by Sarah Duncan
'I think we'll leave these writers together,' Jerry said, turning to Nick. Lu telepathically flashed an SOS towards Jerry, begging him not to leave her with Clive and Fenella, but intuition didn't seem to be his strong point. Instead he put a hand on Nick's shoulder. 'Come on, mate. Time to show me what your wife's been up to. I hear she's gone abstract.'
And with a quick wink at Lu that told her he knew exactly what he was leaving her to, he steered Nick away. Typical Jerry. And typical - you meet an attractive man, and he turns out to be married. Ah well.
'My grandchildren love my little stories,' Fenella continued blithely. 'Tell you what, I'll give you some of my ideas and you could illustrate them. We could split the royalties.'
Lu counted to three, then ten. 'I'm quite busy with my own work at the moment.'
'Have you ever thought about writing a proper book?' Clive said. Lu could imagine him stepping into Prince Philip's shoes quite easily.
'In what way do you mean, a proper book?' But Lu knew full well what he meant.
'For adults of course.' Clive didn't actually put his thumbs in braces and stick his chest out, but it was a near thing. 'Like mine.'
It couldn't have been more of a leading statement if he'd taken it three times round the paddock. Despite herself, Lu felt compelled to ask the question. 'What's it about?'
'It's a thriller about this group of old friends who've all been at university together and are going on a boating trip in the Norfolk Broads. It's about what happens next.'
'And what does happen next?' Lu asked, secretly hoping they all drowned.
His eyes bulged. 'That's about it so far. I've only done the first couple of chapters, no point in wasting time if it's not a bestseller. I'll do the rest when a publisher wants it. I've tried sending it out, but it's a closed shop, everyone knows that. They don't like to think that there are people outside London who have ideas that pop their little bubble. Either that, or it's nothing but nepotism. Some of them don't even have the courtesy to write back. And they don't read it all, you can tell.'
'I think that's dreadful,' Fenella said, diamonds quivering. 'I mean, it's their job, isn't it?'
'Not really,' Lu said, not wanting to get into a discussion about the state of publishing. She took a long slurp of champagne, surreptitiously looking around for an excuse to slip away, but inspiration was lacking. She was going to have to accept she was stuck in the publishing conversation from hell. 'What books do you like reading?'
'Oh, I don't have time for fiction,' Clive said, rocking back on his heels. Lu wondered if she should rethink her fantasies about men in suits. 'I'm far too busy. Besides, I don't really see the point of it.'
Lu thought about asking him why he was trying to write a novel if he didn't see the point of fiction, but she felt she didn't have that much life to spare. 'What about you?' she asked his wife.
'She likes all that slushy romantic stuff,' Clive said with a superior smile.
'I certainly don't,' Fenella said, bristling so much at his statement it could only be true. 'Occasionally I might read something a bit lighter, but I really only like Literature.' She put such emphasis on the word, it could only be capitalised.
Clive looked Lu up and down as if he didn't approve of what he saw. 'So how did you get published?' The emphasis was on the word you, as if he didn't believe her. Did he realise he was being rude?
'My grandfather was a Flopsy Bunny,' Lu said brightly. 'Us Bunnies have been in the business for generations. Of course, it was my great-great-grandfather Old Mr Rabbit who founded the business, along with his nephew Peter. It was a terribly paternalistic company - my great-aunt Cottontail was cut right out of the will. Luckily for me, they're a bit more enlightened nowadays.'
'Sorry to butt in,' and there was Briony, her arm slipping round Lu's shoulders and gently steering her away from a confused-looking Clive. 'I've promised to introduce Lu to a friend so I'm going to drag her away.'
'I have never wanted to see someone more,' Lu said with feeling once they were a safe distance from Clive and Fenella.
'Did I really hear you tell them you were a Flopsy Bunny?' Lu nodded. 'Oh Lu, grow up,' Briony said, laughing.
'Do I have to?' Lu asked. She wasn't sure she wanted to, if it meant becoming like Mr and Mrs Clive.
Briony lowered her voice. 'Listen, I've come across the most gorgeous man for you. Absolutely perfect. Ticks every box. If I wasn't with Jerry...' She took Lu's arm.
