The Girl From Barefoot House (47 page)

He was looking back through rose-coloured glasses. They hadn’t got on all that well in Bingham Mews, where he’d been frustrated by success he hadn’t wanted. She realised, sadly, that something in him had died. This was the old, easygoing Jack, the charming, twinkling Jack she’d married in New York, but now resigned to the fact he would never be a successful playwright. The need to survive – earn a crust, as he’d put it – had killed any ambition he used to have. It was the way of the world, no doubt full of middle-aged men and women who’d long ago given up their dreams of becoming famous at something or other.

‘I think another bottle of vino is called for.’ He went
over to the bar. It was the fourth bottle he’d ordered. Josie had had two glasses and was toying with her third. His brain seemed surprisingly unaffected by the amount he’d drunk. He was lucid, witty, clear-headed. There was merely that slight stiffness in the way he walked. She decided to say nothing. Criticising his drinking, mild in comparison to now, had caused tension when they’d lived in Bingham Mews.

It was almost dark when they came out of the pub, and they wandered, arm in arm, down to the Pier Head, then caught the bus back to Huskisson Street.

She showed him round the offices downstairs. ‘We have only six staff, and one of them’s part time, though I’ll have to take on some new people soon. Production’s increased, everybody’s working their socks off at the moment.’

‘You’ve done incredibly well.’ He eyed the rows of Barefoot House books in their bright red covers. ‘Strange,’ he said in an odd voice. ‘It was me who wanted to be someone, not you. You once said all you wanted was a family. Now look at us! I’m a third-rate script editor on third-rate movies, and you’re a successful businesswoman.’

‘Perhaps this …’ Josie waved a hand at the books, ‘… is instead of a family. Anyroad, I’ve got Dinah.
She’s
me family, even if she’s the only one.’

‘That’s nice to know,’ a voice said brightly, and Josie turned, startled. Dinah came sauntering into the room. ‘I decided to shut up shop and come home.’ She stared at them defiantly. She must have got changed since she arrived, as Josie recognised the yellow cotton frock as one she’d left behind when she went to London. Her long legs were bare, and she wore Indian sandals, the sort that fitted between the toes, which Josie had never been
able to wear because they were so uncomfortable. The long fair hair was slightly damp, brushed away from her slightly flushed face. She looked exquisitely fresh and lovely.

‘Hello, luv! What a nice surprise.’ Josie kissed her daughter’s cheek. She stayed, holding her hand, concerned that the defiant look was because she and Jack gave the impression of being a couple, and Dinah felt excluded. ‘This is your dad.’

Jack didn’t move. Oh, but the look on him! Josie could have wept as myriad emotions chased across his handsome, mobile face: astonishment, followed by admiration for the beautiful young woman who was his daughter; anger for some reason Josie couldn’t define, perhaps because he’d never been told of her existence until now; sadness, possibly for the same reason; then the soft, gentle, fond look that people gave, usually women, when they set eyes on a small baby. ‘Hi, Dinah,’ was all he said.

‘Hello,’ Dinah replied. ‘The kettle’s on, Mum. It’ll have boiled by now. Shall I make tea?’

‘Please, luv.’

‘Like mother, like daughter, the same passion for tea,’ Jack commented as Dinah ran lightly upstairs. Then he turned away, his back to her. It was a while before he spoke, and when he did his voice was thick. ‘Christ, Josie! When I think of what I’ve missed. What we’ve
both
missed. We could have been together all this time, raised Dinah between us. We could have had more children, the family you’ve always wanted.’

‘Don’t think like that, Jack,’ she said softly. ‘It’s too late.’ Or was it? It was too late for children, but not for them to be together. She had plenty of money. She could turn the attic into a study, he could write full time.
Twenty years ago she had made the mistake of sending him away. Now she would ask him to come back. ‘Jack,’ she said hesitantly.

‘Yes, sweetheart?’ He faced her, and her heart ached when she saw the tears in his eyes.

‘Why don’t we get married again?’

He smiled his dear, sweet smile. ‘We can’t, sweetheart. There’s all sorts of reasons why we can’t.’

‘I can’t think of a single one.’

‘There’s Jessie Mae,’ he said. ‘I can’t leave Jessie Mae. She’d go to pieces without me.’

‘Bring her to Liverpool. She can live with you, with us, here.’

He slid his arms around her waist and shook his head. ‘That wouldn’t work, sweetheart. She’s Hollywood born and bred, and she would never accept another woman in my life. She’d be impossible to live with.’

