‘You still are,’ Grace said. ‘The hair anyway. And the lack of socks. Do you always go sockless, even in winter?’
‘Pretty much. Your Granddad couldn’t get his head around that. I remember turning up once without shoes. It was a hot day and I had this VW Beetle which was a wreck really, and I had this urge to see Lydie so I drove over in bare feet. God, but they were filthy. He went a bit ape.’
How much easier this was now with the conversation batting back and forth between them, flowing as easily as the river running alongside them.
‘I can imagine. He still does dressing for dinner, and sherry in a decanter. Linen napkins and knife rests and all that crap. I mean, knife rests!’
Jonty laughed. He wouldn’t have known a knife rest if he saw one – still wouldn’t. ‘So you see where I didn’t fit in?’
‘Yes and no. Dad was left to carry the can for you.’
‘Lydie was seeing someone. Two-timing. I knew about him but I don’t think he knew about me. I suppose that wasn’t very admirable of me, was it? To be party to Lydie’s two-timing.’
‘It wasn’t very admirable of Mum either, but most people do it at some time in their lives. Justin did.’
‘Ah, Justin, sorry about that.’
‘The gay thing?’
‘Not particularly. The breaking up after so long together would have been hard enough in itself. But it must have been hard, finding out he was gay the way you did.’
‘Yeah, but it explains a lot of things, like … well, let’s not go there now.’
‘Okay. We were talking about your …’ But Jonty couldn’t bring himself to say dad or father, so instead he said, ‘Ralph? He was a builder, right?’
‘Dad. Ralph. Yes, he was a builder, although he wore the property developer hat before we moved down here. D’you know, Mum tells the tale that I was premature. God, how many times did I hear that one when I began to work out that a nine months gestation period is hard to squash in between April and October? Over seven pounds and premature? I don’t think so. I bought it for a long time and Dad obviously did. But not now. Mum was an ace liar, wasn’t she?’
How did he answer this one? He’d guessed Lydie had been a virgin that first time when he’d made love to her in the back of his beloved Beetle – the love bug. He was about to tell Grace about the love bug but already he could predict her derision if he did. And then on the more comfortable occasions when Becca had been out with that shit Hugh Harris and they’d sneaked up to his room, putting the sheets through the wash before Becca got back. And that last, fruitful time, when they hadn’t been able to stop themselves underneath the arches by the river, when being caught had just added to the passion of it all, and he was without condoms because he’d had no cash to buy any.
No, Lydie hadn’t lied about everything. She’d been telling the truth when she said Jonty was her first lover; that she and Ralph hadn’t being having sex.
‘I’m not going to answer that,’ Jonty said at last. ‘It isn’t my place to bad mouth your mother.’
‘Right. Well answer this then – why didn’t you stand by her?’
‘I’ve already said – I didn’t fit in with her background. And if I’m honest it was because I wasn’t ready for responsibility. Not then. I wanted to go down the art road which doesn’t pay much to be honest – it certainly wouldn’t have been enough to provide for a wife and a child.’
‘So you let Dad work his guts out on the buildings to provide that!’
‘Put like that, yes.’
‘Well, at least you’re honest. It wasn’t wall-to-wall money, though, for Mum and Dad. They nearly lost everything in the nineties – negative equity and all that. One birthday they had nothing left over for a present for me. I heard them discussing whether to ask Gramps for cash but Dad wasn’t having any of it. So Mum gave me her pendant. Her most precious possession she said. She wore it all the time. Said she’d made it, but that was a lie too, wasn’t it? You made it, didn’t you? I recognise the red glaze you used for the ceramic middle, although I think Mum did the silver work on it. Right?’
‘Right,’ Jonty said.
So, Lydie had loved him. Loved him enough to wear his pendant underneath the nose of her husband; a husband who – negative equity apart – could have provided jewellery of far more value than a few pence-worth of clay.
‘Where’s my pendant now?’
Jonty’s fingers curled around the pendant in his pocket where it had been ever since the nurse gave it to him for safe-keeping in the hospital.
