by June Francis
He made no reply but walked beside them towards the house.
Mike caught up with his wife and said something in her ear. She nodded and said to Viv, ‘Excuse me, love. I’ll be with you in a second. The children are about somewhere. They’ll have heard the car.’
Viv looked at her in concern but walked on with George to where there were several outbuildings surrounded by shrubbery and flower beds. Her aunt had always loved flowers but her garden in Liverpool had been tiny. Suddenly from round the corner of the nearest building raced three children. The boys reached them first and like their mother stopped a foot or so away. They were identical twins and stared from curious grey eyes. They were like Mike, thought Viv, except there was the slightest hint of ginger in the flaxen hair. A moment later their sister caught up with them, covering her face with her hands and peering through her fingers at them.
Viv crouched down so that her face was on a level with the girl’s. ‘Hi, Lizzie! Don’t you recognise us? You were only three when you left Liverpool. How old are you now?’
The hands were removed, revealing a shy smile. ‘Six. You’re cousin Vivien and …’ she pointed a chubby finger, ‘he’s my brother George.’
‘That’s right.’ Viv smiled. ‘Are you going to show us the house?’
Lizzie nodded and with an air of importance led the way. Her brothers trotted one either side. The one next to Viv said earnestly, ‘I’m Peter and I’m nine. Can George really not talk?’
‘Not yet. But he will,’ she replied with a confidence she was suddenly far from feeling.
‘What happened to him?’ asked the other twin, Simon.
‘We don’t really know. When he can talk, he’ll tell us.’ She noticed that George was staring at Lizzie and felt a tingling down her spine. Had he spotted the likeness to his dead sister Rosie? Suddenly he loosened his grip on Viv’s hand and walked towards his half-sister. Lizzie looked at him and smiled. A smile which was unexpectedly returned.
‘Do you like wine?’ asked Lizzie. George nodded. ‘My pa makes wine. We’ll show you after.’ She took hold of his hand and led him towards the house.
Viv let out a long breath and followed with the boys. Her aunt was suddenly there beside her, still wearing a concerned expression. ‘What’s up, love? Is he all right? Are you all right?’
‘I think so. He and Lizzie seem to have hit it off.’
The strained look on Flora’s face relaxed. ‘Lizzie’s a cheery little soul and won’t do him anything but good.’ She squeezed Viv’s arm. ‘You must be shattered. Has he been terribly difficult?’
‘Not really,’ lied Viv, entering the house. ‘I suppose you’ve been up the wall with worry?’
‘Twice I was nearly on a plane but Mike told me not to be so mother-hennish. That if you’d thought I needed to be in Liverpool, you would have said so.’
Viv smiled. ‘I wouldn’t have known where to put you, to be honest. That was one of the reasons I decided to bring George here. Mam and I have fallen out.’
‘I know,’ said Flora grimly. ‘I received a Christmas card and a letter from her only the other day.’
‘What did she have to say?’
Her aunt’s smile came and went. ‘We’ll talk about it later.’ She slipped a hand through Viv’s arm and hugged it. ‘It’s so good to have both of you here. What do you think of my house? It’s too far from the coast, of course, but we do have a beach house. We’ll be going there on Boxing Day for a few days.’
‘That sounds great,’ said Viv, looking about her curiously. The room was as spacious as most rooms she had seen in America so far. This one, though, was more homelike. The sofas looked comfortable and there were hand embroidered cushions scattered about. A rocking chair rested near a window and there was a Welsh dresser against a wall. A log fire burnt in the large open fireplace and on either side of it were shelves filled with books, records and ornaments. Tinsel garlands were strung along the mantelshelf; there was a decorated tree in one corner and a television in another.
George was sitting on one of the sofas next to Lizzie, an open book on his knee. Flora smiled at them before pulling Viv aside. ‘You didn’t keep anything from me, did you?’ she whispered. This knock on his head – how serious was it?’
‘Not very,’ said Viv, eager to reassure her. ‘Uncle Steve reckons his trouble is more to do with shock and is emotional. He thinks George will speak when he’s ready. He just needs lots of loving care.’
