a tea towel at me with more force than necessary. Not a good start especially as he was the one I would be working with. Without central heating in the old house, I’d worn a sweater for warmth and which hid my tits but even so, Len kept glancing at my body and I guessed he was mentally undressing me. Most men find me attractive and up until then, I usually dressed sexily to keep that attraction but I had no intention of showing myself to the farm yokels around there. At 5 ' 6 '' my height was about average but my 34 '' bust and long, curly black hair that at the moment hung in ringlets around my face, gave me an innocent look that belied my true nature.

Len, on the other hand, was tall and muscular and, surprisingly for late March, his skin was tanned, or at least the parts that I could see were. In other circumstances I might have fancied him but here he was just a peasant or a warder in my prison, someone to be obeyed until I could get away. In the hour or so since we’d met, neither of us liked each other and an air of hostility surrounded us.

Not in the best of moods, I sat and sulked in the car the next day, as Ted and Gwen drove me to Haverfordwest to buy working clothes and other items I would need, as well as doing some shopping for themselves. “Your father arranged for us to put any items you need for work on the house expenses account and we’re to take the money out of the advance payment he deposited.” Increasingly I realised this had been planned for longer that I thought. I returned to the farm, equipped with trousers, shirts, coat, boots and wellies and a number of other items, Ted considered necessary. The whole lot came to less than the trouser suit I stole in London.

Late in the afternoon we visited the site. Len hammered in markers and strung lines between them, which, he explained, were to mark the footings and drainage channels. Next day my labouring work started in earnest and I’m sure Len did his utmost to make it as unpleasant and exhausting as possible. Dressed in my ghastly work clothes, my prison garb as I thought of them, I was given a spade and a barrow and with hardly any instruction, told to dig the trenches for the footings. We had to do this by hand because of the difficulty in getting a digger there for the short time we would need it and at every opportunity Len berated me for my slowness and my lack of strength to wheel a full barrow load of earth. Unwisely, I chose to try and be as strong as possible and not to act the feeble female, but I should have made myself to be the real wimp and not able to do anything and, by the time we went back to the farmhouse for lunch, I was wiped out and regretted the choice I’d made. Gwen must have had a word with him because he was a little easier with me during the afternoon, but even wearing leather gloves by suppertime, my hands were red and raw.

Len claimed the shower first and in a very depressed mood, I sat on the bed and examined my blisters, and tried to rub my sore muscles. Finally, I got into the shower only to find that he’d used all the hot water. My temper flared and dragging a robe around my body, I strode into his room and swore loudly and long and called him all the worst names I could think of.

“Go to your room Claire. We don’t have that sort of language used in this house. We may be lowly working folk but we try to control our tempers and our words,” Gwen intervened and followed me to my bedroom where I sat, still muttering and crying. With some gentle prodding, Gwen elicited most of what happened during the day and then went on, “I’m not going to condone what my son did but it isn’t all your fault, although your attitude hasn’t helped. Only three weeks ago, the girl he expected to marry went off with another and he found she’d been carrying on an affair with this man for some time. All girls are devious bitches in his eyes now. Your being here has given him the opportunity to get his own back. I’ll make it clear to him, that this behaviour has to stop.” I doubted it would happen but she went on to examine my bruises and blisters. “Wear your robe until after supper and by then the water will be hot again. There’s usually enough water for two showers but Ted had one only a little while before you came in and he’d been mucking out the sheep pens so he needed to get the smell off him. Have a good soak in the bath and when you’ve done, I’ll put witchhazel on the bruises and salve on the blisters. Ted will probably be able to do some site work tomorrow so he can keep an eye on things.”

Things did get a little easier but not much. The work was always hard manual labour and I always seemed to get the dirtiest jobs and when I threatened to go on strike, Len laughed and said he would be the one to do the striking and by the way he moved his hand, I knew exactly the striking he would do. By the end of the first week the site was dry enough and the footings ready for the tanker of ready-mixed concrete to arrive and pour and a few days later we poured the concrete slabs for the ground floors. Len’s attitude towards me never improved, although somewhat kept under control by his mother’s words. I tried alternating between ignoring him, flirting and acting like a bimbo, but this only hardened his intolerance of my presence. When finally I asked him outright what I had to do to get into his good books, he grinned, “Just come into my room at night.”

