Who's Afraid of Mr Wolfe? (43 page)

Jack put his finger on her lips. ‘Amazing as it may seem, Ellie, when I was married I didn’t have a problem with the “forsaking all others” bit. It was the “till death us do part” coming so quickly that freaked me out.’ Suddenly, making her believe that seemed the most important thing in his life.

He saw her nod slowly. ‘I’m going to trust you on that, Jack. Really, really trust you. Besides, I haven’t forgotten that Bryan North said you laughed about the women who were after you and went home to Helen.’

‘Too bloody right.’ Jack made a note to send Bryan a bottle of whisky along with his Christmas card this year. ‘Besides, Ellie, it wasn’t even working any more. All that sex. It wasn’t making me feel alive. Quite the reverse. It was only a matter of time before I started wearing a medallion and fake tan.’

He was relieved to hear her laugh and they held each
other without speaking until she said, all in a rush, ‘I can’t promise not to die. I wish that I could take that fear away from you completely. All I can tell you is that I will try my very best to stay alive. I won’t take any stupid risks. I won’t even use the bus any more if that makes you feel happier. And … well, whatever happens, I won’t go without a big fight.’

Jack felt his throat close up at that and put his head down for a while. When he lifted it back up, she was smiling mischievously at him.

‘What?’ he said.

‘Well, you silly sod, how could I even think of going before you? Don’t I always have to have the last word?’

It was the first time Jack could ever remember finding anything funny about death.

Perhaps that was what had reeled him in: Ellie’s sense of humour. Bursting through the neat compartments he’d surrounded himself with. All that warmth wrapping around him and making him realise how cold he’d become.

After another bout of kissing Ellie said, ‘But what about New York, Jack?’

‘I’ll delegate it.’

‘A whole city?’

‘Yup. Too far from you. Too far from Yorkshire.’

He ran his hand over Ellie’s smooth skin and bent again to kiss each place he touched. Warm, yielding, his. Enough optimism in that one body to make him believe that history
didn’t have to repeat itself. That scythe man might be a niggling presence he’d have to learn to fit around his life, not allow to shape it entirely.

He felt Ellie tense under his hand.

‘Good grief,’ she said, her eyes wide. ‘Poor Mrs White.’

‘I don’t know any Mrs White,’ Jack said, sure he hadn’t slept with any married woman on his travels.

‘You do now.’ Ellie nodded her head towards the next-door house. A lady with white hair was standing in an upstairs window with a similar expression on her face to the ones that Edith’s relations had been wearing earlier.

Jack groped around for his trousers again. ‘Any bright ideas about how we get out of this?’

‘We could tell her we’re pagans and we’re worshipping the sun.’

‘Or we could run for it.’

Covering as much of themselves as they could with one pair of trousers, they sprinted for the house.

‘Look, I am not telling you. It is meant to be a surprise, so stop trying to wheedle it out of me. And if you open your eyes once more, I’ll have to blindfold you.’ Jack’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘You know how much I’d enjoy that.’

Ellie kept her eyes tightly shut. ‘Oh, I know you would, Jack, but think how much you’d embarrass the taxi driver.’

‘Bet he’s seen worse. Now, shush – it’s not far.’

Ellie felt the lurch of the taxi as it set off from the traffic lights and clutched at Jack. He put his arm round her and she could feel his hot breath on her cheek.

‘Don’t do that,’ she whispered. ‘It’s getting me excited.’

‘What, me breathing? You’re saying that’s all it takes? I’ll not bother with the champagne, then.’ He lowered his voice and thickened his accent. ‘No good squandering good money, lass.’

‘Ooh, stop doing that too. You know you make me think
of ruddy Heathcliff when you do that.’ She clutched him tighter. ‘And you have champagne?’

Ellie heard the rustle of a carrier bag and gasped as an ice-cold bottle was pressed against her leg. ‘I have champagne, I have those little pancakey things, I have those fish-egg things, and I have that gloopy sour stuff.’

‘Wow, you make it all sound so nice.’

The taxi slowed and came to a halt and Ellie’s pulse speeded up. She loved surprises; in fact, she’d been planning to give Jack one of his own before he’d whisked her off in the taxi. It was fizzing up inside her even now and threatening to spill out. But there would be time later. Right now Jack’s surprise was maddening her and she’d run out of ideas about where they were going. Jack had answered a simple ‘no’ to all her guesses.

