Aunt Bessie's Holiday (6 page)

Bessie stared at the man who was now
hurrying towards them.
 
He was tall
and almost plump, with brown hair that was definitely thinning on top.
 
His face was lit up with a broad and
welcoming smile.
 
Beside her, Doona
griped her arm tightly.

“It’s Charles,” Doona whispered.

“Charles?”

“My second husband.”

Chapter Three

“Ah, Doona, it’s so good to see you again,”
the man said as he grabbed Doona’s hands.
 
“I’ve missed you so very much.
 
You can’t imagine.”

“No, I probably can’t,”
Doona
replied dryly.
 
She pulled her hands
away and took a step backwards.
 
“I
think we’ll be leaving now,” she said.

The man’s face fell.
 
“Oh, darling Doona, don’t be like that,”
he said imploringly.
 
“I invited you
here so that I could apologise and we could start again.
 
At least give me a chance to explain.”

“Explain?” Doona echoed.
 
“You cheated on me.
 
You really only married me in a pathetic
attempt to hide your affair with a married woman.
 
We’ve been apart for over two
years.
 
There’s nothing for you to
explain.”

Charles chuckled.
 
“There, you see, it’s all so black and
white with you.”
 
He turned to
Bessie.
 
“That was part of our problem,”
he said in a confiding tone.
 
“Doona
never saw the little grey areas.”

“I hardly think there are grey areas when it
comes to cheating,” Bessie said coolly.
 
She knew too much about how the man had treated her dear friend to be
anything more than barely civil to him.

He flushed.
 
“You could be right,” he said, giving
Bessie a sad smile.
 
“All I really
want is two minutes of your time, though.
 
Surely you can give me two minutes?” he appealed to Doona.

“Two minutes,” Doona said, holding up her
watch and staring at the second hand.

“I don’t even know what happened,” Charles
began.
 
“I mean, one day I was
working hard and looking forward to the weekend, when I would fly over and get
to see you, and then out of the blue, your solicitor rang me up and told me we
were through.”

“I received a letter,” Doona said, her voice
icy cold.
 

“Accusing me of cheating, I assume,” he
said.
 
“And you believed it, without
even taking the time to discuss it with me.”

“There were photos,” Doona told him.

“They could have been old photos,” Charles
defended himself.

“You were wearing the wedding ring I gave
you in the pictures,” Doona replied.

Charles flushed and shook his head.
 
“You should have given me a chance to
explain,” he argued.
 
“I loved
you.
 
I haven’t stopped loving
you.
 
Do you know how hard I worked
to get you here today?”

“I didn’t win a contest, did I?” Doona
demanded.
 
“You set this all up.”

“I did,” Charles said proudly.
 
“I’m managing the holiday park now and I
just knew if I could get you here I could win you back.”
 

He took
a step forward and
grabbed Doona’s hands
again.
 
When her eyes met his, his face became pleading.
 
“Give me a chance, please.
 
It isn’t what you thought it was.”

Doona pulled her hands away.
 
“You’ve had over two years to make your
explanations,” she said tightly.
 
“I
don’t know what your game is, but I’m not playing it.”

Charles shook his head.
 
“It isn’t like that at all.
 
I was so hurt when your solicitor told
me you wanted a divorce that I threw myself into my work.
 
I got myself sent away to manage some
new properties on the continent and I was there for over eighteen months.
 
Once I got back I realised that I can’t
keep running away.
 
You were the
best thing that I ever happened to me.
 
I know I made some mistakes, but I can explain, truly I can.
 
Just give me a chance.”

“No,” Doona said a bit too loudly.

“Look, we can’t really talk here,” he said,
almost whispering now.
 
He glanced
around and then
back
at Doona.
 
“I was set up,” he hissed at her.
  
“Herbert Howe set me up so that he
could sue for divorce and get away from Jessica without paying out a fortune.
 
I was as much a victim as you were.”

“Really?” Doona asked.
 
“You poor thing.
 
No wonder you’ve come rushing back to me
only a few years after I dumped you.”

“This isn’t the place for this
conversation,” Charles said now.

Bessie looked around and realised the room
was slowly filling with people.
 
She’d been so intent on the conversation between Doona and Charles that
she hadn’t noticed earlier.

“After the reception is dinner and then I’ll
be here all night talking to guests.
 
Have breakfast with me in the morning,” he suggested to Doona.
 
“I’ll be in my office any time after
six.
 
Come and find me and I’ll
explain everything.”

“I don’t think so,” Doona said.

“You won’t be sorry,” Charles promised.
 
He took Doona’s hands in his again.
 
“Please, breakfast.”

He turned and headed off towards the back of
the restaurant before Doona could reply.
 
When he walked through the door marked “kitchen” Doona blew out a long
breath.

“Are you okay?” Bessie asked her friend.

“Not so much,” Doona replied, her voice
shaking.

“We should go back to the cabin,” Bessie
said, taking Doona’s arm.

“And miss out on the champagne reception and
VIP dinner?
 
I don’t think so,”
Doona said firmly.
 
“I just need a
minute to pull myself together.”

“And some champagne,” Bessie said, taking
two glasses of the bubbly drink from a passing waiter.
 
She handed one to Doona, who took a
large sip.

“Ah, that’s better,” she said, giving Bessie
a smile that looked almost genuine.
 

