The Family Affair Read online

  “Yes,” Olivier replied, his face darkening despite the compliment. “I guess it’s a fantasy world for people who like all things French. Well, actually, it’s a fantasy world for me too, where I can still live the French life without actually living in the same city as her.”

  “Don’t focus on all that dark stuff when you’ve created something this good,” Beth countered. “You’re about to open up for breakfast. You need to be smiling when the first customers of the day walk in. I do PR for a living and I need to give you some tips.”

  “You’re right, let’s keep things up-tempo,” Olivier answered, as he put a plate of croissants down on the table in front of them before sitting opposite Beth. “We’ve got about ten minutes to enjoy breakfast before the madness starts. Please be my guest. You take one first.”

  CHAPTER 8: SPRING POSIES

  Spending time with Olivier early that morning had put an extra spring in Beth’s step.

  Not only had she baked and shared breakfast with the divine Frenchman but, afterwards, she’d also helped him fill the vintage tea trays on the counter with croissants and put crusty baguettes and petit pains into wicker baskets in the window of his shop.

  Working alongside an artisan baker had stirred a dormant creativity within her. Slipping out just before the patisserie opened, Beth went into nearby woodland and picked handfuls of wild anemone and late daffodils.

  Returning just before opening time she’d made up pretty spring posies and placed them into empty jam jars on each of the wooden tables.

  “I approve of the flowers,” Olivier shouted from the kitchen, looking slightly surprised as he watched her decorate his shop. “Be careful not to make this place look too good though. I don’t need to create any more demand as the shop isn’t big enough for any more customers.”

  “From small acorns grow big trees,” Beth joked back. “It’s all in the presentation. Think big. You could put lots of tables in front of the shop if you wanted to expand.”

  “I’m not sure I want to do that,” Olivier frowned. “I’m not in Kepton to make money.”

  “Well maybe not,” Beth replied. “But when you have such a special talent it would be a shame not to benefit from it yourself.”

  “But you’re forgetting the reason why I’m here,” Olivier protested. “The reason for setting up this business is to escape from Isabel and the life I lived in Paris once she’d left me. I told you that last night.”

  “Yes, but look at the number of customers you’re attracting every day,” Beth continued. “I mean the PR I could get you for this patisserie would set you up for life.”

  “All I want to do is to make bread and French pastries and earn a living from it,” Olivier argued back. “I have no great ambitions beyond that.”

  Beth didn’t respond immediately. She wondered if he really meant what he said. Why were all his energies and ambition stuck because of a woman who had left him for another man?

  But before she could carry on the conversation or even recognise the parallels with her own inability to leapfrog the past, a large number of eager Kepton locals tumbled through the front door, and the moment got lost in a collective desire for Olivier’s croissants, cakes and bread.

  And somehow in all of the commotion, Beth ended up the other side of the till where her well-honed PR skills were deployed to quite startling effect.

  The customers loved the fact she was from Kepton and more than one of them asked her in whispered tones if she was Olivier’s new girlfriend, which she was forced to deny.

  “He’s not just gorgeous looking but he’s also a lovely lad,” one eager customer said to Beth under her breath. “Make sure you keep him for yourself. There’s plenty of women round here who want him.”

  Beth had smiled serenely back and tried to ignore the thirst for information about her love life.

  During a momentary lull in trade, Olivier leant across and whispered in her ear. “You look like you’re actually enjoying serving coffee and croissants. If ever you’re looking for a new job you can have one here.”

  Beth grinned as she helped him sell a golden-syrupy brown croissant to another delighted customer. Placing it onto a plate with a pot of jam and a swirl of butter, she replied “Well I’m not sure about a job, but I was going to ask if you have any spare rooms again tonight.”

  “Sure. I always have rooms,” Olivier replied without showing any emotion. “It’s only my breakfast that the locals want. It’s never my bed.”

  “Really,” Beth quipped, finding her dry sense of humour. “That’s not what one of your customers just told me.”

  “So shall I book you in for another night?” Olivier asked, ignoring her attempt to seduce him.

  “Yes, why not, after the early start and the stress of a family lunch with my Uncle Arthur I’ll need a rest before I head back to London,” Beth said.

  “And dinner? Will you want to eat here later as well?” Olivier pressed her. “I’ve only got one table left, so you’ll need to let me know now if you do.”

  “Ok then, absolutely,” Beth said. “Put me down for dinner as well. The table sounds like it’s got my name on it.”

  After the breakfast queue had finally died down, Beth glanced at her watch. She couldn’t believe how quickly the morning had passed.

  “You’ll have to excuse me,” she shouted across to Olivier as she removed her apron and smoothed down her hair. “I need to get off for lunch. Uncle Arthur likes people to be punctual. He’ll be very annoyed if I turn up late.”

  “There’s a reason why people like to control things,” Olivier winked. “Enjoy your lunch and, talking of punctual, don’t be late back tonight or you’ll be left with less choice.”

  “Oh don’t worry about that,” Beth smiled as she battled her way out of the bustling patisserie. “I’ll only be gone an hour or two. I may even make it back in time for afternoon coffee and cake. I doubt my family will want me to hang around for too long.”

