by Lucy Gordon
‘I’m on your little boy’s side. I think he’s getting a raw deal. He’s much too quiet and docile for his age. When is he ever naughty?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I’ll bet he never is. And he ought to be. Come on, let’s go.’ She headed for the door.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Upstairs, so that he can see you and Myra together, and know that you’re in complete accord about his being here. I think you should stand together, and if possible put your arm around her shoulders. And smile at her.’
‘That’s a lot to ask.’
‘It’s not really, but even if it is, he’s your son. Isn’t he worth the effort?’
‘Of course, but-’
‘Then do it,’ she said in a voice that brooked no argument.
She didn’t know what had made her take a high hand with him, unless it was the memory of Simon’s face, beaming at the sight of his father, but cautiously holding back.
He followed her unwillingly upstairs and along to the room that had been Simon’s and was now Hetta’s.
‘We’re staying here after all,’ she told her daughter. ‘You don’t mind coming in with me, do you? Then Simon can have his room back.’
‘It’s all right,’ the little boy said at once. ‘Hetta can have it, honest.’
‘No, it’s yours,’ Hetta responded.
‘You can have it.’
‘No, you can.’
‘No, you can.’
‘We’ll fight about it later,’ Elinor said.
She gave Andrew a determined look and he came forward. ‘How about staying here with me, son?’ he said. ‘Your mother and I thought it would be a good idea.’
‘Can I really, Daddy?’
The child’s eager face brought home to Andrew that Elinor had been right. It meant the world to Simon to think that his father wanted him. He put his arm awkwardly around Myra’s shoulder. ‘You don’t mind letting me have him for a while, do you?’
‘Not if that’s what you want,’ she responded.
‘It’s what I want.’
‘Is it what Simon wants?’ Elinor asked.
The little boy nodded so vigorously that it seemed as though his head might come off. Suddenly his world was full of sunshine, and his father regarded him with shock.
There was a ring on the doorbell below.
‘Time for me to go,’ Myra said. She gave Simon a hug, then Hetta. Then she turned her expectant gaze on Andrew, who dutifully pecked her cheek. Finally she enveloped Elinor in a scented embrace.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered in her ear. ‘Good luck.’
‘Trust me,’ Elinor murmured back.
Then she was gone, whisked away by her chauffeur in her glossy car.
‘Hetta, you and I will move your things while Simon catches up with his dad,’ Elinor said. ‘Why don’t you two go downstairs, and talk in peace?’
Andrew took orders from nobody except Elmer Rylance, and these days even Rylance usually deferred to him. But he sensed that Elinor knew what she was doing, and right now that made him grateful, so he followed his son downstairs and prepared to embark on a conversation where he knew he would be awkward and probably make mistakes.
Simon soon made it easier for him, smiling happily at having his father’s attention, and chattering of what he’d been doing in the last few weeks. Andrew watched him with a kind of aching delight that this sharp-witted, attractive child was his. Somewhere there must be a way to tell him so. But for all the precise, scientific, brilliant words that hummed in his brain, somehow he couldn’t locate the right ones for this.
But tonight a kind fate was with him. Simon was in a mood to interpret even his father’s silences as interest, and somehow they got through an hour without mishap. But he was relieved when Elinor came down to fetch the child to bed.
When she came down alone, twenty minutes later, she found him pacing restlessly.
‘You seemed to manage fairly well there,’ she said.
‘Mostly due to Simon. I don’t understand, he was so different to the way he normally is with me,’ he said.
‘Because Myra told him you invited him.’
‘She said that for her own reasons,’ Andrew said scornfully.
‘What does it matter what her reasons were? She said what he needed to hear, and it made him happy. All you have to do is catch the ball and run with it.’
‘If I’m taking advice I’d rather it was yours,’ he said curtly. ‘You seem more of a success as a mother.’
‘All right, think of Samson. You told me that night that you let your child patients believe their toys had stayed with them because that was what they needed to think. “It’s a deception, but it makes them happy.” That’s what you said. Why can’t you do the same for Simon?’
He stared. ‘Are you suggesting that I’m only pretending to love him? Because if so, you couldn’t be more wrong.’
‘Then tell him. If the love’s there, tell him.’
‘It’s easy for you. You’d know how to say things like that, but I-’ He made a helpless gesture. ‘When I’m dealing with him I’m all at sea.’
‘But why? He’s a lovely child, and he adores you. Why can’t you just relate to him in the way that he wants?’
‘Because I’ve never known how. At first it was because I was away so much, but then I didn’t know what to say to him to make it right when I did get home.’
‘Couldn’t Myra have helped you?’
‘By the time we realised what was wrong, Myra and I were too far apart to help each other with anything.’
‘Well, she helped you this time. Andrew, you don’t have very much time left to get this right. Soon he’ll look elsewhere for his friends, and have his own life and interests. If you don’t catch him now, it’ll be too late.’
‘I know that. But it doesn’t mean I can do anything about it.’ He looked at her. ‘But you’re here now, and it’ll be all right. You won’t try to leave again, will you?’
She was about to make the biggest mistake of her life. She should run now, while she still had a last chance.
