The Best Of Times

by Penny Vincenzi

“Well… no. Life isn’t about what you deserve, though, is it? Not always.” There was a pause; then he said, obviously with difficulty, “How… how do you know?”

  Jesus, she thought, fuck, he thinks I’m still in touch with Jonathan. How awful is that; he mustn’t, no, no…

  “I read it in the paper,” she said, “this morning.” She looked at him; his large brown eyes were thoughtful, doubtful even. “William, I swear to you, I have not spoken to Jonathan, not since that night. You really can’t think that.”

  “No. No, of course not. No.”

  But he didn’t sound completely sure.

  “Look…” she said, reaching for the paper, “it’s here. See? William, please believe me.”

  “I… do,” he said, “yes, of course I do. Well… this was yesterday’s news. How is she today?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “How could I?”

  “You could ring the hospital.”

  “William, it doesn’t say what hospital she’s in even. And anyway, they wouldn’t tell me; they never do unless you’re family.”

  “No, no, I suppose not.”

  Shock at his clearly still not quite trusting her, combined with anxiety and guilt, suddenly got the better of her, and she started to cry.

  “I feel so bad about it,” she said, “so bad.”

  “But why?”

  “Why? Because maybe what I did-having the affair with Jonathan, going to the house that night-maybe that contributed in some way. I don’t know. Maybe the little girl was upset, maybe her mother was upset, maybe she wasn’t looking after her properly…”

  “Abi, Abi,” he said, and he came round the table to where she was sitting, put his arm rather awkwardly round her shoulders. “You can’t go on blaming yourself for what you might or might not have done to that family. It’s a while ago now…”

  “Yes, I know, I know,” she said, looking up, trying to smile, wiping her nose on the back of her hand. Sylvie had come in with the drinks, and stood looking awkward.

  “Thanks,” he said, withdrawing his arm. “Here, Abi, have a hankie.”

  “No, it’s OK,” she said. “I’ve got some tissues in the kitchen; excuse me…”

  “It’s all right,” he said, grinning suddenly. “It hasn’t been up some cow’s bottom or anything, if that’s what you think. Clean out of my drawer when I left. Where my mother put it.”

  “Your mother spoils you, obviously,” said Sylvie. “Abs, I’m off now. See you later.”

  “OK. Cheers. William,” she said when the door had shut, “you don’t really think I’m still in touch with Jonathan, do you?”

  “No,” he said, and this time he managed to smile back. “No, I suppose not. But I can’t help wondering… well, you know, sometimes…”

  “William, I’m not. I swear to you. I still hate him. I just… well, I feel bad for the little girl. And Laura.”

  “Of course. Right… well, I’d better go. Milking to do. And the ewes’ feeding to sort out.”

  “The ewes?”

  “Yes. About this time of year we scan them. See how many lambs they’re having.”

  “You scan them?”

  “Yup.”

  “What, like you scan pregnant women?”

  “Well… pretty much. Of course, they don’t lie on their backs, but…”

  “And then what?”

  “Well, then we separate out the ones who are having triplets and twins from the singletons.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, to adjust their feeds. So that the ones having more lambs get more food.”

  “How clever.”

  “Not really. Just common sense.”

  “I s’pose so. Well, thanks, William. Thanks for coming. It’s such a long way.”

  ***

  A long way, William thought, starting up the truck. If only she knew.

  “Oh, my God. Abi, are you mental or what?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “William. God, he’s well fit, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah, OK. What about him?”

  “He’s still nuts about you. Obviously.”

  “Sylvie, don’t be stupid. He never says or does anything.”

  “I don’t know what’s happened to you, Abi. You’ve got so thick. He might not do anything, but he wants to. Blimey. It shows, all right.”

  “D’you think so?”

  “Yeah, course. I mean, he had his arm round you last night, for God’s sake.”

  “Because I was crying. That’s all.”

  “Why were you crying?”

  “Oh… about that little girl.”

