Charity Read online

  ‘And you were angry?’

  ‘Male pride!’ He bit his lip hard, as if remembering something he’d rather forget. ‘She’d turned the girls against me too, that was the real shock. But after I’d returned to Africa and calmed down I realised it was really all my fault. Who could blame the girls for taking her part? That, my dear, is where you found me, on my way home to offer the final olive branch: a divorce, and an apology. Whatever it took to make peace.’

  ‘And you found Susie had been killed?’ Charity said gently.

  ‘She was in a car with some friends, driving back to her flat after a pre-Christmas party.’ John’s voice sounded flat.

  ‘And no one managed to get a message to you?’

  ‘They tried,’ he admitted, ‘but I was travelling overland, on my way to Nairobi. Susie’s funeral was on December 23rd, they delayed it in the hope that I’d arrive. When they didn’t hear from me I suppose they just had to go ahead.’

  ‘So where are Hester and Anna now?’

  ‘At Hester’s parents’ in Wales,’ John said sadly.

  ‘Poor John,’ Charity said. ‘And poor Hester too.’

  ‘She’d got her new man with her.’ John’s face convulsed as if he might cry again. He blinked hard.

  ‘You must write to them,’ Charity said. ‘Explain how it was, apologise for the past. Don’t make things worse by withdrawing from them.’

  ‘You’re very wise.’ John was touched by Charity’s sincerity and obvious concern. He ordered another bottle of wine. ‘Your turn now,’ he said.

  If she hadn’t drunk three glasses of wine, Charity might not have been able to tell a virtual stranger as much as she did. She started by telling him how she had come to be working at the Regent Palace, then suddenly the dam burst and she began to tell him all about Daniel.

  Now and again John had to stop her and make her backtrack so he could take it all in, but in the end her sad story was clear. ‘No wonder you look so sad,’ he said, stunned that someone so young could have had so much thrown at her in life. ‘But you’ve got to do exactly what you told me to do. Sort out your life, put this behind you.’ He looked at her. She had become prettier and prettier as they talked; she had a pink glow in her cheeks now, even her eyes looked less haunted. If he could just take her and get her hair cut, buy her a few decent clothes, she could be stunning. He wondered if he dared suggest it.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I hope we’ll stay friends. I’m leaving the hotel this evening. I was going straight to Paris, but now I think I’ll go down to Wales first. I should be back in early February. Can I see you again then?’

  ‘Do you really want to?’ Charity wondered if he was just being polite.

  ‘Of course I do.’ At the moment John felt as if she was the only friend he had in the world; that just knowing where she was and that he could see her again would help him through the next few weeks. ‘We’ll have to compare notes on how we’re getting on.’

  As they walked up the King’s Road John looked down at Charity.

  ‘Let me buy you a present,’ he said impulsively. ‘Let’s get you a new coat.’

  Charity stopped short, frowning up at him.

  ‘Of course not.’ She blushed furiously.

  ‘Only as a thank you,’ he said, aware he’d embarrassed her.

  She gave him a long stare.

  ‘I know my coat’s shabby,’ she said with some dignity, ‘but I’ve got money in the bank, John. I just haven’t felt like buying new clothes. Lunch was enough of a thank you.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,’ he said quickly. ‘It’s just that I always used to treat my daughters.’

  ‘But I’m not your daughter,’ Charity replied. ‘Only a friend.’

  ‘Does a friend get a hug then?’ He smiled.

  For a moment she froze. Suddenly she found herself acutely aware of him as a man, not just another troubled soul.

  He looked down at her anxious face and ran his thumbs across her cheekbones.

  ‘Thank you for lunch,’ she stammered. ‘Look after yourself.’

  The hug came naturally then. Their ages and station in life were unimportant. Just two people clinging to one another for comfort.

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘You look fabulous!’ Sonia gaped in shocked surprise as Charity came in through the staff door laden with carrier bags. ‘I can’t believe it’s you!’

  Sonia was a petite dark-haired girl with sharp features and an even sharper tongue. Although Charity didn’t feel she ever wanted to be friends with this particular girl, her compliment was very welcome.

