Missing the Moment

  “Someone has to and I can’t see you dirtying your hands.”

  Charlotte’s sharpness was justified by tiredness. And besides the aching limbs and weary spirit she was suffering from the need to grieve. Tonight was not a night for sleeping.

  The air was clear, the sky almost blue under a shining moon. She walked through the lane treading with care, afraid of disturbing the peaceful silence. Opening the door of the factory felt like disturbing a grave. Uncle Peter’s presence was strong.

  The keys in the locks were deafeningly loud. She shivered as she pushed back the door and switched on the lights. Although she planned to work in the small office, she put on the lights throughout the whole building. She settled to try and make sense of her uncle’s spidery writing. At seven the following morning, when the first of the work force entered the silent building, she had to face the fact that the bank account which should have held several thousand pounds, was empty.

  She went home to get breakfast and attend to the routine tasks of the morning.

  “Danny called for you last evening,” Rhoda said. “Woke me up he did and I had to go down, make him a cup of tea and tell him you were out.”

  “Had he heard about Uncle Peter?”

  “No. Well, yes, but that wasn’t why he called so late. Wanted some information but I didn’t ask what about. He was so dejected, not finding you home, but I looked after him, spoilt him a bit, so he wouldn’t be too unhappy.” She smiled dreamily as she explained and Charlotte wondered if Rhoda was beginning to show an interest in Danny. But that was ridiculous, so soon after losing Brian.

  “All night you were out, Charlotte.” Rhoda pouted. “Joe, was it? What will Mam say?”

  “I was at the factory. Alone. Where’s Danny now?”

  Rhoda shrugged her beautiful shoulders. “We talked for hours. He stayed until about seven this morning, then, when he realised you weren’t coming home. I gave him some coffee and some toast, with some of my butter ration on it, and he left. Lovely man he is, so easy to talk to. Did you know he was giving up working at sea?”

  She smiled when Charlotte shook her head. “Well, he confided in me. Fed up he is, of the long absences. Wants to put down roots he does.”

  Charlotte said nothing. Rhoda needed little encouragement to talk when she had something that interested her to convey. She was surprised to learn that Danny wanted to give up working away from land; he hadn’t mentioned any discontentment with his career.

  * * *

  At ten o’clock, when Charlotte was back in the office, typing columns of figures in preparation for seeing the bank manager, Danny arrived.

  “Where’s Jack Roberts?” he demanded of Gaynor Edwards, before seeing Charlotte.

  “Hello, Danny. Where did you spring from? Can I help?” Charlotte called.

  “Hello my darling. I’ve come to see you, of course, but first I must speak to Jack Roberts.”

  “What about Uncle Peter’? You did hear about his death?”

  “Of course, and I’m sorry, but he couldn’t have been having much of a life stuck in that chair.”

  What about me? Charlotte wanted to scream. I miss him! His apparent indifference to her beloved uncle’s death and his lack of concern for her continuing anguish added to her determination to tell him she no longer loved him.

  Danny had already turned back to Gaynor. “Where can I contact him? It’s important, for heaven’s sake!”

  “Gone he has,” Gaynor said firmly. “Gone and won’t be coming back.”

  “Can you give me his new address. please?” Danny said in a calmer voice. “I have private business with him.”

  When he was told that Jack had moved away and no one knew his address, he looked at Gaynor and with disbelief said, “Come on, Gaynor. Tell me where he is or I’ll ask your husband. Threw him out, I bet. Husbands don’t like lodgers who expect too many – er – favours, do they?”

  “Danny!” Charlotte gasped.

  Gaynor turned and walked away. Danny smiled at Charlotte. “Come on love, it is important. I have to see him.”

  Charlotte knew Jack’s new address but something about Danny’s agitated mood persuaded her not to tell.

  “If I find out I’ll let you know,” she smiled.

  “Come on then. Out from behind that desk and give me a proper welcome.” Danny held out his arms.