  “I won’t ask why not,” Olivier smiled knowingly. “It sounds very complicated.”

  “Absolutely right,” Beth replied. “Mine’s a very complicated family, full stop. You think your life is bad but you wouldn’t possibly want to know about my stuff.”

  “It can’t be more messed up than mine,” Olivier retorted. “I’ll see you for dinner later on and maybe we can take notes.”

  “Ok,” Beth shouted back. “Look forward to it.”

  As soon as she left the shop, familiar feelings of anxiety surged through her. As she got into her car she tried to calm herself by breathing deeply.

  Following the directions her Uncle Arthur had given her, Beth made sure she got on the right road before concentrating on formulating the questions she wanted to ask.

  In her view, Arthur was her best hope of finding answers to the questions she most wanted to ask, and she thought that if she played her cards right she had a good chance of getting him to open up about what had really happened to her family.

  CHAPTER 9: UNCLE ARTHUR

  After a twenty minute drive, Beth turned into her Uncle Arthur’s driveway that led up to an imposing house not dissimilar in size and structure to Highlands.

  Parking her Mini-Cooper outside the large wooden front door, she stopped to admire the well-stocked gardens and immaculately manicured hedges surrounding the main building.

  As she took a better look, she did a double take as she caught sight of an unusual large stone sculpture in the shape of a peace symbol standing in the centre of the main lawn.

  Not wanting to trespass uninvited, Beth wondered what on earth it was doing there before walking slowly towards the oak front door and pressing the bell harder than she needed to as blood rushed to her head.

  After a couple of seconds she heard Arthur walking down the staircase to let her in. “Hello,” he said brightly as he opened the door. “How lovely to see you, do come on through.”

 
; “Hi Uncle Arthur,” Beth replied, stepping over the threshold. “It’s good to see you again. Is Auntie Louise joining us?”

  “Yes she’s just finishing off in the kitchen,” Arthur smiled. “She’ll be along shortly. If you follow me into the sitting room we can have a pre-lunch drink and a quick chat, and get all the family business out of the way first. Now what can I get you?”

  “I’m driving, so just a soda water thanks,” Beth replied trying hard not to sound disappointed by the fact Louise was at home. This was going to make getting anything out of Arthur so much harder.

  Walking into a huge light airy sitting room, Beth was struck by how much even the interior reminded her of Highlands.

  Identical large windows overlooked the gardens and a grand piano stood in one corner of the room covered with family photos framed in silver. A lingering smell of open fires and burning wood pervaded the room.

  “So,” Arthur smiled, as he turned away from the drinks cabinet and handed her a heavy crystal tumbler full of soda with ice and a thin slice of lemon. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”

  “I just wanted to reconnect with Dad’s family,” Beth replied, composing herself before sitting down in the middle of one of the comfortable looking sofas. “And I’m really grateful you invited me over.”

  “Oh the pleasure is ours entirely,” Arthur said kindly. “You must have had a difficult time over these past few weeks. It was the least we could do.”

  “Yes it’s been tough,” Beth admitted. “We knew Dad was ill but it was still a huge shock when it happened. For the first time in my adult life I’m in Kepton and don’t want to head straight back to London and work.”

  “It’s normal that you should want to stay close to your roots,” Arthur empathised, as he fixed himself a gin and tonic. “Losing a parent gives you a keener sense of family.”

  “Um,” Beth nodded. “Well that’s certainly been the case with me. I know you were at the funeral but I didn’t really have the chance to speak to you properly or anyone else for that matter. So that’s one of the reasons I thought I’d give you a ring.”

  “Well you’re here now,” Arthur said with his back to her. “And it’s good to see you.”

  “Yes,” Beth said, unable to maintain small talk when she had some pretty pressing questions to ask him. “And the reason I asked to come here is all quite complicated. I’m not sure where I should start, to be honest.”

  “I’m used to complicated,” Arthur sighed calmly as he sat down in a wide winged armchair, his blue-grey eyes studying hers as he spoke, looking totally unfazed by her directness. “You can’t be an Earnshaw and expect anything to be simple. I accepted that a long time ago.”

  Beth smiled back without immediately responding. He was right of course. It had all got way too complicated for them all over the years and she couldn’t help thinking she was just about to go and make it a whole lot worse.

  “Where to begin,” Beth said, glancing out of the window, distracted momentarily by the precision of a perfectly planted row of exquisitely clipped lavender bushes and the size of the peace symbol which was now directly in front of her.

  Peeling her eyes off both, her gaze returned to the room and steadying her nerves she closed her eyes, momentarily praying that Arthur would be kind. Finally she said something.

  “Since Dad died,” Beth began, “I’ve had this desperate urge to know more about what really happened to Alistair and why Dad never inherited anything.”

  “I see,” Arthur said slowly with raised eyebrows, clearly playing for time. “What are you trying to find out exactly?”

  “It’s just that everything seemed so hushed up somehow over the years,” Beth continued, unperturbed by his growing frown. “When Dad was here, I couldn’t speak of these matters but now he’s gone I feel very differently.”

