by Sue Watson
‘Amazing,’ I sigh. ‘Will you have breakfast?’ I’d bought croissants from the local French patisserie – I’d planned for us to sit on the patio and pretend we were on a pavement in Paris.
‘Sorry, darling, no time, the flight’s this afternoon from Heathrow. I need to swing by Oxford and grab some more camera stuff on my way. Not sure which lenses I’ll need to take . . . ’ He’s in another world, lost in light and apertures and bloody concrete. ‘Camille says the editor loves moody black and white pictures with meaning and when she mentioned me he said “No way, he’s too famous,” so she said, “It’s okay, I was married to him once, I’ll pull some strings”.’ He’s smiling and shaking his head and for a millisecond I feel almost jealous of Camille because she was his wife.
‘Let’s just hope she didn’t have your best years,’ I say, and he stops and reaches out to me.
‘Ah no, trust me – the best is yet to come.’
And so he heads off for another country. It’s another echo from our past, but this time it’s different: I’m older and wiser, and though I love him, I’m not emotionally dependent on him as I once was. I’m my own person, I’ve had a lifetime of being loved and it’s given me the confidence to be secure in myself. I love him and I’ll miss him, but this time he isn’t everything to me. I have a family, I have a life and I have my own future, with or without Peter Moreton.
After Peter has left, I put croissants in the oven and grind some French coffee beans. And just as I’m pouring hot water into the cafetière and the kitchen is filled with the scent of strong coffee and sweet croissants, I see a parcel on the table with my name on.
I sit down and, ripping off the pretty wrapping paper, I open it. There is a box of soft pencils and a pad of paper. I hold it to my chest and my eyes fill with tears. He gets me, he always did.
Later, after Lily and I have shared croissants on the patio and pretended we were on a pavement in Paris, I take out my new pencils and begin to draw a fat cluster of roses. I love that he bought me pencils, he’s the only one who knows I can sketch – and I want him to see that the artist is still here, she’s just been asleep for a while.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I’m missing Peter while he’s in France, but I’m enjoying some time alone too. I’m working in the shop during the day and in the evenings I sit in the garden and draw. I love my new box of pencils and the pad of thick, white drawing paper. Holding the pencil between my fingers feels good, natural after all this time, like an old friend I’ve missed. I wrap up warm as the evenings can be a little chilly. But whatever the weather, my best friend Lily joins me, sleeping contentedly at my feet while I sketch. The sun is weak and low, but it dapples light through the foliage, bringing such intensity to the colours it makes me want to bring my sketches alive with colour, shades of green and all the different tints of the oncoming oranges, browns and faded yellows of a new season. I resolve to buy some paints and start painting again – I’d forgotten how comforting it is to draw and become involved in the picture. And for a little while, nothing else matters.
I’ve never really allowed myself time alone, just to think and look at my life objectively. Peter texts and phones me every day, often several times, and it’s good to hear him. But I realise he has another big life somewhere else that doesn’t include me – and it strikes me that he always has. I expected Peter to fall into line, to do just what I wanted and make me his everything – but the reason I find him so attractive, so enigmatic, is because he isn’t part of my small world, he comes from a bigger place and he brings all the excitement and colour and strangeness with him. The way he could just fly off to France on Monday was at first difficult for me, then strangely liberating. It explained a lot about the dynamics of our relationship.
If Peter had stayed with me and we’d married all those years ago it wouldn’t have worked, and I know that with conviction. His dreams of a shabby workshop in Paris or a life on the beaches of St-Tropez would have conflicted with everything I needed at that time. In the same way, I wasn’t what he needed back then either. But after all these years, perhaps now is our time.
