by Vivien Brown
‘How was your trip up to the lakes, Michael?’ Geraldine sat beside her son, her foot playing idly with a long blade of grass the mower had missed, and sipping at a cup of tea.
‘Fine. It’s a lovely place, Mum, and Patsy’s parents couldn’t have been more welcoming.’
William saw the look that passed over her face. Even if her son had not done it deliberately, his words were certainly hitting home. Poor Geraldine. He knew how much she wanted to mend rifts, put things right. She only had one son, and she couldn’t afford to alienate him.
‘I’d like to meet them one day,’ she said, smiling directly at Patsy. ‘Well, I will, won’t I? At your wedding. Have you thought about setting a date yet?’
‘Er … No. Maybe next spring.’
‘Oh, that will be nice. You will let me know if there’s anything I can do to help, won’t you? Make the wedding cake, perhaps? Or help you with the flowers.’
‘Thanks. That’s very kind of you.’
‘And Lily will be a bridesmaid, I assume? I can’t wait to see her in a pretty little dress. Pink, I think, don’t you? Every little girl’s favourite colour. Now let me fetch you another cup of tea. You both look so tired. It must be the long drive down this morning. Heavens, you must have set off at the crack of dawn!’
As she walked away, back through the open door of the kitchen, a look passed between Patsy and Michael that William couldn’t quite fathom. A cross between incredulity and the stifling of a giggle. Whatever it was, he was sure things were changing for the better. He could almost hear the distant crack as a layer of ice softened around the edges and started, very slowly, to thaw.
*
Lily loved her castle. It was blue and yellow and springy as a kangaroo, and she didn’t want to stop bouncing on it. Ever.
All the grown-ups were sitting in chairs. None of them wanted to join in. But Sarah and Josh were still bouncing with her, with their socks and shoes lined up next to hers on the grass. Up and down, up and down, bumping into each other, and knocking each other over, giggling so much that Sarah did a little wee and made a wet patch in the middle of the bouncy bit, so they were trying to keep to the edges now until it was dry. She wished they had a castle like this at nursery, or that she could keep this one, and take it home.
The old lady had opened up a big cardboard box that the man grumbled about a lot because she’d made him go and find it from some dark place in the garage, and now she was pouring tea from a big pot in the shape of a castle, just like the bouncy one but much smaller. The old lady looked very happy today, more than she usually was. Maybe it was because she liked parties. Maybe she would like to have a go at bouncing. Lily could hold her hand if she was scared, because grown-ups sometimes were.
She wished Mummy was here. Mummy always sat on the swings with her and climbed up the slide and raced her down, but only if nobody was looking, because grown-ups weren’t allowed. She knew that Mummy would have bounced, if she was here, and if her leg wasn’t broken.
Mummy told her, when they had gone to see her before bedtime last night, that the doctors were going to take the bandage off her head today and that underneath they hoped it would be all better, although they had had to cut off some of her hair which might look funny for a little while. Lily was going to take Archie’s bandage off later and see if he was better too.
She’d put a bandage on her new dolly’s leg too, and it was going to stay there until Mummy’s leg was all mended. That would make Mummy feel better, knowing she wasn’t the only one with a poorly leg waiting to mend. People had been writing their names on the white thing on Mummy’s leg, and Lily had drawn a tree.
Lily liked her new dolly. It was soft and it had long hair made out of string, and big painted-on eyes and freckles. She had decided it was going to be called Molly. Molly the Dolly. She liked that.
Granny was waving her shoes at her now and telling her it was time to come off the castle and have a rest, to have a drink and eat some more food. Lily tried to stop bouncing but it was hard when the others were still doing it, making the floor move underneath her, and she kept falling over on her way to the front. But she managed to scramble off, the other children right behind her, and they all staggered over to where the grown-ups were, their legs still wobbly, giggling as they went.
