A Perfect Christmas (21 page)

Glen smiled to himself. So the rumour-mongers were as active today as they had been when he had owned this place. Not wanting to have Jan perceived as a woman of loose morals, he lied. ‘We happen to live opposite each other. Mrs Clayton knew I was looking for work, as she herself was, and so when she saw on the vacancy board that Rose’s was in need of a maintenance man as well as someone for the canteen, she rushed back to tell me in the hope no one beat us to it. We travel back and forth to work together now. Whatever the gossips are saying, I can assure you we’re nothing more than friends.’

He couldn’t help his thoughts from returning then to the problem of how to get himself upstairs so that hopefully he could catch a glimpse of his daughter. Like a thunderbolt the perfect excuse suddenly struck him. He could have hugged Harry’s missing assistant for handing it to him. ‘Just let me check with the receptionist that she hasn’t any requests for urgent work to be done and then I’ll give you a hand taking the shoes and handbags upstairs.’

Harry slapped him gratefully on his back. ‘Thanks, mate. That means we can load both trolleys at the same time and take ’em up together in the service lift. That’ll save me two . . .’ He stopped abruptly as a figure appeared around the metal shelving at the end of the room and started slowly heading their way. Harry bellowed, ‘And where the hell have you bin?’

Glen turned his head to see who Harry was addressing and his heart sank to see a thick-set youth, his whole manner betraying the fact that he’d sooner be anywhere else but here. Reaching them, he responded in a nonchalant tone, ‘I had to rush off as I needed the lavvy bad. Got stomach trouble. Must be summat I ate last night.’

Harry scowled darkly at him. ‘Do I look like I came up the Clyde in a banana boat? You stink like an old ashtray. I guessed you’d disappeared off for a crafty fag while me back was turned, and I was right. You can make the time up out of your dinner hour. Twenty minutes, I make it.’ Ignoring the sulky look his assistant shot him, he ordered, ‘Now go and fetch both trolleys. You can help me stack ’em with stuff that’s wanted upstairs and then take ’em up. Get yer skates on, lad,’ he barked.

As the youth shambled off to do his boss’s bidding, Harry said to Glen, ‘Might as well try and get him to earn some of his pay, at least while he’s still here. I do appreciate your offer, mate, and if I can return the favour sometime, don’t hesitate to ask.’

Glen heaved a sigh as he went off into his own cubby hole, silently praying that another reason for him to take himself up to the office would present itself soon.

A short while later, sitting amid at least fifty open shoe boxes, Cait stuck out both legs and admired the black suede, high-heeled, peep-toe court shoes on her feet. She thought she looked stunning in them and they were far more expensive than she could ever have afforded on a junior typist’s wage. ‘I’ll have these too,’ she said.

Jane was inwardly fuming at being used by her new boss like a lowly assistant in a shoe shop, not the fully qualified personal assistant that she was. She had to stop herself from snatching off the shoes and throwing them back in the box to join the nine other pairs Cait had chosen for herself already. Then she realised the girl was waiting to be handed another pair.

‘You’ve seen them all now, Miss Thomas,’ she said politely.

Cait was pleased with her choices so far. All she needed now was to select a handbag to go with each pair.

It was nearly dinnertime before she had made up her mind which handbag went with which pair of shoes, and all her chosen items were stacked up ready for her to take home. The discarded ones were back in their boxes, all courtesy of Jane, and ready to be returned to the stores.

Jane said, ‘Shall we get down to business now then, Miss Thomas?’

Cait looked at her, bemused. ‘What business?’

Jane looked back at her, equally bemused. ‘All the things we need your decision on, Miss Thomas. Mr Gates . . . he’s our designer . . . needs to see you urgently so you can okay and sign off on the new designs for the autumn collection. Mr Owens, who’s in charge of the stores . . . you met him this morning when he brought up the stock for you . . . has a staffing problem that needs resolving. Mr Roberts has a issue with the last batch of leather we had delivered . . .’

Cait felt it wasn’t her job to get involved in such petty matters. Hers was to make sure they were all earning their money and not dodging work. ‘I’m sure these people can manage to sort out their own problems without involving me.’ Her stomach was telling her it needed attention. ‘I want some lunch. What’s on the menu today? I’ll need you to explain where the senior staff canteen is.’