‘No, I won’t leave,’ she said. ‘I’ll stay as long as you need me.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
L IFE assumed a strange, peaceful rhythm of its own. Andrew moved his things back into the house the next day, but for a while they saw little of him. His hours at the hospital were long and he was repeatedly called away for emergencies. He breakfasted with them when he could, and those meals were easier than Elinor had feared. The kids backchatted each other in a way that relieved tension and if Andrew didn’t actually join in at least he listened without impatience.
Oddly there was less tension between herself and him than she had feared, which she attributed to the fact that she’d insisted on proper employment conditions and a contract. It was there in black and white. She was Mrs Elinor Landers, housekeeper and child-minder. The dreadful night he’d awoken in her arms had happened to somebody else.
Daisy had reacted strangely when Elinor had called her to tell her about the change of plan. ‘That’s right, love,’ she said cheerfully. ‘You stay there with him. You never know.’
‘I’m his housekeeper,’ she said firmly. ‘And you couldn’t be more wrong.’
‘If you say so, love.’
The first time Andrew managed a reasonably early night Simon was waiting for him.
‘Ellie said you might be early,’ he said excitedly.
‘Nine o’clock isn’t early, you should be in bed, and who said you could call her Ellie?’
Simon became nervous at his father’s frown. ‘I thought-she said it was her name.’
He dropped to one knee so that he could look his son in the eye.
‘She said that? She actually told you that her name was Ellie?’
‘Yes. Isn’t it?’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘Then-I don’t understand.’
‘There’s a lot I don’t understand myself, son.
Never mind. And don’t tell her about this conversation.’
As Elinor had guessed Simon was the perfect companion for Hetta. Her nature was boisterous and now that her strength was returning she could give it fuller rein. By contrast he was shy and retiring, and when they got up to mischief it was Hetta who made the running, with Simon making vain efforts to restrain her, and Fudge bringing up the rear.
Hetta had slept in her mother’s room for only a couple of nights. Then Elinor had opened up the room next door to Simon’s, and made it hers. But her favourite occupation was to sit with Simon at his computer. At seven he was already literate and an expert at information technology. Hetta, whose education had suffered because of her illness, was fascinated by the things he knew, and her admiration drew him out. Several times Elinor would discover a light beneath Simon’s door in the late evening. Entering, she would find the two of them deep in earnest conversation, which would stop as soon as they saw her. She would simply point and Hetta would scuttle away.
‘There are things we need to discuss,’ she told Andrew one evening when the children were in bed.
‘You’re not happy with the arrangement?’
‘No, it’s fine, but school will be starting soon, and I’ll need to organise something.’
‘When Simon lived here before, he went to the school in the village. It’s excellent. I suggest you enrol them both.’
‘Good. One more thing.’ She took a deep breath. ‘When can you take some time off?’
‘Goodness knows-’
‘It should be in the next three weeks, before school starts, so that Simon can have you all to himself for several days.’ He looked at her, and she grew annoyed. ‘Surely an organised man like you can arrange suitable cover in that time? You carried Sir Elmer’s load while he was sick. Tell him it’s your turn.’
‘This isn’t the best moment for that,’ he mused.
‘You mean because he’ll be retiring soon, the sharks are circling and your teeth are sharper than anyone’s. Fine. I’ll tell Simon that his father’s a shark.’
‘Aren’t you being a little unfair?’
‘No.’
He became angry. ‘I really want that job. You’re acting as though I’m being unreasonable.’
‘You are being unreasonable. There are a hundred jobs. You’ve only got one son.’
‘And what are we going to say to each other “for several days”?’
‘It doesn’t matter. Talk about the weather, anything. The point is that he’ll know you put yourself out to be with him. That’ll cover a multitude of sins, and Hetta and I will fill in the gaps.’
‘Oh, you’ll be there?’
She looked at him with pity. ‘I wasn’t planning to despatch the two of you to a desert island. Although it might do you some good.’
‘Fine. You’ll be here. But people still need to talk. It’s hard for me to know what to say to him.’
‘Who’s asking you to say anything? Maybe he’d rather you listened. I expect when you’re at work people listen to you, don’t they?’
‘Usually,’ he admitted. ‘Unless it’s patients, and then I listen.’
‘I don’t think that covers this situation. You’re not in the listening habit, but if you listened to what Simon wants you to hear you might be able to think of some answers. It’s not rocket science.’
‘No, it’s more complicated than that. But you can do it, can’t you?’ He frowned. ‘How?’
She was amused. ‘Andrew, you can’t take lessons in it. If you could, you’d be marvellous.’
‘Yes, I’m good at anything I can study,’ he said wryly. ‘And maybe you can take lessons with a first rate teacher. That’s why I watch you so closely. You seem to know everything that I don’t.’
‘Andrew, will you tell me something? Why didn’t you just let Simon go to America with Myra?’
‘Because he’s all I’ve got to love,’ he said simply. ‘I’ve made a mess of every other important relationship. I don’t really know how to talk to anyone who means anything to me. Oh, I’m fine with the patients, not just the children, but the adults too. It’s easy, because I know what they expect of me, and it’s very limited.’
