Fireworks to Thailand Read online

  Fireworks

  to

  Thailand

  J.R. BONHAM

  First published in Great Britain in 2017 by

  The Book Guild Ltd

  9 Priory Business Park

  Wistow Road, Kibworth

  Leicestershire, LE8 0RX

  Freephone: 0800 999 2982

  www.bookguild.co.uk

  Email: [email protected]

  Twitter: @bookguild

  Copyright © 2017 J.R. Bonham

  The right of J.R. Bonham to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This work is entirely fictitious and bears no resemblance to any persons living or dead.

  ISBN 9781912362783

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Printed on FSC accredited paper

  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  To Val Thorogood for all her help, encouragement and inspiration. To everyone who has helped me with proof reading namely Richard and Nicky Banyard, Sue Kariuki and Lynne Morling and for those who have given me feedback generally.

  Chapter 1

  “Pregnant! Oh no!” cried Jan. She felt the plans and aspirations of her life ahead come crashing down in that one second. Her boyfriend, Geoff, said nothing.

  Her old family doctor had just delivered the news. He sat back in his swivel chair and surveyed the scene with one eyebrow raised. He knew her well – all her life in fact – as he had delivered her himself. He possessed the type of quiet, calm composure typical of a doctor of his standing.

  “Let me know how you wish to proceed,” he said.

  “Thank you, Doctor, we will,” Geoff stood up rather too hastily and took Jan by the arm.

  He had a sly smile on his face that she missed. He guided her out of the door and out of the building.

  “I’ll stand by you and do the right thing,” Geoff assured her as he put his arm around her. “You know I love you. First things first, though. We’ll go and tell your parents. I’ll come with you so they won’t kill you!”

  He was loving all this. It was his dream come true to marry the wealthy boss’s daughter and there was absolutely nothing that her parents could do about it. The law of marriage without parental consent had recently changed, just after Jan was 19, from age 21 to 18. They would not need Jan’s parents’ permission to get married.

  Jan thought, ‘Just my luck in missing out on a big 21st ‘coming out’ or ‘key of the door’ party.’ But then all that was about to change now anyway, with a baby on the way. She was dreading what her parents were going to say.

  She had left home only six months before to live with an old school chum, Paula, sharing a flat in a rundown part of Bristol. They had had some good times there, with parties and friends coming and going! That fun went by all too quickly. Now was the time to settle down and grow up. And it wasn’t as if she was that young. After all, 19 was a good age to start having babies, good and strong. Was she coming around to the idea after all?

  Jan took little notice of his comment. He was always telling her he loved her but she wasn’t so sure how she felt about him. She had told him once that she loved him, but only because she knew that was what he wanted to hear. She had never felt loved – really loved – in her life. So she never knew how to show it in return. She had never been hugged by her parents as they were very old fashioned in that department. They had never demonstrated any affection towards her.

  “You told me you’d be careful! I never thought this would happen. You said you were taking precautions,” Jan said somewhat naively. Geoff said nothing and drove on rather sheepishly.

  Jan started to think of what being pregnant would do to her body. She was tall and slim and had loved wearing mini skirts. These would have to go, although they were nearly out of fashion anyway, so she wasn’t too unhappy about that.

  It had only been a couple of years before that a family friend had likened Jan to the sixties model, Jean Shrimpton. Jan couldn’t see it herself, but she had felt quite flattered. ‘The Shrimp’ was gorgeous-looking with her long, dark, flowing hair, high cheekbones and full lips. Jan was intelligent, but not very confident of herself and quite shy.

  They went straight to her parents’ home after visiting the doctor. In the late sixties, there had been no such thing as pregnancy kits. Jan cried all the way, as Geoff drove her to her fate to face her parents.

  ‘What will they say? What will they do? The youngest offspring has disgraced the family name is what they’ll think. Oh, the shame of it all,’ she thought to herself.

  They drew up to the house where Jan had lived for all of her young life. She had moved out ‘under a cloud,’ when she had had a row with her parents one day. ‘Born with a silver spoon in her mouth,’ some would say – in fact, some did speak it out loud. But this wasn’t daunting to Geoff at all, even though he had been brought up in a little two up, two down cottage in a backwater village in Devon. Some called it ‘out in the sticks’! He knew exactly what was going on. And it was all going according to plan.

