A Midwinter Promise

by Lulu Taylor

  Johnnie gave her a quizzical look and a smile. Alex was clearly not in possession of that bit of information.

  ‘Yes. And a right bundle of laughs she is too. Our very own little ray of sunshine.’

  Johnnie glanced back at Alex, who had flushed light pink. I can help her out here. ‘Are you married, Jasper?’ he asked casually.

  ‘Nope. Polly’s put me off the idea, if I’m honest. Now, you’d better come and see this painting,’ Jasper said, leading the way to the door. ‘We need to decide what to do with it.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Johnnie said, following him into the house. ‘Lead the way.’

  Once he was actually in front of the painting, Johnnie realised he was in no way prepared for the scale of it. It was enormous, the people life-sized, the proportions perfect and the effect of realism astounding. The full effect would only be felt when it was upright, he could see that, but even so, it was wonderfully real.

  ‘Look at the mice!’ he said, pointing them out wherever he saw them.

  ‘Why are there boxes of matches everywhere?’ Alex asked wonderingly.

  ‘I think it’s full of messages,’ Jasper said. ‘I see more and more of them – I just can’t work out what they mean.’ He pointed to the window in the painting. ‘I mean why is there a parrot on the curtain rail? There must be a reason, don’t you think, Ali?’

  Johnnie looked at his sister, surprised to hear her called by her old childhood name. She was evidently startled. ‘Did you just call me Ali?’

  ‘Did I?’ Jasper looked surprised. ‘I don’t know why. You just look like an Ali to me. But I’ll make sure I call you Alex from now on.’

  ‘No, no, it’s fine. you can call me Ali. I don’t mind it.’ She smiled.

  ‘You’re right, Jasper,’ Johnnie said firmly. ‘She does look like an Ali. I’ll call you that too, if you like.’

  ‘I think I do,’ Alex said with a laugh. ‘Try it out, and we’ll see.’

  While Alex and Jasper talked about all the possible hidden meanings in the painting, Johnnie stared at the picture of his mother. She was just a girl but unmistakable as his mother; he remembered with sudden vivid clarity things he had forgotten: the shape of her eyes, the colour of her hair that was so like his own, the way her hands looked. He could hear her voice again after years of forgetting it. He heard her calling him in across the lawn, reading him a story, singing to him. He felt her soft touch and a kiss on his cheek.

  This was her place first. Before it was Pa’s and before it was Sally’s.

  The thought was comforting. They’d tried to shut her out of Tawray, but they never could. It was her place and her home. She was here and always would be.

  ‘I think this whole painting is a message to Mum,’ he said suddenly. ‘She’s the only one looking out and look at that smile – it’s so collusive. I think the painter was telling her story in this picture. We just have to work out what it is.’

  ‘That’s a lovely idea,’ Alex said softly.

  ‘Aye,’ Jasper said. ‘I like the way this study of grown-ups is full of the elements of a child’s imagination. That’s something really special. And she’ – he pointed to Lala – ‘is gorgeous.’

  ‘You’ll get to tell her that in person soon,’ Alex said with a laugh. ‘Though she won’t quite look the same and her girlfriend might be a bit protective of her in that respect.’

  ‘A man can dream,’ he replied cheerfully. ‘Then I guess we know the answer to the dilemma of whether we put it up, or we put it away . . .’

  ‘Of course,’ Alex said.

  ‘Up,’ Johnnie said. ‘It’s the only way to go, after all.’

  When they got back to the Old Barn later that day, Johnnie found his spirits swooping downwards once more. It had been wonderful to see his mother again, and to experience that flood of vivid memory. Now sadness was setting in.

  He looked over at Alex as she started to make them both some lunch. The girls were back at school, the house was quiet, apart from Hadji’s snores as he slept in the basket by the door.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ Johnnie said. ‘Seeing Mum again . . .’ He felt that burning anger reignite inside his belly. ‘If Pa and Sally really drove her to it . . .’

  Alex looked back, her eyes apprehensive. ‘I know what you’re thinking.’

  ‘If they really did . . .’ – Johnnie took a deep breath – ‘Sally should get what’s coming to her.’

