Best Laid Plans (12 page)

‘Coffee, love?’ Janet was through to her office even before she had hung up her coat. ‘Have you had breakfast or shall I get you a croissant too?’

‘Just coffee, thanks,’ she answered briskly, wondering how best to tell Janet to stop all this fussing. Once Daniel was gone, Janet’s role here was over and although she had been offered another job in the organization she had decided to retire but it seemed to be her last wish that she should help Amy find another man.

As Janet disappeared in search of coffee, she glanced through the half-open door and could see Daniel was already installed in his office, no doubt finishing off packing away his personal effects. She knocked and entered. She was wearing her black suit – again – and realized that although she had not intended it, it might look as if she was still in deep mourning.

‘Good morning, Daniel.’

‘Good morning. I’m hoping to slip away before lunchtime,’ he explained, motioning that she should shut the door. ‘I hate a fuss and most of all I hate surprise parties. Are they planning something? You can tell me,’ he added with a grin. ‘I shan’t say who spilled the beans.’

‘Well, yes, I’m afraid so.’ She looked round at the boxes that were stacked everywhere. ‘Can I help?’

He pulled a face. ‘It’s a mess, isn’t it? I’ve got somebody coming up to help me get these down to the car. Maybe you could just put sticky tape around them so that I don’t lose anything on the way.’

‘I know all there is to know about packing things,’ she said, noting that he had filled the boxes far too full with some heavy books. She was aware that she needed to persuade him to stay for the little buffet and speeches. He was the guest of honour, for goodness’ sake and it would be a non-starter without him. Mr Armitage would be saying a few heartfelt words, no doubt, and there would be a round of applause and pats on the back coupled with relief that he was finally off.

‘They’ve got a buffet organized,’ she said, removing some books from one of the boxes. ‘They’re going to be very disappointed if you don’t show. You can always slip away early, if you must.’

He did not reply for a moment, sitting at the desk now and taking a sip of what must have been cold coffee. Feeling his eyes on her, she busied herself with the books, uncomfortable at the scrutiny.

‘What are your plans, Amy?’ he asked at last. ‘Are you going to take the job offered here or the one in Preston if you get that?’

‘I am not going to stay here,’ she told him. ‘It’s tempting because it’s the easiest thing to do but I need to move on. As for the Preston job I don’t know if I’ll take it or not – if I get offered it, that is,’ she said. ‘Thanks for the reference, by the way, but when they outlined what the job was it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. To be honest I’m not sure if I really want it.’

‘Never ever accept a job if you have doubts,’ he went on with a smile. ‘And never accept a job when you are under stress, either, because your judgement is flawed. I’ve been
watching you closely these last few months and I know it’s been hard. It must have been dreadful.’

‘You have no idea,’ she said, bristling suddenly because he really did not. Nobody did. It had shot the family to pieces, the suddenness of it all, put Mike’s move to France on hold, which was not going down well with Monique and although the family business was still running it felt as if it was trundling along in third gear. Decisions had to be made and she was uncomfortably aware that with her mother still in a state of shock it was she and Mike who would have to make them. ‘On Christmas Day of all days.’ She could hear her voice shaking. ‘I know it would be just as bad whenever it happened but somehow coming as it did at Christmas it was ten times worse. I’ll never enjoy Christmas again.’

‘No, of course you won’t. It’s rotten happening like that.’

‘We’d had a wonderful meal, roast beef….’ she realized she was in danger of losing it, rushing on before that happened. ‘But with hindsight maybe we shouldn’t have started on such a strenuous uphill walk right after lunch. Well, it wasn’t right after lunch but it was soon after. My brother had just dropped a bombshell on us about moving to France and I think my mother needed some fresh air. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t dump all this on you.’ She waved a dismissive hand but she could sense the waves of sympathy coming her way, which was always dangerous in her present frame of mind.

‘You can tell me if you like.’ His voice was so kind and she did not need that. She felt unwelcome tears stinging her eyes and was suddenly furious with herself. She was starting to ramble and become pathetic and she didn’t want him to see her like this. It was getting on for three months now and it was time she got a grip. ‘Hey. Come and sit down. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to remind you. You’re still upset.’

