‘And you two are definitely headed out to Italy?’
The bubbles in my champagne glass rise and pop like new ideas, so many new possibilities coming to the surface.
‘Hard though it is to believe, I’m really looking forward to it, Bea,’ I nod. ‘There’s nothing keeping us here any more – even Ruff has passed away. I have to…dream a new dream, I guess.’
‘Smile!’ The photographer from the Kent Messenger demands. We’re all gathered outside the little entrance area at Number Five the Esplanade, all the Bridge Wardens and the mayor and various local dignitaries – and then Bea and me and Rich squeezed in at the edge. It’s a relief when a few minutes later the photographer calls for a thinning out of the crowd and some of us troop inside.
‘All’s well that ends well.’ Ben Spenlow’s glass chinks amicably against mine. ‘Bridge never did fall down, eh? You were convinced that’s what was going to happen, weren’t you?’
I don’t answer him, just smile into my drink. Maybe I should never have told him I used to dream about that happening, a long time ago before I blocked it all out. I used to dream about a deep brown river, much wider and faster than our one, hurtling past an old wooden bridge, straining and pulling at it till eventually the weight of water collapsed it all. And I’d go down with it, every time.
‘This looks jolly good too, don’t you think?’ Beatrice intervenes. I stop. There, just inside Number Five, in the coolness of the spacious hallway, they’ve put up the new Rochester Bridge picture.
‘It looks different somehow…’ I stare at it for a good few minutes, trying to fathom out what’s changed. I’ve already seen it with the frame on. Could it really just be the setting?
‘You were never really taken with it, were you?’ Bea’s at my elbow. ‘I think it’s marvellous, myself.’
‘Actually, I think I see it all in a different light now, Bea.’
‘It’s a masterful amalgamation of the old and the new, don’t you see? The tragic past fades into soft and nostalgic tones behind us, the future veers up sharply, almost dangerously, in front of us…’
Does the past always fade into nostalgic tones behind us? Only if we can let it, perhaps.
‘I don’t know why I couldn’t see it before. It’s a really arresting picture. Stunning, even. I can see it now. Maybe it’s because I’m not frightened of the water any more?’
Bea looks at me, suddenly interested. ‘You did it?’
‘I’ve started classes at the local pool. I managed a whole width yesterday. Before you know it I’ll be doing lengths just like everyone else…’
‘Bravo!’ Bea suddenly goes quiet as a new thought crosses her mind, I can almost see it. ‘Is it true you’ve had no news at all from Scarlett?’
‘None.’ I shake my head thoughtfully. ‘But if she ever does get in touch, I have forgiven her, Bea.’
‘For everything?’ A look of relief crosses Beatrice Highland’s face. I’m not even going to dwell on how much of everything she might know.
‘I’ve had to,’ I shrug. ‘I realised I couldn’t…I couldn’t spend the rest of my life carrying that much weight of resentment around with me.’ I turn away from her and close my eyes for a moment. Behind my closed lids, I relive the sheer and utter bliss I felt the first time I spread out my arms in the water, pushed my legs backwards off the pool bottom and just swam.
And didn’t sink. The sense of freedom I felt was indescribable. Bea gives me a small, self-conscious hug.
‘I am so very glad, my dear.’ She’s silent for a bit. She knows that even though there are so many things turning round in my life right now, there’s still one thing I have no control over.
‘Shall we go up? There are canapés upstairs, very good ones, you’ll miss those when you leave here, I promise you…’
She’s right. The hallway is getting very crowded, and as we start making our way up the stairs I let myself acknowledge all the things I am preparing to leave behind.
I am going to miss my beautiful Florence Cottage with its glorious Olde Worlde garden. I am going to miss the view from my kitchen of the river through all its seasons: from the soft and lazy rolling water of high summer to the headstrong hurtling of waves swollen by the winter months. I am going to miss the way the soft light shines through these stained-glass windows here at the bend of the stairwell in the Bridge Warden’s chambers.
But life is always full of so many possibilities, isn’t it?