  Jan’s parents’ house was far removed from what Geoff had been used to. A seven-bedroom mansion in lovely gardens in a very smart part of Bristol, this was what was normal for Jan. The family had moved there when Jan was three and she had good memories of her time growing up there with he
r siblings, Clare and John. They had used part of the house to play games like ‘hide and seek’ as there were plenty of places to hide. They used to make dens when they were little and their parents had big parties for friends and family.

  More lately there seemed to be an atmosphere all the time, especially since Clare and John had moved out. Their mother, Audrey, hadn’t taken it well. She had ‘empty nest syndrome’ and sometimes took to the bottle, which didn’t help her condition. Her doctor had put it down to the menopause as her recent behaviour was far from normal but this was, in later years, diagnosed as manic depression. An inherited condition.

  “Pregnant!” her father shouted as he held his head in his hands. “Oh NO!”

  Jan’s father was never afraid to voice his very strong opinions. Not only about his children, but also on his long-suffering wife, Audrey. Mostly she would keep quiet for the sake of keeping the peace.

  “Well, young man, are you prepared to do the decent thing?” he enquired of Geoff without taking a breath, his face getting redder by the minute.

  “I’ll stand by Jan because I love her. Might this be a good time to ask you for your daughter’s hand in marriage, Mr Finch?” Geoff tentatively tried. “I was always going to ask you this, but it has just come a bit sooner than I expected,” he explained. Geoff was slim and stood a little taller than Jan. He had sharp features with a strong jawline, fair skin and light coloured hair which he kept quite short. A double-crown had been the bane of his life.

  He had always shown the greatest respect for his, hopefully, future father-in-law by calling him Mr Finch instead of Ken. In fact, he looked up to him as a father figure, as his own father had died when Geoff was only 18. The feeling was weirdly mutual. Ken liked Geoff, despite his only being of ‘low birth,’ which of course was not his own fault.

  Geoff had met Jan when he was 17 and she was only 13, six years before. Her parents had taken her on holiday to the pretty little village of Shaleham in Devon, situated right on the river. Jan’s brother and sister, being older, had already left home. Ken had thought it a good idea to get away from Bristol for Jan’s school summer holidays. He would leave Jan and her mother in a rented cottage for a few weeks while he went back and forth to Bristol to carry on with the family business. He only needed to go down at weekends. That gave him a lot of freedom in Bristol if he needed it, which he often felt that he did.

  Ken had been the company director since his older brother had died aged 55, several years ago, and his father had died quite recently. Ken was waiting for his son, John, to finish university and then to show him the ropes in all aspects of the business. The aim was that John would come up through the ranks and finally take over when Ken decided to retire. But that wouldn’t be for a long time yet, as he loved being in charge. The small family business was started up almost 100 years before, making cardboard boxes. Not very glamorous or cutting edge, but part of his history to be passed on to future generations of his family.

  Geoff had loved Jan the moment he set his eyes on her. He thought she was the prettiest girl he had ever met, with her long dark brown hair and brown eyes. But, at 13, she was still very young and probably a little immature. He would wait and see, bide his time in the hope that the family would come back each year. Which of course they did.

  Every summer holiday they came for four weeks and Geoff was delighted, although he was prepared to wait until she was 16 before he took the plunge to make love to her. He knew if he played his cards right to be just good friends to start with, he could inch his way into this family’s lives to eventually be with the girl of his dreams. He was quite determined it wasn’t going to be just a holiday romance.

  “What about your career, Jan?” Ken scowled. “The best education I could give you has all gone to pot now, hasn’t it? I knew it was a bad move when you left home to live in that grotty little bedsit. Look where it’s got you!”

  “Well, I’m very sorry! It’s not exactly how I’d planned things either.” Jan looked at Geoff who smiled reassuringly.

  “May I ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage?” Geoff tried again, as he had had no response the first time he asked and he was getting impatient.

  “Well, I suppose that’s the least you can do,” Ken said grumpily.

  “You haven’t actually asked if that’s what I want,” Jan said to Geoff angrily. “My career is well and truly out the window now, isn’t it?” she asked no one in particular. “Mum had so many hopes for me and my career in journalism.” Jan also knew that her mother had thoughts of her working up in London and getting a little flat there. But not too small. She would have wanted to come and stay to do the shops and galleries and theatres. ‘What’s she going to say I wonder?’ Jan thought to herself.

  Just at that moment, a car drew up in the driveway and Audrey got out with a few bags of shopping and the dog.

  “Pregnant! Oh my God, Janet, what have you done?” Audrey nearly fainted when she heard the news. “What about your wonderful career you were so looking forward to, let alone your education – what a waste. Now abortion is legal, have you thought about that?”

