Chapter 12: One home

Before leaving The White House we collected a couple of gold chains and one of my favourite pieces, a gold locket with my grandmother’s portrait pencil-sketched by an unsigned artist when my grandmother was a young girl of about 18. This drawing was inset one side of the opened locket with a lock of her blonde hair sealed behind glass on the other half of the locket. Even closed it was attractive, covered in gold filigree, apparently Russian made from the Edwardian era according to the gold assay marks. Kay loved it and asked if we could keep it at the flat where she could look at it from time to time to thank my grandmother for passing onto her the beautiful engagement ring.

After taking leave of my parents, we left via the kitchen to say goodbye to Ana and her husband Neto, who was helping her tidy up after working in the gardens. Ana told us that they only came in a couple of mornings a week to prepare multiple meals which were left in the fridge for Mum and Dad to microwave. I did tell Kay earlier that my mother couldn’t cook. My Dad would only be home Friday afternoon until Sunday evening when he returned to London ready to work on the public enquiry from Monday morning to Friday lunchtime. It was a busy schedule for a man, even one as dedicated to the law as my father, for a man in his late eighties.

Before lunch Dad had told me that he had estimated the evidence taking of the enquiry would take another six to nine months and then he would deliberate on his findings and produce his report towards the end of next year or the beginning of the following year. After that, he assured me, he would retire for good. He did open up about my mother’s long-term affair with the odious cheater Claud, and my father had been back in favour since the end of spring. He had honestly thought that I knew nothing about it and my father had bided his time until Claud had been caught with evidence of another lover and Dad was back to make the family one again. He confessed that, had he known I already knew of the affair, he probably wouldn’t have stayed the course. George said he had always loved ever since she was the single ice-barrister Grace Evans-Tutt and advised me to never allow Kay the leeway he had allowed my mother. Being back together though, he had thought the heartache was worth it because he would spend his autumn years with the woman he loved.

Back at our flat, Kay showered and changed into her nurse’s uniform, keeping her engagement ring on a gold chain around her neck and unseen beneath her scrubs, where it nestled close to her heart. I don’t think that anything she faced in tonight’s long shift could possibly dim the constant glowing smile on her face.

I drove her to the hospital, dropped her off and arranged to pick her up on Sunday morning at 8am. Fresh-faced and beautiful, she kissed me goodbye and I watched her walk all the way across the road and until she disappeared inside the main entrance, before I drove off home.

There, I caught up with my emails, checked over the secured online accounts of my main handful of companies, sent a long message to Andi about the certainty of my life choices and hoped that she could live with them, but she failed to reply during the time I monitored my messages during the early part of the evening.

Among the emails I had received was confirmation from the clean-up and maintenance crew that they had managed to reschedule their workload and would be making the next door flat habitable on Sunday, tomorrow in fact, rather than midweek. The flats had an internal telephone system in conjunction with the front door intercom, so I rang down to the manager’s flat and told the girls that the flat was being checked and cleaned tomorrow and I hoped that they would be able to move in on Tuesday, or Wednesday at the latest.

One of the girls had gone into work on her shift tonight, leaving the other three who were having a night in and were about to order pizza and they asked me did I want to join them? They pointed out that they especially wanted to get to know me better as an excited Kay had already called them to announce our engagement.

I guessed they really wanted to look out for their friend and make sure I was not a total creep, being (1) incredibly old, (2) rich enough to think I could buy anything or anyone and (3) Kay-Lynn had only known me for less than 72 hours so how could this development be sensible for the youngest member of their little ‘family’?

So I agreed to join them and I said I’d bring a couple of bottles of wine down with me to go with the pizza.

One of the advantages of being a majority shareholder in White’s Wines, a National chain of high quality off-licences in major towns across the United Kingdom as well as a wholesaler to many of the supermarket chains, I was often sent mixed cases of wines, some of which were exclusive to White’s. I had some bottles of a nice South American white wine which was relatively inexpensive and had got rave reviews, so I took a couple of bottles down with me.

I had What’s App’d Kay to tell her about the invite from the girls and she had also agreed that taking down some wine would certainly help break the ice.

“We’ve been out two nights in a row,” Jane said when I knocked on their door and handed over the wine, “which is unusual for us, so we thought that a night in would be a good idea, especially staying in a place like this flat, it’s almost like being on holiday.”

“Even staying in on a Saturday night?” I asked with a grin.

