Sands of Time (33 page)

‘Barney?’ Kay called. He wagged his tail and, turning, trotted out of sight.

‘How on earth did he get in?’ The door behind them was closed.

‘It doesn’t matter. He’s here now.’ Kay made for the stairs.

But they couldn’t find him.

After ten minutes’ fruitless search they gave up. ‘I’ll put down some water and biscuits for him. He’s obviously found a way of sneaking in and out.’ She was looking forward to befriending the little dog.

Their next visitor was equally unexpected. They were gardening as the gate clicked open. Alice was standing there watching them. She smiled and nodded as though approving of what she saw. ‘Harry would have liked this. He hated it when he was too old to look after his garden.’

Then followed the guided tour. Everything was approved with evident delight. In the kitchen Alice noticed the bowls on the floor. ‘You’re an animal lover. That’s good.’

‘I’m afraid we haven’t been very successful with Barney.’ Kay thought it best to be honest.

Alice turned and looked at her. Her pale blue eyes watered slightly as the sunlight through the window caught her face. ‘How many times have you seen him?’

‘Well, only twice actually.’

Alice nodded. ‘And you’ve both seen him? You and your young man here?’

Kay smiled. ‘Yes, we’ve both seen him. This morning. Upstairs.’

Alice smiled. ‘That’s where he always sits. At the top of the stairs.’

‘We’ve put food down for him.’ Kay gestured at the dog biscuits.

Alice laughed. ‘I don’t suppose he’s touched those.’

‘No.’

Alice chuckled again. She laid her hand on Kay’s arm. ‘I’ll tell you a story. Harry and I were sweethearts before the War. Then he went away. He didn’t come back and I never got his letters. In the end I began courting someone else. I was married by the time he came home and moved in here, to his parents’ old place.’ She paused. ‘I visited him here.’ Kay saw the sudden twinkle in her eye and glanced at Theo. He was smiling.

‘My Bill was a hard man,’ she went on. ‘Cruel when the drink got to him. Harry and I still loved each other so much. It was on my third visit that I first saw Barney.’

Kay frowned. ‘What date are we talking about?’

‘About 1947,’ Alice chuckled. ‘Barney had belonged to Harry’s parents,’ she went on. ‘His father gave the puppy to Harry’s ma on their first wedding anniversary. They were so in love.’ She paused. ‘She died when Harry was born. Told the dog to look after the house for her.’

There was a moment’s stunned silence.

Kay’s whisper was barely audible. ‘You mean he’s a ghost?’

Alice beamed at her. ‘That’s right. He won’t be needing your biscuits, my dear. Just make him welcome. Love him. And let him look after you.’ She glanced from one to the other. ‘That goes for both of you. You must both belong here or you wouldn’t both have seen him.’

That night Theo stayed. It seemed the right thing to do.

You’ve Got to Have a Dream

She didn’t care!

She sat looking at the phone after she had put it down, stunned by the realisation. She really didn’t care!

‘I know you’ve been expecting it, Meg.’

He was more or less right. She had. She must have been. But not in that way. Not at that moment.

‘It’s the right time for the break, Meg, and if I accept the job and go to live in Bristol the office will pay for my move. You can keep the house. It’s always been more yours than mine. You deserve that at least.’

Which was the nearest he would ever get to an apology, to an acknowledgement of the last two years of heartache. She did not bother to ask if Angela was going with him. It was presumably a foregone conclusion. She found she was smiling suddenly. Why had he not made these world-shaking statements this morning as they ducked and wove around the kitchen, grabbing coffee and cereal and toast. Why wait till both he and she were at work, miles from each other. Why? Because he was a coward, that’s why!

‘Bastard!’ She said it almost affectionately.

Nicola glanced away from the screen on her desk, her fingers still clicking busily over the keyboard. ‘Douglas?’

‘Who else?’

‘Need an ear? Or a shoulder?’

Meg laughed. ‘Maybe an extra set of brains. He’s off. Leaving me. So, where do I go from here?’ In spite of her light tone there was suddenly a catch in her voice.

Nicola saved her document and spun her chair to face her friend.

‘Cake shop. Come on. The office can take care of itself for an hour or two. That’s what all these machines are for. They don’t need people.’ She switched on the answer phone. ‘Let’s go and brainstorm.’

As they grabbed their coats and turned the notice on the door to ‘closed’ Nicola stopped and looked closely at Meg’s face. ‘You don’t still love him, do you? No lurking regrets?’

Meg shook her head. ‘Only for all the time I’ve wasted hoping things would get better.’

It was over two years since they had set up their small flat share agency. Since its first months where the office had consisted of Meg’s kitchen table, a second hand word processor and two box files they had expanded to the point where there was room to take on staff, something they had been planning over the last few days.

‘Pity we haven’t already got our new gofer. Then we wouldn’t have to shut.’ Nicola led the way into the coffee shop three doors up from the office. ‘Of course we could have an extension put in here!’ she joked. ‘We spend enough time drinking their coffee!’ In fact her mobile and note book were already on the smoked-glass table in front of them as they sat down. ‘Right. Fire away.’ She reached for the note book. ‘Bullet points!’

Meg laughed. ‘Nicola, this is my life we’re talking about. It doesn’t have bullet points.’

