Rumours and Red Roses (22 page)

B
ECKY DIDN’T OFTEN
find herself alone with Johnny because it was something she strenuously avoided but with Esther and Simon busy dealing with funeral arrangements, she and Johnny had somehow ended up in the same room. It was the smaller of the sitting rooms, a room that might be grandly called a library because the walls were lined with shelves filled with well-thumbed-through books and there was no television, so it was essentially a quiet snug of a room. It was Johnny’s domain and it was furnished in a masculine style with two old burgundy leather chairs grouped around the fireplace. A large picture of a country scene – mist looming over a meadow – hung above the mantelpiece and Johnny noticed her looking at it.

‘It was my mother’s,’ he said. ‘It’s by a known Scottish artist. I have it insured for £20,000 but I will never sell it. When I’m gone, you and Simon can do what you want with it.’

‘I’m sure we would never sell it either,’ she told him, annoyed that he should automatically think they would cash in on it although she personally thought it hideous and would not give it house room.

Johnny had taken the news of his father’s death calmly and
unemotionally
. Remembering how she had felt when her father died, this was hard for Becky to come to terms with. To her, it didn’t matter what William had done, he was Johnny’s father and there ought to be some smudge of feeling there. Simon had been upset although, like her, he regarded it as a blessing in a way because the situation could only have got worse and, as it was, he had not suffered.

‘I know you ladies don’t approve but I can’t change my mind just like
that,’ Johnny told her, settling opposite her in the armchair. He was still wearing one of his summer short-sleeved shirts and lightweight trousers, sitting there with his legs wide apart, totally at ease. Outside it was a blustery September day and the branches of the trees were waving, early autumnal leaves scattering and dancing about the wide expanse of lawn. ‘Just because the old bugger’s gone and died, Esther seems to expect me to be distraught and I’m not. I’m not going to put on an act. I don’t feel much at all except relief.’

‘He was peaceful at the last,’ she said, knowing it was a trite thing to say but not knowing how to deal with this. ‘When we were there, before we left, he was drifting in and out of consciousness but when he was awake, he kept muttering about your mother. He loved her, Johnny. I’m sure he did. It was in his face when he talked about her. Belle this, Belle that.’

‘I don’t know who he was talking about, but it wasn’t my mother,’ Johnny said. ‘He never called her that.’

‘Oh … well, he talked about Isabel too. A lot.’

‘He killed her,’ Johnny said stoutly. ‘He killed her as clearly as if he pulled the trigger on a gun. If it hadn’t been for him, I’d have had her around for a lot longer and Simon would have had his grandmother. I wasn’t a child. I was twenty-six at the time and I was married to Esther and we had Simon but that wasn’t the point. I was close to my mother. Can you blame me for feeling bitter? He knew how ill she was, how she struggled for years with her nerves but he carried on …’ He grimaced. ‘Carried on with that other woman for years.’

‘Maybe it was his way of coping with her illness. Maybe she shut him out and he had to look elsewhere for some …’ She hesitated, afraid she was landing herself in hot water. ‘For some comfort,’ she finished lamely.

‘Are you trying to defend him?’

‘No but I can see how it might happen. Some men might do it,’ she added, feeling herself blushing as he looked at her.

‘What are you talking about? I haven’t,’ he said at once. ‘And Simon won’t either. I admit there have been times when I’ve thought about it. Don’t tell Esther.’ He smiled, reaching for a cigarette, for like her mum he hadn’t been able to give it up either. ‘What man doesn’t think about it when a pretty woman comes on the scene? But I know where my bread’s buttered. I would never risk it. It would break my heart if Esther
left me. And it broke my mother’s heart when she found out that my father was cheating on her. Can you imagine how she must have felt when she sat on that bridge, sitting there, swinging her legs …’ He stopped and sighed and for a minute she was not sure if he was losing it. ‘She had her handbag with her, that’s what the witness said. In fact, he said she looked like she was putting lipstick on. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?’

‘Not really,’ Becky said as the image flooded into her head. For a minute, she was up there with Isabel, sitting there, clutching her bag with all her bits and bobs in it … How very sad … waiting.

‘He shouted to her, the man who witnessed it, but she didn’t hear, not with the sound of the train. She chose her moment.’

‘Don’t, Johnny.’ For the first time, Becky felt compassion for this man whom she had never really liked, some understanding. Perhaps she and her mother had it all wrong.

‘I shan’t go to the funeral,’ he said. ‘I don’t give a damn about him and I don’t care what people will say. Esther will make an excuse. She’s good at that.’ 

