Village Fortunes (Turnham Malpas 17) (2 page)

‘Don’t forget your shopping. Mr Fitch?’ Fran’s voice brought him back to earth.

‘Sorry, dear, day-dreaming. Thank you.’ Mr Fitch wandered off towards home, and on passing the school on his way to Glebe House he hoped he might get a glimpse of Kate, but the school was quiet, with not a soul in sight. A sudden shout of laughter came from one of the classrooms and the spontaneous, joyous outburst warmed him.

His Jack Russell, Sykes, was waiting for him behind the front door, dark brown eyes full of joy and his tail wagging. While Mr Fitch put his shopping away in the fridge, Sykes went to get his lead and stood as close to Mr Fitch as he could, which meant Sykes frequently got his feet trodden on, but he didn’t care. The trick worked and within minutes Sykes and Craddock Fitch were walking down Jacks Lane and on to the field alongside the beck which led them through the woods. Sykes scampered about, loving every moment while Craddock, lost in thought, plodded steadily on. He decided to go through Sykes Wood and then into Home Park past Turnham House and down the mile long drive, before turning home towards Glebe House. If it did nothing else a long walk would keep him fit and Sykes would love him for it. It was months since he’d been all the way round, and Craddock felt it would do him good.

Sykes Wood. Haunted, they all said; more so since Venetia’s body had been buried there. Maybe he ought not to . . . No, he was being ridiculous. He’d only been her lover for what? Perhaps two or three months, and then it had all fallen apart when he found out he was playing second fiddle to that rogue – what was his name? Couldn’t remember! But Venetia was found buried in the deepest depths of the wood, stabbed times without number, and at the thought Craddock found his eyes brimming with tears. He shrugged his shoulders to pull himself together. That was no ending for the feisty sexy woman she was. She wasn’t worth his grief though; she’d betrayed her husband with numerous lovers time and again, and she was without a conscience. But she had been beautiful nevertheless.

The extreme cold penetrated Craddock’s Barbour jacket and he wished he’d put on a sweater underneath. Passing Turnham House he spotted Johnny getting out of his 4×4.

Craddock hurried to catch him before he disappeared inside. ‘Johnny! Johnny! Any news?’

Johnny cheerfully shouted, ‘A lovely son arrived safely during the night.’

‘Wonderful news! Wonderful! So glad for you. My best to Alice.’

‘She’ll be home tomorrow, if all goes well.’

‘Good! Good!’ Craddock waved his goodbye, Sykes stopped his enthusiastic greeting of Johnny and hurriedly followed after Craddock, and the two of them set off down the drive towards home. Lucky man, two sons, Craddock thought.

It occurred to him that one day long ago he’d been lucky too and had two sons. Why had he never kept in touch with them? How old must they be now? They were born not long after he stole that shovel that had become the start of his empire, and so they must be forty or so. Just as they reached the first of the beech trees that lined the drive Craddock was overcome with a powerful longing he’d never experienced before. If he could find them, if only he could find them. Perhaps they’d be married by now, or at least living with someone; and perhaps there might even be grandchildren he could cherish. His heart felt as if was almost bursting. He must try to find them. After all Craddock Fitch wasn’t a common name, not like Jones or Smith, and so it should be easy to search for. Craddock knew the dates of his sons’ birthdays; they were written down in an old diary he’d never thrown away. Now, he thought about that diary and wondered why he’d kept it all this time. Had he secretly been longing to find them but never acknowledged it before? Well, this time he would look for them. He couldn’t let Johnny have everything, and he himself be left with nothing. Johnny with his money, Johnny with his vast hotel business, Johnny with the house that Craddock had loved so passionately (and still did) and now Johnny with his two sons. Craddock decided he wouldn’t tell anybody about his search, although he would tell Kate as soon as he had any luck. The very second he had any luck.

Usually he had coffee before trying to find something to keep him busy until lunchtime, but today he didn’t need to look for something to do as now he had an important mission to accomplish. He was going to find his two sons.

After Craddock Fitch had left the store, Fran had worked all day alongside her dad and Tom, keeping the customers happy and satisfied. She could never understand why she found working in the store so satisfying. Maybe her genes were predominantly her father’s and that was the reason; but whatever it was she loved the cut and thrust of the store, and the gossip.