Being with Peter again I can still see just what it is about him that captured me all those years ago. There’s all the obvious stuff like his charm and looks – but it was much more than this. Recently I’ve thought about my life and the people I’ve known, some vague and distant, others make me smile or cry or just feel something. In my experience, we meet lots of people along the way and most of us are unremarkable, we are all on the same journey heading in the same direction and we may share a lunch, a love affair, a lifetime, but when we’re gone, we’re gone. But every now and then someone comes along who makes an indelible mark on us, changing the way we think, the way we live, the way we love. And these special people have made such an impression that even when they leave, a sparkle of their gold dust stays with us. For me, Peter is one of those people; he changed me by making me see the world as so much bigger, by showing me anything was possible. And forty-odd years later, he still takes each day as it comes, still sees the beauty in the unlikeliest things and has a passion for life that’s never dimmed. And as other people our age are looking at winding down, he’s talking of photographic exhibitions and going with me to Paris. Peter hasn’t allowed his age to dictate to him, the way he never let anything tie him down – and even now he won’t give up on his dreams; if he did he wouldn’t be Peter and I think he would die. Despite feeling sad when he went to France recently I watched him dressing, talking ten to the dozen, the light in his eyes and so many ideas in his head – and I finally got him. He still loves to embrace new challenges, discover new things, and find those flowers in the rubble of life – he’s still chasing the light.
Now he’s swept back into my life and brought even more gold dust with him. Like an elixir of youth his presence has reinvigorated my ideas, my plans – my future. And having been empty and sad about my little world, I’m really excited about the next chapter.
I spent my life feeling resentful of the way he treated me when we were kids, but being with him now has erased all the hurt and I can see things from an older and wiser perspective. Peter isn’t a hero, he isn’t a perfect, wonderful guy – and now I see his flaws. He’s a thinker not a doer. He’s had an easy life and he’s taken what he wants and needs from the overflowing fruit bowl fate handed him when he was born. He had the looks, the charm and the artistic talent and his parents had the money for him to pursue every glittery object he saw. Back then I was too young to appreciate who he was, and though I still believe he was wrong to reject our baby, I understand him better now. This time I wanted him to go to France and enjoy the avant-garde concrete, grab at the opportunity to be published and artistically challenged and fulfilled. It’s what he needs, it’s what he’s always needed, but what gave me the emotional security to let him go was because I feel loved and I know I can do it too. He’s made me realise that I can do all the things I’ve ever wanted to do. My family are fine, they have their own lives and the only thing that’s stopping me is me.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Things have been a little strained between Anna and me since she stormed out of my house, but I am not giving in on this. I think she feels if she makes me uncomfortable enough about Peter I’ll just give him up, but she’s being selfish. It’s late afternoon and Isobel’s at the doctor’s so there’s just Anna and me working at the shop and I feel sad that there’s an atmosphere. At the moment everything is good in my life, I’m feeling good about Peter and I’m also adjusting to not having Mike around and I can see a clear path forming. But this stuff with Anna is a blot on the horizon. I tried to explain this to Peter. ‘They say you’re as happy as your saddest child,’ I said. It took him a while to work this out, but I explained that they fill my heart and there’s room for him, but they will always be with me. I can’t be happy with him unless both my girls are happy with me.
I don’t want her to see this as me capitulating on any level, but I
steel myself to try and talk to Anna as I need to take next weekend off. I work four days a week, usually when I’m needed, which is often weekends – so it’s perfectly reasonable for me to take the odd weekend off, but I know Anna won’t like it. I wander to the back of the shop where she’s doing the paperwork, a small lamp on the counter to help her see.
‘I told you to get some glasses, you’ll ruin your eyes doing close work like that in this light,’ I say. We look at each other over a mountain of tiny daisies.
‘Have you heard from Isobel?’ I ask.
‘No, her appointment wasn’t until four p.m., so she’ll still be at the hospital.’
‘I thought she was going to the doctor’s?’
‘Yes – that’s what I meant.’ She’s short and a little stressed, this is going to be a delightful encounter.
‘Anna, I know it’s short notice, but I won’t be in next weekend. I asked Mrs Jackson and she can cover.’
‘Oh God, she’s a waste of time.’
‘Well, let’s start considering some new staff. I’ve been thinking that I’d like to consider the idea of retiring. Dad and I always thought we’d be retired by now, sitting on a deck on some cruise somewhere, being waited on . . . going to that place in New Zealand, you know, the one where the stars are amazing?’
