A Perfect Christmas

Chapter TWENTY-NINE


Cait lingered behind a little longer at work after everyone had left, to allow time for Glen and Jan to arrive home before she got there. Her nerves were jangling. On one hand her actions could be responsible for catching a criminal in the act; on the other she could be about to cause bad feeling between herself and two people she had come to regard as friends.

As she left work, though, and was making her way towards the steps leading up to the main road by the canal bridge, she stopped short on seeing the shadowy figure of a man loitering at the top. He seemed to her to be acting suspiciously. The night was a dark one and she was too far away to make out any of his features. Immediately she worried he was sizing her up before robbing her. It was too late to go back to the factory and make her way out of the front entrance instead as the night watchman had locked the door behind her and would have the gates closed by now. She had no choice but to continue the way she was going. Tightly clutching her handbag, her only defence from a possible attack, she continued up the steps. As she drew nearer, although it was still too dark for her to see his features clearly, the man seemed familiar to her. It was the way he was standing, with his hands thrust in his pockets, his head tilted to one side. Neil used to stand in just that way when waiting for her to arrive. Then Cait’s heart leaped inside her chest as she realised it was Neil.

As soon as he saw the woman approaching him was Cait, he bounded down the steps to join her then stood looking at her awkwardly.

‘Oh, it was me you were looking for. I’d no idea you knew I worked here.’ Or that you could possibly want to see me, she thought to herself.

‘I . . . er . . . didn’t until I bumped into a mutual friend of ours, who mentioned that they saw you heading into Rose’s as they were taking a short cut down by the canal. Said you looked very smart . . . and, I have to say, you do, Cait.’

She smiled in appreciation of his comment. ‘Thank you. Did you come looking for me for any particular reason?’

‘Well, as a matter of fact I did. You see . . . well, er . . . that night we bumped into each other at the cab office . . . well . . . the Cait I knew wouldn’t have apologised for her behaviour like you did, and I rather liked the new Cait and would like a chance to get to know her better. So I was wondering whether . . . er . . . you know, you’d like to go out with me one night and see how it goes?’

Cait couldn’t believe she was being given another chance with Neil. She just looked at him for several long moments, wondering if she was dreaming this or not. In fact, she actually put out her hand to confirm he was real. She smiled happily at him. ‘I would like that very much.’

He grinned. ‘Oh, good. What about next Saturday night?’

‘That would be lovely. So tell me what time you’d like to meet me and where, and then we can decide together where we would like to go.’

He thought, Wow, Cait really has changed. The old Cait would have dictated the time they met as well as where they would go. He told her, ‘Saturday at eight, outside British Home Stores.’

Cait suddenly remembered tonight’s pressing engagement. ‘I’ll be there. Now if you will excuse me, Neil, I have to be somewhere.’

His face fell. ‘Oh, not . . . er . . . meeting a boyfriend?’

She was pleased to see that he hadn’t liked the thought of that. ‘No. This is to do with work.’

‘Oh, good. I mean . . . right you are. I’d better hurry home too or my dinner will be cold. See you Saturday then,’ he said as he turned away.

‘Yes, see you,’ she called after him.

Cait was so happy that she almost skipped all the way to Glen’s and Jan’s flat, but as she approached it the reason why she was visiting them hit her full force again and swept aside all thoughts of Neil. On the tiny landing outside the flat she paused just long enough to draw a deep breath then rapped her knuckles purposefully against it.

Glen had just lit the fire and was washing his hands at the kitchen sink. Jan had made a pot of tea and was about to pour them both a cup before she made a start on their dinner. The knocking resounded against the door.

Drying his wet hands on a shabby towel, Glen told Jan, ‘I’ll go.’

He opened the door and Cait barged past him and into the living area, to stand with her back to the fire. A confused Glen shut the door and hurried after her, wondering what on earth was going on. That she was deeply upset about something was very apparent to him.

From her position at the kitchen table, Jan heard the sound of outdoor shoes pounding the linoleum and knew the visitor wasn’t their landlord as he always wore slippers when he was indoors. Coming out to investigate, she saw Cait, smiled and went to welcome her and offer her a cup of tea, but was stopped when Cait held up one hand warningly. A perplexed Glen came to stand by Jan’s side, both of them puzzled by Cait’s odd behaviour. She addressed Glen. ‘I need to ask you a question, and I would like an honest answer from you.’

