The Fleeting Years

by Connie Monk

  This time Tom had to keep a tight grip on the corners of his mouth as he mumbled, ‘Thanks Mum.’

  They were all affected by the emotion of the last minutes and it took Jenny to set the mood back on course for the remainder of the evening.

  ‘And here was I thinking one bottle of bubbly was more than enough. There’s one bottle gone and our glasses are empty already.’

  It was a rare thing, indeed, for her to catch Peter’s glance and share with him a moment of affectionate understanding. And so passed an evening they knew would stay with them long after it was over and their lives had changed.

  The solitary drive back from Heathrow was something Zina had dreaded. Newton House waited, nothing in it changed from when it had been home to all four of them, and yet when she opened the front door the familiar sight held no welcome. It was a house, nothing more. This is stupid, she told herself, think how often Peter has been away – more than he was here, really. Hundreds of times I’ve come back to an empty house, but always I have felt its welcome. It’s all in my stupid imagination. I must pull myself together and just make sure I’m soon on a plane myself and he’ll be at the other end to meet me. But we shall be without Tom. From today that warm, complete feeling of all four of us living together is gone. How shall I feel when I’m the one on the plane, leaving England, leaving my darling Tom?

  Letting her mind jump first in one direction and then another, she sat on the second stair gazing ahead at a future that held no reality. What did she want with Hollywood and the trappings of glamour? Nothing. If she’d given it any thought at all it was Tinsel Town with its stories of broken marriages, fame the goal to be reached by whatever means. But she would go to the ends of the earth as long as Peter was there for her. Then without her realizing it, she smiled. Peter was the one certainty. Fame had to be his goal, in his profession how else could success be measured? But that was fame for the work he loved, it had no bearing on the man he was. If only they could have gone on as they were, this house a place untouched by his other life, somewhere he escaped to at every conceivable opportunity.

  It was no use sitting here daydreaming, it was time she started counting her so many blessings, she told herself. Life has a way of working things out, just think of how her opinion of Derek had changed, and how he had come up with that idea of Tom going with Jenny and him yesterday to a concert in Cheltenham and staying the night in a hotel afterwards. Didn’t that show him to be sensitive enough to want to spare the boy being there to see the moment when Peter and Fiona left Newton House knowing it was for the last time. Surely for Tom to be collected yesterday by someone of Derek’s standing in the world of music must have helped him through his goodbyes to Fiona and his father. With her eyes closed she let herself relive those moments.

  ‘Have fun, sis,’ Tom had said, his voice suddenly croaking and Fiona not even trying to hold back her tears as she hugged him.

  ‘Wish you were coming.’

  Then while he’d still managed to hang on to his control, he’d turned to Peter and said, ‘Bye Dad, see you in sunny California when I get a proper holiday.’ Trying to be a man already, he had held out his hand but Peter had pulled him tightly, almost fiercely, into his arms, kissing the top of his head and rumpling his hair.

  ‘Bye Tommy—’ the childish name had slipped out – ‘take care of your mum. See you soon.’ Probably only Zina had known how hard it had been to keep a hold on his own emotions. Watching them, such misery had possessed her. Soon it would be her turn to say goodbye to Tom, to go far away where she wouldn’t feel herself a part of his progress, wouldn’t be able to share with him the joy she knew he would find as he developed from a talented boy to a master musician. That had been the moment when she had been conscious of how thankful she was that her mother had refused their suggestion that she should come with them. Her only solace in leaving Tom behind was her certainty that his relationship with Jenny and increasingly with Derek Masters would always be there for him.

  Finally, with one arm lightly round Tom’s shoulder, ready to usher him out to the car, Derek had held out his hand to Peter. They must both have been as aware as she of the struggle the boy was having to hold back his tears as Fiona had openly sobbed. Remembering, she seemed to hear Derek’s voice clearly as his hand was taken in Peter’s in farewell: ‘Get yourselves somewhere to live with room for guests and when Zina flies out how would it be if we all came?’ His voice had been full of hope, seeming to defy the misery of partings. ‘We’d have to make sure it was holiday time for Tom and as long as I have enough notice I can work around engagements – or even travel separately if I wasn’t free to come with the others. I know Jenny won’t be happy till she has seen where you live. Does that strike you as a feasible suggestion?’ It did and even helped Tom through his bad moment.

