‘You’ll never believe the fight I had to put up to keep her,’ he said, glancing at me. ‘One bloke looking after a baby on his own! Social Services weren’t having that. They said they were going to take her and find her a foster home. I said, “Over my dead body”. But they wouldn’t give up. Came knocking at midnight, demanding that I hand my little girl over. I told them they’d have to take her by force.’

Glancing up, I caught Jack’s eyes on me and saw in them a gleam of humour as he recognised the story I’d told him on the boat. But he concealed it from Grandad and asked in a suitably awed voice, ‘You beat them off at the door?’

‘Of course I did. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for my little girl.’

Jack suddenly began to concentrate on his plate. I could see him restraining his laughter with difficulty, but Grandad, lost in lyrical flight, noticed nothing amiss.

He became expansive. The rest of the family crept into the conversation, with all the riper stories raked up and relived. I made feeble attempts to stop him, but somehow Jack always sabotaged these efforts, so at last I gave up and went with the flow.

Even so, I wasn’t for prepared for Jack saying, ‘We’ll have them all to the party.’

‘Party?’ Grandad’s eyes popped.

‘The party to celebrate Della’s return. We’ll fix a date and you must call them all up.’

‘Jack,’ I said nervously, ‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea-’

His eyes flashed, warning me to say no more. ‘I think it’s a great idea.’

‘’Course it is!’ Grandad yelped. ‘We’ll have a great party. Leave it all to me.’ He patted my hand. ‘Just wait till they see this place, luv. It’ll make their eyes pop.’

I groaned, and hid my head in my hands, but Jack seemed unfazed.

When the meal was over Grandad had an attack of tact and went off to bed. I think Jack and I were equally embarrassed. I washed up, ignoring his protests, and went to my own room.

Getting to sleep wasn’t easy, and when I did nod off I awoke after a couple of hours. I got up and went out, meaning to head for the kitchen. But the light from my room, falling onto the sofa, showed me the last thing I’d expected.

Jack was stretched out under a blanket. I stayed still for a moment, watching him, holding my breath. With his daytime patina of confidence gone, he looked worn and haggard. I’d thought he looked older at the prison, but this was worse.

I’d done this to him.

I crept closer and sat down on a stool where I could see his face more closely. The last time I’d seen him asleep had been on the boat, when we’d both been full of loving and his face had shown blissful contentment. Not any longer.

The noise of snoring had been coming faintly from beyond the bedroom door. Now it suddenly increased, causing Jack to give a start and wake up. He didn’t show any surprise to find me there, but yawned and stretched.

‘Hello,’ he said sleepily.

‘I’m sorry about this. Grandad driving you out, I mean. I guess you didn’t know what you were taking on.’

He grinned ruefully.

‘I admit the snoring takes some getting used to, but he’s a great old boy.’

‘Just the same, this can’t go on. You need your sleep, and you don’t need to have your days disrupted. I think Grandad and I should go home tomorrow.’

‘Great, if you want to get me into real trouble.’

‘What do you mean? I’m not going to abscond. I’ll turn up in court on the right day.’

‘You don’t understand. I’m standing surety for you. The court needed a promise about where you’d stay, and the lawyer gave them this address. If you move out they’ll haul me into court.’

I just gaped at him. I’d faced court in a haze, and I hadn’t understood this.

‘You promised them that I’d stay in your home?’

‘I didn’t say anything about it being mine. I still officially live with Grace. Nobody will connect me.’

‘They will in the end. Jack, you’re taking such risks for me.’

‘You’ve taken a few risks yourself, haven’t you?’

‘But not for you. You don’t owe me anything.’

‘Yes I do. Selina married Derek. I guess that’s down to you.’

‘I saw it in the papers. Big society do. Has Grace tried to pair you off with anyone else?’

‘No. I think she’s understood now that my stubbornness is greater than her cunning.’

‘You’re not too bad in the cunning stakes yourself,’ I observed wryly.

‘Thanks to you. I’m in your debt.’

‘Is that what you’re doing now? Paying a debt you think you owe me?’

He shrugged. ‘I guess. Why not? Paying debts in full and on time is good business practice.’ He said the last words with slow emphasis.

‘And you believe in good business practice?’ I hazarded.

‘It’s what makes the world go round.’

‘Isn’t it supposed to be love that does that?’

‘Supposed to be. But that’s an old wives’ tale. Business is more reliable. But you have to do it right. When I’ve finished we’ll be even. All debts paid, loose ends tied up. And then,’ he added in an almost inaudible voice, ‘then maybe I can sleep.’

He was still stretched out on the sofa. I dropped down beside him and he took hold of my shoulders. He was looking straight up at me, but I had a strange feeling he couldn’t see me.

‘Sleep,’ he whispered again. ‘But then I’d wake and hear you crying, like that last morning. I was never sure whether I imagined it or not.’

‘You didn’t imagine it,’ I said. ‘I was crying at leaving you.’

‘I never stopped hearing that sound, night after night.’ He closed his eyes tight, as if in pain. ‘You shouldn’t have left me with that in my ears.’

‘I shouldn’t have done anything the way I did,’ I whispered. ‘I got everything wrong. I thought I was doing the right thing. I didn’t mean to hurt you, Jack. I thought I was just a holiday romance.’

‘Was that what I was to you?’

‘Oh, no, no!’

He stroked a wisp of hair away from my forehead. ‘Why couldn’t you have trusted me?’ he said. ‘When I found you’d gone I nearly went crazy. It was like coming to an oasis in the desert and then finding it was only a mirage. And then the desert is all around you and there’s no way out.’

‘You’re asking me to use hindsight,’ I pleaded. ‘At the time it felt like the right thing to do. Maybe if I’d told you everything from the start it might have been different, but I felt as if I’d tricked you into loving me by hiding the truth.’

