Act of Will

by Barbara Taylor Bradford

  Suddenly Christina caught sight of him, waved, increased her pace, her face illuminated by the brightest of smiles.

  Vincent hurried forward, smiling and waving himself.

  They came to a standstill in front of each other.

  ‘Hello, Daddy,’ she cried, dropping her suitcase.

  ‘Hello, pet,’ he said, beaming at her, reaching for her.

  They embraced, laughing, then stepped away, staring into each other’s faces. It was Good Friday afternoon and they had not met since Christmas; as they usually did after an absence, they took stock of each other.

  He looks a bit tired, older, Christina thought, surprised. Her father rarely showed his age.

  She’s more radiant than ever, Vincent thought, and his heart tightened imperceptibly. He knew she was going to be upset when he told her about Audra and that her radiance would be diluted. He wondered when he should tell her. Well, certainly before they got home.

  ‘Come on, love,’ he said, lifting her suitcase, taking her arm, hurrying along the platform with her. ‘Your mam’s waiting for you, and as anxiously as always.’

  ‘I can’t wait to see her either. Where are you parked, Dad?’

  ‘Just outside the station. I’ll have you home in no time at all.’

  As Vincent drove them up Stanningley Road in the direction of Upper Armley, Christina chatted to her father about her plans for the Easter holidays. ‘I thought I’d spend the weekend at home with you and Mummy, and then if it’s all right with the two of you, I’d like to go off on one of my field trips to paint for a few days.’

  ‘That’s fine, Christie. Where were you thinking of going?’

  ‘Originally I had the Lake District in mind, but I want to do a seascape and I was toying with the idea of going to the East Coast… Whitby, Scarborough, Flamborough Head, somewhere around there. What do you think?’

  ‘All of your childhood haunts, eh? Well, you could do worse to pick one of them, but what about up near Ravenscar? There are some very dramatic views from the cliffs, and there’s a nice hotel nearby. We like you to be comfortable when you’re off on these field trips, you know.’

  ‘You both spoil me,’ she said, laughing. ‘I wish Mummy could get a couple of days off from the Infirmary to come with me. It’d do her good, don’t you think, Daddy?’

  Vincent was silent. He pulled the car into the side of the road and braked, turned to face his daughter. ‘There’s something I have to tell you—’

  ‘What is it?’ she cried, cutting him off, knowing at once that something was terribly wrong from the tone of his voice, the concern in his vivid green eyes. ‘It’s Mummy, isn’t it?’

  Vincent nodded. ‘I’m afraid it is, love.’

  She reached out, clutched at his arm, stared at him, anxiety filling her face. ‘What’s the matter?’ she demanded.

  ‘Your mam’s been ill, gravely ill, Christie. She collapsed three weeks ago with viral pneumonia. She was in the Infirmary for over two weeks… there were complications at first, the doctors were worried about her lungs. Don’t look so frightened, love, she’s fine now. She’s recuperating at home.’

  Christina was momentarily stunned.

  She sat staring at her father for a few seconds, and then she exclaimed, with a flash of anger, ‘Why didn’t you let me know? How unfair of you, Dad, to keep me in the dark. I should have been with her, been here, and most certainly last week I should, once she was at home.’ Her angry stare intensified, and she added furiously, ‘You should have told me!’

  ‘I didn’t dare go against your mother’s wishes, Christie love,’ Vincent said quietly. ‘I didn’t dare upset her, and I would have if I’d sent for you. She didn’t want you to be worried. You know what your mam’s like.’

  ‘I don’t understand you, I don’t really,’ Christina cried, shaking her head in perplexity. ‘I can’t imagine why you listened to Mummy. And anyway, who has been looking after her since she’s been at home?’

  ‘I have,’ Vincent said, turning on the ignition, glancing behind him before pulling out. ‘I took a week off from work. We’re not very busy at the moment, and I had some holiday time due me, anyway.’

