If her eldest daughter Vicky was anything to go by Izzy had done a pretty good job of child rearing. Vicky seemed a sane and sensible girl at fifteen – unlike her mother at that age – and, just for a second, as she had watched the two of them together, almost physically aware of the mother/daughter bond that tied them, the one that she had never really shared with her own mother, she felt a pang.
Izzy, for better or worse had pretty much got what she wanted out of life.
Francesca was still searching.
Chapter Nineteen
WHAT TO DO for the best in Pamela’s garden room provided Francesca with a few headaches. She ditched the out-dated festoon blinds opting for plain ones in a pale grey for a suntrap like this could stand cooler shades. This would be her bolt-hole and she furnished it simply and sparsely, loving its wide windows that gave her such a wonderful view of the garden. It was now light and airy and she rated it as her favourite room in the whole house, one that she could use all year round.
She had re-engaged the gardener whom Pamela had employed; a taciturn man called Will who made up for his lack of chattiness by knowing all there was to know about his subject, advising her on what would be necessary to re-vamp the back garden so that it would be more like the garden she remembered. She helped out a bit, not wanting to get under his feet or up his nose come to that with her amateur messing about, but he did not mind and even gave her odd little jobs to do, simple tasks that did not stretch her too far.
He was out there now, sorting out a really overgrown area which she wanted to turn into a vegetable plot and Francesca was sitting in the garden-room, mulling over a business idea in her head, aware that, after buying the house on impulse, she had to take care not to dive into something else on a whim before she thought it through. Well on target with the house redecoration, she was now bored and would have to do something to both occupy and stretch her before long.
The phone rang and she picked up the extension.
‘I know, I know, you can shoot me later but please let me explain.’ Selina’s voice exploded into her ear. ‘Please don’t hang up. Look, I’m here in this God forsaken town of yours, in a car-park by the river and I’m absolutely whacked. I never knew it took so long to get here. How do I find you?’
Selina here? It took a minute to sink in.
‘What makes you think I want to see you?’
‘Oh come on, Francesca. Have a heart. Don’t make me drive all the way back. I am also desperate for the loo and don’t make me use public ones.’
‘I’ll walk down. I’ll be there in five minutes.’
You had to hand it to her. When it came to an apology, Selina believed in the grand gesture. It would seem that she had left the children with Clive in Italy, flown home, collected the car and driven all the way to Devon to say sorry.
The flowers were exotic from an exclusive florists, a Mediterranean mix of sunny yellow and orange, but Francesca scarcely gave them a second glance, dumping them in the sink to deal with later. On seeing Selina in the car park, she had turned away from her hug, having the satisfaction of feeling the instant withdrawal. Well, what on earth could she expect?
On the short trip back to Lilac House, the tension in the air was almost palpable. Friends are acutely aware of such things and they were friends or had been once upon a time.
‘I don’t know what else I can do, darling, other than prostrate myself at your feet and plead for forgiveness,’ Selina began after she returned from visiting the downstairs cloakroom. They were sitting in Francesca’s brand new kitchen, a kitchen that looked so unlike hers. There wasn’t a peg board in sight, no well used cookery books with greasy, floury pages, no soft toys and definitely no sleeping cats.
But then, as Francesca ruefully admitted to herself, there was no heart to it. It looked like a showroom kitchen where they have tasteful displays of fruit – probably artificial for no apples could be that perfect – and just a few colourful bowls to tone and some shiny utensils. The oven was unused as yet, sparklingly clean.
Selina looked at her as she made no reply, pushing then at her hair, her beautifully cut hair that looked in need of a shampoo. She looked uncharacteristically rough, but Francesca could not drum up much sympathy. Silently she made coffee, instant with a slosh of milk from the carton. Sitting opposite the woman she thought of as her former friend, she could not be bothered with niceties, pushing biscuits across the table, still in their packet as if needing to emphasise their different priorities.
‘No thank you,’ Selina said, pushing them back. Her nail polish was chipped at that and, suddenly aware, she scrunched her fingers up and sighed. ‘Look, I know it’s no excuse, but I was half cut when I was talking to Gareth and I might have said things I didn’t really mean. I shouldn’t drink at all. It brings out the very worst in me. When I went over later what I had said I nearly died. Oh God …’ she said. ‘Don’t look like that. The truth is I haven’t been strictly honest with you, darling. But I had my reasons. I know you loved David in your way,’ she added with a knowing glance. ‘And after he died it didn’t seem fair to tell you.’
‘Tell me what? Please get to the point.’
‘Oh Lord, you are cross with me, aren’t you?’
Francesca let out a sigh. The baby blue eyes were filling with tears but she hardened her heart. ‘Conniving bitch!’ How dare she and how dare she sit here in her kitchen trying to insinuate somehow that it was Francesca’s fault. She had witnessed the way Selina sometimes dealt with her oldest son, the way she cleverly reasoned with him and got him to change his tune, the way she coaxed him into thinking he was in the wrong when very often he was not.
Well, that tactic would not work with her.
‘I loved him. There were no doubts for me.’ Selina said. ‘I loved that bastard in a way that I shall never love Clive. David Porter was the love of my life. I think I loved him more than you did.’
