‘David and I got put into care. Some idiot decided that it would be best for us if we were parted. But we’d always had this pact that if we were ever split, we would meet each other under Big Ben on my sixteenth birthday at midday, just as the clock struck. And when I turned up, he was there waiting for me. He was huge. He’d started beefing himself up so that he could always protect us both. He’s obsessed, even now, with staying big and powerful.
‘David took the name of that big, dependable clock and I became Raychel, because that was the name of the shopkeeper who rang the police. We changed our surname to Love, just because we liked it. We moved around but we never felt really settled anywhere, until Ben got the job here.’
Elizabeth couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Her world had been turned upside-down by these revelations, old loyalties and loves smashed in an instant. She hadn’t imagined any of this, not even in her worst nightmares. And Elizabeth Silkstone still had terrible nightmares.
‘So you see,’ said Raychel, smiling strangely and dry-eyed, ‘I don’t know if you’re my aunt or my sister because you’re both, aren’t you? And Ben is my husband and yet we share a sister.’ She laughed and that laugh slid without warning into hard, gulping tears.
‘My mother traced me last year and wrote to me,’ Raychel began again, wiping her tears away with the heel of her hand. ‘She wanted to meet up, she said she had things to tell me. I didn’t reply. I didn’t want to have anything to do with her or anyone connected with her ever again. I would never have children, even if I could. I’d be too terrified of hurting them.’
So many feelings coursed through Elizabeth, she had no hope of separating them and defining them. But she knew what was most troubling this beautiful young woman standing in front of her because she had lived through the same. She had been terrified that the pattern would be repeated in her, that her rotten genes would out. For a long time she had thought that women coming from ‘stock’ like her had no business procreating. Then she had got pregnant and inside her a tigress roared that would protect her child at any cost.
‘My darling girl,’ she said, ‘I would kill anyone who tried to hurt my son like you were hurt. Never think that you would make the same choices as your mother. Good God.’ She felt her head spin and a sick feeling descend on her stomach. The monster that was Raychel’s mother was the same sister she had worried about and cried for all those years. She steadied herself with the back of the chair.
‘Where was Bev living when you got that letter?’
‘She returned to Newcastle when she was released and was calling herself Bev Hunt again. I threw the letter away and I didn’t keep the address.’
‘Thank goodness you have Ben, and he has you,’ said Elizabeth, wanting to cry for Ben too. She thought of him in the gym, ensuring he was always at the fittest and strongest state his body could achieve. A little boy’s fears still present in the big, grown man.
‘We’re happy now,’ said Raychel softly. ‘We do lots of nice, daft things together. Things we missed out on. But he still has nightmares and it breaks my heart. I’ve always felt that we are separate from the rest of the world, as if we don’t fit in and shouldn’t try.’
All these years she had been duty-bound to keep people away from her. She felt so unclean that she had been one step away from carrying a leper’s bell.
‘Letting people close to you can be hard,’ said Elizabeth gently. Once she too had felt not worthy enough to be treated kindly. ‘But never think that you don’t deserve friendship and love because of other people’s mistakes. I understand what you’re going through.’ Elizabeth took the young woman’s face in her hands. ‘Oh Raychel, I can’t tell you how glad I am that you came to see me. But I never imagined any of this.’
‘Can I come and see you again?’ said Raychel in a quiet, hopeful voice. She surprised herself by asking. She hadn’t planned to.
Elizabeth pulled the younger woman into a firm embrace. She didn’t say anything, neither did she need to.
They held each other for a long time. They had both found something in each other they didn’t expect. There was no word for it, just a feeling of peace.
Chapter 47
On the Thursday evening, Gordon glanced over the top of his newspaper at Grace and said, ‘You look tired,’ with an alien, gentle note to his voice. ‘Has this week been a bit rough?’
