The James Grant Files - A Backward Glance

Miss Sheila Barclay looked at her boss, Mr James Grant, and wondered. Technically he was her boss, but she felt that they were more like friends, and believed he felt so too. She looked at him as he sat in pensive mood his eyes closed, his feet on his desk, and wondered.

What she wondered about was about his love life. It was a mystery to her. He was a man in his mid-30's, quite attractive, and yet - as far as she knew - he wasn't, and had never been, married. Nor did he seem to have a current girl friend. Yet he wasn't gay. She was quite sure about that. Sure because of the occasional appreciative backward glance he would cast in her direction when he thought she wasn't looking, and from the odd complement he would pay her from time to time. And anyway, women could usually tell.

James was the perfect boss. He never tried to make a pass. He was not like many of her friends' bosses who seemed too often too free with their hands. He would never "try it on" behind the filing cabinet! She sometimes rather wished he would!

She wondered.

Grant was not asleep at his desk but, as it happened, he too was reflecting on his past life.

He considered that he wasn't really cut out to be a private detective. He didn't have any of the necessary requirements that novelists, at least, seemed to think were necessary.

His childhood had been a happy one, he being the middle of three siblings - an elder brother and younger sister - and they had got on as well as brothers and sisters generally do. His parents were happy together. There were no significant conflicts or arguments.

And as for his personal qualities, they didn't fit the usual requirements for a private eye. He was not an alcoholic - indeed, he seldom drank at all. He didn't take drugs. He didn't chew gum. He didn't pace the mean streets, or meet up with dumb blondes or red haired temptresses or brunette beauties (although, on reflection, Sheila probably fitted this last category!).

Nor was he as observant as he should be. He was no Sherlock Holmes who observed things everyone else had missed. Indeed, it was Sheila and not he who had noticed the window pane change in the Weatherby Case.

Perhaps there was one area where he did fit the bill. His love life - or lack of it. There was a tragedy that had come his way.

After graduating with a good degree from Oxford he had gone into business in the city and had steadily progressed in this career. He couldn't honestly say that it fulfilled his wildest dreams and hopes - but it was OK, and his employers were pleased with his progress.

Usually, in his lunch hour, he would drop into a local cafe only a few hundred yards from his office. Each lunch time he descended in the lift to the ground floor and set off to eat alone. Then, one day, as the lift doors opened at the floor beneath his, he was joined by a young lady of around twenty-five, his own age then. He had seen her occasionally before, but, for some reason now - perhaps because they were the only two in the lift - they began talking. She was going for lunch too so he invited her to join him at his regular cafe. She agreed and proved pleasant company. Her name was Jean - Jean Trench - and she worked as a secretary.

What had started as a one-off lunch together turned into a regular meeting most days. James found himself looking forward to their meetings. And it seemed that the feeling was returned. Then he invited her out for an evening meal - a 'date' rather than the casual meetings they had felt they were having before.

And then it happened.The event which changed his life. The event that, had she known, would have explained to Sheila his batchelorhood and strange lack of connection to women.

Jean and James grew ever closer. He remembered now, as he sat half asleep at his desk, the first time he had kissed her. It was after at least three 'dates'. And he had said "It's not because I think it's easy." He didn't know why he had said that. Even now, as he reflected, he still did not know.

And so the relationship developed. Indeed, it developed so far that the day came when he was able to inform his work colleagues of his engagement. The date was set for the wedding - 7th October, and they began their preparations.

All was going well, going to plan. Jean's family seemed to approve of him - something which gave him great pleasure for he was so diffident as to see little to value in himself. Unknown to him, it was this shyness, this reticence, this lack of macho posing, which made him the more attractive to many women.

Preparations went well. No hitches; no difficulties in booking a church and a hall; no arguments about who should be invited. James's brother was to be his best man; Jean's two younger sisters bridesmaids.

Three days before the planned wedding, walking down the High Street, James saw Jean across the road and waved to her. Seeing him, and without looking at anything or anyone else, she ran over the busy road - and was hit by a lorry. She died instantly.

The most beautiful woman in the world - for so men speak of their loved ones - was no more. How many other "most beautiful women in the world" were there? At the time James would have said "none". But now, some eight or so years later, he had begun to think that there might be another.

Sheila looked across the room at James Grant. He opened his eyes. "Sorry", he said, I think I drifted off for a moment then."

"That's fine", said Sheila. "I'm off now. See you tomorrow."

"I'll look forward to it".

Sheila thought that she saw some moisture in his eyes as she turned and gave him a backward glance.