Gorgeously glamorous and unforgettably romantic, One Summer Night at the Ritz is the fairy-tale perfect fourth story in Jenny Oliver’s ‘Cherry Pie Island’ series.

Welcome to Cherry Pie Island – once you step on to the island, you’ll never want to leave!

Also by Jenny Oliver

The Parisian Christmas Bake Off

The Vintage Summer Wedding

The Little Christmas Kitchen

The Grand Reopening of Dandelion Cafe

The Vintage Ice Cream Van Road Trip

The Great Allotment Proposal

One Summer Night at the Ritz

Jenny Oliver

JENNY OLIVER wrote her first book on holiday when she was ten years old. Illustrated with cut-out supermodels from her sister’s Vogue, it was an epic, sweeping love story not so loosely based on Dynasty.

Since then Jenny has gone on to get an English degree, and a job in publishing that’s taught her what it takes to write a novel (without the help of the supermodels). Follow her on Twitter @JenOliverBooks

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Book List

Title Page

Author Bio

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Extract

Endpages

Copyright

Chapter One

‘Ow.’

‘Stop moving.’

‘Ow.’

‘Jesus, you’re hopeless.’ Emily paused, allowing Jane to sit forward for a moment and rub her eyebrows as she stood waiting, brandishing a pair of gold glitter tweezers from her own brand EHB cosmetics range. ‘You can have these when I’m finished,’ she said. ‘My gift to your poor eyebrows. Now let’s get on with it,’ she added and carried on her ferocious plucking.

Two days before, none of this had even been on the horizon. Jane had spent the morning poring over her late-mother’s accounts with her feet dangling over the edge of her houseboat, her toes just touching the water, having a cup of tea and a crumpet. Her main focus had been how on earth her mum had kept a massive savings account from her and never spent a penny of it while they’d lived together in a boat that was no wider than a person lying flat on their back and long enough for one bedroom, a living area with a sofa and a tiny kitchen at the far end where they stored all the kitchen paraphernalia in hatches in the floorboards. Her whole life, pretty much, she’d slept on the sofa, packing up her bedding every morning and stowing it in a drawer underneath. In the savings account was enough to build another story on this place and more.

But her mother wasn’t here any more to ask about the money so instead she had studied the statements, phoned the bank to check it wasn’t a mistake, packed it all back up again in the bulging manila folder tied with string and tried not to let the mystery overtake her. She knew better than to try and rationalise anything to do with her mother. Jane had spent a lifetime being prepared for the unexpected. Perhaps that was why she got on so well with Emily – someone else who lived their life by completely their own rules.

‘This is no good.’ Emily paused, having plucked both brows into perfect arches. ‘It’s not enough. I thought it would be enough but it’s not enough, Jane. I’m going to have to do something with the hair.’

‘Please don’t do anything with my hair. It’s fine as it is, really.’

Emily squinted and made a face. ‘I promise, Jane, it really is not.’

Jane was about to counter, when her friend Annie came in the door with her ancient pug Buster. ‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said, ‘Buster’s so slow nowadays.’ Then she dropped her voice to a really low whisper and said, ‘I don’t think he’s going to last long.’

Emily looked from the dog sniffing all her make-up bags back up to Annie, ‘He can’t hear you, he’s a dog. Is he going to pee on that stuff?’

Annie shrugged. ‘I’d hope not.’

Emily got hold of the strap of the bag and pulled it away from the pug. Jane took the moment of distraction to try and stand up from the sofa and out of Emily’s clutches.

‘Stay there!’ Emily said, one arm on the bag, one hand on Jane’s shoulder urging her to sit.

Annie frowned, ‘What’s going on?’

‘She won’t let me do her hair.’ Emily made a face.

‘I just don’t think I need my hair doing, it’s fine.’

Annie bit her lip, seemed to blanche slightly at the two faces staring at her expecting her to intervene with an answer. ‘I think—’ She scratched her head. ‘I think we have to look at the scenario. I mean if it was just some quick meeting somewhere then fine, go with your normal hair but, Jane, this is a big thing. You’ve worked really hard to get this guy to meet you and you’re going to The Ritz. I mean, The Ritz! When was the last time you went to the Ritz?’

Jane shook her head. ‘I’ve never been to The Ritz.’

‘Really?’ Emily looked surprised. ‘Never?’

‘Course I haven’t been to The Ritz. When would I have been to The Ritz?’

Emily thought about it. ‘I don’t know. I had the most glorious affair in the Ritz Madrid.’

Annie rolled her eyes.

‘See, Jane, if I do your hair, the chances of you having a torrid affair go up ten-fold.’ Emily laughed.

‘Exactly why you shouldn’t touch my hair.’ Jane raised a brow.

Emily snorted as if that was the most boring answer she’d ever heard.

Annie came over and sat on the sofa next to her, her hand running appreciatively over the big colourful throw. ‘This is nice,’ she said, pinching the fabric between her fingers, then looked back up at Jane and added, ‘I think you should let her do your hair, Jane. I think maybe it would be more than just for going to The Ritz, I think it’d be something for you. To mark a new beginning.’ Annie did an almost imperceptible glance around the boat as she said the last bit, clearly taking in all the nick-nacks of Jane’s mum’s, all the throws and the mismatched china and the ornaments and vases and dried herbs and pots and pans hanging from the ceiling on a wooden rack.

