‘You should keep away from that family,’ she warned, which surprised him.
‘The Martins are a wonderful family. They’re the only people I have in the world. I’m lucky to be part of their lives.’
‘The whole family have secrets that would shock you if they were ever told, believe me. Let Zena go, Jake, find someone more deserving of you.’
He didn’t argue, presuming that she and Greg had had a dis-agreement and he was best out of it.
Jake was coming home, Zena sang the words in her mind as she did her various cleaning jobs, a smile on her face that wouldn’t go away. This time they would really talk. Perhaps this was the weekend when he’d tell her he was coming home for good, that London had been a mistake and he was returning to Cold Brook Vale where he belonged.
He arrived by train on Friday morning at eleven o’clock, and went to Llyn Hir and explained as he hugged her, that the man who had borrowed their car needed it a while longer. ‘I couldn’t wait, lovely girl. I had the weekend free of appointments so I took an extra day and here I am. What shall we do? Where shall we go? I feel like a prisoner let out of jail, being back home with you.’
‘It’s still “home”, then?’
‘Always will be, love, no matter where we go. Cold Brook Vale will still be home.’
She was laughing at his enthusiasm, hugging him, then holding his arm as he picked up his bags from the doorstep and went inside. ‘We’ll start this evening, Jake, love. This afternoon I have to work.’
‘What? I’ve got the whole weekend off and you have to work? Oh Zena, what sort of welcome is that?’
Still laughing she explained that it was only two hours between two and four and then she was free
‘I’ll go to the stationers to see your mam and then to say hello to your Aunty Mabs. That will fill a couple of hours and Aunty Mabs will fill me in on all that’s happened while I’ve been away, I’ll get more news from her than your occasional letters,’ he teased. She frowned but decided he was joking, knowing he was the one who rarely made contact.
It was a wonderful weekend and the hours fled as they walked and talked and made plans. London was the only black spot as Jake tried to persuade her to join him.
‘I keep hoping you’ll miss this place so much you’ll come home,’ she admitted. ‘I’m happy here and with Dad ill I really need to be on hand to help.’
‘Come for a weekend. I’ll find us a nice hotel and show you some of the exciting places London has to offer. I’ll book a theatre, and you’ll enjoy looking at the amazing shops. We can visit the parks. Oh, and it’ll be separate rooms tell your father.’ He grinned. ‘Unless…?’
She shook her head, and ignoring his last words, said, ‘We can’t afford it, Jake. I’m not earning much, just enough to survive. But the flat is rented and that money is going into our savings. We don’t want to spend what we’ve struggled to save.’
He pleaded and reasoned and eventually they agreed on a weekend for him to give her a taste of London sometime soon.
With Jake’s help, Rose found a better place, a more generously sized bedsit with facilities for simple cooking and he helped her to move her few belongings. It would still be strange, living so far from everything she knew but at least she was comfortable and Jake was a friend. Over the next few days she scoured secondhand shops, and furnished the room comfortably, making it her own. A pretty couch-cum-bed cover, a few ornaments, a picture. The additions made her hopeful of settling to her new life and forgetting the harshness of her parting from Greg.
She occasionally went on dates but always ended a friendship the moment there was a hint of a commitment. She knew she wasn’t beautiful and when someone told her she was, it was time to run for the hills!
She was lonely but filled her time learning shorthand and typing, which she didn’t enjoy, but the thought of returning to that empty room with no prospects of a knock on her door was a worse alternative, so she studied French as well, leaving just four empty evenings. She closed the curtains and locked the door as soon as she went inside. For the rest of the time she studied and dealt with cleaning. She blamed Greg, both hating him and, at the same time, grieving what she had lost. If only things had been different.
Although not expecting, or planning to, she began to go out with Jake sometimes. She felt at ease with him, no worries about a friendship changing to something more; he was going to marry Zena. Madeleine from the office where he worked, joined them one evening and the three of them went to a concert, tickets provided by Madeleine.
Jake was pleased to see the two people getting on well and they arranged other evenings together.
