EPILOGUE

‘I SEE the establishment has turned out in full force and accepted our invitations, despite all the bullying tactics of the past couple of years and their determined political lobbying to put us out of business.’

Davina laughed as she looked up at her husband. ‘Well, you always prophesied that ultimately they’d have to accept us,’ she reminded him. ‘Although I must admit, Saul, there have been one or two occasions when I seriously doubted that you were right.’

‘Only one or two?’ Saul teased her.

The large marquee erected next to the company’s car park was filled not only with their business colleagues and rivals, but also with Carey’s staff and their families as well.

It had been a mutual decision to invite every one of Carey Chemicals’ employees to join in these celebrations to mark not only the company’s first two years in business under its new management, and the success it had achieved, but also to thank all those who had been involved in making that success.

It certainly hadn’t been easy. In the early days the financial Press had mocked them for their naïveté, prophesying that the newly formed company would never survive; that it was impossible for any company to build a successful business on the kind of ethics that the new owners and directors of Carey’s were propounding.

Saul had been openly derided and mocked by their competitors, and no one knew more than Davina how hard he had had to work to establish the company’s reputation, to get people to actually listen to their plans, and to try their products; but gradually they were building up a sound reputation, and the months Leo had spent in South America studying the natural drug products used by the natives, and the samples he had brought back with him, had formed a strong base for the company’s products.

The public, it seemed, had short memories. Where once the Press had reviled and mocked them, now they praised and fěted them; they were in the vanguard of a new wave of business, a new code of working practices, a new kind of business morals that did not place profits above people.

Profit and power growth was not what they planned for Carey’s, nor what they wanted, all of them were agreed on that.

They had been lucky in that they had inadvertently caught the tide as it changed and had been carried forward on the crest of its wave, but, as Saul and Leo had both pointed out, luck was one thing, having something solid to underpin and reinforce that luck was another; and that kind of base only came from hard work, from research, from being able to say confidently and truthfully that the products they produced were exactly what they purported to be.

Carey’s did not claim to produce any miracle cures, any instant remedies: each new product was being painstakingly researched and developed.

It had been Lucy who had suggested that while the more serious side of the business was being developed, while they were undergoing the inevitable lengthy wait involved in the testing of the drugs they hoped to patent and market, they develop as a sideline a range of naturally based cosmetic products.

Leo, the chemist, and Saul as well had been uncertain at first, but Davina had been convinced that Lucy’s almost casual suggestion was a good one, and she had been right.

Now both Lucy and Giles were also on the board. Davina smiled as she leaned against Saul. They had been married for just over a year, and during the time they had been together their relationship had strengthened and deepened so that now there were no secrets they could not share, no hidden, shadowed areas of their lives.

‘Josey looks as though she’s enjoying herself,’ she commented to him.

Saul had been hesitant at first when Josey had asked to come and live with them. She was in her final year at school and planning to go on to university, but unsure as yet about her final career plans.

There was no rush, Davina had wisely counselled her, suggesting that, should she wish to do so, it might be worthwhile her considering taking a year’s sabbatical in order to travel and taste a little of what life had to offer before making any final decision about her future.

‘I can’t expect you to have her here, living with us,’ Saul had protested six months ago when Josey had first broached the subject of living with them. ‘I know the two of you get on well, but …’

He hadn’t needed to say any more. Davina had gently placed her fingers against his lips, silencing him.

‘She loves you, Saul, and yes, occasionally she’s inclined to be a bit possessive about you, but that’s only natural, and I promise you I do understand. I’m not going to say there won’t be times when I don’t feel irritated and even jealous … but she’s almost an adult and yet still so much a child. She needs this time with you. Personally I doubt she will stay long. I suspect that just knowing that you want her will be enough.

‘She’ll move in, stay a few months until she’s got her self-confidence, and then the next thing we’ll know is that she’ll be talking about moving out again, wanting her independence, wanting all the things that all teenagers want when they suddenly discover the intoxication of being adult, or of thinking they’re adult; but what is important is that we give her that confidence, that knowledge that she is wanted and welcomed, not just in our homes but in our lives and in your heart. She does need that.’

And so Saul had given in.

It hadn’t been easy, Davina admitted; there had been times when she had had to grit her teeth, times when she and Saul had been interrupted at a less than appropriate moment by Josey’s unthinking arrival in their bedroom; times when Davina ached to have her house and her husband to herself, when she told herself angrily that if she wanted to moan and cry when Saul made love to her she should be able to do so without having to worry about his teenage daughter overhearing them, but these had been fleeting, minor irritations when set against the way this time with her father had rounded off Josey’s raw, sore edges; the way her self-confidence had blossomed; the way the bitterness and sharpness had softened to be replaced by a sunny warmth that came from knowing she was loved and wanted.

Of course, there had been arguments, quarrels, slammed doors and threats to leave; but three weeks ago on her birthday when Davina had handed Josey the pretty antique gold bluebird with the seed-pearl locked in its beak, promising her that she would do her best to find an appropriate chain for it for Christmas, the spontaneous warmth of the hug Josey had given her had more than made up for it all.

