A Midwinter Promise

by Lulu Taylor

  And I’m happier now, despite all the pain of splitting up. Tim is too. It’s best for all of us.

  ‘The girls seem settled,’ she said to Di, sitting down opposite with her own mug, leaving the potatoes boiling in their starchy foam. ‘And that’s the main thing. That’s my focus for now.’

  ‘You’ll have to think about yourself too, eventually,’ Di said over the rim of her mug. ‘Your story isn’t over yet.’

  Alex smiled. ‘Maybe. But I’m not quite ready to start the next chapter.’

  Alex was clearing up the dinner things while the girls watched television in their pyjamas when her mobile trilled an incoming call. She picked it up, curious; her stepmother rarely made social calls. ‘Sally?’

  ‘Alexandra, it’s your father. He’s in hospital.’ Sally’s voice cracked suddenly and she croaked, ‘It’s a stroke. You’d better come as soon as you can.’

  Alex listened, dazed, her heart pounding, her hands starting to shake. ‘How bad?’ she said breathlessly.

  ‘Bad. But he’s stable at the moment. Can you tell your brother, please?’

  ‘Are you with him?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘When did it happen?’

  ‘Last night.’

  ‘Last night?’ She was astonished, hardly able to take it in.

  ‘There was no point in bothering you unless it was serious. At first, he seemed to be all right. But he had another attack today. And . . .’

  Alex closed her eyes. Was this what she had feared for so many years? That after all this time, Sally would succeed in keeping her and Pa apart just when it mattered most?

  ‘I’ll come right now,’ she said.

  ‘Tell Johnnie, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course I will.’ She rang off.

  Chapter Two

  Johnnie sat on an uncomfortable plastic chair at the back of the community hall, watching Nathan and Joe’s judo class. It looked a bit absurd for these small children, lost in their thick white judo suits, to be trying to kick and flip each other, but they seemed to be getting a lot out of it. He watched as Joe danced in front of his opponent, his eyes bright and ferocious, and then dashed forward to grab the other child’s jacket and attempt to fell him, squeezing up his face with the effort as he did.

  Well done, fella, he thought, as the other child toppled onto the mat.

  Johnnie’s phone vibrated in his pocket but he resisted the urge to take it out. He’d left work for the day, and now he was watching the twins. He’d resolved not to be like the other parents, ignoring the class and scrolling through their phones. He was here for his sons, and that was important. He’d wished so often that Pa had been around more for him, and so he was determined to be there for his boys.

  It is pretty boring, though.

  He felt guilty for thinking it, and concentrated on watching Nathan attempting a foot manoeuvre. The only other father paying attention looked a bit wild-eyed and kept shouting instructions. ‘No, Cameron, take him down! Down! Oh, for God’s sake, you’ll never do it that way, put some wellie into it.’

  I don’t want to be like that. Joe and Nathan didn’t need a commentary. They just wanted their dad there, some praise at the end, and then home for tea.

  Johnnie usually relished the evening routine of coming home to find the twins at the table eating their supper. Bertie might be there, but he might not – he tended to come and go as he pleased, eating when it suited him, and he usually had a completely different diet from the other two, now that he was gluten and dairy-free. Netta would be there, busy at the stove and sink, or loading the dishwasher. In no time, she would have fed the boys, overseen homework and reading, got them changed and ready for bed. Sometimes when he came home, they were already in their PJs, all pink-cheeked and warm from the bath, and Netta would be reading them a bedtime story; he would hear the low murmur of her voice from their bedroom. Bertie would be in his room by then, on his swing, or staring out of the window, wearing his noise-cancelling headphones. Johnnie would pop in to say goodnight, and these days Bertie accepted his hug and kiss without demur, which was progress.

  It was precious to him, that home. He’d made it his fortress against the world, where he was protected from all the pain outside it. That was why he was feeling unsettled lately. Things weren’t quite right and he wasn’t sure what the cause was. Netta was prickly, distant. He had to tackle it.

  I need to talk to her about it. I’ll do it tonight.

