Chapter Fourteen

‘George! Wake up!’ Barbara shook him, but all he did was turn over and mumble something incoherent. ‘George, if you don’t stir yourself, I’ll throw a bucket of cold water over you. Your mother’s ill.’

He sat bolt upright. ‘Mum? Why didn’t you say so? What’s wrong with her?’

‘A stroke, heart attack, I can’t be sure. I’ve rung for an ambulance.’

‘What happened?’ he asked as he scrambled into his trousers. He was halfway down the stairs as he pulled his braces over his shoulders. Stopping in the kitchen to slip his feet into his shoes he raced out to the bungalow with Barbara behind him.

‘I knew she was upset last night, so I went over as soon as I got up. I found her unconscious.’

George was struck by guilt. She had asked him to go and see her before he went to bed and he had forgotten, got drunk instead. He tore into his mother’s bedroom and flung himself down beside her bed. ‘Mum.’ He grabbed her hand; it was unresponsive.

‘Oh, God, no,’ he muttered. This was a direct result of the upheaval the day before. It was Barbara’s fault. And Barcliffe’s. ‘You’ll be all right,’ he said, addressing the unconscious form. ‘The ambulance is on its way.’

They heard the bells almost as soon as he spoke. Barbara ran to let the men in. Their calm efficiency abated some of George’s panic and he stood by helplessly as they took charge. He went with his mother in the ambulance, leaving Barbara to tell the children what had happened and wait for news.

It was some time before George was allowed into the ward to see his mother. ‘She’s rallied a little,’ the doctor told him. ‘But the next ten days are critical. Try not to upset her.’

He crept into the room, aware that he had not shaved, nor even washed and his clothes were rumpled. ‘Mum.’ He pulled up a chair close to the bed and took her hand, terrified by the pallor of her skin: it was almost transparent and her lips were blue. ‘I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have had this happen for all the world. But you’re going to be all right.’

She did not appear to hear him. He sat and looked at her, his mind going round in circles. She was the most precious thing in his life, always had been, more than Barbara, more than the children even, and infinitely more important than Zita Younger. ‘Fred,’ she murmured, without opening her eyes.

‘No, Mum, it’s me. George.’

‘Fred’s gone, hasn’t he? Didn’t want him to go, not angry like that. He’ll come back and we must make it up for the baby’s sake…’

It was difficult to understand what she said, most of it was a mumble. ‘Yes, Mum.’

She went on in like vein for a few minutes more, drifting in and out of sleep, muttering incoherently. He tried soothing her, and when Alison arrived to sit with her, he went home to bath and change. He was back two hours later and was relieved to see her looking stronger.

‘George,’ she said. ‘I’m glad you came. Want to tell you something.’

‘Fire away.’

‘Yesterday, that dreadful row, everybody screaming at everybody else. It was yesterday, wasn’t it? I’ve lost track.’

‘I’m sorry, Mum, you shouldn’t have had to witness that. Barbara shouldn’t have—’

‘Don’t blame Barbara, you are as much to blame as she is…’

‘I know.’ He sighed heavily. ‘I’m sorry. Don’t think about it anymore.’

‘Can’t help thinking. Got to tell you. Didn’t think I’d ever have to. Must now.’

‘Please, Mum, there’s no need—’

‘Be quiet and listen. Mustn’t go near the Younger woman again. Not ever. You see…’ She stopped. ‘Give me a drink of water.’

He picked up the cup and raised her head to help her to drink. She took a couple of sips and lay back exhausted. He sat and watched her for a couple of minutes and then she began talking again. ‘Your father—’

‘What about him?’

‘He wasn’t a hero, not to me, he wasn’t. Oh, it was fine to begin with, but he changed, got too fond of the drink. It’s terrible when two people who are supposed to love each other can’t talk. I prayed he’d get over it and go back to being his old self, but—’

‘He died in Canada, I know that.’

‘When he came home on shore leave, he wanted to spend it all drinking in the pub with his friends. We rowed about it. He left the house and he didn’t come back ’til morning. It was like that the whole week. The last night he came back in the early hours, but instead of coming to bed, he slept on the sofa. I was too angry and proud to go to him and when I went down the next morning, he’d gone back to sea. I never saw him again.’

‘Mum, it wasn’t your fault. You shouldn’t blame yourself.’

‘I don’t,’ she said crossly. ‘He was out with that tart, Dora Symonds.’

