by Martina Cole
Tommy walked towards her and grinned. ‘You got here then?’
Liselle opened the boot of her Daimler and took out a posy of flowers. She gave them to Briony and kissed her on the cheek.
Briony stared down at the flowers and opened her mouth to speak but no sound came out.
‘For once in your life, you’re lost for words!’ Taking her none too gently by the arm he led her towards the church.
Briony staggered along beside him, looking at the sea of faces around her, all smiling and laughing. As she walked into the lobby of the church, Benedict was waiting for her. He held out an arm.
‘I’m going to give you away, Mother.’
Tommy brought a black velvet box from his pocket, took out the choker he had bought her years before and tied it gently around her throat.
‘I hope you’re not going to say “I won’t”, Bri. This little lot was murder to arrange and cost a small fortune.’ She looked up into his face and saw the uncertainty there. She shook her head.
‘I can’t wait to become Mrs Thomas Lane. Let’s do it!’ She walked proudly down the aisle on her son’s arm, her face glowing with happiness.
At sixty-five years old she finally understood what life was all about.
Tommy kissed her gently on the lips. ‘I love you Bri.’
Briony snuggled into him in the warmth of the bed. ‘I love you, too, only I never realised how much.’
He cupped her breast gently and Briony slapped his hand away. ‘Do you mind Tommy Lane? I’m a respectable married woman now!’
Tommy laughed out loud. ‘I was really scared you know, Briony. I thought, if she knocks me back now, in front of everyone...’
Briony looked up into his face. ‘I thought you had someone else, I did.’
‘I know, I let you think it and all. Be fair, Bri, you’ve never let me look after you really, have you? And I wanted to. I admit that over the years I stepped in to help you, but without you knowing about it. You’re a hard woman to love, Bri, you are so self possessed, so strong! It’s like living with a bloke at times!’
Briony kissed his chest. ‘After all the trouble with the boys, my Boysie dying, Danny going away, I realised that I needed you more than anything. No matter what’s happened in the past, we have had each other. If that’s what marriage is, then I want it.’
Tommy kissed her again.
‘How did you arrange it all without me guessing?’
‘You can thank Mariah, Cissy and the whole family for that. It was hard I can tell you.’
‘Well, I’m glad you did. I think it was the nicest thing that ever happened to me.’
Tommy pulled her tightly to him and said, ‘Come here, wife!’
Briony started laughing. ‘You’ve called me a few things over the years, but I never thought to hear you call me that!’
They both laughed.
‘You realise one thing though, Thomas Lane: you got me by default!’
‘How’d you make that out?’
‘I was in shock!’
‘You’ll be in shock in a minute if you don’t stop rabbiting. Now get your nightdress off!’
‘Respectable married women sleep with their nighties on!’
Tommy laughed throatily. ‘Not in this bleeding house they don’t.’
Chapter Fifty
1970
Kerry stood waiting to be announced, feeling the euphoria induced by vodka fighting with her nervousness. She could hear the muted sounds of conversation coming from the audience. She felt Liselle take hold of her and squeezed her daughter’s hand gently.
‘All right, Mum?’
Kerry nodded, unable to form any words. It was always like this until she walked out into the lights, to the sound of the music. Then something took her over. Something came down over her mind and wiped away the nervousness, the fear, leaving a feeling of peace and a desire just to make the audience enjoy themselves, enjoy her. Tonight, though, it was more acute than it had ever been. She had travelled a long way to do this show and she was glad, in a funny sort of way, to be doing it now after all the events of the last year. It seemed right somehow. Right and fitting.
It was Briony who had told her to go, who had made her realise that they were getting too old to nurse grudges for any length of time. They were old and wise enough, surely, to chase their own ghosts?
Which was what Kerry was going to do tonight.
The ghost was Evander Dorsey, and after all those years, all the trouble with him and through him, she was going to sing in his club in America. CBS Television was out there waiting for her, she was going to be seen from coast to coast. ‘Kerry Cavanagh the Legend’ they called her these days. The twins had given her career a bigger boost than she had ever dreamed possible. After Daniel’s trial her records had been recut and she had been inundated with offers to sing, star in shows, be interviewed. It had frightened her. But Briony, dear Briony, and Bernadette had told her, ‘Use whatever you can, girl. If you’re making a bigger comeback as a result of Boysie’s death and Daniel’s misfortune, then at least we can all be glad that some good came from it all.’ So she had taken up the offers, she had gone on the talk shows and the music shows, she had toured the country and sang in just about every auditorium there was in Britain.
Now she was on New York’s east side, in Evander’s Jazz Club. There was a packed audience waiting for her, and Evander himself was going to introduce her.
In the week since she had arrived they had regained a little more of their old footing. It was inevitable when they shared a common bond, their child.
Kerry heard her cue and swallowed nervously. Her throat was dry, her eyes felt hot.