  ‘Just a haircut.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Not before time either!’

  ‘Cor blimey.’ Albert, one of the porters, stuck his head through the pigeonhole from the porters’ room, a wide grin stretched across his narrow, lined face. ‘You look a million dollars, babe.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Charity smiled shyly and walked on, leaving Sonia and Albert to start more gossip.

  It was six days since John Marshall had taken her out to lunch, and she couldn’t thank him enough for helping her pull herself together again.

  Today she’d left the Regent Palace at nine o’clock, taken some money out of the post office, then gone straight to the hairdresser’s in Selfridges. An hour later she had emerged with her hair in the latest style, a sleek bob which swung forward on to her cheeks, like Cilla Black’s.

  Admiring wolf whistles from a couple of workmen lifted her spirits still further and from there she did a tour of the Oxford Street shops, hunting for bargains in the sales.

  She had bought a royal blue swagger coat, reduced to half price because it was so tiny, a smart black dress, two skirts, a jumper, some new underwear and a pair of shoes. Halfway through the morning she had gone into the powder room in John Lewis and changed, dumping her shabby old clothes by some dustbins on her way out.

  Charity opened her door, threw her bags into the chair and flung herself down on the bed, sighing with relief as she kicked off her shoes. She’d begun to put her life in order again.

  She had taken the first step during the evening after her lunch with John when she finally opened all those letters she’d left in a drawer unread. To her surprise, not one of them evoked more painful memories, but instead a warm feeling of being cared for.

  From Marjorie and Martin there were no recriminations that she hadn’t been in touch, only understanding and concern. They enclosed two letters from Lou and Geoff sent to their address and urged her to call at the restaurant soon.

  Lou and Geoff were anxious at not hearing from her for so many months. But although they begged her to write or telephone it was apparent they assumed her silence was due more to being a scatterbrained and preoccupied teenager than to any disaster.

  But although the replies to the Charleses and the Bells would take some thinking out, the letters from Dorothy and Rita confirmed that she wasn’t alone in feeling depressed and isolated.

  Dorothy’s letter was a bright and cynical report of her escapades in Devon, but however funny she made the stories of being ‘The Scarlet Woman’ of Ilfracombe, it was clear she had immersed herself in several affairs with married men out of desperation. Rita too spoke of drinking too much, of feeling worthless, and of her bitterness that her parents shut their eyes and ears to everything rather than allow her to tell them something they couldn’t accept.

  Putting pen to paper was tough, but Charity began with the simplest letter: to Miss Mansell, telling her she was feeling better and thanking her for her kindness. Next, Marjorie and Martin; the long overdue explanation that she couldn’t face anyone until now, but would ring in a day or two and arrange to collect her belongings from them.

  Writing these letters had a therapeutic effect. While she was choosing words to make light of the miserable last months, she found she was thinking deeply and ultimately coming to terms with the need to put it all behind her. By the time she replied to Dorothy’s and Rita’s letters she found she
was feeling positive, even making jokes about the sorry state she’d fallen into.

  Finally it was time to tackle Geoff and Lou. She apologised for her lack of communication with the excuse that she worked such long hours, and explained she was now back in London working at the hotel as a temporary measure until she found something better. She begged for news of the children and some photographs and gave them a rundown on the books she’d read in her spare time so they wouldn’t think she’d forgotten her plans to better herself.

  All this week she’d thought about Daniel just as often as she had before, but she believed now that the acute pain would lessen with time. As Miss Frost had said when she signed the final adoption papers, it was done now. The only road was forward.

  She looked good again. Tonight she would collect her belongings from Marjorie and Martin, and soon she would arrange to see both Rita and Dorothy.

  Writing letters was one step towards getting back to normal, but Charity knew that the next step had to be making new friends. This proved more difficult.

  Each evening after work she left her door open, looked up and smiled when any of the girls went past, and even went along to the tiny kitchen at the end of the passage and made herself coffee hoping someone would stop to speak.

