‘Oh my God!’ Primmie felt as if her heart was about to stop beating. ‘It is you! What are you doing here? How did you find me?’
As she was tumbling the words out, she was pulling the gate wide.
‘Primmie!’ Geraldine’s black-lashed, violet-dark eyes were bright with tears. ‘Dearest darling Primmie!’
Seconds later, the gate no longer between them, they were hugging as if their lives depended on it.
‘It’s been so long!’ Primmie’s voice cracked and broke. ‘Why didn’t you keep in touch, Geraldine? You haven’t changed. You haven’t changed one little bit. I would have known you anywhere!’
Even as she gasped the words, still hugging and being hugged, she knew they weren’t a hundred per cent true. Geraldine had changed. She’d always been as slender as a reed, but now there was a certain fragility to her slenderness and her wonderful cheekbones were a tad too pronounced and hollowed.
‘It’s been thirty-one years, three months,’ Geraldine said, at last pulling away so that she could take a proper look at her. ‘And you have changed, Primmie! You look every inch a countrywoman. Do you always wear Wellingtons when you go out in your car, and what are those clinging to your skirt? Feathers?’
Primmie grinned. ‘Yes, they’ll be from the hens. Oh, Geraldine, it’s so good to see you! You can’t know how often I’ve wished and wished you would just turn up out of the blue. I always imagined that if you did, though, it would be in Rotherhithe. How did you find me? You did find me, didn’t you? This isn’t just the most amazing piece of luck, is it?’
‘No, of course it isn’t just luck.’ Geraldine tucked her arm in hers. ‘Your message on the Friends Reunited website said you were living on the outskirts of Calleloe, on the Lizard. I didn’t need to be Brain of Britain to find you. I simply made enquiries at the post office in Calleloe.’
Primmie hugged her arm tightly and, ignoring both cars, began walking her up the track towards the house. ‘Now you’re here, you’re going to stay, Geraldine, aren’t you? I’ve got masses of room. You have to stay. There’s so much to catch up on. So much I want to know. Are you still living in Paris? I saw your photograph in a newspaper gossip column a few months ago and you were with a very handsome Frenchman. Are you married?’
With a smile of amusement, Geraldine held up a left hand bereft of rings.
Primmie giggled. ‘Well, then. Have you been married? What have you been doing for this last thirty years?’ The giggles died. She stopped walking, turning to face her. ‘And why didn’t you keep in touch, Geraldine?’ she asked, a world of bewilderment in her voice. ‘Neither Artemis nor I ever understood it.’
‘Aah, that needs a little explaining, Primmie.’ Geraldine’s eyes darkened fractionally and for the first time Primmie noticed that there were shadows of tiredness beneath them. ‘Perhaps later, over a bottle of wine or a couple of strong scotches?‘
Primmie nodded, feeling a stab of concern. Was Geraldine not very well? And what had happened in Paris, all those years ago, that she was still reluctant to talk about to her?
Geraldine smiled across at her, the fleeting darkness in her eyes no longer discernible. ‘What made you move from London to Cornwall, Primmie? And this isn’t a smallholding. It’s a farm!’
They were nearly at the house now and the meadow, where Maybelline was grazing and the hens were roaming around free, was on their left-hand side, the paddock on their right.
‘Hardly.’ Primmie couldn’t keep a giggle of happiness out of her voice. ‘It is wonderful, though, isn’t it? I was left it by an aunt – not outright, but to live in and enjoy for my lifetime. It once supported quite a lot of animals, but I only have a cow and hens – and the hens were here when I came.’
‘And the cow?’ Geraldine asked, not knowing when she’d last felt such fun fizzing in her throat.
‘I bought Maybelline a short time ago. She’s very beautiful. Very tame and gentle. When I’ve milked her she loves me putting my arms round her neck and stroking her behind the ears.’
‘You milk her?’ Geraldine rolled her eyes to heaven and Primmie was immediately transported back in time, remembering how she’d had to stifle her giggles when, on that first day at Bickley High, Geraldine’s mother had asked her to look after Geraldine and, behind her mother’s back, Geraldine had rolled her eyes to show just what she thought of such a needless suggestion.
