Richard followed and watched her make the tea and pour it, before he began. “I’m seriously worried about these boat deals that Billy has set up. I won’t bore you with all the details, but several little things, things Billy has said, apparently minor discrepancies in the paperwork, mix-ups over registrations for which Billy always has a perfectly good explanation, they are all building up to make me thoroughly suspicious. Possibly quite unjustifiably so.”
“There was a rather unpleasant business years ago with Billy, wasn’t there?”
“Yes, when we were in our teens. Very stupid. And as far as I know he hasn’t put a foot wrong since. I mean, I shouldn’t let the memory of that incident make me suspect him now, should I? Give a dog a bad name, and all that.”
“Or, on the other hand, does a leopard ever change his spots? Look, you are not normally a suspicious type. Too easy-going, if anything. So if these little details are bothering you, then I think it’s worth talking them through with someone. I don’t pretend to know the first thing about yacht brokerage, but if you want to go through it all with me I’ll happily lend an ear. Otherwise, maybe you’d rather talk to an expert.”
“No, not at all. I’d prefer to keep it in the family, if possible. You see, it all started with this document pertaining to the sale of the first yacht.”
Sue listened carefully to all the details and guessed that Richard’s main problem was in deciding where his allegiancies lay.
Chapter Eight – Balance of Power
“Heard the news?” Stephen shouted from the hallway. “Margaret Thatcher has won the Tory leadership battle.”
“Yes. At last we may get some common sense prevailing in Westminster,” Sue responded with glee.
“Dammit, I might have known you’d crow for Women’s Lib.”
“Come off it, you know I’m no bra burner. But this is nineteen seventy-five, International Women’s Year, and I don’t see why a woman can’t be as good a Parliamentarian as any man!”
“Well, Thatcher can’t hope to make a worse mess of things than Heath.”
“I gather he’s furious about her winning! Gone into deep sulks.”
“Can’t be funny for him being succeeded by a woman. Though it was actually poor Willie Whitelaw she beat. They say he was nearly in tears.”
“Why? Because of coming second or because he was devastated that his beloved party would be in female hands?”
“The latter, I imagine! Now then, do I dare ask one of the winning species what she is giving me for supper tonight?”
A cushion whizzed past his head as he walked into the sitting room.
*
A freezing wind rattled the corregated iron roof and the huge gable doors at the north end of the boat shed. It whistled underneath the doors driving dirt and rubbish swirling under the boat cradle and into corners.
Richard and the electronics engineer, working in the saloon and helming station below decks, had made themselves quite snug with a little electric heater, and they didn’t hear George calling till he climbed the ladder up the side of the hull.
“You two working in there or have you both gone to sleep?” he shouted.
“Trouble is your voice is failing, Uncle George. It’s with all the yelling you do.” Richard climbed out of the hatch to grin down at the older man over the gunwale.
“Trouble is having to employ young’uns like you who never listen,” George growled. “I wanted to know if you’ve seen Billy today?”
“No. Nor yesterday. Not since before the weekend.”
“Funny. He is meant to be here in the island at the moment, but I’ve tried telephoning him and there’s no reply.”
Richard drew the zip of his jacket up to the neck, shivering. “Want me to go round to his place at lunchtime and see if I can find him?”
“Might be as well. Someone in France has been trying to get him. I’ve got their telephone number for him to ring.”
“Give it to me and I’ll take it with me. It’s nearly knocking off time, I might as well go now.”
Billy Smart had a flat in a house in St Sampson’s. Richard rang the bell, but without much hope of seeing the man, judging by the unclaimed cartons of milk on the doorstep.
A woman in a pinafore and curlers appeared as he returned down the stairs. “Oh! I thought perhaps you were Mr Smart,” she said, sounding disappointed.
“I’m looking for him.”
“You’re not the only one. No one’s seen him since last week.”
“Seems like he must be away.”
