The End of a Journey

by Grace Thompson

  ‘Unable? Or unwilling? Not wanting to worry you perhaps? He might have been involved with something which he hoped to deal with himself, sorting it before you knew of the problem. Maybe unaware that he was seriously ill and was running out of time.’

  ‘Yes, he was very distressed, particularly during those last few days, muttering about time, and when he was delirious he talked about someone called Billy Dove. I know no one of that name.’

  ‘Perhaps it was someone from a very long time ago? Sometimes, with age or illness, memories from years ago become clearer than the present time, I understand.’

  Lottie went straight to see Mabs as soon as she finished work. When Mabs opened the door she pushed it wide open and marched in before Mabs could refuse to let her enter.

  The notes she had made at the solicitor’s office were on a page of a notebook and she thrust it at Mabs. ‘Read this!’

  After an initial protest, Mabs read it and stared at Lottie in disbelief. ‘What happened? Why did Ronald take all his money out of his account?’

  ‘Our account,’ Lottie corrected quietly.

  ‘Why did he do that? Where is it?’

  ‘I was hoping you’d tell me.’

  Mabs’s first thought was of the money she had in the bank and whether the best way of using it was to help Lottie to clear Ronald’s debts. But the real need was to find out what had happened to make her well-organized and sensible brother lose all their money.

  ‘It wasn’t something you’d done? Hurt him in some way?’ By way of reply, Lottie glared at her angrily. ‘Lottie, I really thought he had left it somewhere else because you’d let him down. I’m sorry. I really am.’ She hugged her tearful sister-in-law. Then she calmed down and said firmly, ‘Our first step is the police. It’s such a large amount, we need to contact the police and get this investigated,’ she said firmly. ‘This sounds so unlike Ronald there must be criminality involved. Lottie, I’m so very sorry for thinking you were the reason for Ronnie’s actions.’

  ‘Why did you blame me? Your accusations were the worst of all. I loved Ronald, and no one else.’

  ‘It did seem to be a vengeful act and for a while I thought that you and Sam at the farm were—’

  ‘Nonsense! He’s a family friend, more Ronald’s than mine.’

  Although the revelation that the money had gone without leaving a trace had been a shock, Lottie slept well for the first time since the reading of Ronald’s will.

  Together, Lottie and Mabs talked to the police who listened carefully, made copious notes and agreed to start making enquiries. One question was whether anyone close, a relative or a friend, had begun to spend more than usual. Both women shook their heads. As they were leaving, Lottie gave a brief smile. ‘Sam Edwards has ordered two new barns and a tractor, but I don’t think he’d convince Ronald to part with so much money.’

  They talked around the mystery for a long time but no solution occurred to either of them. Mabs went back to her flat to search through any papers she had relating to her brother and Lottie went home to sit and stare into space, wondering why, after all their years together, Ronald hadn’t trusted her with whatever had caused his uncharacteristic action. Neither found a hint of a solution.

  Aware of the Sunday being Roy Roberts’s birthday, Zena planned a surprise, with Doris and her son Kevin helping. At four o’clock she knocked on the door with Nelda and the children carrying plates of food and a large birthday cake. Doris saw them coming and quickly joined them with more food, followed by Kevin with a few brightly wrapped parcels. She knocked on the door and announced an instant party, introducing Nelda and the children as they piled their gifts on the table. As he began talking to the little girls, she looked around for cards but there was none. So his sons didn’t recognise their father’s birthday. She was glad they had come.

  Food was displayed and Doris busied herself making tea. Kevin produced a bottle of beer and the party atmosphere took off in moments. Soon Roy was reminiscing about time gone by including his time in the Navy. Bobbie asked if he’s fought with Admiral Nelson and was disappointed to be told he was too young. ‘He looks very old to me,’ Georgie whispered to Zena.

  It was as he and Doris talked about the present day that Zena listened intently, surprised that they knew Rose Conelly. She learned very little, just that her childhood had not been a happy one but decided to ask him more next time she called. When she asked about Billy Dove, Roy shook his head.

  ‘Billy who? Oh, Billy Dove. He must be dead, I haven’t heard anything about him for years.’

