Greg and Zena were having breakfast the day following Jake’s departure when Zena told him what had been discussed between herself and Jake, excusing his behaviour with laughter. Greg reluctantly told his sister that there were more explanations to come.
‘Zena, he’s been lying to you. I know it was wrong of me to search through his things but I was suspicious and looked at his passport. He doesn’t work on the Continent. He hasn’t been out of the country since he and I went to France with the boys from the pub. Remember?’
‘You must be mistaken! He brought gifts from other countries, didn’t he? He works as an agent selling protective clothing, selling on the Continent, buying from factories in Belgium. Even Jake couldn’t have made all that up!’
‘Sorry, Sis, but unless he has two passports there’s no mistake.’
She turned away and stared out of the window. ‘Come on, Greg! There has to be an explanation. I’ll talk to him again.’
‘Walk away, Sis. There’s no future with a man who lies so easily.’
‘I’ll talk to him,’ she replied more sharply.
Greg muttered, ‘Sorry,’ and left the room.
Her outrage was bravado. She knew, deep within her, without waiting for an explanation, that what Greg had told her was true. He had seen Jake’s passport and the evidence it had shown couldn’t be denied. But she couldn’t understand why Jake would lie. Why would he pretend to have such a high-powered job? She had seen the letter from Jake’s friend recommending that he apply, that couldn’t have been a forgery, but that wasn’t evidence he had been successful.
She didn’t know what to do. There didn’t seem any point in writing to Jake at the place where he lived, those letters always disappeared without reaching him. Nor at the office where her letters were opened by the officious Madeleine Jones, and phoning was never successful, either. Glad of the excuse to delay facing Jake with these new lies, she decided she would have to wait for his next visit.
Work was a good way to ease away her humiliation and hurt. Scrubbing kitchen floors was something she didn’t need to do but she needed the physical effort. Working so fast she found extra corners in need of her attention at every house she visited. Janey Day called one day and asked her to go back to twice weekly visits as she was finding it difficult to manage. In the hope that Trish wouldn’t be there, plus the decision that she would deal with her if she were, Zena agreed. When she couldn’t find physical work she helped her mother at the stationers, giving Lottie time to shop or just have a rest. She was exhausted when she went to bed but was disturbed by unpleasant dreams.
Nelda was usually out when she went to clean, but her friend was there when she arrived one morning and between them they sorted out a few cupboards and Zena scrubbed them out and covered the shelves with paper replacing the contents in clearly defined sections again. Nelda was delighted , while wondering why they didn’t stay that way. Zena avoided telling her!
‘Now,’ Nelda said, when they had finished a third storage cupboard, ‘you are going to sit down and I’ll make us tea. Then,’ she said, waving a scolding finger, ‘then you are going to tell me what’s wrong.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Zena protested.
‘Boyfriend trouble I suppose?’
‘Well, things aren’t as they should be between Jake and me. That’s all. It’ll work out.’ Zena was reluctant to say more but, pushing a slice of cake and a cup of tea in front of her, Nelda sat, chin on hands, and waited in silence. Minutes passed.
‘It’s nothing, probably just a misunderstanding,’ Zena said finally.
‘I married Dave knowing he wasn’t the man for me and it took seven years for me to face up to it. Zena, dear, don’t marry unless you’re sure. Better walk away now rather than have the complications of a marriage to pull apart. It isn’t a pleasant experience and in my case, we hurt the children too.’
‘I can’t. It would be giving up my future and perhaps never finding someone as much as I love Jake.’
‘That’s nonsense! And definitely the wrong reason for not walking away, and you know it.’
‘It’s just that he’s so kind. He always gets involved when he hears of someone in trouble. I have to accept that or, as you and Greg advise, I have to walk away.’
Nelda listened in silence as she told her some of the help Jake had given to others, including Christmas, which he had spent with Madeleine and Rose. ‘It’s always genuine kindness; he can’t refuse to give something he has if there’s another with greater need of it.’ When she had finished, Nelda hugged her and said briskly, ‘You’re right, you have to accept the way he is if you love him, but think of the years ahead, and be aware that you will always come second. Always. You and your children. Second to strangers, to lame ducks and anyone with a good line in scrounging. Face it, Zena, and ask yourself it you can cope with that. You and any children you might have. Could you cope? I’m sure I couldn’t.’
‘I have to talk to him again, make him understand that we have to decide these things together.’ She smiled. ‘D’you know what excuse he gives for not telling me first? Because if I say no, he would have to forget it, and not asking means I don’t have the chance to disagree and he can do what he wants.’
‘But that’s the same as lying! And this do-gooding is nothing more than vanity, surely you can see that?’
