Now, Lydie, tell her now, she told herself. She had a feeling Grace was primed for something. There’d never be a more perfect moment than this, as horrible as it was going to be. At least there were doctors on hand to give Grace something for the shock.
But just at that moment Jonty appeared in the doorway, a nurse beside him, and Lydie’s perfect moment was snatched from her.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jonty signed his name on the bottom of the note with, if not a flourish, then finality.
He folded the piece of paper into four, then stuffed it in the pocket of his duffle coat. Five minutes by bike to Lydie’s house. ‘Will you let me know when the baby’s born?’ the note had said. Jonty was within a hundred yards of Lydie’s house when he took the note from his pocket, tore it into confetti pieces and threw it to the wind. It was too late. Far, far too late to expect anything of Lydie now.
‘And how are we this morning?’ Jonty said. ‘And before either of you says it, I know that was the most banal thing I could have asked in the circumstances.’
He fetched a chair from the corner by the window, brought it over to the bed and sat down beside Lydie.
‘I’m sorry to hear about your husband,’ he said. ‘Really sorry. I got here as quickly as I could.’
‘Thank you,’ Lydie said, her gaze holding his.
What was she trying to silently tell him? How could he ask if she’d told Grace that he was her biological father? If she hadn’t then what sort of almighty shock was that going to be for Grace?
‘You’re looking a lot better than when I last saw you, Grace,’ Jonty said.
‘Physically, yes, thanks,’ Grace said. ‘But the shock of Dad, you know …’
‘I can imagine,’ Jonty said.
How was he going to be able to make these two wonderful women’s lives better again? Could he ever make amends?
‘I don’t think you can,’ Grace said.
‘You could be right. But when the doctors who sectioned Becca took her away, that felt like a death to me.’
Jonty heard Lydie’s sharp intake of breath, and her hand flew to her face. Grace shot her mother a puzzled look, then raised an eyebrow questioningly at Jonty.
‘Did you have to do that?’ Grace asked.
All Jonty could do was nod.
‘Sectioned,’ Lydie said. ‘How sad.’
‘But necessary,’ Jonty told her. ‘I can’t risk what happened to Grace happening to anyone else. Ever.’
‘She didn’t mean to do it,’ Grace said.
‘Lots of us don’t mean to do some of the things we do, but if those things hurt people then we must live by the consequences.’
Jonty looked at Lydie as he spoke. She would know what he meant by that.
‘Thank you for coming over,’ Lydie said. ‘I didn’t know who else to ask.’
‘Well, I’m here now,’ Jonty said. ‘Were it not for me, neither of you would be here.’
‘I don’t blame you,’ Grace said. ‘I applied for the job.’
‘So you did,’ Jonty said.
But what might you blame me for if your mother tells you I’m your father and not Ralph who, I can tell, you adored?
‘And very good you are at it too,’ he went on. ‘Drew’s in charge at the pottery at the moment. Oh, and it’s good news about Amy. She’s passed all the criteria for her cochlear implant operation. The local authority has released the funds for her to have the op in Birmingham, and she’ll be going for her pre-op assessment on the fourteenth. If all’s well the op will go ahead very soon after that. It can’t be too soon for Drew really …’
‘But isn’t that only the day after tomorrow?’ Grace asked.
‘It is. But it’s imperative Amy hears again soon or she’ll have forgotten what sound was, so Drew told me.’
‘How will you manage at RED without us both?’ Grace said. ‘Although I’m sure I’ll be over this soon. I feel heaps better already.’
‘We won’t worry about that just yet,’ Jonty said. ‘But now I’m here, how can I help?’
A nurse came in then and said she wanted to do a few checks on Grace and that a doctor would be along shortly. Could Lydie and Jonty go and have a cup of coffee or something for half an hour.
‘We can,’ Jonty told her.
He stood and waited for Lydie to stand then he placed a hand under her elbow and guided her from the room.
He half expected her to push him away but she didn’t.
‘I don’t want coffee,’ Lydie said. ‘Can we go outside?’
‘Of course.’