  “Not here Danny,” she said as he advanced on her. “I have a business to attend to!”

  They went out that evening, but at nine, Charlotte insisted she had to go home. In the dark, walking up the hill to Mill House, he tried to persuade her that loving someone was more than a good night kiss. She pushed him away from her, gently but firmly.

  His face was disconsolate as he left her at the gate. She still hadn’t told him how her feelings had changed.

  * * *

  Danny was crossing the road bridge when he heard a cry. On investigation he found Rhoda, hiding at the end of the parapet.

  “Rhoda? What’s up?” he asked. “Has anyone frightened you?”

  “Well, you did,” she said with a ladylike sob. “I didn’t know it was you. You looked so huge, and dangerous, walking towards me. I ran to hide.”

  “Dangerous? Me? Never!” he laughed. “Come on, I’ll walk you home. Damn me, I’ll be wearing a groove in this hill with you and your sister!” He put an arm around her slender waist and she leaned against him as if recovering from a great shock. He felt her trembling. “On second thoughts, why don’t we go and have a drink. From the look of you, you need it.”

  Later, as he walked once more up the hill, his arm around Rhoda, his fingers slowing seeking the soft swell of her body, he sensed that Rhoda, unlike her sister, was more than willing to satisfy his desires. They didn’t need words, their footsteps taking them to a suitable spot where they could lie in reasonable comfort and gaze up at the stars. His hands began to explore and Rhoda began to guide them.

  Still without words, she insisted that they remove every item of clothing, putting hers neatly and methodically beside them, regardless of the chill of the autumn night air.

  When Rhoda walked back into Mill House, she was relieved to find all was silent. She irreverently thanked God that Charlotte was in bed and already asleep. This was a night for herself. It was private. She didn’t want to talk to anyone, just relax and remember every magical moment.

  * * *

  Eric had knocked on the living room door at eight o’clock that evening and asked Harriet if she had a moment for a chat. When he was settled in the chair once favoured by Peter, with a cup of tea on the arm, Harriet sat and waited for him to explain his visit to her part of the house.

  “Miranda wants to work,” he said. “I don’t know how I’ll manage if she gets a job. I’ve sort of presumed that she would continue to stay home and look after the children, at least until Matthew starts school.”

  “That’s asking a lot of a young girl, Eric.” Harriet’s voice was sharp. conveniently forgetting that that was what she had demanded of Charlotte. Sixth sense warned her what Eric was about to ask.

  “I can understand,” Eric said, “that she needs to get out with young people. She’s eighteen and she’ll be stuck here with a family with none of the fun a young girl is entitled to.”

  “So what will you do?”

  Eric shrugged and put on a helpless expression. Harriet was determined not to be moved. “I can’t give up my business,” he explained. “Not yet. When I’ve finished expanding it will be worth a lot more and then I might sell and concentrate on the children. I’d like that, Harriet.” He looked up and smiled at her, the familiar smile that swept away the years of his absence and brought back the happy years of their marriage. She found her face twitching in response and turned away. She was not going to be persuaded to help with the illegitimate children that had brought her humiliation and hurt. She was not!

  “Miranda would do the morning school run. If I can find someone to take on Louise and Petula and Matthew until I
get home from work, at four, when I’ll meet Ellie and Isabelle from school. I’d pay well.” He looked at her. waited for her to turn and meet his gaze. “Do you know anyone who’d be generous enough, Harriet, my dear?”

  * * *

  The following morning, Harriet looked at her eldest daughter and said. “Your father came to talk to me last evening. He wants me to look after the children so Miranda can go to work.” She was not sure what response she expected, but it was not the one Charlotte gave.

  “I can give Miranda a job.”

  “You can’? Charlotte. what are you talking about now? Honestly girl, I sometimes think you’re going daft. One minute you’re going to marry Joe, then you’re off out with that Danny. Then we’re broke and about to lose the house. Now you magic a job out of the air for the daughter of your father’s tart!”

