Love and Devotion (17 page)

‘It didn’t. I can’t think why, but I may have lost some of my appeal when I moved back up here to look after Carrie and Joel.’

‘Then he’s a fool. You’re well rid of him. You deserve better.’

‘My sentiments exactly.’ She raised her glass to drink to this but found that it was empty.

‘Another lager?’

‘Why not?’

She watched him go back inside the pub. It felt good spending the evening with someone who knew her so well. She might not consider Miles to be the greatest judge of her character and abilities - he was too old and too loyal a friend and therefore biased - but she did value his down-to-earth support and encouragement. Maybe he was right when he said that what the children needed was someone they knew they could rely on. Perhaps that’s what Felicity had been thinking when she’d made Harriet make that promise. She must have known that if the unimaginable happened, Harriet wouldn’t let her down. Or more importantly, wouldn’t let her children down.

It was a tall order, but as Miles had just said, she couldn’t help but try and do the best job she could.

 

 

 

 

It had been a good day, with the prospect of getting better still. It was Will’s birthday and he was driving back to the shop after a successful afternoon spent in Colwyn Bay at one of his favourite salerooms. He went there at least twice a month and it was always a pleasure. To top it off, he was looking forward to spending the evening with Gemma and Suzie. He’d suggested they eat out, but Suzie had said a meal in would be better. ‘If you cook for us, I’ll bake you a cake,’ she’d said. ‘How’s that?’

Following the coastal road out of Colwyn Bay, he glanced to his left where the sea heaved and rolled. It reminded him of the sensation he always had in his stomach during an auction. He’d experienced the same thing earlier when the lot he’d come for had been announced. Crucially, he’d already checked out the stylish Art Deco clock online - a French piece, admittedly only silver plate, but all smooth lines and sexy curves - and had set his limit. His stomach had started to churn the moment the lot was held up by the saleroom porter, Hairy Joe. When Will first knew the porter he was called Metal Joe, then he became Country Joe, now he was Hairy Joe because of the grey ponytail that hung down his back. With his palms sweating, his heart hammering and his stomach pitching, Will had kept one eye on Hairy Joe and the clock and the other on the assembled company. It wasn’t a big turnout but there were a few faces he recognised: a couple of interior designers from south Manchester; a pair of London runners (the Spearmint Boys as Will called them because their jaws were permanently working at chewing gum); a smattering of dealers from all over the north-west and a handful of casual punters hoping for a bargain. It was the kind of slow-moving day when a less scrupulous auctioneer might take a bid or two off the wall to bump up the prices, but not this one. He was as straight as they come, a staunch chapel-goer who would never incur the wrath of the Almighty through dodgy practice. With a wave of his catalogue, Will came in as a fresh bidder when things began to go quiet - when the interior designers thought they had the lot in the bag. He knew they’d have cash to flash, that their clients numbered footballers and soap stars, but like the rest of them, they had their budgets and if you knew what you were doing, you stuck to your limit. To his satisfaction, the interior designers bowed out and the clock was his. He made two further successful bids, one for a pretty Victorian fire screen, and another for a job lot of odds and sods that he’d had a quick squint at when he’d arrived. All in all, it was a good day’s work.

Once he was beyond Chester, he stopped for some petrol and a Mars bar, then took the road for Maywood and Kings Melford. It was gone five thirty when he arrived back at the shop. Jarvis was on his own — the two part-time dealers to whom Will sub-let an area on the top floor had already left.

‘And what treasures have you brought home today?’ Jarvis asked, making a play of pushing back his cuffs and rubbing his hands. ‘Aha!’ His eyes lit up when Will removed the clock from its swaddling of bubble wrap. ‘Excellent,’ he crooned, rather like Fagin. ‘You did well, Laddie. The face is a little ordinary, but those exquisite figures more than make up for the deficit.’ He stroked the slender leg of one of the figures lovingly. ‘Charming. Quite charming.’

‘And even more charming,’ said Will, ‘I have a buyer lined up. Remember the woman from the Wirral?’

‘Pushy madam, tarty red convertible, and a face like a flounder?’

‘One and the same. She asked me to look out for an Art Deco clock just like this.’

‘And like a dog retrieving a stick for his mistress, you did her bidding. Very commendable. And in the box?’

