‘Oh Bill, forget the furniture, for goodness’ sake! What is it that the doctor has said is wrong with your heart?’
‘It’s nothing whatsoever to concern yourself with. I was checked over by a Harley Street specialist when I was in England. He’s given me this rather revolting medicine to put under my tongue to stop the angina attacks. The good news is, it seems to be working. But that isn’t the point, Cecily. I’m asking you how you feel about selling Paradise Farm? As I said, things in Kenya are going through rather a boom and I have someone who is keen to buy it and run it as a going concern.’
Cecily closed her eyes and cast her mind back to her beautiful house and garden. It was rather like opening a book that had sat closed on a shelf for years, its beauty all but forgotten. Cecily heard herself catch her breath as she relived the view of the sunset from the veranda and smiled.
‘I loved that house,’ she breathed. ‘I was so happy there, if lonely,’ she added dryly.
‘Well, I don’t have to sell it, of course, I just rather thought that if you weren’t interested in ever coming home again, that I probably would. The other question is, whether we should get a divorce? I’m perfectly prepared to be cited for anything I need to be cited for. Desertion is probably the best, don’t you think?’
Cecily turned towards Bill, who, despite his protestations of being old, could pass for younger than any of the balding, pot-bellied Manhattanites who were around her own age. Tears came unexpectedly to her eyes.
‘Good Lord, what have I said now to upset you?’
‘I . . . forgive me, it’s just the shock of you appearing like a ghost out of the blue. I can’t answer those kinds of questions right now. I need time to think, Bill, to adjust to you being here. Okay?’
‘Of course. Forgive me, Cecily, I’ve put my big bloody foot in it again. You civilised me for a while, but I’ve had all this time to go backwards,’ he said, much more gently. ‘Listen, if you could point me in the direction of a half-decent hotel in the neighbourhood, I’ll go away and leave you in peace. I haven’t slept for the past couple of days, or in fact washed, and I must stink to high heaven.’
‘It’s okay, Bill, I’ve got a spare room here; it’s Stella’s but she’s away in Montgomery for the next few days, so you’re welcome to it.’
‘Are you sure? I now feel like a complete rake barging back into your life without any forewarning.’
‘You never were one to play by the rules, were you, Bill? Where is your luggage?’ she asked as she stood up.
‘There.’ Bill indicated a holdall. ‘You know me, I travel light.’
‘Well, I’ll show you where the shower is.’
Once she had done that, Cecily walked back outside and sat down, feeling utterly wrung out. Despite, well, literally everything, that feeling that had taken root inside her when she’d first met Bill, and had grown like a tiny sapling as she had gotten to know him better, was still there after all these years.
‘Darn you, Bill Forsythe!’ she muttered as she heard the shower turn on and imagined his firm muscled body naked beneath it . . .
‘You’re a sad, lonely old woman,’ she told herself firmly. It had been over twenty-three years since she’d last had any kind of intimate contact with a man. Surely, what she was feeling was just decades of unfulfilled physical longing. Bill was old now and hardly the stuff of dreams on any level. Yet she herself was a dried-up old woman.
‘Which bedroom am I to have?’ Bill appeared behind her, a towel wrapped around his middle.
‘I’ll show you,’ Cecily said, trying to ignore his naked torso, which had endured the passage of time exceptionally well. ‘Here,’ she said as she opened a door along the basement corridor. ‘This is Stella’s room.’
‘And this is Stella?’ Bill pointed to a photo of her at her college graduation. ‘Goodness, what a stunner she is.’
‘I know, she is the spitting image of her mother.’
‘And all this . . .’ – Bill waved an arm round the pretty room – ‘stems from my request to give – what was she called?’
‘Njala.’
‘To give Njala safe haven on our land.’
‘Yes, but I swear, Bill, there is no need to feel guilty about that. Stella is the best thing that ever happened to me. Loving her changed my life, and me,’ she added. ‘Now, I’ll leave you to get some rest. I have to collect Rosa at three from her school, but if you wake up while I’m gone, please help yourself to anything from the refrigerator.’
