by Pamela Evans
After sobbing his heart out in her kitchen last Christmas, he’d seemed to drag himself out of the doldrums, on the surface anyway. He’d resumed various commitments including the management of the Riverside Juniors until the end of the season, while Jane inherited Lena’s job of laundering the team shirts. She also helped transport some of the boys whose parents couldn’t get to the matches. Fortunately, most of the games were on a Sunday morning so she was available.
In helping Giles through this time of adversity, Jane found personal fulfilment. Whereas Mick had encouraged her to think of enjoyment only in terms of organised entertainment and material comfort, Giles opened her eyes to simple pleasures that cost nothing beyond a little effort. Although their relationship was platonic, he took far more interest in her as a person than Mick ever had. It was only in retrospect that she could see that her life with her husband had revolved around him entirely. She had been happy enough in his shadow because she had known nothing else. But life was much more satisfying for her now.
‘Getting back to this shop idea of yours,’ Giles said as the children ran on ahead, ‘do you have any area in mind?’
‘Well, actually, it’s funny you should say that . . .’
‘You’ve already found somewhere, haven’t you?’ he cut in, laughing.
‘Yes, there’s an empty shop for rent in Chiswick High Road that I think would be suitable. It used to be a sweet shop,’ she explained. ‘It’s only small but big enough for what I need as I shall be doing the baking at home.’
‘Will it cost very much to set it up as a cake-shop?’
‘Not a huge amount, especially as I’m only going to rent the premises,’ she said. ‘But I will need some working capital.’
‘More than you have to hand?’
‘Yes. I seem to have poured all my money into the cottage since it became mine . . . what with central heating and other improvements.’
‘Does the shop need much in the way of alteration?’ he asked.
‘Nothing major,’ she said. ‘Just a few modern shop fittings. And I want it painted inside from top to bottom. I shall continue to do the markets until the last minute so I won’t lose the income.’
‘What will you do about the working capital, though?’
‘I shall just have to throw myself on the mercy of my bank manager.’
‘I’d help if I could but a teacher’s salary doesn’t run to lending people money.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of borrowing money from you,’ she said, aghast at the suggestion. ‘I’ve a good track record with the bank so I’m hoping they’ll support me in this new venture.’
‘If you need any practical help, getting the shop organised, you can rely on me,’ Giles offered. ‘School finishes for the summer holidays soon, so I’ll have plenty of time.’
He looked haunted suddenly, his face pinched with pain. She realised that the once-longed-for summer break was anticipated with dread this year, without his beloved Lena. Kevin was going to feel it too but he was of an age where friends could fill the gap, up to a point.
‘It’s kind of you to offer, Giles. I appreciate that.’
‘I can’t come up with the money you need but I do have plenty of muscle . . . and it’s all at your disposal.’
‘You don’t know what you’re letting yourself in for,’ Jane said lightly, but there was more than a grain of truth in what she said because she had just thought of a way of helping him through his first long summer holiday as a widower.
‘I like the white streaks in your hair,’ teased Giles, coming down the ladder where he’d been painting the ceiling of Jane’s shop while she worked on the walls. ‘They’re very fetching.’
‘Oh, no! How could I have got paint in my hair when it’s covered up?’ wailed Jane, who was wearing her oldest jeans and a tee-shirt, a scarf tied securely around her head.
‘Your hair’s come out at the front.’
‘Damn!’
‘Come here,’ he said, putting his paintbrush into a tin of turpentine. He dipped a small piece of rag into the chemical. ‘Let’s see if I can get it off with this stuff.’
Putting her paintbrush into the turps, Jane went over to him and waited while he rubbed at her hair, inwardly trembling with pleasure at his close proximity.
‘Well, I’ve got most of it off,’ he said after a while. ‘You’ll have to cut the other bits off or let the paint grow out.’
‘Thanks, Giles,’ she said, reluctantly moving away.
‘My pleasure.’
‘Time to break for lunch, I think.’