She nods and smiles. ‘Shame he never got to go.’
It’s my biggest regret that I couldn’t get Mike to the Dark Sky Reserve in New Zealand. When he was first diagnosed we toyed with the idea, I even looked into the insurance, the flights – but he deteriorated so rapidly we would never have made it.
‘So you’re thinking of retiring? Oh, Mum, it feels so soon.’
‘No, it feels like the time is right. It will be good for all of us to have a change. You and Isobel will be great together running this place. Do you know why she’s at the doctor’s? She told me it was just a routine thing – a forty-plus MOT, she called it.’
‘Yeah, I had one when I was forty. You should have a sixty-something one, Mum.’
‘Let’s not start down that road again, you’ll be having me measured up for a wheelchair.’
She laughs. ‘Mum, you’re paranoid.’
‘Perhaps I am,’ I laugh.
‘And about the house – Isobel has convinced me it would be good for you to find a place of your own, somewhere a bit smaller . . . You know, a bungalow, somewhere for your wheelchair?’
We’re both giggling now. ‘I was thinking more penthouse apartment with a hot tub,’ I joke.
‘If you’re getting a trendy penthouse apartment I’m leaving home and coming with you.’
Our amusement grows, and then she says, ‘Are you okay?’
I nod. ‘I’m fine, as long as you are . . . ’
‘I’m good.’
‘I don’t expect you to understand. But as we get older we often lose focus on the passions in our life. It’s too easy to forget about the things that make us who we are. I like what Peter sees in me, he makes me feel young again, and sometimes I want to remember the young girl who painted and sketched and danced . . . ’
‘But, Mum, you don’t paint or sketch and you and Dad never danced . . . ’
‘I used to paint and sketch all the time when I was at college and I’ve started again recently. As for dancing, well, Dad didn’t dance, but that shouldn’t have stopped me from dancing . . . and being without Peter shouldn’t have stopped me from sketching and painting . . . or dreaming of Paris, but it did.’
‘You wanted to go to Paris?’
‘Yes, and I shouldn’t have seen marriage and children as a reason to stop dreaming, stop dancing . . . ’
‘No, you shouldn’t. We should go dancing together . . . I’ve always fancied salsa classes. Let’s do it! I’ll ask Isobel too.’
I am yet to convince Anna about Peter, but I’m delighted at the prospect of going to a dance class. It makes me feel like one of them, rather than ‘Mother’ who needs supervising and patronising. What a turnaround – perhaps even Anna is seeing a bit of the old Rosie now too?
Later, Anna calls me at home. ‘Mum, James and I were planning to go out on Saturday and I wondered if you fancied a night in with your granddaughters? There will be popcorn and chocolate.’
‘Ah, in that case, count me in, but I thought it was their weekend with Paul?’
‘Well, it was, but he’s got his girlfriend now, hasn’t he, and she wants him to take her to Girl Guides or something.’
I have to smile, Anna is so unforgiving. ‘Perhaps now you’ve got James and everything is good you can start to move on? Stop chipping away at Paul and his much younger girlfriend. That way madness lies,’ I laugh.
‘Well, you keep talking about fresh starts and how life is to be lived so I thought why not treat James to a nice meal at that new wine bar you and Peter went to.’
I like the way she includes him in the conversation, and I like the way ‘you and Peter’ sounds, like she’s finally coming to terms with us.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It’s the beginning of Strictly Come Dancing, my favourite, and I watch with Emma and Katie, lost in the swirl of the foxtrot and the fiery passion of the Argentine tango. Katie swirls around the room while Emma laughs and I see Peter and me, our bodies touching on the dance floor, his hand in my hair, his arms around me. Then, just as the programme finishes and we decide to watch a DVD, my mobile rings. I hunt for my phone in my handbag – the girls have secretly changed the call tune and all I can hear is Rihanna offering to lick something off someone.
