Maxine frowned. "It"s really not a good time for one of your tiresome, not to say cryptic, stand-up routines, Will. I"m tired and likely to attack at the slightest provocation."
From behind Maxine came the thundering of feet. "Hey Dad, good to see you!"
"Wow! Look at you, Gemma, you"re positively glowing. France obviously suited you."
Maxine"s head was beginning to ache. "Okay, Will," she conceded, stepping back to let him in. "You"ve got twenty minutes, then our supper"s ready."
Chapter Ten.
Will followed Maxine and Gemma through to the kitchen, glancing left and right, an imaginary rifle c.o.c.ked and ready to go. Come on you b.a.s.t.a.r.d! Where"re you hiding? Come out and show yourself, you snivelling excuse of a man. I"ll teach you to pick on one of my daughters!
"h.e.l.lo, Will, what are you doing here?"
Will spun round. He fired and blew a hole clean through Steve"s head. Boom! Job done.
What Maxine saw in Steve was another of life"s great mysteries. Okay, the man was seriously good for a few quid, but surely looks and personality had to count for something? As far as Will was concerned, Steve was too short, too ugly, too old, too hairy and much too successful. Five years ago, Steve had taken early retirement from being a desk jockey for the police force. He"d worked his way up to being a peaked-cap and gold-braid type of copper, where the only dangerous action he saw was the occasional paper cut. Then he started his own security firm, installing burglar alarms and CCTV systems. Will didn"t know the exact figures involved, but he didn"t need to be a mathematical genius to work out that business was booming - the prestigious double-fronted Victorian house opposite the park and the expensive top-of-the-range Jag (slightly damaged) told its own story. Combine that with Maxine"s earnings from Stone"s Auctioneers, which she now ran, and they were fairly rolling in it. Like a couple of porkers in mud.
Expert these days at keeping the animosity out of his voice and sounding sufficiently blokey, Will turned up the charm ready to smooth the waters. "Hi, Steve. Good holiday?"
"Yes, but I have to tell you I"m not at all pleased with Suzie, she"s - "
He was interrupted by the girl herself coming into the kitchen. "Hey, Dad, I didn"t know you were here." She came over and planted a kiss on his cheek. He put his arm round her, and with Gemma standing the other side of him, it seemed the perfect moment to tell Steve the awful truth.
"Steve," he said, "I"ve got something to say. You won"t like it, and I"m ashamed of myself for being such a coward, but ..." he lowered his gaze to emphasise just how pitifully sorry he was, "well, the thing is, I reversed into your car when you were away and - "
"But Dad - "
He tightened his hold on Suzie. "It"s okay, you don"t need to cover for me any more, Suzie. I should never have got you to lie on my behalf. I don"t know what I was thinking of." He returned his gaze to Steve, noting Maxine"s flinty look of suspicion. "I"m really sorry, Steve. I tried my best to get it fixed before you came home, but if you want to get it done properly, just send me the bill." The feeble bleating now over, Will held out his hand. "No hard feelings I hope?" Yes! An upbeat finale. Performance over. I thank you!
It was anyone"s guess how much he"d be down on the deal by the time Steve had shopped around to find the most expensive garage to exact his revenge, but Will didn"t care. It had been pretty dumb of Suzie to borrow the wretched car in the first place, but he"d be d.a.m.ned before he"d stand back and let Steve punish her. And to h.e.l.l with what any textbook said about step-children needing to respect their step-fathers. Baloney with k.n.o.bs on! They were his children, not Steve"s. End of story.
Instead of taking the road away from the centre of town, he drove into Kings Melford. A fraction smaller than Maywood, but definitely more attractive, it had an abundance of black and white half-timbered buildings, and a quaint cobbled square that had been the original marketplace, going back to the time of Henry VIII when the town was given some kind of official status. Some Tudor duke geezer called Melford, who"d been a chum of the King, had taken a liking to the place - it was then no more than a village - and Henry had had it named in his honour. But if you really wanted to get down and dirty historically, you could do no better than visit the town"s museum and read up on its Anglo-Saxon heritage.
The museum also had a section devoted to anything and everything to do with inland waterways. The Shropshire Union ca.n.a.l skirted the top of the town and when it was built it became an important part of the system for transporting salt out of Cheshire. Nowadays it wasn"t the ca.n.a.l workers who stopped off in Kings Melford to stock up on provisions and fuel; it was the people cruising the waterways in their pleasure crafts. There was a purpose-built marina a short walk along the towpath to The Navigation - the best pub in the town, and Will"s current destination - and a couple of boat firms, one of which still made the traditional crafts so beloved by narrowboat purists.
