The Midnight Bakery

Chapter 30

30

William

Ever since leaving Frankie that morning, William had been in an agony of indecision for most of the day. First of all, there’d been that moment on her doorstep when he’d come so close to kissing her. An action which, had he gone through with it, would most likely have destroyed any chance of their fledgling friendship continuing as it had. And yet, there had been something, he’d been certain of it. Something which danced in the air between them and…Or perhaps it was simply that he wished there was. Which, after all this time, was a problem.

Because William was a bad bet. He hadn’t meant to, and maybe it was just that he hadn’t responded all that well to the blows life had dealt him, but, all the same, he’d let down everyone who ever meant anything to him. And he didn’t want that for Frankie. Couldn’t bear the thought of it. When he was younger, it was easy to tell himself that grief was to blame for his actions. That he hadn’t been himself, hadn’t been thinking straight, and maybe that was true, it had been hard to come to terms with, but he wasn’t a kid now and no longer had any excuse. Fifty-two years on the planet and he thought he’d be settled by now. Or at least feel the wisdom of his years. So what did he do now that he found himself thinking things might be different?

Finding out what he had at the library meant he was finally in a position where he might be able to make a difference, if not to keep his promise exactly, then at least to uphold the spirit of it. But taking that chance could spell disaster, and if things blew up in his face then he didn’t want Frankie anywhere near when it happened.

He stole another look at her, head bent, as she sat at the table and nursed another cup of tea. It was three in the morning and Tam had long since gone, but the conversation which had started while he was there had continued for a while afterwards. Listening to Frankie talk about all the things she would do if the bakery were hers had tugged at his heartstrings even harder, and he marvelled that this woman, who had been so afraid of life that she hid herself away from it, could be so caring and generous. She had also been very open and honest with William, something he had failed at miserably. Her past had literally caught up with her, and even though she was scared, she had allowed herself to be vulnerable before him.

She deserved so much better than William, that was the truth of it. And yet, what she’d said about having morals and principles had struck a chord with him. It was easy when you were wealthy, she’d said, and virtually impossible if you were not. She so clearly understood Tam’s dilemma, and the desire to do the right thing even when circumstances meant you couldn’t. So might it be possible she could understand his? Was now the time to be honest with her , just as she had with him? He sprinkled a little more flour on the worktable and turned out another batch of dough onto it.

William could see why Frankie liked it here, in the warmth of the bakery, alone with her thoughts every night. There was something comforting about the rhythmic kneading and shaping of the doughs, almost relaxing, despite the physicality of it. When he had made bread before, even though the steps he followed were essentially the same, he had never felt as if he were creating anything, never felt the magic of one of the oldest processes in the world. Here, it was different. Here, it was a magic he could touch, one which leapt from his own fingers. He found himself smiling despite the mess of confusion inside his head.

‘It gets you like that, doesn’t it?’ said Frankie, looking up at him. He could see she was tired, and possibly still in pain, but her look was warm, her eyes soft on his.

‘Sorry?’

Frankie indicated the dough he had been kneading. ‘I said it gets you like that. You look like you’re away with the fairies.’

William nudged his forearm against his nose to chase away an itch. ‘I think I was. You lose yourself in it, don’t you – the rhythm. It’s almost hypnotic.’

She smiled. ‘I’ve put right many a wrong since I’ve been here, standing just as you are now. I swear sometimes I’d get to morning and not even realise I’d made all the bread. It just sort of happened while my brain was off somewhere, doing its thing.’ She tipped her head to one side. ‘So, what’s your brain wrestling with?’

William shrugged. ‘Nothing much. Load of nonsense, probably.’

‘With that look on your face?’ she replied. ‘I don’t believe that for a minute. I’ve been watching you the last half hour, deep in some conundrum or other. Your eyebrows have been doing quite the dance.’

‘Have they? What were they doing, a waltz or a foxtrot?’

He expected her to laugh, to smile at least, but Frankie’s face remained curious. And watchful.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Out with it. I’ve spilled all my beans, time for you to offload yours. I know we said before about not knowing everything there was to know about each other, but I know virtually nothing about you. That doesn’t seem right somehow.’