  ‘We have to be sure,’ Alex said solemnly. ‘We have to be absolutely certain we know the truth.’

  ‘Sally would never tell us,’ Johnnie said dismissively. ‘She’s a completely unreliable witness. She’ll protect herself, like she’s always done.’

  ‘Maybe. But we ought to give her the chance.’ Alex turned back to the soup she was stirring. ‘If we’re planning to take everything away from her, then we owe her that.’

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  1997

  David felt numb. The service was over. All around him, people were sobbing. Unbearably sad mourning music filled the ancient abbey, discordant yet beautiful, as the choir entreated the Lord to give rest to his handmaiden, who had fallen asleep.

  David watched the procession approach slowly down the central aisle. The boots of the guardsmen carrying the lead-lined coffin crashed to the ground in perfect time as they bore it out towards the September sunshine. With each step, the trumpets of the lilies on top of the coffin shuddered. The world was watching, it seemed. Watching and weeping.

  May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

  The shock and agony in the abbey were palpable. She was too young. She was beautiful.

  The pallbearers passed him, slow, steady, their faces set in strained concentration as they bore their heavy load. The colours, to David, seemed too bright for this despair: the scarlet of their uniforms, the vivid gold, red and blue of the royal standard draped over the coffin, the pure white of the lilies, the green of their leaves.

  She’s in there. Inside there.

  How had all that light and life and promise been extinguished? What had it all been for?

  What does it matter?

  He remembered her now as a flash of quicksilver, a marvellous melange of smiles and tears, of temper and joy. The moaning, the laughing, the jokes. The self-pity, the rage, the happiness, the adoration for her children. The magical radiance, the special star quality that came from beauty mixed with an inner vulnerability. Everyone had felt it.

  But I didn’t really know her. She wasn’t really connected to me. I was in her life for a time, I saw one facet of her existence, and then I was gone. Once I’d served my purpose. Gone like all the others. No real malice in it. That was just how it was.

  It was all long ago. Her death was terrible. But it meant nothing to him in comparison with losing Julia. That’s why he couldn’t feel anything now. Life had lost its colour, its meaning. He had lost his own self. There was nothing more to go on for, he could see that with utter clarity.

  The coffin procession disappeared through the abbey doors and into the sunshine beyond.

  ‘David, I’m scared!’ Sally’s blue eyes were wide, her fear obvious. They were in the drawing room of Tawray, the late summer sunshine streaming in through the windows, burnishing the armour of Julia’s two knights who now stood either side of the fireplace.

  David was standing there, his head on his arms which were folded on the chimney piece. He didn’t reply. He could barely hear her.

  ‘David!’ she begged, going up to him, putting her hand on his back. ‘Please speak to me. You’re frightening me.’

  He turned his head to her, opening his eyes. They felt red and dry, a legacy of the sleepless nights he’d suffered since . . .

  Oh Julia.

  The memory of her lying there on the stainless-steel table, marble white with eyes closed, her spirit gone, her marvellous tawny hair limp and lifeless. It haunted him, it stayed on his eyelids after they were shut, it was everywhere he looked.

  Ju
lia. Why?

  He knew why.

  I did this. I did it to her. It’s all my fault.

  He had never comprehended what unbearable torment might be like until now. All pleasure in life was gone and nothing had meaning. All beauty and joy had been leached from the world, its colours drained, its purpose gone. But that was not the worst of it.

  I can’t look at the children.

  Johnnie and Ali were living reproaches. He couldn’t bring himself to look into their eyes, innocent, stunned, grieving, confused, knowing that he had done this to them, he had killed their mother, and he couldn’t live with the guilt. He wanted to run through the house screaming, ‘I loved her! I didn’t want her to die!’ He wanted to find Julia wherever she must be hiding and shake her till her teeth rattled. ‘How dare you, Julia?’ he’d shout. ‘How dare you do this to us? To them? To me?’

  But that was impossible because she was dead and he had done it, and now he couldn’t bear to look at the children. In his head, he knew that was wrong. They needed him, as they sobbed for her. Their eyes pleaded with him for an explanation and for comfort. They were desperate for love, and they needed twice as much from him now.

