The Long Way Home

by Fanny Blake

  A hungry Eloise put paid to any more serious thought before May had to leave to collect Emile.

  That night, May lay still wide awake at two in the morning, hearing the ormolu clock on the table outside her room strike the hour, while the lamplight outside leached into the room through the gap in her curtains, making silhouettes of everything in there, as if she were in a macabre fairy tale. She had replayed her last conversation with David over and over again, making herself both excited and anxious. In retrospect, perhaps it was odd that she hadn’t considered something like this happening but she had never thought of David in a romantic way. At least not until now. Until that kiss. A future that she had never envisaged or asked for had opened up in front of her.

  In exchange for her dreams of a life with Max or an independent life on her own she was gaining something far more precious. She would be married to David. They would love each other and she would have security, comfort and the family she had dreamed of, just a little sooner than she had imagined. Her only very real concern was how Eloise would fit into all of this without being hurt.

  There was no escaping the fact that Eloise was another woman’s child. Céleste had as much right to be involved with her daughter’s life as Eloise had to be with her natural mother. Whatever David said, however good May was with her, Eloise belonged to someone else. They would never be rid of Céleste. Apart from that, would David and she be up to protecting Eloise from being ostracised when the truth of her birth came out. David and Céleste had not even been married when she was born. And now she would be being brought up by another woman.

  No, it wouldn’t work. As much as it broke her heart, May recognised that she had to let her and David go. They had their own lives that she did not have a place in. She would have to tell him.

  33

  Edinburgh, 2019

  Their first evening together had been a strain, largely thanks to Andrew. He began by being pleasantly garrulous, entertaining even. Even Lorna laughed once. But it wasn’t long before he drifted towards boring then incoherent then virtually comatose. Being at the heart of an unhappy marriage was difficult. Lorna couldn’t hide her misery, although she did her best, talking furiously about anything that came into her head, semi-flirting with Ian which embarrassed him, irritated Isla and amused Charlie while ignoring Andrew as much as she could.

  ‘Andrew! Time for bed.’ Eventually Lorna tapped his shoulder.

  He reared up as if he’d been poked by a cattle prod.

  ‘Not yet. Still early. Nightcap, anyone?’

  Ian joined him in a whisky – just to be polite, despite Lorna’s badly hidden sigh of frustration.

  In the morning, everyone bar Charlie began the day pussyfooting round each other in the kitchen while Lorna drummed up a restorative breakfast.

  ‘I’d forgotten how a teenager can sleep,’ she said, putting the toast into two toast racks for each end of the table.

  Isla took her buzzing phone from her skirt pocket, too late to answer, surprised to be called so early. ‘Odd. That was Di, my neighbour. I can’t imagine why she’d want me. I hope nothing’s happened at home. I’ll just go upstairs and call her back.’

  In her room, glad of an excuse to escape, Isla stood at her window and stared out at the garden as she made the call. She and Di had made friends the day she moved into Walton Street and Di, as wide as she was tall and with a pudding basin haircut dyed a dirty blue, had arrived on the doorstep with two mugs of tea and a packet of biscuits. Their friendship had quickly extended to weekly get-togethers, visits to the cinema and the occasional concert. If ever either need help, the other was always ready to oblige. However, things had changed when Tony came on the scene.

  Isla was aware she hadn’t paid her friend as much attention as she should recently and Di’s disapproval of the new set-up was evident in the way she looked at Tony, as if he was something nasty on the bottom of her shoe. Making matters worse, Isla had an uncomfortable feeling the party wall between their bedrooms wasn’t quite as thick as it might be. She had asked Di round a number of times, but either Tony had organised something so she had to rearrange or he was so casual, it was embarrassing. When she mentioned it, he was shocked. ‘You’re imagining it. I like her.’ But that wasn’t the Tony she knew and loved in private at all. Di had been understandably upset and distanced herself from them. Nevertheless, she answered Isla’s call straight away.

  ‘Are you all right? Has something happened?’

  A thrush landed on a branch of the apple tree outside and began singing its heart out.

