One Summer Night At the Ritz (14 page)

This time he kissed her.

She stood, startled for a second, as he took a step forward and she found herself pressed back against the door of the boat. His hands were round her neck, his thumbs on her cheeks, angling her head up towards him. She could taste beer and warmth and smell the river water on their skin. Draped in shadow, she lifted her arms up and wrapped them round his neck, knowing that she had been kissed before in her life but never like this. His hands moved down to her waist and round her back, one arm pulling her tight towards him, the other taking the key out of her hand and unlocking the door, pushing her back and inside without letting go.

Yesterday Jane had come back from The Ritz and packed up everything of her mother’s from the boat. Everything of her own that she had kept and didn’t need. All the clutter, all the stuff, all the hoards of things that were left from a past life. All the memories of an illness and a struggle. She had taken it all to the charity shop and then cleaned the place from top to bottom. Scrubbed it. And then she had taken the few things that she loved. The hand-block-printed throws that her mum had designed and made and covered the sofa and the chairs. The couple of jugs, the few nick-nacks, the best books and put them on the window sill. She had thrown away the old bedding and replaced it with white cotton sheets. She had rolled up the old, matted rugs and polished the floorboards. Then she had stood by the furnace with a cup of tea, looked around and thought that this was now hers. Her home. Her memories. A photograph of her, Annie and Emily winning the dahlia competition at the Cherry Pie Show was tucked next to one of her and her mum in a canoe, laughing, taken by Enid.

Now all she could think was,
Thank God I did that!

Especially when Will paused and pulled back from the kiss for a quick, cursory look around the boat. ‘Very nice,’ he said, then dropped the key on the floor, bought his hand up to the back of her head and she felt his mouth on hers again. This time she wasn’t startled or nervous, or thinking about her spring clean, she was there, in the moment, her arms tight around his neck, her hand in his hair, loving the press of his lips on hers, the taste of him, the smell of him, the closeness, the tightness, the feeling that he just was never going to let go, at least for tonight.

He walked her backwards, his eyes opening for a second to check they were headed in the right direction and, moments later, she found herself falling back with him onto fresh, white cotton sheets.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Next day it was Monday morning. Will had a ten o’clock meeting. He woke up at nine-thirty.

‘Shit. Shit. Jane, I’m late.’

She rolled over. ‘It’s early, don’t worry.’

‘It’s not early, it’s half past nine. Shit. OK, I’ve gotta go and I’ve somehow gotta get my phone and some clothes.’

Jane propped herself up on her elbow and watched him as he searched around for his boxers.

‘Morning to you, too, Will,’ she said with a half-smile.

‘This isn’t funny. Seriously, I’ve gotta get to this meeting. Shit, shit, shit.’

‘Look, it’s fine.’ Jane got out of bed, wrapped the towel round her and went to rummage through her stuff to see if there was anything Will might be able to put on. ‘You could borrow something from Matt when you go and pick up your stuff,’ she said, trying really hard not to laugh when he looked at her, horrified.

The best she could find was a big green Babour jacket. ‘This might fit.’

‘No way.’ Will shook his head. ‘I can’t walk through the island in that.’

‘The only other thing I can suggest is that you swim back. Matt will let you have a shower.’

‘I can’t do that either.’

Jane shrugged. ‘Or you could phone in sick and have breakfast with me?’ she said, biting down on a smile.

‘No, I can’t do that. I’ve really gotta go.’

She felt her smile fade. ‘OK, well take the jacket and there’s a bike leaning up outside that’ll get you there quicker and less people’ll see.’

‘OK. Fine. Right.’ He walked over and took the coat. ‘I can’t believe I’m doing this.’

Jane nodded. She wanted him to say something else. To acknowledge the beautiful night they’d had together. To forget about work for a second and think about her, but he didn’t. He put the coat on, shook his head at his reflection, bent to kiss the top of her head and said, ‘I’ll call you later, OK?’

‘Whatever,’ she said, standing in just the sheet, watching as he went.

