‘Christ!’ he clutched his eyes.
Temporarily blinded, he staggered about a bit, and I took advantage. I flung down the rake, shot one last look at the stumbling, gasping figure with his face in his hands – then fled. Up the immaculate lawn I tore, leaping the flowerbed, through the gate, down the tow path, through our own wrought-iron gate, then back down the garden, through the French windows – and home. I slammed the glass doors shut behind me, shooting bolts across at top and bottom with quivering hands. I spun round.
‘Claudia!’
No answer.
‘CLAUDIAAA!’
‘In here,’ came a flat, dead-pan voice.
I flew off in its general direction and found her, sitting with Lance, at the kitchen table. She was still huddled in the dressing gown and drinking orange juice straight from a carton. I dropped to my knees beside her.
‘Darling, oh, my poor darling,’ I sobbed, hugging her knees. ‘Are you all right? Shall I call the police?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Mum. You’ve made a complete and utter pill of yourself,’ snapped Claudia, shaking me off. ‘I’m so embarrassed. He didn’t hurt me at all, he just hauled me out of the river.’
My mouth fell open. I sat back on my heels, then stood up. ‘Wh-what?’
‘My bike hit a rut and I went in headfirst, bumped my head on a rock. He was at an upstairs window and saw what happened. He came out to help me. I was absolutely soaking so he lent me a dressing gown and put my clothes in the tumble dryer.’
‘But – they said you were crying,’ I gasped. ‘And being held by him!’
‘I was crying. I cut my knee, look.’ She lifted the dressing gown to show a newly bandaged knee with blood still seeping through. ‘It hurt like anything, and he wasn’t holding me, he was just helping me ’cos I was limping so much. I could hardly walk. I’ve never been so embarrassed in all my life, Mum. He was so kind and put a bandage on, and made tea and everything, and then you appear like bloody Boadicea, looking totally insane, screaming and hollering, with blood all over your face and twigs and things coming out of your head, and a rake, for God’s sake. You looked like such a spasmo.’
‘Oh God.’ I sank down on to a chair. ‘You mean he didn’t –’
‘No, of course he didn’t, and I’m really disgusted by your mind sometimes, Mum. You thought he was showing me his privates, didn’t you?’
‘Well I –’
‘I’m going up to change.’ She got up and stalked out.
I sat, staring after her for a minute. Then slowly, I leant my elbows on the table, pushed my hands into my hair, clutched my head and groaned.
‘Oh Lord!’ I whispered. ‘Oh Lord, Lance, I went berserk. She’s right. I went totally, indescribably, doo-bleeding-lally berserk! I was like a mad woman in there! Called him names, all kinds of terrible – oh Christ – ghastly names and – oh God –’ my head shot up and my eyes bulged with horror as I remembered – ‘I threw hot tea all over him! Scalded him, gave him third-degree burns! He’ll probably have me up for assault!’
‘Probably,’ Lance agreed calmly, pouring me a cup from the pot he’d just made. ‘But I’m sure we can get you off with a decent brief and some cock-and-bull story about it being the wrong time of the month and you being emotionally unstable or something. Tends to work. Anyway, the main thing is, Claudia’s back.’
‘Yes,’ I breathed, leaning back in my chair with relief. ‘Yes, you’re right, thank God. Helped out of a river by Sebastian.’ I raked my hands desperately through my hair again, punishing it. ‘Oh Lance, I must go back,’ I groaned. ‘I must go straight back – yet again – and apologise, sort things out. Poor, simple, decent, innocent man! I’ve probably scarred him for life!’
‘What, with the tea or the insults?’
‘Both! Oh, how appalling of me, Lance. Imagine what that could do to a man like that? I must make it up to him somehow. Maybe I could take him and his friends on an outing? To the zoo, or something? Hire a minibus?’
‘Olivia, I’m not convinced he’s as – Oh-oh.’ He broke off suddenly, glancing out of the window. ‘Forget the Whipsnade trip, I think you’ll have to go and make your neighbourly peace some other time. Right now you have a visitor.’
I glanced out of the window.
‘Johnny!’ I breathed, as the old yellow E-type screeched to an emergency halt outside. ‘Oh God, I’d forgotten about him. I should have rung him on his mobile, told him she was OK! Blimey, he got here in double-quick time; must have driven at a million miles an hour!’
