The Olive Tree

by Lucinda Riley

  ‘Yes. He does.’ Helena looked up at this astonishing woman, sitting at her table and calmly explaining she knew everything; that she’d always known. ‘I really don’t know what to say, Jules, other than that I’m so terribly sorry for any pain I’ve caused you. It’s no excuse, but Sacha never did tell me he was married. He said his name was Alexander. In fact, he told me almost nothing at all about the details of his life in England.’

  ‘That hardly surprises me,’ Jules sniffed. ‘I’m sure he was happy to completely reinvent himself at the time, and conveniently forget that he was married.’

  ‘Did Sacha know it was me who was marrying William, do you think?’

  ‘When we got the invitation, I do remember both of us looking at your name next to William’s: Helena. But I’m sure he thought, just as I did, it was far too much of a coincidence to be you.’

  ‘It was, it is. And if he had known . . . I’ve always wondered why he never tried to contact me and warn me.’

  ‘Well, if I’d wanted him – and you – to suffer, watching you both on your wedding day was payment enough. And then, when Sacha set eyes on Alex for the first time that day . . . well.’ Jules shook her head and sighed. ‘I’m sure it’s been hell, especially for you, Helena. After all, I’ve always known, but William hasn’t.’

  ‘And you didn’t tell Sacha you thought Alex was his?’ Helena was astounded.

  ‘The fact that Alex was almost certainly my husband’s offspring was a shock, yes, but what would have been the point of jumping up and down and divorcing him? It was blatantly obvious – given we first met you minutes after you’d just married Sacha’s closest friend – that I didn’t need to worry about you running off into the sunset together. I saw then how much you and William loved each other.’

  ‘We did, yes, or at least . . .’ Helena checked herself. ‘I still do love him. I honestly don’t know how you’ve coped with all this, Jules. I know I couldn’t have.’

  ‘Of course I’d have preferred you not to have had a raging affair with my husband when I was sitting, lonely, miserable and pregnant by myself in England, but you have to remember that I did know. Knowledge is power, and it was my decision to stay with him. Being a single mother didn’t appeal, for starters. I left that one to you,’ she retorted. ‘I wanted a father in situ for my son. And as I’ve said to you before, I loved him then. He was a flawed, needy man, but you can’t choose who you love, can you? And you, more than anyone, should be able to understand. I presume you loved Sacha, too?’

  ‘Once, yes, I did.’

  ‘I always felt rather sorry for you, Helena, watching you having to live a lie. So, tell me – how did William find out?’

  ‘I had Fabio, my old dancing partner, staying here. Sacha was with me in a photograph Fabio showed him from Vienna.’

  ‘Whoops. Is he mad? I bet he is.’

  ‘He’s divorcing me. I got a text this morning.’

  ‘An understandable gut reaction,’ nodded Jules coolly. ‘And what about Alex? Horrified at the thought of Sacha being his dad?’

  ‘Yes. That’s why he’s run away. The police have just been here. The search has moved to England now.’

  ‘Alex’ll turn up. And get over the shock, and forgive you. He adores you. So, what now? With William and me out of the picture, I suppose the two erstwhile lovers can resume their grande passion.’

  ‘No, Jules, I—’

  ‘Helena, you’re welcome to him, really. I got with the programme, as Rupes would say, a long time ago. This divorce is the best thing I’ve ever done. In retrospect, I had no idea how miserable that self-absorbed sod made me. If you want him, I’m sure he’s yours for the taking. He’s always believed you’re the love of his life. I see it every time he looks at you. Although I wonder, in reality, whether Sacha knows how to love anyone but himself.’

  ‘I swear to you, Jules, that the last person on earth I would want to be with is Sacha. He lied to me, then vanished into thin air, leaving me high and dry in Vienna. To be blunt, I find it difficult to even be in the same room with him. I just love William, and I want him to come back so very much . . . Sorry,’ Helena wiped the tears away harshly. ‘I have absolutely no right to cry. You must hate me.’