Liselle kissed her on the cheek and smiled widely. ‘Go on, Mum, get out there and show them what a Cavanagh can do!’
Kerry heard Evander’s voice, that deep brown voice that she had loved so much all those years ago. And as she listened, her ears tuned to it, her mind chased down the years until she could picture the handsome lover he had been.
Evander stood on stage, dressed in a dinner suit, looking dapper and confident. The hands that clutched the microphone were wearing black silk gloves.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the woman they call The Living Legend, the woman who can sing like an angel, and the woman I have respected, deeply and sincerely, for far more years than either of us cares to remember!’
He swept out his arm in a dramatic gesture: ‘Miss Kerry Cavanagh.’
The place went wild.
Kerry walked out on to the stage, a tall slim figure dressed in a silver evening dress cut high on the hip to expose a long shapely leg, her black hair piled high on her head, her stage make-up making her look younger, softer, than she really was.
There was an audible gasp from the audience. Kerry took the microphone from Evander and as he made to leave the stage, grabbed his arm, holding him there with her.
‘First, I would like to thank you for your welcome. New York has been very kind to me.’ She smiled as she waited for the cheering and the cat calling to die down. ‘Secondly, I would like to thank this big handsome man standing beside me. He gave me something precious, something that has made my life complete. He gave me the gift of a child, our child, Liselle.’
She looked to the side of the stage and gestured for Liselle to join them both on stage.
She walked out into the bright lights, her eyes misting over, her heart full to bursting. She stood between her mother and father as the audience clapped, and the band played the first few bars of Kerry’s opening number.
Then Evander kissed her gently on the lips and, taking Liselle’s hand, walked proudly from the stage.
Kerry laughed, that deep, husky laugh so like Briony’s, and said, ‘Now for some singin’! This is a song I have loved for many years and I sing it tonight for all my family, both here in the States and at home in England.’
The band played louder, the lights were dimmed and her voice was husky as she began to sing the first num
ber of her set.
Liselle and Evander stood watching Kerry. She took the audience and held them in her hands. Then she gave them everything she had, and a little bit more.
As Evander watched her, he realised the quality of the woman who had borne his child, whom he had taken down, and whom he now watched with a mixture of love and deep respect.
She was indeed a living legend, and he felt deeply honoured to be allowed once more to be a part of her life.
Briony lay in the dark, Tommy’s breathing beside her regular and even. She envied him his capacity to sleep. She put a hand to her heart, reassured by the regular beating that seemed to be keeping time with Tommy’s breathing.
Her heart bothered her sometimes. The twins were in her mind tonight. She had thought Daniel getting put away for so long would have made her ill, but instead it gave her a feeling of peace.
He had pushed his luck and his violent streak too far. He had had to pay the price. Thirty years. She would likely be dead by the time he got out.
Tommy turned over in his sleep and she felt his arm creep around her waist, holding her gently. Her husband. It still seemed strange to call him that. He snuffled into the pillows, sounding ridiculous and so normal she felt the sting of tears once more.
‘Oh, Eileen,’ she whispered into the darkness. ‘You gave me the gift of your children, and I tried to do the best I could by them. I really tried.’
She saw Henry Dumas in her mind’s eye, with his ridiculous large moustaches. Through him she had been given the most important thing in her life: her son. And later Henry had inadvertently brought them together again, brought them close. This thought pleased her more than anything because she liked to think that somewhere Henry Dumas was spinning in his grave, distraught with the knowledge the two of them had come together again through his folly.
‘Henry, you bastard,’ she whispered once more into the blackness of her bedroom, ‘I bested you in the end. You were the cause of every unhappiness that befell me and mine, but I am the victor. With all my troubles the victor.’
With that she closed her eyes and thought of the twins as boys, her boys. How she would always think of them.
Boysie’s daughter Deidre, born fatherless and in a blaze of publicity, was asleep in the next room.
Suzy was quite happy for her to stay with Briony and Tommy at weekends. It was her way of trying to make amends for the way she’d acted after Boysie’s death. Briony put up with Suzy so she could see the child.
A new generation was growing. Faithey and Deidre were both fatherless, both cursed with mothers who were no good at all. It seemed that they needed Briony and Bernadette and even Kerry to look out for them.
Molly wouldn’t last much longer, Boysie’s death and Daniel’s prison sentence had finished her. She had lost the will to live now, had become old overnight, really old and decrepit. Briony snuggled against Tommy’s back.
Age was creeping up on them all, but while they had the children they had life and a reason for living.
She wondered how Kerry was getting on in America and smiled then, a genuine smile. At least some good had come out of all the troubles of the last few years. Kerry was back on top. She was still drinking, but at her age, what could anyone really do? At least she was enjoying her life. She was a big star again. Briony hoped she took America by storm, and being a Cavanagh, that was probably exactly what she would do.