‘Time for your birthday cake, Lily!’ Daddy said, carrying it out on a big tray. It was a square cake, the one she had helped Granny to mix up in the bowl, with pink icing and her name written in a shaky line across it where she’d insisted on helping to hold the icing bag, and three tall swirly candles burning on the top. ‘Come on, Lily. Blow, and make a wish.’
She wished, as hard as a wish can be, that Mummy would be coming home soon. And then, she didn’t know if it was because of the sandwiches she had eaten much too fast so she could start bouncing, or the having to blow so hard or, as Granny said afterwards, because she was over-excited, but Lily knew all of a sudden that she was going to be sick. Nothing could stop it as it came rushing up her throat in a nasty big gloopy blob that tasted of old orange squash and boiled eggs, and spilled out down the front of her dress and onto the grass.
Lily looked around, helplessly, still coughing, her chest still heaving in big gasps like there might be more to come. Sarah and Josh just moved further away and waited for their helping of cake. Kids were always being sick. It was nothing new to them. Daddy was still balancing the cake tray and didn’t want to let it go, and the old lady was stuck in her chair, moaning about her knees again, and the man just stood there like he’d never seen anyone be sick before, and Lily saw her granny jump up and rush off to get something from the house. A bowl, a cloth, a glass of water?
The pretty lady, the one who had given her Molly, sat very still with a shocked look on her face, as if she might be sick herself at any moment. But then, when nobody else did anything, she saw the lady take a big gulp like she was swallowing something that wasn’t there, and then she stood up and came rushing towards her across the grass, opening her arms to her and hugging her in tight.
Lily wiped her sicky mouth on the lady’s top, and the lady didn’t seem to mind. She just cuddled her up, until Lily stopped coughing, and then she was all better again.
*
Agnes had the big box open on William’s dining table now all the food had been tidied away and there was space again. Slowly and lovingly she unravelled the tissue paper from around each of her treasured teapots and held them, one by one, up to the light. She had really missed these wonderful old friends and to actually use one today, filling it with real tea leaves, waiting for them to brew, then pouring tea for everyone from its big deep spout, through a strainer into china cups, had felt just as it should. Magical.
If there was one thing she looked forward to, if and when she moved, much more than just about anything else, it was having her collection out again, properly displayed in a glass-fronted cabinet. Taken out and used, each in its turn. Oh, she knew getting them out now was pointless. They’d only have to be packed away again, but even so …
She sat down in one of William’s old dark wooden chairs and listened. There was no traffic, no aircraft, no screaming baby two floors up. Just the peace and quiet of an ordinary suburban family house, in an ordinary road, one with more rooms than were needed, more memories than either of them wanted to relive. But it was what she wanted. An ordinary life, in a nice house somewhere, with her son close by, no noise, and her teapots lined up behind her, like her own personal army, reminding her of what mattered, of all that she loved and cherished.
William had said something about taking a holiday together. She wasn’t sure about that. She couldn’t leave Smudge in some cattery. He was too old, like her, too set in his ways. He’d hate it. No, she’d let William take his little holiday, by himself. There was unfinished business there, between him and Geraldine, she could tell. The future beckoned. Brighter than she’d ever hoped it could be.
Now, she’d ask William to drive her home. Smudge had been
on his own for far too long today, and he’d be wanting his tuna. She left the pots where they were, on the table. Tall ones, round ones, tiny ones. All colours, all shapes, all ages. A bit like people, all thrown together in a motley collection, like we were today in William’s garden, she thought. But somehow belonging together, just the same.
*
The children had gone home, Lily was fast asleep on the sofa, his mother was fondling her pots, and Michael and Patsy were still outside, making the most of the dying sun and planning their return to Portugal, and whether she should go on ahead and Michael extend his leave until the case conference thing was all settled. And William was on his own. Probably only for a few minutes. If he was going to do it, it had to be now.
