A Perfect Christmas (6 page)

‘He told me how selfish I was being, thinking purely of myself when a man’s wife, of all people, should be the one to cast her own needs aside in her duty to support her husband.

‘My anger really erupted when he said that. I’d stood by him and not complained once in ten years since he’d joined the church. I told him that this was the damned vicar talking, not him. That man had brainwashed him into thinking as he was, at a time when he knew Harry to be vulnerable. In my eyes he was nothing more than a home-wrecker. Well, I never got any further as Harry manhandled me out of the house then, telling me he wouldn’t have that saint of a man spoken about so disgustingly, and I was never to darken his door again. He locked it after me.

‘I decided it was best I give him some time to calm down before I tried to talk to him again and I went and sat in the park for a couple of hours. The door was still locked and bolted when I went back, so I knocked. It wasn’t Harry who opened it but the vicar. I knew he hadn’t any time for me once I’d refused to join his church. I swear there was triumph in his eyes when he told me that I had no place in this house any more after what I’d done, and the church was looking after its disciple in his great sorrow. That vile man then shut the door of my own home in my face.

‘She’s very old-fashioned and set in her ways is my mother. One of her favourite sayings is, “You’ve made your bed, now lie on it.” I knew she’d hit the roof if I went round to tell her what had gone off and ask her to let me stay there until I could sort things out with Harry, which I still felt I could do once he’d had time to think for himself when that vicar wasn’t poisoning his mind against me, so it was my eldest sister I went to see first. I thought I’d get her as my ally, she’d then get my younger sister on board, and we’d tackle Mother together. I’ve always got on with both my sisters and knew they must have wondered why I hadn’t turned up to meet them in town as usual that afternoon. They should both be back home by now, I thought. I couldn’t believe it when I walked into my elder sister’s house and there they were, the three of them, Mother and my two sisters, having a big pow-wow. That devil of a vicar had wasted no time and been to see my mother with the whole sordid story, even though she didn’t belong to his congregation.

‘All three of them looked at me like I was something they would scrape off their shoes when I walked in and it was Mother who told me she thought I had a nerve, showing my face here after what I’d done to poor Harry and the shame I’d brought on the whole family. All she was concerned about was how she was going to hold her head up when she went to church after it became common knowledge that she had an adulterous daughter. My elder sister was worried her husband’s boss would get to hear and it might affect her husband’s promotion. My younger sister just sat nervously looking on, frightened to open her mouth in case she put her foot in it. Anyway, I wasn’t given any chance whatsoever to tell my side of the story. No sooner was I in the door than I was herded out, being told never to darken any of their doors again and that they were all going round to offer what support and comfort they could to Harry. With that vile vicar and my own family pecking his ear against me, I knew there was no point in hoping we could work out a reconciliation. So as it turns out on that terrible evening Keith died, in reality I lost the three people I should love most dearly – two children and my husband.’

Jan heaved a deep sigh. ‘Thankfully I had a few quid on me from the housekeeping. For the first three nights I managed to get myself rooms in cheap bed and breakfast places, the standard dropping drastically as the days passed and I realised my money was running out. The last place I stayed in . . . last night, in fact . . . the slovenly landlady had the nerve to charge ten shillings, all I had left, for a damp room no bigger than a cupboard. I swear blind the bedding hadn’t been washed after the last person had slept in it and the mattress was that thin I could feel the springs on the bed through it, so I hardly got any sleep. That’s why I had no choice but to take shelter in the arches tonight. After leaving that dive I’ve been wandering around all day, desperately trying to work out what to do next. I’d heard of the arches as somewhere homeless people slept, and that was me, wasn’t it? Homeless. But call me naive, I never expected it to be so bad or that some of the people would be . . . well, no better than animals.’ She flashed Glen a wan smile. ‘Thank God you were there tonight or I dread . . . Anyway, now you know why I can’t go home. I’m not welcome any more. Like you obviously haven’t, I’ve no home either.’

Glen sensed it had done her good to have someone listen to her side of the story, albeit a stranger, when those close to her had not deigned to. He felt it was a pity her family had not given her a chance to explain her actions to them as they might not be viewing her so harshly now if they had. He took hold of his sack of belongings, delved inside and pulled out a crumpled brown paper bag, holding it out to her. ‘You must be ravenous, not having eaten all day. You’re welcome to this.’