  ‘I hated the woman in the sketches that day, yes, but how could I hate you, Helena? You’re a genuinely nice person who just happens to have an innate ability to make men fall in love with her. But it’s hardly brought you happiness, has it? In fact, it seems to me that it’s brought nothing but chaos and misery.’

  ‘I . . .’ Helena’s mobile rang, and she snatched it up instantly. ‘Hello? William, have you heard? Alex has gone missing and . . . really? . . . Oh, thank God, thank God! Yes, I will. Can I speak to him? Okay, I understand. Just send him my love, then. Bye.’ She dropped her mobile onto the table and put her head in her hands. ‘Thank God, thank God,’ she repeated as tears of relief choked her speech.

  ‘Alex has been found?’ asked Jules.

  ‘Yes, he’s with William in England. Oh Jules, thank God!’

  Jules stood up and moved towards Helena. She put her arms around her shoulders. ‘There, there,’ she soothed. ‘Told you he’d be all right, didn’t I? He’s a survivor, just like his dad. Talking of Sacha – I kicked him out of the house last night. He arrived uninvited from England with Rupes – drunk as a skunk, as usual, and begging me to take him back. It really was quite satisfying to tell him to bugger off. He probably slept under a grapevine last night. God, he smelt awful, Helena.’ Jules wrinkled her nose. ‘He needs serious help, but luckily, I’m no longer the one to persuade him to get it.’

  ‘No.’ Helena only half listened, inwardly hugging herself with the relief of knowing Alex was safe and well in England with William.

  ‘So, we’re leaving in a couple of days. I’ve found a sweet little cottage to rent near Rupes’ new school. Not quite what we’ve been used to, granted, but I’ve already contacted the local estate agents and I’ve got a couple of job interviews lined up. Do me good to get back to work, and there’s a nice local primary school for Viola too.’

  ‘I thought you loved it here?’

  ‘I do, but let’s face it, Helena, I’d simply be running away. And I’ve got the children to think about.’

  ‘Yes, you do,’ Helena agreed. ‘I . . . will you tell them that Alex is actually Sacha’s son?’

  ‘No. I think they’ve got enough on their plates just now. And besides, it’s Sacha’s job to give them the bad news, not mine, though I’m sure he won’t. He’s too much of a coward. So . . .’ Jules sighed. ‘It’s time to say goodbye. Thanks for your support over the summer, Helena. And maybe now the air is cleared, we can think about being proper friends. Don’t be a stranger in England, will you?’

  ‘No, of course not. Though God knows where I’ll be living.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,’ Jules said airily as she stood up. ‘Unlike Sacha, William loves you far too much to let you go. See you soon – ciao.’

  ALEX’S DIARY

  14th August 2006

  Well.

  It’s been an adventure, that’s for sure. In the past twenty-four hours I have transmogrified from an unknown, chubby thirteen-year-old boy with no distinguishing features, into a thieving, renegade runaway. Who is on the missing list across Europe.

  I wonder if Interpol were contacted. I do hope so, as it would look rather good in my future biography.

  Once I’d decided I’d found a way to kill two birds with one stone, I moved fast. I knew where Mum kept my passport, and also her English debit card and a wad of Cypriot pounds. I called the taxi company she uses and got a very nice man who spoke some English to take me to Paphos airport. On the way there, I made a big show of saying there was an emergency in England – God bless her, I used my already-dead granny’s ailing health – and by the time we got to the airport, even I had begun to believe she only had hours left to live. And so had he.

  When we arrived, I handed him a big tip and a
sked him if he could help me buy a ticket on the next flight to England at the Cyprus Airways desk, as I spoke no Greek. And told him that my dad, who was meeting me there, had just texted me to say he was delayed and I was to go ahead and buy the ticket. I’d already checked out that children over twelve can fly alone on some airlines, but others insisted on them being accompanied by an adult.