Saul had given his daughter his own present and Davina had read the message of awareness and thanks in Josey’s eyes as she looked at her. In that message she had seen the birth of the woman Josey would one day become, and she had felt all the joy of any adult who felt that she had had a hand in nourishing that maturity.

She had never tried to become a second mother to Josey, nor to establish herself in any particular role in her life, and she had her reward now in the way that Josey not just accepted her, but genuinely felt affection and warmth for her.

Tom was another matter. He was a less sensitive, less emotional child than Josey, and he and Davina had got on well right from the start. He would be spending most of his summer holiday with them. They were taking him to Provence; she and Saul had now bought a small property there.

Her mouth curled in warm reminiscent pleasure. They had managed a brief visit there four months ago. It had been warm enough then and private enough for them to make love outside in the neglected garden, the sun heating and then later soothing their naked bodies.

They had discussed having a child of their own, and perhaps they would, but for now Davina was content, more than content, she acknowledged, with what they had.

‘Stop looking at me like that,’ Saul warned her, ‘otherwise I’ll have to take you home and …’ He broke off, groaning. ‘Oh, no, here comes Alex.’

Davina laughed. ‘He probably wants to make you an offer you can’t refuse.’

Both of them had been astonished and then amused at the way Saul’s old boss was trying to coax Saul away from Carey’s and back to him.

‘It’s the old story of the one who got away,’ Saul had told her, but Davina knew better. However, it was too late now for Sir Alex to realise what he had thrown away when he’d dismissed Saul.

* * *

On the other side of the marquee, Lucy gently removed the small sticky fingers clinging to her hand without overbalancing their young owner.

When Davina had first approached her tentatively to ask if she would be interested in helping her to set up crèche facilities for Carey’s she had been wary and uncertain, not really sure what had been behind Davina’s offer.

She had been pregnant at the time and full of anxieties and fears for her child, resentful in a way of Davina’s calm assumption that she would want to interest herself in anything other than its safety, but the idea had taken root. She had seen the enthusiasm with which Giles was approaching his work after Carey Chemicals’ transformation, and a part of her did want to be involved in that world.

Now she reflected that allowing Davina to gently persuade her to involve herself in this side of the company’s welfare programme had been one of the best things she had ever done, probably the best after marrying Giles and having little Jemma.

Her almost eighteen-month-old daughter was sitting on the other side of the enclosed nursery space, playing with another child. Physically she looked nothing like Nicholas; from the moment she had been born, full term and exactly on time, she had been a vigorous, healthy child. Giles adored her. So much so that Lucy occasionally felt it necessary to warn him against spoiling her.

As she straightened up her hand rested on the small bulge of her stomach for a second.

With Jemma she had wanted a girl, not another boy … not another Nicholas. As though there ever could have been another Nicholas; no child was ever a pattern card of another. With this baby she had no preference as to sex at all.

‘Feeling OK?’

She smiled as Giles came up to her. ‘Fine,’ she assured him, leaning against him. ‘It all seems to be going well.’

‘There’s still a lot of curiosity about Carey’s, about what we’re doing. Saul has handled that side of things well.’

His admiration for the other man was sincere. Giles had matured over the last two years and so had she, Lucy recognised; their relationship was far more stable now, far more secure, based less on sexual intensity and more on their shared love for Jemma and their delight in her second pregnancy.

She smiled again. She had, without being aware of it herself, turned into the kind of woman she had once sworn she would never be, and what was more she was delighted to have done so.

To outsiders their lives might not seem exciting, but excitement was something she no longer wanted or needed.

‘I don’t want you overtiring yourself,’ Giles told her gently.

She laughed. ‘Stop fussing,’ she warned him, but her eyes told him how much she enjoyed his concern.

It seemed impossible now to believe she had ever worried that she might lose him to Davina … Davina, who had so unexpectedly married Saul Jardine.

‘Do you think Christie and Leo will ever marry?’ she asked Giles curiously, her thoughts transferring to the other couple who made up the new main board of directors of Carey’s.

‘They might … if they decide to have children,’ Giles responded, patently more interested in Lucy than anyone else.

* * *

‘All right. I already know you don’t approve of all this razzmatazz,’ Leo told Christie teasingly.

‘I never said that.’

It amused him that she still responded so quickly and so vehemently to his deliberate baiting. Everything she felt or did she felt and did with passionate intensity.

Sometimes he suspected that the sexual side of their relationship was perhaps more important to her than it was to him. Because it was her main way of being able to show what she felt?

Some—most of her barriers had come down during the time they had been together, but there were still guarded private areas in which he was not allowed to trespass; nor did he try to do so.

Sometimes she told him in exasperation that he was too good to be true; too perfect; that he made her feel guilty because of her own shortcomings and his tolerance of them.

‘I love you as you are,’ was his answer. ‘Just as I hope you love me as I am.’

‘You know I do,’ she had told him, and he knew she meant it. She did love him, but she still insisted on retaining her independence.