  He’d been meaning to sit down with her for ages, maybe cook her something nice, and have a proper heart-to-heart to find out if anything in particular was making her miserable. But life was so rushed and stressful, there was always a mountain of stuff to get through. The time never seemed right for a big discussion and all the heart searching and pain that inevitably followed. He never seemed to have the energy for it.

  But I ought to make the effort. I must.

  It was why he was less than keen to rush home tonight, though. His phone vibrated again. Wondering if Netta was trying to reach him, he took it out and saw a text from Alex.

  CALL ME ASAP. URGENT.

  He frowned, his heart instantly accelerating to a faster beat. Alex was no drama queen. She wouldn’t send something like this without cause. He got up and headed out of the hall, putting the phone to his ear as it processed Alex’s number. A moment later, the ring tone sounded, and then Alex’s voice.

  ‘Johnnie. It’s Pa. He’s in hospital. He’s had a stroke.’

  There was an invisible punch to his gut and a whining dizziness spun through his head. He fought for control. He had to stay calm. ‘Oh no. Oh God. How bad?’

  ‘Sally says bad. I’m on my way to him in hospital now, I’m just dropping the girls with Tim. I think you should come as soon as possible. I’ll text you the details of the ward when I have them.’

  Absurdly, he thought of all the hundreds of tiny obligations holding him in place: his job in a high-powered venture capital company, the emails, the phone calls, the meetings, the errands, the places he had to be. He had to get the boys home, for one. ‘I don’t know if I can get away.’ He remembered his important meeting the next day and said helplessly, ‘Work . . .’

  ‘Johnnie,’ Alex said gently but firmly, ‘you can get away. Your father is in hospital, possibly dying. No one would expect you to stay in the office.’

  He couldn’t speak. Pa can’t be dying.

  ‘Johnnie? Are you there?’

  He managed to swallow and find his voice. ‘Of course, you’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’ll get away as soon as I can and let you know what time I’ll arrive. You’ll call if anything changes?’

  ‘Of course. Drive carefully. I’ll see you later.’

  He shut his eyes and took a deep breath, realising he was shaking. Then he went back into the hall to collect Nathan and Joe.

  ‘You’re early,’ Netta said with surprise as Johnnie came into the kitchen with the twins, who immediately dashed off. She turned to look at him, eyes questioning, and then she saw his face and her expression changed to concern. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Pa’s had a stroke.’ It came out strangled and the calm he’d managed to assume in front of the boys started to abandon him. ‘He’s in hospital.’

  ‘Oh love, I’m sorry. That’s terrible.’ She came over at once and hugged him, with no trace of her coldness that morning. He relaxed into her, finding comfort in the silken touch of her hair against his cheek and the musky rose scent that she always wore. It was so long since they’d hugged like this. Why had they stopped?

  ‘I need to get down to Cornwall right away,’ he said.

  She pulled away, breaking their hug, but holding on to his hand. ‘Do you need me there too?’ Her tone was neutral but he thought he could sense her mind whirring over all the dozens of difficulties that would arise if she suddenly had to go to Cornwall.

  ‘No, it’s fine for now. I’ll go and then let you know what’s happening. There’s nothing you can d
o.’

  ‘I’ll take care of everything here. Don’t worry.’

  He knew she would cope brilliantly. She was so much smaller and more fragile than he was, and yet so strong. And he could turn to her in a crisis. They might have their day-to-day difficulties, but Netta made it a point of honour to form a united front when things got tough. In a way, that was the upside of trouble: a sense that they were pulling at the oars of their little boat together, working hard to keep it afloat, to keep it moving forward as safely as possible. It was only when the crisis had passed and they could breathe again that they would turn and look at each other and remember all the other stuff.

  Netta squeezed his hand. ‘Be careful, love. I’ll be thinking of you.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He managed a smile. ‘I will.’