  Then fate took a hand. I’d befriended a sweet old lady standing in front of me at the queue for check in. I’d loaded her suitcase onto the weighing machine then helped her as she fumbled with bird-like, shaking hands in the plastic wallet for her passport and ticket. And I handed them with my own passport and ticket to the check-in lady. Subsequently, we were allocated seats together and during the long wait in departures, the two of us became firm friends. Using the same technique I’d employed at check-in, as we boarded, I handed over both our passports, making it obvious to the lady checking them that I was caring for my companion. Whom she hopefully believed was an elderly relative of mine. Grannies – dead, dying or alive – seemed to have come in very handy in my plan to escape back to England.

  Thankfully, once we got onto the plane, my ‘borrowed granny’ fell asleep next to me immediately. Which gave me the time I needed to think as I made the journey back home. Thoughts that had never entered my head before.

  In my fervent lifelong quest to discover my real gene pool, I hadn’t seen what was right under my nose.

  So, I am back in England.

  I am here for me. And her.

  I am about to embark on the most important conversation of my life so far.

  I must save the day.

  Because I love my mother.

  And

  My father.

  κθ

  Twenty-nine

  William switched on the kettle to make some tea, and stared out of the kitchen window across the garden. Immy’s and Fred’s swings and climbing frame stood in a corner, and Fred’s beloved water shooter – almost as big as he was – lay where he’d last dropped it on the grass.

  Cedar House, on the outskirts of the beautiful village of Beaulieu in Hampshire, had been bought as a dilapidated wreck just before they’d married. Slowly, he and Helena had brought it back to life. Since it was just after his divorce, and before his architecture practice really took off, they’d had to scrimp and save to transform what had been a rather austere and dark Edwardian red-brick house into something special. Fortunately, the building wasn’t listed, so there had been free rein to make the material changes William wanted. He’d designed the huge, airy kitchen extension so that that it fed seamlessly through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows onto the terrace and garden. He’d also opened up the dark, poky rooms by knocking through interior walls, allowing the light to pour in. Once the structural work was finished, Helena had done a wonderful job with the decor. She had a natural flair for blending colours and fabrics and for choosing furniture that suited the space, which she had added to over the years on antique hunts and various overseas holidays. They had succeeded in turning mere bricks and mortar into an eclectic and welcoming home.

  William shivered. He had always felt so proud of what they had achieved here; but the house felt desolate today.

  He went to the fridge – its door covered in magnets holding Immy’s and Fred’s paintings – and pulled out the milk he’d bought from the petrol station on his way home. He supposed that, just as when his first marriage had collapsed, he would lose the house in the divorce – either to Helena, or by selling it to another, happier family. The thought made another fissure in his already battered heart.

  ‘Tea, Alex!’ he shouted up the stairs.

  ‘Coming, Dad,’ Alex shouted back.

  William walked across the kitchen, opened the French doors, and made his way onto the sun-dappled terrace. He sat down on the wrought-iron bench, which nestled within a hundred-year-old wisteria and was flanked by a bed of sweet-smelling roses. Whilst their mistress was away, they had gorged on light and sun. Now they were fat, bloated and in urgent need of pruning.

  ‘Thanks, Dad.’ Alex brought his tea out and sat down next to him.

  ‘Feels weird to be home, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Alex agreed. ‘It’s because of the quiet. I didn’t realise until today how noisy we all are.’

  ‘You must be tired after your epic journey.’

  ‘Not really. It was sort of . . . exciting.’

  ‘Well, please don’t repeat it. I’ve never driven so fast in my life. I only arrived here ten minutes before you did.’

  ‘You were at your London place when the police arrived?’ Alex asked.

  ‘Yes. When they turned up on my doorstep, I must admit, I imagined the worst. They told me you were on the evening flight to Gatwick last night, and the plane had landed just before midnight. But they didn’t know where you’d gone since.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It’s okay. I thought you’d probably head for here.’

  ‘Well, if I’d known you were in London, I’d have come straight there. I had to spend the night at Waterloo station, because I missed the last train to Beaulieu by hours. It was quite scary, actually,’ Alex commented. ‘Lots of drunken hobos and me.’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  They sipped their tea companionably.

  ‘How’s Mum?’ Alex asked.

  ‘Better now she knows you’re safe, but she was obviously beside herself.’