William knew she would be in the kitchen, putting the last of the food away in the fridge, wiping surfaces, wrapping up cake. The bouncy castle company would be here soon, dismantling and carrying it away. He hoped it was gone before Lily woke up. He was sure she would find it upsetting seeing her dream toy being snatched away from her. Except, even though she didn’t know it yet, there would be something even better waiting for her when she got down to Brighton. Geraldine had decided to get her that rabbit she wanted. A late present, but the one thing she wanted more than any other. And he already knew Lily well enough to know that she would give it some ridiculous name and feed it lots of carrots, and love it to bits.
Love. Love had been on his mind for a few days now. Or something that could so easily turn to love anyway. Was it too soon? Was it real? Did she feel anything like he did? Just a tiny spark, ready to ignite like the candles on Lily’s cake? If not, he could wait, take it slowly, let it grow. But he had to know, and it had to be now.
William was not usually an impulsive person. Confidence was not high on his list of attributes. After Susan, he wasn’t sure he really had any attributes. Not the sort to attract a woman like Geraldine, anyway. Nevertheless, something urged him on, polishing his glasses, combing his hair in front of the bathroom mirror, walking down the stairs, through the hall, into the kitchen, where she stood at the sink with her back to him, softly singing some song he didn’t recognize but instantly adored.
She must have heard him come in because she turned, wiping her hands down her skirt, gave him an embarrassed smile and stopped singing. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘William.’ Just that. But it was enough.
Taking her face, and every ounce of courage he could muster, in his hands, he gazed into her beautiful happy eyes for one long glorious anticipatory moment, and kissed her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Ruby
Lily has brought me some birthday cake with pink icing on. She saved me the piece with L for Lily on it, but if she hadn’t told me I wouldn’t have known, it’s so squashed. There’s a small round hole too, where one of the candles was and I have to pick off a tiny blob of candle wax before I can eat the cake.
I don’t have the bandage on my head any more. I think Lily is happy about that. She keeps looking at my hair, where it’s been shaved back, but I’m starting to look more like her Mummy again, and not the other sort of mummy, the Egyptian kind. Together, and very ceremoniously, we peel the bandage from Archie’s head and check for imaginary, invisible scars, and Lily pronounces that Archie is better too.
Michael doesn’t stand back, the way he usually does. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, stroking Lily’s hair every now and then. At one point, and just for a second, he reaches up as if he’s going to stroke mine, but he doesn’t.
He tells me he’s sorry, but it’s not about the hair. He’s sorry about the way he’s treated me, the way he walked away. Like a coward, he says, covering his eyes with his hands. To think I used to dream about those hands.
He says he wishes things could have been different. Not us staying together, that would never have worked, but breaking up more gently, handling it better. I suppose it’s as good as an apology. More than I had hoped for, or expected. I can see he means it, and that’s something. It feels like we’ve turned a corner, and we’re setting out on a different road now. Both going in the same direction.
We don’t say much, because of Lily being here.
Lily doesn’t listen to us anyway. She is too full of her party. It’s all she can talk about. She tells me about her castle, and her presents, and that she is going to get a rabbit. I look at Michael, to see if it’s true, and he says his mum can’t keep secrets. Never could. So, yes, it is, as soon as they get back to Brighton. I’m pleased, because a rabbit is the one thing I had promised her, and shouldn’t have, without knowing how or when I could ever make it happen.
I ask him where Geraldine is tonight but he’s mysterious about it, tells me she has things to do, and that it’s his turn anyway. He makes me feel that visiting me is a duty, one he’d rather get out of but knows he can’t. I can’t blame him for that. He’s always been wary of hospitals, and what we had together is long gone. We’d been living like brother and sister for long enough, clinging to the wreckage, without passion, doing it for Lily, even before Patsy came along. I just hadn’t wanted to face it. But now I can, and I do. And I want to make peace.
Lily shows me her new doll, with its funny freckled face and its bandaged leg, and she says the pretty lady gave it to her, the one who cleaned her up when she was sick, and who helped her sprinkle hundreds and thousands on her ice cream. I know that she means Patsy, although she calls her Pasty, which makes me laugh. Michael too. Lily laughs with us, even though she doesn’t know why.
