A eulogy? She would never be able to begin. Or stop. How could she put into words how wonderful he had been? She could feel it coming, a great wave of grief, unstoppable, merciless. She looked up at the ceiling, took deep breaths, anything to stop it engulfing her. She was so tired of being strong; so tired of having to fight it. But she couldn’t afford to break down. Anyone might come in, at any moment.
She gathered herself and looked down at the page again. Should she go? Could she go? It wouldn’t be odd. Everyone in Peasebrook knew Julius. Their social circles overlapped in the typical Venn diagram of a small country town. And in her role as ‘lady of the manor’ Sarah attended lots of funerals and memorials of people she didn’t know terribly well, as a gesture. No one would think it odd if she turned up.
But they would if she broke down and howled, which is what she wanted to do.
She wished he was here, so she could ask his advice. He always knew the right thing to do. She imagined them, curled up on the sofa in the folly. She imagined poking him playfully, being kittenish. He made her feel kittenish: soft and teasingly affectionate.
‘Should I go to your memorial service?’
And in her imagination, he turned to her with one of his mischievous smiles. ‘Bloody hell, I should think so,’ he said. ‘If anyone should be there, it’s you.’
Five
Jackson had been dreading his meeting with Ian Mendip. Well, meeting made it sound a bit formal. It was a ‘friendly chat’. In his kitchen. Very informal. Ian had a proposition.
Jackson suspected it would mean doing something he didn’t want to do yet again. Breaking all the promises he had made to himself about getting out of Ian’s clutches and getting some backbone. He had no alternative though. He had no qualifications, no references, no rich dad to bail him out like so many of the kids he’d been at school with.
That was the trouble with this area, thought Jackson, as he took his seat at Ian’s breakfast bar: you were either stinking rich or piss poor. And whilst he had once been filled with ambition, and optimism, now he was resigned to a life of making do and being at Ian Mendip’s beck and call. Somewhere amongst it all he’d lost his ambition and his drive. The galling thing was he knew it was his own fault. He’d had the same opportunities as Mendip: none. He just hadn’t played it as smart.
He looked around the kitchen: white high shine gloss units, a glass-fronted wine fridge racked up with bottles of vintage champagne, music coming as if from nowhere. There was a massive three-wick scented candle oozing an expensive smell, and expensive it seriously was – Mia had wanted one, and Jackson really couldn’t get his head round anyone thinking spending hundreds of pounds on a candle was a good idea.
Ian hadn’t got all this and the Aston Martin parked outside by being nice. Next to it was Jackson’s ancient Suzuki Jeep, the only set of wheels he could afford now, what with the mortgage payments and the maintenance for Mia, which took up nearly all his salary. His mates told him he’d been soft, that he’d let Mia walk all over him. It wasn’t as if they were even married. He didn’t have to give her a penny, they told him. But it was about Finn. Jackson had responsibilities and a duty to his son, which meant he had to look after his mother. And to be fair, Mia hadn’t actually asked for anything. He’d known it was his duty.
Which was why he was still running around after Ian instead of setting up on his own, which had been his original intention. But you needed cash to start up, even as a jobbing builder who just did flat roof extensions and conservatories. That’s how Ian had begun. Now he did luxury apartments and housing developments. He was minted. He had proven that you could claw your way up from the bottom to the top.
Jackson was Ian’s right-hand man. He kept an eye on all his projects and reported back. He scoped potential developments: it was Jackson who had given Ian the heads-up on the glove factory, which meant Ian had been able to swoop in and get it at a knock-down price before it went on the market.
Which was why Jackson knew he was capable of achieving what Ian had. He could spot the potential in a building. He had the knowledge, the experience, the energy; he knew the tradesmen who could crew it. He just didn’t have the killer instinct. Or, right now, the money he needed to invest in setting up on his own. He’d missed the boat. He should have done it years ago, when he was young and had no responsibilities. Now he was trapped. Not even thirty and he’d painted himself into a dingy little corner.
He hunched down in the chrome and leather barstool opposite Ian. Ian was spinning from side to side in his, smug and self-satisfied, tapping a pencil on the shiny black granite. In front of them were his development plans for the old glove factory: line drawings of the building and its surroundings.