‘How long have you got?’

But Frankie wasn’t buying into his attempt at levity. ‘Quite a few hours yet, as well you know. Plenty of time for some life history, and to tell me what’s got you so perturbed.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Are you worried about your job, about the thing with Stuart, is that it? Only I’ve seen that expression on your face a few times now – a kind of angry, yet sad, determination.’

Damn, she was perceptive, too. Inwardly, William groaned. It would be wonderful to tell her, to unburden himself and even ask her opinion about what he should do, but to do so would mean risking the one thing which had given him any hope for the future. He swallowed. She was still waiting for a reply, and given what she’d suffered in the past, she deserved some honesty. Besides, she was bound to find out in the end, and how much worse would it be to hear about that past from someone else? He took a deep breath, his hands stilling themselves on the dough.

‘I said before that I’ve had a life, done things I’m not especially proud of…Most of it started when I was in my early twenties. That was thirty-odd years ago, and sometimes I wonder how I could have been so stupid – but I was young, I guess. We all do stupid things when we’re young.’

‘That we do. And paying off that debt can take a very long time.’ She smiled. She understood. So far, at least…

‘I met my Louise when I was twenty-two, and straight off we both knew we had something special. Most of my friends were still being lads, most of her friends were unattached too, but suddenly, within about the space of six months, we were making plans.’ William pulled at the ball of dough, turning it over and slapping it back down again.

‘Within a year we were married, against everyone’s better judgement, it seemed, but somehow that made us even more determined to make a go of things. And that’s the part where being too young took its toll,’ he continued. ‘If we’d listened to each other, focused on what we had rather than what we didn’t, we’d have been okay. But we didn’t, and I’ll never forgive myself for not being strong enough back then. We were both working, but folks didn’t go to university when I was young, not like they do now, so neither of us had what my dad would have called prospects. She was working in a shop, and I was labouring for a guy I knew. Money was tight, very tight. We’d both sunk everything we could into getting a place of our own, and to start with it was great fun – weren’t we the bee’s knees? – but then, while all our friends were out partying and having a rare old time, we were stuck home night after night. It didn’t take much for us to be seduced by the lure of something different, something we thought, wrongly, was better than what we had.

‘We both started going out, drinking, spending money we didn’t have, and it didn’t take long for the debts to start piling up. Before we knew it, the life we had, the good life, was teetering on the edge. Trouble was, the guy I was labouring for was nice enough, but his view of what was right and what was wrong was a little blurred around the edges. He wasn’t that bothered where he made his money, or who from, and so, after a while, neither was I. I was stupid, I know that now, but I was also desperate, and one thing led to another and…it was petty stuff really, but I ended up in prison for burglary. Not that I’m condoning what I did, far from it…’

He risked a glance at Frankie, but she still wore the same kind expression she’d had when he’d started. If she was shocked, or disgusted, she hid it well.

‘I was only in for a few months, but when I got out I discovered Louise was pregnant.’

Frankie’s hand had strayed to the middle of her chest, right over her heart. ‘The baby was yours, though?’ she asked.

‘Oh yes, Louise would never…and the dates fitted, but…it wouldn’t have mattered. Louise was my wife, the baby was my responsibility.’

William dropped his head, staring at the lump of dough in front of him before driving his fist into it. He looked up immediately, ashamed of his anger, but Frankie simply held his gaze, her eyes full of empathy, of understanding. She thought she understood, but she didn’t, not yet. William’s head dropped even lower as he was engulfed in a tide of emotion he’d kept at bay for years. He swallowed.

‘When I went to prison, I left Louise on her own with no money to speak of and…I don’t think she’d been looking after herself very well, hadn’t been to half the check-ups she should have and…I’m not saying it was her fault at all, but her blood pressure was sky-high. She developed pre-eclampsia and died shortly after giving birth.’

He wasn’t even aware that Frankie was no longer sitting at the table until he felt her behind him, one arm gently turning him round so that she could reach up to lace her fingers around the back of his neck, softly cradling his head and bringing it to her shoulder.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered, inches from his ear. ‘So, so sorry.’

