Chapter 14

As John was on his way home from his sailing weekend with Amy, Andrew and Lucy, Terry and Anh were eating pizza in her flat. She picked up a slice of ham-and-pineapple, looked at it reflectively for a moment, and bit into it. Chewing slowly, she frowned, and swallowed.

"This pineapple doesn't taste of much."

"I wouldn't know, I don't like pineapple."

"You never told me that!"

He shrugged. "I don't mind if you want to eat it. That's why I got pizza with four different quarters."

"Come to think of it, I've never seen you eat any..."

"And you won't."

"Just as well I never put any in anything I cooked. I might have done, you know."

"'S okay, I'd just leave it on the plate."

"Aren't you bothered about offending me?"

He looked at her, trying to decide if she was serious. He decided to play safe.

"Sweetheart, I never want to offend you. We haven't known each other long ... just long enough for me to be sure there's nothing about you that would make me want to push you away. To know that I want to be married to you, spend the rest of my life with you."

"I know..." she looked at him over the slice of pizza, frowned, and took another bite, chewed and swallowed. "I ... I'm amazed ... that anyone would stay with me, hold me, love me ... you're too good to be true."

"What you see is what you get."

There was a very long pause as she demolished the rest of the slice.

"I want to go back to work tomorrow," she said abruptly. "It's time. And it's time you went back to work, too."

"I'll be away quite a while; it'll be hard getting back here from Maldon."

"I know."

"It's good to have you back, Annie. Terry, I'm delighted to see you, too. Marty needs to go back to supply teaching, Jenni will cover the skipper's slot, but I'll be glad if you can go back to work as Mate. I'd have to really chase around for a replacement."

"Annie's insisting I go back and that she's okay to work too."

"Okay. I don't know, don't need to know, don't really want to know the details, Annie, but ... if you need ... well, if you need company while Terry's away, my husband and I have a spare room you could use."

Anh dipped her head, "Thank you, Janice. I think I will be okay, though. I think I need to do this. Emily Jane will be back in a week or so?"

"Middle of week after next."

"Will ... will Terry have any time off in that time?"

"There'll only be a one day break between two cruises, and there'll be work to do on Emily Jane."

Anh looked rather downcast, but said, "Okay. And if I need to, I will call you. And ... I have another idea for the weekend. Terry, do you think I could go to your parents'? Perhaps I could talk to Vicar Connie."

Terry smiled. "Good idea. Mum and Dad'll be delighted to see you, and I'm sure they'll make an appointment for you."

Janice spoke then to Terry, "I'm sorry to press things on, but if we're going to do this, I need to get you to Maldon, and get Annie started on some work."

"I've got my kit. I'm all ready."

Sarah Johnson made an appointment to visit Amy. It was, she felt, a formality, but she was interested to see the woman that had so affected John.

Her first impressions were good. Amy was, she thought, attractive, but not a man-eater. Clearly intelligent, and her children were a credit to her too. Those impressions were reinforced as they talked. Sarah was surprised that John was the first man to date Amy since her husband died, a fact volunteered without histrionics.

"I never met anyone that I wanted to get close to, since Barry died. I had Lucy and Andrew, and some very supportive friends, but..."

Sarah asked about Lucy and Andrew and how they related to Tom; both children freely said they liked him.

As she was leaving, though, she turned to Amy. "John's a good man," she said simply. "He's my friend, and he's a good man. You know what they say? 'A good man is hard to find?'"

"I know," said Amy, "I'm just waiting for him to make up his mind. I'm grateful he's taking things slowly, and I'm not at all sure how to manage things when Tom is here full time, but I think things will work themselves out."

John could not make up his mind how to proceed. He had, eventually, decided he didn't want to live without the fascinating young woman called Amy Conway. Did she share his feelings? He thought she liked him. She seemed comfortable with him ... A woman with children, though, was new territory. Lucy and Andrew were probably young enough not to get too interested in what he and their mother got up to after they went to bed, but what about Tom? When the work-placement finished, he'd be around most of the time. That would definitely put a damper on things. No ... there was no way, even if Amy was willing, that he'd spend the night with her. He put the issue aside and tried to concentrate on his work.

He had a half-hour session with Charmaine, by the end of which he was ready to tear his hair out. She left and Sarah Johnson poked her head round the door.

"Lived through it, then?" She walked in and shut the door, smiling. "If it's any consolation, Charmaine had a pretty heavy frown on her face as we met in the corridor."

"Good! If she's half as frustrated as I am, maybe there's hope yet."

"Speaking of frustration..." her voice trailed off.

"Sit!"

She leaned across the desk and kissed his forehead. "No!" She paused, "I'm not going to be here long enough to sit down. I just want to know if all the hassle we're going through is going to be worth while. You need to marry the woman, John."

Smiling at his shocked expression, she walked out of the room.

Betsy Knight met Anh at the coach-station in Huntingdon and drove her back to Hartford for lunch.

"Annie," she said as she drove, "I've arranged for you to see the Vicar and his wife, Penny. They thought it better to see you together as they often work like that. The appointment is at three."

"Thank you ... Betsy. I..."

"Annie, Terry spoke to me on the phone. He didn't say much, just that you'd had some difficult experiences and needed to see a therapist, who had recommended you see a minister. He mentioned that you might be feeling bad about yourself, though. I want you to know..." she frowned, thinking, "we haven't known you very long, Annie, but it didn't take long for us to love you. Even if we didn't, our son loves you. So I ... we ... want you to know that we can't think of anything that would make us think any less of you. And, let me add, we think very highly of you and the longer we know you, the better we think of you. You can tell us what you like, or not. It won't change anything. Do you understand?"