‘A woman?’
‘You know, one of those superior creatures with soft curvy bits that drive men wild.’
‘But so soon after Orla?’
‘There wouldn’t be an easier time for it to happen, when he’s vulnerable and at the mercy of his emotions. What better way to recover from his grief than to fall in love? Or to fall in lust for that matter?’
‘Do you think that’s what I would do?’ Danny had asked, shocked. ‘Find myself a replacement for you?’ Frankie never failed to surprise him with her pragmatism.
‘I’m not saying you’d seek a replacement straightaway, but your subconscious would be on the look out for a likely candidate.’
‘Is that what you’d do?’ As he’d asked the question, the grasping hand he imagined taking hold of his heart made its presence felt and he’d sat down.
Frankie had stopped what she was doing, laying out squares of fabric on her work table and stared at him. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ he’d lied, suddenly feeling clammy, his pulse beginning to race.
She’d come over to him then, knelt on the floor, her hands resting on his knees. ‘Danny,’ she’d said, in that gentle voice of hers, ‘you have to stop worrying about everything. You care too much, that’s your trouble. You always take things so personally.’
Did he? Did he really care too much? Was such a thing possible? If it was, was that what had caused him to collapse in the first place?
And why should it bother him that Alastair might have met somebody and fallen in love again? Didn’t he want his closest friend to be happy?
Not if it meant things would have to change any more than they had already in the last year – first Orla, then his mother, and then his ‘bump in the road’, followed by retirement.
He wasn’t a fan of change; he’d experienced too much of it as a young child. He liked things to stay the same. Rarely did it happen, but if there was the faintest of chances that Frankie was wrong, that Alastair hadn’t met a woman, what else could it be that he was so keen to share with them?
Chapter Four
Friday morning and the prospect of getting out of London for the weekend and escaping to Norfolk brightened Jenna’s day considerably. It would be great to see Uncle Alastair again and to hear all about his time away. After the charity projects he’d been involved with, she imagined it might take some readjustment to being back at Linston End.
For her part, she couldn’t wait to be there, to spend two days relaxing by the river with friends and family. She had no complaints about her life in London, and her new job at Heart-to-Heart, but never far from her thoughts was the hope that one day she would gravitate back to Suffolk, or maybe even Norfolk, just as Callum had. She envied the life he’d carved out for himself, but she especially envied his cosy little cottage right on the river, the shortest of walks from where he worked. It was a far cry from the cramped studio flat she rented in Hackney and her tedious, jam-packed commute. A temporary arrangement, she regularly told herself. One day her life would be how she wanted it to be.
For now, she was fortunate to have a job she loved and a fun team to work with. She had been at Heart-to-Heart for three months, her decision to leave the goliath of a law firm where she’d previously worked coming shortly after her father’s heart attack. She had grown bored of her then situation, having also made the mistake of forming a relationship with a colleague. Boredom was anathema to her, as were bad manners, and when she realised that Giles thought nothing of humiliating a waiter who made a mistake over their drinks order, she told him exactly what she thought of his behaviour. For good measure, just in case he needed it spelling out, she’d said, ‘I think we can safely say this relationship is over.’
From then on he made life awkward for her in the office, freezing her out of conversations, or worse, trying to make her look incompetent by deliberately not keeping her informed about a case they were assigned to. She was about to go to HR and lodge an official complaint, when Dad suffered his heart attack and suddenly Giles and his pettiness was the least of her concerns.
To be sure that Dad was receiving the correct treatment and care, she took to the Internet. As the leading charity in the country for research into heart disease, Heart-to-Heart figured largely in her online trawl for information, and when she came across a link for employment opportunities, she delved a little further and discovered an interesting job working in the legacy department. It appealed straightaway and following several rounds of interviews, she was taken on. Her team, including herself, numbered eight – six women and two men – all roughly in their mid-thirties, the same age as she was. She found the work enormously satisfying, and was astounded at the generosity of donors who bequeathed hundreds of thousands of pounds to the charity, their homes as well. The downside to these incredible acts of generosity was that occasionally there were disgruntled relatives who contested the will.
There was a great sense of camaraderie within the team, something that had been markedly absent from her previous place of work; there it had been a testosterone-fuelled bear pit of competitive aggression. But as well as she got on with everyone in the office, she had vowed never to become romantically involved with any of her colleagues. Which meant, given how much time she spent at work, there was little opportunity to meet anybody new. She had been unattached for nine months now, and in Rachel’s opinion – given that Jenna was thirty-five years old – this was a very unsatisfactory state of affairs.
She smiled at the thought of Rachel and her bizarre eagerness to be married, and to anyone, or so it seemed to Jenna. For reasons which Jenna couldn’t fathom, her friend had been planning her wedding since the age of six. Back then she had forced her brother Callum to pretend to be her bridegroom and Jenna her bridesmaid. Sometimes their roles were reversed, but Rachel was always the bride. The part of vicar alternated between one of their teddy bears and Callum’s precious Darth Vader action figure.
It felt like ages since all three of them had been together, with their parents too, and Jenna couldn’t wait to finish work and make a dash for Liverpool Street Station. She was meeting Rachel there and they were travelling up together. She hoped Rachel wouldn’t be late; punctuality had never been part of her skill set. To be on the safe side, Jenna sent her a text, then returned her attention to the matter she had volunteered to take on, that of constructing a Punch and Judy booth.
The charity was often left strange items in wills, but this one from a Mr Jim Percival of Basildon had drawn a mixed reaction on its arrival. Some had backed away when they caught sight of one of the puppets, others had smiled and adopted Punch’s well-known catchphrase –That’s the way to do it!– before drifting back to their desks.
The bequest had been delivered to the office that morning in a large wooden chest, not unlike a coffin, the courier having left it downstairs in the shared foyer of the building. Not knowing exactly what to expect, Jenna had gone down for it on her own and with a bit of help from the receptionist, together they had carried it into the lift by the rope handles at each end. It was surprisingly heavy and awkward in size, and the only way they could get it inside the lift was to stand it upright, which made it seem even more like a coffin.
The letter from Mr Percival’s solicitor, advising them of the donation and its arrival, explained that puppets were traditionally burned or buried with their owner – or professor, to use the correct terminology – but in this case Mr Percival had wanted his collection, and the booth, to go to Heart-to-Heart, being all he had left to donate to the charity. The solicitor’s letter further explained that Mrs Percival had died of heart disease and her husband had wanted to give something in her memory to help others. Apparently they had performed their Punch and Judy shows on Margate beach during the 1960s and then when the vogue for British seaside holidays had fallen out of fashion, they had taken their act on the road, performing at village fetes, country shows and birthday parties.
The faded red and white booth now constructed, Jenna unwrapped the rest of the puppets, carefully removing their cloth bags and setting them out on her desk. Most were made of papier mâché, while the others were of carved wood. In all there was quite an array, each one a variation on the usual suspects – Mr Punch, Judy, the baby, the policeman, the doctor, the crocodile, the hangman and the devil. There was a dog with a string of sausages, and a few characters Jenna didn’t know.
Unable to resist it, and checking nobody was about, Jenna slipped her hand inside a particularly old-looking Mr Punch. She found the lever on the wooden grip and moved it with her thumb to open Mr Punch’s mouth. She smiled and snapped the mouth open and shut. ‘That’s the way to do it!’ she said.
‘Is it really?’
She spun round, and like a guilty child caught stealing a biscuit, she hid Mr Punch behind her back.
