by Jill Mansell
“That’s what they always say in the books,” Janey replied cheerfully. “All the way through. Right up until the very last chapter…”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Maxine’s high hopes for the lucrative toilet-roll commercial—founded on the basis of having once slept with the casting director—had been cruelly scuppered by his decision to give the job to the actress with whom he was currently sleeping instead. The disappointment of losing out was made all the harder to bear by the almost universal lack of sympathy.
“What a waste,” said Guy, straight-faced. “All that talent down the drain.”
“If you’d gotten it,” Josh innocently inquired, “would it have been a leading role?”
Ella, who didn’t get the so-called jokes, said loyally, “Well, I’m glad you aren’t doing it. I told my teacher Mrs. Mitchell that you were going to sit on the toilet on television with your knickers down, and she said it sounded horrible.”
“I was not going to sit on the toilet with my knickers down,” said Maxine through gritted teeth. No wonder Mrs. Mitchell had given her such a sour look when she’d picked Ella up from school yesterday.
“Josh said you were.”
“Josh is a little toad about to get his Game Boy confiscated.”
“That’s not fair!” protested Josh. “Dad was the one who told me the joke.”
“Ah, you mean the hysterically funny leading-role joke.” Maxine glared across the breakfast table at Guy. “I suppose it took you hours to think that one up.”
He looked modest. “Not at all. As a matter of fact, it came to me in a flush.”
Josh fell about laughing. Even Ella cottoned on to that one.
Maxine realized she was hopelessly outnumbered. “You’ll be sorry when I’m famous,” she snapped. “In fact, you’re going to be sorry a lot sooner than that.”
There was a familiar glint in her eye. Recognizing it, Josh said weakly, “Oh no, she’s going to cook dinner. Not the fish pie, Maxine. Please, anything but that.”
“Oh yes.” She smiled because revenge was so wonderfully sweet. “Definitely the fish pie.”
• • •
Disappointment gave way to delight, however, when the director phoned Maxine a week later. Katrina, the actress whom he’d intended to favor, had somehow managed to fall out of his bed and break her arm in three places. Shooting started tomorrow. Could Maxine possibly get away at such short notice and step into the breach…?
Guy was busy in the darkroom. Since she wasn’t prepared to risk life and limb opening the door—limbs being a precious commodity just now—Maxine yelled the news from outside.
“Oh, what next.” She heard him sigh. Hardly the encouraging response she might have hoped for. A minute passed before the door opened and Guy, frowning as his eyes adjusted to the light, emerged irritably.
“No,” he said before she could even open her mouth to begin. “This is too much, Maxine. Especially after what happened last time. You’re either working for me or you’re not, but you can’t expect me to allow this kind of thing to carry on. I need someone who’s reliable.”
What a pig, thought Maxine, outraged by his selfish, uncompromising attitude. The fact that Serena was a hopeless incompetent was hardly her fault. Guy had seemed to be so much more good-humored during the past couple of weeks. And now here he was, reverting to type all over again.
“But this could be my big break,” she pleaded, silently willing him to pick up on the pun. If he smiled, she was halfway there.
Guy, however, saw through that little maneuver in a trice. He had no intention of smiling either. “Don’t be obvious,” he said shortly. “The answer’s still no.”
“But it’s fate…a chance in a million…and the kids are back at school now,” gabbled Maxine, bordering on desperation. In four days, she would be earning almost as much as Guy paid her in an entire year. “Oh please. Let me find you a really and truly 100 percent reliable nanny—”
“Maxine, forget it. You aren’t going.”
“But—”
“No.” He spoke with a horrible air of finality.
• • •
Both Josh and Ella attended the local village school, which made it easy for Janey to pick them up at three thirty and return them to Trezale House. Paula, thrilled to have been entrusted with the responsibility of visiting the flower market and running the shop single-handedly during Janey’s absence, was almost more excited than Maxine at the prospect of watching her on television when the commercial was finally aired. Janey, less easily impressed, was nevertheless prepared to take care of the children for a few days while her sister was away. It was no hardship unless you counted having to sleep in Maxine’s pigsty of a bedroom, and she was glad to be able to do a favor for Guy.
