by Susan Sallis
‘Well. That solves that problem, then. I don’t mean the names. I mean that you and David were all twined up with that door knob. David was a second-generation Jackson, and you were his love. Simple when you know, innit?’
Viv opened her eyes wide, and looked at her own reflection in the hall mirror and tried to see David.
She smiled. It was enough to know that he was . . . around.
She put the phone down, and it immediately rang.
A voice, low, musical, said, ‘Vivvie?’ and her heart almost stopped, because that had been her name a long time ago. ‘It’s Merilees. Cumber and Maisie are with me. I wanted to ask whether we could visit you . . . some time.’
Viv heard her own voice. Joyous. ‘I’d love it! Come the first weekend you are free.’
Twenty-eight
THE SLUICE GATES were closed before Christmas and the sea gradually filled the old lake. At weekends a canoe club trained on the area beyond the door-knob wall and children sailed model boats in the paddling pool. Sometimes during the bitter months before spring, Viv swam from where the old diving tower had reared up against the background of Becket’s Wood, towards the further wall. It was icy cold that first winter, but she always felt better after it. Sometimes she brought Juniper. At others, Maggie Bartholomew would appear, leaning heavily on her stick as they negotiated the steps. She and Juniper did not come together.
Viv calculated that by next summer she would be able to manage the full length and actually hold on to the door knob before turning back. She wondered now how on earth she had managed that desperate night-time swim.
Her life was full. The reading group were often quarrelsome, but when Maggie Bartholomew joined she kept them in order. They managed Captain Corelli’s Mandolin without too much trouble.
Viv did a week of supply teaching; one of the local teachers would be taking maternity leave in the summer term, and the headmaster asked her to fill in full-time.
Weekends became very special. Hildie announced that weekends must be kept for ‘the Cheltenham lot’. That meant all kinds of permutations: Cumber and Maisie might arrive at the bungalow on Friday evenings, and the Hardys might go back to the flat with Elisabeth. Sometimes Viv went to the flat on her own, so that she could look after the twins while Elisabeth and Tom ‘did a film’.
She eventually let Tom read all her writings. When he did not get in touch with her immediately afterwards she thought he must be condemning her, and her heart sank. Then one late afternoon, already dark, she walked down from Tall Trees and saw his car parked outside the gate. He got out, just a silhouette, but already so familiar. He went to meet her and held out his hands. She took them. He said, quietly, ‘Thank you, Viv. I thought I knew everything, but of course I did not. If it helps at all, I don’t think Jinx knew, either. He may well have guessed, but no more than that.’
She led him into the house, through to the living room, stood by the dark window.
‘I thought you would be . . . disgusted.’
‘Disgusted? By an act of love and compassion that was . . . boundless? Oh, Viv.’
He stood by her and suddenly held her to his shoulder. Then laughed. ‘I’m no good at this, but if we’re going to be honorary brother and sister, I’ll have to learn, won’t I?’
She gave a sob and put her head to his.
She told him later about David’s mother. ‘D’you know, Tom, when Maggie Bartholomew told me that her Aunty May had ‘got herself pregnant’ – I think that was how she put it – on her very first date with David’s father, I wanted to laugh. Surely that’s a sign that I am accepting it all?’
Tom looked up from his teacup. ‘How d’you mean – I don’t get it.’
‘Come on, little brother! It happened just the same for me, didn’t it?’ She sobered suddenly. ‘What does get to me still, is . . . what would have happened, Tom, if my baby had lived through the accident?’
Tom nodded. ‘What would have happened if Della had lived?’ He shook his head as if to clear it. ‘As Dad said the other day when Ma was doing this sort of thing – we can only play the cards we are dealt.’
It was exactly what Hardy would say and after a while Viv smiled.
David Venables’s retrospective exhibition has been arranged for late summer at a gallery near the Tate Modern. There is a great deal of discussion about the opening and who will go. So far, Merilees, Maisie, Cumber and Viv will travel by train to London. The Hardys will look after the twins while Tom and Elisabeth drive up.
Viv and Merilees were quietly easy with each other from their first reunion, and both accept that one day Merilees will talk about the fire that scarred her face. Perhaps Viv will reciprocate; she is not sure. It is enough for now that Tom knows everything that has happened.
She discovered quite soon that she was not frightened to take down the files from the top cupboard and read them. They are no longer bundles of extroverted guilt. They have become celebrations. And much more prosaically, they record journeys. Her journey, Tom’s journey, and others. Starting over eighty years ago.
Sometimes when she is gardening she stands beneath the fig tree, holds its trunk and wonders whether it is as simple as David tried to tell her. Is love really all you need? There had been a radio programme – very academic – years ago which her mother had enjoyed and her father had mocked unmercifully. One of the learned contestants had often started his answers with the words: ‘It depends how you define that word . . .’ She could almost hear her father’s voice sneering, ‘It depends how you define love.’
David’s definition had encompassed eternity. She knew she could not understand it, however often she looked at his skyscapes and cartoons. But for an instant, she had been part of it. That must be enough.
Also by Susan Sallis
The Rising Sequence
A SCATTERING OF DAISIES
THE DAFFODILS OF NEWENT
BLUEBELL WINDOWS
ROSEMARY FOR REMEMBRANCE
SUMMER VISITORS
BY SUN AND CANDLELIGHT
AN ORDINARY WOMAN
DAUGHTERS OF THE MOON
SWEETER THAN WINE
WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE
TOUCHED BY ANGELS
CHOICES
COME RAIN OR SHINE
THE KEYS TO THE GARDEN
THE APPLE BARREL
SEA OF DREAMS
TIME OF ARRIVAL
FIVE FARTHINGS
THE PUMPKIN COACH
AFTER MIDNIGHT
NO MAN’S ISLAND
SEARCHING FOR TILLY
RACHEL’S SECRET
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First published in Great Britain
in 2009 by Bantam Press
an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Copyright © Susan Sallis 2009
Susan Sallis has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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