Never Leave Me

by Margaret Pemberton

  ‘Thank you, chéri,’ she said hesitantly, and then, as he continued with his telephone call, she turned on her heel and walked disconsolately away.

  For two consecutive years she spent July and August in Biarritz in the company of her children and her parents. She spoke nothing but French from the moment she set foot on French soil to the moment she left, much to the exasperation of Lucy who spoke hardly a word. Dominic loved Biarritz because he could surf to his heart’s delight. Lisette loved it because, if she closed her eyes, she could imagine herself on the beach below Valmy. Imagine that she was at home again.

  The Kennedys were in the White House and on her visits to France she felt proud of both the country of her birth and America. Ever since the presidential visit to Paris in 1961, France had taken Jacqueline Kennedy to its heart.

  ‘She is marvellous,’ her father said to her as they strolled together on the promenade, ‘so dark-haired and pretty and chic. Just like you.’ She had laughed and told him not to be silly, but she, too, admired Jacqueline Kennedy enormously and when she went back to America she involved herself more and more in Democratic fund-raising activities.

  In 1963 her father wrote to her saying that they would not be vacationing in Biarritz that year. He had suffered ill health all through the winter and Heloise was taking the unprecedented step of closing her apartment in Paris and joining him at Valmy. He hoped that she and the children would join them there for the summer.

  ‘No,’ Greg said tightly when she showed him the letter. ‘Under no circumstances.’

  She had not argued with him, but she was aware of an increasing sense of bewilderment. It had been nine years since that hideous day at the cottage in Carmel. She had neither seen nor corresponded with Luke since. Greg’s nature was not a vindictive one. He was a generous man. A compassionate man. Yet there was an almost frightening glitter in his eyes whenever Valmy was mentioned, and she knew it was because he was thinking of Luke. Of Luke’s nearness to Valmy. Of his frequent bi-weekly visits there.

  ‘If we’re not going to Biarritz, can I go with the Morgans to Hawaii?’ Lucy asked, applying amethyst-blue shadow to her eyelids and studying the result with interest.

  ‘I imagine so,’ Lisette said equably, watching as Lucy applied more eye shadow, knowing that interference would be unwelcome.

  ‘Dominic is going back-packing in Europe. He’s going to travel through Belgium and into Germany and then go down into Italy. He says he may even cross over into Africa.’

  ‘I thought he wanted to go through France and into Spain,’ Lisette said as generous applications of eye-liner and mascara completed Lucy’s toilette.

  ‘He’s changed his mind. He wants to practise his German and he wants to see the Alps and drink red Chianti in the Tuscany hills.’ She surveyed her handiwork in the mirror and then looked up at her mother, a slight frown puckering her brows. ‘Why are you looking so pensive, Mom? Are you envying him Rome and Venice and Florence?’

  Lisette gave her a quick smile. ‘Yes,’ she lied. ‘Of course I am.’ But she wasn’t. She was thinking of him visiting his father’s country. She was remembering Dieter telling her about his childhood. About walks in the Schoneberger Volkspark, iced lemonade at the Hotel Adlon, chocolate cake at Sacher’s. For days there had been no escaping thoughts of Berlin. The newspapers had been full of accounts of President Kennedy’s visit there. He had stood, looking out over the wall that divided the city, and proclaimed ‘Ich bin ein Berliner!’ ‘I am a Berliner.’ Lisette had felt the tears burn the backs of her eyes. Dieter would not have resented John F. Kennedy’s presence in Berlin. And he would have applauded his words.

  ‘Why don’t you make a trip to Italy this summer, Mom?’ Lucy asked her, swinging round on her dressing-table stool, her honey-brown eyes so like Greg’s, concerned. ‘You’re going to be very lonely in San Francisco this summer. Daddy is going to London to receive treatment from this new neurosurgeon that he has found. Dominic will be in Europe. I shall be in Hawaii. What on earth will you do with yourself until we return?’

  ‘I shall be very busy,’ Lisette said firmly. ‘I’m on so many charity and Democratic fund-raising committees that I’ve lost count. I have a series of talks to give to women’s groups on French art and literature. I have the French classes I give to deprived children. My diary is exceptionally full and I doubt if I will have time to miss any of you.’