‘I’ll have you know that I’m getting very accomplished at milking,’ she said with mock severity. ‘A friend, Matt, taught me how. He isn’t a farmer – he was a fisherman until he retired, a year or so ago – but he can turn his hand to anything.’
Geraldine quirked an eyebrow. ‘And is he single and good looking?’
Primmie had the grace to blush. ‘As a matter of fact, he is. But I don’t think he’s looking for a wife. He’s never been married and so I don’t imagine he’ll start thinking about it now.’ They’d reached the house and she came to a halt. ‘Well, here we are. This is Ruthven.’ Pride shone on her face and filled her voice. ‘What do you think of it, Geraldine? Isn’t it marvellous?’
Geraldine saw an unremarkable-looking, large, slate-roofed stone house. It stood four-square and sturdy, its only redeeming feature its green French-looking window shutters.
‘It’s wonderful,’ she said, well aware of just how wonderful it would seem to someone who had never lived in anything other than a London council house. Her mouth tightened fractionally as she remembered that Primmie had, once upon a time, lived somewhere very different. When they’d been at Bickley High, she had lived, Monday to Friday, at Kiki’s.
Primmie hadn’t yet asked if she’d renewed any contact with Kiki, but she would, and when she did she would have to tell her that, where Kiki was concerned, her feelings hadn’t changed. Even at this distance of time, she had no intention of seeing or speaking to Kiki, ever again.
‘This is the sitting room,’ Primmie was saying, continuing with her guided tour of the downstairs rooms. ‘It looked very dowdy when I arrived and so I painted the walls white and recovered the sofa and chairs in yellow.’
It was a lovely large room with an open fire-place and bookshelves floor to ceiling in the recesses at either side of the chimney breast. In the nearby hearth a copper kettle was stuffed full of marigolds, their colour the exact shade of the many Penguin paperbacks on the shelves.
‘I haven’t had to decorate the guest bedrooms,’ Primmie said as she led the way upstairs. ‘My aunt provided holidays for children in residential care and all the bedrooms – except the one that was her own and is now mine – are all beautifully decorated. These two rooms,’ she indicated the two rooms on the left-hand side of a spacious landing, ‘both look out over the headland.’
‘And are you going to provide holidays for under-privileged children as well?’ Geraldine asked, as Primmie led the way into the first of the two bedrooms.
‘Only unintentionally. There are five children arriving here in ten days’time, only I didn’t know until a few hours ago.’ She sat down on the neatly made-up single bed as Geraldine strolled across to the window to look at the magnificent view. ‘What I will be doing is becoming a bed and breakfast landlady. I’ve already got myself a fire safety certificate and someone from the local council has been out and has approved the amenities I’m offering. It means I’ll be included in the list of B&Bs in local tourist brochures. I’ve left it too late to really get under way this year, but by next spring I’ll be up and running.’
Geraldine remained standing at the window, looking out over the headland to the church and the enormous vista of sea and sky. The house would make a wonderful B&B. And a wonderful holiday home for children. Thinking about children prompted thoughts of Artemis.
Still looking at the stunning view, she said, ‘Are you still in touch with Artemis, Primmie? I’d love to see her again. I know about the child she lost. I saw the death notice in The Times. It must have been a terrible time for her. Absolutely ghastly.’
Th
e expected response – the agreement that it had been an utter nightmare for Artemis – didn’t come. There was no response at all. Only a ringing silence.
Wondering if perhaps Primmie hadn’t heard her, she turned her head and looked towards her.
Primmie was still seated on the bed, but this time her face wasn’t glowing with happiness at their reunion and her eyes weren’t shining with the pride she felt in her home. She looked as if she were on the edge of some terrible abyss, as if Artemis’s tragedy hadn’t occurred twenty-five years ago, but was a tragedy that had occurred only recently; a tragedy she was still struggling to come to terms with.
‘I’m sorry, Primmie,’ she said, shocked at the depth of Primmie’s reaction to what she had said. ‘I didn’t mean to distress you. I should have realized you would have known the child, that you wouldn’t just feel bad about what happened on Artemis ‘s behalf, but that you would have grief of your own. She would have been like a niece to you, wouldn’t she? It was a little girl, wasn’t it? And I seem to remember she had an unusual name. A name that didn’t seem at all like the kind of name I would have imagined Artemis choosing.’
