Page 92 of Waiting for a Bright New Future

It was a shock to have Sandra back and he flinched. He looked at Jayne, her face alight with enthusiasm for the first time since before Shayne’s party. She had the same excited expression as when he’d proposed. He didn’t want to be the pin that burst her bubble. He also didn’t want to be a figure of a hate in Andrea’s mind.

“You told me it was toad-in-the-hole for tea.” Lillian stood in the doorway, an accusing look on her face.

“Mum!” Jayne took off her work jacket and gave her mother a hug. “Stuart has come into money and our wedding is going upmarket.”

The old lady frowned. The cogs of her concentration were visible in the expression. “But it’s still toad-in-the-hole?” she asked eventually. “With ketchup and gravy?”

“It’s still toad-in-the-hole, Lillian,” Stuart said. “Sit down, I’m dishing up now.”

“If we have a bigger venue, I need a more of a statement dress. Something that will make people look.”

“Doesn’t everyone look at the bride anyway?” Stuart helped Lillian with the ketchup bottle.

Don’t get drawn in or she’ll think that you agree to the wedding upgrade. Do you want to waste money on flashy nuptials? Do you actuallywantto spend two weeks slumped on a sunbed turning into a well-cooked lobster?

Sandra’s time spent AWOL seemed to have knocked some sense into her. She’d found a way of finding the thoughts hiding in the shadows of Stuart’s own mind and plonking them down centre stage so he was forced to confront them. A large part of him wanted to gift Jayne her big wedding happiness but, aside from the initial satisfaction of pleasing someone, the long-term benefit was nil.

And Andrea will eat at your conscience. Her potentially penniless plight will stop you from sleeping.

Florence wouldn’t need a statement dress. She’d feel totally confident just being herself.

The thought came from nowhere. It had the feel of Sandra but lacked her imperious edge. Stuart looked at Jayne. She was smiling at him with a forkful of sausage and Yorkshire pudding on its way to her mouth. She didn’t know he was comparing her, unfavourably, to another woman. A woman who didn’t want him. This sudden realisation that Florence ranked higher in his mind than his fiancée made Stuart push the rest of his food to one side.

Was it wrong to marry your second-best choice? If you got along all right then surely a ‘good enough’ Miss Right was acceptable? There wasn’t any other option if your first choice wasn’t interested.

Jayne disappeared while he was washing up and bounced back into the room ten minutes later, coming up behind him and nuzzling his neck in a most unlike-Jayne gesture.

“Success!” she said. “The Hilton are holding their Wigmore Wing for us. We can go and look at it tomorrow. They do a sit-down meal for one hundred guests. Five courses, each one served with a sommelier-suggested wine. And the Green Dale. That posh residential home at the top end of town can take Mum for a fortnight. All we need to do is choose our sunshine destination. When we’re back home as Mr and Mrs, I’ll get plans drawn up for a granny annexe on the back of the house. The garden’s long enough to take it and it will add value in the long term. And give us more privacy.” She nuzzled him again.

Stuart felt like a fox cornered by hounds. Nowhere else to run. He must speak now or be flattened by juggernaut Jayne.

“No.”

“No what?”

Stuart was aware the tea towel in his hand had taken on the role of Lillian’s twiddling squares. When he looked down, it had become a long damp worm in his fingers.

“No, we can’t do anything until I’ve spoken to William’s solicitors.”

“He wanted you to have the money.”

“I can’t take it until I know Andrea hasn’t been left in need.”

Jayne shook her head. The evening became a litany of things they could do together and with Lillian if Stuart would only accept the money. Stuart refused to be persuaded. Other thoughts were exposing themselves in his mind. Thoughts that he’d previously stamped on. Thoughts he needed to acknowledge before events swept him away.

Chapter Forty-Three

That night Stuart slept fitfully. William’s will was having a bigger impact than the old man would’ve anticipated. It had triggered Jayne’s vision of a perfect future where money was no object. A future that energised her voice and lit up her face. When Stuart thought of the future, he didn’t see that same vision. Jayne’s vision was a more elaborate version of the present with a few luxury holidays thrown into the mix. It was a future without challenges, a future without proper travel or participation in different cultures, a future without learning or experiences. In Stuart’s eyes it was a malnourished future to tag on to the malnourished life he’d led so far.

Previously he’d been happy to settle for a future curtailed by their joint finances, Lillian’s condition and the continued need to work for a living. But Jayne’s projections for a perfect future, where such curtailments were minimal, didn’t reach high enough to match his. It was now obvious that, even without William’s money, Stuart would be striving for different experiences outside of the status quo that satisfied his fiancée.

In the morning he arranged a meeting for the following day with the solicitor named on the thick, headed paper. Then he changed into his Lycra and made sandwiches and a flask of coffee. Lillian was at the day centre and Veronica had pushed no work his way. He was free to think his way through the mess in his head. But before he did his thinking, he needed to prove something to himself.

“Think you can, think you can’t; either way you’ll be right.”

It was a matter of mental focus as well as physical endurance. Now he knew why top athletes had psychological training. Last time he’d jumped the gun, thought he’d had it in the bag and had stopped panning the road in front for obstacles.

He rode steadily to the foot of the hill, feeling his muscles warm and become more mobile. With the sharp incline in sight, he began building his momentum. He forced himself to ignore the views and the peace and the soothing sights of nature.

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