by Judy Astley
‘Oh, gorgeous, thanks!’ she said, inhaling their scent. ‘But can’t you just be cross with me? Mum is.’
‘Too right I am!’ Viola told her, smiling at Marco.
‘She’s cross with you for lying and being sly, and so am I, don’t even think of doubting it. But we’re far more relieved that you’re not in intensive care. What were you doing, being just up the road from me and not even calling in? I call that rude.’
‘Sorry, Dad.’ A big tear trickled down Rachel’s cheek.
‘Hey, don’t cry. You can’t be a teenager and not make mistakes. It goes with the territory.’
‘It’s not just teenagers,’ Viola said wryly. ‘There are plenty of grown-ups who still make them.’
Of all the places to have it out with Kate, Viola wouldn’t have chosen the front path at her mother’s house. Viola pulled up in the Polo just as Kate was getting Beano out from the back of her own car. Miles climbed out of the passenger seat, looking, Viola thought, even plumper and more lumbering than usual.
‘Any idea what this is all about?’ Kate asked. ‘A three-line-whip kind of summons from Mum? Perhaps she’s going to announce she’s flogging off the homestead after all.’
‘You two wouldn’t be keen on that, would you?’ Viola said.
‘Well, we have always said it wouldn’t be sensible. You know my ideas on the perfect solution. Perhaps she’s going to ask you to move back in.’ Miles looked pleased with himself at the prospect of being right.
‘You haven’t returned my calls, Kate,’ Viola told her. ‘Are you avoiding me?’
‘What calls? Sorry, I must remember to check my voicemails. And no, of course I’m not avoiding you. Why would I?’ She locked her car and bent to put Beano on his lead, fussing with his collar.
It had to be now. Viola felt her heart rate whizz skywards.
‘Kate, I know what you did. And if you’d listened to your phone you’d know exactly what I mean.’
Kate, still crouching over Beano, seemed to freeze. ‘Did when?’ she said eventually, not looking at Viola.
Viola took a step closer and Kate stood up and faced her, frowning, eyes cold and glittery. Viola was aware of the front door opening and Naomi coming out. Miles went over to Kate and took Beano’s lead from her. For a moment, Viola had the impression that he must be thinking there was going to be a full-scale fight.
‘I was at the hospital last night with Rachel and I found out.’
‘Is Rachel all right? What happened?’ Miles asked.
‘She’s fine. But you weren’t, were you, Kate? Not when you were there. You hurt your head in the crash. You were in the car with Rhys when he died. You were the one who called the ambulance.’
Breathe, Viola told herself. In and out, stay even, stay calm. All three of them were lined up now, in front of her. Naomi standing to the side, Kate in the middle.
‘And even after you’d run off with my husband, cheating bastard though he was, at the hospital you even nicked my bloody name. Why didn’t you use your own? Or Rhys’s, come to that?’
‘I don’t know.’ Kate sighed. ‘I panicked. I just panicked. I was hurt, just …’
‘Hurt? You were hurt? Rhys was dead!’
‘Fucking hell, Viola!’ Kate screamed at her. ‘Do you think I didn’t know that? I had to climb over his body to get out of that car and then sit next to it in the fucking ambulance and then later say nothing and keep it all bottled up while everyone felt sorry for you and you were the big victim at the funeral! Mum and Miles wouldn’t even let me grieve properly just so you wouldn’t get upset! It’s all about bloody you! All about protecting precious little accident-prone, unlucky baby you!’ She unlocked her car and opened the door to climb back inside, then looked back at the others, furious and tearful. ‘So you see? Now she knows and we can all stop playing bloody charades!’
‘You knew?’ Viola accused the other two, feeling faint. Neither of them spoke, which told her everything. Kate waited by her open car door, looking unsure.
‘You sent those cards,’ Viola suddenly realized, feeling chilled. ‘Even now, you wanted me out of my own house.’
‘Every time I went there, it reminded me of being with him. And of seeing you playing happy families with him. How do you think that felt? I’m so sorry, Vee.’ Kate was crying now. ‘But you know, you hadn’t a clue about Rhys. You never loved him, not really, and he didn’t love you – I was just too married to Rob at the time we got together and I hadn’t the guts to leave till it was all way, way too late. Rhys was everything to me.’ She leaned against the car and sobbed. Miles went and put his arm round her, looking like a big awkward boy.
Viola felt sick. ‘Oh God, that’s exactly what Rhys said about you,’ she said, her voice quiet and empty.
‘Come into the house now, all of you,’ Naomi commanded, ‘You’ll have old Joe next door coming out with his video camera. Come on, I’ll put the kettle on. Or maybe I should just open the gin.’
‘I don’t want to,’ Viola said, backing away. ‘I just want to go home, back to Rachel. Marco’s with her.’
‘No, you have to come in. I’ve got things I want to say. I’ve made a decision and you all need to hear about it.’