‘Girls, you’re outrageous!’ I’m saying, giggling as I try to put on my glasses and answer the phone at the same time while they roll around the floor laughing. I must remember to take that off before the next Ladies Luncheon, or Rihanna could cause quite a stir.
Then I stop and see his name flash up on the small screen. ‘Hello, sweetie,’ I say, and I can’t hide the smile on my face.
I’m flushed with the pleasure – and also feeling rather awkward in front of my two granddaughters now staring openly at me.
‘I missed you,’ he says, simply.
‘Yes, me too. I’m with Emma and Katie,’ I add, in an attempt to explain why I may sound a little monosyllabic. He’s been away for a few days now and I want to say so much, but I stay on the surface, asking about the magazine project in France and he seems exhilarated by the whole experience.
‘I haven’t been out in the field for a while,’ he’s saying. ‘I’ve had years of being very cosy with the wine- and canapé-fuelled exhibitions and PR jobs, but this was a challenge and I needed it. I did it for fun, but the editor called and said he’s delighted and asked if I’d do some more photos . . . Iceland next.’
‘Great . . . that’s great news,’ I say, happy for him.
‘Of course you’ll come with me?’
‘I’m not sure. I’m going to be quite busy myself,’ I reply. ‘But we can talk about it when you get back.’
Neither of us speak for a few seconds – I hope that he understands that my granddaughters are both listening avidly, and that’s why I’m not being very talkative. We will always be two people with so much to say, our past, present and future are entwined – and yet here we are, speechless again.
‘Anyway, I’m back tomorrow and I can’t wait to see you. I’m lonely in my hotel room and just wanted to hear your voice.’
‘Me too,’ I say again, as Katie sits open-mouthed, waiting to hear what I’ll say next.
‘I’m just going through them, but in a little while I’ll send you some of the photos so you can see them.’
‘Oh, photos of the concrete architecture?’
‘No, I did those, but while I was there I just had this massive moment of inspiration. I just couldn’t stop shooting. I’ve never felt so creative – I think that’s what being in love does for a person.’
‘That’s lovely.’ I smile, wanting to say so much more.
‘Anyway it’s a sort of “cycle of life” piece, the
idea that people and places change, die, get left behind, but the spirit lives on.’
‘I love that – it’s profound.’
‘Yes, I just kept thinking about us, and how we’ve come full circle – we’re different but the same, like something inside us kept going in our absence. And something you said also inspired me. You talked about Anna being like your mother and Emma being like you. It made me think about how the past is tied up in the present and the future. It doesn’t matter if you were born now or a hundred years ago, we’re all human and despite amazing technology and scientific discoveries we stay the same and the life-force carries on. And as buildings go up and are pulled down, roads are built, churches demolished, human beings will continue to love, hate, go to war, and make the same mistakes over and over again.’
And as he speaks I think about the past and the way my own life has reflected my mother’s and my daughters’ lives have reflected mine. And I remember the night I told Margaret I was pregnant and expected her to scream and shout and tell me I was shameful, but she didn’t. My mother held my hand and cried and told me it wasn’t my fault. ‘People make mistakes,’ she said. ‘Sometimes the same mistakes generation after generation. I used to be just like you, Rosie – saying I’d never end up in the same life as my mother, but I got pregnant with your brother and I had to get married. I had big dreams once too, you know, but I never was that secretary in the big office in Manchester with my own typewriter and a key to the stationery cupboard.
‘So when I had you I said, “This girl’s going to do everything I didn’t do. She’s going to do things with her life, not spend it stuck in a little terraced house with a baby at her breast every few years.”’
I was my mother’s future, I was going to redeem her, but I let her down. It all makes sense to me now. The way she scolded me for love bites and short skirts and boyfriends was just her way of trying to prevent the same thing happening to me that had happened to her. And as I railed against her domestic jurisdiction, vowing never to live the same life she had – she didn’t want me to either. Margaret and I were on the same team all along, but our class, sex and time conspired against us and any aspirations we had were strangled before birth. Then again, it might just have been fate because I do believe some things are written in the stars.