Piper Plus

This is a continuation from David and Jen. It can be read as a standalone but many of the same characters feature

Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely co-incidental

All change

March

At five and eight years old, Josh and Tilly were a great deal easier to manage than they had been when Jen had undertaken this journey with them the last time.

Then there was the bonus of their new house on the mainline, no changing trains! Any parent of young children knows the stress of navigating a busy transport nexus with little ones.

The added bonus was sitting beside her. She glowed a little inside, thinking about the wonderful Christmas they had had after they were reconciled. Then she blushed thinking how enthusiastically they'd renewed their relationship.

The landscape rushed by. Josh was asleep, head lolling. Tilly was looking out of the window in that trance-like state that a long journey can bring on. David, of course, had his head in a book and Jen listened to music on her Walkman.

She took his hand from the book, laced their fingers together and gave it a gentle squeeze. He looked sideways at her and widened his eyes, at once affectionate and knowing, always the two in one. She rested her head on his shoulder.

There was a time when she would have looked at a family like theirs and wondered what it felt like to be that unit, that little band.

Now she knew how fragile it all was. The events of the previous year had depended on a series of chances. If any of them had gone awry, then they wouldn't be here.

The chances were so vanishingly small, it sometimes made Jen feel like she had won the lottery or been struck by lightning. But then ordinary people did win the lottery and they did get struck by lightning.

Sometimes the improbable actually happened. Briefly she wondered if anyone had ever won the lottery and been struck by lightning. Smiling, she closed her eyes to listen to the music.

***

The last time David had been in this station was when he had come to try and set things right with Jen. He looked around for the escalator that would take them up to the hall. Herding the children in the right direction while dragging the big suitcase they'd brought took all his attention.

Jen was walking along inhaling the air of her hometown which was somehow sweeter than that back at David's house. Our house, she reminded herself; they all lived there now.

But still, that house was far inland. Here the sea was less than five miles away and you could feel it in the air, some unknown vibrancy that lifted your soul and your step.

David was trying to keep his nerves under control. This would be the first time he'd met his in-laws in nearly two years. Let alone that in that gap there was a whole parcel of things better left under cover.

Anna knew some of it of course but could be trusted to keep schtum. But Fred and Jean, Jen's parents, must never know what had happened.

Jen had assured him that they were delighted that they were back together, but David still fretted. In the suitcase there was an extremely expensive bottle of Barolo that the Italian specialist had confidently said was excellent value for the money.

The Mollica's house was a big Edwardian terraced affair across five floors. The front door was at the top of a set of six stone steps and presently David was at the bottom with the luggage while Jen was at the top in a group hug with her parents.

Josh and Tilly had already pushed past to run screaming through the big old pile.

Jen and her mother vanished inside leaving Fred with David. He steeled himself for the encounter with Jen's father, but the man was already halfway down the steps, wreathed in smiles with his arms open wide.

David tried not to flinch as Fred clasped both of his shoulders and gave him a little shake.

"David! How wonderful to see you! Let me help you with those bags."

"Hi, Mr Mollica. Thank you, they are rather heavy."

"Did Jennifer bring the kitchen sink, eh?"

Fred winked conspiratorially and lifted the larger of the bags with enviable ease.

"She does plan for all eventualities, yes."

Fred chuckled. "That's my girl. Let's leave these in the hall and we'll go downstairs."

David tried not to worry. He was fairly certain that there would be one of those 'man-to-man chats' while they were here.

The kitchen and ordinary dining room were in the basement, though properly it was a called a lower ground floor as it was not fully underground and had windows to allow some natural light.

It was the beating heart of the place, warmed in winter by the range, cool in summer with the windows open and the stone flags underfoot.

The ordinary dining room housed a big, battered oak table, and was joined to the kitchen in an L shaped layout that allowed full interplay between the two.

David was deeply envious of the arrangement as it allowed everyone to mix and be at ease.

The children were already at the table drinking the forbidden nectar that was coca cola. Tilly looked him over the rim of her glass, her eyes very serious.

