The Fleeting Years Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Recent Titles by Connie Monk

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Recent Titles by Connie Monk

  HUNTERS’ LODGE

  A PROMISE FULFILLED

  BEYOND THE SHORE

  WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS

  THE HEALING STREAM

  FULL CIRCLE

  THE FLEETING YEARS

  THE FLEETING YEARS

  Connie Monk

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  This first world edition published 2015

  in Great Britain and the USA by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2015 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.

  eBook edition first published in 2015 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2015 by Connie Monk.

  The right of Connie Monk to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Monk, Connie author.

  The fleeting years.

  1. Married people–Fiction. 2. Motion picture actors and

  actresses–Fiction. 3. Women violinists–Fiction.

  I. Title

  823.9’14-dc23

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8494-7 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-582-7 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-630-4 (e-book)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Falkirk,

  Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  One

  1950s

  Putting the telephone receiver back with a firm click and with an almost imperceptible toss of her head, Zina turned away. That’s when she caught a glimpse of herself in the long mirror, the sight a taunting reminder of the care she had taken to get ready for such a special occasion. With her tawny-brown, curly hair cut almost boyishly short, her slim, petite figure shown off to perfection by the lightweight suit she had bought for the occasion, making the best of herself meant an end result that would turn heads. For this, their tenth wedding anniversary, they had planned to meet in time for lunch at the French Horn, where they would spend one night, just as they had the first night of their honeymoon before they’d flown off to the sunshine of Corfu. How young she had been, young and certain of a golden future. But even in their wildest dreams neither had imagined the success the years would bring. Success? For Peter, yes, enormous success. But how can it truly be measured? By fame and fortune or by growing ever closer together and sharing their daily lives? Ought she to forget her own interests and ambitions, simply make a safe and unchanging background for his full and demanding life? She couldn’t do that, and why should he expect her to?

  Turning from the mirror, she sat on the edge of the bed with her back to her half-packed weekend case. Just a casual phone call to say he couldn’t get away. If it had meant as much to him as it had to her, then surely he could have insisted he couldn’t work today. If he’d stayed in the theatre she would have understood he had a commitment. But for one day, surely his presence wasn’t needed in every scene. In her disappointment she gave full rein to her resentment. She clung to the thought of the letter that had arrived the previous morning and her mouth set in a firmer line. She, too, had a life, she wasn’t simply an appendage to be housed and provided for, living in his shadow.

  ‘I’m here,’ she heard her mother’s voice followed by the click as she shut the front door which Zina had left on the latch when she’d gone upstairs to get ready, filled then with every bit as much eager anticipation as she had been when she’d dressed for her wedding a decade ago. ‘I came a bit early so that you knew there was nothing to worry about. Are you all dressed and beautiful?’

  Jenny Beckham was a younger-than-her-years looking woman in her early fifties. After more than thirty years of a really happy marriage she had lost her husband in a motoring accident, something that might have crushed a lesser spirit. Only in her solitary moments did she let herself acknowledge the emptiness of her life, but that was her secret. Her cheerful willingness to give her time to the affairs of Myddlesham, the nearby village where she lived, and be prepared to take care of her twin grandchildren, kept her very active. She belonged to the Art Society, the Photographic Club, the Horticultural Society and served on the Parish Council where, in the views of some of the members, she cheered up the meetings simply by her presence. A pretty woman with the kind of looks that age wouldn’t mar; by no means classically beautiful but with bright, dark blue eyes, a tip-tilted nose and a mouth that always appeared to be on the verge of a smile. With her trim figure and quick movements she was a delightful sight whether dressed smartly or, as on that May morning, in slacks, a check shirt and sandals.

  Zina punched her clenched fists together as if to give herself courage, then stood up as she called in reply, ‘Change of plans, Mum. Peter phoned that he can’t get away. He’ll be on the set all day. Come on up.’

  Her bright voice didn’t fool Jenny.

  ‘If there’s a fortune to be made from that film’ she said as she came into the bedroom, ‘then it’ll be on his account because of all the starstruck young girls who’ll be paying good money to sit drooling in a dark cinema and dreaming of their idol. Do you know, that young girl at the bakers told me the other day that she had seen In the Wake of the Storm four times and has his picture on her bedroom wall. There seemed something vaguely indecent about your husband being on her wall. Anyway, you can’t tell me that if he’d said it was important for him not to be on set today they wouldn’t have pandered to him. Of course they would.’

  ‘It’s his anniversary too …’ Zina found herself defending him. ‘He was looking forward to it. He’d booked the room at the French Horn and everything.’

  ‘Well, here we are at ten o’clock in the morning, the twins both in school for the day and you looking like something out of a fashion mag. So what are we going to do about it?’

