Chapter 8: CHAPYER 8

CHAPTER 8

ON SUNDAY morning Gill trotted down to the nearest corner shop for the newspapers, leaving Jake to enjoy his deserved lie-in and, on the way back, decided to run up the stairs rather than take the lift to the sixth floor. It took her a while, opening door after door in the basement, before finding one leading to the stairs.

On the way back up she bumped into a young man, George, who was visiting his great grandmother. 

Gill remembered Jake mentioning the old lady Grace who lives on the second floor. When George found Gill was staying with Jake, he told her that she had lived there since 1948, but didn’t get out much any more. He thought she should buy the lease of her flat as a sitting tenant, with his assistance, at a huge discount from the landlord. George had a figure he thought her flat was worth. Gill was introduced to Grace and had a short chat with this delightful old woman, before making her excuses to get back to Jake’s apartment.

George’s comments about the value of Grace’s flat made Gill think. She accepted that Jake’s father’s life insurance would have paid the outstanding mortgage on the lease of the flat, probably bought at a price that 28 years earlier would be many times lower than the current value, but how could a glorified copy boy afford the upkeep, ground rent, service charge, council tax rates, and property insurance on such a place, without having lodgers in to share the other bedrooms? Maybe he had taken in lodgers in the past and it didn’t work out. Suddenly her phone chirped. It was Jake.

“Hi honey, I was just out getting the papers.”

“Breakfast is almost ready, where exactly are you?”

“Running up the stairs, between the third and fourth floors.”

“Ah, you’ll be coming to the back door, then, leading to the utility room, where I keep the wellies and heavy coats. I’ll meet you there, let you in.”

“OK, honey, see you soon.” She sprinted up the rest of the steps, only to find him already there, wearing an apron and holding the door open.

“Sorry, I stopped to talk to George and Grace,” she puffed as she put one arm around him and kissed him deeply, “you know, Grace tells me that she worships you.”

“She’s sweet, isn’t she? Not jealous of Grace are you, because you should know that she changes her mind about everything all the time?”

“I would be if she was thirty years younger, but then you seem to have a thing about older women, sweetheart.”

“A fractionally older woman, singular, sweetheart.”

“Mmm, well, you look so deliciously domesticated, quite a change from the wild man of the hills, and looking so cute I could eat you for breakfast.”

“You may have to if it’s spoilt!” he laughed as they walked from the boot room along the corridor, before steering her into a small rather bare study, with a computer on a desk.

“I haven’t seen this room before,” she noted.

“No, if I had a butler, this would be his office. Once upon a time that wall was covered in monitors and video recorders.”

“I noticed there were cameras around, I suppose you could see me coming up the stairs rather than ring me?”

“No, not from the kitchen, I couldn’t,” he grinned, “now, put your thumb on there,” he directed, pointing to a red-tinted thumb-sized illuminated panel on a small cube on the desk, while he scooted around to the keyboard, clicked the mouse and tapped some keys on his computer. “Now the other thumb ... that’s fine. Now you can get in through both doors using either thumb and the passwords. Remember the lift code?”

“Yes, 3917.”“Right, it’s 7193 for the back door you’ve just come through, it’s the same number backwards.”

“Got it!” Gill replied, putting up both thumbs in cheerful confirmation.

She put her arms around him and kissed him again deeply.

“You’re very trusting, considering I’ve only spent a couple of nights here, I might walk off with all your lovely furniture.”

“No you won’t, you’ll never get any of it in the lift, that’s why I have the helipad.”

“You never show —” she stopped, seeing the big smile on his face and slapped him on the arm. “Ooh, Jake, you’re wicked and I love you.”

“I love you too, now, before this breakfast spoils....”

---

There was another Sunday ramble with Gertie for Jake and Gill two weeks later, but there were no kids with them that time as Wayne insisted it was his weekend to entertain them and he was determined to have them.

The weekends at her Dad’s were sinking into a depressing pattern, Jennifer recalled. Dad just disappeared into his study, where he would probably be all Friday evening, even eating his pizza delivery in there alone. Apparently he had some ‘deal on’, he said.

He always had some deal on lately.

Then he would be at a football match all Saturday, get home late, lie in bed until noon on Sunday, fall asleep snoring in the armchair watching the football on television after lunch and wake up just in time to take them home to Mum.

