After the Honeymoon

by Fraser, Janey

  His face went all uncertain. ‘Is it about what Dad said to you at the airport? I heard him, Mum, so don’t deny it. He wanted you to go to America with him.’

  Shocked, she went to put her arms around him. ‘I’m not leaving you, Jack. Or the villa.’

  A wave of relief passed over him. ‘Really? I mean, I like Dad but I’m still getting to know him. These things take time.’

  Wow. Her son really was growing up.

  ‘What about Greco?’

  ‘He’s cool.’ Jack grinned. ‘And he makes you happy, Mum. I like that.’ Then he turned round back to his laptop. ‘You can look if you want.’

  Curiously, Rosie took in the first line of the email.

  Hi, Grandad.

  ‘Dad suggested it,’ said Jack, shrugging as though it didn’t mean much to him. ‘He said I might find it easier at first than talking. So he’s set Grandad up with a computer and showed him how it worked. He’s quite good, actually, considering how ancient he is.’

  Rosie wasn’t sure whether to laugh or be angry with Winston for interfering. ‘I asked Dad not to tell you,’ added Jack, ‘cos I didn’t want you to think I was being disloyal. Grandad threw you out, didn’t he, when you weren’t much older than me.’

  ‘He was also rude to you,’ pointed out Rosie.

  ‘I know, but Dad says that if you don’t learn to forgive, you only end up hurting yourself.’

  Just what Cara was always saying. She went towards Jack for a big hug, and to her relief, he hugged her back. ‘I don’t think it’s disloyal to me,’ she said. ‘Your grandad’s getting on now. It’s right that you make up.’

  Jack’s shoulders literally sank with relief. ‘We make jokes about Charlie.’

  ‘Charlie?’

  ‘That bag thing that hangs at his side to collect his pee.’ He grinned. ‘Grandad’s really funny about that. I give him girlfriend advice, too.’

  ‘Grandad needs girlfriend advice?’

  ‘Sure. Grandad’s dating someone.’ Jack roared with laughter. ‘Can you believe it? At his age?’

  Incredibly, it turned out to be the blonde bride’s mother, Shirley. He’d called her up after meeting at Gemma’s over Christmas lunch, Dad admitted when she tackled him on the subject during one of their now twice-weekly Skype calls. ‘She says what she thinks and I admire that,’ he told her. ‘Charlie doesn’t seem to put her off either. I get up to her place once a week on the train and she comes down to me at the weekends, providing she’s not in the hospital.’

  Alarm bells began to ring. ‘Is she ill?’

  ‘It’s her grandson. Born prematurely, he was. Touch and go at the moment.’

  Poor Emma. Rosie hadn’t known about that. ‘Isn’t all this travelling too much for you?’

  There was a throaty chuckle. ‘Shirley’s given me a new lease of life. So when am I going to see you next? And the lad?’

  ‘He’s coming over at Easter to stay with Winston,’ she said carefully. ‘But I’m not sure if I can make it. Our season will be starting then.’

  There was a short silence at the other end of the phone. ‘It would be nice if you could come.’ His voice sounded gruff. ‘But only if it doesn’t put you out too much.’

  How things had changed! This time last year, she would never have imagined she would be talking to her father. But age, as Cara was always saying, made you put your priorities in order. Perhaps it was time that she did the same.

  Tomorrow might be a good time to start.

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ she called out.

  Greco was dragging his boat in from his early-morning fishing trip. The sun was glinting on the water and he had that faraway look on his face. The sea, he often said, transported not just your body but also your mind.

  Kicking off her shoes, she waded out to meet him. It was low tide and the waves were shallow.

  ‘What is it?’

  Greco’s eyes were cool; since that last argument, he’d been ignoring her. Go and find him, Cara had said. Tell him how you really feel.

  ‘It’s about Winston,’ she said, climbing into the boat and taking a seat next to one of the nets.

  Greco turned his back. ‘I thought it might be.’

