A Walk In The Park

by Jill Mansell

  Or would that only have happened if custody had been something he’d actually wanted?

  ‘So tell me how you found me,’ said James.

  He was being wary, she realised, because he wasn’t sure how much she knew. As far as he was concerned, she might not be aware that he could be her father.

  ‘I left home when I was sixteen. Charles Carson kicked me out and I never saw him again. He died a few months ago,’ Lara hurried on, ‘and I came back for the funeral. Well, because the solicitor wanted to see me. That’s when I found out the house had belonged to my mum.’

  ‘Right, yes.’ James nodded slowly, taking this in. ‘So all those years he’d been living in it on his own . . .’

  ‘I’m living there now.’ She would tell him about Janice later. ‘With my daughter.’

  ‘You have a daughter?’ His expression cleared. ‘Wonderful!’

  ‘Did you buy the house for my mum?’

  There was a pause before he nodded again. ‘Yes. Yes, I did. Well, for both of you really. Look, I don’t know how much you know, or how you found out about me.’

  OK, just say it, Lara took a deep breath. ‘Charles Carson didn’t love me. Basically, he never thought I was his. So I was wondering if you were my father . . .’

  She raised her gaze and saw that James was already shaking his head.

  ‘I’m so sorry, no, I wish I was. But I’m not.’

  ‘Oh.’ And that was it, just like that the dream was over. ‘Right.’

  The sense of disappointment was crushing.

  ‘That’s why you came here. Oh dear. Sorry.’

  ‘Not your fault.’ Lara managed a weak smile. ‘I suppose . . . I mean, are you absolutely sure?’

  ‘Absolutely sure. Nothing like that ever happened between your mother and me. She was never unfaithful to Charles. Your father was your father.’

  ‘Right. OK. So you were just . . . friends.’

  ‘Thanks to your mum, yes. If it had been up to me, it would have been far more.’ James’s voice softened. ‘But it was more than just a friendship. I loved her very much. And she loved me.’

  Lara swallowed; her chest felt squashed tight with sadness. ‘Why did she stay with my father? She should have left him. You could have been together . . .’

  We could have been a happy family.

  ‘Honestly? Barbara didn’t regard me as a safe bet.’ James looked at her with genuine regret. ‘Sorry, but there it is. I was married and that wasn’t working out. I’d also been married and divorced before that. I told Barbara it would be different with us but she was terrified I might change my mind, go off her, let her down.’

  Just as Jo had said.

  ‘And was she right?’ said Lara. ‘Would that have happened?’

  ‘You want more honesty? We’ll never know. I obviously had the history, the dodgy track record. I adored your mother, she was the love of my life and I couldn’t imagine ever feeling any differently about her. But our relationship was never consummated. Maybe that’s what made it different. If we’d lived together, who can say if we’d have lasted? I like to think so, of course I do, but I can’t put my hand on my heart and guarantee it. I’ve been married and divorced four times now.’ James’s grimace was apologetic. ‘Maybe your mother was right about me. Most of my wives probably wish they’d never walked up that aisle with me in the first place.’

  So many questions. So many. Lara said, ‘I don’t understand the thing with the house, though. Why did you give her the money to buy it?’

  James smiled fleetingly. ‘That was for your benefit, believe it or not.’

  ‘But I wasn’t your child.’

  ‘I know, but you were Barbara’s. And she was worried sick about you. That flat you were all living in, the one in Bradford on Avon, was full of damp. You weren’t well at all, you had a weak chest and kept getting infections. Then, when you were two, you were admitted to the hospital with pneumonia. Your mum thought you were going to die. And Charles flatly refused to move out of that bloody flat, where there was mould growing on the walls, because he said the rent was all he could afford. That’s when I did it. Because I could. And I wanted to help your mother.’

  ‘God.’ Lara exhaled. ‘Well, thank you.’ Which was hopelessly inadequate, but what else could she say?

  ‘My pleasure.’

  ‘She could have left him in the flat. Why didn’t she do that?’

  ‘She didn’t want to split you up from your father. Keeping the family together was all that mattered as far as Barbara was concerned. For your sake.’

  For my sake.

  ‘I really wish she hadn’t.’ Lara spoke with feeling.