Viola felt exhausted. All her fury with Kate had melted away at that one poignant sentence: ‘Rhys was everything to me’. How much more Kate must have lost than she had when Rhys died. And she’d carried that loss and that love in silence all these long, sad months.
Miles led the still sobbing Kate into the house behind Naomi, and Viola trailed in after them.
‘Straight through to the back garden, I think. Fresh, reviving air.’ Naomi ushered them outside and went back into the kitchen and switched on the kettle. Viola, reluctant to join the other two, hung about in the kitchen, taking the old Jubilee biscuit tin out of the larder and piling up Jaffa cakes on a plate.
‘What’s the decision? Can you tell me now, then I can go? I don’t want to stay here with Kate.’ Viola could hear her own voice sounding sulky, like a bad child.
‘You’re staying. Just hear me out. This isn’t any easier for me than what you’ve just put Kate through.’ Naomi made the tea.
‘What I’ve put Kate through? All this time, you’ve all known she’d been going behind my back with my husband and you can say that?’
‘Sometimes keeping quiet is the best thing all round,’ Naomi said as she followed Viola, who had arranged a tray and was carrying it out to the terrace table. ‘You might learn that one day when you’re older, but I sincerely hope you never have to.’
‘So are you selling up?’ Miles asked Naomi, smiling in an anxious sort of way as Viola poured the tea.
‘No. I can’t sell up. But I’ll have the company in the house that you seem to think I need. I’m moving Monica in here. She’s going downhill and I can see she’s going to need looking after. I’m selling a couple of paintings which will give me enough to do up the flat a bit for her, for when she gets frail. We’ll muddle through her illness together, and it’ll be a long one, I’m thinking.’
Kate stopped sniffing into a tissue and looked at her mother, puzzled. ‘But why do you have to take care of her?’
‘Because I owe her. That’s why,’ Naomi said bluntly.
‘Why do you owe her? Do you mean money?’ Miles asked.
‘No. I owe her something far more precious than that. Loyalty,’ Naomi murmured.
‘Then why not sell this place and move to the flats where she lives?’ Viola asked. It seemed a reasonable idea.
‘Ah.’ Naomi smiled at her. ‘Well, I can’t. The thing is …’ And she waited for a moment, considering, avoiding looking at any of them. ‘The house isn’t actually mine to sell.’
‘Jesus, whose is it then? Did you remortgage?’ Miles looked worried. Viola could almost have laughed.
‘It’s mine for my lifetime, that’s all. You remember Oliver Stonebridge, all of you? Well, of course you do, especially you, Vee, because you saw more of him. Wel
l, he bought it for me. After I die it goes to his daughter. So you see, I can’t sell it.’
‘So …’ Kate seemed to be thinking aloud. ‘What was Oliver to you … Was he … um …?’
‘Yes, he was,’ Naomi said quietly. ‘He was, as you’d put it, Kate, everything to me. And Monica – well, she was the wife he’d planned to leave. But then he got cancer and there didn’t seem much point causing more hurt than his death was going to, so we just continued as before, until … until he died.’ Bizarrely, she then chuckled. ‘As Rachel would probably say, Viola, “end of”.’
‘So Monica’s daughter gets this house after you’ve gone? After you’ve looked after her mother for her and done the flat up at your own expense?’ Miles looked as if he wanted to punch someone.
‘Ah well, not exactly, Miles. You see, that’s the thing. He and Monica had a son and he lives abroad. But … and I know this is going to be a shock, Oliver and I did have a daughter. It’s Viola who will inherit the house.’
THIRTY
I AM ONLY a half-sister, Viola thought later as she drove home, not a whole one. She tried saying out loud, ‘Viola Stonebridge Smith’. It had quite a ring to it but it wasn’t her. She’d been Hendricks since she and Marco had married and she’d happily stick with that. Half-sister to Miles and Kate. Poor Kate, what she must have gone through. And her mother, with her many years as the secret mistress of a man who couldn’t bring himself to leave his wife. She didn’t know whether to love him for that or hate him. No point in either, she knew. Nothing was to be gained from blaming the dead. She could at least give her mother a choice about the house, though. If it was possible to sell up with her consent, and if Naomi wanted that option so as to move to Monica rather than the other way round, then she’d do her best to make it happen.
To her surprise and delight, as she drove through the Bell Cottage gates she saw Greg’s Land Rover parked beside her front door and Greg inside it, reading The Guardian with his feet on the dashboard.
‘Hello, you,’ he said, climbing out and hugging her as soon as she was out of her car. ‘I can’t seem to pin you down to a meet-up, so I thought I’d just come here and get you and shout at you for standing me up last night. You are an elusive beast, you know.’
‘I’m so sorry. And I’m so sorry about last night. It’s been a traumatic time all round. So, so sorry. I’ll tell you all about it when I’ve had a moment to catch my breath.’