  Wincing at the unkind epithet, Charlotte warned, “If we’re to survive, Mam, we need to get the factory back on course. Without Jack Roberts and Uncle Peter, I need someone bright, quick to learn, reliable and honest. Miranda would be fine, if she agreed.”

  “The factory!” Harriet dismissed it with a shrug. “That can be run by Gaynor, she’s been there long enough!”

  “Mam, I’m taking over the management. It needs bringing out of the sad state it’s fallen into and that’s exactly what I intend to do.” Leaving her mother searching for words to continue her argument, she knocked on the door in the hall and asked to talk to Miranda.

  Two days later, it had been arranged. Miranda was delighted to be offered a job as Charlotte’s secretary-cum-assistant, Harriet had been pressed into agreeing to mind the three children, and the door in the hall separating the two families was propped open, at least for a part of each day.

  Harriet began looking after the children, determined not to do more than she had to. She would care for them but with no treats and with strictly no enjoyment. When she found that she had to deal with meals without Charlotte’s help, she threatened to abandon the arrangement.

  “I don’t know how you can be so thoughtless and selfish, Charlotte.” she wailed, at the end of the first day. “I’ve been on my feet from nine o’clock.”

  “It’s hard for us all, Mam.” was Charlotte’s response. “Now, what have we got for supper?”

  “That is up to you! I’ve fed your father’s little brood their dinner as you didn’t come home, and I’m too exhausted to think about food for myself.”

  Charlotte began to climb the stairs. Without opening her eyes, her mother called, “Take my coat up, dear, it looks so slovenly hanging there.”

  “Then it will have to be cheese on toast,” Charlotte said, grabbing the coat impatiently.

  “Cheese is all gone,” Harriet said.

  “Then it will be Marmite. I have to get back to the factory: Joe is meeting me there to go through the books once more.”

  “You’re going back up there, now? Leaving me to all this?”

  Tightening her resolution and her jaw Charlotte said firmly, “You should have asked Rhoda to help before she went out.”

  “Your sister needs a break! Suffered terrible, she has.”

  “Out with Joe again, is she?” Charlotte tried to sound casual but was relieved when her mother replied. “No, not the repair man, she’s out with that nice Ned Hardy.”

  * * *

  Matthew was a good little baby who rarely cried. He cooed and smiled at Harriet in a way that melted her resolve within days. Louise, at four, was a little mother to her sister and baby brother, and endeared herself to Harriet in as short a time. But it was the toddler, Petula, the one who had offered her arms to be picked up on their first meeting, who really stole Harriet’s heart.

  The weather was capricious but, whenever possible, Harriet took the children up on the hill to picnic, not far from the house, but far enough for them to consider it an adventure. They became fatter, bronzed by the mild sun and the winds on the hill, and even more contented. Harriet felt happier than she had for years. If only Eric would show some sign of affection. He was polite, but so formal. After all the years of their marriage he was impossibly distant.

  She avoided seeing him as much as she could, handing over her charges peremptorily when he came in with the two from school, and closing the door firmly once they had passed through it. Her life was split in two: the joy she found with the children and the solid wall of indifference between herself and Eric. During the hours she was with Louise, Petula and Matthew she was smiling, relaxed. Once her duties ended she returned to being the spoilt, selfish mother of Charlotte and Rhoda.

  It was more painful than she had ever imagined. So close to Eric, yet still being locked outside the door in the hall. She became even more petulant and argumentative in the evenings, a time when frequent laughter was heard from across the hall.

  * * *

  Charlotte continued to spend many hours each day at Russell’s Bookbinders and Restorers and quickly found Miranda to be a valuable assistant. She foresaw a time, not far into the future, when Miranda and she would work side by side. After all, she had not had much more experience than Miranda herself. They were both learning fast and with a sympathetic compatibility that augered well for the future.

