by Jill Mansell
Was it time to leave? He was starting to annoy her now. Marina said wearily, ‘Yes, you certainly could.’
They walked back across the small town to her cottage. She showed George to his room and went to bed.
Seven minutes later, he knocked at her bedroom door and said in a plaintive voice, ‘Marina, are you awake?’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘Can I come in?’
‘No, you can’t.’
‘Marina, please.’
‘Really, no.’
Silence, but she knew he was still standing there on the landing.
‘You said there hadn’t been anyone else in your life since we broke up,’ said George.
‘That is correct.’
‘But what if you never do it again? What if no one else comes along? What if you’re destined to spend the rest of your life alone, and then you die, and you won’t have had sex for years and years?’
Marina considered this. In all honesty, it was a question she’d asked herself many times. Because it was a possibility, of course it was. And a dispiriting one to say the least.
In the darkness, she smiled at the realisation that even if she knew that was going to happen, she still wouldn’t be remotely tempted to let her ex-husband into her bed tonight. No way in the world was she going to do that.
Aloud, she called out, ‘George?’
‘Yes?’ He sounded hopeful.
Marina snuggled cosily beneath her deliciously soft duck-down duvet. ‘I promise you, if that happens, it’s fine by me.’
Chapter 13
Ronan had spent the last forty minutes showing an impressive Victorian double-fronted villa in Perranporth to a pair of incredibly fussy antiques dealers who’d seemed more interested in flirting with him than exploring the property.
‘Ronan darling, settle an argument. Reggie thinks you’re gay and I say you’re not.’ Barry clutched his wrist as he asked the question, his eyes as beady as a robin’s.
‘I’m not gay,’ said Ronan.
‘Ha! See? I was right.’ Barry preened. ‘I’m always right.’
‘Unless he’s just saying that because he doesn’t fancy us.’ Reggie was evidently a poor loser.
‘If I were gay, of course I’d fancy you.’ Ronan grinned at them and Barry patted his own chest.
‘Oh you charmer, I bet you say that to all the boys.’
‘Boys? Ha.’ Reggie shook his head at his husband. ‘You’re sixty-three years old.’
‘Still young at heart, though,’ Barry said happily. ‘Still young at heart.’
They’d been together for almost thirty years, Ronan knew, and were utterly devoted to one another. ‘So how about this place then?’ He gestured to the house. ‘Any thoughts?’
‘I have thoughts,’ said Barry, gazing directly at him. ‘Your eyelashes are stupendous.’
‘Thanks. And this place?’
‘It’s not right for us, sadly. Don’t be cross. At least we’re learning what we don’t want.’
‘I’m not cross. And I’m not giving up on you.’ Ronan smiled at the two of them. ‘We’ll get there in the end.’
Once Barry and Reggie had driven off with a toot and a wave in their vintage Jaguar, Ronan got into his Audi and headed up the road to Newquay. Since he was in the vicinity, he might as well pay a visit to his mum.
But when he got there, the house was empty. Calling his mother’s mobile, he discovered she was at the hairdresser’s.
‘Don’t worry, I’m nearly done,’ she said. ‘Won’t be long. Make yourself a cup of tea and I’ll be back in no time.’
‘I just hope I don’t pass out with hunger before you get here.’ Ronan’s tone was mournful.
‘Don’t give me that. There’s rum cake in the red tin in the cupboard next to the fridge. And don’t eat it all,’ Josephine ordered. ‘Just have one slice, then you can take the rest back to the office.’
‘No need. They don’t like rum cake.’ Ronan grinned at his mother’s audible intake of breath.
‘You wicked boy,’ she said, scandalised. ‘You know it’s Clemency’s favourite.’
He hung up, made himself a mug of tea in the immaculate kitchen and carried it through – along with a slice of the rum cake – to the living room.
Which was, of course, also immaculate. Although should his mother ever be tempted to sell the house, she’d have some serious paring-down to do.