They stood in each other’s arms, their chins resting on one another’s shoulders. It felt so comfortable, Josie thought, so natural. This is where God intended me to be! She remembered thinking the same thing the night they’d met.

‘You’ve given this girl twenty years of your life, Jack,’ she said reasonably. ‘Isn’t it time you had a life yourself?’

‘I promised her mother on her deathbed that I’d always care for Jessie Mae. I can’t go back on that.’

Not even for me? she almost said, but it would have sounded childish, and she knew that Jack Coltrane would never go back on his word to a dying woman. ‘I suppose I’ll have to wait until Jessie Mae finds a husband. Will you marry me then?’

She leaned back so that they were face to face, and was cut to the quick when he suddenly pushed her away with a curt, ‘No!’

‘Why not?’ she asked, startled.

‘Christ, Josie!’ His face was dark with anger. ‘Are you always so persistent? Hasn’t it entered your head that I might not want to get married again?’

‘But you said earlier …’

‘I was lamenting the years we’d lost, that’s all. I’ve had it with relationships, up to here.’ He held a hand to his chin. ‘When Jessie Mae gets married I want to live alone, in peace.’

It was too much. It had been such a peculiar day, what with the strange dreams earlier, the heat, Jack coming, being so strangely drunk, having to tell Dinah her father was there, then Dinah herself coming all the way from London and behaving so coolly, upstairs now, making tea. There’d been a brief vision of happiness, imagining living with Jack again, and now the brutal rejection, which wasn’t a bit like the Jack she used to know.

Josie burst into tears, wild, racking tears that tore at her body and made her chest want to burst.

‘Sweetheart!’ Jack threw himself in the chair behind the desk and dragged her on to his knee. ‘Oh, my darling girl. I love you so much. I didn’t remember how much until earlier when you came running downstairs. You’re
part
of me. I love you with all my heart and soul. There is nothing on earth I want more than for us to be married, to spend the rest of our lives in each other’s arms. But it’s not to be, my love.’

‘Why not?’ she sobbed. ‘I love you just the same. I always have, Jack. I want what you want. I understand if we can’t have it right this minute, but surely we can have it in the future?’

His arms tightened around her so that she could hardly breathe. ‘I’m no longer the guy you first met,’ he said
savagely. ‘I haven’t been in a long time. I’m a physical and emotional wreck. I get depressed. I have terrible black moods. I’m on pills for my nerves.’

‘I don’t care, I love you. Anyroad, you wouldn’t need pills if you were with me. I’d make you better.’

‘Josie, I ruined your life once, I don’t want to ruin it a second time.’ He gestured around the office. ‘You’ve got a great business, a lovely daughter, a nice life. The last thing you want is me fucking everything up for a second time.’

Josie began to cry again. ‘This afternoon was wonderful. Oh, Jack, half of our lives are already over. Why can’t we spend what’s left with each other?’ With all his faults, she would sooner have Jack Coltrane than any other man on earth.

He stayed for six days, Dinah left after two, by which time they were getting on reasonably well. They talked mainly about films, which seemed to be a cover for things the more wary Dinah would prefer to avoid for now. She left for London on Wednesday morning, having kissed her mother and shaken Jack’s hand. ‘I hope we’ll meet again one day,’ she said politely.

‘Well,’ Jack said with a grin after she’d gone, ‘I suppose a kiss and a “Dad” was too much to expect after only two days.’

‘A kiss might be on the cards, but I’m afraid “Dad” is most unlikely. She talked to me about it yesterday. “Jack” is the most you can look forward to.’

‘That’s better than nothing, which is all I’ve had so far. Oh, I’m not complaining,’ he said hastily, when Josie opened her mouth to say he was expecting too much too soon. ‘I feel privileged that such a stunning, autocratic
and supremely confident young woman was so nice to me.’

‘She’s not quite as confident as she appears.’ Josie didn’t want him getting the wrong impression of their daughter. ‘She was a very withdrawn little girl. It was my fault. I didn’t want her, Jack. She came too soon after Laura. I think she sensed she wasn’t welcome, even though she was only a tiny baby.’

‘Ah, Laura!’ Jack said the name reverently. They had hardly mentioned their other daughter. ‘She would have been twenty-five. I wonder what she would have looked like?’

‘I often wonder the same thing,’ Josie said softly. ‘I reckon she would have been a female version of you and driven the boys wild.’

