Chapter 34
‘You were right. I do feel the need for a stiff drink,’ Guy said. ‘Would you like one?’
‘A small one, please,’ Joan said.
Guy poured them both a measure of cognac and handed her a glass, noticing as he did so that she was trembling. ‘Are you okay?’
Joan nodded. ‘Yes, I’m fine. Just slightly shocked at meeting you.’
‘You and me both,’ Guy said, resisting the urge to throw the drink back, merely swallowing a mouthful whilst Joan sipped hers.
‘I’m not sure where to begin,’ Joan said.
‘The beginning is usually the best place,’ Guy said. ‘I’ll make it a little easier – how did you and Jake meet?’
‘I was twenty-four and through a friend of a friend got a summer job on one of the yachts based in Antibes.’ And Joan began to talk about a summer she’d never forgotten.
‘I’d been in Antibes for two days when I met Jake.
We literally bumped into each on the pontoon where both the yachts we worked on were moored.
I say bumped – I tripped over a cable or something and went flying into him.
He was lucky he didn’t end up in the water.
He was very gracious to the babbling wreck I was, making sure I was all right and insisting we met later for coffee so that he could check on me.
He couldn’t stop then because he was fetching something for his boss. ’
Joan smiled. ‘We went for a walk around the town that evening, stopped for a pizza and talked ourselves hoarse. And as unbelievable as it may sound, I knew that I’d met the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Of course I didn’t say that to Jake then but…’ Joan shrugged. ‘I just knew.
‘Anyway, the next couple of weeks were busy. The yacht I was working on was a family-owned one and whilst we did short trips to Monaco or St. Tropez, the owners didn’t like being at sea for too long or being away from Antibes, so we port-hopped mostly.
Jake’s yacht, on the other hand, was bigger and available for charter.
It would disappear for days at a time. Down the coast to the islands around Marseille, Corsica once I remember, and Portofino along the coast in Italy.
‘Not everyone had a mobile phone in those days, I certainly didn’t, so Jake used to ring me on the public phone box near the harbour at a certain time if he could when he was away on a trip.
Or if I was away and he was in Antibes I’d ring him.
’ Joan laughed. ‘I spent a lot of time hanging around that phone box when we were in port. Of course whenever we were both in the marina at the same time, we spent as much time as we could together. But our time was very sparse. An hour or two maybe three times a week.’
She paused. ‘It took about four weeks of interspersed meetings for Jake to realise how I felt about him and for him to admit he was in love with me. We started to talk about and plan a future together. Jake said he was going to buy me a ring the next time we were together in town.’
Joan took a sip of her drink. ‘I’d been in Antibes for about seven weeks when the owners of his yacht arrived.
An unexpected charter cancellation meant they had decided to use the yacht themselves with some friends and go to Sicily for ten days.
Jake and I spent an hour together before he had to be back on board ready to leave.
It was then he gave me his ring.’ Joan’s fingers gently played with the ring on its gold chain as she spoke.
‘He told me to keep it safe while he was away and he’d buy me a proper engagement ring when he got back from Sicily.
’ Joan looked at the signet ring on Guy’s left hand.
‘Your parents gave you and he identical rings on your twenty-first birthdays, didn’t they? ’
Guy nodded.
‘The trip over to Sicily was likely to take around fifteen to twenty hours, depending on sea conditions. Jake promised to ring me at the phone box in the marina at seven o’clock two days after they had set off.
A promise he kept. He was his usual upbeat self, the voyage across hadn’t been the best, but they were now in a marina.
He did say the owners had friends on board who were, to quote the phrase he used, “a load of tossers”, and not to worry if he didn’t ring for a few nights.
So it was a couple of days before I started to worry.
’ Joan bit her lip. ‘I never saw or spoke to him again.
‘The yacht I was on sailed to St. Tropez for a short visit. Whilst there I started to hear rumours about an accident in a Sicilian marina. A crew member on one of the yachts moored there had been killed, but I didn’t dream it would turn out to be Jake.
’ She took a deep breath. ‘That was one of the worst things.
Nobody mentioned the name of the man and nobody told me it was Jake because nobody truly knew we were together.
‘I was busy with the family onboard, keeping occupied, so I didn’t have time to miss him too much in the first few days.
When, a day later as we returned to Port Vauban, I heard his name given out on Radio Monte-Carlo as the name of the yacht crew member killed in a freak accident in Sicily, I went completely to pieces. ’
Joan was silent, remembering that dreadful time. Even now, all these years later, the memory of the awful realisation that Jake was dead made her cry. Impossible to stop the tears falling, she searched for a tissue in her bag.
‘I was in Dubai working as a sous-chef, when I got the phone call to say my brother had died,’ Guy said quietly. ‘I too went to pieces, but I had to go to Sicily to support my dad, identify the body and arrange for it to be taken back to the UK. The worst experience of my life,’ he added quietly.
The two of them were silent for a moment, both lost in their own thoughts of Jake. It was Guy who broke the silence.
‘I have just one question now – when can I meet Leon?’
Joan sighed. ‘I’m not sure. I need to talk to him first before that can happen,’ Joan said quietly.
‘He’s always known he was adopted when he was three by my husband Harry.
Harry adored him, he was his son as far as he was concerned and Leon has always thought of him as his father.
We did plan on talking to him about Jake, but somehow it was never an easy subject to broach.
Leon was either too young or the timing didn’t seem right.
In the end, it felt too late to bring the subject up.
It wasn’t as if they could ever meet. And I didn’t have much to tell him – your father was called Jake, he worked on the yachts and we loved each other.
’ Joan smiled sadly. ‘It wasn’t until he died that I even learnt his surname.
It was a relationship where whenever we saw each other we were entirely caught up in just being together.
I knew Jake had a brother, I knew the family lived on the outskirts of London.
There would be plenty of time at the end of the season to go back to England and to learn about each other’s respective families.
I didn’t have a lot of information to tell my son about his dead father.
I didn’t want him to think badly of me when I told him the truth.
’ Joan bit her lip. ‘I know these days things are different, but back then my parents were old-fashioned and had drilled into me that sleeping with someone before marriage was still something “nice” girls didn’t do, but I knew Jake and I were for keeps, so I ignored their advice.
’ She gave Guy a diffident smile. ‘And I’ve never regretted it. ’
‘Does Leon live with you in the UK? What does he do? So much to learn about him. We have to arrange a meeting. I’ll travel to the UK – anywhere – I need to meet him.’
‘You don’t have to travel far.’ Joan took a deep breath. ‘He works in the yacht industry – he’s a yacht engineer,’ she said quietly. ‘And the yacht he works on is currently here in Antibes.’
Stunned, Guy looked at her. ‘He’s here in Antibes? I don’t believe it. I could have passed him in the street and not known it.’
‘Oh, I think you would have at least had a few jarring moments if you had unexpectedly come face to face with Leon,’ Joan said quietly. ‘He is the image of his father.’