  Lucy grinned. ‘Of course you’ll miss us,’ she said, rising to her feet and picking up her purse. ‘See you later, Mom. I’ll be in by ten. ’Bye.’

  ‘Au revoir chérie,’ Lisette said, her smile fading as her daughter whirled from the room. She stared at her reflection in Lucy’s dressing-table mirror. She would be busy as she always was. And she would be lonely. In all her years in America she had made no real friends of her own. The friends that she lunched with and played bridge with, the friends she visited the theatre and the art galleries with, were Greg’s friends as well as hers. There was no one else she could talk to. No one with whom she could be herself. Lisette de Valmy, unhappily married to a man she loved too much to leave.

  She put the top back on to one of Lucy’s lipsticks, tidying the disarray Lucy had left behind her. It would be a long summer. The London neurosurgeon who was optimistic that he could restore movement to Greg’s legs, had told him to expect a stay in London of at lease three months. Perhaps Lucy was right. Perhaps she should take a trip somewhere by herself, but where? The only place she really wanted to go was London, with Greg, but he had already said that he intended making the trip alone.

  ‘Write me every day, mon cher, even if it is only one line on a postcard,’ Lisette said as she accompanied Dominic to his flight gate. ‘I want to know where you are and I shall plot your progress through Europe on a map, just as if I were a French general.’

  Dominic laughed, kissing her cheek. ‘I will.’ He looked down at her tenderly. ‘Take care,’ he said, and then he was gone, striding through the flight gate, tall and broad-shouldered moving with an athlete’s muscular co-ordination and grace, drawing admiring feminine glances in his wake.

  There was no goodbye at the flight gate when Greg left for London. Airports were one place where he felt conscious of his disability. This time he was leaving with the fierce hope that it would be the last time he would ever have to do so in a wheelchair. That when he returned, it would be on his own two feet. Mr Muir, the London neurosurgeon who was to treat him, had achieved brilliant results. Other cases, similar to his, had been successfully treated. Healthy tissue grafted onto damaged tissue. Movement brought to limbs that had been previously thought permanently immobile. His own prognosis was good. There was no reason for him not to anticipate one hundred percent success.

  ‘You have enough money in your current account for the entire time that I will be gone,’ he said to her as his chauffeur carried out his bags to his car. ‘If you do need more, call the bank and they’ll transfer it.’

  She didn’t want to talk about money. She wanted to talk about the surgery that lay ahead of him. The possibility that he would be able to walk again. She wanted to hug him, and kiss him goodbye, and tell him how very much she loved him. She said instead, ‘Thank you, chéri. Perhaps, if I take the trip to Italy, I could stay in London for a few days on my way home …’

  ‘No!’ His eyes had darkened. The strain of the three months ahead of him would be bad enough without the added strain of enduring, lovelessly, Lisette’s presence. He had already come to terms with the fact that when and if he ever walked again, she would very probably leave him. There would be nothing further to keep her. Her duty to him would have been discharged. He said tersely, ‘Don’t worry about me. Everything is going to be fine. I’ll telephone you from the clinic. Goodbye, Lisette.’

  ‘Goodbye,’ she said sadly, glad that he turned away from her quickly, that he couldn’t see the tears burning the backs of her eyes.

  Dominic’s first postcard home was from Brussels. ‘I’m sitting in a cafe on t
he Grand Place and you’ll never guess who is with me. Mel! She’s holidaying with an aunt. From here they’re going to Cologne and then down the Rhine as far as Heidelburg. The travel books say that if one sits in a cafe on the Grand Place for long enough, the whole world will eventually walk by, but who would have believed I would have met Mel after so many years! The incredible thing is, she hasn’t changed a bit! I was sitting enjoying a beer, and then I heard this very English accent complaining that a pigeon had mussed up her hair and when I turned round it was Mel! Must dash now. Much love, D.’

  Lisette read and reread the postcard. Melanie. She wondered if she was as pretty and as ebullient at sixteen as she had been at seven. It seemed strange to think that after all Annabel’s attempts to sever the friendship that had existed between Dominic and Melanie as children, it should be renewed so eagerly after a chance meeting in a Belgian square. Fate, she had thought bemusedly, and had thought no more about it till Dominic’s next two postcards arrived from Coblenz and Mannheim.

