by Pamela Evans
‘Look, I really am very busy and I don’t want any central heating or double glazing at the moment, thank you.’
‘That’s just as well ’cause I don’t have any to sell you,’ he said with a wicked grin.
‘Neither do I want to talk about the bible . . .’
‘Nor do I.’
‘What are you selling then?’
‘Nothing. I just dropped by to introduce myself,’ he told her. ‘My wife and I have bought the cottage next-door and we’ll be moving in soon.’
‘Oh, dear.’ She opened the door wider, her head at an angle as she looked suitably contrite. ‘Is there a hole I can sink into?’
‘Don’t worry. Perhaps I have the hungry look of a salesman about me?’ He laughed, warm brown eyes twinkling.
‘When strangers come to the door, they’re usually selling something . . .’
‘I know. Your reaction was perfectly understandable.’ He offered his hand, smiling. ‘Giles Hamilton.’
She shook it.
‘I’m Jane Parker. But do come inside so we can introduce ourselves properly over a cup of coffee.’
‘I don’t want to impose,’ he said. ‘Not if you’re busy?’
‘We can talk while I work,’ she said, ushering him inside. ‘At least give me a chance to show you that I do have some manners.’
They entered the kitchen to a blast of warm spicy air. Every surface was covered in cakes at different stages of production - in various-shaped tins, on wire cooling trays, in uncooked form in the mixing bowl. The radio was on and someone was talking about the recent tragedy when an airliner crashed into houses near Gatwick, killing fifty people.
‘Makes you go cold to think about it, doesn’t it?’ she remarked.
‘Yes, it’s terrible,’ said Giles, slowly shaking his head.
Jane speedily removed some tins from the oven.
‘Oh, just in time,’ she said. ‘Another few minutes and they’d have been overdone . . . dry and horrible and fit only for the bin.’
He looked bewildered.
‘I make cakes for a living,’ she explained.
‘Ah, I see. No wonder you don’t want people coming to the door.’
‘Present company excepted, of course.’ She pointed to a chair. ‘Take a pew. I’ll just get this lot out of the oven and another lot in then I’ll make us some coffee.’
‘Tell me where things are and I’ll do it?’ he offered.
She took up his suggestion without hesitation. She felt as though she’d known him for years. It was extraordinary!
‘You’re a very busy lady then?’ he remarked as they waited for the kettle to boil.
‘Phew, not so you’d notice!’ She grinned, getting another tray of small cakes into the oven then easing some cooked ones out of their tins on to the cooling trays. ‘But I like having plenty to do and I really enjoy my work.’ She did a mental check around the kitchen. ‘Now I can take a short break with my coffee.’
They went into the living room, carpeted recently in a rich red and furnished comfortably in pretty cretonnes. Jane turned up the electric convector heater which she used during the day until she lit the fire for the children to come home to.
‘We’re having central heating put in before we move in next-door,’ Giles told her, making himself comfortable in an armchair.
‘Oh, lucky you! I’d love that but I can’t have it done even when I can afford it because the cottage isn’t mine.’
He explained that he and his wife were currently living in a modern semi in Hammersmith but wanted something with more character.
‘We bought the cottage at such a low price, we can afford to spend some money on it. We’ll do what we can ourselves and have professionals in for anything we don’t feel able to handle.’
‘That’s sensible.’
‘I’ll have to get the garden into a civilised state before the good weather or I’ll be in dead trouble with my young son if he can’t kick his ball about out there.’
‘You’ve a son?’ she said with Davey in mind. ‘How old is he?’
‘Seven in June.’
‘Well, I’ll be blowed,’ said Jane, delighted. ‘I’ve a little boy of the same age.’
‘That’s great,’ said Giles. ‘They’ll be company for each other.’
‘Indeed.’
‘My wife will be delighted to know that Kevin is going to have company,’ he said. ‘There are plenty of kids around where we live now and he’ll miss that. Being an only child can be lonely.’
