Love and Devotion (27 page)

‘And what would you know about my feelings? It’s not just Felicity I’ve lost. It’s everything. My home, my job, even my boyfriend.’

‘Well, bully for you. But just remember this; there are no exclusive rights to grief.’

He turned and stalked off the way they’d just come. Her eyes brimmed with hot, stinging tears, and she rushed on to find the children.
Bastard!
Why had she allowed him to get to her? And how the hell had he managed to grab the moral high ground?

By twisting her words, that’s how.

Robert Blatchford Taken from
My Eighty Years

 

 

 

 

It was the middle of October, and what had so far been a gentle and relatively mild autumn now consisted of strong wintry winds coming in from the north, which shook the curling leaves from the trees, sending them rattling along the streets. A fence panel had blown over in the night, and under normal circumstances Bob would have been straight out to the garden to fix it. But as he stood at the kitchen window looking at the damage, it couldn’t have interested him less: he had other things on his mind this morning. He had an appointment to keep. A rendezvous, you could say. He had been secretly counting the days and now that it was here he was doing his best to act normally. It was always possible, of course, that something had happened to change her plans, but he wouldn’t let himself dwell on that worry. Or maybe she simply said things she didn’t mean. No. Jennifer wasn’t that kind of woman. She’d said she would be coming back to Kings Melford and he had no reason to doubt her. Moreover, she’d said she wanted to photograph this stretch of the canal when autumn had really settled in.

That day when he’d accepted her offer of a cup of tea and climbed down into the snug warmth of the saloon had been a turning point for Bob. A powerful moment when he’d started to think about something other than the emptiness of his life.

‘Grief’s a terrible thing,’ she’d said matter-of-factly when not long afterwards he’d told her about Felicity - the words had come out before he could stop himself. ‘I lost my husband two years ago,’ she said, ‘and for months after his death I could hardly bring myself to get up in the morning. Some days I didn’t bother. I just stayed there howling under the duvet.’

‘What changed?’

‘You mean, how did I pull myself together? It sounds vaguely absurd, but I simply ran out of tears. I had none left. Unlike a lot of people who bottle them up, I let it all go in one long, horrid outburst. My children were probably on the verge of having me sectioned; they thought I’d lost it completely. And it’s not something I’d recommend for everyone. There were a few moments when I thought I’d lost it too. It was a very scary time. Have you cried much?’

‘Er ... a bit.’

‘In private, I’ll bet.’

‘Mostly at night,’ he’d confessed, avoiding her gaze by bending down to Toby and scratching the top of the dog’s head. ‘I go and sit inside the Wendy house I made for my daughters when they were little,’ he further admitted. ‘It’s the only place I can be alone.’

When he’d raised his glance, she’d said, ‘Oh, that’s so sad.’

‘It’s pathetic,’ he shot back, his voice too loud and harsh.

‘No, you mustn’t ever think that. You do whatever it takes. I’ve discovered the hard way that you never get over grief; you learn to live with it. It’s like having an arm chopped off and learning to manage without it. Excruciatingly painful but not impossible.’

After pouring him a second mug of tea and passing him a tin of custard creams, she said, ‘How’s your wife coping?’

‘Better than me. She has her friend Dora to talk to. It seems to make all the difference for her.’

‘Of course it does. Don’t you have any friends you can talk to?’

‘I have work colleagues but ... but since I’ve retired, well, you know how it is, the link isn’t there any more.’

She surveyed him over the rim of her mug. ‘If I’d died first, my husband would have been in the same situation as you. He spent all his life working and didn’t bother to make any real friends. It’s a terrible mistake.’