How right this feels, Jonty thought, with Lydie so physically close to him again. And yet how wrong with her husband on a slab in the mortuary not a stone’s throw away from them.
Jonty guided Lydie to a bench in front of a laurel hedge, which gave them some protection from the breeze coming in off the sea. They sat down and Lydie shuffled closer to him so their thighs and the tops of their arms touched.
She needs the support. I didn’t give her that once upon a time, but I can give it to her now.
‘Even though we were a family,’ Lydie said, ‘we’ve been leading parallel lives. Grace. Ralph. Me. And now we’re not a family any more.’
‘You are,’ Jonty told her. ‘Just reduced a bit. Have you told her?’
No need to ask about what.
‘How could I?’ Lydie said. ‘Telling her about Ralph was shock enough on top of the accident.’
‘It’s been a funny old twenty-four hours,’ Jonty said.
‘I hope by that that you mean funny odd, not funny haha.’
Lydie slid sideways, putting a gap in between them.
‘Oh, Lyd,’ Jonty said. ‘You know I do. I haven’t had a great time of it myself. Nor Drew. I’m tempted to say the sins of the fathers … well, this father anyway. Ralph …’
‘Ralph was a wonderful father to Grace.’
‘Good. I’m glad to hear it. Really glad. I mean that, Lyd.’
That was twice he’d called her Lyd and she hadn’t rebuked him for it.
‘Thank you.’
Lydie moved closer to him again, so that while they didn’t touch, Jonty knew you couldn’t have got the proverbial fag paper between them.
‘And I’m sure you’re a wonderful mother.’
‘But not so wonderful. I’ve hidden the truth from my daughter for far longer than I ought to have done. And Ralph. He must have guessed Grace wasn’t his, but he never questioned it. And now he won’t have to witness Grace being different around him once she knows the truth.’
‘About me, you mean?’
‘Yes. I have to tell her now.’
‘Becca saw the resemnblance. I didn’t. And Becca told Drew. I don’t think Drew’s likely to spread the news about but, well …’
‘We can’t risk it. Once the funeral’s over, I’ll tell her. I promise.’
‘I can be there when you do it if you want me to be.’ Jonty reached for Lydie’s hand and she let him take it. Again, he half-expected her to resist, but she didn’t. How right it felt, her hand in his, even after all the years in between. ‘I know this isn’t the right time to be saying any of this, but I can be there for you for whatever you need me for. After …’
‘Don’t, Jonty. Please don’t. I’m only just about holding it together. Guilt is an uncomfortable bedfellow. I was in Bath because I hated being in Dartmouth. And because I’d come to the realisation I hadn’t been true to myself, or respectful of Ralph by keeping my secret from him all these years. And now I can never tell him. I can never tell him I’m sorry.’
‘You can. You can tell him now. At the undertaker’s. His soul could be waiting for you.’
‘I’d like to have that comfort, Jonty, but I can’t.’ Lydie prised her hand from Jonty’s and checked the time on her wristwatch. ‘I have to be in some office or other – I forget where now – in half an hour. I thought, perhaps, that you could come with me, but now I know I have to do it alone.’
‘I’ll wait until you’ve done that,’ Jonty said. ‘I’ll drive you home. I’ll drive you both home if they discharge Grace. I don’t think you ought to be driving at the moment. I can sort the logistics of getting back afterwards. No problem.’
Lydie reached for his hand and squeezed it.
‘I’ve often dreamed of this,’ she said. ‘You and me. Within touching distance. Wanting to be within touching distance of one another. I felt I came alive again when I saw you in the hospital last night, even in the circumstances. But not like this.’
‘Amen to that,’ Jonty said.
‘We can’t do anything just yet,’ Lydie said. ‘It wouldn’t be respectful. To Ralph. To Grace. If we were to suddenly pick up the threads of our love.’
‘Well, we’re all grown up now, Lyd,’ Jonty said. He leaned across and kissed Lydie on the cheek. ‘And those threads were never broken. They only got tangled up a bit. Like I said just now, I’ll wait.’
Chapter Twenty-Seven
‘I don’t want to believe you’re walking out on your own child,’ Drew said.
