The Moment She Left (12 page)

That was how it should go; however nothing was ever quite as straightforward as a person would like it to be, and this was no exception, because she felt duty bound to sort out Victor’s unfinished business before she hopped the twig. She’d better make a note of that too lest she should forget.

‘Victor’s unfinished business’, she wrote.

‘Rowzee?’

Rowzee blinked and looked up. She’d been so absorbed in her little world that she’d completely forgotten she was at the Seafront Café.

‘Andee,’ she exclaimed, shocked, confused, as if she were in a dream, but finally managing to put on one of her brightest smiles. ‘How lovely to see you. Do you have time for a cuppa?’

‘As a matter of fact I have,’ Andee replied, sliding into the opposite bench. She peered at Rowzee closely. ‘How are you?’ she asked carefully.

Feigning surprise Rowzee cried, ‘Me? I’m fighting fit, top form, never felt better.’ She was overdoing it, needed to calm down. ‘And how are you?’ she asked gently.

‘I’m fine,’ Andee assured her. ‘I was passing and saw you in the window and thought, wouldn’t it be lovely if you were looking for company.’

Imagining herself through Andee’s eyes (blotchy face, hair on end), Rowzee the actress declared, delightedly, ‘I certainly am, and we’ve got the place more or less to ourselves, thanks to the sun coming out at last. Everyone’s on the beach I expect, and who can blame them? My oh my, all the rain we’ve had these past few days. Let’s hope that’s it now for the rest of the summer.’

‘Indeed. Peppermint tea,’ Andee told the waitress.

‘And a cake?’ Rowzee suggested mischievously.

Andee looked about to say no, but thrilled Rowzee to bits when she offered to share one.

‘Oh yes!’ Rowzee enthused. ‘You choose.’

‘Coffee and walnut?’

‘Perfect.’

As the waitress disappeared, Rowzee leaned forward and spoke quietly, in spite of there being no
one close enough to overhear. ‘This is quite a coincidence,’ she confided, ‘because I was just thinking about you.’

Andee’s eyebrows rose. ‘What can I have done to deserve such an honour?’ she asked drily.

Realising she couldn’t spill out the truth without embarrassing them both, Rowzee quickly rethought. ‘I was wondering,’ she said, ‘if you’ve been able to give Blake any news.’

Sighing, Andee said, ‘I’m still waiting for a couple of calls. Hopefully I’ll have more to tell him then. Can I take it you know Jessica’s mother?’

‘Oh yes, we got to know the whole family quite well very soon after they moved here. Jenny used to help out in the shop from time to time. She was a quiet little thing, even then – what happened up north, I’m sure you know about that, had affected her badly. She told me once that it was the way some of their friends had reacted that had hurt the most. She felt betrayed, she said, and horribly belittled and didn’t feel she could trust anyone afterwards. And she was angry with Blake for getting them into such an impossible situation, even though she knew it wasn’t his fault.’

‘Did she ever believe the boy’s claims?’ Andee ventured.

‘No, I’m sure she didn’t, nor did the children. I’m afraid I’ve come across plenty of youngsters like that over the years, and there really isn’t any controlling them. You try, of course, but at the same time you have to be very careful not to end up on the wrong side of them, as Blake found out to his cost.’

‘I guess,’ Andee said gravely, ‘that he’s lucky they didn’t attack him physically.’

Rowzee said, ‘Yes very lucky, but it still . . . It stiiiill, still . . .’ The words had got jammed.

Andee was watching her closely. ‘Rowzee, are you all right?’ she asked.

Rowzee nodded.

Andee was speaking again, but Rowzee couldn’t make out what she was saying.

Then, as though she’d risen up from under the water, everything cleared. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said breathily. ‘It was just one of my funny turns.’ She was dabbing her mouth with a napkin in case she’d dribbled.

‘But are you OK? I thought you were going to pass out on me.’

‘Or have a stroke?’ Rowzee grinned, wondering if both sides of her mouth had made it. It felt as though they had so she was going to trust to it. ‘Please don’t mention anything to Pamela or Graeme if you see them,’ she urged. ‘They’ll only worry and there’s really no need. It’s just a little dizzy spell that comes and goes.’

‘Have you seen a doctor?’

‘Yes, yes, and I’m being prescribed a course of treatment. Now, where were we? Oh yes, I was thinking to myself before you arrived what a shame it was that things didn’t work out between you and Graeme. Am I allowed to ask why that was? You strike me as being very well suited.’

