‘Did you really expect to after all these years? If you’re to have a real relationship with her it will be something to be built and worked at. Anyway, have you asked yourself if it’s what you really want from life, Leah — to belong to someone? I always thought you were very much your own woman. Little Miss Independence.’
‘And so I am. There’s just this little bit of me, deep inside, that needs — needs …’
‘Love?’ He caught at her shoulders. ‘No, don’t turn away, Leah.’ He cupped her chin and turned her face towards him. ‘We all — every one of us — need that. It’s the simplest, most basic, need there is. There’s no need to feel apologetic about it.’
‘For most people it’s there from birth so they never even have to think about it.’ She sighed. ‘Do you know, I realised something today. No one has ever once, in the whole of my life, told me, “I love you”.’
‘And what about you, Leah — have you ever told anyone you love them?’
She was silent for a moment. ‘There was a time when I thought love was just something to barter with,’ she said softly. ‘Something you only parted with if the price was right. I suppose love and sex and friendship were all hopelessly muddled up in my mind.’ Inwardly she was remembering Colin Mays, the one person to whom she had given her love freely and unconditionally; the reckless words she had murmured feverishly during their ecstatic summer afternoons of lovemaking. The humiliation of that brief episode was painfully rekindled as she shook her head slowly. ‘Now I’m not sure I know what it is, Terry, or even if it exists.’
‘Oh, it exists all right.’ He smiled at her wistfully. ‘Does it?’ She smiled tremulously. ‘Then maybe I’ve got it to look forward to.’
‘Oh, Leah …’ Very gently he took her face between his hands and kissed her. ‘Don’t you know how much I love you? Haven’t you realised what hell it’s been for me, being close to you — knowing that you didn’t feel the same? That was why I jumped at the chance of going up north.’ She opened her mouth to speak, but he put a finger against her lips. ‘No. Don’t say anything now. But if you really want to know if love exists, Leah, you don’t have to look very far.’
‘Oh, Terry. You’re the best person in the world. I’ve missed you so much.’ She looked at him for a long moment, her eyes huge and luminous. He paused, recognising her vulnerability, and although it was agony, he forced himself to wait for her to make the first move.
‘I’ve been a fool, haven’t I?’ She reached up to wind her arms around his neck, pulling his head down to hers. ‘An idiot not to see what was under my nose. I do love you, Terry. I suppose I always have.’ For a moment her lips trembled beneath his, then they opened for him and her arms tightened around his neck. He swept her close, kissing her with all the hunger he’d kept at bay for so long, and Leah responded with all of her heart and soul, wondering how it could be possible that she hadn’t seen before how much Terry meant to her. When they drew apart they were both a little shaken.
As she began to undo the buttons of his shirt, Terry looked down at her. His eyes wary, he caught both her hands in his. ‘Look, you’re upset and emotional at the moment, darling. You are sure this is really what you want? You’re sure it’s right this time?’
She laughed softly, burying her face against his chest. ‘I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life, I promise you.’
*
Janet felt more cheerful than she had for weeks. She’d had a busy and productive day. The last two months had been hell. When she drove down to London on Boxing Day she’d been desperate. She'd intended to throw herself on Bill’s mercy; to ask him to try to get her old job on the Globe back for her.
Her relationship with Mike Tessler, her boss, had ended disastrously when his wife had discovered they were having an affair. In spite of all their plans to be together he quickly forgot his promise to ask for a divorce and dropped Janet like a hot potato. Suddenly he saw his wife as a ‘human being’ and protested that he couldn’t cause her any more pain. Janet wasn’t fooled. She’d always suspected that Mike’s wife had money, and there was no stronger tie than that of the purse strings. After that it became impossible for her to work at Pennine. There seemed no other course but for her to give up her job. And just when she’d been tipped for promotion. But even after she’d handed in her resignation she couldn’t believe they’d actually let her go. They had. Mike had gone to the powers that be with his story first, and he was clearly more valuable to them than she was.
