Double Cheque

by Heather MacQuarrie

“Sam!” Then she caught sight of Tania by his side. “What are you two doing here?”

  “We could ask you the same question. Aren’t you going to introduce us to your friend?”

  “Oh, this gentleman is just giving me a lift to my hotel,” she bluffed. “I’m working at an exhibition tomorrow. Didn’t your father mention it at all?”

  “So you snog all your taxi drivers then,” Sam said sarcastically. “I saw the two of you greeting each other in the arrivals area just now.”

  “Have you been following me?” Patricia now accused him crossly and very red-faced.

  “Yes,” Sam admitted. “I have.”

  “Hello Sam,” the gentleman now intervened. “Douglas McKendrick. It’s nice to meet you at last.” He held out his hand in friendship. Sam ignored the gesture.

  Patricia was horrified. “What are you doing?” she hissed at her companion.

  “The game’s up, Patty. We might as well come clean. It was going to happen sooner or later.”

  He turned back towards the young couple. “And you must be Jasmine.”

  “I’m not Jasmine,” Tania said.

  “Let’s not have this conversation here in the car park,” Mr McKendrick suggested. “Where are you two heading? Can we all go somewhere and have a civilised drink together?”

  “There’s nothing civilised about you sleeping with my mother,” Sam scoffed. However, he was equally reluctant to have a bickering row in front of other passengers who were going to and from their cars so close to the airport entrance. Begrudgingly he told the man the name of the hotel they had booked and agreed that they all go there. “And by the way, this is Tania, my fiancée,” he concluded, as they climbed into the back seat.

  “Fiancée?” Patricia exclaimed. “Since when? It would have been nice to have been kept informed.”

  “Since about an hour ago.”

  Tania hissed in Sam’s ear, reminding him that they had agreed to tell Jasmine and Lawrence first but she didn’t really mind. She could sense that Sam wanted to give more weight to his argument that loyalty and faithfulness within the family is important. Unless that was the only reason he had proposed. She began to doubt his motives. Meanwhile they were receiving congratulatory comments from the front seats.

  Not another word was spoken until they all arrived at the hotel.

  “We’ll wait for you in the bar,” Douglas proposed, “if you want to check in and leave your bags in your room.”

  Sam just nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak. Tania went with him to reception, where it only took a few minutes to organise their accommodation. In under ten minutes they had gained entry to their room, deposited their bags, and freshened up. “Right, let’s get this over with,” Sam said firmly.

  Patricia and Douglas were seated in a fairly private alcove at the far end of the bar. Douglas stood up politely as the younger couple squeezed in opposite them. “What would you like to drink?” he asked them.

  “Just water,” said Sam. This was going to require a clear head.

  “Sparkling please,” added Tania.

  Douglas gave the order to a passing waiter and then they all eyeballed each other, not sure how to begin. In the end it was Patricia who spoke first.

  “This is none of your business, Sam,” she cautioned. “You are not a child any longer. I do not have to be answerable to you in all my dealings and you should not have followed me over here.”

  “You’re cheating on Dad,” he replied, incensed at her attitude. “Am I supposed to just sit back and let that happen?” Before she even had the chance to respond, he spoke again. “If he even is my dad! How can I be sure of that if you are sleeping around?”

  “Of course Casey is your father!” Patricia said emphatically and in an angry tone of voice. Kenneth had long been known as Casey by most of his close friends by virtue of his initials, KC.

  “Jasmine and Molly too?”

  “Absolutely! How could you begin to think otherwise?”

  “You’re being very disrespectful towards your mother,” Douglas now put in, admonishing the younger man.

  Sam was tempted to thump him in the face but he managed to keep his cool and just shot him a withering glance. Tania squirmed in her seat, feeling very uncomfortable. The waiter arrived with the two glasses of sparkling water.

  “I love them both,” Patricia now confided. “It really is possible to love two people. You just have to believe me on that.”

  “I do believe you,” Sam said without hesitation as an image of Imogen flashed through his mind. “But you still have to choose one of them.”

  “And let the other one go? No, I can’t do that.”

  “You have to.”

  “Don’t make me do that, Sam. I can’t believe that my own son is grilling me like this! Can’t you see that I am happy with things the way they are. No-one is getting hurt. No-one is losing out. Your father and I are perfectly content.”

  “You’re kidding yourself, Mum. Dad is not content. He knows about this.”

  “He knows that you followed me here?” The trepidation was obvious in her panic-stricken face, which was reassuring to Sam. She must at least care about her marriage.

  “No, but he has his suspicions. How long has this been going on? How long have you and Cathy Cartwright been hoodwinking my dad?” He addressed this question to Mr McKendrick.

  Douglas looked bewildered. “I don’t even know Cathy Cartwright,” he revealed. “I met her once, about thirty years ago.”

  “You’re lying,” Sam accused him but he didn’t want to get his sister into trouble and expose her as an eavesdropper, so he didn’t elaborate.

  “I’m not lying,” Douglas insisted. “I don’t know the woman although I did meet her son recently.”

  “Grant?”

  “Yes, is he a friend of yours?”