The way Andee regarded her seemed slightly bemused, causing Rowzee to wonder if she’d said something awry, but in the end Andee said, ‘Martin,
my children’s father, came back and I, as mothers often do, put my children’s needs first.’

Rowzee sighed as she thought of Edward and how she still longed for him to come first. ‘Oh yes, mothers often do that,’ she agreed. ‘Came back from where?’

‘The Middle East, and actually it was for his father’s funeral, not for me, although he insists it was. He’d taken some time out of our relationship. He wanted to explore another kind of world that didn’t involve being a father and live-in partner, so for two years we were left to fend for ourselves while he went off to find himself. Then he decided it was us he wanted after all, and like a fool I took him back and married him.’

Encouraged by the sound of that, Rowzee echoed, ‘Like a fool?’

‘It was the wrong thing to do, and now I’m upsetting everyone, including myself, by trying to break away. I don’t want to be with him, but I don’t want to hurt him either.’

‘Oh dear, I can see that’s not easy. Does he know about Graeme? I mean, is there anything to know? I’m sorry if I’m being nosy, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.’

Andee smiled. ‘He knows I was seeing Graeme while we were apart, but there isn’t any more than that to know now.’

Though Rowzee was sorry for Martin, the children too, because they’d obviously be upset about their parents breaking up, she couldn’t help feeling pleased for Graeme, since there could be a chance for him and Andee after all.

The question was, how could she make it happen?

‘Will you excuse me?’ Andee said as her mobile rang. ‘I ought to take this. Actually, it’s Charles, your neighbour.’

‘Oh do send him my love,’ Rowzee insisted, and waving her on she opened up her notebook, needing to record what she’d just learned to make sure she didn’t forget it.

By the time Andee’s call ended Rowzee’s book was closed and a pot of tea had arrived with a giant slice of cake and two forks. As they began tucking in, Rowzee said, ‘How is Charles? You know, we haven’t seen him since the party. Did he go back to London?’

‘No, apparently he’s in Dartmouth visiting Gina, but he’s coming back tomorrow.’

‘Dartmouth? So that’s where she is. I wonder what she’s doing there? Maybe she’s in a play. Let’s hope she comes back with Charles tomorrow, it’s been a long time since I last saw her.’

‘Me too,’ Andee responded. ‘Alayna spent some time with her back last year when she was doing some work experience at the Royal Court.’

‘Oh yes, I remember that. Gina does a lot there. It’s one of her favourite theatres. We did a play together once, you know?’

Andee’s eyes sparkled. ‘You and Gina? I’d like to have seen that. What was it?’

Rowzee frowned as she tried to remember. ‘It was a two-hander,’ she said, ‘and she played the character of Ruth who’s a successful writer, and I was her protégée . . . No, it was the other way round, of course,
because I’m the eldest. Goodness, what was it called? It started out in America, but it was on in the West End for a while. Helen What’s-her-name . . . Mirren, was in it then. Gina and I had such fun doing it here in Kesterly, and we couldn’t have been bad because we ended up doing a mini-tour of the West Country. Of course it was her everyone came to see. We even did three nights at the Bristol Old Vic.
Collected Stories
, that’s what it was called. Imagine me forgetting that. Imagine me on the stage with Gina Stamfield! It’s an experience I shall never forget.’

Well not yet, anyway.

Andee was smiling fondly. ‘Have the last piece of cake,’ she insisted, pushing it towards her. ‘And maybe we can do this again sometime.’

‘I’d like that very much. Let’s be sure to make it soon.’

A little while later, after hugging each other goodbye in the street, Rowzee remained on the corner watching Andee walk off down the promenade. Only when Andee had disappeared from view did she cross over to the taxi rank.

No one had suggested taking her driving licence away yet, but she knew it would happen, so she’d decided to start getting used to doing without her car. Her family were probably going to find it a bit odd that she wasn’t driving, but they didn’t have to know too much about it. She could do the grocery shopping online, walk down the hill to get the bus into town, and insist on taking taxis whenever they went out so she could have some wine. Of course, they weren’t stupid, they’d soon realise something was up and if she was
forced to tell them she knew they’d never let her refuse treatment, much less even consider making a one-way trip to Zurich.

Was she really going to do that? Was she absolutely serious about it?

