by Lulu Taylor
‘I have to go to work in a moment,’ David said, sipping his own tea. ‘But you’re welcome to stay here as long as you like.’
‘Where am I?’
‘In a little street between the Strand and Covent Garden.’
Julia nodded, sipping the hot, sweet liquid. ‘And where do you work?’
‘St James’s.’
‘Stockbroking? Finance?’
‘No. The palace. St James’s Palace. I’m on leave from the navy working as an aide.’
Julia blinked. ‘Gosh, how grand.’
He smiled. ‘It is, and it isn’t. You’d be surprised. Very ordinary in lots of ways. Didn’t you say last night that your father lives in Cornwall?’
‘Yes. A place called Tawray.’
‘Tawray?’ He looked surprised. ‘I know it. I’m from Cornwall as well. My surname is Pengelly.’
‘Don’t tell me our parents are friends or something.’ She grimaced. ‘That would be a bit too close for comfort.’
‘I don’t think so. We’re Falmouth way. And I’ve never seen Tawray.’
‘It’s beautiful. In fact, there’s nowhere more lovely.’ A longing for home swept over her. ‘I’d love to be there now.’
‘I know that feeling.’
She felt another bond of connection linking them together. He knew Cornwall. He understood. The sense of rightness grew firmer. She had felt it since the moment she woke up; everything seemed to be in its perfect place. There was order here. There was calm and the comfort that came from things done right. She had the strongest sense that this was where she was supposed to be, and warm relief that she had made her way through the storm to a place she belonged.
‘Can I stay here?’ she said suddenly.
‘Of course. I was going to ask if you would.’ He smiled. ‘Stay all day. We can go out for dinner tonight and you can tell me all about yourself. Will you do that?’
‘Yes please.’ She smiled back. ‘I don’t want to frighten you, but I don’t think I’m ever leaving.’
‘I won’t let you,’ he said softly.
‘How funny,’ she said with a laugh. ‘We both know, don’t we?’
‘Yes. Yes we do.’
Chapter Twelve
Present day
‘Your home is so calm compared to mine,’ Johnnie said to Alex the next morning, as they prepared to go into the hospital.
‘Girls,’ Alex smiled. ‘That’s the answer.’
‘Yeah, there is that.’ He smiled back, thinking of his energetic younger sons and the way they raced around, noisy, scatty, unable to concentrate for long, and signally unable to do anything for themselves. He thought of breakfast at their house; he tuned out the chaos as much as he could, munching cereal and sipping coffee while he read the news on his tablet. Netta rushed about, getting the boys everything they needed, asking them about swimming kit, instruments, homework, missing socks and all the rest of it. Then there was Bertie. She’d already got him up, washed and dressed him, and brought him downstairs, settling him before the younger ones arrived. Bertie’s car and chaperone would arrive to take him to school, and Netta would see him off before driving the boys to their school and then heading on to her workplace. By then, Johnnie was on the train into London, his headphones on, listening to music or the radio and thinking about the day ahead.
He had accepted it as the natural order of things. But here was Alex, free of nearly all of that. Scarlett and Jasmine poured out their own cereal and milk, cleared away their own dishes. Jasmine, at only five, could even put things in the dishwasher. It occurred to him that maybe he could do a little more to help Netta in the morning, and he felt suddenly ashamed. He considered himself an enlightened, modern man. He’d changed nappies and bathed babies, and he made a mean pasta with tomato sauce.
But do I, deep down, feel entitled to be looked after by my wife?
He’d thought he was helping by looking after himself. But then, he never wondered if his cereal would be in the cupboard or coffee in the pot, or milk in the fridge. It was just always there, without any effort on his part. He had clean shirts, pants and socks in the drawer; loo paper, shampoo and toothpaste in the bathroom; lightbulbs and Hoover bags and washing powder and dishwasher tablets – all there, as if by magic. Needs he didn’t even know he had were constantly provided for.
He pictured Netta, in her pyjamas while the rest of them were dressed, drinking coffee on the run and skipping breakfast while she unloaded the washing machine, made toast for Joe and told Nathan where to find his PE kit, while he, Johnnie, scanned the news and thought he was helping by putting his plate in the dishwasher before sauntering out.