  Now it was all behind them. Soon Tom would be starting his new life at the music school and she would be left to pretend she wanted the agent to bring someone as keen to buy Newton House as she and Peter had been. But it was only pretence. This wasn’t just bricks and mortar, their very souls were in these rooms. Hardly thinking what she was doing she climbed the stairs right to the one-time dumping ground in the attic which now stood empty. Then down again, into each room, everywhere the spirit of their years tightening its hold on her.

  ‘Mum! I’m home, Mum. Were they all right? Fiona didn’t cry any more did she? Was she miserable? I’ve been thinking about them all morning.’

  ‘Where are the others?’ she asked making sure her voice was bright as she hurried back down the stairs. ‘Didn’t they come in?’

  ‘No, they lobbed me off at the gate.’

  ‘Was it a good concert?’ She was pleased with herself that she could sound so cheerful.

  ‘Yes, I’ll tell you about it – the music and the posh hotel – I’ll tell you later. But first what about the others? Did Fiona cry? Was she miserable?’ It was only then that she consciously realized just how cheerfully Fiona had said goodbye.

  ‘No, not a tear. I think she had cried all her tears when she said goodbye to you yesterday. But, Tom, time goes so fast. Before you know it, it’ll be your turn to pack your bag and be off to your new life. When you get your Christmas break perhaps we’ll be ready to join them, all of us together like Derek suggested.’

  ‘Yes, in no time at all, Mum.’ He was determined to make himself the man of the house, someone she could rely on. ‘But are you sure you’ll be all right on your own here? Dad said for me to take care of you, but I won’t even be here.’

  She gave him a quick hug, which at that moment they both needed. ‘Between us, Tom my love, we have four big feet. And we’re going to show them just how capable we are of standing on them.’

  Her reward for the effort of her brave words was the sound of his giggle.

  That afternoon a phone call from the agent told her that he had a couple who’d driven from Bournemouth and wanted to view. Of course he had a key but was calling her out of courtesy (and, no doubt, to give her a chance to make sure everything looked temptingly attractive).

  She always felt that a house was more likely to sell if the owner took the would-be purchasers on their tour of inspection, but this time she was introduced to Mr and Mrs Warburton from Bournemouth then left the agent to take them round the house and garden.

  ‘They seemed quite nice, Mum,’ Tommy whispered, but she was sure his feelings were very much like her own and he just wanted them off the premises. Once the house was sold he would have no home of his own in England. His roots would be pulled up and not replanted. Their glances met and what they read was yet another tie that bound them.

  ‘I don’t know much about money, I mean what Dad earns and all that, but Mum, does he have to sell this house so that he can buy one in that Beverly Hills place Fiona keeps on about?’

  ‘Probably not. But, Tom, if for the rest of his career he stays out there, this is an extremely expensive place to keep. And there’s nothing sadder than a house left empty
and unloved.’

  ‘It would never be unloved, we’d always love it even if we were the other side of the world.’ He sounded quite aggressive. ‘I hate not going to be with you and Fiona and Dad,’ he started, and then, honesty refusing to be silenced, continued, ‘but I’m awfully glad I haven’t got to go and live out there. Do you really want to, Mum?’

  Dear Tom, he was like no one else. He deserved a truthful answer.

  ‘From what I imagine – and I may be quite wrong – but from how I’ve always thought of it, it’s not my scene at all. I would love us all to have stayed here, for everything to be as it was before Peter got this chance. But this is a good career move and so of course he had to accept. And he has as good as been assured they want him to sign a longer contract. But me? There is only one reason I want to go, and that is Peter. I want us to be together. Selfishly I wish you were coming too, even though I envy you everything that is ahead of you.’ Then she gave him a friendly and unsentimental squeeze to put them back on safe ground before they got swamped by the sort of emotion she knew Tom would have found embarrassing. ‘Before many years are over you’ll find yourself on the concert platform, you’ll travel and soon realize the world is a small place.’