  ‘You called him “Birdie”, ’ Doris coaxed but he shook his head.

  ‘Years since I heard about Birdie.’

  Another disappointment.

  ‘Where are the rest of your birthday cards, Mr Roberts?’ Nelda asked.

  ‘Still in the cupboard, Popeye?’ Kevin pointed to the sideboard.

  Roy shrugged. ‘Might as well put them with the others I suppose.’ Nelda opened the drawer and took out three envelopes, opened and revealing cards. Then she noticed the date on the franking mark and saw they were more than twenty years old. Without a comment she stood them on the top of the sideboard with the rest.

  Roy spent more time playing with the girls, who daringly called him Popeye to his amusement. Between games he talked about the people he remembered from school including Billy Dove. With so many people around she decided to wait until her next visit before asking about him. It might be a way to get to the heart of the mystery of her father’s money.

  Zena walked into Nelda’s house a week later to the sound children arguing. Their young voices rose higher and higher until they were shrieking and things were being thrown around. She ran to see what was happening and opened the kitchen door just in time to see Georgie and Bobbie, who were standing on the table pushing each other, fall onto the floor one each side of the table. She reached Georgie first and, as the child stood up scowling, she thought there was no serious damage and ran to see to Bobbie, who wasn’t moving, although her eyes were open.

  ‘Bobbie! Bobbie, talk to me, where are you hurt?’ Bobbie jumped up and, aiming a final punch at her sister ran, giggling, from the room.

  ‘You little minx.’ Zena smiled ruefully at Georgie. ‘Where’s your mammy?’ It was Sunday and she had agreed to help Nelda clear a bedroom ready for the decorators.

  ‘I don’t know, she just went out and left us,’ Bobbie called sorrowfully.

  ‘Nelda?’ Zena called. The back door opened and Nelda came in demanding to know what all the noise was about.

  ‘They were fighting,’ she was told. ‘On the kitchen table, would you believe! They both fell off but they don’t seem to have been badly hurt, but you’d better check them.’

  Georgie had a scraped arm and a bruise was already showing below her elbow. Her unrepentant sister insisted she was making a fuss about nothing. ‘As usual!’

  Zena left them to their mother and went to start clearing the bedroom. She heard Bobbie say, ‘It’s lucky Daddy didn’t come and find that you’d left us alone, wasn’t it, Mammy?’

  ‘You can stop that nonsense,’ Nelda said. ‘Daddy thinks you are old enough to be left for a few minutes without fighting, but isn’t he wrong about that?’ Then Bobbie began to cry, insisting she needed a bandage. ‘It’s more than a bruise, Mammy, it’s a scrape,’ she shouted dramatically. ‘I need a bandage.’

  Zena called, ‘I have a small first-aid box in my bicycle basket. Go and fetch it, Bobbie, and I’ll bandage it to make sure it’s kept clean.’ Still sobbing, Bobbie watched as a bandage was applied and then went to show her sister what she had done to her.

  Zena realized how difficult it must be for Nelda, coping with a busy job and caring for two lively children, while warding off criticism from an absent father. This led her to thoughts of Jake. What would her life be like with Jake, a man who kept things from her, a more deceitful version of lying – if that made sense? Always likely to give her possessions to others when he deci
ded theirs was the greater need.

  A marriage must always be uncertain. No one can really know another well enough to guarantee a perfect life: to understand how that other person would cope with unexpected changes like the birth of a child, or the sudden loss of money like her parents. She had once thought she knew Jake, but lying about his job and the successful business travel he was boasting about, how great were the risks she would be taking if she married him? Nelda might be better off on her own rather than with an unreliable man. Her father had lied to her mother by not telling her about the loss of money, yet she thought his reasons were different from those of Jake. He must have hoped to solve his difficulties before her mother found out. With Jake, what else but vanity? How long would she go on deluding herself?

  She stopped dragging a small desk away from the wall and frowned. Vanity was something she determinedly denied as a reason for Jake’s generosity. Did accepting it make what he does better, or worse? Was it an excuse, something he couldn’t help? An obsession over which he had no control? With her mind full of these concerns she worked fast and efficiently and in less than three hours the room was empty, washed, and the floor scrubbed.