  ‘I’m fine.’ Di’s sharp little voice was loud and clear. ‘But exhausted thanks to the party that was going on at yours all last night. Have you come back early to celebrate something?’

  ‘A party? No, I’m in Edinburgh.’

  ‘Believe me, it’s true. Fenton called the police at two thirty.’ Fenton was Isla’s other neighbour, a philosophy don, who usually kept himself to himself. ‘One or two people left then, but the noise went on long after.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ Isla was puzzled. ‘Let me call Tony and find out what’s happened. It won’t be happening again, I promise.’ The thought of her home being besieged by strangers was more than she could bear. What could Tony be thinking of? She remembered the voices she’d dismissed when she last spoke to him. ‘I’ll call you right back.’

  She sat on her bed and called Tony. No reply.

  Downstairs in the kitchen, she explained what had happened.

  ‘You haven’t got squatters, have you?’ asked Lorna, immediately putting the fear of God into Isla. Could they have moved in while Tony was out?

  ‘No. Not possible. Tony’s staying there.’

  The complicit exchange of looks between Ian and Charlie was maddening but she didn’t pick them up on it. Watching them together since he’d arrived had given her such pleasure. He had taught Charlie some complicated card game for two that had them shouting and laughing while Isla and Lorna were in the kitchen. He was at home here and made everyone laugh with his backstage stories that inevitably involved exposing one star or another, to everyone’s gasps of disbelief. Charlie obviously worshipped him.

  During the course of the morning, she called Tony three times but it rang out every time.

  She phoned Di again.

  ‘I can’t get hold of Tony. He must have gone out. If you do see him, could you possibly ask him to call me?’

  ‘I doubt if I’ll be able to do that.’ Di sounded even more judgemental than usual, which irritated Isla.

  ‘Oh, don’t be difficult, Di. Please. I want to sort this out.’

  ‘It’s not because I don’t want to but because I’ve already seen him this morning. He was leaving your house with two large suitcases. A young man was parked, engine running, half up on the pavement…’ Her outrage at the offence almost made Isla laugh. Di was such a stickler for the rules. ‘I ran out to tell him to move on when Tony came out of your front door. When I asked him about the party he just said, “Don’t worry, I won’t be coming back so it won’t happen again.” ’

  Isla was quite still, confused. Something was wrong. ‘Are you sure that’s what he said? That he’s not coming back?’

  ‘Certain. He chucked the cases in the boot, climbed in, and they roared off.’

  Isla put a hand to her throat as she felt a rush of nausea. ‘That can’t be right. You must have misheard.’ A hollow echo of what she had said to Charlie. Her heart was telling her one thing while her head was screaming out another. No, no. There would be an explanation. Di had got it wrong. She would call Tony and sort everything out.

  ‘I’m so sorry but I really didn’t… I did take a photo of the car though. Part of my building evidence for the council.’

  But Isla hardly heard her. ‘I’m sorry, Di. Can we talk later? I’m going to try him again.’

  But she knew what would happen and, sure enough, his phone rang then switched to voicemail.

  She couldn’t believe this was happe
ning. She didn’t want to. The money she had given him to invest for her… She saw things with appalling clarity. What a stupid thing to have done. How could she have been so blind? But they were planning a future together. She stopped herself.

  He had never said that.

  A shared future was in her imagination. Her world had changed irrevocably over twenty-four hours.

  She tried his number several times more. His failure to answer only confirmed her worst fears, no matter how much she didn’t want to believe them. She looked up his new company’s website, rang the contact number to be told it had not been recognised. Her online bank account confirmed the money had been safely transferred to his account.

  But none of this tallied with what she knew to be true. Although what Di had seen meant he must have gone away. With two cases containing what? But he would be back, she told herself. He would have to be.

  Late-morning, when she was alone in the kitchen, she called Di again, this time to ask her to let herself into the house to check everything was more or less as she left it.