The name didn’t immediately register with him. ‘Please, Mum, don’t distress yourself.’

‘She came to see me later,’ she went on, determined to have her say, though the effort was making her very breathless. ‘Wanted to know if I’d heard from your father. The cheek of it! Then she told me she was expecting his child.’

‘Oh.’ His mind was in a whirl. ‘But it’s all in the past. Don’t think of it.’

‘It’s not in the past. It’s here. Now.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know who Dora Symonds is, don’t you?’

‘No.’

‘She’s Rita Younger’s mother. Rita Younger is your half-sister.’

He sat and stared at her, too dumbfounded to take it in. Then he remembered how she had reacted when Rita came to the house after Colin disappeared. He had thought it was strange because he didn’t know his mother even knew her. And she was always telling him to discourage Barbara from making a friend of her, refusing to explain herself. And, too busy with his own affairs, he hadn’t taken a bit of notice. ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’

‘I didn’t ever want to. All I wanted to do was shut it out, pretend it never happened. But you can’t shut out the past. It always comes back. The sins of the fathers…’ She stopped suddenly too breathless to continue.

He fell silent. His revered father was not the loving husband he had always supposed him to be. His mother had lived with that for over forty years, embittered and sad. And he had made matters worse, brought it all back by employing Rita’s husband. The revelation about Zita must have been the last straw. That little tart was his niece, related by blood. He was appalled and disgusted.

‘There’s no need to say anything to anyone,’ she went on. ‘Soon, it won’t matter, I shan’t be hurt by it anymore.’ She smiled and reached out a thin, veined hand to touch his cheek. She was obviously tired and, having had her say, wanted to rest. ‘Go home, George, make your peace with Barbara. Talk to her. Listen to her, too. Don’t let history repeat itself.’

‘I’ll try.’ He kissed her goodbye and left. It was the last time he saw her alive. She died in the early hours of the next morning.

The whole family was united in grief. To the children she had been someone who would always listen to their woes; to Barbara she had been, after the first few months when she realised her daughter-in-law was no threat to her closeness with her son, fair and supportive; to George, she had been everything. He could not cope with his misery and spent hours pacing up and down his study, unable to sit still. He tried going to work, but found he could not concentrate and took himself out into the country and walked for miles.

The funeral was attended by almost all the older residents of the town who had grown up with Elizabeth, people from all walks of life, people he hardly knew. He followed the coffin down the aisle of the church in a daze, unable to believe what had happened. It was his fault. His and Barbara’s, because he would not absolve her. But mindful of his mother’s dying wish that he should make his peace with his wife, he had made no accusations. In fact he could hardly bring himself to speak to her at all.

Barbara was glad of his silence. She didn’t want to talk about what had happened, she couldn’t. She sat in her pew in the church, black-clad, black-veiled, feeling isolated. Her children, particularly Alison, were confused and miserable, rejecting her comfort. No one offered her solace. She didn’t deserve it. Somehow, she had to survive on her own. She would, too, because she and George were finished. Not yet, though, she couldn’t leave him while he was at rock bottom. After the grand opening of the refurbished market the week before the jubilee celebrations, after he had ceased to be mayor, she would sit down and try to talk calmly to him about what they were going to do. It would give her time to sort out her life. She rose as the notes of the last hymn died away, and walked with George behind the coffin to the open grave, as always, the supportive wife.

Maggie, grasping at straws, consulted the register of births and deaths at St Andrew’s church and found the record of Zita Younger’s birth. Nothing out of the ordinary there: father Colin Younger, mother’s maiden name, Rita Symonds. While she was at the record office, she decided she might as well go back a generation. And then she found it. For some reason Dora Symonds had named the father of her daughter, probably hoping to shame him or get maintenance from him. Frederick Kennett. Jeez, that would be a story and a half!

‘No, Maggie,’ Toby said firmly when she brought him a copy of the birth certificate. ‘The mayor’s a popular figure and his mother has just died. The fact that Fred Kennett strayed from the straight and narrow is neither here nor there and does not reflect on his son. If you are so determined to discredit George Kennett then you should concentrate on his business activities.’

‘That reporter woman was sniffing around,’ Rita told Dora. ‘I don’t know what she wants but she’s making me nervous.’

‘What did you tell her?’

‘Nothing. What’s to tell? She wanted to know if I was proud of Zita and I told her of course I was.’