  As a thank you, besides paying her, Nelda invited her to go with her to the pictures at the weekend. ‘My lovely parents are having the girls from after school on Friday until Sunday, when I go there for lunch before bringing them home. We could go on Saturday. Abbot and Costello are on. They’re always a good laugh.’

  ‘Just what I need,’ she said, happily agreeing.

  In London one Sunday, Jake was having lunch with Rose and Madeleine. Knowing he had to face Zena with the truth about his menial job, he was feeling low. Rose suggested he went to the Labour Exchange to look for something better. ‘You need a place where you can work your way up,’ she said. ‘A man needs to be able to keep a family. It’s different with me: I don’t want promotion. I’m happy being just a small cog in the wheel of things. If I were offered something better I’d refuse. I haven’t the ambition for a successful career, earning lots of money, telling others what to do.’

  Jake was too self-centred at that time to discuss this. ‘I am going to marry Zena and I promised to give her everything she needs and most of what she wants,’ he said. ‘I need money and I need it fast.’

  ‘Zena owns her flat, doesn’t she?’ Rose reminded him. ‘And the rumour is that Aunty Mabs has a lot of money which will be shared by Zena and Greg one day.’

  ‘Where did you hear that?’ Jake asked. ‘Aunty Mabs has tried to keep that a secret.’

  ‘There’s a man called Roy Roberts who rarely goes out but seems to know all that’s going on. Your Zena helps with his cleaning, and does his shopping sometimes. I overheard him once telling someone that the money Frank Bishop won hasn’t been mentioned since his death but it must still be there. I didn’t know Mabel Bishop then and I only remembered it recently.’

  ‘What a pity she’s fit and well,’ Madeleine said jokingly. ‘Perhaps one of her lonely old men-of-the-night will bump her off, eh?’

  ‘I hope not!’ Jake was horrified. ‘What are you talking about? What old men? She’s a dear old thing and I’d hate anything awful to happen to her. Besides it’s I who— What old men?’

  ‘The sad café, which she opens during the night, to give food and comfort to some of the lonely old men who can’t sleep.’

  ‘But I’ve never heard of this place, why didn’t Zena tell me about it?’

  That made Madeleine laugh, ‘You aren’t the only one to keep secrets, are you, Jake?’

  Rose told them about how she almost walked in, seeing Mabs and Greg just in time. ‘Mabs and her husband started it and after he died, she carried on, helped by a retired teacher called Richard Thomas, apparently. I found all this out from one of the regulars. Mrs Bishop calls herself Frankie.’

  ‘Secrets everywhere! You’ve never explained, Rose, but can you tell us, now we’re friends, why you left Greg Martin?’

  ‘Sorry, that isn’t something I want to discuss. It’s over and that’s all you need to know.’

  ‘I can’t believe Mabs Bishop is running a café for down and outs,’ Jake muttered.

  ‘Not down and outs,’ Rose explained, ‘and not people who are homeless. They’re just people who can’t sleep. She helps them fill the long hours of darkness.’

  ‘There must still be some money for Greg and your Zena when she dies,’ Madeleine whispered softly. ‘You need it more than a few men who must certainly scrounge from her.’

  ‘Zena having more money won’t help me at all.’

  ‘Then this Aunty needs persuading to give it to you instead of Zena.’ Madeleine laughed and the others joined in. ‘Just a dream, dear,’ she said, touching Jake’s hand affectionately. Rose looked on and frowned. Light-hearted it might have been but the conversation had made her resentful. Marriage to Greg would have been wonderful once she had been able to face him with the truth of her ugly beginnings, but that dream had been irrevocably shattered by his evil family.

  Jake was looking thoughtful. ‘I’ll look for a job and then, next weekend, I’ll go home and tell Zena everything. I’ll have to thumb a lift, as I can’t afford the fare or the petrol.’ He stood to leave, reached for Madeleine’s coat to help her put it on. They were the only people in the restaurant and the rest of the tables had been cleared and reset for afternoon tea, with plates, cups and saucers set out.