'So long as he doesn't want to write a novel, he'll do,' Lu said, following Briony to a corner near one of Jerry's paintings.
'This is Marcus, who plays squash with Jerry, and this is Lu, who I told you about, and I must leave you both to it and go and sell some paintings,' Briony said, disappearing into the crowd.
Lu looked at him. Oh. Oh, oh, oh.
At first sight Marcus ticked a lot of boxes, being tall, dark and yes, handsome. All her romantic clichés had arrived rolled up in one, she thought as she looked up into his chocolate-brown eyes. Her heart was thumping. Could she hear violins in the distance?
'Briony said you play squash with Jerry - I hope you pulverise him.' Amazingly her voice sounded quite normal.
'I grind him to dust,' he said. God, even his voice was wonderful, slow and sexy. And he looked athletic too, with long legs and not much spare flesh on him. It must be all that squash-playing. He was lightly tanned with a golden glow, or maybe it was emanating from him like rays of sunshine. 'Do you play?'
'No, it's far too energetic for me.' Oops, she didn't want to give him the impression she was a couch potato. 'I go to the gym, do Pilates, things like that.'
'I've heard of Pilates.'
'It's very good for your back and your pelvic floor. I mean, I do it for my back,' Lu babbled quickly, hoping he wouldn't think she needed to do work on her pelvic floor. 'I spend most of my day hunched up on a stool over a drawing board so I need to stretch my spine out or I'll end up doubled over.' She pulled herself up straight, settling each vertebra on top of the other as she'd been taught.
'Does the drawing board mean you're an architect?'
Drat, she should have been an architect. It would have been possible: she liked houses and could do technical drawing. The physics would have been a bit of a problem, but... 'No, not an architect, an illustrator. And you?'
'I'm an engineer by training, but nowadays I mainly push paper around for a multinational company.' He sounded offhand, but he was obviously high up within the company, judging by the quality of his clothes. An engineer... Not wearing a suit right now, but she bet he did most of the time; his trousers had that dry-clean-only look and the creases on his shirt were so sharp it was either brand new or professionally laundered. Which was good, because she didn't like the idea of ironing a man's shirts, not even for the man of her dreams. She glanced at his shoes. Not quite right, being too shiny and smart, as if he was trying a bit too hard, but you couldn't have everything, you had to compromise on something. She checked his hands. No sign of a ring, apart from a gold signet ring on his little finger, but that meant nothing. Not every man wore a wedding ring. 'A multinational sounds as if you travel a lot.'
'Sometimes. I've spent time in Hong Kong, Germany and the US.' He was saying normal things with his mouth but his eyes were saying something else, something warm and intense; he could have used them as a microwave the way he was melting her from the inside out.
'Moving around must be difficult for your family.' Did that sound too much like she was fishing for information? Oh well, couldn't be helped.
'If I had a family it might be, but I'm not married.'
Hallelujah. It wasn't just violins playing, but trumpets too.
'And you?' he added.
Double hallelujah. He wouldn't ask if he wasn't interested. 'I'm not married either,' Lu said, as the full angelic choir joined in and cherubs blew horns and the roof opened up and radiant sunshine filled the gallery.
- ooo -
Lu rang the doorbell three times in quick
succession, then waited. She could hear Scottie yapping and pictured him scuttling backwards and forwards along the hall as her grandmother slowly came to the door. She quickly checked the garden. Everything looked neat and as it should be; even the crazy-paving path leading to the front door was less of a random arrangement of oddly-shaped leftovers than a carefully ordered plan. One day she would arrive to discover the leaves hadn't been swept away, the deadheading hadn't been done, and the brass letterbox hadn't been buffed up and polished, but that day hadn't yet come, thank heavens.
A few minutes later she heard a muffled voice. 'Lu, is that you?'
'Yes. Were you expecting anyone else to ring the bell three times? Burglars? Your lover?' She said it casually, to amuse herself, knowing Delia would be too busy concentrating on undoing the deadlock and the safety chain to answer, but the word 'lover' seemed to reverberate around the front garden. Would Marcus be her lover? Marcus the Wonderful, the Perfect, who'd asked for her phone number. He'd ring, they'd go out, they'd fall in love, everything would be perfect... Lu shook her head. Life being what it was, he probably wouldn't ring.