‘Artemis didn’t choose the name.’ Primmie’s hands were clasped tightly together in her lap. ‘I chose the name.’
Geraldine frowned, not understanding, only the sensitive subject preventing her from asking if Artemis had been unable to think of a name for herself.
‘And Destiny wasn’t like a niece to me, Geraldine.’ Primmie’s eyes held hers, harrowed. ‘She was my daughter. She was my baby and, because I wasn’t married when I had her, because I couldn’t give her all the things I wanted her to have, Artemis and Rupert adopted her.’
For several seconds Geraldine couldn’t move. The enormity of what Primmie was telling her was just too great. Her pulse beats roared in her ears.
‘Simon Lane?’ she said, reading the answer in Primmie’s eyes. ‘Oh, Primmie! Oh, darling, darling Primmie.’
Swiftly she crossed to the bed, sitting down at Primmie’s side, taking hold of one of Primmie’s hands. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she asked, more deeply moved than she’d thought herself capable of being. ‘I had no idea. Did anyone else know?’
The realization that Primmie had had Kiki’s father’s baby was so staggering even her orderly mind boggled at the possible emotional fallout. The baby had been Kiki’s half-sister. How on earth had Kiki felt about it? And how had she felt about Artemis adopting her? More incredible still, just why hadn’t Simon Lane been more supportive to Primmie? He’d had money. Primmie needn’t have faced financial difficulties as a single parent. Kiki’s name wasn’t one she’d wanted to bring up, but she did so now. ‘Kiki,’ she said. ‘Did Kiki know?’
Primmie shook her head. ‘No. No one knew. Not even Simon. And I couldn’t tell you, Geraldine. You’d gone to Paris. I had no address for you, no telephone number.’
Geraldine winced, well aware of how selfishly she’d cut herself off from everyone in the aftermath of Francis’s desertion and Kiki’s betrayal. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said inadequately. ‘Oh God, Primmie. I’m so sorry.’
Primmie squeezed her hand. ‘You don’t have to be sorry, Geraldine. You had heartache of your own, and though it was never easy for me, living on my own without Destiny, I always had the comfort of knowing that Artemis loved her with all her heart and I knew lots of other things that were a comfort. I knew what her bedroom looked like. I knew what the garden looked like and so I could easily imagine her playing in it. I’d patted and stroked the pony Rupert and Artemis had bought for her. In the first year or two I met Artemis regularly for lunch and she would bring me photographs of Destiny and tell me what she was doing and how she was progressing. I wasn’t completely cut off from her.’
‘But you didn’t see her?’
Primmie shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, her voice bleak. ‘All the adoption advice given to Artemis and Rupert was against it. Artemis would have disregarded it. She wanted me to be a part of Destiny’s life, for Destiny to regard me as a much-loved auntie, but Rupert couldn’t cope with being constantly reminded that Destiny wasn’t his. He put an end to the regular lunch meetings I had with Artemis. And then …’
She paused, taking a deep breath. ‘And then Destiny drowned in the pool at Rupert and Artemis’s villa in Spain. And neither I nor Artemis was at her funeral. Artemis was in hospital in England, recovering from a serious car accident, and Rupert didn’t contact me about the funeral arrangements. Quite simply, he wouldn’t have wanted me there. She was his little girl and I suppose at such a terrible time for him he didn’t want reminding that she was adopted.’
They were silent. Through the window they could see a brassy blue sky and seagulls wheeling. After a little while, Geraldine said gently, ‘And what about your other children, Primmie? It said on the website that you had four. Are any of them married? Do you have grandchildren?’
Primmie unclasped her hands and wiped the tears from her cheeks. ‘Two of them are married, Joanne and Millie. I don’t have any grandchildren, though. Not yet.’
‘And the other two? What do they think of this adventure of yours into Cornish country living?’
Primmie managed a smile. ‘Josh and Lucy? I’m not sure what Josh thinks. He’s every inch a south-Londoner and I doubt he truly knows just whereabouts Cornwall is. Lucy is a world traveller. At the moment she’s in Australia, but I’m hoping she’ll be back in England soon. And when she is, she’ll stay here and she’ll love it, though I doubt she’ll stay for long – staying in one place for any length of time isn’t Lucy’s style.’