And was he training the boys to be just as entitled, to expect someone to run around after them, sorting them out as well as herself?
He knew the answer.
At the hospital, Johnnie observed sadness descend on Alex. She had been strong the night before with the girls there, giving them the most positive spin on their grandfather’s condition, but now they were at school, she could show her misery and anxiety.
As they stood in the lift going up to Pa’s floor, he put an arm around her and gave her a quick hug. ‘It’ll be okay.’
She nodded, her eyes glistening. ‘Yeah. Maybe.’
‘Come on.’
They walked the already familiar route to Pa’s room. Sally was sitting by the bed, looking more drawn than the day before, but managing a smile as they came in.
‘He made it through the night, so that’s a very good sign. Do you know, I think he’ll be right as rain by Christmas!’
Her brittle cheerfulness grated on Johnnie and he said brusquely, ‘I don’t think so.’
Sally frowned. ‘What do you mean? The nurse says it’s very good that he hasn’t had any further strokes. He’s almost out of the danger zone, they said.’
Johnnie stood by Pa’s side, looking down at him, his expression grim. ‘They’re soft-soaping you, Sally. It’s obvious Pa isn’t going to get better. It’s a question of when, not if.’
Sally’s blue eyes filled with tears, and she lifted one trembling hand to her face. ‘How can you say that, Johnnie? How can you condemn your own father to death?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, it’s nothing to do with me. It’s just the truth. I’m sorry if you don’t like it.’
‘Alexandra!’ Sally turned to his sister. ‘Don’t let him speak like this, I won’t allow it.’
Johnnie felt the return of the same strange inner burning he’d experienced the day before. Every muscle seemed to tighten. ‘You can’t change the truth, Sally, just because you don’t like it. I know you’ve tried to do that our whole lives, but it’s got to stop. I won’t put up with it anymore. I’ve done it in the past for Pa’s sake, but that’s over now. We’ve gone along with your stupid pretences, and your desire to wipe out the bits of the past that aren’t convenient, but that isn’t going to happen any longer. Do you understand?’
Sally gasped and stared at him through watery eyes, both her shaking hands on her powdery soft cheeks. She said nothing.
‘Johnnie,’ Alex murmured. ‘That’s enough.’
He turned to her. ‘You know I’m right, Al. No one wants it to be true, but it is. I’m going now – I’ve got to get home. If Pa really is out of the danger zone, then good. I’ll wait to hear from you and I’ll come straight back if I’m needed.’
Alex went over, hugged him and kissed his cheek. ‘Yes. Go home to Netta and the boys. Give everyone our love. I’ll keep in touch.’
He felt comforted. The burning sensation died down a little. ‘Thanks. See you later.’
As soon as Johnnie was out on the open road, heading back eastwards, the fury returned as he replayed everything.
Sally, Sally, Sally.
He’d never wanted her in their lives. She’d been forced upon them without so much as a vestige of an explanation or a question about how that made him feel. He remembered the dark, evil days after Mum had died. Life divided into a sunny, carefree time bef
ore, and the terrible morning when Pa had come to see him and Alex in the playroom. They’d been watching Saturday morning television, noisy, silly cartoons, and he’d come in, white-faced and red-eyed.
‘Johnnie, Ali, turn that off, please.’
She was still Ali then.
He’d been going to protest but something in his father’s face frightened him, and they sat on the sofa as Pa told them in a shaking, halting voice that Mum had died.
‘How?’ Johnnie had said at once, while Alex sat there, frozen and aghast, trying to comprehend the magnitude of what she’d just heard.
Pa had looked agonised. ‘She . . . had an accident. At the lake. The boat she was in overturned and she drowned.’
‘Then it can’t be her,’ Johnnie said with ten-year-old confidence. ‘Because Mum can swim really well.’
‘I’m sorry, Johnnie. It is Mum.’
