A Perfect Christmas (27 page)

Cait looked over at it for a moment before she called out, ‘Come in.’ It seemed she had temporarily forgotten her new resolve. Her tone was curt.

There were fumbling sounds from the other side of the door and Glen realised whoever it was was having trouble turning the door knob. He went over, turned the knob, and opened the door to find a woman outside, attempting to balance a laden tray which she was struggling to keep steady with one hand while the other was trying to open the door. She had her head bowed, a white net cap pulled down right over her forehead to cover her eyebrows, as if she was trying to hide her face. Of course he knew it was Jan.

‘Why are you . . .’ he started to say.

Righting herself, the tray now held in both hands, her head came up and with her eyes she silenced him. Then she bowed her head again and he stood back, watching in bemusement, as she hurried with the tray over to the desk, set it down and mumbled, ‘Your tea, Miss Thomas. Sorry for the delay.’ She hurried back towards the door. Just as she passed by Glen, she lifted her head and shot him a look that told him not to talk to her and also that she was desperate to know what was going on, then she was off down the corridor.

Cait said to Glen, ‘You were telling me?’

‘Pardon? Oh, yes. The fact is that the owner died and the son sold up. The new owner decided he didn’t want a manager running the place as he was going to head it up himself. I felt I’d had enough of the responsibility of that kind of job anyway and got myself something back on a production line. It was a huge drop in salary but I was happy to be sleeping well at night. I was ready for a change when I saw the maintenance man’s job advertised and thought I’d apply and . . . well, here I am.’

Noises from outside in the yard made him glance out of the window. ‘Seems people are returning to work.’ He turned back and walked over to his tool box. He picked it up and said to Cait, ‘Well, I’d better get back to it myself.’

She looked aghast. ‘But you can’t leave me. I mean, I don’t know how to go about finding a replacement manager like I promised the union men I would.’

‘Miss Trucker will help you with that. From the dealings I’ve had with her, she seems like a very capable woman.’

Cait sighed. And she herself hadn’t treated her very civilly. More apologies were necessary it seemed.

Glen appeared to read her mind. ‘She doesn’t come across to me as a woman who bears grudges. You’ll be fine.’

Another thought struck Cait then. ‘Oh, but wait a minute. We don’t need to look for a temporary manager to run this place. You’ve run a business. You’re qualified. You could do it, couldn’t you?’ Then she wouldn’t need to hang around here and could get on with starting her new life.

Glen hoped he wasn’t showing the horror he felt at her suggestion. The job he could do easily. The company still seemed to be running along the same lines as it had when he had owned the place, maybe a few administrative changes but it wouldn’t take him long to get to grips with those, but there were reasons why he couldn’t, wouldn’t, accept her offer, the main one being that if he were ever to head up this company again it would not be as a manager but because he owned it. And that he never would as it was highly unlikely Nerys would have her conscience pricked after all this time and hand it back to him. But the main reason was that she could come back at any moment and, if she found him running the place, all hell would break loose.

He smiled at Cait and told her, ‘Thanks for the offer, Miss Thomas, but I like the job I’m doing. I wouldn’t fancy all the responsibility of managing again. I really must get back now in case any machines have broken down. Wouldn’t do for me to be responsible for holding up production.’

Cait sat staring at the closed door for several moments after Glen had shut it behind him. She felt physically and emotionally drained and wished more than anything that she could climb into bed, pull the covers around her and sleep for eternity. But she had meant what she’d said. She no longer wanted to be the person her parents had made her into, and if she was serious about making herself into a better person she had better make a start. She knew it wasn’t going to be easy for her, Glen Trainer had told her that, but she was determined she was going to change the habits of a lifetime.

She thought of Glen again. She had read somewhere that people could sometimes appear in your life for a very short space of time, then leave just as quickly, but the impact of their visit could be significant. She knew she would be forever grateful to him for taking the risk of coming to talk to her, indebted to him in fact – but it was a debt she doubted she’d ever be able to repay.