‘Let’s hope she doesn’t start putting two and two together. Forty years! God, after all that time, it’s coming back to haunt us.’

‘No, it isn’t,’ Rita said firmly. ‘We don’t have to admit anything. There’s no proof.’

‘You’ve got to tell Zita the truth, so she knows to keep mum if that woman starts asking questions. I don’t trust the newspapers…’

‘OK. I’ll go tomorrow after I’ve finished work.’

Barbara showed Maggie into George’s study. He looked up at her with open hostility. As if he hadn’t enough on his plate, he was expected to answer this woman’s stupid questions. Barbara ought never to have let her in, but she was here now and it wouldn’t do to rub her up the wrong way. He motioned her to a chair. ‘What can I do for you, Miss Doughty?’

‘Mr Kennett, is it true you own Melsham Construction and that Mr Browning is merely fronting it?’ Barbara, leaving the room, heard Maggie’s question clearly before shutting the door. She stood leaning against it, her heart beating uncomfortably fast, not deliberately listening, but unable to walk away.

‘Of course it isn’t true,’ George said. ‘And if you print it, I shall sue.’

‘Mr Browning worked for you for how many years?’

‘I don’t know exactly. Fourteen, fifteen.’

‘And he was always loyal?’

‘He appeared to be. But no doubt he was working towards going it alone. I’ve accepted that and bear him no ill will.’

‘And Mr Younger. Did the same thing apply to him? He’s family, isn’t he?’

‘What the devil are you talking about?’

‘You surely knew that his wife is your half-sister? No, probably not, or you wouldn’t have been screwing her daughter. Your own niece, Mr Kennett.’

Barbara waited, hardly daring to breathe, for George’s reply. It seemed a long time coming. And then he blustered. ‘Where did you get that tarradiddle from?’

‘From the register of births, Mr Kennett. It’s there in black and white. Rita Symonds, baseborn to Dora Symonds, father Frederick Kennett. Would you like to comment?’

‘No, I would not. And if you publish one word, I’ll see you never work in journalism again.’

Barbara felt sick. She knew it was true. The signs had been there all along. Elizabeth’s antipathy towards Rita, her insistence she meant trouble. For over forty years Elizabeth had lived with the knowledge that her husband had betrayed her and had an illegitimate daughter, now it was all bubbling to the surface again. At least Elizabeth had been spared any more pain and upset.

Barbara began to wonder about her own particular skeleton. How long would it be before that started rattling its bones and bursting out of its cupboard? It made her afraid for Jay-Jay, until now only on the periphery of events. Please God, don’t let him be hurt, she begged, wondering what penance she could make to keep him from suffering. Thank goodness there was nothing on his birth certificate to arouse suspicion.

She didn’t want to hear any more. She went up to her studio, put a canvas on her easel and began daubing it with paint. Anything was better than her tortured thoughts. She wasn’t aware that Maggie had left, nor did she hear George go out a few minutes later.

George parked the car in the town hall car park and walked to Zita’s flat. Work on the market had finished for the day and the open space, surrounded by wire fencing, was a clutter of sand, bricks, paving and diggers. He walked round it, his anger growing with every step. If he wasn’t careful, he’d lose it all. He could cope with business problems but personal traumas he had never found easy. And when one led to the other and got all mixed up, he began to panic.

He looked furtively about him before entering the block of flats and climbing the stairs. Zita had rung him several times at work, demanding to know why he had not been to see her. He had tried fobbing her off, but she had threatened to go to the press with her story. He had to shut her up.

‘Oh, it’s you.’ She opened the door in a faded dressing gown. Her hair had just been washed and hung damply round her cheeks. Without make-up her face glowed. A few weeks ago it would have turned him on, but now he was repulsed. ‘About time too.’ She turned her back on him to go back inside.

He followed and looked round the familiar flat. It was still as untidy as ever, although there were now no unfinished sculptures to add to the mess: they had been taken to her new workshop by some of his labourers. ‘What do you want from me, Zita?’ he said, refusing to take a seat. ‘You must have known it had to end.’

‘Course I did. I’m not complaining. It was good while it lasted, but you might have had the decency to come and tell me to my face and give me a little something to be going on with. I’ve had to give up my job to work on that fountain…’

‘My mother died.’

‘I heard. I’m sorry. But you could have come after the funeral.’

‘What difference would that have made, except to prove that bitch, Doughty, right?’