Jane knew she had to clear it all out. Her mum’s shoes were still in the pile by the door. Annie had been round a couple of times already and said as much. She didn’t want her to bring it up again now, with Emily here who would probably suggest they do it right that minute and go and get a bin bag.

It wasn’t that she wanted all her mum’s stuff still around. It wasn’t that she hadn’t said goodbye to her or anything like that. It was more fear perhaps of exactly what Annie had just said, of a new beginning. For the last ten years she’d looked after her mother as she’d deteriorated from illness, but actually Jane’s life had been on hold for a lot longer than that. Possibly since from the moment she was born. Her mother had always needed someone and that someone had been Jane. Thirty-six years she’d been living for someone else. How the hell do you start again if you never really started in the first place?

She looked between Annie and Emily and realised she wasn’t going to win. Not if she wanted to keep them from moving their focus onto cleaning out the boat. ‘OK but just a trim,’ she said.

‘Absolutely,’ said Emily, pulling over one of the little wooden kitchen chairs and ushering Jane onto it. ‘Just a trim,’ she said as she got her gold scissors out.

Jane closed her eyes and thought back to the evening a couple of days before. When an email had popped up in her account from W_Blackwell@Blackwells.com.

Ms Williams,

Thank you for sending the diary pages of Enid Morris. I’ve had the information verified by my lawyers. I can meet tomorrow. Name a convenient venue.

There had been no sign off, just his automated signature that appeared at the bottom of all his emails and a marketing photograph of their new hotel complex in the city.

She’d leant back in her chair and cursed herself for even starting this whole bloody palaver. That was where researching a mystery got her – now she was having to meet up with this bloke and she hadn’t the foggiest what she was going to talk to him about. But she’d got caught up with the research, the Googling, the intrigue of Enid’s diaries. She wanted closure for her. Or maybe she just wanted something else to focus on instead of the big expanse of nothingness that stretched ahead of her.

In the morning she’d taken her old laptop down to The Dandelion Cafe that Annie owned and there, once Emily had arrived, had shown them the email.

‘What a pompous arse,’ Emily had said. ‘Got it verified by his lawyers. How ridiculous. As if you’d make something like that up!’

‘What did you send him?’ Annie had asked, nipping back to the counter to pick up the tray of teas and scones that she’d asked her waiter and step-son River to put together for them while she read the email.

‘I sent him photocopied pages of all the relevant bits of Enid’s diaries and the government letter about his grandfather’s war injuries. He wanted to see the actual diaries but I’ve given them to Martha even though she says she doesn’t want to read them. She said again that I shouldn’t be interfering with her family’s past. I wanted to say that really I think I knew Enid better than nearly anyone and that she would have wanted this… I mean in a way she was my family, too. If you make it about blood, then it negates some of the strongest relationships we have, doesn’t it? If I hadn’t had Enid…’ She’d paused, felt her voice irritatingly hitch and had to open her eyes really wide to stop the sudden prick of tears. ‘Anyway,’ she’d said by way of ending her part of the conversation.

Annie had given her a tentative little hug which had made Jane consider when the last time anyone had touched her was, and said, ‘I think Martha’s just being defensive. She’ll come round.’

If anyone had summed up Cherry Pie Island, it was the late Enid Morris. Tiny, ferocious, always dressed in black, never felt the cold, smoked like a trooper and told the filthiest jokes, she’d play classical music at full volume on her boat and invite all and sundry in for a whisky mac and quick hand of poker. But on the flip side she was wise and kind and in some way had influenced all of them. For years it had never occurred to Jane that not everyone went round to the boat next door when their mum was lying on the floor sobbing or had locked herself in her studio for four days solid to work. She didn’t realise that being scooped up from her bed on the sofa at midnight and taken next door because her mum just couldn’t cope wasn’t what happened to everyone.

She’d assumed that to get the moments of sheer, radiant beauty and unutterable happiness from her mum she had to endure the darkness. That that was par for the course. And when life got dark she went to Enid’s.

And then later, when her mother started to slip from what she now understood as depression to dementia, it would be Enid who would gather Jane up in a hug when she had been found with her head in her hands - furious, annoyed, guiltily frustrated - after a particularly difficult episode.

‘I’m wasting my life,’ she had said on more than one occasion.

And Enid had held her by the shoulders and said, ‘This is life. This is all part of the fabric. At some point you will use it and do something with it. For now, you can only do what you think is right.’ Then she had paused and added, ‘And nothing that is admirable is wasted.’

It was Enid in some sense that had kept her sane while her mother’s sanity slowly dripped away.

And now, through Enid’s diaries she had not only found reference to her own grandmother, Enid’s friend Kate, who her mother had never spoken of, but they had also found out about a love affair in Enid’s past that had left her pregnant with her daughter Martha and alone post World War Two. The man who had left her was a corporal named James Blackwell. His grandson, Jane had found through Google, was William Blackwell, a notoriously hard businessman who owned and ran the Blackwells hotel and restaurant chain.

‘So where did you say you wanted to meet?’ Emily had asked before cramming practically a whole scone with cream and jam into her mouth.

Jane had bitten her lip and looked a bit guilty. ‘I don’t know something came over me.’

‘What d’you mean?’ Annie had frowned, her teacup poised at her lips.

‘Well, I just thought if I’m going to do this, I want to do it properly, so I emailed back and said how about a drink at my hotel and he said, what hotel is that, and I said,’ she’d paused, made a face, then finished, ‘The Ritz.’

