Birds Of A Feather Episode 20
Jess was on her way back from giving Alfie his morning walk, but stopped dead as she saw a familiar purple and yellow converted ambulance outside her cottage.
She kept Alfie close to her as she went up to the driver’s side.
“Are you looking for me?” She struggled to keep her voice steady.
Frank opened the door and jumped down.
“I’ve come to apologise for yesterday. It was the shock, you see.”
She put up a hand to stop him as she saw Elsie’s curtain twitch.
“Let’s not talk here. Why not drive up to Folly Farm car park?”
“I was on my way there to fix Ed’s van anyway. Do you want a lift?”
“I’ve got the dog.”
“I’ve had worse than that in my van, believe me. Besides, the wife isn’t here and what she doesn’t see won’t hurt her.”
Jess climbed into the van and looked around with curiosity.
She wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but the inside of the van was immaculate, with colourful handmade cushions and throws, a tiny cooker and beautiful wooden units.
One of them had a glazed door, revealing pretty crockery and glasses arranged behind it.
“Wow!” she exclaimed as Alfie settled himself in the space between the two front seats. “This is amazing.”
“We don’t all live in squalor,” he said drily as he turned into the car park.
He switched the engine off then turned to face her.
“I really am sorry about yesterday,” he said. “I shouldn’t have driven off like that.”
“Don’t apologise. It was a shock. I shouldn’t have done it. Do you –” She paused, then took a deep breath and forced herself on. “Do you believe me that I’m Joe’s daughter?”
He sighed.
“I don’t know what to think. As far as we knew, Joe and Kathryn were the only ones in the car when they were killed.
“We were travelling Europe at the time of the accident and didn’t find out about it until much later.
“We’d lost touch with Joe and Kathryn after they got together. We don’t hold with people marrying outside our group.”
“They must have loved each other very much,” Jess remarked. “Kathryn’s family disowned her as well.”
Frank’s eyes hardened.
“I imagine they did,” he said shortly. “There’s something I have to ask you. It’s important.”
Jess nodded.
“Ask away.”
“Yesterday, you started to say something about Shauna. You said she knew who you were?”
Jess swallowed.
“I’ve been told I look like my mother,” she explained. “I think that’s what Shauna meant when she said she knew who I was.
“Then she said my mother had brought nothing but trouble to your family –”
“She wasn’t wrong there,” Frank growled. “Go on.”
Jess suppressed a flicker of annoyance.
“She said that I wasn’t going to take over where Kathryn had left off, particularly with your wife being so poorly at the moment.”
Frank’s lips tightened.
“Did she now? I think I need to go back and have a few words with our Shauna.”
“So you believe I’m Joe’s daughter?” She held her breath.
When he didn’t answer, she went on.
“Look, I’ve got something to show you. It’s the only thing I had from my mother.”
She took out the silver bird charm that she always wore around her neck.
Frank drew a sharp breath.
“A swallow,” he breathed. “She loved those birds and wore those earrings all the time. Joe made them.”
“Did he?” Jess’s heart leapt. “But my grandfather told me that he bought them for her.”
“He may well have. That’s how she and Joe met. She had these earrings and loved them so much that she tracked down the maker for a matching necklace.
“He could do wonderful things with just a few beads and scraps of wire, could Joe. Had a real talent for it, so they said.”
Jess’s breath caught in her throat.
“I’d always thought I got my artistic leanings from my mother’s side. Jock, her father, was a watercolourist.
“I make jewellery, too. I do it for a living.”
She handed him the bracelet she’d been wearing.
“It’s the prototype of a set I’m currently working on.
“I always make one in cheaper materials and wear it for a while to check how stable and comfortable the design is.”
The commissioned set was to be in sterling silver wire and precious tanzanite beads.
The piece she handed Frank was silver-plated wire with wire-wrapped semi-precious rose quartz beads.
He looked at it intently for several long moments, twisting the slender bracelet around in his large work-worn hands.
“Who taught you to do this?” he asked in a low voice.
“No-one, really,” Jess replied. “I did a jewellery-making course at college, but the designs and techniques are all my own.
“They’ve evolved over the years. It all started in my foster dad’s workshop –”
He looked up, startled.
“You were fostered? I assumed you were brought up by your grandparents.”
She shook her head.
“I never knew them. I was brought up in children’s homes and foster homes.
“I didn’t know Jock. The first I knew of him was when he died and left me his cottage.”
Frank was silent for a long time.
By her side, Alfie began to whine softly and she put her hand down to reassure him, gaining comfort from the warmth of his body.
“Can I keep this for a bit?” Frank asked. “I want to show it to Maureen.
“But I need to choose my time about when to do it. Is that all right with you?”
She nodded.
“Do you believe I’m your granddaughter?”
Frank’s eyes held hers for what seemed an eternity.
Finally he nodded.
“Yes.” His eyes were steady and his face unsmiling. “I believe you’re my granddaughter.”
Jess stared at him, Alfie’s lead cutting into her hand where she was twisting it so tightly.
There was no emotion in his eyes. No smile softened the hard lines of his face.
“What do we do now?” she asked, her voice scarcely above a whisper.
He shrugged.
“I don’t know what you’re going to do, but I’m going to have a go at getting this old rust bucket going before your friends start making noises about us setting up an illegal camp.”
She stared after him as he walked across to Ed’s van, lifted the bonnet and peered inside, then she straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin and briskly walked away towards the tea room.