  James said drily, ‘You and me both. But she did. And I knew I had to get away. That’s when I sold the company, divorced my wife and moved abroad. It was the only way.’ He paused again, then reached forward and poured the coffee into their cups. ‘So, was it your father who told you about me?’

  ‘No. Actually, his second wife did, just the other week.’

  ‘He remarried then? So you had a stepmother. What was she like? Nice, I hope.’

  ‘You tell me,’ said Lara. ‘She used to be your secretary.’

  For a moment he looked blank. Then the coffee jug tilted sideways in his hand and coffee poured out on to the silver tray.

  ‘Oh my God, do you mean Janice?’

  The hours had flown by. Lara felt as if they’d known each other for years. James might not be her father, but if she could have chosen one from a long list, he would have been it. He was honest, self-deprecating and irreverent. There was no possibility of the two of them running out of things to say. They’d eaten lunch outside on the terrace and talked about his ex-wives and assorted children. She’d told him about Gigi and Flynn, her years growing up in Keswick with Nettie and now her new life in Bath.

  ‘I still can’t get over the Janice connection,’ James marvelled as he topped up her wine glass with icy Sancerre. ‘She had a crush on me, you know. Or a fixation, maybe call it that. Everyone at work was aware of the situation but obviously it was never referred to. Janice wasn’t the type to have friends in the office. She was like a super-efficient toad.’

  ‘She still looks like a toad.’ The secret crush made so much sense to Lara now; on the surface Janice had disapproved intensely of James’s wicked philandering ways but deep down she’d been burning with jealousy, desperate to be on the receiving end of the philandering.

  ‘And she was jealous of your mum. Ending up marrying your father must have felt like some kind of payback. But then to take it out on you . . .’ He grimaced again at the thought of it. ‘That’s just unforgivable.’

  ‘It’s all OK now though.’ Being bitter about the past wasn’t going to help; she’d made that decision years ago. ‘The worst part was thinking if my own father could be like that with me, what was to stop Flynn behaving the same way towards Gigi. But I know now that he never would have done. They couldn’t be more different.’ Lara’s smile was rueful. ‘Thank God.’

  Lunch was cleared away by Esther, the hard-working Filipino housekeeper whose grasp of English might be tenuous but whose cooking skills were sublime.

  ‘Listen, I didn’t know if you’d want to see them so I didn’t dig them out, but I do have a couple of photographs of your mum. If you’re interested,’ said James.

  ‘You do? Really? Oh please show me!’ Lara jumped to her feet; he had no idea. ‘I’ve got hardly any photos of her. Let’s get them now!’

  It took a while to sift through the contents of the boxes in the spare room upstairs; one of his young grandchildren had spent an afternoon last year helpfully taking all the photographs out of their albums and putting them back in random order. Terrified the ones she was desperate to see might no longer be here, Lara flipped through album after album, gaining a crash course in the life of James Agnew and his extended family. Finally, between a wedding snap and a picture of a Greek taverna, she glimpsed a familiar face and her heart did a leap of joy
.

  ‘There she is,’ said James, his voice softening.

  There she was. Lara took in every detail. The photograph, yellowed at the edges, taken all those years ago. Her mum was sitting on a bright red picnic rug, wearing a green and white shift dress and smiling up at the camera. She looked young, happy and utterly relaxed, as if she hadn’t a care in the world. Her eyes shone and there was a dimple at the corner of her mouth that Lara had almost forgotten existed. How could she have forgotten about the dimple?

  ‘And here’s the other one, taken a few months later.’ James had found the second photo in the album he’d been going through. ‘We wanted a picture of the two of us together. I asked a stranger to take it.’

  The stranger had done a good job. There was James, rakishly handsome in a shirt and tie, standing next to her mum with his arm resting across her shoulders. Her head was tilted towards his and she was holding her flared yellow skirt down at her side as if a sudden breeze might send it flying up. Her cardigan was fluffy and cream and fastened with mother-of-pearl buttons; with a jolt, Lara realised she remembered that cardigan from her own childhood, no longer worn but folded up and put away in her mum’s chest of drawers. The little buttons had been heart-shaped and delicious-looking and once she’d secretly tried to bite one, expecting it to taste like a sweet.

  It had been, frankly, something of a disappointment.

