Veronica watched, her eyes full, and I came back to sit beside her.
‘And Alec. How did you know he was Lydia’s husband?’
‘Come, let me show you.’
Emmeline led us from the room and along a narrow corridor to the back of the house. She took a key from round her neck and unlocked a door into a room, where thin sunlight was softened by the snowy sky.
The walls were covered. Pictures of two babies, two little girls, a beautiful woman with flaming hair, and newspaper cuttings, were all pinned to a large corkboard. I took a step forward. My mother’s wedding. The announcement of my birth. My father’s short letter telling of my mother’s disappearance. Articles about Malaya, depicting its beauty, and the terror that stalked its jungles.
The blood drained from my face. I could hardly breathe. Images flooded my mind. Half remembered incidents, outings, moods, and on our way to the sea, the sun shining on orange roofed bungalows. Most of all, the smell of lemongrass, and my mother’s perfume.
‘So you know everything about us,’ I said, turning to her. ‘About Fleur and me and about Mum.’
She shook her head. ‘Not everything. I still don’t know where your mother is. As I said, I followed her progress as far as it went, via my solicitor, who had kept me informed throughout her life. I knew of her marriage, and that she hadn’t returned to England with the rest of you. I instructed him to conduct a search using whatever means it might take.’
She put a hand to her throat and held it there.
‘Please go on,’ I said.
‘Sometime later, when we picked up a trail, I went abroad to discover more. I hoped to visit Malaya, but didn’t get further than Australia. Ill health, you see.’
‘We must find her,’ I said quietly.
She looked at me steadily. ‘We shall, and I hope you, Veronica, will assist us.’
Veronica nodded.
Emmeline showed us to the door and I held her hand. It was cold as ice. Over her shoulder I saw the oil paintings again and wondered if they were my ancestors.
‘Why didn’t you tell her who you were after she grew up, after you came to live back here?’ I asked.
‘I always intended to. But the longer I left it …’ Her voice trailed off. ‘Well, events conspired to prevent me. There was the war, and they went out to Malaya so suddenly. I’m sorry.’
‘So when the solicitor asked if you’d be prepared to let it be known that you were paying my fees, why did you agree now?’
‘I wanted very much to meet you and your sister, and as I’d had no success looking for Lydia with Alec’s help, I felt it was time to reveal my interest in you both, whatever your father might say.’
She paused.
I saw her distress and kissed her on the cheek. It too was cold.
‘Come back in February, at half term, and I’ll see what can be found out by then,’ she said. ‘And if we have to go to Malaya to find her, we’ll jolly well go together.’
I grinned as I waved, and Veronica and I walked out into the winter landscape, where the sky had turned thin and milky, and though it was freezing cold, my heart was on fire. I knew now who was paying my school fees, though that hardly seemed to matter at all. What mattered was that I had found Emma Rothwell. I had found my grandmother.
I wondered if Veronica was asking herself why Father withheld the truth. I knew I was.
‘What shall we do about Dad?’ I asked.
‘Maybe it’s best to keep this from your father, until we know more about the whereabouts of your mother.’
‘But he wants to sell the house.’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll work out a way to slow that down. I’ll pick you up at half term and we’ll go back to see your grandmother together.’
‘Do you still love him after this?’ I asked.
She nodded. ‘Love isn’t simple, and I know it’s hard to understand, but I think I do. He’s a complex man and he needs me.’
She was right; it was hard to understand.
53
When she couldn’t sleep for excitement, Lydia took two sleeping pills, left over from when she believed her daughters had perished in the fire. She slept well and woke splayed across his bed. The sun, slanting through the bedroom shutters, striped the room with bands of light, and she thought of how it had felt when Adil lay there with her. Her mind was full of him in the morning when she woke, but at night when she went to sleep, and throughout the day, she thought only of her daughters.
She heard voices coming from the living room, dragged herself up and stumbled to the door.
Cicely lifted a perfectly made-up face. ‘Hello, darling. Heavy night?’ She laughed pointedly and pulled a face at Adil. ‘Feel like joining us for coffee?’