He pa.s.sed Hart"s Antique Emporium, just off the main road and to his left, and gave his most recent business venture a salute. Strictly speaking, it wasn"t just his business: Jarvis owned the building and rented it out to Will for a nominal amount, on the basis that he took a percentage of the profits. Originally called The Tavern, it started life as an inn and during the early nineteenth century had been a popular stopover point for as many as eight coaches a day bound for Birmingham, London, Liverpool and Manchester. When the railways put coaching into a decline, Jarvis"s grandfather, Elijah Cooper, bought the inn so that he could expand his flourishing boot-and shoe-making business. Now in his mid seventies, Jarvis, who hadn"t followed in his ancestor"s footsteps (no pun intended) could still remember watching his grandfather put the finishing touches to a pair of navvy boots.
Just as Will expected, and despite the warmth of the evening, he found Jarvis in his usual chair in the snug of The Navigation. He was alone and doing the Telegraph"s crossword. More often than not, he would be surrounded by a reverential group of visiting boating folk listening to his tales of the town and his long-standing family connection with it. By the time they left, having worshipped at the knee of the town"s one true character and had their photograph taken with him, they would go away happy, but definitely poorer. Jarvis rarely bought himself a drink; after all, it was thirsty work spinning all those yarns.
Being one of the last great characters was a job that Jarvis took very seriously. A stickler for eccentric dress, he never left home unless he was wearing something off-kilter. This evening he was dressed to kill in olive-green corduroy trousers, a plaid shirt and purple waistcoat and a red silk cravat. Pretty standard stuff. But it was the burgundy monogrammed carpet slippers that really pulled the ensemble together.
"Another of what you"re drinking?" Will asked.
Jarvis looked up from his near-empty gla.s.s. "As ever, Laddie, your timing is of the perfection normally the reserve of the cavalry. I"ll have a double of my usual malt. That"s if funds are permitting?"
Will smiled. "It"s been a good week; I"ll stand you a triple."
When they were both settled with their drinks, and Will was wishing they were outside in the beer garden overlooking the ca.n.a.l in the balmy evening air, he said, "I wasn"t joking about it having been a good week. Your cut should be up nicely this month."
Jarvis waved his comment aside, as only a man could who didn"t have to worry where his next guinea was coming from. Having inherited well from those who had worried over the pennies, he had an enviably casual approach to work and money. The antiques trade had been his lifelong true love and had kept him conveniently off the streets, as he liked to put it. He"d never married and Will had absolutely no idea what his s.e.xual orientation was. He was heartily robust and theatrically camp at the same time. The first time Will set eyes on him was when he"d been going through his breakdown phase. Will had been playing truant at an auction and had noticed a dapper man in a fedora. To make his bid, he would raise his chin no more than a hair"s breadth and the auctioneer would notice him every time. His manner had such an air of authority that Will couldn"t take his eyes off him. He saw him again at another saleroom in Shropshire, and then in Kings Melford in The Navigation, not long before he and Maxine split up. Will had introduced himself and discovered that the man was Jarvis Cooper, a local dealer. After buying him a drink, Will mentioned that he was thinking of getting into the business himself.
"Don"t do it, Laddie," Jarvis had said in the kind of voice Noel Coward had used to tell Mrs Worthington not to put her daughter on the stage. "Buying and selling is like trying to satisfy an insatiable nymphomaniac; the more you give her, the more she"ll take from you. She"ll use and abuse you, then spit you out and move onto her next lover."
"I rather like the sound of that. Where do I sign up?"
Jarvis had laughed and asked if he"d like to have a look at The Tavern. Thinking this was an invitation to join him on a pub crawl, he"d agreed. The Tavern turned out to be a rambling, three-storey Aladdin"s cave. It was chock-full of goodies that ranged from fifties tat to exquisite pieces of porcelain. Jarvis had a particular weakness for Royal Worcester and there were cabinets of the stuff. "Your first lesson," he said, unlocking one of the cabinets and selecting a fragile cup and saucer. "Put a value on that. Two clues: it"s hand-painted, circa 1917."
"I haven"t a clue."
"China not your thing, Laddie?"
"I was thinking more of specialising in furniture."
"Ah, you think porcelain is for poofters and nancy boys, do you?"
"I didn"t say that."