He looked taken aback. ‘Well, I wouldn’t answer you in any other way, Cait. What is it you want to ask?’

She took a breath, tilted back her head and demanded, ‘Are you the Glen Trainer who used to own Rose’s years ago and was sent to prison for viciously attacking a man and hijacking his lorry?’

The unexpected question had rendered Jan speechless.

Glen didn’t hesitate to answer, ‘Yes, I am.’ Then he asked, ‘How did you find out?’

Cait took a moment to answer, deeply distressed to have been told what she hadn’t wanted to hear: that the two people before her were not the friends she had believed them to be. Finally she managed, ‘Our visitor today was sure he recognised you. That’s why I came, to find out if he was right or not.’

‘Well, you now know he is. But I can only ask you to believe that I was totally innocent of the accusations made against me, Cait.’

Her initial shock was replaced by anger over what she suspected this pair of criminals were planning to do. Clearly they had used her, befriended her in order to get the information they needed from her. She laughed harshly. ‘All guilty men profess that, don’t they? I don’t believe you any more than the jury who found you guilty. You’ll be trying to make me believe you were framed next.’

Jan found her voice. ‘That was what happened, Cait.’

She retaliated, ‘Oh, you’ve both missed your calling. You should have been on the stage.’ Eyeing them both in disgust, she continued, ‘Since you were recognised by our visitor today, I’ve been trying to rack my brains for a plausible reason why you would return to the scene of your crime. The only ones I can think of are that you are either planning to rob the place or else repeat your former crime – taking more care this time not to be observed. You obviously thought it best to have a legitimate reason to be on the premises while you perfected your plans, just in case anyone saw you having a nose around and reported you to the police. Poor Mr Swinton was under the impression he was helping you make a fresh start by giving you a job, and all the time . . .’

Glen exclaimed, ‘Cait! Please, stop. You have this all wrong. I wasn’t planning to do anything like you’re suggesting.’

She sneered, ‘Well, I’d prefer the police to be the judge of that. I’m going there next, to report my suspicions of you.’

Jan was looking horrified. ‘If Cait goes to the police, Glen, and they start showing an interest in you because of your background, you could end up losing your new job – and then you might never get another and land up back where I found you. I can’t let that happen to you. You have to tell Cait the truth about why you got a job back at Rose’s.’ Then, terrified of Glen refusing and running the risk of a police enquiry, Jan couldn’t stop herself from blurting out to Cait, ‘There was nothing sinister about Glen deciding to get a job at Rose’s. It was because it was the only way we could come up with for him to get the information he needed.’

Cait looked baffled. ‘What information?’

Jan blurted again, ‘About his daughter.’

Cait looked even more baffled. ‘But why would you need to work at Rose’s to find that out?’

‘Because it’s the only way he could get to speak to the person who has that information, that’s why.’

‘Jan, that’s enough,’ Glen ordered her. He then said to Cait, ‘I think it’s in your best interest to leave now. Do what you feel you have to.’

Jan spun round to face him, alarmed. ‘Glen, don’t do this! Think of the consequences for you. Do you really want to end up back where I found you?’

He shook his head. ‘No, I don’t.’

‘Then tell Cait the truth. Please, Glen, please,’ she implored.

‘The truth about what?’ Cait demanded.

He shook his head and said with conviction, ‘I can’t. You know why, Jan. I can’t do it to her.’

‘Well, I can if you can’t,’ Jan responded fervently. ‘You’re a good man, Glen, a decent man, and you’ve suffered enough after what that woman did to you. I can’t stand by and see you suffer any more, not just to save Cait’s feelings I can’t.’

‘My feelings?’ she said, bewildered. ‘What have my feelings got to do with this?’

Jan blurted out, ‘Because . . .’

Glen grabbed her arm. ‘All right, Jan, you win. I’ll tell her.’

She sagged with relief. ‘Thank goodness.’

He then said to an utterly bewildered Cait, ‘I think you’d better sit down. This story I have to tell you is going to come as a great shock and perhaps cause you distress.’