  Charlotte immersed herself in the work partly because she badly wanted to succeed and partly because she was missing Joe’s companionship. He was clearly avoiding her. Rhoda and he went out occasionally and she felt a crushing hurt each time her sister told them some anecdote about their time together. Rhoda also met Ned on occasions but seemed less happy than when she went out with Joe. About her meetings with Danny her sister said nothing.

  One evening, when Rhoda and Joe had been to the pictures, Charlotte waited until she heard his car bringing her sister home. She watched from the side of the porch as he called good night to Rhoda and closed the car door. She heard the engine change its note and he began to move away; there was a feeling of desperation as she called out to him:

  “Joe, I don’t know how to deal with the debts. Suppliers are demanding money that doesn’t seem to be there.” It wasn’t what she wanted to say. What did she want to say? Joe, I want us to return to the loving relationship we once had? Joe, please don’t fall in love with my sister?

  “Oh, business is it?” he replied. He sounded as if the prospect was tedious. “All right. Tomorrow afternoon I’ll go through the books with you, see what we can do.” His words were curt, and cut her deeply. She watched the tail light disappear as he turned to go down the hill with unutterable dismay. Having plucked up courage to ask for his help, his cool response was a shock.

  As she closed her eyes that night and tried to sleep she likened her life to that of a juggler, only instead of having all the balls under control, hers were defying her dexterity and going in every direction except the one she hoped. There was Joe, Danny, Rhoda, her mother, and her father with his new family… Everyone in her life was doing the unexpected. She knew that however efficient people thought her, she had allowed the wrong balls to fall to the ground. She slept and dreamt of Joe.

  She arranged to have her long hair set during the lunch hour next day, and she carefully replenished her make-up. Today was important and she needed to feel as confident as possible.

  Joe arrived, greeted her briefly and at once settled to examine the books. Silently he checked each column of figures. After two hours during which he hardly spoke, he closed the heavy books with a bang.

  “It’s gone, isn’t it?” she said with a sigh. “The money that should be there, sufficient to pay our debtors and keep us going, has been stolen.”

  “It has to be Jack,” Joe said. “I can’t believe it but it has to be him.”

  “What shall we do? The police…?”

  “Let’s talk to your father first.”

  “He’s made it clear he doesn’t want to be involved.”

  “He might, when he hears how bad things are. He understands the business: it was his after all.”

  “Can we look once more in
case there’s a mistake in my figures?”

  “I have to get back to the shop,” Joe said, reaching for his jacket. “Rhoda’s looking after it but you know how little she understands about things.”

  They arranged to see Eric that evening at six o’clock.

  “Don’t call the police,” Eric said quietly, when he had listened to their story.

  “But if he’s a thief—” Charlotte frowned.

  “I don’t want you to involve the police. Please leave it to me.” Eric’s face had lost its placid expression. A frown deepened across his forehead and he said, half to himself:

  “Such a mistake to come back. I should never have come back.”

  Three days later he handed Charlotte a cheque for a thousand pounds. “Tell me the exact amount and it will be paid,” he said. There was no further explanation and, faced with her father’s quiet intransigence, Charlotte stopped asking. The money was placed in the firms bank account and was followed a week later by another that brought the books back to their correct totals.

  Charlotte was uneasy about the whole thing and tried to talk to Joe, but each time she called at the shop, her sister Rhoda was there and she walked away in disappointment. She knew she had no right to complain if he chose to spend time with her sister. She still hadn’t told Danny she wanted to end their relationship. She was using him, she admitted that, but she felt so alone that Danny’s presence and the pretence that they would marry was a comfort.

  “It isn’t that I still love Joe,” she told Miranda. “I don’t want to lose him as a friend.”

  “If that’s the case why do you walk away when you see him with Rhoda?” Miranda asked shrewdly. “If you don’t love him, you can hardly be jealous. I think it’s you causing the rift. You’ve stopped treating him like a friend.”

  “Nonsense,” Charlotte said, but she cycled down to the town during her lunch break and went in to talk to him. He was sitting in the back room of the old butcher’s shop eating a sandwich and going through his weekly order sheet.