“Well, he’d better get back quickly if he wants to keep this place,” with a tilt of her head she indicated the direction of the flat. “His rent is overdue.”
The worrying knot in Richard’s stomach which had been troubling him, on and off for the past several months, suddenly turned into a large granite stone. “Oh dear, I am sorry.” He couldn’t think what else to say. “When he gets back, if you see him would you tell him Richard wants to speak to him, please?”
The woman nodded. “If I see him.”
He decided not to tell Uncle George of his encounter. No point in worrying the old chap, yet.
But by the end of the week George Schmit was worrying, anyway, on a slightly different score. “I hope that young idiot hasn’t tried to bring a yacht through from Le Havre in this weather. He’ll be in trouble if he has.”
“I doubt it,” Richard said. “He wouldn’t set out without a professional skipper, who wouldn’t leave port till this passes through.” Then he frowned. “He isn’t due to get another boat for a while, is he?”
“No. Not that I’m aware of. But he brought the previous one over before your father and I had agreed to it, if you remember. We don’t want him acting on his own initiative again or we’ll find the business over-capitalised.”
“Yes,” Richard nodded, thinking hard. “Quite.”
*
After the freezing February, March had come in like a lamb and now it was going out like a lion. Sue imagined it was rain lashing against the bedroom windows that had disturbed her; she rolled over and curled her knees up under Stephen’s rump, rousing him sufficiently for a warm hand to slide over the nightie on her thigh. She kissed the back of his neck and drifted down into a pleasant pre-dawn slumber.
The sound of voices brought her to the surface, footsteps, a child crying! Heart pounding she tumbled out of bed, into her slippers and dressing gown and out of the bedroom to the head of the stairs.
“What’s going on down there?” Stephen had followed, calling over her shoulder.
“It’s okay,” Debbie’s voice came from somewhere below. “We have a welcome visitor.”
“Whatever time is it?” Sue asked.
Stephen peered at his watch. “Nearly seven,” he replied.
“Stephanie!” she flew down the stairs, along the hallway and into the kitchen. “Darling! What a lovely surprise!” She sank to her knees to gather the little one into her arms. “Sarah! You’ve come to see your Granma again!”
“Hallo, Mum. How are you?” Stephanie looked awful.
“I’m fine. What’s more to the point, how are you?”
“Ghastly. We had a terrible crossing.”
“Weren’t you able to lie down?”
“Only on the floor with a number of other sick bodies throwing up all over the place.” The weary traveller sank onto a chair. “Debs dear, I could kill for a cup of tea.”
Debbie lifted the Aga cover and placed the kettle on the hotplate where it immediately began a comforting hiss.
Sue warmed some milk for Sarah, stripped off her wet, ill-fitting anorak and, sitting her on her knee held the glass while she drank. There were numerous questions she wanted to ask: what was Stephanie doing here? Why had she made this unscheduled trip? Where did she get the funds?
Sarah was tucked up in bed with a hot water bottle and Stephen and Debbie were upstairs getting dressed for work, when Stephanie finally explained her sudden arrival. “I felt I couldn�
�t take any more of the commune. Not at the moment, anyway. I had to get out for Sarah’s sake, if not for my own. Several of the original group have moved on and been replaced. A few of the new people are reasonable but others . . . well, I don’t want to go into that. Enough to say it is right to be concerned about the wefare of other people, of animals, of our environment, but when folks get truly fanatical about ‘rights’ they seem to lose all touch with reality.” She covered her face with her hands, slowly sweeping them back over her hair, scratching her fingers into her scalp. “What I want more than anything is a bath. Haven’t had a decent hot bath for months.”
“Of course. And where is your luggage? Perhaps you’d like to put some things in the machine . . .”
Stephanie held up her hand. “Forget it. We didn’t bring any luggage, except Sarah’s doll and a teddy bear.”
No luggage! Had this been some quick getaway? Sue tried to look unfazed. “Fine. No problem. I dare say you’ll find clothes in your room. If not you can borrow from Debbie and me. Ah, but what about the little one?”