  ‘I could have come up last week,’ Christina snapped, her annoyance unabated. ‘I was just marking time in London, waiting to come home, I didn’t have any special classes at the college.’

  Vincent realized that it would be wiser to remain silent. With their similar temperaments they could quarrel very easily and that was the last thing he wanted today. He put his foot down on the accelerator and concentrated on his driving.

  Half way up Ridge Road, he glanced at her quickly out of the corner of his eye and said in the softest but firmest of voices, ‘I hope you’ve calmed down, our Christie. I don’t want you barging into the house full of belligerence and upsetting your mother.’

  ‘God, Dad, you’re impossible at times! How could you even think I would do such a thing?’

  ***

  Audra’s eyes looked bigger and bluer than ever in her face, which was drawn and chalky in colour and reflected her suffering of the last few weeks. It lit up at the sight of Christina standing in the doorway.

  ‘Hello, darling,’ Audra said in a weak voice, half pushing herself up on her elbows as Christina sped to her bedside.

  ‘Oh Mummy, Mummy darling,’ Christina whispered, kneeling down, taking Audra in her arms tenderly, embracing her. ‘You should have let Daddy send for me,’ she murmured against her mother’s hair, ‘you really should have.’ Releasing her, she sat back, regarding her carefully, wanting to assess her true condition, full of troubled concern.

  Audra lifted her hand, touched Christina’s face. ‘You have your studies and they’re more important than anything else right now.’

  Although Christina did not agree with this, believing that her mother’s health came first, she nodded her head. Rising, she went to the bay window, pulled a chair closer to Audra, sat down.

  Vincent came in, hovered near the foot of the bed. He said to Audra, ‘How do you feel, love? Are you all right? Comfortable?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Vincent.’

  ‘I’ll go and put the kettle on,’ he said.

  Christina leaned forward after her father had left the room, said in a cheery tone, ‘Well anyway, I’m here now, Mummy, and for the next week I’m going to look after you. I’m going to pamper and spoil you in the way you deserve.’

  A frown creased Audra’s brow. ‘At Christmas you told me you were thinking of going off on a field trip to the Lake District. I hope you haven’t changed your mind because of me.’

  ‘No, no,’ Christina said quickly. ‘My tutor doesn’t think it’s necessary, I have plenty of finished paintings in hand.’

  ‘It’ll be nice to have you here for the whole week,’ Audra murmured, settling back against the pillows, her face suffused with sudden contentment. ‘How’s Jane?’

  ‘As sweet as always, Mummy, and she sends you her love.’

  ‘I’m glad you have her for a friend, and that you’re happy sharing the flat in Walton Street with her. It’s such a charming, cosy place.’ Another smile flitted across Audra’s thin face. ‘Tell me everything you’ve been doing… you know how I love to hear about your exciting life in London.’

  ‘Yes, I will, but first I’m going downstairs to help Daddy… would you like to have something to eat with your cup of tea?’

  ‘No, I’m not hungry, darling, but thank you.’

  Christina ran downstairs, wanting to alert her father that she had changed her plans before he blurted something out in front of her mother.

  She found him in the kitchen unwrapping a slab of butter. He looked up as she came in. ‘Oh there you are, love. I bought some hot-cross buns at the baker’s earlier. I thought I’d butter one for your mam.’

  ‘She said she’s not hungry, Dad.’

  ‘Oh but she’ll eat this,’ he said confidently. ‘She always likes a hot-cross bun at Easter, you know that. It’s sort of a
tradition with her, from her childhood at High Cleugh… having one on good Friday.’ He sliced the bun in half and began to spread the butter on it. ‘You may think your mother looks haggard, but she’s a lot better, Christie, she really is, and very much on the mend now.’

  Christina nodded. ‘Look, I just wanted to warn you not to say anything to her about my field trip to the East Coast. I’m not going now, I’m staying here to look after Mummy for the entire week.’

