You Got It Wrong - Part Three

Chapter Three

                “How are you doing?”

Mansell was sat on a bench near the Home, looking out to sea. He glanced up at Nina’s voice and gave a sad smile, “I’m ok.”

Nina could tell he was anything but ok, but she could also see his pride and his anger in the contours of his face, “you weren’t in your room, didn’t expect to see you out here.”

He sighed, “feel close to Gordon here...”

There was an unsaid ‘but’ going on there, but she wasn’t ready to pry, he’d tell her what he wanted her to know, she’d learned that about people. “What was it like? To be part of the D-Day landings, I mean it’s such a historical thing...such a detrimental thing to be part of.”

He sighed, “I was seventeen, and I thought that I knew it all. We sat in the channel in boats, waiting and waiting. That’s what I remember, just sitting, shall we shan’t we. They were changing their minds the commanding officers, one minute it was go...then it was stop. Ultimately it was that that surprised the Gerries, the weather forecast wasn’t great...they thought we’d wait. But it was still dark when the shout came.” His eyes hadn’t drifted from the open sea in front of him, “then it was carnage, so many were slain, falling in the sea, blood everywhere...but then the tide turned. My battalion got through at Arromanches, there were bunkers along the beach, but we managed to get between them, in fact, one of my comrades, managed to take out the biggest bunker, ran straight up and died doing it, but it was thanks to him that we took that beach.” He sighed, “we were welcomed like heroes...the people there had lived in fear for years, the military men taking over their homes, their families under threat...”

He looked wistful for a moment, so Nina leaned back against the bench, “I think you should go...to Normandy.”

He sighed, “I can’t go that far...not really.  I mean my leg let’s me down if I walk too far...I don’t know how to find hotels...”

She smiled, “I can help you book things, I’ll bring my laptop over later. We can find somewhere to stay...”

                “I don’t know...I asked my remaining grandson today, but it’s all too much for them. Too busy, it’s not like I ask them to do much for me.” He finally turned to meet her eyes, “I don’t have confidence anymore Nina, I don’t feel strong anymore.”

She laughed trying to make light of that, but he looked sad, “you are strong, you invaded Normandy for Christ’s sake, you can do anything you want!”

He laughed at that, “rubbish, seventy years have passed.  Seventy years I tell you. I can’t do this.” He stood up, “I have to go get dinner, see you soon Nina.”

She was filled with sadness as she watched him go.

                “So I’m thinking that we should stay in the Big Smoke when we meet the Wootton’s!”

Nina looked up from her sketches and groaned, “really? I KNOW what that means to you!”

Lilah skipped across the kitchen, “oh yes, shopping, eating, partying. Come ON woman, you KNOW it’ll be amazing!”

Groaning she dropped her pencil and sat back, “I know that it’ll be carnage. You are a nightmare when you get to London; the calm woman I share a house with becomes a lunatic.”

Lilah opened the fridge and took out a bottle of white wine and poured a glass, “we all need to let our hair down every now and again, don’t be such a prude!”

She wafted the bottle in Nina’s direction, “can I have a beer?”

She rarely drank wine, whisky was her thing, or in its absence...or before five pm like today, beer. Lilah found a bottle of American beer and passed it across the table to her.

“You all set with your designs.”

Nina nodded, “I’ve got a few options...I’m hoping they’re what they are looking for, I mean I think you captured their wishes. I’m confident...if they don’t like them, then I can merge ideas. It won’t be a huge job.”

Lilah grinned, “and what about New York?”

She shook her head, “I think it’s too soon Lilah. Too much work. The beauty of these rings are how exclusive and individual they are. If we increase too quickly then we’ll lose that, and I don’t think we’re a big enough brand.”

Lilah looked disappointed, but both her and her cousin Amelia were super enthusiastic about the business they’d invested in, but as the actual force behind it, she was far more cautious.

Amelia had called them a week earlier begging them to come to a specialty wedding fare in New York, the thought being that it would give them a chance to be recognised across the Atlantic. But that was a huge amount of pressure for Nina, also she wasn’t ready to start employing people to craft her designs, after all, that was the thing that she loved, switching off and focussing on the piece of jewellery in her hand.

She knew Lilah was disappointed at her reluctance, but she was right about this, she knew that.

                “Ok ok, I’ll do the London thing, if that makes you smile again.”

Lilah beamed at her, “we’ll have SO much fun!”

Theo looked at the woman sat opposite him and groaned, she was a mess, but she was the mother of his little girl.

                “You’re not having her, not whilst you are in this state. I’ve called my solicitor...”

She made to protest, her words still slightly slurred from her alcohol she’d imbibed, but he silenced her.

                “Sadie, you are a mess. You are in no fit state to look after our daughter.”  She looked up at him and groaned, and he felt a chink in his armour, a little bit of sympathy for the woman in front of him, but then he thought of Melody, her cute grin, her innocence, her need for stability and once again the red mist of anger descended, “you can blame me, for how you are...but let me remind you that YOU betrayed me, YOU wanted more than I could give you, YOU made me leave. Now sort yourself out, I don’t want Social Services involved, if they see you you’ll never care for a chid again, Pull yourself together and I’ll work with you, keep this up and I will fight, do you hear?

She nodded mutely, but her eyes were already closing, she was already slumping back against the sofa.

Exasperated, he did something he thought he’d never do; he pulled out the phone and called her sister. A dangerous move considering she hated him, but he was thinking of Melody, as un-maternal as Sadie was, she was the only mother that Melody would have, he owed it to her to make things work.