‘I’ll make myself scarce,’ muttered Lance, getting up and making for the back door.
Johnny’s face when he got out of the car was very pale, his mouth set in a taut line. I jumped up and raced out to meet him. I knew that every moment of thinking she was missing was torture, and that if I ran, I could spare him one or two.
‘It’s OK!’ I cried as I flung open the front door. ‘She’s back! She went for a bike ride and fell in the stream, but she’s fine!’
He stopped still at the gate. His face cleared. ‘Thank God. Oh, Livvy, thank God.’ He broke into a run, and as I raced out to meet him, he swept me up in his arms and caught me to him. As he held me tight, my face pressed into his chest, my arms round his warm shoulders, I could feel his heart pounding. I shut my eyes. I wanted to sob. It was like a drop of water to a parched soul.
‘Where is she?’ he said, releasing me, holding me at arm’s length.
‘Upstairs, changing. I’ll tell her you’re here. Oh, Johnny, I’m sorry, I should have rung you on your mobile. You’ve had to come all this way again on a wild-goose chase!’
‘Wild-goose chase?’ He stared. ‘Don’t be silly, I’d have wanted to be here anyway. She’s my daughter, Livvy.’
‘Yes. Yes, of course,’ I nodded meekly, humbled. ‘Sorry.’ I hung my head.
I seemed to be getting it all wrong today, didn’t I? I was all over the place, apparently. We turned to go in, just as, clattering downstairs, in leggings and a pink T-shirt, and framed in the open front doorway, came Claudia. She yelped with delight when she saw Johnny. He ran, and she leapt the last few steps into his arms.
‘Hello, pixie,’ he muttered into her hair. ‘I hear you’ve been having huge adventures. Lone bike rides and falling into rapids, very Enid Blyton. You’ll have to let me come with you next time.’
‘Daddy,’ she pulled back from him, ‘I’m – I’m sorry about this morning, about not seeing you.’ Her voice cracked and it broke my heart. I don’t imagine it did much for Johnny’s, either. He held her gently by her shoulders, gazing at her.
‘Don’t be silly, Claudes. That wasn’t your fault, it was mine. Why should you have to choose between me or your friends? You should be able to have both – see me when you get up in the morning and then go out to play with your friends. I’ve done this to you, it’s my fault. I made you choose.’
I found myself nodding boisterously behind him and had to arrest my neck muscles. Steady. Don’t want your head to drop off into the flowerbed, Livvy. All the same, it sounded encouraging, didn’t it? Sounded like he’d seen a degree of light. Perhaps this misadventure of Claudia’s was going to have a little morality tale at the end of it? Be a bit of a catalyst for a happy ending? Encouraged, I followed them inside, but as they made to go into the kitchen, Johnny turned.
‘Livvy, d’you mind if I have a quick word with Claudes? I just want to get one or two things straight in her mind.’
I blinked. ‘Sure! No, gosh, good heavens, you go ahead. You, um, go in there and I’ll – well, I’ll wait in the sitting room.’
They disappeared within and the door closed.
I stared at the white, panelled door. Frowned. What? I wondered. What was it he wanted to get straight in her mind? And what did he want to say that he couldn’t say in front of me? That he’d fallen out of love with Mummy? That he was sorry if it inconvenienced her, but that was what happened to grown-ups sometimes? Their sudden closeness surprised me too
. I felt very … well, excluded. More so, I suppose, because it hadn’t always been thus. Claudia had always been very much a mummy’s girl. I vividly remembered a time when she was about three, in London, and Paddy, our beloved tabby cat, died. I’d dreaded telling Claudia, but finally had sat her down and broke the news. Oh dear, what a shame, she’d said, before skipping out to play. I’d been surprised but relieved, but the following morning, had found her sobbing inconsolably in our cleaning lady’s lap, because Vera had said how sad it was about Paddy. ‘But, darling,’ I’d said, dropping to my knees beside her, ‘I told you yesterday. I told you Paddy was dead!’ She’d raised an anguished, tear-stained face. ‘I thought you said Daddy!’ Johnny had roared with laughter when I’d told him, but I’d noticed, thereafter, a tendency to come home from work slightly earlier, to make it through the door at bathtime, to read her a story at bedtime, and I suppose it had worked. At some stage, they’d bonded closely, only for Johnny to test that bond now, some seven years later.