‘Why did we call her Laura?’ He looked puzzled. ‘I’ve tried to remember, but I can’t. It drives me crazy sometimes.’

‘We saw that film together in a little cinema in New York –
Laura
, with Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews. When I was expecting, we decided on Laura for a girl, Patrick if it was a boy.’

‘We had a girl, but then we lost her.’ Jack’s face was tight with pain. ‘Since that day I’ve never driven a car. I’m not surprised you never wanted to see me again.’

‘I wanted to see you again within a week. But you’d already gone, to California, according to Elsie Forrest. If it had been New York, I would have tried to find you.’

‘Don’t say things like that!’ he groaned. ‘I went through hell over the next few years, and it doesn’t help to find I could have been with you – and Dinah.’

‘By the way, should Dinah ever bring the subject up, she’s named after Dinah Shore, your favourite singer.’

He looked taken aback. ‘Did I say I liked Dinah Shore?’

‘No, but I couldn’t tell her she was called after the midwife because I couldn’t be bothered to think of a name meself, could I?’

‘Where are we going today?’ he asked when they were outside, after she had checked that Barefoot House was working smoothly without her. Cathy reminded her of the manuscript, My
Favourite Murderer
, that she’d been given to read.

‘I’ll read it this weekend,’ Josie promised. ‘My friend, well, actually, it’s my ex-husband, goes back to California on Saturday morning. I’ll be looking for something to do.’

‘We’re going to New Brighton on the ferry,’ she told Jack. The day before, they’d gone to Southport, and she’d showed him the arcade where she’d had tea with Louisa, and where Mr Bernstein’s little bookshop used to be, now a burger bar. They’d been to Old Swan to look for the house where he used to live, but it was no longer there. ‘Tonight I thought we could go and see Lily.’

He made a hideous face. ‘Are you two still friends? How’s that poor guy she married? Assuming he’s not already dead.’

‘Neil was dispensed with ages ago. She’s got a different husband, Francie, and two lovely little boys, as well as two grown-up daughters.’

The weather had remained hot and humid all week, and New Brighton was packed with day-trippers. There wasn’t even the suggestion of a breeze drifting across the crowded beach from the Mersey. They bought fish and chips and ate them out the paper, then an ice-cream
cornet with a chocolate flake. Josie wanted to go to the fairground, but Jack complained he felt queasy. ‘I need a drink to settle my stomach.’

‘I would have thought a drink would make it worse.’

He smiled. ‘You don’t know my stomach.’

She agreed that she had little acquaintance with his stomach. In the big, busy pub she found two seats, and her eyes searched for Jack in the hordes waiting at the bar. He was ages getting served. She’d asked for coffee, and wondered why two large glasses of spirits were placed in front of him when at last he caught the bartender’s eye. To her dismay, she saw him quickly swallow one in a single gulp while waiting for the coffee. Her heart sank. He was drinking massively more than he’d done in Bingham Mews. She had investigated his bag and discovered two bottles of Jack Daniels. This morning there’d been only one. There was also a bottle of mouthwash, which he must have used to disguise the fact that every time he went to the bathroom he had a drink. Or two.

‘Here we are.’ He put a glass and the coffee on the table. ‘You’ve got a cookie with yours, on the house.’

‘Ta.’ She grabbed his hand. ‘I love you.’

‘I love you, sweetheart.’ He kissed the hand that was tightly holding his.

‘I wish you could stay.’

‘So do I, but it’s not possible, I told you …’

‘I know.’ She grimaced. ‘Jessie Mae.’ One day, though, she would get him back. She was set on it. In the meantime, she could have cheerfully strangled bloody Jessie Mae, particularly when, after only a few minutes, Jack returned to the bar and gave a repeat performance with the two drinks.

‘He looks ill,’ Lily declared when the two men went to the pub. Francie and Jack had taken to each other instantly, and it had been Francie’s idea to go out. ‘And he isn’t half thin, Jose.’

‘The first time you met, you told him he was fat!’

‘He looked healthier fat.’

‘Francie’s no more than skin and bone,’ Josie said tartly.

‘Yes, but he’s healthily thin. Jack’s like death warmed up.’

Josie rolled her eyes. ‘Talking about skin, why is it you always manage to get under mine?’

‘Mind you …’ Lily winked ‘… he has a
ravaged
sort of look. It’s dead sexy.’

‘I would prefer it if you didn’t describe my ex-husband as sexy, Mrs O’Leary. It’s just not done.’