“We’re all on different shifts, and thought it would be a good idea to stay in even before Kay-Lynn shocked us with her news, so we thought we’d entice you to our lair to find out a little more about what Kay-Lynn has actually let herself in for.” Jane said as we walked down to the sitting room where the other two girls were curled up on the settees, “I’m on four nights on, four nights off, four days on and four days off, so the actual days of the week don’t really count for anything. For example, this may be a Saturday night to you, but to me it is just my third day off. Tomorrow will be my fourth and on Monday night I start all over again on the first of my next four-night stint. Kay-Lynn is on permanent night shifts this year and usually does 10-hour nights with an hour lunch break; but, on a first night, there is an extra-long overlapping handover shift and she is doing 6 in the evening until 8 in the morning, the next three night shifts will be 9pm until 8am and then the last one will probably go on until 9am-ish, and then she gets the next three days off.”

As I sat down in one of the armchairs I noticed all the girls were in their comfortable sleepwear and I felt I was definitely overdressed for what was basically a slumber party.

“That’s a 55-hour week, Jane,” I counted up. “It’s a lot for a young girl of her age, still learning her stuff.”

“Yes, the long hours is actually part of the test of a student’s resolve and stamina. So yes, it’s about the middle-50s to low 60s, if you include the overtime you’re expected to do if someone doesn’t come in, by being off sick or on leave, she might have to do an extra half a shift while the sister phones around to get someone else in early or get an agency nurse in, but the budget for agency nurses is as tight as an otter’s sphincter, because they cost twice as much as our NHS nurses.”

“Anyway,” Cheryl smiled at me, “maybe you’ll turn her into a happy housewife or you will beg her to give up working nights?”

“I don’t think so, Cheryl,” I smiled back, “Kay has said she wants to carry on working and building her nurse’s career at least until we decide to start our family, and then go back to work when the children are able to fend for themselves.”

“Sounds just like Kay-Lynn,” Jane laughed, “she’s extremely dedicated to her craft. I always notice her reports when they come into HR for filing, she always gets top marks and great comments from her assessors about her attitude.”

“So, because you work in HR, do you look at everybody’s reports, Jane?” asked Leslie, suddenly interested in what Jane gets up to.

“No, not everyone’s but when a friend’s comes in, I always peek, only so I can warn them if ever a black mark shows up,” Jane retorted, quickly adding, “not because I’m nosey, of course.”

“Of course not,” I smiled at Jane, “it’s natural to look out for the best interests in your friends. That’s why I accepted your invitation tonight, frankly, otherwise dining with three attractive young girls could be a little intimidating.”

“Even for a big boy like you, Drew?” Cheryl suggested.

“Especially for me, freshly engaged and presently held on a pedestal by a girl who is a close friend of yours ... I’ve got a long way to fall if you don’t approve of me.”

“Don’t worry Drew,” Jane smiled, “From what you’ve done for us these last few days that pedestal has some pretty steady legs.”

“That’s good to know. So, what questions do you want me to answer?”

“Well, the first one is obvious, ‘Why?’ “ Jane asked, “You didn’t know anyone of us just three nights ago,” Jane stared at me defiantly, “and after just two nights together you propose marriage to a girl who is one of our two youngest and I would say she was the most innocent as well as the most beautiful of us all. And I’ll say what we’re all thinking, we’re all so jealous of Kay. So, why?”

“Jane, that’s hardly a fair question to pose to poor Drew before the pizzas have even come and we haven’t opened the wine yet,” Cheryl growled with an air of frustration, “we should open the questioning with simple getting to know you questions like, ‘what are your intentions?’ Or ‘What do you do for a living?’—”

“Hang on, do we want to ask such personal questions so early in the evening?’ Leslie said, trying to calm the other two down, “Let’s just ask for a little of Drew’s background first, like where you’re from, have you been married before, any other commitments that we should know about, paternity orders etc, but work up to it after a couple of glasses of wine and half way through the pizza so we are all a lot more chilled. Then, once everything’s out in the open, we can relax with dipping into the tons of ice cream that we found in the freezer.”

I looked at Leslie with my eyebrows raised, “ice cream In the freezer?”

“You said you sometimes used the flat for friends staying over,” Leslie replied, “well I guess the last guests filled the freezer with lots and lots of ice cream, and not the cheap stuff, and it’s all still in date, and the three tubs with the shortest ‘use by’ dates were earmarked for us to eat tonight, even before thinking about inviting you to join us. We assume that you are staying for afters?”

“If you don’t frighten me off before then, then sure,” I laughed.

“Oh, I don’t think we can frighten you, I’m not sure you’re afraid of anything, Drew,” Cheryl purred, “and we all think that our Kay-Lynn is a very lucky girl, but ... we also think that you are the luckiest son of a gun in the west of London, because Kay-Lynn is...” and Cheryl looked at the other two, who both nodded back at her, “the absolute best person we know and we just want to make sure that you are the genuine article and really deserve her.”