by Susan Lewis
‘Jonathan,’ Andee said.
She saw him stiffen and for a moment she thought he was going to ignore her, but finally he turned around. His eyes were harsh, defensive; his fists were clenching and unclenching at his sides. He didn’t look at his mother, only at Andee. ‘Whatever she’s told you …’
Andee’s hand went up. ‘You need to listen,’ she cautioned. To Penny she said, ‘Go ahead.’
Before Penny could speak, Jonathan spat, ‘If this is supposed to be an apology I’m not interested, because you won’t mean it. You’re only doing it to …’
‘Jonathan,’ Andee chided. ‘You really do need to listen.’
Apparently catching on to the fact that there might be more going on than he realised, his eyes shot warily to his mother and back to Andee.
Penny attempted to clear her throat. Andee could see her lips trembling and moving, but no words were coming out.
‘It’s OK,’ Andee murmured, going to her.
‘I can’t do it,’ Penny gasped.
‘Yes you can.’
‘I told you,’ Jonathan growled, ‘I don’t want an apology any more than I want her as a mother.’
Andee felt Penny flinch.
Realising she needed to take over, Andee said, as firmly but gently as she could, ‘What she’s trying to tell you is that Sven is in the hospital. He only has days to live and she’d like you to go with her to Stockholm …’ She broke off as Jonathan backed away, shouting, ‘No! I don’t believe you. It’s one of her tricks. This is the kind of thing she does.’
‘Jonathan, you know he’s sick,’ Andee broke in. ‘You knew this was coming …’
‘No! I won’t let it,’ he cried. ‘He can’t go. It’s her fault. She made him sick.’
‘You know that’s not true.’
‘Oh God, oh God,’ he wailed, clasping his hands to his head. ‘You’ve got to stop it, please. Please stop it.’
Going to him, Andee held him as he twisted one way then another, sobbing into his hands and calling for his father. ‘Pappa, Pappa,’ he gasped, stooping low as though unable to take the pain of what he’d known was coming.
Andee rubbed his back, watching Penny as she looked on helplessly.
Suddenly his head came up. ‘She’s lying,’ he raged desperately. ‘I know she is.’
Andee caught him by the shoulders and turned him around. ‘Look at her,’ she said, ‘does she look like someone who’s lying? And would she, over something like this? He means the world to her too. You know that.’
Jonathan’s head fell back as he tried in vain to contain his grief. He began stomping about the room, banging his fists into furniture, even himself.
‘Jonathan, we … we need to go to him,’ Penny said brokenly.
‘Not with you,’ he snarled.
‘Jonathan!’ Andee cut in. ‘Think of how much it will mean to him to see the two of you together.’
‘He knows I hate her.’
‘And do you think he wants it to be like that? Please, go together …’
From the doorway, Juliette said, ‘Jonathan, we will go and we must take the baby. Sven will want to meet his grandson.’
Struggling to control more tears, Jonathan went to bury his face against her. ‘Yes,’ he murmured into her hair. ‘He’ll want to meet his grandson.’ To Andee he said, ‘I have to call Selma. She’ll tell me if this is true.’
Feeling Penny’s pain, Andee said, ‘It’s true, Jonathan. If you won’t take Penny’s word for it, Kate’s word for it, then please take mine.’
Still unable to look at Penny, he said to Andee, ‘OK, then we should go today.’
Penny managed to say, ‘If you’d rather I waited a day …’
‘No, you must go too,’ Andee insisted. ‘Jonathan, please don’t push her out. We’ve no idea how much time Sven has left. Don’t make it too late for her.’
Jonathan turned his back, still holding on to Juliette. Andee could hear her whispering to him in Italian, seeming to soothe and encourage him until, finally, he turned to his mother.
‘Do it,’ Juliette murmured.
When he still didn’t move, Juliette took his arm and walked him to Penny. ‘Do it,’ she repeated.
Obediently Jonathan lifted his head and said, ‘Kom du ocksa.’ Come too.
Andee watched as Penny stood motionless, tears spilling from her eyes, until finally she was able to lift a hand and place it on his shoulder.
To Andee’s relief he didn’t shrink away.
‘Tack,’ Penny whispered.
Jonathan turned to Andee. ‘And you?’ he asked. ‘Will you come too?’
Andee looked at Penny, and seeing how desperately unsure she was of being able to do the right thing, she said, ‘Of course.’
Andee found Graeme outside talking to the chauffeur.
‘I’m going with them,’ she told him. ‘Juliette and the baby are coming too.’
‘OK, I’ll get on to the flights,’ he replied. ‘We’ll need to sort out what to do about the baby’s passport, but I think I know someone who can help with that. Will Juliette’s parents be staying here?’
‘No, they’re arranging to go back to Italy to start making things ready for when Jonathan and Juliette join them. There’s a flight later today from Bristol airport.’
‘OK, I’ll organise a taxi for them unless Blake’s free to do it. I’ll take you to Heathrow, because you won’t fit all the baby paraphernalia and five people into the Mercedes.’
Andee’s heart swelled. ‘It might be too much for Penny and Jonathan to be in the same car for such a long journey at this stage, so Penny ought to come with us.’
He nodded agreement and glanced at his watch. ‘I should get on to it, make sure you can get on this evening’s flight.’
‘Before you go,’ she said, putting a hand on his arm, ‘why don’t you come too? Maybe you could show me around Stockholm.’
Drawing her into his arms, he replied, ‘I’d love nothing more, but your sister knows the city far better than I do, and I think it would be good for you both to spend some time together.’
In spite of feeling apprehensive about that, Andee didn’t argue, because of course he was right.