Whenever a property was about to go on the market, Ronan’s advice to the owners was to declutter as much as they could cope with and remove all family photos from view. Potential buyers needed to be able to picture themselves in their new home, he always explained, and photographs of other people and their families were a distraction.
It seemed unlikely, though, that Josephine would ever move, and it was probably just as well, because family was the most important thing in the world to her and she liked to be surrounded by them at all times. The walls were covered with framed photos of her many relatives: brothers and sisters, nephews and nieces. There were also plenty of her and Donald, either just the two of them together or visible amongst the crowd at various raucous family gatherings. But the most popular recipient of the camera’s attentions, by far, had always been their adored son.
Ronan’s gaze shifted from one oh-so-familiar photo to the next, surveying the various likenesses of himself that had been captured over the years. There he was as a teenager, surfing on Fistral Beach in lime-green board shorts. And there, as a chubby baby, gazing in wonder at an ice-cream cornet. Birthdays, Christmases, all manner of special occasions had been lovingly recorded for posterity … trampolining with his cousins in Birmingham, picnicking on the lawn at an aunt’s wedding, break-dancing in the kitchen … oh yes, his entire life was paraded along these walls for all to see.
And then there were the most important photos, in the very best frames of all, lined up along the mantelpiece and windowsills. From babyhood onwards, here he was, pictured with his mum and dad. Each year, suffused with love and pride, the three of them would line up together, Donald to the left of him and Josephine to the right. Each photo had been taken with great ceremony, then copies made and distributed to the extended family so they could display them too. Following his father’s death, it had been just Josephine and himself, but the tradition had continued unabated.
These photos, Ronan knew, meant the world to her. Visitors to the house had always been treated to a guided tour of them. And nothing made his mum happier than when unsuspecting strangers – the TV repairman, the carpet fitter, the Avon lady – enthusiastically announced that you could see the family resemblance between the three of them.
You couldn’t, of course; they were just being polite and going along with the easy assumption that one handsome white man plus one strikingly beautiful black woman had between them created one very good-looking mixed-race son.
Ronan remembered the way his mum had almost physically glowed with delight whenever this happened. She’d told the commenters that they were indeed lucky to have such a gorgeous boy. And although it had been pretty embarrassing during his teenage years, he’d got through them and come out the other side, admiring the way Josephine was so unafraid to tell everyone how blessed she’d been to have him in her life.
He still wondered what his biological parents must have looked like. Of course he did; it was only natural to ask yourself that question, wasn’t it? The people who’d arranged the adoption process had done an excellent job of matching him with Josephine and Donald, but growing up, Ronan had still secretly always hankered to know where he’d really come from.
Not enough, though, to risk upsetting Josephine, who he knew would be not so much upset as utterly devastated if she were ever to find out.
There had been a huge story all over the news when he was seventeen years old. A well-loved but famously starchy British actress had been reunited with the son she’d been forced to give up for adoption thirty years earlier. It had had the most extraordinary effect u
pon her; the starchiness had evaporated practically overnight. Her joy and relief at having him back in her life had transformed the actress completely. It was mother–son love at first sight, overwhelming and all-encompassing, and the nation had rejoiced along with them, delighted for them both and thrilled to have witnessed their happy ending.
Well, most of the nation. Josephine had found it utterly terrifying. More photos appeared, showing the famous actress meeting her son’s adoptive parents. In the pictures, they looked terrified and overwhelmed too, trying to put on brave faces but not quite managing to pull it off.
The son, who had recently bought a little terraced house in Swansea across the street from the parents he’d grown up with, then said somewhat tactlessly in an interview that it had been like living a black-and-white life that had suddenly turned into dazzling Technicolor.
Six weeks later, he put the little terraced house on the market, gave up his office job with the Civil Service and moved into his biological mother’s mansion in the Hollywood Hills because her work was based there and they simply couldn’t bear to be apart.
Ronan remembered coming home unexpectedly early from school one afternoon and catching his mum weeping over the latest piece about it in the newspaper. Actually, not weeping; that didn’t begin to describe it. She was sobbing as if her heart would break.
