by Kiley Dunbar
Jonathan was smiling proudly, watching the whole scene beside the red ribbon he’d just helped Mirren fix across the gangplank rails, before he walked out to greet Mari, Rory, Calum, Grandad, Ted, Alex, and even George and Mildred, who were turning in circles on their leads, yapping in excitement and getting hopelessly tangled.
‘Hello, son,’ Grandad said, over the noise of the Scots discussing the motorway and their long journey. He patted Jonathan’s back. ‘Guid to see you, again.’
Mr and Mrs Flowers from the next mooring came out with a chair for Grandad before joining the crowd themselves. Kelsey excused herself from her conversation with the Mayor and kissed her family. Rory handed over a big bunch of cornflowers, telling her he knew they were her favourite – Mari had told him so – and that he’d asked his local florist to get them in specially, and Kelsey hugged him again, realising in that moment that he was already a member of her family and that maybe she could come to think of him as a step-father as well as a friend. The reporters were arriving now too.
‘Where’s Blythe?’ Kelsey said to herself, standing on tiptoe scanning the riverside.
‘Are you going to make a speech, love?’ Mari asked.
‘Should I start? I hoped my neighbour was coming… maybe it’s too cold for her. Maybe that grandson of hers never showed up with his car like she said he’d promised…’
‘Kelsey!’ Mirren called, pointing in the direction of the theatre and all the gathered crowd turned to look too.
Blythe, wrapped from neck to toe in a hot pink evening gown with a moulting feather boa, what looked like the entire contents of her jewellery box, and a smear of shocking pink lipstick, was sailing grandly across the gardens in her wheelchair, pushed from behind by Adrian Armadale.
‘You’re here!’ Kelsey crossed the crowd to greet her with a kiss before straightening up in front of Adrian. ‘And you’re here?’
Mirren was by her side in an instant, followed by Jonathan who made sure to kiss Blythe’s cheek before joining Mirren in staring blankly at Adrian.
‘This is my grandson, Adrian. Do you know each other? You never said so, Adrian, dear.’ Blythe rapped Adrian on the hand.
Adrian nodded but didn’t speak.
‘He’s a good boy, bringing me to your launch, isn’t he, Kelsey?’
‘I’m so glad you’re out and about,’ Kelsey said, her astonishment at the sight of Blythe in daylight outweighing her shock at Adrian accompanying her.
‘Tell me about it,’ Adrian added, a little coyly. ‘I’ve been trying to get her to come out with me for months, but there’s always some excuse or other.’
‘I’m sitting right here, you know, Adrian.’
‘You’re the grandson who brought her the flowers and the newspapers?’ Kelsey said. ‘But I’ve never seen you use the side door at St. Ninians? I live right upstairs.’
Adrian raised his shoulders. ‘Really? I have a key for the front door. I let myself in. I know I could visit more often…’
‘Not at all,’ Blythe interrupted. ‘You’re there every week, and young people must live their lives.’
‘You’re Lorcan’s son?’ Kelsey said, still thinking hard.
‘Uh-huh.’ Adrian was looking at Mirren now. ‘Sorry to surprise you. I didn’t realise you knew gran until a few weeks ago when she showed me the invitation to the launch, and I figured if you won’t speak to me and won’t see me, I could… turn up as Gran’s plus one and maybe you’d not hit me over the head with a champagne glass.’
‘What’s all this?’ Blythe asked, growing impatient with her failure to understand, until Jonathan put a glass of cava in her hand.
‘Do you remember I told you about Jonathan and Wagstaff?’ Kelsey said to Blythe and the actress nodded. ‘Well, we’ve been worried sick the Examiner was going to run a story on them… that Adrian was going to run the story.’
Blythe chuckled. ‘Adrian? My boy wouldn’t hurt a fly; he’s no tattle-tale reporter.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Mirren was finding her voice and staring straight at Adrian. ‘What about the piece you wrote about Jonathan and Peony back in the summer? The thing was full of lies!’
Just as he was about to respond Blythe chimed in and they both uttered the same word at once, ‘Ferdinand!’ Then Blythe said some other words that turned the cold air blue and Kelsey winced, hoping the Mayor wasn’t listening.