Flora stared at her curiously. ‘Has Stephen changed that much?’
Viv murmured. ‘I think he’s come to terms with losing his family and that’s a good thing. He missed the mothering his mam and sisters used to give him.’
‘You’re very wise for your age, Viv,’ said Flora, flushing. ‘I didn’t help him by breaking it off the way I did, though I’d tried to let him down gently first.’ She hesitated. ‘Come into the kitchen, love, and we can talk there. I’ve got to check on the dinner and we can make a cuppa.’
Viv followed her out and sat on a pine chair, wondering what was coming next. She gazed about her, considering how different this kitchen was from her aunt’s in Liverpool. It had cupboards galore, a huge fridge and a view out of the window that would make doing the washing up almost a pleasure. She wondered whether to mention her mother again, part of her wanting her curiosity satisfied and the other not wanting to know if it was going to cause unhappiness to her aunt.
Flora set cups and saucers on a tray. ‘Hilda’s missing you. She sounds lonely.’
Viv looked at her fingernails. ‘She brought it on herself.’
‘I know that,’ murmured Flora.
‘What has she told you?’
Her aunt leant against a cupboard. ‘Let’s say reading the letter was like reading one of those True Confession magazines.’
Viv lifted her head. ‘You mean she told you the truth?’
‘All about Dominic and Stephen.’
‘I bet it was all melodrama.’
‘Lots of sound and fury, signifying quite a lot. She said that I should never have told you that Jimmy was your father,’ said Flora, her tone caustic. ‘And that she wouldn’t be as unhappy as she is now, if I’d kept my mouth shut.’
Viv sprang to her feet, unable to bear sitting still any longer. ‘She’s got a blinking nerve, Aunt Flo! When I think of the unhappiness she caused, and what she did to you! She doesn’t deserve you to be concerned about her!’
Flora stared at her. ‘What has she done to me that you’re getting so worked up about?’ she said softly. ‘What do you know, Viv? Or what is it that you think you know?’
She opened her mouth and then closed it firmly.
‘That bad?’ said Flora drily.
‘If you don’t know,’ said Viv, gazing at her fingernails again, ‘then there’s no need for me to tell you.’
‘I see.’ Flora took the kettle off. ‘Hilda has no idea that you’re here with George, you know.’
‘Of course she hasn’t,’ said Viv. ‘But she’ll know soon enough because Nick’s going to visit her. I almost wish he wasn’t now but I had a moment of weakness in New York and bought her a Christmas present. He’s going to take it to her.’
Flora smiled. ‘At least that’s good news. Mike told me of your meeting with Nick and your becoming engaged. I’m really glad about that, Viv.’
She clasped her hands in front of her and her face was pink with pleasure. ‘I wasn’t sure you would be. I mean, Mam went on and on about his mother’s reputation.’
‘None of us are perfect,’ said Flora, placing the teapot on the tray. ‘You’ll be good for each other. You have similar backgrounds and you’ve both grown up in the hard school of life.’
‘George doesn’t like him.’
‘He never did. Nick was that little bit older and wiser and George didn’t like that. He’s like his father, always wanting to be top dog.’
‘Sam, Uncle Steve’s mate, said he was like his father. He said Tom Cooke was an OK bloke thoug
h.’
‘He was in lots of ways, but in others—’ She shrugged. ‘I can see it all clearly now, looking back.’ Flora’s eyes met Viv’s, reflecting her own feelings, and with a sense of shock she realised that her aunt either knew for certain who her father was or had guessed. ‘George has always been like a brother to me,’ she said with difficulty.
‘Of course he has,’ said Flora reassuringly. ‘And his emotional dependency on you is due in part to your having been brought up together. As long as it doesn’t go any deeper than that with him …’
‘Now we’re here things will change.’ Viv tried to strike a confident note. ‘Look how he’s taken to Lizzie.’
Her aunt’s brow knitted. ‘That’s a good sign, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Viv, some of the tension seeping out of her. She decided to change the subject. ‘How’s that tea coming along, Aunt Flo? I’m absolutely parched.’
