Birds Of A Feather Episode 28
Jess was fidgety. The talk with Rob had unsettled her and she couldn’t focus on her work.
She called Alfie and took him for a walk. It usually helped to clear her head.
When she passed Folly Farm, her heart leapt as she saw Frank’s van.
Frank and Sam were standing by Ed’s van and looked up as Jess and Alfie approached.
“Have you fixed it?” she asked.
“Yes,” Sam said. “We’ll be on the move any minute and you won’t be bothered by us any more.”
She turned to Frank, a sinking feeling in her stomach.
“You’re moving on?” she asked him.
He nodded. Then he looked across at Sam, took Jess’s arm and walked until Sam was out of earshot.
“Where are you going?” she asked. “Will you stay in touch?”
He shook his head. His dark eyes, so like hers, were full of sympathy as he looked at her.
“I’m sorry, Jess, but I’ve got to do right by Maureen. I had a talk with Shauna –”
“You had a row with her from what I heard,” Jess interrupted.
He shrugged.
“That’s Shauna for you. She’s always known that Joe and Kathryn had a child because there was a lot of publicity about it at the time.”
Shauna had known she existed, yet had done nothing about it.
“How could she?” she whispered.
Frank sighed.
“She said she was acting in our best interests. We were in Europe at the time.
“By the time we got back, Maureen was shaken enough by Joe’s death and she didn’t like to tell her about the child.”
“But maybe I would have been a consolation to her,” Jess pointed out. “Some part of her son living on?”
“Shauna assumed Kathryn’s family would claim you.
“She thought that would have caused her mother more distress.”
“She has a serious heart condition and that’s why we’re moving on.
“As long as we stay in the area there’s a risk of her finding out about you.”
There were tears in his eyes.
“I can’t take that risk, Jess. You must surely see that.”
Jess turned away, her eyes stinging with tears of anger. This was so unfair.
It would have been better not to have known about their existence than to find them, only to discover they didn’t want to know her.
“Jess?”
She turned round.
“Yes?” Her heart was thudding.
“Promise me you won’t try to find us?” he asked. “For Maureen’s sake.”
She looked at her grandfather for what she realised was the last time.
“I promise,” she replied.
Finn was silent as Paloma made his tea, the smiling boy he’d been in the dairy now sadly gone.
She was clearing things away when the kitchen door crashed open and Will stood there, his face white with anger.
“So, all travellers are harmless, are they?” he declared, his voice harsh.
She didn’t answer his question and suspected it wouldn’t have registered if she had.
“What’s wrong?”
“My cattle have been stolen. And with travellers’ vans at Folly Farm,” he snarled, “I don’t have to look far for the culprits.”