Jan was so hungry she could have eaten a whole horse and for pudding a pig. Regardless, she eyed the bag cautiously. ‘Er . . . what is it?’ she ventured.

It was a half-eaten sausage roll that he’d rescued from a litter bin in the park this lunchtime after seeing it deposited there by the man who had bought it in the first place and eaten the other half. Most of what Glen ate came from bins or from where people had carelessly dropped it on the ground. That was where this woman’s meals would mostly come from in the future. It was a whole new way of life she was going to have to learn, where pride didn’t figure. He was loath to part with the food, it being the only edible thing he’d unearthed today, but he felt that her need was greater than his. Jan had not had time to learn to live with constant hunger pains gnawing at her stomach, whereas he’d had years of practice. He just told her, ‘It won’t poison you. It was fresh today.’

Despite how desperately ravenous she was, Jan was very suspicious of just where he had come by this food. Wrapping a filthy flea-bitten old blanket around herself to keep warm was one thing, but putting suspicious food inside herself was another. She said politely, ‘I’m not that hungry, but thanks for the offer.’

‘Then I hope you don’t mind if I do,’ he said, taking the roll out of the bag. He took a large bite.

Jan watched him devour the remains of the sausage roll, fighting to keep saliva from dripping out of her mouth. The pastry looked dry and unappetising but as he hungrily tucked in, hunger pangs exploded within her and she deeply regretted that she had turned her nose up at it.

Glen saw her frown in bewilderment as he carefully folded up the now-empty brown paper bag and put it back in his sack. ‘You’ll learn not to throw anything away. You never know when something that seems utterly worthless at first will suddenly mean the difference between life and death to you. This bag will come in extremely handy when I go down the market tomorrow evening just on closing, to see what leftovers I can get before the sweepers get hold of them.’

God forbid that she was reduced to eating rotting fruit but Jan’s common sense was telling her that it was something she was going to have to do if she didn’t quickly come up with a way to get herself out of her dire situation. Desperate to distract herself from thoughts of food and her worrying situation, she said to her saviour, ‘So how about you?’

He had been about to settle himself again in an effort to snatch some sleep but at her question stopped what he was doing to look over at her. ‘What about me?’ he queried.

‘How did you come to be homeless?’

He resumed trying to settle himself while saying to her in a dismissive manner, ‘Like I said earlier, it’s a long story.’ Hopefully she would take the hint and drop the matter. It was still very painful to him, how he came to be in the position he was in, despite its happening nearly eighteen years ago.

But Jan, like most women, had a streak of curiosity in her nature. His obvious reluctance to divulge his background only served to heighten this. ‘Well, it’s not like we’ve anything else to entertain us, is it? Not like we can put the wireless on or a light to read by . . . that’s if we had a book between us. So, did you cheat on your wife and she found out, the same as happened to me? Is that it?’

He snapped, ‘No. Now if you don’t mind—’

But Jan’s curiosity was at fever pitch. She cut in, ‘Oh, fell foul of the law then, did you, and your family disowned you?’

‘No,’ he replied, even more brusquely. ‘Well, in truth, yes, I did fall foul of the law. But I was innocent. I was framed for what I was put away for. Now if you really don’t mind . . .’

‘You’re an ex-con? Oh!’

He glared at her. ‘Don’t look at me like that. I told you, I was framed.’

‘Framed for what? And just who framed you?’

Glen sighed. This woman was not going to let it go. She obviously felt that as she had bared her soul to him, it was only right he should repay the compliment. It was apparent he wasn’t going to get any sleep until he did. Grudgingly he told her, ‘It was a woman who was responsible.’

Jan looked intently at him. ‘Oh! What exactly did she have you framed for?’

Glen sighed again as he thought back to a time he usually blanked out. Very quietly he said, ‘She got me put away for theft and grievous bodily harm, and at the time I had no idea she was behind it. By the time I did, it was too late. I’d already signed over all my worldly goods to her, as I thought for her to take care of for me until I was released and then return them.’

Jan said, ‘Even if you didn’t know she had framed you at the time, you must have trusted this woman very much to sign everything over to her for safekeeping?’