‘Right,’ Jack said, ‘eyes still closed.’ Ellie heard the taxi door being opened and Jack paying the driver and then she felt Jack’s hand on hers. ‘OK, come on, and mind the step.’

She groped her way forward, feeling Jack push her head down gently so that she didn’t brain herself on the door. Then he was leading her by both hands. ‘That’s it. OK, now you can open your eyes.’

Ellie did and found herself looking at a pair of intricate wrought-iron gates. She recognised them at once: they were the gates of the park round the corner from where Edith and she used to live.

‘They’re the park gates,’ she said.

Jack nodded. ‘They are.’

When she continued to stand, unsure of why she was there and what she was supposed to do next, Jack leaned into her.

‘Brilliant concept, Ellie. They’re on hinges and see’ – he pushed on one of the gates and it opened – ‘you can go from standing outside the park to standing inside it.’ He gave her a little nudge through the gates and shut them behind her.

‘Why am I here, Jack?’ she said. ‘I mean, I can see they’ve finished doing up the park. It looks great. But why am I here? Why are we here?’

Jack said nothing, just raised his eyebrows.

As long as Ellie could remember the ‘park round the corner’ had been degenerating. Its battered benches were home to intimidating little gangs of drunks, the grass was patchy and strewn with paper, and it had an unloved, unvisited, depressing atmosphere about it. The patch of water in the middle, laughingly called a pond, had been the final resting place of supermarket trolleys and used condoms, and any self-respecting waterfowl had long ago abandoned it.

Edith could remember the park in its prime, when people had actually wanted to visit it and sit under the trees, or sail little boats on the pond, but it was unlikely that many other people in the area could.

All that had changed when a local builder had bought a series of derelict buildings adjoining the park and as part of the deal with the council had been persuaded to contribute substantial funds to bringing the park back to life. Work had still been in progress when Edith had died.

Ellie had a good look around, taking in the neatly mown grass and blooming flowerbeds, the elegantly curving wooden seats and the gravel pathways. Off to their left, a woman was lying on a rug with two small children having a picnic. A man sat and read his paper.

‘Walk a little?’ Jack suggested, and she followed him, wondering where the Special Brew and cider drinkers now gathered and why nobody had vandalised the place. Part of the answer appeared in the shape of a community policeman who wandered past.

Ellie kept on walking, the part of her that wasn’t confused now interested to see how the pond had been rejuvenated.

‘Oh,’ she said, as they came out from the trees and got their first clear view, ‘it’s gone.’

In its place was a large, circular paved area, much of it wet.

Ellie frowned. ‘I didn’t know it had rained earlier.’

‘It didn’t,’ Jack said, ‘and if I were you, I wouldn’t stand right there.’

She was going to ask, ‘Why?’ when a jet of water emerged from the paving stone next to her feet and she leaped
backwards. The whole paved area was alive with them, little fountains of sparkling water dancing for a minute or two and then stopping as abruptly as they started.

‘Wow,’ Ellie said. ‘It’s like at Somerset House. A lot smaller … but still … beautiful.’

‘Fun too,’ Jack said, watching a small boy creep up to one of the holes, stand there for as long as he dared and then run away squealing when the jet of water shot out again. ‘Nearly got him.’

Jack was laughing, the carrier bag now up in his arms, but Ellie sensed he wasn’t completely relaxed; he was still being driven by the need to show her something.

‘So the champagne’s to celebrate … what?’ she prompted.

‘Just wait,’ he said gently. ‘Have a walk around.’

She gave him a puzzled look but set off round the edge of the paved circle, stopping now and again to laugh at the children darting in and out of the fountains and noticing that at the edge of the paving were little brass plaques.

Some of them bore the names of large national banks or businesses, but there were many more with less well-known names on them. ‘Siddicoat’s the Butchers’, read one; ‘Patmir’s News’ another.

‘Local businesses,’ Ellie said, reading them off as she went round. ‘Ah, there’s Mr Arundi’s name. He runs the launderette, or did when I lived here. Oh, and here’s the florist.’

‘They all helped refurbish this part of the park,’ Jack explained. ‘Donated money towards it.’

Ellie had a vague recollection of having heard about the fundraising appeal, but it had drifted from her mind in the intervening eventful year since she had moved from the area to live with Jack.