‘Don’t worry about me, I can fend for myself,’ said Bill, throwing back the covers on the bed and tipping Lucky, Stella’s beloved cuddly lion, onto the floor.
‘I know, but you’re in the urban jungle now,’ Cecily smiled. ‘Sleep well.’
‘So this is Rosa,’ said Bill, who after a shave, some sleep and a fresh change of clothes was looking far more like himself.
‘How do you do, sir?’ the little girl said, sticking her hand up towards him.
‘I do very well, thank you, Rosa,’ said Bill.
Rosa turned to Cecily. ‘Who is this man?’ she asked imperiously.
‘This man is called Bill. And he’s a very old friend of mine.’
‘Okay. Can I watch TV for a while?’
‘Not until you’ve done your homework, Rosa.’
‘Oh, but can’t I watch TV first – Mister Rogers is on soon – then do my homework?’
‘Rosa honey, you know the rules. Now sit down at the table quietly and get on with your sums.’
‘No!’ Rosa stamped her foot and pouted. ‘I wanna watch Mister Rogers!’
‘Well, you can’t and that’s that. Sit down now.’
‘I won’t!’
‘Rosa, you know what will happen if you carry on like this; you’ll be put in your room and there’ll be no dinner until you come out and sit at the table to do your homework.’
‘But I wanna watch Mister Rogers,’ she whined.
‘Right, let’s take you to your room, shall we?’ Cecily took the child’s hand firmly and marched her down the corridor. Opening the door and steering the squirming child inside, she sat her down on the bed. ‘So what’s it to be? Sitting in here by yourself, or doing your homework and then having peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in front of the TV?’
‘I wanna watch Mister Rogers now!’
Cecily walked to the door, closed it behind her and then locked it, bracing herself for the screams of protest that would begin immediately from the bedroom. Walking back to the kitchen, she looked at Bill and sighed.
‘Sorry about the noise, I mentioned she’s a handful right now.’
‘Yes, I can hear that,’ Bill said as the screams rippled at an ear-piercing level through the walls.
‘She’ll calm down in a minute, she normally does,’ said Cecily with more confidence than she felt. Sometimes the screaming could go on for hours. ‘I bought you some beer on the way back home, by the way. It’s cooling in the refrigerator.’
‘Thank you.’ He went to the refrigerator to pull a bottle out. ‘You have got your hands full, haven’t you?’ Bill said as the screams continued.
‘I guess I do, but it was either me taking care of her, or Stella having to stop everything she’d worked for to bring Rosa up herself. I’m sure she’ll meet another man one day, and the three of them will take off to live their own lives.’
‘Really? I doubt any chap would be keen to take on a child who can make that kind of racket.’
‘Rosa is very sweet underneath it all, she just likes things her own way right now,’ Cecily replied, suddenly defensive. ‘I made some beef casserole while you were sleeping, I remembered it was one of your favourites.’
‘Beef casserole . . .’ Bill sniffed the air. ‘Good Lord, that takes me back. When I’m at home, I live on tinned food, I’m afraid.’
‘That can’t be helping your health, can it now?’ Cecily said as she went to the oven to check on the casserole. ‘It’s ready. Would you like some?’
&
nbsp; ‘Frankly, I’m completely ravenous and could swallow an entire Boran cow down in one.’
Eventually, the hollering from the bedroom quietened. As Bill ate his casserole, Cecily went to let Rosa out of her room.
‘Are you ready to do your homework now?’ she asked her.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘And what will you say to our poor old guest, who’s come all the way from Africa just to hear you screaming?’ Cecily asked as she took Rosa’s hand and led her back to the kitchen.
‘I will say I’m very sorry, Granny,’ said Rosa. ‘I’m very sorry, sir,’ she said as she sat down at the table and Cecily put down the school books in front of her. ‘When’s Momma coming home?’ she asked as she took a pencil out of her case.
‘At the weekend, honey.’