Zena disagreed. Jake had no ulterior motive. He didn’t help people for his own aggrandisement, to impress or be admired. Ignoring the words she said, ‘If I continue to consider myself engaged to him, the next year will be a testing time.’
Talking it over with someone who was not involved helped Zena to think about the situation more calmly. Jake hadn’t told her, afraid she would say no and that would have been final. That might be childish, but it was somehow endearing. The motives for his lies were always a desire to do something for someone else. She shut her mind to the passport and the fresh list of lies about his job and the foreign travel; they were less easy to explain.
She wanted to write down her frustrations in an angry letter but forced herself to wait for his explanation. She knew she was being foolish, but it wasn’t easy to walk away from a love she had felt for so long. All her plans for the future, all the dreams of a happy life were bound up with him. How could she walk away? He wasn’t really a deceitful man, just a very kind and generous one. How could she criticize him for that? But, a small voice warned, how could she believe his deceit was something trivial, best ignored?
There were new tenants coming into her flat, which was now empty and that gave her the chance to clean and paint a couple of walls before they moved in. She used that as an excuse to write to Jake, hoping that mentioning such an innocuous subject might mean he actually received it. She was almost certain that her letters were opened by Madeleine Jones and felt irritated that she couldn’t contact him apart from the office. She made no reference to the untruths about his job, revealed by Greg finding his passport, and said nothing about their ruined Christmas.
In the office, Madeleine opened it, read it and threw it away. ‘Sorry, Jake, I threw it away by mistake. Something about a new tenant, there was nothing more. The flat she owns will be empty until a week from Saturday.’
‘Love and kisses included?’ he asked with a smile.
‘Not that I noticed. It was very brief.’
Lottie had been cautiously talking to all Ronald’s friends, hoping for an explanation of how he had lost so much of their money. She felt sick every time she thought of being left only a house on which there was a large mortgage. They had both worked to buy it, so where had the money gone? She had tried to persuade her sister-in-law, always a close and loving friend until now, to discuss it but she rarely came to the house and when she did it was only to talk to Zena or Greg; Lottie she ignored.
It was toward the end of January when she decided to make an appointment with the solicitor to see if he knew anything that would help her get to the bottom of the mystery. During her lunch hour she went to the office with fingers crossed.
Mr Phillips was an elderly man, stick thin and with long, white hair. His suit was well tailored but loose, as though it had been made for a man several stones heavier, but his smile was welcoming, crinkling the skin around his bright blue eyes. He sent for coffee and invited her to sit near the open fire that burned brightly in the highly polished grate in the old-fashioned office.
‘I am trying to shed light on the will of my husband, Ronald Martin,’ she began.
Mr Phillips patted a file on his desk, and said, ‘Since your phone call, I have been reading through my dealings with your husband, Mrs Martin. How can I help?’
‘I can’t understand where our money went. We had no mortgage on the property, the house was ours and had been for several years. We had savings in several places. The bank of course, and the building society, and I believe my husband had shares in other businesses. Not an enormous amount but it was for our retirement, for holidays and a few luxuries.’
Mr Phillips turned pages and forms over in the file then handed her a sheet of paper. ‘These were the last dealings I had with your husband, Mrs Martin. Three years ago he withdrew all his money and put it into the bank and from there he took out a large cheque. I know nothing of what happened to it. We weren’t asked to act for him in whatever arrangements he made.’
She asked question after question and the solicitor answered as fully as he was able, offering suggestions about where enquiries might begin and offering to deal with them, but Lottie shook her head. ‘Later, perhaps. Firstly I’ll discuss it with my husband’s sister. Perhaps she knows what happened, although she seems to believe the reason was revenge for something I did.’
‘Forgive me asking, but had there been a problem, Mrs Martin?’
‘As far as I know, we were completely happy. I can’t think of anything that worried him. The loss of the money must lie with him. It must have been something terribly urgent. We all saw that he was anxious during those last days, but by then he was confused and nothing he said made any sense. All that money and all that time – why couldn’t he tell me?’
‘Unable? Or unwilling? Not wanting to worry you perhaps? He might have been involved with something which he hoped to deal with himself, sorting it before you knew of the problem. Maybe unaware that he was seriously ill and was running out of time.’
‘Yes, he was very distressed, particularly during those last few days, muttering about time, and when he was delirious he talked about someone called Billy Dove. I know no one of that name.’
‘Perhaps it was someone from a very long time ago? Sometimes, with age or illness, memories from years ago become clearer than the present time, I understand.’
Lottie went straight to see Mabs as soon as she finished work. When Mabs opened the door she pushed it wide open and marched in before Mabs could refuse to let her enter.
