she did actually care for him; as she mulled over her tentativeplans for the future there was a twinge of guilt, but she knew shecould manage that.

Soon afterthey had got together properly, Gemma had taken Mark to meet hermother and as she had expected the two of them had hit it offimmediately. Anne was easily flattered and Mark was an inveterateflirt. Thinking back, Gemma hadn’t done that with any detailedstrategy in mind, although perhaps there had been some kind ofnascent intuition that it might be useful, even beneficial in thefuture.

When she hadfirst visited Mark at Ford Open Prison and started working on hisparole application – initially with David taking the lead while shewas learning the ropes, and then on her own – she had let him,indeed encouraged him, to find out about her own background andlife. It was just a matter of letting the man think he was incontrol. Come to think about it, that was about the only skill shehad ever picked up from her mother, and even if it wasn’t one to beparticularly proud of, it had its uses. Alongside going through theusual issues and motions involved in sorting out the probationreport for Mark, she had initially and at the time purposelypainted him a picture of her supposedly idyllic and happychildhood, with devoted and loving parents who gave her everythingshe wanted. It was, in fact, a picture that was a far cry from theloneliness of a single child, emotionally ignored but materiallyspoilt by her mother, and an unseen party to the constant whingeingand arguing between her embittered mother and despairing father.Even now she wasn’t certain just what was behind her idea tomislead Mark or whether it had even been intentional; however, inattempting to highlight a comfortable and well-off familybackground, Gemma realised that she had perhaps overdone things andwould have to let Mark know something of her real feelings abouther mother in due course.

She rememberedher father with great fondness; he had been her hero, really. Shemissed him terribly. He had always had time for her. When she wasyounger, on returning from his daily commute to work in the city,he would pull back into the driveway of their detached house inLynch Road, on the south side of Farnham, and always come straightup to her room to check whether she was asleep and to read to herif she wasn’t. Even when she had been asleep she had woken the nextmorning and imagined she’d seen him at the door. He had worked longhours in the city and looking back Gemma realised that he must havebeen driven to distraction and despair by her mother; no doubt hiswork had been something of a welcome escape for him. She felt asurge of bitterness; and now she would never have him to turn to ifthings got tough, or to share the special moments of her life with.Although she had no particular interest in getting married, thethought of doing that without a father just wouldn’t seemright.

***

Anne, Gemma’smother, was a wealthy woman in her own right. She had been left anear fortune from both her father, George, and then her UncleArthur, each of whom had held senior positions as well assubstantial shares in the Cunard shipping line. Their father, andAnne’s grandfather, Cecil, had worked his way up in the famousWhite Star shipping line in the early years of the twentiethcentury and had become a director when it had merged with Cunard inthe mid-1930s. He had started working at Oceanic House, just acrossfrom Trafalgar Square, as a junior clerk soon after Thomas Ismay –the chairman since the founding of the Oceanic Steam NavigationCompany, more commonly known as the White Star Line – had died andbeen replaced by his son Joseph Bruce Ismay in the last year of thenineteenth century. Cecil came to the attention of J Bruce Ismay,as he liked to be known, along with the rest of the seniormanagement, for the way in which he took charge of dealing with thepublic outcry following the sinking of the Titanic in April 1912.Hundreds of relatives and friends of passengers as well as generalonlookers had descended on Oceanic House in the days after thesinking and Cecil had helped to avoid a public relations disasterfor the company by ensuring the speedy and sensitive release ofappropriate information. Initial reports had been confused andthere had been a suggestion that the Titanic was being towed intoNew York. It wasn’t until the day after that there was confirmationof the extent of the disaster. Cecil had spent most of the weekvirtually living in the White Star offices and offering what newsand comfort he could to the waiting crowd.

As well asbeing the flagship for White Star, it was no doubt due to theTitanic being to a large extent Ismay’s project and dream thatCecil’s response to the disaster came to his attention. Indeed, thechairman had himself sailed on the ill-fated maiden voyage and beenone of the just over seven hundred survivors after being picked upby the RMS Carpathia steamship. It was little surprise that Anne’sgrandfather’s actions in helping deal with the fall-out led to hispromotion to a managerial role soon after; and so to his decisionto invest all he could in buying shares in the company. Afterbecoming a director in due course, Cecil used his influence to findpositions with the company for both his sons just prior to theSecond World War and left them his shares when he eventually diedin 1938. Although they both survived the war, Anne’s father and heruncle, a confirmed bachelor, died within a year of each other inthe late 1950s. Anne was the sole heir, her own mother having diedin 1949 of cervical cancer, still pretty much undiagnosable letalone untreatable at the time.

An only childbrought up in a privileged environment, Anne was self-centred,selfish and arrogant. She had homed in on Jeffrey Powell, herfuture husband, in the mid-1950s at a party to celebrate thecompletion and delivery of the Saxonia Carmania, the first of fourCunard liners which had been commissioned by the company to sail onthe Atlantic route to Canada. Almost seven years older than her, heworked

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