Leo understood her need for that independence. As he had told her smilingly once when she had asked him if it hurt him that she would not commit herself to marriage, a piece of paper could not guarantee her continued love, and it was that he wanted. And he already knew that her insistence on her independence had nothing to do with any desire on her part to keep open her sexual and emotional options to find another man.

‘Why don’t you two get married?’ Cathy had asked them recently.

‘Because we don’t need to,’ Leo had told her.

‘But what if you had children?’ she had persisted, and reading the look in Christie’s eyes had reinforced Leo’s awareness of what Christie had told him about her feelings of guilt for having denied Cathy a ‘real’ father.

Not that that would ever be an issue with them. He had already told Christie calmly and without any drama that he did not want a child of his own, and why. She had at first been shocked to learn about his father’s past, but her love for Leo remained unshaken.

‘He or she might not be like your father,’ she had told him.

‘I know,’ he had agreed, ‘and I know as well that it’s an illogical fear, but that fear is just as much a part of me, Christie, as your need for independence, your fear of rejection are of you.’

‘Come on,’ Christie urged him, taking hold of his arm. ‘Time to go and make your speech.’ She was laughing at him but there was pride and love in her eyes as well.

As he walked towards the small podium Leo noticed the small group collected together in a huddle several yards away: Cathy, Christie’s child, Saul’s daughter Josey, her cousin, his own two nephews, Fritz and Martin.

He had kept his promise to Anna and in doing so had perhaps set in motion something that might have much broader implications and benefits in the future.

His nephews, Wilhelm’s sons, would no doubt one day join their father at Hessler Chemie. When they did it would be no bad thing if they carried with them an awareness of all that they were trying to achieve here at Carey’s.

Change was not always effected dramatically and overnight. Sometimes it evolved slowly and gently, from one generation to the next and on to the one beyond that. It could be a golden chain of hope and promise, linking those generations together in love and understanding, or it could be a leaden means of imprisonment, binding them in mutual resentment and distrust.

He had broken the tarnished chain that linked him to his father and was now forging a new one of his own. Only infinity and the future knew whether his had the purity to endure, whether out of all the pain and darkness of the past it would shine like a beacon to light the way to that future.

He stepped up on to the podium and faced his audience.

‘Today,’ he told them, ‘we are here to celebrate and to welcome the future.’

The future … As Alex Davidson listened to him he grunted derisively. He had been in two minds as to whether he should come here today, accepting the olive branch Saul had extended to him.

He had fought hard and not always cleanly, wanting, needing to punish Saul for his disobedience, his disloyalty, but in the end he had been obliged to acknowledge defeat.

And in victory Saul had been far more generous than he would have been in the same circumstances. But then, that was the difference between them, and that was why Saul had won, he acknowledged wryly. It was Saul himself who had told him gently that times had changed; that people had more knowledge, more awareness, more scruples … more ideals.

‘You mean they’ve turned soft,’ Alex had derided, but he had known in his heart that Saul was right. ‘The old order changeth …’

Well, he had fought against it, had fought hard, but he had not won. Saul and the rest of them had established their company, and successfully.

And somewhere within him, edging out his anger and malice, there was a reluctant feeling of pride in what Saul had done, a reluctant admiration for all that he had achieved.

‘Shall we call a truce?’ Saul had asked him.

Even then half of him had been inclined to argue, but that pretty wife of Saul’s had caught his eye and smiled at him, and somehow without meaning to he had heard himself saying, ‘Yes.’

He still thought Saul was wrong, of course. Always would do. All this namby-pamby stuff about natural products … it was just a fad, that was all.

Still, it had surprised him to recognise so many influential people here, so many hard-headed money men, and, after all, Saul couldn’t have forgotten everything he had taught him. He mustn’t let anyone forget that he had been one of the first to spot Saul’s potential. Craftily he started to plot and plan, suddenly feeling much more cheerful.

* * *

The future. Lucy touched her stomach and gently shushed Jemma as she moved closer to Giles’s side.

* * *

The future—Josey, Tom, they were the future, Davina acknowledged, but so was she and so was Saul. They still had their parts to play, their love to enjoy. She smiled warmly up at him as Saul reached for her hand, lacing his fingers with hers.

‘I wonder what Alex is up to,’ he murmured in her ear, ‘he’s grinning like a Cheshire cat. Want some good news?’ he added. ‘Josey has just informed me that she’s going out this evening—all evening.’

‘Shush,’ Davina told him, but her eyes were bright with laughter—and anticipation.

* * *

The future—sometimes it frustrated her that there was still so much she wanted to do, so much she felt she ought to have done, Christie admitted; she even felt guilty at times when she was with Leo because he was so important to her. More important than she sometimes wanted to admit to herself. But he knew it. He loved her too much to say so—to gloat. But he still knew.

She loved him with such a passionate intensity that it terrified her at times, and yet if she could have changed things, redirected the path of her life so that she had never met him, she knew she would not have done so.

Across the space that divided them she smiled at Leo and saw him smile back at her.

He was her future … perhaps tonight she might tell him so. Her smile warmed and deepened, reflecting not just love, but the beginnings of tranquillity and acceptance as well.

* * * * *