by Jenny Oliver
The Old Fashioned arrived. He stirred it and looked around for the waiter to ask something about ice.
Jane frowned. ‘What do you mean what I want to do about it?’
The waiter took the drink back.
He opened the diary pages. ‘Probably easiest if I name what I think is an appropriate fee.’
Jane looked at him, confused. ‘What do you mean fee?’
William did an incredulous snort. ‘Ms Williams.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘This is sensitive information about my family, we’d like it to remain within our control.’
The Old Fashioned with a fraction more ice appeared on the counter.
Jane looked down at her fifteen-pound glass of wine and felt all her nervous excitement trickle out of her. He was offering her money. To what? Keep quiet? She didn’t say anything for a moment as she considered his words. Then she turned back to William and said, ‘Didn’t you find it interesting? Didn’t you find it interesting learning about this story that had your grandfather in it? It’s beautiful, sad and…’ She paused and frowned at him. ‘Have you read all the pages?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Not your secretary or your lawyer. You. You’ve read all the pages?’
‘I’ve had a skim through.’
She made a face. ‘A skim?’
She’d read them over and over. The idea that he’d just had a casual flick and passed them over to his lawyers made her furious. ‘This is your family,’ she said. In all her run-throughs of this part of the evening, it had never gone like this. There had been stilted chat about how fascinating the past can be, there had been him telling her all about what happened after the Blackwells’ part in the diaries ended. Like an episode of the Antiques Roadshow, there had been him maybe asking about her connection to Enid but there had never been this.
‘Yes it is my family,’ he replied. ‘And, interestingly enough, not yours. So I’m left to assume—’ he was about to continue, possibly to say something about the money again, but this time she cut him off.
‘Just so I’ve got this straight, you came here just with the intention of buying me off?’ she asked at a volume that made him flinch in his jacket and glance behind him to see if anyone was listening. Jane saw a couple of women in the corner give him an appraising once-over.
The barman had edged closer as he dried some glasses.
William did an awkward cough.
‘Are you going to answer my question?’ Jane could feel herself fuelled by annoyance. She wasn’t someone who raised her voice often, but she hated being talked down to, being made to feel small and insignificant. She’d felt it every time she went to hospital with her mum and was told that there was no more help available. That she would have to do herself harm before they could step in. And Jane would question how her mum was ever going to do herself harm while Jane was looking after her twenty-four/seven. And they would look pityingly at her.
‘I, er…’ William seemed embarrassed. Like he wished he’d sent his secretary to meet her and was still sitting at his desk in the office.
Jane, who’d been sitting perched upright, shoulders back so she looked her best in her dress, shuffled backwards into her seat, leant against the chair rest, picked up her wine, and said, ‘Read them now.’
‘I’m sorry?’ He coughed into his Old Fashioned.
‘Read them now,’ she said.
‘I really don’t think…’
‘From the moment you sat down, you’ve treated this meeting like an inconvenience and you’ve insulted me. I would never have dreamt of taking this story to any journalist. All I thought would happen is that we’d have a quick chat about how interesting it all is and go on our separate ways. Had you taken the time to get to know me and talk to me about what’s written here you would have known that. But…’ she swallowed. ‘A better story for the press than this one in the diary would be the CEO of a hotel chain trying to bribe someone for information in a public bar. Don’t you think?’ She glanced up and the barman raised his brows as he looked back down at his glass. ‘Don’t you think that would make a better story, Mr Blackwell?’ she said, just loud enough to be asking the barman and perhaps anyone sitting behind William as well.
‘OK, Ms Williams, I take your point, calm down.’ He held a hand up.
‘Don’t tell me to calm down, Mr Blackwell.’
He ran his tongue along the bottom of his top teeth. He clearly wanted to leave.
Neither of them spoke.
‘OK, let’s start again,’ he said, as if this was the boardroom and he was taking control.
‘No.’oShe shook her head, her foolish highlights flicking in front of her eyes. ‘I don’t want to start again. I want you to read the pages.’