She took hold of Geraldine’s hand. ‘And you’ll stay here as well, won’t you, Geraldine? And next year, when I’m really organized, will you stay for the whole of the summer?’
Geraldine slid an arm round Primmie’s shoulders and pulled her close so that Primmie’s head was against her shoulder and Primmie couldn’t see into her eyes. ‘I’m not in a position to make plans for next summer, Primmie,’ she said. ‘But I’d like to stay here now. I’d like to stay here for a couple of months, if it’s all right with you.’
‘Of course it’s all right with me! It’s more than I could have ever hoped for! There are the children arriving in ten days’time, though. It doesn’t matter about rooms, because there are three guest rooms, but perhaps you won’t want to be here when the place is full of children?’
She pulled away from Geraldine a fraction so that she could look into her face.
Geraldine grinned. ‘Of course I’ll want to be here. After some of my work experience of the last thirty years, children should be a doddle.’
Primmie grinned back at her, wondering just what kind of work Geraldine had done. She would ask later. For the moment, all that mattered was that Geraldine was back in her life – and was going to stay back in her life.
‘I missed you, Geraldine,’ she said thickly. ‘You’ll never know how much.’
Geraldine smiled and pulled her close again. ‘If it’s half as much as I missed you, Primmie, then I do,’ she said, and kissed Primmie’s hair, regretting to the very depths of her being all the years of friendship she had so foolishly wasted.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Wearing black leather trousers, a turquoise T-shirt emblazoned with a sequinned panorama of Las Vegas and a black leather jacket, Kiki stood at the door of her flat, saying goodbye to it. It was an absolute tip. For the last six weeks, ever since her catastrophic Grantley gig, she’d done very little but hole up in it, drinking heavily, mulling over the greatest decision of her life – whether or not she was going to end it.
In retrospect she knew she should have driven away from Grantley the minute suicide first entered her mind and committed the dreadful deed there and then. After all, what was the alternative? Now it had finally permeated her thick skull that, apart from a few brief glory days in the late seventies and early eighties, she had never ever been a major rock star – and that she was most definitely now never going to become
one – what was there left to live for? Looking round her uncared-for flat, the answer was ‘bloody little’.
With her head pounding from her mammoth vodka binge and her body feeling as if it had been run over by a truck, she slung her bag and laptop on the back seat of her clapped-out Fiat Uno, eyeing the car with loathing. Even just being seen behind its wheel robbed her of all self-respect and self-esteem. It was bad enough no longer being a star, but without some remnants of a star’s lifestyle, she couldn’t even enjoy living on reputation.
And she no longer had rock-star dosh. Though she still received royalties from the songs she had written with Geraldine, it wasn’t enough to support her in the style people expected. There was no pleasure in having people recognize her – which they still did – if they then immediately became aware that she was virtually impoverished. Every time it happened, the humiliation was so great she didn’t know how she survived it.
Nauseously she slid behind the wheel and turned the key in the ignition. Lots of other old rock stars that she knew had carved out new careers for themselves in other aspects of the music business: management or production. She’d never attempted either. Being behind the scenes hadn’t been what she’d wanted. Being up front and having all eyes on her had been what she’d wanted.
As she surged away from the kerb, she realized that she was already thinking in the past tense. Well, so be it. She wasn’t going to endure another two or three decades as a has-been as clapped out as her car. There was such a thing as having a rag of pride. It would have been different, of course, if she’d had the sense to have married money – the kind of money that would have enabled her to still hold her head high – but the idea of marriage had never appealed to her. It was too tying. Too conventional. Too boring. She’d always had a masculine attitude to sex, liking a lot of variety with little commitment. She’d felt it went with her job description. Where it had left her, of course, was alone.
Grim faced she pulled out on to the North Circular. Despite all the rock paraphernalia of endless parties, when it came to the bottom line, she’d always been alone – or she had been ever since she’d moved out of the Kensington flat she’d shared with Primmie, Artemis and Geraldine – and that was so long ago it seemed to have been in another lifetime.
The Four of Us Page 31