split … We only went out for a few months then we …’
‘It was nineteen years ago. I’ve just had my nineteenth birthday.’
For a brief second time stopped. Rich’s heart stuttered, his throat went dry and his vision blurred. Surely she couldn’t mean …
‘Are … are you trying to tell me that you’re my … my …?’
The girl nodded. ‘Your daughter. Candi.’
Neither of them spoke after that. Not for a good three minutes. Which seemed more like three hours to Rich. His brain flicked to overdrive. Bernice Wilson. Mother of his child. Bloody hell. Talk about a bolt from the blue. Suffused by a barrage of memories, he recalled that he hadn’t even liked Bernice much. She’d been spoilt. Stroppy. Far too fond of getting off her head on booze – or worse.
‘I can tell you’re a bit … shocked,’ Candi eventually muttered. ‘Maybe I should go now. Let the news sink in.’
Unable to speak, Rich merely nodded.
‘Here.’ She tugged a scrap of paper from her jeans pocket and handed it to him. ‘This is my number. If you’d like to talk some more, please give me a call.’
Then she left.
And Rich stood beside the unfinished pyramid of chlorine tablets for the next twenty minutes.
Somehow – although he would never know quite how – he managed to pull himself together, acting with some semblance of normality when he arrived home. But what the hell was he supposed to do now?
He could, of course, tell Alison. In fact, he didn’t know why he already hadn’t. During the time they’d been together, he’d never had any secrets from his wife. But he didn’t feel ready to share this one. Not until he’d come to terms with it himself. Which, he suspected, might take quite some time.
‘Dad, hurry up. Tea’s ready.’
As Bethany’s voice hollered up the stairs, Rich leapt off the bed.
‘Be there in a second,’ he called back, tugging on a pair of shorts. He’d try not to think about the Candi situation for the rest of the evening. He’d try to relax; spend an enjoyable couple of hours with his family. Family. Oh, God. The stark realisation that it could well now include another member made him want to throw up.
Pulling a T-shirt over his head, he ran his fingers through his damp hair and ran down the stairs. As he crossed the hall the doorbell rang.
It was Joe, the window cleaner.
‘Don’t tell me we owe you more money, Joe,’ joked Rich from the open doorway.
‘‘Fraid so, Mr Stevens. Ten pounds, please,’
Rich fished about in his shorts pocket and pulled out a ten-pound note. ‘Round going well, is it?’
‘Better than could be expected.’
‘Pleased to hear it. A hard-working young lad like you deserves to do well.’
‘Thanks,’ said Joe. ‘Well, I’d best be off. See you in a couple of weeks.’
As Joe sauntered down the path, Rich remained in the open doorway. There was a lad who didn’t have a care in the world, he mused. No worrying about sales figures, no humongous mortgage, and no unexpected daughters popping out of the woodwork.
For a brief moment, Rich experienced an unaccustomed pang of envy.
‘Oo, Joe, you’ve missed a bit.’
Joe Massam ran his hand a shade further up the silky-smooth thigh. ‘Oh, really. And which bit would that be, then? Here?’
The blonde giggled. ‘Not quite.’
‘How about here?’
‘Mmmm. Close, but not close enough.’
‘Here, then?’ His hand slipped expertly between her thighs and the blonde began moaning with pleasure.
Joe smiled. Missed a bit, indeed! He prided himself on never missing any bits – during his window cleaning, or his “additional services”. Indeed, over the eighteen months he’d been window cleaning and providing his “additional services”, his reputation for never missing a bit had spiralled. And demand for his “additional services” had consequently flourished.
Not that, when Joe had initially taken over the round, he’d ever intended providing anything other than a quick rub down with his shammy. He’d been fortunate to be offered the round in the first place. Before that he’d been labouring on building sites and DJ-ing a few evenings a week. But then, when Gina left and his whole world had fallen apart, so, too, had Joe. Drink – or, more specifically, whisky – had become his new best friend, efficiently obliterating every ounce of self-pity, and every miserable, depressing thought from his head. He didn’t bother turning up for his evening gigs, and on the rare days he’d managed to drag himself to the building site, he’d been as much use as an umbrella in a tsunami. Which didn’t go unnoticed by the management. When his negligence had almost caused a colleague to lose an arm, it proved the wake-up call he needed. Without waiting for the inevitable – and justifiable – disciplinary action, he handed in his notice and left immediately. He had no idea what he was going to do, but he knew he had to get his act together. Stop drinking. Put his house in order. Then, after a month of dossing about, unable to face signing on, his meagre savings dwindling at a rate of knots, his mate, Jacko, tossed him a lifeline.
‘My uncle’s been diagnosed with angina. Can’t carry on with his window cleaning business and is looking for someone to take it over.’
Joe hadn’t needed long to consider the proposition. He’d never cleaned a window in his life, didn’t know a shammy from a sherbert dip, and was as fond of heights as he was of extracting his own nasal hair. But how hard could it be? And after coping with the stress of the last few months, surely he could cope with climbing a ladder. Plus, the idea of being his own boss, of being responsible for no one but himself, really appealed.
So he’d accepted the proposition.
‘You won’t regret it,’ Jacko assured him. ‘There’s loads of potential there. You could even think about expanding the business. Odd jobs, that kind of thing.’
Joe was pretty certain the kind of “odd jobs” to which Jacko referred hadn’t included those he’d eventually branched out into. But none of that had been intentional. It had just kind of … happened.
Having met Jacko’s uncle a couple of times to discuss the formalities, Joe had to admit that the contrast between him and the business’s previous owner could not have been greater. The thirty-year age difference aside, Joe, with his pleasant, easy-going demeanour, rugby-player physique, dark wavy hair, even darker sparkling eyes, and square jaw covered in a permanent shadow, was a complete contrast to the older man’s brusque manner, balding head and bulging beer belly.
‘Bit of a snobby lot on the round, mind,’ his predecessor warned.
Joe found them quite the opposite. From day one, the rich, bored housewives of Buttersley had pirouetted around him like a herd of excited gazelles.
‘Would you like a cup of coffee, Joe?’; ‘Can I get you something to eat?’; ‘Can I change your water?’ became standard patter.
And rather than Jacko’s uncle’s cursory wipe of the windows with a dirty cloth, Joe took pride in his work. He considered it a privilege to be allowed anywhere near such spectacular houses. And it didn’t take him long to discover that many of the female occupants were equally as attractive. These women had time and money on their hands – lots and lots of time. And heaps and heaps of money. Both of which they invested in their appearance. Fanatically regular gym visits resulted in