‘I’m fine,’ snapped Grace by way of a response. She wasn’t though. She hadn’t been sleeping particularly well, with the events of the past few weeks racing around her head and denying her brain any rest. Paul and Laura no longer rang the house in case Gordon answered and her mobile was set on silent so that Gordon wouldn’t know when they sent a text. Sarah was the only one who rang, but only when she needed a baby-sitter, yet an answerphone always greeted Grace whenever she rang her youngest daughter to see if she was feeling fine in her pregnancy. Sarah hadn’t asked about or mentioned her brother or her sister to Grace, not that Laura and Paul would have expected Sarah to ring them and offer her support. Grace could never work out how she had turned out so much more cold-hearted than her siblings. If anything, she had been more indulged, more cosseted.
‘You should get an early night,’ said Gordon. ‘Go on, off to bed with you.’
Grace sat on the retort that was rising in her throat. It was half past eight, for goodness sake. Why on earth would she want to go to bed at half past eight?
‘I might look tired, but I’m fine,’ said Grace again with a tight smile.
‘What about going part-time?’ he asked, rattling the broadsheet sports page into a readable shape. ‘You should ask.’
‘Maybe later,’ said Grace. ‘I’m enjoying this job and I don’t want to start making demands so early on.’ Work life was the only thing keeping her smile muscle alive and giving her brain some respite from the family situation. Since Laura and Paul and Joe were banished from the house, there were no moments of light relief from Gordon’s suffocating presence. She was beginning to have nightmares about being in a tiny airless caravan with him. There were no doors or windows in it and she couldn’t move without touching him.
‘I’ll make us some hot chocolate,’ said Gordon.
Grace didn’t resist. It was easier to let him do what he wanted. Then again, it always had been. Plus it stopped him rattling on about how tired she looked and got him out of her sight for five minutes.
‘There now, that’s just the thing to relax you,’ he said, delivering a mug to Grace’s hands. She had barely got halfway through it when she started yawning and felt distinctly drowsy. Maybe Gordon was right for once, she conceded, after saying goodnight to him. Maybe she was more tired than she thought.
Chapter 48
When Christie came in early the next morning, Grace was already there, sitting at her desk, resting her head in her hands. She had a killer headache, worse than any hangover.
‘Goodness, Grace, are you all right? You looked drip-white!’ said Christie immediately.
Not you as well, was Grace’s immediate thought. First Gordon telling her she looked tired, now also her work colleagues. She had been asleep by quarter past nine the previous night and barely remembered her head touching the pillow. It had been a solid, dreamless sleep and she woke up at five-thirty with her head booming. She felt as if she had only had half the amount of rest she should have had. Extra strength paracetamol had taken the edge off the pain but they’d worn off now and her headache was worse than ever. She had just swallowed two more and hoped their power would kick in quickly.
‘Here, have my coffee,’ said Christie, parking it in front of her. ‘I haven’t touched it and you take the same as me, don’t you – milk, no sugar?’
‘No, I’m fine,’ said Grace, but Christie wasn’t one to take no for an answer. ‘OK, thank you, Christie. I just had a very heavy sleep. I feel more drained than if I hadn’t had any at all.’
‘Why on earth did you come in if you’re not well?’ said Christie, wagging her finge
r. ‘Go home and let your husband cosset you!’
‘God forbid!’ said Grace quickly. She would rather try and work through the headache than be at home with him.
‘Home not a good place to be at the moment?’ asked Christie tentatively.
Grace pressed at her head which stopped the throbbing pain temporarily.
‘You could say that,’ said Grace. ‘I think my husband is having a late mid-life crisis.’
‘Is he going out clubbing in leather trousers?’ Christie asked gently.
‘No, quite the opposite. He wants me to retire and live happily ever after in a caravan, knitting socks and sucking on Werther’s Originals.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Christie. ‘Bit early for all that, isn’t it?’ Grace was the sort of vibrant woman she could imagine being still beautiful and wearing high heels in her nineties. She couldn’t visualize her ever wearing Devon Violets perfume or dowdy hats. Funny, she hadn’t pictured Grace with an ‘old-headed’ husband either.
‘It’s a nuisance,’ said Grace. ‘He’s got so much worse of late. I don’t know what’s the matter with him at all.’
‘How long did you say you’d been married?’ asked Christie.