  “He used to be, years ago. How do you know him?”

  Douglas wasn’t sure whether the truth was out in the open or not but he wasn’t going to jeopardise his own relationships by protecting someone he hardly knew so he told Sam exactly what had happened.

  “It turns out that a friend of mine is Grant Cartwright’s father. He came over here looking for him and I was able to put them in touch.”

  Then he turned to Patricia. “Actually, Cameron Ferguson phoned me again this morning,” he told her. “He’s still very anxious about that letter he wrote to the boy, the one he gave to me to pass on to you. Apparently he hasn’t had any reply.”

  “Well, I definitely gave it to Cathy and she was seeing Grant the very next day,” Patty repeated. “I told you that on the phone. Sure it’s not even a week yet. How quickly is he expecting a reply?”

  “I think he anticipated that the lad would get in touch right away. He sent him his mobile number and email address.”

  “So why doesn’t he just phone Grant himself?”

  “He doesn’t have a number for him or an address.”

  Whilst all this seemed to confirm what Jasmine had related concerning the overheard phone call, Sam was now getting frustrated that they were digressing. He was anxious to get back to the point. “All right,” he said, “so I was wrong about you and Cathy being in this together but you still haven’t answered my question. How long has this been going on? You and my mother.”

  “We’ve been friends for years,” Douglas now told him, “since our student days.”

  “Have you ever met my dad?”

  “No.”

  “Not friends then. Lovers.”

  “No, Sam,” his mother interjected. “Just friends for a long time. Dougie’s wife, Lucinda and I were very close. Casey met her several times.”

  “So you’ve also put your marriage on the line!” Sam was utterly scathing and almost spat the words at him.

  “Lucinda died ten years ago. We sort of drifted
into a relationship after that.”

  “Right.”

  Sam was increasingly aware of Tania’s discomfort as his side. He took her hand and mouthed an apology. “This isn’t a very nice introduction to the family for my fiancée,” he said aloud.

  “Then you shouldn’t have engineered it,” Patricia said cuttingly. But then she softened her approach. “You’re not going to tell Casey, are you?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  She relaxed and smiled. “Thank you,” she breathed gratefully.

  “I’m not, but you are,” Sam retorted caustically. “That is if you still want to be part of Stevie’s life. Now enjoy your weekend and make sure it’s your last one with this man. We have an engagement to celebrate so we’ll say goodbye.” As he spoke, he led Tania away from the booth towards the busy restaurant.

  “I hope we’re not too late for dinner,” he enquired as the maître d’ approached them.

  “You’re just in time,” the man replied. “A table for two?”

  “Yes please,” Sam answered. “A table for two and a bottle of Champagne.”

  “I’m not dressed for a nice dinner,” Tania fretted as they sat down. “I’m still wearing the clothes I travelled in.”

  “You look beautiful,” Sam told her. “We’ll have another Champagne dinner tomorrow night and you can dress up for that one if you like. We’ll make it a proper celebration.”

  “So you do still want to marry me? It wasn’t just a ruse to make a point to your mother?”

  Sam was genuinely shocked. “Of course I want to marry you. I love you and I should have asked you long ago. This has nothing to do with my mother.”

  “I saw your face when she said that it’s possible to love two people at once. And you didn’t disagree with her.”

  “What about my face?”

  “You were thinking about her.”

  And then he said it again, filling her heart with relief and joy. “I don’t love Imogen. Not anymore. I love you, Tania. Now, are you going to send that text to Jasmine and Lawrence or will I do it?”

  “I’ll do it,” she said happily as a smart young waitress approached the table with a notebook and pen, “just as soon as we order our meal.”

  Chapter 4

  Maggie Redpath was exhausted but elated. She had just completed the first week in her new job and she loved it. Just knowing that those twenty-six nine-year-olds were her responsibility for the whole year was at once scary but so satisfying. It was quite different to the exhaustion she had felt after a week’s subbing where she had covered for an absent teacher who was on sick leave or attending a course. This was her own class. She would really get to know these children properly, get the chance to appreciate their individual personalities and needs, find out what makes them tick. You could do that to some extent when teaching on a temporary basis, but this time she would be able to guide her pupils through a whole year and hopefully see the progress they made at the end of it. It wouldn’t be easy. There were several challenging characters within the group. But Maggie’s own experience of an unhappy childhood stood her in good stead to understand others and the impact that extraneous factors can have on school performance. Not that it had been all bad, by any means. Her mother had been a tower of strength, taking on both parental roles when her father had walked out on them and her Uncle Bill had been very supportive, still was to this day. Indeed he had helped her to get this job through his sound and friendly advice. It was almost a month now since her father died. Maggie felt a bit guilty about admitting it to herself but she was happier without him. She shook the bad memories from her mind and took a sip of her Pinot Grigio. Lawrence was finishing off in the kitchen, tidying up after their meal of spaghetti arrabiata and rhubarb crumble. She heard the buzz of a text message coming through, then a second buzz from across the room, indicating that, in all likelihood, they had both received the same text. Maggie picked up her phone and took a look.