He stayed like that for some time, at first unable to move from under his grief. Grief that was almost as fresh as the day he’d first worn it. But shame came all too soon. There was so much more she didn’t know.

‘That isn’t all,’ he managed. ‘I have something else to tell you.’

She nodded. ‘Okay then, but come and sit down before you fall down. Much as I’d like to, I don’t think I can catch you and hang on.’

He looked up, catching her eye, seeing her smile as she repeated the same words he’d said to her.

She waited until he was sitting opposite, before sliding a hand across the table to take his. ‘Go on,’ she said.

William licked his lips, his mouth dry. ‘The baby was only tiny – he’d been born too early, you see, when they rushed Louise into hospital. I was worried about him, but it never even occurred to me that she might die. In my naivety I thought everything would be okay. I promised I’d look after her, her and the baby, make everything right again, but then I lost her and…the baby needed so much care, I couldn’t…’ William broke off, his voice wavering. He swallowed. ‘I couldn’t cope, I was so scared. I knew I didn’t have it in me to look after him so I took off. I left him.’

‘I don’t suppose it was that simple,’ said Frankie gently. ‘These things never are.’

But William shook his head. ‘No, it was. I was a coward. She had a sister, Louise did, and I knew that she, or someone, would look after the baby, so I ran, went overseas…I worked on the rigs for years, the kind of life that cuts you off from everything. I kidded myself it was the best for everyone concerned, but I didn’t even stop to find out, so how would I know?’

He hardly dared to look at Frankie, even though he was very aware that she was studying him intently. Studying him but saying nothing.

‘I wanted children,’ she said after a moment. ‘Desperately. But Robert didn’t so that was that. He pretended he did, for a while, but there was always a good reason why we should wait – until we had a bigger house, until he got the promotion he wanted, until he knew our finances were secure…but now I know it was just pretence. He didn’t want them because they would have messed up his perfect life, but also, of course, because it would have meant sharing me, and he wasn’t prepared to do that under any circumstances. Now I’m glad we didn’t have children. What kind of life would they have had living with a monster like him?’

‘They would have had you.’

Frankie shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t have protected them the way I should have. I believed Robert’s lies, even about myself – especially about myself. He’d have been able to control them just as he did me. So although I grieved the loss of ever being a mother, perhaps it’s better that those children never existed than to have caused them irrevocable damage. Sometimes what we’re convinced is wrong can turn out to be right.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘What I’m trying to say is that perhaps you did make the right decision. And what you see as your desertion, this terrible, shameful thing, has actually given your son a life he could never have had with you…Although I’m very aware that that in itself is a terrible burden to bear.’

She gave a weak smile, quiet for a moment as she watched him, her head cocked to one side. He saw clearly the moment when she realised that wasn’t the end of his story. Her eyes widened, a quick intake of breath whistling between her teeth. ‘You know, don’t you?’ she said. ‘You know what kind of life he’s had?’

‘I made a promise,’ he said. ‘And, eventually, when I got my head out of my arse I came back home to see what I could do about keeping it. And what I found was that my son was turning out to be just like me, wasting away his life, mixing with the wrong sort, making stupid decisions…I don’t know why I was surprised; they say the apple never falls far from the tree.’

‘Oh, William…’ Frankie’s eyes were warm on his. ‘What did you do?’

‘Kept my distance, for one thing. I’d been no part of his life for the first eighteen years so I reckoned I had no right to be a part of it then. But I kept my eye on him, saw which way his life was heading…and then tried to do something about it. Stupid, is what it was.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m a bad bet, Frankie. I don’t make good decisions.’

Her brow furrowed. ‘What happened?’

‘I tried to be clever. Thought if I put myself in the way of something my son had got involved in, I could make it all right. But I should have known better. He’d got friendly with a couple of local lowlifes – you know, the kind who flogged dodgy TVs and laptops from the back of a van on a Saturday night. He was doing a bit of driving for them and I figured that if I did a bit of driving for them, he wouldn’t have to. As it turned out, they were doing a bit more than flogging gear, they were nicking it too. I got caught and done for possession of stolen goods.’