Emily had guffawed out her scone in bits on the table.

‘That’s attractive, Emily!’ Annie had sniggered.

Jane had still looked guilty. ‘It was stupid. It was a bit of an impulse because he’d been so snotty. And that was where Enid had gone to meet James Blackwell and so it felt like a kind of homage. Oh I don’t know. But now, not only have I got to meet this guy – god knows what we’re going to talk about – but I’ve had to book a room at the bloody Ritz.’ She’d held her hands up to her temples. ‘It’s more money than I’ve ever paid for anything, ever. But I told myself that I haven’t had a holiday for more than ten years. Proportionally, one really expensive night is nothing, is it? All I have to do is have a drink with this guy and then I can go out and see the sights. I can see London. Go on the Eye or, no not the Eye, I could go to the Summer Exhibition at the RA or have dinner somewhere cool like… I don’t know. I’ll research somewhere cool. That’s what people do, isn’t it? What’s it called? Flaneur-ing. I could be a flaneur.’

Emily had scrunched up her face. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about but, personally, I think it’s goddamn marvellous. And you know what it means?’ She had cast an eye over Jane’s ripped jeans, broken Birkenstock sandals fixed with a bit of electrical tape, baggy flower-print blouse. ‘It means finally, at last, I can give you a makeover.’

That was why Jane now found herself sitting on a kitchen chair surrounded by dresses and outfits that Emily had brought with her hanging from the curtain rail, why Annie had brought a bag of shoes with her, and why Emily had lifted up her golden scissors and lopped off the whole of Jane’s plait.

Chapter Two

It felt like the summer would never cease. A scorching July had led to an equally frazzling August, but now the heat felt like normality, like packing a jacket was almost unthinkable. Jane had packed her cagoule though. She had also packed a good pair of walking shoes. In the zip pocket in the side of her suitcase she had one of those travel purses that clips around the waist and sits, supposedly invisible, under clothing. She had packed nervously. She hadn’t been away much. Whenever they had gone anywhere when she was a child they’d taken their home with them; moving the boat from mooring to mooring.

As she wheeled her case off the Tube train and up the escalator, she suddenly hit the hustle and bustle of the ticket exit. The machine wouldn’t accept her Oyster card. She tried twice. The people behind huffed. Finally, on the third attempt, the doors opened but the exit wasn’t designed for her bag and the doors closed on her as she was pulling it through. The guy behind her tutted like it was the end of the world and said, ‘What are you doing, you stupid cow?’ She hesitated, trying to yank her bag though the flip doors of the exit, but it wouldn’t budge. The guard came over and tapped the doors open with a bored sigh. Her bag turned so it was only on one wheel and as she struggled to right it, people marched past from behind, a steady stream bashing into her. When she tried to move, someone running to get through the barriers tripped on her suitcase. ‘Jesus, woman! What d’you think you’re doing? Bloody tourists!’ he shouted, holding his phone between his ear and his shoulder, his hands outstretched like she was an idiot.

Jane froze.

She pulled her suitcase up so it was pressed against her ankles and stood for a moment. It’s OK, she told herself. This is all part of the adventure.

She thought about what Emily would do. How she’d have someone else carrying her case by now and would be sashaying up the steps like she owned the place. Or Enid. She would have just barged her way through and sworn back at anyone who swore at her.

‘Right,’ she said to herself. ‘Come on, Jane. Move.’

Brushing her newly honey-blonde-streaked hair out of her eyes, Jane put her shoulders back, stood up straighter and made a bee-line straight ahead, no matter who was walking straight for her. Like London Underground chicken, she didn’t swerve or veer, just headed for the Exit sign. She bumped and tripped and swerved in front of, but she just held her head high and kept walking until she was up the stairs and out in the open and all the panic fell away.

Everything in her bag suddenly felt superfluous as she stood in the bright sunshine looking across at the buildings, the bus tour stand, the tourist stall. She wanted to unzip the lid and hand her travel purse, rape alarm, waterproof and sturdy boots to whoever would take them. She wanted to be standing in the heat and smog of the city unencumbered. It was so big, so hot, so bright and addictively overwhelming. She looked behind her at Green Park, saw above the wall the lush green of trees and then down at her feet the pigeons pecking at leftovers. She saw a sign for Buckingham Palace and a wave of unexpected excitement flickered through her. She knew from her pocket A to Z that Constitutional Hill was straight ahead and Birdcage Walk and Westminster Abbey and…she glanced around searching, took a few steps, dodging out the way of the steady flow of tourists and business people, looked up, and there it was. Bright-white bulbs spelling out The Ritz.

She stopped right where she was, entranced. She heard people swear at her but, this time, she didn’t care. In front of her was by far the most brilliant building she’d ever seen.

It was like a castle. Grey brick at least eight stories, a million windows and a million arches, with chimneys like turrets and flags drooping low in the heat. Her heart did an involuntary flutter. She did a silent nod of thanks to Emily for making her ditch the Birkenstocks and for forcing her to sit for an hour with foils on her head.

Passing the fruit and veg stand and heading under the arch of the hotel’s covered walkway, Jane could feel her pulse race. There was fine jewellery for sale in the window and tourists peering in through the etched-glass windows of The Rivoli Bar, trying to get a peek inside. There were limousines and black taxis pulling up out the front and doormen, exactly like in Enid’s diary, with black top hats and long jackets embroidered with gold.