After the initial anguish she’d quite looked forward to coming back to London, to the familiar house and to seeing Bill again. But the moment they set eyes on each other she’d known it wasn’t going to work. She couldn’t admit her defeat to him, much less ask him for any favours. At best she would find herself beholden to him, at worst she would have to endure his pity. It would almost have been easier if he’d despised her, but he didn’t. He was the same old Bill who’d driven her mad throughout their unsatisfactory marriage; tough and hard hitting as a journalist, but tolerant and forgiving to the point of stupidity when it came to relationships. He might even start nursing hopes that she’d come back to him. No, she would have to get another job under her own steam. And until she got one there was nothing for it but to fall back on freelancing.
Little had she thought that Bill’s attractive young tenant would provide her with the story she needed to get started. After spending some time at the British Museum and St Catherine’s House, checking records, she called in at the Globe offices on the pretext of looking up some of her ex-colleagues. Before leaving she paid a visit to her old friend Reg Jeffries who looked after the archives down in the basement. She spent an hour going through back numbers of the paper preserved on microfilm and meticulously catalogued by Reg, checking back over the past twenty years and further.
Finally, there it was, the story she’d been looking for. The date was 23 September 1970. The front page headline leapt out at her: Pregnant Girl Held on Terrorism Charge. Janet felt a charge of excitement surge through her. As she read her excitement intensified, sending the adrenalin tingling along her veins like liquid fire. She’d been sure the powerful gut feeling she’d had about this all along wouldn’t let her down. Something about Leah and her twin sister, their connection with the Evans woman, had been niggling insistently at the fringes of her memory since early this morning. Now here it was, the whole story — everything she could have hoped for.
Opening her bag, she drew out her notebook. Tucked inside was the polaroid photograph Bill had taken of Leah and Sally on Christmas Day. All she needed now was a good contact and with a bit of luck she’d be on her way.
Chapter 20
It was dark by the time Marie arrived home. She was tired and hungry, but before going to the kitchen to make herself a snack she looked into the living room. David sat in the unlit room, slumped in his chair, his ashen face illuminated by the light of the fire.
‘David, what is it? Are you ill?’ Alarmed, Marie switched on the light and went to him, dropping to her knees by his chair.
‘This came this afternoon,’ he said numbly.
He took a letter from the table beside him and handed it to her. Her eyes widened with dread as she took in the stilted, legal phrases.
Looking up at him she said: ‘Oh, David, I’m so sorry. I must admit that I’ve half expected this. I did my best to keep it from you — maybe I shouldn’t have kept it back. Ralph hasn’t been paying the bills. I’ve spoken to him time and again, but he just wouldn’t listen.’
‘I should never have agreed to give him power of attorney,’ he said between tight lips. ‘He confused me so — made me believe in the end that I really wasn’t fit to handle things. I should have insisted on taking over the business again. That overdraft — those cheques. For a while I began to wonder if my mind was going, but I know now that it wasn’t me.’
‘Maybe you should have handed over to Ralph at the beginning,’ she said with a sigh. ‘He’s been so resentf
ul and restless all along. Maybe if he’d had control from the start …’
David suddenly gripped her hand. ‘How could I just hand over all that we’d worked for, you and I? I intended to, eventually, once he’d proved himself, but when I saw the way he was treating you I made up my mind.’ He looked at her. ‘Do you think I didn’t see how unhappy he was making you? Do you think I didn’t hear the rows? I blamed myself. If it hadn’t been for me you’d probably never have married him.’
‘You mustn’t blame yourself, David. It won’t help now. Perhaps I was wrong to keep you in the dark about the mounting debts. I kept hoping it would all sort itself out. Ralph has kept me in complete ignorance about the business.’ She looked at him. ‘What are we going to do, David?’
‘The first thing is to get that solicitor up here.’ David’s voice was strong. It was as though he had suddenly been given a new strength. ‘I’ve been trying to find his number but it doesn’t seem to be in the directory.’