‘It’s OK, please stop apologizing,’ he said, stroking her hair, soothing her. ‘I’ve got part of the gist. Your ex was here and told me about your daughter and the hospital. He’s taken her out for a late fry-up lunch and said he’ll take her to a film as well, so not to expect them back till much later. He did say I could wait for you in the house, but I thought it would look presumptuous.’
‘Oh, it would have been fine. But anyway, come on in now, please. I need to feel, I don’t know, grounded. I’ve just found out things about me that I probably should have known for, oh, most of my life. Takes it out of you.’
‘He’s not so bad, your ex,’ Greg said as they went inside. ‘I thought I’d want to punch his lights out when I rocked up and there he was, like he belonged here. I mean, I didn’t know, did I? I suddenly thought, hey, you’re not as single as I’d assumed.’
‘I’d thought the same about you.’
‘I know. Maybe that blank-page thing wasn’t such a good idea. But there’s time. And your ex, well, he likes a beer and doesn’t support Manchester United, so I reckoned he’s not all bad.’ He looked serious for a moment. ‘You and he, you seem to have a friendly thing going. Reconciliation ahead? Because if there’s a chance that’ll happen, then perhaps I should start on the “Maybe we can still be friends” speech.’
‘Greg!’ She laughed. ‘Marco is as gay as Brighton Pier and lives with a lovely man called James. So, no, I don’t think there’s a chance we’ll be getting back together, much as we’re fond of each other!’
‘Phew, so I’m in with a shout then?’
‘Oh yes. Yes, you are.’ And, as it turns out, as a wonderful bonus you’re not even remotely related to me, she thought a few minutes later when she surfaced for a moment from kissing him. Oh the irony, that she had Kate to thank for that family tree and the discovery that the baby was his tiny cousin. How tenderly he’d held that baby, she remembered. Who couldn’t love a man like that?
‘Excellent,’ Greg said. ‘Which means we have to go and deal with those crocuses one night soon, before they start sprouting.’
‘We do? Why? Are they in the wrong place?’
He laughed. ‘In a manner of speaking. When you didn’t show up in the night I planted the whole lot in a complete pissed-off fury. They spell out, very large and very clearly, a very rude word. I think in the interest of not upsetting the faint-hearted who happen to be passing on a bus next spring, they really need rearranging.’
Viola giggled. ‘Oh no! All my fault, I’m so sorry! I’ll certainly come out with you and help.’
‘You can. But right now I want to show you my latest soppy gesture, even worse than the gladioli, but you must promise not to laugh or we’re so, as the kids would say, like, over.’
‘What gesture? I’m so sorry about those other flowers,’ she said, snuggling close.
‘That was then – and it’s nothing to do with those. It’s this one.’ He led her out through the kitchen doors and on to the terrace. ‘I did it as soon as your ex and daughter were out of the door. Nearly did myself an injury climbing over your back fence.’
It took Viola a few moments to take in what he’d done. The side borders looked just as she’d left them. It was the lawn that was different, so ridiculously different. The edges had been mown so there was a neat, curved border, but the middle had been left long and the grass and rampant buttercups were interspersed with cornflowers, poppies and ox-eye daisies, like a gorgeous, wild and wonderful little meadow.
‘Oh, you’ve made it heart-shaped!’ she gasped. ‘It’s fantastic! You are totally mad, you know? This is so stunning!’ She hugged him.
‘The plants are still only in pots at the moment. Even I couldn’t get them in that fast. Of course, from down here it’s not the best view.’ He looked at her, sparkly-eyed, and pulled her close.
‘Ah, no, you’re right,’ she said, catching what he meant and feeling instantly thrilled. ‘It would be much better seen from an upstairs window.’ She took his hand and smiled at him. ‘Come with me?’
About the Author
Judy Astley became an author of witty contemporary novels after several years as a dressmaker, illustrator, painter and parent. She has two grown-up daughters and lives in London and Cornwall with her husband. She has been shortlisted for the Romantic Comedy Novel of the Year, 2012.
For more information about Judy Astley and her books, see her website at www.judyastley.com
Also by Judy Astley
JUST FOR THE SUMMER
PLEASANT VICES
SEVEN FOR A SECRET
MUDDY WATERS
EVERY GOOD GIRL
THE RIGHT THING
EXCESS BAGGAGE
NO PLACE FOR A MAN
UNCHAINED MELANIE
AWAY FROM IT ALL
SIZE MATTERS
ALL INCLUSIVE
BLOWING IT
LAYING THE GHOST
OTHER PEOPLE’S HUSBANDS
THE LOOK OF LOVE
For more information on Judy Astley and her books, see her website at www.judyastley.com
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First published in Great Britain
in 2012 by Bantam Press
an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Copyright © Judy Astley 2012
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ISBN 9780593067550
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