At Mum’s, Clay and she would hear all about what excitement Mum and Jake had got up to at the weekend without them.

While she was sitting in the back of Dad’s car, Jennifer remembered that Clay had summed up how he felt in Mum’s hallway earlier, while they were waiting for Dad to fight his way through the Friday night rush hour to collect them.

“It’s not fair, Mum,” Clay had complained, “Dad’ll be harassed an’ rattled when he gets us. Then we’ll have pizza on Friday, fish and chips for lunch Saturday, an’ Dad’ll bring home a Chinese or Indian after the game. Cheryl will try an’ cook a roast on Sunday but she’s bound to forget something because Mar- er, the baby comes first. You guys go out an’ do great fun stuff at weekends, but round Dad’s we do absolutely sod-all!”

“Clayton, language!”

“But Mum, we don’t do nothin’ at all at Dad’s … an’ the place smells!”

Mum had looked at Jennifer for confirmation and she’d nodded, adding, “Smells of wet washing, poop, wee and baby-sick, like all the time. I have to help her with the washing and stuff. Mum, there’s mugs and plates, even the breakfast plates still on the table by Friday night, and I don’t think she’s hoovered or dusted the place since they moved in three months ago. I have to clean my shower and toilet before I can use it. I always pack a toilet duck and bleach in my weekend bag, cos I don’t think she uses any.”

“Oh, you poor darlings,” Mum had clucked, “but I remember that I had so little time to do anything when both of you were babies —” but then Dad was there knocking on the door.

“Aww Dad, I wanted to go on that walk on Sunday,” Clay whined in Dad’s car, “I’ve made a couple of cool friends that I wanted to see again. Clive’s learned these magic tricks and was gonna show me, while Ally’s got his wrist in plaster after he fell out of a tree and he was saving me a space to write my name.”

“I’m sure you’ll be able to go hiking again, your mother seems to, well....”

“Yeah, but Ally’s cast will come off ... oh never mind.” Clay passed onto sullen silence, knowing to say any more was useless, Dad never listened and, although he changed his mind all the time, it was never to align with what his children wanted or, for that matter, what their mother ever asked for.

Jennifer sat quietly in the car. She rarely spoke in the presence of Dad; she’d learned long ago the futility of that. He’d sneered, ‘what do you know, you’re just a girl!’ too often to believe she would ever been taken seriously by him.

Jennifer imagined what their arrival at the new Jarvis household would be like as usual and shook her head in silence. This two-car household had a three-car garage and both cars, his Merc and her Mini Clubman (Cheryl needed a four-door for easy access for the baby seat) were left outside on the drive, while the garages were full of unpacked boxes of goodness knew what and furniture that Dad brought with him from the old house. But Cheryl had insisted on new furniture for the new house, so basically he was just keeping junk in the garage.

And Clay was absolutely right, Jennifer thought. At mealtimes her mother would have made an effort, with maybe a little compromise, perhaps steamed fish with microwaved rice and mixed veg, followed by fresh fruit and yoghurt for afters. 

If it were Jake cooking, it would all have been fresh and perfectly thrown together, because he was an instinctive good cook. Jennifer smiled recalling the times Jake had taken them out to fine dine at least one evening a week in the last month, and the twice he had come round and cooked delicious food at Mum’s, when she had the occasional late meeting at the bank. He had just made something good to eat with odds and ends he found in the fridge or with what he brought with him.

As Clay had said, Cheryl did try and cook a roast on Sunday but that was only because Jennifer had looked after their little sod while Cheryl cooked. Baby Martin was three months old and did nothing but cry, crap and vomit. Nothing like Gemma’s twins, who were much older and smiled and gurgled and could talk a couple of words. They laughed when they were tickled and were fascinated by petals and leaves, the look of wonderment on their faces as they discovered their world was a joy to behold.

As soon as they stopped at Dad’s house during the rain, Jennifer could see something was wrong through the sweeping front wiper blades, the driveway was covered in clothes. There were suits and shirts, pants and socks all soaked through. He had even driven over some of the clothes before he stopped the car.

“What the fuck?!” Wayne yelled as he got out of the car and stormed up to the front door.