The notes she had made at the solicitor’s office were on a page of a notebook and she thrust it at Mabs. ‘Read this!’
After an initial protest, Mabs read it and stared at Lottie in disbelief. ‘What happened? Why did Ronald take all his money out of his account?’
‘Our account,’ Lottie corrected quietly.
‘Why did he do that? Where is it?’
‘I was hoping you’d tell me.’
Mabs’s first thought was of the money she had in the bank and whether the best way of using it was to help Lottie to clear Ronald’s debts. But the real need was to find out what had happened to make her well-organized and sensible brother lose all their money.
‘It wasn’t something you’d done? Hurt him in some way?’ By way of reply, Lottie glared at her angrily. ‘Lottie, I really thought he had left it somewhere else because you’d let him down. I’m sorry. I really am.’ She hugged her tearful sister-in-law. Then she calmed down and said firmly, ‘Our first step is the police. It’s such a large amount, we need to contact the police and get this investigated,’ she said firmly. ‘This sounds so unlike Ronald there must be criminality involved. Lottie, I’m so very sorry for thinking you were the reason for Ronnie’s actions.’
‘Why did you blame me? Your accusations were the worst of all. I loved Ronald, and no one else.’
‘It did seem to be a vengeful act and for a while I thought that you and Sam at the farm were—’
‘Nonsense! He’s a family friend, more Ronald’s than mine.’
Although the revelation that the money had gone without leaving a trace had been a shock, Lottie slept well for the first time since the reading of Ronald’s will.
Together, Lottie and Mabs talked to the police who listened carefully, made copious notes and agreed to start making enquiries. One question was whether anyone close, a relative or a friend, had begun to spend more than usual. Both women shook their heads. As they were leaving, Lottie gave a brief smile. ‘Sam Edwards has ordered two new barns and a tractor, but I don’t think he’d convince Ronald to part with so much money.’
They talked around the mystery for a long time but no solution occurred to either of them. Mabs went back to her flat to search through any papers she had relating to her brother and Lottie went home to sit and stare into space, wondering why, after all their years together, Ronald hadn’t trusted her with whatever had caused his uncharacteristic action. Neither found a hint of a solution.
Aware of the Sunday being Roy Roberts’s birthday, Zena planned a surprise, with Doris and her son Kevin helping. At four o’clock she knocked on the door with Nelda and the children carrying plates of food and a large birthday cake. Doris saw them coming and quickly joined them with more food, followed by Kevin with a few brightly wrapped parcels. She knocked on the door and announced an instant party, introducing Nelda and the children as they piled their gifts on the table. As he began talking to the little girls, she looked around for cards but there was none. So his sons didn’t recognise their father’s birthday. She was glad they had come.
Food was displayed and Doris busied herself making tea. Kevin produced a bottle of beer and the party atmosphere took off in moments. Soon Roy was reminiscing about time gone by including his time in the Navy. Bobbie asked if he’s fought with Admiral Nelson and was disappointed to be told he was too young. ‘He looks very old to me,’ Georgie whispered to Zena.
It was as he and Doris talked about the present day that Zena listened intently, surprised that they knew Rose Conelly. She learned very little, just that her childhood had not been a happy one but decided to ask him more next time she called. When she asked about Billy Dove, Roy shook his head.
‘Billy who? Oh, Billy Dove. He must be dead, I haven’t heard anything about him for years.’
‘You called him “Birdie”, ’ Doris coaxed but he shook his head.
‘Years since I heard about Birdie.’
Another disappointment.
‘Where are the rest of your birthday cards, Mr Roberts?’ Nelda asked.
‘Still in the cupboard, Popeye?’ Kevin pointed to the sideboard.
Roy shrugged. ‘Might as well put them with the others I suppose.’ Nelda opened the drawer and took out three envelopes, opened and revealing cards. Then she noticed the date on the franking mark and saw they were more than twenty years old. Without a comment she stood them on the top of the sideboard with the rest.
Roy spent more time playing with the girls, who daringly called him Popeye to his amusement. Between games he talked about the people he remembered from school including Billy Dove. With so many people around she decided to wait until her next visit before asking about him. It might be a way to get to the heart of the mystery of her father’s money.
Zena walked into Nelda’s house a week later to the sound children arguing. Their young voices rose higher and higher until they were shrieking and things were being thrown around. She ran to see what was happening and opened the kitchen door just in time to see Georgie and Bobbie, who were standing on the table pushing each other, fall onto the floor one each side of the table. She reached Georgie first and, as the child stood up scowling, she thought there was no serious damage and ran to see to Bobbie, who wasn’t moving, although her eyes were open.
‘Bobbie! Bobbie, talk to me, where are you hurt?’ Bobbie jumped up and, aiming a final punch at her sister ran, giggling, from the room.
