‘Definitely not Serena’s style.’ She gave him a mischievous smile. ‘I’m glad you didn’t give it to her. I love it, Guy. Thank you.’

This time she reached up and kissed him, her warm lips brushing his cheek a decorous inch from his mouth just as he had done earlier. The same tingle of longing zipped through her. Janey, fantasizing wildly, wondered what Guy would do if she moved towards him ... moved her mouth to his.

The image flashed into her brain. ready-made, as if in answer. Pushy, eager Charlotte, throwing herself at Guy. Guy, good-humoured but resigned, wondering how the hell to fend her off without hurting her feelings. And Janey herself, hearing all about it, wondering how Charlotte could bear to make such an idiot of herself when he was so plainly uninterested.

No upturned bucket of ice-cold water could have shocked her to her senses more abruptly.

So much for wild fantasies, Janey decided, and prayed that Guy hadn’t been able to read her mind.

‘Thanks again for the bracelet.’ She took a hasty step backwards, pulling the scarf up over her chin once more and making a clumsy grab for the front door. ‘Gosh, it’s freezing outside!

Look at all those stars ... there’s even ice on your bird table ... poor old birds ...’

One stupid kiss on the cheek, Guy realized, shaking his head in disbelief, and she’d managed to give him a severe erection. Never mind the poor birds, he thought, watching Janey as she jumped into the van, anxious to get home to her undeserving pig of a husband. To hell with the wildlife. What about me?

Chapter 52

‘Janey, it’s me. Can you come over here right away?’

At the sound of her mother’s voice, Janey felt the muscles of her jaw automatically tighten.

Confiding her marital problems to Guy had been one thing, but she still considered Thea’s outburst in front of Alan to have been totally out of order. Even if she had been right, it was an unforgivable action.

They hadn’t spoken to each other since. And now here was Thea on the other end of the phone, expecting her to drop everything and rush over to see her. To add insult to injury, it was pouring with rain.

Squish, went the mister spray in Janey’s hand as she aimed it at a three-foot yucca plant.

‘I’m busy,’ she said, stretching past the yucca and giving the azaleas a shower. Squish, squish.

‘What do you want?’

‘I need to see you.’ Thea sounded quite unlike her usual self. ‘Please, Janey.’

Suspecting some kind of ulterior motive, Janey kept her own response guarded. ‘Why?’

‘Because Oliver is dead,’ said Thea quietly, and replaced the receiver.

* * *

He had died the previous evening, without warning, in her bed. Thea, having slipped out of the house at eight o’clock, had gone to the studio and worked for three hours on a new sculpture.

Returning finally with arms aching from the strenuous business of moulding the clay over the chicken-wire framework of the figure, and a glowing sense of achievement because it had all gone so well, she had climbed the stairs to her bedroom and found him. His reading glasses were beside him, resting on her empty pillow. The book he had been reading lay neatly closed on the floor next to the bed. It appeared, said the doctor who had come to the house, that Oliver had dozed off and suffered the stroke in his sleep. He wouldn’t have known a thing about it. All in all, the doctor explained in an attempt to comfort Thea, it was a marvellous way to go.

Thea, wrapped up in a cashmere sweater that still bore the scent of Oliver’s cologne, was huddled in the corner of the tatty, cushion-strewn sofa drinking a vast vodka-martini. There were still traces of dried clay in her hair and beneath her fingernails; her eyes, darker than ever with grief, were red-rimmed from crying.

Having left Paula in charge of the shop, and feeling horribly helpless, Janey helped herself to a vodka to keep her mother company. Their differences forgotten, because her own unhappiness paled into insignificance compared with Thea’s, Janey sat down and put her arms around her.

‘Bloody Oliver.’ Thea sniffed, continuing to gaze at the letter in her lap. ‘I keep thinking I could kill him for doing this to me. How could he keep this kind of thing to himself and not even warn me? Typical of the bloody man...’

She had found it in his wallet, neatly slotted in behind the credit cards. The plain white envelope bore her name. The contents of the letter inside had come as almost more of a shock than his death.

‘Are you sure you want me to read it?’ Janey frowned as her mother handed it to her. ‘Isn’t it private?’

‘Selfish bastard,’ Thea murmured, fishing up her sleeve for a crumpled handkerchief as the tears began to drop once more down her long nose. ‘Of course I want you to read it. How can any man be so selfish?’

Janey recognized the careful, elegant writing she’d noted on Oliver’s visit to her shop as she now read his farewell.

My darling Thea,

Well, if you’re reading this you’ve either been snooping shamelessly or I’m dead. But since I have faith in you, I shall assume the latter.

Now I suppose you’re as mad as hell with me for doing it this way because, yes, I knew it was going to happen in the not-too-distant future. My doctor warned me I was a walking time-bomb. And no, there was nothing that could be done either medically or surgically to prevent it happening. This time even money couldn’t help.

But think about it, sweetheart. Would you really have been happier, knowing the truth? I’m afraid I developed an all-consuming fear that you might try and persuade me to take things easy, maybe even not allowing me to make love to you as often as I liked for fear of overexerting myself What a deeply depressing prospect that would have been. Now perhaps you can begin to understand why I didn’t tell you!

Right, now for something you do already know. I love you, Thea. We may not have had a vast amount of time together but these last months have been the very happiest of my life. When I came to Cornwall, it was to see my grandchildren. How could I ever have guessed I would meet and fall so totally in love with a beautiful, bossy, wonderful woman who loved me in return? And for myself rather than for my money.

If, on the other hand, you’re reading this letter because you stole my wallet and were riffling through my credit cards, I trust you’re now ashamed of yourself That was a joke, sweetheart. No need to rip this letter to shreds. If I can keep my sense of humour, so can you.