Francesca started to protest but what was the use. Selina was perceptive if nothing else and had an unpleasant knack of being able to dig out the truth. She ought to have been the barrister, not David.
‘Don’t tell Clive I said that. Clive is very possessive.’ she went on. ‘The fact is we had a long relationship, David and I. I told you he asked me to marry him, but I didn’t tell you we’d been together for ages by then. It was all terribly terribly discreet and I don’t think anybody knew. We were both free at the time and doing nothing wrong, but David was of the opinion that it was an impossible situation to have a sexual relationship with a colleague, particularly as I was a very lowly trainee at the time. It was quite exciting in fact because we had to keep our distance at work and I think we did that so well that nobody had a clue. We didn’t live together but I used to spend time at the house. I had always admired him of course from afar, but I didn’t realise for some time that he was looking at me in that way so it was a bit of a mystery how we ever got together. He was in his late forties at the time which seemed very old to a girl in her twenties and perhaps that was why he didn’t want people to know. It’s funny how times have changed.’
‘It still matters. He never spoke to me about you, not in that sense,’ Francesca said quietly, recalling the dinner parties at Selina’s, the friendly banter between the two of them that never suggested anything else. ‘It was no secret that we both had relationships before, but that was to be expected at our age and I really did not want to know details.’
‘No, well … I told him it was probably best if he didn’t mention it. And there was something else too.’
‘I thought there might be. What?’
‘I became pregnant,’ she said blushing to the roots of her fair hair. ‘We’d only known each other for a while and it was not planned.’
‘Oh. Did you tell him?’
‘No. I dealt with it as he would have wanted me to do if he had known.’
‘That’s not fair. Surely he suspected something?’
She shook her head. ‘No. You know David, he never to
ok a great deal of notice of female happenings.’
‘He would have been pleased surely. It wasn’t as if he was married or anything. There was no reason why you shouldn’t marry.’
‘There was every reason. I didn’t want him to think I had trapped him. I’ve seen it happen to other people and it always turns sour in the end. He didn’t want to get married. He wasn’t ready for marriage.’
‘He was in his forties for heaven’s sake.’
‘Yes, but he wasn’t ready.’
‘But he did ask you, didn’t he, and you turned him down? You’ve only yourself to blame, Selina.’
‘I didn’t explain it very well. Yes he did propose some time after the abortion and I asked for time to consider it, but I only did that because I didn’t want to appear too keen. I ask you, playing hard to get after all that time together. It was ludicrous but we always danced round each other like that. The truth was neither of us was ready for commitment, darling. But I was so excited when he finally got round to it and next morning I made up my mind to say yes and then he came up to me in court of all places, not actually in court itself that would have been a nonsense but outside in the gallery whilst we were waiting and …’ she sighed. ‘He took me to one side and said that he was sorry about last night and he got carried away and of course it was ridiculous to think of us marrying so would I just forget it. In other words, he had bloody second thoughts and retracted the question before I had the chance to say yes.’
‘Why didn’t you tell him that? Good heavens, Selina, you knew him well enough.’
‘And have him retract the retraction? No way would I do that but I ended it at that point because it was quite clear it was going nowhere and I had put myself through an abortion for that man. I shall never forgive myself for doing that. It was probably the daughter I will never have.’ On cue her eyes filled with tears and she rummaged in her designer handbag for a tissue.
‘You don’t know that.’
‘I met Clive six weeks later and I was so miserable I allowed him to sweep me off my feet. Well, sort of. You know Clive. He’s hardly the sweeping-off-the-feet type.’
‘You two are great together. You’re lucky, Selina.’
‘As to the paintings, I’m sorry to keep harping on about them but the truth is David did promise me them. He knew I liked them.’
‘Did you really like them?’ Francesca said. ‘Didn’t I hear you say they were utter crap.’
‘That’s Clive. He’s got a closed mind where modern art is concerned. No imagination at all. I loved them. Anyway, before you came on the scene David once said that if he popped off …’ she shuddered and bit her lip. ‘I was to have them and I said that he should put that in writing.’
‘He did leave a will,’ Francesca reminded her.
‘Which he only got round to making after you married him.’
The accusation hung there.
‘I didn’t ask him to do that. I did say I was surprised he hadn’t made one already and that must have shocked him into doing it.’
‘I was so hurt that after all we went through together he left me nothing, nothing at all to remember him by. Instead, he left it all to you. Somebody who knew him all of five minutes.’
‘Somebody he married.’ Francesca was finding it difficult to hold onto her temper. ‘Why didn’t you ask me? I would have given them to you. They meant very little to me.’
‘I know they didn’t and that was another thing that hurt. At least I shared David’s passion for them.’
‘That’s why you were so keen to know what I intended to do with them?’
‘Yes, I had to intervene otherwise you might have sent them in a job lot to the local Oxfam shop.’
‘I might have but I don’t think I would. I’m not as naïve as you seem to think. I knew they had a value.’
‘As you were giving the money you got from the paintings to charity I couldn’t make a fuss and I thought that if I couldn’t have them then at least some good was coming out of it. I support those two particular charities myself,’ she added with a sudden steely glint in her eyes. ‘So that, darling, is when I saw red. There have been no sizeable donations from you recently and it’s some considerable time since the paintings were sold.’