“Fuck off!” On site I could use succinct expressions I didn’t dare use indoors. I wasn’t really averse to sleeping with him, as I frequently felt horny and Gwen had mentioned his ex had slept with him many times, but I wasn’t going to be blackmailed into it.

On that Friday when he did actually strike me, he laid the first course of bricks and just at packing up time demanded I make up more mortar. When I pointed out it was time to get back for supper, (that’s what they call the main meal of the day) he angrily said we’d go back when the bricks were laid. Reluctantly I made another batch of mortar but the mix wasn’t to his liking and that’s when I lost it and told him to stuff his mortar and ran off. The spanking that incurred, made me more determined to find a way out of the place. They paid me weekly so I had two week’s money in hand. It wasn’t much but I hadn’t anything to spend it on and my board and lodging was free. I could at least fill the car with petrol and keep myself for a few days. However, when I checked the car, I noticed a steering wheel lock in place that would prevent my escape. “Your dad suggested it,” Ted informed me, “He thought you would try and get away before you really got into the ways of things.” I cursed father again and this prison I was in.

Two things changed my life. The first was a dance in Haverfordwest ten miles away and the second, the employment of a specialist stone mason for giving the outside of the house the required stone look.

By the following Friday, the house had begun to take shape mainly because we used large, lightweight insulation blocks to build the walls. Fortunately we’d hit a period of dry warm weather, which lifted Len’s mood a little and mine too, and either I was getting used to the work or it was easier. I did the minimum I thought I could get away with and didn’t directly disobey him again, but my thoughts still tried to find a means of escape although, when I thought about my situation rationally, I knew I wasn’t too badly done by. The food was good, if plain and wholesome, and Gwen and Ted treated me like a daughter and showed more concern for my welfare than my parents had ever done, but I was a prisoner and I resented the loss of my freedom.

“Has Len asked you if you would like to go to the dance in Haverford?” Gwen asked at the supper table. Len looked daggers at her and it was evident that he didn’t want me along. “Once a month there is a dance in town for farmers and their kin, mainly for youngsters and Len usually goes and stays overnight in a hotel to save driving back on these small roads when he’s had a gut full of beer. The rooms are usually twin beds so you could share and perhaps being together without work will help your relationship.” In my mind this was tantamount to saying he could fuck me but she quickly dispelled the notion by speaking directly to Len. “Just because you will be sleeping in the same room, doesn’t mean you can have sex with her if she doesn’t want to. That will be rape and could get you put away. If she says no, remember that means, NO!”

In one way I wasn’t keen on going but I thought it might be an opportunity to find someone who would help me escape from the farm by taking me in. On the journey, Len quickly put his version of his mother’s edict. “Despite what Mam says, if you stay in my room overnight, then you’ll be fucked. If you don’t wish to have my prick stuffed in your cunt, then stay out of the room or find another man to take you in. In any case I might find another girl who is more willing, and take her to bed, and we won’t want you leering at us.” He crudely emphasised the message and made me wonder yet again, at his deep antagonism towards me.

Dancing was one thing I could do well and several times I showed off my superior talents to the locals and in doing so, attracted the attention of a number of likely looking young men and one in particular, Stewart Quiller, looked prosperous and showed more than a little interest. In the course of our conversation, I found he too had booked into the hotel for the night so I encouraged his attention, particularly as Len seemed to have found a girl. It was in the ladies room, that I found she was his ex girlfriend trying to get back with him after being ditched by her other lover. I’d just sat down to pee when two girls came in and must have stood by the sinks and mirror.

“That London girl really strutted her stuff in the dances. Bit of a show-off if you ask me.”