Cait sat upright in her chair and took several deep breaths. Time to make a start. After first rehearsing what she was going to say and how, as Glen had advised her to do, she reached over to press the intercom buzzer and said politely into it, ‘Miss Trucker, when you’re free, would you please come into my office? I would like to ask your advice.’

She could only imagine the look of utter astonishment on Miss Trucker’s face at having received such a civil message. But she imagined it correctly. It took the secretary several moments to accept that it had indeed been Caitlyn Thomas whose polite tones she had heard over the intercom and not someone playing a joke on her.

CHAPTER TWENTY

A
fter the day he’d had, Glen felt the need for a drink stronger than tea and had gone off to the local corner shop to treat himself and Jan to a couple of bottles of beer each. He had to admire her self-control. She obviously knew that the strike had been staved off in some way and Glen knew she was desperate to hear his account of what had happened when he had paid a visit to the office today. And, of course, how he’d got on with Miss Thomas. Had he told her who he was, and if so what had her reaction been? When he returned with the beer and they were seated opposite each other in the fireside chairs, he’d be ready to tell her all.

Back at the flat, Jan vigorously wiped away at burned splashes on top of the old enamel cooker, which helped to ease the frustration slightly. She was desperate to hear from Glen how his visit to Lucy had been. She stopped her rubbing and frowned as she heard a purposeful knock on the door to the flat. That was quick, for Glen to have got to the shop and back so soon. He’d hardly been gone a minute or so. She could have sworn, though, she had seen him take his key off the hook by the door before he left. As she reached it and noticed his key wasn’t there, she assumed he must have lost it.

Opening the door, she said, ‘Challenging Roger Bannister’s record for the one-minute mile is . . .’ Her voice died away as she pulled the door fully open and saw who the visitor actually was. ‘Harry!’ she uttered, shocked.

He walked past her into the front room. Jan stood staring after him blankly for a moment. When she’d recovered herself she found him standing in the living area, waiting for her to join him. As soon as she did he said darkly, ‘So Mrs March was right and it
was
you she saw coming in here one night when she was visiting a needy parishioner. She knew who you were from visiting our house when you opened the door to her.’ His tone accusing, he continued: ‘While you were trespassing there recently you stole money that was intended for the needy. Money that generous people had donated, some going without themselves in order to do so. How can you live with yourself, knowing you’ve done such a despicable thing?’

Jan raised an eyebrow at him. ‘Er . . . just remind me again, Harry. That money
was
intended for people in desperate need, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, it was.’

‘Well,
I
was one of those people after you threw me out without anything more than the clothes on my back. So it went to a needy person, didn’t it?’

He looked stunned but found he couldn’t argue with that, so didn’t. ‘You took some of my clothes too.’

She gave a nonchalant shrug. ‘Because I knew someone else in dire need, and in the circumstances I didn’t think you’d mind.’ Over her shock now, Jan folded her arms, looked him square in the eyes and said, ‘So Mrs March is the name of your do-gooding friend, is it? Is that all she does for you, Harry, a few cleaning jobs around the house and cook you a meal?’

He shot her a disapproving look. ‘No need for that attitude, Janet. I won’t have you speak about Mrs March that way. I wouldn’t have managed to keep house without the help of the good ladies of the congregation.’

She responded sardonically, ‘No, you wouldn’t have time for housework, would you? Not with every minute taken up with helping the deserving.’

He ignored her jibe and said, ‘Mrs March also noticed a man coming in here with you that evening. She said that by the way you acted together, you obviously knew each other well.’

Jan scowled angrily at him. ‘Not in the way that you’re implying we don’t!’

‘So you deny you’re living together, even though there are signs of a man all over the place,’ he said, casting his eyes around, noting Glen’s slippers by a chair, the unread evening newspaper over the arm of it.

‘Actually we are living together but as friends, clubbing together to fund a place to live in because otherwise we couldn’t afford it. We sleep in separate bedrooms,’ Jan added defensively.

He cast his eyes around again before bringing them back to her. ‘How can you live in a place like this? It’s barely more than a hovel.’

‘Like this! Let me tell you, it might not be Buckingham Palace but it’s a far cry from living on the streets.’