When she realised with a start that he’d seen her, she let out a wail of despair and covered her face with her hands. Ronan held her and hugged her while she choked back the tears. ‘Oh that p-poor woman, I can’t bear to think what she’s g-g-going through.’
That was when he’d said, ‘Mum, it’s OK, you’re the only one I care about. None of this is ever going to happen to you.’
The storm of crying intensified and Josephine shook her head. ‘No, no, I know you must want to … it’s OK …’
But he knew it wasn’t OK.
‘I’m not interested in finding out who made me. I never want to meet them. I love you and Dad and that’s it, that’s all that matters. You’re the only family I need. I swear to you, Mum, you can stop worrying about it, because I’m not going to try and track anyone down. It’s never going to happen, I promise.’
And it had been an easy promise to make at the time, because it clearly meant the world to Josephine and she was the only mother he’d ever known. He loved her so much, it was no hardship at all.
Then six months later, when Donald had died, it had become even more important to keep his word. It was just the two of them now, himself and Josephine. She’d been the best mother anyone could possibly ask for, and no way would Ronan let her down. His love for her outweighed curiosity about his birth mother every time.
And here she was now. As he stood by the window, her yellow Fiat Punto screeched on to the driveway and she emerged in a whirl of emerald green, catching the edge of her long jacket in the car door in her haste to get inside the house.
He greeted her at the front door. ‘How you haven’t lost your licence for speeding, I’ll never know.’
‘Hello, darling. That blue shirt suits you! Well, do I look OK?’
‘Gorgeous.’ Ronan smiled as she showed off the results of her time in the hairdresser’s. Having given up on weaves, for the last couple of years Josephine had gone for the Lupita Nyong’o close crop, which suited her perfectly, accentuating as it did the beautiful shape of her head.
‘Did you eat all the cake?’
‘Not all of it.’
She led the way into the kitchen. ‘Take the rest back for the others to share. And there’s baked chicken in the fridge, you must have that too. Now, you wouldn’t believe all the lovely news I’ve been hearing in the hairdresser’s. Marcy Butler gave birth to a new baby last week – nine pounds six ounces, imagine that! And you remember Barbara’s son, the one who almost lost his leg in that motorbike accident last year? He and his wife are having twins!’
‘Nightmare,’ Ronan teased as she reboiled the kettle and made herself a cup of fiendishly strong tea with two teabags.
‘Not a nightmare at all,’ his mother scolded. ‘It’s a gift from God! Barbara’s feet haven’t touched the ground since she found out. Everyone was asking after you, by the way. They always do. There’s a new stylist called Suzy who’s single, if you think you’d be interested. I told her you were on the lookout for a new girlfriend.’
‘I’m not on the lookout for a new girlfriend,’ said Ronan. ‘You’re the one on the lookout.’
‘Well anyway, she’s a beautiful girl. And she’d be up for a date if you gave her a call. Ow.’ Josephine fanned her mouth. As always, she’d tried to gulp down a mouthful of tea still perilously close to boiling point. ‘Too hot.’
Ronan’s eyes glittered with amusement. ‘Who, her or me?’
Twenty minutes later, as he was preparing to leave, his mother said, ‘Oh darling, I meant to ask, could you do me a favour?’
‘Let me guess. You want me to phone the new stylist.’
She beamed, taking his teasing in good part. ‘That would be very nice, but it’s not the favour I was thinking of. I wondered if you could take back a few photos and put them through that lovely whizzy machine you keep at work, brighten them up a bit and make them bigger, like you did with the ones I gave you after Christmas.’
‘No problem. I can do that.’ Ronan took the slim buff envelope from her; it was simple enough to scan the old photos, adjust the colour and print off glossy new versions on the hi-tech office printer. ‘You look after yourself, OK?’ He gave her a hug and a kiss. ‘I’ll see you soon.’
‘Oh will you look at that?’ Josephine shrank back in dismay as she opened the front door. ‘It’s raining. Do you want to take an umbrella with you?’
‘Mum.’ He smiled, because his Audi was parked right outside the house. ‘I think I can probably manage to make it to the car.’