Zena was surprised when she reached home one day to see a smart, blue sports car standing at the gate. Surely not Greg’s? Or, heaven forbid, not Jake’s? This looked too grand and whoever it belonged to, what was it doing here? She went in calling, ‘Mam? Whose car is this? Surely not Greg’s? He always says he doesn’t need one.’
Her mother came out and behind her was Sam. ‘It’s yours, Zena,’ her mother said, ‘but Sam had better explain.’
‘Mine? But I haven’t bought a car!’
‘A man called Bill Harvey brought it, but as there was no one in, he left it with me. He’d borrowed it to take his children on holiday, and Jake asked him to deliver it back to you.’
‘I don’t understand. To go on holiday? Jake told me the man, a colleague from work, needed it for work as his had broken down.’
Sam frowned, raised his shoulders in a ‘You know what Jake is like’ kind of gesture.
‘This Bill Harvey,’ he went on, ‘said that Jake is the kindest, most generous man he’s ever known. He did extra deliveries in his own time for him when his children were ill and refused to take a penny in payment. He sent flowers to Madeleine the secretary when she was off with a twisted ankle and called to see her twice to see if she needed help.’ Sam looked at Zena with a quizzical expression. ‘A decent bloke, your Jake?’ It was more than a question than a comment.
‘Yes,’ Zena relied, forcing a smile that quickly faded to a frown. Surely Jake hadn’t bought a car just to lend it to this Bill Harvey? She wondered how much of their savings had disappeared as he concentrated on being a ‘decent bloke’.
When Sam had gone, leaving the papers and keys of the car, Lottie asked what she was going to do. ‘Keep it? Sell it?’
‘Jake is foolish at times but he’s a generous man who can’t resist helping someone in trouble. It’s something I have to understand and live with.’ Zena frowned. ‘Uncle Sam has never liked Jake, has he?’
‘Sam still blames Jake for the death of his son. Jake was with Peter when he fell into the sea. He ran to get help and Sam believes he could have saved Peter if he’d stayed. No one else blamed Jake. He was only twelve and he ran for help, which was all he could do. But nothing will persuade Sam of that. He believes Jake ran away instead of trying to save Peter.’
The car sat there while Zena waited for Jake to explain – waited for any communication from him, but none came.
Greg knew he had to give up searching for Rose. It was clear that she didn’t want to be found. The only address he had was for the house which she had pretended was her home, where he had frequently left her after an evening out. Stupidly he knocked again to see if they had any idea where she might be. The tenants had no idea why she had lied. He still half hoped that the problem which had caused her to run away would be solved and she would return to him.
While he couldn’t forget Rose, there was nothing more he could do and meanwhile there was the mystery of Aunty Mabs. He was still hesitant to walk into the night café and, although he had tried to offer opportunities for her to talk about it, he felt he was prying. If she wanted them to know she would tell them.
For some reason she wanted to keep her involvement in the place a private affair. Could it be a bridge club? A charity secretly raising funds? Political meetings? He didn’t think Mabs would play bridge and she was even less likely to be
long to a political party. He eventually learned about the night café through the friendly approach of the little man called Sid, and smiled at the possibilities he’d considered.
Having made up his mind to face her, he stepped inside one night, but instead of Mabs, a man stood behind the counter smiling a welcome. Richard, Mabs’s loyal assistant, knew who Greg was and saw no reason not to explain. So he told him the story between light-heartedly settling arguments and providing teas and snacks.
It had begun with Greg’s Uncle Frank who had worked as a bus driver as Greg now did. During his late night journeys he had noticed a few people, mostly men, just wandering, apparently aimlessly passing the night hours. He had stopped to speak to several and learned that, unable to sleep for various reasons, they walked around, occasionally meeting others, to stand and talk on a corner or climb the fence to sit on a bench in the park, to get through the lonely hours of darkness. Frank discussed it with Mabs, and the night café was born.