  ‘That angora cardigan was my favourite,’ said James. ‘I loved to see her in it.’

  ‘She kept it for years.’

  ‘My beautiful Barbara.’ He ran an index finger lightly over the photo. ‘If she’d only trusted me, our lives could have been so different.’

  All our lives. Definitely different, hopefully better.

  Lara’s eyes prickled. ‘I wish she had.’

  ‘I know,’ said James. ‘Me too.’

  He had plenty to organise ahead of tomorrow’s departure for the States. Lara arranged for Flynn to pick her up at four o’clock.

  ‘But we’re not going to lose touch,’ James promised. ‘I mean that. As soon as I’m back from my trip I’m coming down to Bath to see you.’

  ‘I can’t wait.’ Lara meant it too.

  ‘And if it’s still standing, there’s a tree in Victoria Park with our initials carved into the trunk. I’ll have to show you that.’

  ‘Can you remember where it is?’

  James’s eyes crinkled at the corners. ‘How dare you? Of course I remember. BC and JA.’ He paused. ‘In a heart.’

  ‘Wow. That’s really . . .’

  ‘Naff. Corny. Ridiculous.’ He shrugged. ‘All those things, I know. But at the time it didn’t feel corny and ridiculous. When you love someone that much, you just want to . . . commemorate the occasion. Especially when it has to be a secret and you can’t tell anyone else. Leaving your initials in a tree is like proving the relationship exists.’

  Flynn arrived to pick her up. Lara introduced him to James Agnew. James said, ‘Look after this girl, she’s special,’ and Flynn said drily, ‘I’ve tried, believe me, but Lara doesn’t like being looked after.’

  Was that what he thought? It was more a matter of needing to completely trust the person doing it. But Lara didn’t argue the point. Instead she gave James a proper hug and said, ‘Considering I didn’t get to hear what I wanted to hear today, this has still been one of the best days of my life.’

  ‘Mine too.’ He embraced her in return. ‘And I’ll be coming to Bath as soon as I get back. Now, you’ve got the photos?’

  ‘All safe.’ She patted her bag. ‘I’ll scan them and send you copies. Thanks so much.’

  ‘And don’t forget, we’ve got something else to look forward to,’ James reminded her.

  ‘What’s that?’ said Flynn.

  Lara’s eyes danced. ‘We thought it might be fun to pay a surprise visit to Janice.’

  After having waited on tenterhooks for a week and a half, the envelope fell through the letterbox the morning after her trip to London to meet James Agnew. Lara, about to leave for work, tore it open and read the results from the lab, belatedly confirming that her father was indeed her father.

  Oh well, couldn’t be helped.

  It was the beginning of October; summer was behind them now and autumn had arrived, turning the leaves flame-red on the trees and ushering in misty mornings, a chill wind and the annual, always-welcome influx of customers in search of Halloween outfits.

  Not to mention a bit of a guilty secret . . .

  Anyway, don’t think about that now, work to do. Evie concentrated on ringing up her customers’ purchases and packing them into bags; not for a Halloween party this time, but one to celebrate their silver wedding.

  The couple, having come into the shop together, were still bickering amicably about the number of helium balloons they needed and which photographs of themselves should feature on the giant banner that was going to be hung across the front of their house.

  ‘It should be a picture of us now,’ the husband insisted.

  ‘Oh, Tommy, don’t even say that, I couldn’t bear it.’ An elaborate shudder. ‘Imagine a giant photo of me with all my bags and wrinkles . . . nobody’d turn up for the party! The sight of it would terrify the guests, send them running for the hills. Let’s have a nice pic of the two of us on our wedding day when we were young and lovely.’

  ‘My darling girl, you’ll always be young and lovely to me.’ Tommy winked as he said it, but with genuine affection.

  ‘Will you listen to him?’ His wife was laughing now. ‘What an old smoothie.’

  ‘Ah, but it’s true.’ He pretended to be affronted. ‘Even if you did just call me old. You’re my Maureen, more beautiful now than the day we were married. But if it’s really what you want, we’ll use the wedding photo.’

  They were so visibly, tangibly happy. Their togetherness was captivating. Evie filled the next bag with packets of table confetti, silver paper plates, silver and white striped tablecloths, swirling ceiling decorations and metallic streamers.