The rain worsened as he headed back across town, crawling through the traffic along the congested main road. Playing loud music and singing along, he’d almost driven past the bus stop before he belatedly noticed who was waiting beside it.
Chapter 14
For a split second, their eyes met, then Kate hastily looked away and pretended she hadn’t seen him.
Except she had, and she knew he’d seen her. Pulling up twenty yards ahead, Ronan jumped out of the car. ‘Kate! Do you want a lift?’
She turned, soaked to the skin by the sudden downpour. ‘It’s OK, I’m fine.’
Which was ridiculous, seeing as her hair was plastered to her head and her dress stuck to the rest of her. He jogged back along the pavement. ‘Look at you. Come on, let me take you home.’
This time their eyes locked and she broke into a reluctant smile. ‘Now you’re all wet too.’
‘What can I say?’ Ronan shrugged lightly. ‘I’m such a do-gooder.’
In the car, Kate buckled herself into the passenger seat. ‘Thanks. I didn’t think it was going to rain. And I’d planned to catch the train back, but it was cancelled. I think there was a leaf on the line or something.’
Ronan said, ‘Never bet on a fight between a leaf and a train. The leaf wins every time. What brought you down to Newquay anyway?’
‘A friend from Bristol is staying down here for a week. It’s my day off, so we met up for lunch at a restaurant overlooking the harbour. We had a lovely time catching up.’
‘Sounds good.’ He wondered if the friend was male or female.
‘The food was fantastic.’ Kate patted her stomach. ‘I had Coquilles Saint-Jacques and fruits de mer. Lucy had a whole lobster.’
Lucy. Ronan put his foot down as they headed out of the traffic-clogged town. Hooray for Lucy.
‘What’s this?’ Kate was pointing to the buff envelope propped up between the gearstick and the dashboard.
‘Old photos of me, mainly. I called in to see my mum and she wants some copies made.’
‘Oh, I love old photos. Can I see? Is that OK?’
‘Only if you promise not to laugh.’
For some reason they both seemed more relaxed today. Maybe the awkwardness was evaporating at last. Steering the car along the winding road as they bowled past the turning down to Watergate Bay, Ronan heard rather than saw her reaction to the photographs when she tipped them out of the envelope.
‘Oh look at you!’
Her gasp of delight gave him a genuine thrill. He kept his eyes on the road ahead and said modestly, ‘I know, I was pretty cute.’
‘You certainly were. And so were your parents. Now, which of them do you look most like?’
Ronan didn’t reply; he waited to see what she’d say. For some reason it really felt as if it mattered.
After several seconds of close scrutiny, Kate rested the photos on the envelope and shook her head. ‘No, I can’t tell. Damn, and I’m usually good at resemblances too.’
‘Don’t worry, you still are.’ He broke into a smile. ‘I was adopted.’
‘Really? That’s fantastic. All I could see was how happy you looked together.’ She examined the most recent of the photographs once more. ‘And it wasn’t just for the benefit of the camera. You can tell that too.’
Ronan experienced a surge of pride. ‘You’re right. I was lucky. Couldn’t have asked for better parents.’
‘That’s so lovely. How brilliant for all of you.’ Kate turned sideways in the passenger seat so she could see him properly. ‘Tell me about them.’
For the rest of the journey back to Bude, where she lived with her grandparents, Ronan talked about Josephine and Donald and the huge extended family scattered around the UK. They discussed his decision not to attempt to contact his biological mother because whilst it would answer questions in one respect, it was more important not to worry Josephine. ‘I haven’t missed out on anything. It’d just be interesting to meet an actual blood relative,’ Ronan admitted. ‘To look at someone and see similarities.’
‘You’re bound to be curious,’ said Kate. ‘Maybe it’ll happen one day.’
‘I know. I can wait.’ They were approaching the outskirts of Bude now. ‘Lots of people leave it until their adoptive parents are dead before making contact.’ He looked pained. ‘God, Josephine’s only sixty-two, it seems wrong to even think of it, but …’