  “Must have been nice for William to have you crying over that lot.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I don’t suppose he likes thinking about him too much. About you and him, that is.”

  “No,” said Abi slowly, remembering William’s hurt face, “no, I don’t think he does. But that doesn’t mean he… well, he still… still fancies me.”

  “Well, it would make it worse,” said Sylvie, “make him mind worse. Don’t you think?”

  “S’pose so. Yeah. Oh, shit. It’s all such a mess. Still.”

  “Mr. Gilliatt! Could you come in, please? Quickly.”

  This was it. She was dying. Or she’d died.

  He went in, very quietly, shut the door behind him. She was lying very still, apparently sleeping. Her face was pale, her expression very peaceful. Surely, surely she hadn’t… not without him saying goodbye, sending her on her way with his love. His special love. It was special. She was his baby; he still thought of her as three or four; it made her-used to make her-cross. “I’m not a baby,” she used to say indignantly. “Don’t treat me like one. I’m seven.” She used to say; she used to say…

  And now she’d never be eight, never grow up, never change, always stay thus in his memory, Daisy, whom he’d loved so much, who loved him so much… “My daddy,” she used to say, putting the emphasis on the my. “My special daddy.”

  Who’d also, just by the way, betrayed her; her and her sister and her brother and her mother… How could he have done that: failed them all, shattered their security, broken the faith?

  “Oh, God,” he said, and for the first time since it had happened, his calm broke; he felt the tears, hot, fierce tears, filling his eyes, a sob rising in his throat. He stepped forward, took her hand-no longer hot, cool even, smoothed back her hair…

  “Mr. Gilliatt, she’s-”

  “Yes, yes, I know…” he said, and felt a tear drop onto their hands, their two joined hands. It would never be in his again, that hand, that small, trusting hand, letting him lead her, running with her, skipping with her-she loved him to skip; it made her giggle. He would haul her off the ground as he took great bounds, laughing too… “I know. I understand.”

  “No, you don’t know. She’s better. Really, she is. Her temperature’s down; she’s peaceful. I’m just going to call Dr. Armstrong to discuss removing the tube.”

  “Oh, God. Dear God. I…” And then he really started to weep, bent over Daisy, kissed her cheek and then her hand, over and over again, and then said, “Stay there, my darling,” as if she could do anything else, and went out to find Laura and Charlie, who were in the parents’ room.

  ***

  Laura looked up as he went in, saw the tears streaming down his face, and just for a moment thought as he had, what he had; and then saw that he was smiling, laughing even, as he cried, and she said only, “Is she?”

  And he said, “Yes, yes, she’s better; she’s going to be all right; her temperature’s right down. Charlie, come here-give me a hug; your sister’s better; she’s going to be fine.” And they stood there, their arms around one another, the three of them, laughing and crying, bound together not only physically but by their relief and joy and their love of the small, precious being they had thought was lost to them forever and who, by some miracle worked by either God or science, or even her small, determined self, and quite pos
sibly all three, had been given back safely to them once more.

  CHAPTER 50

  Barney was horribly depressed. He might have fallen out of love with Amanda, but he missed her, missed her sweetness and her thoughtfulness, the way she cared for him, the sense of order she had created in their lives. She was so efficient; she ran the house and their life so well, and she was so happy always, so optimistic, distracting him when he was stressed about work, always ready with some new plan or idea for a holiday or a weekend or a dinner party.

  He had moved out of the house and into a flat. His life seemed to be disintegrating into a dismal chaos. He didn’t want to see anyone; he couldn’t be bothered to cook for himself or even get his laundry organised; he spent a fortune on new shirts, as the dirty ones piled up in the bathroom and washing them seemed more difficult than simply buying a whole lot more. It wasn’t just Amanda, of course; it was Toby-he had lost both of them, both his best friends; nobody else seemed worth spending time on. It involved too many explanations, too much effort. He just drifted along aimlessly, working absurdly long hours… and dreading the inquest. He’d be under oath and therefore surely required to recount what happened over the tyre, and worse, he would obviously have to face Toby across the court. However disillusioned he was about Toby, he had no wish to see his reputation blackened, and possibly for him to face legal redress.