  ‘I’ve got a lot to learn before that, Mum. But even if that ever happens I’ve always seen this as the place at the sort of centre of it all – the place to come home to.’

  ‘I know, Tom. It’s always been our safe haven.’

  ‘Couldn’t you tell Dad you want to keep it – if he could afford to, I mean? We could always have holidays here.’

  To tell him that what he suggested had been a dream at the back of her mind too seemed disloyal to Peter. So all she said was, ‘Life moves on for everybody. I wonder whether Mr and Mrs Warburtons’ will be moving this way?’

  ‘Humph! Hope not!’ Tom growled. From his tone he was already mentally sticking pins into their effigy.

  But two days later the agent phoned saying the Warburtons found Newton House ideal for their requirements and hoped for a very quick move. Apparently she was a mental nurse and, subject to the surveyor’s extensive report, they had approval by the bank for an eye-wateringly large loan. They intended to turn Newton House into a nursing home for the mentally disabled. They would need work to be done: large bedrooms divided into two or, in the case of Zina and Peter’s, three; extra bathrooms would be built and metal bars fitted to all the windows. But if all went well they hoped to be able to open during the first half of the following year.

  But in the event their hopes for a quick move were dashed by the tardiness of the surveyor. By the time he made his visit, spending most of the day examining every smallest detail, Tom had already started at the school of music; by the time his report was passed to the bank it was almost Christmas. What Zina didn’t know was that the Warburtons’ dream of a quick move to Devon had been partly built around the sale of their own house in Bournemouth near the hospital where Adele Warburton worked. It was in a chain of property sales, and when one link broke it meant delays for everyone.

  Derek knew that Zina would be leaving the quintet before long, but decided to do nothing about replacing her until the date of completion was known. It seemed that everything was in limbo as the weeks went by. Had she been more enthusiastic about the sale she might have started disposing of any furniture that was no longer being used. But some inner sense of protection warned her that nothing was settled until the point of no turning back was reached and contracts were exchanged. Nearer the truth, she was still lacking the courage to break up the home.

  From California came letters from Fiona, letters full of the wonders of her new life and peppering the pages with names of the famous. Although Peter had taken an apartment nearer the studio, she had willingly stayed on with the Zeiglar family. They were people who loved entertaining and she found herself in wonderland. Briefly she mentioned the school she had started attending, but her sights weren’t on classwork. And from Peter too came letters, but his were quite different. He told her little about his work, but left her in no doubt that although he had been shown friendliness, he was as lonely for her as she was for him. When he heard that the Warburtons hoped for a quick sale his response was immediate. She should leave everything to the solicitor and fly out to join him. But something stopped her doing as he said. Not exactly a premonition, but some nameless feeling that the time hadn’t arrived for her to walk away. Perhaps it was that she wanted to wait until Tom had been home for the first time so that she was reassured that he was man enough to be left behind.

  When Tom came home for the Christmas holiday it was obvious he had come into his own in his new life.

  ‘Mum! Where are you, Mum?’ she heard him shout as he rushed into the house after a bike ride.

  ‘I’m in the drawing room trying to make this wretched fire burn. Did you have a good ride?’

  ‘I went to see Gran and Granderek – that’s what we decided he should be called. It seemed silly to call him Grandad when he isn’t, but I couldn’t say Derek or Mr Masters. So we decided on Granderek. I like it, don’t you? I must write and tell Fiona. But Mum, that’s not what I rushed home to tell you. It was this: they suggested that instead of decorating and pretending Christmas here was just like it always has been, what we should do is pack a bag and go and stay there. What do you think? I don’t mean for all the time I’m home on holiday, but for Christmas.’

  She sat back on her heels as she knelt in front of the fire that showed very little promise.

  ‘Go away for Christmas?’

