Lionel came rushing through the house in his slippers. Making his way up the front path, he presented her with an empty ice-cream carton full of ripe red fruit. ‘Some tommyatoes for your new flat.’ He winked.
‘Aww, thanks, Dad!’ She reached up to kiss him.
Quite unexpectedly, he held her close. ‘I am so very, very proud of you, my clever girl.’
‘Well, it’s only an admin job at the museum, but it’s a start.’ She smiled, ever thankful to Dr Mike Gregson for having pulled some strings for her.
‘I wasn’t talking about the job, but it’s the start you deserve, love.’ And he kissed her again.
*
It was now four months since she’d taken the job and she felt happy to be in a routine that she loved. Her little rented flat in the Montpellier district was all she needed. The tiny bedroom, kitchenette, shower room and sitting room had been skilfully constructed above a double garage and was a perfect six hundred and twenty-five square feet. Far from finding it cramped, Romilly considered it cosy. With the addition of a couple of large aspidistras, her stacks of books on entomology, which had nothing to do with Egypt, and the multi-coloured Indian beaded silk throw that hung on the largest wall, the place was bright and interesting.
Switching the light on when she arrived home at the end of her working day filled her with happiness. She would forever be grateful to her lovely mum and dad, who had helped her with her deposit and the first month’s rent to get her started. The flat felt like a safe anchor; after years of rootlessness, this alone gave her a sense of strength and wellbeing. Life was good.
Her boss had been impressed at how much she knew about some of the insect exhibits in the museum and had suggested she might like to give talks to visiting groups. Romilly had beamed; it had been a long time since anyone had given her that kind of responsibility and it felt wonderful. The more talks she gave, the better she got at it, learning what to repeat, what to leave out, until she had it down to a fine art. It was after one such talk, as Romilly was gathering up her prompt cards and stacking chairs, that she noticed a woman loitering at the back of the room, stealing glances at her.
‘Can I help you with anything?’ Romilly smiled at the lean, middle-aged woman with the long dark hair twisted into a loose bun, wondering if she was lost or had a question. The woman walked over and Romilly took note of the jeans, T-shirt, walking boots and tight black zip-up fleece. The two of them studied each other’s faces. Romilly knew what she was going to say before she said it.
‘I’m Annie.’ The woman put out her hand and smiled.
‘Right.’ Romilly studied her angular face and unselfconscious manner. She was make-up free and had made no attempt to hide the few grey hairs that wisped around her forehead, nor to pluck her rather unruly brows.
‘Can I talk to you?’ Annie’s tone was calm and confident. She hitched her rucksack over her shoulder.
The two made their way to the front of the museum and took up seats at either end of the wooden bench by the main entrance.
‘I’ve got half an hour for lunch,’ Romilly pointed out, curling her hair behind her ear and then folding her hands into her lap to stop herself from fidgeting with them.
‘I hope you don’t mind me coming to see you.’
‘It’s fine.’ She didn’t know how to react. The image she’d carried of this woman was very different to the reality. She wasn’t the sexy vamp that she’d pictured but was instead quite homey. A sexy vamp would have been easier to bear, actually; the opposite of her.
‘Celeste said you met up?’ Annie smiled again.
Romilly nodded.
‘It must have been wonderful to see her after all this time.’
‘It was. I was nervous,’ she admitted. She clenched her jaw, annoyed at herself for sharing this with the woman who’d snuck in and taken her place.
‘I can only imagine. I bet you both were.’ Annie smiled again and ran her palm over her face; she seemed to grow prettier the more Romilly looked at her. ‘I think it took a lot of guts. But at the end of the day, you’re her mum.’
Yes. Yes, I am.
‘So…’ Annie slapped her thighs. ‘You must be wondering why I’ve popped up out of nowhere, interrupting your day?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, here’s the thing. I have had the privilege of playing a small part in your daughter’s life over the last few years and I have a bit of inside information that I know David would be crap at handing over.’ She shook her head as if exasperated.