But was she now also the target for gossip? Had someone seen her out and about with the new man in her life? Perhaps someone had seen her tonight, and then the balloon would go up. Please God, no, not yet.

Fran glanced at the clock on her dashboard and knew there would be an inquisition the moment she opened the front door. Her father appeared to be totally unaware that although she still lived at home she was an adult and could come and go as she pleased. Fran saw it was even later than she’d thought, and so she pressed a little harder on the accelerator. He’d be up, waiting, pretending he was working late on the accounts and that her arrival was a matter of no significance whatsoever. But her dad couldn’t fool her. She knew him inside out. It was all because he loved her, she knew. He loved all of them, but the ones who’d left home and were out of sight didn’t bother him so much now. But Fran Charter-Plackett still lived at home; she was the youngest, and because of that . . . Two more miles and she’d be there. Why was she worried? She told herself she wasn’t. Of course she wasn’t. She was doing nothing wrong. Nothing at all.

She parked the car in the drive, locked it, opened the back door to find her father waiting. ‘I heard your car. Do you know it’s two o’clock?’

‘Yes.’ Fran kissed his cheek to help calm the situation, but tonight it didn’t work.

‘It’s a working day tomorrow. How can you possibly be ready for a good day’s work when you arrive home at this time?’ Jimbo rubbed his hand over his bald head and waited. She was special to him, so special he hardly dared let her know how much.

‘Dad. I’m almost twenty-one. I can do as I like. Have I ever let you down? Not been there when the store opens? Made mistakes? Been rude to a customer because I’m too tired to care? Never. When I let you down you can sack me. And quite right too, as I shall deserve it. Goodnight, Dad. These late hours won’t do you any good either, you know.’ Fran stretched her mouth into a smile, kissed his cheek again and fled upstairs before he could ask any more questions.

Showered, moisturised, electric blanket switched off, Fran put on her favourite winter pyjamas and slid under the duvet. For five minutes she sifted through the events of the evening and then slipped gently off to sleep.

True to her word she was up, dressed, breakfasted, and in the store at six-thirty to start on the newspapers. For one brief moment as she dragged the papers in from the porch at the front door of the store where the van had dropped them off during the night, Fran regretted her late night. But one big lungful of the frosty country air revived her and as she heaved the newspapers up onto the counter to sort them out, she knew she was in the best possible place for Frances Charter-Plackett. None of this hectic nightlife Jimbo’s other three children had, scrunched up in city apartments with scarcely a breath of fresh air even when they were outside. Not a single sight of rolling countryside, grazing cows, bleating lambs, frisky horses; only buildings, buildings, buildings, as far as the eye could see.

With the papers neatly stacked on the shelves, Fran set up the coffee machine and drank the first gorgeous steaming cup of the day leaning against the open door looking out across the Green. The geese were already waking; the young ones born in the summer were beginning to take on an adult look, and Fran smiled at the thought that all of them were descendants of geese that had been in the village for centuries. This was miles better than dragging through the early-morning rush in the City: squeezed on to packed trains, smelling other people’s armpits. Nothing could be as fresh or revitalising as staring across the Green and seeing the old oak tree still surviving and the stocks sturdily standing tall through the long winters. No! It was Turnham Malpas for her.

Fran heard Malcolm’s milk float coming along. Though he wasn’t supposed to, he delivered a supply of milk to the store as well as the houses. Fran remembered it was payday and carefully unlocked the safe to take out his money.

‘G’d morning, Malcolm. Drop them there and I’ll move them. Here’s the money.’

‘Your dad not about then?’

‘It’s my early morning. We take it in turns, Tom, Dad and me.’

‘I meant to tell him this morning that this is my last week.’

‘Your last week, after all these years? Why? I thought you liked delivering milk, the early mornings and all that? All that fresh early morning country air you used to boast about.’

Malcolm removed his peaked cap and scratched his scalp. ‘I do, but there’s not enough business to make it worth it, nowadays. They’re all buying from the supermarkets now. Thirty years ago I delivered to every house in the village and beyond but now . . . Well, it’s not worth it.’

‘Oh, I am sorry. You’ll miss meeting everyone, and I’ll miss you.’ Fran patted Malcolm’s shoulder. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘Early retirement. That’s me. Early retirement.’