David smiled, she was already starting to play those games by which women try to work out how to manipulate men, and who better to practice on than her father?

There were also four flutes on the table and Fred was busying himself retrieving a bottle of prosecco from the fridge.

Shortly there was the very welcome sound of the cork freeing itself and David was transported back to the waterside where the dragonflies darted amongst the reeds and the sun made everything pastel. For a brief moment he was engulfed in nostalgia.

Jen watched his face change. His expression was wistful, and that was very unusual for David who was a creature that lived very much in the moment. She went over and took his hand.

"Everything okay?"

He looked at her and then gathered her into a fierce hug, squeezing her tight. Taken by surprise she tried to hug him back just as tightly.

Over his shoulder she could see Tilly watching them with concern. She managed a small smile to reassure her daughter that everything was fine even as she worried that maybe everything wasn't.

Jean Mollica watched this tableau. David was a curious young man. She worried that perhaps her daughter was more in love with the idea of him than the reality in her arms. She might be unaware, or worse, unwilling, to acknowledge his other aspects.

Jean knew that a great deal had happened while they were separated and that she had only been told a small fraction of it. Anna knew more but was frustratingly close mouthed which meant that it must be incendiary stuff.

***

"Jennifer?" her father said.

"Yes, Papa?"

"I need to talk to you."

Jen turned to face her father. Fred Mollica was now in his late fifties, silver threading the hair that had once been jet black. He was quite the looker in the old photographs on the mantlepiece. Thank goodness she'd not inherited the nose.

"When your husband first approached me to ask for your hand, I was very doubtful. He's a dreamer and dreams don't put food on the table. But he made you happy and I was swayed by that. Then you went and lived so far away!"

Jen nodded, David's job had been the excuse, but the drumbeat of 'get married, settle down, have children' was very strong in her community. She'd needed to put a bit of distance between them and her relatives. Fatefully, it had been too far, and she had ended up beached on a foreign shore.

"Your mother and I worried about you, and with good reason it seems. When that boy confessed his adultery, I feared it was the end; you were so upset. Then he came to see you and very quickly you were reconciled. And now here you are, and you seem happier than ever."

Jen smiled. "Yes, it's lots better."

Her father leaned forward and clasped his hands. "I think there are a lot of things you haven't told me."

Jen shifted in her seat. Lying to her father was a waste of time. He was good at picking out inconsistencies, so it was just easier not to tell him. If he ever learned of the events of last year, David would be thrown out on to the pavement.

"Like what, Papa?"

"David's new job."

"It's great. David's so much happier."

"I see that. I also see that he is much better dressed than he used to be. I see that you have a diamond on that chain around your neck. He must be very well paid. What is it that he does again?"

Jen stalled. "I'm not sure what his actual job title is but he's some sort of analyst."

"Hnh, I must tell my nephews to train as analysts. But then what was he doing before that?"

"You know, Papa! He was an office worker," Jen protested.

"Just so. It's a big step from office worker to analyst. He must be possessed of great qualities."

His eyebrows arched. "I wonder where these qualities were hiding up to now?"

There was pause and Jen tried not to blush or squirm while she waited for her father to finish his enquiry. Telling herself that she was a grown woman with two children wasn't working.

He pursed his lips. "Well, I suppose I must accept that he has them seeing as he is some months in. What I still don't understand is how he was ever invited to interview when he has nothing to demonstrate his suitability."

"He had the test results."

"Yes, the test results. I must find out what the name of that test is, then I can tell my nephews to stop bothering with those tedious exams."

His eyes glittered.

Abruptly he sat back and put his hands on the arms of the chair.

"Everyone is entitled to a little luck now and then."

Jen stood. "Would you like a cup of tea, Papa?"

He looked up at her. "Still keeping secrets from your Papa, Jennifer? I saw your relief when I asked about his job. That tells me that there are things you would rather I did not ask."

"Papa, I'm a grown woman with a family. I have to manage my own life. I'm sure there are things you didn't tell your parents."

To her surprise her father shifted in his seat and looked out of the window.