Intrigued, Greg wanted to help but was still unsure how to approach his aunt, until early one morning he saw the first bus pass the café and, moments later, saw her rushing out, locking the café door and staring after the bus in obvious dismay. He rode towards her on his bike and stopped beside her, ‘Morning. Want a lift? You can have the saddle, and I’ll pedal.’
‘Oh Greg, I’ve been visiting a friend, I have. And I missed the early bus. Don’t worry about me, I’ll get a taxi.’
‘Hop on, I can manage a little one like you.’
With much laughter, Mabs climbed onto the saddle and, with her feet sticking out and Greg standing on the pedals, struggling good humouredly up the hills, free wheeling down again, they made their way to Mabs’s flat.
‘A cup of tea would go down well,’ Greg said, following her inside. ‘You put your feet up and I’ll make it. Right?’ He grinned and added, ‘There’s tired you must be, looking after a friend, or two, or three …’
‘You know,’ she said, rhetorically.
‘Yes, I do. I wanted to tell you and ask if I can help, but I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about me knowing.’ He winked at her. ‘I see all sorts of things from my bus!’
‘The night café was something me and your Uncle Frank started.’
‘I know.’
‘When he died I just had to keep it going. It’s such a help to these lonely people – so many you wouldn’t believe.’ She stopped and stared at him. ‘You knew it was my Frank who started it?’
‘None of the family has guessed. So, can I help? Shift work means I often have freedom at the right time.’ Mabs promised to think about it and Greg left her to sleep and rode home content with his night.
Helping in the café would help to take his mind off Rose too, although he still had the unextinguishable hope of her appearing. He even practised what he would say to her, sometimes promising not to ask a single question, sometimes showing anger and hurt, shaming her into telling her story.
Zena was at the hospital when her father turned his head and asked, ‘What about you and Jake? Will he be coming home, d’you think? Or will we have to say goodbye to you as you move away from us?’
‘I keep hoping Jake will come home,’ she admitted.
‘Can’t you try living in London for a while before making a decision?’
‘That would be expensive, Daddy. I have to make a firm decision to go, or,’ she added softly ‘or to stay.’
‘Expensive maybe, but cheaper than messing up your life and having to start again.’ He closed his eyes and took a few wavering breaths before adding, ‘Think carefully my darling girl. Happiness is something we can be too careless with sometimes.’
Zena hugged him gently, afraid of hurting him, he was so frail. ‘Thank you, Daddy. I will think about what I really want, I promise you.’
Good,’ he whispered, his voice almost failing.
She left the ward to allow her parents to say their affectionate goodnight and glanced back to see he was asleep, his hand still holding her mother’s.
Zena did think about what she really wanted and was certain that Jake was an important part of it, but moving away from her family and the place she loved, that was not an easy decision. Sleep wouldn’t come and she read until the words wouldn’t leave the page. The half formed plan for a London weekend had been forgotten.
She pictured the affectionate way her parents held hands, whispered to each other. She knew their feelings for each other were genuine and all encompassing. Whatever happened to them in their lives, nothing would change that. She was affected by the surety of the love they shared and a glimmer of doubt filled her mind. Did she and Jake have a love to compare with that? She couldn’t honestly say yes.
At three o’clock she crept down stairs and made a pot of tea and took the tray to her room. At six o’clock she stood outside the back door listening to the starlings in the trees a couple of fields away beginning to chatter as they roused each other to start their day.
A decision hadn’t come and she didn’t think it would without Jake here to discuss it. She hadn’t heard from him for more than a week and, when she had telephoned the office, the secretary called Madeleine Jones had answered. She told Zena officiously that he was out of the office and why should she know where to find him?
When Zena called at Mr Roberts’s one morning he wasn’t at home. She wondered whether he’d had a hospital appointment and had forgotten to tell her. But to reassure herself that he wasn’t in any trouble, she knocked at his neighbour’s house and was told by Doris that he was indeed in hospital but because he’d had a fall.
