as being “rubbish”.’
Kathy explained. ‘Mother was bound to say that, because she thought my father and Liz had probably chosen it together. In fact, I’m sure she only came to see the house out of curiosity. My mother would never have dirtied her hands on Father’s love-nest … unless, of course, it was filled with priceless things.’
‘Ah, but it was filled with priceless things, lass.’ Jasper glanced up at the house. ‘It was filled with happiness and love. For your father and his sweetheart, every day was a new adventure.’ As he spoke his eyes shone. ‘They were so much in love … it was a joy to see.’
Kathy felt that joy now. She felt her father’s love all around her. ‘Did you know my father well?’
Jasper nodded. He had spoken with Kathy’s father many times during his stay here. ‘I knew them both,’ he confided. ‘I was here the day they bought this house, and I watched them blossom and grow the more they were together.’
He sighed. ‘In this life you only ever get one chance at true happiness; if you let it go, it may never come again. Liz and your father knew that. They lived every minute together as though it was their last.’ His voice broke. ‘I’m sorry it ended the way it did.’
Kathy was anxious. ‘How did it end?’ She needed to know. ‘Please, Jasper … I’d like to know.’
Jasper wasn’t altogether sure. ‘It’s not my way, lass … to betray a confidence.’ It went against all his principles.
Kathy gave the answer he needed. ‘Daddy wouldn’t mind,’ she said softly. ‘I think he wants me to know, or he wouldn’t have left me this house.’
‘Mebbe yer right,’ Jasper conceded. ‘I’m a great believer in Fate. Happen you were sent here for a purpose.’
Before he began, Jasper took hold of her hand and squeezed it gently. He nodded in agreement, and what he told her was a love story, of two lonely people, brought together by chance, and parted by a cruel twist of Fate.
There on the steps, in the warmth of the early morning, they sat together, the old man and the young woman. In a quiet voice he unfolded the mystery, and she listened, hanging on his every word. Neither of them noticed the people who passed by, occasionally glancing at them. Instead, he revealed the truth of how it was. As he spoke in his soft voice, Kathy had neither eyes nor ears for anyone but him.
‘It all began one winter’s night, some nine years ago,’ Jasper confided. ‘Yer father were on his way to close a business deal in Dorchester. Anyway, the weather took a turn for the worse, so he came off the main road and into West Bay. He stayed at the guest-house back along the road there …’ Pointing in the direction from which Kathy had entered West Bay, he went on. ‘For three days the storms raged on, the roaring seas threw up waves some twenty feet high. I’m tellin’ yer, lass, it were like all hell let loose.’ As he related it to Kathy, he grew excited. ‘By! I’ve never seen anything like it in all me born days.’
‘I remember!’ she exclaimed. ‘He told us all about the storm when he got back, but he didn’t say anything about West Bay. He just said he’d found a place to stay until it died down.’ She chuckled. ‘Mother was none too pleased. She thought he should have got the train home and not been so selfish by staying out a week longer than was necessary.’
The old man shook his head. ‘He couldn’t have left … there were no trains running. All the roads were blocked for miles round. And there was fork-lightning, too – struck several houses an’ set ’em afire. Telegraph poles were down and the harbour overflowed onto the walkways. It were a livin’ nightmare!’
Kathy was enthralled. ‘So he stayed in the guest-house the whole time?’
Jasper recalled every detail. ‘Aye, lass. He were here for the whole of that week. That’s how he met Liz. She were a widow: her husband was killed afore the war.’
He smiled fondly. ‘They told me many a time afterwards that the minute they met it were like they’d known each other all their lives. Sometimes they talked right through the night … getting to know each other –’ he gave a slow, knowing wink – ‘falling more in love with every day that passed.’
Kathy had mixed feelings. ‘He never told me,’ she murmured. ‘He never told anyone. Except you.’
‘It’s easier to talk man to man. Sometimes, when Liz was off doing things, we’d sit on this very step and confide in each other. There are things you can tell a stranger that you could never tell them as are close to yer.’ He knew that from experience. ‘Anyway, I’d best not jump the gun. After the storm subsided and some o’ the roads were cleared, he knew he had to get back to close that deal. When they parted the very first time, with yer dad still driven by his work, they each promised that they would meet in a few weeks. Yer dad turned up at every opportunity. He just couldn’t keep away. They were becoming inseparable. Afore too long, it got so’s neither of ’em wanted to go back.’
Kathy gasped. ‘That was when he began staying away for longer periods at a time. “I won’t leave you for longer than I have to”, that’s what he used to say to me, and I counted the minutes until he came home.’
Jasper astonished her with his next remark. ‘After the war, your father bought a small cruiser … it’s gone now, Liz sold it.’ He laughed out loud. ‘By! We ’ad some fun with that boat, I can tell yer. Y’see, a long time back, when I were young an’ foolish, I joined the Navy. I had a hankering for the sea, so I got to know a bit about boats and such. Yer dad didn’t know nothing at all!’ He chuckled. ‘Matter o’ fact I told him many a time that he were a danger to hissel.’
Shaking his head, he laughed out loud at the memory. ‘I helped yer dad to manage that boat, and I don’t mind tellin’ yer, he soon got to grips with it … seemed born to it, ’e did. But there were times in the beginning when I thought the three of us would be drowned for sure! Like the first time yer dad negotiated that narrer channel out to sea. By! We crashed into the walls so many times it were a wonder we didn’t end up as matchwood. Liz were screaming; I were trying to bale out the water that were splashing in; and Gawd ’elp us, yer dad were up front, fighting at the wheel.’
He had to stop a minute, so helpless with laughter that he couldn’t go on. ‘Anyroad … somehow or other we got out to open waters. We were safer there, y’see. Yer dad hadn’t got anything to crash into, and the waters were smoother out there.’
He could see the whole thing in his mind, like a film turning over. ‘Oh, but he soon got the ’ang of it. After a time, he and Liz would go out on their own … over to Lyme Regis, or into some little cove along the coast, where they’d swim to their hearts’ content. Afterwards they’d lie in the sun, happy in each other’s company.’
Kathy heard what he was saying, but could hardly believe it.
The old man saw the questions in her pretty eyes, and he realised how all of this must be a shock to her. ‘All right, are yer, lass?’ he asked.
Lost in thought, Kathy didn’t answer for a minute. ‘I never knew!’ she said. ‘I had no idea. My dad was always in a suit … dressed for work. He bought and sold goods – anything from a fleet of lorries to a block of houses; whatever he could make a profit on. When he wasn’t in his office, he was trading, buying and selling, criss-crossing the country looking for the next big deal. Especially during the war: he was away a lot then.’ She was amazed. ‘I didn’t even know he could swim. And I can’t imagine him taking a boat out to sea.’
She was beginning to see another side to her father, a side she had not known existed. ‘It’s as though you’re talking about a different man.’
‘But that’s just it,’ Jasper answered. ‘When he took off that suit, when he left the office and all his responsibilities behind, he came alive!’ He heaved a great invigorating sigh. ‘Don’t yer see, lass? When he was ’ere, with her … away from all that … he was a different