Chapter 28
Waking, groggily, to see the sky painted pink and orange, Jules was disorientated. Was it sunrise or sunset? She lay still
for a moment while her memory returned. The fire. Roman. Going to bed at the height of the morning. She climbed out of bed,
her head pounding slightly, and went to explore.
“Darling,” said Aunt Flo as she came out of the little kitchen. “How are you feeling? Did you sleep? I’ve made macaroni cheese.”
“Yum,” said Jules, giving Flo a hug. Suddenly it seemed important to show people she loved them. All the time. Because you
just didn’t know how long you had. “Macaroni cheese is exactly what I feel like. Actually, I’m starving.”
“Not surprised,” said Flo. “After your exciting adventures, I didn’t like to wake you at lunchtime—you needed the rest. Now,
let’s be slobby and eat supper on our knees. You go through and cuddle up with Merlin by the fire.”
Jules followed instructions and found the venerable old feline curled into a perfect circle in the middle of one of the fireside armchairs.
He purred rustily when she lifted him and then settled him back down on her lap, where he pummeled her briefly with his paws, claws carefully sheathed.
Then, curling back into his perfect circle and tucking his nose under his tail, he went instantly back to sleep.
The little fire was blazing merrily in the grate, so cheerful and benign in contrast with the thick black smoke and the evil
glow of the flames imprinted on her mind’s eye from the night before. Jules gazed around the little room, cozy and familiar
in the lamplight. It was almost impossible to think that all this would be gone by the end of the year.
Flo came in carrying a tray with napkins, forks, and two deep green bowls, piled high and steaming gently. There were even
two wineglasses filled generously with purply-red wine. “I thought we could do with a little glass of something,” explained
Flo, handing one to Jules.
“Wow,” mumbled Jules with her mouth full, moments later. The macaroni cheese was absolutely delicious, of course; there were
pasta spirals rather than proper macaroni, coated with smooth, rich bechamel sauce rendered yellow with mustard and cheese,
studded with lardons, and gooey with chunks of mozzarella. Each of the women had generous portions of the bronzed cheddar
topping too, gleaming with oil and intensely salty.
Aunt Flo always made amazing macaroni cheese.
Jules had to concentrate on not wolfing the lot down in under a minute. When she had finished, she sat dreamily staring into
the fire, stroking Merlin and sipping her wine. It was full, heady, and rich, with berry flavors bursting against the roof
of her mouth and warming her from within.
This intoxicating combination of elation and contentment was compelling. Jules could get used to it, she decided.
Turning her head, she noticed Flo sitting and watching her quietly.
“I’m so glad you’re happy, darling,” she said softly. “I can’t tell you how it warms my soul... you deserve this, my love. You and Roman together. You are going to have such a wonderful life together. I just know it.”
“Whoa, steady.” Jules smiled. “Early days...” But Aunt Flo was right. She was incapable of wiping the grin off her face.
And then the mood music darkened. It was all very well that she and Roman were happy, but what about poor Aunt Flo. What was
going to become of her by Christmas? “I just worry about you and Mum together,” fretted Jules.
“Ah! Well... I was just looking today, as it happens,” said Flo, determinedly upbeat. “There is a dear little two-bed flat
available for rent on the Whitchurch Estate. So convenient for the shops, and not that far from the beach, really. I mean,
there’s always the bus.”
“Oof, the Whitchurch Estate? Isn’t that a bit rough?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Flo brightly. “I think these things can be overstated. I’ve always met lovely people everywhere I’ve
gone.”
“That’s because you’re lovely.”
Flo reached for some estate agent details on the coffee table. “Here,” she said, handing them to Jules.
It was a low-rise block, previously rendered white but now gray with streaks of green and brown. The photographer hadn’t taken
the care to remove the shopping trolley and stained mattress. Jules flicked through the euphemistic copy, concentrating on
the floor plan and internal photos. The general impression was of peeling wallpaper and curtains hanging limply from broken
rails.
“It looks awful,” said Jules grimly.
“Decent room sizes, though,” said Flo.
“If you say so.”
“And it could do with a lick of paint, I’ll admit,” said Flo. “Perhaps we could all pitch in. I could get in some beer, make
a pot of chili. We could have a painting party.”
“Is it really the best that can be done?”
“It’s affordable,” said Flo firmly. “No point beating about the bush. My little pension will cover it with enough money to live on left over if I’m careful. That’s the key thing.”
“It shouldn’t be the key thing,” said Jules mulishly. Her darling aunt Flo shouldn’t have to be contemplating such a move
at her age, after a lifetime of working so hard and looking after everyone. “I can help,” Jules added. God knows how, but
she damned well would.
“ Ab -solutely not,” said Flo firmly. “I have never been beholden to anyone, and I’m not going to start now.”
“But I thought you’d agreed to the moving in with Mum thing,” said Jules. “At least then you’d be in Middlemass, which is
lovely. And you’d have people like Diana and Mungo as your neighbors, rather than all the local drug dealers.”
“Now you’re being dramatic, darling,” said Flo. “We have to be realistic. You know your mother and I would kill each other.
I’ll be fine.”
If only Aunt Flo wasn’t on her own in life, thought Jules, stifling tears. The last thing she wanted was for Flo to see that.
She had to be strong.
“Why do you think you never found your own Roman?” she asked.
Flo snorted. “Who’s to say I didn’t?” she retorted. “I was young and beautiful once too, you know.”
“Of course, you were,” said Jules quickly. “And you’re beautiful now, come to that. At least,” she added cheekily, “your lovely
Graham seems to think so.”
“Ah, Graham. Such a sweet man, but no, bless him, I wouldn’t call him the love of my life.”