‘So it’s the press you’re afraid of, accusations of bribery and corruption. She came to see me, you know, wanted to know who paid the rent of my workshop.’

‘What did you tell her?’ His voice was sharp.

‘I told her I did, then I threw her out.’

‘Thank God. You won’t talk to her again, will you?’

She laughed. ‘I’ve got nothing to tell her. But you’re here now, so we might as well make the most of it.’ She turned towards him and slipped off her robe. She wore nothing underneath it.

‘For God’s sake, cover yourself up,’ he said angrily.

‘Embarrassed are you? Now, there’s a surprise! You wouldn’t have reacted like that a few weeks ago.’

‘A few weeks ago, I didn’t know your feckless mother was my sister, did I?’

She stared at him, uncomprehending. ‘Say that again.’

‘Your mother is my half-sister, we had the same father. Don’t you understand plain English?’ He laughed harshly.

‘I understand English, not the rubbish you’re talking.’

‘You don’t want to believe it? I didn’t either but that doesn’t stop it being true.’

She stared at him for a moment, wondering what game he was playing with her, but the anger in his eyes was all too real. She began to laugh. Her grandmother’s secret was out at last. Gran and Elizabeth Kennett’s husband. Oh, it was funny. She was doubled up with mirth. He strode over to her and shook her. ‘Stop it! How dare you laugh!’

‘Why not? It’s rich.’ She pulled herself free of him. ‘No wonder your prim and proper ma hated my gran.’

‘It killed her. Knowing what we’d done killed her.’ His face was white except for two bright spots on each cheek, his eyes burning, his control on a knife-edge.

‘You shouldn’t have told her, then.’

‘I didn’t. Nick did.’

‘How did he find out?’

‘He saw us getting off the train when we came back from Paris.’

‘You could have fobbed him off. You’re good at fobbing people off.’

‘You and your family ruined everything for me. Everything. My mother said you would. She predicted it years ago.’

‘You didn’t think so when you were fucking me, did you? You thought I was the best thing since Adam and Eve.’

‘Shut up.’

‘No, you shut up. You used my dad. You knew he wasn’t all that bright and you took advantage of him. You used me too…’

‘You’ve done your share of using people. You wanted to win the fountain competition so badly, you’d have jumped into bed with anyone. I wish I’d never thought of it.’

‘Oh, you poor thing! My heart bleeds for you.’ She had been more shaken than she was prepared to admit, and all she wanted was to be alone to think. She was sick of him, sick of herself, sick at what they’d done. She hoped her mother never found out. ‘Get out!’ she shouted. ‘Get out and leave me in peace.’

‘I’m going, but I want your word you won’t speak of this to the press. And keep that father of yours away from them too, or I’ll have him back inside before he can blink.’

‘How dare you come here and threaten me, you rotten bastard. Get out! Get out now!’ Furiously she picked up a chisel and came at him, arm raised.

He backed away, opened the door and stepped out onto the landing. She followed him out, not bothering to keep her voice down. ‘You’re rotten through and through, Mr High and Mighty Mayor. You’re worse than my dad ever was. You might shut him up, but I’m not like him. I think I will go to the papers after all. They’d pay well for a story like this.’

He looked fearfully about him, expecting doors to open up and down the stairway. ‘Shut up, Zita. Go back inside. You’re making a spectacle of yourself.’

She laughed harshly. ‘I don’t care. You’re the one who’s got it all to lose, not me.’

He tried to bundle her back into the flat, but she fought him like a wild cat. ‘Come on, Zita, don’t be a little fool,’ he said placatingly, trying to relieve her of the chisel. ‘Let’s go back inside and talk about it quietly.’

She stopped struggling suddenly and he let her go. She bent to pick up a large vase that stood just inside the door and threw it at him. He leant back against the banister to avoid it. He heard the sound of splintering wood a split second before the banister gave way.

Three flights down, Rita was just coming in at the front door when his body hit the ground, followed by a pot which shattered beside him. She stood and stared at him for several seconds and then looked upwards. Her naked daughter was leaning over the top, looking down. Suddenly the girl’s screams filled the cavernous space.