  ‘Don’t you think it’s better, Mum?’ He seemed to be choosing his words carefully. ‘It’s always been sort of magic, Dad home, decorating the tree in here, everything. But it seems silly – and wrong somehow to do all that when the others aren’t here. Gran seemed ever so excited. Don’t you think it would be the best thing, Mum? If Fiona and Dad phone and we’re here with no holly and all that – or even if we decorated like we always have – it would sort of seem sad for them as well as us. Don’t you think they’d have a better time too if they thought we were with the others?’

  She mustn’t let him guess how she was battling against tears that stung her eyes and threatened to spill down her cheeks as she knelt with her back to the room. If she’d still been alone as she had all the morning, misery wouldn’t have hit her so suddenly. It was Tom’s words, his childlike longing for the magic of Christmas and her awareness that it wasn’t in her power to find it for him. She blew her nose and muttered something he didn’t quite catch but he believed she directed her words at the unpromising coals as she poked more slithers of wood between them hoping to bring a flame. Then, having had a chance to overcome her bad moment she said in a voice that hinted Peter wasn’t the only actor in the family, ‘I think that’s a rather splendid idea, Tom. I’ll ring them this afternoon, Yes—’ and by now she was right back in control – ‘it’ll be quite different. Not so much fun maybe, but lots more music. This year we need it to be different, and so it will be for Fiona and your dad.’ She stood up, casting one last glance at the sulky coals. ‘Well, I’ve done my best with that; it can please itself whether it burns. Let’s go and find some lunch.’

  ‘Sounds good. I’m pretty hungry, aren’t you?’

  She knew that he was playing a game as much as she was herself and would have given much to make his holiday everything it ought to be. Perhaps their salvation was to spend Christmas with her mother and Derek.

  ‘Gotta keep everything up to the mark,’ the loyal Mrs C said sagely one wild and wet morning towards the end of January. Zina suspected the remark stemmed from the fact that she realized the scarcely lived-in rooms didn’t merit a daily cleaner and was frightened her hours would be cut. But that was something Zina would never do, Mrs Cripps had been part of the household right from when they first moved in. ‘You never know when you’ll get a knock on your door and there will be someone else to snoop about. Nothing like a good shine to show the place is in good order.’ She�
��d said it so often as she worked that Zina could have joined in the chorus, but on that January morning it seemed Mrs Cripps was ‘set for a good chinwag’, as she liked to call it. ‘And I’ll tell you something – mind, it’s not a thing I would talk about outside but, truth to tell, the fact is that as the days go on I dread the time coming when you shut the door on this place. Last night, true as I stand here, I slept hardly a wink for thinking about it. It’s come to be like home to me, that it has. Oh I dare say when the evil day comes I’ll find myself somewhere else – well, truth to tell I won’t ’ave no choice, my Bert he brings in no more than enough to pay the rent and feed the cat, bless him.’ Then, with a laugh that was a rare thing with Mrs Cripps, she continued, ‘My Bert, I mean, not that darned cat. Rubs round my legs he does, making believe he loves me—’

  ‘Bert or the cat?’ The words were out before Zina could hold them back, somehow bringing the two such different women close.

  ‘Oh Mrs M, m’dear, what a one you are. Yes, not coming here is going to really upset me. I’ve known those two dear chillun almost since the day they were born, yes and now the cards are on the table I don’t mind admitting I’ve loved them like family. Bert, he’d tell you how I carried on when they went off to that school, worried all night I did. Ah and you and Mr M must have done too. But there was no need, when they came home for their holiday, I mind how full of it all they were. Bless them.’ She sniffed and made a pretence of wiping her nose. ‘And here’s me carrying on as if it’s me matters, not you. You must be wanting to get it all done and be on your way to Mr M and little Fiona – not so little these days, I reckon she thinks she’s proper grown up. Can’t help wishing Tommy wasn’t going to be left out of the adventure, but there you are, if everything was perfect in this world what would heaven be for? That’s what my old gran used to say when I pestered for something I couldn’t have. There now, I reckon those forks and spoons shine fit for a king. Now I’ll go and give them a good wash and have them put away. Then what about tatties? Shall I get them peeled for you?’