“And who was?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know, madam,” said Flo, smiling delightedly. “Ah, it’s a joy to think back—goodness we’re talking many, many years
ago now...”
“But you didn’t end up with this mystery man?”
“Sadly no. Still,” said Flo briskly, “better to have loved and lost and all that.”
Here, Flo fell silent, looking sad.
“And you definitely wouldn’t consider moving in with Mum?”
“I’m afraid your mother is a rather complicated person,” she said, returning to the previous topic. “Quite a handful, as I
have doubtless told you often enough, but she had her reasons. Losing her own mother so young...”
“But then she had you to bring her up,” added Jules. “She was lucky.”
“And I was jolly lucky to be around when you were growing up too,” said Flo. “Of course, you came along unexpectedly, when your poor mum was barely an adult herself.
She was certainly ill-equipped to be a mother, that’s for sure.” Flo gazed into the flames, remembering.
“How much do you know about who my father might be?” asked Jules. She had never asked Aunt Flo such a direct question. She
had asked her mother once and was still recovering from the resulting meltdown. She had not asked again.
Flo sighed. “I did know, of course. At least I’m pretty sure I did,” she admitted.
Jules waited, her heart pounding. Was this it? Was she suddenly going to acquire a father late in life? Even some half siblings
perhaps?
“So...” Flo went on, “it was one summer, just after Maggie—I mean, your mother—dropped out of college. She had been doing
a typing course with secretarial skills.”
“A bit of a cliché,” Jules pointed out, “the whole assumption that women were the secretaries, taking shorthand and sitting
on the boss’s knee.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Flo. “It was a very popular thing for women to do in those days, and she was bright enough really, but she was too lazy and lacking in application to go to university. Shame. It would have done her the power of good, I believe— it might have made her grow up a bit. Anyhow, there she was, looking for someone to transport her from sleepy Middlemass to something a bit more exciting without her really having to make much of an effort. She thought her looks would be enough, and, to be fair, she was a stunner.” Flo sipped her wine, gazing into the flames as she remembered.
“She picked up a receptionist job at the Grand Hotel on the seafront, you know the one?” she asked. “Like a big white wedding
cake—art deco—really quite glamorous back in the twenties, I imagine, but awfully shabby-looking these days. Anyway, there
was a man there running the bar, Alistair was his name. He was quite a bit older than Maggie, but—to her at least—quite sophisticated
and very keen to flash the cash. Oh, and very married, did I mention?”
“Ouch,” murmured Jules, transfixed.
“Indeed,” said Flo. “Anyhow, I’m really not sure who threw themselves at who, but poor Maggie was silly enough to think she
mattered to this man. I think he, in turn, was flattered that this pretty young woman appeared to worship him. They didn’t
bother to hide it, either of them. There was lots of gossip, whispering. His poor wife got to hear about it, and that was
that: Maggie was given her marching orders. She lost Alistair—as much as she had ever truly ‘had’ him—and the hotel sacked
her over the affair, so she lost her job too.”
“How unjust!”
“I know. Absolutely. Poor, silly girl that she was. That was what it was like then: if one of them had to go it was the woman, the younger one, as often as not. Totally ridiculous, but there you are.” Aunt Flo thought for a moment, before continuing.
“Anyhow, your poor mum was distraught. I was sympathetic, of course, but there was lots of silly nonsense about him being the love of her life and so on. I wanted nothing more than for this man to just leave Portneath altogether, to stop her pining after him. She was stalking him, I discovered, and pleading with him to take her back, when he told her to stop.” Flo sighed. “It was all a bit of a mess.”
“And he was my father?” prompted Jules, keen for Flo to continue.
“As far as I could deduce,” Flo admitted.
There was a pause.
“So, where is he now? Do you know?” said Jules, hardly daring to hope.
And then Flo’s face fell. “I’m so sorry, darling, I’m so caught up in the tale. So, I got my wish. He and his wife did go away, and then, I am sorry to say, I heard back that he—well, he was killed, darling.” Aunt Flo reached across and put
her hand on Jules’s arm. “For all that he was a vain, silly man without sense or morals, I was sad to hear the news. His wife
and he had gone on a long make-or-break holiday, I was told, and he was in a horrible accident on a Jet Ski. Head injuries.
Died at the scene.”
“And he and his wife—did they have children?” Jules asked, not yet quite ready to let go of her dream of half siblings at
least.
But Flo shook her head sadly. “No, no children. I’m afraid the only thing that man bequeathed you was your beautiful green
eyes and fabulous hair. He was a handsome man, I’ll give him that,” she added with seeming reluctance. “But, darling, I’m amazed your mother has never told
you all this!”
“She did tell me once that she lost the love of her life in a terrible accident. It was all very dramatic, I got that impression.
I was so young I’d not even properly remembered that much until today. She got really upset that I’d asked so I didn’t raise
it again.”
“Trust your mother to twist the story so it sounds like they were parted by death,” observed Flo. “It could never be her narrative that he just summarily dumped her for another woman some time before, which, I’m afraid, he did.”
Jules nodded, lost in thought. Her poor mum.
“You need to try and be kind to your mum,” said Flo gently, as if she had heard Jules’s thoughts. “She’s a silly woman, I
know, and she’s not been the best parent, but it’s tough getting old when you’ve always relied so heavily on your looks, as
she has.”
With the warmth of the fire and a full belly, Jules’s eyes were drooping with tiredness again, despite all the sleep she had
had that day.
“Now, you’ve got your trip to London tomorrow,” said Flo, getting up and lifting the cat gently off Jules’s lap. “Off to bed
with you.”