“You know she’s living with Len? Bet he shags her rotten, not that he’s much of a fuck.”

“You should know. Looks like he’s trying to get back with Lynn, I thought they were really through with one another after she took off with the Milford boy.”

“Perhaps he isn’t getting enough from his live-in girl. Looks like she’s putting her claws into Stewart but he only keeps a girl for a night or two so she’ll have to find someone else next time. I gotta pee.”

I heard the doors of the adjacent cubicles open and slipped out, unseen by them. Well if Stewart took me to his room, at least I would have a bed for the night and it would be my first fuck for a month. So it worked out.

Gwen seemed genuinely disappointed that I hadn’t bedded Len and the rift between us was as wide as ever. She worried over Lynn’s return into his life. “She left him once, so she’s likely to do it again when someone else comes along. She’s a nice enough girl but he needs a wife who will look after him and his house,” I overheard her say to Ted.

David ‘Dai’ Griffiths, the specialist stonemason, arrived the following Wednesday. A Goliath of a man, mid-forties I guessed, immensely strong but even-tempered and friendly, treated me with kindness and consideration. In the main, we were to use the stones from the original house that were piled in one corner of the site. He took my side when Len ordered me to move a pile of stones. “Don’t be daft man, she ain’t capable of moving those big stones. You let her be, I’ll move ’em myself while she knocks up some mortar.” After that, whilst Dai was on site, Len’s bullying more or less ceased. I liked Dai not only for his protection and humour but he was careful to show me the way to do things and how to get the mortar mix just right for him.

Friday April 25^th2008. I will always remember that date because of the accident forms I had to fill in and the visits of men from the Health and Safety Executive.

We’d done the stonework up to roof level and had the gable ends to do. “Move that scaffold bar up an inch, the boards aren’t level.” Len was in a bad mood for some reason and Dai hadn’t arrived. We’d used the platform without any problem the previous day so I couldn’t see the reason for moving it. I’m certain he only wanted to give me an awkward job to do while waiting for Dai to arrive and while he was working on the frame for the bedroom window. I protested but that probably only made him more determined not to give in. It backfired on him in the most terrible way.

“Dai said I am not to touch the scaffold stuff.” When I’d helped Dai to erect the scaffold, I only held the poles while he put on all the clamps and tightened all the nuts.

“He’s not here and you’ve only to move that short pole. Even you can do that!” I knew I had to be careful when he used that sarcastic tone. When Dai wasn’t there, he reverted to his bullying ways and I didn’t want another spanking especially as the summery weather had brought more walkers out.

Placing the ladder against the tie bar above, and stretching awkwardly through the rungs, I tried to loosen the nuts on the bar supporting the boards. When I couldn’t get at them, I pushed the boards back six inches and had just raised the bar when Len walked along the platform carrying the window frame, and didn’t check that I had finished and replaced the boards. As soon as he stepped on them, the free end tilted down, throwing him to the ground and on the way he hit several other poles and boards. Forever I will see that incident in slow motion. The tipping of the boards, his yell as he toppled sideways, the window frame catching on a pole, momentarily snagging his fall and turning him under the scaffolding. Finally the dreadful thud as he hit the pile of stones and then silence. He laid there motionless, blood running from a head wound and from his arm, his leg at an odd angle and blood oozing through his trousers. The sight almost made me sick but I knew I had to do something. Never having any training for such an emergency, I had think about what to do and for a for a few moments I stood on the ladder, looking down in horror on the mangled body below. Knowing I was the only one around and it was up to me to act, I knelt beside him, glad to see he was at least breathing, and felt around his belt for his mobile phone. With shaking hands I dialled 999. Fortunately it worked and I stuttered instructions to the emergency services.

Ten minutes later, Dai arrived and tried to make Len more comfortable without moving him and then held me. I shook uncontrollably. “Have you phoned Ted and Gwen?” He did that for me and while we waited for help quietly asked what happened. “It was his responsibility to supervise and help you. Always two people work on scaffold erections.”