  She stood up again, putting her hands on his broad waist, feeling the heat course through her body. ‘It’s not what you think. Winston and I have been talking a lot on Skype because he has a business plan to save the villa. It’s not been doing well, but Cara doesn’t know because I don’t want to worry her. Winston suggested expanding it as a creative arts summer centre. He’ll run exercise classes and we’ll also have another artist. We’re going to start a cookery school as well, and we’d like you to have a studio, to sell your figures.’

  Greco swung round and she tried not to look at the mass of curly brown hairs on his chest, or else she would get distracted. ‘And who is going to provide the money for this?’

  ‘Winston.’

  ‘Hah! He is clever, yes. He knows it will put you in his debt.’

  ‘No. It’s a gift, he says, to make up for all the years he didn’t support Jack.’

  Greco shook his head. ‘That’s what he says.’ Then his eyes grew fierce. ‘Don’t you understand, Rosie? It is you he wants. This arts centre is just an excuse for him to see you.’

  It was no good. She had to come clean. ‘You may be right. But I know now that it’s not what I want.’

  She leaned her head against Greco’s damp chest. ‘It’s you. Only you. Yes, I was in love with Winston once, but that was a different me. A younger one. Winston and I will always have something between us because of Jack. But it’s not what you and I have.’

  Slowly, a pair of thick arms wrapped themselves around her. ‘Is that true?’

  ‘Yes.’

  His eyes bored into hers. Unable to breathe, she held his gaze. They locked together firmly, as close as any pair of bodies.

  ‘I love you, Rosie,’ he murmured.

  And then, before she could say any more, Greco’s mouth came down on hers. A flash of Winston’s passionate kiss came to her. Only then did Rosie realise that at last she knew. Finally she understood, for certain, who it was that she really loved.

  TRUE POST-HONEYMOON STORY

  ‘My husband put his back out on honeymoon lifting my suitcase. He had to have an op when we returned.’

  Kate, never knowingly underpacked

  Chapter Forty-Two

  WINSTON

  ‘Sit. Sit, stay. Good boy!’

  It was amazing how easily Barney had taken to his new home, thought Winston, as he raised his arm to throw the ball across the park. ‘Fetch!’

  Off he went, haring towards the little wood at the side, ears flapping in the wind, before returning once more to drop the ball at his feet. Winston could swear that the dog was grinning from ear to ear.

  ‘You’re the best thing to have come into my life for a long time,’ Winston whispered, kneeling down next to him. ‘Know that?’

  Ever since he’d replied to the Desperately Seeking a Home email, Winston’s life had taken an upturn. It was amazing what a dog did for you! It wasn’t just that you had to go outside, whatever your commitments or indeed the weather (spaniels needed plenty of exercise!). There were also the other dog walkers you met, who’d instantly befriend you.

  The responsibility of looking after someone else apart from himself, together with Barney’s rather surprising but very flattering admiration (he followed Winston around constantly), made him feel a whole lot better about life.

  ‘I can’t wait to meet him properly!’ Jack said last time they spoke on Skype, waving his arms excitedly. In the background, Winston could see the boy’s bedroom in Greece with the view to the sea through the window. He could even make out a boat. Greco’s, perhaps? With Rosie on it?

  ‘Can you see me, Barney?’ Jack continued, his face right up to the screen. ‘Look, I’m here!’

  ‘It won’t be long,’ Winston had promised. Indeed, it was already March. Soon he�
�d be able to spend time with his son during the school holidays.

  His son! The phrase was getting more familiar now but it still hadn’t lost its sparkle.

  ‘Come on, boy, back we go,’ he told Barney. ‘Time to get to work.’

  Barney padded along obediently by his side, out of the park and up to the main road, where he sat without being told. That was the amazing thing about having a retired dog. He’d been fully trained years ago; all Winston had to do, as the handler had explained, was to use the same commands like ‘sit’ and ‘stay’.

  ‘He could do with a bit of a rest,’ the handler had added. ‘This dog has seen some sights, I can tell you.’

  Winston could believe it. When he’d been in the field, they’d relied on dogs like Barney to save lives. It was incredible how they could lead the way to a hidden bomb lying beneath the rubble, capable of exploding at any minute.