She nodded. ‘You and your wife are both teachers, then?’
He looked puzzled for a moment, then said, ‘Ah, the lady opposite.’
‘Mrs Robinson, Tug Lane’s very own broadcasting service,’ she said with a wry grin. ‘She told me that you both work at the Gram.’
‘That’s right.’ His face seemed to light up when he spoke of his wife. ‘Lena only works part-time now, though. She went back to work when Kevin started school. Does two and a half days a week. We first met through work.’
‘What are your subjects?’ Jane asked in a conversational manner.
‘Lena teaches French, I’m the PE master, but I also teach history.’
‘The games master, eh?’ she said lightly. ‘No wonder you look so fit.’
‘It goes with the territory.’
They talked about this and that. Jane had rarely met anyone with whom she felt so quickly at ease. The thing that was most noticeable about Giles was his enthusiasm for life. He was obviously a family man and devoted to his wife and son.
‘I’m looking forward to meeting your wife,’ she said when he was about to leave.
‘I’m sure you’ll like her . . . everyone does. It’ll be nice for her to have someone of the same age living next-door. ’
‘For me too.’
‘She’ll be coming over to the cottage soon and I expect she’ll pop in to introduce herself to you,’ he said as they stood at the front door. ‘We’ll both be to and fro a lot before we move in, for various reasons. She’s working today or she’d be with me now. I came to have a look round, to see exactly what needs doing and in which order of priority.’
‘You’re not working today then?’
‘I managed to get the morning off but I’m going back now.’
They both noticed the curtains twitching in the house opposite.
‘Mrs Robinson is on duty.’ Jane grinned.
‘So it seems.’
‘I usually come in and out the back way as the car is parked in the alley,’ she said. ‘The poor thing is probably quite distraught because she can’t see me come and go.’
‘Spoilsport!’
‘Aren’t I just? But anyway, if there’s anything I can do to help . . . if you want me to let workmen in or anything, just let me know.’
‘Thanks. I’ll bear that in mind . . . cheerio.’
‘’Bye for now.’
Jane went back to her work smiling. If Giles’s wife and son were as pleasant as he was, having next-door neighbours wasn’t going to be so bad after all. In fact, she was looking forward to it.
Ron Beach wasn’t due at the hotel kitchen until lunchtime that day so he stayed in bed to keep warm. January was sheer hell in this freezing bedsit. Every morning he scraped ice off the inside of the windows, and at night went to bed fully dressed with a hot water bottle - and was still kept awake by the cold.
He was passing the time listening to the radio on which there was a discussion of the air crash near Gatwick. Wanting to escape from the misery of the subject matter, he sat up and twiddled the knob to find something a bit more cheerful and came across the Jimmy Young Show. The programme wasn’t a favourite of Ron’s but at least it was more entertaining than hearing about a plane crashing into people’s houses.
Jimmy Young played an old Beatles hit, ‘We Can Work It Out’. For some reason the song made Ron feel emotional and a lump gathered in his throat, tears flooding his eyes. He began to sing along with it but fell sil
ent suddenly, buffeted by a vivid flashback to another time when he’d been singing that song.
For the first time since the onset of his amnesia, he was able to hold on to a memory. It stayed in his mind and expanded. Like a blow to the head, he suddenly remembered who he was . . .
For a long time he lay back, holding the rough blanket around him, physically weak from the shock, his head aching as he struggled to remember more. It came in confused fragments at first, then in a flood, everything he’d longed to know for such a long time tumbling into his mind. God, what a mess! He’d been better off not knowing.
His thoughts lingered on that terrible summer’s day, the one after the failed robbery on the service-station. Now he understood his reaction to the arrest of the train robber.
