Where Memories Are Made (7 page)

Jackie's own mother had only been fifteen and her father seventeen when they'd had to get married as a baby was on the way. They had lived from week to week as her father hadn't earned a great deal from his job as a builder's labourer, but regardless they had been extremely happy together, their family complete when Robby had arrived four years later. But when Jackie was only six the happy family was ripped apart by the untimely death of her father, when scaffolding that had not been properly erected had collapsed and toppled him fifteen feet on to the hard ground below. He'd lived for four days until internal injuries had killed him. Her mother, a petite, extremely pretty woman of only thirty-six now, had never looked at another man since, but devoted her life to raising her children as best she could, doing whatever menial low-paid jobs she could land, mostly cleaning. Life had eased for her once both her children were at work and contributing to the family finances. Instead of having to labour all hours, now it was eight until five-thirty in the local bedding factory, in the packing and dispatching department.

Jackie therefore had experienced growing up without one parent and felt deep sympathy and understanding for Keith who had grown up with neither. Very importantly to Jackie, who adored her mother, Keith got on with her like a house on fire and treated Robby like his own younger brother. When she had first met him at a local pub one night while she had been out with her friends and he with his, Jackie had instantly taken a fancy to Keith and made it her business to wangle her way into conversation with him. She had asked him why someone hadn't snapped him up before now and he'd told her that it was because he'd never met anyone he'd thought enough of to feel serious about. She was hoping that now he had. After eighteen months of going out together, she felt it was only a matter of time before he would ask her to marry him.

Al was a very well-spoken young man and from the way he conducted himself it was obvious he'd come from a good background, so Jackie was shocked when he prodded her in the back to prompt her to stop on the corner of a crumbling street of terraced houses in a run-down area of Skegness. Although he had told her he lived in lodgings, she had expected them to be in a far more salubrious area than this one.

Having thanked her for the lift home, Al went off down the street and Jackie was in the process of turning the Lambretta around when a man coming out of the off licence on the opposite corner caught her attention. He was tall and thin, shaggy-haired and thickly bearded. Shabbily dressed, he was clutching a brown carrier bag which obviously held bottles of either beer or spirits. She did not recognise him yet he was still vaguely familiar somehow. She watched him as he turned the corner and disappeared. For the life of her Jackie couldn't place him and so put his familiarity down to the fact that the man just reminded her of someone else, whoever it might be.

A while later Jackie entered the back door of her home to be greeted by the sight of a pan bubbling away on the stove, keeping the meal on the plate sitting above it hot. She could hear the sounds of her mother's and Keith's laughter coming from the sitting room. As Jackie stripped off her coat a warm glow filled her. She had friends whose parents did not get on with their boyfriends for various reasons, mostly because the young men weren't considered good enough for the girls, and it put a strain on the young couples' relationships. Jackie felt herself fortunate to have a mother who thoroughly approved of her boyfriend and a boyfriend who thoroughly approved of his girlfriend's mother.

Using a cloth to take her plate of food off the pan, and collecting a knife and fork, Jackie went in to join them.

The next morning when she updated Harold Rose over the food poisoning incident, all the response she got from him, while he stared over her shoulder as if at someone else, was a cool thank you and then a prompt dismissal back to her work. Jackie felt her contempt for his idea of how to manage a business rising several notches.

I
t was not surprising that Jackie hadn't recognised the man she had seen coming out of the off licence. The last time she had seen him he'd looked completely different. Then he'd been a lardy, heavy-jowled young man. Now he had no spare fat on him. Twelve months in prison, for trying to sell back a gold cigarette case and lighter to the police inspector whose house he'd unwittingly stolen them from, was the cause of the change in him. Encarcerated with hardened criminal types who terrified him, Michael Jolly's blubber had melted from him. But all those long nights spent staring up at the ceiling from his top bunk had afforded the deeply unpleasant man plenty of time to formulate a plan that would see him successfully carry out his threat to reclaim what he felt was rightfully his: Jolly's camp and all the profits it generated.

Michael hadn't come up with the plan completely by himself; he didn't possess the intelligence to plan anything more involved than a simple burglary. He'd almost despaired of ever coming up with anything that stood the remotest chance of success, when while he was swabbing out the bathrooms one morning he was privy to the conversation of two old lags who'd come in to use the facilities … each thinking it extremely amusing to urinate all over his clean floor while trying to outdo the other with details of the best scam in their illustrious past. What one old lag told the other had struck a chord deep within Michael and every night since then he had lain awake thinking about it, and how he could adapt it to suit his own purposes.

After months of thinking of nothing else, he finally felt positive he had the ideal scheme. He couldn't do it on his own, but one thing he'd learned in prison was that there were always others willing to do anything, no questions asked, if the price was right. All Michael had to do was pick the right people for his purposes, get the money to pay them, and then he could put his plan into operation. And that's what he was doing now: amassing his working capital by ways that had stood him in good stead before, but this time doubly conscious he must not get caught. He begrudged the time he was having to put his plan on hold; he wanted to be living the high life right now, the kind of life he should always have been living had it not been unjustly denied him. But he'd waited this long so a while more would not kill him. And then, when he did finally get his hands on his inheritance it would be doubly sweet.

People would think him witless to return to an area where he'd been notorious in the past for his criminal activities and which he'd had to leave in a hurry while he readied himself to carry out his plan, but he knew he was safe coming back to this area due to the dramatic change in his appearance. Sometimes he himself did a double take before the mirror, not yet having grown completely used to the thin face that stared back at him instead of the old grossly fat one. He was positive no one else would recognise him. The main reason he'd come back was that he knew the locals gossiped and that way he could find out everything that was going on in Jolly's. Forewarned was forearmed. He had already discovered to his great delight that his half-brother Dan had recently been killed in an accident. This was going to make Michael's quest so much easier.

