A Family Holiday: A heartwarming summer romance for fans of Katie Fforde

Fleur was pleased to be back in her own little car, albeit crawling along the M25. She was even more pleased to find that her car was still in one piece and had all its wheels, but she had known that the neighbourhood watch were a vigilant lot. There had been a surprise; there was a note left on her car. At first she had held it in her hands, a little afraid to open it, assuming that the message inside would be something abusive. But the only way to find out was to unfold and read it. As soon as she opened out the scrap of white paper she recognised Rob’s slopey handwriting. She read the note and looked around, expecting to see him appear nearby or to be watching her from a window. But he wasn’t there. His car wasn’t there either.

As she drove home, Fleur was still trying to work out if the note was a nice surprise or not. She turned up her latest favourite song and sang along. She glanced across at the passenger seat and the small, simple white business card with its blue edging. Maybe she shouldn’t have taken it without checking with Charlie, but it was Charlie who had told her to take control, to show her parents that she could sort out her own problems. She had even told her to get a solicitor, and there on a shelf in the Cobley’s hall had been their solicitor’s business card and from the loudspeaker Mr Steeple had sounded like he knew what he was doing and he had a nice voice, which made him ideal, in Fleur’s view.

As soon as she got home she had to have a much-needed talk with her parents. Charlie was right, she needed to be in charge of her own life and a good start would be to come clean about last night’s escapade. Fleur knew she was drifting in life, the sudden void after the wedding had told her that and it had to stop. The question was, if she wasn’t drifting, what was she doing? And right now Fleur had absolutely no idea.

Charlie hated the feeling that she was fast running out of options and after some thought she decided that it might be worth a call to Ted’s birth father. The last thing she wanted to do was split the family up, but if there was anything that held the merest possibility it was worth checking out.

‘Anthony Penton,’ said the brusque male voice.

‘Hello. You don’t know me, but I’m Charlie, Helen and Toby Cobley’s nanny. Have you got a minute?’

‘Not really.’

‘But it’s important…’ started Charlie, but Anthony Penton talked over her.

‘Fine. I’ll call you back,’ he said and the line went dead. Charlie stared at the phone, thinking what an unpleasant man and wondering exactly when, or even if, he would bother to call her back when the phone rang.

‘Hello,’ said Charlie, noting the ‘number withheld’ message on the small screen. She was half expecting it to be a telesales call, which she now particularly hated as they didn’t always seem to understand when Charlie told them that ‘Mr and Mrs Cobley had both died.’

‘Anthony Penton. You’ve got five minutes.’

Oh, you are a complete delight, thought Charlie, I’m so glad something pricked my conscience and I called you. ‘Okay. I’m very sorry to have to tell you that Helen and Toby died in a car accident a couple of months ago.’ Charlie paused to give him time to digest the sad information. He may have been bolshie to start with but she knew this would come as a shock. But apparently Anthony Penton didn’t need time to digest what she’d said as he came straight back in the same business-like tone.

‘I see. I don’t know what I thought you were going to say but it definitely wasn’t that.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Charlie and she meant it. This man must have loved Helen once, so it couldn’t have been easy for him to hear.

‘So how does this affect me?’

‘Social Services said I should inform you. There’s a lot of confusion over who will be guardian for the children, but it was Helen’s wish that they should all be kept together. There’s four of them,’ she said, trying to mimic his unemotional tone and failing badly. ‘That includes your child, Ted,’ she added in haste, just in case that wasn’t blindingly obvious.

‘Thank you for letting me know,’ he said and this was followed by a long pause, which Charlie filled by silently waving her right arm in circles like a prompter on a film set.

‘Is that it?’ she said at last.

‘As far as I can tell, there is nothing for me to do. Do tell me if I’m wrong.’

‘Maybe there isn’t anything for you to do. But your child has been orphaned…’ as she said the word she knew it wasn’t technically correct, but to hell with it, she was on a roll now, ‘so I guess I thought that you might want to know how he was feeling.’ A chilly silence ensued. There was a brief sigh from Anthony’s end and Charlie pulled the phone away from her ear to give it a stern look.

‘How is he?’ asked Anthony, at last starting to sound a little uncomfortable.

‘Not great, he’s recently lost his parents, who loved him very much.’ Charlie couldn’t help herself. She was trying very hard not to turn completely unreasonable but she knew it wouldn’t take much. After the events of the last few days the emotions had been building up inside her.

‘Quite. Look, Charlie was it? I don’t do kids. I don’t know the person you’re talking about. I’m not about to give you my life story, but Helen and I went our separate ways after university. It was her decision to have the baby and she wanted to do it alone.’

‘Because it’s every woman’s dream to be a single parent?’ she said. Or because you were, and apparently still are, a useless, unfeeling tosser, she added silently?

‘Thank you for calling. You’ve done what Social Services asked you to do, but let’s leave things as they are. I don’t know if you thought this would be a long-lost family reunion opportunity but I can assure you that it isn’t and it never will be. Am I making myself clear?’ he said with a firmness that sent Charlie’s irritation level up another notch.

‘Perfectly,’ she said, with as much venom as she could inject into the all-too-short word. She put the phone back on its holder with force and it gave a friendly chirrup of acknowledgement. The ‘Kipper List’ had a new starring member.

Charlie was about to tidy up when she was aware of a figure in the doorway. She turned around to see Ted standing there.