‘All right, love. Enough’s been said. But sooner or later you’re going to have to consider your attitude to your mother. It seems to me that she has been trying to make amends for her past behaviour – if making a muck of it in the process.’
Viv grimaced. ‘Too right. But don’t let’s spoil Christmas by thinking about her now.’ With that she picked up the tray and carried it through into the living room.
Flora told Viv that she had decided they would stay at home for Christmas Day instead of making their usual trip to Mike’s mother’s house. It would be too confusing for George with the whole rowdy Donovan clan gathered together. Viv was quite happy to fall in with whatever her aunt planned. It was good just to be with the family once more.
Christmas Day was peaceful but filled with simple pleasures. Viv opened her present from Nick alone in her bedroom. It was a silver heart-shaped locket and she immediately put it on. Mike and Flora gave George a large box of paints and for a moment Viv thought he would speak because his expression was one of sheer delight. But although he opened his mouth no words came, and then the smile faded and he put the box under the table and looked thoroughly miserable. It was a real disappointment and Viv found herself praying intensely that soon he would speak. Perhaps when they were all used to being together again, he would become himself again? Viv hoped so because she was convinced that until he did she would not feel free to go home.
The next day they travelled south and after a couple of days Viv felt she had been away from home for a month, not just a couple of weeks. She lay on a beach not far from Santa Barbara watching the surf roll in, toying with the locket around her neck. Already she had started a letter to Nick, describing the vinery with its wine cellar and distillery, and planned to write about this part of California with its Hispanic-styled architecture and lovely whitewashed missions.
She picked up a tin of Nivea and began to smooth cream on her arms. Her eyes narrowed against the sun as she watched her cousins splashing in the surf. Her aunt and uncle were further along the beach, their heads together in conversation. George was a foot or so away, part facing her as he pencilled something on a drawing pad. He looked up and she smiled at him. ‘Is it going to be good, George?’
He shrugged and then gave his attention once more to his drawing. For a while Viv lay sunbathing but as the sun grew really hot, decided to cool off.
‘Are you thinking of going in for a swim?’ she asked her cousin. He shook his head and not for the first time she wondered if his experience in France had bred in him a fear of water that had not been there before.
There was a breeze off the sea and the water was deliciously cool. The surf was boisterous and swimming difficult so that she did not seem to get far for all her effort. She envied the surfers their skills on their boards and soon gave up swimming to do as the children did and jump into the waves.
It was exhilarating when a wave rolled in that was higher than the preceding ones. Where had she heard that every seventh wave was a whopper?
She glanced sidelong to check that Lizzie and the twins were all right but they were no longer there. Anxiously she looked about her and saw thankfully that they had joined their parents on the sand and were making a castle. Suddenly that whopper she had been watching for came sweeping in when she was not looking. She had no time to fill her lungs with air and was caught up in a churning mass of water and sand that tossed her over and over so that for a brief time she had no idea where was the surface and where the bottom. Water went up her nose and she needed desperately to get rid of it. To breathe! To cough! Her lungs were hurting, bursting! God, where was the surface?
Then there was a wrench on her swimsuit and she was being dragged along. Her heart was pounding. She had heard about sharks but her skin told her what had grabbed her was not teeth. Suddenly her head burst above the surface of the water at the same time as her knees scraped bottom. Coughing and retching, she was heaved out of reach of the waves to collapse on the sand with her rescuer beside her.
Instantly Flora and Mike with the children were crowding round them. ‘Hell’s bells, Viv, one minute you were there, the next you’d vanished,’ said Mike. ‘It was a good thing George had his eye on you.’
Still gasping, Viv lifted her head and stared from sore red eyes at her cousin.
‘Thought you’d die,’ he said in a jerky voice. ‘Couldn’t bear it. Saw … saw Jackie die … and Rosie. Didn’t … want … you … to die.’
Viv looked up at her aunt but it was Lizzie who expressed their deepest feelings. ‘George talked,’ she cried, jumping up and down in her excitement. ‘George talked, he talked, he talked!’
Flora and Viv could not speak. Tears rolled down their cheeks. It was left to Mike to say, ‘Hey, come on, girls! This is good news! Let’s have a drink to celebrate.’