‘That’s the first place you’ve gone wrong then. Everyone’s life has bullet points. Or should have. There was some song my mother used to trill over the washing up when I was a kid. “You’ve got to have a dream or how are you going to have a dream come true!” So, what’s your dream? Clearly not the wayward Douglas or you would be crying into your latte. Thanks, Allie.’ The waitress had brought them two large coffees and two apricot Danish pastries without being asked. ‘So.’ Nicola turned back to Meg. ‘Let’s go back to basics. Number one. Do you like the job enough to go on wanting to do it forever?’

Meg smiled. ‘I wonder why that’s first.’

‘Because it affects me. If you don’t like it, I’ll buy you out.’

There was a moment’s stunned silence.

‘Do you mean that?’ Meg scanned Nicola’s face.

The latter nodded. ‘I love working with you. Don’t get me wrong. This is not a takeover bid, but if you hate it or feel trapped by it or need a change for whatever reason or just some different scenery I’ll use my grandmother’s legacy and buy you out. That would give you enough bread to start again with something fresh. Now. Next point.’ She wrote ‘No. 2’ on her piece of paper. ‘The corpse of the marriage. How much will you get? Half the house?’

‘The whole house. So he says.’

‘Get it in writing.’ Once Nicola had slipped into practical mode she was formidable. ‘It is the least he could do. I’ve never seen Douglas do a damn thing to that house, whereas you’ve turned it into a real home. Number three. Money.’

Meg shook her head. ‘Not a lot. But having no children means it’s less complicated.’

‘What about the need for revenge?’ Nicola’s pen was hovering over the margin ready to write number four.

‘That’s a bullet point?’

‘Oh yes.’ Nicola stared thoughtfully down at her plate for a moment. ‘Anger can fester. You may think you don’t care now, but you might later. When you’re lonely, feeling down, maybe you even start to miss him. Then you’ll start to think about the slag who seduced your happily married husband.’

‘He wouldn’t go for a slag,’ Meg found herself protesting, ‘and if we’d been happy she wouldn’t have managed to seduce him.’ She shook her head.

‘Don’t you believe it. The thirty-somethings trawling the male workforce are sophisticated babies.’ Nicola raised a cynical eyebrow. ‘They want someone else’s man; one who is mature and steady and knows how to look after a woman and who is preferably rich or soon to be rich. They weren’t prepared to take a chance on a penniless youngster still in college, like you and I did. No, they waited. Waited for a man who’s been perfectly trained by another woman. Like great black spiders.’ She scowled. ‘Don’t forget, I know what I’m talking about. This was before your time, but one of them hooked my old man when he was in hospital for God’s sake! I only turned my back for a few hours and she had him convinced he’d die without her personal physio talents! By the time he was fully conscious after the op. she had got him to agree to move in with her. By the time he left hospital he thought he’d never walk again unless she was beside him. But we’re not talking about me.’ She cut a wedge of Danish and inserted it into her mouth.

The minute or two of silence which followed allowed Meg space to think for the first time since the morning’s shattering phone call.

Even so, after Nicola’s unexpected tirade she couldn’t resist asking the question. ‘Did you extract your revenge?’

Nicola smiled. ‘Oh yes.’

‘What was it?’

‘I let her have him.’

‘Wasn’t that a rather hollow victory?’

‘Nope. Their marriage lasted five months. Then when he begged to come back I said no.’ There was a hardness in her voice Meg had never heard before. ‘She took him for every penny he had had left after I finished with him.’

Meg glanced at Nicola’s face and for a fleeting second she glimpsed the pain in the other woman’s eyes. Nicola had loved her husband and to Meg’s certain knowledge there had never been anyone to replace him.

‘OK!’ Nicola uncapped her pen again. ‘No revenge then. So, on to the dream. The dream before real life and the saintly unseduceable Douglas made you compromise.’ She had written a ‘4’ in the margin.

‘I wanted to sail single-handed round the world.’ As soon as she had said it Meg stopped, completely stunned by her own words. Where had they come from? She opened her mouth to call them back, deny them, but instead she found herself saying, ‘Not without stopping. Nothing like that. I would stop everywhere. Every island. Every country. Every port. Every deserted river mouth. And I would buy a camera and take a million photos and produce wonderful travel books to feed other people’s dreams.’

Nicola stared at her, astonished. ‘Can you sail?’ she asked at last.

‘No. Haven’t a clue!’ They gazed at each other for a full minute, and then dissolved into gales of laughter.

‘I think point five had better be sailing lessons,’ Nicola said quietly. ‘Followed by six and seven, photography and navigation.’

It took her two and half years, still working in the daytime with Nicola, attending evening classes and courses and boat shows and photographic exhibitions. She lost weight, she grew her hair, she changed her wardrobe and she acquired a genuine, slightly-weathered tan, all unlooked-for but glorious side effects of her new found interests. Douglas had gone to Bristol, remarried, and then, as predicted returned to London without wife, house or much money. He met Meg for a drink – for old times’ sake – and found her, to her extreme gratification, newly attractive. Too late. Meg had bought a boat with Nicola’s buy-out money.

When she finally sailed, heading for southern climes, she wasn’t alone. Her navigation instructor was with her. Just to make sure she didn’t take the wrong turning. She planned to allow him to disembark in the fullness of time but until that moment they were getting on far too well and having much too much fun to worry about the future.

And the boat? She had called it
No. 8
. ‘Bullet Point’ had not had quite the romantic ring she sought and seemed a bit warlike for her purposes, but locked in her document case with the charts and papers, was Nicola’s original list. When she returned to England with some of her million photos and the manuscript for her first book Meg planned to frame it.

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