There was a silence before he said in an odd voice, ‘Meaning that if I’d known the truth I wouldn’t have loved you?’

‘Meaning that you’d have been warned in time and you could have been cautious before it was too late.’

He stared at me for a moment, then rose so sharply that I slid to the floor.

‘Thanks,’ he said harshly. ‘That’s all I needed.’

‘What?’

‘That’s what you think of me? Cold-blooded, calculating, willing and able to be cautious once I’ve assessed the conditions and found them unsuitable? You call that love? Damn you, that’s an insult to everything I ever felt for you.’

‘Jack, I didn’t mean-’

‘I know what you meant, and I call it arrogance. You made the decision for both of us. You thought you were the only one who could decide. Did it ever occur to you that I was a thinking human being who liked to make his own decisions? Maybe I could have coped. Maybe I could have found a way around it.’

I no longer tried to stop him. What was coming out was a stream of rage that had been building up for a long time.

‘Della, did it ever occur to you that your family of small-time con artists is no big deal? You think you’re the only one who’s got friends in jail? Last year I nearly did some business with a fellow whose company I really enjoyed. He was funny, bright, well-mannered, and an expert in his field. But the negotiations got nowhere because he was arrested for massive fraud. He’s currently doing ten years in a New York jail for filching thirty million.’

That silenced me.

‘There are probably more crimes committed in my world than yours,’ Jack went on. ‘Only they’re mostly dressed up so that they don’t look like crimes. Bribery, corruption-you name it. I don’t go in for it myself, but I know people who do. I can’t help that. It’s a fact of life. So maybe your folks buy stuff that fell off the back of a lorry? Big deal!’

I’d picked myself up off the floor and sat down on the sofa again. He gave an exasperated sigh and sat down beside me.

‘I know my way around the big jungle, Della. I can cope with it. And I could sure as hell have coped with your little jungle.’

I felt winded. Had I been arrogant? Denying him the right to make his own decisions? Had I thrown everything away for nothing?

And it had been totally thrown away, because I’d heard him speaking in the past tense. He’d said, I could have coped, not I can cope.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I never thought of it that way.’

His anger had passed, and he took my hand. It wasn’t the start of anything, just a friend comforting a friend.

‘How have you been?’ he asked quietly.

‘Sad,’ I said. ‘You?’

He nodded. After a while he said heavily, ‘I found the jewellery where you said it was. There was no need for that. It was rightfully yours. I gave it to you.’

‘I could never really feel it was mine,’ I said. ‘Except Charlie.’

He rose and went to a small chest of drawers, returning after a moment and holding something out to me. It was Charlie.

‘Take him,’ he said. ‘He’s always been yours.’

‘Thank you.’

I took him gratefully. As everything else had been taken away I had clung to Charlie, sitting up at night and holding him in my hand like a talisman. Losing him had been like losing Jack again. Now the sight of him made me smile.

‘I haven’t seen you smile since we met again,’ he said.

‘I’m glad to have him back,’ I said softly. ‘I’ve missed him so much.’

‘Only him?’ he asked quietly.

‘No, not only him. But he was really mine. I didn’t think you could ever be.’

‘That’s not true, Della. I was all yours. But maybe we were never as close as I thought. Was I only fooling myself, then?’

‘Perhaps you were. When I wouldn’t tell you about myself, maybe you filled the blank spaces with a fantasy.’

‘And are words all that count? When you came into my arms that last night, don’t you think my heart knew you then in the only way that matters? Didn’t your heart know me?’

I nodded, feeling a lump in my throat. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It knew everything.’

I was crying as I said it, and he reached out and held me close. I put my arms about him and we sat there for a while, comforting each other and mourning what we’d had and lost.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Della’s Story

JUST as I’d feared, Jack insisted on having the party. Grandad began planning the food, but Jack managed tactfully to steer him away.

‘I don’t think beans on toast will quite meet the case,’ he said.

‘He can do other things.’ I defended Grandad. ‘Sardines on toast, cheese on toast, mushrooms on toast.’

‘I think I’ll stick to my catering firm.’

For a few days we didn’t see him. He was spending his nights at the house he nominally shared with Grace. Grandad became sentimental.

‘Knight in shining armour,’ he declared. ‘He won’t stay here in case he compromises you.’

‘Grandad, come into the twenty-first century,’ I begged. ‘Nobody thinks like that any more.’

‘What else could it be?’

I could imagine another reason. The night Jack and I had talked, we’d got closer than we’d meant to. Now I reckoned he was embarrassed to be with me in case I started hoping for more than he had to offer.

But I didn’t say that to Grandad. I just murmured something about his snoring, he hotly denied that he ever snored, and we left it at that.

Jack returned unexpectedly one evening when Grandad had gone to bed. He looked harassed.

‘Grace won’t let the subject alone and it’s doing my head in,’ he groaned.

‘The subject being me?’

‘You, and my foolishness in getting mixed up…etc. etc.’

‘Put your feet up. I’ll make you some supper.’

‘It’s not beans on toast, is it?’ he asked in alarm.

I laughed. ‘No. Scrambled eggs, because they’re nice and light.’

We sat down at the table together and he ate with relish.

‘Grace laid on a fantastic meal tonight,’ he said, ‘and I could hardly eat any of it for the indigestion she was giving me.’

‘Poor Grace,’ I said.

He stared at me. ‘That’s the last thing I expected you to say.’

‘Well, she sent you to my rescue, however little she meant to. Maybe I owe her one. I can’t help seeing that she’s scared and miserable. You’re all she has. The days when you really did need her were probably her happiest ones and she’s trying to keep some part of them alive.’