  And I have nothing to give them. Nothing.

  It was not that he didn’t love them. He loved them too much. Far too much to stand their grief and the guilt it engendered. As a result he could see no future, nothing for himself. He had nothing to offer them either. There was no point to anything at all.

  Sally had drawn back, but she was still staring at him with those wide, frightened blue eyes. Her simplicity and straightforwardness had given him such comfort when he was confronted with Julia’s complex problems. She had offered him what he’d needed from Julia: warmth, affection, the embrace that welcomed him into her body and gave him solace. If only he had had that from Julia, he never would have needed Sally. But Julia practically pushed him into Sally’s arms. Even though it was never said, he’d come to believe that in some obscure way Julia was giving him permission to sleep with Sally, in the knowledge that, at the end of it, he loved her, Julia, best.

  But had she?

  She had certainly suggested that he sleep with other women. She had never named Sally. Perhaps she hadn’t meant Sally after all. When she’d suggested he meet his needs elsewhere, the pain had been indescribable. She was closing her physical self off from him forever. He knew why, intellectually, and he had every sympathy with the horror she had been through. But he couldn’t divorce love for his wife from physical love. It didn’t seem possible, nor did it seem fair and right to ask it.

  How can she have meant Sally?

  But she knew about Sally, he was sure of it. In the spring – was it so recent? – Julia had taken him back into her bed. His heart had lifted and sung with joy when he realised that she wanted to make love to him. He knew for certain that he would abandon Sally in a heartbeat if Julia wanted him back, if he could share the love he had in his heart with her body. Four nights. It had been a dream of passion for him, full of the kind of shuddering bliss he had known in the early days of their relationship.

  But it hadn’t lasted. He’d known that it wasn’t the same for her. He could feel her struggle, and he knew that she had fought valiantly, but lost the battle. She’d said that the last time, her voice freighted with sadness, ‘I’m so sorry. I can’t. I wish I could with all my heart. I can’t do it.’

  It had broken his heart but he’d known for certain that was the end. And although he had tried to resist, he’d ended up returning to Sally’s arms: warm, simple, uncomplicated.

  And Julia couldn’t live with it. She killed herself because I betrayed her.

  ‘David, you can’t blame yourself,’ Sally said in her quavering tones.

  ‘Of course I can!’ he shouted, and he saw her flinch, and was glad because she was guilty too. They’d both betrayed Julia. ‘Who else is there?’

  ‘Julia wasn’t well! She had a mental illness!’

  ‘She was fine, you know that. She hadn’t been ill since Ali.’

  ‘That’s not true, she wasn’t able to sleep with you,’ Sally protested. ‘She was still sick, you must see that!’

  David shook his head, looking away in disgust. ‘No. She was fine. I put an unbearable burden on her, and the two of us caused her terrible pain. You know that, Sally. So do I.’

  She stared at him, biting her lip, scared. ‘What are you going to do, David?’

  ‘I have no idea. We haven’t even buried her yet.’ He dropped his head on his arms. ‘I don’t know how I can go on, how I’ll look after the children. I can’t even fucking look at them!’ Hot tears stung his eyes and he blinked them away. He wouldn’t allow himself the luxury of tears. He didn’t deserve even them.

  Sally put her arm across his back again, and leaned close to him. He could smell the floral scent of her perfume. ‘Let me help you, David. I want to. I can look after you and protect you, and make it all right again, I promise.’

  ‘I don’t deserve happiness,’ he said wretchedly. ‘You shouldn’t be around me, not when I’m like this. I’m no good for anyone, including you.’

  ‘David, I love you. I want to help you.’ She was urgent, insistent. ‘I’ll make sure no one ever hurts you again. I promise.’ There was a long pause and she said again, almost on a whisper, ‘I love you, David. I loved Julia too, we both did. But we couldn’t help her in the end. We need to go on with our lives. The children need that too. Let me help you, David, please.’

  He lifted his eyes to her. He could see her sincerity all over her face.

  She really means it. She wants to do it.