The door opened a chink, then widened, and her grandmother peered out. 'It is you.'
'It is indeed,' Lu said, stepping in and embracing her grandmother. Her cheek was as soft as ever, but her shoulders were frail under the sensible navy cardigan layered over a jumper and shirt, and probably a thermal vest underneath. Delia felt the cold.
'You can't be too careful nowadays,' Delia said. 'You could have been anyone. You read about them in the paper, preying on pensioners, coming in for a glass of water and stealing your handbag. It's not safe to go out. Stabbings, muggings, it's dreadful what they do.'
'I think you should stop reading the paper,' Lu said, bending down to pat Scottie. 'You'd be much happier.'
'I want to know what's going on,' Delia said, leading the way to the sitting room. Lu followed, her eyes anxiously scanning her grandmother's back for signs of infirmity. The thought of Delia not being there made her catch her breath with worry. She had always been there when Lu needed her, a refuge from the chaos that followed her mother around. It was a mystery how Delia had managed to have a daughter like Susan, or Pixie as she preferred to be called, the name she had given herself at some point in the sixties - to Delia's horror. It suited her free spirit better, Pixie had once explained to Lu. However, Pixie had displayed similar horror when at secondary school age, Lu refused to answer to Lunabella. Lu might equate to toilets, but it was better than being a loony, especially when you had a loony mum to cope with. Besides, Delia had always called her Lu.
The sitting room was so old-fashioned it could have been used as the set for Miss Marple's house. It was incredibly tidy and well dusted, the opposite of the jumble that Pixie had created in the string of homes they'd lived in while Lu was growing up. Lu suspected that Delia dusted each china ornament jostling for position on the mantelpiece, each photograph frame, even each dried flower head every day. When anyone said to Lu that she was very tidy, in that slightly disapproving way that suggested that she was too tidy, Lu always replied, 'You should see my grandmother's house. I'm not nearly as bad as she is.'
Lu loved Delia's tidiness; it was always a relief not to have to worry about what you might squash when you sat on the sofa, what you might step in when you crossed a room, what might be lurking under the bed when you tried to find your school shoes in the morning. Even now when she came to her grandmother's house she could feel a layer of tension dissolve.
'You sit yourself down there and I'll bring the tea,' Delia said. She'd never been a soft and squidgy currant-bun sort of grandmother, but her angular outline had become more indistinct as the years progressed, blurring as if she were fading out of the picture.
'I'll get it,' Lu said quickly. She went back into the hall and into the kitchen, where, as she'd expected, she found a tray laid with teacups and a pot, all on an immaculately ironed white linen cloth. As she waited for the kettle to come to the boil, she touched the lace edge of the cloth, knowing that it had been hand-crocheted by Delia many years ago. There were little ziggurats of yellow cross-stitching in each corner, the stitches as neat as any machine. Forgotten arts, she thought. Little girls no longer learned to make those immaculate tiny stitches; instead they played computer games along with their brothers.
But they were girlie enough to read Princess Butterfly, she thought, seeing a pad of Princess Butterfly paper perched by the phone. Princess Butterfly had been a series of books Lu had illustrated a few years ago. She touched the illustration lightly, thinking how typical it was of Delia to be supportive and have something Lu had illustrated about the house, even though Princess Butterfly was aimed at four year olds rather than ninety-two year olds. Her lovely, caring grandma.
Don't forget to ask Lu, was written on the top sheet.
Lu poured the boiling water on to the tea bags, thinking that it was a good thing she was there to do things for her grandmother. Little things - changing the times of the central heating when the clocks went back, opening jars that Delia's arthritic fingers could no longer manage, hanging yet another picture on the crowded walls. Mind you, you had to watch Delia - given half a chance she'd be up a ladder trying to change a light bulb or clearing out the guttering. She wanted her independence, of course, but seemed incapable of seeing that if she fell and hurt herself, she could kiss that independence goodbye.
'Ask Lu what?' Lu said, coming back into the sitting room with the tea things.
Delia looked up. 'What was that?'
'On your pad, by the phone. It says, don't forget to ask Lu.'