I inched a few steps closer to the door, inclining my head towards it. I could hear muffled voices within, but nothing clearly. Then I went the whole hog and put my ear to it. Johnny said something about loving her just as much as ever, and Claudia said something I couldn’t make out, and then Johnny said in a loud voice, ‘Livvy, d’you want to come in?’
I gasped and leapt away.
‘We can see your feet, Mummy,’ explained Claudia. ‘Under the door.’
‘Oh! Oh no. I – I was just wondering if you wanted a cup of tea?’
‘Well, we can make it ourselves, can’t we?’ came back Claudia, witheringly. ‘We’re the ones in the kitchen.’
‘Of course, darling, sorry,’ I trilled back. Crikey, she sounded so – chilly. Still cross, I suppose, for humiliating her in front of Sebastian.
I crept shamefully off to the garden to wait; picked up my trug from a bench. Well, they could only be talking about me, couldn’t they? I reasoned bitterly. What else was there to talk about? I went to the end of the garden and buried myself in the herbaceous border, savaging a piece of ground elder that had seeded itself around the delphiniums, taking advantage of my abstraction these past few weeks. As I straightened up to chuck it on the lawn, I saw movement through the caravan window. I squinted. Ah, so Lance had made himself scarce in there, had he? Well, that showed a degree of tact, anyway. In the dim, distant past of all of three hours ago, I seemed to recall that he was supposed to be my lover, my boisterous young lothario, but in the light of a missing child, I didn’t think having a spare lothario about the place was necessarily a good thing. I heard the back door open and crouched down again, busying myself amongst the earthworms where I belonged, waiting for them to come to me.
‘I’ll be off then, Livvy,’ said Johnny from a short distance.
I gave a little jump, just to show I’d been totally absorbed. As I turned, though, his blue eyes held me. Squeezed my heart. He shaded them with his hand against the sun. I wiped my perspiring face with my hand and realised it was covered in mud. Yes, yet again, I thought bitterly, I’d dressed up for Johnny. Scratched and battered by brambles, and now covered in earth, I’d made myself utterly desirable. I thought longingly of the cream linen dress and my kitten-heeled shoes upstairs.
‘Bye, then,’ I said with a cheery grin. ‘See you in a couple of weeks.’ I went to go back to my border.
‘Look,’ he took a step closer, ‘I’m just going to pop in and thank that chap down the road. It seems he did Claudia a really good turn.’
I swung back. ‘Oh! Hang on, no, don’t do that, Johnny!’
‘Why not?’
Claudia strolled up beside him. I shot her a nervous glance. Had she …? No, bless her, she clearly hadn’t told him about the bellowing harridan episode.
‘Oh, well,’ I faltered, ‘because –’
‘Because Mum wants to. Don’t you, Mum?’ She eyed me beadily. ‘We thought we’d go together.’
‘Yes, that’s it,’ I breathed. ‘Take some flowers, do it properly, you know.’
He shrugged. ‘OK. But be sure you do, won’t you?’
‘Of course I will,’ I bristled. God, anyone would think I was a child.
‘Bye then.’
‘Bye.’
He hesitated, and for an awful moment I thought he was going to kiss my cheek. Like social acquaintances. I quickly bent down to collect my trug, concentrating on separating weeds from stones. By the time I’d straightened up, he was on his way – back up the lavender walk, through the rose arbour and round the side of the house. I watched him go. Claudia had gone with him, and I could hear her now, clattering about in the kitchen. I picked up my trug and walked slowly back to the house. Whatever happened, I thought, I mustn’t ask her what Johnny had said in the kitchen. That would be an intrusion on her privacy and on her relationship with her father. I put the trug by the back door, breezed in, humming a little tune, and put the kettle on. She was reading an old Beano annual at the kitchen table.
‘All right now, darling?’
‘Yes, thanks.’
My hand went for the tea caddy. I paused. Turned. ‘Um, Claudes?’
‘Hmm?’
‘What did Daddy say?’
She glanced up from her book. ‘What?’
‘You know, your, um – little chat.’
‘Oh. Oh, just stuff about wishing it didn’t have to be this way. Hoping I’d understand when I was a bit older. The usual bollocks.’
