The Banker's Niece: EPILOGUE

SPOILER ALERT

Below is the ending of a novel of mine that I've been posting on one of my other blogs, 'Mad Englishwoman and Dog'.

Don't scroll down to the Epilogue if you're interested in reading the rest of the novel. Instead, click here.

Rick rocks his fans

The rock-singer, Mr Rick Rockford, 61, who four months ago astonished his fans by announcing his engagement, has left them floundering again with a spur-of-the-moment marriage – to a different woman.

    Notorious for his turbulent romantic history and high-profile girlfriends, Rockford’s latest choice is retired book editor, Ms Jane Anstiss, 60, with whom he claims to have had a relationship in his twenties.

    ‘For a variety of reasons Jane and I parted thirty-five years ago, but then in April she came back into my life and we realised that our feelings for each other hadn't changed,’ said Rockford yesterday.

    And what of the other woman?

   ‘It wasn’t working out between Chris and me,’ he explained. ‘She gave us her full blessing and will, I hope, always be a friend to Jane and me.’

The wedding, which took place at the weekend in the isolated part of Devon where Mr Rockford now lives, was a private affair, attended only by friends of the bride Mr William Davenport (former husband of celebrity barrister Arabella Sotheby, and son of one-time ‘it-girl’ Lady Lavinia Davenport née Balfour and General Sir William Davenport GCB CBE ADC) and his fiancée Ms Samantha Fletcher.

    The best ‘man’ was none other than Dr Christine Beckford, the woman to whom Rockford was previously engaged.

These upsets are the latest in a string of surprises that the singer has sprung on his loyal public.

    In February he announced that he had secretly retired from his band Minotaur half a year earlier in order to concentrate on writing music. Only a week after this announcement came the news that he had been involved in a serious car accident. This led to his spending six weeks in hospital, a period which came to an end just a couple of months before his wedding.

The couple are however full of plans.

    Says Rockford: ‘My wife is a writer so I’m building a study for her, a room with a view. We may travel as Jane has always had a yen to visit Australia. And at some time in the future, we plan to adopt a dog - a rescue animal, something older that needs a home, like Jane and me.'

One can only hope that the marriage endures.

Jane’s first instinct is to crush the cutting into a ball and chuck it into the recycling bin. She can’t bear the thought of people picking over her life. But then she realises that she needs to take it back with her and show it to Rick because it came from William and Sam and they might ask him about it. So she folds it and slips it into her bag.  At least it’ll give him a laugh. And it’ll make a change for him to star in a traditional broadsheet like the Daily Messenger instead the usual tabloid rags. Fame indeed!

    She takes a look round her cottage. She’s managed she thinks to remove everything personal while leaving essential furniture and kitchen equipment for whatever tenants William and Sam decide to fill it with – whether farmhands, holidaymakers or people attending the painting and photography courses they have planned. Or indeed anyone else. The couple’s plans change by the week – icecream making, going organic, farm holidays for city children, glamping.
    She's pleased to leave her house in such good hands and to help the two of them in their new ventures. She has no doubt they will buy the cottage from her as their plans develop but they don't have the money at the moment so she's letting them rent it from her instead. It suits her too as she doesn't want to have to think right now about reinvesting the proceeds of a sale. She has far too many other things going on, such as helping Rick with the conversion of the farmhouse and outbuildings, as well as trying to write. Not to mention being married!

    What a profound effect Sam has had on William and it’s great to see him so enthused. She wonders though how Henry will cope when Sam makes the inevitable move away from Courtney Press to full- time involvement in Stockland Farm Inc. According to Sam and from Jane's own observations when meeting Lauren for lunch, Lauren is now ruling the editorial department with an iron fist (and no velvet glove) so perhaps Henry could promote her yet again.

    Anyway, it's not her worry and she has one job still to do.

    She picks a dusty brown folder off the kitchen table and takes it out with her on to the terrace where she’s placed ready some matches and an old kettle barbecue she found in the shed.

    Midsummer, midday. It’s strange to think it’s only a year almost to the hour since she first saw this place and fell in love with it, and strange to have a fire at such a time. Needs must however. It’s something both Theresa and Sharon have urged Jane to do – in Sharon’s case during the recent telephone calls Jane has made to her psychic friend in order to let her know that all her predictions have come true (grr).

    She found the folder in the bottom of her desk when she was clearing the house. She’d forgotten it was there. She’d forgotten that in that desperate confused time nearly forty years ago she’d bundled the four letters into the folder and slid the folder into a drawer underneath all the other items she didn’t know what to do with.

    Why did she keep them? Did she know even then that the case was not closed, that one day she would have to reopen it and deal with it?

    Quickly, without thinking too much about it, she empties the papers into the barbecue and sets light to them.

    The brittle yellow pages catch immediately. Orange flames shoot up and Jane has a moment of panic, wondering if the fire is safe with all the dry countryside around. Thankfully the flames are gone as quickly as they arrived and soon the sheets are nothing but a pile of black flakes with orange rippling around their edges.

    Jane bashes the flakes with a handy stick and when they’re well and truly dead lifts the barbecue. She staggers out of the garden and across the track with her awkward load, and tips the ashes into the hedge. Some float off into the sparkling blue. Some land in the undergrowth and vanish.

    They’re gone. Her parents’ letters are gone. She doesn’t have to read them ever again. It's over.
    She feels as if she’s been let out of an iron lung.

  

One last check of the place and she’s ready to go.

    ‘Goodbye little house,’ she says as she pulls the front door shut behind her. ‘Goodbye and thank you for everything.’