‘Twenty-three years. You’d think in that length of time you’d know someone pretty well, but . . . lately . . . it’s as if he’s a different person. There’s something . . . strange going on in his . . .’
She tapped her temple, then realized that she was saying too much. She was so preoccupied with her headache that her tongue was running away with her.
Malcolm’s chirpy appearance chopped that conversation off.
‘Morning, ladies.’ He did a double-take at the sight of Grace’s face. She looked as though she’d been whacked on the nose; her eyes were puffy with dark shadows underneath them. Ooh, is the graceful Grace a bit of a boozer on the side, then? ‘Day off today for half the department, is it?’
‘No,’ replied Christie, with no attempt at a returning smile. ‘But then it is only early.’
There were ten minutes to go before the official working hours began. It wasn’t their fault Malcolm turned up at a ridiculous hour. Just because he was at work eighty-seven hours a day, didn’t mean he did any work, except when Mr McAskill was hovering. Then he could have got an Oscar for over-acting the part of a busy Cheese B.U.M.
Malcolm opened his mouth to give a smart retort but was headed off at the pass by Christie upping and breezing past him.
‘You’ll have to excuse me, Malcolm, but I have a meeting with James. See you in a little while, Grace. And remember what I said. You are to go home if that headache gets any worse.’
‘If you have a minute later . . .’ Malcolm called behind Christie, but she appeared not to hear him. He suspected she had chosen not to.
Grace’s head was down now and she too seemed to be ignoring him.
Malcolm bristled. He hated that Christie Somers’s department held him in such obvious disdain. Bitches.
‘How’s things with you then?’ Grace asked Anna later when she was distributing the coffees. Thank goodness the tablets had driven away her headache and she was feeling much brighter.
‘Not bad, not bad at all,’ replied Anna, nodding, surprised actually that it was the truth and not just something she felt she ought to say. Things weren’t that bad. At the moment anyway.
‘Any word from Tony?’
‘Nothing,’ said Anna. ‘Not a dicky bird.’
‘You seem to be coping a lot better with it.’
‘Well, the trouble is, Grace, I never know when a big thought of him is going to hit me. Sometimes I can be at home and thinking about some daft thing that Dawn’s said and then – whoosh – this big tidal wave of Tony hits me and knocks me for six. He’s still paying his half of our bills into the bank, so all isn’t lost, I suppose.’
‘And how are things going with the vampiric designer?’ asked Grace, sipping gratefully on the coffee. Her throat had been horribly parched all day.
‘It’s all quite fun actually, though I’m not sure how I’ll feel when I turn on the TV and see all my widescreen cellulite on display. Can’t wait for that night.’ Anna shivered at the thought of it.
‘You talk about yourself as if you’re an enormous horror, and nothing could be further from the truth,’ Grace chided her gently. ‘And by the way, that colour on your hair is lovely.’
‘Thanks, I did it yesterday. It was well overdue.’
‘You’re a lovely-looking woman. Vladimir Darq must think you have something special, otherwise he wouldn’t have picked you out.’
‘No, he picked me because he thinks I’m a “blank canvas”. You can’t get much blanker than this,’ and Anna gestured towards her body. ‘Still, I’m intrigued to see if he can put me in touch with this sex goddess that’s apparently inside me. Needle and haystack are words that come to mind.’
‘You know, you should wear a bright red lipstick, like Christie does.’ Grace visualized the effect. ‘You could easily carry it off with your colouring.’
‘Hmm . . . I just might go and buy one at the weekend then,’ mused Anna. Jane Cleve-Jones wore a very brave fire-engine red lippy and it looked gorgeous.
‘My daughter wears one by Mac. Makes her lips look lovely and soft. But you’d have to go to Meadowhall for that.’
‘Like I’ve anything else to do?’ said Anna with a grin. ‘The weekend will be long enough as it is with Bank Holiday Monday added to it. I think a little shopping trip to Meadowhall will do me good. Grace, are you OK yourself? You’re very pale today.’
‘I’m fine, thank you,’ said Grace. ‘I had a bit of a headache this morning, but it’s just about gone now.’