Moving the subject on, he’d asked her what she was doing, cruising the inland waterways on her own. ‘I’m satisfying a long-held ambition. Actually, it was something my husband and I had planned to do together, but when he died and I’d come out from under the duvet, I thought, what the heck, I’m going to do it anyway. I sold the house we’d lived in for more than twenty years and moved to an isolated bungalow where my only neighbour is a grumpy old farmer who is much too busy to bother me with pitying looks. And then I bought this boat and took off. So here I am living the dream. I’ve been away from home for four months and I’m having the time of my life.’ She pointed to an expensive-looking camera on a shelf. ‘I’m trying my hand at being a photographer. I want to put a book of pictures together. Maybe even have a go at getting it published.’

‘Where are you heading next?’ he’d asked, scarcely able to keep the envy out of his voice. Take me with you, he wanted to say. Take me along for the ride.

‘I’m staying here for a few days, but I’m on my way up to Yorkshire. I have some friends just north of Hebden Bridge whom I haven’t seen in a long while. They swear the run of locks up that way will finish me off, but I can’t wait to prove them wrong.’

‘Will you be passing this way again?’

Once more she’d looked at him shrewdly over the top of her cup. ‘Yes. Why do you ask?’

‘I’d be interested to hear how you get on with all those locks.’

Changing the subject, she said, ‘I’m going to moor the boat this side of a pub called The Navigation. Do you know it?’

‘You could say it’s my local.’

‘Is the food any good?’

‘It’s ages since I’ve eaten there, but I hear it’s reasonably wholesome. Their chip butties are well known round here.’

‘Sounds heavenly.’

As he’d known it would have, the next day when he was out walking Toby, the
Jennifer Rose
had moved on. Approaching the mooring points in the stretch that led to The Navigation, he saw that its owner was on the roof of the boat, sweeping the leaves that had fallen from the nearby trees. She’d told him yesterday that she’d named the boat after herself; it was what her husband had planned to do. When she saw him, she straightened up and leaned against the broom. ‘Hello,’ she said, and without referring to her watch, added, ‘it must be about time for a cuppa. Why don’t you go down below and put the kettle on?’

In all, she stayed moored in the same spot for four days. He visited her every morning and late afternoon. He came to believe that she was part of his healing process. Or was that too fanciful? He never once thought about touching or kissing her - he’d never make that mistake again — he just wanted to be with her, to sit and talk. She understood his pain because she’d experienced something similar.

At night, after she’d moved on for Yorkshire, he would lie in bed picturing Jennifer cocooned in her cosy bedroom at the prow of the boat. She’d given him a full tour of the
Jennifer
Rose and he was as fascinated by the clever design of the craft as he was with her courage to change her life so dramatically. What would Eileen say if he announced that he’d like to blow their savings on a second-hand boat and leave Maple Drive?

Now that Harriet was working, it was his job to take the children to school, and after he’d done that he poked his head round the bedroom door. Eileen was having a lie-in; she hadn’t slept well that night. ‘I’m just off out with Toby,’ he said softly. ‘See you later.’ Getting no reply, he assumed she was sleeping and crept quietly downstairs.

If he had been a younger and fitter man he would have sprinted to the towpath, but as it was, he lumbered along at his usual pace trying to keep the eager anticipation from showing on his face.

The wild wind that had blown overnight had settled, leaving twigs and bits of broken branches scattered on the ground but, annoyingly, the damp chill of autumn was aggravating his knee and he was forced to slow his pace yet more. He’d have to keep quiet about it; he didn’t want Eileen worrying. Or Harriet thinking that it was another nail in the coffin. Now that she had a job, he knew she was keen to find a place of her own and move out with the children. Was it so very wrong of him to want that too? Eileen would shush him if he ever dared to say that he was tired of having the children around, but he longed for the day when he didn’t have to worry about tripping over some toy or other left on the floor, or he could use the bathroom knowing there would be plenty of hot water. He resented his home not being his own. And he refused to feel guilty about it. He was being honest, which was more than Eileen was. She kept saying she was feeling better but he knew she wasn’t. Her afternoon naps were getting longer and sometimes she was reluctant to leave the house. If Eileen wasn’t careful, she’d turn into another Freda. He shuddered at the thought that he too might turn into a carbon copy of Harvey McKendrick: trapped and never saying a word, bitterly resigned to living a life of pretence.