  It wasn’t the best of times…

  He spent a lot of time now wondering what Emma was doing.

  Back with the boyfriend, maybe, which quite hurt. Or with someone new, which hurt more; or with no one at all, which hurt more than anything. Of course, she didn’t know that it was over with Amanda; but somehow, some odd sense of pride kept him from telling her. She had finished it; she had decided it wasn’t to be, that she didn’t want to wait until Amanda could cope with her engagement being broken off-and he could hardly blame her; it did slightly cast her in the role of understudy-and she had obviously decided she couldn’t cope with any of it. What price love then? Barney thought, remembering those fierce few weeks when the world had changed and him with it: when he had looked at a relationship he had thought was forever and found it wanting, and found another that had seemed not to want for anything at all.

  ***

  Alex had been called as a witness at the inquest; he and Linda had settled into an uneasy peace, or, as Alex called it, an easy war. Their relationship was never going to be comfortable; they continued to argue, to compete, to fight and reunite, and to enjoy each other physically and emotionally with a passion that still half surprised them. Their latest battleground was where they would live: they had agreed that they wanted to live together; that had been the easy part. Where was proving impossible. Clearly Linda was not going to settle down in Swindon, nor Alex move to NWI. Various compromises like Windsor, Beaconsfield, and even Ealing had been scrutinised and dismissed as too suburban, too far out, and just too horrible. Currently he was looking at Gloucestershire and Wiltshire cottages where they could weekend together, at least; it was a compromise, and like all compromises provided the worst as well as the best of both worlds.

  Linda was going to the inquest too, partly as support for Alex, which he said was very nice but hardly essential-he’d attended thousands of the bloody things-but mainly as support for Georgia. Georgia was absolutely terrified at having the whole thing relived, and her own behaviour-and what she saw as her cowardice-publicly recorded. She dreamt about it night after night, couldn’t eat, was irritable and tearful. None of which, as Linda remarked to Alex, was unusual.

  The only good thing was that she had got a part in another production. It wasn’t quite such a good one-in fact, nothing probably ever would be again, she thought, so perfect for her-but it was pretty nice, a comedy about a threesome, two girls and a boy, living together supposedly platonically; both the girls were secretly in love with the boy, and he was meanwhile hopelessly-and also secretly-in love with someone else entirely.

  “It’s a marvellous script,” Linda said to Georgia, “shades of Noel Coward. You’re a lucky girl.”

  It wasn’t until she turned up for a preproduction meeting that she discovered the first assistant director was Merlin Gerard…

  ***

  “ Georgia, hi. Lovely to see you. And wonderful to be working with you again.”

  “Yes. Yes, it’s great.” Thinking, thank God, thank God she had never let him know how hurt she’d been, how deceived she’d felt. “Er… how’s Ticky?”

  “She’s great, thanks. Yeah. Gone back to New York, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “Want to come for a drink tonight?”

  “I’m sorry, Merlin, I can’t. Not tonight. Another time, maybe.” She’d even managed to smile at him.

  She’d never felt more proud of herself than she had at that moment.

  ***

  “You total star,” Lila said, when she told her. Lila had become just about her best friend. They spent a lot of time together, shopping, going to the cinema, and to clubs when they could afford it, sometimes jazz clubs-Lila and Anna had introduced Georgia to jazz, and she was slightly surprised by how much she loved it-but mostly just talking, often late into the night.

  “Yeah, I was pretty pleased with myself. He looked pretty… pretty surprised.”

  “Good. He needs to be. And… did you still fancy him?”

  “Oh, yes. Completely,” said Georgia rather sadly.