She’d done it. She’d mentioned the man that they both loved, the man that was their common ground and the source of their embarrassment. Romilly stared at her, finding it hard to feel hatred or even the spike of dislike that she might have expected. Instead, it was comfortable, like hearing from a close relative or at least someone who was on your side.
‘So I thought I could fill in your gaps! You can ask me anything and I will try and help you build a picture and it will help you get to know her all over again. What do you think?’
Romilly swallowed the lump in her throat and looked sideways at Annie, still not quite sure what to make of her. ‘Okay’, she whispered.
Annie dipped into her rucksack and pulled out a punnet of strawberries. ‘I thought we could share these.’ She sidled closer to Romilly on the bench and handed her a disposable plastic fork. Peeling back the flimsy plastic lid, she skewered a strawberry and popped it into her mouth.
Romilly cautiously took one too. ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Of course. Fire away, that’s the idea!’ Annie spoke with her mouth full.
‘Why would you want to help me, why would you even want to meet me?’
Annie lowered her fork and considered her response. ‘I’ve wanted to contact you for a while, almost as soon as I started hanging out with David, but I didn’t know how. I wanted to let you know that I’d do my best to be a friend to Celeste and that you weren’t to worry, and that I didn’t want to be any more than her friend.’
She paused and smiled at Romilly. The unspoken words shone brighter than the spoken. I’m not trying to be her mum; that’s your job. I’m not trying to take your place. ‘I lost my own mum when I was fourteen and I would have given anything to be able to tell her all the things she missed. I know I would have felt more complete had she known all about me.’ She reached over for another strawberry. ‘And in the relatively short time I’ve known your daughter, I can see that she is pretty special and I can’t bear the idea of you missing a scrap of that, just because you were ill.’
Romilly had hated this woman from the moment she’d first heard about her. She’d twisted every snippet of information that had filtered back to her. But now she felt a wave of gratitude towards her, for having thrown her this magical, generous lifeline. She was stumped, genuinely overcome. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘Well, that’s okay. You don’t have to ask me everything today – that might take longer than your half an hour.’ She laughed. ‘But we can do this any time, just meet up and have a natter, if you want.’
Romilly nodded. ‘I do want.’
Annie shoved a vast strawberry into her mouth and spoke around it. ‘You’re not what I expected.’
‘In what way?’
‘I dunno… I guess I thought you might be a bit…’ Annie paused. ‘I don’t know how to phrase it without it sounding harsh.’
‘Oh God, don’t worry about that.’ Romilly shrugged.
Annie took a deep breath. ‘I suppose I thought you might be a bit like the winos you see hanging around the city centre. You know, a bit… grubby, a bit down on their luck. I know that sounds awful, but that’s what I imagined. But you look lovely and you seem very peaceful.’
Romilly couldn’t help but smile at the compliment. ‘I was exactly like those winos for a long time, that’s the scary thing. But I am at peace and it feels good. And for the record, you’re not what I expected either.’
‘No?’ Annie cocked her
head.
‘No. I thought you’d be a bit more…’
‘Come on!’ Annie prompted. ‘If I can speak my mind, so can you!’
‘I always imagined you to be the opposite of me – you know, one of those women who wears heels and lipstick, a bit racy.’
‘Racy!’ Annie laughed and choked a little on her strawberry. ‘That’s the funniest thing ever! I am so not racy!’
The two laughed, giving Romilly time to think of her first question.
‘Does… does she have a boyfriend?’
Annie straightened her back. ‘No. Friends who are boys, but not one special boy. I think she held a bit of a candle for a boy named Josh who was at a different school, but I don’t think anything came of it. And a boy called Ollie took her to Prom. He was lovely; polite and sweet, and nervous, looked like he’d borrowed his dad’s suit, but again, just friends, I think.’
‘What colour was her dress?’ Romilly had turned to face Annie on the bench now, fixated by the keeper of secrets she was desperate to learn.