  We just got engaged!! Just thought you’d like to know. Tania and Sam xx

  “Lawrence,” Maggie called out in excitement, “there’s a text for you here from Tania. She sent it to me too.”

  “I hope it’s about her finding somewhere else to live,” he quipped in reply.

  “Not quite,” Maggie smiled as he joined her on the sofa. “Look!”

  Lawrence read his sister’s message for himself. “I didn’t see that coming,” he admitted. “I thought Sam was going to leave her.”

  “Are you pleased?”

  “I think so.”

  There had been a lot of tension in the family when Tania had discovered that she was pregnant. She was only twenty-four and hadn’t been with Sam for more than a few weeks. None of them had even met him. But give the guy his due; he had stood by her and was turning out to be a doting father to wee Stevie. However, Lawrence had sensed that he wasn’t happy, that his relationship with Tania was on the rocks. In a drunken stupor one night he had revealed that he was still in love with a girl called Imogen. Lawrence remembered meeting Imogen the day that he and Maggie were celebrating their own engagement. Maggie had come across a journalist she knew in the restaurant, a girl called Jillian, who was enjoying a girls’ night out with a couple of friends, both of whom turned out to be amongst Sam’s exes. He had only dated Holly for a very short time but Imogen had been the love of his life, or so he had thought at the time. Hopefully that was all in the past.

  Maggie keyed in a reply.

  Really pleased with your news. Congratulations! Maggie xx

  Lawrence followed suit.

  Great news, Sis

  He never had been one for extended text messages.

  The doorbell rang, heralding the arrival of Maggie’s mother, Greta. Lawrence led her into the lounge and offered her a drink.

  “A glass of wine would be lovely,” she said as she gave her daughter a big hug.

  Maggie mentioned the text from Tania and Sam and Greta told them to pass on her congratulations. Then they chatted about the week they had all just had at work, especially Maggie since she was the one in a new job. Greta was a bit reserved, appearing to lack interest, as though she had something else on her mind. Maggie tried to be understanding. After all it was only three weeks since the funeral.

  “There’s something I want to tell you,” Greta intimated at last, twiddling nervously with the tassels hanging from her green silk scarf which she cradled comfortingly on her knee.

  Lawrence stood up. “I’ll give the two of you some privacy,” he said thoughtfully.

  “You should probably hear this too,” Greta countered, but hesitantly.

  “Maggie can fill me in later.” He gently patted her arm and left the room. Greta breathed a sigh of relief, indicating that she would indeed prefer to talk to her daughter alone in this instance.

  “I wasn’t ever going to tell you about this,” Greta then began somewhat mysteriously, “but it’s preying on my mind and I’ve decided that you do have the right to know about it.”

  Maggie remained silent, allowing her mother to organise her thoughts, to turn them into words.

  “It’s about your father.”

  Maggie sighed. “Is it something Granny told you?”

  Greta was not long back from a visit to her mother-in-law in England. The older woman was too frail to have attended the funeral and Greta had made a courtesy call to her home as a mark of respect. They hadn’t had that much contact over the years due to the marital split and the physical distance between them.

  “No, your granny doesn’t know anything about this. It’s something your father told me himself.”

  “I remember you saying that he had opened up to you a bit before he died, that he had told you he never stopped loving us.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Too little, too late,” Maggie retorted, but with a sadness of heart. “I don’t rea
lly care what he told you, Mum. He had years to put things right between us, opportunity upon opportunity to make a new start and show some interest in my life but he never bothered. He never even tried.” She could not have anticipated her mother’s next words.

  “He killed someone, Maggie.”

  “What!”

  “He killed someone. It was an accident. But he never owned up to it. He felt so guilty.”

  Maggie felt a cold shiver run through her whole being. She couldn’t speak. She just listened as her mother continued.

  “It was a man, a young husband and father. And Dennis got it into his head that he didn’t deserve to have a happy marriage when he had destroyed someone else’s. And he didn’t deserve to be a father when he had left a little boy without his. So he distanced himself from us and started to drink and gamble and …”

  Maggie started to cry.

  “Well, you know the rest of the story.” Greta put an arm round her daughter and allowed her to grieve.

  “How do you know he wasn’t making this up?” Maggie sniffed after a moment.

  “He kept newspaper clippings about it. He showed them to me.”

  “So you know who this man was, the man he killed?”

  “Yes, he was an American citizen. His name was Henning.”

  “And when did this happen?”

  “The newspaper was dated 1990.”

  Maggie gasped. “I would have been four.”

  “We were a happy family up until then,” Greta reminded her.

  “I know. I have some vague memories and I’ve seen the photos.” She remembered showing those photos to her friend, Jillian, just a few weeks ago, when she called to offer her condolences.

  “I could never understand why he changed.”

  “You’re taking it all very calmly, Mum,” Maggie observed, the tears still rolling down her own cheeks.

  “Only because I’m cried out by now. I’ve shed bucket loads since he confessed to me. It was just a few days before he died and he knew he wasn’t going to make it this time. He made me promise to send the evidence to the police so that they could let the Henning family know that he had died.”