  The traffic was terrible, of course. Rush hour heading out on the M3 as darkness fell, the most unpleasant time to travel. But who got to choose these things? Who knew when the summons would come? As he drove, crawling slowly along the city’s arterial roads, he imagined the rupture in his father’s head – maybe it had been building up for days, weeks – and the instant when – bam! – something sundered and blood came rushing out, filling up the hemispheres of the brain in dark clouds, like spilled ink, drowning it in thick fluid. If the rupture were small, contained, and if treatment were given fast, then damage might be limited and rehabilitation possible. If it were a big stroke and not treated in time, then . . . well . . . it could mean an infinite number of things, depending on how much blood and where it went, what pathways it flooded, how much of the brain it killed . . .

  Oh Pa.

  But when he thought of his father, he got the same words in his mind: Not yet. I’m not ready. It’s not time. As though Pa’s stroke was all about him. Stop being selfish, he told himself firmly, and noticed his hands clenched so tightly around the steering wheel that his knuckles were dead white. It’s Pa who matters right now.

  Sally had not phoned him herself, he realised. Well, that was hardly a surprise. She did everything she could to avoid him and had done for years. He’d felt the chilly wind of her disapproval for so long that it was hard to remember that there had once been another time when Sally had been a source of comfort to him. He could still remember running to her crying when he’d fallen off his bike, and how she’d wrapped him in her arms, cooing over him, rubbing his sore arm. He’d inhaled the floral scent of her perfume and the warmth of her clean skin and felt safe. He’d felt better.

  But it hadn’t been like that for years and years.

  Just when we needed her most, she turned against us. And then she insisted on moving out of Tawray, renting it out so that we could never go there. And now she’s sold it. The house that should have come to me and Alex.

  His dark feelings rose up from the depths, the ones that formed a smoky cloud of hatred around Sally, the architect of so much of his misery. He had only tolerated her for as long as he had because of Pa. And now he was on his way towards her, and heading back to the home he’d avoided for years in order to keep away from her.

  He shook his head, trying to dispel the unpleasant sensation.

  Pa is what matters. He’s my father. She’s nothing to me. I have to focus on Pa.

  Johnnie drove west, the density of London and its satellite towns giving way to the vistas of the countryside: rolling fields and plains bordered by hedgerows, dark stains of copses and woods, the knots of houses topped off with a church spire. The sky turned orange and pink like a tropical cocktail, then dark blue and black. The evening news played on the radio as Johnnie drove on automatic pilot, considering how many times he’d travelled this stretch of road. The first time he’d properly headed away from home had been to take himself to university, vowing he would never come back. He’d thought then that Pa might resist this threat, or at some point come and persuade him to return home at least for a visit, but he never did. Johnnie had gone to King’s College London, choosing the big city perhaps because Pa had said how glad he was to have left, how he never wanted to return there.

  Maybe I was testing him, Johnnie thought. Seeing how important I was to him. Pa’s resistance to London had not made much sense. It was hardly a foreign place to him; after all, he’d lived in the heart of it for years. If anything, he was a member of its most privileged echelons, and would be welcomed back into them anytime he wanted.

  It was Sally. She didn’t want to see me, or visit me, or let me and Pa get close.

  He remembered their one visit, Pa and Sally coming to his shared student house when he lived out in the second year, and the distaste on Sally’s face at the grot and mess. She could hardly conceal her horror at being in Tooting, with its grimy streets and litter and high street of fast-food chicken outlets, betting shops and Caribbean supermarkets. They hadn’t stayed for long.

  ‘We must get home, Johnnie,’ Pa had said, but it had been Sally itching to leave, picking up her coat, winding her pink cashmere scarf around her neck. Johnnie had resisted the urge to grab the two ends and pull them tight, but it took an effort. He sometimes wondered how Pa could be so blind to the way Sally treated him. Why couldn’t he see that she never smiled at Johnnie, never really looked at him, contradicted him almost every time he spoke? And the way she hustled Pa away, as though he was some kind of rock star who had to be protected from the attentions of the hoi polloi . . . it was ridiculous. It had gone on for so long – through Johnnie’s student days, his marriage to Netta, the arrival of the boys and all that entailed. Pa had barely been allowed to be an observer of Johnnie’s life, let alone a participant.