When she pulled up outside the school, Josh and Ella seemed equally pleased to see her.
“You’re looking after us until Friday,” Ella declared, and promptly handed her a rolled-up sheet of paper. “Here, Janey. I painted a picture of you in class. It’s good, isn’t it? What you have to do is say ‘How lovely’ and pin it up on the kitchen wall when we get home.”
Janey studied the portrait. Ella had given her yellow hair, an unflattering purple face, and fingers like tentacles. Next to her on a two-legged table stood a vast crimson cake complete with a staggering number of candles.
“Whose birthday is it?”
“Nobody’s,” said Ella. “But Maxine said you were good at cakes and they’re my favorite, so I thought you might like to make some.”
“Tell Janey what else you thought,” prompted Josh slyly.
Ella beamed. “I said Maxine was thin and she doesn’t like cooking, but you aren’t thin so that means you must like doing it a lot.”
• • •
Guy, who had spent the day working in Somerset photographing an ancient countess and her fabulous jewels for a county magazine, arrived home at seven thirty. The unfamiliar aroma of gingerbread hit him the moment he opened the front door. The sight of Janey, sitting at the kitchen table with Josh, Ella, and practically an entire army of gingerbread men lined up on cooling racks was unfamiliar too.
Nobody else, however, appeared to have noticed anything out of the ordinary.
“Hello, Daddy,” Ella greeted him airily over her shoulder. “We’re just waiting for them to get cold enough to eat. I did the tummy buttons myself, with real currants.”
“I’m going to eat the arms and legs first,” Josh told him with ghoulish pride. “Then the heads, until there are only bodies left.”
Janey, unaware of the smudge of flour on her forehead, smiled and said, “Hi. Don’t worry, I made them a proper dinner at six. It’s only chicken casserole and mashed potatoes, but there’s some left if you’re starving…”
It hadn’t been the best of days as far as Guy was concerned. The countess, who was over eighty, had examined the preliminary Polaroids and haughtily demanded to know why someone reputed to be so clever with a camera couldn’t even manage to take a moderately flattering snap.
The raddled old bag, it transpired, had delusions of passing for fifty, which not even all the soft focusing in the world could hope to achieve. It had been a long and tiresome session, throughout which Guy had endured being addressed as “that boy.”
And now this.
It didn’t take a genius to work it out, but he said it anyway. “Where’s Maxine?”
Janey, evidently the innocent party, looked surprised. “What? She caught the ten o’clock train this morning. Did you think she wasn’t leaving until tonight?”
“Bloody hell,” said Guy. The girl was uncontrollable. Was there anything she wouldn’t do in order to get her own way? “Bloody Maxine.”
“Oooh!” Ella squealed with delight. When she’d said bloody the other day, it had caused all kinds of a fuss. Just wait until the next tim
e her father tried to tell her off for saying it.
“What?” repeated Janey, bewildered by Guy’s response. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand. Is there a problem?”
“Go on then,” he said heavily. “Tell me how she managed to talk you into it.”
It didn’t take long for realization to dawn. Maxine had done it again. “You didn’t know she was going,” Janey sighed.
“Damn right I didn’t know,” said Guy icily. “But then she was hardly likely to tell me, was she? My God, I told her she couldn’t just waltz off…”
Damn, registered Ella, beside herself with glee. Surely that was another bad word? She wondered whether it was worse than sod it, which was what Maxine had said when she’d burned the scrambled eggs the other night.
For once, however, Janey was on Maxine’s side. Had she stopped to think about it, she supposed she wouldn’t have agreed to take over if she’d known the full story, but she also knew how much the job offer meant to Maxine. Besides, she was here now, and it wasn’t as if she was a crazed ax murderer.