"Perhaps, perhaps. None of us are saints at the end of the day."

***

April

Rosemary Ogilvie had known that Harold was unwell in that abstract way that anyone does when they've never experienced debilitating illness.

It had started as pains in his side which, given that he was twenty-five years her senior, was to be expected, no?

It was initially ascribed to cramps or muscle spasms and later to kidney stones or other obstructions. He was prescribed physiotherapy and anti-inflammatories, then sent for tests and scans.

The dense mass in his liver was quite obvious on the x-ray. Unfortunately, so were the dark spots on his lungs.

"Metastases," observed the consultant, "where the liver cancer has spread to other parts of the body. We can see lung and there are probably bone too."

Rosemary and Harold looked at each other. They knew that liver cancer was not good. Neither of them had ever heard of metastases but now knew it meant more cancer. The consultant was looking gloomy.

"Survival rates are not good even with all the techniques at our disposal. You've got a few months at most," he said and looked down at his notes.

With the diagnosis ringing in their ears, they stumbled down the steps of the clinic and stood clinging to one another in the cruel spring sunshine.

Rosemary was reeling from the information that Harold was going to die. It sat like a rock in her brain round which her thoughts skittered.

He'd been her anchor ever since he had rescued her from the seedy bar where she had avoided prostitution by the skin of her teeth.

Harold had paid for her to finish her education and file off some of the rough edges of her upbringing and they'd been scandalously wed. He asked very little of her, other than to take his arm at some of the showier events that he attended.

However, the marriage had not been consummated, though Rosemary had been expecting to sleep with him as the quid pro quo.

They lived together perhaps as a niece might with her favourite uncle. He tolerated her parties, asking only that he be absent during proceedings.

What he was doing in that bar and why he'd chosen to rescue her out of all the other waifs and strays had gone unanswered.

They found a bar and ordered doubles. The barman raised an eyebrow, it was only just after eleven.

Sitting at the window, Harold was gazing at the trees opposite. He'd probably never see another spring. Rosemary couldn't imagine what was going through his mind.

"What will you do?" she asked hesitantly.

"Do?" he said as if addressing the question for the first time. "Put my affairs in order I suppose. Don't worry my dear you'll be well taken care of."

He smiled and patted her arm.

"Oh, sod the money, Harold! I don't want to lose you!"

He grimaced. "It was always going to be this way though, wasn't it? I'm in my fifties now and you're just thirty. In twenty-five years' time, you'll be my age whereas I'll be nearer eighty."

He paused and then with grim humour said, "Well, I would have been eighty."

Rosemary started to sob, and her husband gathered her into his arms.

***

The hospice was beautiful and well designed, no sharp angles or brash echoes. Despite that, it couldn't quite shake off the miasma of a hospital.

Rosemary's heels clacked on the tiles, and she was aware of the looks she was getting. She snorted and mentally raised two fingers.

Harold had made a very generous donation and his reward was the best of care from a host of smartly turned out young men and women who possessed that remarkable talent of being present when needed and absent when not.

He looked tired and drawn and old, sitting up in bed with a drip in his arm.

"I guess they'll just keep upping the morphine dose until my system packs in."

"Do you know how long?"

"A couple of weeks, maybe. Oh, now don't cry, my dear. You should be used to the idea by now."

"I can't get used to the idea that you just won't be there anymore!" she wept. "You've always been there for me! You've been a husband and a father to me. Who will I turn to? I'll have no one."

"We all come and go alone, Rosemary. When my parents died, they'd not been in my life very much but even so, I was conscious that I now had only my own judgement to steer me. Take some time to think about what you want to do with your life. Those parties can't go on for ever."

"They'd started to bore me anyway," she said, only realising after she said it that it was true.

They sat in silence for a while and then Rosemary plucked up the courage to ask the two questions that had always vexed her.

"One thing I want you to tell me, Harold. Well, two things actually, but they're sort of the same thing. I know you're very fond of me and indulge me to a ridiculous degree, but you don't love me and never have.