There was a bus due that would take her to the hospital so she left her bicycle and ran to the bus stop. A few enquiries, a brief stop to buy some sweets and a newspaper and she was directed to the ward. Insisting she was someone who would help to look after him when he went home, she was allowed a brief visit. He was sitting up in bed looking older and more frail than she’d expected.
‘Mr Roberts! What happened to you?’
‘I was reaching up to change a light bulb, fool that I am.’
‘By reach up, I hope you don’t mean you were on a stool?’
‘I’ve done it before,’ he muttered, then looked up and smiled. ‘A long time ago, mind.’
After the usual warnings during which he promised to be sensible but smiling and without sounding sincere, they discussed what Zena and Doris should do to help him. The doctor didn’t expect him to stay in hospital very long and explained that he would be discharged in a day or so with plaster and a sling supporting a bruised shoulder and a broken arm. She decided to take advantage of his absence in hospital and clean corners and cupboards that she hadn’t been able to do without disturbing him.
Risking the outraged protests of the nurse, she begged just a few moments to see her father. To her surprise this was granted. Ronald was asleep and muttering in a distressed way and although she stayed until the nurse returned, he didn’t fully wake. She was upset as she left the ward.
As she was leaving she was surprised to see her next client, Janey Day, who was on duty at the hospital information deck. She quickly explained what had happened. ‘I’ll be late but I’ll work the usual two hours as soon as I can get there,’ Zena promised. She caught the bus back to do her two hours’ work for Mr Roberts then set off for the house of Mrs Day. She was more than three hours late and unfortunately, when she reached Janey’s house, instead of finding the house empty, Trish Francis, Janey’s mother was there. She stood silently watching as Zena propped her bicycle against the garage wall. Her arm was raised and she looked from her watch to Zena and back again. ‘I hope you intend to make up your time, Miss Martin.’
‘Of course, Mrs Francis. One of my clients has had an accident and I went to the hospital to see how I can help,’ Zena replied politely.
‘On my daughter’s time!’
‘Not at all.’
‘I shall have to tell my daughter of your unreliability.’
‘No need, she alre
ady knows.’ Pushing past her, Zena set to work and ignored the disapproving woman who followed her, hoping for a chance to complain. Determined not to be brow-beaten by her she completed her tasks and left precisely two hours later, smiling sweetly.
Although it was late in the day she rang her mother then went back to Mr Roberts’s house to make sure everything would be comfortable for his homecoming. Polishing a cupboard door, the clasp slid down and the door opened, allowing a pile of letters to fall out. She picked them up, stacked them neatly and closed the cupboard. As the door swung back she saw a letter she had missed. There was no envelope and she was embarrassed to see that it addressed Ray Roberts in affectionate terms. The handwriting was large and the words ‘Dearest’ and ‘Darling’ were in extra large letters. Tempted to read on, she was shocked to realize it was a letter not of love but filled with anger. Ashamed of prying, she was unable to resist reading the signature. It was from someone called, Donna.
She glanced around the room as though afraid someone would see her and know of her disgraceful nosiness. She had read enough to learn that the writer had been let down by Roy Roberts. There were demands for money, with threats. The franking on the envelope was dated twenty-two years ago. It must have meant something to him if he’d kept it for all this time. She wondered what had happened to cause such anger and felt a sadness for the man who spent so much of his time alone.
She carefully put the letter among the rest and continued cleaning the room. As though to pay for her inquisitiveness, she spent longer than she planned, and set off home contented.
Cycling down the lane heading for the main road, she heard a car coming behind her. The sound increased as the driver accelerated then it skidded past her causing her to wobble and almost lose her balance. It was gone in a flash but she recognized the driver and the car: Janey’s oh-so-charming mother, Trish Francis.
She was feeling angry as she cycled on towards Llynn Hir and was glad when a van stopped beside her and Uncle Sam called out offering her a lift. The bicycle was put into the van with the sheep dog, Digby, and she slipped into the front seat and sighed with relief. Then she told him about the unhappy visit to her father, and difficult Trish Francis, making that part of the story amusing, the anger swiftly gone.
The End of a Journey Page 7