‘I’ll do it. It’s too late tonight. First thing in the morning I’ll get on to it. Don’t worry, David. We’ll sort it out one way or another.’
Later, after he was in bed, Marie telephoned ‘The Marina’ and asked to speak to Ralph. When he came on the line he sounded irritable.
‘What is it, Marie? I was there only yesterday. Can’t you leave me alone for five minutes?’
‘It’s happened, Ralph,’ she said without preamble. ‘We’ve been served with a writ. If we don’t find the money quickly to pay our debts we’ll be made bankrupt.’
‘And you wait till this time of night to tell me?’
‘I’ve been out all day,’ she told him. ‘David received the writ while I was out. He’s out of his mind with worry.’
‘Tell him he can leave it all to me.’
‘I think he’s heard that before, David,’ she said tartly. ‘He wants the power of attorney reversed. Can you tell me the solicitor’s number? It doesn’t seem to be listed.’
‘I said, leave it to me,’ he thundered down the telephone.
‘We’ve been leaving it to you, Ralph, and look at the mess it’s got us into. The solicitor’s number, please. This can’t wait.’
‘I’ll come back,’ he snapped. ‘I’ll drive down first thing tomorrow.’ Before she could argue further he’d rung off.
Marie spent a sleepless night. Unless they could pay off all that was owing before the date of their court appearance everything would be put into the hands of the trustees to be disposed of. If only she had some idea of the extent of their debts. Could they salvage anything out of the mess? More than anything else, she worried about the effect of it all on David’s health.
*
Ralph arrived at midday. He looked tense and grey but his manner was as brash and defiant as ever. Marie insisted that they all three ate lunch before they got down to discussion though none of them had much appetite. Finally the table was cleared and David looked expectantly at Ralph.
‘Right, how do you propose to get us out of this mess?’ he asked.
Ralph shrugged. ‘To be honest, I don’t know if I can.’
Marie stared at him. ‘But surely if we sell …’
‘Selling takes time,’ he interrupted. They might not give us the option. And we’re mortgaged up to the hilt anyway. It’ll depend on how much more time we can persuade our creditors to let us have.’
‘Have you brought the necessary papers with you?’ Marie asked. ‘I think it’s time the cards were on the table. Just how much do we owe? And to whom?’ Ralph opened his briefcase and drew out a sheaf of papers, spreading them on the table in front of her. Her expression of horror deepened as she leafed through them. ‘My God. How could you let things go this far?’ she said accusingly. ‘Have you had advice? What about the accountant you were meeting at “The Marina” — does he know about all this? Is that what your meeting was about?’
‘He advises voluntary bankruptcy,’ Ralph said dispassionately.
‘I can see his point.’ Marie said ironically. She glanced at David as he rose unsteadily to his feet.
‘You’ve ruined us,’ he said in a low, growling voice she had never heard before. ‘You’ve ruined us, and all you can do is sit there and talk about voluntary bankruptcy. Well, let me tell you that you don’t have any say in this. It’s my decision, just as everything should have been all along. Get that solicitor here at once.’
‘There is no solicitor,’ Ralph said coolly. ‘The man who drew up the power of attorney was a friend of mine, a solicitor’s clerk not a solicitor. The power was never registered. I did it to keep you out of my hair.’ David grasped the back of the chair and Marie saw the colour drain from his face. ‘You — you what? You mean that all this time you’ve been pulling the wool over our eyes. I’ve been letting you — when all the time …’ He swayed and Marie was on her feet instantly.
‘David, don’t upset yourself. We’ll work something out. Come and lie down.’
‘I’m all right.’ He shook her hand away and straightened his back. ‘I can’t believe what a fool I’ve been. I should have done this years ago. I’d like you to leave, Ralph. From now on I don’t want to see you unless I have to.’