‘Can we see her?’ He was sure that if he could just see whoever it was, he’d be able to tell them it wasn’t Mum. She could swim. And she told them never to go on the lake because it was dangerous. She’d said the boat was leaky, unsafe. It just wasn’t her to do something like that. It wasn’t something she would do.
Pa shook his head. ‘No. You can’t see her. Grandpa and Granny are coming to take you to stay with them for a few days.’
‘Can’t I stay with you?’ Alex asked in a small, stunned voice.
‘It’s best if you go where they can look after you. But I’ll bring you home soon, I promise. Now go and pack your things, they’ll be here in half an hour. Don’t forget your toothbrushes.’
The children stood up, dazed. Alex was starting to cry, but Johnnie couldn’t, not until he was sure it was true. Five minutes before their world had been normal, ordered, dominated by concerns like not missing the cartoons. And now it was all utterly, nightmarishly changed.
That’s when Johnnie saw her in the doorway, watching, half silhouetted, the flicked-out ends of her blonde hair standing out black against the light behind her. He couldn’t see her face clearly, and there was no telling what she was thinking. But the sight of her stamped itself on his memory. Sally had been there right from the start, from the first moment that he’d known he’d lost his mother, and she was inextricably bound up with it. He had to go away, and she stayed. When the children came back after a few days with Pa’s parents, Johnnie still not believing that Mum was really dead, Sally had already moved in. She was at the funeral, holding their hands while Pa did the speech, even though Johnnie didn’t want her to. Her boy, Mundo, was there too, kicking the pew all the way through the service, clearly bored. And by the graveside, he pinched Johnnie hard as if wanting to make him cry out. Johnnie endured it, pinching his lips together and ignoring the stinging tears that jumped into his eyes as Mundo dug his nails into the tender skin on his arm, beginning as he would mean to go on. Sally and Mundo. Neither of them had ever gone away.
And now Pa’s gone too, and Sally is still here. And I think I’m right. I think Sally drove Mum to it by stealing Pa.
He drove on, his fists clenched around the steering wheel, feeling the car pulse and thrust forward under him as he pressed his foot down. He crested a hill and saw a lumbering tractor on the road in front of him.
Oh shit. This isn’t the time of year for tractors. What the hell is it doing?
He slowed down. Ahead of him, the road stretched out like a dark silver ribbon, undulating through the green fields on either side. The morning sun had come out unexpectedly and illuminated it into a dazzling line. In front of the tractor, it was clear in both directions.
Fuck it, I’m not sitting behind this guy for miles on end. I need to get home.
Johnnie flicked on the indicator and pulled out to his right, pressing down on the accelerator as he went to regain his speed. As he began to pass the tractor, he saw suddenly that the road ahead was not a straight line after all, but that he was on the crest of a small hill, the road dipping down ahead before rising up again in the distance, creating the illusion of being level.
The very moment he realised this, he saw a car appear directly ahead of him.
Oh shit.
Instinctively he pressed down hard on the brakes and glanced to the left to see if there was room to pull out of the way, but the tractor driver, seeing the situation, was slowing too.
Speed up, you idiot.
Only if the tractor went faster as Johnnie slowed would he have room to pull over in time. A mere few seconds had passed. The driver in the opposite car had seen him and was braking too, but Johnnie saw, with a strange slow-motion clarity, that with no way of pulling to his left, his fate was now in his brakes and the brakes of the car opposite.
He was horrified yet calm, oddly removed from the situation. He was either going to be involved in a terrible head-on collision in a matter of moments, or he wasn’t. There was nothing to do now but wait, his foot pressed to the floor on the brake.
Johnnie’s car stopped. The tractor had stopped too. The car opposite pulled up violently only a few feet from Johnnie’s bonnet. He stared, stunned. He was alive. They hadn’t hit.
The man in the car opposite opened his door and got out. Johnnie was flooded with relief. He wanted to get out, run to the other man, throw his arms around him and thank him for saving their lives. Then he saw that the man was red-faced, furious, shouting and swearing, and gesturing at the lines on the road that clearly showed no overtaking.
Johnnie had no memory of seeing them. But he must have checked, surely? Surely he had when he had started his manoeuvre? Or maybe not . . .