It was Rita, brought by the police, who told Barbara what had happened. She would rather it had been Rita than anyone. Rita understood how she felt and she didn’t need to pretend. It wasn’t that she didn’t feel grief, because she did – you couldn’t live with a man for fifteen years and have his children without feeling something – but that grief was tempered by a huge surge of something akin to relief which she was reluctant to admit, even to herself. They had been living with a bomb waiting to go off, a situation so fraught something was bound to happen. She had been very afraid, and now that particular fear had been dissipated she was left with the guilt. She sat at the table in the dining room, her face chalk white with the shock of it. Not only with the fact that George was dead, but the manner of it.

‘I’m sorry.’ Rita, sitting facing her, was almost as stunned as Barbara. She had witnessed it, seen the body fall, heard Zita’s screams which had brought everyone else out of their homes to peer down into the stairwell. Torn between rushing out again to call an ambulance and going to her daughter, she had chosen to climb the stairs to Zita, leaving others to look after George. Later, the police had come. ‘It was an awful way to go.’

‘Why was he there? Surely he wasn’t still…’ Barbara’s voice faded to nothing.

‘No, course not. Zita said he’d come to ask her not to speak to the press. She wouldn’t anyway. What had she to gain?’

‘Do you know what happened?’

‘Zita was too upset to say much; it took ages to calm her down enough for the police to take her to the station.’

‘They haven’t arrested her? Oh, my God, will it never end? Rita, I’m so very sorry. You must be feeling dreadful.’

‘Yes, but it was an accident. He leant on the banister and it gave way. They’ll let her go when she’s made a statement.’

‘It was my fault.’

‘How can you possibly say that? Barbara, no way should you blame yourself. Now, shall I make us both a cup of tea?’

She bustled out of the room and Barbara sat staring at the wall in front of her. The Market of Old Melsham seemed to stare back at her. A lifetime encapsulated in a picture: good and bad, happy and painful. It was George’s fixation with the market that had caused all this trauma. But it was more than that and older than that: it was about how they dealt with each other, their marriage. And it must have been as bad for George as it had been for her: he couldn’t cope with the disappointment any more than she could. They had both been to blame. They had been glued together by guilt. She couldn’t believe it had all come to a sudden and violent end. She couldn’t cry, her eyes were gritty, dry as dust.

Rita returned with the tray and handed her a cup of tea. ‘Drink that, I’ve put a dash of something stronger in it.’

‘Thank you. The children… I must fetch them home…’

‘Do you want me to do it?’

‘No, I must. You go back to Zita. She’ll be needing you.’

‘Will you be all right? I’ll ring Lady Isobel, shall I? She’ll come.’

‘No, I’d rather be alone with the children. Perhaps later…’

Rita left and she was alone, alone with her tumbled thoughts. What to do? What to say to the children? There would be a funeral to arrange, callers to deal with, George’s business affairs to sort out. How was she going to cope with it all? And the children… Oh, God, her poor, dear children.

Forcing herself to be practical she got out her car and fetched them home. They cried, they cried a lot, and who could blame them? They had loved their father and to have him suddenly snatched away had devastated them. They clung together, all four, until she broke away to get them some tea. No one ate anything. No one wanted to talk. Alison was trying to be grown-up and not cry, but every now and again a huge sob escaped her. Nick was white-faced and feeling guilty: he blamed himself for telling everybody about Zita Younger. Jay-Jay sobbed. He had loved George in the uncomplicated way of a small child. That night she heard him crying in bed and got up to go to him. She sat on the edge of the bed, stroking his beautiful red-gold hair from his face. It was then she wept too, scalding tears that would not stop.

‘It was nobody’s fault,’ she told Alison and Nick next evening as they sat in the drawing room, nursing cups of cocoa with uneaten sandwiches beside them. The day had been taken up with practicalities, informing people who had to be told, fielding telephone calls of condolence, taking in flowers and messages, talking to the undertaker and the rector, deciding on the hymns and the order of the funeral service. Not until now, with Jay-Jay safely in bed, had they had a chance to talk. ‘It was an accident. The council doesn’t want a scandal any more than we do. It would sully all the work your father did for the town and ruin the jubilee celebrations. They are going to issue a statement that he was in the flats on council business. The tenants put in a complaint about the dangerous state of the banister and he had gone to see for himself.’

‘Who’s going to swallow that?’ Nick asked.

‘Everyone, if we believe it ourselves. Mrs Younger will say the same.’

‘Course she will,’ Alison said. ‘She’d want to protect her daughter.’

‘Yes, just as I want to protect you and Nick and Jay-Jay.’