‘Well, you better had.’ Mel – arms folded across her waist – stood on the pavement waiting for the taxi she’d called to collect her, two cases placed either side of her feet.
How had he ever thought he’d loved this woman?
‘Is there someone else?’ Drew asked, not for the first time. There had to be.
‘No. And you’re not going to find it easy finding someone else now, are you? Not with her.’
‘Amy,’ Drew said. ‘Her name is Amy.’
And he knew, in a way, that Mel was right – he wasn’t going to find it easy finding someone else to love, who would love him in return. Whoever it was, she’d have to be very special indeed.
It was over. Amy had had her operation and was now in recovery. A nurse had come to tell him so.
‘And Amy’s fine?’ Drew had to hear it one more time.
‘Yes. She’s doing well She’s come round and not been sick but Dr Fielden wants to keep her in recovery a little while longer. I’ll bring her out to you in about half an hour.’
The nurse had a broad Birmingham accent, so different to his own. Everyone was friendly here, relaxed. He knew Amy was in a specialist unit because of the operation she’d had but everyone was making him feel special as well. He’d been talked through Amy’s operation and her recovery. He’d even been given a voucher to go and eat in the hospital restaurant. In six weeks’ time he’d be back here for the switch-on, when the bits that had been placed inside Amy’s head would be connected electronically and by magnets to the voice processor she’d have to wear behind her ear.
‘Go and get a cup of tea and come back,’ the nurse said. ‘I can give you a token for the machine if you haven’t got change.’
‘Right.’ Drew checked his pockets for change. ‘I’ve got cash, thanks.’
But first Drew would ring his mother and tell her the good news. And then he’d come back and sit with Amy until it was chucking out time and he’d have to go back to the pub a few miles away where he’d booked in for the duration of Amy’s hospital stay. Three or four days. Maybe more, depending on how she was coping.
‘Are you okay? Something wrong with the food?’
Drew looked up. The same waitress who had served him the night before was looking at him, a concerned expression on her face.
‘Only if there is, say so. Chef – well, my dad – has very high standards.’
She smiled at Drew then.
‘No. No, the food is fine.’
‘It’s gone cold now though,’ the girl said. ‘Look, I don’t want to interfere but I can see something’s wrong …’
‘No. Not wrong,’ Drew told her. ‘Everything’s fine really. My daughter – Amy – has just had a life-changing operation. She’s going to be able to hear again. She’s only three.’
‘In the Queen Elizabeth, is she?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then she’ll be fine. My Noah – he’s two – had to have corrective surgery in there just after he was born. A problem with his gullet. He’s fine now.’
Drew couldn’t stop himself looking at the ring finger of the girl’s hand. No ring.
‘Good. I’m glad Noah’s fine. I’m sure Amy will be, too. You can take this away. You’re right. It is cold.’
‘No worries. We’re closing in a minute. I can bring you some soup instead if you want. You have to eat. Keep your strength up for your daughter.’
Drew looked around him and saw that the place was emptying now. Only a handful of people were left and those seemed to be draining their glasses simultaneously.
‘I’m Martha. And when they’ve gone,’ Martha said, gesturing towards the group in the corner who had now all stood up, ‘I’ll get your soup. Carrot and coriander all right? I think that’s all that’s left.’
‘Sounds good,’ Drew said. ‘Thanks, Martha.’
He looked into Martha’s conker-coloured eyes, the bright lights of the bar glistening off them. Martha had café au lait skin and a head of tight, dark curls. She gave him a beaming smile, not embarrassed under his scrutiny.
‘And if you want, you can tell me about Amy. Noah’s asleep and my mum will listen out for him anyway. I need to wind down after the hectic night it’s been.What’s your name? I know it says Mr Penhaligon in the register, but that’s a bit of a mouthful.’
‘Drew.’
They shook hands.
‘Back as soon as then, Drew,’ Martha said with another smile.
The pub emptied and the man who had been behind the bar came out and wiped down all the tables except Drew’s.
‘Martha won’t be long. She’ll pop up to look in on Noah and then she’ll be back. Drink? On the house, Martha says.’