‘You little minx.’ Zena smiled ruefully at Georgie. ‘Where’s your mammy?’ It was Sunday and she had agreed to help Nelda clear a bedroom ready for the decorators.
‘I don’t know, she just went out and left us,’ Bobbie called sorrowfully.
‘Nelda?’ Zena called. The back door opened and Nelda came in demanding to know what all the noise was about.
‘They were fighting,’ she was told. ‘On the kitchen table, would you believe! They both fell off but they don’t seem to have been badly hurt, but you’d better check them.’
Georgie had a scraped arm and a bruise was already showing below her elbow. Her unrepentant sister insisted she was making a fuss about nothing. ‘As usual!’
Zena left them to their mother and went to start clearing the bedroom. She heard Bobbie say, ‘It’s lucky Daddy didn’t come and find that you’d left us alone, wasn’t it, Mammy?’
‘You can stop that nonsense,’ Nelda said. ‘Daddy thinks you are old enough to be left for a few minutes without fighting, but isn’t he wrong about that?’ Then Bobbie began to cry, insisting she needed a bandage. ‘It’s more than a bruise, Mammy, it’s a scrape,’ she shouted dramatically. ‘I need a bandage.’
Zena called, ‘I have a small first-aid box in my bicycle basket. Go and fetch it, Bobbie, and I’ll bandage it to make sure it’s kept clean.’ Still sobbing, Bobbie watched as a bandage was applied and then went to show her sister what she had done to her.
Zena realized how difficult it must be for Nelda, coping with a busy job and caring for two lively children, while warding off criticism from an absent father. This led her to thoughts of Jake. What would her life be like with Jake, a man who kept things from her, a more deceitful version of lying – if that made sense? Always likely to give her possessions to others when he decided theirs was the greater need.
A marriage must always be uncertain. No one can really know another well enough to guarantee a perfect life: to understand how that other person would cope with unexpected changes like the birth of a child, or the sudden loss of money like her parents. She had once thought she knew Jake, but lying about his job and the successful business travel he was boasting about, how great were the risks she would be taking if she married him? Nelda might be better off on her own rather than with an unreliable man. Her father had lied to her mother by not telling her about the loss of money, yet she thought his reasons were different from those of Jake. He must have hoped to solve his difficulties before her mother found out. With Jake, what else but vanity? How long would she go on deluding herself?
She stopped dragging a small desk away from the wall and frowned. Vanity was something she determinedly denied as a reason for Jake’s generosity. Did accepting it make what he does better, or worse? Was it an excuse, something he couldn’t help? An obsession over which he had no control? With her mind full of these concerns she worked fast and efficiently and in less than three hours the room was empty, washed, and the floor scrubbed.
As a thank you, besides paying her, Nelda invited her to go with her to the pictures at the weekend. ‘My lovely parents are having the girls from after school on Friday until Sunday, when I go there for lunch before bringing them home. We could go on Saturday. Abbot and Costello are on. They’re always a good laugh.’
‘Just what I need,’ she said, happily agreeing.
In London one Sunday, Jake was having lunch with Rose and Madeleine. Knowing he had to face Zena with the truth about his menial job, he was feeling low. Rose suggested he went to the Labour Exchange to look for something better. ‘You need a place where you can work your way up,’ she said. ‘A man needs to be able to keep a family. It’s different with me: I don’t want promotion. I’m happy being just a small cog in the wheel of things. If I were offered something better I’d refuse. I haven’t the ambition for a successful career, earning lots of money, telling others what to do.’
Jake was too self-centred at that time to discuss this. ‘I am going to marry Zena and I promised to give her everything she needs and most of what she wants,’ he said. ‘I need money and I need it fast.’
‘Zena owns her flat, doesn’t she?’ Rose reminded him. ‘And the rumour is that Aunty Mabs has a lot of money which will be shared by Zena and Greg one day.’
‘Where did you hear that?’ Jake asked. ‘Aunty Mabs has tried to keep that a secret.’
‘There’s a man called Roy Roberts who rarely goes out but seems to know all that’s going on. Your Zena helps with his cleaning, and does his shopping sometimes. I overheard him once telling someone that the money Frank Bishop won hasn’t been mentioned since his death but it must still be there. I didn’t know Mabel Bishop then and I only remembered it recently.’
‘What a pity she’s fit and well,’ Madeleine said jokingly. ‘Perhaps one of her lonely old men-of-the-night will bump her off, eh?’
‘I hope not!’ Jake was horrified. ‘What are you talking about? What old men? She’s a dear old thing and I’d hate anything awful to happen to her. Besides it’s I who— What old men?’