  ‘Leave that.’ Tommy stopped his wife from reaching to pick up the helium canister. ‘Too heavy. Let me do it. If we’d been more organised we’d have cleared out the boot of the car.’ Hoisting the box containing the canister into his arms, he said, ‘I’ll go and sort it now.’

  They watched him head outside, open the boot of the grey Audi and begin making room for everything they’d just bought.

  ‘Look at him,’ Maureen said fondly. ‘I still can’t believe it’s been twenty-five years. When we first got together no one thought we’d last twenty-five weeks.’

  ‘Really? Why not?’ Evie slotted the Amex card into the machine.

  ‘Ah well, Tommy was a bit of a lad in his early days. You know the type, good-looking, buckets of charm and all the chat that goes with it . . . my parents and sisters said I shouldn’t give him the time of day, they told me he’d break my heart.’ Maureen glanced out of the window once more. ‘But you know what? He settled down, we had five wonderful children and it’s been the best twenty-five years anyone could have wished for. We’re the happiest married couple I know.’

  ‘That’s . . . so lovely.’ It actually made Evie well up. You see? Leopards could change their spots and other people didn’t always know best.

  ‘Thanks, love.’ Maureen took the credit card and receipt. ‘Ah, he’s losing his hair now and putting on a bit of weight, but he’s still the one for me.’ As Tommy came back into the shop to pick up the rest of the bags, she added cheerily, ‘And my sisters who married so-called perfect men? Divorced, the lot of them! Turned out their husbands weren’t so perfect after all.’

  Yes . . .

  Freddy Krueger came into the shop just before closing time. One minute his long pointy fingers were clawing open the door, the next he was advancing menacingly towards her, his fedora tilted over one sinister eye.

  Evie said, ‘The real Freddy would be wearing a red and black striped sweater.’

  ‘Even mass murderers have to
wear a suit to work sometimes. It’s the opposite of dress-down Friday.’ His eyes glinted at her from behind the rubber mask. ‘Dress-up Freddy.’

  She tried not to smile. ‘And what are you doing here?’

  ‘I brought you something.’ Careful not to stab her with his plastic knife-blade fingers, he uncurled his hand and passed over a small scrumpled-up paper bag.

  ‘What is it?’ Evie opened the bag and found it full of wiry-looking strands of chocolate-powder-coated coconut. ‘Oh wow . . .’

  ‘Is that the stuff? You said it was your favourite when you were little.’

  ‘Yes, yes! Sweet tobacco, it was called . . . or Spanish Gold . . . I haven’t seen any for years.’ She put some into her mouth. ‘Oh, and it tastes exactly the same!’

  ‘I had a meeting in Bristol. There was a shop in St Nicholas’s Market selling retro-style sweets. I saw the Spanish Gold and thought of you.’

  ‘Freddy, thank you. If you like,’ said Evie, ‘you can take your mask off.’

  ‘Good idea. Before I suffocate.’

  She watched Joel pull off the knife-hands before removing his hat and peeling the mask off over his head. His blond hair stuck up at angles and he carelessly smoothed it back with the old familiar gesture she’d always found so endearing.

  ‘Ta-daaa,’ said Joel. ‘It’s me.’

  Evie smiled. ‘So it is.’

  This was her guilty secret, the one she hadn’t yet been able to bring herself to share with Lara. Not that anything had happened between her and Joel, not in that way, but relations between them had definitely improved. He’d stopped making over-the-top declarations and extravagant gestures. Instead it was like going back to the early years when friendship had first tipped over into flirtation. And it was nice, it was fun, she looked forward to seeing him when he turned up after work, ostensibly to have dinner with his family but actually – they both knew – to see her.

  Evie was enjoying his visits. Joel enjoyed them too. So did Bonnie, who was still longing for them to get back together. And it wasn’t a foregone conclusion that this would happen, but a bit of gentle flirting was harmless enough, wasn’t it? It brightened up her days no end. Lara and Gigi would doubtless tell her she was mad if they knew, but they didn’t have to live her life and they couldn’t begin to understand how it felt to be her. Finding out just how wrong she’d been about Ethan had knocked her confidence far more than they knew. Lara’s keenness for her and Harry to get together had only served to emphasise how impossible it was to conjure up a physical attraction when it didn’t exist.