Well, that's not true, I know you love me but not that way, I mean. I used to wonder all sorts of things. Were you gay? But as far as I can tell, Harold, you've never had a lover. But that's not the most important thing."

Aware that her mouth was running away with her, Rosemary paused and collected herself.

"If I don't ask you now, I'll never know, and I must know, Harold. Why me?"

He smiled avuncularly and put his hand on hers. "Do you remember the Windermere Club?"

"Your drinking den in Clarendon Street? You haven't been there for years. Dreadful place."

"It had its attractions for a single man about town. One Saturday I had been drinking at the club for most of the day. I was really quite three sheets to the wind when I got into an argument with a fellow, I don't even remember his name, who accused me of being a useless libertine.

It got quite heated in the way that those things do, and he challenged me to name a single altruistic deed of my own. Failing so to do and full of drunken righteous indignation, I resolved to remedy the problem immediately, so I left the club and went walking about, looking for a cause to champion.

Initially I had some vague idea of finding a beggar, taking them to a hotel, getting them cleaned up and giving them a thousand pounds. But I couldn't find one."

Rosemary was incredulous. "Not find a beggar round Clarendon Street! I don't believe you!"

"Oh no, there were plenty of beggars and they were all quite happy to take the money or to have sex with me, or both; but they got suspicious at the rest of it. Quite baffling in a way," Harold mused.

"Happy to screw some stranger in an alley but allergic to the idea of the chance of a hot bath, a warm bed and some clean clothes. I'm probably doing them a disservice, after all what would you say to a drunk offering to clean you up?"

He looked into the middle distance, remembering.

"Anyway, I staggered on, determined to do good for once in my life. After a while I decided that what I needed was another drink and so I fell into the bar where you were working. The moment I saw you I knew you were the one.

It was pure blind chance my dear. You are my good deed. I have every expectation that you will find a just cause and apply your considerable tenacity to it."

His voice cracked.

Rosemary was dumbfounded. She had never questioned Harold before, fearing that to do so might break something fragile, possibly even put her back on the streets.

Now it seemed that her life since that moment was the product of a chance disagreement followed by a drunken resolution to rescue an arbitrary nobody!

Reading her thoughts from her face, Harold nodded.

"This is why I never told you. I'm no saint and most definitely not a guardian angel: I didn't set out to find you. I could have changed my mind when I sobered up.

The following morning, however, when I considered what was the best thing to do, I resolved that I would carry through with my initiative. After all, what else was my money for? No one was going to inherit it."

He chuckled. "You did rather test my resolve in the early days. You were an abrasive little guttersnipe!"

Rosemary shook her head, shying away from the notion that randomness ruled her life.

Her other important question came to her.

"That's the other thing, why did you have to do that, Harold? I'd have thought eligible spinsters would be beating your door down. You're charming, funny, kind ... rich!"

His face fell and he sighed. "I was never interested. Throughout my teens, as my peers obsessed over Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor or perhaps, secretly, over Rock Hudson, I waited for my own interest to spark.

It never did. I like people, Rosemary, but I've never been passionate about anyone. In some ways you were the perfect solution for that."

"What do you mean?"

"For a start, the juiciest of scandals! Marrying someone half my age and, begging your pardon, a nobody at that. Don't tell me you didn't get a kick out of thumbing your nose at some of my relatives."

She laughed and nodded. They were a stuffy bunch, and when her connection to her disreputable cousin was discovered there had been a great deal of talk. Usefully, his reputation had stilled many tongues.

"And it put paid to my eligibility. At last, the invitations to parties where I could be paraded in front of the assembled cast would cease. Off the market! You, though, will not be short of suitors once I am gone."

Rosemary blanched. The idea of some of the feral types from her soirées sniffing round her was not appealing. In fact, the more she thought about her acquaintances, the less she liked the idea of any long-term relationship. She needed a David Piper, but he was very definitely out of reach.

***

June

Max and David rendezvoused in Derek's office. Max Wellborn was the IT manager at Cross. As far as David could tell he wasn't an employee as such. He seemed to do the work almost as a hobby.