‘You didn’t think about that before.’ Alison hadn’t meant to bring that up, but it had just come out. ‘When… You know…’

‘I did, you know. You children have always been my first concern, ever since you were born. I shut my eyes to a lot of things to keep you all safe. You don’t know the half of it and God forbid you ever do. But I’ve never been more hurt and miserable than I have since Christmas. I didn’t invite Mr Barcliffe…’

‘But you didn’t turn him away.’

‘I had no reason to. Nothing happened between us, but it was what I did, or rather what I allowed to happen, that triggered off the upset, though what your father did was—’ She stopped, unwilling to hurt them any more than she had already. She put out a hand and laid it on her daughter’s. ‘I’m sorry, darling. I should have sent Mr Barcliffe away, but he is Aunt Penny’s brother. A friend, that’s all.’

‘Are you…are you going to see him again? I mean…’

‘He is Penny’s brother, Alison, I am bound to see him, but if you mean will I seek him out, then no, I won’t. My regret, and it’s a profound one, is that you were hurt. Can you forgive me?’

‘I s’pose so.’

It was as much as Barbara had any right to expect and she forced a smile. ‘We’ve got a long week ahead of us and we need to stick together. No doubt, there’ll be rumours, but we’ll just ignore them. The public image your father set so much store by will follow him to his grave and I wouldn’t have it any different.’

George’s funeral service, held on a day of cold, blustery rain, was attended by everyone of importance in the town, including Gordon Sydney, the new mayor, who had taken over the mantle of office a couple of months earlier than expected. There was a eulogy from Tony Bartram, who spoke of George’s selfless devotion to serving the community and how the new fountain would be a fitting memorial to him. Barbara, flanked by her children, listened with black-veiled head bowed. She could hardly take it in. The last week had been hectic, but now it was over and she was saying a final goodbye to her husband. It didn’t seem real somehow. She was thirty-five years old and for fifteen of those years George – and her children – had been her life, influencing everything she did: what she wore, where she went, what she ate, even the way she thought. Now she was alone. Oh, she had the children, who were precious to her, and good friends, but they did not stop her feeling that whatever happened next was down to her.

She had gone to see Alan Fairfax, the family solicitor, and was appalled to learn just how contorted George’s financial affairs were. He had apparently been robbing Peter to pay Paul for years, mortgaged the house and cashed in his pension, leaving only a small life policy for her. He was in debt to his suppliers, who had only been holding back because he was the mayor and would have been baying for blood when his term of office came to an end. To add insult to injury, she couldn’t touch any of the assets of Melsham Construction because, on paper, they belonged to Donald Browning.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Kennett,’ Mr Fairfax had said, looking shamefaced. ‘I only became aware of the extent of the problem when I started sorting things out for probate. He didn’t always deal with me, sometimes he saw my partner and we neither of us knew the state of his bank balance. I have no idea why he lent Melsham Construction such a large amount of money without securing it.’

‘Oh, I do,’ she said.

‘It’s a good thing you were not part of the business and can’t be held responsible for its debts.’

‘Are there any others?’

‘It’s all very involved and will take some time to sort out, but I think we can secure the house for you…’

‘Don’t,’ she had told him. ‘Sell it to clear the mortgage and as many other debts as you can. I still own the farmhouse my father left me.’ She had looked across his desk as a worrying thought struck her. ‘They can’t take that, can they?’

‘No, that’s yours.’

‘Good. It’s let to an American family and they’re due to go back to the States soon. I’ll move back there.’ That had been one of her easier decisions. She loved the old farmhouse, it was more home to her than The Chestnuts had ever been.

She came out of her reverie to find herself on the gravel of the churchyard, following the men bearing the coffin to the open grave. The rain had stopped and a faint shaft of sunlight pierced the trees surrounding the churchyard, making swirls of rainbow colours in the puddles. She was astonished how calm, how detached she felt, as if it was happening to someone else. She was able to stand and listen to the committal service without emotion. She was numb.

Afterwards she invited everyone to the house and they all milled about, eating sandwiches and sausage rolls and drinking sherry and beer, and telling each other what a fantastic man George had been and how much they were going to miss him. Alison was white-faced and uncommunicative, but determined to be brave because she was sure that was what Daddy would have wanted. Nick, on the other hand, was red-faced and hiding his grief behind fury, and she would have to try and ease that for him, assure him his father was not a bad man. Poor Jay-Jay simply looked bewildered. She saw him slip his hand into Penny’s and Penny stoop to speak to him, her red-gold head bent to his, telling him something that elicited a smile.