Ralph laughed shortly. ‘Don’t kid yourself, Dad. We’re all in this together. Besides, in case you’ve forgotten, I happen to be Marie’s husband. What’s she supposed to do?’
David glanced at Marie. ‘That’s entirely up to her, of course.’
Marie laid a hand on David’s arm. ‘Ralph is right in a way. We’re all in this. We’re going to have to see it through together.’
‘Spoken like the loyal wife we all know and love,’ Ralph jeered.
David took a deep breath and rallied himself. ‘There’s something you should both know. My Will is made out entirely in Marie’s favour.’ He held up his hand as Ralph half rose. ‘I know you’re not my true son, Ralph. I’ve known for a very long time that your mother deceived me when we married. But when you came back into my life I told myself that it wasn’t your fault. You weren’t responsible for her lies. You were the closest I’d ever had to a son of my own and I was flattered that you took an interest in me. I was prepared to give you a chance, but I couldn’t have made a more disastrous decision. You’ve wrecked the business Marie and I built, and our lives with it.’
Ralph gave a callous shrug. ‘So you’ve cut me off without a shilling, have you? Marie gets the lot.’ His eyes glinted with malice as he looked at Marie. ‘Congratulations. You’ll be lucky to be left with the clothes you stand up in once the receivers get their hands on everything. Look, all business is a gamble. It was Marie’s idea to have a chain of hotels. Why don’t you blame her? If it had come off I’d be the hero of the day. Now that it hasn’t, I’m just the son-of-a-bitch who lost your money. Well, tough. But don’t run away with the idea that it bothers me, because it doesn’t. Marie’s my wife. What’s hers is mine anyway, whether it’s debts or riches. Like she said, we’re in this together.’ He began to shove papers back into his briefcase. ‘Right, I’m off now. But I’ll be back to stay once I’ve cleared my things out of “The Marina”.’ At the door he turned with a defiant smile. ‘See you later.’
*
‘Janet, how nice to see you.’
Harriet Marsh, the editor of the Recorder, looked up as Janet was ushered into her office. She took off her glasses and pushed back her chair. ‘What can I do for you?’
She’d heard, of course, on the grapevine that Janet Fenton had been forced to resign her promising and coveted job at Pennine TV. She and Janet went back a long way. They had met when they were trainee reporters on the same provincial newspaper twenty years ago. But if Janet was expecting to be given a job on the strength of their longstanding friendship, she had another think coming. The paper was already overstaffed. Only last week she’d had a directive from above to decide on six redundancies.
‘Coffee?’ Harriet’s beaming smile masked her reservations as her hand hovered over the intercom.
Harriet relaxed a little. So she wasn’t after a job on the staff after all? Janet was a good journalist and if she was really on to something it might be worth looking at. ‘What’s your idea?’ she asked.
‘It’s a sort of “Where are they now?” thing.’
Harriet pursed her lips. ‘It’s been done.’
‘Not like this though,’ Janet put in. ‘These are sensational cases. Women who hit the headlines some years ago.’
Harriet looked unimpressed. ‘We-ell …’
‘Women who got a raw deal from life — who were judged guilty when many thought them innocent,’ Janet went on. It was proving harder to sell than she thought. ‘For instance, does the name Marie O’Connor mean anything to you?’
‘Mmm.’ Harriet frowned. ‘Rings a dim and distant bell somewhere. A long time ago, wasn’t it?’
‘Twenty years ago. A young Irish girl arrested at Paddington Station with a bloody great bomb concealed in her luggage. She went down for a five-year stretch for terrorism. Much public sympathy was on her side but she was convicted just the same.’
‘That’s right, I remember now. Some thought the so-called boyfriend used her as a human bomb. It was while you and I were on the Clarion. Wasn’t she also pregnant?’
‘She was.’ Janet was trying hard to keep the triumphant smile off her face, Harriet was biting nicely now. ‘She gave birth to twin girls in the remand home before the trial.’
The Long Way Home: A moving saga of lost family Page 37