Half an hour later the medics and police got through to us, and a short while later the air ambulance lifted him to hospital. Ted and Gwen left for the hospital too and I know they thought I was responsible for the accident. The police questioned me at length and cordoned off the area and said nothing had to be touched until the accident investigators had done their work. Dai stayed with me the whole time.

Supper that evening was very late and a sombre affair. Len had undergone six hours of surgery and more would be needed and, as he hadn’t recovered consciousness, they couldn’t forecast any long-term problems. Certainly he wouldn’t work for several months. By the end of the week it became clear that he would be a cripple for the rest of his life and at best, would need two sticks to walk without a wheelchair.

The accident investigators had me in tears many times as they made me relive the moment of his fall and my part in it. “Why did you alter the scaffold when you had no training and no qualifications to do so? Why didn’t you insist Len did it? Why didn’t you tell him the boards were unsafe…?” So the questions went on and finally it came out that I did what he said for fear of another spanking, which led to the whole reason for my being there. Gwen and Ted spent a lot of time at the hospital and I went with them on the Sunday but resolved never to go again. When he saw me, Len hissed, “You set a trap for me and I fell into it. You got your revenge.”

By then, Gwen and Ted had been able to take in the whole story and tended to side with me although they believed that I should have stood up to him and refused to do it when I knew I wasn’t supposed to touch it.

Father and Mother came to visit when the news reached them and I could possibly have gone home had I not been asked to remain during the investigations. Dai stood by the whole time and took me to his home for a long weekend where I met his wife, Tracy, whose bubbly personality raised my spirits. Their two late teenage sons were both away at college so I could talk with them without interruption. Tracy, in particular, had a knack of asking questions without apparently asking, and by the end of our first evening, she knew of my previous life, my criminal record and my life with Len.

“What are you going to do when the investigation is over and you are free to go or start work again?” It was a question I asked myself many times. I couldn’t do the work without Len’s help and knowledge and he would be unlikely to give it, even if he recovered.

“Get another jobbing builder,” Dai interposed, “What about Rex Evans? He’s in that new cooperative in Broadbay.”

On my return, I discussed it with Ted. “It’s the only way it will get done Claire,” he answered after some thought. “Len won’t wish to go near the place even if he recovers sufficiently.”

“I didn’t at first, but having been back so many times with the H&S people I’ve got over it. The problem will be where will I stay when Len is fit enough to come home? He won’t want me around to remind him of what happened.”

“That will be months away and maybe he’ll come around a bit by then. Perhaps you’ll be living in the house by then.”

“Without a roof?” I laughed and they smiled too.

Two weeks later the accident report came out more or less absolving me from the responsibility and placing it firmly on Len’s shoulders. It even seemed likely that he could be prosecuted for breaches health and safety regulations. ‘Miss Summerfield should not have been ordered to alter the structure in any way and certainly she should not have been forced to do so unsupervised’, read one critical sentence.

I immediately liked Rex Evans when he came to the site. At thirty-two he’d decided to get together with Peter, a carpenter and Gary, a plumber to set up a small cooperative rather than continue to work for a large conglomerate which could send him anywhere. Together with a labourer, Bob, they were each self employed for tax purposes but frequently worked with each other. So far he’d made out well enough, mainly with small jobs and extensions but, as the reputation of the cooperative was only just being established, he wasn’t overwhelmed with work.

We lunched with Ted and Gwen. They looked worn out after so many sleepless nights worrying over Len and the many trips to the Haverfordwest hospital and Ted in particular didn’t want the extra work that overseeing the building entailed. “I agreed with your father that I would do it Claire, and I still will if I have to, but I know I can’t give it the attention it really needs,” Ted informed me. In the end it hinged on my willingness to stay at least until the completion of the building and my agreeing to take over the necessary paperwork for ordering materials and the necessary inspections. I had no idea about any of it, but Rex and Ted agreed to guide me. As part of the bargain, I got the use of my car, my laptop and my phone.