He could remember not having slept that night and being in bed in the morning in the empty house after Jane and the children had gone out. He recalled the black hopelessness as he’d searched his mind for a solution to his problems. But there had been no way out. He was about to lose everything and his wife knew nothing about it. There had been a moment when he’d contemplated suicide with an overdose of tablets. But that must have been just a passing thought because the next thing he remembered was finding himself on Bognor beach with no knowledge of the journey there. That was still a complete blank.
With a burst of energy, he leaped out of bed in a state of high agitation. He must get back to Jane. She would think he’d deserted her. He had deserted her. But not in the way she would think. He had to go home and put things right - tell her he’d had some sort of a breakdown and didn’t even remember leaving. He’d been away far too long.
In a frenzy, he washed and shaved and pulled on his clothes, bursting with urgency to get home, both excited and terrified at the prospect. He brushed his hair in the mirror, smiling for the first time in ages. He’d known all along he wasn’t a loser. He was Mick Parker, well-known entrepreneur, not Ron Beach - odd jobber and nobody.
As he looked in the mirror his animated expression faded as reality nudged him and his adrenaline drained away. He couldn’t go back, not as a failure. He couldn’t face Jane, not after walking out on her. He didn’t even know where she was now - she certainly wouldn’t still be living in Maple Avenue. He knew that this was just an excuse because he could easily trace her through her father or his sister. But he realised it was a terrible thing he’d done and was too ashamed to see her - to see any of them.
He could imagine what had happened after he’d left. He would have been the talk of the manor. His name would be mud with the family for running out on his wife and children. And even worse than that, he would be a laughing stock among his mates for losing everything.
Oh, yes, there were plenty of deadbeats from the Berrywood Estate who would have been only too glad to see him go under. His father would have had a whale of a time doing him down too.
Well, no one was going to get the opportunity to gloat! They’d have had a field day behind his back but they weren’t going to get the chance to do it to his face. They’d love the fact that he’d had a breakdown, that really would raise a laugh. Oh, no, nobody was going to put Mick Parker down. Ron Beach might be an easy target for mockery but not Mick Parker.
One of these days he would go back and take his rightful place with his wife and children. But not now, not until he had regained his former prestige and had something to offer Jane, which would also protect him from scorn. She couldn’t possibly respect him as he was now. And he’d sooner not have her at all if he didn’t have her admiration.
Completely taken up with thoughts of himself, he had few for Jane’s welfare. He wanted to see her with aching desperation, and for things to be as they were before the warehouse fire. He longed to touch her, to hear her voice, to feel her soft, warm body next to his. But any concern for how she must have felt when he’d left, or how she was actually managing to survive without him to provide for her, was far outweighed by concern for his own reputation.
Mick paced the room, feverishly planning his next move. Now that he knew who he was, he could get back into the legitimate system and back into business. But he couldn’t do that here in Bognor. It just wouldn’t be feasible suddenly to become the strong and capable Mick Parker in a place where he was only known as feeble Ron Beach.
Anyway, he needed a busy place with plenty of opportunities to earn real money. He had no idea how he was going to do it but he was determined, somehow, to regain his former status. One thing he did know for certain: he was never going to wash up other people’s greasy dinner plates for a living again.
Should he go to a different area of London where he wasn’t known? he wondered, and decided that that was a bit too close to home at this stage. What about Brighton? There was always a lot going on there. Plenty of opportunity for someone with a bit of savvy to do well.
Fired with a strong sense of purpose, he began to stuff his meagre belongings into a shabby holdall.
Things will look up once you get away from here, Mick, old son, he told himself. Brighton is the place for you. But only as a stepping stone back to where you really belong, with Jane and the children.
Chapter Ten
‘You must be Lena?’ said Jane, getting out of her car in the alley just as a slim, dark-haired woman was locking a Ford Anglia parked by the back gate of the cottage next-door.
‘And you must be Jane?’ said Lena Hamilton, smiling warmly and offering her hand. ‘I’m so pleased to meet you. Giles has told me all about your little chat the other day.’
‘Fancy a coffee?’ invited Jane, who was just back from taking the children to school.