‘Take a look.’

While Will rewrapped the clock, Jarvis examined the fire screen then sorted through the job lot of junk, issuing forth a series of dismissive grunts and snorts. ‘Ah, what have we here?’ He held up a piece of china. ‘A Noritake powder bowl, complete with lid. Gilt still fresh and perky too. How much did you pay for the box?’

‘Five quid.’ Will took the Japanese porcelain back, knowing Jarvis only tolerated Will’s interest in Noritake ware. It wasn’t proper fine porcelain as far as Jarvis was concerned - ‘It’s hardly in the same league as Royal Worcester or Minton, Laddie, is it?’ - but even Jarvis had to admit that it was a growing market that only a fool would ignore. This scenic bowl and cover would perform nicely. Eighty quid minimum or he’d eat one of Jarvis’s grubby old hats.

After Jarvis had left, Will made a few phone calls, including one to the flounder-faced woman on the Wirral, and locked up for the night, making sure the burglar alarm was switched on. It was a state-of-the-art system, so PC Plod had told him when he’d installed it. Will had deliberately approached Steve to do the job for two reasons. One, he wanted to show how magnanimous he could be, and two, if it ever went wrong, he’d have the bugger fixing it no matter what time of day it was. And for free.

Which wasn’t the case regarding Steve’s car. Will had now paid twice for the wretched thing to be fixed. Steve had taken it to the Jaguar garage where he’d bought it and the quote that had been faxed to Will could have cleared the whole of the third-world debt problem. Yet there was nothing else for it but for Will to grit his teeth and diwy up the gelt. Suzie had taken him to task for taking the blame. ‘I feel awful,’ she’d said. ‘You should have told him the truth.’

But he’d shushed her, saying, ‘Give your dad a break. I’m racked with guilt that you come from a broken home; this is my pathetic way to make it up to you.’

‘Don’t be daft, Dad.’

‘Not even a little?’

‘No. If you keep doing things like this, people will start calling me Princess Precious. They’ll say I can’t stand on my own two feet.’

‘Rubbish. Anyway, there’s plenty of time before you have to do all that boring grown-up stuff. How about you enjoy life a bit?’

Will would give anything to change what had happened to their family - bar live with the girls’ mother again - but all he could do was indulge them now and again. In his opinion, they’d never once displayed a moment’s Princess Precious behaviour. Unlike their mother, he thought less kindly. Perhaps that was Maxine’s problem; she’d been too used to getting her own way as a young child and had come to expect it as her right. Her father had thoroughly ruined her, in Will’s opinion; he had lavished everything he possibly could on her, all except for genuine, unconditional love.

Will had also been an only child, but his father had been the antithesis of the dad he wanted to be to Suzie and Gemma. William Hart senior had been a bitter man who’d worn his disappointment on the frayed cuff of his sleeve. A self-styled working-class hero, he’d been shocked when Will had shown a desire to do well at school. William senior believed in learning at the School of Hard Knocks and when Will had announced his intention of going to university to study law, he might just as well have said he wanted to become a ballerina. In his father’s mind, he’d sold out. If working for British Rail had been good enough for him, it was certainly good enough for his son.

Will often wondered what he would have made of the son who’d sold out on his own highfalutin dream. ‘Well, you buggered that one up, didn’t you?’ he’d probably have said. ‘I could have told you you were making a mistake.’

Will’s mother had borne her husband’s moods and criticism better than Will ever had. But as soon as she was widowed and free of the tyranny of constantly being judged, Ruby had blossomed and was finally able to be herself. Having been held back for most of her married life, she confided that she was now free to make all the mistakes she wanted without a word of criticism. Off like a hound after the hare, she filled her life with a job at the local supermarket, evenings at the theatre and cinema, and organised coach trips round Britain and Europe. In keeping with this new philosophy, she’d never once criticised Will. Not even when he messed up his marriage so spectacularly with a series of affairs. The worst she had done was to tut. But that small, apparently insignificant tut had done more to bring him to his senses than any screamed condemnation Maxine had flung at him. The ‘tut’ had been followed with: ‘Are you sure this is what you want, Will?’ And, of course, it wasn’t.

Halfway down Maple Drive, he saw a small boy being dragged along by a wire-haired fox terrier. With his free hand, the boy was hanging onto a man. Behind the man was a girl. Recognising the group, Will gave a pip of the horn and a wave. Bob Swift returned it.