Jane was gawking at her, astounded that she was expecting the heads of the various departments to make such important decisions unsupervised. Should they make an error of judgement, there could be far-reaching consequences for the company. These sorts of decisions were usually for the general manager or the owner of the company to make. The staff in question were not going to be at all happy about this turn of events. And what could Miss Thomas mean by ‘senior staff canteen’? There was just one canteen for everyone, and if she felt herself above eating with the rest of the employees – which Mr Swinton certainly hadn’t – she’d have to eat in her own office.

A thought suddenly occurred to Cait. Now that she had her new wardrobe and accessories, what was needed to complete her transformation was a new hairdo. She would pay a visit to her mother’s hairdresser that afternoon. There was no time like the present.

She said to Jane, ‘Forget lunch, I’m off. Please have the shoes and bags delivered to my home by taxi.’ Picking up her handbag, she put on her coat before disappearing out of the door, while Jane stared after her.

Five minutes after the hooter had boomed its announcement that it was home-time, Jan caught a glimpse of Glen’s pensive expression as he made his way over to where she was waiting for him on the canal tow path.

As he joined her she laid a reassuring hand on his arm and said to him, ‘Let’s get home and we’ll have a good talk about it.’

He flashed her a wan smile and nodded his agreement.

The meal Jan prepared, of faggots, mashed potatoes, tinned garden peas and gravy, was very tasty, although hard as she might try she could not achieve the same smooth, creamy texture to her mash as her mother always produced. Jan had long ago accepted that this was one culinary skill she would never master. Glen had eaten every scrap on his plate and expressed appreciation to her for his meal, but it was Jan’s opinion that with what she knew was on his mind he hadn’t tasted a morsel of it. Having eaten they both sat nursing cups of tea in the sagging armchairs by the blazing fire that Glen had made while Jan had been clearing away. She looked at him in concern, gazing mesmerised into the flames. She thought it best to wait for him to speak first.

It was twenty minutes later when he finally looked across at her and said softly, ‘Lucy was so close, Jan, but she might as well have been a million miles away. I had the golden opportunity to try and catch a glimpse of her snatched away from me . . .’ He proceeded to tell her what had happened. ‘I prayed another chance would come along but it hasn’t. I had no jobs outstanding and nothing came in so I spent the rest of the day tidying the shelves in the maintenance room and checking if I needed to order anything, in an effort to occupy my mind.’

‘It must have been purgatory for you,’ Jan responded understandingly. ‘But, you know, there was an excuse you could have used to get you in that office.’

He looked quizzically at her. ‘There was? I racked my brains for one and came up with nothing, so I’d like to hear what it is?’

Jan smiled. ‘You men aren’t as devious as us women, that’s why it didn’t occur to you. You could have just made out that you’d heard on the grapevine a radiator was leaking. Or maybe that a window was cracked and you needed to measure the glass to replace it, something like that, then when you were told that there wasn’t anything amiss, you could just put it down to receiving the wrong information from whoever it was that passed it on.’

‘Well, I have to stay, that simple idea never crossed my mind.’ Then Glen heaved a forlorn sigh. ‘Trouble is, Jan, I’m having a struggle with my conscience. You know how much I want to see my daughter. To have the opportunity to try and make up for all the years we’ve lost, just hold her in my arms for a second, would mean more than anything to me. But to my mind the workplace isn’t the right place to break the news to her of who I am or explain to her that the woman who’s raised her isn’t the wonderful mother she thinks she is. Getting her to believe my story when I have no proof of what Nerys did to me is another problem. And, of course, I have no idea what Nerys has told her about me. But when all’s said and done, what she’s about to learn is going to devastate her, isn’t it? I’m not sure I can do that to her, Jan.’

‘Listen, Glen, when my son was alive, I wanted to protect him from everything that might cause him hurt or heartache. But you can’t . . . it’s impossible. Life has its ups and downs, its good times and its bad, and as we’re growing up we have to learn to deal with them and the things that happen to us.’ She leaned forward, eyeing him earnestly, and spoke with conviction. ‘Your daughter needs . . . deserves . . . to know that her father is alive and well and that he loves her. She needs to know the truth about why you disappeared from her life, Glen, no matter what pain it causes her.’

He looked at Jan for several long moments before he said, ‘But what if . . .’