  Johnnie had not backed down. He refused to beg. He returned coldness with coldness, and gave out as much rudeness as he received. He wouldn’t show how deeply it had hurt him to be shut out.

  Not like Alex. She tries to please her instead.

  Poor Alex had been kicked around by Sally for years, the complicit victim of Sally’s relentless games of manipulation. Johnnie had told her over and over not to give in to it but Alex was too scared to stand up to her. She had seen how little effort Pa had made to chase after Johnnie when he vanished, and she was afraid he would be like that with her too.

  ‘Besides,’ Alex had said, ‘it’s different with me. Sally feels more strongly about me because I’m a woman. For some reason, I’m more of a threat than you are. So I’ve got to be more careful.’

  Johnnie wasn’t so sure. He sensed Sally’s wariness about him just as much as Alex felt it about her. But perhaps the two of them personified different types of threat: Johnnie posing a risk to material security, and Alex to the emotional bond between Sally and Pa.

  The mistake I made was underestimating her. I thought she wouldn’t dare touch Tawray. I didn’t realise I’d have to fight for it until it was too late.

  He had not seen how capable Sally was of deviousness and betrayal. He had thought she would be happy just with marrying Pa and taking Mum’s place as the chatelaine of Tawray, and he’d imagined Sally merely wanted to swan around the gracious house, perhaps opening the village fete, or showing off to deferential tourists as she led them around the state rooms on open days. He’d thought that being Pa’s wife would be enough for her. But he was wrong. She was determined to take everything for herself, and Johnnie had been stupid not to see how far her ambition stretched.

  She wouldn’t be satisfied with that. She wants everything, every scrap for herself. Nothing for me. Nothing for Alex.

  The house had gone, without their even being offered the chance to say goodbye to it, all managed with the kind of secrecy and shutting out that he’d associated with Sally for so long now. She liked to keep him and Alex in the dark, push them away, making it quite clear that their feelings didn’t matter to her. They hadn’t even been allowed to take anything from the house. What had happened to all the furniture, the pictures, the china and all the rest? Was it in storage, or had it been sold?

  It belonged to Mum. It was her house. Johnnie’s fingers tightened around the
steering wheel as he drove. Sally had no right to push Pa to sell it. She had no right to shut us out of the decision making.

  What he didn’t understand is what she had ever hoped to achieve by this fracturing of their family. Why had she wanted to inflict pain and suffering on Johnnie and Alex, to shut them off from their father?

  ‘She doesn’t know she’s doing it,’ Alex would say, trying to be charitable. When she came to stay in London, or Johnnie was with her in Cornwall, they would sit up late at night when Netta had long retired and all the children were asleep, talking it all through over bottles of red wine. ‘At some level she’s protecting herself, I think. Trying to keep herself as the focus of Pa’s love and attention. She’s probably very insecure. Maybe she’s afraid that Mum was a hard act to follow and that Pa doesn’t love her as much as he did Mum.’

  ‘You’re too kind to her,’ Johnnie said, shaking his head. ‘I think she’s monstrously selfish. And jealous of Mum too, I expect – the fact that Tawray was her house.’

  ‘She can be kind,’ Alex reasoned. ‘I see her more than you do, and she can be perfectly nice and reasonable.’

  ‘Maybe to you. She never is to me.’

  ‘You’re pretty cold to her as well.’

  ‘She started it.’

  Alex laughed. ‘You sound like a child.’

  ‘I was a child,’ Johnnie said quickly and he felt that familiar shard of pain in his heart. ‘I hadn’t done anything to her. But she turned against me. Against both of us, when we were suffering the most.’

  Alex nodded solemnly. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And why?’

  ‘That’s the million-dollar question.’

  ‘Come on, we both know why.’ Johnnie fixed her a piercing look. ‘One word. Mundo.’

  Alex’s gaze sheared away. ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘I suppose it’s the only thing that makes sense.’

  Of course it was Mundo, Johnnie thought as he drove into the evening gloom. She wanted to make sure he always came first. He’s the reason she had to banish us – because we threatened his pre-eminence.