  Was Barney finding it as difficult as he had? wondered Winston, as he got out his door keys. ‘You’ll adjust to normal life in the end,’ he told him, rubbing the dog down. ‘Just as I have.’

  It was true, even though he’d had some pretty big false starts. Like Melissa. And then Rosie.

  ‘If you don’t mind me saying,’ declared Nick’s mum when he’d found himself discussing his personal life yet again over one of their increasingly regular Sunday lunches, ‘Melissa might have been using you as a stopgap while she got her own feelings in order.’

  Just what he’d thought. But, as he’d pointed out to Pam, he wasn’t entirely blameless. He’d been a bit hard on Alice and Freddie, especially at first, until he’d had a taster of what it was like to be a father himself.

  ‘As for Rosie,’ continued Nick’s mother. ‘The past is like a pair of comfortable old slacks. You sometimes have to accept that they’ve had their day.’ She’d patted his hand. ‘Don’t think I’m being flippant. It’s time to move on, Winston, for both of us. I’ve taken a part-time job at a charity shop. It will get me out of the house more. Now tell me, what did you decide about America?’

  It was a week later. Barney was sitting by the bedroom door, waiting for Winston to change into his gym kit. The invitation to run his old class at the smart London club had come as a welcome surprise back in January. ‘You’ve been missed,’ said the manager.

  But what about the backlash against him for his so-called ‘irresponsible’ behaviour in Afghanistan, as the papers had called it?

  ‘People’s memories can be quite short,’ the manager had pointed out. ‘Besides, it looked as though there were two sides to that story.’

  He had had Nick’s mother to thank for that. Shortly after that long talk at Christmas, she had approached one of the women’s magazines and asked if they’d be interested in a story she had to tell them. It came out under the headline ‘Why I’ve Changed My Mind About Winston King’.

  It had been a moving piece, describing how she’d got to know him better now. It ended with the words ‘If Nick is looking down, as I believe she is, I am certain that she would want us all to see Winston as the brave man that he really is.’

  The amazing thing was that the papers had all picked up on it.

  ‘The Quiet Hero!’ trumpeted the Globe, as though it hadn’t laid into him the previous summer.

  ‘Why We Should All Love Winston!’ screamed Charisma magazine.

  ‘Winston’s Courage!’ enthused another glossy.

  It had made him feel embarrassed but vindicated at the same time.

  Barney gave a short bark, bringing Winston back to the present. ‘You’re right. We’ve got to get going.’

  One of the stipulations Winston had made before accepting the club job was that Barney could come too. In fact, Barney had been one of the reasons Winston had turned down the American television offer. ‘But I want him to be there when I come to the UK for university,’ Jack had protested when he’d run the job idea past his son. ‘Besides, I don’t want you to go so far away.’

  That had decided it.

  In fact, Barney proved to be a great ice breaker at the club, especially with the class of special needs children who came once a week for gentle exercise. This had been Winston’s idea: he’d never have thought of it if he hadn’t spotted a child in a wheelchair at the Corrywood after-school club when he’d gone to pick up Alice and Freddie last year.

  The new course, arranged with one of the local schools, proved to be a great success. In fact, Winston reminded himself as he jogged through the London streets with Barney on the lead, there was a special needs class today.

  That was the best thing about his new life: there was always something happening – like the reunion for his old Marine batch which was coming up.

  As Nick’s mother said, you had to look forward. Not back. And there was no doubt that his plans for developing the villa as an arts centre were really exciting. It would also give him the excuse to spend summers in Greece with his new family.

  Gym was challenging today, especially the last class. The children were, as their accompanying teachers called it, ‘de-mob happy’ with the Easter holidays coming up. It had been difficult to keep their attention. Winston was used to helping them move at their own paces in their own inimitable style. But today they just wanted to play with Barney.

  ‘Can I take him home?’ pleaded one little girl with Downs Syndrome as they made their way out to reception to be collected.

  Winston knelt down next to her, showing her how to stroke the dog’s coat the right way. ‘I’m afraid not,’ he said gently. ‘But you can see him every time you come here.’