Jennifer and Clay got out of the car, it was raining quite hard at that moment, and the forecast had been for sunshine and short sharp showers all weekend. No sunshine in the Jarvis household, that was for sure. They could see their Dad was having difficulty with the door, his key wasn’t working. He rang the doorbell and then hammered on the door.

“Cheryl!” he hissed through the letterbox, “what the hell’s going on?”

“Stop banging on the door, arsehole!” came Cheryl’s voice through the letterbox, the kids heard clearly as they were squeezed under the limited space by the front door sheltering from the monsoon rain shower, “you’ll wake Martin, I’ve only just got him down and he’s been a right little sod all day, but then I can see where he gets that from!”

“What’s going on Cheryl, sweetheart? My key’s not working. in the door.”

“I changed the locks, the locksmith left half hour ago.”

“But why, honey?”

“You know why.... I found your credit card slip in your suit, you arsehole.”

“What slip?”

“For your hotel room on the night you celebrated your promotion!”

“That was to pay for the meal, champagne for the guys, honest, babe, and came home early, I bought you home chocolates and flowers, remember sweetheart?”

“You lying, cheating bastard, and you didn’t use the credit card I knew about, you used a different account, spending money I didn’t even know you had. I saw the statement, Wayne!”

“Oh! You opened my mail, MY mail!?”

“Oh yes! I have been watching the mail for three weeks until I saw the envelope from your other account and I opened it. It was for eight thousand, seven hundred and thirty one pounds and some loose change, and you’d paid the previous balance of nearly five thousand, just like that, in one payment! I checked our bank statement, Wayne, and guess what?”

“I don’t know, honey.”

“You know very well, shithead! Your supposed income from your wages into our joint account is a standing order from another account. No wonder we’ve never got any money to get me nanny help with YOUR baby!”

“But honey, I can explain —”

“This should be good. I read through the statement. I found the entry I was looking for, which confirmed the slip I had found. I also found lots of payments I had no idea about —”

“But, honey —”

“But honey what, huh? I called the hotel, Wayne, posing as your secretary, querying why the bill was so high and was told it was for a double room. That’s right, wasn’t it? You checked in about three in the afternoon and checked out at quarter to eight that same evening, signed in as Mr and Mrs Jarvis.”

You are reading story Jake and Gill at novel35.com

“Er,” Wayne stuttered.

“Exactly,” Cheryl continued, almost shouting, “so, was this some high class hooker you booked through Westminster Services for three thousand, using your card over the phone, because there’s no receipt in your wallet for that one?”

“You looked through my wallet?!”

“Yes, while you were sleeping in last Sunday.” Cheryl added, “As you can afford hotel rooms whenever you want, I suggest you fuck off to live in one, you arsehole!”

“But this is my house!”

“Not anymore, possession is nine-tenths....”

With his tail between his legs, Wayne started to pick up his wet clothes from the gravel drive and put them in the boot, Jennifer and Clay helped collect soggy wet clothes without saying anything. They drove back to their Mum’s house in silence. Although their Dad didn’t have a key to get in, the kids did.

Jennifer noticed when they got home to Mum’s house that Clay jumped straight out of his Dad’s car. He always did exactly the same when Dad drove them to his house, eager to run indoors and play his stupid computer game that Dad refused to let him take home to Mum’s. So petty, but so typical!

It was as if Dad didn’t care about their safety or about them at all.

Mum, Jennifer knew, always made sure that she had the rear doors safety locked so you couldn’t accidentally open the rear doors from the inside. She had considered it inconvenient but knew that behind it was care for Gill’s loved ones. When Jake was about to drive them down to Dartmoor, just after everything was packed in the back of his Range Rover, he made them all take a safety drill. The rear doors were locked from the inside, as Mum always insisted, but under the front seats, held to the floor by metal clips, were fire extinguishers and metal-tipped hammers to break and shatter the glass window so they could escape if the car overturned or burst into flames.

Jake even kept a spare fire extinguisher in a locker in his underground garage that had been partially used before. Mum, herself and Clay were able have a practice couple of squirts in one of the garage corners before they did a final check that everything they needed had been transferred from Mum’s car into the Rover before they left.