‘The perfect moment for a rest,’ he agreed. ‘I’ve finished the ceiling.’
‘Well done,’ she said, looking up. ‘You’ve made a good job of it.’
They sat on a couple of orange boxes in the shop area and Jane produced a flask of coffee and some cold chicken and salad, with apple cake to follow because it was Giles’s favourite.
‘I wonder if the children are enjoying themselves?’ she remarked.
‘I shouldn’t think there’s any doubt about that as they’re with my mother,’ he told her. ‘She’ll spoil ’em rotten.’
‘A picnic by the river at Runnymede today, isn’t it?’ said Jane.
‘Yes, I think that’s what she said was on today’s agenda.’
‘It’s certainly been a great help, having her keep the children occupied while we get on with this.’ Trudy had taken the children out somewhere most days so that Jane and Giles could work at the shop undisturbed. ‘She’s a brick.’
‘Has she told you about her latest craze?’ he asked chattily.
‘Ballroom dancing, you mean?’
He nodded.
‘Yes, I’ve heard all about that.’
‘She loves it.’
‘I think she would try to get my father to go along with her but he’s safe this time because it’s in the afternoon while he’s at work.’
‘When he retires there’ll be no stopping her,’ warned Giles.
They both chuckled because Trudy’s dogged quest to get the reserved Joe Harris ‘out of his shell’ was still a standing joke.
Giles cast his eye around the shop with its neo-Georgian bow window, the walls that Jane had finished looking fresh and white.
‘With any luck, Cottage Cakes will be ready to open on time,’ he said.
‘Yes. Thanks to you.’
She glanced around the empty shop, imagining how it would look with gleaming glass shelves and a modern counter. It had a room at the back with a kitchen for staff use and all the usual facilities. The Georgian-style shop front was very pretty and stood out among the other shops in the parade.
Having persuaded the bank to support her in this project, Jane had had an exciting time setting it all up - all the more enjoyable because Giles had taken such an active part, helping her to choose shop fittings and new equipment for the kitchen. It was he who’d suggested they paint the shop themselves to save the cost of professional decorators. It had been great fun and she adored being with him. Between Trudy and Marie, the children were having a good time too, so everyone was happy.
‘I’ve enjoyed working on it with you.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really.’
Giles was speaking the truth, albeit that enjoyment didn’t have quite the same meaning for him now. When Lena was alive, it had meant a feeling of happiness and exuberance. These days it was simply a time when the pain of his grief was slightly less acute.
Helping Jane to set up her business had been therapeutic in that it had kept him occupied and given him something different to think about. It had also given him Jane’s company, something he valued highly because she was so easy to be with. When he was with her he didn’t have to pretend he wasn’t still missing Lena because he knew Jane missed her too. With Jane he could talk about his late wife without causing embarrassment because she also wanted to talk about Lena. Jane was a terrific friend, he thought, looking at her with affection as she sat opposite
him, smudged with paint, her big brown eyes resting on him warmly.
‘As much as you can enjoy anything, eh?’ she said, reading his thoughts.
‘You’re getting to know me too well.’
‘Not really. But I do know how painful it is to lose someone you love,’ she said, pouring him another mug of coffee and handing it to him.
Something about the warmth and caring in her tone touched Giles deeply and hot tears welled beneath his lids.
‘Oh, dear, I’m sorry, Jane,’ he said, rummaging in his trouser pocket for a handkerchief. ‘It still hits me when I’m least expecting it.’ He put his hands to his head. ‘This great black cloud . . . Will it ever go away? Will I ever want to stop thinking about her?’
‘It’s still quite early days . . . not a year yet,’ she reminded him.
He leaned forward and took her hand.
‘You’re so good for me,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’
‘You’d manage,’ she said, feeling dangerously emotional. ‘But I’m glad to be here for you. We help each other.’