"No, Laddie. It"s implicit in the disinterested way you"re holding that near piece of perfection. Give it to me. You see, Laddie, if you"re to make your way in this business you have to feel it. You have to breathe in the workmanship. Picture the artist bent over his bench as he laboured over his work. Think of his family back in their terraced house in Worcester as they waited for their father, an unsung hero of his time, to come home with nowt but a few shillings in his pocket. These were painted by a true artist, but he was treated as little better than a factory worker on a production line. Even the great man himself, James Stinton, thought he was just a humble craftsman." He sighed. "I tell you, it"s enough to make a grown man weep."
Watching Jarvis cradle the porcelain, clucking and cooing over it, Will began to see a whole new world open up. He wanted to feel what Jarvis felt. He wanted that buzz that so clearly brought this old-timer to life.
Under Jarvis"s tutelage, Will learned fast. He learned how to check out the goods at saleroom previews, how to study the catalogue and the importance of listing the prices the pieces fetched under the hammer. His days revolved around researching, collecting, buying and selling, and he soon realised that being in the antique trade wasn"t about money. It was the buzz. The thrill of the chase. But it wasn"t plain sailing; sometimes Jarvis deliberately set him up. Like the dud Jacobean oak coffer he promised would make Will a nice little turn. Turned out to be a fake. A good fake, mind. "Caveat emptor, Laddie!" Jarvis told him. Which was posh-speak for buyer beware! It was an important lesson. It taught him to listen to other dealers but not to trust a single word they uttered. Not unlike lawyers, really. "Dealers are the biggest storytellers going," Jarvis warned him. "They can spin a yarn about the provenance of a fake that would be so convincing it would have you and all the other punters selling your grandmothers to raise the money to buy it."
But the best story these yarn-spinning dealers had ever come up with was that Will was Jarvis"s illegitimate, long-lost son. Will didn"t object to the gossip; in fact he"d have preferred to have Jarvis as his father and not the miserable specimen nature had landed him with.
"The reason it"s been a good week," he said, bringing his thoughts back to the present, "is that I"ve sold that pair of Charley Baldwyn vases; you know the ones - "
"The swans?"
"Yes."
"I shall miss them." Jarvis took a sip of his malt whisky and a.s.sumed the air of a man already in deep mourning. "They went to another dealer, presumably? Who was it? Some London runner?"
"No. A couple looking for pension alternatives."
"Ah, a familiar tale."
It was true; a lot of their business was going this way. These days people were afraid to put their money in stocks and shares, so antiques seemed a safer bet. And they could be, providing you didn"t go and fall in love with the pieces and couldn"t bring yourself to sell when the time came.
After finishing his drink, Will left Jarvis to his crossword and drove onto his next port of call. Sandra had texted him earlier to say that the coast would be clear that evening. Her husband was something big in the world of piping - industrial piping as opposed to cake decoration - and was often away, leaving Sandra alone and bored. A dangerous combination for a woman in her forties, so Sandra claimed. "I"m in my prime and I have my needs," she said after one of their trysts. That"s a woman for you, always needing to justify her actions.
He"d met Sandra at an antique fair in Harrogate. Their stands were opposite each other, and as with all dealers, they"d spent a good deal of time eyeing up each other"s goods under the pretext of being sociable.
Fresh out of the bath, Sandra was wrapped in only a towel and smelling of super-strength musk. She was in full frisky mood. Exchanging a few pleasantries - jacket and shoes off - she led the way upstairs. Afterwards, when she went back downstairs to make a post-coital cup of tea, Will stared up at the ceiling and thought of Sandra"s husband. No guilt, he told himself. You know the drill; Sandra and her husband have an open marriage. For all you know, the man is probably in bed with another woman right now.
But deep down, Will knew it was wrong. Even in the most open of relationships people could get hurt. Having fun at the expense of someone else could only ever end in tears. It was selfish and irresponsible. His train of thought surprised him and he suddenly didn"t want to hang around for anything else Sandra might have in mind.
He was halfway through pulling on his trousers when she appeared in the doorway. She was stark naked, her modesty partially concealed behind the contents of a particularly fine butler"s tray. "Oh, no you don"t," she said. "David"s back tomorrow, so I need to make the most of you while I can."
"I wish I could oblige, but I have an early start in the morning. An auction over in Colwyn Bay."
She put the tray down on the oak chest at the foot of the bed, revealing the glory of her voluptuous body. What man could resist such a tempting offer?
But he did. Sometimes he surprised himself. He tried to kiss her goodnight but she wasn"t having it. "You"re not the only man I could have a good time with, Will," she said petulantly. She was clearly offended and he was sorry for that.