‘That man is a thief, you know!’ Blythe was getting exercised now. ‘My Adrian writes lovely articles like the one about me, the one that accompanied your photos, Kelsey dear, and then Ferdinand sticks his own blasted name on them…’
Adrian took over the story at that point. ‘And he’ll run his sloppy, ill-researched, gossip pieces under my name. He’s been doing it a lot recently.’
‘So Ferdinand wrote that awful rubbish about Jonathan and Peony?’ Mirren was incensed. ‘How can you let him get away with that?’ She thought of her own misattributed article in the Broadsheet, all of her hard work and care signed off as Jamesey Wallace’s. The injustice still rankled now.
‘I don’t know, I feel sorry for the old buzzard, I suppose.’ Adrian shrugged. ‘He gave me a job straight out of school and he’s kept me on all these years.’
‘That’s no excuse for letting him spread lies about innocent people,’ Jonathan waded in.
‘You’re right, I know. I thought if I kept my head down and tolerated him, he’d retire and I’d be left in peace. I mean, he must be in his sixties and he doesn’t exactly love his job anymore. I thought if I stuck it out I might end up with the editorship. You know, in this industry it doesn’t do to rock the boat, and jobs are hard to come by, especially when you don’t have a degree from a journalism school.’ His eyes fell back to Mirren’s. ‘I’m sorry, I should have stopped him running gossip pieces and claiming my work as his own, but…’
‘I get it,’ Mirren conceded, and all eyes turned on her. ‘It’s not an easy industry to work in.’
‘I promise you all, I had no intention of running a story about Wagstaff. I’d never do that. Even if he was responsible for ending Gran’s career.’ His jaw flexed with anger.
‘Dear boy, is that what you think?’ Blythe turned to peer up at her grandson in amazement. ‘I brought my career to an end. I chose Laureano and my baby. I chose to go to Spain. Me.’
Adrian crouched by her side. ‘But Wagstaff was blind drunk that night he fell from the stage. He spoiled the run. He ended your career.’
Blythe patted her grandson’s hand. ‘That season was ill-fated. The understudy did his best with me, but I was ill, darling. Very ill.’ Blythe’s eyes sparkled with welling tears she had no intention of letting fall. ‘My hips… I couldn’t go on any longer. Even if the managers hadn’t pushed me out because of my stubbornness and my refusal to be ashamed, there was still no pain relief good enough to get me up on stage twice a day, not back then. The warm weather in Spain and Laureano, and seeing your dad growing up, playing in the olive garden… they all helped my recovery and it was a wonderful time in my life, truly, and that daft old bugger Wagstaff had nothing to do with my absence from the stage.’
Adrian stood again, facing Mirren, shaking his head as he tried to process all this.
‘So that’s why you hated Wagstaff?’ said Mirren.
‘Your name though?’ Kelsey blurted, not letting Adrian reply. ‘You’re called Armadale, not Goode?’
‘Stage name, darling,’ Blythe chirruped. ‘“Goode” felt more… Elizabethan somehow, back in the day. Armadale’s my given name, and I never married, so it’s still my name. Daddy insisted Lorcan go by the family name when we came back to England and I had no objections; he was still Laureano’s son. No name would change that.’
‘We’ve all got in a bit of a mess,’ Adrian said, patting Blythe’s arm and keeping hopeful eyes fixed on Mirren.
‘OK, this is all getting crazy,’ Jonathan interrupted. ‘We can talk about it back at the pub for the after-party. Kelsey, you’ve got a business to laun
ch and a speech to make. Come on.’
Jonathan and Kelsey led the way back to the boat where the crowd were chatting and drinking happily. Half their glasses were empty already.
‘Sorry about that,’ Kelsey called out, her eyes a little dazed. ‘Are we ready to cut the ribbon?’
Everyone cried out that they were and whooped and whistled. Just as Kelsey was inviting the Mayor to take the scissors, a voice behind the crowd rang out, drawing attention away from Kelsey again.
‘Chop chop, Gianfranco, dulzura de mi vida, we’re late, running at the cow’s tail as my mother would say, God rest her soul.’
Advancing across the gardens in a purple jumpsuit, her severe red bob flapping, was Norma Arden, followed closely by her Italian beefcake husband carrying her coat. ‘We’re here Kelsey, we’re here!’ she announced pointlessly; half of Stratford knew she was here by now. She continued exclaiming in her familiar ten-to-the-dozen way, ‘Did I miss anything? Oh look at the barge, isn’t it wonderful, well done, darling!’