‘I always promised Lydie rubies,’ he said, clenching his fingers harder around the pendant. ‘But we both knew, I think, that I was never going to be in the rubies league. So I glazed the pendant as near as I could to a pigeon’s blood ruby – the best kind. It’s hard to get right, red, in a kiln. It …’
‘I know. I’ve been working for you, remember?’
‘Can I go on?’ Jonty was enjoying the telling in a way, his feelings for Lydie brought to the surface again, although they’d always been only just underneath the surface. And it was a glorious day, this beautifully scenic walk made more so by the sunshine and the warmth and the fact he was walking with his child.
For answer Grace spread her arms wide in a ‘feel free’ gesture.
‘I tried to ring Lydie many times but it was always your grandmother or your grandfather who answered and said that Lydie was asleep or had a cold, or was out with her boyfriend. When I asked his name they would never tell me. But I remember your grandmother telling me with relish that Lydie had married the Saturday before. I didn’t ring again after that. I did go to our favourite places but she was never there. And then Becca got married and I moved with her and Hugh because Hugh could provide me with a studio.’
‘You were a freeloader?’
‘Not entirely. I was always wary of her husband, wanted to keep an eye on her. But that’s a long, sad story and it doesn’t affect us, you and me. I’m glad I did now.’
They had reached the stile where the meadow led into the woods up to the Dartington Estate and Jonty stepped back to allow Grace to go over first. And then it was a single track so Jonty gestured for Grace to walk ahead of him which made conversation difficult and they carried on without speaking; just their footfalls and the occasional bird call to break the silence and their thoughts.
‘Drink?’ Jonty asked as they came out from under the shade of the trees onto the path which led alongside a field, ploughed ready for planting; the earth in corduroy-stripes with the ridges dry and cracked by the sun. ‘The White Hart does great coffee.’
‘Okay. But can we sit here for a moment?’
Grace had already smoothed twiggy bits from the top of the low dry-stone wall and was sitting down.
‘I miss Dad like hell,’ Grace said. ‘I can’t believe he’s not here when I wake up in the morning. He was always laughing, could never get serious about anything. It was always a sunny day when Dad was around. He used to embarrass me sometimes. He had a very loud laugh, a raucous laugh, like he’d just been told the best dirty joke ever; except he didn’t go in for dirty jokes, didn’t swear either.’
She had her hands clasped tightly together in her lap and Jonty swallowed back his emotions – Lydie had done just that when he’d told her he wasn’t ready for fatherhood; clasped her hands together as though holding all her feelings in. He wanted to put his arms around Grace, hold her, comfort her but it was too soon in this new relationship of theirs for that.
‘It’s been a huge shock for you, Grace, but I’d like to help all I can, if you’ll let me.’
‘You’ll never replace him. Sorry, but that’s the way it is.’
‘I know. I don’t want to, and it would be presumptuous of me to try. We can’t turn back the clock.’
‘Have you rung Mum?’
‘No. And before you ask, she hasn’t been in touch with me either.’
Jonty felt as though he were outside himself, looking down on this scene. I am a f
ather out for the day with his daughter. Fifty-bloody-six is a bit late to feel grown-up for the first time, Jonty chided himself, but he was feeling that now.
‘But I didn’t know! Why the hell didn’t you tell me before? You could have rung me!’
‘It wasn’t my news to tell. I felt that was Lydie’s job.’
‘But if I’d come back to work still not knowing, then what?’ Grace poked at a stone with the tip of her shoe, gave it a sideways kick so that it shot off, clattering against a small pile of stones on the edge of the ploughed field.
‘Then I would have told you. Before Drew did.’
‘Drew knew? Before me?’
Grace had unclenched her hands, and her eyes were wide open, blazing into Jonty’s.
‘I didn’t tell him, believe that. It was Becca. She’d recognised you, seen Lydie and me in you. And, of course, she’d met Lydie on numerous occasions back then so she was sure of her facts. I suppose none of us gave Becca credit for having any sort of perceptions because of the unbalanced state she’d been in for years.’
‘I see,’ Grace said, and Jonty was relieved to see the fire drain from her again, see her face soften. ‘What will happen to Becca now?’