‘Limited? Saving their lives?’
‘In a way, yes. They come into the hospital and I can be their best friend. I chat with the children, discuss soccer scores and newspaper stories with the adults. Then we pass out of each other’s lives without regret. Emotionally they expect nothing from me.’
‘You weren’t always like that,’ she said.
‘Yes, I was, potentially. With you I found a way to be different.’
‘You mean, this is what I did to you?’
‘I wasn’t blaming you. You asked me something, and I tried to find a rational explanation.’
‘Must everything be rational?’
‘It usually is, in the end.’
‘Andrew, do you believe that, or is it what you try to tell yourself?’
He sighed. ‘Does it matter?’
When he’d gone upstairs she wandered out into the garden with Fudge, who still had matters to attend to. She waited for him, sitting on a bench under the trees.
‘May I join you?’ It was Andrew with two glasses of wine.
She received one gratefully and he sat down beside her, looking up at the moon, which hung low in the sky, bright and silver. It was a night for lovers, but just now she felt only contentment.
‘By the way,’ she said after a moment, ‘don’t forget a wedding present for Myra.’
‘Why would I want to do that? She’s getting her hands on the Hellerman millions.’
‘It’s in the cause of good relations. It’ll make Simon happy.’
‘Then I’ll do it. Or rather you’ll do it.’
‘No, Simon will do it. He’s searched the Internet and found a great store in Detroit. All he needs now is your credit card.’
‘Fine. I trust you to make sure he doesn’t clean me out.’
Through Simon’s daily phone calls with Myra they followed the progress of her wedding. Backed by Cyrus’s gold card she’d embarked on a spending spree, not always with happy results. A dozen pictures of her in various prospective wedding outfits turned up on Simon’s computer. He and Hetta regarded them with awe, which Elinor fully understood when she joined them. Andrew returned one evening to find the three of them gazing at the screen.
‘Something interesting?’ he asked, walking over. ‘Why is your mother in a scarlet satin dress?’
‘To get married in?’ Simon said, making it a question.
‘Really.’ Andrew pursed his lips and said no more. To Elinor’s pleasure, man and boy regarded each other in silent masculine sympathy.
With Elinor’s guidance Simon had chosen some elegant silver for the wedding gift. Myra was genuinely pleased, pretending to believe the fiction that Andrew had thought of it. She even sent him an email saying thank you, which Simon presented to him with pride.
At last the wedding pictures themselves arrived. Myra had avoided red satin and purple velvet in favour of a comparatively restrained dress of ivory brocade. Everything else was over the top, including six bridesmaids and four page-boys who, for no discernible reason, were dressed in highland kilts.
‘Are you sorry you weren’t there?’ Andrew asked his son.
Simon gave him a speaking look. ‘Mum would have wanted me to be a page-boy.’
‘Then you were definitely better off out of it.’
Every day Elinor set her mind to finding ways to help Andrew connect with his son. She joined in the children’s games, she made Simon talk to her, and he did so with a freedom that showed how badly he longed to confide. She remembered how good Andrew had been at chess, and it was no surprise to discover that at seven Simon was already a skilled player.
Once she’d discovered that she went onto the attack, buying a newspaper with a daily chess problem and getting him to solve it. Then she tried to arrange it so that Simon was sitting over t
he problem when Andrew arrived home. This was hard as Andrew’s arrivals could seldom be predicted, but one night she struck lucky. Best of all Simon was so absorbed that he failed to look up when his father entered, something rare enough to make Andrew stride across to see what was engrossing his son, and had to speak to him twice before he could get his attention. After that they worked on the problem together, and Elinor chalked up a minor victory.
‘I didn’t even know he could play,’ he told Elinor that evening as she was making a late-night snack.
‘He’s pretty good.’
‘Yes, he is.’
‘As good as you at that age?’
‘I think so.’ He looked at her shrewdly. ‘Was it an accident, what happened tonight?’
‘Of course not. I got him into position a few minutes before you got home. But you did the rest yourself.’
‘When I employed you as child-minder I didn’t envisage you going this far.’
‘I’m like you. I like to do my job properly. Besides, the way I see it, I still owe you for Hetta’s life. If I can help you with Simon, we’re quits.’
‘I see,’ he said quietly. ‘Yes, I never thought of it like that.’
After that there were some phone calls that she didn’t understand, or, rather, didn’t ask about. She found herself talking to a woman with a voice like cut glass, who turned out to be the secretary of Sir Elmer Rylance. She fetched Andrew to the phone and returned to the children, trying not to speculate.
She made no further mention of his taking time off, and nor did he. She concluded that he’d either forgotten the matter or dismissed it. She was angry with him. She didn’t press the matter, but she had a sense of failure. She’d tried to believe that in this matter at least she could be good for him, but it seemed that he now dismissed her opinions as easily as he did everyone else’s.
Only when she’d totally given up hope did he arrive home one evening and say, ‘That’s it! No more hospital for a week.’
The children bounded about in excitement. Over their heads Andrew met her eyes with a look that startled her. It was almost as though he was asking for her approval.
‘Why did you keep it to yourself until now?’ she asked when she could make herself heard through the riot.