  It would be easy that way. He could give all the responsibility to Sally, while he took on the lifelong wrestle with the knowledge that he had killed Julia and destroyed her children by taking their mother away. Sally would sort it out. He saw, quite suddenly, that only she could enable him to carry on in any meaningful way.

  ‘Do you mean it? It’s a burden for you.’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ she said firmly. Her arm tightened around him. ‘It’s what I want. You’ll never regret it, I swear.’

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Present day

  In her study, Alex took a deep breath and picked up the phone. Sally answered, as she hoped she would. She was pretty sure Mundo was too lazy to answer the telephone, even if he was there.

  ‘Sally, it’s Alex.’

  ‘Oh.’ Sally’s voice dropped to a whispery quaver. ‘What is it?’

  Alex blinked in surprise. This was the first time she’d made contact with Sally since before the reading of the will. She suspected Sally had noticed a little chilliness from her at the funeral. She’d expected more of a reaction than this to a phone call.

  ‘I’d like to come and see you.’

  ‘I don’t think . . .’ Sally said quickly, her voice still low. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

  ‘Well, there are some things I’d like to discuss with you. I think we need to talk. I have to warn you that Johnnie is thinking seriously about the terms of Pa’s will. I think we should get everything out in the open and clear the air, so we can move forward. No one wants conflict or extreme solutions.’ Alex hoped she was being clear but it was hard to say out loud that Sally was risking her house if she chose to refuse offers of mediation.

  ‘You can’t come here,’ Sally said urgently. ‘Mundo won’t allow it.’

  ‘Mundo?’ The name was bitter on her tongue. ‘Why not?’

  There was a pause as if Sally was looking over her shoulder to make sure she was not observed. ‘He says he’s going to challenge David’s will. He doesn’t care how long it takes. He’s told me I can’t see you or Johnnie anymore.’

  To her surprise, Alex heard distress in Sally’s voice. Despite her newfound fury towards her stepmother, she felt indignant on her behalf. ‘He can’t do that. You can see who you like!’ And I need you to tell me your version of what happened. I need to hear your story.

  ‘Th
at’s what he’s said. I can’t go against Mundo, Alex. I’m sorry, you can’t come here. Please don’t call again.’ Sally put the phone down, leaving Alex listening in astonishment to an empty line.

  Alex lay awake in the night. The thoughts flying around her head were keeping her adrenaline coursing long after switching her light out. She tossed and turned on the pillows, her eyes stubbornly open, and she stared wide-eyed into the darkness.

  I can’t let this happen. I can’t let him get away with it.

  Memories of what Mundo had put her through during those awful years kept bubbling to the surface of her mind, and she pushed them down, not wanting to see them and feel their force again.

  Control. That’s what matters to him. He only wants to win. But how is he going to challenge the will? It obviously came as a surprise to him, that’s why he’s taken his time before telling us what he intends to do. He’s been coming up with a plan. What is it?

  It was impossible to get any peace, and even though she was exhausted, she couldn’t sleep. Then, suddenly, a thought floated into her mind.

  I’ll ask him not to do it. I’ll go there and I’ll ask him not to. Maybe that’s something no one has ever tried.

  For some reason, it seemed to make perfect sense. A blanket of calm fell over her and a few minutes later, she was asleep.

  The next morning, she dropped the girls off at school, stopped to pick up some things in town and then went straight to Sally’s house. Mundo’s silver-blue Aston Martin sat in the driveway – typically ostentatious and yet also extremely covetable.

  Sally answered the doorbell, and she gasped when she saw Alex. ‘I told you not to come!’ she said, her expression anxious. ‘What are you thinking of?’

  Alex still found it hard to accept this new, vulnerable Sally, the one who worried about who she was allowed to see, who perhaps even missed her. ‘Can I come in, Sally? Just for a moment.’

  Sally opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again and stepped back to allow Alex in.

  Alex stepped into the hall. It was just the same. It felt as though Pa had popped out and would be back at any minute. But he’ll never come back. She thought of Lala’s words again and she felt her coldness to Sally harden further. ‘Is Mundo here?’