Yes, she was. How could she not be if the alternative was being sentenced to the misery of chemotherapy with no chance of a cure, turning slowly and humiliatingly into a vegetable, becoming a terrible burden on her family? Faced with those choices the decision wasn’t hard to make, it was only the courage to see it through that she had to find. And time wasn’t exactly on her side – Dignitas wouldn’t take her if they considered her mentally incapacitated – so if she wanted everything properly sorted before she went over there, she’d better start getting on with it.

Blake was standing between two art nouveau cabinets, hidden from outside view, watching Tyler Bennett pretending to look at a collection of bronze and silver statuettes in the window. The collar of his denim jacket was turned up against the sudden downpour, and his head was down, but the razored carroty hair, the stance, the piercings in one ear, gave him away.

What the hell did he want?

Blake’s eyes went briefly to Graeme’s niece Katie, who was busy with a collector of walking canes; Graeme himself had popped out.

Keeping an eye on Bennett who seemed to be watching Katie and her client, Blake sank more deeply into the shadows, skirted a triform harpist’s seat and
disappeared into the workshop. He moved quickly, out into the cobbled lane cluttered with dustbins and parked cars, along to Marsh Street, and up around the block on to the square.

Bennett was still outside the shop, his back half turned towards Blake’s casual approach.

There were plenty of people about, in spite of the rain. Music was blasting out of a café, a human statue was giving up and heading for the arcade.

Blake was only inches from Bennett when the boy caught his reflection in the window and took off like a hare.

‘Stop him! Stop that boy!’ Blake shouted, sprinting after him.

Several people looked, startled, but no one stepped in.

Blake pressed on. He was close, so close. His hand closed around Bennett’s shoulder, grabbed his jacket, pulled him back, almost to the ground.

‘What the . . .!’ Bennett spluttered, as Blake tried to spin him round.

Seizing the boy’s arm, Blake wrenched it behind his back so hard he almost had him off the ground.

‘Get off me! Get off me!’ Bennett howled.

Looking at no one, Blake shoved the boy’s head down and marched him back towards the shop, too fired up to feel surprised at the lack of fight.

‘You’re a nutter, you are,’ Bennett cried. ‘I haven’t done nothing to you. Tell him to let me go,’ he shouted at an elderly couple who’d stopped to scowl in their direction.

‘Blake? What’s going on?’ Graeme asked, about to enter the shop himself.

‘It’s him,’ Blake said breathlessly. ‘The scumbag who screwed up our lives.’

Frowning, Graeme looked at the boy and back at Blake. ‘What’s he doing here?’ he asked.

‘Good question,’ and shoving Bennett in through the shop’s front door Blake spun him around roughly, ready to lay into him again if he as much as attempted an escape.

‘I don’t know what your problem is,’ Bennett muttered, brushing himself down.

Blake blinked in confusion. It was like an optical illusion. He had no idea who this youth was, only that he wasn’t Tyler Bennett. ‘Who the hell are
you
?’ he exploded.

‘It’s me what should be asking you that,’ the boy retorted testily.

‘This isn’t him?’ Graeme asked Blake.

‘What’s going on?’ Katie wanted to know.

‘This . . . This
person
,’ Blake said angrily, ‘has been hanging around the shop and I want to know why.’

‘I haven’t done nothing wrong,’ the lad protested. ‘It’s a free world. I can look in any shop I want.’

‘Then why did you run away every time you saw me coming?’

The boy’s rugged face turned crimson. ‘I wasn’t running away,’ he argued. ‘I was in a hurry.’

Wondering if excuses got any lamer, Blake said, ‘We both know you were running away, so what’s going on? Did Tyler Bennett send you? Are you related to him?’

‘Who?’

He looked so gormless, so completely mystified, that Blake turned to Graeme in despair.

Realising he needed to take over, Graeme asked the boy if he was looking for something or someone in particular. ‘Is that why you’re watching the shop?’

The way the boy shrugged surprised both Blake and Graeme, since it seemed to suggest that Graeme wasn’t far off the mark.

‘What’s your name?’ Graeme ventured. ‘I’m Graeme, by the way, and this is Blake.’

Scowling at Blake, the lad said, ‘My name’s Jason.’

‘OK, Jason,’ Graeme responded, putting a friendly hand on the boy’s shoulder, ‘are you from around here?’

‘No.’

‘Then what brings you to Kesterly?’

‘That’s my business.’