Chapter Twenty-Four

He’d bottled it. Will had one hundred per cent bottled it. Halfway through the cycle ride to Matt’s, he’d almost turned around and gone back. All the way through the humiliating scene of borrowing a suit, searching the garden for his phone and keys, waving a smirking Matt and Annie goodbye, he wished he’d just turned tail and gone back to Jane’s.

It had been quite possibly the best evening of his life. The best day of his life.

Everything he had done up to that point seemed immediately purposeless. The work, the business, the lifestyle. He sat in his dad’s office and for the life of him couldn’t say why. It wasn’t even guilt. It was the same sense of misplaced loyalty and tradition that had made his father be at the beck and call of his grandmother.

He was staring out of the window during the meeting and missed the question posed by one of his colleagues.

‘Sorry, can you say that again?’ he asked.

Dolores, who was taking the minutes, looked up and frowned.

Will tried to concentrate. It was tedious.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like being an office, didn’t like working, it was that his every day was spent trying to keep something that should have folded years ago afloat. It was exhausting. Exhausting and pointless. He wanted to be part of something that was energised and about growth and the future. Not strangled by an outdated past.

He was doing this, every day, for a dead man.

He thought about the conversation he’d had with Jane about his brother. How his main objections had really been his brother’s freedom to do as he chose. But didn’t he have that same freedom? His mum knew it was a millstone. It was just tradition. Habit. To a certain extent, propriety.

What was he doing?

Will sat up.

‘Will you just excuse me a moment?’ he said, cutting off a list of demands being read by his aunt’s lawyer. ‘I’ll just be a sec,’ he added, pushing his chair back and walking out of the now-silent room.

‘Shall we have a break for tea?’ He heard Dolores say.

Will ducked into his office and immediately got his phone out and rang Jane.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said as soon as she answered. ‘I’m really sorry. And I know that’s all I seem to say to you but I am. And I’m learning. I just… It’s taking me a while to get all my priorities in place. I had the most… Just the nicest time last night. I-I think it’s all just happened really quick and I keep being a step behind and messing up. So I’m sorry. I just wanted to ring to say that– that I was sorry.’

There was silence on the other end.

‘What are you doing? Are you frowning? Are you mad?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘No I was actually smiling. I’ve just had a coffee with Annie and she told me about seeing you arrive on a pink bike in just a jacket this morning. Now as you’re talking I’m envisaging you like that, and it’s making me laugh.’

‘That doesn’t sound like a particularly good thing from my standpoint.’

‘You should have called in sick or just called in absent. You should have realised what was more important,’ she said.

‘I know.’ He nodded. ‘I’m nodding. I know. I’m just learning.’

He heard her take a breath in.

‘Can I see you again?’

There was a pause.

‘Why aren’t you saying anything?’ he asked.

‘Because it’s really hard.’ She laughed softly then said, ‘I’m going to go away, Will. I have to go away for a bit. I have to go and learn what it’s like to be alone and be OK with that.’

Will swallowed. He moved over to the window to look down at all the tiny people and the tiny cars.

She carried on. ‘The thing is, Will, is that I have this big empty hole that has all the little things that I see and want to tell someone and there’s always been someone to tell. And now I need to learn what it’s like to be alone. To go and see things and just be me.’

Will nodded.

‘Are you still there?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, that’s what I need to learn. And so I think I’m going to go travelling, use some of my dad’s money to see the world. Find out what I like. What I think. Who I am.’

‘You know who you are. You know who you are more than anyone I’ve ever met,’ he said, looking down to find his hand was clenched at his side.

‘Maybe. Maybe that’s what I’ll learn,’ she added with a laugh. ‘So, the thing is that you have your life here. You have your order and I don’t want to take that away. So I think that it’s probably best if we leave it at this one precious night.’

Will sucked in his breath.

‘I’m sorry, Will. See, now it’s me apologising. I just don’t think I could cope with it being more and then going, or maybe even staying because of it. I’m really sorry.’

‘No it’s fine.’ He shook his head. ‘I completely understand.’

When he put the phone down, Will suddenly felt completely shattered. Exhausted. His lack of sleep was catching up with him.

Dolores put her head round the door, ‘Can I get you anything, Will?’ she asked.

‘No, thanks. I’ll be back in there in a minute.’