  Twenty minutes later, Di called back. ‘I’m in the house. I can’t see your collection of Beatrix Potter figures though.’ Those thirty little Beswick figures had taken Isla years to collect and should be safe in the museum, but she couldn’t let them go. ‘Or the snow globes. There are a couple of pictures missing: the angels over the mantelpiece and that woman’s portrait in the hall. And the dining room table. There may be more but only you’d know.’

  Isla felt as if a bucket of cold water had been emptied over her.

  ‘And…’ Di sounded suspiciously as if she was rather enjoying her role in this. ‘There’s an envelope addressed to you in the kitchen. Handwritten. And it’s not in the pile of post but separate with a set of keys.’ Apart from Di, the only other person with a set was Tony. They had to be his.

  ‘Could you read it to me?’ Isla didn’t want to share her humiliation but she had to find out what had happened. She was too far away from home to come rushing back. She had to talk to Aggie as well as being at her eighty-fifth birthday celebrations on Sunday.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘Okay. Here goes.’ There was the sound of tearing paper as she opened the envelope. ‘Dear Isla.’

  Business-like. No dearest or darling. Isla braced herself.

  ‘I’m a coward. I didn’t mean to get so involved. Perhaps I shouldn’t have come for the weekend but I couldn’t resist. And I wanted the money of course… You haven’t lent him money?’

  Isla couldn’t bear Di’s incredulousness on top of her own. Just my hard-earned savings, she thought. Just my retirement fund.

  ‘Only a little,’ she said.

  ‘More fool you. There’s more. I don’t like feelings that get in the way of what would otherwise be a simple business proposition for me so it’s time to move on. I’ve enjoyed our time together but perhaps I shouldn’t have let it go so far. But without an inheritance, why wait around? I’m taking a few souvenirs. Don’t try to find me. You won’t. Have a good life.’

  There was a silence as both women absorbed the implications of the letter.

  ‘Well!’ Di spoke first. ‘It looks like you’ve been well and truly had.’ She was never shy of speaking her mind.

  ‘Yes, but I can’t…’ This couldn’t be happening. Isla leaned forward and put her head on the cool kitchen counter, grateful not to be told how Di had never trusted him or that she could have told her so. What an idiot she’d been. She saw it all too clearly. Tony was nothing but a common conman. He had targeted her, picked her up in the Ashmolean, discovered her mother had just died, leaving her, he thought, an inheritance. As good, she had savings. He’d taken her well and truly for a ride and walked away with her twenty thousand pounds, two of her precious collections and God knows what else. How could she have been so stupid? After all these years of caution and non-commitment, she had fallen for the wrong man. How she had misjudged him. How she thought she had loved him. She heard a sob. Hers.

  ‘You should call the police.’ Di was still there, waiting. ‘Now.’

  ‘And say what? That I’m a silly old woman who’s been taken in by a fraudster?’ She could imagine their scorn. She blinked her tears away. He would not make her cry on top of everything else, dammit.

  ‘I won’t hear that.’ Di brought her back to earth, even if she didn’t know the half of it. ‘Just because you fell for it… you won’t be the first, and you won’t be the last. He’s stolen from you. And remember I’ve got the photo of the car they drove off in, and its number.’ She read it out. ‘A grey Toyota Auris. He won’t have reckoned on that.’

  Isla’s fury at being taken in, her humiliation, her shock were momentarily mitigated by the possibility of catching up with him. ‘You’re brilliant. Thank you.’

  ‘Thought you’d never say it. Get on and make the call.’

  ‘Perhaps I should come back?’ Though she hated the thought of missing Aggie’s celebration. How dare he rob her of that too?

  ‘Why? He’s gone. You can’t miss your aunt’s party. She’d be so disappointed. That would be letting him win. I can let the police in if need be.’

  Isla had never been more grateful for Di’s clear thinking. ‘I’ll call them now.’

  * * *

  Within a couple of hours, the police had been round to Walton Street, Di had shown them all they needed to see. Isla would make a formal statement on Tuesday when she was back. She was left feeling hollow inside. All that trust and love for nothing. She had come so close to committing herself emotionally, overcoming that bit of her that always held back. And the money. How would she make it up? Although the police had been confident they would trace the car, thanks to Di’s quick reactions, and she might be able to get some of it back.

