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CHAPTER 1 Flashlight
Helen's father was late. Not late enough to cause genuine anxiety, but sufficient to indicate an alternative agenda. She lit a cigarette and tried hard to ignore her aunt's disapproving expression.
“He made the arrangements and he said six at the latest.” She returned once more to the window, her arms wrapped
protectively round her too-thin frame.
“Then he'll be here,” reassured Aunt Rosemary. “Stop flapping, for heaven's sake. And cut down on the smoking, or he'll blame Edward and me for not looking after you.”
“Bollocks!” said Helen. “He knows you better than that.” She stubbed out the cigarette. “I’m sorry, I forgot I’m trying to give it up. And you and Uncle Edward have been so kind. I don’t know what I would have done without you.” She smiled with rueful affection at her father's sister, who had stepped in with decisive common sense when Helen's life was falling apart. Aunt Rosemary had glued it back together and carried Helen off to convalesce at her comfortable, Chichester home.
A car was reversing rapidly up the drive. “At last!” said Helen.
“Helen,” said her aunt, “Promise me you won't give him a hard time? Remember he's suffered too.”
Her niece paused in the act of checking the contents of her handbag. “Then he shouldn't be so late,” she retorted and thought, if he's brought that woman, I'll kill him!
He was alone. Helen watched with cynical amusement as her father neatly evaded his sister's cunningly constructed
enquiries concerning his recent personal life. He doesn't look nearly fifty, she thought, studying his craggy good looks and well-built body with a clarity sharpened by two weeks separation. No wonder there have always been women.
“So sorry, sweetheart. Got held up.” His eyes crinkled as he offered her the affectionate grin which always made her feel about ten. But there was something else. Her maturer instincts told her he was being more than usually evasive with his
sister, so she made only token protest as he collected her bags and hurried her into the car.
“It shows,” she said as she fastened her safety belt. “Perhaps you'd better tell me before one of us explodes.”
Elation struggled with something less definable. “I've sold the house,” he said.
Although she had been aware that this was inevitable, Helen was still unprepared. The nerves in her stomach gave a
warning frisson.
He shot her a sidelong glance. “Sorry, did I spring it on you too fast? You know why it has to go.”
Helen nodded. She was thinking bitterly that, thread by thread, the fabric of twenty-seven years was being unravelled. Ever since the previous August, her accustomed pattern of life had been fretted and worn away. It had begun with her mother's death and had continued with her own serious illness. Now she thought, it was about to be compounded by her
father's complete irresponsibility. “So, where the bloody hell are we going to live?”
He hesitated. “At Kate's, until we can make permanent arrangements.”
So this was the reason he had been so reticent with Aunt Rosemary. One of the tenser aspects of Helen's convalescence had been her aunt's avid curiosity concerning the state of George Bradley's flourishing relationship with his personal assistant.
Inner turmoil gave way to a sudden suspicion. “I suppose you didn't go and get married while I was out of the way?”
“As if I'd do that!” He sounded hurt. “Besides, we've decided to save it for my birthday.” The grin he gave her lit up his features and softened some of the strain.
“You needn't think you can get round me like that,” she retorted, surprised by a treacherous inclination to grin back. “And I hope you're not saying that we all have to live in sin until the twenty-third of June?”
“ ‘Fraid so, sweetheart.”
“Well, you can count me out. I'm going back to Risborough Avenue.”
“I’m sorry but you can't.”
“Why? What have you done with it?” She felt furious with him.
“Don't be silly. I told you. I've sold it. We complete next week.”
“Then how about going to a hotel?”
“Because it’s too expensive and I don't want to. Oh come on, Helen! You're not usually naive.”
“I could say that about you,” she replied, more composed now, but feeling waspish. “After all, twenty years is considered a dangerous age gap, even now.”
A strategic silence lasted until the traffic lights at Horsham. “Let's talk about you,” he said. “Have you finally made up your mind to ditch the library?”
She nodded, the coward inside responding with relief to the less controversial topic. “I decided in the end you might be right. That the money Birdie left was intended to provide me with alternatives. So I've written and given in my notice.”
He nodded approval. She realised he had never said one dissenting word against the uncompromising terms of her late mother's will, which had left everything to Helen. Her father had received only Birdie's half of their joint property and some shares. Helen had immediately recognised the belated protest against his extra-marital activities and suspected he had too. It amused her to think Birdie's seemingly endless, head in the sand, tolerance had limits.
“Will we going back to Risborough Avenue at all?” she asked.
“No. That's why I was so late. I've spent most of the afternoon with the buyer at the solicitor's. The chap's come back from abroad with a young family, has substantial cash and wants to get in fast. We wanted a quick sale and this was far too good to miss, so we re-negotiated.” He paused, then continued quickly, “Kate and I had already packed up most of the personal stuff and the men will be in on Monday to collect furniture for storage.”
No mother, no home, no job, thought Helen, I am an atom floating in a void. Even my father belongs to someone else. “You should have left me to deal with Birdie's things,” she said brusquely. He didn't reply. “Why don't you say something?” she glared at him. “I suppose there's no alternative to going to Kate's now you've started asset stripping. I hope you didn’t
donate her the dolls and Birdie's desk, or have you sold them too?”
The jerked gear change informed her that she had finally succeeded in angering him. “No, I bloody haven't!” he snapped. “What sort of insensitive git do you think I am, Helen? Of course you must decide what happens to them. And your precious computer is boxed up and stored at the office, and your car is in the yard.”
An atom with assets, thought Helen and felt slightly better. Her late mother had collected antique and interesting dolls since childhood. In latter years, she had also produced high-quality reproductions and a range of modern artists' dolls,
working from a studio which she shared with another ceramic specialist. Their combined talents had become the basis of a small but successful business. Some people were even more intrigued when they discovered that Birdie did all her delicate work from a wheelchair.
“You still haven't told me how you're feeling now.” Her father's voice broke into her thoughts.
She made a supreme effort to respond briskly. “Oh, I'm much better. The scar's healed well and my weight's going up rapidly, thanks to Aunt Rosemary.”
“You know I didn't mean only that.”
Deliberately, Helen focused on the irritation being caused by her father's casual attitude concerning their home. She had no desire to become trapped again in the morass of confused anxieties which had preceded and followed her recent operation. She knew her father was seeking reassurance that she was at last feeling happier about his plans to marry his thirty year old assistant. But she was still experiencing problems. And the emotional tuning between them was too acute for successful
deception, even if she had wished it.
He sighed. “I'm sorry. It will all work out, you'll see.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Ten minutes later, the black BMW had been parked. Helen, critically examining the unpretentious, semi-detached house, was acutely aware of Kate Porter standing in the doorway, displaying a determined smile. Living with George Bradley, even in sin, she thought sourly as she walked up the path, obviously agreed with Kate. There was a fresh, glossy sheen about her russet colouring, which commanded attention, and her dark eyes glowed, warmly tender, particularly when they alighted on George. He grinned back like the village idiot and Helen felt excluded.
“You do look so much better, Helen,” remarked Kate as they self-consciously kissed. “I hope George has brought you up to date about the arrangements.”
Smug cow, though Helen, giving a curt nod.
“Although I can't say I've taken it all in yet. I gather we're living here.” She was incapable of sounding more enthusiastic than she felt and was satisfied as Kate's radiance slipped a notch.
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