Cait began to feel afraid. She stepped over to the armchair Jan usually sat in and sank down into it, looking at Glen expectantly and waiting for him to explain.

Jan was sitting on the sofa, anxiously wringing her hands, ready to give comfort to the girl, which she knew she was going to need very shortly.

Leaning forward, hands tightly clasped, face grave, Glen began, ‘I had recently lost my wife and been left with a young baby to care for when I met your mother . . .’

Astonished by this, Cait declared, ‘My mother! You know her?’

He nodded. ‘I do, Cait. I was married to her.’

Astounded she cried out, ‘What! My mother was married before she met my father? And to you?’

‘I don’t know whether it was before she married your father and was committing bigamy when she married me, or if she married him after she divorced me. If that is the case then as you were about a year old at the time, it could mean the man you think of as your father may not be at all.’

She snapped, ‘Of course he’s my father. His name is on my birth certificate.’ Her face clouded in confusion. ‘But then, if I was about a year old when my mother married you . . . well, that means you were my father too for the time you were married? But I don’t remember you.’

‘You wouldn’t, Cait. The first I knew of your existence was when I met you that morning in the office and realised you weren’t who I thought you were.’

‘Who did you think I was?’

‘My daughter.’

‘Oh! But where was I then while my mother was married to you?’

‘I have no idea, Cait. Living with your father, I presume.’

This was getting all too much for her to take in and make sense of. She just stared at Glen speechless as he continued.

‘As I said, I had recently lost my wife when I met Nerys. She was serving behind the bar of a hotel. She was young and very attractive, vivacious, funny, with such a warm and caring nature, and . . . well, she just bowled me over. I was . . . and still am . . . an ordinary-looking man, and I couldn’t believe that a woman like her was showing any interest in me. But she was, wanting to know all about me, and before I left she had got me to agree to take her out on her next night off.’

Cait found her voice then. ‘That woman you have just described is definitely not my mother. She is a very good-looking woman, true, but definitely hasn’t got the personality you have just described. You’re mixing her up with someone else.’

He told her gently, ‘I’m not, Cait. Your mother and the woman I married are definitely one and the same. I couldn’t fault Nerys for the way she cared for me and my daughter, looked after the house, always made herself look nice for me, was the perfect hostess to our guests. I had loved my first wife, too. Julia was a wonderful woman, soft and gentle, and made me feel safe when I was with her. But Nerys made me feel . . . alive. I was constantly pinching myself, to check that I wasn’t in a dream. I was to find out, though, that she wasn’t really interested in me at all. It was an act she put on to fool me. What she was interested in was getting her hands on all I owned. My business, house, and what money I then had in the bank.

‘Just over three months after we married, I found myself in prison serving a fifteen-year sentence for a crime I hadn’t committed, but with no evidence to prove otherwise. Nerys had become the legal owner of all my worldly goods before I realised she was the only one who could have plotted and carried out the plan to frame me. By then there was nothing I could do about it. I’d signed everything over to her. The only thing that kept me going was the fact that she had promised to raise my daughter by my first wife as her own, and as she had always seemed to dote on her, treating Lucy just like she was her baby, despite the lies she’d told me, I believed she was sincere about that. But I now know she was lying and have no idea where my daughter is or where to start looking for her. The only person who could give me this information is Nerys herself, but for a long time I had no idea where she lived or even what she was calling herself now.

‘It was Jan’s . . .’ he paused and smiled warmly at her before continuing ‘. . . idea for me to get a job at Rose’s. I have such a lot to thank this kind lady for. When I met her, I was in a sorry state. I’d been living rough for years because I couldn’t get a decent job with my criminal record. Jan took pity on me and gave me the opportunity to get myself cleaned up, put a roof over my head . . . everything I needed, in fact, to start building a better life for myself than the hard one I’d been living. Her idea seemed the best way for me to find out where Nerys lived, so that I could go there and be reunited with my daughter again.

‘As Nerys was the owner of the business, there had to be times she would visit it, to check that all was well and deal with important issues. My intention was to keep my ears open, find out when she was on the premises then go and confront her, demand that she let me see my daughter again. Jan took a job with Rose’s too as we thought two people working together, trying to get the information I needed, had more chance of succeeding than just one.