  ‘Mel isn’t going back home with her aunt when we reach Heidelburg. She’s going to continue with me into Italy. Southern Germany is fabulous. The most beautiful countryside I’ve ever seen. Much love, D.’

  She stared down at his bold, confident handwriting, appalled. Melanie was only sixteen. She could not imagine for a moment that Annabel’s permission had been sought. If it had been, she knew that it would never have been given. Dominic was the last person in the world that Annabel would want consorting with her daughter. The very mention of Dominic’s name would bring back memories of Luke’s faithlessness. She would hate the thought of any further links between their two families almost as much as Greg would.

  She wrote to him, poste restante praying that her letter would reach Heidelburg before they left for Italy. She insisted that Melanie return home and they did not even consider spending the summer together. She pointed out that Melanie was only sixteen. That her suddenly going off with a boy of eighteen, a boy she hadn’t seen for nine years and scarcely knew, would cause her mother untold distress. She demanded, in the strongest terms, that he telephone home immediately.

  She received no reply and no telephone call. The next postcards were from Austria. The aunt had returned to England. The Alps were magnificent. The swimming in the mountain lakes breathtakingly cold. By the beginning of the following week they hoped to be in Italy.

  There had been nothing she could do. She had dialled the overseas operator and had asked for Annabel’s telephone number, but the number was ex-directory. She had been ashamed of her relief. By the end of July, postcards were coming from Italy. From Pisa and Florence. They were in love with Florence. They thought they might never leave. Lisette had felt faint and wondered why there was no reaction from Annabel. By the beginning of August she was convinced that neither the aunt nor Melanie had told Annabel who it was accompanying her daughter on her extended holiday.

  She had other worries too. Greg had undergone surgery four times and though some movement had been restored to his legs, there was still doubt about whether success would be one hundred percent, and whether he would be able to walk again, unaided.

  In the last week of August, Dominic’s postcard was from Geneva. They were on their way back and he was returning to England with Mel. He was going to visit his father in London. It had been a fantastic summer. He had a brilliant piece of news and couldn’t wait to tell her it.

  Lisette had put the postcard down weakly, filled with a sense of foreboding stronger than any she had ever known.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Greg leaned on the parallel bars in the physiotherapy room, sweating from every pore. He had walked three yards. It had been the equivalent of climbing Everest. Three yards and tomorrow it would be six yards and the day after it would be twelve. The miracle he had waited nine years for had at last taken place.

  It had always been a possibility. The spinal nerves had not been severed. There had always been hope and now that hope had become reality. He hauled himself back into his wheelchair. It was too soon to tell anyone. There would be many more weeks of physiotherapy before he could walk for long periods unaided, but when he returned to America it would be on his own two feet. The years of physical handicap would be over.

  ‘There’s a visitor to see you, Mr Dering,’ a nurse said, walking into the physiotherapy room with a smile. ‘I told him you were nearly through in here and that you would be back in your room in about ten minutes.’

  Greg frowned. He wasn’t expecting any visitors. No one, apart from his immediate family and Nick, knew where he was. He hadn’t wanted to face pity if the surgery he had undergone had been unsuccessful.

  ‘Did he give a name?’ he asked, accepting the hand-towel she offered him, wiping the sweat from his face and neck.

  ‘Mr Dering Junior,’ the nurse said, her smile dimpling her cheeks. ‘He’s carrying the largest rucksack I’ve ever seen in my life. If matron sees him she’ll have him ejected before you’ve even had the chance to say hello.’

  ‘Then matron had better not see him,’ Greg said with an answering grin, thrusting the towel into her waiting hand and propelling his wheelchair swiftly out into the corridor and towards the elevator.

  Minutes later he catapulted into his private room and Dominic, in faded jeans and T-shirt, sprang towards him, hugging him tightly. ‘It’s great to see you, Dad! How is everything?’ His grey, black-lashed eyes were urgent. ‘Has the surgery been a success?’

  ‘Give it another month,’ Greg said with a grin, ‘and you’ll be able to see for yourself exactly what kind of a success it’s been.’