‘Can I help you, madam? Offer directions?’ said the one nearest her as she got to the entrance.

‘No I’m here,’ Jane said.

‘You’re a guest with us, madam?’

Jane nodded. ‘Yes, I have my booking.’ She started to rummage around in her handbag.

He held up his hand to stop her. ‘Madam, come this way. Welcome to The Ritz.’

She paused, stopped rummaging as she found that the man had picked up her case and was ushering her through the revolving door. ‘Reception is right this way.’

‘Thank you very much…’ She paused and looked at his name bag. ‘Trevor.’

‘You’re very welcome,’ he replied and she thought he paused, so she said, ‘Jane.’

He laughed. ‘You’re very welcome, Jane.’

And she blushed as he went back outside.

At reception there were two couples checking in in front of her. One were American tourists, the others were just rich – she was dressed all in white with jewels as big as robins’ eggs on her fingers. Her hair was coiffed and bouffant and her heels as high as a ruler.

Jane caught a glimpse of herself in one of the gold panels behind reception. Saw her own newly flumped-up blonde highlights, the layers of make-up that made her eyes pop out like a bushbaby and the lips that suddenly seemed to exist. She had never been pretty. She had never been terribly thin. Her mother had said she was beautiful but then didn’t everyone’s? She still didn’t think she was terribly pretty now as she looked at her reflection but she certainly looked the best she’d ever seen herself. She caught the bouffant woman’s eye in the mirror and instantly blushed scarlet. Looking at herself wasn’t something she ever did, and she certainly didn’t want to get caught doing so. But when the bouffant woman looked away again, something pulled Jane back. Maybe it was the glinting of the chandelier behind her, the lavish decorations, the man behind the desk checking her reservation, the simple fact that she was standing in the Ritz, something made her look again, and this time she angled her face slightly to the left, did a little eyebrow raise and sucked in her cheeks a bit and thought, I don’t actually look too bad.

‘Ms Williams,’ the man from reception’s voice interrupted her posing.

‘Oh sorry.’ Jane looked back, blushing again, mortified, keeping her eyes firmly away from the reflection and focused on all the stuff he was telling her.

Another man came over and picked up her case.

‘Oh that’s my bag—’ Jane said, trying to reach forward and take the case back from his gold trolley.

‘It’s fine, madam,’ the bellboy replied.

‘No really, that’s my bag—’

‘And I’ll take it to your room, ma’am. That’s my job.’ The bellboy smiled but hardly paused, moving on in order to pick up the bouffant woman’s bags, who made no quibble about the service.

Jane swallowed, feeling foolish. No one had ever carried anything of hers before.

The desk clerk went on as if that conversation hadn’t happened and gave her the details of her room, directions to the bar and the times for breakfast.

Jane nodded, not trusting herself to say anything else in case she embarrassed herself again. Instead she walked to the elevator, past huge vases of white flowers, Louis XV chairs, mirrored doors and over maroon patterned carpet. As she stepped in the lift she leant against the painted panels on the wall and watched as the doors closed in front of her.

And then she allowed herself to slump into an exhale, blow her new too-long side-fringe out of her eyes and remind herself that this was it. She was at The Ritz.

She thought of the passage in the diary, that she’d read over and over, where Enid thought about meeting corporal James Blackwell:

‘This is what his note says: If you want to join me for dinner, I’ll be staying at The Ritz.

The Ritz! I’ve never been to The Ritz. Can you imagine if the only time I went was with a war on? What would I wear? I can’t believe I’m thinking about what I would wear rather than whether I should meet a stranger for dinner.

Of course I’m going to meet him. If we can’t make beautiful memories at the moment, what can we do?’

As she walked out the lift and down the corridor towards her room, Jane thought about how carefree and brave the words sounded, and reminded herself that this was why she was here, too. To make beautiful memories. There had been so many shit ones, over the last couple of years especially, that it was time for the good.

And when she got to her room it took her breath away.

It must have been the size of her whole boat. With its own sitting room. She was sure she hadn’t booked a room with a sitting room. She looked for the bellboy to tell him that there had been a mistake, but her bag was already there, unzipped on the suitcase stand with no sign of him. She went through the door and into the giant bedroom, huge swathes of yellow curtains hung over the window, matching yellow chairs and a tiny table with a vase of giant peach roses stood in front of it. The bed was bigger than any bed she’d ever seen, the width of the length of her sofa back home. She wanted to throw herself on it in delight but, certain she was in the wrong room, went back into the living room and phoned Reception.

As she dialled, she saw a bottle of champagne on the table and a note which she opened as the man answered the phone. The card and champagne were from Emily and Annie. Wishing her luck, telling her to enjoy herself and a final PS:

‘We thought you can’t go to The Ritz without an upgrade! Enjoy xx’

The man from Reception asked again if Jane was OK.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes I’m fine, I just thought…’ She looked around the massive room. ‘I just thought there had been a mix-up, that’s all.’

‘No mix-up, madam,’ the man said and she wondered if she could hear a slight twinge of humour in his voice.

Jane put the phone down. Paused for a second to absorb the awesomeness of the suite, and then ran through to the bedroom and threw herself down on the bed.

She never wanted to leave.