‘Nothing’s certain yet, but it’s more than likely she’ll have to have more care than I can provide for the rest of her life.’
‘Poor Becca. Would it still upset her to see me, do you think? I could take her some flowers or some chocolates or something. Let her know I don’t blame her for hurting me. It might help.’
‘Perhaps not just yet. But later. When she’s a bit more settled. The doctors advised me not to visit too often so she’d settle better. I have to believe they know best what’s right for her. I’ve telephoned daily, though.’
Grace didn’t say anything for a moment or two, as though she was taking in the information about Becca.
‘I’m not sure what I’m going to do now’ she said eventually. ‘Mum wanted me to run The Gallery but there’s no way I’m going to do that. I think she owes Dad that much, to carry on what he started. Then she said she’d sell, go back to Bath, but I don’t want to do that either. Sometimes you just can’t go back, can you?’
Did she mean him and Lydie – now that they were both free to do so? But Grace had said it in such an impersonal way that Jonty didn’t think she was speaking cryptically.
‘Go back?’ he said.
‘Yes. I just couldn’t feel comfortable in Bath now.’
‘And here?’ Jonty asked. ‘I still need a decorator.’
‘I hoped you’d say that,’ Grace said. ‘For a little while at least – until I’ve found my feet.’
‘For as long as you want, Grace. Now, shall we go and get that coffee?’
‘Okay.’ Grace stood up, linked her arm through Jonty’s. ‘You don’t mind? If I hold your arm, I mean. I feel all sort of floaty and funny.’
Mind? Why should he mind? For years he’d wondered if his child was a boy or a girl, alive or dead. And now, here she was, brought to him by the strangest of circumstances and he felt inordinately pleased even though he knew he hadn’t done a thing to deserve it.
And for the moment he had one of his decorators back.
‘Where’s Emma, where is she?’ Becca screamed at the nurse, not a nurse in uniform, but Becca knew she was a nurse all the same.
‘Emma?’ the nurse said. ‘Your doll’s called Emma?’
‘My daughter is called Emma,’ Becca said. ‘What have you done with her?’
Why there was a nurse in the hotel, Becca couldn’t understand. Such a funny place; the other guests walking up and down the corridors, or sat mumbling to themselves in chairs, facing the wall.
‘Emma,’ the nurse said, ‘has been taken for a wash. We have to make sure everything is clean in here.’
‘Of course, she’s clean. Every time Jonty went out I took her into the bathroom and washed her. Then I put clean clothes on her, and sang to her. She’s a good girl, my Emma, a good girl. Oh where is she? I want to see her!’
‘Ssh,’ the nurse said. She was gripping Becca’s arm now, stopping her from going to look for Emma. ‘Now, let’s find a hairbrush and I’ll help you tidy yourself up.’
‘No! Jonty brushes my hair.’
‘Well, I’ll be doing it from now on,’ the nurse said. ‘Come on.’
‘No!’
‘Okay. Not just yet then.’ She loosened her grip on Becca.
‘I want Emma. And my rubies. Where are my rubies? Someone’s stolen my rubies. I hate this place. Why am I here? Everything’s strange.’
‘No one’s stolen them. They’re in the safe. For safe-keeping.’
‘But they’re mine! I want them. All of them. Hugh gave them to me.’
‘Hugh?’
‘My husband. He’s famous, you know. He’s always in the papers. He’s in the government. I had all the cuttings – two hundred and three. But I haven’t got them now because I sent them to a lady at The Times. Jonty didn’t know I had that many. He didn’t know about Emma either because I kept her in a blanket box by the window. And I always sat on the box when Jonty came in the room. He was going to leave me, you know.’
‘Who was?’
‘Jonty. For her. He had no idea. You’d think a man would recognise his own daughter, wouldn’t you? I mean, I know I’m Emma’s mum. Hugh tried to take her away from me. He took me to a hospital, and they stuck a needle in my arm, and I went all fuzzy. But they couldn’t take Emma away. Where is she? I want her with me, she’ll be frightened if she can’t hear me.’
‘Well,’ the nurse said, ‘we get all sorts in here but none that have confused me quite as much as you, Becca.’