‘Of course I am,’ she retaliated with sharpness, blinking
away the hot tears. She thought she had done with the crying but it could still get her from time to time. She alone of all the family understood her father and he in turn understood her; theirs was the special relationship. Never once had he rebuked her for not following him into the business. He simply accepted her need to do something else. And Mike was useless so her father had had an uphill struggle trying to cope with him, which can’t have helped his condition. She should have talked to him, made him give up the smoking for one, and told him to take it easy, let Mike take the strain.

If only she had talked to him.

Sitting down on the chair facing Daniel’s desk, she took a deep breath and regained control as he busied himself with files so that he might avoid looking at her. He had put his hand lightly on her waist to guide her into the chair and although it was a fleeting touch it had sent a shiver through her. He had never touched her before and it
astonished
her that the little touch had meant so much. She was still trying to sort through her emotions, which were all over the place just now. Grief, sadness, anger at Brian, guilt because she had brought it all on herself. She was emotionally wrung out and that little gentle touch from Daniel meant so much that for two pins she would have turned and nestled into him and cried into his shoulder. He had a wonderfully reassuring shoulder. Where was this going? They were just work colleagues and she did not fancy him. She had never fancied him. He was out of bounds.

Out of the blue she heard herself give a great shuddering sigh, the prelude to another bout of tears and, horrified at the very idea of breaking down in front of him, she pulled herself together with an enormous effort. She caught his glance and how he quickly looked away, knowing that he had her sussed but was thankfully giving her a moment. Just then, Janet bustled in with her coffee, putting it down on the desk before disappearing but not before she had
given her a look of concern.

‘I’ll come along to the buffet if it will help,’ Daniel said at last with a resigned smile as, composure regained, she started to re-pack the boxes. ‘But let it be known I’m doing it out of duty, pure and simple. I just hope to God they’re not going to make a big thing out of it. It wasn’t just down to me, to us; it was a big effort on everyone’s part. We all pulled together, the whole damned lot of us.’

‘Save the speech for later,’ she told him. She could afford to do that now that he was leaving. Show him what she was made of. ‘Come on; let’s get this out of the way.’

They worked in silence until all the boxes were ready to be collected. The office had a bare look about it now as rooms do when books are removed from shelves and as the sunlight shimmered in it showed up the layer of dust on the newly empty desk top.

More than anything else, that told them that they were done.

Mission accomplished.

‘Thanks for all you’ve done, Amy,’ he said as she prepared to leave. ‘I wonder if—’

‘What?’ she turned, her hand on the doorknob.

‘Perhaps we might have dinner together this evening, just the two of us. I have a proposition to put to you and it isn’t fair to do it until I’m officially done here.’

‘All right.’ It sounded like business, not a date, but her feminine mind was on instant alert particularly when he mentioned a top-class restaurant. She would have to dig out something respectable for that, business or not, and preferably not black because she was done with mourning. A vision of her wardrobe flared in her head telling her that she had absolutely nothing to wear but there was no way she could find time today to root out a suitable dress and, in any case, she could not face an inquisition from Clare, the personal shopper, who would instantly be on her back if she turned up in Ladieswear in search of a frock.

‘I’ll pick you up at eight,’ he offered totally oblivious to the dilemma he was setting her. ‘Perhaps you can ask Janet to book a table for us?’

Oh dear. Janet would put two and two together and make goodness knows what although it was a now well-known fact that Daniel was seeing Bea so this was all perfectly innocent. Even so, the prospect of a meal at a fancy restaurant, just the two of them, could put her in an awkward position. Bea would be at the buffet this afternoon but it might be wise not to mention the dinner date just in case it caused that lovely lady to spit feathers.

