didn’t go down well at all,’ he explained. ‘She and Janey had a screaming row and Janey ended up booting her out of the flat.’
‘Hell.’ Maxine heaved a gusty sigh. ‘Poor Mum. I suppose I should have warned her. Now we’ve got a family feud on our hands. Was she upset?’
‘Upset, no. Angry, yes.’ He half smiled, recalling the colourful language Thea Vaughan had employed during the course of their forty-minute conversation. ‘But with herself as much as anything. She realizes now that she made a mistake.’
‘Daddy, can you lend me two thousand pounds?’ asked Ella in desperation. ‘To stop me going bankrupt.’
‘She also warned me that I had all this to come,’ Guy went on, shaking his head wearily.
‘Apparently, raising daughters is the pits. One calamity after another.’
‘That means no,’ declared Josh, merciless in victory. ‘Good, you’re bankrupt. You’ve lost and I’ve won. Come on, Maxine, you’re next. I’m the racing car and you can be the old boot.’
‘Good old Mum,’ said Maxine. ‘She always was about as subtle as Bernard Manning.’
‘She certainly has character.’ Guy grinned. ‘She sounded fun though. I’d like to meet her.’
‘Now there’s a thought! Janey and I were only saying this morning that what you need is a woman in your life.’ Maxine’s dark eyes glittered with mischief. ‘Maybe I should introduce you to my mother.’
Chapter 45
Janey was in the shop putting the finishing touches to a congratulations-on-your-retirement bouquet when Guy came in.
‘They’re nice.’ He nodded at the autumnal flowers.
‘For Miss Stirrup, with love from Class 2C.’ Having trimmed and curled the bronze and gold ribbons holding the bouquet together, Janey reached for the staple gun and clipped the accompanying card to the cellophane wrapper. ‘She’s a complete dragon; she was my English teacher, always sticking the whole class in detention when the weather was good and all we wanted to do was go tearing off down to the beach. I was tempted to write out 'Have a Happy Retirement' a hundred times,’ she added with a grin. ‘And spell 'retirement' wrongly, just to annoy her.’
She was looking well and happy, Guy realized. The habitual working uniform of jeans and tee-shirt had been replaced by a pastel pink wool dress which flattered both her figure and colouring. She was wearing make-up too, not a great deal but enough to make a difference. The overall effect was one of renewed confidence and cheerfulness. So far, he decided, everything appeared to be going well.
But he still couldn’t bring himself to raise the subject of the long-lost husband’s miraculous return. Instead, sticking to safer ground, he placed a large Manila envelope on the counter.
‘I’m just on my way up to London. I thought I’d drop this in before I left. Go on, open it.
It’s for you.’
‘Really?’ Janey gave him a playful look. ‘What is it, more wages?’
Guy smiled. ‘Afraid not.’
‘Oh!’ As the photograph slid out of the envelope, she caught her breath. ‘Oh, my God ...
this is amazing. I can’t believe it’s really me.’
As soon as he had developed Friday night’s films, taken purely in order to test out the latest Olympus, Guy had known he had something special. The particular miracle of photography, he always felt, was the fact that although technical expertise played a part, it was never everything.
The best camera in the world, coupled with perfect lighting and the most compliant subjects, could produce adequate but ultimately disappointing results, whereas occasionally — and for no apparent reason — an off-the-cuff, unplanned snap of a shutter succeeded in capturing a mood, an expression, a moment in time to perfection.
He had felt at once, even as he pegged up the still-dripping print in the darkroom, that this was one such success. It didn’t happen often but it had happened last Friday, and the result was almost magical. Unaware of the camera, Janey had hoisted Ella into her arms in order to give her a clear view of Josh on the dodgems. Their faces, close together, were alight with shared laughter. Ella’s small fingers, curled around Janey’s neck, conveyed love and trust. The only slightly out-of-focus background managed to capture both the excitement and noise of the fairground. Ella’s childish elation and Janey’s pride and delight in Josh’s prowess at the wheel of his dodgem car were reflected with such astonishing clarity, it almost brought a lump to the throat. Unposed, unrehearsed and using only natural available light, it was the kind of one-in-a-million shot all photographers seek to achieve. Guy, having achieved it, had known at once where its future lay.
‘I don’t know much about this kind of thing,’ said Janey, who was still studying the print intently. She hesitated, then glanced up at him. ‘But it is good, isn’t it? I mean seriously good.’
‘I think so.’
‘It has ... impact.’ The fact that she was featured in the picture was irrelevant. Shaking her head, she struggled to express herself more clearly. ‘You can ... feel it. I don’t think anyone could look at this photograph and not respond. And how strange, we look like—’
‘Like what?’ Guy prompted half-teasingly, but she shook her head once more and didn’t reply. Against the darker background, which had created a kind of halo effect, both Ella’s hair and her own appeared white-blond and the camera angle had managed to capture a similarity in their bone structure; but the fact that they looked like mother and daughter was sheer chance, a mere trick of the lens and far too embarrassing to voice aloud.
Instead, she said simply, ‘I love it. Thank you.’
‘And now I have a favour to ask.’ Guy, who knew exactly what had been going through her mind, was amused by her reluctance to comment on the apparent resemblance between Ella and herself. ‘I was approached by a children’s charity a couple of weeks ago. They’re mounting a national appeal and they’ve asked for my help.’
‘Raising money?’ He had given her the photograph. Janey, happy to return the favour, was eager to help. ‘What can I do, keep a collecting tin here on the counter? I did a stint once, rattling a tin on a street corner for the RSPCA.’ With a grin, she added, ‘I did brilliantly, too. It wasn’t until three hours later I realized most of my shirt buttons were undone. All those men stuffing pound coins into my tin had been getting an eyeful of my boobs and