‘The sad café, which she opens during the night, to give food and comfort to some of the lonely old men who can’t sleep.’
‘But I’ve never heard of this place, why didn’t Zena tell me about it?’
That made Madeleine laugh, ‘You aren’t the only one to keep secrets, are you, Jake?’
Rose told them about how she almost walked in, seeing Mabs and Greg just in time. ‘Mabs and her husband started it and after he died, she carried on, helped by a retired teacher called Richard Thomas, apparently. I found all this out from one of the regulars. Mrs Bishop calls herself Frankie.’
‘Secrets everywhere! You’ve never explained, Rose, but can you tell us, now we’re friends, why you left Greg Martin?’
‘Sorry, that isn’t something I want to discuss. It’s over and that’s all you need to know.’
‘I can’t believe Mabs Bishop is running a café for down and outs,’ Jake muttered.
‘Not down and outs,’ Rose explained, ‘and not people who are homeless. They’re just people who can’t sleep. She helps them fill the long hours of darkness.’
‘There must still be some money for Greg and your Zena when she dies,’ Madeleine whispered softly. ‘You need it more than a few men who must certainly scrounge from her.’
‘Zena having more money won’t help me at all.’
‘Then this Aunty needs persuading to give it to you instead of Zena.’ Madeleine laughed and the others joined in. ‘Just a dream, dear,’ she said, touching Jake’s hand affectionately. Rose looked on and frowned. Light-hearted it might have been but the conversation had made her resentful. Marriage to Greg would have been wonderful once she had been able to face him with the truth of her ugly beginnings, but that dream had been irrevocably shattered by his evil family.
Jake was looking thoughtful. ‘I’ll look for a job and then, next weekend, I’ll go home and tell Zena everything. I’ll have to thumb a lift, as I can’t afford the fare or the petrol.’ He stood to leave, reached for Madeleine’s coat to help her put it on. They were the only people in the restaurant and the rest of the tables had been cleared and reset for afternoon tea, with plates, cups and saucers set out.
Madeleine touched his arm, stopped him moving towards the door. ‘Don’t leave the firm, Jake. I’ll have a word with the boss, see if I can persuade him to give you something better than being a dogsbody. Leave it to me. I’m sure you’d do well if you were given a chance in the sales department; charm, looks and the good line in sales patter. And’ – she smiled, and raised an eyebrow – an expertise in lying to cover mistakes, you’d be an asset to the company.’
Jake smiled ruefully. ‘All right, I’ll give it a bit longer. I’ll still go home this weekend. It’s time I told her the truth.’
‘That will be easier if you have the offer of a better job. Another week could make all the difference. I’ll talk to the boss tomorrow,’ Madeleine promised. Then she went on, ‘I’d love to have a weekend away, and I’ve never been to Wales. I haven’t even seen the sea,’ she lied. ‘Is your home near the sea?’
‘The beach is only a twenty minute walk away.’ On one of his impulsive decisions, he said, ‘Why don’t you come? Didn’t you say the flat was empty until a week next Saturday?’
‘You mean I can stay there?’
‘Why not? No one is using it. You too, Rose. Maybe you could talk to Greg?’ She shook her head and he said, ‘All right, we’ll hide you. Come on, it’ll be fun, but—’
‘It’s all right, Jake, we’ll pay for the petrol, won’t we, Rose?’
In the night café, Greg worked with Mabs as smoothly as always, both sharing the tasks and the time spent talking to the lonely men. He could see that Mabs was wrapped up in her thoughts, but, with so many people around, he didn’t risk asking her if there was a problem. He knew she was still grieving for Frank and this mystery about her brother Ronald was an added anxiety. It wasn’t until the last customer had gone and they were washing up and cleaning the tables that he said, ‘Aunty Mabs, the solicitor and the police are making enquiries about the missing money and maybe they’ll soon have news for us. You and Mam have done all you can, so try to be patient and let it go. Leave it to the police. Worrying won’t help and we don’t want you to make yourself ill.’
‘I can’t help thinking that somewhere in my mind I have the solution. Your father had a partner with whom he put some money aside for investments, playing the stockmarket. They talked to your Uncle Frank about it and he made them agree that whatever happened, they wouldn’t go beyond their initial outlay, but sometimes the promise of great wealth can turn even the most cautious of heads. Perhaps something went wrong and they had to pay out a lot of money.’
‘Why did you think Mam had done something awful that made Dad leave her nothing?’
‘I’m sorry, Greg, but I foolishly thought that your mother and Sam Edwards at the farm were getting fond of each other and your father was hurt and needed revenge.’
‘Not a chance. Mam was happy with Dad, and he would never have been vengeful if she had strayed. He was such a gentle man, wasn’t he?’