‘Here,’ said Anna and delved in her bag, pulling out a little bottle. ‘Lavender oil. Put some on your temples. I don’t want it back, there’s a few drops left in. I’ve got more at home.’
‘Thank you,’ said Grace, warmed by Anna’s kindness. She so enjoyed working here, with these women, and hoped she wouldn’t have to give it up for a long time. Since coming to this department, she was increasingly aware that her life was running the opposite to how other people’s did – work is what she rushed to, home was what she rushed from. No, she wouldn’t be asking for part time, as Gordon suggested. Not in a million years.
That afternoon, en route to a meeting, Malcolm just happened to be passing Reception when he saw one of the ladies at the desk having an increasingly heated conversation with a man in a brown coat and a trilby. He looked like an extra from the black-and-white version of Brief Encounter, very British and upright. Kathleen, the receptionist, was shaking her head and whatever she was shaking her head at, the bloke in the hat wasn’t having any of it. Malcolm quite fancied Kathleen. She was a tidy, trim piece and he seized on the opportunity to earn some brownie points.
‘Can I help?’ Malcolm enquired.
‘This “gentleman” wants to speak to the head of HR but, as I’ve explained, she’s on holiday,’ said Kathleen in a polite but spiky voice.
‘Well, I’m not leaving here until I’ve spoken to someone with authority in that department,’ said the man. Kathleen looked both vexed and exasperated and her eyes were pleading with Malcolm to help her.
‘May I ask what it’s regarding?’ said Malcolm smoothly, with a calming, plastic smile.
‘And you are?’ demanded the man rudely.
‘My name is Malcolm Spatchcock. I’m a Business Unit Manager.’
‘You’re not in Personnel though or whatever they call it these days.’
‘We’re all interlinked,’ bluffed Malcolm.
The man mused for a few moments, then obviously decided to trust in the smiling manager in front of him, ‘I’m here about my wife. She works in Bakery. Her name is Grace Beamish.’
This was all getting more confusing by the moment. As Gordon turned his back to the Reception desk, Kathleen was mouthing at Malcolm, ‘Did he want her to call security?’
But Malcolm was too intent on being
the hero of the hour.
‘Ah yes, I know Grace. Until recently I was her manager in Bakery. Why don’t you come and sit down over here and tell me what it’s about, and then we can see if I can help you, and your wife.’
‘I don’t want to sit down, I want something sorting,’ said Gordon, stabbing his finger in Malcolm’s direction. ‘I want someone to tell me why my wife has been passed over for early retirement again and again. If you were her boss, you can explain that to me, can’t you? Eh?’
Malcolm drew Gordon back away from the Reception desk where Gordon’s raised voice was beginning to attract attention.
‘I’m slightly confused,’ said Malcolm smoothly, rather relishing the fact that he might be about to drop someone in the smelly stuff. ‘We are talking about the same Grace Beamish? The lady who is now the Deputy Manager of Bakery?’
‘We are indeed,’ said Gordon stiffly.
‘But . . .’ Malcolm knew he shouldn’t be saying this. It was confidential. Then again, he could always worm his way out of it by saying he was tricked into releasing the information, if it came to it. ‘. . . Mrs Beamish was offered the chance of early retirement on two occasions that I’m aware of and turned it down.’
Malcolm watched Gordon’s jaw tighten. He wouldn’t have put the graceful Grace with an old, unsmiling man like this. He thought she would have more taste in husbands. He had always imagined her with an ex-army officer type with money, not Mr Mothball 1930. He looked more like her dad than her husband.
‘She turned it down?’ said Gordon, as breathless as if he had been winded. ‘She turned it down?’
‘Hmmm . . . yes. Maybe she’s regretting it though. She was looking very tired this morning when I passed her. I do hope she’s all right.’
‘She turned it down,’ Gordon said again. He seemed to be having trouble absorbing the words.
‘Well . . . I really can’t say any more. I shouldn’t divulge a colleague’s business. Even to their spouse.’
But there was nothing more to say. Gordon had been told everything he needed to know. He silently turned his back on Malcolm without saying another word and marched out of the building.
A Summer Fling Page 21