  ***

  Anna had agreed-rather nervously, but with great delight-that she and Lila would play a set at the festival. Abi had said she thought they should have some jazz, and Georgia-who was still a little in awe of Abi-said rather tentatively that she knew someone who had played jazz in quite a big way. Abi had never heard of Sim Foster, but she mentioned his name to a jazz enthusiast at work and had been astonished at his reaction.

  “My God, Abi, he was one of the greats, you know. Some of his early stuff, absolute classics. And she was fantastic too, great voice. Anyone who knows anything about jazz’d give a lot to hear her. Even without him. They were an absolute legend.”

  Abi went back rather humbly to Georgia and told her to ask the legend if she’d be kind enough to consider playing at the festival.

  She was totally dreading the inquest; she shrank from having her relationship with Jonathan brought out in court, together with the fact that she had lied when she had first given evidence. She couldn’t imagine what the outcome might be; in her darkest hours, she saw herself in jail, or at best with a criminal record.

  William had tried rather cursorily to reassure her once, but after that refused to discuss the whole thing. William just wanted it over: for more reasons than one. The thought of being in the same courtroom as Jonathan Gilliatt was not appealing.

  ***

  Daisy was home now, frail and very thin, moving around with great difficulty but equal determination; fortunately it was her left leg but her right arm that were broken, so she could use a crutch to hobble from room to room. The family room had been turned into a bedroom for her, and her toys installed, so that she didn’t have to cope with the stairs.

  With the resilience of children, she seemed fairly unaffected by her trauma emotionally: no nightmares, no display of anxiety. The thing that most worried her was that she had broken the rules, done what was expressly forbidden, and she said over and over again that she was very sorry she had run into the road, and that she would never do such a thing again; Laura had privately resolved that Daisy would never run anywhere unaccompanied again, or not for a very long time.

  The person perhaps most adversely affected by the whole thing was Lily, whose pretty little nose had been put distinctly out of joint by all the attention lavished on her sister. Initially delighted when Daisy was pronounced out of danger, and especially when she was allowed home, she now spent a large part of every day quarrelling with her, and demanding that the bounty of new toys pouring into Daisy’s possession, supplied not only by her parents and grandparents,
but school friends and neighbours, be replicated in her own, and bursting into hysterical tears when she was told they would not.

  Charlie, who appeared in some ways to have become at least five years older than he had been before the accident, was alternately to be found telling her to shut up and to be glad she still had a sister to fight with, and patiently playing games with one or the other of them. He had begged not to have to go back to school until Daisy was completely well; after two weeks of acting the perfect brother he suddenly announced that even school was preferable. Laura and Jonathan, who had been a little worried by his newly saintly persona, were secretly relieved.

  Jonathan had moved back home. Charlie had begged him to, and so had the girls; Laura could hardly refuse. She didn’t exactly want to refuse. But even given the surge of positive emotion towards him that she had experienced in the hospital, she wasn’t sure that she was remotely ready to start living with him again. Or indeed if she ever would be. A slow, but savage surge of anger and resentment was filling her once more; in the adrenaline crash after Daisy’s initial recovery, it shocked her. She had thought, felt indeed, that if Daisy was given back to her, she would never mind anything again. She was horrified to discover that she still minded about Jonathan and Abi Scott very much indeed.

  Once the desperate, clawing fear had subsided, once they had gone home, properly home, faced with the long, long days of sitting at Daisy’s bedside, the exhaustion of coping with her querulous demands, her boredom, and her pain, then it began. She would look at him over the table as he laughed and joked with Charlie, teased Lily, as he sat by Daisy reading to her, as he helped her with things like shopping and the school run, for he had taken compassionate leave, would watch him being the perfect husband and the perfect father once more and at times she hated him. And was shocked at herself for it.

  She struggled to fight it; she reminded herself constantly of his courage and his tenderness in the dreadful days at the hospital, when Daisy had swung so close to death; she told herself that more than ever now he had earned her generosity and her forgiveness… but she was still haunted by the betrayal, the easy lies that he had shown himself to be capable of, and the way he had allowed Abi Scott to cut into the heart of their marriage.