‘I’m very sorry, Mrs Kennett,’ Donald murmured, beside her.

‘I know that, Donald. Don’t think any more of it.’

‘Yes, but Melsham Construction…’ He paused. ‘Do you think we could talk about it some time?’

‘No, Donald, I don’t think so. It’s your business.’ She spoke firmly and he wandered off, too embarrassed to continue the conversation.

‘Barbara.’

She turned from watching him walk away, to find Simon standing beside her. He was impeccably dressed in a dark suit and a black tie, and at thirty-nine still incredibly handsome, though the years had etched fine lines about his mouth and eyes, eyes which were as blue as they had always been, as blue as Jay-Jay’s. His expression of concern deepened the slight scar on his brow. ‘Hallo, Simon.’ Her face felt stiff with trying to smile. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m OK. More importantly, how are you?’

‘Oh, you know. Drained. A bit bemused. I keep thinking I’ll wake up tomorrow and everything will be like it was.’

‘I’m truly sorry,’ he said, wanting to hold her, to comfort her, and though he lifted his hand to touch her, he changed his mind and let if fall to his side. ‘Please don’t hate me for it.’

‘Why should I do that?’ she asked in surprise.

‘Christmas. What happened then. If I hadn’t come—’

‘Nothing to do with you, Simon. It would still have happened. Please don’t think about it.’ She had to keep him at arm’s length, to make it look to the others in the room that he was doing no more than offering his condolences and she was accepting them. She could see Alison watching them and smiled reassuringly at her.

‘I’m still sorry. What are you going to do with yourself now?’

‘I can’t think of anything at the moment, my brain refuses to function above trivialities. I have to get over each day as it comes and look after the children.’

‘Of course you do. But some time, sooner rather than later, sit down and think about what you want to do. Not what everyone else wants you to do, but what you, Barbara Bosgrove that was, want from your life.’

‘There’s the children—’

‘They are growing up. Soon they’ll leave home. Penny tells me Alison is destined for university and Nick has a career to carve out for himself.’

‘That may be true, but Jay-Jay’s not yet eight. It will be ages before he’s old enough to leave the nest.’

‘Ah, Jay-Jay.’ He smiled down at her. ‘I think Jay-Jay takes after you. Alison and Nick have some of George in them, but not him. He’s a one-off.’ He bent towards her speaking softly. ‘Take care of him, Barbara. He’s very special.’

She looked up at him, the tears she had been refusing to shed sitting on her lashes ready to spill down her cheeks. ‘Simon, I—’

He put his finger on her lips to stop her speaking. ‘I have to go now, but if you need me, you know where I am. Any time.’ He kissed her gently on the cheek. ‘I believe there is someone waiting to speak to you, so I’ll say goodbye.’

She watched him walk away and it was as if he were taking half of her with him, the core of Barbara Bosgrove that was, leaving only Barbara Kennett behind. Had she understood what he was trying to say? Especially about Jay-Jay. Was he saying he knew? How did he know? Penny would never have broken her promise not to tell him. She took a huge breath to steady herself and turned to find Tony Bartram standing not three feet behind her. It was a moment or to before she realised he had begun speaking and she hadn’t heard a word he said. She forced herself to pay attention.

‘We must try and carry on as normal,’ he was saying. ‘It is what George would have wished. And the people of the town have been looking forward to the jubilee celebrations and the official unveiling of the new fountain.’

‘Of course,’ she said, wondering if Simon had really gone or was still somewhere about. Did it matter? She couldn’t call him back, could she? Sleeping dogs must be left to lie.

‘We should be delighted if you would consent to turn on the new fountain at the opening ceremony.’

‘Oh, no, I don’t think I could. I’m sorry.’

‘You don’t have to make a decision today. Let me know in a week or two.’

She was determined to refuse, but later, after everyone else had left, she told Penny, Isobel and Rita, who had stayed to help her clear up.

‘You should do it,’ Isobel said. ‘I can’t think of anyone more appropriate.’ She was surprised at how easily the other three accepted her, a spinster from a different era, a time traveller trapped in the past, not only in the past but in a different stratum of society, one that had all but disappeared. But Barbara and her friends had brought her out of that, made her value herself.

‘If George had been alive, you would certainly have been asked to do it,’ Penny put in. ‘He’d have made sure of that.’

‘I’ll think about it.’