She sat back, arms folded across her chest. She’d had enough of being the one who did things for other people, who stayed calm when they didn’t. And she wasn’t leaving here with the taste in her mouth of being weak.
He watched her for a moment, deep-brown eyes studying her, weighing her up as an opponent. She glared back at him. Slowly his lips twitched up into a hint of a smile. ‘OK, Ms Williams,’ he said with a laugh. ‘I’ll read the pages. Waiter? Same again,’ he added with a raise of his brow at the barman, as if he’d been chastised, and brought him in cahoots.
Jane watched as he then unfolded the papers and leant back in his chair, pulling his jacket out either side of him and making himself comfortable and while she felt in theory she had won, it also seemed somehow like at the last minute he’d managed to turn the victory round onto himself.
Chapter Five
Earlier that day…
‘So what have you got on this Jane character?’ William leant back in his chair, hands behind his head while his PA sat in the chair opposite, the sunlight bouncing off the buildings of the wrap-around London view.
‘Nothing.’ Dolores shook her head. ‘Not even a Facebook page. She’s not on LinkedIn, I don’t know what she does. All I have is that she gave the eulogy at her mother’s funeral earlier in the year. One Angela Williams. Father Unknown on birth certificate.’
‘That’s interesting. Are we looking for him?’ William leant forward, flicked through some files open on his desk and glanced across at the list of emails building on his laptop.
‘Yes.’ Dolores carried on skimming down her list. ‘Oh and there is this… First prize in a dahlia competition at some Cherry Pie Island Show.’
William glanced up. ‘I’m not sure I needed to know that.’
‘Well she won it with Emily Hunter-Brown, you know of Giles Fox fame? He left her at the altar – big Hollywood hoo-ha. There’s a connection there to the media. Possible risk.’
William tapped his fingers to his lip. ‘Bollocks.’
‘Other than that, as I say, I have nothing.’ Dolores stood up, flipped her pad over and pushed her chair in. ‘You have meetings at four, five and six o’clock. You’re due at The Ritz at seven and then you have dinner with…’ She looked at her pad again as if she’d forgotten the name but Will knew Dolores never forgot anything. ‘Heidi,’ she said as if the name tasted sour. ‘At seven-thirty.’
‘The Ritz,’ Will sighed as he scrolled through, adding the dates and times on his iPhone. ‘It’s so old fashioned,’ he said, then paused, ‘I haven’t had an Old Fashioned for ages. Maybe I’ll have one there. So what, I’ve got quarter of an hour with her?’
Dolores nodded. ‘You could possibly squeeze it to twenty minutes – if you get a taxi.’
‘No, no. Fifteen minutes is quite enough. Just enough time to drink an Old Fashioned.’
Dolores shook her head, then paused as she opened the door. ‘You might find it interesting, you never know. She might not be after money, Will.’
Will raised a brow. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Dolly, everyone’s after money.’
She tutted at his cynicism.
‘Come on.’ He held his hands out wide. ‘What did you email me this morning?’
She looked away f
rom him towards the view of the Shard.
He laughed then started to scroll through his emails. ‘Here it is…’ he said, ‘Bro, hope you’ve had a good morning. I’m gonna need another five grand. Zeph. And – hang on – let me find the next one. Here we go, William, I know we agreed the terms of the deal but my lawyer feels the company assets are worth more than your offer suggests. Hope you’re well, Aunty Violet.’ Then he tilted his head as if his point was proved.
Dolores sucked her lip.
Will’s phone rang. He paused before picking it up. ‘When you have evidence of widespread altruism, Dolly, I’ll give this Jane character more than twenty minutes. Mum, hi,’ he said as he picked up the phone. ‘I’ve got ten minutes, max.’
‘Hello, darling. You work far too hard.’ Francis Blackwell’s voice always had the calming melody of someone who had nothing to do except read her book in the sunshine with a glass of rosé. ‘Right, so ten minutes. OK. Well, I was clearing out the attic yesterday and I remembered something about those diary pages. You’ve read them, haven’t you?’
