Chapter 29
Dorothy clutched me to her in a warm hug. It had been a hell of a day, coming fast on the back of a hell of a week and also a hell of a year for Dorothy, but now, finally, she could do what she really needed to do and move on.
‘I’m just so grateful to you, Gina,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever be able to tell you how much.’
‘There’s really no need, Dorothy. It was my pleasure and privilege to be able to help you get the result you wanted.’
I said the words like I meant it and I did, but I actually felt quite wooden. My body felt heavy with all that had happened. Finding Leonard on the steps like that would stay with me, I realised. However bad a man he actually was, it didn’t take away the shock I had felt at coming across his injured body. Had it been too much to ask of me? Yes, I thought that it probably was. But it was done, and now I could go home, such as home was now.
I noticed, with thankful eyes, that my taxi was making its way down the driveway towards me.
‘The easiest way to show you is to put it in the most simplistic of terms,’ Dorothy said, cutting into my thoughts and dragging me, reluctantly, back to the here and now.
‘I’m not sure I understand,’ I said.
‘Your fee,’ said Dorothy.
‘Oh,’ I replied, not wanting to get into a conversation about money, although the seven hundred and fifty pounds would be very welcome.
‘I have your bank details and will make a transfer before the end of the day.’
‘Well, thank you, I won’t pretend that it isn’t going to be very useful.’
‘My dear, Gina, you have earned every single penny and more and I am indebted to you. Perhaps when you get home and sort out what needs to be done, you might still consider coming and staying in the boathouse for a while, or maybe we could work something out with your role as companion?’
‘I wouldn’t want to take a job where I wasn’t really needed, but I will certainly consider the boathouse,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’
I made my goodbyes brief to the rest of the family, but I did linger a little with Juliet.
‘It’s been a real pleasure to meet you,’ I told her.
‘You made this week a whole lot more fun than I thought it was going to be. So, are you going to become a super sleuth and go around the country solving crimes?’
‘God, no.’ I laughed. ‘I won’t be solving anything more involved than a crossword puzzle for as long as I live. I hope to see you again at some point.’
Unexpectedly she stepped forward and slid her arms around me in a tight hug. I hugged her back and felt a little tearful. I could see my taxi making its way down the driveway, so I let her go.
‘I’ll be in touch soon,’ I said to Dorothy, and then after a final wave to everyone, I opened the door of the taxi and while the driver wedged my suitcase into the boot, I sank gratefully onto the back seat.
‘Could you make a brief stop at the church as you go past, please. I promise only to be a couple of minutes.’
‘No problem,’ he said. ‘I’ve got time and you’re paying after all.’
I walked up the pathway that cut through the cemetery and pushed open the oak door. I wasn’t entirely sure that Peter would still be in here after the morning service, but it was closer than his house and worth a quick look. He was actually cleaning the floor, which surprised me. He had a mop and bucket of soapy water and was splashing it merrily around.
‘Hello, Peter,’ I said. ‘You look busy.’
‘What’s happening at the house?’ he asked. ‘I’ve been so busy in here cleaning after the morning service, but really I should have come down to see if you needed any help.’
‘You know Leonard tried to run last night, once he’d realised the painting had been found, but he had an accident and fell on the back steps. He’s got a head injury and badly broken his leg, but an ambulance has taken him this morning and Paul has gone with him.’
‘This morning? Why wasn’t it called last night?’
‘Unfortunately he wasn’t found until this morning. We should have thought to check the back of the house but we didn’t, did we. We all assumed he’d have gone out of the front or even through that side door.’
‘Is he going to be okay?’
‘I don’t know, Peter. I hope so. He did look in a bad way, but he survived the stormy night with injuries so he’s fighting – that’s for sure. He’s not a good person, but I don’t wish that on him.’
‘Have you come for the painting? Is Dorothy going to call the police?’
‘The police are on their way, but I haven’t come for the painting. The family will come for that. I’m actually going home now. But I wanted to give you something that Sandra found.’
‘Oh?’
‘This,’ I said, handing him the memory stick.
He took it from me and swallowed audibly, his face a picture of embarrassment.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I appreciate you doing this for me.’
‘I don’t like that Leonard has all these people at his beck and call. If he survives, I hope he faces up to what he’s done, to all those lives he’s ruined.’
‘I’d like to think that were true, but I know he won’t. He will feel he’s been betrayed by people he considers should be thankful to him. He operates in a way that leaves him always in a place of virtue. When he goes to prison, and it seems there is enough for that to happen, he will still be surprised and disbelieving about the situation he finds himself in. He will never change and I hope he is inside for a long time. Thanks again,’ he said and slipped the stick into his pocket.
Once it was out of his hand he seemed to relax and smiled at me. I decided it was time to get going. The taxi was waiting outside for me anyway.
‘It was lovely to meet you and I wish you all the best,’ I said.
‘You too, Gina, you too.’
I closed the door of the taxi, the driver started the engine and then pulled out of the driveway and onto the main road toward Norwich.
‘Had a nice time?’ the driver asked me. ‘Was it an eventful wedding?’
He wasn’t the same driver who had brought me to the house and it proved to be true what the previous driver had said about it being a big house but a small village.