  Dominic’s whoop was ecstatic. ‘You mean you’re going to be able to walk again? That’s fantastic! Does Mom know yet? Does Lucy?’

  ‘No, I didn’t intend telling anyone until I could also give a physical demonstration. You took me by surprise, that’s all.’

  ‘That makes us quits. I have some news for you that no one else knows yet. I’m engaged. We want to be married just as soon as Mel can get permission.’

  Greg’s brow quirked quizzically. ‘Don’t you think you’re just a little bit young to be diving into marriage? And who is Mel? The last girl you were dating was Jodie Brooks.’

  ‘Jodie Brooks? Who is Jodie Brooks?’ Dominic asked, laughing. ‘And yes, of course you know her. I’m going to marry Mel. Mel Brandon.’

  Every vestige of colour fled from Greg’s face. He tried to speak and couldn’t. Tried again and choked.

  ‘What is it?’ Dominic asked in concern, his smile vanishing. ‘Do you want a drink of water? Shall I call for a nurse?’

  Greg shook his head violently. ‘No! Nothing.’ He fought for control of speech. ‘You can’t marry Melanie Brandon,’ he rasped at last. ‘You can’t even think of it!’

  ‘But why not?’ Dominic asked bewilderedly. ‘I know we’re both young, Mel is only sixteen, but we’ve spent the whole summer together and …’

  ‘My God …!’

  ‘What is it Dad? Are you sure I shouldn’t ring for a nurse?’

  ‘No!’ As Dominic reached out to the bell, the wheelchair shot across the room, his father’s wrist clamping vice-like on his own. ‘Listen to me, Dominic! You can’t marry Mel! It’s out of the question. Is that understood?’

  ‘No.’ Bewilderment was giving way to anger. He hadn’t expected his father to be ecstatic at the prospect of his marrying young, but he had never envisioned such a violent response. ‘I love Mel. I’ve always loved her. And I’m going to marry her.’

  There was steely defiance in his voice. Greg could feel sweat breaking out on his forehead, trickling down his spine. ‘Are you lovers?’ he demanded harshly.

  A spasm of shock flared across Dominic’s face. ‘No,’ he said angrily, colour mounting his cheeks. ‘You think she’s pregnant, don’t you? You think that’s why we’re so eager to get married! It isn’t like that. We’re in love and we want to get married, but we’re not lovers! Not yet!’

  ‘Thank Chr
ist!’ Greg passed a hand across his eyes. He was in a nightmare from which there was no waking. There was no way, without giving him a reason, that Dominic would cease seeing Melanie. No way he could prevent their relationship from deepening into one of incest.

  ‘You can’t marry Melanie,’ he repeated, his voice raw. ‘Please take my word for it, Dominic. Please trust me.’

  ‘No!’ It was the first ugly quarrel they had ever had and he didn’t understand why they were having it. He picked up his rucksack and walked to the door, his face white. ‘I’m sorry, Dad, but I’m going to many Mel.’

  Greg’s face was haggard. It was the most terrible moment of his life and there was no avoiding it. If he didn’t speak now, more sins would be innocently heaped upon the multitude of sins that had gone before. ‘You can’t many Melanie,’ he said brokenly, and then, at last, despairingly, ‘She’s your half-sister.’

  Dominic stared at him and then gave an awkward laugh. ‘You’re not well, Dad. You’re hallucinating.’ He put his hand on Greg’s shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. ‘I guess they’ve been pumping you full of drugs. You need a rest. I’ll come back and see you later.’

  Greg seized hold of the hand on his shoulder, his eyes glittering, the line of his mouth merciless. ‘I’m not drugged! Nothing on God’s earth would have induced me to tell you the truth if it wasn’t for the thought of the two of you marrying! Now listen to me, Dominic! Luke Brandon is your father. You were conceived before I even met your mother. When we married she thought Brandon was dead. Now do you understand?’ His eyes were like burning coals. ‘You can never marry Melanie!’

  Dominic backed away from him. ‘You’re lying,’ he whispered. ‘She isn’t my sister … She can’t be my sister … It’s too horrible. Too monstrous …’ He blundered into the door. ‘Oh Jesus! You’re lying! Please tell me you’re lying!’