Another sticking point was my being a labourer on the site. Rex was uncertain that I was up to it and thought it wasn’t a ‘proper job’ for a woman. That put my back up especially after most of the heavy labouring work appeared to have been completed but he reluctantly agreed provided I was under supervision the whole time. “Does that mean off site as well?” Gwen asked with a smile on her face.

“Like 24/7?”

“That and more.” The humour was infectious and I laughed too.

“Perhaps, for the time being, you’d better continue to do the off site supervision Gwen, at least until I get to know her better.” From the short while I’d known him, I wasn’t averse to the idea.

Over the next few weeks, I did indeed get to know him better. On site he took the trouble to explain to me what was being done and why and assisted me with the ordering of supplies. Frequently we spent our weekends together quite often doing simple things like walking the coastal path, and walking wasn’t something I would even have contemplated a few months previously.

We fucked, of course, sometimes outside in a quiet spot but often at home in my bed. Ted and Gwen seemed to approve and Len, now moved from the hospital to a convalescent home, was unlikely to return for several more weeks at least. Rex was fairly experienced in that while away on jobs, he bedded a number of the local girls and I had had my fair share of men so between us we put in some very good performances. The fly in the ointment was his old mother who thought a city girl like me, was not a suitable choice as a wife for her son. We hadn’t discussed marriage but we both knew it could happen.

By mid July the roof was on and the windows and doors in place so we invited my parents to a ceremonial locking of the front door. Both were surprised in the change in me, both physically and mentally. I now wore little make-up or jewellery and was fairly well tanned and my muscles were much stronger than when in London. I now smiled when I introduced them to Rex, Dai, Peter, Gary and Bob and various others who’d worked on the site and would still do so as the interior was fitted. They even invited me back into their home during the August bank holiday.

Foreseeing that Len would be allowed home in the near future, I concentrated on getting some of the essential services completed in the house. Gary installed a toilet, bath shower and washbasin and a temporary hot water heater that would serve until a full boiler and central heating system was installed and I had the bare necessities to make a useable kitchen. I bought a double bed and put it in one of the bare, unplastered, undecorated bedrooms so the place was almost like a camping house and would be until the electricians and Gary had done their work and the decorating and tiling could begin. On looking around the room on my first night in the house, I could only wonder at the change in me that I would consider sleeping in such Spartan conditions, even when I compared it to the austerity of the farm, let alone the luxury of my London home. Rex spent much of his spare time helping me and we christened the bed soon after its arrival.

If this were truly a romance story, you would expect it to end with my reconciliation with Len, our becoming lovers and living happily ever after, but we only became reconciled to the limited extent that we would talk to each other more or less civilly.

For the first fortnight after Len’s return to the farmhouse, I only went there out of necessity and mostly when Len was sleeping or stayed at the back door so I never actually met him face to face although I saw him in his wheelchair a couple of times. His morose mood, made worse by Lynn having only visited him twice in hospital and not contacting him since, imposed a considerable strain on his parents and it showed in their faces. It, therefore, came as a surprise when Gwen visited the house one Friday morning. “Would you like to come for Sunday lunch Claire and bring Rex with you?”

“Won’t Len…?”

“Probably but he’s got to get used to the idea of your being around and we miss not seeing you. We’ve had enough of this cloak and dagger stuff with you only coming to the back door, or slipping in when he’s in his room.” His room was now what used to be the front room because he couldn’t yet manage the stairs. It took more persuasion but in the end we agreed to go.

“How you feeling Len?” I asked, trying to be casual and light without ignoring him.

“How would you feel if you were crippled and unable to do the things you’d always done? Your life changed in seconds.” His voice showed his anger and I knew he still blamed me for causing it.