Frankie nodded. ‘I think I can see where this is going.’

William nodded too, realising he probably didn’t need to say any more, but having come this far he didn’t want there to be any grey areas that could be left open to interpretation. It was all or nothing. He wanted Frankie to hear the words, to know exactly what had happened so there would never be any misunderstandings. And at least she was still holding his hand…

‘I had a previous conviction for burglary so the judge came down hard. I was sentenced to and served nine years. I’ve been out just shy of one – eleven months and four days, to be precise.’ He ventured a smile, although there was nothing light-hearted about what he’d just said.

‘On days when I’m trying to be kind to myself, about my actions, and my understanding of them, I tell myself that it was grief which fuelled them. To an extent it was, but I think what I was actually driven by was a subconscious desire for my own self-destruction. I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I ought to have been upfront about this from the start.’

‘Should you?’ Frankie looked puzzled. ‘I was a virtual stranger then, I don’t think “ought” comes into it. Besides which, I like to form my own first impressions of people. I’d rather they didn’t tell me what to think straight away. That makes it more about how they want to appear, rather than the actual truth of who they are.’

‘So, what would you have thought if I had told you straight away? Before you knew me a little more…?’

Frankie thought for a moment. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘But, probably not good.’ She held his look, unflinchingly honest. ‘What I don’t understand is what any of this has to do with Stuart, with—’ She broke off, eyes widening. ‘Stuart’s your son …?’

William shook his head sadly. ‘No, but Danny is…’ He let his words sit between them for a moment. ‘He doesn’t have a clue who I am. Doesn’t treat me any better than I deserve, and that’s okay, but what’s not okay is that I haven’t a clue what to do now. Stuart is clearly mixed up in some serious stuff, and I have no idea whether Danny is involved or not. If he is and I go to the police…well, you know what comes next. But if he isn’t, then he needs to know before he does become implicated. There’s also the small matter of my own criminal record. If I do the right thing then the chances are it won’t end well for me, but if I do nothing, then Danny’s future is on the line, not to mention the fact that Stuart will be free to carry on peddling his wares.’ He swallowed, feeling the familiar tightness in his throat. ‘See? I told you I was stupid. I should never have come back here…Thing is, though, there’s quite a large part of me that’s very glad I did.’ He smiled, unsure of himself. Foolish really, that he could still harbour hope that she?—

‘William…’ A soft, slow smile curved the corners of Frankie’s mouth. ‘You asked me just now what I would have thought of you if I’d known all this from the start. And it wouldn’t have been good. But you didn’t ask me what I think now, now that I do know…Because now, I see someone like me. I may not have endured a life behind bars, but it was a prison just the same. So I see your guilt writ large across your face, just as I see mine when I look in a mirror. Although it’s not actual guilt, of course, but something you believe yourself to be guilty of, and that’s not the same thing. We don’t have responsibility for other people’s lives, William. Not our husbands or wives, our sisters or brothers, and not our children either. We think we do, because we love them and want to care for them, but we don’t. Everyone is responsible for their own actions. I spent years blaming myself for the way Robert behaved, and by the time I realised how wrong that was, it was almost too late. It isn’t your job to save your son, however much you want to. Just as it isn’t for you to decide how he lives his life in the first place – only he can do that. So there’s nothing to feel guilty about, William. And just in case you’re still not sure, you gave up your freedom for him. You may not have been able to look after him when he was a child but the sacrifices you’ve made for him show me exactly the kind of man you are. The past is the past. It’s what you do about the present which counts.’

He nodded. Deep down, he knew that, yet somehow he’d never allowed himself to believe it.

‘Never doubt that you’ve been faithful to the promise you made, William.’ She leaned forward, holding his look with a warmth that made his heart leap about his chest. ‘So, if you ask me what do I see now …? I see someone who’s had a life, who’s done things they’re not proud of, who’s been stupid because that’s what we do when we’re young, but who has learned from their mistakes and is putting them right. I also see someone who, if I’d met them in a dark alley not long ago, I would have probably run in the other direction, but who I know now I’d run towards . I see you , William. I see you.’