‘OK. No rush, they’re all having biscuits,’ she said with a laugh. ‘By the way, all the information I could get on that Jane Williams is in the folder on your desk.’ She pointed to the manila folder in front of him. ‘We’re still searching for the father.’

Will stared at it for what felt like minutes, then pulled it forward and opened it up. Clipped to the pages was a photograph of Jane on her boat. He pulled it out and held it up, staring at her. Wondered what he would have thought prior to his meeting with her at The Ritz. That she most definitely wasn’t his type – were her sandals held together with tape? – that she looked too old for him, too serious. He would have dismissed her as plain.

He looked up. Dolores was watching him. ‘Call it off,’ he said. ‘The search for her father.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. It’s not necessary. It’s nothing to do with this.’ ,
With me
, he thought. It was hers to find if she wanted it. Her life.

‘OK well I’ll go back to the boardroom.’ Dolores hesitated. ‘Will?’

He was staring at the photograph again. ‘Yes. Yes, of course. I’ll be right there.’

As he heard the door click shut he propped the photo of Jane up against his computer then looked back at the file. On the top of the pile was her birth certificate. Then underneath, information about her mother – medical records that he didn’t want to read. Then a couple of pages about her grandmother. He didn’t want to know any of it. Even touching it felt like he was doing her a disservice, prying behind her back. He stood up, taking the handful of pages that he’d requested and commissioned, and fed them a few at a time into the shredder in the corner of his office.

He only paused when he saw writing he was familiar with. Copies of Enid’s diary pages. He paused. His eyes skimmed over the first few lines. It all seemed a bit more real now he knew Jane and Martha, had been on Enid’s boat, walked round the island – more familiar, more like his own history. And, if he was honest, if someone questioned him now, he’d have no idea how it ended.

So standing by the shredder he started to re-read, saw the bits about his grandmother and great-grandfather, envisaged James Blackwell home from war sitting in the garden with a blanket over his knees, saw Enid leaving the island in a motorcar – desperate to get James’s attention, to tell him about her baby. He saw the very gate of the Blackwell family home that he had been so relieved, so many times, to see shutting behind him, but this time they were shutting Enid and her child out.

8th May 1945

The war is over. I think we’re all a bit in shock. Everyone’s jubilant. As am I, except Fred says now we should get married. Now there’s no war.

Monday 30th April 1945

It’s in two weeks. The wedding. Saturday. We’re having the reception at the cafe.

Fred doesn’t know but I tried to see James today. He thinks I went to London to buy a dress. He gave me the money. But I drove to James’s house instead with Bernard – Kate watched Martha, VERY reluctantly. She’s such a bloody stickler. I didn’t ring the bell this time. I snuck in. I climbed over the wall. He was in the garden, still so vacant, still sitting, and I got so close. So close. I almost reached him. I shouted his name and I think he heard me because he looked up, looked around. You’ll never guess what I shouted… What came out of my mouth when I was finally given the opportunity to shout –  ‘’It’s Enid. Enid from The Ritz!’

I thought you’d find that funny. Enid from The Ritz. Don’t think I’ll ever have call to say that again.

The butler caught me. I was out on my ear. He practically hurled me over his shoulder.

Thursday 2nd May 1945

I went to The Ritz. Can you believe it? On Tuesday and Wednesday. How stupid. I told Fred that it was more wedding stuff – couldn’t decide on a dress. I went just on the off-chance James might come. I sat in the Palm Court drinking tea for as long as they’d let me.

He didn’t come.

I don’t mind. It was the longest of long shots. I do feel somewhat of a fool now, however. And I’ve blown all of Fred’s money on trips to London and The Ritz. Kate’s horrified. I begged her to help me make a dress – she’s much better at it than me. She says she’ll adapt one of her mother’s. God knows what Fred’s going to think when he sees it. We’re going to have our work cut out.

I know it was bad of me to spend his money, but it was worth it. At least now I can say I tried everything.

Tuesday 9th May 1945

It’s over.

It’s hideous. Wretched. I feel sick and cold and angry.

The paper today had a piece on the death of James Blackwell. Died in a light aircraft accident. The cause is unknown.