He sighed, realising how angry he’d made himself. It wouldn’t do. He thought again about Harriet and the houses she had started to view. The solicitor had already made arrangements for part of the children’s trust fund to be made available and added to Harriet’s money from the sale of her flat so that should the right property become available she could go ahead and buy it. As a cash buyer, she was in an enviable position, so the solicitor had said.

The words
enviable position
echoed inside Bob’s head. It was hardly how Harriet would describe her situation, he suspected. He just hoped her new job would work out, because if the unthinkable happened and she was made redundant, having taken on a mortgage, what then? She’d have to dip into the trust fund, he told himself firmly. Or he would have to help out. Anything so long as it meant Harriet and the children didn’t move back in with him and Eileen.

He stood for a moment to rest his knee and examined the way his thoughts had gone. He was shocked how easily he’d turned his good mood upside down. I’m turning into a bitter old man, he thought miserably. This is what Felicity’s death has done to me.

He pressed on, calling Toby to heel, determined to think more positively. Today was the day Jennifer had said she would be back in Kings Melford. And sure enough, as he rounded the curve of the canal, there was the
Jennifer Rose
moored just where it had been last month. At the sight of a plume of smoke rising from the chimney his spirits rose, and ignoring the grinding pain in his knee, he quickened his pace.

‘Hello stranger,’ she said, when she emerged from the engine room, her face dotted with soot. ‘I’m having a bit of trouble with the engine. Don’t suppose you’re any good with such things, are you?’

It was just as if the intervening weeks had never passed. ‘Put the kettle on and I’ll take a look,’ he said.

 

As she listened to the other girls chattering and laughing the other side of the toilet door, Carrie slid her fingernail under the gummed-down section of the envelope and opened it. She knew without reading it what it would say. With trembling hands and her heart hammering in her chest, she unfolded the piece of paper and took a deep breath.

It was the same as the last note. And the one before that.

Carrie waited for the school bell to ring for the end of morning break and when she’d heard the last of the girls bang the door shut after them, she ripped up the letter and dropped it into the loo. Next she did the same with the envelope. She tugged hard on the toilet handle and watched the bits of paper swirl round and round before disappearing.

With her eyes fixed on the ground, she marched out of the toilets and kept on walking towards her classroom. But as each step took her nearer, her heart beat a little faster. She felt hot all over. And sick. She wished she was at home. Anywhere but here. But she
was
here and she
had
to be strong. She couldn’t let them see her cry. She was just passing the main entrance when she noticed the door was open. Usually it was shut and anyone wanting to come in would have to press a button, which would be answered by the school secretary, whose office was opposite. Carrie suddenly felt drawn to the door, and saw that Mrs Miller was sitting at her desk and talking on the phone. How easy it would be to slip away! To sneak out and spend the day wandering round the shops. Or maybe she could walk down to the canal and chat to the nice people in their boats who always waved and smiled at her and Joel. They might even invite her on board. It would be better than staying here listening to those spiteful girls calling her names and whispering about her every time she answered a question or was asked to read out something.

A glance over her shoulder told her that Mrs Miller was still talking on the phone. It gave her the courage to take a small step nearer the door. And another. Two more steps and she’d be out in the playground. If she was fast enough, she’d get to the gate before anyone saw her. And she was fast enough. She could beat anyone in her class at running. Even the boys. That’s why they didn’t like her. She was better than them at everything, especially maths. Harriet had taught her a special way to learn her times tables - a better way than Dad had - and she knew them all easypeasy. No one else in her class could do that. They were all babies still trying to work out what three times three was. Most of them couldn’t even do joined-up writing. They were useless. Well, she’d show them.

Her head zinging with excitement, she slipped quietly through the open door and made a dash for it. She kept on running until she was beyond the gate and out onto the pavement. On and on she ran, her shoes slapping on the ground, her plaits flying out behind her, the blood pounding in her ears. She’d done it!