‘Have you met my momma, Bill?’ she asked him. ‘She’s real pretty and real clever and has a very important job, which is why she isn’t here right now,’ Rosa said as she painstakingly copied out some numbers, her pencil digging hard into the paper.
‘I have, as a matter of fact, young lady. I first met her when she was a tiny baby, didn’t I, Cecily?’
‘You did Bill, yes,’ confirmed Cecily.
‘She was born in Africa, you know,’ Rosa said.
‘I do know, because when she was younger, she used to live in my house. In our house,’ Bill checked himself, glancing at Cecily.
‘Your house is in Africa?’
‘It is, yes.’
‘Do you get to see any lions?’
‘Oh, I do indeed, lots of them.’
‘Momma loves lions, doesn’t she, Granny?’
‘She does, yes.’
‘I’d like to see Africa one day.’
‘I’m sure you will, young lady.’
‘Now, Rosa, enough chatter, get on with your homework.’
Having wrangled two bedtime stories out of Cecily, then insisting Bill came to say goodnight and that he tell her a story about all the wild animals he’d seen in Africa, Rosa eventually went to sleep. Cecily poured herself a glass of wine – a habit she knew she should probably curb, but she looked forward to it, as it signalled the fact that Rosa was in bed asleep. She suggested to Bill that the two of them went upstairs to the living room.
‘How often is Stella home?’ Bill asked as he sat down in a chair by the fireplace.
‘Oh, it depends on her working week. She’s usually based in Baltimore, which is a three-hour train ride from here, so if she isn’t flying off somewhere, she’ll leave Sunday after supper and get home late on Friday evening.’
‘So she doesn’t see much of her daughter.’
‘No, sir, she doesn’t,’ sighed Cecily.
‘You really have rather been left to pick up the pieces, haven’t you?’
‘I’d hardly call Rosa a “piece”, Bill. To all intents and purposes, she is my grandchild, and I’m only doing what any grandmother would do under the circumstances.’
‘I can see that, but it could mean you being trapped in this situation for years to come. Surely you want something more?’
‘I would have thought that you of all people, Bill, have learnt, like I have, that life isn’t a question of what you want. But yes, you’re right: lately I have felt a little trapped,’ she admitted.
‘It seems to me that you’ve sacrificed almost everything for Stella,’ Bill said quietly. ‘Your family, your home, money, your marriage even . . . and at present, any hope of a life of your own until Rosa has grown up.’
‘It was a sacrifice worth making,’ Cecily said defensively. ‘You do anything you can for those you love, Bill, but I guess you wouldn’t understand that.’
‘Please, Cecily, yet again, forgive me, I’ve no right to come back here and start telling you what to do with your life. And I . . . well, whatever has passed between us, I still care for you and I’d like to help if I can.’
‘That’s very kind of you, Bill, but I can’t see quite how you could.’
‘To start with, by giving you some funds so you can get some childcare support. Frankly, Cecily, you look utterly exhausted and in desperate need of a holiday.’
‘I sure haven’t had one of those in a long time,’ she agreed. ‘But I can’t take your money, Bill. It wouldn’t be right.’
‘Please remember, it was I that brought this situation to your door – our door – in the first place. The very least I can now do is help out with the consequences of it. You are still my wife, after all, and as it happens, I have plenty of money to spare. Apart from the farm doing well, my older brother died last year and left me the family heap in England. I went to see it on my way to New York – it’s near that horrendously ugly hall where you met the original cad and bounder . . . what was his name?’
‘Julius,’ said Cecily with a shudder.
‘It might hearten you to know that I heard he left this world some years ago, having gone through countless wives and copious vats of brandy, leaving no progeny. Anyway, the local estate agent says he has an eager buyer for my own far smaller pile. It should bring in a pretty penny – apparently some pop star wants to put a recording studio in the wine cellar. I say, what do you think of these Beatles chaps then? I heard nothing else on the radio when I was in England, and it seems to be the same here in America.’
‘Stella adores them, obviously. I guess I like their tunes too. They’re catchy.’