“So that was Charles,” Bessie said in a
conversational tone.

Doona laughed.
 
“It was indeed,” she agreed.
 
“I’m sorry I didn’t introduce you.
 
Next time.”

“Is there going to be a next time?”

“Not if I can help it,” Doona said.
 
“If I’d known he was here, I wouldn’t
have come.
 
But I don’t have to tell
you that.”

Bessie nodded.
 
She’d been Doona’s shoulder to cry on
during the difficult divorce.
 
She
knew how badly Charles had hurt her.
 

“Do you suppose Charles is paying for our
stay out of his own pocket?” Doona asked.

“I don’t know,” Bessie replied.
 
“I don’t know how such things work.”

“Well, I intend to find out,” Doona
said.
 

“Does it really matter?” Bessie asked.

“Yes, or maybe no,” Doona said with a deep
sigh.
 
“I don’t want to feel like I
owe him anything.
 
And I will, if
he’s paying for this, even though I didn’t know he was here when we came.”

“Well, I can certainly pay for my half of
the holiday if we have to,” Bessie told her.
 
“Why do you think he brought you here?”

“I have no idea,” Doona told her.
 
“But I know one thing.
 
It isn’t because he suddenly realised
how much he loves and misses me.”

“You never did tell me the whole story about
how you found out he was cheating,” Bessie said.
 
“Was it an anonymous letter?”

“We’ll talk later,” Doona assured her.
 
“For now, I intend to have fun.”

She drained her glass of champagne and then
looked around for the waiter.
 
Several were now circulating with drinks as well as trays full of
starters.
 
Bessie and Doona both helped
themselves to several of the choices.
 

“The food is delicious,” Bessie said after
she’d finished her own glass of champagne.

“I can’t wait to see what’s for dinner,”
Doona told her.

“It’s a tasting menu,” a voice from behind
them said.

The pair turned around and smiled at
Mai.
 
They’d seen her circulating
around the room, but hadn’t noticed her joining them.

“That sounds interesting,” Bessie said.

“It’s basically several small courses that
give you a sample of some of the most popular items on the restaurant’s menu.
 
We’re hoping you’ll want to come back to
dine here again and again while you’re staying with us,” Mai told them.

“If the rest of the food is as good as the
starters, we’ll definitely be back,” Doona told her.

“Mai, where have you gone?” a loud voice shouted
from the kitchen doorway.

“Oh, please excuse me,” the girl said, blushing.
 
“Duty calls.”

“I wonder who that is,” Bessie murmured as
they watched Mai join the man in the doorway.
 
He looked to be somewhere in his
fifties, with short grey hair.
 
He
was fit and trim and wearing an immaculate suit that Bessie was certain had
been very expensive.

“That’s Lawrence Jenkins,” a voice from
Bessie’s left said.

The two women looked at the man who had
joined them.
 
He was tall, with
brown hair and eyes.
 
To Bessie he
looked no more than forty and his smile lit up his entire face.

“Should I recognise the name?” Bessie asked.

The man laughed lightly.
 
“Oh, goodness no,” he exclaimed.
 
“He’s a business colleague of some sort
to our illustrious leader, Charles Adams.
 
I’m not sure exactly what his connection with Lakeview is, but he seems
to be quite happy to give orders to the staff.”

“I didn’t know Charles’s surname was Adams,”
Bessie said, trying to process too much information too quickly.

“I kept my maiden name,” Doona said
quietly.
 
“Anyway, I don’t believe
we’ve met,” she said to the man who was listening intently to their
conversation.

“I’m Harold Butler,” the man said, bowing
deeply.
 
“I’m, well, I’m the
assistant general manager or something like that.
 
Titles don’t really interest me.
 
Let’s just say that if you need anything
while you’re here, I’m happy to help, shall we?”

“That’s very kind of you,” Bessie said.

“Keeping guests happy is the best part of my
job,” he replied.
 
“Really, if I can
help, just ring me.”

He handed them each a business card.
 
“My mobile number is on the card,” he
said.
 
“You can reach me any time.”

Before the women could reply, he was looking
past them.
 
“Must dash,” he said
apologetically.
 
“But do ring me if
you need anything.”

He was swallowed up by the
growing crowd before Bessie
and Doona could reply.

“He seemed very nice,” Bessie remarked.

“Don’t be fooled by appearances,” a voice
hissed from behind her.

Bessie spun around, beginning to feel
disoriented by all the people who kept interupting their conversations.

Again, it was Mai Stratton who was smiling
at her.
 
“Harold is very nice,” she
said.
 
“But he’s not a fan of
Charles Adams.
 
Just be careful what
you say around him.”

“Why doesn’t he like Charles?” Bessie had to
ask.

“Harold was our general manager until about three
or four months ago,” Mai said, keeping her voice low.
 
She glanced around before she
continued.
 
“Charles just turned up
one day with orders from central office to take over.
 
No one seems to know why.”

“Poor Harold,” Bessie said.
 
“Was he a good general manager?”

Mai shrugged.
 
“He was doing okay,” she said.
 
“But he’s really too nice to do the
job.
 
He wants everyone to like him,
but a lot of the staff took advantage of that.
 
Charles is better at keeping everyone in
line.”

A sudden buzzing noise startled Bessie.
 
“What was that?”