Mabs frowned. ‘I hadn’t remembered them playing the stockmarket, until today.’
‘What was his partner’s name?’
‘That’s what’s been keeping my mind occupied. I can’t remember.’
‘Can that be the explanation? Perhaps the money is still there but we can’t find out because we don’t know his partner’s name, if there was one.’
‘There had to have been a partner, your father wouldn’t have ventured into such a risky game on his own.’
The following day she went to see Roy Roberts. They had been at school together and although they had seen little of each other over recent years they greeted each other like friends.
They talked about people they had once known and gradually, Mabs brought the subject around to Ronald. ‘It’s taken a long time to sort through his papers. Most of it has been dealt with now but there are a few things we can’t clear up. I wondered if you can help.’
‘I haven’t seen much of Ronald recently. As old age creeps upon you, your world shrinks. Fewer people, fewer activities, more memories heavily distorted with a rosy glow of fantasy. But ask away, you never know.’
Mabs smiled in agreement. ‘We’re trying to find a partner, someone who dealt with investments.’
‘Money gone astray, has it?’
‘No, no, nothing like that,’ she protested at once. ‘It’s just a few things we don’t understand. Can you think of anyone he might have worked with? I know he liked a bit of a flutter on the horses and perhaps a few other things.’
‘Ronald tried to follow the stock market. Fat chance of someone like him making money there. You have to be a master at mathematics, don’t you?’
‘Probably. Anyway, let me know if you think of anything that might help. I think Lottie needs to get everything sorted so she can set her mind on the future.’
‘Right then, Mabel. I’ll get thinking. And next time you come remember to bring me some grapes. I’ve got a broken arm you know.’
Mabs laughed as she left, then the smile faded. She had a suspicion that Roy Roberts knew more than he had chosen to tell. She’d buy him the biggest bunch of grapes she could find if he could give her even the smallest clue to finding the lost money.
Jake, Madeleine and a nervous Rose arrived at Zena’s flat on Friday evening after an uneventual journey. Jake moved a flower pot, chuckled and picked up the key. Zena had taken back his key but hadn’t moved the spare from its hiding place. They dropped their suitcases then went straight out to find food. They didn’t want to eat inside, afraid of leaving signs of their being there. A short trip in the car took them to a smart restaurant a few miles away and Madeleine insisted on paying. They returned and went straight to their beds, Jake on the couch with spare blankets, the girls using sleeping bags on top of the bedding, but under the eiderdown for warmth.
The following morning they went out early and Jake led them by a devious route to the beach, where, on that cold day the sea looked uninviting, yet the two girls felt warmed by the inexplicable hint of excitement that summer would bring.
They spent the day driving around the area, taking in picturesque villages and small bays each bringing delighted cries from Madeleine who took many photographs and declared she had never seen anything more beautiful. They sat on a cold, rocky beach wrapped in blankets borrowed from the flat and ate chips, and drank from a shared bottle of lemonade and, like children, declared it a feast.
Sunday began early, all woken sooner than expected by thoughts of the day just gone and another to come. ‘I feel like a child mitching from school,’ Rose said with a laugh.
‘Did you do that often?’ Jake asked her.
‘More often than I should! I used to write notes explaining that my daughter had a sore throat or head lice – they never argued about my being absent for that!’ Sitting in the neat living room and making plans for their final morning, they talked for a while of their school days, Madeleine said the least, aware that the subject of her private education was best avoided.
Packing the few things they had brought and tidying away all evidence of their visit, Madeleine went back inside to check that they had left nothing behind, pausing for a moment in the bathroom. Jake put the key back in its hiding place and they set off to explore nearby beauty spots then find a pleasant place for lunch. As they drove, too fast, around the corner from where Jake had parked his car, he almost knocked Greg off his bicycle.
‘Damn!’ Jake muttered, ‘I forgot the odd hours that he works. Sorry, ladies, but you’re about to hear a long list of lies.’
Greg stared in disbelief as he recognized first Jake then Rose. ‘What are you two doing here?’
Rose turned to Jake and waited for his explanation.
‘Look, Greg, mate, I can explain this but not now, we haven’t got time, right? I’ll ring you at your mother’s house tonight, ten o’clock, OK?’ Without giving the startled Greg a chance to speak, he put his foot down and drove away. ‘Now, ladies,’ he said cheerfully, ‘we have all day to think of a good story. Who’s first?’ Madeleine began to laugh, Jake joined in, but Rose was unable to force more than a weak smile, shaken by suddenly seeing Greg
The telephone rang persistently in Lottie’s house between 10 and 10.30 but no one answered. Greg sat with Zena and they let it ring. She had gone to the flat to check that everything was clean, ready for the new tenants, and pick up the post and make sure the milk had been cancelled. She had seen at once that the place had been used, and finding a tin of Jake’s brand of toothpowder, guessed he had been there. A pair of stockings hanging in the bathroom shocked her. There was little doubt about who he had brought with him. Greg had told her what he had seen as there seemed nothing to gain by covering for Jake.