“Look,” she said reasonably, “there really isn’t a problem. I’m enjoying myself, Paula’s going to be looking after the shop…”
“Maxine asked me if she could go and I said no,” Guy repeated defiantly. “And I don’t know how you can even begin to defend her. She can’t seriously expect to do this kind of thing and get away with it.”
Josh and Ella watched, enthralled, as Janey squared up to their father.
“If you didn’t have any intention of allowing her to take the job, you should never have let her go up for the audition. That’s unfair.”
“If she’d given me enough warning, I wouldn’t have objected.” Guy found it hard to believe that Janey was defending Maxine. “But I employ her to look after my children. She cannot expect to skip off at a moment’s notice, leaving them in the care of God-knows-who…”
“She only found out yesterday that she’d gotten the job,” Janey countered hotly. “And I’m not God-knows-who. I’m her sister. I’m sorry if that isn’t good enough for you, but—”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Realizing that the situation was getting out of hand, he made an effort to calm down. Removing his leather jacket, he tipped Ella off her chair, sat down in her place, and pulled her onto his knee.
“And don’t look at me like that,” he told Janey. “You know I’m not criticizing you. This is all Maxine’s fault, as usual. That girl is enough to drive any man to distraction.”
And she’d even been flattered when she’d thought Guy had wanted her to look after the children. Janey, still indignant on Maxine’s behalf, didn’t return his smile. When he reached past Ella and helped himself to a gingerbread man, she hoped it would burn his mouth.
It did. Guy pretended it hadn’t.
“These are brilliant,” he said in an attempt to mollify her. “Oh come on, Janey. Cheer up. Have a gingerbread man.”
“Is the tummy button nice, Daddy?” asked Ella.
The currant tummy-button was molten. Swallowing valiantly, Guy gave her a squeeze. “Sweetheart, it’s the best bit.”
“Look, you’re back now,” said Janey in level tones. “You don’t need me here. Why don’t I just go home and leave you to it?”
Belatedly, Guy realized just how affronted she really was. The expression in his dark-blue eyes softened. “OK, I’m sorry. I know you think I’m an ungrateful bas—person, but I’m not really. And of course you can’t leave; we want you to stay. How could I not want someone to stay when they can make gingerbread men like these?”
“She did mashed potato with real potatoes too,” offered Josh.
“And washed my hair,” Ella put in helpfully, “without getting shampoo in my eyes.”
Janey was threatening to smile. Guy, glancing around the kitchen and counting on his fingers, continued the list.
“And she’s made a chicken casserole. And she’s ironed my denim shirt. And she’s managed to tear Josh away from his Game Boy without even having to handcuff him to the kitchen chair…”
Josh, ever hopeful, said, “And she’s promised I can stay up to watch Brides of Dracula.”
“No I haven’t!” Janey started to laugh.
“That settles it,” declared Guy. “I can’t possibly watch Bride of Dracula on my own. It’ll remind me of Maxine and give me hideous nightmares. You’re going to have to stay.”
Ella, reaching across him, picked up one of the gingerbread men. To her dismay, the all-important currant rolled onto the floor.
“Oh, sod it,” she squealed indignantly. “What a little bugger. His bloody tummy button’s come off.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Discretion was all part and parcel of a florist’s job, Janey had discovered. When a man who had been married for twenty years began placing a regular order for white freesias to be delivered to an address several miles away from his own home, you kept your mouth shut and delivered them. When your very own middle-aged bank manager suddenly spruced himself up, discovered aftershave, and took to popping in for single, long-stemmed red roses, you kept a straight face at all costs. And on Valentine’s Day, when any number of men might request two—or even three—identical cellophane-wrapped bouquets of mixed spring flowers, you didn’t bat so much as an eyelid.
Which was how she was managing not to bat an eyelid now. But there could be no doubt about it: the man standing before her was definitely the same man she had seen with her mother all those weeks ago. And the gold American Express card she was holding definitely bore the name Oliver J. Cassidy.