‘It was the most eventful wedding I have ever been to,’ I said, before pushing my sunglasses onto my face and resting my head gratefully back against the seat.
I pulled my suitcase up the path to the house and unlocked the front door. The first thing I noticed was the slightly musty scent of dead flowers and I could see that the vase of roses I’d left on the console table were way past fresh and heading firmly into dried flower territory. The pale-pink petals littered the surface and the water had a hint of green to it. So much for setting the scene for house-hunters.
I left my suitcase in the hallway and went straight to the kitchen to make a cup of tea, but of course the milk was almost off. It had only been a week, but it felt as if the house was turning against me. Instead I made a black coffee and took it out into the garden to see whether the storm had stretched this far and what damage might have been done to my plants, and then I set to work.
‘Hello, Georgina.’
I spun my head round from where I crouched, pulling at some weeds, to see Douglas was standing on the lawn. He was wearing a white linen shirt, which showed off the tan that still lingered from his trip.
‘I would prefer it if you knocked on the door or let me know you’re coming. You don’t live here any more,’ I said, turning back to my task and annoyingly I wished I’d put a brush through my hair.
‘I did send you a message. You don’t answer them.’
‘Oh, I’m not long back. I think my phone is still in my bag,’ I said, pulling off my gloves and getting to my feet. ‘I don’t suppose you brought some milk with you?’
‘No,’ he said, bemused. ‘Didn’t think to.’
‘Black coffee it is then,’ I said, walking past him and into the house.
He followed me inside and after a long lingering look at his piano, he stood watching me make him a drink and instead of feeling uncomfortable I felt some strength in the fact that this was my domain, not his. Except that actually it wasn’t, not for much longer anyway.
‘So the offer isn’t as high as I’d like, but, Georgina, I won’t leave you stuck, you know. We’ll make sure you get somewhere half decent to live.’
‘Will we? Half decent, lucky me. Who’s we anyway, Douglas?’ I asked him and he did look a bit uncomfortable for a moment.
‘I meant you and me, we.’
‘Not Little Miss Maidenhead?’
He looked stunned at that, but he rallied.
‘This isn’t about anyone else you know,’ he said, without actually denying the existence of anyone else. ‘This is about reaching the grand age of seventy-three and wanting more. I’m sorry if that is hard to hear, but it’s the truth. I won’t leave you in the lurch – you have entitlements.’
‘You won’t leave me in the lurch! You left me with a letter explaining that you’d gone off to rediscover your youth and that the house was being sold from under me. I consider myself well and truly lurched. And I don’t want entitlements; I can look after myself,’ I said, slamming the mug of coffee down on the counter next to him and delighting in the fact that a couple of drops flew out of the top and landed on his sleeve. That stain would be tricky to get out.
‘You can look after yourself? You haven’t worked for forty-three years. How much does your companion job pay? Hmm.’
‘I should never have left my job.’
‘You weren’t capable of doing it. After all that happened with your mother, you were a mess.’
‘You were there; you knew what happened. If I was a mess, there was good reason,’ I said, quietly, and he looked at the floor. ‘And perhaps I would have been capable, with the right support.’
‘I did nothing but support you. You were able to stay at home with all the comforts while I went to work.’
‘You took advantage of me, Douglas. You took advantage of my state of mind. You turned me into a doormat over the years and then casually wiped your feet on your way out.’
He just stared at me, flabbergasted. I was a bit flabbergasted myself as the realisation hit home. He’d used me, not supported me. I felt almost euphoric as this thought landed.
‘I’ve had a very busy week and I’d like you to leave,’ I said with my arms folded firmly across my chest and, to be fair to him, he did.
Later, I ran myself a bath and soaked my tired body. It wasn’t just the afternoon of gardening and the encounter with Douglas that had made my limbs and head ache, but a week of feeling tense all the time. I had felt uncomfortable, unsure, pressured and, at times, even threatened, but mostly I had come away with a huge sense of accomplishment. Dorothy had called me a problem solver and that had felt really good. Then I remembered Leonard’s broken body at the bottom of the steps and shuddered.
The bath water was cooling and I got out and wrapped myself in my fluffy robe. I pushed that lingering image of Leonard from my head, and instead thought about Dorothy’s bittersweet victory. The happiness she felt in being right in her assumption about the painting was imbued with sadness about the part Sandra and Rufus had played. There could never be true happiness when you looked at the bigger picture. Leonard was terribly injured and may not survive to serve his punishment, Sandra had to live with the awful choice she had made to save her son’s reputation and future career, and Rufus was planning to leave that situation now anyway, making the choice his mother had made all the more pointless.
‘Gina,’ I told myself. ‘If you are ever going to be a good companion you will need to learn to leave it behind when you leave the job.’
I found a lasagne in the freezer and opened some wine while I waited for it to finish turning in the microwave and, still in my robe, I went and stood in my show-house living room. Everything was immaculate, not a magazine was out of place on the coffee table, no photographs on the sideboard because I’d already packed them away, nothing at all to say who lived in this house. As the pings from the kitchen told me my dinner was ready I had an overwhelming sense that this house wasn’t mine any more, because I’d already moved out.