  ‘Yeah . . . it was a pretty rotten thing to do, but I had my reasons,’ Alex said.

  ‘How was she when I left?’ William asked carefully.

  ‘Awful. She came to my bedroom to explain. Told me all about what happened when I was born. You know she nearly died after she had me?’

  ‘No, I didn’t, but there’s obviously a lot of stuff I didn’t hang about to hear.’

  ‘Do you think Mum’s a bad person?’

  ‘No, not really.’

  ‘A “liar and a cheat”?’

  William looked at Alex. ‘You were listening.’

  ‘Yes. Sorry.’

  ‘Of course I don’t really think that. I was just . . . very angry, that’s all. I still am.’

  ‘I was angry, too. Like, mega. I’m calmer now though,’ Alex nodded.

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Because I think I understand.’

  ‘Understand that your mother has lied to you, and me, for years?’

  ‘Well, to be fair, she didn’t exactly lie to me, she just . . . didn’t tell me.’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’

  ‘I was thinking on the plane over what I’d have done in her shoes,’ mused Alex.

  ‘And?’

  ‘I think I’d have lied, too. What would you have done?’

  William shrugged. ‘I honestly don’t know.’

  ‘But that’s the thing, isn’t it? Like, no one knows what they’ll do in a situation until they’re . . .’ – he shrugged – ‘in it.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ William sighed. ‘It makes no odds anyway, I’m afraid. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Alex, but I’ve told your mother I’m starting divorce proceedings.’

  ‘That’s okay. I understand.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Yeah, seems a pity, though. You love Mum, and she loves you big time, especially now she doesn’t have to lie to you anymore. And as for Immy and Fred – well, it’s not going to be great for them, either. But I can see that if I was you, I’d probably feel the same.’ Alex kicked at the moss peering out between the paving stones with his trainer. ‘I mean, it’s kind of a male-pride type thing, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well, a bit, I suppose,’ William admitted.

  ‘If you think about it, like, all this stuff happened before you two even met. Mum hasn’t gone off with anyone else or done anything really bad during your marriage, has she?’

  ‘Not that I know of. She may well have seen . . . him since. And may still be in love with him, for all I know.’ William was astounded that he was having this kin
d of conversation with a thirteen-year-old boy.

  ‘If she’d wanted to be with him, don’t you think she’d have left you a long time ago? No’ – Alex shook his head – ‘she doesn’t love him, she loves you.’

  ‘The fact remains, she lied to me for the whole of our marriage, Alex.’

  ‘S’pose. But we both know why she did it. Dad?’ He looked at William. ‘Do you love her?’

  ‘You know I do.’

  ‘Then why are you divorcing her?’

  ‘Alex, I know you’re mature for your age, but there really are some things you just can’t understand.’

  ‘Well, I get that you have the option of divorcing my mother. I don’t. I’m stuck with her forever. So tell me how it’s worse for you than it is for me? I also have to deal with the fact that Sacha is my genetic father.’

  ‘I know you do.’

  ‘And that he left Mum in the lurch when she was pregnant. Also, I was thinking earlier . . .’

  ‘Go on?’

  ‘Well, Mum said that he told her his name was Alexander Nicholls.’

  ‘Apparently, but to be fair, that is his real name in a way.’

  ‘But everyone knows him as Sacha Chandler. Like, forever. So why would he do that?’

  ‘I don’t know, Alex, really. Perhaps he was trying to create his artistic alter ego.’

  ‘Well, I reckon he was deliberately covering his tracks with Mum. After all, he was already married to Jules at the time. To be fair, how was Mum to know he was the same person as your oldest friend? Until she, er, did?’

  ‘I hear what you’re saying, Alex, but once she knew, she should have told me. The point is, she didn’t trust me. And to be honest, she never has.’

  ‘Maybe not, but I dunno,’ Alex sighed. ‘Perhaps she just finds it hard to trust people in general. She seemed to have a pretty crap childhood. With a mum who didn’t really want her, from the sounds of things. She had to fend for herself.’