He was still stunned, but he could see there was going to be no tearful act of gratitude and he couldn’t face a confrontation. He started the engine, and pulled forward, driving slowly between the tractor and the other car, mouthing an apology at the yelling man as he went. Then he drove slowly away, shaking, unable to believe how close he had come to dying on the road, maybe killing someone else in the process. He thought about Netta, Bertie, Nathan and Joe, and his life with all its myriad stresses and strains, pleasures and joys. I nearly left it all forever. Five minutes later, he pulled into a lay-by and sat, dry-eyed but shaking, until he felt calm enough to continue.
We never know. We never know when it’s going to come.
Sitting by Pa’s bedside, Sally was complaining about Johnnie. ‘I don’t know how he can be so negative! Poor David, I’m just glad he can’t hear what his son is saying about him – that he’ll be dead in no time!’
‘He wasn’t saying that,’ Alex said. She had quietly consulted her phone and found several emails about work, asking her when she would be delivering the London-bound decorations, as well as an enquiry for a winter wedding. She was also painfully aware that she had not been keeping her social media accounts up to date, and she had learned lately how much she relied on them for publicising her business and bringing in new clients. As the reality of Pa’s new condition had sunk it, the panic of the last two days had begun to lessen. It was now harder to imagine him up and about, walking and talking, than it was to picture him in this supine position, unconscious and completely unresponsive.
Life would have to go on, no matter what. She had orders to fulfil, bills to pay. Tim’s monthly payment helped with the mortgage and things the girls needed, but she still had to find the lion’s share.
I must see about whether I’m going to get the Tawray contract.
Sally’s voice was still quavering in the background of her thoughts.
‘That boy has always been ungrateful! David’s looked after him so well, and when poor Bertie came along, he was very upset. We all were. I don’t know why Johnnie has to be so obstreperous, I really don’t. He’s been spoiled all his life.’
Alex tried to tune it out. How was it possible for two people to have such diametrically opposed versions of events? It was like they were members of political parties who could never credit their opponents with a shred of human feeling or a single decent motive. Their take on any situation was alw
ays that the other had acted badly, unfairly, true to form.
But Sally’s wrong. Johnnie wasn’t spoiled. Not in the sense she means.
She tuned her out by scrolling through a news feed, reading people’s comments about the things going on in the outside world.
She heard the door open, but didn’t look up, assuming it was a nurse, come in to check the monitors or replace a drip bag. Instead, a deep voice filled the room.
‘Mother, hello. I came as soon as I could.’
She looked up, and Mundo was already in the room, dressed in an expensive camel-coloured coat, every inch the successful lawyer. She was struck by how handsome he looked: his dark hair was cut short, and he had blue eyes, like Sally’s but just a little lighter. A slightly pudgy face and an underbite that pushed out his lower lip were balanced by a strong Roman nose. He went to Sally, took her hands and bent over her, kissing the top of her head. Like her, he had a turn for the dramatic that had the effect of sometimes making everyday actions look stagey and insincere.
He stood back, his brow furrowed. ‘I’m so sorry. What a bloody tragedy.’
Some people had told Alex that Mundo had a beautiful voice. It was certainly deep and mellifluous, with rounded vowels as a result of his grand school, and she could imagine it sounding imposing in a courtroom. But it had always left her cold.
Sally’s face was instantly bright. ‘Oh darling, you’re here.’
‘I’m sorry it’s taken so long. Work’s been manic. I got away as soon as I could.’ Then he looked over at Alex, and smiled, one edge of his mouth pulling up further than the other. ‘Alexandra. How delightful to see you. I’m sorry about the circumstances, that’s all.’
‘Hello, Mundo.’ She stood up, not feeling strong enough to face the two of them together. ‘I’m so sorry, I have to go.’
‘That’s a shame,’ he said, ‘when I’ve only just got here.’
‘Sally will tell you everything.’
Mundo looked mournfully over at David. ‘How’s Pa?’
‘Oh darling!’ Sally said, and buried her face in her hands, sobbing. ‘It’s all too awful.’