Outside the window she could look down and see the whole of Piccadilly. The tourists bustling past, the evening light starting to dim the air, the Wolseley next door, over the road the blue flags with De Beers jewels written on them and the red ones of…she got her A to Z out…the Royal Academy. Pigeons flew past at eye level and she looked down at the people on the open-top buses. She thought about blowing out the drink with pompous William Blackwell and just starting her London adventure, but she had to meet with him. However stilted and awkward it might be, she had to put an end to Enid’s mystery. Had to pass over the baton and say: This is in your court now, you do with it what you will. Meet Martha if you want, come and see the island, or just put it in a drawer and forget about it but this is your history as well as ours.

She glanced back into the room and saw her dress that she’d hung up for the evening and felt a slight shudder of nerves. She just had to get the drink part done and then the rest of the evening was hers.

She wondered if there was time to have a bath. She’d only had a bath once before in her life. There wasn’t one on the boat and her year at art college was spent living in a tiny bedsit with a bathroom so small that the shower was over the toilet. But her one-time bath had been when she was seven and her mother, a textile designer, had finished a commission – swathes of the most stunning hand-blocked fabric – late, as always, and they’d gone to the fashion designer’s house on the train to drop it off. Jane didn’t usually go with her but it was her birthday and they were going for ice cream afterwards. Her mother had told her to wait in the fancy living room, but the designer had worried about things getting broken. Her mother had rolled her eyes behind his back which had made Jane laugh and then taken her into the bathroom, filled this massive sunken pink bath and told her to stay there for an hour or so while they finished the work. The designer thought it was all very untoward but Jane thought it was brilliant. A maid came in with fresh towels and a glass of orange juice and Jane lay in the bubbles watching as her toes wrinkled up in the water. When her mum was finished she came in, towelled her dry and they went for ice cream. Jane had lemon sorbet. Her mum had mint choc chip. It was one of the amazing days.

The bathroom in The Ritz was white marble. The bath had gold taps and Jacuzzi buttons, there were fluffy white Ritz towels and candles and flash bubble bath. When she lay in the warm water, the foam up to her chin, she glanced up and saw there was a chandelier as well.

For a moment she thought about telling her mum.

It wasn’t a moment that lasted long, but long enough to remind her that, while it might be a relief that her mother was finally at rest, free of the unrelenting clutches of illness, there was still a giant hole where she had been, where comments like, ‘There’s a bloody chandelier in the bathroom!’ floated with no one to pick them up.

As she lay back in the bubbles, staring up at the glinting crystals, her phone beeped with a text from Annie.

At work, just seen Martha out the back reading the diaries. Will keep you posted. Think this is a good sign. Progress. Good luck tonight x

Jane realised then that not only was there a hole in her future but a gaping one in her past. What would it be like to have, as Martha did, a stack of diaries filled with answers? As she lay in the bath she could finally admit how furious she was with Martha - how annoyed she was that she hadn’t jumped at the chance to read them. She was jealous of Martha’s chance to have a whole history laid bare. Jane would give anything to have the answers to the questions her mother had shut her eyes against, her hands covering her face, refusing to discuss. Just imagining the chance to know who her father was made her want to dunk her head fully under the water and scream, but that would ruin her new hair so instead she stayed where she was, knowing that there were no diaries written by her mother. Jane would forever live her life as she had always done, with no past except the one she had lived to see.

Chapter Three

The Diary of Enid Morris. 1st September 1944

James writes to me. He said he would but I didn’t believe him. I was trying so hard not to be naive that I’d written our affair off after one night. But he writes. Beautiful letters that make me struggle not to hope for the future at a time when I have refused to think about the possibility of life ever being normal again. It’s hard here, but I know it’s harder there. People talk about the trenches but no one can know unless they’ve lived it, can they? He doesn’t say anything really about what it’s like and equally I say nothing either. My last letter started with how glorious the sunshine was. Not that someone had died in front of me last night as we’d put them on a stretcher and I’m worried that I’m starting to become immune to suffering. Or more that I worry, if I keep working with the ambulance, that I might.

He says that he writes to me so he doesn’t have to write to his family. I’ve read about the Blackwells, I think, in the past. I asked my friend Fred if he knew anything about them but he asked why I was asking and I got annoyed with him and told him that it was none of his business. I think because Fred didn’t want me to be annoyed with him, he asked his dad who said that the Blackwells were in oil or something, owned a big house and weren’t our sort of people. (Fred’s dad’s words, not mine.) But in his letters James says they’re claustrophobic.

I wrote back to say that I knew exactly what he meant. The island is claustrophobic at the moment. It’s always claustrophobic. I stand sometimes on the bridge and look down the river and just think that there is so much out there to see. I hope they don’t destroy it all before it’s my time to see it.

Chapter Four

Jane tried to play it cool. She tried to walk nonchalantly from her room but the fluttering in her stomach, the slight shake of her hands, the nervous tremor on her lips that made her want to laugh got the better of her and she could feel her legs twitch as she started to walk to the lift. She couldn’t help it. It was all the adrenaline whizzing around inside her. What was she going to talk to him about?

She glanced at her reflection in the big mirrors as she walked. The dress Emily had leant her was a loose box cut, which was the main reason it fit. Cut straight to just above the knee, it was cream silk with hundreds of flowers printed on it. Before she put it on, Jane had spent a moment studying the printwork and, considering the cost of such a designer label, had known that she would have printed it better. A thought that surprised her, considering she hadn’t glanced at a piece of fabric with any remote interest for a decade. The shoes were Annie’s – simple silver sandals – and as she’d slipped them on she’d had to laugh at her bright-pink toenail polish. She’d never painted her toenails before.