‘I had no reason not to trust her. She was my wife. She’d never given me any reason to doubt she wasn’t as honest as a new-born babe, until I discovered just how devious she was and how naive I’d been.’ Glen’s face tightened. ‘How I wish I’d never gone into that hotel on that particular night. It wasn’t one I’d ever been in before and more than likely I never would have again. But I did go in, and by the time I came out my fate was sealed.

‘I was a widower with a year-old child. Julia, my first wife . . . the love of my life . . . had died six months before from an embolism on her lung. I was still missing her terribly and the last thing on my mind was finding someone to take her place or be a replacement mother to our child.’ His voice grew wistful when he added, ‘Lucy was such a lovely child, very placid, always smiling, and I did my best to make sure she didn’t suffer from the loss of her mother. I always tried to be home in the evening, to take over from her nanny and give her a cuddle and have a play with her before she went to bed.

‘I’d had a particularly trying time of it that day. My father had started the family business just after he married my mother at the turn of the century. He named the company after her. Her name was Rose and so he called it Rose’s Bespoke Shoes. Just a small firm employing six people making handmade shoes, which the clients would come in and be specially measured for. I joined him when I left school at fourteen. My mother died three years after that. The doctor said it was from natural causes. She was fifteen years younger than my father, only forty-five. They were devoted to each other, and I know it was a broken heart that eventally ended his life. I’ll never change my opinion on that score. They were wonderful parents to me and I still miss them both and always will. The company had grown by then and employed fifty-three people, making handmade shoes for clients right across the Midlands.

‘After I’d been at the helm for about three years I decided to expand. As well as making bespoke shoes, we would offer a range of cheaper machine-made shoes and boots to be sold in shops. I also imported them from companies in France, Italy and Spain, to be sold to upmarket stores all over the British Isles. My workforce increased over that time to two hundred workers. Anyway, that day, one way or another, I’d had a particularly trying time and felt the need for a stiff whisky before I went home. That’s how I came to be sitting in the bar of that hotel.

‘Even though I wasn’t interested in women in a romantic way, and was still very much in mourning, I couldn’t help but notice that the barmaid was an attractive young woman. She was eighteen years old at the most but had an air of maturity about her. She was dressed in a tight-fitting skirt and low-cut blouse, but looked far from tarty. “Classy” is how I would have described her. After she’d finished serving the customer before me she turned her attention to me, saying that I looked like a man who had had a hard day and was in need of a drink. She asked what could she get me, and before I knew it I was telling her my story. She was very charming and attentive, and I was like a dog with two tails when she asked me if I would show her the sights of Leicester one night as she was new to the area. She seemed really pleased when I agreed. I was far from the tall, muscular, good-looking sort and was astonished that a pretty woman like her wanted to spend time in my company. I had thought that a night out with her would be our one and only date, and was stunned when she made it clear she wanted to see me again.

‘When I arrived home after that first date I can only describe that it felt to me like I’d been pierced in the heart by Cupid’s arrow. Nerys made no attempt to hide the fact that she’d fallen in love with me. She said my having a young child was of no consequence as she loved children, wanted a horde of her own, and certainly seemed to take to Lucy when I introduced them. Within a matter of weeks we were married. After my first wife had died I’d thought I’d never be happy with another woman. I had to keep pinching myself when I found I was, deliriously so. Nerys was doting towards me, kept the house clean and tidy, was a good cook and I couldn’t fault the way she treated Lucy.

‘We’d been married barely three months when I arrived at work one morning to find the police waiting for me, a detective and two constables. The detective told me that they’d been informed of suspicious behaviour going on at the premises during the early hours of the morning. A man had seen someone offloading boxes from a lorry and taking them round the back of the premises. The informant, who’d been walking his dog at the time, thought it suspicious for a firm to be taking delivery of goods at that time of night and felt it his duty to report what he’d seen to the police. They were very interested as a lorry loaded with shoes and handbags, which was on its way to Staffordshire, had been hijacked earlier that evening on a quiet country road just outside the city. The driver had been badly beaten with a hard implement, which they hadn’t found, and was in a critical condition in hospital. I was deeply upset that I or my firm could be under suspicion of doing the slightest thing underhand. I told the detective to feel free to search the premises from top to bottom as he wouldn’t find anything I couldn’t account for legitimately. The informant had obviously mistaken my premises for someone else’s.