  ‘Oh, but she won’t like that, it’ll upset her—’

  ‘I’ve already told her, Dad!’ Christina interjected firmly, giving him a hard stare. ‘So please don’t say anything. It was never very definite anyway, and she knows that. I just told her my tutor didn’t think it was necessary.’

  ‘Very well then.’ He glanced up and his eyes filled with love for his only child. ‘You’re a good lass, Christie, and it’ll be a real tonic for your mother to have you here for a while. Better than any medicine.’

  ***

  It was a busy week for Christina.

  She took over the running of the house; she cleaned and shopped and cooked and ironed and looked after her mother with efficiency, tenderness and the greatest devotion.

  When the Easter weekend was over she insisted that her father return to work, and he did so, although he protested vociferously about her bossiness to her mother. She heard him say to Audra as she passed their bedroom one morning, ‘I always warned you we had the makings of an army general in that one, and I knew I was right. She’s just proved it to me. And I’ll tell you something else, I wouldn’t like to work for her.’

  Christina had smiled as she had gone about her chores. She knew very well from whom she had inherited her bossy nature: her father.

  Nursing her mother, pampering her and catering to her every need gave Christina a great deal of satisfaction. But as the week progressed it struck her that her mother had been making a stupendous effort to be bright and lively for her benefit.

  It was now becoming obvious that this effort had been a terrible strain. Towards the end of the week Audra looked drained of all strength, listless and debilitated, and Christina’s concern grew.

  On Friday, her last morning at home, she was upset when she saw that her mother had only picked at the breakfast she had made for her. The scrambled eggs and bacon were untouched, the toast only half eaten, the peach unpeeled.

  ‘Mummy, you’ve got an appetite like a sparrow! I shall be sick with worry once I’ve left.’

  ‘Don’t be so silly, dear. I’m not hungry at the moment, that’s all it is, and don’t forget, I have been quite ill, Christie. My appetite will improve when I get my energy back, when I’m up and about again.’

  ‘I think I’d better stay at home another week.’

  ‘Absolutely not, I won’t hear of it. There are your studies to think about. You mustn’t neglect them, and this is your last term.’

  Christina sighed and lifted the tray, placed it on a nearby chest. She came to the bed and sat down, took hold of her mother’s hand. ‘Can’t you try and eat the peach if I peel it for you?’

  ‘No, but thank you.’ Audra squeezed her hand. ‘It’s been lovely to have you here, darling, but now you must get back to your life in London, the college, your friends,’ she said, smiling deeply at her daughter.

  Christina smiled back, then the smile slipped.

  In the bright sunlight of the April morning her mother’s face was clearly illuminated, and for the first time in years she saw Audra with stunning objectivity. And as her eyes remained fixed on that wan tired face that was so very dear to her, Christina was appalled.

  She thought: how she’s aged in the last three years. She’s not quite forty-seven but she looks like an old woman today.

  Her mother’s life of sacrifice and struggle flashed through her mind with such breathtaking clarity Christina was suddenly filled with an aching sorrow. And then her heart clenched with feelings of tenderness and compassion for this small, fragile-looking woman who stood ten feet tall in her eyes.

  Christina leaned forward and embraced her mother, not wishing her to see the emotions unexpectedly overwhelming her.

  And as she clung to Audra it became clear to Christina that she could not permit her to continue living her life in this way. I can’t, I simply can’t, she said to herself. All of this work and sacrifice and struggle for me must come to an end.

  I myself will end it.

  CHAPTER 35

  Later that day, as she sat on the train going back to London, Christina could not expunge the image of her mother’s worn face from her mind.

  She knew deep within herself that it would continue to haunt her for a very long time.

  As she sat morosely staring out of the train window, she asked herself what she was going to do.

  One thing was certain… she could not allow her mother to go on supporting her after she had graduated from the Royal College of Art later that summer.

  Christina sighed heavily and leaned her head against the window. It would take her years to establish herself as a landscape painter, to make a name for herself, to start selling her work and so earn a living. She was well aware of that, as every young artist was these days.