  ‘That’s really kind.’ He looked up to see a tall, very glamorous redhead reaching out for the little girl’s hand.

  ‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’

  ‘Sure. I was the deputy producer for Work Out With Winston.’ She pressed a card into his hand. So she was the senior exec producer now! ‘We’re having a bit of a rethink for the morning programme. Give me a call.’

  ‘Your Majesty! Good to see you!’

  Winston had forgotten the backslapping, not to mention the nicknames that were part of the slapstick in the Royal Marines. The ‘Majesty’ bit had come on day one of training, when some wag had taken the mick out of his public school accent and surname. At first he’d been embarrassed by the label, but soon decided it was better than some of the other nicknames that were handed out in a spirit of bonhomie.

  ‘You too, Weasel,’ Winston retorted, pumping the hand of a thin, wiry bloke who’d been extremely adept at wriggling his way through tunnels.

  It was a no-partners reunion, for which he was grateful. It gave them all the chance to have some frank conversations with people who really knew what it had been like out in war zones.

  Anyway, there was no one he could have brought if the invitation had included a plus-one.

  ‘So you’re a married man now, I hear,’ said Weasel, thrusting a drink into his hands. ‘Join the crowd! Did you hear that the wife and I are expecting our fourth?’ He beamed as though he was pregnant himself.

  ‘Congratulations.’ Winston swallowed hard. ‘Actually, Melissa and I aren’t together any more.’ Knocking back the whisky in one, he thought of the decree absolute which had fallen through his letter box that very morning.

  Weasel’s face promptly turned to one of sympathy. ‘Sorry, mate.’

  ‘Don’t be. We weren’t right for each other: not at this stage of our lives, anyway. I didn’t get her kids.’ He looked around. ‘And she didn’t get all this stuff – the mess it left me in.’

  Weasel looked into his glass. ‘Nick was a great girl.’

  ‘Yes. She was.’

  For a moment, they stood there in silence.

  ‘So you’re going to be back on telly then?’ Weasel’s voice was admiring. ‘Read about it in some magazine. The wife’s quite excited. Says she’s missed you.’

  Winston had had hundreds of emails saying the same thing. It looked promising, said his producer excitedly. He could hardly bel
ieve it had all happened so quickly after that chance meeting with the senior exec producer at the gym.

  ‘And I’m also investing in an arts project in Greece,’ he added. ‘Yoga, cookery, painting – the works.’

  Weasel nodded, impressed. ‘Looks like you won’t have any spare time for what I was going to suggest then.’

  Instantly, Winston’s ears pricked up with curiosity. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I’ve been asked to set up a new project to help ex-servicemen get over traumas.’ As he spoke, a bell rang, indicating they should take their seats at the huge dining table, laid with glasses and shiny silver cutlery; so different from the tin mugs they used to swig tea out of in the field. ‘I’m looking for a part-time co-ordinator,’ added his friend as they took their places. ‘Funnily enough, we were thinking about including some exercise and art therapy.’

  ‘Tell me more,’ said Winston, shaking out his stiff white napkin. ‘Sounds interesting …’

  Winston left the dinner early, partly to get back to Barney – he didn’t like leaving him for too long – and partly to mull over Weasel’s proposal.

  He knew Nick would approve. Only someone who had been on the edge, as his old mate had put it bluntly, could help someone in a similar situation. There might even be enough funding to send clients to ‘this place of yours in Greece’ for a week as recuperation.

  Then, as he passed the news-stand by the tube station, Winston’s eye was drawn to a headline: ‘French Couple Jailed for Ten Years After Drug Smuggling Scam’.

  Grabbing a copy, Winston scanned it as he walked down the escalator. It was them! And it looked like Greco hadn’t been the only naive foreigner to be taken in.

  The couple, who lived in London, regularly travelled abroad to dupe innocent locals into sending over significant quantities of cocaine to the UK. They frequently indulged in excessive displays of ‘alfresco sex’ in order to create embarrassment and divert attention from their drug business.

  Had Rosie seen the news? he wondered. Probably. But it would be a good excuse to call tomorrow morning, just to hear her voice.