T
he garden at Snape House was coming into its own as the weather warmed up and, having moved the clocks forward the days blessedly lengthened. Christine loved the spring, seeing it as a stirring and optimistic season. Down in the village yesterday she had walked past a field full of newly born lambs and for the first time in a long time she had taken the time to stand and watch their antics. Seeing her standing at the gate, the ewes had become anxious, calling out to their offspring who quickly ran to them. If a lamb mistakenly went to the wrong mother it was sharply shown the door and would stand there looking quite alone, bleating until its own mother called out. Her heart lifted when she saw the two of them reunited, the ewe standing patiently whilst the lamb latched on to her. Observing the little gentle moment between the animals caught at her and she was reminded that, when it came down to it, animals had the whole mother/baby thing sorted. It was a whole different ball game when it came to humans.

She asked herself why she did not feel quite the same about Amy as she did about Mike. She ought not to have favourites but somewhere along the line at quite a young age Amy had become independent from her and pushed her aside in a way that Mike had not. Perhaps she, even more than Frank, had wanted their daughter to join them in the family business and had therefore felt betrayed when she turned it down.

This morning she walked across the newly clipped lawn in bright sunshine, that wonderful spring sunshine with none of the sickly heat of deep summer. On mornings like this, she liked to have her coffee sitting on the bench underneath the Japanese cherry, heavily laden with blossom just now and deliciously scented, closing her eyes to breathe in the silence and the perfume. It was not often that they had the time to sit here together and Frank was always too edgy to sit for long, glancing at his watch saying he had stuff to do and had she finished her coffee?

‘Just relax, can’t you?’ she remembered saying.

‘I can relax when I’m dead,’ he had replied with a laugh.

She could not pretend that his death, in spite of the little warning, had not been one tremendous shock but she would be all right. She wanted to remember Frank as the young man she had married, the young man she had adored, skirting over the latter few years that had been difficult because there was no point in muddying the waters. They loved each other and they would have stuck it out, she knew that, and maybe once he was retired things would have been better. Yes, she was sure they would have been.

She was guilty of keeping secrets from him, of not mentioning the little gifts her mother had given her in the early years to help tide them over. The truth was the business was a modest success but it had fallen short of Frank’s grandiose expectations over the years when he had visions of them having an enormous fleet of vans. It needed a little boost now and then and that had come – without anything ever being said – from her private income.

She had a purpose in life now and that was to bring them all through this. Amy was taking it hardest of all but then she always was Daddy’s little girl but Mike was proving to be her rock, surprising her in the way he had stepped in to take over the running of the business. He was being helped considerably by Shirley but things were running smoothly and she was grateful to Frank that he had left things in
such good order. It was as if he had known his time was limited because the home files kept in his study were in equally good order, with little notes written on them for her. It was those little handwritten notes that got to her and made her cry at first but at the same time they also annoyed her for they could be patronizing, the messages childishly simple so that she might understand them. That was the trouble with Frank; he had never thought her capable of anything that smacked of business. She was reminded now of his comment about the business being up shit creek if Mike had to take over and it suited her fine that he had been totally wrong about that. Without his father watching his every move Mike was a different man and not before time she was proud of him. He had been at her side at the funeral, her support and strength, and she had leaned on him heavily. Amy had been a wreck but there was no man for her to lean on. If she ever set eyes on Brian again she would give him a piece of her mind for treating her daughter so shabbily and at such a dreadful time in her life.

With the business ticking over and a surprisingly full calendar for the next two months they had not yet decided what was going to happen in the future but it was fairly obvious that Mike would not be around for much longer and that the move to France would be going ahead. For the first few months following Frank’s death nobody dared mention the French cottage in her hearing but when she asked Monique what was happening she said that everything was fine and that it was being looked after by caretakers until they were ready.

Now that things were settling down a little, Monique, brave girl, had driven down to France to take a preliminary look at the cottage. Knowing Monique she would already be making plans to put her stamp on it. At least this time there would be no Frank to make outrageous comments on her decorating style. Christine had finally dared to look
at the only photograph they had of it and had to admit it looked quite delightful.

Slowly and reluctantly, because frankly she had no choice, she was coming to terms with the idea of them moving to France, although acceptance and resignation was not quite the same thing as being happy about it.