B
y the following Friday, much to Jackie's relief, nothing more catastrophic had happened than a rotund camper getting his face wedged tight in the hole on a photo board depicting comic cowboys and it taking several staff and jars of vaseline to free him. All talk of the food poisoning incident had died down.

Pulling a letter confirming a future booking and the receipt for a deposit out of her typewriter, and separating the carbon papers from between its copies, Jackie complained to Al who was in the process of typing out envelopes for her, ‘I do love my job but there are some bits of it that are repetitive. You'd think there was a genius out there somewhere who could invent a machine to duplicate a letter or form so that it appeared to be an original and we didn't have to type out each one individually. It would make our lives so much easier, and the time saved … I'd kiss his feet in undying gratitude!'

Al laughed. ‘I'd settle for an automatic filing machine. Mind you, I do like filing as then I can let my thoughts wander and dream about the future.' He added hurriedly, in case Jackie should ask what that dream was, ‘Oh, while at the same time keeping my eye on the files, of course.'

She chuckled. ‘I do the same when I'm filing only I don't need to dream about my future, I already know what that is.' She told him confidently, ‘I'll be happily married to my boyfriend Keith, looking after our children.' Then she asked him the question Al had hoped she wouldn't. ‘So what future are you dreaming of?'

He looked at her blankly for a moment before saying dismissively, ‘Oh, I've nothing particular in mind.' A light on the switchboard lit up and a buzzing sound began. As Al responded to it, Jackie wondered if it was her imagination that he'd seemed glad of the diversion. She felt he knew exactly what future he had in mind for himself but for some reason didn't want to share it with her. She wondered why?

Having put the caller through to the girls on reception, Al replaced the receiver and returned to sorting through the pile of filing. He had something to ask Jackie but had been stalling in case her answer wasn't the one he wanted to hear. His assignment with Jolly's had been for two weeks. Today that time was up and as Jackie hadn't told him otherwise he assumed Jolly's no longer needed him. He really enjoyed working here. Jackie was a very fair boss and also fun to work for. People were beginning to recognise him as part of the office staff and he was beginning to feel part of the Jolly family. As a temporary employee he knew he shouldn't have allowed himself to settle in but he couldn't help it: the place and its people had had that effect on him. He really didn't like the thought of moving around from job to job, always feeling like an interloper, possibly working with people who weren't as friendly or receptive as the staff were here.

He opened his mouth to ask Jackie if his contract had any chance of being renewed but was stopped by the telephone on her desk which began shrilling.

Jackie hoped that the caller wasn't someone wanting her for something time-consuming. After she had finished the day's typing she had other jobs to deal with before she went home, and didn't want to have to stay late and leave Keith waiting for her twice in one week. Moments later she put the telephone down, a puzzled expression on her face.

Al couldn't fail to notice and asked her, ‘Everything all right, Jackie?'

She shrugged. ‘Don't know. Mr Rose wants to speak to me in his office.' She wondered what it could possibly be about as not once in all the fortnight he'd been in charge had he enquired of her how she was managing to keep the general office running smoothly with just herself and a temp, or how the rest of the staff were faring either.

Skirting her desk, she went over to the boss's office door, tapped on it, and when she heard his summons went inside, shutting the door behind her.

Approaching the desk, she said to Harold Rose politely, ‘You wanted to speak to me, Mr Rose?'

He looked up from his work. As usual he didn't look directly at her but over her shoulder. There was a tremor in his voice when he said, ‘Ah, Miss Sims, I've just had a telephone call from Mrs Jolly.'

Before she could stop herself Jackie excitedly blurted, ‘To tell you Rhonnie's much better and they're coming home?'

He said stolidly, ‘Miss Sims, would you please let me finish? I have a lot of work to do and really must get on. Mrs Jolly didn't call to say they were on their way home, just the opposite in fact. Mrs Buckland isn't well enough to return yet and it isn't envisaged she will be for the foreseeable future. I assured Mrs Jolly that all was well here and that there was no reason for her to concern herself.'

As he said that, Jackie immediately wondered how he could assure Drina of that when he had no idea himself what was going on in the camp beyond the accounts department. She would not even know he was occupying the boss's office if she didn't see him arrive in the morning, take him in his morning and afternoon beverages, and see him leave at night.

He was saying to her, ‘Mrs Jolly asked me to pass on her gratitude to you for all the hard work you're doing to keep the general office running smoothly in her absence. She asked for that gratitude to be extended to the rest of the staff too. I'd appreciate it if you'd see to that, Miss Sims.'

Harold then returned his attention to his work, signalling to her that the interview was over.

In all the time Drina had been heading up Jolly's, Jackie had never known her leave the business in another's hands during the season, except for the few odd occasions when she'd had functions to attend – and only then when Rhonnie and Dan were in charge. If she was doing so Jackie knew that Rhonnie's condition had to be very serious. She was greatly distressed to learn that her friend was still so badly affected. All Jackie could do was try to ensure there would be a business to return to, but that wasn't going to be plain sailing with the likes of Harold Rose at the helm.

Thinking that Harold Rose had summoned Jackie into his office to inform her that the temp's services were no longer required as the boss had recovered sufficiently to return back to work, Al was very pleased when Jackie returned and asked him if he would consider continuing with the assignment for the foreseeable future. He left her in no doubt how he felt about that, much to her relief. She liked Al, was very satisfied with his work, and didn't like the thought of having to interview and teach someone else the ropes considering the workload she already bore on her young shoulders. If only Drina and Rhonnie would return … but no, Jackie thought. She was just being selfish. They would come back in their own good time, and till then Jackie and her more than capable assistant would do their best to keep Jolly's running smoothly.