Will had met Bob one evening just as the light was beginning to fade. He’d been hacking back the jungle of bushes at the end of the garden when he’d heard a voice: ‘Looks like you’ve got your hands full there.’ Emerging from the undergrowth, Will had recognised his neighbour. Introductions were made and so that there could be no ambiguous awkwardness, Will had mentioned that he’d met Harriet and had learned of the family’s loss. The other man’s response had been: ‘Harriet never said anything about meeting you.’ Somehow this hadn’t surprised Will.

He took a liking to the older man and they were soon chatting about the neighbourhood. Will was amazed to discover that the Swifts had lived there for so long. The McKendricks too. ‘The four children literally grew up in each other’s pockets,’ Bob had explained. ‘They were constantly getting into some scrape or other.’ There had been several conversations since, all conducted over the gate and in the dusky half-light while Bob was out walking the recently acquired dog on the canal path. The dead daughter was never referred to again directly but her presence, he suspected, was a heavy one in Bob’s heart. He couldn’t begin to imagine how he would feel if anything happened to one of his girls.

Only a couple of packing boxes remained unopened, and stepping round these in the hall, Will carried the post through to the kitchen. One of the envelopes had Marty’s familiar, neat writing on it. He opened the envelope and drew out a card depicting a grizzled old man behind the wheel of a Hillman Imp. ‘If you’re old enough to remember the car,’ the caption read, ‘you’re too old to be driving!’ Cheers, Marty, thought Will. The next card was from his mother. She’d also sent him a music voucher. She’d never been one of those mothers who religiously gave their sons M & S sweaters or socks. ‘I know you wouldn’t return them if they didn’t fit,’ she’d once said. She knew he’d hate to hurt her feelings. Which is why that ‘tut’ still resonated in his ears. ‘Shame on you William Hart,’ it said. ‘I thought I’d brought you up better than to go screwing any woman you could lay your hands on.’ Not that his mother would ever dream of using the word ‘screw’, other than when referring to cross heads or flat heads.

Will wasn’t a great cook, but having lived on his own for as long as he had, he considered himself competent. Tonight he was knocking a chicken korma into shape. It was only at Suzie’s insistence that he was celebrating his birthday. He’d been all for letting it slip by unnoticed, but Suzie had put her foot down. He was touched, but not happy that another year had been added to those already stacked against him. Forty-six. Who’d have thought it?

 

‘Just get in the car, Gemma! Honestly, sometimes I could cheerfully kill you.’

Gemma banged the door shut.

‘What’s with the grumpy sister act?’

‘I’m not grumpy,’ snapped Suzie.

Gemma snorted. ‘Not much. So come on, what’s bugging you? Better you get it off your chest before we arrive at Dad’s and spoil the evening for him.’ To Gemma’s surprise, her sister turned very pale.

After a long silence, as though she had needed to compose herself, Suzie said, ‘I just wish you wouldn’t deliberately wind up Mum and Steve the way you do.’

Gemma rolled her eyes. ‘Like I give a toss what they think.’

‘Perhaps you should. You know perfectly well that when you play them off against Dad, it’s Dad who comes off worse.’

‘All I said was seeing as Dad had more space in his new house, I wouldn’t mind moving in with him.’

‘But there was no need for you to say it so stroppily. You know they have a big enough downer on Dad without you adding to it.’

‘Well, that’s hardly my fault.’

‘Nothing ever is!’

Gemma sank back into her seat and stared at the road ahead. She pursed her lips, annoyed. Something had rattled Suzie’s cage and she couldn’t for the life of her work out what it was. Still, it wasn’t her problem. She dismissed her sister from her mind and thought of the letter she’d received that morning from Marcel. He’d written to say that he wanted to come and see her. Could he stay? The very idea of him under the same roof as Mum and Steve made her want to leave the country. Mum would have a fit if she clapped eyes on Marcel, with his shaggy, shoulder-length hair, his pierced tongue and his goatee beard. And if she ever,
ever,
knew what they’d got up to in Paris ... well, it just wasn’t worth considering. Gemma didn’t object to a bit of boat-rocking, but she was smart enough to know that a capsize was counterproductive.