‘Are you going to bed?’ Charlie asked him. He was fresh out of the shower and wearing his dad’s dressing gown, which she noted looked only a little too big for him.

‘In a bit. Who was that?’ he asked, trying and failing badly to look uninterested. Charlie was good at many things and in her time she had been an Oscar-winning liar, but not any more, and certainly not with the children.

‘It was Anthony Penton, your birth father. Social Services asked me to call him so he knew what had happened.’

Ted gave a half-pout and nodded.

‘You okay?’ asked Charlie.

‘Yeah. So he doesn’t want to meet up or anything?’

‘No, I’m afraid not.’

‘No, that’s good, because I don’t want to either. He’s like… not bothered with me before… so he’s no one, right?’

‘He’s still your birth father, Ted, but that doesn’t make him an instant replacement dad, especially if he doesn’t want to be.’ Charlie was trying to be as honest as she could without sounding heartless. This sort of thing was very cut-and-dried for Charlie; parents were the people who looked after you and earned the right to have the title ‘mum’ or ‘dad’, not some donor who never got in touch. What they had supplied you could pick up off the internet at a reasonable price.

‘Charlie, it’s all right. Look I’m fine,’ and Ted gave a cheesy grin. ‘I’m not interested in him. I lost my dad in a car accident and I get that he’s the only one I’m likely to have. But, hey, if you’re going to only have one, then I was lucky to have the best…’ and that was where Ted’s voice broke and he disappeared upstairs two at a time. Charlie hesitated for a second but decided to let him go. She knew he was hurting exactly the same as the younger children, but she had only seen him cry at the funeral and even then he had stifled it. She could go upstairs now, but she and Ted had never had a relationship where a cuddle was acceptable, and now wasn’t the time to start.

Charlie checked on the other children, as she did every night before she went to bed herself. She stood outside Ted’s door and listened to the muffled sniffs of a boy trying very hard to control his tears. She placed her hand on the door handle and stood there fighting with her choices and the implications of opening the door. When at last it went silent inside, her hand fell away from the doorknob and she went to bed.

Fleur’s parents had been out when she had got home, but there was a long note from her mother on the breakfast bar about Clyde throwing a shoe and Ralph causing all sorts of upset when the blacksmith came, plus details of a potential meal that was in the freezer, with instructions for reheating and directions as to where to find the salad to accompany it and a dessert. She had also left contact details, as they were at some National Trust dinner. Fleur suspected that the hosts were after her father’s company to provide some sort of sponsorship; that was what a free meal or trip usually meant. She re-read the note and ran her fingers over the last line – All our love M & P xxxx. Her mother always put four kisses on the bottom of notes and cards to Fleur or her sister Poppy.

Poppy had an altogether different relationship with their parents. Fleur wondered when they had stopped treating Poppy like a child and tried not to get grumpy about it. She helped herself to a glass of water and leant on the cool granite surface. Poppy had always been more independent that she had. She was always an ‘I can do it myself’ sort of child and that had developed further as they had grown up, but the point was that Charlie was right, Fleur had never completely grown up. She hated it when Charlie was right. She didn’t want to admit it and she certainly wasn’t going to let Charlie know, but it was foolish not to accept it herself.

She missed Poppy. They were closer than most sisters she knew of. Over the years they had had their moments, as all siblings did. Sometimes they seemed perfectly suited but at other times it would feel as if Poppy had left her behind and that she was playing catch-up. She loved Poppy immensely, but as they had grown up it had become clear that they were two very different people. Poppy was academic and wanted to make her own way in the world, ideally without any input from her father’s name or money. Whereas Fleur had taken the scenic route, had drifted through school and had completely lost her way after her exams. Her forays into various college courses had amounted to nothing. And here she was again with absolutely nothing to do.

Fleur put her hand in her pocket and pulled out the folded note and the business card and placed them side by side on the granite top. There was the temptation to do ‘eeny, meeny’ over them, but she resisted. If she was going to grow up, now was a good time to start. She pulled her phone from her pocket and dialled the number.

When her parents arrived home they were laughing and it cheered Fleur to hear it. They were her parents and she rarely thought of them as a couple, but the recent events had made her see how perfect they were for each other. She could just make out her father whispering something inaudible, to which her mother was giggling. Fleur decided that she had better make her presence known or she could become privy to something that might scar her for life.

‘Dirty stop-outs! What time do you call this?’

‘Fleur, sweetheart.’ Her mother homed in on the disembodied voice and found Fleur curled up on a sofa hugging a large mug of tea. ‘Have you eaten?’

‘Yes. Thanks for leaving me a meal and the note and everything. But, honestly, you don’t need to. I know you’re being kind, but I’m an adult and you wouldn’t do it for Poppy.’

‘Oh,’ said her mother, a little crestfallen. Fleur’s father joined them in the room and wrapped a protective arm around his wife. He looked a little flushed as he kissed his wife’s neck and Fleur felt an unpleasant shiver go down her spine. Don’t think about it, she told herself.

‘The child is right. I’ll work out what you owe us in rent,’ he said with a wink. Fleur dismissively stuck her tongue out at him.

Her mother gave her a hug and perched on the arm of the sofa. ‘Did you have a nice time last night?’ she asked.

‘Um, I really need to talk to you about that. It’s all right, nothing to worry about but you might want to get a large glass of something alcoholic and sit down first.’