  And so was Audra. How many times had she said in the last couple of years: ‘Don’t be concerned, Christie. You just continue to paint your beautiful pictures and let me worry about the money and where it’s coming from.’

  Remembering these words sent a coldness trickling through Christina, and she shivered involuntarily. That was the crux of the problem—well at least part of it—her mother’s determination to support her until she was famous and her paintings were in great demand.

  Christina shivered again and goose bumps speckled her arms. It was as if somebody had walked over her grave. Was her mother going to have to continue working at Leeds Infirmary until she was a very old woman, in order to pay her rent, buy her clothes, put food on her table, pay for everything she needed in her life?

  No, Christina said under her breath. No. I won’t let her work like a slave, be a drudge any more, to earn money for me. I won’t. I will end it, just as I vowed I would this morning. But how? And what am I going to do? She huddled in the corner of the seat and closed her eyes.

  The wheels of the train turned and turned and they seemed to pound this question into her brain relentlessly. By the time the Pullman was pulling into King’s Cross Station she had a splitting headache and she felt slightly faint. She wondered if she was coming down with the ’flu.

  And it would be raining, Christina thought miserably as she glanced out of the window, then pulled her suitcase down off the rack above her head when the train came to a final shuddering halt.

  A few seconds later, as she hurried along the platform, she decided to take a taxi home to Walton Street, even though being careful with money was now uppermost in her mind. It was absolutely imperative to Christina that she get back to the flat quickly. She needed to be enveloped in its peacefulness and solitude. She had some hard thinking to do tonight, some hard choices to make.

  In the past when she had come back from Yorkshire after the holidays, Christina had been disappointed if Jane was not already ensconced in Walton Street and waiting for her. But as she let herself in tonight she was pleased that her friend was not returning from Hadley Court until Sunday evening.

  Christina needed to be alone, to wrestle with her problems, to find a solution to each one of them. Before she settled down to do this, she rang her father in Leeds to tell him she had arrived safely. ‘Don’t disturb Mummy,’ she said, after a brief chat with him. ‘Just give her a big hug and a kiss from me.’ After hanging up the phone, she unpacked her suitcase, then ran a bath.

  She soaked for a good fifteen minutes, emptying her head of everything, trying to relax, and as soon as she felt a little of the tension easing out of her aching muscles, she stepped out of the bath and dried herself hard.

  Later, wrapped in a towelling robe, she sat curled up on h
er bed, drinking a cup of Nescafé with cream and sugar. Slowly her eyes began to roam around her room… there was one of her paintings on each wall, and her gaze finally settled on her latest which she had called Lily at Hadley. It was an oil of the lily pond at Hadley Court, and it abounded with many different shades of green… the murky green-blue of the pond water, the lighter, softer green of the spongy moss trailing over the edge of the pond, the polished, glossy green of the floating lily pads. The only other colours were the sharp, pure white of the single lily, its petals beautifully defined and glistening with drops of crystal dew, and the colour of the light, a narrow corridor of radiance that filtered through the jungle-like foliage in the background of the painting. This light held a hint of yellow, appeared to shimmer with sunlight as it touched the water, then spread out in a spray-like effect, became diffused over the lily itself.

  Christina put down the cup of coffee on the bedside table and turned on her side, pressed her face into the pillow. She found it unbearable to look upon that painting, or on any of her paintings for that matter. All of her joy in her art had been suddenly snuffed out, extinguished by her immense pain.

  Too high a price had been paid for it.

  Audra’s years of punishing, brutal toil… her health… all the little luxuries and comforts she might have bought for herself… a holiday occasionally… a new outfit.

  A lump formed in Christina’s throat. How long had she seen her mother wearing the same navy blue reefer coat? Winter after winter, for years and years. The tears came then, pouring out of her eyes, and she wept for her mother and for all of those lost years in Audra’s life when she had been slaving away in order to give her a future. And she cried until there seemed to be no tears left inside her, and finally she dozed.