‘Then, of course, the first day we started working at Rose’s we discovered Mr Swinton had died, and rumour had it that Mrs Thomas was abroad and her daughter was going to be deputising for her until she came back. I was sorry about Reg Swinton’s death, but I cannot tell you what hearing the other news meant to me. My daughter was going to be in the same building as I was, and all I could think of was trying to find an excuse to be up on the second floor, waiting to catch a glimpse of her face. Jan and I thought it best to plan carefully how I was going to approach her with the news that I was her father. At that time I did not have any idea whether Nerys had married again or was just calling herself Mrs Thomas. But the opportunity for me to visit the second floor never came until I saw my chance during the union meeting, while the vote on taking industrial action was being counted.’

Cait spoke up then, her voice thick with emotion. ‘I can’t imagine how disappointed you must have been to find it wasn’t your daughter after all, only me. Or before that, believing I was her and seeing the way I was behaving.’

Neither Glen nor Jan responded.

Cait got up and walked silently across to the window to tweak the shabby curtain aside and stare out into the grim, gas-lit street. She was lost in her thoughts. After a moment, she let the curtain fall back into place, turned around and asked, ‘This isn’t just a story you’re telling to fob me off, is it? You’ve not made it up to put me off the scent when really you are planning . . .’

Glen interjected, ‘Oh, Cait, I’d have to be a very cruel man indeed to tell you such elaborate lies just to provide myself with a cover story. No, every word I have told you is the truth.’

Deep down Cait had known it, but it was all too shocking for her to take in immediately. She silently resumed her seat and stared sorrowfully at him. ‘I can’t believe that my own mother could be so selfish and cruel as to live happily on what she stole from you, knowing you were rotting away in prison for something you hadn’t done. Or that she was in fact responsible for a poor man being half killed when he tried to stop his van being hijacked.

‘I asked my mother when I was younger how we lived as neither she nor my father worked, and she told me . . . she actually told me that it was none of my business, but that the money came from a sizeable inheritance she’d had left her.

‘I feel so guilty now I know the truth about where that money really came from! I’ve been living on your money too, Glen. It paid for the house I lived in, the food I ate, the clothes I wore . . . everything, in fact, until I started to contribute just a little towards my keep once I was working. She’s my mother and I feel in some way responsible for what she did to you. I feel I should try and make it up to you somehow, but I don’t even know how to start.’

Jan reassured her, ‘Whatever your mother did, there’s no need for you to feel either responsible or guilty.’

‘Jan’s right,’ Glen confirmed.

‘But it’s not fair that you’ve been forced to live so harshly while my mother and father want for nothing. There must be a way you can get her to restore what’s rightly yours?’

‘It isn’t rightly mine any more, Cait. I signed it all over to your mother, without being compelled to. I’ve already come to terms with that. I’m just grateful that I finally have a roof over my head, Jan’s good food in my stomach, and a job so I can pay my way. All I want back from Nerys is my daughter.’

Jan was looking at Cait closely. By now she would have expected the girl to be sobbing her heart out on finding out that her beloved mother wasn’t at all the woman she had believed her to be. Instead, any emotions she was feeling were being kept to herself. That didn’t seem right to Jan.

Cait was silent for a moment, deep in thought, before she fixed grief-stricken eyes on Glen and Jan. The emotional pain she was feeling was etched on her face as she told them, ‘The woman you described . . . the warm, caring, vivacious, funny woman . . . I’ve never seen her at all. Well, yes, I have – but only when she’s with my father. She dotes on him, fusses over him like he’s a little boy she has to protect, will drop anything she is doing if he needs her for the slightest thing. She’s never been like that with me. She won’t allow me to get close to her . . . never allows anyone else but him to get close to her. Should anyone even try to be friendly with her, she puts them firmly in their place and lets them know they are wasting their time. I know she doesn’t love me. My father doesn’t either. I’ve tried to rack my brains and understand why, but all I can come up with is the belief that they love only each other and don’t have any left over for me. Like you have, Glen, I’ve come to terms with the fact that she doesn’t have any feelings for me.’