Now as she caught glimpses of herself as she headed down the corridor she felt like an imposter. The whole evening like an odd masquerade.

The door to The Rivoli Bar was opened for her by one of the black-jacketed doormen.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

He just nodded his head in reply.

In comparison to the almost garish lights of the lobby, the bar was dim. Dark like a speakeasy. The music was low, and the decor varying shades of brown. It was like the bars in old film noirs where they came over and lit your cigarettes for you and everyone drank Old Fashioneds as they plotted crimes. She had to blink to let her eyes adjust. Then looked around and realised she’d have no idea who William Blackwell was. The whole thing was a disaster. She’d seen the odd photo when she Googled him but there were maybe ten men in here dressed in suits and, in the darkness, he could be any of them. She moved to take a seat at the bar instead. She perched herself as elegantly as she could in the short dress and studied the drinks menu in front of her.

A small glass of wine was fifteen pounds. Fifteen pounds. She almost gasped. She couldn’t pay fifteen pounds for a glass of wine. In the Duck and Cherry a small Pinot Grigio was three pounds ninety-five.

‘What can I get you, madam?’ The barman asked.

‘A small glass of white wine, please,’ she said immediately, nervous under his cool scrutiny, trying to seem au fait with it all, as if the price didn’t startle her one bit.

He nodded and took down a glass from the shelf.

Jane glanced around behind her, surfed the tables to see if any of the occupants might be William. It was like she was on a blind date; she should have told him she’d be wearing a rose.

‘Ms Williams?’ a voice said from behind her, making her jump. ‘William Blackwell,’ he said as she turned to face him.

There he was, hand outstretched to shake. Cool, slick, confident. Of course he’d just know exactly who she was. Jane in contrast felt completely off guard, fumbling to put the menu down at the same time as saying, ‘William, Williams,’ with a little laugh as if their matching names was a hilarious coincidence.

His mouth moved into the tiniest smile.

‘Sorry, hi,’ she said, composing herself, pushing her stupid new fringe out of her eyes and standing up off the stool. ‘Jane.’

He took hold of her hand, his grip hard against her fingers. Then sat down on the high stool next to hers and, as the waiter put the glass of white wine down, he said, ‘I’ll have an Old Fashioned,’ and Jane wanted to shut her eyes and add another little funny aside into the black hole that already held the news about the chandelier in the bathroom.

Her mum would have loved this. She would have wanted it all reported back in minute detail. On her good days they’d lie on the top of the boat and her mum would weave tales about every passer-by; every rower, every fisherman, every tourist, every walker. And Jane would egg her on, encourage her, buffeting the daydream, keeping it in the air like a balloon, all the while praying that the moment wouldn’t come when the mood would flip and her mum would roll onto her back, her eyes closed, her face long and say flatly, ‘That’s enough.’

Jane watched as William picked the exact bourbon he wanted in his Old Fashioned; looked at the clean-shaven line of his jaw, the long, straight Roman nose, the clipped black hair, the perfectly starched white shirt, the grey tie loosened a fraction enough to undo the top button, and wondered what story her mum would have spun about him. She didn’t have to wonder too much. Every man in a suit who strode past she would have down as a dashing Prince Charming hiding a stormy past, just as any loafing hippy was a passionate deep thinker with an untameable heart. Jane would watch her mum’s face as she spoke for clues as to which type her dad might have been.

‘So, these pages.’ William reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out the pristinely folded diary pages that she had emailed over. ‘It’s interesting reading.’

‘Isn’t it just? I thought you’d want to know—’

He cut her off. ‘I’m wondering what you want to do about it?’

The Old Fashioned arrived. He stirred it and looked around for the waiter to ask something about ice.

Jane frowned. ‘What do you mean what I want to do about it?’

The waiter took the drink back.

He opened the diary pages. ‘Probably easiest if I name what I think is an appropriate fee.’

Jane looked at him, confused. ‘What do you mean fee?’

William did an incredulous snort. ‘Ms Williams.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘This is sensitive information about my family, we’d like it to remain within our control.’

The Old Fashioned with a fraction more ice appeared on the counter.

Jane looked down at her fifteen-pound glass of wine and felt all her nervous excitement trickle out of her. He was offering her money. To what? Keep quiet? She didn’t say anything for a moment as she considered his words. Then she turned back to William and said, ‘Didn’t you find it interesting? Didn’t you find it interesting learning about this story that had your grandfather in it? It’s beautiful, sad and…’ She paused and frowned at him. ‘Have you read all the pages?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Not your secretary or your lawyer. You. You’ve read all the pages?’

‘I’ve had a skim through.’

She made a face. ‘A skim?’

She’d read them over and over. The idea that he’d just had a casual flick and passed them over to his lawyers made her furious. ‘This is your family,’ she said. In all her run-throughs of this part of the evening, it had never gone like this. There had been stilted chat about how fascinating the past can be, there had been him telling her all about what happened after the Blackwells’ part in the diaries ended. Like an episode of the Antiques Roadshow, there had been him maybe asking about her connection to Enid but there had never been this.

‘Yes it is my family,’ he replied. ‘And, interestingly enough, not yours. So I’m left to assume—’ he was about to continue, possibly to say something about the money again, but this time she cut him off.

‘Just so I’ve got this straight, you came here just with the intention of buying me off?’ she asked at a volume that made him flinch in his jacket and glance behind him to see if anyone was listening. Jane saw a couple of women in the corner give him an appraising once-over.