‘You’re too young to retire, Malcolm.’

‘Got my sheep to look after, you know.’

‘Sheep? I didn’t know you had sheep.’

‘Two hundred.’

Amazed by this revelation because she thought nothing happened in Turnham Malpas without her or her dad knowing about it. ‘Two hundred? Where?’

‘Fields the other side of Little Derehams where I live.’

‘Well, I never. They’ll keep you busy then.’

‘I can see ’em from my front windows. Lovely sight, it is. Been building ’em up for four years, waiting for when the milk round collapsed. Well, it has. Must crack on. Tell your dad.’

His van grunted into action and away he went, and then Fran’s first customer appeared in the doorway.

‘Good morning, Willie.’

‘Hello, Fran, love. My usual, please, and half a pound of that bacon my Sylvia likes best. You know the one.’

Fran suddenly saw Willie in a new light. Whatever had happened to that vigorous brisk seventy-year-old she knew and loved. His back was bent, his legs appeared slightly crooked and his voice had weakened. She kept her lovely welcoming smile, served him his change and went to open the door for him. But as he passed her, he said sadly, ‘I’m not the man I was, little Fran. You’re not little though, are you? Not now. You’re a young woman and a real help to your dad. Thank you for this.’

Willie dropped his newspaper and couldn’t bend down to pick it up so Fran bent down, glad to hide the sadness in her face. ‘Here we are. Can you manage home?’

‘Got to, if only to let my Sylvia know I’m not about to kick the bucket.’ He struggled over the step and set off somewhat unsteadily for home. It occurred to Fran that when Willie went there’d be no more Biggses living in the village. Ever. And there’d been someone with the name of Biggs for centuries, just like the geese. Dying and leaving behind no children to carry on the line was an awfully sad position to be in, Fran thought She’d need to make sure that somehow she had children – well at least one – so her genes would carry on. Enveloped in gloom, Fran began the routine of setting up the store for the day’s business. That terrible headache she’d woken with was lessening, thank goodness.

Tom came to work at eight o’clock, Jimbo arrived five minutes later and at eight-thirty her mother arrived, along with Greta Jones, who was still in charge of the mail-order office. Her dad gave Fran a sharp look, he then proceeded to give every single shelf intense scrutiny followed by a detailed examination of the freezers and the chilled shelving. His eyes had reached the corner reserved for customers to sit and make use of the coffee machine, and he took a paper cup filled with coffee and two sugars, and tested it. The taste appeared to please him and then, and only then, he retired to the back office for an in-depth discussion with Greta about the possibility of extending their mail order to include fresh meat.

He irritated Fran no end when he did that scrutiny of the store. She knew how particular he was (and for that matter so was she), but to have to witness him doing it every day had seriously begun to annoy her.

She followed him into Greta’s sanctum. ‘Look, Dad, I like everything looking smart just . . .’

‘Not right now, Fran. Talk to me later.’

‘Dad! When you’ve finished in here, I need a word. OK?’

Jimbo nodded. ‘Right. Now, Greta. About the meat idea I had . . .’

‘Not in here. It isn’t suitable. There isn’t enough room. There’s no refrigeration, there’s nowhere to put the special paper and plastic wrapping, there simply isn’t enough room for proper hygiene. And it would have to be chilled and I’d freeze to death and there’s no room for scales for weighing it all. Sorry, no can do.’

Greta reached up to pick out two jars of Harriet’s Country Cousin Peach Jam (‘peaches from our local greenhouses’) for the order she was putting together. She considered the discussion at an end, but Jimbo hadn’t finished.

‘I’ve had a better idea. You would be in charge here but also in charge of the meat packing and orders in the new space I’m creating in the Old Barn.’

Greta shrugged her shoulders. ‘I can’t be in two places at once. You know full well what will happen: your advertising will be so tempting that the meat packing orders will be three times bigger than we ever envisaged, and I’ll be working nights as well as days and my union steward will have something to say about that. Believe me.’

Talk about unions always switched Jimbo into rocket mode. ‘Union steward? Are you a member of a union? Because if you are it’s out that door faster than you’ve ever moved before. Well? Are you?’