Of course, he had no idea that she had fallen in love with him and wanted to be with him every second of the day. It seemed wrong to think of him in this way, somehow, almost as if Lena were still alive and Jane trespassing on her territory. Jane hoped that in time Giles would learn to love her too, but that wouldn’t happen for a while because he was still besotted with his wife’s memory. Jane sensed that even to hint at how she felt at this stage might bring their association to an end because Giles wasn’t ready to cope with anything more than friendship just now. For the moment she had to make do with being his friend. And wait, and hope . . .
‘You’re a true friend, Jane,’ he said, confirming her own thoughts on the subject.
‘It isn’t all one-sided, you know,’ she said, smiling to bring some levity back into their conversation. ‘Anyone who gives up a chunk of their summer holidays to help me paint a shop must be counted a true friend.’
They smiled at each other. The afternoon sun shone through the shop window, blurred by liquid cleaner that had been spread liberally on the glass to give them some privacy. The atmosphere became intimate. Jane felt so close to him she almost blurted out her true feelings.
‘Come on then,’ Giles said quickly, as though he was aware of the change of mood and made uneasy by it. ‘Back to work.’
‘Slave driver,’ she said lightly, restoring the casual atmosphere, and they went cheerfully back to their work.
They were all there for the opening of Cottage Cakes at the end of August: Jane, Giles, Trudy, Marie and Eddie, and all the children. Even Jane’s father took the morning off work to give her his support. Rita and Wilf Parker had been invited but didn’t show up.
Jane had drifted away from Mick’s parents over the years. She still took the children to visit them quite regularly but her parents-in-law made no effort to pursue a close relationship with her. Without Mick there seemed no point as he had been their only common interest.
Davey and Pip thought it was very exciting, their mother having a shop of her own. Jane had to admit to a moment of pride too, when the fruits of her labours were put on show, looking colourful and appetising; iced cakes, apple cakes, sponges, fruit cake, chocolate gâteaux and a range of dairy cream items in a refrigerated display cabinet.
‘Well . . . to Cottage Cakes,’ said Giles, cracking open a bottle of champagne in the staff room just before they opened the doors.
Congratulations and good wishes abounded. But the party ended as business began.
‘Now for the difficult part,’ said Jane as customers began piling in. ‘Making sure the punters keep coming back for more.’
‘If you’ll pardon the pun,’ said Giles with a wicked grin, ‘it’ll be a piece of cake for someone like you.’
There were groans all round.
‘Well, what do you think of it, then, Pats?’ asked Mick Parker eagerly.
‘It’s very nice,’ she said in her matter-of-fact way, shivering against the cold.
‘Nice?’ he echoed with disapproval. ‘Is that all you’ve got to say about it?’
‘What else can I say, Mick?’ she replied, hugging herself and stamping her feet to stop them going numb. ‘It’s a car, not the flaming Crown Jewels!’
‘It isn’t just any car.’
‘Okay, it’s a very smart motor,’ she said, teeth chattering. ‘Now can we get in and go home, please? I’m frozen solid, standing about out here. I hope to God there’s a heater in it.’
‘Of course there’s a heater in it,’ he said irritably. ‘As if they’d sell a car of this quality without a heater.’
It was a bitter night the following January and Mick had come to collect Patsy from her late shift at the pub. He usually spent most of the evening in the Drake’s Arms and he and Patsy went home together. Tonight he’d been later because he’d been to buy a Jaguar from a man in Worthing.
‘Get the doors open and let’s get the heater working, then,’ she said.
‘But look at those lines, Pats,’ said Mick, still gazing at the vehicle in the pale glow from the street lights. ‘Beautiful, innit?’
‘Yeah, yeah, it’s lovely, Mick,’ she said, impatient because she was so cold. ‘But I can be a lot more enthusiastic from the inside of a car on a night like this! So stop going all poetic and let me in, or I’ll get a cab to take me home.’
He opened the door at last.
‘Ooh, thank Gawd for that,’ she said, settling into the passenger seat. ‘What with aching feet and frostbite, I’ll be glad to get home.’
‘We could go to a club for an hour or so to unwind, if you like?’
‘No, I’d sooner go straight home tonight, thanks, Mick.’