  “Um,” Arthur responded. “Is this the reason you came to see us?”

  “Well, I wanted to meet up with the family again,” Beth said almost apologetically. “But I also hoped you might be able to shed some light on Alistair’s death and the fact Dad lost out on the business and Highlands in swift succession.”

  “Well I can talk a bit about Highlands and the business,” Arthur said, clearly taken aback by his niece’s opening statements. “But everything that happened to Alistair, whilst tragic, was an accident and we all came to terms with it a long time ago.”

  “Well tell me what you know about my father’s lack of inheritance then,” Beth pressed on, unsurprised by her Uncle’s refusal to talk about her twin. “I mean any information is going to be better than none.”

  “There were a lot of tensions in the business,” Arthur replied. “And they mainly had to do with succession plans and who would eventually take the firm over – the sort of issues that are not uncommon in family run concerns.”

  “But who created the tensions?” Beth asked, unsatisfied by the politically correct responses her Uncle was giving her.

  “I’m not sure that any one person created them,” Arthur answered rather pompously. Beth wondered if he spoke like that at his Parish Council meetings. It certainly sounded like a Parish Council meeting thing to say.

  “It’s always seemed such a shame that the family had to fall out,” Beth said, determined to get him to converse in a way she could understand. “I mean they all owned part of a good business and a wonderful family home.”

  “I didn’t get too involved,” Arthur answered. “All I know is that things became difficult and your father walked away. He just decided he couldn’t and wouldn’t work with your Uncle Richard and no-one could persuade him otherwise. Not even your grandparents.”

  “But why did he do that?” Beth asked, feeling short-changed by Arthur’s answers. “I mean you wouldn’t walk away from all that money and a house like Highlands unless something quite serious had happened. He was the eldest son of the eldest son.”

  Arthur stared out across at the gardens before speaking, his eyes hovering over the peace symbol as if he was trying to summon energy from it as it towered over most of his front lawn.

  “I pulled myself back from the whole business,” Arthur said with a false sense of calm. “And I don’t want to get involved in it all now. It’s not that I’m unsympathetic to you wanting to understand more. But the problems really were between Richard and your father.”

  “But what problems were there?” Beth persisted, realising that she sounded like a broken record. “You must know something more than that?”

  “Both of them are no longer with us,” Arthur answered. “And so it feels very wrong to speak ill of either of them now. I don’t see what can be gained by dredging everything from the past back up when they are not here to defend themselves and nothing can be changed.”

  “But that’s one of the reasons I came to see you,” Beth cried. “All I want to know is why there were so many unresolved issues in the family and why Dad never spoke to me about them as I got older.”

  “And haven’t you considered why your father chose to do that?” Arthur responded, putting his guard right back up. “My very strong advice to you is to remember your father as he was and the memories you have of him. He wouldn’t want this navel gazing.”

  “Well I do have memories,” Beth argued back. “And I do think about my Dad a lot. But there is a huge part of my life missing from the day Alistair died. It’s almost like someone erased the memories of the life I should have had.”

  “But asking these sorts of questions won’t give you closure,” Arthur admonished. “In fact you’ll be even less sure about things than you might have been if you’re not careful.”

  “That’s exactly what Mum said,” Beth interrupted. “But you’re the only person left I can talk to apart from Auntie Ada, and she’s too frail. I saw her yesterday and she really was not up for any long and difficult discussions about the past.”

  “Look Beth,” Arthur replied, sitting
forwards in his chair. “Alistair’s death was a shocking tragedy and no-one can deny that. But I’m not sure everything bad that happened after that event, however tragic, was linked to it.”

  “Maybe, but I’ve always felt I don’t know everything I should,” Beth insisted.

  “When people suffer tragedy,” Arthur interrupted, “they sometimes have to shut it off to survive. Your parents, like me, are from a different generation. We weren’t brought up to expose our problems in public.”

  “Ok,” Beth answered, not willing to let go without a fight. “But there’s something else which I can’t put my finger on. It’s like something has been covered up somewhere along the line. Not necessarily on purpose but covered up nevertheless.”

  “It was a difficult period,” Arthur replied non-specifically, looking out into the gardens. “Richard and your father never had an easy relationship but after Alistair died there was an even greater gap.”

  “So did it break them completely?” Beth asked.

  “Yes pretty much,” Arthur nodded. “In the end your father opted out of the firm and so did I. Louise told me if I decided to stay on at the firm she would leave me.”

  “I hadn’t realised you’d walked away from the business as well?” Beth said, sounding surprised. “I thought you’d at least retained a share of it?”

  “No. I walked away empty handed like your father,” Arthur confirmed. “I went to university and then chose a different life.”

  “I wonder if Dad ever regretted walking away, because he lost the house as well when he made that choice?” Beth asked ruefully. “Did he say anything like that to you?”

  “No never,” Arthur said emphatically. “Once he’d left it all behind he took a more spiritual view of life. If he ever regretted it he never said – not to me anyway.”

  “And you?” Beth continued. “Did you have regrets?”