Lydia felt awkward. Cicely always knew how to rattle her. She frowned and went to stand at the window, to avoid the teasing in Cicely’s eyes. She stared at her own hands, as if wholly absorbed by her new red nail varnish, then looked out of the window. It was unusually blowy. Unsure how to be, she watched as the wind made puffy white clouds fly about, but suddenly remembered that she owed Cicely her thanks, if nothing more.
She spun round. ‘I never thanked you for introducing me to Clara. If I hadn’t met her, well, it doesn’t bear thinking about.’
‘No need for thanks, darling.’
Lydia looked at Cicely’s face in the harsh sunlight and felt sorry for her. It seemed as if the fan of lines around her eyes had deepened, and she looked her age.
‘Better be off now. Good luck, darling.’ Cicely laughed, tilting her head at Adil. ‘Enjoy!’ She lifted a brow and with a quick flick of her bangled wrist was gone.
Lydia pulled a face.
Adil winked at her. He was dressed in burgundy and blue and the colours accentuated the brown of his eyes. ‘Don’t let her get to you.’
Maz, peeling a satsuma, spun round on his stool and an orangey fragrance filled the room
‘What did she want, other than wanting to embarrass me?’
He shook his head and held up an envelope. ‘You’re too easily embarrassed. But it was this. She came with this.’
Lydia blinked. ‘Who’s it from?’
He shrugged and passed the telegram over with unconcealed curiosity.
She read it and frowned.
‘So?’
‘I don’t understand. A woman is asking for details of my whereabouts.’
‘Who is she?’
‘Her name’s Cooper-Montbéliard. She says it’s on behalf of my family. There’s a P.O. box number in Worcestershire for a reply.’
‘Why did she send it to Cicely?’
‘Search me. But what does she mean?’ She glanced down. ‘On behalf of my family. She must mean Emma and Fleur.’
There was a moment of silence. She read it several times before glancing up again. He held out his arms to her. She went to him, buried her head in his chest. Maz jumped on to the coffee table, squealing and flapping his hands.
‘Maz, you’ll break it.’ Adil held out a hand, and the boy scrambled down. ‘And tidy up the camp bed, for goodness sake.’
‘What are we waiting for?’ Lydia said, pulling away. She scribbled the P.O. box number on a scrap of paper.
‘Do you know this woman?’
She shrugged and held up her hands. ‘I don’t care. I’m sending a reply today.’
‘Will you go immediately? To England I mean.’
She nodded and a pulse throbbed at her temple. She wanted to touch him again, feel his heart thump as she lay her head against his chest. But the sound of her daughters’ voices drew her back.
‘Has anyone ever told you, you have the most extraordinary eyes?’ he said, with a grin.
‘I thought you’d never notice,’ she said, head tilted to one side. She laughed, but there was a tremor in it. She’d been told she was beautiful before, but with Adil it meant more.
In the silence, nobody moved at first. Her feelings for him had grown slowly, and with them, the strange
sensation that whatever she felt, he felt too. Her chest constricted. Unable to breathe, she kept her back to him and busied herself with the washing up. Torn at the thought of leaving him, there were things she needed to say, yet the words just wouldn’t come.
Maz spun round and round, back on the stool again, and she heard Adil talking to him.
‘I have to speak,’ she said suddenly, in a voice choked with tears.
They stood facing each other across the room. Adil listened with absolute stillness, as if his whole body was absorbed by her.
‘I failed my husband, failed my daughters.’
‘If you did, you didn’t do it all on your own.’
‘Maybe not. But I do need to do this alone. See my daughters again. I’m sorry. I mean –’
He took a step towards her. She’d hoped his feelings for her were as real as her own, that she hadn’t simply convinced herself that he cared. Now a flood of emotion caught in her throat, and she waved him away with the dishcloth.
‘I have to put my children first,’ she said. ‘If I’d done that from the start, none of this would have happened … Whatever do you see in me?’
‘I see the woman I want to be with.’