                “It’s your brother!”

Nina had fallen asleep midway through Eastenders, and the voice calling her took a moment to register. Sitting up slowly she stared at Lilah, “what?”

                “Phone...” she waved the handset, “your brother.”

Nina felt her heart sink, she hadn’t spoken to James in months, he never called. He’d called a few days earlier and she had intended to call him, find out what he wanted, instead he was catching her unawares.

Taking a deep breath, she took the handset, “James?”

                “Nina. Hi.” There was no warmth in his voice, “we need you to come to London...you have to come to the solicitor’s office with us.”

She sighed; it was never any different, “what?  Why?”

She could hear him exhale almost angrily, “we need to release some funds. You have to be there.”

The bastard she wanted to scream. “You are telling me that the money you took out of our dead father’s estate eight months ago has gone?”

                “We invested it...it’s just not paying out yet...you know how big this house is, how expensive it is to run...”

Nina closed her eyes trying to contain her emotions, “James, you and my darling step mother could move out of so big a house, but you both want it all. You want to live in a huge house and do FUCK all! Are you surprised that father made me the controller of the fortunes? If it was up to you and Imelda everything would be gone. Why don’t you get a job?”

That flustered him, he huffed a little but she wasn’t about to give in, after more protests she ended the conversation, “I’m in London in a couple of days. I’ll discuss things with you then, but this can’t keep happening.”

With that she hung up and closed her eyes, not ready to share the latest instalment of her family hell with Lilah.

Her father Jack Willoughby was a very prominent politician. Throughout her childhood he’d been largely absent, he wasn’t a great parent, but then he hadn’t been a great husband either. James’ mother Paula had left him for another man when James was only four. A series of nannies had cared for him until Jack had married her mother Beatrice. She’d been the fourth nanny, and it was James’ greatest pleasure to tell her that their father only married her mother because she was pregnant. He’d been fifty, her mother twenty three. It sounded unhealthy, and as her mother had died when she was a baby, she had no memory of her, of them, of anything but her horrid big brother.

She’d been ten when Jack had met, and rather rapidly married Imelda Olenev, a Russian model, just twenty four. Her father by this time had been sixty one. As a growing girl with so many questions about her body, her feelings, about life that she couldn’t ask her father or her brother, and whilst her grandmother was good to her, she couldn’t talk to her, Imelda had seemed like a dream come true. A mother figure at last.

But on the first day after their honeymoon, Imelda had been sat at the dining table and Nina had walked in full of optimism, she could remember it like it was the previous day.

                “Can you brush my hair like yours?”

Imelda had amazing copper hair that flowed in waves over her shoulders; Nina’s lank dark hair was no match. But Imelda hadn’t as much as looked up from her book, instead she’d waved a dismissive hand, “not now little girl, I’m not your mother.”

Those words had cut her to the core, and she hated that the memory of those words still pained her fifteen years later.

Now the two leeches that were her step mother and brother wanted her, and she had no intention of making anything easy for them, neither had respected her father in life, and they weren’t about to in death. That much was obvious.

Amelia’s house in Notting Hill was perfect for a weekend in the capital. Lilah was like an excited child as soon as they saw the memorable towers of Battersea Power Station. They’d tubed from Victoria to Notting Hill Gate, against Lilah’s request. She would get a taxi anywhere, but it was literally five stops on the Underground and despite having financial stability, Nina hated to waste money, she wasn’t tight, or overly thrifty, but she hated waste. Lilah rolled her eyes as they descended in to the heat of the tunnels that connected the bowels of London.

When they emerged it was less than five minutes to the house on Ladbroke Grove, a huge bay fronted property that was beautiful.

                “Half an hour,” Nina called as Lilah disappeared upstairs with her huge bag, getting ready for her friend could be a lengthy occasion.

                “Yes Mum,” she mock saluted from the stairs.

                “You make out that I’m a nag...but the quicker we get to Kensington and meet ‘Lord and Lady’ Wootton, the sooner we can hit the town.”

That made her friend’s eyes light up like Christmas lanterns, “FINALLY you speak my language!”

A few hours later, Lilah was crossing the wine bar, a bottle of champagne in her hands and a sashay in her hips for the benefit of the men stood at the bar checking her out.

Nina groaned and rolled her eyes, “you are in corrigible, and let me remind you, they merely agreed with the designs, I haven’t made the rings yet.”

Pouring the champagne into two flutes she beamed, “but you are amazing at that part of things. You are amazing Nina Willoughby, amazing!”

They chinked glasses, and sipped the fizzy liquid for a moment, then Nina turned to her friend, “so the other three enquiries?”

Lilah smiled, “all enthralled with your work. We’ve got steady interest, and I know that you are enjoying making these rings creating things at with love, and that is the beauty of your product, but you could be so much more in demand.”

Nina sighed, “we have this conversation a lot mate, I don’t need to break myself in two I have my grandmother’s house, so we have a roof over our head...we have fun...I mean you still disappear off modelling.”

Leaning close her friend smiled, “and you are scared. Think about it Nina, this could be all your dreams come true. All that’s holding you back is your own fear that it won’t work...but you’ve proved that you are successful, you’ve got this far, don’t let your brother and Imelda drag you down. Ok?”

Nina hated that there was truth in her words, being independent, not needing her family, not needing her father’s wealth was everything to her, but if this business failed, if “Anneau de Saule Jewellery” went broke, she had no plan B, and would likely lose everything, and she couldn’t cope with failure, it wasn’t an option.