The phone went on ringing spasmodically for another hour but neither of them made a move to answer it.
It had been very late when Jake and the two girls arrived back at Madeleine’s flat and she insisted they both stayed with her. ‘You both need a good night’s sleep and your places will be cold and there won’t be anything to eat. You’ll be comfortable here. There are plenty of tins in the cupboard and the bread will still be eatable if we toast it.’ Both were too tired to argue. Jake guessed that Zena had been told what Greg had seen and he decided he had to own up to the visit. If he told her it was because Madeleine had never seen the sea and Rose needed a little holiday, she would understand. He would promise her there would be no more lies.
Zena didn’t try to telephone the office and neither did she write. She simply didn’t know what to say. She had a letter from Jake on Tuesday morning explaining that he hadn’t the money to come home as he’d so desperately wanted to, and Madeleine offered to pay for petrol if she could come too. Rose came as well as she rarely went anywhere and Madeleine thought she would enjoy it. Zena showed the letter to Greg, who shrugged. ‘Madeleine and Rose coming, using your flat, meant he couldn’t see you, which defeated the object, didn’t it?’
‘There’s a P.S.’
Greg turned the page and read, ‘The reason I couldn’t say no, was that Madeleine had never seen the sea.’ He laughed. ‘He never misses a trick, does he!’
When she went to clean at Mr Roberts’s house, Zena was not her usual, chatty self but when asked if there was a problem, she insisted that everything was fine, perfect, just lovely.
She finished her chores and made a cup of coffee for them both and unwrapped a couple of cakes she had brought. Mr Roberts was outside, talking to his neighbour, Doris. She was about to call him in, insisting it was too cold for him to be standing out there, when she heard her name and, unable to resist, she listened.
‘Sorry for the girl, I am,’ Doris was saying. ‘If she only half believes the fanciful dreams of Jake Williams she’s got nothing but trouble ahead of her. He thinks he’s a sort of all year round Father Christmas, taking from wherever he can to give favours to people who think he’s a cross between a saint and a fool. She’s the fool if she can’t see that it’s vanity and nothing else. Just vanity.’
She felt that now familiar ache of disappointment. Vanity, the word she could no longer deny. Vanity, wanting to be admired and flattered, giving things that half the time didn’t belong to him, soaking up the praise.
‘It’s sad, I know,’ Mr Roberts replied, ‘and she’s such a lovely girl, but she wouldn’t thank us for pointing out the man’s a fool. She’ll have to work it out for herself. The rumour that her mother has been left almost penniless is certainly true and that’s enough for them to deal with, but the gossips will have a wonderful time if Zena doesn’t wake up to the fact that Jake is living in a fantasy world. He’ll spend her money faster than she earns it.’
Zena went back into the kitchen and called, calmly. ‘Coffee’s here, Mr Roberts, I have to go now. See you next time.’ She couldn’t ride her bicycle. Her legs wobbled and seemed incapable of holding her upright as she walked down the drive and onto the road. Leaving the vehicle against a hedge she slipped through a gap and sat on the icy grass of a field and stared into space. She was soon shivering with the cold as well as the humiliation of what she had heard. However kindly the words were spoken, people were laughing at her.
A tractor was approaching and she heard it stop, then someone opening the gate. She forced herself to stand, and, still shivering went to recover her bicycle.
‘That you, Zena?’ a voice called. Uncle Sam was standing just inside the gate. He approached her with a frown. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m just feeling a bit sick. Perhaps I’m getting a cold. I’ll be all right when I get home in the warm.’
‘I’m just delivering some food for the horse. Wait for me and I’ll drive you home. Ten minutes at the most. Go and sit in the tractor, it’s a bit warmer than sitting under a hedge. What were you thinking of?’
With the cycle on the trailer he took her home, went in and coaxed the fire into a blaze, made tea and found her a blanket. ‘Make sure you eat something hot, and ring the farm if you need anything and Dad or I will come.’
A new brain is what I need, she thought, after thanking him.
‘Jake isn’t the only one to be guilty of vanity,’ she admitted to Nelda later in the day. ‘That’s largely the reason I can’t walk away, admit to my friends and family that I was wrong. It’s failure to end all my long dreamed of plans, to be no longer one of a couple.’