I don’t know what else to say. I’m sorry if I’ve upset you, but even though my motives were selfish I still feel my decision was the right one to make. If you contact my solicitor (details in the black address book) he will organize the reading of my will. Maybe this will go some way towards making amends.

My darling, I love you so very much.

Oliver.

‘Well,’ said Janey, clearing her throat as she folded the pages of the letter and handed them back to her mother. ‘I think he was right.’

‘Of course he was right.’ With an irritable gesture, Thea wiped her wet face on her sleeve.

‘But that doesn’t mean I have to forgive him. Did he think I wouldn’t want anything to do with him if I’d known he was about to keel over and die?’

‘He’s explained why he didn’t want you to know,’ Janey reminded her. ‘He wanted to enjoy himself without being nagged. He didn’t want you endlessly worrying about him. He didn’t want you to be miserable.’

‘Well I am,’Thea shouted. ‘Bloody miserable! After all these years I finally meet the man I’ve waited for all my life, and he has to go and do this to me. It isn’t fair!’

Nothing she could say, Janey realized, was going to help her mother. All she could do was be there.

‘At least you met him,’ she said, giving Thea another hug. ‘If you hadn’t, think what you would have missed. Surely a few months with Oliver was better than nothing at all?’

‘In a couple of years, maybe I’ll think that.’ Thea passed Janey her empty glass. ‘All I know right now is that it hurts like hell. Get me another drink, darling. A big one. On second thoughts, just give me yours. You have to drive.’

‘It’s OK, Mum. I don’t have to go anywhere.’

‘Yes, you do,’ said Thea. ‘Someone has to tell Guy Cassidy his father is dead. He might not care,’ she added bitterly, ‘but he still has to know.’

Guy couldn’t believe what he was hearing. And from Janey, of all people. So much, he decided, for mutual trust.

Maxine had gone to the supermarket and the children were at school. Janey, sitting bolt upright on a kitchen chair with her wet hair plastered to her head, had refused his offer of coffee and had come straight to the point. She was also, very obviously, on Thea’s side.

‘So what you’re telling me,’ said Guy evenly, ‘is that your mother has been having an affair with my father. They’ve practically been living together. And you knew all about it.’

He was clearly angry. And Thea had been right, thought Janey. The fact that Oliver was dead wasn’t what was bothering him. The anger was directed solely at her.

‘I found out about it, yes.’ Struggling to curb her impatience, she pushed a damp strand of hair away from her eye. ‘But is that really important? OK, so you had a quarrel with him years ago but that’s over now. Guy, your father died last night. Josh and Ella will be upset even if you aren’t.’

‘You knew where he was all the time.’ It was as if he hadn’t heard her. ‘And you didn’t tell me.’

Janey’s dark eyes flashed. The contrast between Thea’s terrible grief and this total lack of concern couldn’t have been more marked. ‘I thought about telling you,’ she said coldly. ‘And I decided against it. I’m glad now that I did.’

‘Did what?’ Maxine, buckling under the weight of six carrier bags, and even more sodden and bedraggled than Janey, appeared in the doorway. ‘Am I interrupting something personal here?’ Her eyebrows creased in suspicion. ‘Are you talking about me?’

Guy, assuming that Maxine was in on it too, didn’t say anything.

‘Oliver Cassidy died last night,’ Janey told her.

‘Oh my God, you’re not serious!’ For a moment, Maxine looked as if she didn’t know whether to laugh orcry. One of the carrier bags dropped to the floor with an ominous crash.

‘No, it’s a joke,’ snapped Guy.

‘So he wasn’t lying,’ Maxine wailed. ‘I knew he wouldn’t lie to me! Bloody Bruno . !’

‘What?’ Guy demanded, sensing that he hadn’t heard anything yet. He glared at Maxine.

‘Come on, out with it! What else has been going on that I don’t know about?’

Jesus,’ he sighed, when she had finished telling him.

‘Oh calm down.’ Maxine, having rummaged energetically through every carrier, finally located the chocolate digestives. ‘He’s dead now, so what does it matter? I’m just glad I let him see the kids,’ she added with renewed defiance. ‘Go on, have a biscuit.’

It was like a jigsaw puzzle, thought Guy. Everyone had been holding different pieces.

Maxine’s story was clearly news to Janey.

But the oddness of Janey’s presence in the house had apparently only just struck Maxine.

Turning to her sister and speaking through a mouthful of biscuit, she said, ‘I don’t understand.

Why are you here?’

‘Janey came to tell me about my father.’ Guy couldn’t resist it. It was, he decided, his turn to spring a surprise. Maxine frowned. ‘But how did she know?’

‘Your mother sent her over here.’ His eyes glittered with malicious pleasure. ‘My father, you see, was in her bed when he died.’

The funeral took place three days later. With typical thoroughness and attention to detail, Oliver Cassidy had made all the arrangements himself. Even he, however, hadn’t been able to organize the weather, which had gone from bad to atrocious. Trezale churchyard, cruelly exposed to the elements, was awash with freezing rain. The small funeral party had to struggle to stay standing against the force of the bitter, north-westerly gales as Oliver’s coffin was lowered slowly into the ground.

Back at Thea’s house afterwards, the sitting room was warm but the atmosphere remained distinctly chilly. Guy, barely speaking to anyone, looked bored. Douglas Burke, Oliver’s solicitor, had travelled down from Bristol to preside over the reading of the will as instructed by his late client and was anxious to get it over with so that he might return home to his extremely pregnant wife. Thea was desperately trying to contain her grief. Only the presence of Ella and Josh, who had insisted on attending the funeral, brightened the proceedings at all.