He drove home, the windows down so that the cool night air would keep him awake. He was bone-tired. As he turned into Maple Drive, in the light cast from his headlamps he saw a figure in a baseball cap crossing the road. A young teenager out at this time of night? Or was he a lad out for a night of petty thieving? Will slowed his speed and drew alongside the boy, who was moving fast. There was no obvious sign of any swag, but who knows what his pockets were filled with. Deciding to be a good neighbour and challenge the lad, Will leaned across the pa.s.senger seat to the open window. "You"re out late, sonny."
The boy turned and gave him a look that could have cut through graphite.
It wasn"t a boy. It was the daughter of the couple who lived opposite him. Or at least he thought she was their daughter. That and the mother of those two young children he saw occasionally. He hadn"t spotted a father to the boy and girl, but who knows what went for a father these days. With the engine purring, he pursued her down the road - she" d made no attempt to slow her pace, let alone stop. "I"m sorry," he called out of the window, "it was the cap. It makes you look like a boy."
Still she didn"t stop, and as she turned into the drive of number twenty without a word, he had to accept that his apology had compounded the insult.
As he got ready for bed he wondered what she"d been doing out so late, especially as, if his guesswork was correct, she"d emerged from his side of the road, where the footpath was. Surely she hadn"t been down to the ca.n.a.l in the darkness on her own.
He knew next to nothing about his neighbours; he"d been so busy since moving in he hadn"t had time to get to know them. Perhaps now, after his monumental gaffe, he ought to make more of an effort to be sociable.
Chapter Eleven.
It was the last week of August and with only six days to go until the start of the autumn term, Harriet and her parents, plus Carrie and Joel, were meeting the headmistress of Kings Melford Junior School. There was an air of forced jollity as they drove the short distance and Harriet suspected that the children could see right through Bob and Eileen"s attempts to rea.s.sure them that there was nothing to worry about. Joel"s anxiety, as he twisted his silky round his hand and sucked his thumb, was all too evident; he hadn"t eaten much breakfast and he"d wet the bed again last night. Perhaps it was a mistake to keep lifting him out of Carrie"s bed and putting him in his own.
Privately Harriet was counting the days until the children would go to school. Once they were there, it would give her and her parents some much-needed breathing s.p.a.ce, but more importantly it meant that Harriet could make a start on finding a job. She"d promised her parents she wouldn"t do this until the children were settled at school and the pressure was off them all. There had been talk of Carrie attending school part way through the summer term, but rightly or wrongly, they"d decided against it. Splitting the two children at such a crucial time hadn"t seemed a good idea.
Bob parked in an allotted visitor"s s.p.a.ce next to one marked "Headmistress". The school was just as Harriet remembered it. An expanse of depressing dark brickwork that shouted from its slate roof tops that you entered at your peril. The Victorians had a lot to answer for when it came to designing schools. Had they deliberately gone all out to make them seem like prisons? But despite its daunting appearance, both Harriet and Felicity had enjoyed their time there.
"Well," said Eileen, when they were all out of the car and she was fussing with Carrie"s skirt, which had got rucked up during the journey. "Here we are then." The breezy note was again too forced and completely at odds with the look on Carrie"s face as she glanced up at the forbidding building.
"It looks horrible," she said.
Yesterday, in a rare moment of loquacity, Carrie had talked about her old school - not the one in Newcastle, which she"d hardly got to know, but the previous one in Exeter. She"d told them how new and modern it was, and how there were carpets in the cla.s.srooms and hamster cages and fish tanks in the corridors.
"Well," said Bob, echoing his wife. "Shall we go in?"
Neither child moved.
Impatient to get on, Harriet took hold of their hands. "Okay kiddos, let"s get this over and done with." She dragged them through the doors, ignoring the dead-weight reluctance in their bodies and the look of alarm on her parents" faces.
The headmistress, all bustling efficiency, greeted them with a handshake. Her name was Mrs Thompson. She was a plump woman in her mid fifties with a s.h.a.ggy perm and gold, hooped earrings. She was wearing a navy jacket that was slightly too large for her, the cuffs dangling down as though she might one day grow into it. Pearly pink toenails peeped through open-toed sandals. Her lipstick was the same colour. "And you two must be Carrie and Joel," she said with excruciating cheerfulness, pushing her s.h.a.ggy head into their faces. "We"re all looking forward to having you here with us."
Carrie gave the woman a cool stare. Joel edged away.
"And now that you"re such a big boy starting school," she laughed, fixing her attention on Joel and giving his grubby silky a disapproving look, "you"ll be able to leave that at home, won"t you? Now then," she continued to the adults, still using the same patronising tone, "I thought we"d have a little look around the school, and then stop for a little chat in my office."