“Perhaps we can wash out her dress for now, and then I’ll have to buy her one or two things. If you don’t mind lending me the money.”
Stephanie hadn’t been on top of the world when she came over for Debbie’s birthday, but had shown no hesitation in returning to her weird communal life. Now, her mood was quite different: there were long silences when she seemed dazed and confused. Her words and actions were negative. Sad. “I did a really nice painting of the river, you know. I was very pleased with it.”
“Good. I hope you have brought it with you.”
“No. I sold it for just enough money to get us here.” She leaned over the kitchen sink, looking out over the drenched garden. The lawn was strewn with twigs and dead leaves; tree branches bowed frantically at the gale’s bidding. “Best price I ever got.”
Sue wanted to weep for her. Heaven knew, the girl had asked for all the trouble she got, going off to live with a bunch of dropouts as she had. But now her regret was obvious in her tone of voice, the way she looked. Sue could not help but share her sadness; she felt desperately sorry that, as a mother, she had failed to protect Stephanie from all that had happened in the past few years. Yet what could she have done? She was the last person from whom the girl wanted to hear advice, let alone take it. “You’ll do lots of others. Every view in the island is waiting to be transferred onto your canvases.”
Stephanie turned with a slight lift of the eyebrows, and a half smile. “We will see. In the meantime it is nice to be home, Mum.” And fearing that that sounded too emotional she added, “Nice and warm,” as she held her hands towards the Aga.
Sue got the message.
*
“Remember that chap, Joe Mason, we sold a boat to last year?” George said, as he and Richard sipped flask coffee in the cubbyhole office in the corner of the boat shed.
“Yes. Hell-bent on knocking the price down.”
“Right. Well, he rang me up this morning to see if he could bring a friend of his over to see us about getting a similar craft. He must have been impressed with Mason’s bargain.”
“I’m not surprised,” Richard grunted. But he wasn’t happy.
“This one,” George indicated with his thumb the yacht on which Richard was currently working “is not what he is looking for. So we’ll have to see if Billy can find something suitable. If we can find Billy.”
“Mmm. If . . .”
George shot him a querying look.
Richard hurriedly drained his beaker and screwed it back onto the top of his flask. “I must get on with it or this job won’t be out of the way before starting the next.” He desperately needed time to think, to work out how to word his worries to his father and his boss without alarming them.
George watched him go, sensing what was on his mind.
*
Sue couldn’t sleep that night. She tried to get Stephanie and her troubles off her mind and failed miserably. Her thoughts kept returning to those early months, and years, after the war when she had returned to the island, returned to home and family, only to find something drastically wrong. Something missing. Both she and her parents had been too close to their mutual problem to realise that the parent-child bond between them had been severed by their five-year separation. Each had blamed the other for the frictions that had arisen, failing to accept the basic fact that they were strangers from different backgrounds, coming together under one roof and attempting the impossible – a normal, loving and compatible family relationship full of sympathy and understanding for each other. Neither side had had the least understanding of the other’s cares, worries, problems and peer pressures. Her mother and father had fully expected her to conform to the set of rules, standards of behaviour as existed pre-war. She on the other hand, had returned to the island a self-sufficient teenager forced by circumstance to mature early. Not only had she deeply resented all attempts at parental authority but she had lost the art of living in an environment of mutual love and respect with others. She had often shared a billet with another girl whom she liked very much, and some of her billetors were very kind; but there had not been a solitary soul with whom to share love and affection, anyone for whom she might have felt deep concern.