  It was impossible for Zina’s spirits not to take a momentary leap upwards.

  ‘Oh Mum, what would I do without you?’

  ‘You’d do very well, my sweet,’ came Jenny’s brisk reply. ‘Now then, are you going to get out of your fancy attire or am I going home to get decked up? What shall it be? Town, coast or country?’

  ‘Let’s go to that pub on the edge of Exmoor where we used to go with Dad, I forget its name. Let’s go there, have a drink then leave the car while we walk like we used to; then we could go back for a pub lunch? It’s such a gorgeous day.’
Somehow Zina managed to force enthusiasm into her voice.

  ‘Sounds like heaven to me.’ Jenny played along. Then, the excitement gone from her tone as she even took herself by surprise, saying, ‘Funny the way life goes, isn’t it?’ But her mask of pleasure was quickly back in place. ‘I’ll wait downstairs while you get out of your smart gear.’

  Ten minutes later she was at the wheel as they headed towards Exmoor. She wanted to believe she was glad of the choice of venue, surely if anything could ease the disappointment Zina had had about her anniversary celebrations, then it must be found in the glorious countryside she had known and loved all her life. Jenny asked herself if she was being unfair in mistrusting her son-in-law? Perhaps he really hadn’t been able to come away from the shooting on this special day. But it was more than that which worried her; it was something under the surface, which she tried to believe must be in her imagination. Ten years ago on that sunny May morning when darling Richard had so proudly armed their daughter up the aisle, he had had such faith in the rightness of the joining together of these two people. Six years older than Zina, Peter had been a member of the Marley Players – albeit a leading member and one who drew the audience wherever the repertory company was booked for a six-week season. At that time, it had been Zina’s career that had held promise. She had recently left music college with high expectations of her future as a solo violinist. Now Jenny took her eyes off the road just for a second as she drove and glanced at her daughter. Was she happy in her marriage? Did pride in his achievement make up for the loss in their close day-to-day union and the end of her hopes as a professional musician? To be fair, he had never become changed by fame, but had he ever considered there was anyone who mattered except himself?

  ‘Somewhere along here we turn right, don’t we, Mum?’

  ‘Yes, five minutes and we’ll be there. Richard’s favourite haunt.’ She said it in her usual bright voice, something Zina accepted as normal.

  They were greeted by the landlord like long-lost friends, something that helped to make Zina forget her disappointment at the way the day had turned out. With a little more perception she might have guessed what was hidden behind her mother’s bright manner. As it was, she took it for granted that Jenny was trying to make up to her for the changes in the planned day and she went out of her way to respond.

  They walked, then back at the inn they had a steak and kidney pie lunch, everything according to plan. Zina reminded her mother of previous occasions when they had followed these same tracks when she had been home from music college and there had been three of them, not even suspecting that Jenny was torn between indulging her desire to rekindle times gone and being swamped by the void left in her life. For both of them there was an underlying current of emotion and they were thankful when, just after four o’clock, they arrived outside the children’s preparatory school to pick them up.

  ‘They’ve gone, Mrs Marchand,’ one of the twins’ classmates called as she passed the car. ‘They came out ages ago, five minutes or more. I saw them walking down the drive. I had to go back to get my French homework book and I took ages to find it.’

  ‘They must have started off home on their own,’ Jenny said. ‘We shall pass them on their way.’

  But they didn’t. And when they arrived home at Newton House there was no sign of them. Calling out their names through the house brought no answer, so while Zina scoured the large garden, expecting they must be hiding and probably giggling behind a clump of bushes somewhere, Jenny went back to the gate. If either of the children had had a few pence on them, she was sure they would probably have been in the sweet shop when the car went by.

  That’s when Peter’s red open-top vintage sports car appeared at speed, showing no sign that he was about to slow down to turn in at the gate. Instead he came to a halt so suddenly that, but for their recently fitted safety belts, his two young passengers would have been thrown forward off the back seat, something that to them was sheer delight. That was what was so special about being with him; he wasn’t like other grown-ups. Anyone else would have slowed down so that they stopped without a bump. The twins beamed at each other in a silent message of understanding.

  ‘Mother-in-law,’ he called to Jenny with a smile that told her he had no suspicion of her misgivings about him, ‘what are you doing wandering in the lane?’

  ‘Looking for the children,’ Jenny replied in an unfamiliarly cool voice. ‘We were told at the school they had left before we arrived.’

  He grinned, turning to give a saucy wink to the nine-year-olds behind him. ‘I got there first. We’ve been adventuring, eh kids?’

  ‘Yep,’ Fiona, the more self-assured, answered, returning the wink to her father. ‘Dad took us to get some buns and feed the swans.’

  ‘And some ice creams to feed ourselves,’ Tommy put in.