Where I might give you a little slap, you irritating woman, thought Harriet as they fell in behind her. She wished now that they"d got this over and done with sooner, but not wanting to rush the children into too much too soon, her parents had said that so long as Carrie and Joel had places lined up at the school, having a look around it could wait. It was immaterial anyway. This was the school they were going to, whether they liked the look of it or not. It was more or less on their doorstep, and there was also the link with their mother, which Harriet hoped would mean something to them, maybe even help them settle in.
She certainly hoped this was the case, because precious little else she was seeing gave her cause to hope that Carrie and Joel would feel settled. Reports of schools being woefully under-funded were always in the newspapers, but here was the reality. The building looked as if nothing had been spent on it since Harriet and Felicity had been pupils here. The corridors were just as gloomy and echoey. The walls were all bare and Mrs Thompson was currently explaining the reason for this. "It"s always a bad time to see a school between terms, but once we"re underway next week, these walls will be beautifully decorated with children"s artwork. The place will really come alive." She pushed open a door and suddenly turned on Carrie. "This will be your cla.s.sroom."
They dutifully trooped in and stood to admire the book corner, the freshly painted blackboard and the groups of desks. Harriet didn"t know exactly how old she"d been, but this had been her cla.s.sroom at some stage. She could remember being told off for talking when she should have been listening to the teacher read out some dreary poem. She"d been made to stand at the front of the cla.s.s and recite her seven times tables. She"d recited them in seconds flat only to be reprimanded again for showing off. She then remembered who it was she"d been talking to: Miles McKendrick. In those days he hadn"t enjoyed English; like her he"d preferred maths and fiddling around with jars of water and food dyes in their makeshift science lessons. Ironically, he"d gone on to study English at university, as his brother Dominic had done, and he now ran Novel Ways, the bookshop over in Maywood. She kept meaning to get in touch with him, but since she"d moved back permanently the days had just slipped by. She was slightly hurt that he hadn"t been in touch himself. His mother, Freda, had mentioned to Eileen something about him being away on holiday, so maybe that was it. She decided to give him a ring. Having an old friend around would go a long way to cheering her up.
Realising that the others were moving on to the next part of the tour, she followed behind. When they were back out into the corridor, she felt a hand slip through hers. It was Joel, and clearly something was bothering him; his eyes were br.i.m.m.i.n.g with tearful misery. Her heart sank. What now? "You okay, Joel?" It was a stupid question, but what else could she say? But then he did something that inexplicably made her throat constrict. He leant against her, his head resting on her side, his face hidden. She knew he was trying hard not to cry. Leaving the others to go on without them, she prised him away from her and bent down to him. "What is it, Joel?"
He raised his head. "I want to go home," he whispered, his lower lip trembling.
"Right now?"
He nodded.
"Any particular reason why?"
His eyes flickered to the far end of the corridor where the headmistress was opening another door.
"You don"t like Mrs Thompson?"
He shook his head. Tears spilled down his cheeks. He buried his face in his silky.
Harriet had to steel herself. She hated it when he cried. It made her want to cry too. "That"s okay," she said quietly. "Promise you won"t tell anyone, but I don"t like Mrs Thompson either. The good news is that you"ll hardly see anything of her. She"s a headmistress, which means she has to sit behind a big desk every day and write lots of boring letters and ring the bell for break-time and lessons."
He peered over the top of his silky. "Really?"
"For sure. Come on, we"d better catch up with the others."
She should have felt relieved that yet another crisis had been averted, but all she felt was exhaustion. Was that how it was going to be for the next thirteen and a half years? Thirteen and a half long years until Joel was eighteen and legally no longer her responsibility. She"d get less for murder.
That evening, and while her mother was upstairs supervising the children"s bedtime, Harriet helped her father clear away supper. The children were now at least eating and the return of their appet.i.tes did mean Harriet and her parents had one less worry.
The subject of school hadn"t been discussed during the meal, yet it was clear it had to be very much on Carrie"s and Joel"s minds. Tomorrow Harriet was taking them to buy the necessary items of school uniform.
As the last of the plates was stacked in the dishwasher, Bob said, "Harriet, I want to talk to you."
It sounded ominous and at once Harriet was worried that it was about her mother. Was Mum"s ME getting worse? "What is it, Dad?"
"Don"t look so worried. Come and sit down with me."
She did as he said.
Sitting opposite her, he said, "I don"t want you to take this the wrong way, and your mother and I certainly aren"t criticising you, but - "