‘Not exactly smooching music, though, is it? Do you remember that night with Joss and Diana when they were so desperately in love, and poor old Jock sat like the eternal cuckold in the corner watching them?’ Bill reminisced.
‘I do, yes.’
‘You and I danced to Glenn Miller. I often think back to that night. I remember it being the start of the rehabilitation of you and I after we lost Fleur. If only war hadn’t come . . .’
‘Well, it did. And here we are now,’ said Cecily. That night had been seminal for her, and she was amazed that it stuck out in Bill’s memory too.
‘Halcyon days,’ he murmured. ‘Why is it we only realise that they were in retrospect? Anyway, Cecily, whether you like it or not, I’m going to place an amount into your account and then I’m going to help you find a nursemaid – or whatever one calls them in America – to come and sort Rosa out. And I won’t hear another word about it. What are you doing tomorrow?’
‘What I always do – taking Rosa to school, then home to get on with my bookkeeping, and then—’
‘How about instead, tomorrow you take me out and show me the sights of New York? Having finally made it all the way here, I should see what all the fuss is about. What do you say, Cecily?’ Bill leant forward and put a hand on hers.
‘I guess so,’ she agreed, trying to ignore the tingle that shot up her arm at his touch. ‘Now, you’ll have to excuse me, but I need to get some sleep.’
‘Of course. I’ll see you in the morning. Thank you again for putting a roof over my head.’
‘Remember, Bill, you once put a roof over mine. I’m just returning the favour. Goodnight.’
Despite a sleepless night of tossing and turning and failing to make head nor tail out of her thoughts and feelings about Bill’s abrupt return to her life, Cecily had a wonderful day out in the city with him. It was a long time since she’d been across to Manhattan, so they started with a carriage ride around Central Park, where she pointed out her family home, dwarfed on either side by huge apartment buildings.
‘Does my dragon of a mother-in-law still inhabit the house?’ Bill asked her.
‘Oh yes, although Mamie says she constantly moves from one ailment to the next, swearing she’s dying, and making a fuss.’
‘And your father?’
‘Oh, he just puts up with her like he always has.’ Cecily gave a small shudder as the carriage clopped away from the house. Then she walked him along Fifth Avenue where Breakfast at Tiffany’s had been filmed some years back, and was horrified to discover he’d never seen it.
‘But, Bill, surely you hav
e to have seen it! I doubt there’s a person on the planet that hasn’t.’
‘A person on Planet America maybe, Cecily. Remember, I’m more comfortable in a loincloth with a spear than in this great overwhelming pile of vertical concrete.’
Then they went to the Empire State Building where Bill leant over the edge, only to stumble backwards.
‘Good God! My head is swimming. I seem to have caught vertigo. And this from the man who climbed Mount Kenya without even pausing for breath. Take me down and plant my feet back on the solid carpet of the earth immediately!’
A trip out on the Hudson to see the Statue of Liberty came next, and Bill pronounced himself extremely disappointed with the whole affair.
‘She’s so bloody small,’ he complained, ‘and I far prefer Lake Naivasha and its hippo population to the murky pond you have here.’
‘Quit complaining, Bill! You’re turning into a grumpy old man.’
‘You know only too well that I was once a grumpy younger man, so I haven’t changed one jot, have I?’
Rosalind had very kindly agreed to take Rosa home with her after school and feed her supper. She knew all about Bill, of course, but when they arrived to collect Rosa, Cecily felt almost shy when she introduced him to her.
‘Well, hi there, Bill,’ Rosalind said, regarding him with a mixture of suspicion and curiosity.
‘I’m awfully glad to make your acquaintance, Rosalind. Cecily has told me that you have been a true friend to her over the years.’
Within a few minutes, they were talking like old friends, Bill’s British accent winning out over any reservations Rosalind might have had. A drink led to dinner as Terrence arrived home. Rosa was put to bed downstairs and Terrence and Rosalind listened avidly to everything Bill had to say on the new Independent Republic of Kenya.
The Sun Sister (The Seven Sisters) Page 66