  ‘A pity you didn’t think to phone Zina and tell her you could get away after all.’ Even without looking at her, Peter would have known that his mother-in-law was tight lipped.

  ‘Sorry, Mother-in-law.’ Peter words were an apology; his exaggeratedly contrite expression making it clear that it was no such thing.

  ‘You see, Gran, we were so excited to see Dad waiting at the gate that we didn’t think of anything else. Was Mum worried about us?’ That was Tommy, the gentler, more thoughtful of the two. In character, as in appearance, they were poles apart and yet there was an uncanny closeness between them; they seemed to read each other’s thoughts.

  ‘And probably still is. She’s hunting in the garden in the hope you’re just playing the fool and hiding from her.’

  ‘I’ll climb out, Dad. I’ll run and find her.’ Already climbing out as he spoke, Tommy ran up the drive shouting for his mother as Peter leant across and opened the front passenger door.

  ‘In you hop, Mother-in-law. Then I’ll know I’m forgiven.’

  As Jenny settled into the seat by his side and he turned into the drive she gave him a quick glance. It seemed to her that life was a joke to him, put there for his amusement; and yet, even with her misgivings, she could understand the spell he cast on Zina. Perhaps his charm stemmed from the fact that no matter how his life had changed with the trappings of fame, nothing altered his personality.

  As soon as Zina heard Tommy’s shout she hurried to the front of the house, a house that at one time would have been beyond her wildest dreams. Modernized and with every comfort, it was a large Georgian building standing in grounds of some three acres, mostly grass and woodland. Even if fame had brought no change to Peter’s personality, it certainly had to their lifestyle.

  Jenny didn’t want to watch the moment of greeting between husband and wife. Why was it she felt so uncomfortable about their relationship? Surely he was no different now from the young actor who had swept Zina off her feet. Was it that the abandoned dreams of her daughter’s career were in the forefront of her mind and that was why it hurt to see her doing no more than lead the Myddlesham Symphony Orchestra (something of a misnomer, for although it was based in Myddlesham village with rehearsals in the church hall, the players came from as far afield as Exeter, Torquay and even Cullompton, all of them keen amateurs) or playing solos for local charity concerts? How could Zina not care? And yet she showed no regret; her world seemed to start and end with Peter and the family. It hurt to see the sudden radiance on her face as Peter opened his arms to her with an exaggerated flourish.

  ‘I’m not coming back inside,’ Jenny called to them. ‘I’ll have time to smarten myself up and go to the Parish Council meeting this evening. Now that you’re going to be home I’ll withdraw my apologies and turn up as usual. Bye my dears, have a lovely evening.’ And while Zina and Peter were still in that first embrace she was already getting into her car.

  Driving away she was overcome with a rare moment of self-pity. She wasn’t proud of the tears that stung her eyes. For all her filling every crowded hour, the family were her life; they had to be now that Richard had gone. Yet, had they even noticed her sudde
n change of plans for the evening? Did it matter to them that she had nothing better to do with the remaining hours of the day than to sit around a table discussing whether or not to recommend to the planning department that they should reject an application for a new house in the garden of number three Bickley Road or where the signs should be fixed warning the villagers of the penalties of allowing their dogs to foul the pavements? However, she blinked away her unshed tears. Then voicing her thoughts aloud she said, ‘Better stop and fill the tank before I put the car to bed,’ as with a look of determination she drove into the forecourt of the filling station. Not even to herself did she admit that she disliked filling the petrol tank now that Wilkins Garage had been modernized. It was something she couldn’t get used to, remembering how it used to be when she and Richard would sit in the car while an attendant put the petrol in the tank then washed the windscreen and back window.

  Carefully parking with the petrol cap side of the car next to the pump she got out, making her automatic silent plea, ‘Please make me do it right’ while in her imagination she saw the petrol spurting to run down the side of the car or, worse, onto her shoe. But on this occasion it wasn’t going to spurt anywhere, for she couldn’t get the cap off the petrol tank. She gritted her teeth as if that would give more force but it didn’t shift; she took her handkerchief and wrapped it around the cap to give her a better grip but still it wouldn’t budge. With her head high and looking to neither right nor left she opened the car door to get back in. She probably had best part of a gallon still, so she’d find a pair of pliers once she got home and get it off that way.

  ‘Don’t give up,’ a voice said so close behind her that it made her jump and added to her embarrassment.

  ‘No, it’s quite all right. I don’t need to get any. I haven’t time to stop now.’

  ‘Humour me, let me try it for you.’ The stranger’s smile was disarming, and had he been what she would consider elderly, perhaps even fat or balding, she might have been able to accept his offer with some semblance of grace. But she saw him as neither elderly nor unattractive, a man perhaps her own age with an air of confidence that added to her own confusion.