  From now on she would be independent, giving nothing of herself to anyone again. The whole affair was a horrible wake-up call to the fact that she might be seen as a vulnerable older woman. Not the way she had ever considered herself. The humiliation she had felt while telling the police that she had let this man into her house, given him money, a holiday and what he walked away with could not have been worse. As she explained to the patient, unshockable voice at the other end of the phone, she heard herself sounding increasingly lunatic. No, she hadn’t met any of his family or friends. Yes, she had transferred the money to an account her bank said had now been closed; no, she hadn’t asked the full name of his business partner; no, she didn’t have an address for where he had been living when she met him. The more he asked the more inept her replies seemed, each of them demanding the question, Why not?

  She tried to do justice to Lorna’s soup and bread and cheese lunch but her appetite had deserted her. Hearing what had happened meant the others were sympathetic. Even Charlie, whose instinct had been proved right.

  Afterwards, Ian took Isla to one side. ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘Not “Can you talk to me?” ’ Isla attempted a joke, but it fell flat. ‘That’s what you always say to me.’

  ‘It’s not like that, this time. I know you’ve had a terrible shock but we’ve got something to tell you.’

  ‘At least you can’t make things any worse.’

  He took her into the living room where Charlie was sitting in the window seat and shut the door. ‘Sit down.’

  ‘What is this?’ She sat in the sofa which meant she could see her granddaughter. ‘Now you’re worrying me. Although nothing you can say will outdo what’s just happened. I feel as if someone’s hit me with a plank.’

  ‘And will do for a while, I’m sure.’ He sat beside her. Still wearing the same cologne, she noticed. Charlie crossed the room to take the chair by the fireplace and swung her bare legs over its arm so she was facing them. She was wearing her impossibly short shorts again and a baggy sleeveless T-shirt, her hair loose over her shoulders.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘You’re not going to like this – or maybe you will – but it’s
about Tony.’

  ‘Not more.’ Her voice wavered. ‘Perhaps I can’t take any more after all.’ She stood up to leave the room. She was not going to cry in front of them.

  ‘Sit down and listen.’ He grabbed her hand but she resisted sitting back down beside him again, confused by how close she felt to him, confused by how drawn to him she felt.

  ‘Charlie and I have done a bit of research—’

  Charlie curled up her toes and, with a shake of her head, shielded her face with her hair.

  ‘For God’s sake, Ian!’ Isla exploded with rage. As if this morning wasn’t bad enough, he was bent on making it worse. ‘Don’t drag Charlie into it. Why are you doing this?’ She’d rather spontaneously combust than any hear any more bad news.

  ‘In fact, she dragged me into it.’ Ian cast a reassuring smile at his granddaughter. ‘Why do you think I turned up after you’d so resoundingly told me to stay away?’

  ‘I thought…’ But what could she say? Charlie had been right all along. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t believe you about Tony.’

  Charlie looked at her knees, running a finger round her kneecap. ‘Doesn’t matter. I’m kinda sorry I was right.’

  ‘But why come up early?’ She looked at Ian. ‘You didn’t have to.’

  ‘Why? Because we care about what happens to you. Unbelievable isn’t it?’ That matinée idol smile. It had worked on too many women. It wasn’t going to work on her again.

  ‘I don’t need you to care though.’

  ‘Actually you do.’ He and Charlie nodded at each other. ‘I’ve made a couple of phone calls and done some googling with Charlie’s help. She was worried about you.’

  ‘Don’t be angry.’ Charlie’s eyes were wide in appeal.

  That brought Isla up short. If anything she should be worrying about her granddaughter, not the other way round. ‘And?’ she said cautiously. ‘Go on then. After this morning, nothing could come close.’

  Except, from the concern written on Ian’s face, perhaps this was going to come closer than any of them would like. She took a deep breath, readying herself for whatever it was.