  Jan felt horrified that her own mother should think of such a thing – aborting her own grandchild! Whatever next?

  Jan didn’t think it a good time to let them know that actually what she really wanted, more than anything, was to go travelling. Failing that, she had always been very interested in becoming an Egyptologist. She hankered after going to Egypt and raking up the tombs of past kings and discovering unearthed treasures. She had been employed by a firm of estate agents for the last six months and had been at secretarial college before that. She had learned how to type and do shorthand as a stop gap as she thought these would be useful skills. But that was a long way from her real ambitions. All these would now have to be put on hold.

  “Well, I reckon I shall just have to bite the bullet. I don’t believe in abortion,” Jan demurred. “Geoff wants us to get married, so at least he’s agreed to stand by me.”

  “I should bloody well think so!” Audrey cried. “I suppose I shall have to help with the arrangements. When is the baby due? First things first, though, we had better tell Clare and John before they find out from someone else. You haven’t told anyone else have you?”

  “No. We came straight here from the doctor’s,” Jan informed her mother. Everything was moving so fast. Jan had to take a breath. “The baby is due next March so we have plenty of time.”

  “We’re not telling anyone else yet,” Ken told them all. He had worked it all out in his head already. “The wedding will go ahead in Devon, away from prying eyes in Bristol. At least that way, only the people there will know it’s a shotgun wedding. The sooner the better. We will only invite a few close members of the family. We’ll put them up near the venue, have a small reception at the pub and then you can go off for your honeymoon. The less said about it the better.”

  ‘Just sweep it under the carpet as if it never happened – lovely, just what a girl wants for the happiest day of her life,’ Jan thought to herself. She didn’t dare vent her thoughts too much to her strict Victorian parents, particularly her father.

  “Yeah, thanks!” she tried, sarcastically.

  “Less of the cheek, young lady.” Ken was boiling by now. “And you’ve done enough damage for one day, young man,” he said to Geoff. “I think it’s time for you to make yourself scarce.”

  Just then Clare arrived, right on cue. Although she had left home she still visited fairly frequently, usually after work.

  “Good timing,” said Ken. “You can tell your sister yourself,” he told Jan.

  Clare was wondering what all the commotion was going on in the house, with everyone so upset. Jan told her and Clare just raised her eyebrows and thought, ‘Oh dear, that’s bad luck. I’m so glad it’s not me.’

  “Are congratulations in order?” Clare said, ever the cynic.

  “
That’s not very funny and not helping either.” Audrey was annoyed.

  Clare was the oldest sibling, five years older than Jan. Clare was their father’s favourite, being first-born. She was average height with fair hair, just like her father. Jan was always in awe of Clare, sometimes afraid of her bossy, older sister who foisted her opinions on everyone.

  Geoff thought he’d better go whilst the going was good, leave them to it. He climbed into his car and made his way to the nearest telephone kiosk to ring his mother, Betty, in Devon to give her the news. He didn’t have a phone in the flat he used to share with Jan’s brother, John, for a short time before he went off to university. Geoff had been looking for another suitable flatmate to replace John and to share the cost of renting. But actually, that was the time was where the ‘evil deed’ was done with Jan. He recalled some great times there; now was the time to grow up properly and start a family. Everything was going according to plan, in his eyes.

  “Pregnant!” Betty exclaimed. “Oh Geoffrey, no! You are joking. Aren’t you…? But well done! You’ve got exactly what you wanted, haven’t you?” Geoff didn’t realise how well his mother knew him. “Just be careful is all I will say. You might be getting in too deep with that family.”

  “Don’t worry, Mum, I know what I’m doing,” Geoff reassured his mother.

  Betty was the only person to call him Geoffrey, apart from his father who had chosen that name when Geoffrey was born. His father had died five years before. He had stipulated that his son was never to be called Geoff, only Geoffrey. It was in honour of a good friend of his who had died in the war alongside him.

  Geoff’s second Christian name was Charles, which had been chosen by his mother. This was the name of a special person she had met during the war. An American called Chas. He was her guilty secret and her only son was the outcome.

  The Americans had arrived in England two years after the beginning of the war and had set up camp on the outskirts of Shaleham. After her husband had gone off to fight in the war, Betty took a job on the local farm. The farmer had asked around, told the locals that he needed help after his young farmhands had been called up. Betty was delighted to be able to help out as she was lonely with her husband away for an unknown amount of time.