She cut in, ‘Life’s full of
what ifs
, Glen. Mine certainly is. What if it had been pelting with rain that night and my son had not gone out at all? What if I’d dished the dinner up earlier and we’d been eating when his friends called? What if Bernie hadn’t been my window cleaner? What if Harry hadn’t come home when he had and caught us . . . I could go on.

‘Stop thinking about the what ifs, Glen, they might never happen. Let’s just deal with things as they come, eh? I agree that the workplace isn’t the right one to divulge the type of news you have to give your daughter, but as things stand it’s the only option open to you. Or, just an idea, you could always wait for her to come out of work and waylay her then – tell her you have some very important family news and ask her to go somewhere you can discuss it. A nearby pub perhaps. But, look, first things first. Why don’t you decide just what you’re going to say to her first, before when and where you’re going to do it?’

It was good advice Jan was giving him and he smiled at her. ‘Yes, I will.’ He took several sips of his tea, which was now cold, before he looked across at her again and tentatively asked, ‘Did . . . er . . . you happen to see Lucy when you were taking the tea trolley around today? If you did, what’s she like?’

Jan had been waiting for this question. It wasn’t until dinnertime when she had been wiping down tables near a group of women from the offices upstairs that she had overheard them discussing the fact that it wasn’t the actual owner who had come in to run the business but her daughter. That was when she had realised that the young woman she’d had a run-in with yesterday morning in the boss’s office had had every right to be in there, and every right also to dismiss Jan for speaking as she had about her mother. Jan just hoped that she didn’t come face to face with her again until sufficient time had passed for her to have forgotten the incident. But then, how could she tell Glen that what she’d thought had been her first impression of his daughter hadn’t been at all favourable? When she’d seen her in the church, Jan had thought her far too full of her own importance and her manner certainly left a lot to be desired. She just couldn’t tell the truth, though. Hopefully, she had caught the young woman at a bad time.

She lied to Glen. ‘I’ve not been out of the kitchen. Hilda’s decided it’s best I learn the ropes in the canteen first.’ She wanted to ask him how his day had gone but Glen was staring into the glowing coals in the fireplace again. It was obvious his thoughts were fixed on his daughter and how best to handle the delicate situation with her.

Jan sat back in her own chair and rested her head, stretching out her feet to prop them on the hearth. She found herself thinking about her husband and for a moment was transported back to a time when they had all been happy. After dinner had been cleared away, the three of them would sit together in the living room, she with her knitting or the latest book she was reading, Harry with his newspaper, Keith with a comic or toy, the radio playing in the background, all relaxed and content in each other’s company. She’d believed this state of affairs would go on until Keith grew up and left home, and then it would be just herself and Harry, happy in each other’s company. Never for a moment had she any idea that fate would play its hand and rip their lives apart.

She wondered what Harry was doing now. Then she realised she didn’t need to. After eating a meal cooked for him by the do-gooding women of the congregation he would be at the evening service or attending a meeting on church matters, maybe planning for Christmas which would be on them shortly. At the thought of the festive season her eyes strayed to Glen, still lost in his own thoughts, staring into the fire, and she wondered what Christmas last year had been like for him. The same as all the other Christmases for the five years since leaving prison, she suspected, spent scavenging for something to eat, then searching for somewhere to keep warm. No festive cheer for him.

For the last few years her own Christmases hadn’t been the joyous occasions they were meant to be. The family get togethers, joining her mother and sisters at one of their houses or at her own in yearly rotation, she had put a stop to, not feeling it right to inflict on them the tension between herself and Harry at a time when families should be enjoying themselves. After breakfast Harry would go to church then afterwards join members of the congregation in visiting the needy and elderly members of the parish, delivering the boxes of food that had been collected over the weeks leading up to the holiday via kind donations from the general public. Then there were the fund-raising events which Harry was always in the thick of. She was never sure what time he would get back for his dinner but she cooked it anyway and would then sit staring at the Christmas tree and paper trimmings gathering dust – those being her own efforts to inject some Christmas cheer into her home – waiting for him to return and doing her best to ensure their meal wasn’t ruined meantime. They would then sit opposite each other at the dining table, both fighting to make conversation but failing since neither had anything to say to the other. They had stopped buying gifts for one another, even token gestures, as Harry was resolutely of the opinion that any spare money they had should be put towards benefiting those less fortunate than themselves.