‘Oh, let me think. It was pale blue and she had her hair twisted up in a loose chignon with a large diamante clip; she looked very Downton. I think I have a photo on my phone.’
Annie reached into her bag and slid through the shots on her screen, and there she was. This was quite different from the photos Romilly had seen on the mantelpiece at her parents’ house. It took her breath away. She stared at the snapshot of the gorgeous young woman, who looked relaxed and happy as she smiled into the camera. Nothing like the tense, awkward girl of their recent encounter.
‘Beautiful.’ She handed the phone back. ‘Does she have a drink when she goes out?’ she asked.
‘No.’ Annie shook her head.
‘I expect I put her off.’ She bit her lip.
‘Yes, that’s what she said. I think she’s tried it, but she doesn’t drink now. I think she’s a bit scared of it.’
‘I think I scared her. In fact I know I did, sometimes.’ She thought about the days when her little girl had shrunk away from her grasp or had hidden upstairs while she ranted or passed out.
‘Yes, she said that too.’
Romilly liked her honesty, no matter how hard it was to hear. ‘Does she… does she ever talk about me?’ She looked ahead at the road.
‘Sometimes. More so now you’re back in Bristol. It’s like she’s allowing herself to think you might be around. I think she was nervous to talk about you too much, allow herself to miss you, you know? Like she closed down just to get through it.’ Annie looked at her.
Romilly nodded. ‘I know how that feels.’ She paused. ‘I wish I could turn back the clock and do things differently.’
‘That’s the thing; even if we could turn back the clock, we’d probably do the same things, make the same mistakes.’ Annie held out the punnet and raised it for her to take one. ‘It’s only the future we can fix.’
Romilly found herself warming to Annie. She spoke a lot of sense, and she was kind.
‘If you don’t mind me saying…’ Annie spoke with her mouth full again, then swallowed her strawberry. ‘There’s no point looking back at what your life was. Just concentrate on what’s ahead, build again from the ground up.’
‘Yes, and things are getting easier for me. You know how it is, the harder I work, the luckier I get…’ Romilly gave a rueful smile as she reiterated David’s tag line.
‘Oh God! Yes, that!’ Annie chuckled at the reference. ‘Well, I must be due some luck, cos I’m bloody knackered!’
And the two women laughed. Like they had known each other for an age. Like they shared a history. Like friends.
Celeste
When I met Alistair, I didn’t know what to tell him about Mum. I was nervous about explaining our family situation and how Annie fitted in and how I had only been in touch with my mum for a relatively short while and there was this big chunk of time missing in our relationship. I was embarrassed in case he thought her disease was hereditary. I worried he might judge me, think I was damaged and change his mind. But of course he didn’t.
I’m ashamed now, for having felt that way. Mum was sick. No one would choose to have her illness. It took me quite a while to realise that. Even after we’d met up a few times, I still didn’t really get it. Then I started writing down my memories in this notebook and that’s really helped. I feel a lot more settled about things. A lot more settled about everything.
The thing that made the most difference was rereading the letter Mum sent me when I was eighteen, especially the bit about her being two different people. It makes so much more sense now. And it’s so sad.
It’s as if there are two of me. The shy me, the nice me. Smiling and enjoying the good fortune of others, wanting to do good, wanting to love and be loved, wanting nothing more than to laugh and laugh some more; the woman who puts her family at the centre of everything. That woman is smart, interested and interesting. She wakes with a spring in her step and a lift to her heart, happy to have a place in the world, a woman who looks forward to the future.
And then there is the other me, the one who has another love, a love that can’t be broken. A destructive, all-consuming love that casts a long, dark shadow over all that is good. This other love is so strong that she will do anything, anything if it means they can slope off together and snatch some illicit moments of pure, pure joy.
My mother’s other love is alcohol. It’s been the most influential relationship of her life and it has clouded everything.
Things are a lot more normal between me and Mum now. We’ve had some good chats and I’ve told her all about Alistair. I’m going to introduce them to each other soon.