There was a short silence. Even Maz ceased spinning on the kitchen stool.
‘Knowing everything about me, Jack, the girls, you still say that?’
He came across, put an arm round her waist and kissed her lightly on the forehead. ‘Lydia. Put the dishcloth down. Go and get dressed.’
She gazed at him, gripped by the look she saw on his face. He cared.
After going to the shipping office, and back at the flat again, Adil was relaxed and smiling.
‘You’re sure you don’t need me to come?’ he said.
Her heart felt like it was trying to jump from her chest, as she smiled and blinked the tears away. ‘I already have my little travelling companion.’
Maz looked up and grinned. ‘I am going on a ship.’
‘Thank God the Suez Canal is unblocked,’ Adil said. ‘Would’ve taken you a month otherwise.’
She hadn’t thought of that. Thank goodness too for Maz’s birth certificate. With it, Adil had managed to secure the necessary travel documentation, and it left just enough time, before the sailing, for a reply to come from England. She hoped it’d tell her exactly where to go.
‘You’ll like going on a big ship won’t you, sweetheart,’ she said, and ruffled the boy’s hair. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll look after you.’
She glanced over Adil’s shoulder at the sea mist and the clouds spreading over the ocean. She turned from the view, took in his high cheekbones and wide set eyes, then watched his loose limbed walk, as he started to move about the room.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a quiet voice.
His face was still as he ran a palm over his head. She waited for something more, a subtle shift in his expression perhaps, or maybe she waited to understand herself a little more. She hardly knew. But then, besides the familiar lines of his face, there was something. A slight movement in his eyes, a deep warmth as he smiled, hardly noticeable, but enough to show her his feelings were real. And knowing it gave her permission to breathe more freely, as if the tight knot of pain had started to come undone in her. She smiled, picked up a box of sugared dates, and went to the window. Maz and Adil came over, and the three of them ate the dates, watching gulls riding in the suddenly cloudless sky.
‘No more regrets,’ he said.
‘None at all.’
‘You’ll write? Let me know. Soon.’
‘Very soon.’
The sweet scent of melons rose from the street, and a burst of birdsong outside the window made her glance out again. In a funny way she’d be sad to leave Malaya.
‘Thank you,’ she said, her mouth suddenly dry.
He leant down, and she held his face in her hands. She kissed both eyelids. ‘You’ve always been what you said you were – a true friend. But you are far more than that. I don’t know how you did it, but you made me see myself clearly.’
‘I will be here when you’re ready,’ he said. ‘One word from you and I’ll be on the next boat. We can decide what to do as soon as you’re settled. Nothing will change that.’
She nodded and put a finger to her lips. This was a new grown-up kind of love. There was a certainty that needed no explanation. Something Emma once said came back to her. When a couple she and Alec had known well in Malacca separated, Emma had put her head to one side, and said, very sadly, ‘It’s because they’re not with their proper people.’
Reminded of it now, Lydia grinned.
‘What’s so funny?’ Adil asked.
‘You. You are my proper person. I hope you won’t mind the cold in England?’
He laughed. ‘I’m tough, Lydia.’
She couldn’t picture her life without him now. The future rose up before her and in every place she saw herself, he was there too, and even if she’d wanted to, she couldn’t paint him out. It was going to be all right. They would see each other again and it wouldn’t be long. The sun appeared through the clouds, the air cleared and that was it. She closed her eyes and smiled inwardly, feeling intensely light. Over at the edge of the shore, a woman in a pale blue dress waved. At the back of her mind, the ghost who hovered over her life faded, and Lydia turned towards the future. God willing, she was about to see her daughters again. Life had given her a second chance, and that was what mattered now.
54
At the eagerly longed for start of half term, Veronica was due to collect me to go back to Kingsland Hall. It was a cold day, so early that a white mist still lay over the grounds. I found her parked at the side of the school, where the harsh weather had cracked the wall.
It was only when I got into the car that I realised something was wrong. I asked her what, but she barely looked at me, and when I wanted to know if we were going straight to Kingsland Hall, she half turned towards me with a sad little smile on her face.