I have started dreaming again, just like Mr Huang promised me I would, little snapshots and cameos of things, that’s all: like walking down a long narrow shaded street, tall buildings rising to either side of me, or another time, climbing up a grassy slope somewhere, where it’s hot and the breeze is blowing my hair back. Somewhere that’s not here. Italy maybe? I smile at Rich, who’s been hijacked by a redhead with a martini and a notepad. He’s always there in my dreams with me, so I don’t need to worry that she will get him. Someone else is there with us too. I’ve not got to look at him properly yet, but I think it is someone little. Someone lovely. Who knows?
‘I shall enjoy the Mediterranean cuisine though, and you’ll have to come out and spend part of next summer with us…’I turn to her as we reach the table groaning with canapés at the top. ‘Wow. Such a crowd…’ I mutter as we go and stand by the windows overlooking the Esplanade. ‘All here for the bridge re-opening?’
‘Medway council has put on a celebratory free concert in the castle gardens.’ Ben has joined us, his plate piled high with goodies. ‘They’ve got a fair on – all the usual attractions. Another red balloon stand.’ He raises his eyebrows at me. ‘I keep seeing them go up. D’you remember the autumn when they let them all fly off together? I’ve never seen anything quite like it. You wished for the bridge to be fixed, didn’t you?’ He smiles one of his rare smiles at me. ‘Well, you got your wish.’
I didn’t wish for that, though.
I turn away from the table, watching the crowds all congregating towards the castle grounds now. Lots of families with young kids. Lots of babies in their prams.
‘I’ve been wishing for pretty much the same thing all my life,’ I mutter under my breath.
So many people…I look out over the multitude of bobbing heads and then I realise after a while that I’m not the only one doing the scrutinising. There’s a young couple with a pram just opposite standing by the stone railings looking up at me. Who are they? I peer a little closer. And why are they both looking at me so intently?
Maybe they aren’t looking at me? I glance behind me. Nobody else is standing by the window. Maybe it’s just the party scene which the couple are fascinated by? But it isn’t. When I look again, the young man has crossed the road and now he’s standing right beneath my window. He’s pulled his hood off so I can get a better look at his face and now I see, my heart thudding in my mouth, that I do know who he is.
The shock of recognition goes through me like so many volts of electricity. But for the fact that his face returned to me so clearly in the pool a few weeks back, I’d never have known him. It’s that boy Aaron. Except he isn’t a boy any more, he’s a man and with a young child of his own by the looks of it.
I feel my fists clench, leaning against the wide stone window frames. It’s him. It was him in the archway that night by the Cathedral. It was him that frozen day when I met Rich up on Jackson’s field and I had to stop myself from running away from the park. I’ve been running away from him for such a long time now, haven’t I, and here he is, with a child of his own – has he come to gloat?
I want to look away but I can’t because he’s mouthing something up at me. I can’t quite make out what it is. Oh, he’ll be like Duncan, after Scarlett no doubt – they always are! You’ve got a child of your own now, I think furiously. Now you’ll know what it feels like to feel vulnerable because that’s what love does to you…
I screw up my face, turning away, but now the bugger has thrown a small pebble up to the window to catch my attentio
n again. Does he know what these windows cost?
‘What do you want?’ I sign at him. ‘Go away!’
‘I’m sorry,’ he mouths back.
‘What do you want?’
‘I…AM…SORRY!’ he mouths again.
He’s sorry?
He turns and waits for the traffic to clear before he can cross safely back over to his family again. When he gets to the pram I see him bend over, tuck in the little one gently. I lean so far forward then that my head is resting against the glass pane, my fingers smudging on the edges of the glass. He’s sorry. That’s what he wanted to tell me. I’ve been avoiding him all this time and that’s all he ever wanted to say? I feel a bubble of laughter rising up in my stomach.
‘Oooh, look, they’re off again!’ Everyone is crowding round the window suddenly, to see the flight of the released red balloons as they soar up and quickly spread like a splodge of red paint against the canvas of the early summer sky.
‘Did you make a wish?’ Richard is suddenly beside me, his breath warm in my ear. He knows I always do.