  She couldn’t reproach the other girls for not rushing in to befriend her, or inviting her into their rooms. She’d shown no interest in them all this time, and who could blame them for thinking she was weird!

  Ironically, it was a postcard from John in Paris that finally broke the ice. Staff letters were always put in the porters’ room and just about everyone must have picked the card up and read it before she even knew it had arrived.

  It wasn’t a view of the Eiffel Tower, but an arty black and white photograph of two street urchins sitting on a kerb eating ice-cream.

  ‘That’s not from that bloke who tried to top ’imself, is it?’ Albert the porter asked as he handed it to Charity.

  ‘He didn’t try to kill himself,’ Charity retorted, for a moment tempted to tell him to mind his own business. ‘He was feeling miserable and a bit confused, that’s all. He’d just heard his daughter had been killed in a road accident.’

  ‘Poor bugger.’ Albert’s lined face contorted with sympathy. ‘Lucky you found ’im, wasn’t it? ’E’s a famous photographer, what’s won prizes and stuff. Took you out to lunch, did he?’

  ‘Yes, he was nice.’ Charity wasn’t pleased that Albert had read the postcard before she’d even got a chance to, but she was loath to bite his head off. ‘I expect I made him think of his daughter.’

  ‘Well he obviously got more chat out of you than we’ve ever had.’ Albert grinned.

  By lunchtime the news that John Marshall had written to Charity had spread around the hotel, elevating her to almost celebrity status. It dawned on her that John Marshall was a great deal more famous than he’d let on to her and this lack of conceit on his part heightened his image in her mind. Although she felt concern that John’s personal problems were being bandied around, the sense that people were intrigued by her friendship with him gave her a warm glow.

  Charity had a reply to her letter from Rita within the week and they arranged a meeting. When the evening came she was so excited as she changed out of her uniform that she could barely manage to put her lipstick on straight. Her excitement wasn’t only due to the reunion. Rita said she had a plan she wanted to share with both Charity and Dorothy.

  ‘Charity!’

  She turned at hearing her name yelled out and to her surprise it wasn’t the girl she remembered with tousled curls and a nappy pin stuck in the front of her dress, but a glamorous redhead tottering towards her on four-inch heels, arms open wide.

  It was half-past eight on a Wednesday night. More snow was expected and Oxford Street was almost deserted. Courting couples lingered in the warmth of shop doorways and there was only a handful of people like herself, waiting for someone.

  ‘Rita! You look so different,’ Charity gasped, returning the warm hug that said the packaging might be different but the product was the same. ‘Let me look at you.’

  Rita was wearing a camel coat with a huge fox-fur collar turned up around her face. She had lost weight dramatically and her hair was piled up on top of her head in fat, shiny curls. Long glittery earrings, false eyelashes and a face made up like a model’s wiped out the image of a young mother.

  ‘You look different too,’ Rita giggled. ‘But let’s find a warm place to go and chat. I’m freezing.’

  They found a pub round by the London Palladium and over a couple of Babychams everything came out.

  ‘It’s been hell at home,’ Rita admitted. ‘Both Mum and Dad knew something serious had happened, but they didn’t care enough to force me into an admission. Mum kept buying me things to cheer me up, when all I wanted was a shoulder to cry on. She went on and on about me being fat. How can parents be so cruel?’

  It was good to be able to talk about their feelings, to share the painful secret they’d locked away.

  ‘I didn’t want anyone to come near me,’ Charity said. ‘I felt so empty that nothing but solitude and silence helped.’

  ‘I found myself crying all the time,’ Rita confessed. ‘Anything would bring it on – the sight of a baby in a pram, a child holding its mother’s hand …’

  She went on to tell Charity how she’d found work doing promotions. ‘I just threw myself into it,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘The other girls are all hard-drinking men chasers, so I made out I was the same. After a bit it became second nature.’

  Rita’s life sounded very racy: wild parties, married men, drinking herself stupid most evenings.

  ‘But I’m on the mend now.’ She squeezed Charity’s hand, her eyes glistening with tears. ‘I’ve calmed down.’