Kelsey quickly stepped through the crowd to hug her and, taking her hand, pulled her up front to stand beside the Mayor by the gangplank. ‘Sorry about that. Everyone, this is Norma Arden… and this is her barge. Her business idea, actually.’
‘No, no, no, the gallery concept was all your own. I only gave you a little nudge with the photography studio, and with your young man… where is he?’ Norma scanned the crowd until she saw him. ‘Yoo hoo! Hello Jonathan.’
The Mayor was beginning to look impatient with all the interruptions. She’d already told Kelsey there was a church meeting she had to get to.
Kelsey clapped her hands. ‘Without further ado, I want to welcome you all here today to my gallery launch.’ The words caught a little as she spoke. ‘In some ways it’s been a long, long road to get to this point.’ She was looking at her mum and grandad now, both of whom were dabbing tissues at their eyes. ‘I wasn’t really going anywhere for a long time, then Norma picked me up and brought me here. She gave me a job. I found a place of my own for the first time, and I made so many friends.’ Valeria and Myrtle waved from the back of the crowd where they’d been hugging Gianfranco. ‘And I fell in love too. Now I’ve got a career ahead of me, and a happy life, I hope.’
‘Hear hear,’ Blythe called out.
‘Thank you all for coming with me on this journey. I’ve loved almost every second of it, and if I haven’t loved some bits, at least I learned from them.’ Kelsey’s voice was giving way to emotion and she stepped aside.
The Mayor smiled and the newspaper photographers raised their cameras to capture the moment. The Mayor pronounced: ‘It gives me great pride and pleasure to be here at the beginning of another exciting new business in Stratford-upon-Avon. I declare the Kelsey Anderson Photography Gallery… open.’ The scissors sliced the ribbon in two and the whole riverside resounded with the great cheer that went up.
Everyone processed through the exhibition, Blythe cut the cake, and Adrian passed out the slices wrapped in napkins. Calum fed his to the ducks who to this day still refused to leave their cosy home on top of the barge, and everyone talked and hugged and said how well Kelsey had done. Holiday-makers and locals alike joined the queues and sampled the last of the cava and squeezed themselves into the gallery space to look around. Just as the day was growing dark again, and Mirren was trying to tell Kelsey from over the crowd in a kind of made-up sign language that she’d sold twelve of the framed prints, Kelsey’s mobile rang. Since everyone she knew in the entire world was here, she guessed it was a junk call.
‘Whatever it is, I’m not interested,’ she said into the phone, realising she might be a little tipsy.
‘You haven’t heard what it is yet,’ whined an indignant, nasal voice.
‘Mr Ferdinand? Is that you?’
‘I’ve got a photography job for you…’
Kelsey laughed bitterly. ‘You’re joking? You realise you haven’t paid me for the last one?’
‘Haven’t I? Well this one’s cash in hand, I’ll give it to you tonight, provided you can be discreet about it. I’ll text you the time and place. Just be ready. This job’s a little… sensitive…’
Kelsey interrupted him long before he’d finished speaking. ‘No thank you, Mr Ferdinand, I’m not in the least bit interested.’ She hung up and re-joined the party. The Mayor and the reporters had long since gone, leaving all of her friends and family, who were getting ready to head over to the Yorick for a hot meal round the inglenook. Kelsey, still in triumphant and celebratory mood, thought no more of the phone call.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
‘I know thee not, old man’
(Henry IV, Part 2)
‘May I join you?’ Adrian asked, standing over her table where she nursed a glass of bubbly, and Mirren found she had no objection at all.
The Yorick bar room was packed. Kenneth had done the pub proud and set up a hot buffet of sausage casserole and a mountain of mash and everyone had tucked in greedily. Kenneth even brought out a little dish of sausages for Alex and Ted’s dogs.
Kelsey and Jonathan were sitting thigh to thigh in the inglenook. Jonathan’s parents had only just arrived and were smiling proudly at their son and snapping pictures of them together on Art’s phone.