The words and the hate he drove into them, put my hackles up. Disregarding my promise to be nice to him, I answered with vehemence. “I know very well what it is like. I was once a party girl living the high life in the city with friends and social standing. Then I was arrested for stealing and had to go through the humiliation of a court hearing and a sentence and now have a criminal record that will count against me if I try to get a proper job. All this was reported in the papers and on radio and TV with interviews and photographs of me at drunken parties splattered over the front pages. People who I thought were my friends no longer wished to see me, and my parents virtually forced me into exile at this place, and a life far removed from anything that I had ever known. They well-nigh disowned me but instead they gave me a task they did not expect me to fulfill, a task designed to further degrade my status. Here I was to become an unwilling builder’s labourer to a man who was unwilling to have me. And they made it very difficult for me to escape from this farm prison. In a few weeks I fell from being in the top social flight and dressing in gowns that showed the maximum amount of flesh, to wearing khaki pants and work boots or wellies. How do you think I felt when I could only blame myself and not another incompetent woman? How did I feel when I was forced on threat of a spanking to get my hands dirty and do the most menial tasks even though my skin was blistered and raw and my muscles so painful it was difficult to move? Yes I know how you feel. You feel angry at the way life has treated you, with everyone around you and with yourself. You hate me and you hate yourself and you sit in that chair brooding on that hate just like I did in my room. Do you want to know what helped me get through it?” He didn’t answer but stared as if in shock at what I said. “Your parents got me though it all, and they will help you too if you give them a chance, and not just by providing for your food and bodily comfort, they will help you get through this emotional barrier that says you are a cripple so you can’t do anything. Nonsense. There are many worse off than you. You will have to retrain and do something different but treat it as a change in direction in your life, a new beginning if you like, the same as I’ve had to. Ask at the hospital when you go for therapy, about what opportunities there are, they at least might know where you should start looking. I changed my life, get on and change yours.”

I turned to Gwen and apologised for my outburst but fortunately she smiled and just said, “Dinner’s ready.”

Len was unusually quiet during the meal but he didn’t make any further snide remarks and I sensed he mulled over my words without wishing to be seen doing so.

My next contact with him occurred only a few days later. He had a hospital appointment with his therapist and both Ted and Gwen were suffering from a bug that gave them severe diarrhoea and couldn’t take him. “Would you mind taking him, Claire? We don’t want him to miss his treatment because it does seem to help. He’ll be on his best behaviour and you can take the van so the wheelchair will go in.” Ted helped him into the front seat and showed me what to do to get him out, and again reminded him to be nice to me. As if he would take any notice once we were on the road. I’d driven the van several times to get supplies so the driving wasn’t a problem; my apprehension concerned my passenger. Fortunately he was quiet on the difficult lane from the farm to the B road but then, out of the blue, he asked, “Do you think I could get training to do something useful?” We actually discussed various options and I suggested he learn to use a computer because that was often a requirement for many of the training options. I even volunteered to help him set it up but he didn’t commit himself. Thereafter we were on speaking terms, nothing more, but I made no bones about going to the farm at any time, whether he was there or not.

My relationship with Rex progressed until even his mother seemed to accept me and during the August Bank Holiday, we stayed with my parents and even visited a couple of my erstwhile friends, but their way of life and the intrigues and bitchiness surrounding the lifestyle, were now alien to me and I wasn’t sorry when we returned to Pembrokeshire. By the end of September, most of the major work on the house was complete but Rex and Peter both advised me not to decorate until the heating had been on for a few weeks and the place had thoroughly dried out. “How about we take a week off and go on a holiday somewhere?” Rex suggested. We found a little guesthouse on Arran and had a relaxing and most enjoyable time. At the end of season, only two other elderly couples were staying and in front of them, at our last meal there, Rex went on his knee and proposed. I accepted to the delight of those present. Now we are actually living together and due to marry next year.

Mummy and daddy, when they came to stay for a few days, praised the look of the house and were surprised by the amount I’d actually done towards the decoration. Mummy didn’t seem too keen on Rex as a son-in-law but didn’t voice any serious objections as we were too far away from her social circle to be an embarrassment.

Christmas is coming and the weather has been stormy but the house has survived unscathed and while Rex has been out on other jobs, I’ve had time to reminisce over the past year and wonder what my life would have been like had I not stolen that suit.

Finis