‘Course I’ve read them.’
‘Yes, well you’re so busy—’
‘I’ve read them.’
‘Well, it was something your father said years ago. He knew her. This Enid character. Well he didn’t know her as such, but he knew of her. He went to that little island. Strawberry something?’
‘Cherry Pie.’
‘Cherry Pie Island, of course. He went. His mother took him. He said they stood on the bridge and they watched this woman at the cafe and her child playing outside. I remember him saying that they didn’t go over the bridge, just stood on it and his mum just stared and then they left. But he never knew why and they never went again. I suppose this is why, isn’t it? She knew, Granny knew. She was always a cold fish, they all bloody were; the Blackwells. I hear Violet’s asking you for more money? What happens if you say no?’
Will peered down towards street level, down to the tiny people and tiny cars. He sighed. ‘She has to find an investor, or I do, to buy her out, or we have to split the assets which would be a nightmare. I can’t pay her any more. I’m only just getting us back on even, there’s no more to give her.’
His mum sighed. ‘Yes, Dad did rather er… Well you were handed a bit of a millstone, darling. We all know it. Sell it all off, if you ask me.’
‘Can we not go into this?’
‘OK, sorry, Will. I’d better go, my ten minutes is up, isn’t it? I just thought that was quite interesting. That he’d seen them. Enid and her little girl. That he’d remembered that. Ties it all up quite nicely. Anyway, ciao, darling.’
Will slipped his phone in his pocket and narrowed his eyes at the view. He thought for a moment about his dad. All ambition and crazy ideas and happy-go-lucky and ‘let’s just give it a go’. Thought about when they’d go and stay with his grandmother - Prudence Blackwell. The big, dark house, like there were never any lights on, yet he could see the big gold chandeliers blazing even now when he thought back. Could feel her cold hands and hear her clinking rings. Her lip raised in a sneer watching to see if Will would make a noise, kick his ball in the house, draw on the wall, anything that she could suck her breath in at and leave his dad tense and panicked and trying to please her but also wishing his son could just run about the garden without the possibility of damaging the roses.
He thought of the summer he’d stayed with her when his mum had had Zeph. Struggling to cope with a rambunctious ten year old as well as a newborn, they’d reluctantly packed him off to granny. The worst summer of his life. Sitting round the huge table being forced to eat things like liver and tongue, lying in bed hearing the creak and crack of the house at night and her saying that it very well could be ghosts who took unkindly towards naughty little boys. This dreadful, brittle woman who had terrified him and ignored him but also kept him on the tightest rein. A summer where he had sat on the side of the bed and cried and when she had heard him had come in and slapped him on the cheek and told him to grow up and be a man. He’d cried into the pillow after that, terrified she’d come in again. A summer that had left him furiously resentful of his brother when he got home, bitter that no one had come to get him. Angry at this baby who seemed to have stripped him of his lovely life with his mum and dad. And then that September Will was sent, like every Blackwell boy – paid for by Granny Prudence – to boarding school and his relationship with Zeph never moved past brother to friend. And his relationship with his father had developed an edge that he wished it hadn’t, one where he saw a man desperate to be free of this woman’s rule but ‘what was expected’ keeping him tied. Saying that it was probably best that Will went away to school anyway because Mum was having difficulty coping with the two of them, and Will pleading to stay and his dad wavering. Almost. But then Prudence chipped in – said it was time the boy grew up, that he was weak, that his father had babied him with just this kind of leniency. That he needed to build some character. And the Blackwell tradition won out. She won out. His father not quite strong enough to stand up to his own mother. And at the end of it – after university and a business MA – Will came home an adult. Came home with the hard edge Prudence had so desired. Came back to step into the shoes his father had set up ready for him as part of the company. As was expected. A company, however, that everyone working there knew had expanded too quickly, that didn’t have the infrastructure in place to cope, a company – his father’s pride and joy – that was failing.