‘I grant you that much. But it can’t be compared to the house you left.’

‘The house you threw me out of and told me never to darken the door of again, you mean?’

His face tight, Harry snapped, ‘I found you in bed with another man. What did you expect me to do . . . make you both a cup of tea?’

Jan shook her head sadly at him. ‘You still haven’t accepted any responsibility for driving me into another man’s arms, have you, Harry? I’m sure God is very grateful for your dedication in serving him and I hope, like you do, that his reward to you will be a place in heaven where you can make your apologies to Keith for allowing him out on the night that he died. But in the process you’ve turned your back on the people who loved you . . . on me . . . starved me of love and affection, giving it all instead to the people you were helping while I became nothing more than a housekeeper to you.’

‘I asked you to join me in becoming a servant of the Lord, Janet.’

She said in all sincerity, ‘Oh, I would have been quite happy to do some good turns for the needy now and again, but I wasn’t prepared to give up my life to it, like you were.’ She gave a deep sigh and looked at him tenderly. ‘We used to be so close, did everything together. You were constantly telling me how much you loved me and physically showing you did too, like I did then. Where did that Harry go?’

He looked her in her eyes and said flatly, ‘He died the night our son did, Janet.’

She heaved a deep sad sigh then asked, ‘Look, why are you here exactly?’

‘Well, you never came back to beg my forgiveness . . . but then I know you can be stubborn. So I’ve come to say I forgive you and tell you you can come home.’

‘Oh, I can, can I? You really think I’m going to come home just to be your housekeeper again?’

‘You’re my wife and a wife’s place is by her husband. You made vows before God to honour me until death parted us, remember that, Janet.’

‘It was a different man I made that promise to, Harry. You’ve already told me that man is dead so there’s no point in my coming back in the hope he might return one day.’

‘Are you telling me you’re not coming back?’

‘Not to live like I was before, Harry, definitely not. I can’t, I’m sorry.’

‘Well, in that case, I want a divorce.’

She felt stunned for a moment, not expecting to be asked that, then she forced a laugh. ‘Oh, so you can make an honest woman of Mrs March, I take it?’

‘I told you, I will not have you speak about her like that, Janet. Mavis is a good woman. She’s as committed as I am to the church and we get on very well together.’

Jan had a vision of them both sitting by the fire at night after returning from distributing food to the homeless in the city or attending a church service, reading passages from the Bible together as they sipped their hot milk. She heaved a deep sigh and refused to think about that any more. ‘Look, Harry, we were very much in love, had a wonderful marriage and were both happy believing we’d end our days together, but unfortunately we had a terrible tragedy to deal with and we’ve ended up going our separate ways. It’s a very sad business. I don’t begrudge you your happiness, Harry, and if Mrs March can be the kind of wife you want for yourself now, then I won’t stand in your way. I’ll sign the divorce papers as soon as I get them. I couldn’t find my belongings at the house – I assume you’ve packed them up ready for me to collect. I’d appreciate it if you’d get someone to bring them here for me when you can. And, Harry, I do wish you every happiness.’

She stepped over to him and gave him a peck on his cheek.

He looked surprised by her gesture. Tears glinted in his eyes momentarily. He flashed her a wan smile and said softly, ‘I wish you every happiness for your future too. Goodbye, Janet.’

She followed him to the door and saw him out. They were both aware it was doubtful they would see each other again. They moved in different circles now.

Jan dashed out to meet Glen the moment she heard his key in the lock. He hadn’t even got through the door before she was saying to him, ‘Give me one of those bottles, I really need it.’ Taking one from his hand, she dashed back to the kitchen with it. Glen followed her, feeling bemused. Something was obviously amiss with her, but considering he’d not been gone more than fifteen minutes he couldn’t imagine what. He watched her snap the cap off the bottle. Not even taking the time to pour it into a cup – they had no glasses as yet, feeling they were a luxury to be afforded when they got paid again – she raised it to her lips and took several long gulps. Then she gave a loud burp, reddened in embarrassment and said, ‘Pardon me.’