‘You had no business to check up. I thought donations were private matters.’
‘They are but I wheedled it out of someone. It was pretty unethical and I only did it because I wanted to be sure that David’s express wishes were being upheld,’ she said, taking on her solicitor voice.
‘If you had talked to me,’ Francesca said, quiet and determined and furious by then. ‘If you had done me the honour of trusting me …’ now she was being as formal as Selina, but stupidly she was more concerned now that she was going to lose her composure and start crying which would be such a waste. ‘I would have explained. After the auction, I put the money aside if you must know, the bulk of it anyway. I have it earmarked for a project of my own which I am not going to go into, but I certainly intend to give the sizeable donations you speak of to David’s charities when the shares are sorted out. It’s just a bit of juggling that’s all, a temporary thing and they won’t lose out. I am not using the money for myself, Selina. Do you really want to know what I’m using it for?’
‘No.’ Selina held up her hand. ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry. It’s none of my business.’
‘No it isn’t.’ For the first time it occurred that Selina was not a friend like Izzy, just a mere acquaintance because she knew nothing of her background, of what went before. ‘Why did you say those things to Gareth?’
‘Can’t you guess? Because I was jealous …’ she said. ‘I was so bloody jealous and I wanted to spoil it for you. Good Lord, Francesca, you pinched David from me.’
‘Can you hear yourself? You were married to Clive at the time. How could I pinch David from you?’ Francesca could not help herself. She laughed at the stupidity of it. How could a grown up, a professional at that, behave like a little girl?
‘I know I’m not making sense, but I married Clive on the rebound. And for God’s sake don’t tell him that either.’
‘Why did you introduce us in the first place? If I remember, you were dead set on doing it.’
‘I know I was. You aren’t going to believe this, but I planned it. It sounds perfectly ridiculous now.’
‘Try me.’
‘I could read the man’s mind. I was furious because after I ditched him he bounced back so quickly. Clearly, he was hardly heartbroken, as I was. After me, there had been one or two little flings, but I knew that those women did not mean much to him. I was waiting for the moment when he fell in love with someone as I fell in love with him. And then you came along. I knew he wanted you because I saw him watching you at that children’s cancer charity function where I first saw you. It was back in the November. We didn’t actually speak at the time, but you were there with that red-head friend of yours. You know the girl … fat with the most God-awful hair-do.’
‘Mary?’
‘Yes, Mary.’
‘I remember the function.’ She recalled now that when she first met Selina she half thought that she had seen her somewhere before. ‘Was David there?’
‘You bet he was and he couldn’t take his eyes off you. All bloody night. I was wearing this terrific little number but he never gave me a second glance and that hurt. I know I finished our affair but I couldn’t stop playing up to him whenever I saw him. Didn’t you notice?’
‘No.’
She laughed. ‘Neither did David. I was really wasting my time, wasn’t I? I did expect him to be a bit jealous of me and Clive but he wasn’t in the least.’
‘Didn’t Clive mind you flirting?’
‘He didn’t know. But my efforts were wasted that evening and I ended up watching him watching you. We were on the same table. Don’t you remember? You were sitting next to Mary and David was more or less opposite. Didn’t you speak?’
‘It was a big table,’ she said stupi
dly. ‘I don’t remember him.’
‘Well, you certainly made an impact on him. It was a real Cinderella moment. He wore his heart on his sleeve did David. It was some enchanted evening stuff, across the crowded room and all that jazz.’
‘I never knew I was being watched,’ Francesca said, smiling a little.
‘You don’t realize, Francesca, how attractive you are to the opposite sex.’ Selina smiled ruefully.
‘Why didn’t he make it his business to speak to me? Why didn’t he introduce himself?’
‘That’s not his way. I expect he needed time to himself to think about it. Was this finally it? Had he met his Miss Right at last? He collared me at work next day and immediately asked if I knew you.’
‘Me?’
‘Of course you. He wanted to know who you were, whether you were married or engaged and how he could get in touch with you. And so I told him I knew that you were a single lady and could arrange an introduction. I didn’t actually know you at the time, but I knew Mary vaguely and knew I could get to know you through her.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I knew he had fallen for you – he was such an old romantic as you know – so I wanted to hurt him, to let him know how it felt to be cold shouldered by somebody you love, the way he had to me. I wanted to give him a taste of his own medicine. My God, he never knew how much I was hurt. I might have had his child, Francesca. So, I wanted to get back at him. I know it’s unbelievably childish, but I’m like that. It’s really beneath me. I imagined that you would give him the brush-off pretty damned quick, an old man like that. What I didn’t bargain for was that you would fall in love with him or think you did. That really made it all go belly up and when he told me he was going to marry you I had no alternative, but to accept it as gracefully as I could.’ She rooted through her bag, got out another tissue and blew her nose hard. ‘And then I go and do it again, but this time I was trying to spoil it for you and Gareth just because I was pissed off about the sodding paintings. Oh God, shoot me now. I will of course apologize to him if you’ll let me.’
Just Another Day Page 17