Back in the present, Will turned away from the London view. Tried really hard to stop his brain from thinking of any more. Refused to let the image of him standing in this very office after the worst meeting possible, het-up, frustrated, angry with his father’s ‘it’ll be ok’, ‘just keep pushing on’ attitude when it clearly wouldn’t be OK and just losing his rag. Bashing the table top to get his dad to stop with the constant flow of daydreams and, to his for ever regret, saying exactly what his Aunt Violet had started to say. That the company was a shambles. That it wasn’t worth saving.
He put his hand over his eyes. The look on his father’s face. It was just the worst thing he’d ever seen.
Dolores poked her head round the door. ‘They’re waiting for you in the boardroom.’
Will glanced up, pretended he was just scratching his forehead. ‘I’ll be right there,’ he said and she nodded. He poured himself a quick glass of water, straightened his tie and headed to the next meeting.
Chapter Six
Saturday. No idea what the date is. October 1944.
Oh god. Two letters arrived today. What I’m never prepared for is how something can be so good in life and one second later so completely awful.
James’s letter was just a few lines:
One day it will just be a normal Thursday afternoon and I will come and meet you and we’ll get the hell away from here. Just you and me. That thought keeps me sane. All my love, James
The one from the government was longer. Damn them!
I regret to inform you that a report has been received from the War Office. To the effect that (No.) 15733727 (Rank) L. Corporal (Name) James BLACKWELL was wounded on the 10th day of October 1944.
The only thing – only thing – that I can be thankful for is that he gave my name and address. He wanted me to know if he got injured and he wants my help. I have to take that to mean that he cares about me more than just likes.
But what do I do next?
30th October 1944
I’ve managed to find the address of his family and written to him.
The weather is dreadful.
3rd November 1944
Everything’s got a bit more serious. I’m finding this quite hard to write down because somehow written down it makes it a great deal more real.
I’m pregnant.
My one precious night at The Ritz has lead to this. I don’t know whether there is any hope beneath the terror that I feel when I wake up at three a.m. I can’t have a baby.
I’ve had to tel
l Mum who is going to tell Dad and says we have to cross our fingers and hope he doesn’t kill us. (We had a little laugh at that idea because the last thing Dad killed was a frog by mistake with his spade gardening last year and we had to have a small burial service.)
6th November 1944
I wrote again – to tell him about the baby. He can’t ignore that, can he? He would want to help me. I know he would want to help me.
Dad is not taking the news particularly well. He said I should go and stay with his sister. I told him not to be ridiculous. I’m not bowing to the looks and the pressure of the people on this island. If I leave, I’ll leave because I want to leave.
The thing is, what if he doesn’t help me? What if I am alone?
Maybe there’s a part of me that thinks I will be because I went to look at granny’s old houseboat today. It’s done nothing but rot at the end of the garden since she died. At least then, whatever happens, I’ll have some control.
10th November 1944
Dad’s being awful. I’m too impatient to wait for these bloody letters so I went to find a telephone. The only one on the island is at Montmorency Manor. I haven’t met the new people so I was all ready to beg them on the doorstep when their son, Bernard, answered the door and just let me in. He couldn’t care less who used the phone. He was marvellous. Fred said he thought he was a homosexual. I said of course he was a bloody homosexual! Fred’s lovely but sometimes! Anyway, I phoned the Blackwells’ house and someone, I think it must have been the butler, told me no one was home who could speak to me.
Bernard’s let me use the telephone four times. I think this was probably the last time – not just because his mum caught us – but because the butler put me onto a very posh woman who said that my phone calls weren’t welcome. That my letter had been received and that James wanted nothing more to do with me. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her over the phone that I was pregnant. The other letter will be with them soon.
I know it’s a lie about James.
Or at least I hope it’s a lie. It’s hard to keep convincing yourself, especially when you feel so terribly vulnerable.