‘Okay.’
He started the engine and they rolled away.
‘Do you like the colour?’
‘What of?’
‘The car, of course.’
‘Oh, yeah. Blue, innit? I couldn’t see properly in the street lights.’
‘Not just blue . . . metallic blue.’
‘Nice.’
‘There you go again, calling it nice,’ he rebuked. ‘Nice isn’t a word normally associated with a Jaguar. Fabulous, fantastic, terrific . . . nice is what you call cream buns!’
‘You should know me by now, Mick,’ she said, still shivering because the car hadn’t yet warmed up. ‘I’m not the sort of person to go over the top about things.’
‘You can say that again!’
‘Anyway, I don’t know one car from another. So long as it gets me from A to B, that’s all I’m really bothered about.’
‘Doesn’t it make you feel good to be seen in it, though?’ he asked.
‘Not really.’
‘Honestly . . . you are the limit!’
‘Look, so long as I enjoy going about in it, why should I give a toss what other people think about it?’
‘Oh, I give up.’
To Mick there was something both infuriating and endearing about Patsy. The fact that it was impossible to impress her with possessions made her the most undemanding of women to be with. On the other hand, it was rather discouraging for him, as he aspired to better things, to find that Patsy couldn’t give a damn and was just as happy with him at the bottom of the pile.
Even when he’d managed to get a foothold on the property ladder again by taking out a mortgage on a luxury flat in a classy block overlooking the sea, her plebeian attitude had coloured her reaction.
‘It’s a right little palace,’ she’d said as she’d cast her eyes over the marble bathroom and dream kitchen. ‘I hope we’re not gonna be stuck with snobby neighbours, though?’
‘There won’t be any riff-raff in flats like these.’
‘Except us!’
‘Bloody cheek,’ he’d said, outraged because he still had delusions of grandeur. ‘I take that as an insult.’
‘Oh, do be realistic, Mick dear,’ she’d said. ‘I’m a barmaid
and you’re a wholesaler dealing in dodgy gear. We’re not gonna find it easy to make conversation with retired bankers or city solicitors who have a flat in Brighton as a weekend place.’
But the fact that she thought he was wonderful, rich or poor, gave him a lot of pleasure despite the fact that he still saw their life together as temporary. If things had been different and he hadn’t been planning to return to his wife and children, he and Patsy could probably have made a go of it in the long term because they got on really well. He’d grown fond of her and enjoyed their rather offbeat life together; late suppers at clubs after she’d finished work, mixing with bohemian types and little-known seaside entertainers they got talking to in pubs and clubs. Sometimes she insisted on a spot of more traditional leisure, and they would drive out to the downs and have a drink in a country pub. She even got him walking sometimes too. No one had ever done that before.
Patsy might be as common as muck but she was quite a woman, he thought, taking a sideways look at her now, sitting beside him in her synthetic fur coat and excessive jewellery, some cheap that she’d bought herself, some expensive that he’d given her. Being able to buy such presents really marked his return to success and Mick revelled in it.
Of course, Patsy wasn’t in the same league as Jane. How could she be when his wife was in a class of her own? Sometimes he couldn’t get a clear image of her face into his mind. Leaving as he had, he didn’t even have a photograph to jog his memory. He’d perfected a little trick though. He found that if he remembered the highlight of his day in his other life, coming home to Jane and the children after work of an evening, then he could picture her clearly, looking up as he went in at the kitchen door, or standing at the front door to greet him. In his mind’s eye he saw her warm brown eyes, her shiny hair and gentle smile.
He longed to go back and still didn’t doubt that she would have him. Any negative thoughts in that direction were instantly cast out in the same way as he dismissed anything that he found unpalatable. So far as he was concerned, there would never be anyone else for Jane, in the same way as there could never be any other woman for him. Patsy was just a stopgap. Once he had some real money behind him, he’d go back and face the music at home. A good few people would sit up and take notice when they realised that Mick Parker was back in the money and on the scene.