So how did that situation compare with the relationship between herself and Stephanie? Had the parent-child affection between them been broken at some stage? And if so, how? Why? Sue’s mind went back over the years, examining each incident involving Stephanie, looking for clues. The only possible answer that occurred and recurred, lay with the problems between herself and her first husband, Stephanie’s father, Jonathan: the rows, the angry shouts . . . and the constant weariness. Instead of being there for her children, she had handed them over to a teenage maid to be looked after. Had Stephanie subconsciously felt abandoned? Or had the child thought her mother unsympathetic to her crippled father? Been deeply disturbed by the rows? There would be little point in asking her: she would have no idea and only be embarrassed by the question. However, in retrospect one could see how the little girl, “Daddy’s girl”, could have been deeply disturbed by the upsets and resented her mother’s apparent unconcern for the man in the wheelchair. How could one so young have understood that her father’s paralysis had turned him into a tyrant? And the biggest question of all was whether the damage could ever be repaired.
The unanswered problems continued to torment Sue’s brain for hours. It was nearly dawn when she finally slept.
*
“Good morning. G and M Properties Limited,” Mandy announced. “How may we help you?” She paused, ballpoint poised over a notepad. “I’ll just see if he is in the office. Will you hold on please.”
“Who is it?” Roderick was standing in his office doorway.
“Allan Fallaize for you,” the secretary replied, hand over the mouthpiece. “Are you available?”
Roderick sighed. “Yes. Put him through.” He returned to his desk and picked up the receiver. “Hallo, Allan. I suppose you are wanting some news.”
“Desperately. I’m worried out of my mind.”
“Let me make a couple of phone calls and I’ll get right back to you. Are you at the office?”
“Yes. But I have to go out in half an hour.”
“I won’t need that long.”
Alex Grolinski drifted in. “Another one?”
“Yes. Allan Fallaize bought that place in the Castel before the conveyance on his house had gone through. Naturally he thought the contract of sale had clinched the deal. And now our ‘friend’ has vanished leaving him the proud owner of two expensive properties and a bridging loan he can’t afford.”
“Well, at least he has the deposit on his place,” Alex grunted.
“So what? That still leaves him nearly a hundred thousand in debt. He has a mortgage on his own place, remember.” Roderick buzzed Mandy. “Try and get through to our elusive Mr B again, will you?”
She was not successful.
�
��Well, will you try Sergeant Burgess at the Police Station. We’ll see if he has heard anything yet on the grapevine.”
The sergeant had little to add, other than the fact that several people were wanting to know the man’s whereabouts. “All we can tell you is that he does not appear to be in the island.”
“I feel particularly bad about Allan,” Roderick told Alex. “He’s not just another client, we were friends together at school.”
“What does he do?”
“He’s an accountant with Moore and Whitehouse. When our dubious friend offered him and his wife such a crazy high price for the guest house his wife was running, they went a bit mad. The place at the Castel was really beyond their range but . . . you know how housebuyers can get carried away.”
“And may the Lord make us truly thankful!”
“Except when personal friends are involved!”
*
Sue stood at the kitchen sink, unseen, watching the game of tennis between Debbie and Neal Blaydon. Neal was spending a surprising amount of time in the island lately, and she couldn’t help wondering if this was because he was doing more work in the island for his father, or whether, in fact, Debbie was the true attraction. The pair of them were certainly spending a great deal of time together and Sue was not entirely happy about it. In her opinion the family were neither good company nor socially acceptable, though admittedly Neal himself seemed quite reasonable and Coralie was very sweet in her way. But the parents! And that dreadful Amanda! Not that that was really the most worrying factor: she simply did not want Debbie to get involved with a divorcee so much older than herself. She longed for the girl to meet a handsome young Adonis who would sweep her off her feet and wipe the memory of Justin from her mind. Someone like the Jordan’s boy, Ian. Now that would be a splendid match! Not only that, Neal was not an attractive man: plump and bald, he was far from Sue’s vision of an ideal partner for her pretty young daughter. Debbie’s bouncy red curls and shining green eyes, which so perfectly portrayed her personality up until the split with Justin, seemed so wasted on Neal. One had the feeling that she might deliberately throw herself away on Neal, imagining that the only true love of her life was lost and could never be replaced . . . and that would be too awful . . .
The Guernsey Saga Box Set Page 68