‘It’ll have to be champagne,’ sniffed Flora, gazing at her son. ‘There’ll be no stopping you now, George.’
He said nothing, most of his attention still seemed to be for Viv. ‘You are all right?’
She nodded, scrubbing away at her face, not knowing which was saltwater and which was tears. She went towards him on her knees and put her arms round him. He returned her hug and for several seconds they stayed like that. Then she said in a muffled voice, ‘Jackie was that artist friend’s niece, wasn’t she? Do you want to talk about it?’
George drew away from her and was quiet for so long that Lizzie and Simon moved away and went to dig in the sand.
‘Don’t worry about it, son,’ said Flora, touching George’s hair with a gentle hand. ‘Let’s have a drink and something to eat.’
Abruptly George’s face crumpled and he seized his mother’s hand and placed it against his cheek. ‘I’m sorry, Mam,’ he said in a choking voice. ‘I shouldn’t be whingeing like a stupid baby! But it was just like it was when it was Rosie … I couldn’t save Jackie!’
‘Hush now! Hush!’ Flora stroked his face. ‘From what Viv told me, you were lucky to save yourself.’
‘I tried to save her. We’d managed to cling to a table when the floods came. We didn’t know it was the dam that burst. It had been raining so hard we just thought a river had burst its banks. The mill started to disintegrate and everything began to collapse and float away. It sounds like something out of a book but it really happened …’ His voice broke and he pressed his face against her shoulder.
Viv’s eyes met Flora’s over his head and she said, ‘I read in the Echo about a woman of eighty surviving for hours on a dressing table.’
George lifted his head and swallowed. ‘We were flung against a tree and lost our grip on the table. I managed to hold on to a branch but as I reached down with my free hand to help Jackie …’ He stopped and the muscles in his face twitched. His eyes were staring, staring at something that still frightened him.
‘It’s all right, George!’ His mother folded him in her arms. ‘You did your best. We can all only do our best. You saved Viv.’
‘Viv!’ he cried, and thrust out a hand. She gripped it tightly.
‘I’m here, George.’
‘You won’t go away?’
‘Not yet.’
There was silence then he said, ‘I missed you, Viv. All those months in France, not a day went by when I didn’t think about you.’
‘I thought about you too.’
He lifted his head. ‘You’re not really going to marry Nick Bryce?’
‘I’m sure you know I am, George,’ she replied gently. ‘But I wouldn’t be if you hadn’t saved my life.’
He made a disgusted sound in his throat. ‘He’s not bloody good enough for you! I’d marry you, Viv.’
‘That’s enough of that, son. Viv’s marrying Nick,’ said Flora ‘You can’t expect to keep her with us forever.’ There was a sad expression on her face as she stood up. ‘Let’s go and have that champagne. It’ll cheer us all up.’
Later, much later, after they had drunk the champagne, had a barbecue, and George and Mike had dozed off after the excitement of the day, Flora asked Viv to go for a walk along the moonlit beach. For a while they were quiet and it was restful. Then Flora said, ‘I feel I have to say something that you mightn’t like, Viv.’
‘You want me to go away?’
Flora slipped an arm through hers. ‘Of course I don’t! What I would like is for you to stay forever but I know that’s impossible.’ She hesitated. ‘It’s you and George … I can see that as soon as he’s feeling better, your engagement to Nick is going to add spice to the way he feels about you. I know he’s my son but I have to say I wouldn’t put it past him to try and come between you. I can’t see him staying with us indefinitely. He’ll get bored and then he’ll go off looking for a bit of excitement.’
‘Perhaps he’ll want to stay in America to be near you?’
Flora smiled sadly. ‘I’d like to believe it, Viv, but George is a townie – and a Liverpudlian one to boot. He’ll head home.’
‘I think you’re wrong. You were a Liverpudlian townie,’ said Viv. ‘Now you’ve taken to all this like a fish to water.’ She waved a hand to encompass the rolling sea, the beach and the sky. ‘It’s beautiful and so is the vinery. You can’t miss Liverpool now.’