Jonathan’s mum was as dainty and sweet-looking as Jonathan was tall and broad-shouldered, and Art – dressed in his best suit for the occasion – kept his arm slung lovingly around his wife’s shoulders.
Gianfranco, Myrtle and Valeria were catching up about life after tour guiding and Blythe was sipping champagne next to Norma. The pair were absorbed in conversation. Seeing them across the room, Kelsey found herself wishing she’d brought her camera to capture them together, their outfits a kaleidoscope of pinks and purples all set off with Norma’s shocking red hair, but this was her party and she was here to enjoy it, not to work, though she did snap a quick picture with her phone.
The Scottish contingent were scattered around the bar, all comfortable and relaxed, and Rory and Mari were inconspicuously clasping each other’s hands behind their backs and looking even more besotted than they had at Christmas.
Mirren had felt strangely like an outsider when she sat down alone in the corner by the window, which was decked out in the strands of red loveheart lights she’d hung there herself the day before. She was thinking over the morning’s revelations and reassessing her opinion of Adrian, and now here he was, with her permission, pulling up a chair beside her.
‘So…’ he said, running his hands nervously over his thighs. ‘You look good.’ His eyes swam over her face.
‘Thank you.’ Mirren’s voice began to falter as she spoke. ‘It seems I was wrong about… quite a few things.’
‘You and me both. Will you hear me out if I explain my side of things?’
Mirren nodded, anxious to hear more.
‘All these years I thought Wagstaff was to blame for hurting Gran’s career. That old guy’s dogged me for so long.’ Adrian shook his head, wondering at himself. ‘I think my anger made me curious about him, made me keep researching him when I should have listened to you and stopped. I was consumed with wanting to know who else he’d hurt and I spent Christmas obsessed with it, chasing him through the archives. I wanted to find out the truth for Jonathan and his mum, but a big part of me wanted to uncover all the other awful, selfish things he’d done. I think I wanted to confront him with all the evidence, but I didn’t really find anything. Before I knew it, I’d been at it for hours, I don’t know how long I spent scrolling through the microfilms. Eventually I realised you’d returned my phone and you’d been looking for me and left me all those messages. I was horrified to hear you say that Jonathan had run off, and that you suspected I was looking for a scoop. I abandoned the search and went home, trying to call you, but you wouldn’t answer.’
‘I remember. I was helping Kelsey hang her pictures,’ said Mirren.
‘After we spoke that night I knew I could only get you to trust me by giving you
that memory stick, but the next morning I couldn’t find it anywhere, and I searched for days, honestly I did, and by then I’d started to realise how much I’d hurt you when I promised you I wouldn’t, and I knew you’d be beating yourself up all over again about what happened on Christmas Eve on your boat.’
‘Only a little. I managed to make it up with Mum a bit, and I had some new perspective on what happened at work, thanks to you, and I managed to put my guilt about Preston to bed – well, a bit – but I wasn’t eaten up with guilt like I was before. I was standing on my own two feet and taking better care of myself. I missed you, though, even when I was angry with you.’
‘I missed you too.’
‘Have you been overworking to compensate?’
‘I’ve been trying not to. I’ve been going to the theatre a lot with Mum, spending time with my brothers. Missing you. Kicking myself for hurting you.’
Mirren smiled. ‘Somebody very clever and kind – and handsome – told me that punishing yourself for making mistakes is kind of pointless.’
‘He does sound smart.’ Adrian tried to smile back.
‘Well then, you need to take that handsome devil’s advice, I think, and let go of all that.’ She reached her fingertips to his wrist and the touch of her skin seemed to ignite a fire behind his dark eyes.
‘But Mirren, that memory stick of pictures and stories that I was so obsessed with compiling? It never did turn up, and I swear I’ve no idea where it could be now.’ He cast his eyes down guiltily.
Mirren nodded. ‘Well, it would have turned up by now if someone had found it. I think we can forget about it.’ Seeing the weight of the world still on his shoulders, Mirren shifted closer. ‘Come here.’ She reached her arms around him in a hug.
‘I’ve missed you,’ he breathed out, gently holding her, not wanting to assume too much. ‘I wanted to call you every day, and every day I made myself not call. That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but you told me once before not to chase after you and I didn’t listen then, so I was determined to respect your wishes and I just kept hoping you’d come back to me somehow.’