I never thought I would ever say this, but I’m going to ask Patsy to be a godmother at the christening. A big step, but she will be a part of Lily’s life now, whether I like it or not, so it seems the right thing to do. And Lily likes her. I have to think about that. What Lily likes. What Lily needs. It’s not all about me now. It’s only about her.
I tell Michael, and he’s pleased. He’s not one for confrontation, really. He wants everyone to get along together, likes to take the path of least resistance. ‘I’ve already asked William Munro, and I’m going to ask Mrs Castle too,’ I tell him, and he says they’re both a bit old for it, might not live to see Lily grow up, but he doesn’t put up a fight.
I know that Geri still sees Mrs Castle, that they’ve stayed friends and I should make more effort to visit her, because Michael’s right, she’s getting older, and these things shouldn’t be put off until later. In case later really is too late. She did a great job of steering me through my childhood, did Mrs Castle, and I know I can trust her to do the same for Lily. If life doesn’t turn out the way I hope it does, she’ll need people to rely on. William, who saved her, Mrs Castle who saved me, and Patsy, who much as I hate to admit it, seems to have saved Michael.
When Lily hears the word ‘castle’ she starts bouncing on the bed as if she’s still on that bouncy one she keeps chattering about, and the doll falls onto the floor, temporarily forgotten, its big blue painted-on eyes staring up at the ceiling.
‘Your mother will be able to wear her hat at last,’ I say to Michael. ‘At the christening.’
‘I suppose she will. I never did see it. Did you?’
‘Never. She’s guarded it like the Crown Jewels. But I bet it’s blue. Blue’s her colour somehow.’
‘And I bet it has feathers on it,’ he says.
‘Big floppy ostrich feathers, that tickle her nose and wave around in the wind.’
Just the thought of the hat and the feathers is enough to get me laughing again, laughing until my sides hurt, cracked ribs and all, and Michael laughs with me, for the first time in ages.
And, at last, I know with absolute certainty that everything is going to be all right.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, thanks must go to my editor, Kate Bradley, who has shown such belief in this book, and in me. We met at a Romantic Novelists conference and somehow just ‘clicked’. Working on this book together has been a pleasure and I know it is a better story because of her.
Thanks also to
Vicky Vincent and Jane Robson, whose knowledge of Children and Family law and the workings of the Social Services system helped guide me through Lily’s trauma and what came next. I have tried to show the process from the point of view of a worried family rather than that of a clued-up social work professional, and I hope I got it right in the end.
To Laura Hampshire, for sharing her inside knowledge of the social and working life of a busy hospital nurse, and for talking me through the initial assessment and treatment of A & E patients. If there are medical blunders in the book they are entirely mine, not hers.
To Louise Timothy and Lisamarie Lamb, who both had three-year-old daughters at the time I was writing this book and who gave me so much useful information about what a child of that age can and cannot do safely and successfully for herself, especially if left to her own devices. It was amazing how much their responses differed, which just goes to show that age is not a clear definer of emotional or developmental milestones and that no two children are ever the same.
To the SWWJ, the RNA and Phrase Writers, three wonderfully supportive organisations for writers, whose members and meetings have been invaluable, informative and fun. They have kept me on the right path, provided encouragement, friendship and feedback, and helped me to see the much-needed light at the end of the long and lonely tunnel. And to my husband Paul, who always allows me the time, space and abundance of chocolate I need to write, whenever and wherever the compulsion strikes.
And last, but by no means least, thanks to all at Barra Hall Children’s Centre, Hillingdon Library Service and the wonderful Bookstart programme, for giving me the happiest and most rewarding twelve years of my working life – until I became an author, of course! By spending time with so many children of pre-school age, and introducing them to the magic of books, I know I have helped to create the readers of the future. Without them we authors, and the books we write, have no hope of a future at all.