by Lynda Page
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.
‘They eventually found all the cartons from the hijacked lorry stacked in disused outhouses behind the factory, and the key to the padlock and a bloodied crowbar, wrapped in a sack, hidden in the glove box of my car. I was stunned rigid, and had absolutely no idea how the boxes or key and crowbar had got where they had found them. Regardless, I was cautioned and taken down to the station for questioning. Meanwhile all my staff were interviewed. All of them had solid alibis. I was the only one who couldn’t prove what I’d been doing. When I’d arrived home from work the previous evening, Nerys had told me she was suffering from a migraine. As soon as Lucy was put down for the night, she had taken a sleeping tablet and gone to bed. She didn’t wake until Lucy did, at six-thirty the next morning. She tried to cover for me but as soon as the police started probing about what we’d done that night . . . listened to on the wireless, et cetera . . . she had to come clean and admit that she had taken a tablet and gone to bed and had no idea what I’d done then. The evidence against me was overwhelming. My insistence that I was innocent carried no weight. Thankfully the driver pulled through so I wasn’t charged with actual murder, but I was charged with grievous bodily harm and theft. I received a fifteen-year sentence.
‘It all seemed to happen so quickly but all the time I was convinced that the police would realise their terrible mistake, find the real villain and then I’d have my life back. When that cell door closed behind me in prison, I knew that wasn’t going to happen. Nerys got a visiting order as soon as she could. I wouldn’t allow her to bring Lucy, though, as I didn’t want her visiting a place like that. Nerys had made an effort to look nice and be positive when she first arrived for the visit, and I tried hard to assure her that, despite what we’d heard, it wasn’t that bad. But she couldn’t keep up the pretence for long and broke down, telling me how hard she was finding life without me and that neither of us during the lead-up to the trial had given a thought to how she was going to manage for money, to take care of Lucy and herself. And also, what about the business? Had I someone in mind to run it for me during my absence? Someone that I trusted implicitly.
‘I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought about such important matters and made proper arrangements. I put it down to my faith in the British justice system and a jury finding me innocent, so that I wouldn’t need to consider such matters. In fact, Nerys had been constantly telling me that anyone only had to look at me to see I wasn’t capable of doing what I was accused of, and to stop worrying. I trusted all my staff, several of whom had been with the firm longer than I had, but none of them was the right person to head up the business while I was inside. But how was I going to find someone who could do that on my behalf when I was in prison? Nerys said that I needed to put my affairs in the hands of a solicitor, give him my power of attorney, and he could then appoint someone to take care of the business and make sure that she and Lucy were taken care of financially. I felt stupid for not thinking of that myself. I asked her to make a visit to our family solicitor and have him draw up the documentation, which I would sign the next time she came on her monthly visit.
‘When she next visited, against my wishes she’d brought Lucy along with her, telling me that regardless of how I felt about not wanting my daughter to see me in prison, she felt strongly that Lucy needed to see her father and her father needed to see her, and she intended to bring her each time. I was in fact overjoyed to see my daughter, and how well she looked and how Nerys was looking after her. Any worries I’d had that she might already have begun to forget me were unfounded. The smile on Lucy’s face when she first clapped eyes on me was a sight to behold. I was glad Nerys had brought her in. These monthly visits from the two women I loved most in the world, and the regular letters Nerys wrote to me in between, would make such a difference to helping me through my period of incarceration.
‘Before I knew it the guard was announcing there were only five minutes left. Nerys was crying when she hurriedly dressed Lucy in her outdoor clothes. It would be a whole four weeks before she saw me again, she sobbed, and I was having a job not to weep myself because of the backlash this scene could cause me afterwards with some of the nastier type of inmates. By the time Nerys had finished dressing Lucy, the guard was announcing that visiting time was over and all were to take their leave. We had just said our goodbyes and Nerys was about to go when she remembered she hadn’t given me the document to sign for the solicitor.
‘The guard was really getting annoyed with the stragglers by now but I knew this couldn’t wait for another month . . . the business would be suffering without someone at the helm and Nerys needed money to live on. Not caring what trouble I’d get into, I ignored the guard and told Nerys to give me the document. She took it out of her bag, then from the envelope, and turned the pages over to the one I needed to put my signature on. After I had signed on the dotted line, I realised we’d need someone to witness my signature. Thankfully Nerys was able to use her charm on the guard and he obliged, if only so as to be rid of us so he could have his tea break. As I was being escorted out by him I turned and looked back into the visiting room. Nerys was at the exit door, gazing back at me. There was a look on her face . . . at the time I thought she was upset to be going off into the freedom of the world, leaving me shut up inside those high walls. But, thinking about it later, I realised how wrong I was. She was saying goodbye to me as she knew she’d never see me again.
‘When a week had passed and I hadn’t received any correspondence from Nerys and there was no answer when I telephoned her on my permitted weekly call, I was extremely concerned that either Lucy or she was ill. Another week passed and still there was no word by letter or telephone. I became very worried that something awful had happened to them, lots of different scenarios going through my head, none of them pleasant. I couldn’t sleep, eat, and was having difficulty concentrating on my job in the prison laundry. When visiting time came around again and Nerys did not appear or send any word to me, I became frantic.
‘It was bad enough dealing with the day-to-day living in that place, which was as bad as any stories I had heard, let alone worrying that something was wrong with my family while there was nothing I could do about
it. The only thing I could do was write to my solicitor and ask him to find out what was going on. What an agonising wait to hear back from him that was! A week later, when I was pulled off my shift in the laundry as I had a visitor, I knew it had to be important for them to interrupt me at work. I really believed . . . prayed . . . it was Nerys who’d managed to get special dispensation from the governor to explain to me the reason for her silence. I was terrified it was something to do with my daughter but grateful that I’d be receiving some answers at last. My visitor wasn’t Nerys but my solicitor, Charles Gray. The grave expression on his face sent a chill through me.
‘He told me he that he was most surprised to receive my letter as he’d not been approached by my wife to have any papers drawn up concerning a power of attorney. After I’d been in touch by letter, he paid a visit to the house. A woman answered the door. When he announced who he was, she introduced herself to him as Nerys Thomas and seemed very surprised when he explained to her the reason for his visit. She told him that I must have had a brain seizure since the last time she had seen me. On her last but one visit I had informed her to contact a solicitor and have her given power of attorney so that she could take care of the business on my behalf and be able to access funds in my bank accounts to look after herself and my daughter. She showed him her copy of the document she’d had drawn up, which I’d signed.
‘Having handled not only my affairs but my father’s before him, Charles Gray knew my signature well enough to know this wasn’t faked. The firm Nerys had used to draw up the documentation and deal with the legalities was a very reputable one.