Which was why, of course, he had looked so familiar to her when she’d spotted him at the Grand Rock Hotel.
“I’d like to write the message on the card myself, if I may,” said Oliver Cassidy with a brief smile.
Janey, who had only popped into the shop for a couple of hours while Josh and Ella were at school, watched him uncap a black-and-gold Montblanc fountain pen. She felt like a voyeur.
“There.” The task completed, he passed the card back to her and smiled once more. The brief message You have all my love. Counting the days was written in a courtly, elegant hand. “Will they be sent this afternoon?”
“Don’t worry. They’ll reach her before two o’clock,” Janey assured smoothly. “I shall be delivering them myself.”
• • •
“Darling, what a lovely surprise!” Thea, opening the front door, kissed Janey on both cheeks. Her eyes lit up at the sight of the enormous cellophane-wrapped bouquet. “And what heavenly lilies…how kind of you to think of your poor old mother.”
“They aren’t from me,” said Janey drily. “They’re from an admirer. I’m just the delivery girl.”
Thea, evidently in a buoyant mood, said, “Oh well. In that case, I won’t invite you in for a drink.”
“Yes you will.” Handing over the bouquet, Janey headed in the direction of the kitchen and switched on the kettle. By the time she’d spooned instant coffee into two mugs, Thea had opened the envelope, read the message written on the card, and slipped it into the pocket of her blue-and-white-striped shirt. It was an extremely well-made man’s shirt, Janey noted. No prizes for guessing the identity of the original owner.
She waited until the coffee was made before saying anything.
“So who is he, Mum?”
“Good heavens,” countered Thea, a shade too brightly. “You’re the one who sold him the flowers, sweetheart. Surely you know who he is. Or did he run off without paying and you’re desperate to track him down?”
“I know who he is. I wanted to know if you did.”
Thea laughed. “Well, of course I do, darling! His name is Oliver, and he’s madly in love with me.”
“I meant do you know exactly who he is?” Janey paused and sipped her coffee. “But it’s pretty obvious now that you do. For goodness sake, Mum, wha
tever do you think you’re doing? What’s going on?”
“I don’t know why you’re making such a fuss,” said Thea crossly. “There’s absolutely nothing to get dramatic about. OK, so his name is Oliver Cassidy and he just happens to be the father of the photographer Maxine’s working for. Is that so terrible? Am I committing some hideous crime?”
“You tell me.” Janey, inwardly amazed at her ability to remain calm, sat back and crossed her legs. “Were you the one who came up with the idea of abducting his grandchildren?”
“Of course I wasn’t. And there’s no need to make it sound like some kind of kidnapping,” Thea countered. “He wanted to see them; he knew Guy would kick up all kinds of a fuss if he asked his permission, so he waited until he was away. Those children had a splendid afternoon, Oliver did what he came to Cornwall to do, and nobody came to any harm.”
“So you do know all about it,” said Janey accusingly. “Maxine nearly lost her job as a result of that little escapade. And did dear Oliver tell you how he came to be estranged from his son? Did he explain exactly why Guy would have kicked up such a fuss?”
“It was all a misunderstanding.” Thea dismissed it with an airy gesture. “Oliver realizes now that he made a mistake, but it’s only gone on as long as it has because Guy overreacted. All families have disagreements, unfortunately. Oliver was unlucky enough to have his turned into some ridiculous, long-running feud. Darling, he was heartbroken about it! Seeing those dear little children, even if it was only for a few hours, did him all the good in the world.”
“It wouldn’t have, if Guy had found out about it. He would have called the police.”
If there was one thing Thea couldn’t bear, it was being criticized by her own children. “And you’re on his side of course,” she countered irritably. “Despite knowing nothing about what really happened. Just because he no doubt has a pretty face.”
Janey, determined not to rise to the bait, gritted her teeth. “But it’s OK for you to defend his father, just because he’s mad about you and stinking rich? Mum, what he did was wrong!”