‘Sorry no. We have to go straight back.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘Your father knows.’
I frowned.
‘He knows we deceived him, that I took you to Kingsland Hall without telling him. He’s furious. Says I’ve been disloyal.’
‘How can he say that, after what he did!’
Veronica gave a little shake of her head and looked close to tears.
‘How did he find out?’
‘He overheard me on the phone to your grandmother, last night, talking about the tickets.’
She’d spoken in a matter of fact tone of voice, but I knew immediately what that meant. Despite her mood she smiled. It was magic. I couldn’t believe it. I hugged myself, tingling with excitement. Tickets to go to Malaya!
‘You know, don’t you, that after your grandmother saw your mother’s newspaper article, she got hold of an address for her friend, Cicely. From the journalist who wrote the article, apparently.’
‘I remember Cicely.’ I’d had no reply myself from the editor, but was overjoyed my grandmother had been more successful.
‘She sent Cicely a telegram, but didn’t receive anything back, so now she’s going to send an airmail letter, saying you’ll both be going out to Malaya.
I had an awful thought. ‘What if he tries to stop me from going?’
‘Then your grandmother will go alone,’ she said. ‘Anyway, that’s why we’re going straight back. He’s in a foul mood and I want to see if I can talk him round. We need to sort you out a new passport, and I can’t do it without his help. I don’t want to give him too much time to brood.’
Back home the atmosphere was stiff. Fleur was at a school friend’s for the day and night, and I was in my room with the door ajar. Dad’s voice reached me from below, and though I couldn’t make out all the words, I could tell by the tone of his voice that he was being difficult.
Eventually she came upstairs, pink-eyed, and even paler than usual. ‘We’re going out. I’ve persuaded him to
take a drive over to the Cotswolds to have lunch in Chipping Campden. Will you be okay?’
I answered with a grin.
As long as I had my grandmother, what could Dad do? My grandmother. I said the words over again, and pinched myself. Though I worried whether she’d cope with Malaya’s harsh climate, and there was still the matter of a passport to sort out.
The afternoon passed slowly. I was feeling quietly hopeful, dreaming of the heat of Malaya, when I heard a sound outside. I frowned. Had Fleur come back early? I went downstairs, and glanced out of the kitchen window at a low sun, shining behind the bare beech tree at the bottom of the garden. It was nearly dusk and someone was there. I opened the back door.
‘You’ll write about all this one day,’ Billy said, as he came through, then kissed me on the cheek.
I wasn’t so sure. I’d written very little since I abandoned Claris to her fate. ‘About what?’
‘About the wind flying through your hair, Em. I’ve got my dad’s motorbike. Where do you want to go?’
On our way to Kingsland Hall, I glanced at the river, black and cold, and remembered when I’d dangled my legs in the water with Billy. As we rode up the long drive, a new moon came out above the house. I let out a long slow breath. New moon. New life.
At the door, we were met by my grandmother’s assistant. ‘She’s not here,’ he said, with a troubled look.
My heart jumped. ‘Where then?’
‘Your grandmother is in hospital. I’m very sorry.’
I turned to Billy. ‘Can you take me there? Please, Billy.’
The assistant put out a hand. ‘I’m afraid she’s seriously ill. With all the excitement, I knew something like this would happen. I’ve just spoken to the matron. They won’t let anyone see her until tomorrow morning.’
‘Billy?’
‘Come on, Em. We’ll go in the morning. Like he says.’
Legs like jelly, I stood at the desk. The receptionist directed us to the top floor of the main wing. Though it was early, the hospital was wide-awake, and a strong smell of ether followed us everywhere. Porters pushed trolleys, and we had to avoid white-coated doctors, huddled together and speaking softly. I pushed open a swing door into a noisy ward. Everyone seemed to be running, a phone rang continuously, and frail voices called out for help. The sign above the door said Acute Observation. They were serving breakfast, so I stepped back, and straight into a plump nurse.
Separation, The Page 34