The nurse laughed, and Becca didn’t like the laugh. Not at all. It was a nasty sort of laugh, like Hugh’s was when he told her the baby had gone. And then again when he said he was leaving to live in London. And she had said: ‘That’s okay, but you’ll come back at weekends, won’t you, because Emma will need you then,’ and Hugh had laughed that awful laugh again. Oh, why were they taking everything away from her? Emma, her rubies – where were they all? And Jonty? Where was he?
‘I want to see my brother,’ Becca said. ‘Why hasn’t he been to see me before?’
‘He’s telephoned every day, Becca, since you’ve been here. I expect he’s been busy. But he’s coming today. He’s just rung to say so. He’s coming to collect your stuff.’
‘My stuff?’
‘Your jewellery. House rules, I’m afraid. No valuables.’
‘Hah. Well, he won’t be able to give them to her, will he? Because I’ve killed her, haven’t I?’
‘Killed her? No, don’t tell me, I’m confused enough already. Come on, Becca, let’s get you tidied up before your brother comes to see you. Look at you, your hair’s all over the place. And then we’ll see about something nice for you to eat. You wouldn’t eat at lunch time, remember?’
‘I never eat if I don’t want to.’
‘Well, you’re certainly thin. You’ll have to give me a few tips.’
‘It’s easy. You just nibble a little bit, so they think you’re eating, then you go to the bathroom and you put two fingers down your throat. It takes a bit of practice to do it without making a noise, and without making the whites of your eyes go bloodshot.’
‘I’ll bet,’ the nurse said.
‘Don’t tell Jonty, will you, but I even did it when he went to the shops special for me and made me smoked salmon sandwiches with the crusts cut off. That wasn’t very nice of me, was it? Say you won’t tell.’
‘I won’t tell.’
‘And I can see Emma soon?’
‘Yes.’
‘You can help me with my hair now,’ Becca said.
She allowed the nurse to hold her hand all the way to the bathroom. The nurse’s hand was warm. Perhaps it would be nice in here after all.
The nurse was running the shower when Becca looked out of the window, down along the drive, and saw Jonty. Jonty was lockin
g the door of his van, she could see the top of his head as he bent down. She opened the window to wave to him but it wouldn’t open very far. And then she saw her.
Her!
Jonty was with her. Why hadn’t she died? She was linking her arm through Jonty’s like she owned him, had rights to hold his arm. But she didn’t. Becca knew she had to warn Jonty. Her mother, Lydie, had come back and she wanted Jonty again, didn’t she? Well, she wasn’t going to have him. The window wouldn’t open wide because it had some sort of bar on it but Becca was thin enough to climb through the narrow gap. The ledge was tiny, hardly big enough for a pigeon to stand on. The nurse wasn’t going to like her stepping out onto the ledge, was she? But she had to.
Chapter Thirty
‘We can still be friends, Lyd.’
‘No way. I’m keeping this baby, whatever Mum and Dad might think. Especially Dad.’ Why had she bothered coming to see Jonty? He wasn’t going to suddenly want to marry her. Not now. Not just because she was carrying his baby. Marriage wasn’t on his agenda, was it?
‘And you’ll marry this other guy, just to save your father’s face with his cronies?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s dishonest. At least tell the guy the truth.’
‘Never,’ Lydie said. She was already halfway to the door.
‘Grace? Jonty?’ Lydie said.
Grace had been back working for Jonty for a few days now although Grace didn’t talk much about it. Grace didn’t mention Jonty, and Lydie didn’t ask about him. It was easier that way. The flat Jonty had said would be available for Grace to rent hadn’t been. Grace was looking for another but nothing had come up yet. Lydie was glad of that, really glad. But Grace and Jonty were here now. Together.
Oh my God, something dreadful must have happened. Grace’s eyes were wide open, with some sort of shock. She hadn’t looked as shocked when Lydie had told her Ralph was dead as she was looking now. Or even when she’d told her that Jonty was her biological father. And Jonty had withered somehow, seemed to have less substance. He looked older, too. But then, wasn’t she – Lydie – looking older in the weeks since Ralph had died?
Red is for Rubies Page 23