‘Claudia!’
‘Sorry. Just a bit fed up with it all at the moment.’
She got up and left the kitchen. I dithered for a moment, then hastened after her into the sitting room.
‘Claudes, how about helping me make some pancakes? And then when we’ve eaten them, we could trough our way through a packet of biscuits in front of the telly!’
‘No thanks, I’m going upstairs. I’ve got some homework to do.’ She reached for her book bag behind the sofa and brushed back past me again. I bit my lip.
‘Claudia, I’m sorry. I’ve said I’m sorry. I was worried about you, that’s all.’
She turned. ‘Well, I’m worried about you, Mum. You really lost it today. You’ve got no brakes.’
‘Of course I’ve got brakes!’
‘You haven’t, you’re out of control. I was talking to Lucy’s mum about it.’
‘Claudia!’
‘No, she was really helpful.’
‘Was she indeed!’
‘Yes, she said that she got a bit unhinged after her last baby. Said maybe you should take up yoga.’
‘Yoga!’
‘Yes, Lucy’s mum does yoga and she’s really calm. Really tuned in.’
Is she, by jingo? Well, she wasn’t so flipping tuned in today. I nodded thoughtfully, though, pretending to take it on board. At least it wasn’t the men in white coats. ‘Right, yoga. Yes, that’s sounds fun. I might look into that.’
‘You should. Lucy’s mum can put her ankles behind her ears.’
Diverted that this should calm me down and not have me screaming for the fire brigade to come and unhook me, I nodded again. ‘Right. And … you think that might help me, Claudes? Feet behind the ears?’
She shrugged. ‘It might, you never know. Might stop you overemoting.’
My mouth hung open as she turned and mounted the stairs. Overemoting? Christ! She was ten! Bloody ten! Where was she getting all this? I gazed incredulously after her.
Later that evening I rang Molly.
‘Where’s it all coming from?’ I whispered, aware that Claudia was still working upstairs. ‘Do the teachers feed them this rubbish, d’you suppose?’
‘I blame the media. You only have to open one of those innocent-looking My Little Twinkle comics to find it’s full of psychobabble. “Dear Tina, I feel a bit depressed at the thought of having to do my homework … Dear Jessica, have you thought of getting some counselling?” Honestly, they’ll all have disappeared right up their backsides by the time they’re teenagers.
Why’s she so concerned about you, anyway?’
I confided the details of my hideous day, graphically depicting the ghastly Sebastian episode.
‘Well, I’m not so sure you weren’t right,’ she said slowly. ‘In fact, I’m not convinced you didn’t do exactly the right thing. I mean, why did he take her back to his house? Why not your house? It’s just as close. And I don’t like the idea of her handing over her clothes to him, either.’
‘Don’t you?’ I yelped, reaching for a cigarette.
‘No, but having said that, I’m quite prepared to accept that I’m totally paranoid and I’ve only got like this since I’ve had children. If you’d told me that story three years ago I’d have said, “Gosh, what a perfectly sweet, helpful man,” but now I’ve got Henry I see paedophiles at every corner. I can’t read him Fireman Sam without wondering if Sam’s waving his hose about in a rather provocative manner. It’s biological, I’m afraid. Once you’ve had children all that a-stranger-is-a-friend-I’ve-yet-to-meet crap goes right out the window. A stranger is a potential child molester. It’s symptomatic of our overprotective natures.’
I sighed. ‘Perhaps, but you should have seen me, Molly. I was like a mad woman in there. I reckoned if I’d had a knife in my hand instead of a rake, I’d have stabbed him with it.’
‘So he was lucky then. Just the tea and biscuits. I really don’t know what you’re worrying about, Livvy, and I’d certainly forget about the flowers. That might put all sorts of ideas into his head. In fact, I wouldn’t even bother to apologise in person. Just pop a little note round saying you’re sorry if you got the wrong end of the stick. But make sure you keep that “if” in there. Because if ever I heard an iffy story, it’s this one.’
Chapter Thirteen
The builders were back the following morning, and with them, an uncharacteristic air of doom and gloom. As they unloaded their spluttering, terminal lorry and dragged in the usual hundredweight of cable, copper piping, planks, bags of plaster, bolts and brackets with which to decorate my kitchen, their faces were long, their voices muted.
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