The barman had edged closer as he dried some glasses.

William did an awkward cough.

‘Are you going to answer my question?’ Jane could feel herself fuelled by annoyance. She wasn’t someone who raised her voice often, but she hated being talked down to, being made to feel small and insignificant. She’d felt it every time she went to hospital with her mum and was told that there was no more help available. That she would have to do herself harm before they could step in. And Jane would question how her mum was ever going to do herself harm while Jane was looking after her twenty-four/seven. And they would look pityingly at her.

‘I, er…’ William seemed embarrassed. Like he wished he’d sent his secretary to meet her and was still sitting at his desk in the office.

Jane, who’d been sitting perched upright, shoulders back so she looked her best in her dress, shuffled backwards into her seat, leant against the chair rest, picked up her wine, and said, ‘Read them now.’

‘I’m sorry?’ He coughed into his Old Fashioned.

‘Read them now,’ she said.

‘I really don’t think…’

‘From the moment you sat down, you’ve treated this meeting like an inconvenience and you’ve insulted me. I would never have dreamt of taking this story to any journalist. All I thought would happen is that we’d have a quick chat about how interesting it all is and go on our separate ways. Had you taken the time to get to know me and talk to me about what’s written here you would have known that. But…’ she swallowed. ‘A better story for the press than this one in the diary would be the CEO of a hotel chain trying to bribe someone for information in a public bar. Don’t you think?’ She glanced up and the barman raised his brows as he looked back down at his glass. ‘Don’t you think that would make a better story, Mr Blackwell?’ she said, just loud enough to be asking the barman and perhaps anyone sitting behind William as well.

‘OK, Ms Williams, I take your point, calm down.’ He held a hand up.

‘Don’t tell me to calm down, Mr Blackwell.’

He ran his tongue along the bottom of his top teeth. He clearly wanted to leave.

Neither of them spoke.

‘OK, let’s start again,’ he said, as if this was the boardroom and he was taking control.

‘No.’ She shook her head, her foolish highlights flicking in front of her eyes. ‘I don’t want to start again. I want you to read the pages.’

She sat back, arms folded across her chest. She’d had enough of being the one who did things for other people, who stayed calm when they didn’t. And she wasn’t leaving here with the taste in her mouth of being weak.

He watched her for a moment, deep-brown eyes studying her, weighing her up as an opponent. She glared back at him. Slowly his lips twitched up into a hint of a smile. ‘OK, Ms Williams,’ he said with a laugh. ‘I’ll read the pages. Waiter? Same again,’ he added with a raise of his brow at the barman, as if he’d been chastised, and brought him in cahoots.

Jane watched as he then unfolded the papers and leant back in his chair, pulling his jacket out either side of him and making himself comfortable and while she felt in theory she had won, it also seemed somehow like at the last minute he’d managed to turn the victory round onto himself.

Chapter Five

Earlier that day…

‘So what have you got on this Jane character?’ William leant back in his chair, hands behind his head while his PA sat in the chair opposite, the sunlight bouncing off the buildings of the wrap-around London view.

‘Nothing.’ Dolores shook her head. ‘Not even a Facebook page. She’s not on LinkedIn, I don’t know what she does. All I have is that she gave the eulogy at her mother’s funeral earlier in the year. One Angela Williams. Father Unknown on birth certificate.’

‘That’s interesting. Are we looking for him?’ William leant forward, flicked through some files open on his desk and glanced across at the list of emails building on his laptop.

‘Yes.’ Dolores carried on skimming down her list. ‘Oh and there is this… First prize in a dahlia competition at some Cherry Pie Island Show.’

William glanced up. ‘I’m not sure I needed to know that.’

‘Well she won it with Emily Hunter-Brown, you know of Giles Fox fame? He left her at the altar – big Hollywood hoo-ha. There’s a connection there to the media. Possible risk.’

William tapped his fingers to his lip. ‘Bollocks.’

‘Other than that, as I say, I have nothing.’ Dolores stood up, flipped her pad over and pushed her chair in. ‘You have meetings at four, five and six o’clock. You’re due at The Ritz at seven and then you have dinner with…’ She looked at her pad again as if she’d forgotten the name but Will knew Dolores never forgot anything. ‘Heidi,’ she said as if the name tasted sour. ‘At seven-thirty.’

‘The Ritz,’ Will sighed as he scrolled through, adding the dates and times on his iPhone. ‘It’s so old fashioned,’ he said, then paused, ‘I haven’t had an Old Fashioned for ages. Maybe I’ll have one there. So what, I’ve got quarter of an hour with her?’

Dolores nodded. ‘You could possibly squeeze it to twenty minutes – if you get a taxi.’

‘No, no. Fifteen minutes is quite enough. Just enough time to drink an Old Fashioned.’

Dolores shook her head, then paused as she opened the door. ‘You might find it interesting, you never know. She might not be after money, Will.’

Will raised a brow. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Dolly, everyone’s after money.’

She tutted at his cynicism.

‘Come on.’ He held his hands out wide. ‘What did you email me this morning?’

She looked away from him towards the view of the Shard.

He laughed then started to scroll through his emails. ‘Here it is…’ he said, ‘Bro, hope you’ve had a good morning. I’m gonna need another five grand. Zeph. And – hang on – let me find the next one. Here we go, William, I know we agreed the terms of the deal but my lawyer feels the company assets are worth more than your offer suggests. Hope you’re well, Aunty Violet.’ Then he tilted his head as if his point was proved.