‘So despite knowing you’re behaving like an idiot, you’re going to listen to Jake and try to understand him, and make him see how he’s letting you down? Will this take two minutes or will you need three? Come on, you need more respect for yourself than this.’
‘He might accept that together we could do a lot to help others, but as a partnership, not pulling in different directions.’
Nelda raised an arm imitating a gun aimed overhead. ‘Bang! I just shot a pig!’
Zena immediately felt more relaxed, having made a decision even though she knew it was not the sensible one, and she smiled at Nelda and thanked her for listening.
‘It isn’t me who needs to listen, silly girl, it’s you!’
The following evening Nelda knocked at the door of Llyn Hir and walked in, the girls could be heard calling from the car. ‘Zena, you didn’t say Jake was home at the weekend. I wouldn’t have asked you to work on Sunday if I’d known. Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because I didn’t know,’ Zena admitted with a wry smile. ‘He brought Rose Conelly and that secretary and used my flat to give them a weekend break. He didn’t tell me because then I couldn’t say no. They needed a break and Madeleine had never seen the sea! How stupid am I?’
‘Very!’ Nelda said succinctly.
‘I do understand, in a way.’
‘Then you really are stupid! He’s laughing at you, arranging secret surprises for strangers and treating you like a big bad bully who would ruin his kindnesses.’
‘It isn’t like that. Not really.’
‘No?’ She took Zena by the arm. ‘Come back to the house with us, I’ll feed my zoo animals and we can sit and talk. Or, you talk and I’ll listen.’
While the children ate cakes and bickered in whispers, Zena tried to explain to her friend about Jake’s desire to spread happiness, about his inability to keep something when there was someone who needed it more. Nelda did what she had promised and sat silently listening.
When the words of persuasion dried up, Nelda looked at her, head on one side questioningly, waiting for her friend to break the silence. Eventually she admitted defeat and asked, ‘How did that sound to you, Zena, if it had been someone else talking? Convincing? Or a load of rubbish? Or a pathetic attempt to hang on to something that should have been discarded ages ago?’
‘I’m stupid.’
‘No you are not. Just loyal and trusting, and in love with a man who doesn’t deserve your love. Jake Williams is more a fiasco than a fiancé. Another cup of tea?’ she asked without changing her tone.
Zena burst into merry laughter. ‘First I overheard Doris telling Mr Roberts that she was sorry for me, being involved with Jake Williams. I was convinced she was right and I should tell Jake goodbye. Then, on the way home, I talked myself out of it again and rehearsed a discussion in my mind. I would make Jake understand that he can’t presume I feel the same as he does, that he owes me loyalty, I have to come first with him, as he does with me.’ She glared at Nelda in mock anger. ‘Now you’ve thrown everything into the air again, thoughts and decisions floating about like seeds on a dandelion clock.’
‘Jake might always put you second, but at least you could try putting yourself first. That way decisions might come easier. Marrying “till death us do part”, it’s a very, very long time if you have any doubts.’
For Zena it was another sleepless night, her thoughts were spinning between one decision and another. At four o’clock she wrapped herself in her dressing gown and a blanket and revived the fire. Then she went to stand outside, listening to the night sounds. A swishing of the branches of the trees, different sounds from different species like a gentle symphony. An occasional call of an owl, the bark of a fox, all was familiar, soothing, comforting. The stars were clear in the chill cloudless dawn and she looked up, wishing she could name them.
As she sat there, other sounds began to disturb the peaceful scene: a car in the distance; the milkman rattling his bottles and churns. On Sam’s farm, a rooster welcomed the new day. Relieved that her attempts at sleep could be abandoned, she went inside, lit the fire and sat in its warmth with a comforting cup of cocoa, and the inevitable toast in front of the desultory fire, more in hope then expectation. She tried to avoid thinking of nothing but the happy moments she had just spent in such simple pleasure.
Light from the porch showed the glitter of frost on the branches of trees and shrubs, and on the dead neglected flowers from the last summer. The grass on the lawn was an uneven carpet of white with blue shadows. The winter chill was cleansing and she felt refreshed.
These were moments she wouldn’t be able to share with Jake. His reaction to finding her outside watching the magical dawn of a new day would be the discomfort of the cold and the need to get back in and close the door. But those things were trivial, there were so many things they would share, although at that moment, she couldn’t think of one.
The bread was curling near the coals but showing no sign of browning to a tempting snack but, as though the smell of the food had disturbed them, first her brother then her mother came down to join her. The early hour, the darkness, the cold and the welcoming fire, made them all feel like children enjoying a secret midnight feast They talked and laughed, memories of childhood enhancing the joyful mood. Today she would hold on to these peaceful, trouble-free moments and not think about Jake or his dishonesty. Problems could wait for another day.