A Cavanagh. Even Daniel had insisted, right at the last, that he was a Cavanagh. She would write to him tomorrow. His mind was deteriorating rapidly, but the prison psychiatrist said that was delayed shock at his twin’s death. He was being sent to Broadmoor next week, so instead of the monthly trek to Parkhurst, on the Isle of Wight, they would have to go to Berkshire. Daniel still thought he was somebody of renown, but then, she supposed, in prison he was. They would never release him. He had already attacked two other prisoners for imagined slights. The psychiatrist said he was a psychopath. She had felt like saying to him: ‘Tell me something I don’t know.’
She felt her eyes getting heavy with sleep and was glad. Finally, Briony slept, only to be woken a few hours later by Deidre crying. Briony settled her on her lap and rocked her to sleep, happy now she had a child in her arms. Deidre made up for the loss of the two babies she had loved too much. She was to see Benedict the next day.
He visited regularly. She hoped that he would one day bring his children with him. But it was something they had not discussed yet. They were still feeling the way, building the love and trust between themselves.
She rocked the little girl gently, crooning softly to her. Briony kissed the downy forehead and said softly: ‘Who knows what the future holds, my lovely? For me, for you, for any of us.’
The child was the living image of Boysie, she was wholly his daughter.
Yes, the Cavanagh genes were very strong. Too strong, perhaps? Who knew?
Briony carried on rocking the child, making plans for her in her mind. As always, Briony’s mind was on the future. A future, she knew from experience, which would be shaped by the past.
EPILOGUE
1989
‘Therefore my age is as a lusty winter, frosty, but kindly’
-As You Like It, William Shakespeare
‘Do you think we should wake her?’
The blonde nurse nodded and smiled. ‘I think she’d be very cross if we didn’t. She’s been looking forward to seeing you all day.’
The man came into the room and the others followed. He went to the bed and gently shook the woman beneath the covers. She opened one eye, to show a flash of vivid green, then the other eye opened quickly.
‘Is it that time already?’ Her voice had the querulousness of great age and the man laughed.
‘We’re all here, Gran.’ As he spoke a boy in his late teens looked over his shoulder and grinned.
‘Come on, Granny, it’s not like you to be a lieabed.’ The words brought a stinging sensation of tears to her rheumy eyes. That was an expression of Tommy’s.
‘Come here, me lovelies, and give me a kiss.’
One by one they kissed her. Faithey first, her own two children following. Then Deidre with that startling red hair so like her own. She had a young man with her, Briony noticed, and smiled at him. Then came Becky, her children and grandchildren. Then came Delia with her son Daniel, a fine strong boy, nothing like his mother at all. Though he had a look of Marcus, his grandfather, about him. Briony swallowed heavily. Bernie’s dying had been a great blow; she had died five days after Marcus had had his coronary. Briony wondered if Bernie still didn’t trust him, she’d followed him so fast. It seemed all the old people were disappearing, but that was how it should be. Though she didn’t particularly want to leave them all, not yet.
Then Liselle was kissing her heartily. Briony squeezed her hard. Nearing seventy, Liselle was still as sprightly as a girl. She had inherited the Jazz Club on her father’s death ten years before; Kerry had sung there the night she died. It was hard to believe at times that her Aunt Briony was the only one of the sisters left.
‘Let Lissy sit down, will you, she’s getting on.’
This was said seriously and Lissy smiled at the people in the room. Briony always forgot her own age.
Then came Natalie, Briony’s grandchild, and her two boys. A pair of buggers if ever there was, Briony thought. They kissed their granny with real affection. They thought she was absolutely great. They loved bragging about her and being a part of her. Briony grabbed their cheeks tightly in her jewelled hands.
‘You two need watching, my lads! You’ve too much of the Cavanagh in you.’
Everyone laughed.
Then came her favourite, the one she had least expected to steal her heart. He stood with his father, smiling at her. Benedict’s face glowed as his son wrapped his granny in a long embrace and kissed her. He had a deep love for his granny, and his two daughters and his son all stood round the bed waiting their turn.
It always amazed Briony that a ma
n called Henry Dumas could kiss her like that and she feel nothing but love. The love she bore her grandson. The name was exorcised for her, it meant nothing but happiness now.
She swept Henry’s children into her sweet-smelling embrace and said, ‘Next year, we’ll all go away together. I thought we might get a big house out in the country and have a holiday there.’ She saw them all smiling around her, none of them wanting to say what they were really thinking. So Briony, being Briony, said it for them:
‘I know what you’re all thinking - that I might not be here next year. The thought had crossed my mind. But let’s look at it like this.’ She paused, eyes bright. ‘There’s a fifty-fifty chance I’ll be dead...’ She paused again and looked around her, at her family, at her blood, and then she said craftily: ‘But there’s also a fifty-fifty chance I just could still be here, alive and kicking!’
‘You will be, Bri, God willing.’ Tommy’s face came down on hers and he kissed her gently on her lips .
‘Me and you, Tommy Lane, we seem to go on and on!’