‘I’d love one,’ her new neighbour said. ‘But I don’t want to hold you up. Giles said you work from home and get very busy.’
‘I don’t have a market tomorrow so this isn’t one of my frantic days,’ Jane explained. ‘I’ve some orders to get on with but I can spare half an hour for a coffee and a chat.’
They went into her cottage and Lena sat down at the kitchen table while Jane made the coffee. Shadow immediately jumped on to Lena’s lap and made himself comfortable.
‘You’re gorgeous, aren’t you?’ She fondled his head and said to Jane, ‘I adore cats.’
‘He was here when we moved in,’ she said. ‘A scruffy little stray, taking shelter in an empty house. Now we are all enslaved to him. He went missing for a couple of days once . . . we were all demented. He breezed back as though he’d never been away.’
‘That’s cats for you, come and go as they please.’
As her husband had been, Lena was very easy to talk to. She had an educated accent without sounding affected and was attractive in a natural sort of way, with very little make-up and her dark hair worn in a simple bob. Being tall and willowy with striking green eyes, she looked especially good in her cream, thick-knit sweater and denim jeans.
‘You’re not working today then?’ remarked Jane, putting two mugs of coffee on the table and sitting down opposite her.
‘No, it isn’t my day for school so I thought I’d take the opportunity to measure the windows next-door for curtains.’
‘You must be very excited about moving in?’
Lena threw back her head and emitted a deepthroated laugh.
‘I’m not sure if excited is quite what I’m feeling,’ she said. ‘Scared stiff of what we’ve taken on would be nearer the truth. I’m dying to get on with it, though. Giles and I both enjoy a challenge.’ She chuckled. ‘There wouldn’t be much point moving in next-door if we didn’t. There’s so much work to do in there. It’ll be years before we get it the way we want it.’
‘It’ll be quite a change for you, if you’re used to a modern house.’
‘It certainly will,’ said Lena, sipping her coffee. ‘The place we’re in now is comfortable and convenient but it just isn’t us. It has all mod cons but is very boxy and on an estate of others all exactly the same. We fancy something a bit more interesting . . . and these cottages are certainly that.’
She glanced around. ‘Yours is lovely.’
‘Thank you. There’s only so much I can do to it as I rent,’ explained Jane, ‘but I love it here. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.’
‘I can understand that.’
‘Everyone thought I was off my rocker to move in here with my kids, though,’ said Jane ruefully. ‘The place was in a terrible state . . . and I’m on my own, you see.’
‘I see.’
‘My husband left me.’
‘Oh, dear.’
‘It was pretty grim at the time. I thought I’d never get over it,’ she heard herself say, surprised to be revealing this to a stranger. ‘But I survived. He’ll have been gone three years this June, so I’m used to it now.’
‘Bound to be.’
‘Anyway, once the family realised that I was determined to rent this place, they were really supportive. Even though they thought I was crackers.’
‘We’re getting a similar sort of reaction too,’ said Lena. ‘But Giles’s family think we’re a bit touched anyway.’
‘Really?’
‘Oh, yes. Well, all of them except his mother, who is also reckoned to be a bit potty by the rest of the family.’ She gave a wide grin. ‘But I adore her. She’s a real one off.’
‘Why do they think she’s potty?’ Jane couldn’t help asking. She already felt as though she and Lena were old friends.
‘Because she’s very unconventional.’
‘Oh?’
‘A theatrical type.’
‘On the stage?’
‘Not as a professional. She never managed to get into showbiz proper but has always been involved as an amateur. Local drama groups, that sort of thing,’ Lena explained. ‘When her children had grown up and left home and she had time on her hands, she started a showgroup which is still going strong. All the members are women of a certain age. “London Lights” they call themselves. They put on shows at old people’s homes and hospitals: singing, dancing, comedy sketches and monologues. Sometimes they do supper shows to raise money for charity.’