Dolores sucked her lip.

Will’s phone rang. He paused before picking it up. ‘When you have evidence of widespread altruism, Dolly, I’ll give this Jane character more than twenty minutes. Mum, hi,’ he said as he picked up the phone. ‘I’ve got ten minutes, max.’

‘Hello, darling. You work far too hard.’ Francis Blackwell’s voice always had the calming melody of someone who had nothing to do except read her book in the sunshine with a glass of rosé. ‘Right, so ten minutes. OK. Well, I was clearing out the attic yesterday and I remembered something about those diary pages. You’ve read them, haven’t you?’

‘Course I’ve read them.’

‘Yes, well you’re so busy—’

‘I’ve read them.’

‘Well, it was something your father said years ago. He knew her. This Enid character. Well he didn’t know her as such, but he knew of her. He went to that little island. Strawberry something?’

‘Cherry Pie.’

‘Cherry Pie Island, of course. He went. His mother took him. He said they stood on the bridge and they watched this woman at the cafe and her child playing outside. I remember him saying that they didn’t go over the bridge, just stood on it and his mum just stared and then they left. But he never knew why and they never went again. I suppose this is why, isn’t it? She knew, Granny knew. She was always a cold fish, they all bloody were; the Blackwells. I hear Violet’s asking you for more money? What happens if you say no?’

Will peered down towards street level, down to the tiny people and tiny cars. He sighed. ‘She has to find an investor, or I do, to buy her out, or we have to split the assets which would be a nightmare. I can’t pay her any more. I’m only just getting us back on even, there’s no more to give her.’

His mum sighed. ‘Yes, Dad did rather er… Well you were handed a bit of a millstone, darling. We all know it. Sell it all off, if you ask me.’

‘Can we not go into this?’

‘OK, sorry, Will. I’d better go, my ten minutes is up, isn’t it? I just thought that was quite interesting. That he’d seen them. Enid and her little girl. That he’d remembered that. Ties it all up quite nicely. Anyway, ciao, darling.’

Will slipped his phone in his pocket and narrowed his eyes at the view. He thought for a moment about his dad. All ambition and crazy ideas and happy-go-lucky and ‘let’s just give it a go’. Thought about when they’d go and stay with his grandmother - Prudence Blackwell. The big, dark house, like there were never any lights on, yet he could see the big gold chandeliers blazing even now when he thought back. Could feel her cold hands and hear her clinking rings. Her lip raised in a sneer watching to see if Will would make a noise, kick his ball in the house, draw on the wall, anything that she could suck her breath in at and leave his dad tense and panicked and trying to please her but also wishing his son could just run about the garden without the possibility of damaging the roses.

He thought of the summer he’d stayed with her when his mum had had Zeph. Struggling to cope with a rambunctious ten year old as well as a newborn, they’d reluctantly packed him off to granny. The worst summer of his life. Sitting round the huge table being forced to eat things like liver and tongue, lying in bed hearing the creak and crack of the house at night and her saying that it very well could be ghosts who took unkindly towards naughty little boys. This dreadful, brittle woman who had terrified him and ignored him but also kept him on the tightest rein. A summer where he had sat on the side of the bed and cried and when she had heard him had come in and slapped him on the cheek and told him to grow up and be a man. He’d cried into the pillow after that, terrified she’d come in again. A summer that had left him furiously resentful of his brother when he got home, bitter that no one had come to get him. Angry at this baby who seemed to have stripped him of his lovely life with his mum and dad. And then that September Will was sent, like every Blackwell boy – paid for by Granny Prudence – to boarding school and his relationship with Zeph never moved past brother to friend. And his relationship with his father had developed an edge that he wished it hadn’t, one where he saw a man desperate to be free of this woman’s rule but ‘what was expected’ keeping him tied. Saying that it was probably best that Will went away to school anyway because Mum was having difficulty coping with the two of them, and Will pleading to stay and his dad wavering. Almost. But then Prudence chipped in – said it was time the boy grew up, that he was weak, that his father had babied him with just this kind of leniency. That he needed to build some character. And the Blackwell tradition won out. She won out. His father not quite strong enough to stand up to his own mother. And at the end of it – after university and a business MA – Will came home an adult. Came home with the hard edge Prudence had so desired. Came back to step into the shoes his father had set up ready for him as part of the company. As was expected. A company, however, that everyone working there knew had expanded too quickly, that didn’t have the infrastructure in place to cope, a company – his father’s pride and joy – that was failing.

Back in the present, Will turned away from the London view. Tried really hard to stop his brain from thinking of any more. Refused to let the image of him standing in this very office after the worst meeting possible, het-up, frustrated, angry with his father’s ‘it’ll be ok’, ‘just keep pushing on’ attitude when it clearly wouldn’t be OK and just losing his rag. Bashing the table top to get his dad to stop with the constant flow of daydreams and, to his for ever regret, saying exactly what his Aunt Violet had started to say. That the company was a shambles. That it wasn’t worth saving.

He put his hand over his eyes. The look on his father’s face. It was just the worst thing he’d ever seen.

Dolores poked her head round the door. ‘They’re waiting for you in the boardroom.’

Will glanced up, pretended he was just scratching his forehead. ‘I’ll be right there,’ he said and she nodded. He poured himself a quick glass of water, straightened his tie and headed to the next meeting.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.