I had a real urge to see her yesterday. I phoned her and she was out on the Downs, going for a walk, so I drove over and met up with her. She was by the water tower. As soon as she saw my red car pull into the layby, she budged up on the bench. I plopped down next to her and tipped my head back, letting the sun kiss my skin.
I decided to plunge right in. ‘My therapist advised me to make notes,’ I told her. ‘To look back at the past and write down how I felt about things. I’ve been doing that for a long time now.’
‘That sounds like good advice,’ Mum said. ‘Has it helped?’
I was quite nervous by then. ‘Yes. And I just wanted to say something…’
Mum looked nervous too.
‘I think I blocked you out a lot, Mum, when we weren’t in contact. Almost as if I couldn’t let myself love you, not properly. It saved me from worrying about you and stopped me getting hurt, like a little snail hiding in its shell. But now I’m older, I realise that I’ve got these two amazing women in my life. Annie, who’s wonderful, steady, like a good mate. And then there’s you.’
Mum turned towards me, but it was as if she couldn’t quite bring herself to catch my eye. She stared at a ladybird on the bench instead.
‘And I just wanted to say that I will forever be thankful that you grew me, fed me and set me on my way.’
She looked like she was close to tears, and I was getting very gulpy myself, so I blurted out the rest of it a bit faster than I’d intended.
‘And the thing is, I love you. I love you very much, Mum. We are joined forever, aren’t we? You know, proper, forever love, because you’re my mum.’
And then Mum broke into the biggest smile. She looked me full in the face and gripped my hands and said, ‘Yes, my darling. Proper, forever love.’
Epilogue
Sylvia rocked baby Freya from side to side, cooing to her as she slept.
‘She’s such a doll! Is she a good baby?’ she asked Dr Miguel, who couldn’t take his eyes from his daughter’s face.
‘Oh yes, an absolute angel. And Carrie is a natural.’ He beamed across at his wife, who was trying to catch the peanuts being lobbed at her by her twin sister from across the kitchen. When she succeeded in catching one, Holly ran and jumped into Carrie’s arms and they did a victory lap around the table.
‘For goodn
ess’ sake, you two!’ Pat tutted and adjusted her fascinator, which kept slipping forward onto her forehead.
Lionel strolled around the garden, happy to observe how his planting had taken hold over the years, liking the thought that this riot of colour was largely down to him.
Annie flitted from guest to guest, pouring refills of Buck’s Fizz and offering tea. It was testament to the Shepherd/Wells clan that they could all happily spend the morning crammed into the house in Stoke Bishop together. The atmosphere crackled with anticipation and celebration.
Upstairs, Celeste stared at her reflection in the full-length gilt mirror, smoothing imaginary creases from her bodice. Her dress was a simple sheath of raw grey silk and she looked gorgeous, like the princess she’d always imagined. All she was missing was something blue.
Romilly stood just behind her and could barely contain her emotion. ‘You look absolutely stunning, Celeste. So beautiful!’
‘Thanks, Mum.’ She smiled at the reflection. ‘You don’t look so bad yourself.’
Romilly beamed, pleased that the double crown that now filled the gap in her mouth had given her the confidence to smile properly once again. Her russet hair hung in shoulder-length layers that framed her face beautifully.
The bedroom door eased open and David cupped his hand over his mouth and chin. ‘Oh, love! Goodness me, you look so beautiful.’
‘Don’t! You’ll start me off!’ Celeste giggled as her dad pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at his eyes.
‘I’ve got something for you and then you’ll be complete. Close your eyes.’ David nodded at Romilly, who smiled back.
Celeste did as she was instructed and held out her hand as her dad placed something in her palm. She closed her fingers over it.
The body of the mayfly was made up of tiny sapphires; the turquoise wings were fashioned from translucent slivers of shell set in filigree silver. It was delicate, beautiful.
‘What do you think, Rom? Reckon it matches her frock?’
Another Love Page 27