‘What are you going to do now?’ he asked.
‘I’m taking Penny to see my mother.’
He grimaced comically. ‘OK. Good luck with that. I’ll call when the flights are confirmed and come and pick you up from the Lodge.’
Maureen was waiting when Andee and Penny reached Bourne Hollow, fresh coffee already made for her and Andee, tea for Penny, remembering she didn’t drink coffee, and some home-baked pinwheel cookies on the table. She looked and sounded as nervous as Penny clearly was, and Andee had to admit to feeling anxious too. There was so much to say, too much for the short time they had, but it wouldn’t have been right to leave without them at least trying to make the first moves back to each other.
‘You should eat,’ Maureen said to Penny, and knowing it was her mother’s way of showing she cared, Andee wanted to hug her.
‘It’s a new cookie recipe,’ Maureen told them, ‘from one of the contestants on Bake Off.’
To Andee’s relief Penny reached for a biscuit and broke it in two, in spite of looking as though food was the last thing she wanted.
‘I’m going to take my coffee upstairs while I pack,’ Andee informed them. ‘You don’t need me to help you with this.’
Looking as though they desperately did, they watched her carry her mug out to the hall and sat staring at the door long after she’d closed it.
Penny nibbled on a cookie. ‘They’re very good,’ she told her mother.
As Maureen looked at her she felt so lost that she had no idea what to say. All the turmoil and torment of the last few weeks was still there, it couldn’t just disappear. Yet seeing Penny as she was now, seeming helplessly exposed and needy, a shadow of the woman who’d come here a few short weeks ago, Maureen realised it was as if a missing piece of herself was trying
to find its way back. It didn’t quite fit, kept hurting and trying to get away, but at last it felt as though she might stand a chance of getting hold of it. In this moment it didn’t matter that this woman, like the girl she’d once been, had caused her mother to question herself and her feelings in the most harrowing way; or that she’d created so much doubt in Maureen’s heart that the shame, the fear had been impossible to bear. Right now that child, that woman, looked broken, frightened, and in desperate need of the kindness Maureen longed to give, if she only knew where to start.
In the end she said, ‘I’m sorry to hear about Sven.’
Penny’s eyes went down and Maureen saw the grief go through her like a shiver. ‘Thank you,’ Penny mumbled. ‘He was … He is …’ She shook her head, apparently unable or unwilling to say more.
‘I’m sorry not to have known him,’ Maureen said. ‘He sounds a very special man.’
Penny nodded. At last her eyes came back to her mother’s. She swallowed hard. ‘It wasn’t true what I said about Dad. I know you know that, but I think you need to hear me say it,’ she told her.
It was true; Maureen had needed it very much.
‘I’m sorry I hurt you so badly,’ Penny continued, ‘and that I didn’t have the courage to come back when I should have.’ Her hands closed into tight, painful fists. ‘There are so many apologies that it’s hard to know where to begin.’
‘You just have,’ Maureen said softly. ‘And I’m sorry too. I should have been a better mother, should have understood and listened more …’
‘I never really deserved to be loved anyway.’
Rocked by the statement, Maureen couldn’t think what to say.
‘It’s OK, I don’t …’
‘It’s not true,’ Maureen interrupted. ‘You were loved, very much. And you still are.’
‘But …’
‘Listen to me’, Maureen said firmly, taking Penny’s hand, ‘whatever you’ve done, wherever you’ve been and wherever you go, one thing will never change. I am your mother and I will always love you and want you in my life. That was always the case, it remains the case, and will forever be the case, so please don’t ever doubt it.’
As Penny stiffened with pain Maureen went to hold her, tears running down her own cheeks as she felt her younger daughter pressing against her as though she was really, truly trying to find her way back.
‘I know you have to go to Stockholm now,’ Maureen went on, ‘but promise me you’ll stay in touch, and even come back to see us.’
‘I promise,’ Penny choked. ‘As long as you’re sure.’
‘Of course I am. I don’t want to lose you again.’
By the time Andee came to let them know it was time to go to the airport Penny was on her second biscuit, and sitting quietly in her chair looking for all the world like the child she’d once been as Maureen gently brushed her hair.
‘She needs to look her best for Sven,’ Maureen told Andee.
Andee looked at them both trying to take it in. This might feel like a dream, or something happening in a parallel world, but it really wasn’t. Penny was back.
Penny was back.
She was actually here, no longer hiding behind the masks she’d created, for the moment at least she’d stopped pretending to be someone who didn’t care. Maybe this was the real Penny Lawrence, the daughter and sister they’d have to get to know all over again, even as she got to know herself. Not that it was going to be easy, it would take a miracle to bring that about. With so many questions still to answer and damage to repair, it was sure to be a very long road. However, today wasn’t the day to be troubling themselves with that, it was a time simply to feel thankful that things had got this far – because there was no doubt in Andee’s mind that these past few weeks were just the beginning.
Acknowledgements
An enormous thank you to Gunnel Oscarsson for introducing me to the wonderful city of Stockholm. A fabulous experience and a city I’d love to visit again and again. Also thank you Gunnel for undertaking the Swedish translations.
More thanks to my dear friends Gill Hall and Ian Kelcey whose legal expertise once again guided my hand.
As usual my wonderful husband, James Garrett, provided unflinching moral support throughout the writing of this book, heroically withstanding the many highs and lows that come with creating an extreme and challenging story.
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Epub ISBN: 9781473537675
Version 1.0
Published by Century 2017
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Copyright © Susan Lewis Ltd 2017
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Susan Lewis has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in Great Britain by Century in 2017
Century
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9781780896069