Clay had thought that Jake’s underground garage was really cool because Mum let him use the clicker to open the automatic gates. He had laughed about the safety advice in whispers as they drove down the motorway that Friday night, but Jenny had realized that the gesture meant that Jake cared about them and their safety, more than their father appeared to.

That gave her the idea to set up with Clay their pretending to fall asleep exhausted on the Saturday night at Dartmoor. She thought Clay played his part admirably, even during being tucked in, because it was hard not to giggle at that point. But it meant that Mum and Jake spent the night together in the tent. It was the least the kids could do for them. Mum deserved her share of happiness.

Dad had the boot open and removed their bags by the time Jennifer was released from the car and received her bag plus a handful of washing. Her father walked off with his briefcase, Clay’s bag and his suits, clicking the car central locking button on his key fob.

Jennifer shook her head. She knew what her weekend was going to be like, washing and ironing her Dad’s clothes, because he didn’t have a clue how anything worked. And he would have to take his suits and some of his better casual clothes to the dry cleaners on Saturday and probably have to go to work on Monday in the damp, crumpled suit he stood up in.

It was going to be a miserable weekend, Jennifer thought, for all three of them.

When her Mum called her on Sunday evening to apologise that she was running late and that she was therefore being put in charge of Clay, her mother sounded so happy that Jennifer didn’t want to spoil her last couple of hours of the weekend with someone both Clay and she knew cared deeply for her and cared for them too.

---

Gill spent Friday and Saturday nights with Jake. On the Saturday he drove her out into the countryside for a trip on a rail line that restored, maintained and operated steam trains. They were able to get off at one of the stops and stroll for an hour or so through a wood where the bluebells were just starting to come into flower, great blue drifts of them, glorious in the light or shade.

The weather was showery, and there were drips still falling from the trees, but for a few magical moments the sun came out, sending shafts of light into the drifts where the water droplets sparkled like tiny stars under a brilliant rainbow. They boarded the train again and enjoyed a cream tea in one of the old first-class Pullman carriages. It was like going back to a bygone age.

They drove together to the ramble organised by his grandmother Gertie on Sunday. They were originally going to pick up Gertie on the way, but on Saturday night she decided to come down and spend the night with her friend Grace, playing cards she said, so she was able to join the loving couple for breakfast before they left.

This Sunday’s walk was on a treeless moor, rather windswept and wet, with very little sun. So they finished early and had a pub lunch while they waited for Gertie to go around the second half with a few diehards, before going back to Jake’s for tea and stayed on there for a couple of hours. Gill rang Jenny, found she was home about the time Gill expected and put her in charge until she got home, although by then it was well after their bedtime.

When Gill arrived home late on the Sunday evening, she found Wayne staying in her house. His car was parked in front of the garage and she made him move it so she could put her car away. She was annoyed with him that he was still there and his bland assumption that she would take him in, but Wayne pleaded with her to allow him to stay for a few days at her house. He explained that he had just had a flaming argument with his girlfriend and he had walked out, left her, at least for the time being. Against her better judgement Gill let him sleep on the sofa, but she was adamant that he was to stay no longer than a week.

In the morning, Clay was the first of the children to get up and go down into the kitchen. He was surprised to see his father sitting at the breakfast table before he got himself ready to leave for work at the bank he managed. Clay just shrugged his shoulders and poured cereal into a bowl, helped himself to milk and started eating.

Later on, Jenny was starting coming down the stairs and saw her father collect his briefcase from the hall. He looked up, catching her in a shaft of sunlight from the landing window.

“Hi, Princess, you look bright and cheerful this morning in that pink sweater, and you don’t look quite as thin as you used to.”

“Morning, Dad. No, I have stopped being too thin. I’m eating better and I got fed up with wearing dark colours all the time, I mean it’s spring after all. Anyway, I didn’t think Mum’d let you stay here last night.”

“Well, your Mum’s a bit more understanding than that bitch Cheryl!”

“That ‘bitch Cheryl’ is the mother of your child, Dad.”

“Yeah,” as he went out the front door, muttering almost under his breath, “so she says.”

She stood open-mouthed at the door watching him reverse from Gill’s driveway and leave, just as Jake pulled up in his big old saloon. She held the door open, waiting for him to get out of his car.