Now Jan understood. Cait had never been shown any love by her parents, wasn’t used to receiving it so didn’t expect it automatically to be given her by others. It was Jan’s guess that if she’d ever had a boyfriend and he’d shown her affection, then she would have wanted it to be shown constantly in an attempt to make up for what she didn’t receive elsewhere. There were not many men who could stand to be with an emotionally needy woman for very long. This was why her fiancé had called off their wedding. She now understood why Cait had behaved the way she had, until Glen had put the fear of God in her and she had changed her habits. She had seen the way her mother treated others and consequently believed that was how she should behave too. Jan could never understand why some women couldn’t love their children, but she had seen examples of it before. She’d had a neighbour once who’d had five children she openly adored, except for her middle child. When she had been born, she’d been such an attractive baby, very content, never causing her mother a sleepless night, but for no particular reason her neighbour’s motherly feelings had never materialised. She supposed this state of affairs was what had happened with Nerys and Cait.

The girl had lapsed into silence again and Jan thought she’d go and make them all a cup of tea, something she could do now as she had bought another two cups and saucers on receiving her first full pay packet on Christmas Eve. She could most certainly do with a cup herself after all this, but before she could get up Cait was saying, ‘There is something I can do to try and make up for what my mother did to you. I can’t get your business back for you, or the house she took, or any money . . . but I could try and help you find your daughter. Lucy, that’s her name, isn’t it? I realise now why you called me that in my office when you found me there. It’s a lovely name, pretty. But I’ve been thinking that if my mother had her adopted or put in an orphanage, she would have had to sign a legal document or something, wouldn’t she?’

Glen’s mind was racing. ‘Yes, she would have.’

Jan excitedly piped up, ‘And hopefully Nerys would have kept a copy. If we can find that it might give us a lead to follow.’

‘That’s what I was thinking,’ said Cait. Then she mused, ‘But I never found anything like that, any personal papers at all, when I had a rummage around in her bedroom . . . not even in the safe. I would have thought that’s where she would keep such private things.’

She then felt a need to explain why she had been searching through her parents’ personal belongings. ‘You see, they never talk about their past at all . . . only told me they were both orphaned. I was intrigued to find out where I came from and thought that maybe there would be some old photographs of my grandparents, so I could at least see what they looked like. That’s why I was having a good look around but, as I said, I found nothing. Well, except for my own birth certificate on a shelf in the safe and a small box with some mementoes that my mother had kept from when I was a tiny baby. Or perhaps they’d belonged to her, considering how she felt about me.’ She decided not to mention the money she had helped herself to. She had just accused innocent people of being thieves and now she was realising that she herself was. ‘So where the likes of my parents’ marriage certificate and other personal documents are kept, I have no idea. Have you?’ she asked them both.

‘Most women I know, including myself, keep all our personal stuff in a box or handbag in the wardrobe. Your mother obviously isn’t like the rest of us as you never found anything like that when you had a search around,’ Jan mused.

When Cait had talked about the safe she had discovered, locked in a cupboard in her mother’s bedroom, Glen had immediately known that this had to be the one he had inherited from his father in which he had kept his personal papers. Glen had followed suit. He said to Cait, ‘And there was definitely nothing else in the safe besides what you found on the shelf? There was nothing in the drawer, for instance?’

She looked at him, frowning. ‘What drawer?’

‘The one in the safe.’

‘I never saw a drawer in the safe. In the bottom half it was just a block of metal. My birth certificate and the box of baby things were on top of that.’

Glen’s eyes lit up. ‘So you didn’t check the drawer then?’

‘I told you, there isn’t a drawer in that safe.’

‘Yes, there is, Cait. That solid block of metal you described, well, that’s the drawer. You push the front and it springs out.’

She exclaimed, ‘Oh! In that case, I could still find some photographs or information about my ancestors. And, more importantly, information that could lead you to your daughter. Hopefully my mother did keep the adoption paperwork!’ She jumped up from her chair. ‘Come on,’ she urged them both. ‘Let’s go and find out. There’s a taxi office on the main road. Hopefully they’ll have a car available and we can be looking in that safe in half an hour. Then tomorrow, all being well, you’ll be on the way to being reunited with your daughter.’