A
DELE AND HER
gran were back home following their breath of air. Alex was awake now but happily playing with his little toddler trains with her father so she and Chrissie went through to Chrissie’s suite. Louisa, though clearly miffed that the two of them were neatly excluding her from their little chat, had smiled gracefully, saying how lovely it was that they were spending time together.

It was a silver locket. It opened up to reveal two tiny photographs.

‘The young girl is me, of course. And that …’ Chrissie held it out so Adele could see. ‘That’s William Blundell when he was a young man. Here, take it.’

‘He looks a bit like Becky’s Simon,’ Adele said, looking more closely and seeing the resemblance.

‘Does he? I’ve never met him. It’s a cheap thing. Sentimental value and sometimes I wonder why on earth I’ve bothered to keep it. It’s not real silver. He gave this to me just before the war when, for a brief time, we walked out together,’ Chrissie told her. ‘I wore it for the duration of the war. It made me feel closer to him.’

‘You walked out together?’

‘Yes. That’s what we called it then. Courting. What do you call it now?’

‘Dating, I suppose?’ Adele smiled, looking fondly at her
grandmother
. Walking out together was such a sweet way of putting it, so much more romantic than today’s expressions. Looking round, Adele noticed that Wilson was curled up shamelessly on the chintz chair but
made no comment about it and neither did Chrissie. There was a bunch of her gran’s favourite red roses in the centre of the table in the dining area. A new table, she noted, but then the grand old one that had graced the dining room at her former home would never have fitted in here.

‘Poor William.’ Her grandmother sighed. ‘He went to war without hesitation as so many young men did. He was fit and well and that was that. It is impossible to explain what it was like, having your young man go off to war, seeing him in uniform, saying goodbye and not knowing if you would ever see him again. Some of my girlfriends never did see their sweethearts again.’

‘I can’t imagine it. It must have been horrible. Was it serious between you two?’

Chrissie laughed. ‘I was very young and so was he. It was as serious as it could be under the circumstances. But we dreamed about a future together. He was my first love and sometimes they cannot be bettered. I didn’t look like this,’ she said with a faint shudder. ‘I was beautiful – look at me. I was like you, Adele, and I thought him the most wonderful man I had ever known.’ Her voice caught and she struggled for a minute to compose herself, reaching for her handbag that was never far away and a handkerchief, an old lady’s tiny embroidered
handkerchief
with which she dabbed at her eyes. ‘No, no, you stay there,’ she said quickly. ‘I am all right. Really I am.’

Adele, who had been about to rush over, sat down again. She hardly dared say a word now, knowing that, if the spell was broken, her
grandmother
might never finish what she so wanted to tell her.

‘But on that last night before he went off to war …’ She smiled a little. ‘May I tell you this or will it embarrass you, darling?’

‘Do you want to tell me?’

‘Yes. I have to. I can’t tell Louisa and you’ll see why later but I would like you to know so that you understand. Seeing William pass away has made me very aware that I may not be long for this world either.’

‘Oh come on, Gran. Don’t talk like that. You’re fit as a fiddle.’

She smiled. ‘I shall tell you anyway. That night, before he went away, we spent time together and, as you can imagine, we were both in a highly charged emotional state. For the first time, we had the
opportunity
, you see, because a friend of his, knowing he was going off tomorrow, had lent him the room.’ She shuddered. ‘I can see it now. He was a horrible man, the friend, leering at me and that made me feel
dirty. It was a horrible room too with a big bed with old stained sheets and cracked linoleum on the floor. I wasn’t used to that. William took one look at my face and said he understood. Like me, he was a
fastidious
person and I suppose that’s why he went into laundry. He too wanted it to be just perfect for us, our first time together, and this would not be it. We would wait until after we were married. That’s how we saw it. Isn’t that extraordinary when today people jump into bed on a first date?’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that, Gran,’ Adele said. ‘Rory and I certainly didn’t.’

‘William didn’t want it to be a rushed thing, something we were doing because we knew some of our friends were doing it and we should do it too. But it was not as simple as that. Getting married involved getting permission from my father, which was not forthcoming.’

She fell silent then and, after a moment, Adele gently prompted her.

‘Father was appalled,’ Chrissie sighed, laying her hands with their prettily painted pink-tipped fingernails on her lap. ‘William would have been called a go-getter today but Father and Mother couldn’t see beyond his background. He had done well coming from where he did to achieve what he did. He had worked his way up to being a clerk in the office at the factory,
our
factory. That’s where I met him. I did not have a job but I was so bored that Father allowed me to go into the office occasionally and Father’s secretary, a dreadful woman called Miss Ivy Grimshaw … beady eyes, a cupid’s bow of a mouth and rather too much rouge, as I recall.’

Adele smiled. ‘Go on….’