  Madeleine touched his arm, stopped him moving towards the door. ‘Don’t leave the firm, Jake. I’ll have a word with the boss, see if I can persuade him to give you something better than being a dogsbody. Leave it to me. I’m sure you’d do well if you were given a chance in the sales department; charm, looks and the good line in sales patter. And’ – she smiled, and raised an eyebrow – an expertise in lying to cover mistakes, you’d be an asset to the company.’

  Jake smiled ruefully. ‘All right, I’ll give it a bit longer. I’ll still go home this weekend. It’s time I told her the truth.’

  ‘That will be easier if you have the offer of a better job. Another week could make all the difference. I’ll talk to the boss tomorrow,’ Madeleine promised. Then she went on, ‘I’d love to have a weekend away, and I’ve never been to Wales. I haven’t even seen the sea,’ she lied. ‘Is your home near the sea?’

  ‘The beach is only a twenty minute walk away.’ On one of his impulsive decisions, he said, ‘Why don’t you come? Didn’t you say the flat was empty until a week next Saturday?’

  ‘You mean I can stay there?’

  ‘Why not? No one is using it. You too, Rose. Maybe you could talk to Greg?’ She shook her head and he said, ‘All right, we’ll hide you. Come on, it’ll be fun, but—’

  ‘It’s all right, Jake, we’ll pay for the petrol, won’t we, Rose?’

  In the night café, Greg worked with Mabs as smoothly as always, both sharing the tasks and the time spent talking to the lonely men. He could see that Mabs was wrapped up in her thoughts, but, with so many people around, he didn’t risk asking her if there was a problem. He knew she was still grieving for Frank and this mystery about her brother Ronald was an added anxiety. It wasn’t until the last customer had gone and they were washing up and cleaning the tables that he said, ‘Aunty Mabs, the solicitor and the police are making enquiries about the missing money and maybe they’ll soon have news for us. You and Mam have done all you can, so try to be patient and let it go. Leave it to the police. Worrying won’t help and we don’t want you to make yourself ill.’

  ‘I can’t help thinking that somewhere in my mind I have the solution. Your father had a partner with whom he put some money aside for investments, playing the stockmarket. They talked to your Uncle Frank about it and he made them agree that whatever happened, they wouldn’t go beyond their initial outlay, but sometimes the promise of great wealth can turn even the most cautious of heads. Perhaps something went wrong and they had to pay out a lot of money.’

  ‘Why did you think Mam had done somet
hing awful that made Dad leave her nothing?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Greg, but I foolishly thought that your mother and Sam Edwards at the farm were getting fond of each other and your father was hurt and needed revenge.’

  ‘Not a chance. Mam was happy with Dad, and he would never have been vengeful if she had strayed. He was such a gentle man, wasn’t he?’

  Mabs frowned. ‘I hadn’t remembered them playing the stockmarket, until today.’

  ‘What was his partner’s name?’

  ‘That’s what’s been keeping my mind occupied. I can’t remember.’

  ‘Can that be the explanation? Perhaps the money is still there but we can’t find out because we don’t know his partner’s name, if there was one.’

  ‘There had to have been a partner, your father wouldn’t have ventured into such a risky game on his own.’

  The following day she went to see Roy Roberts. They had been at school together and although they had seen little of each other over recent years they greeted each other like friends.

  They talked about people they had once known and gradually, Mabs brought the subject around to Ronald. ‘It’s taken a long time to sort through his papers. Most of it has been dealt with now but there are a few things we can’t clear up. I wondered if you can help.’

  ‘I haven’t seen much of Ronald recently. As old age creeps upon you, your world shrinks. Fewer people, fewer activities, more memories heavily distorted with a rosy glow of fantasy. But ask away, you never know.’

  Mabs smiled in agreement. ‘We’re trying to find a partner, someone who dealt with investments.’

  ‘Money gone astray, has it?’

  ‘No, no, nothing like that,’ she protested at once. ‘It’s just a few things we don’t understand. Can you think of anyone he might have worked with? I know he liked a bit of a flutter on the horses and perhaps a few other things.’