She expected Delia to ask her to retrieve a box from the attic or explain the meaning of a bank statement, but instead her grandmother patted the sofa. 'I've something to show you, and then something I want you to do for me.'
'Sure,' Lu said, putting the tea things on to the coffee table in front of the sofa and sitting down. 'Tell me what it is you want me to do.'
Delia reached behind her and brought out a cardboard shoebox, which she placed on her knees, her hands resting on the lid as if Lu might snatch it from her. She suddenly looked up. 'Now I don't want you to go telling your mother about this.'
It was so unexpected, Lu almost dropped her tea cup. 'Mum? Why ever not?'
'I'll tell her later, when we know what's what, but I don't want her to know yet. She'll want to do it all with those cards of hers, or go dowsing, and I can't abide all that nonsense.' Delia reached over for Lu's hand. 'It'll be our secret.'
'I won't say anything if you don't want me to,' Lu said. 'I hardly ever get a word in edgeways with Mum anyway.'
'You're a good girl,' Delia said, patting Lu's hand. 'Now, I've been watching that programme where they look up their family history and find out about their ancestors. I expect you've seen it.'
'I know the one you mean. Researchers trace a celebrity's family tree back through the generations and find out about their long-lost relatives, where they came from, that sort of thing. Oh - do you want me to trace our family tree?' Lu frowned. 'I thought you'd got that all written out in the big bible you got from your mother.'
'No, not the family tree.' Delia reached into the box and took out a photograph in an ornate mahogany frame. She stroked it gently, then handed it to Lu.
'I want you to find him,' Delia said.
Lu took the photograph. The picture was faded round the edges, but the eyes of the young man in uniform were clear as he looked steadily towards the camera. The vaguely painted backcloth landscape and pot plant on a stand gave it an Edwardian feel. Who was he? She looked at Delia, trying to read her face. A former boyfriend? Except they didn't call them boyfriends in those days. A sweetheart, maybe. But Gran's courting days must have been in the thirties and forties, and this chap looked older. First World War, perhaps? He'd have to be at least a hundred, if not more.
Lu cleared her throat. 'Um, Gran, I don't like to say this, but won't he be dead by now?'
Delia clicked her
tongue as if Lu was stupid. 'I know that, but you can track down dead people, can't you? I want you to find him on that Internet. You're always saying it's wonderful and can find anything. Well, I want you to find him.'
Lu looked at the photograph again. 'It's funny, but the person he reminds me of is Mum. Don't know why.' Maybe it was the way their heads were tilted, or the shape of the eyes. There was something about Delia's stillness that sharpened her senses. 'Who is he?'
'His name is Jack Havergal,' Delia said. She cleared her throat. 'I think he's my father.'
- 2 -
Lu couldn't have been more surprised if Scottie had suddenly announced he was the winner of The X Factor. She looked around the room, thinking that she'd see the tables rocking and the ornaments quivering in the wake of the earthquake, but everything was still. Even Scottie, instead of launching into a pop ballad, was flat out on the old rag rug in front of the gas fire.
'Your father?' Lu blinked. 'But your father was Percy.'
'I grew up believing that.' Delia lay back against the sofa cushions. 'He was a lovely man, my dad, he wouldn't have hurt a fly, so I'm sure it was all my mother's idea. She had some funny notions in her head, she did. Ever so proper. Looking back, I reckon she didn't like the idea I was...' Delia sighed. 'Well, there's no nice way to say it. I'm illegitimate, that's all there is to it.'
'What?' Lu couldn't believe what she was hearing. Scottie, disturbed by her virtual shriek, sat up and barked. 'So Maud and this man...?' Lu looked at the photograph in amazement and some awe - she'd seen photographs of her great-grandmother looking completely impenetrable, like the elderly Queen Victoria.
'Certainly not. Whatever gave you that idea? Scottie, hush now, there's a good boy,' Delia soothed, as the dog danced and yapped at them. 'Really, Lu, you should know better.'
Lu wasn't sure if she should know better than to disturb Scottie by raising her voice, or to suspect Great-grandmother Maud of an illicit liaison. Probably both, knowing Delia, who, while generally loving, had a sideline in old-fashioned disapproval, especially when it looked as if Lu was picking up bad habits from Pixie.