‘Miss Grimshaw used to find me things to do to make my visits worthwhile and make me feel useful. I realize now she was just pandering to the both of us, me and Father, and that as I made such a hash of the filing, she would painstakingly do it afresh after I had gone. William was her assistant, you see, and he told me that. Isn’t that
humiliating
? Anyway, that’s how we met. He could have been forgiven for being overawed. After all, I was the boss’s daughter. However, he looked me straight in the eye the first time I saw him and I was overwhelmed. It was the first time a young man had looked at me like that and I was very flattered.’

‘I can see that your father would not have been happy about it,’ Adele said, trying to picture the scene so many years ago.

‘That’s an understatement. Father thought I’d taken leave of my senses and my mother was not the least sympathetic either. She dare not go against the wishes of Father. But William and I used to meet in secret. And, believe me, that was very difficult. I did hope I might persuade my father eventually because I was his only daughter and well … you know what it’s like … but then the war came along which played havoc with everybody’s budding relationships. I think my father was relieved. He was sure I would forget William but when the war ended, when I saw him again, in spite of everything that he had gone through, I was amazed that he still loved me. We were a little older, true, and he had aged more because of the things he had seen but it was as if we had just met. I shall never forget it. I had waited for him. He had waited for me.’

‘So, did you…?’ Adele hesitated, not able to say it, not to her
grandmother
.

‘Oh yes.’ Chrissie smiled a sad smile. ‘Wild horses wouldn’t have stopped us then. It was all pent up inside us. We couldn’t help ourselves. We made love, sweetpea, out in the open under a moonlit sky and, afterwards, we just lay there and gazed up at the stars. Nothing mattered. I think we both knew we were doomed but just then nothing mattered.’

‘Oh Gran, that’s beautiful.’

She nodded. ‘Thank you. I was of age by then but it wasn’t as simple as that. Girls in those days, particularly girls of my station, took a great deal of notice of what their fathers said and, although my father knew nothing of what had happened between us, I suspect he had got wind of it some way, probably via Miss Grimshaw who knew everything about everybody. Shortly afterwards, he called me into his study and I was told in no uncertain terms that I was not to see William again. William was not reinstated in the job he had before the war but that was not unusual. I remember going up to my room, throwing myself on the bed and crying and crying but, even though I looked a mess, I sneaked out to meet William that evening as we had arranged. We met outside the picture house in town. They were showing
Brief Encounter
. But we never saw the film because we never went into the picture house. William met me outside, took me aside, and came straight out with it. It was over.’ The smile tightened.

‘What reason did he give?’

‘He could not look me in the face. He denied talking about marriage. He had the cheek to suggest I was just a young girl who had
misinterpreted
it all. Worse, he made me feel like a tart for letting him do what he did. He was terse. He just walked away,’ she said, staring a moment into space. ‘I watched him go. I was so ashamed and humiliated, I just wanted the pavement to swallow me up. And, although it was tempting to chase after him, to demand an explanation, I did not. I stood my ground. And eventually, once he got his business going, he met Isabel and married her although I am pleased to say her family disapproved of him as well. Isabel had a stubborn streak though and would not be dissuaded. I believe William married her because of her status. Marrying her added a touch of gravitas and made him more acceptable to the business community. There were two sides to William. He was a wily man and had a ruthless streak.’

‘Perhaps you had a narrow escape?’ Adele suggested gently.

‘Perhaps. But it did not feel like that at the time.’

‘When did you meet Grandfather?’

‘We met during the war. He did not go to war because his expertise in the engineering industry was deemed to be more useful. I am ashamed to say I kept poor Freddie dallying on a string. He had already proposed and was waiting for my answer so, after William finished it, I said yes and married Freddie in a great rush purely out of pique. A lot of couples married quickly just after the war so it wasn’t unusual. It made the papers, our wedding, and I wanted William to see it, to see how little I cared for him. Father thoroughly approved of Freddie, of course. And he was a very nice man but he wasn’t William. It was never quite the same with Freddie. There was always something missing. It was a couple of years later when William married Isabel.’

There was a knock on the door and Louisa’s voice.

‘Come in, dear,’ Chrissie said, exchanging a little bemused smile with Adele. ‘Ah, there you are, Louisa. Adele and I are having a lovely little chat, aren’t we, darling?’

Adele nodded, a little stunned, trying to take it all in, the whole story, hoping that the spell was not broken, not just yet.

‘I’m taking Alex out in his pushchair, darling, before it gets too late. And seeing that you two didn’t take the dog for his walk, I thought I’d take him along too. Come on, Wilson, get a move on.’

Wilson jumped off the chair and ran to her side, tail wagging, and
Louisa clipped his lead on before shutting the door on them, looking at them curiously, for Adele supposed they did have the look of
conspirators
about them.