“Morning, Jake,” she called, giving him a bright smile.

“Morning, Jen. What was your father doing here so early?” Jake asked as Jenny held the door open for him. He was carrying a tray of four teas and coffees, knowing what each preferred, and a box of what turned out to be Danish pastries.

“I think he must’ve stayed here last night as we had to on Friday and Saturday nights, Jake. His girlfriend Cheryl has thrown him out and he had nowhere else to stay, he said. I didn’t think Mum would stand for his nonsense to be honest, but then maybe she doesn’t know the full story about why he’s here.”

“Oh.” Jake was thoughtful as he followed her through the doorway. “You’ve got your hair tied up in a pony tail, Jen, I like it, shows off your pretty face.”

Jennifer tossed her head as she turned to smile broadly at him, “Thank you, Jake, I decided I wasn’t seeing very much with my hair in front of my eyes all the time.”

They went through to the kitchen, where Gill was pouring water into the coffee maker for a fresh brew, Wayne having only made enough for one.

“Hi honey, this is a surprise! And bearing coffee and breakfast, too? So sweet of you.”

She hugged and kissed him.

Clay grabbed the box from him with a disarming smile and took out one of the pastries.

“Gee thanks, Jake,” the last word muffled as he started munching as he bolted upstairs to get changed for school.

“Jen, I washed your school sweater round Jake’s on Friday night, it’s in the airing cupboard.... Is that the sweater I bought you for your birthday last year?”

“Yes,” Jennifer replied, “I love the colour.”

“Come here sweetheart, you look so beautiful!”

Jennifer hugged her Mum.

“I’ve not seen you wear it before. But you can’t wear it to school.”

“I know, Mum, it was such a sunny morning and it’s so nice being home with my family that I wanted to try it on.”

“You can wear it when you get home,” Gill said, kissing her on the forehead, “it feels so nice to have my lovely daughter back.”

Jenny grinned at her Mum and Jake as she grabbed a pastry and ran off to get changed.

“So that was Wayne driving off?” Jake asked.

“Yes, I think he and his girlfriend had a row yesterday and needed to give each other some space. He had nowhere else to stay last night.”

“Well, I’m not happy about him staying here, Gill.”

“He’s not staying for long —”

“I am still not happy that he’s staying at all after ...” Jake looked around to make sure Clay and Jenny were not within hearing distance, “what he did to you last time he stayed the night.”

“Well that’s definitely not happened and not going to happen, my bedroom door’s got a lock on it and he’s sleeping on the sofa, look.”

She opened the lounge door, the rumbled duvet and pillows still untidily draped across the furniture. “And it’s just for a few days, until he patches things up with what’s-her-face. Look, he’s got a whole new family now, and new couples have rows all the time until they settle down, especially with a new baby in the house.”

“We don’t argue.”

“No, we don’t, honey. You’re too sweet to row with, and also you are never wrong, except this time about Wayne.”

“I’d have thought he could afford a hotel room, he’s the man in charge at Winstone’s isn’t he?”

“Yes, but he’s not been appointed long and with the ongoing payments for the divorce, the children and his new house and baby, he says his credit’s maxed out and he hasn’t got enough cash to spare on a hotel room for the week.”

“I can’t believe that, on his salary and bonuses —”

“There haven’t been any bonuses paid out at Winstone’s for a number of years now, what with the banking problems. When we were sorting out the divorce settlements he produced his payslips. I’m earning more than him at the moment and I only head up a department. I think Winstone’s might be in trouble, they were left with a lot of defaulted farm mortgages and even dabbled heavily in the agricultural futures markets around the world.”

“Yes, outside their normal remit,” he muttered under his breath, then more clearly, “and he may have fiddled those payslips, did you see his P60 for last year?”

“No, anyway, the lawyer accepted the slips....”

“And you’ve been getting bank bonuses throughout this period, Gill, I’m sure of it.”

“Only because Standhope Winter have done extraordinarily well, when you consider the economic climate in recent years. Better than Winstone’s, apparently.”

“Maybe.”

You can find story with these keywords: Jake and Gill, Read Jake and Gill, Jake and Gill novel, Jake and Gill book, Jake and Gill story, Jake and Gill full, Jake and Gill Latest Chapter