She walked on a little further. ‘Oh look,’ she said, ‘there are other names I recognise too. Those are the Hopgoods – they’re the family who had the son with the motorbike – and the Elliots. She was always a bit stuck-up, but he was a sweetheart. Used to wave at me from his wheelchair.’ She frowned. ‘So individuals gave money too?’

Jack gave her a funny little smile and she kept on walking and reading, realising that on this particular run of plaques there were sometimes little messages or snatches of verse.

‘They’re memorials,’ she said, and then she stopped.

‘Edith,’ the plaque next to her feet said, ‘always sparkly, never still.’

As her vision blurred, she saw that the letters of ‘Edith’ had been written on brass Scrabble tiles.

‘Oh God, Jack,’ she said, ‘this is our Edith, isn’t it?’ and then speech was beyond her.

She felt him come and stand beside her. He spoke to her softly. ‘Last weekend they had a grand opening and I was thinking of showing you then. Only, it occurred to me that you might prefer to see it for the first time without
other people gawping. And you weren’t feeling that well, so I waited.’

She still couldn’t do anything but swallow painfully.

His hand closed round hers. ‘Did I get it wrong?’ The doubt was obvious beneath his words. ‘I thought about putting a plaque on a seat, but Edith didn’t sit down for long. A fountain seemed more … more like her.’ He stumbled on, ‘Perhaps I should have asked you first, but I wanted it to be a surprise. I suppose if I had told you, Lesley could have done a proper design and you’d have thought of better words.’

Ellie turned and threw her arms round him.

‘No,’ she said into his chest. ‘It’s perfect. Absolutely perfect. Nobody could have done it better.’

Once again she was crying all over Jack.

‘You’ve squashed those little pancakey things,’ he said after a while, looking down at the carrier bag, which was wedged between them.

‘I don’t care,’ Ellie replied. ‘You’re such a clever, clever man. What a perfect way to remember Edith – somewhere full of life and people having fun.’

She kissed him then for quite some time before pulling away and having another read of the plaque. Very soon she was waterlogged again.

Jack passed her a handkerchief this time.

‘Where did you get this?’ she said, sniffing.

‘Bought a pack at lunchtime. I know how you like a
good blub and my shirt’s not thick enough.’ His tone was light, but Ellie felt his arm round her shoulders.

‘Come and sit down and I’ll rub your back,’ he said, and she let him lead her away down one of the paths to an empty seat under the trees.

He waited for her to stop crying.

‘I thought we could drink a toast to Edith and eat the squashed pancakes and fish stuff. Celebrate Edith’s memory in a way she would have approved. And you know, anytime you want to come here you can. Paddle in the fountain, have a think about her.’ He reached down into the carrier bag by his feet and extracted the champagne.

Ellie tried to blow her nose as delicately as she could in Jack’s handkerchief and then said, ‘I don’t know what to say. I’m still a bit dazed and … overwhelmed. It’s such a considerate thing to do.’ She paused. ‘You’re so good at surprises … the driving lessons … that jewellery when we got married.’

‘And all I got was five million lousy ties and a library’s-worth of books,’ he said, chuckling.

‘And me. Don’t forget you got me.’

‘Yeah, I got you. That
was
good.’ He leaned over and pinched her nose gently. ‘Beautifully wrapped, even nicer unwrapped.’

‘Smut, as usual,’ Ellie said, and he grinned and started to tear the foil off the champagne and fiddle with the little wire cage over the cork. She watched him work and
was not sure if she should leap in now and surprise him as much as he had surprised her. No. Let them toast Edith first. And in the meantime …

A mischievous thought sidled into her brain.

‘I still wish I’d given you something else for a wedding present,’ she said.

‘Really?’

‘Yes, something that would have told everyone how I felt about you.’

‘I thought marrying me did that.’

‘Ah, but not as much as a specially composed poem would have done. You know, like the one Lesley and Megan wrote for their wedding.’

She was delighted to see that her words had the desired effect. Jack went absolutely still and there was more than a trace of panic in his voice when he spoke.

‘Please no, don’t you dare,’ he said. ‘Don’t you dare start reciting that poem again. I mean, it was a lovely thought. It was a great wedding; I will never forget the sight of Rachel with the whole back row of that rugby team, but no, not the poem. Even thinking about it makes my toes curl.’