Precious Time (59 page)

‘You can open your eyes now.’

He was in the banqueting hall. It had been thoroughly cleaned, was almost unrecognisable. There were candles everywhere, and balloons and streamers. A long, thin table ran the length of the room; it was laden with food. There was a square cake in the middle of it all and it had … small blue candles on it.

And then it dawned on him. It was a party. A birthday party.

His father came towards him with a glass of champagne. ‘Happy birthday, Jonah.’

‘But … it’s not until next week.’

His father shook his head. ‘This is your proper birthday, son. This was the day you were born, and from now on, this is when we celebrate that fact.’

Still recovering from the surprise of seeing Clara, Jonah now had this second shock to deal with. Nothing could have stunned him more. To anyone else it might have seemed an act of madness to accept what his father had laid down all those years ago, but it had never bothered him. All families had their foibles, their unique way of handling difficult situations, and Jonah had simply gone along with Gabriel’s wishes. But it touched him deeply to know that his father now cared enough to rewrite the rule book. He took the glass from Gabriel’s outstretched hand. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ he murmured. ‘I’m overwhelmed.’

Gabriel turned to the rest of the room. ‘In that case, how about we all have a crack at it for him?’

With his arm round Shirley’s waist, Archie raised his glass. ‘Here’s to new beginnings and making the most of what time we have.’

‘Hear, hear!’ said Shirley, chinking her glass against his.

‘Or, how about here’s to Clara not discovering that Jonah’s gay?’

‘Caspar!’

‘Only joking, Dad. Here’s to it, brother, may you always look older and uglier than me. May the heavens always rain on you and the sun shine its rays on me.’

Smiling, Jonah turned to Clara who now had Ned resting on her hip - he was dipping a finger into her glass. ‘And do you have any words of wisdom?’

‘I think I’m with Archie on this one. It’s got to be, “To new beginnings”.’

They sat in the gathering darkness on the stone bench beneath the library window. The air was warm and still, and way off in the distance, a dog was barking. Archie and Shirley had gone home, Ned was in bed, and Gabriel and Caspar were in the kitchen tidying up.

Clara leaned into Jonah and he rested an arm around her shoulder.

‘A good birthday?’ she asked.

‘The best.’

‘Even if Caspar did try to bring your sexuality into question?’

He tilted his head back and smiled. ‘I took that as a reassuring sign that my brother is on the mend. I’d rather have him like that than the shattered mess he’s been since we brought him back from Rosewood.’

‘How

generous of you. I’m not sure I’d be so forgiving.’

‘Don’t go making me out to be a saint, I haven’t always thought so well of him.’ He picked up her hand, raised it to his lips and kissed it tenderly. After a companionable silence had passed between them, he said, ‘Clara, this might seem a strange question, but why do you and my father still call one another by your surnames?’

‘Because it’s all part of the act we put on for one another’s benefit.

It would spoil everything if we ever stopped doing it. It’s a sign of affection between us. A code, I suppose. A game that only the two of us are in on. Sorry if that excludes you.’

‘Don’t apologise. I think it’s nice. You realise, don’t you, that it’s going to be a strange old courtship, trying to win the heart of a woman who lives with my father? Heaven help me if I don’t get you home on time.’

She laughed. ‘Only you would call it a courtship.’

He laughed too. ‘What would you prefer I called it?’

She thought about this. ‘Mm … after giving it my fullest consideration, I think courtship will do just fine. Despite outward appearances, I’m a straightforward old-fashioned girl, who needs to take things slowly.’

‘Just my kind of girl, then.’

‘I bet that’s not what you thought when you first met me.’

‘That’s true. If I remember rightly it was fear at first sight. I thought, Here’s a woman who could more than punch her weight.’

‘No better basis for a long and lasting relationship.’

Smiling, he turned his head towards her. ‘Dare I ask permission for an extremely long and lingering birthday kiss?’

‘Permission granted.’

Having said goodnight to Caspar, who had decided to head back to Manchester and not stay the night as he had thought he might, Gabriel stood in the darkness at the library window. With a glass of whisky in his hand, he gazed at the silhouetted figures on the bench outside.

He raised his glass to them both. ‘Happy birthday, Jonah. By God, you’ve earned it. And to you, Miss Clara Costello. I may have lost my daughter, but I have the feeling I might be lucky and have the gift of another.’

He turned and looked up at Anastasia’s portrait, conscious that she had waited a long time for this moment. ‘We got there in the end, my darling girl. It took a while, but I think we got there.’

Raising his glass once more, he said, ‘To you, my dearest

Anastasia. To Val, and to Damson … In my clumsy inadequate way, I loved you all.’

The End.