  Charity told her friend that if she hadn’t met John Marshall she might still be sitting alone in her room. ‘I want to find a better job and leave the hotel,’ she said. ‘But I can’t imagine what I’d do. I don’t know how to do anything other than skivvying.’

  ‘You could do promotions too,’ Rita bubbled up with all her old warmth. ‘It’s a doddle of a job, you only have to look good and like chatting to people. There’s a job coming up in a couple of weeks for beauty consultants for a new cosmetics firm. They want lots of girls and it could lead to something permanent.’

  This was all progressing a bit too fast for Charity. She had put one toe in the water in getting her hair cut and thinking about the future, but now Rita was getting carried away.

  Rita, like Dorothy, came from a wealthy middleclass background; they were both only children who’d been brought up in luxurious homes. Neither of them suffered from feelings of inadequacy, they could launch themselves into the beauty world with the assurance they belonged there.

  The pub was cosy and by the time they were on their third Babycham Charity was beginning to warm to Rita’s lifestyle.

  It all sounded so exciting – staying in hotels with other girls, making more money than Charity had ever dreamed of, and all the perks like clothes allowances and free makeup and perfume. But then Rita moved on to talk about getting a flat.

  ‘I know of one coming up in Earls Court,’ she insisted. ‘Dad will give me a deposit if we need one. He’s dying to get rid of me, I cramp their style on bridge nights. Think of it, Charity – you, me and Dorothy. We could have such a good time.’

  ‘Will Dorothy want to come to London?’

  ‘Want to! She can’t wait,’ Rita grinned mischievously. ‘She phoned last night to say she had a case packed ready.

  ‘Tell me more about this John.’ Rita looked attentively at her friend. Charity had mentioned John only in passing, but Rita sensed there was more to tell. ‘How long have you been going out with him?’

  ‘He isn’t a boyfriend.’ Charity looked shocked, then proceeded to talk about John Marshall for twenty minutes.

  Rita missed nothing. She thought her friend was smitten. ‘John Marshall! He’s bl
oody famous, Charity. Even I’ve heard of him.’

  ‘Hold on.’ Charity saw Rita was reading more into this than she wanted her to. ‘He’s fifty and it’s not the way you think.’

  ‘The best lover I ever had was fifty. He did things to me that make me go weak at the knees just thinking about it.’ Rita’s eyes went all dreamy. ‘Of course he was married and nothing could come of it. But this guy is on his own. He’ll pamper you, teach you all sorts of things. Grab the chance while you can.’

  ‘I don’t suppose he thinks that way for a minute.’ Charity giggled at her friend’s audacity. ‘He’s lost his daughter, I’m just a substitute, that’s all.’

  Rita looked carefully at Charity. She was very thin and pale compared with how she remembered her at Daleham Gardens and her clothes, though new, weren’t exactly fashionable. But Charity was a natural beauty, her skin was as clear as a child’s and her blonde hair gleamed under the lights.

  ‘Charity, you’re gorgeous,’ she insisted. ‘I don’t believe that any man could fail to notice that, even if you were wearing a sack. He must be interested if he’s written and says he wants to see you again. Men aren’t like women, they don’t collect substitutes for their own kids.’

  Charity felt a pang of guilt as she thought of her own father. ‘He’s old enough to be my dad.’

  ‘But he isn’t your dad.’ Rita smiled triumphantly. ‘He’s a rich, famous man who also happens to be free. Start thinking about him in that way. You like him, you said yourself he’s handsome and easy to talk to. What else do you want?’

  Charity wanted what she had had with Hugh, only for it to last for ever. She wanted the security of knowing she was loved, a man’s arms around her, a man who would never lie to her.

  ‘I want love, I suppose,’ she said.

  ‘Look where love got the three of us!’ Rita gave a tight little laugh. ‘I’ll settle for fun from now on, men who adore me and show their appreciation with more than a quick screw in the back of their car. I don’t ever want the pain of caring too much, and I don’t think you do either.’