‘Not this time,’ I turn towards him, leaning in close to his chest. ‘Maybe for the first time I can see that I’ve already got everything I need.’
Scarlett
‘Hey, Scarlett.’ I wake up as a dark-eyed Emoto is patting my wrist gently. The coach has stopped. We’ve arrived at Caracas International.
‘This is where we say goodbye, I think.’
But I don’t want to say goodbye to him, though. We’ve got to know each other better over the last few days and weeks than we did in the entire year before it. Emoto is far more like me than I could have imagined. He’s totally into the rainforest and travelling, he loves conjuring tricks and he has a truly wicked sense of humour…
‘I’m going to be in London for a whole month,’ he told me late last night. ‘If you change your mind, you’ve got my mobile number, right? In fact, ring me anyway when you’re settled. Promise?’ He’d been fussing over me like a mother hen. The memory of that unlikely scenario makes me smile, even now.
Gingerly, he pulls up the blinds by our window and the bright morning sun streams in. ‘Have you got very far to go from here?’
I rub my eyes blearily. I’ve got to get on another bus, but I’m not sure which one. I need to find that scrap of paper Barry wrote down all the details on.
Man, I’m tired. I barely slept a wink, it was so hot, even with the air conditioning and that child in front was whinging all night. He’s snoring softly now, but everyone’s making a move and his mama’s going to have to as well, in a minute. I shoot her a sympathetic glance which Emoto intercepts.
‘Want some help bringing your bags down?’ he offers kindly. I’ve got up to let him by, but now I’m just standing in the aisle like a dummy. In a minute, Emoto is going to leave and I’ll be left here all on my own. Who would have thought I’d be feeling as devastated as I do about that?
‘Come on, girl. It won’t be as bad as all that.’ Emoto helps me with bringing all my luggage down. Then he helps the mum in front of us with her toddler. She thanks him profusely but I can see he’s already glancing at his watch. Is he going to be late for his flight?
‘Scarlett, I feel really unhappy leaving you like this.’ He hesitates.
‘Have you even sorted out where you’re going next?’ ‘I’m sorry?’ I look at him blankly.
‘The address you’re going to next. Look, why don’t I call you a cab…?’
‘Too expensive.’ In a daze, I follow him down the coach steps and out into the heat of the day.
It is so bright standing out here. The air is so hot you can smell it. Was it really only one month ago I stood here waiting for Eve to arrive, imagining that somehow returning to South America was going to be the solution to all my problems back home?
‘But are you going to be OK?’ Emoto is still hovering, unsure of what to do next. ‘You look like you could do with some help, only I’m supposed to be booking in for that flight to London some time soon…’
I turn away from him deliberately so he can’t see my face. Man, I wish I was the one getting on that flight. There was a time when I couldn’t get away from England quickly enough. There was no place on earth that could have been too far away from home for me. Yet now…
The hazy afternoon air shimmers off the pavement and my memories flicker like a colourful kaleidoscope of images before my eyes; the stone lions on the bridge at Rochester, Michaelmas daisies in the garden at Florence Cottage, Ruffles with his tail wagging, deliriously happy to see me, Richard’
I have forfeited all that, I recall, for the thing I thought I wanted more than anything. But it wasn’t worth sacrificing my sister’s peace of mind for. It wasn’t worth losing her and Richard’s love and goodwill over. Nothing could ever be worth that.
‘What’ll you do now?’ Emoto still seems reluctant to leave this damsel in distress.
‘Scrub toilets, pull the hair out of plug-holes like you said, help peel potatoes in the kitchen…’ I run through the list of duties Barry warned me would be on the rota if I accepted the au pair’s job.
‘No, I mean, right now. How are you going to cope? The whole band has scattered. You’re going to be so alone, aren’t you?’ He knows, that’s the thing. He can see right past my ‘I’m up for it’ act.
‘Alone?’ I force a laugh, indicating the pied-piper throngs surging out of the airport and all around us. ‘It is difficult to see how when there are so many people in the world.’ A food vendor smiles, waving the greasy smell of arepas under our noses, a parrot on a chain stretches his wings out, balancing on a man’s shoulder, a flower seller places a single orange bloom in my hand.