‘No thanks. I’m fine.’
‘Well, if you change your mind, tell Martha and she’ll get you something. I’m off now.’
‘Night,’
Alone now in the bar, Drew sat and waited for Martha. He had a hunch she was on her own with Noah as he was on his own with Amy. And that her parents were helping her out as his mum was helping him.
So that meant they had a lot in common …
And as Martha came back in with his bowl of soup and a plate of bread on a tray, two mugs of something steaming beside it, something like hope for his future stirred in Drew.
He’d be coming back to Birmingham for check-ups for Amy and he could do worse than stop in this pub again. Get to know Martha a bit better.
Life throws some curve balls sometimes. He’d never expected to be here, in a place he didn’t know, with a child just a few miles away sleeping in a hospital bed, but that’s how it had turned out.
And he was going to make the best of it.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
‘Cream?’ Lydie’s mother said. ‘You want to wear a cream wedding dress?’
‘Yes,’ Lydie told her. ‘It suits my colouring better.’
‘But what will people think?’
‘I don’t care what people think,’ Lydie said.
But that was the trouble – Lydie did care, and she cared too much; putting other people’s concerns before her own.
‘I’m going back to work tomorrow,’ Grace said. ‘Now it’s, you know, all over.’
Ralph’s funeral had been quickly arranged in less than a week. The coronor, a kindly man who looked to Lydie even older than her father, had speeded up the formalities once he’d got the report from the hospital and Lydie was grateful for that. She’d arranged a simple ceremony – no hymns, although Lydie had read Rudyard Kipling’s poem, If – it seemed to sum up Ralph, how he was, what he had made of his life. And she’d read it in a firm voice, reading more from heart than from the printed words on the page, but as though she were talking to Ralph’s spirit floating somewhere above them in the tiny chapel on the hill and not the handful of people sitting on the plain wooden benches in front of her. And she’d prayed that Ralph would know how sorry she was that she
hadn’t been the wife he’d deserved. That she had loved him. If not been in love with him, which was different.
She’d bought sky-blue agapanthus and made a simple tribute, placing stripy grasses among the blooms then tying the whole with straw-coloured raffia; strong, architectural flower shapes for a strong man.
But Jonty had never been far from her mind either.
‘Are you well enough to go back to work, do you think?’ Lydie asked Grace now. ‘It’s heavy work from what you tell me.’
‘I’m fine. And Jonty needs me. Probably more so now with Drew’s daughter having her op. RED is in deep cowpats really, especially with Becca in the funny farm. Got a feeling she was the one with the cash. You should have seen the rubies, Mum – like eggs some of them.’
‘Don’t call it the funny farm. It’s disrespectful. To Becca and to anyone in the same situation.’
‘For God’s sake, stop being such a bloody stewed prune. Everyone calls it the funny farm.’
‘Unless they’re in it, I imagine,’ Lydie said
‘God, you really are a stewed prune about things, aren’t you, Mum? Anyone would think you cared about Becca or something?’
Lydie felt herself flinch then. Should she say now, right this minute, that she’d known Becca a long time ago?
But all she said was, ‘Stewed prune?’ feeling her forehead furrow in puzzlement.
‘It’s a saying. In Devon anyway. Drew explained it to me. There are two sorts of women – stewed prune or baked apple. Stewed prune being uptight, as opposed to baked apple which is more relaxed. It helps if you say it with a broad Devonshire accent.’
‘Oh. I see. Well, I was hoping you could run The Gallery.’
‘No. Sorry. Your court, Mum.’
‘Then I shall sell. We’ll go back to Bath, be nearer your grandfather.’
Lydie felt surprisingly positive now she’d said the words – she was going to sell, go back to Bath, pick up the threads of her old life there, meet up with old friends. But without Ralph. And Robert would need her closer to him, now more than ever. He hadn’t even been up to coming down for the funeral. And he was beginning to sound vague on the telephone when Lydie rang. He’d even asked the last time Lydie had called him how Ralph was getting on with The Gallery, if he’d gone bankrupt yet.
Red is for Rubies Page 21