‘You won’t be lonely, Scarlett. Remember you’re the one who told me that the Yanomami say: “Whatever you need, do not look too far. It’ll be right there in front of you”,’ Emoto says feelingly.
‘I know.’ It was always true, too, when I was out there with them in the forest. Will it still be true now?
‘Oh, crap!’ Emoto dives out suddenly as the toddler who was our companion and tormentor on the bus wanders happily right into the middle of the road. His mum took his eyes off him for a second and he must have caught sight of that sinking red metallic balloon…
My hero scoops up the toddler and balloon seconds before he’s crushed by the bus that’s just pulled out into the street. I give him a round of applause, laughing as he crosses back over the road to me.
‘That was a close call,’ I grin. ‘Hey, little fella.’ I smile at the toddler, who seems oblivious to all the drama. I watch as Emoto pulls off a little envelope before handing the shining balloon over to the child, passes the boy back to his mother.
‘Bloody hell, Scarlett.’
I give him a clap, laughing as he crosses back over the road to me.
‘That was a close call,’ I agree.
‘Yes, it was. But look at this…’The way he’s waving that little envelope in his hand, you’d think it was some kind of precious document.
‘You’re going to miss your flight,’ I remind him. I don’t like balloon messages. Not since Lucy Lundy warned me Duncan had sent one off with a nasty message about me inside it. Bastard. ‘Chuck it in the bin,’ I advise him.
‘You chuck it.’ Emoto hands me the envelope, his eyes shining in wonder and anticipation of my response. ‘After all, it is addressed to you.’
Scarlett
No!
I shiver as he hands it over. It can’t be. Who the hell would be sending me messages like this? Gui? Duncan?
I pull the thin card out of its envelope, my fingers trembling. There is one little sentence on it on it. That’s all. My eyes have misted over…
This isn’t Duncan’s handwriting, though. I’d recognise this neat script anywhere.
Darling Lettie,
I feel a lump in my throat at her use of my old pet name. God. I miss you, Hol. I miss you so much…
All is forgiven. Come home.
&nbs
p; Hol x
How in God’s name did this get here?
And could she really have forgiven me? For everything?
I turn the card quickly over, looking at the date. There’s a lot of other stuff written on the envelope too – this card has been doing the rounds – but it looks like this was originally sent last autumn. So maybe she’s talking about Aaron, here?
In the autumn I was still out in the rainforest gathering seeds, dating Gui at the weekends, enjoying my time with the tribe. In the autumn, Hollie must have had her letter through from that doctor in India. She’d have realised that I was the best chance she still had left. She’d have realised that all these years of holding onto resentment at what I’d brought her to, was never going to help. When she asked me to have this baby for her, I see now what that must have cost her. She swallowed her pride.
That’s what I’m going to have to do, now. Could it be possible that, somewhere deep in her heart, she still wants me back? I’m not after her Richard any more. I know now what a deep mistake that was. It was what we two sisters did to him that brought out that other side of him that I discovered that day up on Bluebell Hill. He is still a deeply loving and loveable man. But he’s her man.
And this baby I’m carrying – it’s their baby, and I know I could still get it back to them. There’s a flight out of here this afternoon, if I spent every last penny I have, I could be on it. The sudden realisations tumbling through my mind feel…they feel like the release of white doves at a wedding. If Hol forgave me for Aaron, she might forgive me for everything else as well. I could be on that flight. Oh, I don’t know how this baby’s parents will receive me if I go back, whether they’d be more angry than pleased, or whether they’d welcome me with open arms…
‘Is this the bus that you need, señorita?’ The South American lady is bustling around, picking up her bags and her son now.
The bus. Oh, God! Should I get on that bus? I have a job waiting for me. I have a chance to stay here a bit longer, see what comes up, see how it all pans out. For a split second I’m my four-year-old self at the bend of the river once more, stamping my feet and crying after the little boats Hollie said I would never get back again, because I still believed in the possibility of things and she did not. Have I given up on that now? Do I really believe that it will never be possible to retrieve what we have lost?
A Sister’s Gift Page 37